*
The Jamesons arrived at 8 in the morning to fetch me. The school fete would only start at 10, but there were still stacks of things to do. Julian and Coral were sitting in the back of the bakkie surrounded by bags full of dolls’ clothes. I squeezed in in front with Kim and her mom with several cake boxes piled on my lap. We stopped at about 5 places to collect more dolls’ clothes, more cakes, more kids and a couple of items for the White Elephant Stall, which I thought to be a typically African affair, but Kim explained that it was sommer a normal flea market type of thing.
In Germany they would have given Ma Jameson a major fine for overloading but the traffic cop who stopped us asked with a big grin, if we didn’t want to buy a ticket for the police lottery. “Lady, the first prize is a trailer,” he said with a heavy Afrikaans accent, “and with all the stuff you have to transport, you could probably make good use of a trailer, hey lady.”
The school was buzzing with activity. Fathers, male teachers and boys put up stalls helped by the black gardeners. Mothers, female teachers and girls gave last touches to the decoration and arranged foodstuffs, prices and things to sell, assisted by the black cleaning ladies. It took me some time to recognize some of my classmates because I had never seen them in civvies before.
At the boerewors and hot dog stand fathers filled lengthwise cut drums, which served as grills, with charcoal and bushveld wood. There were half a dozen other stalls where one could throw rings and win prizes, buy dolls or books or biltong, throw balls and win prizes or eat pancakes. The White Elephant took up the most space. “One man’s poison is the other man’s meat,” declared the chairlady there wading through tons of knick-knacks, trying to find a place for some faded water colours showing battles of the Anglo Boer War and a portrait of Paul Kruger with a brass plate on the frame, saying: Last President of the Transvaal Republiek. The Greatest Figure of Afrikanderdom.
Mr Booysens, the caretaker, supervised Kleinboy, his Xhosa aid, to nail a dartboard to the shed in which the tools were kept. Rosie, the dog, walked around with her nose in the air, sniffing unfamiliar smells. The pink patches of skin around her stitched up wounds gave her the looks worthy of an exhibit at the modern art Biennale in Venice.
“Kleinboy hit square, jou bliksem,” Mr Booysens suddenly exploded. “How many times have I taught you how to hold a hammer?”
A man passing by told Mr Booysens to stop swearing – there were ladies present!
I went to the Bavarian beer garden to give Mrs Davies a hand. It was the strangest beer garden I had ever clapped eyes on. There was not a drop of beer in sight. Instead of an oompah band, somebody had organized a tape with hearty sea shanties sung by a sailors’ choir from the North German Waterkant, and the place was swamped with pies and sweetmeats totally unknown in the country of the Dirndl and the Lederhose.
Mrs Davies was in her element. “Girls, get the paper cups out of the packets, zack zack, and arrange the cakes in neat rows. I don’t want any chaos.” She rattled in her health sandals across to the cool drink counter and called Brian and Peter. “You boys put ice and cans in these 3 zinc baths and then you get the change ready.” She clappered back through the rows of benches and tables, straightening out tablecloths, mumbling: “It’s all a matter of organization, jawoll.”
At 10 o’clock, when Mr Martin officially opened the fete, Julie arrived with Greta and Lolo. The ‘men’ had stayed at home to work on the yacht.
“…and today’s profits will be used to build a swimming pool for the school,” Mr Martin announced well into his speech. “As you know, the government doesn’t pay for extras like that.”
Lolo was getting bored and stuck a loop of her self-made necklace between her teeth. The string broke just as Mr Martin said: “There is nothing more noble than a healthy mind in a healthy body.”
Around us not many people were listening anymore because Lolo screamed: “I want my beads,” crawling around between people’s legs. Mr Martin soon came to the end of his speech and the crowd dispersed towards the stalls.
At the beer garden Mrs Davies got some of us organized to sing Das Wandern ist des Müller’s Lust to add to the ambiance; some barrels of beer would have done a better job. Instead, Lettie, the tea lady, brewed hectolitres of tea.
