Storm Warnings

by Vanessa Gebbie

  The older ones throw stones on occasion; these seem not aimed at me but in my general direction. I cannot abide that. It is not the danger. It is my work. It spoils my work. It muddles me and I cannot think, to find a pebble lying there, one I have not turned. I panic. Which stone did I turn last? Is this the one the boys threw, or is it that one? I ought not look at this stone yet, the time is not right. The boys have disturbed the beach.

  I know that once a man’s likeness was etched into a winding-sheet. I know that you lay on this beach back then, in the war, your body undisturbed for days, while they kept me away for fear of mines. I could see you from my window. As though you were simply resting, cushioned against the pebbles. Turning your face from the sun.

  Lay-By

  BLACK, GREASY ROAD dirt under Frank’s nails.

  The lorries, cars, they don’t move any more. Or, they do move, but Frank can’t see them any more. They realigned the road.

  Frank went out just now in his chair. And his bloody chair has slipped, one wheel off the new ramp.

  ‘Don’t use it, sir, until the rails are in. Next Monday at the latest.’

  He’s going to have to shout to the lorry drivers for help.

  Bloody council realigned the road while he was away, tour of duty, then hospital. Frank now has to be in the bathroom to see traffic. But the glass is frosted; ferns and more fucking ferns. He can just see a blur. He feels the blur through the chair, thinks he remembers what his feet might have felt.

  In the new lay-by, the lorries are static. Parked up. There’s a great blank-sided whitish one now, blocking the light. Been there days.

  Frank rang the council. ‘What d’you mean, Lorry Park? No, I didn’t see any notices in the papers. Don’t read the effing papers. Been away.’

  Then he’d apologised. She sounded old.

  Join up and see the world. Frank saw the world and the world is clouds, canvas, sand. Madnesses, large and small. The world is the wrong guns for deserts. The wrong boots. The wrong vehicles for IEDs.

  The world is noise, shouts. Pain, planes, darkness, cards and fucking flowers.

  Frank’s hands are dirty. He wheeled himself down the new ramp, into the lay-by, hung round in his chair. Some bloke said to leave his lorry alone or he’d call the cops.

  Didn’t he know it takes more than just pain to get out here, down to the lorries, push up, one arm rigid on the arm of the chair. Almost standing, but Frank’s legs don’t remember. What’s left of his legs. Reaching up with the other hand, pain like knives.

  To simply write a few words. Like he used to when he was a kid. Writing a message to the world on the back of a dirty lorry.

  I am Frank. They moved my fucking road.

  Talking to Golda

  GOLDA. MY GOLDA. Have you heard something? It is me, your sister, Editha. My Golda, I speak to you every day, every night, though my eyes are dry now, my tongue like leather. Do you hear me, ever? It is no time, Golda, the hours and the minutes fold in on themselves, they concertina, the days since then and whatever now is, damaged, memory battered by time. That’s what it is.

  Golda, do you remember the bell on our father’s workshop, the tailor’s, where men sat at small tables under high windows, and the dust rising to the treadle of the sewing machines, the squeak, squeak like so many mice in wainscots, and the creak and thud of the great doors where they wheeled in the bolts of cloth, always dark, the bales? Always dark, the cloth rough and smelling of ink.

  Do you remember? If today and that last day fold together and touch it may not matter if it is fifty days, fifty years, a thousand? I see the days, Golda. I feel them, each one. It is my punishment, perhaps?

  That workshop stripped of the machines. Do you remember? I want you to take this from me, Golda. I want you to take from me the sight of the men carrying our father’s machines out of the door that was marked in yellow paint — the star that was never, never covered by darkness. And at the door two men exchanging papers. Official, typed, duplicated. Juden. Juden. Juden. It is a song, poetry. As is kristallnacht, beautiful sounds, glittering images, diamonds and stars. But not Reichspogromnach. Reich. Reich.

