Whitethorn (42 page)

The
Dominee
doesn't say, ‘How come someone who never comes to church because he's stitching up
kaffirs
' stomachs and other wounds, gets such a big crowd?' He says, ‘As a man of God I take my hat off to our dear brother in Christ, Alex van Heerden who even if he is a man of science, it is God's hand that guides the knife and helps to stitch up the wounds.' He indicated the audience with a sweep of his hand. ‘All these good Afrikaner
volk
have come to pay tribute to him and his lovely wife-to-be.' After this he didn't do a whole well-rounded sermon, nor did he bring up the subject of that other man of science, Charles Darwin. This is because he had to do a thing called ‘nuptials', which is stuff they ask the bride and groom at weddings.

And so the wedding begins. Meneer Van Niekerk is the best man and Sergeant Van Niekerk, it turns out, is the bride's father pretending, because Mevrou Booysens' father is long dead. The joke is that the sergeant is ten years younger than the bride! Marie is the bridesmaid and I'm sitting in the front row of the church with all the high-ups. Talk about posh! I was scared to even sniff, but I was quite good with the singing because it was two hymns we did at school.

So now you thinking, that's over? Now for the quiet reception.
Magtig
! Those
volk
who'd come from far and near hadn't come empty-handed. They'd come to a wedding, invited or not, and brought food and meat and drink, and because
Boerevolk
are very musical they've also brought fiddles and banjos and concertinas and even two musical saws and a harp. They've come to dance and
tiekiedraai
because there's no better time to do this than at a wedding
.
Everybody was turning to each other and saying, ‘No point in going home to the farm and back again in the morning for church when a good party can be had for the making.'

To cut a long story short, Sergeant Van Niekerk closes off the street in front of the Impala Café at both ends for about a hundred yards and the biggest party at a wedding you've ever seen breaks out. Inside the café are the invited guests and outside the uninvited, but soon it's all mixed up and a good time is had by all until deep into the night. It was a full moon and so bright outside you could read a newspaper without glasses. A better night for an outside party would be impossible to get.

At five o'clock in the afternoon, when I was supposed to walk back to The Boys Farm, Marie got the good doctor to call Meneer Prinsloo to ask if I could stay out for the night, that I'd be staying with Marie in Mevrou Booysens' house. When he came back from the phone he was laughing and told Marie what happened, and then later she told me.

Meneer Prinsloo picks up the phone and Doctor Van Heerden says, ‘Can you hear all the noise going on, Pietrus?'

‘
Ja
, what's going on, man?'

‘Well, the supposed-to-be-quiet little wedding turned into a big crowd all of a sudden, so why don't you and your wife come and join us? The whole district is here, man.'

‘
Ag
, I've got better things to do with my time,' the superintendent answered petulantly.

‘Sure, whatever you say, Pietrus. By the way, young Tom Fitzsaxby will be staying with us overnight. You don't mind, do you?'

‘Listen here, man, I am the Government-appointed parent and —'

Doctor Van Heerden cut him short. ‘He's got several nasty bumps on his ventriculi cardio-cular appendage and I'd like to keep him under observation overnight.'

‘What's a ventriculi cardio-cular appendage?' I asked Marie.

‘It's just made-up nonsense words, but you better not get it,' she warned. ‘Because it can be serious and has definitely well-known complications. Medical science is very worried and completely puzzled by these mysterious bumps!' She grinned. ‘But not as puzzled as Meneer Prinsloo!' We laughed and laughed our heads off.

Only one bad thing happened at the wedding. Well, not
really
bad, I suppose, because it couldn't happen to a better person. About ten o'clock on the wedding night, when the party in the street was still going full swing, I couldn't stay awake any longer. So I went over to Mevrou Booysens' house to find a place I could lie down. Earlier Marie had said I could take the spare bed in the sewing room where she was making the goosefeather quilt. It was right next door to the bathroom.

So I said good night to Tinker and showed her where to sleep on a sack outside the kitchen door and then walked through the darkened house. I had to pass the open parlour door. It was full moon and light was coming through a window into the parlour and there on the settee was Marie and Sergeant Van Niekerk, and they were holding each other and kissing, and they didn't have anything on! Marie drew back slightly from Sergeant Van Niekerk and sighed with closed eyes. I felt this sudden stab in my heart, like a dagger had gone right through it. I'd never seen a lady with nothing on, and you could see all of Marie's top half, and her golden hair streaming down her back, and I knew what I saw was beautiful, but I didn't know why. So I cried a bit in that spare bed, but very softly. I don't think they would have heard because there was some sort of grunting sounds going on. Then I must have fallen asleep. It just goes to show in life you can love somebody with every bone in your body, but you can't always have them only for yourself.

I went straight to church from Mevrou Booysens' the next morning and then went in the crocodile back to The Boys Farm. It was Mevrou's day off when she carried her paper bag with the empty you-know-what's-in-it to visit her family so I didn't see her until my name was called out after supper on Monday.

