by JT Lawrence
This has gone too far.
17
As If Anything Mattered
Today is Eve’s funeral. A relative I never knew she had called yesterday to invite me. The cremation is to happen in a grimy little place in Braamfontein (not Eve’s style at all) and then there will be drinks at the unknown relative’s house. Distracted, I wonder who has arranged the funeral.
The same details are listed in the newspaper obituary I hold in my hand. They ask for donations to Eve’s favourite charity (the Teddy Bear Clinic) in lieu of flowers.
Fuck that, I think, Eve deserves flowers.
I arrive at the crematorium early so I can look around. I’ve never been to one before. I watched a funeral pyre in India once. It was colourful, poignant, fragrant, life affirming: nothing like this cave. I walk to the front and deposit the enormous bouquet I bought on my way here. It is an over-the-top arrangement of dozens of Eve’s favourite papery cream-colored roses. It looks out of place in this downmarket dungeon.
The room is small and airless, with a tangible sense of impending doom. There is a balding velvet curtain like in the movies, just not as glamorous, and wooden fold-up chairs that wouldn’t take the weight of anyone over 100kg. A rugby player’s grieving entourage wouldn’t be welcome here. I’m not a small man so I sit down with caution, trying to not reduce the thing into matchsticks. It seems I have done enough damage.
I know about cremation. I know that Christians didn’t come around to the idea until the nineteenth century. I know the furnaces are heated using gas, diesel oil or electricity. It takes about two hours, at a temperature ranging from 700 to 1,100 °C. The one I’m sitting in now is gas-operated (may as well do your bit to fight global warming on your way out) and probably gets to around 900°C. That’s nine times the heat of boiling water.
I’d have thought Eve would have preferred a ‘greener’ burial, like having a tree planted in her honour, or something like that. But I guess she didn’t have much say.
I wonder what they’ll do with the ashes.
I’ve always thought the idea of keeping someone’s ashes bizarre. I feel suffocated just thinking of being stuck in a hand-painted flea-market urn on a mantelpiece. I much prefer the poetry of graves and graveyards. If I could choose where to be buried it would be in Père Lachaise in Paris. It’s not very patriotic I know, but then I’d be dead, so no matter. Imagine being buried in the same soil as Jim Morrison, Stuart Merrill, Colette! It’s haunting, with its ancient trees and cobbled lanes, a grand place with a kind of rich, earthy gravitas. A place that Takes Death Seriously. They don’t have gravestones as much as they have monuments to the dead, many with tended gardens, crowded with grass and roses and fat purple irises. I visited it for the first time in 1990; after escaping the monotony of school I was on the first plane to Anywhere, which turned out to be Holland. From there I spent the next two years on trains, backpacking through Europe, doing odd jobs when I needed the cash and writing all the while. I used to post my bursting journals home to Dad when they got too heavy, and he stored them in the room he always kept open for me. I discovered Père Lachaise by accident. New to the Metro (and French), I got off at the wrong stop and it was just there, like an omen. I spent hours exploring, lost in the drama of the moss-stained cherubs and slabs of marble. It is as wistful as cemeteries come: a host of cinnamon daffodils; Oscar Wilde’s lipstick-coated art deco tomb and a little girl carrying a red rose, which I could only imagine was for the Little Sparrow’s grave. Having ‘La Vie En Rose’ play over and over in my head as I tried to find my way out. Only afterwards did I realise how much the experience affected me. I would keep seeing the winding paths, feeling the coolness of the trees, running my fingers over the names engraved on the stones. The memory burrowed inside me and now I can’t go to the city of lights without paying my respects.
The ginger-haired pastor is well meaning (as some Men Of God are) and says nice things about Eve, but you can see right through his speech. He may as well be selling Chinese herbs on television. He has a paint-by-numbers template which he follows, cutting and pasting where appropriate, like Eulogies for Dummies. I imagine him going through his questionnaire with Eve’s family. (“Was she kind?” Tick. “Was she religious?” Cross. “Was she beautiful?” Tick. “Was she in love?” Cross.) Then the questionnaire is fed into a machine and within seconds it spits out the funeral speech, like the novel-writing machine in Roald Dahl’s imagination, called the The Great Automatic Grammatizator.
