Tjieng Tjang Tjerries and Other Stories

by Jolyn Phillips

  ‘Good afternoon Uncle Ouboeta, is Boeta home?’

  ‘Sak Sarel, Gedorie, don’t choke on your spit. Boeta is not here, girlie. He went to Hermanus for that building job. He is planning on learning from the boss himself.’

  ‘When will he be back, Oom?’

  ‘Six or seven I think, yes six or seven.’

  ‘Uhm, my ma invited him to dinner.’

  ‘Né? Julle klogoed van vandag,’ he chuckled.

  Ma made cabbage bredie, with lamb pieces, rice, and beetroot made with a bit of vinegar and sugar. We sat at the kitchen table looking at the candle burning. My mother believed that you never eat without the guest so we just sat there, waiting for Boeta. I didn’t mind, I had a lot on my mind and it seemed Ma did too, sitting across the table. We heard the hekkie go open and Ma got up to answer the door.

  ‘Oh,’ I heard Ma say in the kitchen. ‘Who are you looking for?’

  ‘My dad said you invited me.’

  It was Boeta’s voice. I got up and went to stand a few steps behind my mother in the kitchen. Boeta was still standing in the doorway. Ma looked from him to me and froze.

  ‘May I come in?’ he asked politely.

  ‘No, never are you allowed to come here, get out of here. Don’t ever come near my daughter, you bastard!’

  ‘I don’t understand, Mrs Aploon.’

  ‘Did your father put you up to this? He probably did. The bastard!’

  ‘Ma, what is going on?’ I had never seen my mother behave this way before.

  ‘You stay out of this, Lieda. Go to your room! You and your father are sick people! How could you do this to me and my daughter? Have you no shame. Your father broke my heart, all those years ago and now he wants to do the same, using his children.’

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am, I have no idea what you are talking about. I love your daughter. I was going to ask you if I could marry Lieda.’

  ‘WHAT?!’ she screamed. ‘Sit jy op die paal, meitjie?’ She slammed the door in Boeta’s face.

  ‘Huh? No Ma. No! How can you even ask me that? He would never…’

  But Ma was so angry, I was scared to approach her. She slumped down at the kitchen table. When she looked up I saw that she was white as a laken. ‘He would, he would, and that’s what his father did. He said we were going to get married.’ Her voice was trembling and so was she.

  ‘What?’ I asked. ‘Who were you going to marry?’

  Ma looked at me, straight into my face. The tears were sliding down her cheeks now. ‘Boeta’s father,’ she whispered. ‘We were until his cousin told me he was married already. I gave myself to him. He left me to suffer by myself, my husband had died a year before, and he was my comfort. He left me alone to suffer in 1975. I had three children. And he had the audacity to come live here with his family. It shred me to pieces, but I got a job at missies and raised my children by myself. You. I raised you by myself, without his help. Now that bastard and his son come here and try and mess up my life!’

  ‘I’m sure you have the wrong person in mind,’ I say. ‘Boeta’s father… you… we are… that would make Boeta…’

  ‘Yes, you are, you are… kyk bietjie, your eyes, they are the same. It’s his… George Groenewald’s eyes.’

  I sat with my back against the wall, too shocked to cry. I could see Boeta’s eyes gleaming. Did he know? Did Boeta know? He could not have known.

  ‘I had to protect you. From them. Now you can see why I told you not to mix with them.’

  ‘THEY DIDN’T KNOW, MA. THEY DIDN’T KNOW. UNCLE OUBOETA DIDN’T KNOW MA, YOU DIDN’T TELL HIM.’

  She walked past me, to her room, and prayed loudly. I got up. My whole body ached. My heart was broken. I went to my room and took out my suitcase from under the bed and walked over to Father Williams’ house. I didn’t say anything to Ma. I didn’t tell her where I was going. Mrs Williams welcomed me.

  ‘May I stay here for the night? It’s probably better as we are leaving early tomorrow morning for college.’

  ‘Haai kint, have you been crying, is it your mother? She doesn’t want you to go?’

  I just nodded my head and let Mrs. Williams take my suitcase.

  ‘Ag, she will come by once she understands. Every mother is scared for her children’s well-being.’

