Zoe overhears the comments of the American couple sitting by her side: “Isn’t it absolutely gorgeous!” “And look at this light! Amazing!” They sound so enthusiastic. She wonders if their optimism will take a blow once they leave the airport and drive into town past the dreariness of informal settlements.
“You’re as skinny as a string bean!” André cries as he grabs Zoe by the waist and swings her around in the middle of the arrival hall.
“I’ve been sweating for six months.”
“How did it go, by the way?” he asks taking her bag. “Did you find the skull that will grant you your minute of celebrity?”
Suddenly that lump in her throat again.
“Let’s not talk about it,” she replies, looking away.
“Then let’s talk about tonight,” her brother hastily says walking out of the airport. The brusque change of subject startles her; but, obviously, what mostly matters to him now is the damned party. After a while, as they reach the parking lot she asks, somewhat reluctantly: “How’s it coming along?”
“Fine, I guess.” Then, as he holds the car door open for her, he says: “Cyril’s help has been invaluable.”
For a while they drive quietly across the plain towards the blue mountains, in a landscape filled with clapped-out cars and squatter shelters. With their silence, Zoe feels they are paying their respects to that “disposable” part of humanity hidden behind rags and corrugated metal walls.
“What about the old grumpy Afrikaners of the valley?” she asks, eventually breaking the spell. “Will they attend too?”
“Most of them, except for some diehards. And for Willem, of course — he took it badly.”
“Can’t be much of a surprise.”
“You never quite liked him, although you never wanted to tell me why,” André says reaching out to find his sister’s hand. “I wonder if this time I was able to serve your revenge on a silver platter.”
“It would still be a bitter serving,” she says, her eyes fixed on the road. “There is no relief in revenge.”
She, at least, didn’t feel any relief when, having just turned eighteen and obtained legal control over the estate, faced Willem to warn him to stay away from Georgina.
The drive takes them less than an hour. As they roll through the driveway to the Finistère, Zoe notices that two rows of torches have been placed along the hedges. At night they will produce the intended dramatic effect: the feeling of stepping into some gracious tale. The area in front of the main entrance has been decorated with banks of red roses and white camellias: passion and virginity — a bold, almost decadent juxtaposition. She doesn’t recognize her brother’s hand behind it.
She enters the banquet hall and tries to imagine how it will look within a few hours, by nightfall: It will be a sparkling of crystals, a romantic flickering of candles — like in mom’s time. The satin-lined sofas have been pushed against the walls and a small orchestra has been set up on a raised platform. In the smaller adjacent room, Zoe parades along the bartenders’ corner and the refreshment tables. Here and there bouquets of white lilies and roses, matching the pallid colour of the candles, have been arranged in tall, elegant glass vases.
“Did we overdo it?” André asks, joining her in the middle of the hall after having imparted some instructions to the catering manager.
“This needs to be an unforgettable evening, right?” Zoe replies, her eyes still fixed on the white lilies.
“Yes, I did it on purpose: a homage to bygone innocence,” her brother says following her gaze.
“I never thought you could be such an aesthete! Anyway, tonight he will be the real touch of colour, the Black Prince. Where’ve you hidden him, by the way? In the cellar?”
“Close. He’s doing one final check on the wine list. You’ll meet him later,” André says raising both his arms and crossing them behind his head as if to stretch himself. It’s one of those gestures Zoe likes most in him: It conveys such irrepressible confidence in himself and the world.
“You should get some rest. I bet you’re no longer used to staying up.”
“I never was. And still can’t understand why I’m here.”
“A bit of socializing can only do you good,” he says ruffling her short hair. “You’re running the risk of turning into a fossil yourself.”
Before repairing to her room Zoe goes to greet Georgina. She too is excited and busy with the preparations. “We haven’t had a party like this since your father’s best times.” She doesn’t hide her disappointment, though. “A black man at the head of the Finistère. I never thought we’d come to this.”
“You should be happy, Georgina. Things are changing, and not just because you can now cast your vote in the elections.”