Lettie’s work on a normal school day consisted of supplying the white staff with as much tea as they could drink, which was quite a lot. She could usually be seen pushing the tea trolley somewhere between the kitchen, the teachers’ room, Mr Martin’s office and the secretary’s office. The constant clattering of the cups and saucers on the trolley was forever accompanied by Lettie’s monologues. She conversed with herself in the melodic broad Afrikaans typical for the Cape Coloureds and added considerably to the repertoire of swearwords of anybody, who happened to spend 5 minutes or more at the school. Parents regularly complained about her bad language, and every now and then special meetings were held to find a solution to ‘Lettie’s problem’. But Lettie had her pride and her principles, and her never changing reply to Mr Martin’s suggestions to upgrade her language was a clear: “Yes Sir”, and a mumbled: “Fok julle almal”, as soon as Mr Martin was out of ear shot. Anybody else would have been fired, but Lettie knew that she was irreplaceable. She made the best cup of tea since the first tea leaf had reached western civilization, and on top of that, she had the amazing capacity to remember exactly how many sugars and how much milk each member of the staff took.
At lunchtime Jenny relieved me from my cake-serving job. I went outside to look for Julie and the girls. The place was packed with people, especially around the White Elephant Stall and the food stalls. Whiffs of braaied meat and toasted marshmallows wafted through the air. The gardeners were picking up empty cans and papers from the lawn and some cleaning ladies cleared the tables of empty plates.
“Look here Mathilda, what I winned,” Lolo screamed and held up a dark brown monkey made of material. It was dressed in a little titian red frock with a big green bow tied around the neck.
“Great, Pippi Longstocking Supergirl,” I said. “Just what you need, hey?”
Lolo grinned. “Pippi Longstocking in the book has got a boy monkey but this one’s a girl and her name is Mrs Bowtie.” She looked at the monkey, frowned and asked: “What’s a bow tie in your language?”
“We call it a Fliege.”
“Vleega,” Lolo repeated. “I’ll call her Mrs Vleega.”
Greta carried a roll of silvery golden paper. “Pretty, hey Mathilda. Mom bought it for me. I want to wrap some of my rocks in it.”
Julie was talking to Peggy’s mother about raising herbs in special pots. I noticed that Peggy’s mom, who didn’t allow her daughter to shave her legs, didn’t shave her own legs either.
Mebbe they belong to one of these sects and it is against their religion. I had heard of several ‘new churches’ in Victoria Bay. Each one had its own point of view and set of rules straight out of the bible.
The ‘Reborn Vinegrapes’, who met 3 houses down the street from the Winters, maintained that the Pope is not a Christian and that musical instruments should only be used to play hymns. The spiritual leader of ‘Butterfield Church’ knew for sure that letting your dog mate on a Sunday and looking at tarot cards were major sins, and for the ‘Reborn Bearers of the Cross’ grey was the only colour His servants were supposed to wear and females never cut their hair.
Peggy’s mom let us into the secret of making Buchu Brandy without any alcohol in it. My host mother didn’t show much enthusiasm. When Lolo announced that Mrs Vleega was getting hungry and felt a humongous need for a doughnut, Julie grinned gratefully. “All right, let’s get some food.”
We bought doughnuts for the kids and boerewors rolls for Julie and me. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hannes!” I hadn’t seen my first host father since he had left for his bird watching trip. He looked thinner, his hair was whiter and he seemed to move in some sort of trance.
“How is Marieke?”
&nbs
p; “Getting a bit better, slowly. She is in a good rehab clinic now. The doctors say there is a good chance for her to regain the use of her arm and her leg.” He absentmindedly slid his wedding ring up and down his finger.
“And how is my dove doing?”
“I guess quite well. I set it free a while ago and it comes back every day for some mielie pips.”
The rest of the fete was uneventful except that Lolo stuck a bead up her nose and we couldn’t get it out. While Miss Pembleton asked over the loudspeaker system if there was a doctor on the school grounds, Greta told us, that Paul Kruger had died because he had stuffed a diamond up his nose. “He wanted to hide the family jewels from Queen Elizabeth or mebbe King Henry, I don’t know, but the British cut him up and he bled to death.”
Lolo did her nut and the only doctor on the premises was a urologist without any experience in getting beads out of little girls’ noses. Rescue came in the shape of Mrs Koeks’ husband no 3, whose hobby was to put models of ships into bottles.
“You are lucky that I bought this special kit of tweezers this morning,” he said while gently teasing the bead out of Lolo’s nostril.
When it finally plopped into his hand Lolo generously offered: “You may keep it.”
Mr Koeks no 3 inspected the green bead and mumbled: “Maybe I could use it as a starboard light on one of my ships.”