Thula-Thula (English Edition). Annelie Botes
princess on a featherbed. In her sleep, even though she wasn’t asleep, she drew a picture of the prince who would break through the rose thorns to wake her with a kiss.
When Braham Fourie joined the school as English teacher in her grade ten year, she couldn’t tell right away he was a prince.
After a while she forgot the ten minutes of knee-sitting. Forgot how the waistband of her shorts cut into the flesh of her abdomen as it was pulled tight from behind. Knuckles drilling against her tail bone as he wormed his hand inside. She no longer heard the panting in her neck. No longer felt his body jerk or the final bump, bump, bump against her back. She scraped the back of her shorts against the stoep wall to remove the rope of slime. Took Lulu down to the river; hugged her against her chest. ‘Thula thu, thula baba thula sana,’ she sang the song Mama Thandeka had taught her.
Ten minutes was nothing.
Your Victorinox lasted forever.
She imagined the day she would turn into a baboon that lived in the mountains, with no doors or walls. Then she would take her penknife with her. She could use her Swiss army knife to peel prickly pears in the veld, or to skin a porcupine if she were giddy with hunger. It had a screwdriver, bottle opener, ballpoint pen and toothpick. Tiny pliers for removing thorns. A ruler and a compass so you wouldn’t lose your way when fog rolled down the mountainside and you couldn’t see your hand in front of you. On one end of the ruler, a tiny magnifying glass to start a fire if you ran out of matches or they were wet. A torch the size of her little finger she could shine into Bamba’s eyes at night to check that he was alive.
It was her father who brought and gave her the knife. With love.
Abel who showed her how the knife worked while she was sitting on his knee. Also with love.
The difference between her father and Abel was as wide as a ravine.
And love was something she would never understand.
The maidenhair fern in The Copper Kettle was her witness that she told Braham: ‘I have no idea how to be good to you, ever. Because I don’t know what goodness is.’
Her stomach rumbles again. She hasn’t eaten anything since yesterday when Mama Thandeka sent Mabel with an enamel dish with mealie rice and curried potatoes and chicken livers. Mabel wanted to clean the house and do the laundry. But she sent Mabel home.
‘There’s nothing to do here, Mabel. Rather go …’
‘What about the laundry? There must be a bundle of sheets, I haven’t changed the beds since last Wednesday.’
‘Mabel, after the funeral tomorrow I’m going to burn the sheets.’
‘Heavens, Gertruidah, they’re good sheets! You can’t go and burn them, rather let me and Mama take them.’
‘I’ll buy you new ones. I don’t want their bedding here on Umbrella Tree Farm. Now go wash and braid your mother’s hair. You were going to do it on Sunday before the police came and everything got muddled …’
‘At least let me sweep the stoep and rinse out the milk cloths, and …’
‘There are no dirty milk cloths here. Now go, I want to make a sign for the gate. Tell your mother I said thank you for the food.’
‘What sign are you making for the gate?’
‘You’ll see when it’s done.’
After Mabel left she ate with her fingers. Drank water. Went to the shed to cut the sign out of a windmill fin. Gave it a coat of green tennis-court paint. The white paint for the lines she used to paint the words on the green background. Used the wool bale stencil to make even letters. Who would have thought Abel’s tennis-court paint would one day be used to keep people away from Umbrella Tree Farm. Who would have thought that one day she would make the rules, or that the tennis-court paint would be hers to mess with any way she liked.
The terribly important tennis court.
You needed an invitation to play. An invitation meant you were part of the elite who played social tennis on Umbrella Tree Farm on Saturdays, even if you could barely hold a racket.
When she was small, before she got her Victorinox, she used to pick up the balls people hit over the fence. Then they’d say, in voices dripping with condescension: Clever girl, Gertruidah! Just as though picking up balls wasn’t something she was quite capable of doing.
She remembers the last day she picked up balls for the grown-ups. She’d been waiting on the bench beneath the cedar tree for a ball to fly across the fence. Andrea’s mom, who was the magistrate’s wife and ran the tombola table at the church bazaar, rushed, breasts wobbling, to the net to meet a drop shot. She crashed into the net and hung doubled over the tape like a pillowcase on a washing line. Before she could straighten up, her stomach went. Pale brown liquid soaked her frilly pants and ran down her legs into her socks. The bubbling noises could be heard all the way to the cedar tree.
She laughed, she couldn’t help it. She’d never seen someone poo on a tennis court before.
The magistrate’s wife was crying; someone rushed over with a towel. Then, because she’d laughed, her mother dragged her into the lapa and beat her with a tennis shoe. She was rude, her mother said, and she was ashamed of her. Sarah pulled her ears too, because she’d hidden her Lulu doll away so Andrea couldn’t play with her.
‘You selfish child! It’s just a bloody doll! Why won’t you let Andrea …?’
But it wasn’t just a doll. It was her child.
She never picked up the grown-ups’ balls after that. From then on, on tennis days she and Bamba went to the veld. Bamba chased everything that moved: field rats, dassies, guinea fowl, lizards. A Jack Russell will even chase a jackal or a lynx and never give up, panting, like other dogs. Mama Thandeka had told her Bamba meant ‘catch’ in the Xhosa language; it was the name Anthony had given him. Bamba had been Anthony’s dog. When Anthony died, he became hers.
Bamba wasn’t allowed near the tennis court because he ran up and down along the fence and barked. If he wasn’t allowed there, she would stay away too.
When she was older her father tried hard to teach her to play tennis. Her clumsiness was just a pretence. She didn’t want to play tennis. She didn’t want to bend down in front of him wearing a short tennis dress so he could stare at her bare legs.
She only started playing in grade ten when Braham Fourie became the school’s tennis coach.
She began to feel sorry for Andrea the day her mom crapped herself on the tennis court. Her eyes always seemed wet with tears and she was fat. Gertruidah knew, without knowing how she knew, that Andrea’s mom took laxatives, just like Sarah. She’d sometimes seen the empty bottle in the bin in the bathroom. Each tablet contained Bisacodyl 5.0 mg, the label said. She didn’t know what it meant. But she knew she would when she was older. Just like one day she’d know the meaning of all the grown-up words she’d stored inside her head.
Maybe her mother was afraid her own stomach would go on the court, maybe that was the reason she didn’t play. On Fridays she cooked for Saturday’s tennis. Nibbling constantly. Egg mayonnaise. A bit of puff pastry. Salami. Ox tongue. Glacé cherries. As long as she kept taking laxatives, she wouldn’t get fat. Along with crossword puzzles, cooking was Sarah’s gift. Whenever Abel bragged about her food or the set of cast-iron garden furniture she’d won with a crossword, Sarah blushed.
Abel was a skilful player. Agile, tactical. He shone at the net and used his height to advantage. He was a gallant host, too, because on Saturdays when there was tennis he didn’t drink. On Sunday he would have to lead the hymns in church and he always said he couldn’t take the lead in the Lord’s house with a hangover.
Thinking about it makes her feel sick. How could the same man who led the hymns in church make her sit on his knees with the Victorinox? How could he use the same throat for praising the Lord and for panting behind her shoulder blades like a tired dog?
And