Читать книгу The Messiah's Dream Machine - Jennifer Friedman - Страница 13

Comparisons are odious

“Do you guys like boarding school?”

My cousins look at each other.

“Ag, it’s not so bad,” Wilfred says. He doesn’t look at me.

Benjamin shrugs his shoulders. “It’s oraait. At least I can stay dry there.” He stares out at the veld, his face dark and brooding.

Wilfred sniggers. I frown.

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean, at least there I don’t have to walk through the vlei every time it floods like when we still went to school here in the dorp – before we went away to boarding school, you know?”

“What’re you talking about?” I ask.

“Yes, man, you know when it rains so hard and the vlei comes down, and it floods the causeway there by the old willow trees?”

I nod.

“Ja, well the flood waters mos fill all those muddy puddles, and then – it happens so quick – it’s like one minute there’s nothing, and then the next, there’s this raging torrent – and deep? You can’t believe how deep it gets in places, and all the trees and broken branches, the drowned sheep? You know how they swell up?” He nods his head in the direction of the road.

“Those banks down there by the vlei are shallow – they get breached easy, and when the water floods over them, then the causeway and the road to the dorp are also under water. When that happens, no one can get across to the other side, so when it used to flood before we went to boarding school, we couldn’t get to school in the dorp.”

“Ja,” Wilfred grunts. “But my father! It could bladdy snow, man – if it was a school day, then we had to go to school!”

“Ja, he’s right.” Benjamin nods at his brother. Wilfred kicks the floor. He flexes his feet and smirks.

“So anyway,” Benjamin continues. “My father never cared how bad the flood was – we had to get to the dorp. We, all of us, we used to cry and moan, ‘But it’s raining, Dad, and the vlei’s running!’ But he didn’t care. And he didn’t want to get stuck with the Land Rover either, you know? Because then he’d have to bring the tractor down from the shed to pull it out, and one time the tractor also got stuck, and it was such a moerse business to get it out, so after that, he used to make me show him the way through the water …”

Wilfred giggles. Benjamin glares at him.

“Ja, you all sat so nice and dry up there in the Land Rover, and I had to get in that freezing bladdy water with all those trees and stuff – and those bladdy drowned sheep that kept bumping into me … I couldn’t hardly stand the stink, man! Anyway, I had to walk in front to show him the way, you see, so he used to tie me to the bumper with a rope.” He lifts an arm and stabs at the ground. “And then I had to walk ahead and poke the flood stick in the water, so I could show him where the potholes and the dongas were.”

“What’s a flood stick?”

“A flood stick? It’s a long bladdy stick to measure how deep the water is, you pampoen!”

“Who’re you calling a pampoen?”

“Who doesn’t know what a flood stick is?”

“Ag, bugger off, man. Is it true what he’s saying?” I turn to look at Wilfred. He nods, but Benjamin doesn’t wait for him to answer.

“Ja, of course it’s true!” Benjamin shakes his head, as if even he has trouble believing it. “It’s true.” His voice is gruff.

“Ja,” Wilfred chimes in. “Me and Sandra and Rochelle used to sit there by my father in the Land Rover, and we used to knyp, hey! And my father used to scream at me, I must move across to open the door where Benjamin’d been sitting, so I could look out and see if I could see anything, you know – like a tree stump or something – and my father would also open his door, but just a little bit, right?” He looks down and starts to laugh. “Ja, so he could see how high the water was, how many sheep he could count that had vrekked in the flood, and then the water would come inside, and our feet would get all wet … Jissis, you should have heard my father vloek!”

“I swear I can still hear him,” Benjamin mutters.

The biggest, the tallest

Uncle Leslie’s words are almost lost in the hiss and roar of the rushing water.

“Benjamin!” he bellows. “Take off your uniform! Come on, hurry up and fetch the bladdy flood stick off the back of the Land Rover!”

We are squashed like mielie pips on a cob. The Land Rover’s cabin smells of damp, and wet earth, sheep and bodies. Benjamin’s wedged up against the door. Wilfred makes himself small and moves as far away from his brother as he can. He digs his elbow into his sister Sandra’s side. She yelps, tries to shift away, and nudges her little sister Rochelle up against their father until she sits so close to him, her head slips right under his armpit when he lifts his arm to change gears. Wilfred half-turns towards Benjamin and shoves him hard against the door.

“You heard what my father said, Benjamin!” he screams.

