Borderline

by Marita van der Vyver

  No one questions them directly, but they can’t resist the temptation to keep hinting and teasing.

  ‘Por Dios, Theresa,’ Lazaro says, contemplating her from his wheelchair, his black eyes glittering impishly, ‘I have never seen you blushing and blossoming like tonight! Did something happen to you that I do not know about?’

  ‘Cuba happened to me.’ She joins in the banter, sitting comfortably on the wall between Ruben and Oreste. ‘The blush that you see is actually just red cheeks from too much sun in an old car without a roof. Helped along by a few too many swigs of rum tonight.’

  And as if to underline her words, she takes the bottle of rum from Miles and drinks again. Their teasing reminds her of the way she and her brother used to torture their little sister whenever they thought she was keeping a secret from them. Jacques would hold her down and Theresa would tickle her until poor Sandra was laughing so helplessly that she would’ve owned up to anything just to make the tickling stop. What is taking place along Havana’s sea wall tonight strikes Theresa as a more sophisticated version of tickle-you-until-you-own-up.

  She looks down at Oreste’s short little legs in his neat jeans to her left, his feet in shiny white Adidas sneakers that barely touch the ground, and at Ruben’s sturdy thighs in white cotton trousers to her right, not touching her own legs but only just. She notes the wide circumference of his belly underneath the floral-print shirt, not flat and toned like Lazaro’s, but not a soft mushy pillow either. The comforting belly of an almost sixty-year-old man who has no reason to feel ashamed of his body.

  As for her own middle-aged body, hell no, forget about that, rather take another swig of rum. Listen to the irresistible rhythms of the music being conjured up by a jazzy little group further along the wall.

  They sit, like the last time, near the Rampa, but tonight they were too lazy to take a long walk first; they started drinking immediately. It is a sultry evening without the slightest breeze to cool them down. The moon is smaller than last time and intermittently veiled by fleece clouds, which make the stars seem closer and brighter than before.

  ‘Ah,’ Miles muses behind a cloud of cigar smoke, ‘when last did I have a holiday romance?’ He is silent for a moment, waiting for Ruben to react, but Ruben just smiles mysteriously in his beard. ‘I suppose the real question is when last did I have a holiday?’

  ‘I gave Ruben a few days off,’ Lazaro says, ‘to go look for a fallen soldier’s daughter …’

  ‘Thanks, boss,’ Ruben says.

  ‘But now it seems to me that he found a lot more than he was looking for.’ The bottom half of Lazaro’s face cracks open in another wide white smile.

  ‘We both found more than we were looking for.’ Theresa feels her cheeks catch fire when all the men turn towards her. Everyone but Ruben. ‘I mean, we met some fantastic people. And in the end I may actually find Mercedes Perez Amat in my own country. That’s something I never expected.’

  ‘Well, I think my elderly uncle has recovered his lost youth.’ With his baseball cap on his head as usual and a fat cigar gripped nonchalantly between his teeth, Oreste looks like a schoolboy who is smoking on the sly. ‘I swear he looks younger than me tonight.’

  ‘No es posible! Not even the baby of my neighbour looks younger than you.’ Lazaro takes the cigar from Oreste and draws on it earnestly, as if to show the youth how to treat a good cigar with respect. ‘But if this uncle of you has recovered his youth, we must all watch out. He was wild, you see. Remember, I have known him since before you were born.’

  ‘No, it was him that led me into every temptation in the book,’ Ruben tells Oreste. ‘You can say he was the Keith Richards to my Mick Jagger.’

  ‘No es posible!’ Lazaro raises his hand, the cigar still between his fingers. ‘I was the handsome one, so anyone can see I was Mick Jagger and he was Keith Richards.’

  ‘No, I cannot see it,’ Oreste laughs. ‘Are you not a bit black to be a Rolling Stone?’

  ‘I’m black and I’m proud,’ Lazaro sings like James Brown. ‘Bueno, then you can call me Jimi Hendrix.’

  ‘I thought they kept all this decadent Western rock music away from you,’ Theresa says, relieved to steer the conversation in another direction, away from what she and Ruben may or may not have done in the past week.

