You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town (9 page)

She mutters, ‘It's not ready,' and clatters the lids of her pots and turns on a fierce jet of water so that Charlie jumps out of the spray and shouts, ‘Jeez-like Auntie man, that's mos not necessary man.'

He tilts his face for the gracious acceptance of an apology but Tamieta's head remains bent over the sink. He cannot bear the silence and by way of introduction hums an ironic tune.

‘That ou in there,' pointing at the door that leads into the lecturers dining room, ‘that ou said just now that Verwoerd was the architect of this place,' Charlie offers.

‘It's because you listen to other people's conversations that you forget the orders hey. You'll never get on in this canteen business if you don't keep your head. Never mind the artitex; clever people's talk got nothing to do with you,' Tamieta retorts.

Charlie laughs scornfully. He discards the professional advice because he will not believe that a speaker could fail to be flattered by an eavesdropper. So that recognising the root of the error he will not mind being brought curry instead of bredie. Besides, he, Charlie, had only got an order wrong once, several weeks ago.

‘I know you don't need architects in the platteland. Not
if you build your houses out of sticks and mud, but here in Cape Town there are special big-shot people who make drawings and plan out the buildings.' He speaks slowly, with pedagogical patience. ‘So that's what I mean; the Prime Minister got even more important things to do and a lecturer should know better. That ou must be from the Theology School over there', driving a thumb in the wrong direction. ‘Those moffies know buggerall there.'

Tamieta's fingers are greedy beaks pecking into the pastry bowl and she fixes her eyes on the miracle of merging resistant fat and flour. She will not be provoked by this blasphemous Slams who has just confirmed her doubts about the etymology of his ‘Jeez-like.' They know nothing of God and yes it is her Christian duty to defend her God, but this Charlie is beyond the pale. The Old Man will have to look after himself today. She adds the liquid slowly, absorbed by the wonder of turning her ingredients into an entirely new substance. But it will not last. Her melktert to rival all tarts, perfectly round and risen, will melt in so many mouths, and that will be the end of it.

‘. . . just reading the Bible all day long makes them stupid, those preacher chaps from the platteland . . .' Charlie's voice weaves through her thoughts. This boy will not stop until she speaks out against his irreverence and Tamieta sighs, weary with the demands of God. Even the bonuses have strings attached. What, for instance, is the point of having a Sabbath when you have to work like a slave all Saturday in order to prepare for the day of rest? When she first started in service with Ounooi van Graan, my word how she had to work. All the vegetables peeled the night before, the mutton half roasted in the pot and the sousboontjies all but cooked. And now in her own home in Bosheuwel, working all Saturday afternoon to make Sunday
the day of rest. Oh what would she give to spread out the chores and do the ironing on Sundays. Instead she has to keep a watchful eye on Beatrice whose hands itch for her knitting needles. She feels for the child as they sit after the service and the special Sunday dinner wondering what to do so that she would yawn and shut her eyes and pray for strength to hold out against the child's desire to make something durable. For knitting on a Sunday pierces God directly in the eyes. It is her sacred duty to keep that child out of the roasting fires of hell for, not being her own, she is doubly responsible.

It was on her first visit back to Kliprand that she found cousin Sofie merry with drink and the two-year-old toddler wandering about with bushy hair in which the lice frolicked shamelessly. Then she pinned the struggling child between her knees and fought each louse in turn. She plaited her hair in tight rows that challenged the most valiant louse, and with her scalp soaked in Blue-butter the little Beatrice beamed a beauty that is born out of cleanliness. And Tamieta knew that she, not unlike the Virgin Mary, had been chosen as the child's rightful mother. She who adored little ones would have a child without the clumsiness of pregnancy, the burden of birth and the tobacco-breathed attentions of men with damp fumbling hands. Sofie agreed, weeping for her own weakness, and found parents for the other two, so that the validity of choosing a child at one's convenience was endorsed by the disposal of those she could no longer care for.

