Hear Me

by Julia North

  As I stand next to Karlos pressed in among the squirming snake of bodies waiting at the Red Hill polling station, my head grows light. I turn and look up and then down the packed queue with all of us, African, Indian, Coloured and Whites, pressed up against each other. There must be thousands of people here, all looking excited, triumphant and happy in the hot morning air. An old African man with grey coiled hair catches my eyes. He’s clutching his ID book in both hands. I’m sure he woke long before the sun had even thought of rising and quite possibly walked miles to get here. He’s wearing a white open-necked shirt, brown trousers and highly polished black shoes and looks so smart. His brown eyes are serene and bear the deep wisdom of age. He holds up his book at me and smiles. I feel a sob rise in my throat as I hold up mine in return and for a moment it feels like our souls have left our bodies and touched each other. There’s such a sense of joy of solidarity between us. There’s no resentment or cynicism in his face. He’s another Mandela with that incredible depth of forgiveness or Ubuntu which cannot be of human origin. I think of Mandela’s words, ‘Forgiveness frees the soul.’ It’s so true and it’s been a hard lesson for me to forgive myself. I pray that despite the awful suffering of the past it will happen. If they don’t forgive us this new dawn will be short and bloody. The PAC slogan of, ‘One settler, one bullet’ reverberates through my mind. This new foundation is very fragile. There’re a lot who really hate us, and I can’t say I blame them. I shake my head. No, I must stay positive, especially on a day like this. I close my eyes and utter a silent prayer. ‘Please let them listen to Mandela … please.’ If he can forgive after twenty-seven years on Robben Island, let’s just hope they can too.

  ‘Iconic day.’ I turn to see Nic standing beside us.

  My mouth drops open.

  Nic shuffles his feet and clears his throat. A faint blush colours his cheeks. ‘I … just saw you guys. I’m up there.’ He points to the front of the queue. ‘I asked someone to keep my place so I could say “Howzit”.’ His blush deepens and he looks directly at me. ‘I know this is a special day for you, Lissa … I just wanted to say … enjoy.’

  I frown at him. ‘Thanks.’ I give a curt nod. ‘It’s special for a lot of us, especially Africans.’

  ‘No more racist addiction for Mandela’s new South Africa,’ says Nic with a sardonic lift of his eyebrows. ‘Let’s hope he wins.’

  Karlos gives a snort. ‘Agh, of course he’ll win.’

  Nic gives a nod and then narrows his eyes at us. ‘Ja, I know. I was only joking.’ He shoves his hands in his pockets and clears his throat again. ‘You guys have missed the meetings.’

  I shrug. ‘I don’t need them any more.’

  Nic purses his lips. His eyes flicker from me to Karlos and back at me. ‘Well, good for you.’ He keeps his eyes on me for a few seconds more before pushing out his hand towards me. ‘Can I shake and wish you luck?’

  I offer him a limp hand. ‘Good luck,’ I murmur.

  His hand is damp and I can feel it tremble against mine. He lets go and holds his hand out to Karlos who gives it a curt shake. Nic’s cheeks redden and he turns abruptly away and strides back up the queue.

  I wipe my hand against my Levis. ‘He’s creeping me out. I’m sure I keep seeing him.’

  Karlos tenses and looks down at me with a frown. ‘Think he’s following us?’

  I shrug my shoulders. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I’m sure I’ve seen him at least three times in different places, unless it’s his evil twin.’

  Karlos clenches his jaw and looks back up the queue to where Nic has squeezed himself in. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ He scowls down at me.

  ‘I wasn’t sure it was him,’ I stutter.

  ‘Don’t do it again,’ says Karlos in a fierce voice. He closes his eyes for a second and then puts his arm around my shoulders. ‘If you think you see him again, tell me straightaway.’ I nod but his anger ignites a queasiness in my stomach. Damn Nic. Why the hell did he have to spoil the moment.

  But as I hand across my ID book and place my hand out for its ultra-violet stamp all traces of negativity disappear. When it’s my turn I walk straight-backed with firm steps towards the voting box and close the short black curtain behind me. I scan my eyes down the eleven political parties displayed on the voting slip and pick up the short stubby pencil provided. As I twirl it between my fingers, the memory of apartheid’s bizarre pencil test creeps back into my mind. Who’d have thought something so innocuous as a pencil could tear a family apart, but it did. I remember Dad’s anger as he told us about Thabo’s sister being taken away from the family because she’d failed the test in court.