  ‘Oh, they tried!’ Miles exclaims. ‘But, as you can see, it did not work so well.’

  ‘They tried with us too,’ Theresa says. ‘When I was growing up. Warned us that if we played our records backwards we would hear messages from Satanists. Fortunately I was too blonde to figure out how to play a record backwards, or I might have been a raving Satanist by now.’

  ‘The two of you are so perfect for each other,’ Oreste says, looking at Ruben and Theresa as proudly as a father.

  ‘Why? Is he also a potential Satanist?’ Theresa asks quickly, in case she starts ‘blushing and blossoming’ again.

  They are not going to stop; they are going to continue this playful torture until either she or Ruben confesses to something. But what is there to confess? If they say that nothing happened between them, the others won’t believe them anyway. And she herself no longer knows if that is even true. It is true that nothing explicitly sexual has happened between her and Ruben Torres Márquez. But something did happen in the last few days. An extraordinary intensity of empathy, a kind of understanding that goes beyond words, a singular experience that she herself cannot explain. Right at this moment it feels even stronger than a sexual connection.

  She is also aware that Ruben has no intention of taking the bait from his friends, because he believes that whatever has happened between him and her – or didn’t happen – has nothing to do with anyone else. He is simply going to carry on sitting calmly beside her, his body barely a finger’s width away from her body, while that enigmatic close-lipped smile in his beard drives his friends to distraction.

  ‘Oh, he is the devil himself,’ Lazaro warns her, ‘even though he looks so inocente. A wolf under sheep wool – or how do you say that again?’

  ‘A wolf in sheep’s clothing,’ she corrects him. ‘But I don’t really think so …’

  ‘Well, if you have seen him without his clothing, you will know better than we do.’

  She bursts out laughing, shaking her head, conceding defeat. It doesn’t matter what she says next – they will find a way to twist it. Better to keep quiet, like Ruben. She glances at him surreptitiously, catches his amused glance, immediately starts blushing again.

  Of course, the possibility remains that they could go to bed together tonight. It’s her last night in the country; surely she could leave her middleaged fear and embarrassment aside for a few hours. It isn’t as if she has anything to lose. If it turns out to be a disappointing experience, no one else ever needs to know about it.

  They are never going to see each other again anyway.

  But what is holding her back is more than the fear of taking off her clothes at the age of fifty-five in front of a man she met barely a week ago. More than just the possible embarrassment that might cause. Rather, it is the growing belief that nothing can be better than what they already have.

  Why would you look forward to a firework display when you can tell it’s probably going to rain? What could you expect but some feeble little sparks, a few muffled sounds, no real explosion. And when you last had sex as long ago as she did, you want one hell of an explosion.

  Or you might as well keep your clothes on and retain your dignity.

  It is late when she takes leave of her new Cuban friends and she struggles to hold back her tears. It must be the emotional abandon of her Latin American companions that has turned her into such a sentimental crying old woman. Just as well she is flying home tomorrow.

  But when she bends down to hug Lazaro, he unexpectedly pulls her into his lap and steers his wheelchair a short distance away from the others. He gazes up at the moon, more serious than she has ever seen him, and says: ‘I am really glad you and Ruben found each othe
r, mi corazón.’

  ‘There’s no romance between us, Lazaro,’ she says, just as seriously.

  ‘That is not what I mean. You helped each other.’

  ‘Why does he need help?’

  Lazaro shrugs his broad shoulders. ‘Why does any of us need help? Because we are all a bit fucked up?’ He smiles, but it isn’t the usual wide, white grin that lights up his face, just a melancholic lift of the corners of his mouth. ‘But it is still a shame that you were too scared to go further.’

  To go all the way?

  ‘Such a waste.’ Then just as suddenly the seriousness is gone; the white smile is back. He spins his wheelchair around a few times, which makes her laugh as elatedly as a child while she hangs on to his shoulders to keep from falling off. ‘If I could still use my legs, mi corazón, I would sweep you off your feet.’

