The Woman Next Door (25 page)

‘Apartheid happened, you see? Hortensia?’

‘I’m listening.’

‘All those things happened and I didn’t do anything about them.’

Hortensia noted a smell in the air. Sweat and face cream.

‘Even when it happened right underneath my nose I did nothing. I walked past people and didn’t see them. I blanked out an entire population, a history. I still do. You know Agnes, you know she once asked me whether I thought she was too old to finish her matric? Gosh, it was years ago now. The kids were all born, Agnes would have been – can’t remember – in her forties maybe. And she said one day … I don’t know, she was washing the dishes and I was asking why she didn’t just use the dishwasher. I was always chiding her like that. Why, after many explanations, did she still not use my appliances properly, still not get how to fold a wet towel, how to fold a fitted sheet. Anyway she asked me if I thought she should go back and study, told me how she had always wanted to be a teacher. Know what I told her? I told her it was … I said to her that it was too late.’ Speaking this out loud made Marion catch her breath. ‘You say I’m a hypocrite. I have to be. I have to pretend it happened somewhere else; that I read it in a book. I would not be able to get out of bed otherwise.’

Marion bent her head down, turned it away. She cried for not long, then she smoothed out her skirt that never needed any smoothing and stood up, left the kitchen.

The
Constantiaberg Bulletin
covered a story about the case: ‘Last attempts to reach an out-of-court settlement in Katterijn land claim.’

The Samsodiens had rejected an offer from the State based on the consumer-price index for translating past loss into present-day value. The solution that now seemed the most probable was for the State to apportion state-owned land (within a certain mile radius of the contested land) out to the Samsodiens. It looked like the Von Struikers would get to keep their farm and the Samsodiens receive a portion of the Koppie as fair compensation. Talks were being held.

‘Well.’

‘Why doesn’t it feel like a solution?’

‘What do you mean?’ Hortensia asked. She put the
Bulletin
down, collected her glass of lemonade. They’d taken, sometimes, to sitting in the lounge together. Tripped into the habit.

‘The Von Struikers don’t actually have to do anything. Doesn’t seem fair.’

‘I think “fair” has been lost and forgotten for a while now. Besides, who are you to say what is fair or not? When the Samsodiens move in … or whoever, go over and ask them. Was it fair? Do you feel compensated? Is all forgiven?’

Marion was quiet. Hortensia started searching for the remote control. She ambled about without her walker. She wasn’t supposed to, but she hoped if she acted like she didn’t need one she eventually wouldn’t. She found it underneath a decor magazine, started clicking.

‘One of the … a grandmother, a Samsodien grandmother died. Not died, well, died but … hanged herself. After everything, after the move and the family trying to settle … with a belt.’

Hortensia stopped chopping channels. She thought of being at a set of traffic lights. Waiting for cars to pass.

‘She was our age, Hortensia. Could you … I mean, I couldn’t. What would she have been thinking? How could she have felt?’

Hortensia turned the television off and set the remote aside. She blew air from her cheeks.

‘I suppose there are so many like that. I suppose you think I’m stupid or ridiculous.’

Hortensia frowned. ‘We had a guest once. Not someone we knew well, but a friend of Zippy’s whom she asked us to host. Maria-Louisa was her name, Florentine woman. Of course Cape Town is accustomed to being fawned upon. Maria hated it. We took her along Beach Road. Camps Bay, Bantry Bay – the whole toot. The vineyards. Lovely, lovely, she said, but there is something I cannot abide. She cut her trip short. Now,’ Hortensia sat back, pleased with how much she’d captured Marion’s attention. ‘That’s not something that happens often, but it does happen. And weeks later I called Zippy to find out what it was all about. She said Maria had … Now you have to understand her English is alright, but not brilliant – Maria’s, I’m talking about. Well, Zippy confessed that she wasn’t sure she’d understood it all but, apparently, Maria had ‘struggled’. That was the word she’d used. The best Zippy could get out of her was how she’d never felt so white before. And so special for being white. Mi ha fatto male, she’d said. It made her sick.’

Marion’s face was drawn.

