The Classifier

by Wessel Ebersohn

  We did very well the first week. Mama went through the clothes of every member of the family and found quite a lot that she thought we would never use again. She also gave us some old plates that she said were ugly and had been in a cupboard in the garage. Abraham’s mother gave us baby clothes that had been his. She also gave us figs off their trees, of which there were far too many for their own use. And Uncle Stefan offered an old lawn mower, the manual kind. He said that he no longer needed it now that he had one with an engine. He only wanted five rands for it. Anything we got more than that we could keep. An unmarried, middle-aged lady gave us items from her trousseau kist that she now had no hope of needing.

  I heard my father asking Mama who these people were who would be selling the goods. But Mama told him not to worry, that I should be given a chance to do things for myself and make my own decisions.

  Ruthie looked really surprised to see us with a delivery that first Saturday. I introduced Abraham and was glad to see that she looked seriously at him and did not give him her little grin. After we had unpacked all our merchandise and Ruthie had signed our delivery note, we stood back to inspect her stall. Packed with the extra merchandise we had brought, it looked much better than before. Ruthie looked pleased too.

  Collecting from the neighbourhood was not as easy as collecting from our own families. We picked up bits and pieces, but most of it was so old and well used that, even among Ruthie’s rather battered merchandise, it looked like rubbish. The father of one of our friends gave us a clear insight into the problem. ‘So tell me, boys,’ he said, ‘this is not for charity?’

  ‘No, Uncle.’

  ‘You boys are going to keep the money?’

  ‘Yes, we are,’ Abraham said.

  ‘To pay for our university education,’ I added hurriedly. From experience I knew that sort of thing often worked with adults.

  ‘So this is your business?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But you want me to give you things for nothing?’

  We looked at each other. Eventually Abraham spoke. ‘We hope so, Uncle.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you what, you cut me in for half of your take and I’ll find you goods to sell.’

  We took him up on it and we persuaded some other parents to do the same, but our profit margin was shrinking fast. With Ruthie’s ma taking half and our suppliers taking half of what was left, we were down to a quarter of the selling price. It was a salutary lesson in dealing with the retail trade. I never forgot it.

  On the Saturday morning after our first delivery, we dropped off a much smaller load and enquired after the sale of our previous shipment. Ruthie grinned at me. I was pleased to see that she again directed her grin only at me. She told us to mind her stall for a moment and dashed away in the direction of the stall that the dark-skinned, matronly woman looked after.

  She came back a few minutes later with the woman. ‘Ma,’ she told the woman, ‘this is Chris and Abraham.’

  I looked from one to the other, the light-skinned girl and the dark woman. I think Abraham did too. The thought that this woman could be Ruthie’s mother had not entered my mind. Ruthie could have been accepted in our school or church, but even at that age I knew her mother would never get past the ouderling at the church door.

  Ruthie’s mother was looking at us seriously. ‘Hullo, boys.’ I remember that she did not have the anxious way our garden boy had when speaking to white people, or the creepy, smiling way of the Indian who came round with his truck to sell fruit and vegetables in our neighbourhood. She looked straight at you. Ruthie did too. ‘You did well last week,’ Ruthie’s mother told us. ‘We sold most of your stock.’ She had our delivery note and had already ticked off all the items that had been sold and added up our share of the proceeds. It came to eighty-five rands, of which five had to go to Abraham’s father for the lawn mower. After that there was forty for each of us. She took cash out of a moon bag and paid us in a mixture of folding money and coins. Held tightly in one hand, it felt wonderful.

  Abraham and I did our best to create the impression that we did this sort of thing all the time. Neither of us smiled. After pocketing our money, we strolled away from the flea market in a leisurely, matter-of-fact way till we turned the first corner. Then we ran. Abraham was in front, running as fast as I’ve ever seen him. He leapt a few times into the air like an impala trying to avoid a leopard. Then, suddenly out of breath, he spun round and grabbed my arm for support. ‘Forty rand!’ he yelled. Having the money in his hands had made him forget about my promise of two hundred a week. ‘My cousin is an apprentice mechanic and he only gets this much a month and he works all day.’

  One sobering matter remained. I felt uneasy about what Abraham would think about it and I was glad when he raised it first. ‘Did you see her mother? They’re coons from Greenwood Park.’

  ‘So what?’ I said. ‘This is just business.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘This is business. We’re just doing business.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with doing business with them.’

  ‘Nothing wrong.’

  We were businessmen now and it was not long before Annie knew about my money. She went straight to Mama. ‘Chrissie’s suddenly got lots of money. Where did he get it? Did he tell Mama where he got it?’

  ‘Never mind, my girl,’ Mama said. ‘Your brother is becoming a businessman. I know where he got the money.’

  But Annie could not rest until I had explained everything to her in complete detail. She listened in silence. When I had finished, she said, ‘I thought we were partners. Now you go and do this with rat-face instead of me. Thank you very much.’

  Overhearing this, Michie looked at us in her superior way. ‘You two are pathetic. You think about nothing but money.’

  ‘And you think about nothing but boys,’ Annie said. ‘At least you can do something with money.’

