Читать книгу The Messiah's Dream Machine - Jennifer Friedman - Страница 15

A tiny rubber ring

“You’re not marrying him until I’ve met him,” Uncle Leslie shouts down the phone. “I’ve got to vet him first. Make sure he’s suitable.”

“Well, I think he’s eminently suitable,” I shout back.

“What does your mother think?”

Allan brought her flowers the first time he visited.

“She likes him a lot – so does my father.”

“What’s he do? What’s his profession?”

“Allan? He works in his grandfather’s factory.”

“A factory worker?” My uncle’s voice vibrates with suspicion.

“Don’t worry, Uncle Les – he’s a chemical engineer, and he works in his grandfather’s factory.”

He grunts. “What kind of factory?”

“They make enamelled pots and pans – lots of things … It’s a big factory.”

He grunts again. “Long as he can support you.”

An eventful journey

The Free State veld lies bleak and beautiful along the sides of the tarred national road. The sky is pale with cold. Crows hop from one clawed foot to another as they watch our progress from their perches on the barbed-wire fence posts. Streambeds run dry under flat bridges. Subterranean storm drains cross from one side of the road to the other like giant nostrils. Tumbleweeds blow in the wind.

We drive past lonely towns where Pegasus, that flying horse, paws the empty air above Mobil petrol pumps, and giant scallops tower, yellow and red, over air-pressure hoses and the fuel bowsers of Shell garages. We idle through quiet main streets past old men slumped on greasy pillows and wooden benches, dozing in the shade of fretted stoeps. When they hear us coming, they push themselves up with arthritic hands on their creaking knees, or lean, straight armed and stringy against the railings, their biceps thin and corded beneath old woollen jerseys, their stares following us as we drive past, back onto the national road.

Dusty tracks lead away to distant ridges. Telephone poles cradle birds’ nests between white porcelain bobbins, and barbed-wire fences – almost invisible to the untrained eye – divide and run crisscrossed across the veld, delineating boundaries outlined by tumbleweed blown and caught against them.

The land is flat to the far horizon. Small thorn trees and weeping willows grow along watercourses. A small wind drives waves through the winter grass. Crows cough. Ewes call, plaintive for their lambs, and those that are barren, bleat into the wind.

“Slow down, Al,” I say. “Look over there!”

A faint scrawl of clouds moves across the sky. The air is opaque with dust. Near a rocky outcrop above a flock of sheep, two black-and-white Border collies crouch low on a grass slope, their eyes fixed and waiting for their master’s command. The farmer, in stained sheepskin coat and blue flannel shirt, stands near the fence line along the main road. We watch him point his finger. He purses up his lips, and through the open window, we hear his whistle, shrill, sharp and short. The dogs leap onto the backs of the sheep, jump nimbly from one thick and springy fleece to another until they disappear from view in a melee of dust and hooves. He whistles again, and on the other side of the flock now, the dogs drop and stay. Their heads are drawn right back into their shoulders, and their ears twitch with waiting.

A herdsman sits on the back of a stocky brown horse in the veld nearby. A bright woollen blanket lies under his worn saddle, a whip of willow tucked under his arm. The reins are slack in his hands on the pommel in front of him, and as we watch his jaws move, he leans over his horse and spits a gleaming stream of tobacco juice onto the ground. Allan flinches. He leans forward again, and I can feel the warmth of his breath on my ear.

On the way to the farm, we stop in the village to say hello to Grandpa and Granny. Allan checks the duco for chips on the body of his Alfa Romeo.

“That’s a city car,” I say, watching him run his fingers along the sides of the doors. He looks up at me and grins. I say nothing about the state of the roads to come.

Allan flinches at the dust on the white gravel road out of town. We drive through the dip in the vlei. I can feel him tense as the bare branches of the weeping willows brush the roof of the car. We drive past the drowned trees in the lake at the reed-choked weir, and the cement hut where the generator thuds every night until it’s switched off at nine o’clock sharp. The road winds past the prickly pear koppie and the wild pears and poplars at the fountain, the red mud hut where Annie and Scott used to live, the shallow, empty dam, the thorn trees. We follow the bend in the road where the stony track branches off over the ridge to Groenvlei and Awendson, Te Huis. A long tail of dust follows us past the Grootberg until we turn onto the driveway leading down to the farmhouse on Boesmansfontein.

