Recipes for Love and Murder (5 page)

When I was eighteen my mother got a long-distance phone call saying my father had died in an accident. She seemed just as upset that it was a black man who gave her the news as by the fact that my pa had died.

The money from my father stopped, but the
Guardian
continued with a small pension for my mother. I got a job at Agri – the Farmers Co-op – to help cover the bills. I lived with my ma right through my twenties.

In 1990, the apartheid government finally lifted the State of Emergency. Political organisations – including the African National Congress – were unbanned, and all political detainees and prisoners were released. Mandela was free at last. But the country was full of fighting and blood.

Mandela led the reconciliation talks and somehow took us down a path to peace. In 1994 all South Africans were allowed to vote in the first non-racial democratic election. The ANC came into power and Mandela was our president.

My mother, along with lots of other whites, was terrified. She bought boxes of tinned food and put bolts on all the doors and windows. I did not know what to think about the politics, but I felt more and more trapped in the house. It was then that Fanie started courting me. I was thirty-three. When he asked me to marry him, I was just glad to get out of my mother's home.

Fanie had done his two years of conscription in the apartheid army and was angry with the Afrikaner National Party government for getting ‘all buddy-buddy' with the ANC. This same National Party had trained him to kill these ‘ANC terrorists', and had now let ‘the enemy' take over our government. Mandela eventually charmed my mother, but Fanie never relaxed with him, or with the black government.

‘I like the way he dances,' my mother said of Mandela. Of Fanie she said: ‘He has a good job at the bank, and the Van Hartens are a respectable family. His father was a NGK priest, you know.'

It was only once she had relaxed the bolts and started shopping normally (though she still kept two big sacks of flour in the pantry) that she told me the truth about my father: he had been an underground member of the African National Congress. Even though the organisation was unbanned and my father already dead by the time she told me, she whispered the news to me, and told me to keep it secret.

She would not tell me more about what he did or about what kind of accident had killed him, or why we didn't have a funeral for him.

I hoped Mandela would cure her of some of her anger towards my father and the blacks who stole Pa from her, but she held on to a lonely kind of bitterness until she died.

Because Mandela was a good man, and was ANC, like my father, I started listening to him as if he might have the same sort of advice as my pa would have given me. Before that I had not paid much attention to politics; it all happened far away from me. After all, as we saw on TV, most of the unrest was trouble with the blacks, and in the Klein Karoo there were mainly coloured townships. After listening to Mandela, I didn't vote ANC (in fact I didn't vote at all), but I joined the NGK women's group that raised funds for coloured schools and AIDS orphans. I did a lot of baking for those church fêtes.

And when I was married to Fanie and he started to beat me, I took courage from Mandela. Mandela stood up for women's rights and criticised violence against women. Sometimes after listening to him, I felt I must just walk away from Fanie. But my fear was stronger. So was the voice of my husband, mother and church: Staan by jou man. Stand by your man.

Still, even though I stayed with Fanie, Mandela's wise words helped with the loneliness and the pain, and made me think maybe, just maybe, it wasn't all my fault.

When I had finished my coffee and brushed the rusk crumbs off my lap, I found myself crying a bit more. And the tears for my father and for Mandela, the father of our nation, were all mixed up on my cheeks.

CHAPTER NINE

Over the next week, South Africa mourned Mandela's death and celebrated his life. People from all over the world came to pay their respects. At the memorial service in Johannesburg, the heavens opened up and it rained and rained. We listened to parts of the service on the radio in the
Gazette
office. The office was hot and dry and we sat still, listening as the fan turned slowly round and round. The president of Tanzania reminded us that in Africa, rain is the biggest blessing. Rain will fall when a chief arrives. The skies were celebrating as the chief, Mandela, went to heaven.

‘His grandmother was San, you know,' said Jessie. ‘The Bushmen know how to make rain.'

During Barack Obama's speech Jessie started crying and even Hattie was dabbing at the corner of her eyes with a handkerchief. I had already done my crying. I was surprised to see how moved Jessie was. She was too young to know Mandela. But he was the kind of man whose story and whose dreams reached across the ages. And like Mandela and Obama, Jessie was passionate about justice.

