Rachel Weeping (8 page)

chapter 9

Michelle sat in
the examination chair while Dr Pieterse moved the transducer across her belly, the cool blue gel helping the instrument move over her skin. Dr Pieterse stared at the screen next to the bed, the grey image morphing with each stroke while the sound of the baby's heartbeat filled the air with its frantic rhythm.

Michelle was in her twentieth week of her pregnancy. Today Chris had come with her for the foetal anomaly scan. She had told him he didn't need to, but he knew this was one of the ‘milestone' scans and had cleared his morning so that he could accompany her to the clinic. Though he would never say it, their previous encounters with Dr Pieterse had left him anxious for the health of their child and, while she would never say it, Michelle shared his fear.

She had done everything that had been asked of her.

She'd put her career on hold, slowed down her life and submitted to the reality that her only purpose for the next few months was to create an environment in herself which would help the baby grow. It had been difficult at first but, as the weeks had turned into months, she had grown accustomed to days filled with reading, afternoon naps and converting one of their guest rooms into a room for the baby.

As much as she was doing everything she'd been instructed to do and she wished the baby no harm, her emotions remained confused and often dark. Somewhere deep down she still harboured the small hope that she would wake up one morning and find that the pregnancy had terminated in the night. Although she had been unable to bring herself to respond to the email she'd received from the women's clinic, which had arrived in her inbox the day after she'd made the connection, this inability to follow through had not taken away the desire for things to go back to the way they were before she had fallen pregnant.

With every centimetre that the baby grew, her soul grew heavier.

Dr Pieterse was jotting down notes on a pad of paper while Chris gazed at the screen, mesmerised by the movements of his baby. Michelle was still feeling a little queasy, but it was nothing compared to the nausea she had endured a few weeks earlier.

‘Are you ready to find out the sex?' Dr Pieterse asked when she'd finished writing.

‘No,' Michelle said quickly. She was unnerved by the question. While she and Chris had spoken about this issue in passing, she had a feeling that they would arrive at different conclusions.

‘We haven't really decided yet,' Chris added, trying to soften Michelle's abrupt reply. ‘Actually, we thought you'd only be able to tell the sex at the next scan.'

‘New technology,' Dr Pieterse told him. ‘We're able to tell earlier and earlier these days.'

Michelle looked at Chris and, over a couple of seconds, their eyes had an entire argument. Michelle wished that, just for once, they could be on the same page when it came to a big decision, but it would seem this was not going to be that time.

‘Tell you what,' Dr Pieterse said, sensing that they weren't going to reach a resolution during the examination. ‘You talk it through and when you come to a decision, just give me a call if you want to know.'

Michelle and Chris smiled back at the doctor, both a little embarrassed at the situation and relieved by Dr Pieterse's suggestion. Michelle leaned back into the chair and Dr Pieterse picked up the transducer once more.

‘What you will need to do now, though, is look away from the screen because it's going to be pretty obvious what the sex is when I find out what's hiding – or not hiding – between the baby's legs.'

The car ride home was a journey made in silence, a way of travel that was becoming all too familiar to Chris these days. Michelle sat in the seat next to him with her sunglasses on, staring out of the window as if she was a million miles away.

They pulled up at a traffic light and Chris watched a young black street beggar with an obviously false limp making his way through the hawkers and people handing out pamphlets, imploring each of the drivers in the queue to part with their loose change. Chris had been driving past this beggar for more than five years now. He'd given him a sweater (one he'd really loved) on a particularly cold morning during the first few months they'd interacted, but his illusions had been shattered the very next day when he saw the man walking out of the gas station bathroom free of any physical deformity, warmly robed (in Chris's sweater) and talking animatedly on a cellphone.