When my farm cousins talk about their parents amongst them­selves, they call them “my father” and “my mother”. When my sisters and I speak about Ma and Pa, we just say “Ma” or “Pa.”

“Shurrup, Wilfred!” Benjamin howls.

“Dad!” Wilfred whines. “Benjamin won’t listen – tell him again, tell him again to get out, Dad!”

Benjamin braces himself again the dashboard and leans forward to look at his father.

“Why must it always be me who has to get undressed every time?” he grumbles. “Why can’t Wilfred do it for a change?”

Uncle Leslie grinds his teeth. He leans his chest against the steering wheel and curls his right arm in a half-circle around it. His left hand, hard and square, freckled like an egg, snakes around the back of the girls’ heads, cuffs Wilfred on his ear along the way, and smacks Benjamin hard on the side of his head.

“Because you’re the biggest and the tallest, mamparra!” he snaps. “Come on, get out! Get moving!”

He opens his door and the rain blows inside, and my cousins turn their faces away from the wind and the wet. Benjamin swears. His face is red. He struggles out of his school shorts, unbuttons his shirt, and pulls his tie in a loop over his head. He bends and pushes the toe of one shoe against the heel of the other until both lie abandoned in the dust and dry grass stalks, the pebbles and crumbling pellets of sheep droppings shifting about on the floor. His sisters sit with big eyes, quiet and still while Wilfred needles and pushes, pinches and prods. Benjamin leans his shoulder up against the heavy door, and slowly, careful against the rising water, he opens it to the elements. Wilfred leans across and shoves him hard.

“I’m going to bladdy donner you when we get to school,” Ben­jamin screams as he tumbles out into the rain and the mud.

When Uncle Leslie steps out of the cabin with a length of rope dangling from one hand, his boots sink almost to his ankles in the thick red mud. He walks around to the front of the Land Rover, bends down, and ties one end of the rope to the bumper. He turns around and blinks his eyes in the rain as Benjamin, dressed only in his underpants, slides towards him.

“Did you find the stick?” Uncle Leslie barks.

Benjamin raises his arm. “Here, Dad.”

His father nods. “Good. Okay, come here, let me tie this end around your waist.” He puts a hand on Benjamin’s small shoulder, and in the rain, he leans forward. “Orraait?” he shouts into Benjamin’s ear.

Benjamin nods. “Ja, Dad.” He clamps his mouth shut to stop his teeth from chattering.

“Walk slow,” Uncle Leslie shouts into the wind. “Remember, before you move, you must first put the stick in the water in front of you, understand?”

Benjamin twitches his shoulder. “Yes, Dad – I know what to do.”

“Ja, I know, I’m just reminding you – go slow and move the stick around in case the road’s washed away. Remember to check, see if there’re any new holes, you hear?”

And Benjamin, only nine or ten, whippet thin and just as fast, stands in the mud at the edge of the brown churning foam. He takes a small step, and he raises his arm, and the stick plunges down, probing the stony bed for potholes and cracks, for crevices widening into caverns or washaways, invisible under the pressure of the treacherous water. Behind him, the Land Rover’s engine fires and rumbles as the heavy vehicle follows him into the swirling waters. It creeps, slow and steady, stalking my cousin through the wide, flooded stream, across to the other side.

The floor of the Land Rover’s cabin is awash in muddy water. Wilfred, Sandra, and Rochelle sit with straight legs, their feet braced against the dashboard. Benjamin’s school shoes – rescued by his sisters – lie safe and dry on the seat beside them. Uncle Leslie crouches over the steering wheel, growling and swearing, his eyes fixed on Benjamin’s back. The rope chafes around his small middle. All at once, Benjamin raises the stick in his hand high in the air, plunges it down and raises it up high again – the signal of some new danger. Uncle Leslie swerves and stamps on the brakes. The girls sit rigid, their gaze fixed on their brother’s wet curls. Wilfred mutters under his breath and steadies himself. His hands grip the edge of the seat. The water laps against the sides of the Land Rover and seeps through the narrow gap in the open door at his side. Drowned animals and branches torn from trees spin past, whirling and bouncing in the vortices and eddies of the swirling currents.

I stare at my cousins slouching in their chairs on the stoep, at their legs swinging back and forth, their bare feet sweeping the hard floor.

“Jissis!” I breathe, impressed. “I didn’t know you were so brave, man! Weren’t you scared, Benjamin?”

He shrugs.

