Читать книгу Pieter-Dirk Uys: The Echo of a Noise - Pieter-Dirk Uys - Страница 10

My father, Johannes Dirk Jacobus (Hannes) Uys, (9.12.1906 – 21.12.1990) and my mother, Helga Maria Bassel (2.7.1908 – 26.5.1969).

My sister, Theresa Hannelore (Tessa) Uys (born 11.8.1948).

LEFT TO RIGHT:

Susanna (Sannie) Abader (28.9.1918 – 25.7.2004).

Ma’s mother, my Oma Theresa Löbl Bassel (1.4.1880 – 24.10.1960).

Pa’s mother, my Ouma Gertruida Leonora (Gertie) Malan Uys (22.9.1872 – 27.8.1964).

The pictures I have chosen invite a story. Body language tells me more than an occasional explanation scribbled on the back of a photograph. Eye lines, facial expressions, clutched hands and uncomfortable feet suggest something other than what was often intended in group photographs of mother, father and children. Tensions and boredom often belied the ‘say cheese’ automatic grin. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, these snapshots lay on the dining room table, being moved here and there, up and down, from childhood to teenage years, from golden hair to early baldness. Each time a little pile became the main focus of the tale, until the next revelations opened a new horizon of adventure. Where does one start construction of this sandcastle? It has to be with Sannie.

‘Where would we be without our maid?’ was a familiar refrain in most white homes during those years when it was accepted that women of colour ruled from the kitchen. My sister Tessa and I didn’t remember what life was like without her. Sannie’s stories alone could fill another hundred pages, from the dramas when Sannie screamed in terror, having discovered the chameleon we put in her bed, to the evenings when she ‘babysat’ us, while Ma and Pa treated themselves to a film at the Pinewood Cinema down the road, where subtitled films were often shown. Sannie called them ‘overseas films’. Tessa and I would sit in our pyjamas at the dining room table with Sannie and two friends who regularly popped in, since they also worked in Pinelands. We’d play dominoes, not genteelly as white people were supposed to, but wildly excited, with shouts and the thwack of the domino on the wooden table as the game developed.

I found a piece of paper on which Pietertjie Uys had written on 21 February 1961 at 9.10 pm, probably to himself:

‘Herewith I wish it known that the period from 8 February has been unbearable – having to work all day and not being able to manage it. I worry about so many things. Doing cadets at school worries me because I’m scared my uniform won’t be clean enough and that I might do something wrong. I always see that my uniform is very clean. All my homework is terrible – there is never something to look forward to. Now Ma is sick, Ouma [Bassel] also, and both in hospital. Pa is also unhappy and only Tessa understands what’s happening. Sannie is bedonnerd [this wasn’t even written out completely, but treated like a swear word: bedo****rd], but strangely can be handled for a change. I worry about everything, about every possible stupid pointless unnecessary thing – just about everything. I can’t sleep because I worry so much about everything. It’s making me quite sick. Now the concerts lie ahead, also the work for the [school] bazaar and sport and I really don’t know how I can manage everything, but we must just see what happens and hope for the best.

(Signed) Pieter-Dirk Uys’

I’ve only now become aware, after having read that little note, how deeply fear was entrenched in most of my doings as a child. It took me another fifty years to find the courage to use the f-word to fight fear – and that word is fun! The note reminded me that the echo should not only be of the noise of fear, but also of the snigger of fun – of everything from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the impossible to the ordinary. Every soap opera has its stars; every drama swirls around characters of emotional noteworthiness; every comedy will send in the clowns. Before turning up the volume of noise, it is important to acknowledge my good fortune in having had so many exceptional members of the orchestra of life demonstrate their care and love by playing concertos of protection around me.

The family home. As a child I’d write: 10 Homestead Way, Pinelands, Cape Town, South Africa, Africa, The World, The Universe. My room is the upstairs left window.