The Theory of Flight

  Playing among the sunflowers proved to be a happy distraction from the quest to reach the hazy blue something. Marcus and Genie ran laughing and zigzagging through the stalks, not really sure who was trying to catch whom.

  And so it was that, day after day, they left the compound intent on reaching the distant hills, but, day after day, found themselves playing among the sunflowers. Then one day they gave up the quest altogether and simply made their way straight to the sunflowers. After that, it did not take long for the hazy blue hills in the distance to become a distant memory. When they were not playing catch-me-if-you-can, Genie sang songs she had learned from her mother and told stories she had heard around the compound fires to a very appreciative audience of sunflowers.

  They continued to find pleasure in the sunflowers even as the petals began to shrivel, the stalks hardened, and the brown faces of the sunflowers became darker and downcast.

  Then one day all laughter died. Just like that. Unable to comprehend, Marcus and Genie stared at all the sunflowers lying on the reddish-brown soil, no longer reaching for the sky. They had all been felled to the ground. Every single one. Genie desperately tried to get them standing again, and Marcus had no choice but to help her. With their hands they dug the reddish-brown soil and reinstated the stalks to their rightful places. Some stood but most fell down again. Genie was determined. She did not care how long it would take, all she told herself was that one day all the sunflowers would be replanted.

  But when they arrived the next morning, the scene was worse than any they could have imagined. The sunflowers were gone – all of them, even the ones they had put upright again. There was not a trace – not a forlorn green stalk, not a withered yellow petal, not an abandoned brownish-black seed, no evidence at all that this had recently been a populated sunflower field. The barren scene truly broke Genie’s heart and for the first time in her life she turned her face away from the sun. Wordlessly, Genie sank to the reddish-brown soil and cried silent tears – another first in her short life.

  Marcus put his arm around her but at that moment became old enough to know that Genie’s grief was something he could not console away. He was sad not for himself but for Genie because, although he understood that this was a loss, he knew that the loss was mostly hers. She had loved the sunflowers in a way that he had not. She had loved them deeply. He had not. She had loved them with every fibre of her being. He had not. In truth, he had loved the sunflowers only because Genie loved them. He saw that they were beautiful, but were it not for Genie he would not have seen that theirs was a beauty worth cherishing.

  On that day, Marcus made another discovery. It was a discovery he could only have made because of the sunflowers’ disappearance. As Genie planted her feet in the reddish-brown soil and sifted it through her fingers in a vain effort to find something that remained, a glint on the horizon caught Marcus’ eye. In the early morning sunlight he made out the carcass of a car.

  The abandoned car had been there all along, lonely as it listened to them play and laugh in the field, lonely as it listened to Genie sing and tell stories to the sunflowers, lonely as it watched them walk away without being discovered. The loneliness of the abandoned car filled Marcus with a sadness that made him want to run towards it without hesitation and touch it. It was only Genie’s grief that stopped him from doing so.

  In a show of solidarity he too sifted the soil through his fingers. But he could not bring himself to bury his feet in the reddish-brown soil. Every now and then, his eyes stole looks at the abandoned car.

  Perhaps the biggest challenge that now presented itself in young Marcus’ life was how to tell Genie about the abandoned car. Every day, secretly, he visited the car, a Morris Mini Minor that he christened Brown Car more for its rusty patches than for its original beige colour. He found time for these secret visits in those moments when Elizabeth found it necessary to have her daughter close to her – when she washed their clothes and hung them to dry, when she cooked their meals, when she combed and plaited their hair, when she dressed them both in bright colourful clothes, when she wanted someone to sing to, or sing with, or when she simply wanted to have her daughter close so that she could pick her up whenever she felt like it and twirl her in the air and hug her fiercely and pepper her skin with kisses and listen to Genie giggle and giggle as though she knew no end to laughter and happiness.

  Before they discovered the sunflower field and before he discovered Brown Car, Marcus’ favourite time of the day had been bath time – not his bath time, which consisted of his grandmother religiously scrubbing his body with a coarse facecloth and harsh soap that was sudsy enough but stung his eyes and prickled his nose and made him sneeze repeatedly as his grandmother told him about the dangers of dirt and vanity while he stood in a zinc-galvanised steel bucket which was filled with just enough cold water to make him clean. No, not that bath time, but Genie’s and Elizabeth’s. They bathed together, and their bath time was filled with laughter and giggles and songs and warm water splishing and splashing in their enamel cast-iron tub, the warm and comforting scent of vanilla wafting out of the high window of their bathroom, under which Marcus stoically sat even though the other boys in the compound teased him mercilessly for doing so.

  From under the window, Marcus could hear the conversations they had: ‘Ma, when I grow up, will I have breasts as big as yours?’

  ‘Would you like to have breasts as big as mine?’

  ‘Yes, most definitely.’

  ‘Then you shall.’

  ‘Ma, when I grow up, will I have a bottom as round as yours?’

  ‘Would you like to have a bottom as round as mine?’

  ‘Yes. Maybe even rounder.’

