Читать книгу Nicky & Lou - Nataniël - Страница 5

When I was fifteen and a half years old my parents called me into their bedroom. They were sitting on the bed, looking really uncomfortable.

My mother said they were very happy that I did not have acne or mood swings like other teenagers.

Yes, said my father, that was true, but they did notice that I sometimes had small attacks of strangeness and creativity.

My mother said there were children at school who were a little bit upset by the fact that I sometimes accessorised my school uniform with jewellery and pieces of embroidered cloth.

My father said Mr Brynardt, the geography teacher, had phoned and said he too had experienced surges of creativity as a teenager and knew how it felt. If ignored it could lead to a lifelong feeling of loneliness and excessive use of hair gel or perfumed products.

My mother said Mr Brynardt had suggested that I find an outlet for my waves of inspiration. He had said that if I regularly came into contact with things like glitter, glass pebbles and crinkled paper my urges could be controlled. My mother said she had phoned Eileen Boon and asked if I could help with the decorations for her wedding.

One week later I went to the Boons’ house to find out what my duties would be. Eileen said the theme of the wedding was fresh air and everything was going to be white and light blue. She said the flower arrangements, the bouquet, the cake and the containers for the confetti were all going to be in the shape of the church roof, because it pointed upwards to the sky. She said it would be like an ocean of arrows, all pointing upwards.

Her father said it would be cheaper to just make the guests lie on their backs but in a small town that always led to pregnancy.

Then Eileen laughed nervously and touched her stomach.

She said my job would be to make the confetti containers, they would bring the paper to my house and I had to fold 150 small churches.

Three weeks later my life was destroyed. My room was filled to the ceiling with churches, I still had a hundred left to do, my creativity was not under control and I had started accessorising again. Luckily it was near the end of the year and the school had closed, but my parents were getting more nervous by the day.

And then the news came of an outbreak of disease in the area and that thousands of chickens had died. Mrs Boon was running from house to house because she needed to bake the wedding cake but there was not a single egg in town. Then somebody remembered that the mountain people had two chickens and that they would not be infected. The mountain people were a family of thin people who lived near the waterfall. They made pottery and spoke to no-one. Mr Boon had to drive up there three times before they agreed to sell him the eggs. At two per day it would take eight days before there would be enough for the wedding.

Why don’t they just postpone the whole thing? asked Father.

Then mother lost her speech and mimed the words, SHE IS WITH CHILD.

Three days later we received notice that the wedding would include a short Christmas service, because there would never be enough eggs in town for Christmas cakes and what would Christmas be without cake? This meant I had to make a hundred more churches, because everybody in town was coming.

Five days later Mr Boon drove up the mountain to fetch the eggs. That afternoon a scream was heard. Mrs Boon had broken the first egg and found that there was no yolk inside, just white. Then she phoned a cousin with a college diploma who told her that eggs laid at a high altitude often had no yolks, that was part of the reason mountain people were so thin.

After that Mrs Boon screamed once more, then she put all the egg whites in a bowl and started beating them. She beat them for almost an hour while trying to decide what to do. She knew a cake without egg yolks could have no fruit or icing. She started beating sugar into the egg whites, then she added vanilla and folded in some flour. She spooned the batter into a large cake tin and placed it in the oven.

Two days later we received notice that the wedding would include a short funeral. Mr Classen had died on his couch, he had only been discovered the next day and the arm that held the whiskey could not be manoeuvred to be next to the body, so the coffin would be open. And with the current egg situation he had to be buried at the wedding, because what was a funeral without cake? That meant I had to make fifty more churches because his family was coming.

On the day of the wedding the church was packed with hundreds of people holding small churches pointing upwards. In front was a large Christmas tree pointing upwards. Next to that was the coffin with Mr Classen’s arm pointing upwards and next to that the whitest, lightest, highest cake pointing upwards.

Mr Boon shook his head. A cake without icing, he said.

Shut up, said Mrs Boon.

She did not know that what she had baked was a world-famous historical recipe called Angel Food Cake, the lightest confection in the world, prepared by legendary chefs, ate by kings and princesses and believed to be the food of angels. She just knew it was the best thing she had ever done, that it was an event that brought everybody together and a day never to be forgotten.

(from the Egg Whites & Angel Food stage production, 2008)