Begging was an art in Johannesburg, he'd decided, and only the best performers walked away with the money. There was the young Malawian guy on Malibongwe and Hans Schoeman who did three somersaults in front of the cars while the light was red and then walked from driver to driver to collect his fee. Then there was the overweight woman who sat in the shade of the trees on Republic while her four children stood at each point of the intersection, breathing in fumes and bringing back their earnings to their pimp. The Rastafarian at Leslie and Hornbill could be quite abusive. He would hold out a black plastic bag to collect the trash from your car and his attitude was one that almost convinced you he was begging out of choice, not necessity, and that you owed him. Chris was also pretty sure he sold weed too.

While he was not one to judge their motivations or question their circumstances, there was a group of beggars on President Fouche and Hawken who always made his skin crawl. They were a group of white men in their fifties, burnt brown from the sun, with unkempt beards, who carried with them an air of superiority that could only have come from minds moulded by apartheid. They were constantly berating the black street vendors who shared the traffic light with them and, when they weren't holding up cardboard signs that bore slogans like ‘Down But Still Trying', they were mocking the wealthy black people who drove past them in their out-of-the-box cars. White people seemed to give to this group with ease; perhaps they saw a version of themselves staring back at them. The beggars would take their ‘wages' and buy cheap liquor from the bottle-store down the road. He saw them go in and out all the time.

Now the familiar discomfort set in as he saw the beggar with the limp determinedly approaching his window, holding out his hands in the universal sign for seeking alms. Chris shook his head and stared ahead, knowing that if he made eye contact, the man would not stop pleading until the lights changed and he drove off feeling like a heartless bastard.

‘Why don't you want to know?' Chris asked.

Michelle was still gazing listlessly out the window, her sunglasses hiding her eyes.

‘I just don't.'

‘But there has to be a reason,' Chris persisted. The beggar was at his window now, mouthing something and looking desolate.

‘I told you I'm fine with you finding out, as long as you keep it to yourself.'

‘Like that's going to work out,' Chris said, studiously looking at the traffic light, the pleading beggar on his right and his disappointed wife on his left. At least his window was closed, creating the illusion that there was a hint of distance between the two of them.

‘Just let it go, Chris,' Michelle said. ‘Please?'

Chris gripped the steering wheel, silently urging the light to turn green so that he could drive away from the man who was now beginning seriously to bug him. He gave a short, sarcastic laugh and inched the car forward.

‘What's that for?' Michelle asked.

‘Because you're being childish.'

‘Why are you turning on me, Chris?'

‘Turning on you? How is showing you when you're in the wrong tur – '

His sentence was cut off by a knock on his window and he jumped, startled. For some unfathomable reason the beggar seemed to think now was an appropriate moment for him to tap on Chris's window to get his attention. Now, while he was clearly having an argument with his wife.

‘What the FUCK do you WANT?' he yelled.

The man's eyes widened as he realised he'd probably gone too far. Enraged, Chris hit the horn in frustration just as the light turned green. The car in front of him honked back in retaliation, thinking Chris was honking at him, and Chris held up his hand apologetically. He looked over at Michelle and immediately regretted his angry reaction. Michelle hated cursing and, while Chris was not offended by it, he didn't use swear words often because of this, especially not in front of her.

‘I'm sorry,' he said, but Michelle didn't respond.

Chris exhaled deeply and turned up the volume on the sound system, welcoming the way that the radio managed to cover up the silence for the rest of the ride home. At their front gate Richmond was raking up the leaves that had fallen during the night. They both waved at him as they drove in, but the minute Chris switched the engine off, Michelle got out of the car and strode into the house.

Chris could tell that the rest of the day was going to be a frosty one. He sat back, giving Michelle some time to reach the front door without him. As he gathered his things and climbed out of the car, he saw Rachel taking down her personal washing from the line outside her quarters. He waved at her but she didn't wave back. Perhaps she hadn't seen him. He activated the car alarm and walked heavily down the driveway to the house.

He could hear that Michelle was in the baby's room but he didn't follow her. Instead he went to the kitchen, where he took a bottle of water from the fridge and walked over to the breakfast nook, undoing his tie as he went. He stared out into the wintry garden, taking in Richmond's handiwork in the afternoon light.