Happy times never change

Sitting side by side on the old wire chairs on the stoep, Uncle Leslie and Aunt Alice watch Allan nurse the Alfa across the cattle grid.

“Yes, Mrs Kallikatzke, you back again?” Uncle Leslie beams.

“Hello, Uncle Leslie!” I’m five years old, eight, ten. Happy times never change.

I glance at Allan, smile and shake my head.

Introductions are made – a final sizing-up has still to be completed when we sit down to coffee and cake set out under the wilting fly nets on the dining-room table. Through the open kitchen door, I can see my aunt’s cling peaches swimming like dark yellow suns in their syrupy bottles in the pantry. Lamb is roasting in the oven of the old coal stove. Allan yawns. It’s been a long day. My uncle leans back in his chair and studies him from under his brows.

“You’ve got a wild one here.” He nods in my direction. His magic tooth that used to fascinate me when I was young flashes in and out of his mouth. Allan blinks.

“I hope you’re up to it.” Uncle Leslie stares at him.

I lean forward. “Uncle Leslie!”

He raises a thick, freckled hand.

Allan’s undaunted. “I’ll do my best,” he says.

“Stop trying to put him off, Uncle Les!”

“Too late.” Allan grins at me. “She’s caught me hook, line and sinker.”

“See, Uncle Les?” I tilt my chin.

He snorts. “What? You think you can tame her?” he asks Allan, jerking his thumb at me.

“I wouldn’t want to try,” says Allan. “I like her the way she is.”

My uncle nods. I glow under the seal of their approval.

After dinner, I show Allan the dimly lit bathroom, the basin, dark in a corner, the mirror, fly-spotted with age and spit, the dregs of children’s toothpaste overlooked by careless maids. Still sitting in the dining room, Uncle Leslie’s deep in thought. Aunt Alice presses her spectacles back with her forefinger. She places her palms on the edge of the table, leans forward and pushes her chair away with the backs of her thighs. The heavy stinkwood ball-and-claw feet squeal on the wooden floorboards.

In the kitchen, the maids, Annie and Oulik, scrape pots and pans, clatter plates and cutlery in the sink’s greasy water. Through the open door, I watch Annie lift the boiling kettle off the stovetop. It’s heavy. She carries it across the floor in both hands and pours a steaming stream into the cooling water in the sink. Oulik clicks her tongue.

My aunt excuses herself and walks into the kitchen to issue her last instructions for the day. Her shoes squeak away down the dark passage. Annie and Oulik let themselves out into the cold night. The latch on the backdoor clicks shut.

“Ja,” my uncle sighs. He pushes his chair back from the table and turns it to face the small electric heater on the floor against the wall. He sits down again, his elbows on his knees, and stretches his hands out in front of him. Down at the weir, the old generator reverberates endlessly, powering the lights and the fridges. When it stops at nine o’clock precisely, the rooms spark with the sound and light of matches and candles. I sit at the table, watching and waiting. My uncle glances at me, puts his hands on his thighs, and pushes himself up.

“Don’t go yet,” he says. “I’ve got something for you.”

No funny business

The floorboards protest as he walks out of the dining room. I can hear him moving about in the small dark area where the farm rifles used to lie, piled haphazardly on the wooden tea trolley when we were young.

“Here,” he says, walking back into the dining room. “Give me your hand.”

I smile and close my eyes. I can hear the water running in the shower in the bathroom.

“Why?” I ask

“Just give it to me,” he says, louder this time.

I hold my hand out to him. The generator runs rough. The sound stutters up through the cold air. The lights dim and flicker. He takes my hand in his hard, freckled one. His nails are short, stained with lanolin and dust and grease. He smells of sheep. He turns my hand over so that my palm lies open in his, presses something small and round and hard into it, and folds my fingers over in a soft fist. The light wavers. The generator collects itself again and resumes its beat.

