*
Opheibia had gone to visit her family in Graaff Reinet for the weekend. On Sunday the kitchen looked like a battlefield.
“Someone has got to wash up,” Ludwig said.
“I must feed Dodger,” Greta said quickly. “He is still growing, he needs a lot of food ‘specially in the morning.”
“Washing up is for girls,” Joshua stated.
“Where did you hear that nonsense?” Ludwig asked. “And who is going to wash the dishes during your circumnavigation?”
“That’s different, Dad. I’ll just rinse everything in the sea. That’ll be fun.”
“Opheibia can wash up when she comes back tomorrow,” Greta suggested.
“No no no,” Julie protested. “We are already running out of cutlery and space in the kitchen. And it’s going to be hot again, and there’ll be flies and cockroaches.” She got up from the breakfast table. “I’m off to do some sketching on the beach. Suzy from my painting class should be here to fetch me any minute. So you guys make a plan.”
“Listen kids,” Ludwig said, “one doesn’t have to clean and polish everything in a house every day…”
“Like Auntie Mary,” Greta grinned.
“Exactly,” Ludwig carried on, “and we don’t want to live in a place that looks like a museum, but there comes a time when certain things have to be done.”
“Daddy, why don’t you wash up? You’re the oldest so you’ve got the most ‘sperience.” Lolo piped up.
“Because I’m going to work on the dinghy so that we can use it during the Christmas holidays,” Ludwig said. “And when it comes to experience I think in the field of dish washing Mathilda has got the most, because in Germany everybody does their own housework. There aren’t any servants to clean up.”
“Really Mathilda?” Greta was astounded. “So who washes up in your family?”
“The dishwashing machine.”
The kids nearly fell off their chairs with laughter. Dodger fled under the sideboard.
“You see Da-ha-ad,” Joshua yelled, gulping for air. “They have a ma-ha-chine to do it.”
In the end the kids and I had a ‘kitchen session’, an invention of my grandmother before the introduction of a dishwasher into her house. I explained to them that the main object of a ‘kitchen session’ – besides washing up – was to make music with the dishes.
“I’ve never seen anybody wash up like this,” Greta said while producing clinking sounds by tapping mugs with a wooden spoon.
“People in different countries do things in different ways,” Joshua said philosophically. “Like here we have school uniforms and in Germany they don’t.” He rapped a scraper on the salad bowl. “If you think of it, sometimes people in the same country do things in different ways. Like the blacks never finish their food because they always want to throw some on the ground for their ancestors. We don’t do that.”
“Uncle Ivan said it’s called cultural peculiarities,” Greta informed us. “But Auntie Mary says they are just wasting food.”
When we emerged from the kitchen 2 hours later Ludwig was bending over some boat plans. He looked at us. “You kids sure know how to make a racket.”
“It’s how the Germans wash dishes when they haven’t got a dishwasher,” Joshua said.
“Ja Dad, it’s called cultural peculiarity,” Greta explained.
Ludwig grinned.
“Lolo dropped a bowl and it broke,” Joshua said.
“Nooo, it wasn’t me it was Mrs Vleega.”
Ludwig’s grin deepened. “I guess a washing up session that is fun is worth a broken bowl, but you see, monkeys can’t put their thumbs in opposition to their other fingers like human beings, so maybe Mrs Vleega should specialize in a different job next time.”
The rest of the morning I helped Ludwig with the dinghy.
“I am building this dinghy according to the stitch and glue method,” he explained. “That means you take pieces of plywood and stitch them together with copper wire and then you cover the whole thing with epoxy and fibreglass cloth. Very logical way of doing it. Simple, fast and cheap.” He stepped over a tortoise. “Now what we need is to drill some holes into the plywood for the copper wire to go through. Ever worked with an electric drill before?”
“No, I don’t think we’ve got one at home. The only tools in my folks house are a hammer and a pair of pliers…ah ja…and then that thing you use to take a bicycle tyre off when it’s flat. What do you call that again in English?”
“A spanner,” Ludwig said somehow perplexed. “Well, it’s never too late to learn, my girl. The main thing is to hold the drill square to the job. Come and look.”
I drilled 50 holes.
“Not bad, Mathilda,” Ludwig said. “You’ve got a very good hand-eye coordination.”
Little columns of smoke were rising from the neighbours’ gardens. Ludwig sniffed. “Looks like everybody is braaiing today. Mmh, the Duncans are having mutton chops and the Frosts…hm…South West Wors.” He turned his head with flared nostrils and looked at me. “With all respect, Mathilda, do you use a deodorant?”
Hell, the day I join the crowd that is brainwashed enough to believe they must smell of pink honeysuckle stardust or some other artificial shit still has to come.
