The Monster's Daughter (55 page)

“Going somewhere, Constable?”

“Cape Town, Giel. Get me one of those industrial-strength coffees of yours, hey?”

“Now you use the service I provide, see?”

Alet smiled. “
Ja
, Giel. I see.”

“Maybe you should wait till morning, Constable? The roads, they not nice so late. Just now I lose a customer. That's never good.”

Alet suppressed a smile. “Sometimes you just have to do something right now, Giel. Not now-now, but now. You check?”

Giel looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. “
Ja
, Constable. I check.”

The flight descended into Johannesburg. The jowls of the man next to Benjamin vibrated in the turbulence. Outside the window, yellow landscape and flat buildings rushed toward them. Every time Benjamin climbed aboard an airplane, his awe was renewed. God would not give man the ability to fly, so man invented the means himself, traversing the country in a matter of hours, not months. What else could man not achieve? He felt a wave of shame roll over him at the thought. He could never let go of the feeling that God was watching him, controlling him, withholding what he desired most until he did as he was commanded. Though it had turned from a sharp pain to a dull ache, the longing for Tessa was still with him every waking moment. With the country on the verge of change, on the very precipice of a new beginning, something as irrational as hope had sprung up in him too. There was talk that the name of the Johannesburg airport was going to be changed from Jan Smuts to Oliver Tambo International. New names everywhere, new beginnings. Perhaps he too could begin again.

The airplane's wheels made bumpy contact with the runway. Benjamin waited, watching the sagging looks of exhaustion on the faces of the men and women walking down the aisle, their clothes as wrinkled as the pillow-lines on their faces. He closed his eyes. An article on DNA manipulation had excited him, shown him the way forward. The time had come for him to return to his work. He'd reached out to old Bond members on the boards of universities across the country, received offers from prominent departments. The interviews were a mere formality.

“You are chosen.”
Matrone
Jansen's voice was so real that Benjamin
suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, buried memories wrapping tentacles around him. He frantically looked for her in the empty seats behind him, and realized that he was the last passenger left on the plane.

“Sir? Are you all right?” The flight attendant had a pale round face and high cheekbones, her platinum-blond hair pulled into a French braid. Her manicured hand rested on the back of his seat as she leaned into the row to talk to him. She smiled, red lipstick staining her teeth.

Benjamin looked up into the palest blue eyes. “It's you.”

“Sir?” A frown crept over her face, marring her static smile.

She knows what I am, Benjamin thought. That I have found her. He smiled. “I'm all right.” He reached over and gently touched her hand. Her name tag registered in his peripheral vision. “You don't have to worry, Fransien. Everything will be fine.”

“It's ugly.” Tilly spread the newspaper on the kitchen table. The Y-shaped color blocks of the New South African flag filled the front page.

“Why do you say that?” Tessa leaned over the table, examining the design.

“Joey said, his
pa
said, that green, red, and yellow are the colors of the ANC and it runs through the red and blue because they're taking our land.”

“Did he, now?” Tessa wasn't fond of little Joey Joubert, the
dominee
's son. He was far too big for his shoes, planting unsavory ideas in Tilly's head. If Joey's stories were anything to go by, the
dominee
had difficulty practicing the tolerance he preached.

“You know what I think the colors mean?” Tessa traced the outlines with her index finger. “Green is for our land and farms, yellow for our gold, black and white for all the different people and blue for the two oceans that surround us.”

“And red?”

“Red for the blood that was spilled to bring them all together.”

“Joey says that the blacks are going to get houses for free now and we have to pay for it. Is it true?” Tilly let out a suppressed giggle. “He
says we should take cover the day after the election because refrigerators and TVs are going to fall from the sky for all of them.”

Tessa tried not to get angry. “If people all had houses, wouldn't that be a good thing?”

Tilly looked at her for a moment, her confusion clear. Tessa hated how much Tilly was being indoctrinated into the narrow-mindedness of this town, her teachers and friends rigid with conservative ideas, unwilling to think for themselves for even a moment.