Outside, the burning of the sky is done. The sun has set, and the night settles down in the sky.

I open my fist and look up. Uncle Leslie’s eyes slide sideways, shy and embarrassed. His face is flushed. The bristles on his moustache quiver. He looks away, over my shoulder.

“You know what that’s used for?”

It’s not quite a question. His voice is brusque, oddly defiant.

I stare at the tiny, hard green rubber ring in my hand. Then I look up at him and smile.

“Yes, Uncle Les, I know what it’s used for – I’m just not sure what you want me to do with it?”

He shrugs and thrusts his hands into the pockets of his trousers. I wait for him to answer.

Outside the dining-room window, I see an owl, motionless on a fencepost. Suddenly, it flies away towards the shearing shed, the pale feathers under its wings flashing in the uncertain light. A dog barks a warning near the labourers’ huts. Uncle Leslie’s Border collie, Jenny, raises her head. Uncle Leslie calls all his bitches Jenny. I never ask him why. Taciturn, moody, generally bedonnerd, and – when my cousins and I were young – impossibly impatient and quick tempered, Uncle Leslie writes poetry, and he loves the land with all his heart. I know; he’s told me so.

I stare at the rubber ring. Roll it back and forth between my thumb and forefinger, feel its hardness, its small circumference, its aperture a tiny, tight gap of light. I raise my eyebrows and smile a little wider. He shakes his head, irritable, and mutters something under his breath.

“Sorry,” I say, “I’m sorry, Uncle Les, I didn’t catch that?”

He jerks his chin at my hand. “Use it if he tries any funny business,” he growls.

“What d’you mean, funny business, Uncle Les? If who tries any funny business?” I know what he’s trying to say.

“Ag!” he explodes. The bushy moustache quivers under his nose. “You-know-who,” he snaps. “Whatshisname, him.” He points his chin in the direction of the bathroom.

“Oh, you mean Allan?”

He grunts.

I can also give as good as I get.

I hold the rubber ring up against the light and squint through the tiny hole.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, careful not to look at him. “What am I supposed to do with this little rubber ring? It’s for docking lambs’ tails with – I can’t do anything with it if I don’t have that gadget – what’s it called again – oh, ja, the elastrator … I need one of those to stretch it open, otherwise it’s useless.”

I look at the circlet between my fingers and shake my head. “But you know,” I say, smirking in the small silence, “I don’t think even an elastrator would be able to stretch this wide enough …”

“I’m telling you, Jennifer,” he says, “I won’t stand for any funny business in this house, you hear? Not before you’re married. You tell him!” He shakes his thick forefinger at me.

Propriety is of paramount importance in Uncle Leslie’s house; the yellowwood floorboards squeal under the slightest pressure, and Allan’s bed has been made up in the furthest corner of the farmhouse lounge. On this dark winter’s night, the room is frigid with cold.

Allan glances around the lounge with a bemused look on his face.

“I did warn you, Al – remember? I told you it would be cold.” My breath clouds in front of me. I hold out a hot-water bottle. “Here,” I shake the rubber bag in front of him, “I’ve just filled it, so it’s nice and hot – let me put it in your bed for you.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t need a hot-water bottle, Jen – you know me, I don’t feel the cold.”

His nonchalance makes me uneasy.

“You’ll feel this cold, Al, really, you will. You’ll see, come the middle of the night, it’ll be freezing in here – you’ll be very happy to have a hottie!”

He smiles at me. “I’ll be fine,” he says loudly, “and if I do get cold in the night, I’ll just come and warm up next to you!”

I put my hands up and look around furtively.

“Shh! For God’s sake, don’t let anyone hear you, Al,” I hiss. “Don’t even think about tiptoeing down the passage tonight – I’ve already been warned!”

“What d’you mean, warned? Who warned you? What about?”

I sit down on the edge of the bed and pat the place beside me. Al sits down and puts his arm around me.