  The Fire

  Mollie remembers the child. The one that kept on pulling on her sleeve whenever Mollie stood in her garden to look over the fence at the hok that burnt out a month ago in her neighbour’s yard. Mollie remembers the people that carried buckets and buckets of water to kill the fire. She recalls the bollings smoke and fire that roared out of that hok until there were only ashes and burnt wood. She remembers how the child’s mother silent-cried. She felt sorry for the poor thing. Yes, she remembers how the child pulled on her sleeve once its soul had slipped from its body and it was looking for someone like her, with her gifts to help it pass on to the other side. He wanted to go to his mother to say good­bye. He knew he wasn’t a real child, you see. He understood. He wanted to go and say goodbye for the last time. He was brave at first but then when he was at his mother’s side he panicked. You know how little ghosts are. Sometimes they don’t want to go. He clung to his mother tightly until he disappeared bit by bit. You can’t interfere with Holy Ghost’s work, you see. When He says it is your time, it is your time. Still, Mollie did feel sorry for the child.

  Mollie didn’t see the child’s ruined body, but Gerhardus said he burnt ugly. When they found him he was kneeling and his hands were burnt to his face. He looked like a melted wax doll. Maar nou ja, Mollie is not one to dwell in the past. Today she is going to visit Jonathan’s wife about Jonathan. Maybe Jonathan’s wife didn’t understand her the last time. She already prayed about this.

  Mollie pulls on a cardigan. Today is bobbejaan’s weather, not good for her chesty coughs. She has been neglecting her pills but flushes them down the toilet so that the clinic volunteer won’t notice. She can’t take that medicine, it makes her sleepy and then she can’t do Holy Ghost’s work. The pills make her forget about Holy Ghost and the last time he made her cough blood for forgetting to do her work. Besides Holy Ghost is telling her today Jonathan’s wife will have a change of heart. Mollie takes her handbag and locks up the house and goes next door.

  Ai siestog, poor Jonathan, she thinks, looking at the burnt pieces of wood. She doesn’t want to go to his wife just yet, but then Mollie thinks she doesn’t feel sorry for Jonathan. Jonathan is becoming a problem. A big problem. Did she know he was going to shoot himself? Yes, she did, but to sukkel with a soul that doesn’t want to go to Holy Ghost is a stubborn soul. He is worse than a child. Wie jy! And by the way, she is the one that has to put up with his guilty thoughts when she is trying to sleep at night. It is starting to work on my nerves, she thinks to herself. I need to get my sleep. I am not today’s child, you know. Every night when Jonathan comes to haunt the scene of the fire and comfort his still-grieving wife, she hears him pray the same thing: ‘Ag Here, please help. This hok is my life. I forgot to lock the door. I was marking papers. I wasn’t thinking. I forgot. I can see they think it’s because of me. Here, what do I do now?’

  Weeks have passed and those words shout through her dreams and disturb her until she has no choice but to turn on the light and get up and make herself a cup of tea. Mollie walks to Jonathan’s house. She reckons the wife can help. Maybe then Jonathan will listen. Stubborn as he is. She has to try. If she can only get him away from Delie and Sakkie. Holy Ghost doesn’t want them. They are rubbish. He that is Jonathan plays that board game with Sakkie every day. She eavesdrops on them paal. All the time. They think they can hide from her and Holy Ghost. But no one can. Not that little child too scared to go to the other side and not them either. She will explain all this to his wife again, even though Jonathan’s widow only gets angry. Mollie doesn’t care, she thinks and she walks slowly up the path to the front door because her legs are paining her a little today.

  Mollie has been going to his w
ife every week since Jonathan shot himself and this whole mess started. But the woman just shuts the door in her face, like she is some stranger, some nuisance. But Holy Ghost says she will listen this time. The last time she was like a demon. Chased her away like a dog. But Mollie is not a coward and no one can defy Holy Ghost. Not that little child, not Jonathan and not this widow with no manners and no respect for Holy Ghost business.

  Mollie knocks on the door. Mollie notices the curtain twitching slightly. So the widow has seen her coming.

  ‘Go away Antie. I warn you. You’re crazy.’

  ‘Jonathan–’ Mollie starts.

  ‘Come one step closer and I shoot you with boiling water. I swear it!’

  ‘Jonathan doesn’t–’ she continues.

  ‘My kettle is on Antie. Leave me alone, mal teef!’

