Tjieng Tjang Tjerries and Other Stories

by Jolyn Phillips

  Nettie looked at Hanna, who was sitting on the floor looking at the hem of her dress, ‘And what does Hanna want for Krismis?’

  ‘Pop. Ma koep. Mamma buy doll.’

  ‘Shame, doesn’t she know Antie Lena passed away?’

  Ma shook her head, ‘I don’t want to break her heart.’

  But then Hanna got sick again, Hanna couldn’t stop crying. She knew Antie Lena was not coming back.

  ‘Mamma in die kissie. Mamma weg.’ Mamma in the coffin. Mamma gone.

  Ma just smoked, smoked, smoked, and trembled throughout Hanna’s howling. ‘She’s found out about Antie Lena,’ Ma told me when I asked her what was wrong with Hanna. In the end, Ma sent me to go and buy her chocolate at Andries Kafee. But now Hanna didn’t want it.

  Hanna was sad for three weeks. Sometimes she would stop and just lay there. People from our street brought her cheese sandwiches and ‘stamp en stoot’ soup, but she didn’t want that either. Ma was struggling to make her eat. The doctor said maybe it’s her tummy, and gave her syrup.

  She got thinner and thinner. She looked like an old woman and her face sunk in. She looked scary and her eyes looked like they wanted to fall out. Especially when she’s sleeping, she was born with eyelids that couldn’t close all the way.

  ‘Ma, is Hanna going to be okay?’ I asked one night after the doctor had left.

  ‘Yes, dear. Ma’s going to be with her all night. Go to sleep.’

  The next morning when I got up the house was quiet. I walked to the kitchen and saw Nettie busy cooking porridge, stirring with the one hand and resting the other one on her side.

  ‘Where’s my Ma?’

  ‘Môre hond.’

  I realized I was being rude. That was Nettie’s way of saying, ‘Don’t you greet?’

  I ate as fast as I could because Nettie is a funny old woman. She always looks at me funny. Like she can see through me. I gulped up my porridge and ran outside to play with Tokolosie.

  ‘Djy, I was waiting for you the whole time, my broe,’ Tokolosie said excitedly. ‘Here was a taxi with big red lights with a machine inside it and they flied zoop down the street with your Ma and Hanna. What happened?’

  I pulled up my shoulders, ‘Let’s play gutties.’

  Ma came home only later on with an entjie in the mouth. She wouldn’t talk about Hanna. Wouldn’t say she was dead. She and Nettie were cleaning the whole day. Then the next day we had church in our house and then it was the funeral. Ma could just have told me Hanna was dead or maybe it was obvious, I don’t know, but she could have told me. I was angry about that but thought that maybe it was because of Wapie that she didn’t want to talk about death and dying.

  There were a lot of people at the funeral, more than at Antie Lena’s even. The service was not so long. We had it at our house and then at the graveyard. Afterwards, there was cake and tea at the church hall. Ma was running up and down, serving people and welcoming and smiling. Ma was still talking to Nettie when Antie Charmaine walked in. She was wearing the same upstairs-shoes that she wore to Antie Lena’s funeral. This time, though, she had big sunglasses on too. The whole hall went quiet looking at her like they were somehow thinking that this would chase Antie Charmaine away. But she clicked clicked clicked towards Ma.

  ‘I am sorry Daleen. I–’

  ‘Let’s talk outside, Charmaine.’

  I ran after them and Ma didn’t chase me away. We got into the golden car and the whole time Ma looked like she was inspecting Antie Charmaine. I don’t think Antie Charmaine noticed. We drove to the graveyard, to Hanna’s place. We got out and walked and walked towards the newly dug grave. When we were there, Antie Charmaine took out an envelope.

  ‘This is for you. Open it.’

  Ma opened the envelope and read the rectangle paper. ‘This is so much money. I can’t take–’

  ‘Please take it. It was Hanna’s. Mamma left it for her in her last testament. I am sure you will need it.’

  ‘No. I can’t accept it. And don’t come here and assume what my family needs. We have enough to get by.’

  ‘Ag, you know I didn’t mean it like that, Daleen.’

  ‘Well, you know what Ouma always said: “Erf geld is swerf geld”.’

  ‘Well, what must I then do with the money?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe, Charmaine, you can buy Hanna and your Ma a nice tombstone.’