  ‘That’s exactly what you’ve done,’ she assures him. ‘I can’t remember when last I sat on any man’s lap, Lazaro.’

  The spontaneous laughter helps conceal her agitation from the rest of the company when he steers his wheelchair back towards them.

  ‘You are sure I should not come to the airport with you tomorrow?’ Oreste asks anxiously, frowning under his baseball cap.

  ‘I told you I will take her,’ Ruben says.

  Oreste takes her elbow and leads her a few steps away, until they are out of Ruben’s earshot. She’s vaguely amused that everyone seems to have something to tell her at the last minute that Ruben isn’t supposed to hear. But Oreste doesn’t become suddenly serious like Lazaro. He leans in close and whispers with exaggerated concern: ‘I am scared he will abduct you. How will I explain to Nini?’

  ‘Nini will think it is the most exciting thing that has ever happened in my boring life. Being abducted by a Cuban admirer.’

  And Nini would probably be right.

  In the car on the way back to the apartment the silence between them doesn’t feel as comfortable as usual. As if the evening’s teasing and innuendo has erected a barrier between them. Or perhaps they have simply grown aware of a barrier that already existed, but which they have managed so far to ignore. Now that barrier suddenly seems far too high for them to reach out to each other.

  All she has to do is offer her hand to him. Place her palm on his thigh. Or stroke his bearded cheek. Perhaps he is just too scared to make the opening move. The kind of man who doesn’t want to risk being rejected. Not at this vulnerable age.

  Just look at the alacrity with which he responded to Benita Rosebal Whatshername’s brazen flirting!

  But Theresa has never learned to take the first step towards any kind of sexual relationship.

  So she doesn’t offer her hand to Ruben. She doesn’t know how to make a man understand that she has chosen him. She can only stare ahead of her with longing and hope that he can read her thoughts.

  At her age it would probably be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

  Back at the apartment she walks straight to the computer that is still droning on the dining-room table, grateful to have something else to do before she has to say goodnight. This time she waits patiently to open her email, no cursing or complaining. She isn’t even expecting an email any more; all she really wants to do is draw out her last evening with Ruben a little while longer. Therefore she stares at the screen in shock when she notices a message from Miguela Morales. The subject line is Hope this helps.

  ‘I hope so too,’ murmurs Ruben, who is standing behind her chair.

  The email is short, barely three lines.

  Buenas tardes, Mercedes’s address is – or was – mercedesnotbenz@yahoo.com. Her husband’s name is Egbert Engelbrecht. An Afrikaans doctor who worked with her in a poor neighbourhood in a place called Tshwane. That is all I know.

  Theresa feels giddy, as if she has had too much to drink. Of course she has had too much to drink; she isn’t used to rum, and her brain is struggling to process this new information. ‘I don’t believe it.’ Her voice is hoarse from shock. ‘Mercedes is married to an Afrikaner. An Afrikaans man from Pretoria?’

  ‘Why is that so shocking?’ Ruben wants to know.

  ‘Her dad fought against the Afrikaners – and now she has married one of them?’

  Of course Mercedes doesn’t actually know that her father was shot dead by an Afrikaans man who looked him in the eye as he pulled the trigger. Until now Theresa has given hardly any thought to how she would explain the letter in her possession to Mercedes. The chances were so slim that she would find her, she had focused all her attention on the search. Only now does it occur to her that she will have to admit that she’d been married to the Afrikaans soldier who killed Mercedes’s father.

  ‘But you are also Afrikaans?’ Ruben looks confused. ‘And I am Cuban and we have become friends? You said it yourself today, that we are friends. Surely the war is far in the past?’

  ‘Is it?’ A rhetorical question that hangs in the air, halfway between hope and despair.

  Ruben says nothing, just rests his hand on her shoulder for a moment. And it comforts her, like every time he touches her.

  ‘It’s just … I’d sort of … assumed that she would marry a black man. The black people in my country were on Cuba’s side in that war. Most of the white people were not. Certainly not the Afrikaners. And this morning, when Miguela said something about finding the man’s surname impossible to pronounce … But of course Egbert Fucking Engelbrecht is completely impossible for a Cuban tongue.’