  Mollie has heard those words so much it doesn’t touch her. ‘Do you think you can stop Holy Ghost’s will?’ she cries out to the widow behind the door. ‘Either you are with Him or against Him, Hester. And if you are against Him, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, comes Judg–’

  The door swings open and a bucket of piss whizzes past Mollie, catching her cheek. The door slams again.

  Does she think that will stop Mollie? She is no stranger to piss. She is loyal to Holy Ghost! She will knock again. Mollie raises her hand to bang on the door, but just then she notices Jonathan out of the corner of her eye. He is passing by at the end of the road. The widow can wait till tomorrow, Mollie decides. She will follow Jonathan who has started to walk-run now that he has seen her.

  She follows him to Roos Straat, to the half-built house. Sakkie and Delie have lived there ever since they died. She doesn’t like them. Holy Ghost said that Sakkie and Delie cannot be taken over because when Mollie tried to take them to Holy Ghost they were too drunk and Holy Ghost banished them. Jonathan cannot be mixing with those two sinners. What if Jonathan is drunk when he needs to go to Holy Ghost?

  Even before she reaches the house she can hear Sakkie’s and Jonathan’s conversation:

  ‘You will have to stop smoking dagga, Sakkie. Heerlikheid. One of these days you’ll have no brains left.’

  ‘Keep your word. Why are you so? What’s the matter?’

  ‘It is that Mollie woman. She keeps on meddling.’

  ‘She will carry on meddling. Dè, here is a beer.’

  ‘Nee. I want to stop drinking.’

  ‘Stop drinking? For what?’

  ‘Yes. I want to start over.’

  ‘Start over? There is fokkol of starting over man. Forget about it. We are already dead. Let’s rather play chess.’

  Sakkie laughs like a bad engine, looking at Jonathan confused. He is usually not so jumpy. Jonathan moves his king out of the way across his bishop. Sakkie attacks with his castle and takes Jonathan’s knight.

  Ag kak, Jonathan thinks. He didn’t see that move coming. Ou Sakkie is getting good at this game. Sakkie grabs the beer and takes a deep swallow. He has a triumphant look on his face. Let him, Jonathan thinks. When I was alive and he was alive, I always thought I was too good for the likes of him. Death has taught me a lesson or two, Jonathan thinks.

  ‘When are you going to teach me to write down my chess moves?’ Sakkie asks.

  ‘When you decide to clean the yard. You can’t let Delie slave herself off like that. You look like a gimba, getting fatter by the day.’

  ‘Oh no, that vroumens is like that. It is just like her. And by the way, my fat is none of your business. It’s your move.’

  Jonathan doesn’t really know how the game will turn out, but he moves his pawn for move’s sake. Sakkie looks at the chess board. He looks left and then right, then up and down and he checks Jonathan’s king with his queen. His eyes walks left, right, up and down again. He smiles. ‘Check mate!’

  ‘You’re joking, Sakkie,’ Jonathan says confidently. He checks and realizes he’s trapped. ‘Oh,’ he says.

  Sakkie grabs the beer bottle again and takes two gulps. He offers Jonathan, who again shakes his head.

  ‘You must stay away from that Mollie something. That one is bedonnerd. Even we dead know it. Befok I tell you. Oh and by the way she is standing behind the house busy koekeloering us, listening in.’

  ‘I can hear you Sakkie,’ Mollie calls from behind the walls. ‘You and your insults mean nothing to me, but Holy Ghost, He is listening and He is taking note. Gat ma an.’

  ‘Magtag Mollie, don’t do that. For what do you want to call like that behind the house? Come in!’

  ‘Just tell Jonathan to come with me!’ she calls.

  ‘I am staying here, Mollie,’ Jonathan replies. ‘Go and get someone else to go with you. I saw Antoon died. Go and bother him. I am staying here. Did you hear me, Mollie? I am staying here!’

  ‘You can’t stay here. Listen to Antie Mollie. You are messing with Holy Ghost’s plans.’

  ‘Man, Molly I am going to start over. I never had the time to do the things I wanted to do. I have the world’s time. Did you hear that Mollie? I have the world’s time.’

  ‘Ag, leave it, Jonathan,’ Sakkie says, clearing the board and putting the chess pieces back in the bag. ‘She will spook you till kingdom come. Go home Mollie. You heard him.’

  ‘You leave me off, Sakkie! It is between Jonathan and me.’

  ‘FOK OFF!’ Sakkie and Jonathan chorus.