  ‘Maybe. We can talk about it later then?’

  Ma was standing next to her and she wanted to put her arms around Antie Charmaine, but by accident she knocked her big sunglasses off her face and Antie Charmaine had a big blue poep eye. Charmaine quickly put her glasses back on and left Ma standing with her mouth hanging open.

  ‘Wait Charmaine! Come here! The cheque!’ Ma called after her, but she had already driven off. ‘Liewe aarde,’ Ma said with her hands over her mouth. ‘No wonder. Antie Lena could have said something instead of praying for Charmaine. If I had known…’ Ma fixed the flowers around Hanna’s cross and looked at me playing toktokkies in the sand.

  ‘Not a word to anyone about this. You hear me, meisiekint,’ Ma told me.

  Too scared to talk, I just nodded my head fast.

  ‘Our business is our business.’ said Ma. ‘Come, let’s go home.’

  Lelik

  The dog just came here one day. No one knew where he came from and I don’t think anyone was looking for him. The dog looked brandsiek like a pavement special, a mix between a poodle and a husky. Shame, the poor thing was ugly and that was the end of it. I felt so sorry for him, so I let him sleep in my yard. I gave bones and leftovers for the dog to eat, but he stayed thin. Later on, we got used to each other. He never listened to my commands, but he would walk all the way to the stop sign at the end of our street and wait there for me until I returned from the Andries Café in Skool Street. One day I thought, Ag, give the poor thing a name. I started calling him Snuffles then Fluffy, then Ore, but he never responded when I called him those names. Until old Hennie came over one day, for coffee and a few ginger cookies. He actually lived here, in my house, but sometimes he forgot. He didn’t remember who he was or where he came from – it’s the wine that made him like that, so I treated him like he was a long-lost cousin, or someone visiting from a faraway country. Hennie liked that. He changed his role every day.

  That day the dog comes up to Hennie and starts sniffing his ankles. Hennie says, ‘Shu, but that is a bloody ugly dog!’

  Suddenly the dog sits up, waving his tail excitedly.

  ‘That’s it!’ I cried, ‘The blerrie dog’s name is Lelik! You know, Hennie, I have been looking for a name for the thing for quite some time now. I think he likes the name Lelik.’

  But enough about the dog. Let me tell you more about Old Hennie. He is maar a strange oomie, a wanderer. He has nine fingers and he has an Afrikaans accent that sounds like the skop, skiet and donner American movies we watch every Friday on Etv. Heaven knows where he got it, and I never cared to ask, now that I think about it. Years ago Hennie worked in a butchery, next to Susan’s in town. One evening he had to close the shop and he wanted to steal some meat before he went home, but he was too drunk and ended up cutting off his index finger, shame. I am not even his child, but I look after him because he murdered all his brain cells with the papsak. It was very bad. One evening he came home, I was hanging over the gate watching him come down the road, just like an ouroeke. He stood there with a businessman smile and asked me very politely, ‘Do you know where Josephine Fielies lives?’

  I burst out laughing. You see, of course, I am Josephine Fielies and he didn’t even remember it, so soft has his brain got from all the drinking. I laughed until it felt like my stomach muscles were pulling apart. Until I found myself crying. I couldn’t believe that Hennie had just asked me where I, Josephine Fielies, lived. I took him by the arm and invited him in for a cup of coffee, still hot. He drank it like it was cool drink, in one go. It’s as if his body forgot to react to the pain. He had forgotten how to be huma
n. That is what I told myself. Afterwards, he went into the bedroom to rest after his third cup of ‘boeretroos’, as he calls it when he is the rich boer from Baardskeerdersbos. He seemed a bit weak. I knew that soon it would be my responsibility to change his nappies also. His body was getting weaker by the day. That is what I told myself. Sometimes he just sat there like he was dead, his entire body unable to move. He mumbled nonsense things like, ‘Spider webs, spider webs, spider webs’ and went back to looking like a statue.

  Once, it was a Monday morning and I was busy making cabbage stew, I didn’t hear him come to the kitchen and he screamed, ‘Spinnerakke!’ The Lord must forgive me for my French, maar ek het my binne in my moer geskrik. All you saw was a wooden spoon and cabbage flying in the air. ‘Hygend! The focking jong.’