  ‘Is Fucking his father’s surname?’ Ruben asks with the hint of a smile. ‘His first surname as we say here in Cuba?’

  It makes her laugh unexpectedly, a sharp cry of a laugh that is instantly smothered in her throat when she sees the final sentence of the email. It was added after a long blank space, almost as if Miguela had hoped she would read the message so quickly that she wouldn’t notice the little postscript right at the bottom of the screen.

  PS. Please tell her that I will always think of her with love and I wish her the happiness she could not find here.

  Theresa stares silently at the row of words at the bottom of the screen. That such ordinary words could carry so much meaning.

  25. THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

  Even after the divorce she still refused to believe that Theo’s mental health was irrecoverable. Despite all the evidence of irrational behaviour, she kept hoping it was just a temporary condition, an emotional imbalance that could be corrected if he would only seek treatment from a competent psychologist.

  If only he could find help.

  But from where would his help come?

  That was the question that kept her awake at night, alone in her bed in the flat where she’d gone to live after they sold the house. Not that she spent every night on her own. Like many recently divorced people she slept around fairly recklessly in the first year or two. To stroke her ego, to feel desirable for a change, to satisfy her sexual appetite, all the usual reasons of course, but above all to avoid lying in her bed alone at night agonising over her former husband’s mental health.

  It was no longer her problem, she kept reassuring herself. She hadn’t been able to help him while they were together; he wouldn’t allow her to help him; now it was someone else’s turn. But who would want to?

  He had no sisters or brothers or any close relatives aside from his mother. And Elize van Velden would ascribe her son’s confused state to his divorce – a divorce that Theresa could have prevented had she wanted to.

  ‘Men are like children,’ she’d once told her daughter-in-law. ‘They do stupid things without realising what they’re doing. It is a married woman’s duty to protect her husband from himself, just like it is a mother’s duty to protect her child. But oh, what am I talking about – what would you know about maternal duties?’ She said this with an accusing little laugh, because her son’s childlessness was of course also his wife’s fault. ‘But believe me, I speak from experience. Theo’s father had his faults – like any husband – but I forgave him. Because h
e was a good man. And I knew that was what a good wife was supposed to do.’

  This was a reference to the decade-long affair that Theo’s mild-mannered civil servant father had had with a merry widow. His mother apparently knew about it from the start, but turned a blind eye to keep the marriage intact.

  ‘It’s what any decent woman would have done,’ she said when Theo tried to sound her out about it after his father died.

  That was all she would ever say about it. Then she carried on painting the picture of a perfect marriage even more industriously than before. Her late husband’s secret affair simply was painted over as if it never existed.

  This painting became her life’s work, and the fact that her daughter-in-law preferred ‘the scandal of divorce’ to standing by her man in all circumstances, Elize van Velden took as final, incontrovertible proof that Theresa was not a decent woman. As she’d suspected from the first time Theo had brought the girl home and wanted to sleep with her in the same room.

  No, Theo’s mother wouldn’t help him save himself.

  Neither would his friends or colleagues. Several of them simply attributed his unpredictable behaviour to too much alcohol and started avoiding him socially.

  But Theo sneered at his bourgeois friends’ social censure, laughed in their faces, and cultivated more bohemian companions. Struggling artists and homeless beggars, the sort of characters who would stay up all night drinking with him because they didn’t have to go to work the next day. No one among them was interested in protecting him from his own insanity. Not as long as he kept buying them liquor.

  And then there were the new Bambis that he dug up heaven knew where. Of course Theresa heard about them. The Cape Town grapevine was working as efficiently as ever. You would swear that in the decade he spent with Theresa he had stashed all his helpless former lovers in a cupboard somewhere like blow-up dolls. And the minute they were divorced, he opened the cupboard and all the dolls tumbled out. Quite a bit older and more deflated than ten years earlier. But then he had also turned forty in the meantime. He was losing air like a slow puncture; even his sex organ now tended to deflate, so perhaps he preferred his companions somewhat shabbier now.