Tilly's mouth drew to a point, trying to hide a trembling lower lip. “They will kill us when they win.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Everybody says so,
Ma
. The blacks are going to wipe us out. Why do they want to do that?” Tilly's voice was shrill, her eyes watery.

Tessa didn't know what to say. How could you explain a history of hate? Tilly was only a child, but Tessa knew just how much there was to answer for, and the day of reckoning was upon them. “We will have to hope that people are willing to forgive one another, Tilly,” she said at last.

Tilly frowned. “We didn't do anything. Miss Nieman says we gave them everything and they burned it to the ground. That they just destroy everything and it's in their nature.”

“Mathilda!” Tessa felt her own eyes filling with tears, the task of schooling her daughter in the true history of the country, a guilty burden, the suffering she had seen firsthand too much to relate. She should have told Tilly everything from the beginning, but she foolishly hoped that teaching her respect for all people would be enough. Where would she even begin? Censorship had kept the truth off the bookshelves and out of the news for so long that nobody was willing to believe it anymore, the mythology of the long-suffering Afrikaner who conquered this land with God's blessing too tempting, too easy. Believing in your own suffering gave you license to ignore that of others. Tessa bit back the anger. “Set the table,” she said, turning her back to Tilly. “Use the good plates.”

“Why do I have to dress up for this guy?” Tilly crouched next to the sideboard, balancing plates on her right arm. The plates' pattern was one that Andrew had chosen for Sarah, so long ago now. “Who is he, anyway?”

“No!” Tessa lurched forward trying to catch the pile as they slipped out of Tilly's arms. The fragile porcelain smashed to pieces on the stone floor. “
Jissis
, Mathilda. What's wrong with you?”

Tilly looked at Tessa with wide eyes. “I'm sorry,
Ma
.”

Tessa knelt on the floor a wash of emotions running through her as she picked up the white shards. Sarah, Andrew, Flippie. She remembered how Sarah refused to let anyone else wash the plates, how carefully she wrapped them in blankets every time they'd had to leave town.

“
Ma?
I'm sorry.”

Tessa looked down at the shards in her hands, blood trickling over the white porcelain from a cut on her finger. They were just things, she knew that, but they were a tenuous link to her memories, proof that she didn't just dream them up. It felt more and more as if her past was slipping through her fingers, as if the world was trying to wipe history away every time someone on TV or in the papers twisted the truth of what they'd done.

The doorbell rang. Tilly gave Tessa a look of consternation.

“Go answer.” Tessa cleared the broken porcelain and carried it to the kitchen. She thought momentarily of trying to glue them back together, but realized it was hopeless when she pulled a splinter out of her palm. They were good for nothing but trash now.

“
Ma
, it's—”

“What?”

“
Dominee
Joubert is in the sitting room.”

“What does he want?”

Tilly shrugged. Tessa rinsed the blood off her hand. Wrapping a kitchen towel around it, she made her way to the front room. Joubert sat in the leather recliner, the best chair in the house, her chair, where she always sat reading or listened to the news. He was in his forties, his blond hair thinning rapidly, his sharp nose and small eyes giving him a vague resemblance to a vulture. Or maybe that was only what she thought of him.

“Mrs. Pienaar.” He looked briefly at her towel-wrapped hand.

“What can I do for you?” Tessa sat down opposite him on the old upholstered couch, her insides clenching. She couldn't stand the man. She went to church on Sundays for Tilly's sake, made an effort to fit in
with the community, but like so many others, Joubert used the pulpit to further his bigoted agendas, and Tessa had a hard time biting her tongue in his presence.

“As you know, the election is in a few weeks.”

“
Ja?
”

Joubert gave her a tight smile. “We trust in God's plan, but we are outnumbered.”

“By us, you mean?” Out of the corner of her eye Tessa saw Tilly lingering in the doorway.

“The
volk
. We need to stand together. I trust you understand that?”