  Old Hennie and Lelik became best friends. Wherever Hennie was, so was Lelik. Old Hennie couldn’t walk so fast anymore, that is why Lelik walked behind him, and if you dared to touch Hennie, Lelik would vreet your ankles. It was like the dog was protecting the old man. So at least I didn’t worry too much, Lelik was there to look after Hennie if he got himself into any trouble. So it was strange when one day Lelik came home by himself without Hennie. But I just thought to myself, maybe it is because old Hennie is walking slower, or visiting a neighbour. After a few hours and still no Hennie, I went to check whether Hennie was sitting at the edge of the street sign, the one made from concrete. It was his usual spot to smoke his pipe. But Hennie was nowhere to be seen. I became worried when the street lights began to lighten up the street. Darkness was coming and still no Hennie. I then walked over to his son’s house, and we drove to the police because that son of Hennie’s has a car now. That house used to be Hennie’s. But the son had made it his and didn’t worry about his father who was too sick to know home from the street. The police officer stood behind the counter and told us to come back in 72 hours, only then can they declare him as missing. I swear it was the longest 72 hours of my life. After 72 hours we went back. Still no Hennie. The policeman made us fill in a form. He asked if we had any photos. I only had one, of when we were younger, before Hennie’s brain went deurmekaar. When he still worked at the factory. It doesn’t look much like him now, but I still gave it to the policeman.

  People started looking, the dogs and the inspectors were looking, and the local newspaper asked the community to be on the lookout. Months later his face was even on the TV. Everyone searched, except for Lelik.

  Meanwhile, Hennie’s eldest son took over the house and shamelessly put his two brothers out. Maybe it served them right for not taking care of their father properly. The eldest couldn’t wait to turn the house into a hotel, for him and his family. Ticket, his younger brother, lives with me in the old caravan in the back yard. Skerul, the second eldest, sleeps with his meide; he has one in almost every part of Gansbaai. How the eldest got the house is a mystery. When I asked the brothers how they got put out, they just say, ‘We don’t want to talk about it now.’ I didn’t ask further because I take pride in keeping my nose out of other people’s business. To think the eldest brother didn’t give me a blue cent, not a blooming tiekie for looking after his father. But the Lord will provide, it is no use complaining, He will provide. And Lelik, he is still living here with me, barely leaving the yard.

  I cannot believe it has been eight years since Hennie went missing. I for one still believe to this day that Hennie is alive. One of these good days he will return from his long trip and visit. I wonder what he will be this time. Probably a Frenchman or an Ingels Jintelmin. I will invite him in for coffee like before and we will eat lamingtons and oliebolle – those are his favourite. At the moment, Lelik is my only hope. I know Lelik knows where his friend is. The only problem is I talk and Lelik barks.

  Senna’s Cricket Song

  Every evening before Senna goes to sleep she dreams the story her father told her when she was a little girl. The room she has in Blikkiesdorp only has a bed and the cupboard that came with her when she moved in with her uncle when she was ten years old. Her suitcase is on top of the cupboard. She sleeps on the single bed. They have a bathroom, kitchen and a Wendy house attached to the house that has become her room, even though most of Aunty Liedja’s things are in her room. Oom Mannie decided to make her the room. He said that she was getting too big to share a room with them. This room smells like tobacco and sweat whenever her uncle has paid her a visit. He made a quick visit tonight. He doesn’t like that her stomach has grown so big. ‘Goeie Griet,’ he said, ‘you look like a watermelon.’

  She has only her dreams to hang onto when Oom Mannie leaves her room at night. When she dreams, the sun becomes as flat as the horizon and she and Pappa sit there on the bank where they listen to all the songs that come from the dam.

  ‘Can you hear the crickets, Senna? Can you hear what they are singing about?’ Pappa asks.

  ‘Ag, it is easy Pappa. They are singing for the night. Pappa told me so the last time.’

  ‘And why do you think they sing for the night?’

  Senna looks around and notices the pear tree that stands there doer by Oom Fanie’s house. From afar the little house looks like a white square with a yellow dot inside of it. The answer can surely not be there, Senna thinks to herself and decides to throw her look to the road. The Boer’s bakkie drove by a moment ago, but the orange dust stands there waiting for everything to go to sleep. Senna turns to her Pappa and looks for the answers in his eyes, half smiling at her.