“For us Coloured, nothing will change. Before, we were too dark; now, we aren’t dark enough.”
Zoe looks at her aia endearingly, assessing her words. She may well have a point. Racism is in the eye of the beholder.
“Can’t believe how mean they are to their black brothers and sisters,” Georgina says, venting her frustration. “Especially to those who come from other countries: you know, Mozambique, Congo, Zimbabwe, Malawi.”
Zoe nods sadly. The cab driver who earlier had driven her to the airport was adamant in accusing black immigrants of stealing jobs and women from local Blacks.
“They beat them and burn their shacks,” Georgina says scrubbing the kitchen table for the umpteenth time. “They should be ashamed of themselves. They’re no better than the white baas.”
“Don’t get so wound up, Ouma, it’s bad for your health,” Zoe says as she hugs her and changes the subject. “Are mother’s evening dresses still in her wardrobe?”
“Ja, always been there. You should’ve told me you wanted to wear one of them, though. I could have aired them out for you. You’ll smell of camphor.”
“I can’t expect to smell like a fresh rose. André is right, I have almost become a fossil myself. I can still be introduced as the ‘ancient’ sister dug up from an old closet.”
It has been a long time since Zoe entered her parents’ room. White linen sheets cover each piece of furniture; the whole place is wrapped in a shroud that still no one dares to touch. She opens the big wardrobe and runs her hands along a hedge of multi-coloured silk interspersed with clouds of chiffon, damask and ostrich feathers. She buries her face in it, hoping in vain to find mom’s scent, lost forever amidst the heavy notes of camphor, suffocated by that pedantic, anaesthetizing way of storing the past.
She chooses a memory: a long, forest-green silk gown with an open back, to be worn with a matching pair of gloves that reach above the elbows. Then she lies down on the bed, imagining herself to be still a little girl allowed to crawl up under the covers between mom and dad on a Sunday morning. Tiredness soon has the upper hand and she slides into a colourless sleep, adjusted to the room’s aura.
It’s Georgina who wakes her, a few hours later, softly knocking on the door.
“Am I late?” Zoe asks in alarm.
“No rush. But I figured you’d fall asleep without putting on an alarm clock. Do you need any help?”
“Nee, thank you. I just need to freshen up.”
Zoe goes to her room and takes a shower. She then fixes her hair as best as she can before slipping on the dress she has chosen. She looks at herself in the mirror: It fits her, although she finds it uncomfortably revealing. For a moment, her mom’s face — with her haughty, slightly bored look — appears over hers; for the first time she seems to be able to understand this young woman, too young. Caught in a world to which she didn’t belong and despite her unhappiness, this woman tried to love her and her brother as best as she could.
Before leaving the room, Zoe draws from Aunt Claire’s jewellery box the necklace with the pendant that their ancestress Charlotte bequeathed to her niece. She looks into the mirror again. The emerald drop perfectly matches the gown’s colour and her eyes. To no purpose, she sadly realizes.
As she comes down the last of the stairs, Zoe meets Cyril’s smile. He goes to her solicitously and kisses her gloved hand.
“You look wonderful, Zoe.”
She feels his approving gaze on her and for a moment basks in it.
“Thank you, Cyril. I haven’t had a chance to congratulate you on your new position. Welcome to the Finistère.”
“I’ll try my best to live up to the trust you and André have honoured me with.”
“I’m sure you will,” she says, glancing at the flawless white of his tuxedo.
“Always so annoyingly impeccable, aren’t I?” he says in a self-mocking tone, correctly interpreting her thoughts again.
André interrupts them in time to relieve her from the need to find a witty answer.
“Ousus! What a transformation, from a trilobite to a nymph!” Then he says quietly, his lips close to her ear: “You look just like mom.”
Zoe glances at him and sees his eyes are suddenly moist.
“Well, are we ready for the show?” Cyril asks.
André resumes his composure and turns to their partner.
“Now or never ...”