  Mollie is stung. It takes a lot to hurt her feelings, but they don’t have to speak so ugly with her. After all, she is doing this for Jonathan’s sake.

  ‘Can you see now, Holy Ghost, he doesn’t want to do it. What is Holy Ghost going to do now huh?’ Mollie asks the sky.

  ‘Go home. Not today, Mollie. Holy Ghost will work His Magic. But not today,’ Holy Ghost assures her.

  When she gets home she locks after herself and gets into bed. She has not been feeling well. This chest of hers. Maybe it is how Jonathan spoke to her. Sakkie, she expected no better from him. But Jonathan was always a jintelmin when he was alive. He was never rude to her like some of the others in this town were. He was educated. Too educated to speak to a tired old woman with such a filthy ungrateful mouth. Holy Ghost, I am tired, Molly thinks to herself. Too tired for all of this. Will Holy Ghost mind if your Mollie just lies down here for a bit? Just a short while, Holy Ghost. I am not dropping my responsibilities. It is just I am not feeling myself today. I need to rest. Just for a bit. Just a little.

  The clinic volunteer who brought Mollie’s medicine the following week called the police when, after the second visit, the old woman still didn’t open the door. Jonathan, who was standing with Mollie, watched how the police broke open the door. A policeman came out vomiting on the grass. It stank, but the house was clean. They can say what they want about Mollie, that she was mad and a nuisance and all that, but her mother taught her well about keeping house.

  Later on, Delie and Sakkie joined Jonathan and Mollie to watch them carry out Mollie’s body. Mollie can’t be bothered being dead. Mollie has a lot of work to do. Holy Ghost we got Jonathan, she thinks. It looks like Holy Ghost’s plan is definitely going to work this time. There is no escaping me now. I have got all eternity to twist his arm.

  The Pair of Glasses

  There is a man in our kitchen. He looks like a teacher, with his glasses blocking his nostrils. I am sitting in front of the stove looking after the fire. The man talks about school. He talks about my teacher and about me not doing my work. I am too old for Sub B Mr. Appel reckons and this man has come to talk to Ouma about it.

  Mr. Appel doesn’t like me. He hits me with the kweper lat. Once I got twenty strikes from Mr. Appel and my hands were swollen and blue. Grandma would not hear of it and she walked to school and told Mr. Appel about his A’s and B’s and C’s. He has not bothered me since. Now this man is sitting in our kitchen. A white man. I have never heard Ouma speak so grand.

  He calls me to the table. ‘Why don’t you do your sums and letters?’

  I look at Ouma first. ‘Toe answer,’
Ouma says.

  ‘I don’t understand it Ouma, it is too hard.’

  ‘That is a lie. You help your sister with her work and she is Standard 4 already. I hear you spell and count and say your maal tafels.’

  The man looks at me. He takes out a book. ‘Read this please?’

  Somebody must have told him. What if they send me away like they did Fiela? She couldn’t learn and they sent her to the Elim Tehuis. No one has seen Fiela since that day in class. She was sitting and drawing and the next thing I knew she started shaking on the floor and there was kweil on the floor, a big puddle of it and teacher took a big spoon and put it in Fiela’s mouth. We all sat very quietly and watched.

  I look at the blurry words. I see a B here and D there. They can’t find out, so I keep me dumb. The man asks me to spell ‘doubt’ for him. My Engelse teacher said this is a word that is tricky, only clever people won’t get caught because the letters are quiet. I spell D-O-U-B-T. The man looks at me. I think, I am going to be taken away here and now.

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘Spell “Onse Vader”.’

  I spell and spell and spell, doesn’t matter what word the man asks, I spell. Then he asks me to read and I close my eyes. I can’t do it. I shut my eyes hoping everyone will go away. Ouma and the white man look very confused when I eventually open my eyes and realize they are still there.

  ‘You can go and play outside now. I need to speak to your Ouma.’

  I run out of the kitchen as fast as I can. Just now Ouma will wring my ears for being naughty to the white man, I think.

  After about half an hour, the man leaves our house and Ouma walks with him to the gate. The neighbours almost fall over their doors from hanging and being busy.

  ‘Come inside,’ she tells me and gives me a rusk. Usually, we only get rusks when we have done something good, but I don’t ask questions. I just take the rusk, glad that the white man hasn’t taken me away and that Ouma isn’t asking me to read anymore.