I find myself staring at his agitated mustard moustache for most of his one-soul-fits-all tribute. Jesus liked a bit of facial hair. In fact, I think you can go so far as to say that he was quite a fan. I, on the other hand, don’t trust people with moustaches. I look around at all the strangers perching on their fragile seats. Eve never talked about her family or her past. Not a word on childhood sweethearts or leering teachers. Acting as if she was born into this world as a gorgeous twenty year old with a life all set out for her. Like someone had dreamed her up out of nowhere, or off a picture in Hello magazine. No one in the room looks too much like Eve. Perhaps she was adopted.
As the moustache drones on I make a note to self: to write my own funeral ceremony. Think out of the box: as in turn creative, not zombie. In some countries the dead are buried in theme-shaped coffins according to which profession they pursued while alive. So a gardener would be buried in a flower-shaped box, a priest in a cross, and a carpenter in a … well I guess a carpenter would just be buried in a regular coffin. I wonder what writers are buried in? Caskets that look like books? It would be appropriate, especially when they close the lid.
In another country they dig out their dead once a year, dress them up in their finest silks and jewels, and have a rocking party in their honour. That’s more my style.
I was once sent to Mexico on a journo assignment to report on the Festival of The Dead. The piece was actually supposed to be about how different cultures experience grief and death, but I was captivated by El Día de los Muertos and ended up staying a week longer than I was supposed to. I found the concept of celebrating death so intriguing and after eating my first sugar skull I was hooked. The locals I interviewed believed that All Souls Day was the time when it was easiest for spirits to contact them. They would entice their deceased into visiting by laying out offerings and treats: toys for dead children and bread and bottles of tequila for adults. Also, blankets for everyone, so that they could rest after their long journey. An all-night vigil ensued, where the living ate the offerings but said they were left with hollow stomachs, because the goodness of the food had already been appropriated by the spooks. My memories of Mexico are orange. There are thousands upon thousands of marigolds strewn everywhere during the festival. They are known as the Flor de Muerto, Flower of the Dead, and are believed to attract the souls of the sleeping.
We left toys out for Emily. Her favourite dolls, a trike, a giant Pink Panther, a plastic tea set and some little ponies. We kept her bedroom just as she left it. The room’s cheerfulness breathed cold on my neck; sometimes I would close the door.
I fight the memory of Emily’s funeral. I knew this would happen. I close my eyes to keep it out, breathe deep, curl my fingers into fists.
I think of Emily’s coffin and how tiny it was. Stunted, like her life. Small and white, seemingly inconsequential. White lilies. Everything else in black: a moratorium on bright colours lest they remind anyone that she was just a child.
I loosen my collar and swallow, trying to fend off the assault of the memories I know so well. Not calm, like this ceremony. Loud and wet and cold and hot. Everyone stroking me on the day I felt allergic to touch. Strangers saying how handsome I looked in my ‘little suit’, as if the size of my clothes saddened them, as if the clothes I was wearing mattered. As if anything mattered.
I start to feel claustrophobic. A trickle of sweat runs down my ribs.
Just before the pastor says his closing words I’m out of there, out into the new air and fresh sky. I
take off my jacket, sling it over my arm and stride to my car, where I sit for a while with the aircon on full-blast, staring through the windscreen, not seeing anything.
I have a hand-drawn map of how to get to the wake, which I crumple up and throw out of the window. I don’t want to go. I don’t know any of these people and I’m in pain. I want to be in bed with a bottle of Glenfiddich and the curtains drawn, not eating soggy canapés and making small talk with old, fat, swollen-eyed women. But I know I can’t not go, so I start my engine and pull away. The streets I drive along are dappled and pretty once I get out of Braamfontein. My GPS takes me into Orange Grove, where I narrowly miss hitting a Homeless Talk man running towards my car looking like Gollum. I hoot at him and show him the finger. Surely he knows that people in sports cars don’t buy The Big Issue?