Eight good years together testify to the wisdom of the arrangement. Beatrice loves the yearly visits to Kliprand where Ousie Sofie awaits them with armfuls of presents, not always the sort of thing a girl would want in Town, but so jolly is Sofie telling her fabulous stories with much noise
and actions that they all scream with mirth. A honey mouth that cousin of hers has, full of wise talk which only gets a person into trouble. Just as well she has kept to the country; Cape Town would not agree with her.

Beatrice has brought nothing but good luck. After serving the terrible English family in Cape Town – they paid well but never talked to her, nor for that matter did they talk to each other except in hushed tones as if someone in the family had just died – came Tamieta's lucky break at the UCT canteen where she could hold her head up high and do a respectable job of cooking for people whose brains needed nourishing. She was the one who kept the kitchen spotless, who cooked without waste and whose clockwork was infallible; it was only right that she should be chosen to run the canteen at the new Coloured university. The first kitchen boy was quiet, eager to please, but this Charlie is a thorn in her flesh. Full of himself and no respect for his elders. Why should he want to go on about the pondokkies of country folk? She casts a resentful look at the girl just sitting there, waiting for her coffee with her nose in her blinking book. She too is from the country. Tamieta knows of her father who drives a motor car in the very next village, for who in Little Namaqualand does not know of Shenton? The girl speaks English but that need not prevent her from saying something educated and putting this Charlie in his place. She, Tamieta, will turn on him and say as she rolls the pastry, pliant under her rolling pin, strike him with a real English saying which will make that know-all face frown. She has not worked for English people without learning a thing or two. She has learned to value their weapon of silence, and she has memorised Madam's icy words to the man with the briefcase, ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' Oh to see Charlie's puzzled look
before he pretends to know exactly what it means. Her fingers stiffen as the boy rises with his board of chopped onions, but what if he were just to laugh at her if she said it now? If only she could leave him alone, but Tamieta calls out just as he is about to drop the onions into the pan. Curtly, ‘It needs to be finer than that.' Charlie's onion tears stream down his face.

‘See how you make me cry, Tamieta? This is the tears of all my young years, and I'll have none left for your wedding. They say you getting married, Tamieta, when is the happy day?'

He runs his hand over the mirror surface of his greased hair, asserting his superiority. This Charlie with his smooth hair and nose like a tent will find every opportunity to humiliate her. She ought to ask him to wash his hands. No one wants Brylcreem-flavoured bredie. But her legs ache and her back starts up again, the itching pores like so many seething hot springs, so that she really can't give a damn. The stove will tend to the germs. This is no ordinary itch.

Tamieta turns to Charlie. ‘We must get a move on. All tomorrow's work has to be done this morning as well 'cause this afternoon is the memorial and the cafeteria will be closed.'

‘Ooh-hoo,' the boy crows loudly, ‘I'm going up Hanover Street to get the material for our Carnival uniforms. We start practising next week and this year the Silver Blades is going to walk off with all the prizes.'

‘Sies,' Tamieta remonstrates, ‘I don't know how you Slamse can put yourself on show like that for the white people to laugh at on New Year's Day.'

‘Oh, you country people know nothing man, Tamieta man. The best part is when we come out at midnight in our costumes. Have you ever been in the city for the midnight?'

Tamieta seals her face and maintains a scornful silence.

‘No,' he continues, ‘you won't have seen the lights all down Adderley Street, man, twinkling like home-made stars, man, like all the planets just jiving in the streets. Then all the bells start ringing and that's when we run out from the shadows with the black polish.'

His hips grind as he dances towards her, waving his spread palms. She cannot ignore him and when she retreats with her wooden spoon, Charlie grabs his knees with mirth and crows breathlessly, ‘That's when we get all the whities and rub the black polish all over their faces.'

‘I must be a baboon to listen to all this nonsense. Where will a white person allow a troop of coons to even touch their faces? I may have been born in a pondok but I wasn't born yesterday, you know.'