‘Of course there should have been enough in her own European history to make her want to throw up. She shouldn’t have had to come to South Africa for that, but all the same … Discomfort, Marion. If you want to look and look honestly, then prepare for discomfort. To be sick. I met a woman once. A white woman. “I feel terrible” she said. “Rotten.” That’s no good, I thought. What she ought to feel is responsible. But then again, look at me … I can’t preach … I’m not brave, myself. I’m a coward. I looked away as much as possible.’

‘Did you do anything wrong, though? It doesn’t sound like it to me. Your husband broke his vows.’

‘After everything died down. The affair ended and we just carried on, tolerating each other. That’s a sort of crime, don’t you think? I took his life. And I squandered my own.’

Marion looked sad, but Hortensia was relieved to see that she was not crying.

‘You and Max. You fell pregnant easily? Just like that?’

‘I’m sorry, Hortensia.’

‘I’m asking.’

‘Yes. Yes, we did.’

‘I did get pregnant, you know. Just couldn’t keep hold of them.’

Marion thought to seek out Hortensia’s hand, surprised at how little it was, how delicate and lined. She thought Hortensia might pull away, but she didn’t.

‘The first time was different, though. I didn’t tell Peter the first time. We’d been married barely a year. House of Braithwaite was up and running, a real success. I was busy and I was happy. And when I realised I was pregnant I didn’t tell Peter.’

Marion felt that bony hand squeeze hers.

‘You ever have clear moments, Marion? Conviction. You ever have that? The first time I conceived a child I had this force, this clarity that I had to be rid of it. And once I had that clarity, everything else was easy. I could lie. I could find the money. I found a place.’

‘Hortensia, I—’

‘Wait. Nobody knew where I was. You know how lonely that is. My mother and Zippy. Peter. It was easy to name some design exposition. I mean, they were happy for me and all the attention, but they weren’t keeping up with where I ought to be and when. I took the money from my business and went away for a week.’

‘How—’

‘I don’t remember anything,’ Hortensia said, looking at Marion in a way that made it clear that the exact opposite was true. A few seconds of terror in her eyes when she stopped looking like Hortensia and looked like some other person entirely. ‘When I returned, Peter was home. I’d complained some time back that he wasn’t taking me seriously. Wasn’t taking my work to heart. And I came home and all I wanted to do was lie down under two or three blankets. I wanted something heavy on top of me, something that could cover me. But he wanted to see what I’d exhibited. I pulled out some designs I had and he wanted me to talk about them. He pored over the work, asking questions. All I wanted to do was lie down with a blanket over my head.’

And years later when the pregnancies, one after another, poured through her body, Hortensia would torture herself with the notion that she had brought this upon herself. In the days when they still lamented together, she would always know that her lament was different to Peter’s and each new time she would hate that distance, hate him, hate herself more.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘And someone was laughing at me. Someone was saying: “You see?” Taunting me.’

Marion shook her head.

‘I felt I had to fight that. Each time I didn’t carry to term, if I didn’t fight that voice I would just have got smaller and smaller until I disappeared altogether.’

‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘Each new time, each failure, I felt the anger coming. You know how tough you have to be? To fight a voice in your own head. I couldn’t let anyone else see, but when I was alone I’d bang my fist. Against a hard surface. For the pain. I don’t want to let him off the hook, but sometimes I think: maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why he took up with someone else. It was easier than coming home to me.’

‘Hortensia.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, I know he was a selfish bastard. There’s no escaping that, but sometimes I think perhaps I gave him a good excuse.’

It had started to rain outside.

‘And you know what? You know, I didn’t really
want
children. Not really anyway. Not until just that moment when I realised I would never have any.’

The following day Marion, brave, ventured.

‘I know it’s not my place … but do you suppose the things are connected, the—’

‘What things?’

‘You … the … children you didn’t have,’ she whispered. ‘And Beulah’s request – about her grandmother, to be buried near her dead babies. Do you suppose?’

‘You—’

‘Hortensia, I don’t want for you to get upset. I’m coming … in peace, I’m coming because, well, we’ve been talking a bit and you said that, and I suddenly thought maybe I understood.’

Marion waited, her heart beating fast. The woman stayed sitting up in bed, a magazine open in her lap, her back pressed against the headboard.