The pool was still green.

Chris frowned, took a swig of water and went outside. He could smell the chlorine Richmond had put in but it didn't seem to be working. He walked slowly all the way around the pool, staring into the murky green water as he went. Even though Richmond would have cleared all the leaves off the surface that day, the water was covered in a fresh layer which the bitterly chill wind was now pushing from one side of the pool to the other. He stooped to pick up the pool net.

He was halfway through clearing the surface of the water when he noticed that the pool cleaner was lying motionless at the bottom of the pool. Walking to the section where the cleaner plugged in, he bent down and took the lid off. As a child he had always hated this part of cleaning the swimming pool because it was usually where all the insects ended up but, putting old fears aside, he reached in and scooped out a clump of sodden leaves before detaching the pool cleaner. He watched as the hole that led to the main pump began to suck the water with ease. He held up the pipe to see what had caused the blockage but he couldn't see anything so he hauled the whole cleaner out of the pool and went through each ribbed tube methodically, looking for any sign of obstruction. He was on the third tube when he noticed something inside it. He shook the tube vigorously in an attempt to dislodge whatever it was. Water and leaves flew out, splashing his shirt, and then something flew past him, landing with a dull thud on the grass. Chris turned around. When he realised what he was looking at he almost lost his balance.

It was the head of Maia's Barbie doll.

He remembered the little girl showing it to him proudly and telling him what a mermaid was. The cursed thing had even haunted him in his dreams. Bile filled his mouth and tears started to his eyes.

The rest of the doll was still inside the tube and he groped it out with his fingers. He walked over and picked the head up by its sodden hair and twisted it back onto the body. The doll was almost completely colourless, the green and gold spangles of the mermaid's tail long gone. He knelt by the side of the pool and tried to get his breathing under control. Then he got to his feet and walked to the bottom of the garden. The sun had just dipped below the horizon, bathing the garden in the soft hues of twilight. When he reached the herb garden he looked over his shoulder to see if Michelle or Rachel were there.

He was alone.

Dropping once more to his knees, he used his hands to dig a hole in the ground. He placed the doll inside and covered it with the loose dirt. When he was finished he found that he was crying.

We're all broken
, Chris thought to himself as tears rolled down his face,
every single one of us. We're these broken vessels trying to find a way to undo the damage caused by the things we've done while trying to avoid doing them again. And the sad thing is that we keep doing it. We keep breaking things.

 

 

 

Rachel stepped up to the Money Market counter, her envelope in her hands. She had R1 000 to send to her parents, enough to keep them for the month if combined with the profit from the bread her mother sold at the market. Her father's income these days was erratic. Many of the fishermen in Inharasso chose to repair their own nets in order to save money. Her parents could no longer rely on him bringing any money in.

Rachel greeted the plump woman handling her transaction and picked up the form that she knew by heart. She could fill in the information that was needed to transfer money with her eyes closed.

‘Inhassoro again?' the woman asked.

Rachel nodded, surprised that she remembered, and continued to fill in the form.

‘Where's the little one today?'

Rachel looked up, unsure how to answer the question. If she told the woman the truth, then she would have to deal with the awkward condolences and conversation that was bound to follow. On the other hand, every lie she told about Maia was like a gradual erosion of the memory of her daughter. She toyed briefly with her options.

‘She's at school today,' she said, handing the form to the assistant, who began to count out the money.

‘On a Saturday?'

‘It's a sport thing that the children do,' Rachel lied. ‘She's running a race.'

The woman continued to process the transfer. When she was finished counting the money she placed it in the cash drawer. Rachel looked around while she waited. Her heart gave a lurch when she saw Maia's friend Abigail from the nursery school walking into the store with her mother. Monique was pushing a trolley and they were coming straight towards her. Rachel turned away, keeping her head down.