‘'Strue Tamieta, ‘strue,' he begs her to believe him. ‘It's been going on for years now, it's a tradition you know,' and taking up his chopping knife he adds soberly, ‘I suppose the whities who come there know it's going to happen and come specially for the black polish, but perhaps there is, yes there must be, one or two who get the fright of their lives when we jump out from the shadows.'

Tamieta sets the cups out on the counter. She really can't be listening to this boy's nonsense and if he doesn't know that he's supposed to spend the afternoon at the ceremony, well then, that's his problem.

‘Here,' she calls to the Shenton girl, ‘here, the coffee's ready.'

Midst these unlikely sounds of clattering cups and the regular fall of the knife, the bass of the bean soup and the sizzling onion smells, the essay is going tolerably well. There are human voices in the background, the amicable hum of
Tamieta and Charlie, harmonising with the kitchen sounds that will materialise into bean soup favoured by the students and bredie for the staff.

I have followed the opening thrust with two more paragraphs that wantonly move towards exonerating Tess. Retief's notes are no good to me. He will not be pleased. Things are going well until an ill-timed ten o'clock siren sounds, signalling a visit to the lavatory. Since the collapse of the beehive I have not found a satisfactory way of doing my hair although the curve of my flick-ups is crisp as ever. Fortunately one can always rely on Amami hairspray. I wet my fingers at the tap to tug at the crinkly hairshaft of an otherwise perfectly straight fringe. Cape Town with its damp and misty mornings is no good for the hair. Thank God there is no full-length mirror to taunt me although I have a feeling that the waistband of my skirt has slackened. After a final glance at the now stabilised fringe and a rewarding thumb between my blouse and waistband, I am ready to face coffee-break.

The boys who play klawerjas at the back of the room are already installed and they let out the customary wolf whistle as I re-enter the cafeteria. Fortunately my table is right at the front so that I do not have to endure the tribute for long. It is of course encouraging to know that a few moments before the mirror does pay dividends, that the absorption with a card game can be pierced by a pleasing female tread. My pulse quickens. Though I sit with my back to them I don't know what to do. There is no question of carrying on with the essay. These males have a sixth sense. Whilst being held by the game they somehow know when a girl moves and will not fail to pucker the lips and allow the hot draught of air to escape even as you bend to retrieve a sheet of paper from the floor. There must be some girls who
never get whistled at but I don't think I know of any. We are all familiar with the scale of appreciation, from the festive tantara for the beauties to the single whiplash of a whistle for the barely attractive. Then there is the business of who is whistling at you, and since you cannot possibly look, since you drop your eyes demurely or stare coldly ahead, and while you shiver deliciously to the vibrations of the whistle there can be a nagging discomfort, an inexplicable lump that settles like a cork in the trachea. Should it be some awful country boy with faltering English and a feathered hat . . . but such a contingency is covered by the supportive group whistle. You will never know the original admirer so it is best not to look, not to speak.

I am pleased to see James and tidy away my folder to make room for him. But he collects a cup of coffee, drops his bag at my table and with a dismissive hallo goes straight to the back where he joins the boys. Unusual for him but it really does not matter. I stretch my legs and with my heels draw in James's bag to support my calves. Perhaps I should take my folder out again and try to work, but there is no point; the others will be here soon. Instead I decide on another cup of coffee. It is not an extravagance; I shall not have one this afternoon. With my ten-cent piece I tap on the stainless-steel counter until I realise that the sound is not drowned by the rowdy klawerjas players. No one has whistled. Have I in spite of my narrowing waistline become one of those who does not merit a second look?

When Moira enters she stands for a moment framed in the doorway, blinking, for the sun has come out again. It is one of those just-spring days when the sun plays crazy kiss-catch games and the day revolves through all the seasons of the year. So Moira blinks in this darkness after the glare outside. The silence of her entry is unnerving.
Moira has never moved in this room without a fanfare of whistles and an urgent drumming on the tables. She hesitates as if that exhalation of hot air is the only source of kinetic energy that will produce motion in her exquisite legs. Moira is indisputably beautiful. The smooth skin. The delicately sculpted form. The sleek brown hair.