*
There was a telephone number on my aeroplane ticket. The lady of the air company said: “Gooie môre. Good morning. Kan ek U help?”
“I hope so. I want to change my flight back to Germany from August next year to tomorrow, or even better today, the soonest possible.”
The doorbell rang.
Verdammter Mist. If this is Perlman I’m going to kick his slimy face in in spite of last night’s resolutions.
“…and you’ll have to come to our office to have your flight changed,” the lady said.
“Pardon?”
“We can’t change a flight over the phone. You’ll have to come to our office…”
The dogs barked. I heard Paulina talking to a man but it was not Perlman. They spoke Xhosa but I could tell by the sound of the guy’s voice that he wasn’t black.
What the hell is going on out there? Probably a cop arresting Paulina for having her husband in her bed.
“…you’ll have to pay a fee to change your ticket…”
But white cops don’t speak African languages to blacks. They brawl in Afrikaans.
All of a sudden the man exploded in laughter and Paulina chuckled.
A cop would probably not laugh like that either.
I told the air company lady that I would phone her later.
At the front door a man in his 40s was folded in 2 by laughter. Paulina was holding onto a pillar of the front stoep giggling like a mad horse. The man was dressed in a blue safari suit. He had dark brown hair with a couple of silvery strands in it. He had dark blue eyes, a lusty nose, sensuous lips and a beard. He was one of those finely boned athletic guys with broad shoulders and narrow hips, and he radiated a lot of energy.
“Hello blondie,” he said between some final chuckles.
Phhh, they aren’t only racist here they are also sexist.
“My name is Mathilda and I am not a blondie.”
His expression changed completely, from the big grin to puzzlement to something like – compassion?
“Sorry my girl…Mathilda. You’ve had a dreadful night.” He smiled. “You probably still feel a bit shaky. Everybody would.” He took my hand. “We are all very proud of you.”
I felt tears welling up from somewhere inside me.
No no no, not now. I’m not going to cry.
”Don’t worry,” the man said. “After a bit of sleep and some good food the world will look brighter again.”
I heard myself sniffle and bit my lips. The roses in the front garden became blurred patches of red, pink, white and yellow. I felt tears running down my face.
Ah hell…
The man took me in his arms. It felt warm and safe and he smelled of cloves and leather. “It’s all right Mathilda, everything is fine my girl.” He rocked me gently. I wanted to stay there forever. He pulled a hanky out of his pocket. “Here, use this. It’s good to cry Mathilda. Takes the pressure out of the system. Better to shed some tears than to develop a bloody ulcer.”
I blew my nose. “Uh…who are you?”
“Sorry my girl, I forgot to introduce myself.” He gave me a hearty handshake and grinned. “Ludwig Winter, pleased to meet you.”
I blew my nose again. “And uh…how do you know about what happened here last night?”
“Fred Collins, the president of the Rotary Club told me.”
“Ah, and how did he know?”
“His son Dylan is a doctor at the hospital they took Marieke to. He was on duty when she arrived. They all know each other, of course. Ja, Marieke lost a lot of blood but they managed to stabilize her.”
“And the stroke?”
“She can’t move her right hand side. But stroke patients can recover quite a bit. A good physiotherapist can do wonders.”
“Ah.”
“By the way Mathilda, I’m here to fetch you.”
“Huh?”
He smiled. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’m your new host father.”
“Oh.”
“If you want to pack your things now I can come back later, but if you feel like…”
“Thank you very much but it won’t be necessary.”
“Listen my girl, nobody expects you to stay here all by yourself. Paulina can look after the house until Hannes comes back. We can’t contact him out in the bush, but it doesn’t really matter. Marieke is in good hands and…”
I felt terribly tired all of a sudden. “It’s not that. I’m going back to Germany today or tomorrow.”
Ludwig’s eyebrows jumped up to his hairline. “Why would you do that?” he asked gently.
“I don’t want to have anything to do with this country anymore.”
He looked at me with inquisitive eyes. His blue irises had black circles around them. “Hm. Maybe we should talk about this. How about going inside and discussing the whole thing? Is there any coffee in the house, Paulina?”
Paulina was still leaning against the pillar. “Ja, Master.”
