It was not a rare occurrence at Scobie’s to hear the otherwise taciturn Vida curse his great-grandfather, his grandfather, and his father for not having had the good sense to have more than one issue each and thereby leaving it to him, a bona fide moffie, to carry the weight of both the family name and the inheritance. Whenever a bartender heard the word ‘issue’ issue from Vida’s lips, he knew that it was time to tell Vida to leave. Sober, Vida often wished that he had some of his grandfather’s attachment to the house, or some of his father’s aversion to it, to help him decide what to do with it. He had neither. If he sold the house he felt that he would be disappointing his grandfather. If he stayed in the house he felt that he would be disappointing his father. Whatever he chose to do, one or the other was sure to roll in his grave. Vida thus decided to neither live in it nor sell it. This resolution had worked well enough until Imogen Zula Nyoni decided to share her truth with him.
Together, Vida and Genie pushed at the ancient and weather-beaten teak door that creaked open with an asthmatic croak and revealed a dusty, crypt-like interior. Everything in The House That Jack Built was from a bygone era – old, faded, rusted and more than gently used. Everything seemed to have a special story to tell: the collection of assegais in the display case in the sunroom; the frozen, fiercely growling heads of a menagerie of animals in the trophy room; the demure Victorian Rose furniture in the sitting room; the overladen crystal chandeliers in the ballroom; the stately and sombre oak table with its twenty matching chairs in the dining room; the dignified Welcome Dover stove in the kitchen.
Although initially overwhelmed and somewhat frightened by all that lay before them (especially in the trophy room), Vida and Genie soon found a way to live with the house. Since the house had a surfeit of rooms, the two of them were spoilt for choice. Genie chose the room that had the most sunshine and put her suitcase on the bed, opened it, carefully retrieved Penelope and Specs, and placed them on the pillows, in this way claiming the room as hers. She did not seem to care that the lace covering the four-poster bed was yellowed and moth-eaten or that the wooden floor slanted a little; all she cared about was that the room received the most sunshine. Vida chose the room at the end of the hallway simply because it was the room at the end of the hall and would allow Genie and him to coexist privately.
Luckily, after Jakob de Villiers’ death in 1975, members of the Antiquarian Society and members of Victoria’s Own, a special branch of the Settler Society’s Women’s Auxiliary that oversaw the proper implementation of English gardens in the city, had successfully persuaded the City Council to declare The House That Jack Built and Victoria’s Garden city treasures. As a result, both the house and garden were well looked after by a loyal housekeeper, Matilda, and gardener, Stefanos, who were in the employ of the City Council. The house and the garden were both local and tourist attractions – very popular with people who enjoyed reliving romanticised versions of a colonial past by having four o’clock tea in Victoria’s Garden, seven-course dinners in the stately dining room, photographs taken in the trophy room, or dancing the night away in the ballroom, all while being waited on hand and foot by liveried black servants with beneficent and beatific smiles. Generously, the proceeds from such events went equally to the Settler Society’s Women’s Auxiliary, the Antiquarian Society, the City Council and the De Villiers Family Trust.
However, in 1995, The Man Himself – who had once or twice dined in the stately dining room and who had proudly hung in his office a picture of himself standing triumphantly with one foot on the head of one of Jakob de Villiers’ trophy lions – reprimanded the City Council for its collaboration with the Settler Society’s Women’s Auxiliary and Antiquarian Society in the maintenance of The House That Jack Built and Victoria’s Garden, saying that these societies smacked of colonialism. The Settler Society’s Women’s Auxiliary and Antiquarian Society were then left to maintain the property themselves. Unfortunately, by that time membership of both societies had dwindled due to death, exile in old age homes or repatriation back to Britain; and so, the once robust but now frail societies were no longer able to maintain The House That Jack Built and Victoria’s Garden. As fortune would have it, Matilda and Stefanos decided to stay with the property, but without their regular pay cheques from the City Council, they could only do so much to keep up with its upkeep.
So when Vida and Genie arrived to live in the house, there was much work to be done; since it had seen no social life for a couple of years, the house was long overdue for a good and thorough clean. They kept busy and they were happy to be busy. When they were not cleaning the house, with the assistance of Matilda, or trying to right the garden, with the assistance of Stefanos, they were out salvaging scrap metal, or in the workshop behind the De Villiers, Mendelsohn and Sons’ Auto Repair and Panel Beaters Garage, Genie assisting as Vida bent and shaped metal. At night they both happily collapsed onto their separate beds.
With all their hard work – it could not be helped – the house started becoming a home. A previously unassuming chair stopped simply being a chair and became Genie’s favourite because she liked the way she could fold herself into it; Vida started taking a moment out of every day to watch the sunset from the tranquillity of Victoria’s Garden; the Welcome Dover stove became the place where Genie would lightly burn her custard to give it more flavour; and it became impossible for Vida to fall asleep without listening to his grandfather’s meagre collection of records on a His Master’s Voice gramophone.