I drive past a tombstone showroom. Only in Africa. Death is such a huge business, what with the violence and AIDS. It reminds me of a main road in Lagos that stretches past the major hospital. I called it Funeral Town. There are people standing by the side of the road selling cheap coffins. They display them, looking like cardboard cut-outs. Billboards plastered on the bridge supports and perimeter walls advertising discount funerals, as if when someone you love dies your priority is finding a bargain. If that’s what it looked like outside I can’t imagine the chaos inside the hospital. Scamming suitcase undertakers poised to pounce, like hyenas.
It’s a bustling road and people swarm around my car. There are hawkers selling avocados and peaches, wire sculptures, lighters, fake designer shades and cold Cokes. The robot is still green; maybe I’ll make it through. The junker in front of me is driving so slowly it may as well be going backwards. The taxi beside me is an inch away from scratching my paintwork and the bakkie behind is so far up my arse I feel violated. Cocky, greasy, pedestrians weave their way through the traffic, touching the cars as they go. I hate it when people touch my car. The robot turns orange. I can still make it. I hoot at the car in front to accelerate but it has the opposite effect. The robot turns red and I shout and bang my steering wheel. I hate red traffic lights on these roads in particular. They may as well hand out firearms to the hijackers. I’m a sitting duck. As soon as the red light appears the hawkers hit the road in a well-practised, choreographed invasion. The Homeless Talk guy catches up with me and hits my roof twice – hard – to show me he’s back. I feel my heart banging loud and fast, hammering away at my breastbone. The noises around me become amplified; I hear people shouting at me and cars hooting. My lungs feel like they’re filling with water. I can only breathe in short, sharp breaths. I start hyperventilating. Am I having a heart attack? I hit my chest and cough hard, twice, just in case. The man is dancing for me and smiling. He knocks on my window, leaving oily knuckle marks behind. I need air but I don’t want to get out of my car on this unfriendly street. My legs are unsteady.
The robot turns green, the hawkers disappear and I put my foot down.
The house is a golden oldie, probably built in the 50s. Sturdy and squat, built with red bricks, a green tin roof and plaster which is now crumbling away. The floors are polished Oregon pine throughout, the walls are varying shades of nutmeg and vanilla, and the house smells like unwashed dogs and tobacco. The original pressed ceilings and grubby walls remind me of my father’s house, and that I should go and see him again. This could have been his funeral and my last memory of him would be that stuttering phone call on the night of my party.
I am shepherded through the house and out the back door into the bright heat of the midday sun. A dainty cup of tea is pressed into my hand. Oh God, I hope this isn’t a dry wake. I’m still sweating from the panic attack in the car. Somehow I don’t think that this tepid tea will do a good enough job of settling my jangling nerves. I dodge and sidestep to a downcast potted palm in the corner and surreptitiously empty my tea into it. Probably do the plant more good than it would me.
The garden is overgrown and parched. Tired branches, dusty leaves, desert sand. Patches of old damp blister the garden walls. The garden looks the way I feel. I abandon the empty teacup on the refreshment table. As I turn around, an old lady in a floral shift accosts me.
“Who are you?” she barks. Indigo eyes drill into my face.
“I am … I was a friend of Eve’s. She designed one of my book covers. That’s how we met.” The way she looks at me makes me want to tell her more, but I can’t think of anything else.
“How did you know Eve?” I venture.
“You’re the writer, then,” she says, not without distaste. She has an Afrikaans accent and speaks in a kind of undulating high pitch, rolling her r’s and raising her vowels as only Afrikaans women can.
“Yes.”
“Harris.”
“Yes. Slade.”
She wrinkles her nose.
“Have you written anything I would know?” she asks.
A cent for every time someone asked me that.
“Doubt it,” I lie.
“Irma Shaw,” she says, shoving her flabby hand out at me like a Nazi.
I recoil. It’s cold and too soft, like toad skin. Tofu. Testicles.
“I’m Evelyn’s tannie. Not that she knew it!”
