Leopold Blue

by Rosie Rowell

  ‘Sunday is a day of rest, to be spent in fellowship at church and at home, not careering around the countryside, upsetting hard-working people.’

  I lowered my eyes, and sank into the wooden seat. Juffrou pushed her chair back and stood up. In the social hierarchy of Leopold, Juffrou du Plessis was second only to Mevrou[*] Dominee, the Dutch Reformed church minister’s wife. The du Plessis family had been farming in the area for almost 200 years. Juffrou ran the Kinderkrans[*] group, and presided over the flower show committee and the Leopold Women’s Circle. She could smell out mischief before it had been committed. She was the public opinion. On matters of interest that arose outside town, her friend Santie de Vries, who worked the telephone exchange, fed her daily updates. Now it appeared that Mum was beginning to annoy her.

  ‘Trappe van vergelyken[**].’ She picked up her ruler and pointed to the blackboard, across which three examples were written. She started down a row. The ruler was poised, ready to smash onto a desk as she passed.

  ‘Right,’ she barked at Martie.

  ‘More right, the most right,’ replied Martie quickly.

  ‘No, Martie, if you are right, you are right. End of story,’ said Juffrou, looking in my direction. She stopped at the back of the classroom and leaned briefly against the display board. It was dedicated to her ‘Home-Grown Heroes’. The opera singer Mimi Coertse had been there so long that she was beginning to fade. Next to her were Chris Barnard, Bles Bridges, and Gary Player. In the centre of the display were her two favourites – Naas Botha and Steve Hofmeyr. ‘Proper young men, those two. Decent boys,’ she’d say, nodding at the Huis Genoot[***] pull-outs.

  ‘Foolish.’ She was off again, this time pouncing on Sunette. I twisted the skirt of my dress as she made her way towards me. Dad had laughed when I told him I was terrified of Juffrou. ‘Sonja du Plessis?’ he’d said. ‘It’s all bark. She’s a big softie really.’ By now the Big Softie had reached the top of my row and I was finding it difficult to breathe. As she started towards me, something caught her eye and she turned to the door. Through the centre pane of glass we saw tannie Hanneke, the school secretary, beckoning her.

  Juffrou called out an exercise before hurrying away.

  I breathed out slowly.

  ‘You’re in trouble!’ Esna swivelled around in her desk and picked up my pen. Esna had completely bypassed adolescence – she’d left for the holidays at the end of last year with a bit too much puppy fat and returned in January a tannie.

  ‘No I’m not,’ I said, taking the pen out of her sticky fingers.

  ‘No man, not her, her mother!’ said Elmarie next to her. Elmarie Goosen was the only person who ever offered to be my best friend. We were eight years old. I’d been to stay with her a few times. She lived on a large family farm in the mountains. Our weekends were spent jumping down into the silos filled with acorns for the pigs and making tea parties for her dolls and running away from her demonic younger brother Flip. At mealtimes Elmarie’s mother practised her English words on me. ‘Chutney’ was her favourite – it made Elmarie and Flip laugh. On Sunday we gathered in her grandfather’s lounge for a hymn and prayers while P.W. Botha smiled benignly down at us from his gold-framed photograph on the wall, in a manner not unlike the Pope. Then on Monday morning, while it was still dark, we drank sweet moer koffie[*] and ate beskuit[**] under crocheted blankets in the back of the bakkie[*] and drove to town in time for school. I loved it.

  Our friendship lasted until the day I let slip that my second-best friend was Simon. This put Elmarie in an impossible position. My admission made me a rooinek kaffir-dogtertjie[**] and no friendship could survive that. I ran home in tears and found my parents sitting at the kitchen table, about to have lunch. Dad gave me a squeeze and told me that it wasn’t Elmarie’s fault; she was operating from a very limited gene pool. Mum gathered me on to her lap, and for a moment looked ready to cry. Then she stood up, deposited me on a chair and announced she was taking this matter to the headmistress. Dad disagreed. Under the circumstances it would only damage ‘relations’. Mum put her finger on her lips and they moved off to continue their discussion behind a closed door. I was left on the kitchen chair, clutching my damp tissue. It was only then that I noticed Marta, who must have been there all along. She placed my favourite peanut butter and cheese sandwich and a glass of Oros on the table. She turned my chair to face her and knelt down, leaning in so that her browny-black eyes were inches from mine.

