Still Life. Zoeë Wicomb

      Published in 2020 by Umuzi, an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd

      Company Reg No 1953/000441/07

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      © 2020 Zoë Wicomb

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

      First edition, first printing 2020

      1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

      ISBN 978-1-4152-1053-6 (Print)

      ISBN 978-1-4152-1066-6 (ePub)

      Cover design by mrdesign

      All cover photographs by iStock, courtesy of: billnoll (wallpaper), jurgenfr (apparitions), and ilbusca (aloe)

      Text design by Fahiema Hallam

      For Milo McClure

      I

      I do not think this a task that I could, or even should, take on. The responsibility is simply too heavy to shoulder; besides, the obligation is of a dubious nature. Thus I try to keep my head averted from these powdery phantoms that stir and falter in the dark. But they remain, pleading wordlessly – or so it seems.

      What kind of makeshift shelter is this? Wind rattles the reeds that pass for rafters and the corroded sheets of corrugated iron lift creakily and fall, lift and fall, so that shafts of light snap at the spectral figures flailing, writhing in their am-dram poses. I resist the use of a torch, but cannot stop myself from peering inside when the light allows. Which is taken for encouragement – they are not as comatose as they once appeared to be – so that their rustling sounds rise above the wind sigh. I cannot tell how many there are, but there is no mistaking that these feverish forms are fixed on coming into being, on finding language, on making their demands on me.

      One of them whispers: It is not so unusual, neither novel nor extraordinary, not so much to ask; it has been done before.

      I listen in silence to their strange and various accents, to the voices growing louder, cacophonous in their clamour to be heard. The slight, bent form in the corner rocks to and fro, declaims in a dazed, rasping voice so that I catch only fragments: Poppy, or charms … one short sleep past … the round earth’s corners. Over and over, growing fainter until it fades away.

      After all, says the larger, older woman, the boldest, the most insistent of the lot, we do not have to be invented, no need to think of yourself as a god, a creator. Good Christian souls, all of us, prematurely cut off but, of course, blessed with eternal life all the same, so only a small matter of giving us another chance, of allowing us our fair share of years.

      She stumbles to her knees, strains forward, and if her form is wobbly, a strong, vegetal whiff of desire rises from it, a greed for life, for recovering time – those bitter years of duress, salted bondage and subjugation gone for good, finished and done with. Her palms scrape, slap against each other as she reaches for the possibilities of a new life, a new century, a world shaken up in so many ways, so much more forgiving than the unjust, punitive world of yore. This is exactly what she had dreamt of, what she craves – a fresh start, her just deserts. She will not be held back.

      Looks like some kind of punishment, this eternal life bestowed by your God, I venture, but there is no uptake. They are not interested in argument; their focus is on filling out, on coming into being, and they are not above pleading.

      The woman speaks as if I had not spoken. Oh, we have our different desires, as you must know, she says, but we are bound together all the same. The bond of love.

      Love! I roll my eyes, squirm.

      The men seem more circumspect; they too shrink visibly at the word, which keeps them quiet for a while. I ignore the young man whose hand is up like a schoolboy’s waiting for permission to speak. Bonded indeed. As if I’ve not heard that kind of talk before, the justifying cant of politicians and ordinary folk alike, even as they pursue their selfish interests.

      What do I know beyond what the history books say? Does the woman think me omniscient? Her words leave me impotent, tongue-tied. Frankly, I have no idea what to do; I do not know how to proceed. I who have freely admitted failure, who have given up on the business of writing, who have comforted myself with the promise of carefree, indolent days, albeit under dark northern skies. Who would not rather watch clouds tumbling through the heavens? Slouching in a deck chair with a woollen rug (from childhood, the dun tartan of overnight train journeys) over her knees, cherishing the slivers of stingy sunlight? For fighting slow time, there is a garden in which to hoe, to shake earth free from the roots of weeds, and watch worms writhe into the humus. I would rather drum my fingers and wait for forget-me-nots to spread into a blue haze and tulip spears to unfold their slow promise of red, and battle with indomitable slugs.

      Why should I return to the fray and struggle with the stories of these creatures? Why invite judgment of my abilities? Whilst these figures imagine a new era of millennial harmony, it is I who will have to rise to unexpected challenges and fend off the slurs reserved for upstarts of my ilk.

      I note that the young man, giving up, has dropped his supplicating arm, but no such luck with the woman. Come, come, she breathes, prodding a finger at her breastbone, Mary here, Mary Prince.

      As if I don’t know her name. Her voice grows stronger as she remonstrates: Get over yourself. It’s not about you at all. So very little we ask of you, nothing more than allowing us to be, setting us free. She shakes her head as I grimace at the word. You don’t like my language? the way I speak? Well, that’s nothing new to me; I’m used to my island’s tropical tongue being mocked. But look, you’re free to improvise, to correct, and use your own fancy words. Here we are, emaciated, and …

      Whilst she falters, the young man slips in: In the words of another poet, dusted to mildew.

      Oh shush, Mary says impatiently, and