  ‘You can do something with boys too,’ Michie said and walked away giggling.

  The whole of my forty rands from that first week’s takings went into my Post Office savings account for the motorbike fund. It raised my savings to a total of forty one rands. It was a solid start, but immediately our income started falling away. Our deliveries to Ruthie’s stand started shrinking as soon as we had worked our way through the neighbourhood for the first time. On top of that, word had got around that we would pay half our take to people who gave us goods. So we were getting very little for nothing now. The second Saturday I came away with only eighteen rands after making all the payments, the third fourteen and after that we rarely went above ten. Now, according to my calculations, it would take close to a year before I would have my five hundred.

  Uncle Stefan had some good advice. ‘Chrissie, I hear from Abraham that you want to buy Gert van Staden’s motorbike.’

  ‘That’s right, Uncle.’

  ‘You know that you’re not old enough, don’t you? Will your father let you ride it?’

  I almost told him that my father knew nothing about it, but some inner editor deleted the offending admission. ‘I’m going to ride it on Oupa’s farm,’ I said. I had realised that riding it in the graveyard was probably something of which neither he nor my father would approve.

  He nodded. ‘How much does Gert want for the bike?’

  ‘Five hundred rands.’

  Uncle Stefan snorted. ‘That piece of scrap metal is not worth half that. When you’ve got two hundred and fifty together, offer him that.’

  ‘Fine, Uncle.’

  ‘Don’t ask how much he wants, just offer him your two hundred and fifty.’

  ‘That’s fine, Uncle Stefan. I’ll do what Uncle says.’

  ‘Offer him no more than two hundred and fifty. Do it on the phone. Then, if he refuses, hang up. He’ll phone back.’

  ‘I’ll do it just the way Uncle says.’

  ‘And have your cash ready, so you can close the deal there and then.’

  ‘Yes, Uncle.’

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bsp; ‘Remember that he wants to sell it more badly than you want to buy it. That puts you in the position of strength.’

  I was not sure about the accuracy of that last remark. I wanted to buy it very badly, more badly than I had ever wanted anything all my life. Nevertheless, the advice was good, even if two hundred and fifty seemed almost as far away as five hundred.

  During those months I thought about very little other than my business, Gert van Staden’s motorbike and Ruthie. My schoolwork suffered. My marks sank from an average of middle Bs down to upper Ds. Mama called me into the kitchen to talk about it. When Mama called you into the kitchen, it was a little like being called into the principal’s office. The kitchen was Mama’s office.

  ‘You always get very good marks, Chrissie,’ Mama said. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I told her. ‘I can’t think.’

  ‘Well, I can think. It’s the business, isn’t it?’

  The thought that she might tell me to close down my business because it was affecting my schoolwork was horrifying beyond my ability to cope with it. ‘No, it can’t be the business,’ I assured her, shaking my head.

  Mama had a way of looking straight at you in a very serious way when something was important to her. ‘I think it is the business. So I want you to show me that you can handle both your business and your schoolwork. I know how important the business is to you, but at this time in your life your schoolwork is the single most important thing of all. I want to see your marks back to normal.’

  ‘Yes, Mama,’ I said. ‘I promise.’ I was relieved that she had not gone over to threatening my business. I would have agreed to anything, as long as she left my business alone.

  That is how it was in our home. If any of us were failing in some way or doing something of which either our parents or the community would disapprove, Mama would call the guilty one into the kitchen to talk about it. Whether she ever discussed these issues with my father or whether he even knew about them, I cannot say. But I doubt that he did. All the usual matters of running a family were dealt with by Mama. It always seemed to me that the way their marriage was organised was that smaller issues like their children were her business, while major matters, issues of national importance, were his.

  It was at about that time that Dominee came to visit my father. In our community, and in Afrikaner communities around the country, everything revolved around the church. Even political leaders did not carry quite the same aura as the dominee. Every mother who had a son wanted him to become a dominee, and everyone with a daughter wanted her to marry one.

  On that day, Mama told us that our dominee had come to talk about important matters and that, after greeting him, we were to stay in our bedrooms until she called us. As for her, she stayed in the kitchen while he and my father had their discussion in the living room.

  When he arrived, Dominee looked more serious than I had ever seen him. And that was very serious indeed. He shook hands solemnly with each of us, then went into the living room with my father. I could not help wondering if parents sometimes also did things they should not and, if so, what my father’s sin could be that Dominee found it necessary to visit him about it and look so sternly at him.

  Their discussion took about half an hour, after which we were all invited to the living room for tea. But now the mood in the room was jovial. Dominee even tried a few jokes. They were weak, but we all laughed anyway. If we had not laughed, it would have been disrespectful and being disrespectful to your dominee was a sin. After he had left, the three of us gathered round Mama in the kitchen.

  ‘I have told your father again and again that he has been neglecting his duty,’ she whispered to us. ‘For nearly ten years he has been refusing to take up the position of ouderling in our church. Today Dominee came and spoke very seriously to him and he finally agreed.’