  ‘How can they use a pencil to test if she’s white,’ Elsa had demanded, her eyebrows drawn angrily together.

  Dad had shaken his head for a few seconds. ‘Words fail me,’ he’d said. ‘Words fail me.’

  ‘Poor Thabo,’ I whispered, still unable to believe that just because the pencil the judge had put in her hair hadn’t stuck, he’d said she must be white and he’d given her to a white family to look after. My mind had jumped to the new girl with thick, black curly hair, who’d just joined our class. I was sure a pencil would stick in her hair. I’d looked up at Dad while my young mind spun round and round, trying to make sense of it all. ‘Does it mean anyone with curly hair is coloured?’

  Dad had shaken his head and looked down at me while sad shadows played across his eyes. ‘No, Lissakins. It was only because Thabo’s mother is coloured.’

  ‘We must be the laughing stock of the whole bloody world,’ said Mommy as she stomped angrily into the kitchen to get more Lierberstein.

  ‘Not any more, thank goodness,’ I whisper as I look back down at the voting sheet and carve my charcoal cross deep into the white paper. ‘Viva Mandela at last. Viva!’

  Chapter 17

  A breeze rustles the closely drawn dusty-pink curtains allowing yellow slithers of early morning sun to shiver through the wrought-iron burglar guards and penetrate the darkness. I blink against their brightness.

  I push a limp strand of hair away from my cheek. My staccato breath breaks through the silence. I put my hand up to still the intense thudding which drums inside my head. My mouth is desert dry. I swallow hard. What’s happened? Why do I feel like this? I try to push aside the obvious answer. I’ve no recollection of touching any, but deep inside I know that doesn’t mean anything.

  Maybe Karlos and I were celebrating the miracle of the new South Africa? Maybe I caved in and had a drink? But where did I get it from? I don’t remember buying any. Fuck, I can’t remember anything. I must’ve had a lot. I push myself up, hiding from the bloated face and glassy eyes which taunt me from my dressing-table mirror. I smooth down my ruffled hair. Did I really get drunk? The question’s rhetorical; of course I had. No-one feels like this and can’t remember unless they’d got paralytic!

  ‘Karlos … Karlos?’

  The empty house mocks me with its silence. I try again. This isn’t funny. ‘Karlos … where are you?’

  Still nothing! My heart thuds in my ears. What if he’s walked out because I’d become ugly; all slackened jowls and bitchiness. I hadn’t been drunk since before rehab. He’s never even seen me drunk. He’s probably repulsed!

  ‘Never again,’ I whisper, ‘please God, never again.’ I shudder out a sigh as I see Karlos’ brown cable-knit sweater and khaki pants tossed across the rocking chair. His pair of veldskoens sit neatly together under the chair. Thank God! He must be here somewhere. I’m being stupid. He’s probably outside in the garden and if I was drunk then maybe he was too? Perhaps he’s got his own guilt and needs a smoke.

  I push out on shaky legs and take a few tentative steps. The room begins to heave. This is the worst hangover I’ve ever had. I swallow back the waves of nausea and narrow my eyes towards the bathroom.

  I fumble through the drawer for aspirin and glug them down with tap water. I splash my face with a shock of cold water, then squeeze a blob of
peppermint toothpaste with trembling hands. I must get rid of this puffiness and look half decent before Karlos comes back. Nausea floods through me. My mouth fills with the bitterness of bile and I retch. Perhaps I’ll feel better if I make myself sick?

  Suddenly my legs collapse. My head cracks against the tiled floor. A vicious spasm shoots up my spine and jolts me into the air. I lie still for a second and then my legs convulse. I stare forward; bits of white flecked foam dance like sea-froth before my eyes. The spasms come again. They jerk my body viciously, again and again, until a final, fierce paroxysm pounds through me and stops.

  I lie still. ‘What’s going on? Please God, what’s happening to me? Karlos? Nat … Elsa? Please, someone come and help me … please …’

  Chapter 18

  ‘Natalie, Melissa, she is very, very bad. Her body, she is jumping too much and there is white froth by her mouth. I think the spirits, they are taking her.’