  ‘Then you shall,’ replied a laughing voice.

  ‘Ma, when I grow up, will I be as beautiful as you?’

  ‘No. You’ll be much more beautiful than me. You’ll be a true sight to behold.’

  ‘But I don’t want to be more beautiful than you.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to try very hard not to be.’

  ‘Ma, I know that I came from somewhere in your heart.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘And that I was an egg.’

  ‘A golden egg.’

  ‘Does that mean … Marcus says that means I don’t have a father.’

  ‘Marcus knows as much as Marcus can know.’

  ‘Do I have a father?’

  ‘It depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On the future.’

  Marcus had fallen asleep many a time under that open window, lulled by the warm vanilla scent, their soothing voices, generous laughter and genuine happiness.

  But after he discovered Brown Car, he no longer spent time under the high window.

  He spent his time breathing in the surprisingly comforting smell of rusting metal and rotting seat cushioning. It was an old and somewhat familiar smell.

  His fingers revelling in the curve of the steering wheel, Marcus imagined himself driving down the long dusty road away from the compound and towards the hazy blue hills – always with Genie by his side in the passenger seat and her beloved Penelope in the back. Marcus did all the driving because, from what he had seen on the compound, only men drove vehicles; it had never occurred to him that his imagination did not have to be bound by the reality of the compound. And as he fantasised about these journeys to and from the compound, he tried to devise a plan to tell Genie about his new love, Brown Car.

  As it turned out, he did not have to. One day, as he imagined himself driving down the dirt road with Genie by his side, he smelled the warm scent of vanilla and woodsmoke and turned to see Genie looking at him from the passenger seat, a rare frown creasing her brow, her arms crossed and resting on her slightly distended belly.

  ‘So this is it?’ she said, looking over the interior of Brown Car with no hint of the admiration he felt when he looked at the car. ‘This is what made you steal away from me?’ What was he supposed to say to that? The ever
-present Penelope also seemed to give him a disapproving look from her secure position on Genie’s back. He felt his heart sink. And then Genie’s face broke into a smile, the gap between her two front teeth making him smile too, as it always did.

  And from then on, that was how they spent most of their mornings and afternoons, slowly baking in Brown Car’s carcass, together travelling to the places contained within their imaginations, places they had heard of – China, Egypt, England, the Soviet Union and America. In their imaginations the places all looked exactly like the compound, except China had a great wall running around it; Egypt had pyramids and sphinxes where the schoolrooms were; England had a stuffy and stiff queen looking very out of place in the greyish-yellow dust of the compound as she walked around in her bejewelled crown and heavy red cloak looking for someone called Margaret Thatcher but never finding her; the Soviet Union had the word COMMUNISM (or rather, as Marcus and Genie spelled it, KOMOOKNEEZIM) plastered on every building in the compound in big red letters; America contained Marcus’ parents, who manifested themselves as younger versions of Marcus’ grandmother and grandfather, the way they looked in their wedding photo – Christian, proper and unsmiling. The America that Marcus’ parents lived in was filled with men riding horses and wearing Stetsons, and men driving fast cars and wearing fedoras – in other words, they lived in the America seen in the bioscope. During their many travels Marcus and Genie even visited Genie’s father, Golide Gumede, in the future.

  It was Genie’s idea to borrow the world atlas from Marcus’ grandfather’s scant library so that they would have more places to visit. Unfortunately, it had been printed in 1965 and did not contain the name of their newly independent country. The world atlas therefore presented them with more possibilities as well as more challenges. Their newly independent country could have been any of those land masses surrounded by even larger masses of water. It could have been one of those teeny tiny shapes that seemed to be in grave danger of being swallowed whole by the masses of water. As a result, their newly independent country sometimes found itself in the centre of the world map, sometimes in the north, sometimes in the south, sometimes in the east, and sometimes in the west. Marcus and Genie already understood that the world had a fluidity to it, even if they did not as yet understand their place in it. Worlds and possibilities unfurled before them, creating dizzying delights.

  So engrossed were they in their travels that it took them a while to notice that shoots were beginning to rise out of the reddish-brown earth. The sunflowers were being reborn. This was how they learned their most valuable lesson about death – that after it there is life again, that things that perish will rise again, that after every ending there is another beginning.

  And so, although they spent the days and afternoons travelling the globe, their eyes also patiently watched the sunflowers grow stronger as they reached towards the sun. They watched as the leaves appeared. They watched as a million blooms burst in unison. They watched as a million brown faces turned towards the sun, and Genie chose that exact moment to take her rightful place among them, welcoming the familiar itch of her skin as her arms came into contact with the stalks and enjoying the cool dampness of the reddish-brown soil as her toes burrowed in, rooting her in her place.

