Читать книгу Yellowbone - Ekow Duker - Страница 9

Karabo stood in the doorway watching her father. Teacher was huddled over a thick hardcover book that lay half in and half out of an oblong patch of yellow light cast by a reading lamp on the kitchen table. The book was so thick the pages arched ponderously under their own weight.

It was quiet in the house, with no sound other than the distant rumble of a passing truck and the crinkle of pages turning. Karabo liked watching her father. The way he peered at each page over the top of his glasses and followed the text with his finger made him look very clever. Sometimes he would tap the page twice with the tip of his forefinger and cast his eyes up at the ceiling. Or he would reach for the piece of paper he always had at his side and scribble on it. She watched him do this several times, then turn the paper over and begin again on the other side.

‘What are you doing?’ Karabo said.

Teacher whipped around and for a few startled moments, he did not look like Teacher at all.

‘Shouldn’t you be in school, Karabo?’ he asked. He snapped the book shut and turned it over hurriedly with the cover facing upwards.

‘What are you reading?’

In any other family, such questioning of an elder would have drawn a sharp reprimand and a slap, but Karabo knew Teacher didn’t mind her being inquisitive.

‘Nothing.’

Karabo stared at her father until he let out a sigh. ‘It’s just a book I borrowed from the library.’

Karabo read the title on the spine, then said out loud: ‘Teacher, what’s genetics?’

He glanced at the book, then pushed it away. Then he dragged it back towards him and patted the cover as if it were a child and he needed to console it.

‘It’s a bit too complicated to explain.’

‘But you told me nothing’s too complicated. Not if you take it step by step.’

He turned around in his chair and drew Karabo into him. He wrapped his legs and his arms around her and nuzzled her neck until she squealed with delight.

‘Do you know why I love you, Karabo? You’re much too clever for your own good.’ He kissed her lightly on her shoulder. ‘Genetics is the study of how genes get passed from generation to generation.’

‘What are genes?’

‘The things that make us what we are. Like the coarseness of my hair. Or the sound of my voice.’

Karabo pressed her hand against his forehead. ‘Or the colour of your skin?’

She felt Teacher’s arms loosen around her.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘Like the colour of my skin.’

Karabo reached across the table for the piece of paper Teacher had been writing on. It was covered with crude pictures of what looked suspiciously like mice.

‘You need to give them whiskers,’ she said with a happy smile. ‘All mice have whiskers, Teacher. Everybody knows that.’

He nodded and touched her face with his finger. Then, gently, he drew a diagonal line across her cheek.

‘I was trying to figure out a sequence,’ he said. ‘You remember what a sequence is, don’t you?’

Karabo nodded. ‘An ordered progression of numbers,’ she said slowly. ‘Is this for a new class?’

‘No. It’s not for a new class.’ He took the paper from her and crumpled it in his hand. ‘Come,’ he said. He freed Karabo from the cocoon his limbs had made around her. ‘That’s enough for one day.’

Karabo puffed out her cheeks and held her breath until he relented.

‘All right,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Let’s play the old-school game. You go first.’

Karabo thumped a fist on Teacher’s chest. ‘I always go first! It’s your turn.’

‘Very well,’ Teacher said. ‘I’ll start.’

He stood her on the floor in front of him and screwed up his face as if he were deep in thought.

‘You know this is a man’s world, Karabo,’ he said at last. He looked at her gravely and waited for her to respond.

Karabo smiled brightly. She knew this one. ‘But it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman or a girl,’ she said.

‘It wouldn’t be anything,’ he corrected her. ‘Not nothing. Anything.’

Karabo stamped her foot impatiently. ‘You’re spoiling the game! That’s not how James Brown sang it.’

‘I know, but we should stick to the rules of grammar.’

‘Then it wouldn’t be the old-school game anymore!’

Teacher lifted his hands in defeat. ‘You know what? You’re right. Not everything needs to change.’

‘Times are changing, Teacher,’ Karabo replied. ‘I see it all the time.’

Teacher raised an eyebrow in appreciation. ‘Brass Construction. Very good,’ he murmured, then countered with another line, this time from Frankie Beverley and Maze. ‘That’s why the things that make us happy …’

Karabo looked at Teacher as if she’d expected better from him. She finished the line with a theatrical flourish. ‘ … also make us sad.’ She paused and screwed up her face. ‘Do I make you sad, Teacher?’

Her father took her hands in his and said, ‘On the contrary, you make me extraordinarily happy.’

Karabo wriggled out of his grasp and, giggling, launched into another round. ‘Don’t blame it on the sunshine,’ she sang. ‘Or the good times. Blame it on the …’ She leaned forward expectantly, waiting for Teacher to complete the line from the Jacksons but he seemed suddenly distracted.

‘What’s the matter, Teacher?’ she asked.

Teacher rubbed his nose. He sniffed loudly as if he’d caught a sudden cold.

‘Your mother loved that song,’ he said in a faraway voice. ‘We used to dance to it.’

‘All night long?’ Karabo asked eagerly and Teacher looked away.