  Our father standing in his empty workshop, empty but for a single broken table the men had not taken. Useless. The dust motes rising into the dead air, and he looked so old, and the doors were shut. No dark ink-smelling bales of cloth now. I remember, do you, Golda? He was wearing one of his suits. The tie tight and neat, the collar points a little grey. I went to him: ‘Papa. It is alright,’ I said. ‘We can buy new machines later. When things are right again . . .’ But then there was a sound above our heads. I thought for a fleeting second that a pigeon had flown against the glass. I thought, in that second, of taking the broken table, seeing if I could steady it somehow, maybe you could hold it, Golda, and I would climb up and see if it was alright, the bird, because it had hit the high window with such force that the glass had cracked across.

  And then the sounds, the smash and shatter, cracks and splinters, and Papa standing there, unmoving, as the glass from his own windows fell around him. And the shouts, and the sound of gunfire. And the shout of boots outside on the pavements. And you and I cowering by the wall under the windows, afraid to move.

  I often wonder about you on that last day, later. Did you think of Papa, I wonder? I did. Seeing him, in his suit, thin, a shadow, shaking his head, and gesturing to us to leave the workshop, and we went to the doorway and found it closed somehow, and me turning, to say, ‘Papa, we can’t leave, someone . . .’ and seeing him straightening up, a shard of glass in his hand and blood falling with the dustmotes. Falling, falling. Juden, Juden. See, the sounds are beautiful. The spatter of red in the dust and dark. It was beautiful. Like a gift. A prayer. I see that now.

  Golda. How long was it before time folded itself and we arrived at the camp, after three train journeys and three stays in warehouses with no more room to lie down than to breathe? And the stench of ourselves. That was anything but beautiful, Golda. I do think of that sometimes, but always, always from a distance.

  Were we children? I remember being confused. Male, female, mother, father, Jude, child. A skipping game. But the end of one journey — it is always the beginning of another. That is written somewhere. I cannot look at the memory too closely, Golda. Or I think I too could, like the guards, preside calmly over murder and then retire to our rest rooms to drink tea, coffee, maybe beer.

  I think of chance. Of two sisters, one so blonde her hair was almost white, called Golda. Another, dark, called Editha. I think of the space between us, non-existent, for eight years. And then the gulf.

  I think of a woman, a blonde woman, hysterical, pulling you away from me on the station platform, holding you to herself, shouting ‘My daughter — my beautiful daughter, look at us. Do we look . . .’ and the crowd, the heaving silent crowd, and her cries echoing, the odd hiss, Shut her up. Shut her up. And a shot. Into the air.

  Why do my thoughts do this, why do they fly to these dark places so I have to cry to you Golda through the walls, even from here, from years later? I should not have let you go, shocked and silent, the guard who had shot into the air pulling the woman’s head back by the hair — ‘Juden. All Jews look the same, to me. Like blacks.’ And asking if her daughter had the same colour blood as a black, and waving his pistol, saying he would shoot one of them, which one? Her or her daughter? and the woman pushing you in front of her, ‘Not me, not me . . .’ and there was a single shot. And your blood was as red as Papa’s, Golda. As red as Papa’s.

  All these years later. I have children, a husband. A good man. I live in another country. My husband collects furniture, good carved furniture, nineteenth, early twentieth centuries. A sideline. He is a realtor. Houses, Golda. We are free. And yet, some of the furniture. A chair. Heavy. He says it is from middle Europe, very, very heavy, ornate. Something dark in the carvings. I cannot sit on that piece or my head spins
and my gorge rises. There are small round marks on the seat and I fancy they are cigarette burns. I fancy that chair was in the commandant’s office. There is a man with a camera and a man in a white coat, and a line of girls and doctors and tables, and such, such pain, Golda. Such pain.

  I lied. You know that. I have no children of my own. But my husband, he is a good man. We have his children, from before. His first wife is dead. Sometimes I think his second wife is also dead. Part of me carries on, Golda. I am kept alive and will go when my time is ready.

  My husband is long-suffering. He knows my fears. How I cannot sleep in the dark, nor yet in the light from certain lamps; if the light is too sharp it reminds me of the reflections on white-tiled walls, and the colour of cries. I cannot trust that kind of light.

  I think it will not be long, Golda. I will not make very old bones, and it will be good to hold you and Papa in my arms.

