‘Zivah! Zivah, stop screaming. Now. Stop.’
Zivah had clamped her lips together and glared at her with eyes that were almost black with rage.
‘I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I hate you. Do you hear me? I hate you. You’re a horrible old cow and you can’t tell me what to do. No-one can tell me what to do. Only Daddy,’ she’d hissed and bolted from the office, sending the orange chair flying into the bookcase.
Carol had never raised the issue of her clothing choices again. Her process report from that encounter stated: ‘Zivah remains obsessed with her late father. Her emotions are still extremely fragile. She continues to refuse to discuss their relationship or what happened to her. She lashes out at anything or anyone she believes is criticising her or him. She terminated the meeting in extreme agitation after an innocuous discussion about her clothing.’
***
When Zivah materialised in Carol’s doorway the following week, nothing was said about the abrupt end to their previous session. But in the first few months that Zivah had been her client, Carol had learned that even the most innocent remark, question or comment could transform the girl from a docile, if sullen, child into a raging, shrieking virago.
Last week’s termination session, or delicate egg dance as Carol had come to call their weekly meetings, had been no different.
Chapter 9
Carol
‘Hello Zivah. How are you today?’ Carol had said, as the girl slipped into the chair for their termination meeting.
‘Fine.’
‘That’s good. Is your cold better?’
‘Yes.’
So that’s how it is going to be today, Carol thought, although a sullen, monosyllabic Zivah was better than an uncontrolled tantrum.
‘Have you finished packing up your room at The Lodge?’ Carol asked.
‘No.’
‘Do you need help to pack?
A mute shake of the blonde head; a piercing stare from translucent eyes.
‘Well don’t you think you should start packing? Your brother is coming to fetch you tomorrow.’
The pale head lifted and the blue eyes darkened. ‘You can’t tell me what to do. Don’t you dare tell me what to do. No one can tell me what to do. I’m going home. I’m going to be the boss in my house. It is my house. Yair said so. No one will tell me what to do there.’
Carol’s stomach churned.
‘Of course no one will tell you what to do in your own home, Zivah. But if you want to show Yair that he has made the right decision in taking you home, don’t you think it would be a good idea to show him that you can take care of yourself?’
‘I can take care of myself. I’m a grown-up.’
‘Of course you are. You’re twenty-one now.’
Zivah sank back into the hard chair and smiled, and Carol allowed herself to relax, slightly.
‘Do you know the twenty-one song?’ Zivah asked.
‘The twenty-one song? I’m not sure... how does it go? Can you sing it for me?’
‘Oh Carol. You are so stupid. Everyone knows the twenty-one song,’ Zivah said and, in a high, reedy voice, began to sing: ‘I’m twenty-one today, twenty-one today. I’ve got the key of the door, never been twenty-one before.’ She stopped and glared at her social worker. ‘What does it mean? To have the key of the door? What door? I want the key. I don’t like being locked up in The Lodge.’
‘You’re not locked up. You can come and go pretty much as you like.’
‘No I can’t. Matron locks the doors at night.’
‘That’s for your own safety, Zivah. To keep bad people out.’
‘No, it’s to keep me locked up, away from home, away from Yair. I’m twenty-one now. I want the key to The Lodge.’
‘It’s not a real key, Zivah. It’s just a saying, an expression. It means that you are an adult and you can take responsibility for yourself, do things for yourself – like packing up your room so that when Yair comes to fetch you, he will see that you are able to take care of yourself.’
Carol held her breath, waiting for Zivah to ignite. Instead, the girl leaned forward, put her elbows on the desk and looked at her with a quizzical expression.
‘If I pack up my room all by myself, Yair will see that I am all grown-up now?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I suppose he will.’
Zivah beamed. ‘And then when we get home, he will give me the key to the door and I will lock it and I won’t let anyone in, no one, because it will be my house, mine and Yair’s. Just us. No one else.’
‘And what about Thembi? And Stembiso? They also live there. If you think about it, you will have to share the house with several other people.’
‘I won’t. I’ll never let anyone else live there. I told you.’
‘Well, what about one day, when Yair gets married? I’m sure he will get married some day and he and his wife and their children will live there too. Won’t that be nice?’
Zivah’s eyes began to darken again and Carol wanted to kick herself. She should have remembered that Zivah was extraordinarily possessive about her brother. She quickly changed the subject. ‘And what about your sister? Aviva is sure to come and visit you, and then she’ll probably stay in the house too – won’t that be wonderful to have the three of you together again?’
‘No!’ Zivah leaped to her feet, her opaque eyes shining like onyx marbles in her white face. ‘No. Avi went away. She left. Yair won’t go away. He’ll never leave me. He won’t. He promised. He’s not like Avi. I hate Avi. She came back and then Daddy died and it was all her fault. She can’t come back again. I won’t let her come back. I’ll make her go away. Like Mommy. Mommy didn’t come back. She got sick and she died. She shouldn’t have died. She died. She died. She died... She...’