All of a sudden the dogs ran down the drive way and started to bark.
“There is somebody at the gate, Master.”
“Ok, let’s go and see who it is.”
An elderly gentleman walked towards us.
“It’s Master Smith, Master.”
So he is the guy who called the ambulance last night.
Mr Smith lifted his hat and greeted us. “So Paulina, already back from the hospital? It wasn’t so bad then after all.”
Paulina looked at him with big eyes.
“Paulina didn’t go to the hospital. Marieke is there now,” I explained.
Mr Smith turned white under his tan. “Oh my God…I thought……I’m so sorry……I didn’t……know… You see, my maid woke me up in the middle of the night and said I must phone the ambulance for Paulina, and of course I told them it was for a black person. I hope…how is Marieke?”
“She is getting the best possible care,” Ludwig said.
“That’s good, that’s good,” the old man mumbled. “Well, I came to ask if Marieke wanted to borrow my maid for a while…ehm, I see, that won’t be necessary. Oh God, I’m so sorry.” He left repeating that he was sorry. Poor guy. All he had wanted to do was to help.
Ludwig and I sat down in the lounge. Outside, little white clouds were sailing across the sky. Jacob, the gardener was leaning on his broom doing nothing and one could hear the plop plop of a ball on Perlman’s tennis court.
“I guess this ambulance story has got something to do with your decision to go home,” Ludwig said.
“Mmh.”
“Must have been a bloody awful experience.”
“This whole crazy country is a bloody awful experience. I should never have come here in the first place. I can’t understand how anybody can live in this damn totalitarian place and why nobody is doing anything about it.”
“Woah woah Mathilda, there is no need to shout the whole neighbourhood down.”
Paulina came in with a tray. Ludwig poured the coffee. “Sugar? Milk? Have a crunchy. Paulina makes the best.” He stirred 2 teaspoons of sugar into his cup and took a couple of schlucks. “Ahhh, this is good stuff. How old is your father?”
“Huh? My father? Hm, he was born in 1929 so he is turning 46 this year.”
“And did he ever kick Hitler in the balls?
You arrogant poep. This is not fair. I’ll kick you in the balls if you don’t stop.
“South Africa is not an easy country to live in, Mathilda, and you coming from Germany where Jews were gassed by the millions should understand that the situation here might be more complex than it seems from the outside.”
“The concentration camps didn’t have anything to do with me. I was born long after the war.”
“I know. But how did your grandparents and other relatives get through that time? How many of them grasped what was going on? How many did anything against it?”
Phhh – of course he’s got a point there.
“But it wasn’t as evident as here,” I said. “Lots of people d
idn’t even know what was going on.”
Hard to believe, but that’s what they say.
“I mean here every day of your life you see these signs ‘Whites only’ and to sit on the wrong seat on the bus is a major crime and even…”
“In Berlin everybody knew where the ghetto was and the Jews wore yellow stars,” Ludwig said. “Mathilda, you’ve got a choice. You can run away or you can stay and watch and tell the world. If there is no pressure from the outside this country won’t come right in a long, long time.”
“There are already stacks of journalists reporting about South Africa all over the show.”
“So put one more oar in the water. And as an exchange student you’ll get to see things no journalist ever sees.”
One of the clouds in the sky had the shape of a fat crocodile.
Maybe he’s right.
The cloud slowly changed into a dancing elephant.
“Mmh, I’ll think about it.”
I packed my rucksack and my sea sack and gave Paulina a Bavarian cowbell as a gift. She giggled. “Hau, that’s the thing they used to call us to school with.”
“Where I come from they put bells like this on the cows and then they always know where the cows are walking.”
“Hau!”
I put the dove in the aviary. “Cheers birdie. I promise you won’t have to live locked up like this all your life. As soon as you are big enough you can fly where ever you want.”
Paulina gave me a big parcel. “Some sandwiches for the journey.”
“Thanks Paulina, but I don’t really need them.”
“It’s always good to have some food when one is travelling.”
“But Paulina…”
The doorbell rang. It was Ludwig. He smiled in a curiously serious way at me.
“Where do we go? To the airport or to my home?”
“To your place.”
His face lit up to a luminous smile. “I’m glad you decided to stay, Mathilda.”