“Look!” I lean against him and hold my hand out to show him the little rubber ring lying in the middle of my palm. He blinks, peers down at it, picks it up gingerly with the tips of his fingers, and holds it up to the dim light.

“What is it? What’s it used for?”

I snort. “You really don’t know, do you?”

His forehead creases. I reach across his lap and take the little ring from him. The mattress groans. The sound travels across the wooden floorboards.

“Well, you see,” I say in my best teacher-voice, “in order to use this little rubber ring successfully, you require the help of a gadget called an elastrator.”

I glance at his frowning face.

“So, if you’ve got this gadget – this elastrator,” I continue, “you slip the ring over the ends – it looks a bit like blunt scissors, you see – and then you pull the two handles apart, and the little ring is stretched wide open.” I hold my thumb and forefinger far apart. The penny drops. Allan’s frown deepens. “It has to be stretched open, you see, so you can slip a lamb’s tail through it?” I indicate with my forefinger to show how it’s done.

“You’re kidding?” he breathes.

“No-o, I’m not. It’s used for docking lambs’ tails – it cuts off the blood supply, you see. It’s quick – only takes a week or so, and then it just drops off. You can find little woolly tails lying all over the veld during the lambing season!”

He looks horrified. I grin.

“Oh, Al, you mustn’t be squeamish about these things! The lambs hardly feel a thing – it’s just a little bit sore, and it doesn’t last long – and the lambs are very young when they get their tails docked.” I glance at his face. “They’re not more than a week old when their tails are banded. That’s what it’s called – see?” I hold up the little rubber ring. “This little ring is called a band.”

He shudders, a long, city-boy quake. I go in for the final thrust.

“It has to be done, Al. If you had to see the disgusting, matted mess when a sheep with a long tail gets diarrhoea …” I pull a face. “Can you imagine having to shear something like that?”

Allan looks nauseated.

“It’s a lot easier to shear a sheep when it’s got a short tail.” I smile at him. “And they get all sorts of diseases too, you know, sheep?” I keep going, gathering steam. “They can get fly strike if they don’t have their tails docked. D’you know what fly strike is?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think I want to know, thanks.”

“No, but I’ll tell you, anyway. It’s revolting. In the summer, the blowflies look for the sheep with dirty wool – you know, like those with diarrhoea? And then they lay their eggs in the skin under the lamb’s tail, and when the wool maggots hatch out, they hatch out under the skin, and they burrow right into the sheep’s flesh.”

“Enough!” he howls. “I believe you!” His face is pale.

“Wimp!” I snicker. “Farming’s not for the faint-hearted.”

Allan looks down at the green ring in my hand. “So … why’re you showing this to me, then?”

I raise an eyebrow and sniff. “Because my uncle Leslie gave it to me earlier this evening – he told me to use it on you if you try any funny business …”

Allan’s jaw drops. “What?” The corners of his mouth hover between a moue of dismay and a smile of amusement. He crosses his legs and clutches himself. “Get thee from me!” he shouts. “Don’t you come near me with that thing – get off! Go away!”

“Not so fast,” I laugh. “You think the elastrator’s bad? Just wait till he starts threatening you with the emasculator – then you can start clutching yourself!”

“The what?”

“‘Oranges and lemons’ say the bells of St. Clement’s …” I chant “… And here comes the chopper to chop off your …” I throw myself on top of him. “How do you think ram lambs get castrated?” I shriek. “Well, some of them do, anyway – it makes them less aggressive, you know – easier to manage. Like male dogs, once they’ve been de-sexed?”

Allan re-crosses his legs. His hands move back to his lap.

“Ja-a,” I say, nodding vigorously. “There are all sorts of ways of emasculating ram lambs …” My voice trails off. I look down at the floor and then back up.

“Uncle Leslie just bites them off, you know?”

Allan’s face is fixed in a grimace of horror.

“Ja,” I continue. “He can’t be bothered with tools and things. Lots of farmers do it that way. It’s common practice on sheep farms.” I try not to smile, make no mention of the gory accoutrements of sharp knives and buckets, mouths and faces smeared with the blood of those innocent lambs.