  We will meet on the road and smile, and shake our heads, and there will be a great crowd of people, walking, all white. I will know them all. They will smile and nod and greet two sisters, one with golden hair, Golda. And one who used to be dark as night, but who turned silver before she was ten years old.

  Shibuya Intersection

  YUUTO WAITED FOR the lights to change, grey raincoat open, briefcase heavy in his hand. He couldn’t remember what was in the briefcase. The meeting at the ministry was waiting for him, for whatever was in the briefcase. Yuuto remembered pearls. Remembered boats, ships, a harbour.

  Perhaps he had been carrying it for a month without putting it down. Perhaps it was full of dead birds. But the birds were as heavy as the stones he’d piled on his father’s grave. Or soil. It was as though each time he’d visited the grave he’d come away with a little of the topsoil heaped invisible on his head, like the ashes after a ceremony.

  Mind. Aren’t you going? Move . . .

  People streamed past Yuuto like scorpions from a cheap celluloid volcano. Meaningless. Dislocated. Out of place. His toes clenched as though they could grip the paving stones, prehensile. He leaned back into the tide, letting bodies buffet him. Voices spiked and sharp.

  Get going. Move!

  The lights changed. Someone shoved Yuuto’s back.

  Fuck you. Could have crossed.

  His briefcase birds were moving. He could feel them now, pushing against each other. He lifted the case and put it to his ear. Yes. They were making soft sounds. He could hear their bones sliding over each other in the dark. The meeting would have started now. Decisions being made. Orders drawn up. Damage calculations. Pearls. Ships. Harbours.

  Yuuto slipped his feet out of his shoes and pushed them over the kerb with his toes. One shoe fell upright into the gutter and sat pointing into the road. The other tipped on its side. Yuuto heard his mother’s voice echoing: Yuuto, if you cannot put your shoes together how will your feet know to walk side by side? and holding his briefcase in one hand, he stepped off the pavement, knelt down as though he was in the porch at home, and straightened the shoes.

  The blare of a horn, a shout: Madman!

  In his stockinged feet, Yuuto let himself be carried by the next tide of bodies into the road. Then he stopped.

  Years ago the elbows and knees of his sons pushed against the skin of Nanako’s belly. Now the bones in his briefcase were pushing against the leather. He could hear them clicking.

  Move. Stupid.

  Yuuto stood in the centre of Shibuya intersection. Everyone was going the same way. Coming from behind, pushing past. All disappearing down side roads. What were they called, those roads? What were his sons called? Did he have sons? Does anyone really have sons?

  Yuuto put his briefcase on the tarmac. Pearls. Harbours. In one place the leather had perforated, and through it was poking a small, white knuckle bone. He bent and pulled off his socks, folded them neatly into each other, stumbling when he was knocked again and again by the crowd, and he placed the socks on top of the briefcase, and knelt.

  The Strong Mind of Musa M’bele

  WHEN MUSA HEARS the shouts, he knows what is happening and he crouches in the darkest corner of the house and puts his hands over his ears. But he can’t block out the sounds, so he tells his mind to work faster. ‘You have a good mind,’ his father said. He can hear him now: ‘You have a strong mind, Musa.’ Musa thought he meant his head was strong, like the women carrying pots, and he swiped his father’s arm.

  ‘Gah! I do not want a strong mind.’

  His father laughed. ‘I rest my case.’

  In his corner, Musa can smell paint on his hands. He was painting a table for Ogogo, his father’s mother, in the porch. Blue, with green legs. She loves colours. Ogogo says that God the Father gave colour to the world as a gift. But now he knows if he looked up he wouldn’t be able to see the table. He knows that his eyes would begin to water as soon as he opened them. He knows that the smoke would be black, trickling in through the open window like fog. And he knows that he will soon find it hard to breathe, that his chest will hurt and bile will rise in his throat. He will spit on Ogogo’s floor. And it will take months to get the smell of burning rubber out of the bedding.