We all liked the lines that Obama quoted – the ones that kept Mandela going when he was in prison for all those years – about being captain of your own soul.

The day of Mandela's funeral was an unofficial public holiday. I was surprised that even Ladismith took the day off to honour Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Twenty years ago the whites and even many of the coloureds would have seen him as a terrorist, like my mother did. But Mandela in his life and in his death managed to win their hearts. He reminded us all of the goodness in ourselves and each other.

I met up with Jessie and Hattie at the Ladismith Hotel, and the bar was full of people watching the funeral service on the big-screen television. The hotel served coffee and rusks at no charge, and had brought in a whole lot of white plastic chairs alongside the usual wooden ones. The curtains were closed, so we could see the TV nicely.

The bank manager in a suit was sitting alongside the old coloured man who begs outside the Spar. And the young black policemen were drinking coffee with the old white women who work in the furniture store. Everyone was sitting together as if they were old friends, in a way you don't usually see in Ladismith.

When they carried Mandela's coffin off, I had to work at not crying. Jessie, Hattie and me sat there, with our heads held up high. I hoped that Mandela's spirit would live on in us somehow.

CHAPTER TEN

The next day we were back at the
Gazette
office, and everything was back to normal. Though I did have a feeling that from now on everyone in South Africa would treat each other with respect and kindness. I was wrong about that . . .

I was leafing through a new batch of letters. The fan on the ceiling was going round and round. It was like an oven with a thermafan. Jessie, Hattie and I were all being evenly baked as we sat at our desks.

Jessie had her usual black vest on, her fingers moving so fast across her keyboard I don't know how her thoughts were keeping up with them. The geckos on her arms swayed a little as they followed her typing fingers. Hattie was at her computer, wearing a peach linen short-sleeved shirt and matching skirt. Linen, and still it wasn't creased.

‘There are five emails for you, Maria,' said Hattie. ‘Isn't that marvellous?'

Jessie's phone sang,
My black president
. It was the song Brenda Fassie had written in honour of Mandela. But I did not look up; the letter on my table was pulling all my attention. I ran my fingertips over the writing on the envelope. I could learn a lot about someone before I even opened their letter. This writer used capital letters and pushed too hard with the pen, as if their message was very important. The address was written in the Afrikaans way, with the number after the street name.
Elandstraat, 7
. The words of the letter were pressed onto a lined page with a black ballpoint pen:

TANNIE MARIA. I'M SCARED MY FRIEND'S HUSBAND IS GOING TO KILL HER. HE BROKE HER ARM. HE THINKS SHE'S LEAVING HIM AND HE SAID HE'LL KILL HER. SHE DOESN'T WANT TO CALL THE POLICE. SHE SAYS I MUSTN'T GO TO HER HOUSE. IF I KILL HIM IN SELF DEFENCE OF HER, HOW LONG WILL I GO TO JAIL?

I put my head in my hands.

‘Hey, Tannie, what's up?' asked Jessie.

I gave her the letter. She read it in three seconds.

‘Gosh, you look peaked, Maria,' said Hattie. ‘Can I make you a spot of tea?' I nodded. ‘What's the letter say?'

‘It's another bastard dondering his wife,' Jessie said, handing the letter to Hattie. ‘Threatened to kill her. Jislaaik. I wish there was a giant insecticide for these guys. DDT that we could spray from an airplane.'

‘There was that other lady of yours,' said Hattie, looking at the letter, ‘with the husband who was also a rotter.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘The lady with the ducks. Without the ducks.'

‘The bastard shot them, didn't he?' said Jessie.

‘I got another letter from her recently,' I said, ‘telling me she was making a plan to leave. I think the woman who wrote this letter is duck lady's friend. The one who gave her the ducks.'

‘Is there no return address?' said Hattie.

I shook my head.

‘Nearly all my letters are anonymous,' I said. ‘But it's got a Ladismith stamp.'

‘It might be someone else,' said Jessie. ‘One out of four women in South Africa is beaten by their husband or boyfriend.'