“Ag, not really. I mean, how else were we going to get to school?” He glances at me and frowns. “And anyway, who else was going to do it? I knew my father wouldn’t ever make me walk through the vlei if it was really dangerous …” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I was the tallest – I’m still taller than Wilfred!” He flashes a small, spiteful smile at his brother. “No, it was my job. I’m not saying I liked it, but it was my job.”

“Jirre, and it wasn’t even so long ago, hey?”

“Ja,” he agrees. “It wasn’t, but it feels like it was a long time ago!”

Wilfred hums under his breath.

Never late, worse luck

“And then, what happened when you got to the other side?” I ask.

“No,” Benjamin says, and he starts to laugh. “Before we even used to leave the house, my mother was already on the phone to Grandpa in the dorp to tell him, the vlei was coming down and we had to get to school, so there he was, waiting for us in the Vauxhall on the other side of the bult.”

“Jissis,” Wilfred says, “you know how Grandpa always drives that bladdy Vauxhall of his?”

He and Benjamin stare at each other.

“Oh ja, I know.” I roll my eyes.

“That road mos sommer turns into mud when it rains, and the cars and the bakkies – especially the tractors – they make all those deep ruts?” Benjamin scowls.

I nod.

“Ja, and Grandpa mos doesn’t care – he just puts his foot down … It’s bladdy scary, man, driving with him.”

“Ag,” says Wilfred, “Benjamin’s sommer talking kak, man – it’s not so bad!” He smirks at his brother, and flinches when Benjamin moves to stand up.

“No, jissis,” Benjamin hisses. “Are you looking for a klap, hey?”

He stares at me. “You know how Grandpa drives – the way he flicks that steering wheel of his?”

I laugh.

“Ja,” he continues. “Grandpa just drives wherever he wants to on the road – he thinks he’s driving in the bladdy veld, man!”

Wilfred sits forward on his chair, nodding and smiling. “When he used to drive us to school after he picked us up, we used to sit the whole way to town with our hands in front of our eyes. Sandra and Rochelle used to cry sometimes, they were so scared we were going to have an accident. They were sure Grandpa was going to kill us all.”

“Ja, Wilfred,” Benjamin nods. “Now you’re singing a different tune, hey?” He looks at me. “But what Wilfred says is true. Grandpa always got us through, and we never had not one accident, hey – and we weren’t ever late for school, either!”

Wilfred looks glum.

“No,” he mutters. “Never-ever, worse luck!”

He drops his hands on either side of the seat under the arm rests, wriggles back on the old garden chair, and stretches his freckled legs out in front of him. The soles of his feet are black with dirt. Benjamin pushes himself off the wire chair; the backs of his legs, his shorts, and his T-shirt are crisscrossed with the imprint of its wire pattern.

“Jiss, but these chairs are bladdy uncomfortable,” he says, “I can’t sit here anymore.”

He walks across the tiled floor and sits down heavily on the low wall running the length of the stoep. He swings one leg over the top, straddles it, and shifts his bottom back until it touches the pillar behind him. Sighing, he lifts the other leg onto the wall, bends his knee, and clasps his hands around it. He turns and stares out at the beacon on top of the Grootberg opposite. The heat hangs heavy in the early afternoon. Benjamin turns back towards the stoep, glances briefly at me and swings his other leg up onto the wall in front of him. He drops his chin on his chest and twirls a long green grass stalk between his fingers. When he speaks, his words are muffled, and I have to lean forward to hear him.

“Ag,” he sighs, “I suppose boarding school’s not really so bad.”

“My father says he doesn’t want Rochelle to go away to boarding school,” Wilfred says suddenly. “He says she must stay here at home by him – she can go to school in the dorp.”

“Ja,” Benjamin says. “He says it’s because she’s still a baby, but we know it’s because she’s his favourite.”

“His popsie,” I smile.

“Ja, my popsie?” Uncle Leslie says when he sees her, his voice high with love.

The afternoon heat presses down on the old trees and the crumbling kraal walls, the sweet water in the spring that gives Boesmansfontein its name. Finches weave between the calabash nests swinging from the tips of the willow branches. In a high poplar tree, a dove repeats itself over and over. A cow bellows for its calf, long and deep. Sheep bleat in the veld behind the house. The corrugated-iron roof ticks above our heads.

We sit, quiet, on the stoep, contemplating our places in our respective families – the ones we occupy accidentally, by the grace and the time of our birth, and the places we wish we had, and long for.