  It was one day, while they were in the sunflower field, that the first truly strange thing happened. Through the stalks they saw a car sputter to a stop. Two men were inside. Neither of them got out. The driver simply rolled down his window and proceeded to smoke a cigarette, blowing smoke rings out of the open window as though he had all the time in the world. From their vantage point within the sunflowers, Marcus and Genie could see enough of the men to know that they did not know them: they did not belong to the Beauford Farm and Estate. After the war, strangers had been very rare on the Beauford Farm and Estate. Even so, Marcus knew enough about strangers to hold on fast to Genie’s hand – Genie who had a tendency to run towards everything without hesitation. They stood among the stalks for a long time holding hands, not moving, afraid to breathe.

  Then the man in the passenger seat got out and walked towards them. Marcus and Genie held a collective breath, fearing something, though not really sure what. The man stopped right at the edge of the sunflower field and started unzipping his trousers. It was then that Marcus risked everything and moved. He lifted the hand that was not clutching Genie’s hand and used it to cover her eyes. He shut his own. They heard the man’s urine splash onto the reddish-brown soil. It was only when they heard the car door slam shut that Marcus removed his hand from Genie’s eyes and opened his own. They felt too embarrassed to look at each other.

  Not looking at each other is what allowed them to witness the astonishing thing that happened next. Just as the coolness in the air and the changing colour of light through the sunflower petals was letting them know that the sun was beginning to set, the boot of the car popped open and out of it slowly unfolded an impossibly tall man, like a Jack-in-the-box that was taking its time to surprise them. This time Marcus and Genie held their collective breath in sheer awe.

  The driver and the passenger got out of the car and joined the third man. They had a long, whispered conversation before they shook hands – grasping each other’s upper arms with their free hands, a sure sign of something deeply felt. Without even having to say anything to each other, Marcus and Genie knew that they would be greeting each other like that from then on. The driver and the passenger got back in the car, which came alive without a sputter. It made a quick U-turn and raised a lot of dust in the air, so much that Marcus and Genie had to strain to see what was happening. The driver said something to the third man that he responded to with a smile. Then all three men brought their right hands towards their foreheads at a very sharp angle. Then just as suddenly and just as simultaneously they brought their hands down in a sharp motion. Goodbye. Without even having to say anything to each other, Marcus and Genie knew that they would be saying goodbye to each other like that from then on too.

  The car slowly drove away. The third man remained in the cloud of dust but started to turn towards the compound. His eyes quickly swept over the sunflowers. Then he stopped.

  Genie immediately let go of Marcus’ hand and ran towards the man. They seemed to share a mutual elation at having discovered one another. The man threw Genie into the air. Marcus was terrified. The man caught Genie with a smile. It was only when he saw the gap between the man’s two front teeth that Marcus felt safe enough to leave the sunflower field. When the man shifted his smiling eyes from Genie to Marcus, Marcus was grateful to see that they did not lose any of their warmth. He basked in the warm glow of their welcome as he shyly and in a manly way, or so he hoped, shook the man’s hand.

  All three of them were so wrapped up in getting acquainted that they did not notice Elizabeth hurtling towards them with the speed and ferocity of a mother elephant that knows its calf is in danger. Dust rose in her wake as the many colours of her dress seemed determined to fly off her body. The blonde hair that often sat on top of her head had long flown off and been trampled by some of the other residents of the compound who were following her, sensing instinctively that something either spectacular or tragic was happening and that they would need to bear witness.

  ‘Golide?’ Elizabeth bellowed before coming to an abrupt stop. Her eyes were wide with wonder, confusion, relief, joy and pain. Her body trembled with the force of feeling all these emotions at once.

  Jestina strategically started ululating. Relieved to finally have something to do, the compound residents celebrated. The women ululated and danced a jig. Then the men did a very elaborate warrior dance, kicking their legs high into the air, humming and chanting a warrior song deep in their throats. The younger members of the compound did not do the jig or the warrior dance – they were too modern for that. They chose instead to do the twist, and the really gifted among them even braved the mapantsula. No one, not a single person, minded all the dust that the joy of the occasion raised as they made their way
back towards the compound. Golide seemed at once both touched and embarrassed by the attention. However, this spontaneous excess of sheer joy was not unwarranted, for Golide Gumede, liberation war hero, had returned home alive and well, unlike so many others, who had returned broken or had not returned at all. The presence of life after the death and devastation of war was definitely something worth celebrating.

  Marcus had never before felt such a deep sense of belonging as when he walked nestled between Elizabeth and Golide, each of his hands in one of theirs. He smiled up at Genie and she smiled down at him from where she sat, perched resplendently on her father’s shoulders. This was to be the happiest day of their young lives.

  It was while they were in Brown Car that the second truly strange thing happened. A few years had passed since Genie’s father’s return. Things all around had changed. There was more traffic along the dirt road. A mobile library came once a month, allowing residents of the compound to borrow one book each. Marcus borrowed a different volume of The Adventures of Tintin every month. Genie borrowed The Firebird and renewed it every month. Marcus enjoyed challenging his lips and tongue with Captain Haddock’s alliteration-obsessed diatribes, and Genie was enamoured of the pretty pictures of the beautifully colourful bird as well as the story of how it remained elusive for Prince Ivan and sent him on a tremendous quest.