Cyril leans forward in a theatrical bow and then makes a courteous gesture inviting brother and sister to proceed to the banquet hall. Zoe doesn’t miss the knowing look the two men exchange, but just then her attention is diverted by a buzzing sound of voices. The first guests have arrived.
23
THE THIEF OF STORIES
IN THE TWO hours that follow Zoe smiles, shakes hands, sips champagne, forces herself to take part in conversations that convey nothing of interest to her, but that people seem to enjoy utterly. André introduces her to bankers, diplomats, landowners, businessmen, corporate executives — all of them accompanied by wives, girlfriends or unofficial lovers who need to be pleasantly and lavishly entertained. For the first time, she also comes into contact with members of the new black elite.
Regardless of her interlocutors’ standing or skin colour, though, Zoe realizes she doesn’t have any light conversation topics to throw around like sparkling gems. For years she hasn’t been doing much else than working with fossils and engaging in speculations concerning human evolution. In the last six months, she hasn’t once gone to the movies, watched TV, attended a theatre performance, read newspapers — there’s a whole world out there to which she no longer feels she belongs.
Yes, on her flight back to Johannesburg she read the news that De Klerk’s Afrikaner National Party left the government of national unity, while, albeit recalcitrant, the Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi is still supporting the Xhosa President Nelson Mandela. Yet, when earlier on André made some comments about the latest political developments, the only thing she was able to think of was that perhaps now her workers would have one less reason to fight.
Luckily, André and Cyril have set up things to run smoothly, and this helps her social inadequacy to go unnoticed. Indoors, a small ensemble is playing evergreen dance songs; outdoors, on the lawn facing the west wing, a video projector is churning out scenes from vintage movies. “Modern Times!” “Some like it Hot!” “Clark Gable!” “Audrey Hepburn!” cry out the guests gathered in front of the big screen as they compete in guessing movie titles and identifying lead actors.
Around eleven, Cyril approaches her. “Would you have a minute? I’d like you to meet a dear friend of mine.”
“I’m afraid I’ve run out of moves for tonight ...”
He offers her his arm and leads her to a corner where a man facing away from her is talking to a middle-aged couple.
“Kurt, let me introduce you to the godmother of the evening, Miss Zoe Du Plessis, a renowned paleoanthropologist. Zoe, this is Kurt Van der Merwe, our celebrated writer.”
The man turns to greet her. In front of her stands the thief of stories. She stares at him, speechless: on his lips, the same slightly mocking smile; only his gold-rimmed eyeglasses are missing.
“How unexpected,” she murmurs, suddenly realizing why his face looked somewhat familiar when they met at the Drostdy. How could she not recognize the bard of the volk, the Afrikaner poet who in her youth every Boer would die for? But then he turned political, started to criticize the apartheid regime and got imprisoned ...
“It was written in the desert sand we’d see each other again, Mejuffrou,” Kurt says stretching out his hand.
“Apparently, you’ve already met,” Cyril says with a small note of disappointment in his voice.
“Just the time of a cigarette in the night,” the writer says, looking intently at her.
“Zoe,” Cyril goes on quickly recovering his poise, “let me also introduce you to Zelda and Steve Gordon. They finally decided to pay us a visit.”
“And what better occasion than this one!” Zelda cries showing her perfect teeth. “Such a fabulous party!”
“Just to give you the whole picture,” Cyril says for Zoe’s sake, “Zelda and Steve are our biggest wine importers from the East Coast.”
She shakes hands, smiling faintly at the two well-fed, well-dressed, overly self-confident Americans. She remains silent, though, still bewildered by the renewed encounter with the stranger from Graaf-Reinet.
“We were talking about Africa,” Zelda says, coming to her rescue with the typical savoir-faire of those accustomed to doing public relations and filling uneasy silences. She is a small and heavily tanned woman in her mid-forties, swathed in an elaborate periwinkle dress.
“We were wondering why we Westerners are so irremediably drawn to this continent,” her husband says, looking at ease in his sporty bearing — as if life were a well-established series of court games.