Tessa didn't answer. Joubert sniffed, his mouth thinning to a slit. “There has been growing concern in the community about you, Mrs. Pienaar.”

“Me?” The mock surprise in Tessa's voice did not escape Joubert, his hands crossed prudishly in his lap.

“More precisely about what happens in this house.”

“If you have something to say,
Dominee
 …”

“As you wish. You have a child in the house, Mrs. Pienaar. As a leader in the community, I look out for all of God's flock. Even the ones who stray.”

Tessa felt her ire build, her civility hanging on by the loosest of threads. “Go on.”

Joubert looked at his hands while he talked, as if looking her in the eye was tantamount to communing with Lucifer. “It seems that one of the Terblanche farmhands has been spending a lot of time in this house. Congregation members have told me that they believe he spends the night. I presume in the servant quarters, of course, but some believe otherwise.”

Outrage blushed Tessa's cheeks. “Guests in this house sleep in the spare bedroom.”

A look of satisfaction glimmered in Joubert's eyes. “You think that wise? There is talk.”

Tessa gritted her teeth. “Of course there is.”

“If not for your reputation, certainly for that of your daughter, I simply wish to—”

“I know what you wish to do,
Dominee
.”

“Then you understand.”

“Too well. But let me assure you that since this is my house, I will conduct it any way I see fit. If I wish to have a black man in my house, let him eat at my table and let him spend the night, it has nothing to do with the members of the congregation.”

“Mrs. Pienaar, there is such a thing as decency. Be an example for your child, at least.”

“I know what decency is,
Dominee
. Do you? Perhaps you should worry about the example you're setting for your own child.”

Joubert's neck stiffened. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean.”

Tessa stood up. “Things are changing,
Dominee
, even in Unie. You should all be on your knees instead of worrying about decency. Please, do not look for me or Tilly in your pews again, and know that you are not welcome in this house.” Tessa slammed the door behind Joubert as soon as he stepped outside.

Tessa turned to find Tilly skulking behind her. She sighed. “Is the table set?”

“Did you have to do that,
Ma
?”

“Don't worry about it.”

“But all my friends … Joey … they say I'm … Why does Jakob have to come here?” Tilly wasn't a beauty, especially as she stood there with her upper lip curled in accusation. The girl had her mother's arrogant eyes and her father's puffy features. She was too easily influenced by others, dissuaded by present pleasures. Could it be that taking her away from her parents hadn't saved her after all? Were ignorance and hate ingrained in her the day she was born? Tessa immediately felt guilty for these thoughts. If it were true, after all, what could be said about her? About her real parents? Andrew and Sarah had taught her humanity. She would have to try harder, for Tilly's sake.

Tessa was startled when the doorbell rang behind her. Jeff stood on her doorstep, tall, barrel-chested. At fifty-something he was certainly not the boy she had met many years ago, but age had given him an air of distinguished calm. In her anger she had forgotten that he was coming. He had called her out of the blue the day before, asking if he could come to Unie to see her. As he stood there in front of her, the expectations of long ago on his face, Tessa regretted saying yes.

“Hallo, luv.” Jeff's joviality ebbed when she didn't respond. “What? Have I changed into such an old fart?”

Tessa leaned in to give him a cautious hug. Jeff wrapped her easily in his arms, lingering too long.

Tessa gently pushed him away. “This is my daughter, Mathilda. Tilly, this is Jeff Wexler. An old friend of mine.”

“
Isit?
” Tilly raised a sassy eyebrow.

Jeff let his gaze trail from Tilly back to Tessa, the unspoken memory of the night when Tessa brought Tilly home between them. Tessa hoped she could trust him to keep their secret.

It was just before ten on Sunday morning, two days before the election, the streets of downtown Johannesburg unusually quiet except for optimistic faces heading toward ANC headquarters for a voter registration program. A policeman stopped a beige Audi at the barricade near Shell House. The white man behind the wheel looked over at his passenger, his hand edging closer to the bulge on his calf. They waited while the policeman searched the car.