“I’m sorry?”
“We didn’t see a lot of her. She never took the time out of her …” she clears her throat, “busy schedule. To come and kuier.”
So much for not speaking ill of the dead.
“Yes,” I nod, “she was a very hard worker. She was always working. She was a workaholic.”
I know I’m rambling. I don’t know where these words are coming from.
“Not even at Christmas,” she sighs, fingering the gold cross on her chest. “The Holy Lord’s birthday. Can you imagine? Gena-a-a-a-ade. Haar eie familie! Don’t get me wrong; I don’t speak badly of no one. It’s just that, ag man, we missed her!”
“I never had the pleasure of speaking to Eve about her hometown,” I say, “Where is it?”
As she hesitates a grey man puts a hand on her shoulder and whispers in her ear. She nods and turns to walk away, turns back, and says, “It was nice to meet you, Slade.”
The sun gets hotter on my skin. Damn African summers. I decide I need to look for alcohol. There is a man in tweed bringing out clean teacups.
“Excuse me,” I say with a chuckle, trying as much as possible to not look like an alcoholic, “Any chance of something stronger here?”
He looks up, smiles, but doesn’t speak. Uncomfortable, I smile; typical of me to ask the only deaf/mute guy. He walks back into the house. I think I may have to leave soon. I’m not sure that I can stand here for another minute. I stare vaguely into the glum garden, planning my escape excuse. There’s a gentle tap on my back and I turn around to see the smiling tweed-man. He hands me a bottle of cheap whisky and a glass of old-fashioned ice. The opaque kind, from metal ice-trays with the handle running down the centre dividing the cubes. Smooth and white, as if someone has frozen smoke inside.
I take it from him and he walks away before I get to say thanks. I don’t recognise the dusty label at all but I don’t care. I would drink methylated spirits right now if it was the only drink on offer. I pour a good four fingers and put the bottle on the table. Sharing is caring.
I hear a familiar voice coming from inside the house.
“ … She was one of my FAVOURITE artists … ”
Sifiso. I feel I could do with a friendly face.
“… Very TALENTED and also very LOVELY WOMAN …”
He strolls outside and winces at the bright sunshine. He sees me and walks over, puts his right hand in mine and his left on my back. It’s very comforting. I see for the first time that he is probably a very good father to his kids.
“I’m so SORRY, Slade,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry. I know how much you LOVED Eve. How CLOSE you were.”
My throat constricts. I try to swallow the ache but it doesn’t go away. I am overwhelmed by my gratitude to this man, for coming today, for touchin
g me, for saying those words.
“I can’t believe this has happened,” I whisper to him. I reek of desperation.
“Senseless,” he says and shakes his head. “It makes me wonder what KIND of COUNTRY we are living in, with all this violence. Eish, it’s a TRAGEDY.” He is still shaking his head, like a dashboard dog. “It makes me worried for my KIDS, man.”
I nod. False face must hide what false heart doth know. Only when I am overwhelmed do I quote Shakespeare.
I wonder what Sifiso would think if he knew I had planned her murder.
I finally start to feel the warm sliding effects of the whisky. Bless you Jesus. The muscles in my back begin to unknit. Perhaps I’ll introduce myself to a few more relatives and try to find out a little more about Eve. It will be my last opportunity and I need all the closure I can muster. I see Frank arrive; he stands in the doorway. Glad to see another face I recognise, I wave at him. If I had a tail it would be wagging. He flashes a look of pure menace at me. Before I know what’s going on, he stalks over and punches me right in the face, smashing my nose. My glass goes flying and I hear it shattering on the slasto. I drop to the grass and hot blood shoots out of my nostrils. Beyond the black stars I hear Sifiso yelling at Frank and Frank yelling back. Frank shouts down at me “You sonofabitch! You said it was for your book! You said you weren’t really going to do it!” he shoves me with his foot.
Everyone stops what they’re doing to gawk at the three of us. “This is no kind of behaviour for a funeral,” I can imagine the old farts saying with quivering jowls. “You’d think they’d show a little respect.”