  It was difficult imagining anyone speaking seriously to my father, even Dominee. My father was the one who spoke seriously to others. Now here was Dominee, speaking sternly to him. I could not imagine the scene.

  At least I now knew one way a father could misbehave. He could refuse to become an ouderling. This is not to say that in my thirteen years I had not discovered some of the sinful things adults got up to. But parents were different. They were the custodians of all morality. To me, the main role of parents seemed to be to educate us in what was right and what was wrong.

  That Sunday morning in church my father led the congregation in prayer. It was a long prayer, perhaps to make up for all the prayers he had missed when he avoided being an ouderling. He prayed for many things that day. He explained to God that we were a small and helpless people and that we needed his strength and guidance if we were to bring his light to the people of Africa. We needed his protecting hand over us and his rod and staff to give us strength. He also said that we were pleading for God to tell us what he expects of us and that we were ready to do his bidding. I thought he was talking about himself during that part of his prayer, although up to that time he had always seemed to be certain of what God wanted from all of us. Even at that age, I thought the Almighty would have some persuading to do if he decided that he wanted something from my father other than what my father had already decided he should have. As for me, I intended to have a future in business and make lots of money. I hoped God was not going to interfere with my plans.

  After the service, the dominee had my father stand next to him at the church door to shake the hands of everyone as they left. I heard one of the ladies say to my father, ‘Bernardus, that was the most beautiful prayer I’ve ever heard. I believe that the Lord will lend his ear to such beautiful and heartfelt words.’

  Later that day I managed to corner Mama in the kitchen and asked her why they wanted my father as an ouderling. Was it because his work was so important?

  ‘You know your father,’ she said. ‘They want him because he’s a very good man.’

  My life was full in those days. The only time I got to think was in bed at night before falling asleep and I almost always fell asleep quickly. Accordingly, I did little reflecting on my decisions or my actions or those of other family members. Life was about doing things, not wondering about them. But I remember that night, how I wondered about my father. When he spoke about being an Afrikaner, it seemed such a burden. I thought then and I still think that Mama was wrong to say that I knew my father.

  seven

  Just as it seemed that I would never get the money together for my motorbike, Annie came up with an idea that revolutionised our business and got my savings fund moving again.

  It was her enterprising spirit that made me take her seriously when she told me to call Abraham, that she had an idea for us. It was a Saturday afternoon and we had just had a particularly unprofitable morning. The poor-quality goods we had collected the week before had sold very badly and we had each come away with only five rands. Even Annie’s gloating did not seem as bad as the imminent collapse of our business.

  After I had called Abraham, she led the two of us down to the bottom of the back garden and through the banana palms. ‘The goods will cost nothing,’ she said seriously. ‘I’ll show you my idea, but I want to be a partner too.’ She was looking from Abraham to me and back again in that challenging way she had. ‘Three-way split,’ she said in English.

  Even that was better than giving half our cut to the people who gave us their moth-eaten jerseys, dented pots, faulty sewing machines, toothless garden rakes and rusting wheelbarrows. ‘What is it?’ I wanted to know.

  Annie led us through the remains of our back fence, past the bamboo glades, did a detour round the one known beehive and over the humps of an old landfill that had since been overgrown by kikuyu grass. We came out on the edge of the part of Red Hill cemetery furthest from the main gate.

  At the time, the Red Hill cemetery was not yet fully developed. The graves only covered perhaps a quarter of its surface. There were graves of white people on the side closest to the ocean and, separated from t
hem by a substantial strip of open ground, those of Indian and coloured people on the inland side. Black people were buried somewhere else, in KwaMashu and Umlazi townships, I supposed. Between us and the graves there was ragged bush, a few dense thickets of bamboo, some small refuse piles where people had dumped their waste illegally and, in among all this, hideaways where hoboes from Johannesburg might spend the night during the winter months.

  She turned to us with a wave of an arm. ‘What do you see?’

  We were seeing nothing that we had not seen many times before. ‘Graves,’ I said. ‘We see the graves.’

  ‘What do you see on the graves?’

  ‘Angels and stuff,’ Abraham said.

  ‘You two don’t look properly. Every grave has a vase.’

  ‘You can’t desecrate graves.’ Abraham sounded more than just horrified. ‘It’s a sin, a big sin. You’ll go straight to hell.’

  But Annie had thought the matter through. ‘The vases are not part of the graves. They are standing loose on top of the graves.’

  ‘It’s still part of the grave,’ Abraham said.

  ‘It’s different,’ Annie said.

  ‘It’s the same.’

  ‘It’s different.’

  While this argument was in progress, I had noticed something about the vases. ‘Some of them are quite new.’

  Despite himself, Abraham’s interest was aroused. ‘How many do you suppose there are?’

  ‘Hundreds,’ I said.

  ‘Thousands,’ Annie said. To clinch the argument, she added, ‘The dead people don’t need them.’

  As it happened, the house servant in Abraham’s home was also the girlfriend of Abel, the guard at the graveyard. It became Abraham’s job to find out when she was going to visit him in his guardbox. Her visits were not that regular and Abraham’s efforts not that effective, but we soon learnt that we could rely on Saturday evenings.