While Vida’s great-grandfather, Jakob de Villiers, had left behind a plethora of things, Vida’s grandfather, Frederick de Villiers, had left behind only three records of classical music, a worn copy of the King James Bible, a thin, neatly folded blanket, a bowler hat, a well-worn suit, and a collection of seashells placed carefully in a rusted tin can. Vida had accidentally made the discovery of his grandfather’s belongings when he forced open the swollen door to what he thought was an old tool shed but soon discovered to have been his grandfather’s living quarters – the servants’ quarters.
Vida remembered his grandfather, who had infrequently visited them in Thorngrove, as a proud man who always wore a suit and a bowler hat and always sat upright, his hard-working and determined hands placed firmly on his knees. He could not reconcile the memory of that proud man with the things he found in the servants’ quarters. Surely there must have been more to his grandfather’s life than what he had left behind. Vida busied himself looking in The House That Jack Built for other things that might have belonged to his grandfather, and, in not finding them, was filled with a sadness that made him cry. He would often spend time with the things his grandfather had left behind: sometimes he treated them like clues that would reveal the mystery of who his grandfather had been, sometimes he treated them like points on a road map that would lead him to an understanding of his grandfather’s life, and sometimes he treated them like pieces of a puzzle that he could put together again in order to reveal his grandfather’s true self. Yet whichever way he handled his grandfather’s belongings, they did nothing to make his grandfather more legible or tangible to him.
Whereas Vida was preoccupied with his grandfather, Genie was curious about the true matriarch of the De Villiers clan, Blue, Jakob’s Khoisan – or, as the parlance of the time would have it, Hottentot – maid. There was absolutely no trace of her in the house. There was no way of knowing what she had looked like, where she had lived, what she had loved, what she had hated. All that was left of Blue were questions: How had she come to cross paths with Jakob? How long had she lived here? What had she thought of her circumstances? How had she been treated by Jakob? Had she loved her son, Frederick? Had she loved herself? Had she cared about love at all or had she given herself over to something else entirely? Had it been her decision to live a life that could and would end without a trace? What had her original name been – the name she responded to as a child, the name she had held long before she crossed paths with Jakob? Genie liked to imagine Blue as a child the wa
y she remembered herself as a child, playing in a field of sunflowers. Had sunflowers even been introduced to this part of the world back then? In a house filled with the proud collections and clutter of Jakob de Villiers’ life, Blue’s absence seemed like a haunting.
All Vida knew about his great-grandmother was that she had travelled with Jakob in the guise of a man and had lived with him for many years as his manservant before becoming pregnant with Frederick and revealing her secret. A delicious crumb of information that led nowhere. Genie scrutinised Vida’s face, hoping to find some trace of Blue, but there was none. Had Blue simply chosen to make her life not matter, or had the choice been made for her? Blue’s absence was both intriguing and frustrating for Genie, perhaps because it contained a truth that she did not want to acknowledge – that one could come into this world, live a life (full, empty, contented, unfulfilled) and leave it without a trace. The very idea filled her with a sadness she did not know what to do with.
Then one day Genie found a pair of small, gently worn, baby-blue silk slippers in a chest at the foot of Jakob’s bed and quickly convinced herself that they had belonged to Blue. Perhaps it was their size, perhaps it was their daintiness, perhaps it was their unassuming appearance, perhaps it was their colour, perhaps it was just a knowing she felt when she touched them that convinced Genie she had found something that had belonged to Blue. Something so soft, so delicate, that still remained of her.
VIDA, GENIE & MARCUS
On a bright and sunny day in May, as Genie and Vida drove to the Thomas Meikles Hyper, Vida was still wondering how the simple purchase of a mattress had turned into such a production. Genie had had them test all manner of mattresses, looking for the one that was just right, until the salespeople had given them a knowing look that Vida found presumptuous. He had been ready to leave after the second mattress, but Genie kept on finding ways to co-opt him into her decision-making. Was there really any difference between mattresses except how much they cost? When Vida had first suggested the purchase of a mattress, he had thought they would take no more than ten minutes to find the most affordable one and purchase it. But Genie obviously had other ideas.
A man who called attention to himself because he had a hump on his back and a beautiful woman by his side walked into the store. Almost immediately, Genie found herself standing next to him and pointing at two mattresses.
‘Which one do you think we should choose?’ It was as though she had been waiting all along for him to come and help her. The beautiful woman was clearly taken aback, but the man looked at Genie with … recognition.
‘You are Golide Gumede’s daughter?’ the man with a hump on his back said. It sounded more like a statement than a question.
‘Yes, I am Golide Gumede’s daughter; although that fact is not helping me make a choice at this very minute.’ She gestured towards Vida with her head. ‘And this one, who is useful for all other things, is being absolutely useless for this.’
The beautiful woman smiled apologetically at Vida, and the man with a hump on his back looked at him with eyes that said ‘Women, hey?’ With that look Vida suspected that the man was offering something that he rarely offered: friendship.
More than an hour later, the man with the hump on his back helped Vida secure the finally chosen mattress to the top of the Austin Mini Cooper. When they were done he offered Genie and Vida his hand, another rare offering, Vida was sure. ‘Valentine Tanaka,’ the man said as they shook hands.