Carol hurried around the desk and put her arms around the shaking girl. ‘Shhh, shhh Zivah. It’s okay. It’ll be okay. You must still miss your mother terribly. That’s understandable.’
‘I don’t miss Mommy,’ Zivah spat. ‘I hate her. I hate you. I hate everyone. Only Daddy. And Yair – only Yair. Yair loves me.’
***
Once again, Carol glanced at the clock above the door then back at her scribbled notes. The word ‘hate’ jumped out at her. She swallowed and pulled her keyboard towards her. She began to type, summarising the exchange and then added:
‘Zivah has insisted on being discharged from The Lodge and will be returning to her family home and the care of her brother, Yair. I have several concerns about this, but Yair is a capable and sensible young man. I have no doubt he will do his utmost to fulfil his obligations to his younger sister, although he may find her attachment to him stifling.’
Carol paused, then deleted the words after ‘sister’. She continued typing:
‘This could be an excellent move for Zivah because it is clear that what she regards as her abandonment by her sister and her late mother, has deeply hurt and angered her. She does not reflect the same animosity towards her late father, talking of him at times as if he were still alive. After months of counselling and discussion, she still appears to be unable or unwilling to move on from that unhealthy relationship and it is troubling that at times, she appears to conflate Yair and her father in her mind.’
Once again, Carol paused and reread her last sentence. Her finger hovered over the delete button. Should she include her suspicions about Zivah and Yair in this report? She had no proof that Zivah’s proprietary attachment to Yair was anything more than a young girl clinging to the only family member who had not abandoned her. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, to indicate that Yair would, or had done anything other than be a caring, conscientious brother.
Carol shook her head. She was letting her imagination run away with her. That was unacceptably unprofessional. She continued typing.
‘I strongly recommend that Zivah continue to receive therapy, either with a social worker or a psychologist after she returns to her family home.’
Only not with me, she adde
d silently.
She printed out the process report, put it in Zivah’s case file, and shoved the file into the middle of her case file pile for filing tomorrow.
***
Carol sank into her car seat. What a dreadful day. She turned the key and the radio hummed. The 6 pm news bulletin was just getting underway but she didn’t want to listen. She knew what it would include – more stories about corruption, crime, racism. She reached out to change stations and stopped as the newsreader announced:
‘Yair Silverman was taken in for questioning about the death of his fiancée, Tiffany Zaldain, this morning. He was driven from his northern suburbs mansion to the Sandringham Police Station after police had revisited his home where Mrs Zaldain was found, critically injured, yesterday morning. It is not yet clear whether Mr Silverman has been arrested or if criminal charges are to be brought against him.’
Her heart lurched. She barely heard the newsreader rabbiting on about how Yair Silverman’s father Alan Silverman, the property magnate, had committed suicide three years earlier during the inquest into the suspicious death of Brenda Silverman, his socialite, philanthropist wife. All Carol could think of was Zivah, alone in the big house – well not alone exactly, but the servants could hardly be expected to take responsibility for a mentally challenged young woman if her brother languished in jail. So Zivah would probably have to be sent back to The Lodge. Unless...
Carol scrambled out of the car and hurried back to her office. She tapped the desk impatiently as her computer booted up, so slowly, she debated whether to go down to the kitchen and make herself a cup of coffee. No, she didn’t want to waste a minute. She wanted to get home and read what else George had to say. And then to write a response that was friendly, but appropriate. She didn’t want to give him the wrong idea.
At last. Her computer was up. She opened her Outlook and scrolled through her inbox. Where on earth was it? She hoped she hadn’t deleted it. She scrolled through her trash, but it didn’t seem to be there either. In desperation she typed ‘Aviva Silverman’ into the search box at the top. Dozens of emails appeared on the screen, the word Silverman highlighted in yellow in each of them. She quickly scrolled through them and there it was: from [email protected]. She knew the contents of the email well from reading and rereading it when it had arrived, trying to extract a clue about what had happened to the older Silverman sister and where she was. But there was nothing besides a telephone number and an instruction to use it only in the most dire emergency. Well, this was a dire emergency. She dialled the number and heard the phone ring... and ring... and ring.
***
Carol dragged herself up the last five steps to the second-floor landing, stopped and caught her breath, then walked briskly down the corridor to her flat. She had considered moving to a ground-floor unit or to a building with a lift but she knew the rent was unlikely to be commensurate with her social worker’s salary. She sighed, unlocked the front door and frowned as she stepped inside and realised she had left the bathroom light on. All day. To make matters worse she was later getting home than she had planned, after trying several times to call Aviva Silverman. What a waste of time – and electricity. She tried to console herself with the knowledge that the next twenty-five percent increase in the electricity tariff had not yet taken effect. She made a mental note to remember to switch off the geyser and check that all lights and non-essential plugs were off before she left for work every morning.
She tossed her handbag onto her bed and kicked off her shoes. Then she padded into the kitchen, took a large wine glass from the cupboard and the cold bottle of leftover Chardonnay from the fridge. She poured the pale wine into the glass and carried it, half-full, into the lounge, reminding herself to buy another bottle when she did her weekly shopping at Pick ’n Pay on Saturday. If it was still on special.