  ‘You listen to me,’ she said, her knobbly finger poking my shoulder, ‘Never again do you let that Elmarie Goosen make you cry, do you understand?’ I nodded, fighting back another bout of tears, ‘You are Margaret Bergman, you do not cry for no one.’

  ‘OK,’ I’d promised and started on my sandwich in case I started all over again. I never did cry after that day, but neither did I mention Simon again.

  Elmarie and Esna had been best friends ever since, and to prove it they spent lunch breaks doing French plaits in each other’s hair.

  ‘It’s your mother,’ Elmarie smirked now. ‘She’s causing trouble. My dad says so, he says she’s making mischief.’

  I rolled my eyes. Everything Elmarie said was qualified by ‘my dad says’.

  But she was not finished. ‘He says she’s upsetting the volk on all the farms with stories about some disease and saying they must go the clinic for check-ups.’

  Esna looked alarmed.

  ‘My dad says it’s giving the farmers a big bladdy headache. And for what? What business is it of hers?’

  They looked at me, as if I knew the answer. I looked down. One of Mum’s strands of hair had snaked itself around the sleeve of my school jersey. I picked it off and flicked it away. How dare she do this to me? I wouldn’t defend her, I couldn’t. Instead I looked out the window. ‘Ooh, look over there! It’s Jaco Visagie! What’s he doing here?’

  ‘Where?’ Esna jumped out of her desk, sending the wooden seat clattering back and knocking her books to the floor. She had been devoted to Jaco, the local hunk from the agricultural college, for over a year. She hadn’t said a word to him, but according to her he was spoken for.

  ‘Vark!’ she sneered at me, resembling a pig herself.

  ‘I wonder if Jaco will be asked to the matric dance?’ I continued. Elmarie hid a smile. Dates for the school leavers’ dance were hard to find in Leopold. The agricultural college was the only source of boys in town. Unless you knew someone who was willing to drive three hours to drink Coke and Fanta and dance to the local squashbox band, you were stuck with one of them.

  Juffrou reappeared. Her face was red and in a burst of energy unlike her, she started calling out commands before she’d sat down: ‘Come, come! Top of page 152.’ She pulled out her hankie from inside the top of her dress and dabbed away a few crumbs from her top lip. ‘Ag genade[*], Isabel, why are you not ready?’

  Juffrou glowered from her table, her ruler and pencil poised like a knife and fork. Once and then again she glanced at the closed classroom door.

  ‘Begin, child, begin,’ she said as Isabel haltingly started to read.

  A few moments later came the clack, clack, clack of the headmistress Mrs Franklin’s stilettos down the corridor.

  A rap on the door, followed without pause by her entry, had us all clambering to our feet. Mrs Franklin was small and fierce. Even in the sweltering heat she remained crisp and efficient. We rattled off our greeting as Juffrou tugged her hemline back over her petticoat.

  ‘Juffrou du Plessis.’ Mrs Franklin smiled broadly.

  ‘Headmistress.’ Juffrou beamed back, her hands folded one on top of the other. Their perfect manners highlighted their mutual dislike.

  Mrs Franklin turned to us. ‘We have a newcomer today.’ She looked back over her shoulder towards the classroom door with an impatient frown, before the bright smile returned. ‘I’m sure you will all make her feel welcome, just as I am assured she will make every effort,’ here she paused, ‘to make the best of her time here.’

  I
t was the same each time a new girl arrived. In the moments before she stepped into the classroom I would clutch at a wild hope that at last I might have a friend. And then she would step in and have long blonde hair caught back in a scrunchie and her ankle socks would be rolled right down over her carefully tanned legs and I knew that to her, I was one of the dim locals. Nothing would make her want to speak to me.

  ‘Her name is Xanthe, and she will join your class as soon as she can find her way back from the school boarding house. Ah! There you are!’ She beckoned at the doorway and into the classroom stepped a tall, pale girl with very black hair. Mrs Franklin pointed to the empty space next to me. ‘Margaret, we will assign Xanthe to your capable care.’

  I looked at my fingers to hide my blush.