Hysteria and excitement rise like a tide. I clamp my hand over my mouth – I can’t stop laughing.

“Don’t worry,” I gasp. “I told Uncle Leslie, the elastrator wouldn’t work for you – it wouldn’t be able to stretch the ring out wide enough!”

He smirks, gratified, and then a look of horrified embarrassment settles on his face as the implications of what I’ve just said sink in.

“Oh Jesus, you didn’t really say that, did you? Jen – you didn’t !”

“You look just like a meerkat, sitting there, Al.” I wipe my face with the back of my hand. “Relax – you don’t have to look so serious. Uncle Leslie wouldn’t actually do anything to you. It’s his idea of a joke – I think … You know, the band? He’s just really shy about some things – like s-e-x – it embarrasses the hell out of him! And anyway, I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, you know!”

Allan leans forwards on the bed and shakes his head from side to side like a metronome.

“Bloody hell, Jenny, what am I going to do with you?”

“Don’t say that, Al – you sound like my mother!”

I take a measured look at him, and see that, in our future life together, there will be things he’ll never feel comfortable talking about, either.

Allan takes a deep breath. “Come here,” he says.

At the end of the passage, a door creaks open.

“What’s going on there?” My uncle shouts. “What are you two mamparras getting up to? If I find out there’s any funny business going on …”

I jump off the bed and put my finger to my lips.

“We’re not doing anything, Uncle Les, we’re just talking,” I shout.

“Don’t you two start anything,” he bellows, striding down the dark passage. “Your mother trusts me to keep you safe – in order.”

“I’m perfectly safe, Uncle Leslie, you don’t have to worry about a thing!” I shout back. “We’re just saying goodnight!”

He grunts, turns around and stamps his way back to the bedroom.

I sit down on the bed with a bump and put my hands on my knees. My face feels flushed. Above our heads, the corrugated-iron roof clicks in the cold night air.

“Actually,” I say, “if I have to be honest, it was a really awkward conversation, you know. It was all I could do not to howl with laughter. I knew exactly what he was trying to say, but he was so embarrassed – his face got all red and he started stuttering and stammering. He wouldn’t look at me at all. But he meant it.” I turn to look into Allan’s eyes. “You’d better believe it – he meant what he said about not starting any funny business.”

Allan runs his fingers through his hair, brushes it back off his face. He closes his eyes. His lashes lie on the tops of his cheeks, long and dark.

“God, this’s embarrassing,” he groans. “How am I going to face him at the breakfast table tomorrow? I really want him to like me, you know? I know how important it is to you that I pass The Test!”

He says The Test slowly and clearly. The words sound significant, as though spoken in capital letters.

“Unless you’re planning to get up at four o’clock in the morning,” I laugh, “he’ll be long-gone into the veld. Don’t let it worry you, Al – it’s just the way he is. Anything personal freaks him out. He’s my favourite uncle, my really special favourite – I so want you guys to get on, to like each other. He means more to me than my own father does.”

Allan reaches out and takes my hand.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I know, and I know how you feel about the farm, how important it is to you. I love you for it. And really, I do like him – he’s a terrific, crusty character, Jen, and he’s already told me you’re his favourite niece. He also told me I’d better take great care of you, or I’ll have him to deal with.”

“He told you that?” I ask. “When?”

“Almost as soon as we got out of the car!” He laughs.

“He’s funny. You’d better listen to him, hey.” I dig Allan in his ribs and sit back on the bed. The springs squeak. “You hear that?”

He nods.

“Every time you turn over in this bed tonight, the whole house is going to know.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Shh,” I say, “listen.”

Birds call out in the dark, and a night wind steals like a cat through the cypress trees near the fountain. I can hear it coming across the veld. The vanes of the windmill near the shearing shed clank and rock in the moving air. I shiver against the warmth of Allan’s side. He tightens his arm around me, rests his head against mine. We sit quiet on the edge of the bed, tense with listening and the creeping cold.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much quiet,” he murmurs.