‘I don't think she's one of those. I've just got a feeling that it's my duck lady. She spoke about her friend who loved her. I told her to leave her husband. And now he might kill her.'

‘Fiddlesticks,' said Hattie, putting a cup of tea on my desk. ‘There's no need for that sort of nonsense. Let's get a response to this woman right away. I'm sure you can help her. We can put your answer on the website now, and the Parmalat board, and we can get your letter into tomorrow's
Gazette
.'

‘Eish. We'd better act fast,' said Jessie. ‘I've got the number here for People Opposing Women Abuse.' She was looking at her BlackBerry phone. ‘This is serious. At least three women are killed by their partners every day in South Africa. Okay, let's give her the numbers for the Battered Women's Shelter, Life Line and Legal Aid.'

While Jessie wrote the phone numbers down on a bit of paper, I had a sip of my tea, and tried to think not of all the women in South Africa who were beaten, raped and killed, nor of my years with Fanie, but only of this woman and her friend, asking for my help. What did they need right now?

‘I can tell you this for sure,' said Jessie, handing me the phone numbers, ‘self-defence won't work as a legal argument, if she's killing to protect her friend. The woman who's being beaten can get a protection order and a warrant for the man's arrest. If he breaks the protection order, the police will arrest him. The wife must organise this. A friend can help, but can't do it for her.'

I spent an hour making phone calls and another half-hour writing the letter telling her what I'd learned. Jessie was right. There was not much the friend could do. The woman had to act for herself. She must ask for the domestic violence clerk at the Ladismith Magistrates' Court, and get a protection order. Her friend could give her all the information and the phone numbers. There was counselling and legal aid, and a shelter in George where she could stay.

If duck lady was reading the paper – or the web or the Parmalat board – she would get this story herself. I don't know why I hadn't sent these numbers in my first letter to her. That was really stupid of me. I should have asked Jessie earlier. I wish I'd known about those phone numbers when I was with Fanie.

I wanted to give the woman who had written to me some comfort food, recipes for chicken pies and chocolate cake. Things you could rely on when everything else is deurmekaar. But I knew that she would probably not be in the mood for baking, even if she had a thermafan oven. And I had no way of taking the food to her myself.

Then I remembered Tannie Kuruman made the best chicken pies. Soft and juicy inside, with flaky pastry crusts. I phoned her up and got her recipe and put it at the end of my letter, saying that the pies were for sale at the Route 62 Café.

Jessie put the letter on the website, and I went and pinned a copy on the Parmalat notice board. On the way back I stopped at Tannie Kuruman's café and bought two warm chicken pies.

I sat in the shade of a big umbrella, watching the mountains, the Swartberge, with the Towerkop peak, there above the town. The heat made them look further away than they really were. The shadows on their flanks were purple and green, like bruises.

The pies were delicious. The first one I ate for duck lady. The second for her friend. In case they didn't get a chance to buy their own.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The next two days I went to the
Gazette
, and replied to my other letters and emails. For lunch on both days I went to the Route 62 Café and ate two chicken pies. I sat on the bench in the umbrella shade and looked up at the mountain. Tannie Kuruman came and sat down beside me.

Tannie Kuruman smells of the kitchen. It's a nice smell. She's a coloured lady in her sixties, and even shorter and rounder than me. She wears a doek over her head, a little cloth to tidy her hair away. Her skin's a bit browner than mine, and her hair more frizzy. But coloureds and whites do not look so different from each other out here in the country.

‘It's so dark up there,' I said, when I had finished chewing, ‘in those mountain gorges.'

‘Ja
,'
she said, ‘it's where the tall trees grow. When it rains there are lovely waterfalls over the rocks.'

That night I struggled to sleep. I was worried about those two women. I knew too well what could happen to them, and I tried not to remember what had happened to me. But sometimes these flashes just come to me as if it all happened only yesterday instead of years ago. I calmed myself down by reciting my mother's muesli buttermilk rusk recipe. Butter, flour, sunflower seeds, dried apples . . .