Greed, perhaps? Zoe tells herself, but refrains from open comments — too predictable, by the way, and too polemical.
“Ex Africa semper aliquid novi,” Kurt answers for her, putting his hands back in his pockets. “There is always something new out of Africa, argued Pliny the Elder.” He has a deep voice, but the tone is dismissive, laconic, like the one often used by British men of good standing. He speaks English with no apparent accent, Zoe now notices.
The couple exchanges a puzzled look: Kurt’s lofty cultural remark has momentarily silenced them. Zelda, however, doesn’t give up. Waving a hand in the air with her long, red-lacquered fingernails, she says to no one in particular: “Actually, I meant something different. The East can either charm you or leave you indifferent. But when one gets to Africa ... this place really gets under your skin, doesn’t it?” She stops abruptly, looking at Kurt’s blank expression, realizing she has been talking too much.
“Le mal d’Afrique, here it is again,” Cyril says. “We owe it to you writers this bestselling idea of white man’s nostalgia for Africa.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Zelda’s husband says, happy to have found some common ground.
All this time, Zoe has been watching Kurt’s eyes. Their slate gray-blueness contains a sombre, almost metallic shade, like skies about to quickly cloud over. And, like the first time, she senses they harbour an unspoken sadness. Just then, the writer slightly tilts his head towards her, making a swift gesture with his left hand as if to dismiss Cyril’s comment.
“Let’s hear from Professor Du Plessis instead,” he says lifting his glass of red wine towards her. “She is the real expert here, and not only because of her field of study; from what I gather, her family tree is deeply rooted in this continent.”
Zoe stiffens at the mention of her family’s past. After a moment of awkward silence, she turns to the couple and tries to speak as amiably as possible: “Well, none of us gets easily away with our ancestral origins. They’re part and parcel of what we are as humans.”
“Damn all those poor anthropomorphic apes,” Cyril says, wrapping an ironic tone in one of his bright smiles.
“I guess we come to Africa like teenagers still in search of their moorings,” Zelda says.
“Or better, like adopted children looking for their biological makers,” her husband says.
“Somehow,” Zoe says choosing to go along with the couple’s rather bland remarks. “We now know we were inside Africa’s womb some immemorial time ago. That’s why we can’t walk past her as if she never existed. Instinctively, we feel it’s here where we truly belong — at least as a species.”
“Nice,” Kurt says. “A wee bit rhetorical, perhaps.”
“Perhaps,” she admits looking sternly at him. “But I guess it’s in our nature to try and create a grander narrative of our story.”
“And Africa can provide a most memorable script. Like in the movies,” Kurt says without concealing a tinge of sarcasm.
“You’re not fair here, my dear friend,” Cyril says in a merry tone, trying to curb Kurt’s mordancy. “‘To know ourselves we have to run through Africa’s psychic tunnel.’ Isn’t that what you once said?”
“Right. We won’t know Africa until we get to fear it. In pain and terror.”
Zoe senses the situation has taken on surreal tones. Five people, apparently with very little in common, are busy constructing or deconstructing Africa. She nods at the two Americans who are watching her graciously, grateful for her words. She can’t be dismissive of those who seek to understand Africa, even when they look at it through the mystique of a continent. She doesn’t despise foreigners who land here in search of a dream, a romantic idea to be grasped over a hasty holiday. True, they arrive wearing well-ironed khaki shirts, big game hunting boots, explorer binoculars, and most of the time they seem to leave without many more clues than they came with.
But the Whites who “stayed,” sometimes generation after generation, are no better — only more cynical, disaffected, or embittered by what lurks beneath the surface, behind the umpteenth magic sunset on the savannah. If those Whites want to dream, to break free — even momentarily — from the burden of their African lives, they fly away. They go to London, Rome, Paris, New York, to be in the midst of people who, in their own way, are disillusioned and cynical. She calls it the symmetry of disenchantment. Sure, it doesn’t happen to all of them, but it happens. Frequently enough.
The Afrikaner Page 13