  ‘I don’t know, Pappa. Please tell me, toe asseblief.’

  ‘All right. One day there was a woman by the name of Ou Tante Koba. She had a hunchback and smelled like tobacco that crept through her polka-dot doekie like a little grey cloud. She knew all the secrets of Paardenberg. But then one day she told the secret to a farmer and the farmer told his wife and soon the whole Paardenberg knew the secret.’

  ‘Now, what was the secret, Pappa?’

  ‘We don’t know. You see every time someone spread the secret to someone else they were cursed. They went deaf and dumb. They couldn’t speak.’

  ‘Owuh. So that is why Pappa don’t know?’

  ‘Yes, but I think it is because the night sings back to them, Senna. Just try for yourself.’

  Senna calls her name to the woods as loud as she can. She hears the night echo back her name and when she laughs it does the same.

  Senna’s dream ends with her Pappa’s arms around her, but then she wakes up and she loses him. She wants to stay with Pappa, but Pappa is dead. She lives with her Aunty Liedja and her husband Oom Mannie now.

  Oom Mannie told her that she will never leave because she belongs to him. He says this with a threat in his eyes, looking at her, at her watermelon. She is scared of him, but he is the only one that tells her that she is his everything. He was her first kiss when she was twelve. He still brings her Chomps chocolates and lollipops on a Friday. She must always keep her clean, but his body smells like fish maize, like a woman who is unclean.

  They came to fetch her when she was seven with Baas Flakkas’ Isuzu bakkie with the grey and black stripes. She didn’t have other people until Antie Liedja came to fetch her. It was always her and Pappa. Pappa was supposed to be with her because they were each other’s family, but he had died now. She doesn’t mind her Antie Liedja complaining about her anymore.

  ‘We don’t have money to keep on another child. Can’t she stay with someone else? Let the welfare deal with it.’

  ‘Haai nee Liedja, we can’t do that. Just throw her away like that. The government gives money for babies.’ Everyone in Blikkiesdorp calls it The Mandela Fund. ‘She has nowhere to go, Liedja. You know there is no one left on Paardenberg.’

  ‘Well, it is not my fault my brother went and threw his life away. Why did he go to work if he knew he had TB? He wasn’t thinking. He could have left Paardenberg when we left. He loved that farm too much and look where it got him. Now we must clean up his rubbish.’

  For a few good years, Senna had hoped that
they would give her away to someone else, but she is going to be sixteen soon and she is still stuck here. And she has not seen the farm since. She wakes up with Antie Liedja’s scowling. She is never satisfied with what Senna does. The kitchen is not shiny enough. The floors need scrubbing. Antie Liedja said that she had to work to pay off her father’s funeral. Senna has learned to put up with it because she knows by eleven Antie Liedja leaves the house to play on the little machines at the hotel in town. She sits there the whole day and plays the machines, but she has never won the jackpot. Antie Liedja tells Oom Mannie that she goes there to double her pay. She plays out all the money and sometimes there is not even enough for bread, then she has to ask the neighbours. But she says that Senna must be grateful because she has gotten too big to do all the chores.

  Today Senna looks at herself very attentively in the mirror. She is in Antie Liedja’s room. Sometimes she puts on her church clothes and pretends to be her, but she can’t fit into them anymore, so now she just looks at herself. Her breasts feel sensitive and heavy. Her old bras don’t fit her anymore. Her stomach has grown as big as a watermelon and her naval makes a point like the end of a balloon.

  ‘We must hope and pray that Antie Liedja brings some food for us, waatlemoentjie,’ she says softly to her stomach, while both her hands rest on her stomach. ‘Do you know Pappa would have loved to see you? I can bet you that he would have told you the story about the crickets. What do you think waatlemoentjie? I promise you when I go and fetch you at the hospital in Hermanus I will take you to Paardenberg. I am sure that the Boer Pappa worked for will remember me. He will give us a place to stay. I know it. I will not allow Oom Mannie to knyp you like he did me. We are going to be really happy. I promise.’

  Senna sings while she grabs the big dress the neighbour gave her.

  Jy’s my lemoentjie

  Kom haal jou soentjie

  In die moredou

  Jy’s my lemoentjie