  Oh, thank God. It’s Eunice … phone the ambulance, Eunice … not Nat … phone them now! Terror prickles through me as my body jerks. Maybe, she’s right … maybe I’m dying. Oh God. Phone the ambulance, please phone them.

  I hear Eunice pause and give a small sob. ‘Please, you must be quick.’

  She puts down the phone and walks back to my jerking body. I can see and hear her as she bends over me, but I can neither speak nor respond. Please God, let Nat be phoning the ambulance. Please, let them hurry, Lord … please.

  Eunice clucks her tongue as tears fill her eyes. ‘Houw,’ she whispers, ‘Houw!’

  Despite the horror of what’s happening I find comfort in her African expletive. Yes ‘Houw’, I can’t say it better myself, why is this happening? I can’t possibly have drunk enough to cause this.

  I watch from the corner of my eye as Eunice walks over to the rocking chair and moves Karlos’ clothes onto the floor. The chair creaks as she sits down. Her large bulk looms to and fro in my peripheral vision. She prays, calling on Yesu to help, and if not him, then send back the spirits of my ancestors to fetch me. Her incantations must be working for my jerking eases.

  I lie shuddering, with Eunice rocking rhythmically next to me, for what seems like hours until the screech of tyres, followed seconds later by the wail of the ambulance. The front door thuds open and footsteps clatter down the hallway. Nat enters, her long hair flying behind, and runs up to my twitching body.

  ‘Oh Liss … Oh God … what happened?’

  ‘The men are here.’ Eunice places her hand gently on Nat’s shoulder as two burly men in fluorescent green jackets tramp into the room and lean over me. One is bald and looks about fifty. The second is tall and thin with thick blonde hair and looks about my age. He carries a small oxygen canister under his arm. Their faces, as they look at my jerking body, are calm and indifferent.

  ‘We need to work on the patient, please,’ says the bald one in a heavy Afrikaans accent. ‘Sorry, ma’am, you must move away.’

  Nat nods and Eunice leads her to the rocking chair. The bald-headed paramedic brings out a syringe and oxygen mask. Again spasms break out and convulse through my frail body. I feel their hands press down on the mask, pushing back on the spasms in a black comic break-dance.

  ‘Oh God …’ Nat says, as her face shudders over me. Embarrassment washes over me as I feel my body splutter like an engine trying to come to life. I scream silently for blackness to come and cover me and take all this horror away, but my plea is ignored and instead I remain fully awake.

  ‘You must come to the kitchen. I’ll make the tea.’ I listen to the pad of Eunice and Nat’s footsteps past me. ‘We must leave the men to work.’

  ‘Where’s Karlos?’ I hear Nat demand as they recede down the corridor towards the kitchen.

  Yes, Nat’s right, where the hell is he? I’ve been so absorbed in my pain that I’ve forgotten him for a moment. If he’s outside surely he’d be in by now with all this commotion. Why isn’t he here? Has he gone like I’d first feared?

  ‘Angazi,’ I hear Eunice reply. ‘They were both in the house when I finished the work yesterday. I have only seen the Johnny Walker whiskey bottle today. I don’t know where Master Karlos has gone.’

  ‘Damn Karlos. Damn him! When did she start drinking again? He never said anything,’ shouts Nat. ‘How many bottles, Eunice? Oh God, how much has she drunk to get like this?’

  ‘Angazi, but the bottle was empty.’

  ‘Oh God,’ moans Nat. ‘We’d better look for more in the cupboard. She might have hidden them.’

  The blonde paramedic calls out. ‘Lady, we’ve got your sister stable enough to keep the mask on. Addington’s ICU is full. We’re going to take her to King Edward’s hospital …’

  ‘Kind Edward’s? Surely you can’t take her there?’

  I flinch. Nat’s right. I can’t go there. Why doesn’t she tell them I’ve got medical aid? Why can’t they take me to Parklands? ‘Tell them I’m covered, Nat … tell them,’ I want to scream, but nothing comes out.

  ‘It has a good ICU,’ says the paramedic. ‘We need to get her there fast. Do you know the way?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay, you can come with us.’

  ‘I must phone my other sister first. She can meet us there.’