She put the glass down on the coffee table and settled back to give George’s email her full attention.
I had a hectic time at work yesterday.i really believe you had a good rest last night?
Will you be working this weekend?...i will do a lot of cleaning ...then watch soccer for the rest of the day.Do you like soccer?
I am a fan of English football and a die hard Manchester United fan....
That’s odd, she thought. In his previous email, he’d said he was staying in a furnished apartment in the Waterfront in Cape Town while he laid the groundwork for his new petroleum engineering consultancy. Those apartments were expensive – really, really expensive. Rumour had it that Oprah owned one; Elton John too. Surely they were fully serviced? She’d tell him to contact the building manager, or the housekeeping service. She read on:
It is always nice to see a mail from you.
Thank you so much for keeping in touch with me.
I am so glad we are making progress in this relationship....it gives me joy reading your email and each time I wake up to write you I have this hope that I will have a lovely one back from you...
She smiled and took a sip of wine. Drinking wine made her feel closer to George, somehow – seeing he was in Cape Town. She wondered if his family farm in Worcester, where he was renovating the house so that his mother could return from America and live in comfort, was a wine farm. She had to remember to ask him.
I have been thinking about how nice it will be for us to move on with this and see how far it will take us.
I have the hope and believe that it will lead into something great.
Give me the chance to walk into your heart.
Her heart thumped. Oh goodness gracious, this was incredible. He really was interested in her. No one had ever wanted to ‘walk into’ her heart before. Ever.
I promise not to hurt you, I will not hurt you for all the money in the world. I am out to show you love and tenderness. I will respect you and treat you like a lady. For the past days I have found myself thinking so much about you...
I will show you what love and feelings is all about.
I will make the difference in your life.
She blinked. This was crazy stuff. It was as if he could see inside her head, could feel the hurt and doubts and concerns that plagued her. She had never allowed any man to get close to her; she had always been too afraid of rejection, of being made a fool. He understood, without her even having to tell him, that she’d been hurt – not once, but over and over again by men who never noticed her and women who regarded her as an object of pity or contempt. But George seemed to realise this intuitively. Her hand shook slightly as she sipped her wine and continued reading.
Please trust me enough on this.Do not judge me by what you have passed through with other men.I will not be like them.There are still good men out here just like there are still better ladies out there.
Give me your hand and trust in this.
Give me the trust and allow me show you that i am going to be nice and good and will not play with your emotions.
I have a fragile heart that was broken before.
I know how it feels to be hurt and will not want that for someone else.
Love is the heart's immortal thirst and when we have it it's the greatest gift and the source of happiness.
She read that line again. ‘Love is the heart’s immortal thirst and when we have it it’s the greatest gift and the source of happiness.’ How beautiful was that? She didn’t really understand it – how could the heart being thirsty be a good thing? But she thought she knew what George meant. He was so romantic, so poetic – especially for an engineer!
I love hiking and it will be great if we both go hiking on the table mountain , the 7 wonders of the earth, and have coffee on in the coffee shop there .
Have you ever been on the table mountain before ?
Just a couple of question.
1.What is your favorite food,color,holiday place,what you do if you are not working,what makes you laugh,what makes you sad....i really hope i am not trying to ask too much question and i hope you find no one offensive..
Have a l
ovely day my awesome lady.
I hope to hear back from you again soon..
I send you kisses and a big hug.
George...
She put down her empty glass and enjoyed the feeling of warmth that was spreading through her. He liked her. He thought she was awesome. He was gentle and kind and clearly very romantic and affectionate. He had a rather strange way of expressing himself but this was probably because he travelled so much for his job and had spent so much time in the Far East. She chided herself for being hypercritical. Not everyone had perfect grammar and spelling. He wasn’t writing process notes or an academic essay that would be read by nit-picking colleagues. This wonderful, kind, sensitive man—a well-travelled, wealthy engineer—was simply pouring out his soul for her. And he wanted to hear from her. He wanted to get to know her. He wanted a relationship with her.
She opened a new Word document and started typing: My dear George...
Chapter 10
Aviva
Aviva slipped the tip of her little finger into the corner of Mattie’s mouth and popped him off her nipple. The baby gave a little snuffle, which sounded suspiciously like a snore, and she held her breath. Please, please sleep, she prayed, but the silent invocation had barely formed in her befuddled, sleep-deprived brain when her cellphone launched into a shrill rendition of Silent Night. Arno’s idea of a joke after Mattie was born. ‘Silent night – all is calm,’ he’d said as she’d worn a hole in the carpet, walking up and down, trying in vain to comfort their wailing offspring. She hadn’t laughed. She hadn’t yet got around to changing her ringtone back to its customary By the Seaside. She cursed herself for not putting the damn phone on silent while she fed the baby. But sometimes she forgot to switch it back on again, and then Arno would phone and she wouldn’t hear and he’d panic when she didn’t answer. She fumbled, one-handed, for the phone and cut off the canned Christmas carol before it reached All is bright. Her son didn’t stir.
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