  Musa tells his strong mind to work on his football, on his plans to play one day like July Mahlangu who sits right at the back at school and fidgets, who scores more goals than anyone ever and who everyone knows will be famous one day. And on the training he has to do to build up his leg, running every day to the river and back. Musa has told the Miss at school that he will one day be a famous footballer because his mind says so. But Miss laughed and said that boys have to have two good legs to be footballers. And she sat Musa down with the books again, and there was a book of paintings, strange people with huge eyes in the middle of their noses, and he asked and Miss said these were paintings done with real paints by someone called Picasso and even July Mahlangu, when he is famous, would never ever have enough money to buy one of these.

  But Musa’s mind does not want to think about noses in the middle of faces. Sometimes, in the night, if he wakes because a black dog trod on his dreams, he sees a face he knows. From a way back . . . something like his father’s. His lovely skin, shining and stretched over craters, like the moon. His father said he was hit by shotgun pellets when he was a young man, climbing over the wall of a white farmer, stealing chickens and eggs. He got caught on glass on top of a wall and turned to say, ‘Don’t shoot!’ and the man shot anyway. His father’s face and chest a spatter of pellets, but there was little blood. ‘Because my mind was strong, Musa. It made my blood wait in my legs for the running I had to do afterwards.’

  His father was clever, even then. And even though the white farmers made a sweep of the village to find the stolen chickens, nothing was found. His father laughed when he told Musa the story: ‘They could not sweep our stomachs now, could they? And the feathers were all blown away.’

  In his corner, Musa makes his strong mind go to the city, and his mind does as it is bid, and flies over the earth to Pietermaritzberg. Musa hopes to see gardens with waterfalls and fountains like his father said he saw, but instead his mind shows him tall buildings with black windows, bare rooms with dusty floors where people have died, scratches on the walls and doors counting the days, the nights. Things happen in cities, tall buildings can fall down in clouds of dust. There can be volcanoes and avalanches in cities, just as there are in the mountains.

  Musa’s bottom is sore from sitting on the ground. He wonders if there are ants, but will not open his eyes. When he is eighteen he will not be afraid of ants. When he is eighteen, and has been playing football for a long time, he will not be afraid of ants, even if they invade the pitch in their thousands, marching in a thick chain to the goalmouth. Musa will stand his ground and his mind will order them back.

  ‘Ants have a place,’ his father said. ‘Without ants how would the world know what is sweetness?’ But it is hard to agree when Musa saw ants all over the
dead dog lying outside his house. Crawling into its eyes and out again, some coming out of the dog’s nose, some searching round the dog’s teeth. The dog had sat there for three days, its fur covered in sores. Musa thought its eyes were kind. But Ogogo shooed it away and called it, ‘Dirty thing!’

  The strong mind of Musa is weakening now. The smell of burning rubber is coming between his fingers and making him retch. He tries to think about the dog and the ants, the football pitch, but he’s only seen that in pictures and maybe his mind needs stronger food than that? He can’t see the pitch properly. The smell is great now.

  His father went to a hotel in the big city. In Pietermaritzberg. Alone, with a brown bag. Musa does not know how he chose that hotel, or if he was told to go there. Ogogo says he was a collaborator, but Musa does not know what that means.

  He knows lots of things, like the names of the clouds, because Miss tells him that in lessons. He knows the water cycle and about erosion. About waves in the sea, which one day he will see when he is famous and has a lot of money to catch the bus. He has not seen fog, but has seen pictures of it, in London. And he asked if it was a tired cloud waiting on the ground to feel healthy again.

  Musa can still hear his father’s voice. After they came to the house, after they took him by the arms, and Musa tried to stop them but he was too small and his mind was not quite strong yet. His father shouting to stay inside the house. But to: ‘Remember Musa! Remember! This is history . . .’ Then the last Musa saw of him were his bare heels as the men pulled his father away.

  That was another time Musa crouched in the corner and the smell of burning rubber and the sound of chanting flooded through the window. And that time he made his mind go to History, and to the lessons Miss had given him, about great explorers, and rivers tumbling down rocky mountains. And about the war here, and the English gentlemen with white hats to keep the sunshine off their heads because their white skin would catch alight if they got too hot.