  ‘Okay. Wait here until we have her in the ambulance.’

  Nat obeys and stands still, staring down at me until Eunice brings her tea.

  ‘Thank you.’ Nat gives Eunice an apologetic smile as she takes the mug of tea with a visibly shaking hand. ‘Thank you for phoning me … I need to phone Elsa.’

  Eunice looks at Nat with sad brown eyes. ‘I will come with you to the hospital. If they cannot help her I will call the Sangoma. She can call on Yesu to tell the spirits to come to help.’

  Nat nods while Eunice goes to fetch the cordless phone. My body jerks again. I need Jesus more than a psychic Sangoma, but where is he?

  Chapter 19

  The paramedics wheel me out and rush me in through the emergency double doors towards the A & E corridor. Nat and Eunice run at my side.

  ‘Ladies, go to reception. You can come to ICU afterwards,’ shouts the paramedic.

  The strong stink of antiseptic, tinged with blood and pus, hits me as the paramedics wheel me further down the long corridor. There are streaks of blood smeared across the ceiling and the air smells like iron. I feel bile rise in my throat. My eyes are wide open and I try to ignore the people at my side, crammed along the corridor. A young child screams, while a man with a thick blob of congealed blood on the side of his head reaches out to stop the gurney. The paramedic pushes him roughly away. I cringe at the awful reality of all the suffering and anger. What the hell am I doing in King Edward’s hospital? Two nurses saunter towards us, talking loudly in Zulu and laughing.

  ‘Mind!’ barks the bald-headed paramedic. ‘This is an emergency.’

  The nurses give him a dirty look but move to the side so they can wheel me past.

  I see the notice board for the ICU rear up as we approach the end of the corridor. They wheel me into the industrial lift and seconds later we’re surging upwards.

  In ICU the air is cold. The smell of bleach catches the back of my throat. Machines hum like wasps as the ventilators breathe their mechanical life into their patients, but the ward feels strangely silent. The steady rhythm of the ventilators draws me in and for a second I feel I’ve strayed onto an alien mothership where some weird mechanical life will experiment on me.

  The paramedics lift me onto the bed and hand a file to a tall Indian doctor who stands over me.

  ‘Convulsions,’ says the bald-headed paramedic. ‘We’ve managed to control them some. We’ve moistened the open eyes, but she’s not responding.’

  ‘Good man. Thank you,’ says the doctor.

  The doctor studies my file while another young man slices away my sweat-drenched pyjamas, totally oblivious to the fact that despite appearances, I’m conscious. He sticks material patches all over my chest and instantly the heart monitor s
prings to life. The fast, steady beeps mean the thin blue line is beating. Can’t they tell from my fast pulse that I’m awake? My legs jerk and I feel a wave ripple through my body. A fat nurse attacks me with needles; first on one hand, then the other. I watch, frozen, as she mounts the infusion bag and opens the taps to let the liquid drip life into my body. My jerking eases. She tightens a blood pressure monitor around my arm.

  ‘It’s low, Doctor.’

  He nods and shines a light into my eyes. His face blurs. His hands are cool against my chest as he examines me. At least it feels like he cares. He squeezes some liquid into my staring eyes and the room dissolves for a few seconds into a dense mist. He closes my eyelids and tapes them down.

  My pulse quickens and I try to still my mind from the panic which seeks to invade it. I hear the swoosh of the ICU swing doors.

  ‘Ladies, you can come in now. Please just put on these covering shoes and cap and wash your hands.’

  Footsteps pad towards me.

  ‘She’s stopped fitting now but is not responsive.’

  ‘Will she be … okay?’ Nat’s voice breaks mid-sentence.

  ‘We don’t know yet. Her brain has gone a long time without oxygen. I’m sorry, lady, it’s still touch and go. We will just need to wait and see. You can sit here by her and hold this hand.’

  I hear the scrape of a stool and sense someone sitting down next to my bed. Someone takes my limp hand and gives it a gentle squeeze.

  ‘Houw,’ whispers Eunice. She clicks her tongue, ‘Houw!’

  ‘Can you hear me, Liss?’ whispers Nat. ‘Elsa and me are here, so is Eunice. Don’t worry, you’re going to be okay. Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.’