“Uh no, I like to keep it natural.”
“Well girl, just keep in mind that we are living in a Mediterranean climate here and that summer is on its way.”
Nobody felt like cooking, so we went to the Chinese shop to get some lunch. Old man Chan was working at a trestle table in the space behind the counter.
“Mr Chan, that bird you’re making is beautiful,” Greta said enchanted.
The old man bowed. “Thank you, Missy. It’s a kite-bird. All silk and bamboo like in the old days. I’ll let it fly on the beach soon.”
“It’s a real work of art,” Ludwig said.
“Oh thank you, Mista Winta,” Old man Chan bowed several times.
We took a while to choose fish steaks in bean sauce, prawn balls and stacks of filled dumplings, which were, according to Lolo, Mrs Vleega’s favourite food. While young Chang prepared our order we walked around in the shop.
“Look at this here, Mathilda,” Ludwig held up a bottle with a red and black label. “Did you know that on Sundays bars and off-sales are closed in South Africa and you can only buy alcohol when you go into a restaurant and have a meal? Then you can order a beer or a glass of wine or whatever.”
“I’ve heard about that.”
“Bloody stupid law in my opinion, but that’s the way it is.” He handed me the bottle. It was filled with some clear liquid that looked just like water.
“What is it? Everything on the label is written in Chinese.”
“You’ve got there the most potent booze on the planet. This stuff is like dynamite. Undiluted strong enough to even stop our dog Schnappsi from drinking.” He scratched his head. “Hell, I hadn’t thought of this before, maybe it’s an idea. We’ll take this bottle.”
“But today is Sunday.”
“One more reason to buy it.”
The kids came with some packets of dragon sweets and asked their father if they could have them.
“Yes, but only one packet for all of you. You remember what happened to your aunt Mary when she was small and ate a whole packet by herself?”
“No.”
“She gave birth to a whole brood of little dragons the next morning.”
“Nooo Daddy, that’s not true,” Greta screeched with laughter. “You told me to make a baby you need a sperm and an egg.”
“Dragons are different.” Ludwig kept a straight face.
“They lay eggs and bury them in the sand,” Joshua said. “And Dad, it’s always the girls who hatch out things. I’m a boy, so I can eat as many as I like.”
“Sometimes boys also hatch out things,” Lolo said importantly. “Like Mr Venter in the butchery. Mom said looks like he’s going to have twins.”
“He’s been looking lik
e that for the last 10 years,” Ludwig said. “But you are quite right, Lolo. There are certain species in which the male is pregnant. Now if you look at the seahorse…” And the matter was discussed in great detail.
Young Mr Chan didn’t raise as much as an eyebrow when he rang up the bottle.
“Isn’t he going to be in trouble if they find out that he’s selling booze on a Sunday?” I asked Ludwig when we were driving back home.
“He’s been doing it for donkeys years. I guess he’s all right. These bloody inspectors can’t read Chinese labels.”
In the back, the kids stuck out their dragon sweet blue tongues and debated who had achieved the deepest shade. Some sailboats were cruising in the bay, and the big dunes far away on the other side shone like mountains of gold.
“Daddy, do you think I can go to the beach with Mr Chan when he flies his kite there?” Greta asked.
“Mmh, I don’t think that is possible.”
“Why? I want to see it fly.”
“The beach Mr Chan is going to is forbidden to white people and Mr Chan is not allowed on our beaches.”
“How d’you mean?” I asked. “Are the Chinese…uh…blacks in this country? Or what the hell are they?”
“They are classified as non-whites, Chinese.”
“This is crazy. So not only the blacks have to go to the ‘black’ beach because they are black, but the Chinese also have to go there ‘cause they are non-white.”
“No no, it’s more complicated,” Ludwig pointed across the bay. “See that stretch of sand next to the industrial area?”
“Ja.”
“That’s Jennings Beach for the blacks. And then there is Gaansbaai Beach for the coloureds. And then you get Wemmer Bay for the Asians. That is where Mr Chan would go.”
“And we can’t go there? I would also like to see that kite in the air.”
“In South Africa every racial group has its own amenities and nobody puts a foot into another group’s area. By law.”
“But Ludwig, when I went with Hannes and Marieke to that fancy restaurant on the beachfront there were some Chinese sitting right next to us. If they are considered as non-whites how come they are accepted in a ‘white’ restaurant?”
“They can’t have been Chinese. The restaurant would have risked losing its license. They must have been Japanese. South Africa has very good trade relations with Japan. The Japanese are classified as ‘honorary whites’.
I think I’m going to puke.
“Ludwig, how can you live in a place like this?”
He looked at me and said: “Why do you think I’m building that yacht?”