‘Do you suppose you’re angry at Beulah and even … Oh, what’s the grandmother’s name, Annamarie? Everything about what Beulah is asking has to do with family and love and children – lots and lots of children, some dead, yes, miscarried; but some that survived.’

Hortensia was staring at Marion, boring through her, but Marion continued.

‘I know I’m the last person to have an opinion, but why say no to her request? Why, really?’

After some seconds Hortensia spoke. ‘I don’t owe her anything.’ What she was thinking, though, was: I have no peace, why should she?

Marion felt sad. ‘Hortensia.’

‘What, Marion? What more?’

Marion didn’t know what she was going to say. She felt like crying but knew that would only make Hortensia think she was weak and, right in that moment, she needed Hortensia to look up to her, to follow her and do as she said.

‘Why would you say “no”, Hortensia?’

‘Because it’s my land and I can decide what I want to do with it. If Beulah Gierdien has a legitimate claim on it, not some sentimental nonsense, then she should call my lawyer.’

The argument Marion wanted to put forward to counter Hortensia was cogent in her head, but none of the words formed. She wished she was like Hortensia, always ready with the words, with the argument. Tears seeped out from both her eyes; she could almost hear them apologising as they did so.

‘For Heaven’s sake, Marion.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she snivelled, pulled a tissue from a nearby box. ‘I wanted you to say “yes”.’

Hortensia ground her teeth, shook her head. ‘Why does it matter so much?’

‘I needed you to be … better.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘See, I’d have said “no” too. If it was my land they wanted. I’d have told them no, go away.’

Hortensia looked ashen. And annoyed.

IT WAS A
small ceremony, although Marion imagined that Annamarie’s funeral would have brought half of Lavender Hill running, and the surrounds. Wasn’t that what the funeral of an old woman was supposed to be like? An old man even.

Beulah carried a brown earthenware bowl. She came with an old stooped man who didn’t say anything. Marion guessed he was Annamarie’s second husband. Beulah’s mother was there and Beulah’s younger brother. Hortensia and Marion met them at the gate, they thanked Hortensia in unison and then they and the small group of friends who joined them, all together, walked in a jagged line of procession towards the Silver Tree.

The brother dug the hole, Beulah said a few words.

Hortensia stayed for the ceremony, then said she had a headache and went back inside.

Others mingled around long wooden trellises laid out in the garden. There were cupcakes and koeksisters and hot tea, normal and rooibos, and small pies and samoosas and little squares of fudge. Some chairs were spread around, but people mostly stood. Marion got to talking with Beulah.

‘Your brother mentioned that you are a lawyer.’

Beulah nodded. She’d taken a gulp of milky rooibos tea.

‘Do you follow all the claims? On the land by the … people?’

‘Some of it. There’s a lot.’

‘We have one going on here. The Von Struiker farm.’

Beulah took another koeksister. Finished it and took a samoosa. She smiled.

‘I’m expecting.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘My grandmother used to talk about when they moved people off the land. She said about how a lot of the old people died. Broken-hearted. Some lived on, heartbroken but alive. Which is worse?’

Marion didn’t know.

‘Sorry to say this, Marion, but it was a wicked thing – scattering people like that. It undid a whole culture of people. Made pride difficult.’

Beulah rubbed her tummy and Marion noted that there was a small bulge to it.

‘Your people … white people say to forget it and move on. But … we must also get better. Sometimes you move on and you remain sick, and then what is the point of going forward? We must get better too. My grandmother didn’t want to forget. I always thought it’s because forgetting would be the same as getting lost, not knowing where you are. She told us about this place.’

Marion’s face grew dark.

‘There was a wheel, this big,’ Beulah raised her hand over her head. ‘Runaways. Or a slave man caught with a white woman. Or any slave that maybe hit a white person. Stole something, perhaps. Food. A spoon from the big house. And they’ll tie the slave, the person, to the wheel … It was basically designed to break bones.’

Marion excused herself.

Week after endless week, it was good to have a site to visit. The works were progressing, in fact almost complete. Marion picked her way across the yard to the front door. Frikkie walked from sitting with his workers and joined her.