I nod. I hear it too, the quiet, how it hums and patters, whispers and chews at the fabric of the night.

A door creaks. We sit motionless and wait, our ears focused on the sound. Footsteps tiptoe clumsily up the passage and stop at the open door of my bedroom. A loud grunt, heavy with knowing, travels up the dark passage. I squeeze Allan’s hand hard. The floorboards groan as the feet make their way past the open bathroom door. Another grunt. The footsteps gather pace, walking faster and louder to the lounge where the two of us sit perched on the edge of Allan’s bed, our faces wreathed in virtuous smiles.

“Hello!” I say. “Can’t you sleep, Uncle Leslie? You know it helps to count sheep, don’t you?”

My uncle, his customary comb-over in wild disarray, squints at us from the open door. Shadows flutter in the candlelight. He sweeps the beam of his torch across the undisturbed bedding behind us and grunts again. It’s late. It’s been a long day. We’re tired. I make my voice meek, subdued.

“I’m just trying to persuade Allan to sleep with a hot-water bottle,” I say.

Allan’s arm tightens around my shoulders. Uncle Leslie stands in the open doorway, an avenging angel wielding the righteous sword of light in one hand and the wrath of God in the raised forefinger of the other. He lowers his head and stares intently at me. Then he shakes his finger at us both, clears his throat and growls, “No funny business, hey! It’s late. Get to bed.”

As if we were ten years old.

I pretend to wither under his grim gaze. Still shaking his finger, he turns on his heel. The torchlight arcs across the wall, and, moments later, we hear his bedroom door closing.

“Oooh,” I sing softly, rocking back and forth, “that was close, hey! Lucky we weren’t actually doing anything, Al – he’d have had a stroke on the spot!”

Allan laughs uncertainly. “So, you’d say there’s definitely no chance of my pussyfooting down to your room tonight?” he asks.

My lips curl. I shake my head slowly. He sighs.

“Not a chance,” I say. “If we could hear him tiptoeing down the passage, you can rest assured his every nerve will be strained and quivering all night, making sure my modesty’s protected! Seriously, Al – he’ll be listening for the slightest movement. Just one step on these yellowwood floors? He’ll hear it. Why d’you think you’re sleeping in the lounge anyway, so far away from my bedroom? No, man, my uncle Leslie’ll be sleeping with one ear open all night.”

I yawn and stand up. Allan reaches out to hold me back. I look down at him and smile.

“So, I’ll just leave the hot-water bottle here under your blankets, okay?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head, “you take it. I won’t need it – I’m tough, and anyway, I don’t think it’s that cold.”

“Ohh,” I sing, sweet with knowing, “you’ll be sorry! You’ll be begging for one later on.”

Cowhides and cushions

The next morning in the star-speckled predawn, my hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee for warmth, I look around the lounge. Every chair and couch has been stripped, and piles of cushions – brocade-covered, square and hard, scatter pillows in cotton or smooth satin in different shapes and sizes – lie heaped, bulging in mysterious peaks and plains all over Allan’s bed. At the very bottom of the mound, he’s curled himself into a ball, a feather pillow wound and tucked tight around his head. I put the coffee down on a small table. On the floor at the foot of the bed, his suitcase has been emptied of every last sock and handkerchief. Under the jumble of cushions, Allan’s spread the entire contents of his case over himself. Two cowhide rugs – Uncle Leslie’s tribute to interior decorating – form the icing on this imposing cake, and in the middle of this tottering pile lies the huddled bulk of my “I don’t feel the cold” beloved.

“Al?”

The pile heaves, cushions drop to the floor. A cowhide slips halfway off the bed. I turn away and open the curtains. Frost lies white on the lawns outside. The Grootberg is only a hint against the sky.

“And now? What’s all this then, hey, Al? Looks like you were a bit cold in the night?” I lift the mug of coffee and drag the table closer to the bed. Allan rolls over onto his back. His hands reach up and lift the pillow off his head. He blinks in the dim light and holds his arms out to me.