  ‘That’s all.’ With a last nod at Juffrou, Mrs Franklin left. For a few moments the only sound was the echo of her shoes disappearing down the corridor.

  *. Cowhide whip

  *. ‘Dominee’ is the church minister, and the minister’s wife is referred to as ‘Mevrou Dominee’

  *. Children’s bible school

  **. Degrees of comparison

  ***. Local Afrikaans magazine

  *. Stove-top brewed, sweet coffee

  **. Rusk

  *. Pick-up truck

  **. Extremely negative term for a white person (‘dogtertjie’ meaning ‘little girl’) who sympathised with the cause of the black community

  *. Oh mercy

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Xanthe stood at the front of the classroom, satchel hanging off her left hand. In those first moments it wasn’t her pale, long, skinny legs that caught my attention, or the way the blue school shift hung from her like a tent, as though her body had rejected it as it would an invasion of foreign cells. It wasn’t her sharp pixie hairstyle, or its aggressively black colour that struck me, or even her arctic-blue eyes – what impressed me about this girl, standing alone at the front of the class, was her lack of interest in her surroundings. She stared ahead; her eyes were fixed on the wall behind Juffrou.

  ‘Bye, then, darling, bye!’ called a motherly voice from the corridor. It sounded twinkly and bright, like a mum in a washing powder advert. The girl turned briefly but made no reply. Juffrou eyed her for a moment, not bothering to disguise her thoughts, then clapped her hands, shooing her towards the desk.

  Elmarie swung around, delighted that I had been dumped with this odd-looking girl. I flicked the top of my third finger against my thumb at her. I didn’t want her ruining what had turned into an interesting afternoon. As the girl sat down, I shifted away, to give her space. When she didn’t say anything, or even return my smile, I had a horrible feeling that I had moved too far. I had been rude. I moved back, but now I was almost on top of her. Red-faced and hot, I sat in the middle of my seat, determined not to move for the rest of the lesson.

  Juffrou du Plessis made her bark of a cough to bring the class back to order then fixed her eyes on the new girl: ‘Well, now, Santie, welcome to our class. Let’s add you to our register,’ she said opening the wide book; ‘So that’s s - a - n?’ she raised an eyebrow.

  ‘X.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘X - a - n - t - h - e.’ The girl spelled her name with an admirable slowness. It stopped a shadow short of being rude. Her accent sounded virtually foreign. That would make her from Cape Town. They often did that.

  Juffrou frowned in confusion. ‘Really?’ Her heavy Afrikaans accent lingered on the vowel sounds.

  ‘Yes.’

  Juffrou did not approve of outlandish names. A few years back there had been a Hermione. Juffrou had called her Hester. She raised her eyebrows as she entered the name on the register. ‘I’ve never heard of that name myself. But then one learns something new every day, don’t you think, Sonia?’ The last sentence was delivered in a loud voice and accompanied by a small piece of chalk that landed inches from Sonia’s left hand. Juffrou waited for silence. ‘Of course the local indigenous people, the Xhosa,’ she rested on the ‘osa’ and took a breath, ‘use all their “x”s to make a click sound, so why not use an “s” for a “z” sound instead,’ she said with a little laugh.

  We stared back.

  Another cough. ‘Exercise five. Sonia, seeing you have so much to say today, why don’t you proceed.’

  Xanthe unzipped her Tipp-Ex-graphitised pencil case. Her fingernails were filed into a square shape. A couple of pencils spilled out of the case. She reached in and pulled out a thick silver fountain pen. It looked old and heavy. The lid was bordered at the top and bottom with a gold rim. Midway up the brushed silver base was an inscription. She stared at it for a moment and then put it back in the pencil case and took out a black ballpoint pen.

  What was a smart pen doing in a scruffy pencil case? It was the most beautiful pen I’d ever seen. It was the first time I’d considered that a pen could be beautiful.

  A few minutes before the end of the lesson Juffrou left again. As the door shut Elmarie and Esna swung around. Elmarie frowned at Xanthe before saying in Afrikaans: ‘What happened to your hair?’

  Esna clapped her hands to her mouth and giggled.

  Xanthe lifted her gaze to Elmarie, then closed her eyes.

  I smiled. Elmarie had no choice but to swivel back in her seat.