But that had not been the end of it. Genie had then been determined that they go to the Thomas Meikles Hyper to get the ingredients for custard. So, to Vida’s chagrin, they had driven through the city with the telltale mattress on top of the car.
Getting out of the Mini, Vida looked at the mattress, which looked exactly like the other mattresses that they had not chosen, wondering if it had been worth it.
‘Don’t worry,’ Genie said as she made her way towards the store. ‘Given everything that it has and does, it was worth it.’
‘What does a mattress do?’ Vida asked.
But before Genie could answer, Marcus ambushed them.
Vida did what he did best on the street: he did not interfere. He let this moment in Marcus and Genie’s lives play itself out to its predestined end. He stepped a respectful distance from them, to where he was sure he would not hear what was being said. As an added measure, he forced himself to have a conversation with Goliath, the puny leader of The Survivors, who now considered himself friends with Vida because he had made friends with Genie. Or rather, to put it more accurately, because Genie had made friends with him.
Vida looked back over his shoulder at Genie and Marcus. He watched as Marcus gestured towards the car that was laden with the mattress, a gesture that communicated one thing: despair. Suddenly, even from a distance, Marcus’ desperation became palpable to Vida and made him briefly ponder the thought – one, now unwelcome – of some day, perhaps, finding himself without Genie.
Genie had taken the news of Marcus’ leaving for America rather well – too well for Marcus’ liking. He had been cherry picked by his employer to undertake an apprenticeship in the finance department of one of the nation’s Fortune 500 companies.
‘You should come with me,’ Marcus said. This was a new idea, even to him. He had only wanted to take her back home, away from Vida. That was before he saw the mattress weighing down the Austin Mini Cooper. The mattress changed everything, made him anxious, made his hands itch to do something he could not do in public. He was not quite sure what that something was. ‘I love you,’ he told the frown that had creased Genie’s brow.
At his declaration, Genie smiled.
‘You want to love me, but wanting to love me is not the same as loving me.’
He realised then that her smile had been the harbinger of false hope.
‘You’ve never forgiven me, have you?’ Marcus asked, sounding almost triumphant in his sadness.
‘Forgiven you? What is there to forgive?’
‘You’ve never forgiven me for that morning in the kitchen. Never forgiven me for letting go of your hand. For … for what I did after.’
‘There is nothing to forgive.’
Genie took his hands gently in hers, finally giving them something to do.
‘Remember how I used to burrow my feet in the soil of the sunflower fields?’
It was Marcus’ turn to frown.
‘Remember how you never did?’
Genie let go of his hands.
‘My letting you go is my way of loving you.’
VIDA & GENIE
Vida was still breathing her in, her taste was still in his mouth and his fingertips were still tingling from having touched her. His arm was carelessly thrown over his eyes as he made a valiant effort to catch his breath, which only moments ago had been happy to leave him. He could hear her struggle to catch her breath as well. He listened to her breathing normalise and calibrated his to match hers.
‘This beautiful thing is something that the body needs,’ Genie said.
He felt her sit up.
Vida raised his arm from his eyes and looked at her. She was hugging her knees to her body and looked iridescent with the glow of what he had made possible within her.
‘Promise me you will never speak to me of love,’ she said. She looked at him and ran the back of her hand idly over his chest. ‘To not have to speak of love is such a freeing thing.’
‘I promise,’ Vida said. It was an easy promise to give because he remembered looking into a pair of startlingly blue eyes and feeling so content … so fulfilled … so complete.
In that moment, he felt relieved that Genie was not looking for that contentment … that fulfilment … that completeness from him.
VIDA
Vida had left the city with its smell of freshly baked bread because a change had taken place. Uninvited and unwelcomed … in the beginning. But then he had grown accustomed to the change – to the way it was always accompanied by the scent of warm vanil
la and woodsmoke; to the way it always laughed at the beginning of The Carpenters’ ‘Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft’; to the way it always made sure to slightly burn custard to give it extra flavour; to the way it seemed all-knowing and yet, paradoxically, always questioned everything; to the way it was fiercely independent and sometimes stubborn; to the way it faithfully consumed the marijuana baked goods and moringa tea that he made to fend off the ravages of HIV; to the way it offered no resistance to the suggestion that they share the same bed; to the earnestness with which it went about buying a mattress; to the way it propped its body against his to reduce the rumble in its chest; to the loneliness it left behind when it went to Mater Dei Hospital for six weeks to be treated for tuberculosis; to the way it valiantly defeated pneumonia with antibiotics; to the happiness it shared when the antiretroviral medication became available; to the way it became something he reached for in the night; to the way it always entwined its legs with his when they slept; to the way it whispered his name in his ear in the dead of night; to the way it made him feel like a man standing alone in a field of tall, yellow, almost golden elephant grass – a man who could not put into words the sense of wonderment he felt upon discovering that he was never truly alone.
The Theory of Flight Page 14