  ‘Did you see her eyes?’ Elmarie said loudly in Afrikaans. ‘Like a witch.’

  ‘Don’t witches have yellow eyes? Like werewolves? Her eyes were icy blue,’ replied Esna.

  Elmarie clicked her tongue. ‘It was her expression, then. But there was definitely something witch-like about her.’

  ‘I thought she looked more like a cat,’ replied Esna.

  ‘Why are you two being so rude?’ I said, purposefully in English, sounding too much like Mum. ‘She’s not stupid, you know. She understands everything you’re saying.’

  Dad called the local white community’s attitude ‘frontier philosophy’. ‘When you’re the obvious minority,’ he’d explained to Mum many times, ‘your existence is constantly under threat. There is no room for diversity.’

  ‘Actually, I try not to understand anything in that language,’ said Xanthe, the first words she’d spoken.

  They swivelled back. ‘You will have a very bad time in Leopold, then,’ said Esna in her severe English.

  ‘Not long before it’s bye-bye Santie,’ added Elmarie.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Xanthe. ‘And don’t ever call me Santie again – it’s a zuh sound – as in xenophobia.’

  I laughed at the blank expression on their faces. ‘Zuh as in zulu.’

  ‘OK, Santie,’ Esna said, getting up as the bell rang.

  We were the last two left in the classroom. After my bizarre behaviour ealier, I wanted to start again. Xanthe stuffed her notepad and pencil case into her satchel and picked up a printed map of the school. She looked up at me and smiled. Or maybe she didn’t, and I assumed she had, and I rushed in with, ‘Hi! I’m Margaret!’

  At the same time she said: ‘Uh – where is the secretaries’ office?’

  I smiled, too brightly. ‘Straight down the passage.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, walking out the classroom.

  ‘Hang on, I’ll show you!’ I called, grabbing my bag.

  But she was gone.

  I slumped into the desk. I had not met many people before – everyone I knew had been here forever, occupying their place on the canvas of our town, moving in and out of focus as they became more or less relevant to me. Sometimes, out of boredom, Simon and I used to assign each other characters for the day, but that wasn’t the same. Simon could never be anyone but himself. The first time Mum saw Dad she had apparently walked up to him and started talking, as if they had been in the middle of a conversation five minutes previously. Mum said she was so nervous that she had to pretend they were already friends. Dad said he felt hypnotised, like a helpless chicken, and by the time he came to, a strange woman had taken control of his life.

  What did this gi
rl Xanthe think of me? What would I think of me on first meeting? A freckly girl with honey-brown (not ‘mousy’, as Beth claimed) hair; tall but podgy (‘puppy fat,’ Mum insisted) with a permanent frown. I kicked the seat in front of me so that it clattered down on its hinges. At the front of the room, Juffrou’s handwriting, warm, warmer, die warmste, looped its way across the blackboard. Boring, more boring, the most boring, said a voice in my head. Even Esna left an impression. Xanthe had forgotten me before she’d even left the classroom. Worse than that, it was if she hadn’t registered me at all.

  The voice in my head spoke again, with such cold, clear force that I gripped the edge of the desk: maybe it wasn’t this town that was the problem. Maybe it was me.

  I left the classroom, dragging my despondency behind me. At the front of the building I paused. All that was waiting for me at home was my black mood, skulking about my bedroom. I could afford to take my time.

  From the steps you could see the whole valley. Today Bosmansberg looked like a cardboard cut-out against the sharp sky. A few waterfalls remained from the recent rains. They leaked down the creases of the rocky hillside like silver tendrils.

  At the foot of Bosmansberg was the clump of factory-like buildings of the agricultural college and its surrounding fields, separated from the town by the river. Its fat green banks snaked up the valley floor like a lazy boomslang[*], all the way to the pine and cedar forests in the distance.

  Leopold’s three longest roads, Main Street, De Wet Street and Voortrekker Street, ran parallel to the river. Nobody knew who De Wet was or why he had a street named after him. A fire in the town hall in the early 1900s had destroyed all the original town records.

  The streets, like stripes across the town, made me think of my English grandmother who’d told me, on her only visit to South Africa, that one should never wear horizontal stripes as they made one look fat.