I don't know if the news of my clean clothes at the wedding had reached her. If it had this would be the reason for sure for the
sjambokking
I expected to receive. ‘A person can't go turning dirty clothes into clean ones without permission, you hear! This is government-supplied property, only the high-up inspector in Pretoria and me also can decide when they allowed to be washed. Next thing they all worn out from too much washing, and even a
kaffir
is ashamed to wear them! You getting six of the best and no questions asked. Take down your pants, touch your toes.' I was the only one on punishment rollcall that night, which was also pretty unusual. I knocked on the sick room door.

‘Come!' she shouted.

I entered the sick room to be confronted by Mevrou with her arms folded across her big boobs. On the table beside her, neatly folded, was a khaki shirt and shorts. ‘You clean clothes are here,' she said, pointing at them. ‘So now it's bumps? What is this bumps business,
Voetsek
?'

‘Ventriculi cardio-cular appendage, Mevrou,' I answered.

‘So where are they, show me where are these bumps?'

It wasn't a question I'd prepared myself for. Anywhere I indicated on my body she'd want to see the clear evidence. I panicked. ‘On the eyes, Mevrou.'

‘On the eyes? You got bumps on your eyes? I never heard of such a thing before,' Mevrou said suspiciously.

‘
Ja
, medical science is very worried and completely puzzled by these mysterious bumps!' I said, trying to sound convincing.

‘Let me take a look.'

‘Too late,' I said. ‘They all gone. This morning when I woke up, not a bump to be seen. Then later Doctor Van Heerden gave the all clear.'

Mevrou still looked suspicious. ‘I'm a medical person myself, you hear? I never heard of bumps on a person's eyes,' she repeated.

‘
Ja
, Mevrou, little bumps, all red and itchy, like mosquito bites on your eyes,' I lied.

‘Itchy eyes, now you making sense, itchy eyes, I know.'

‘Like there's chillies been rubbed in.'

‘Chillies? When a person has chillies rubbed in their eyes they can't see.'

I had to decide quickly whether I could see or not and decided being blinded by chillies meant I couldn't.

‘No, seeing was out of the question.'

‘If you couldn't see, how did you know they were red and looked like mosquito bites, hey?'

‘I saw them just before I couldn't see. There was this mirror,' I added hastily, ‘in the bathroom. I was looking, and these red mosquito bites are popping onto my eyeballs and all of a sudden it went all dark and then the itch like from chillies came.'

‘
Jy praat kak, Voetsek
! You speak shit,
Voetsek
!'

I was getting in deeper than I cared to be. ‘No, honest, Mevrou, the itching came after I went blind, that's how Doctor Van Heerden knew it was ventriculi cardio-cular appendage. That's the certain sign, first, red mosquito bites that are these little bumps all over your eyes on the white part, then everything goes black and then the itching starts. That's another one of the mysterious medical mysteries. You can ask him if you want.'

‘But then you woke up this morning and you can see again?'

‘
Ja
, perfectly, as if nothing had happened. A miracle.'

‘Then another miracle happened, hey?'

I looked at her, not quite knowing what she meant. ‘No, just that I could see good as new.'

‘And what you saw was that your dirty clothes that left here to go to the wedding are now all of a sudden clean?' she pointed to my shirt. ‘Turn around.' I turned so that my back faced her. ‘There was mud on the back of your shirt and on your backside too, now it's gone. Turn back.' I turned to face her again and she looked at me accusingly. ‘So be so kind as to tell me how the miracle of the disappearing mud came about?' She pointed at my chest. ‘This shirt is clean and so are the shorts.'

I had done all that tap-dancing for nothing. We were back on the business of the forbidden clean clothes. Lying to Mevrou was compulsory, but with her one-track mind you had to be very careful because she'd always come back to the first point.

‘Germs!' I said. ‘You get them from mud. They had to wash my clothes because they might be holding germs that gave me ventriculi cardio-cular appendage.'

‘So now we got germs in the eyes that make red lumps like mosquito bites that itch like chillies been rubbed in but only after when a person goes blind, and all of this is caused from mud?'

I must admit, even to me, it didn't sound very plausible. The germs theory was the straw that broke the camel's back. The idea of linking my dirty clothes to a medically mysterious disease wasn't going to work. Mevrou wasn't going to buy the mud theory.

‘I'm a farmer's daughter, you hear? Also a highly trained three-certificate nurse, I could even have been a sister, and I'm telling you straight,
Voetsek
, the only thing that comes from mud is wet dirt!' She jabbed a fat finger at me. ‘Take off that germ-free shirt and shorts!' she barked.

I removed my Marie-washed shirt and stepped out of my shorts, and stood naked in front of this large, terrifying woman.

‘Ventricle means a sort of hole or cavity in an organ and cardio means your heart.' She pointed at my little dangling dick and sniffed in obvious disdain. ‘Appendage means something sticking out, but what's there isn't big enough to be one,' she said. ‘It all has nothing to do with bumps on your eyes, man! You think I was born only yesterday? I wasn't a theatre nurse for five years for nothing, you know. I've seen plenty of eyes in my time but never even one with bumps on it. You going to have to wake up very early in the morning before you can fool a three-certificater like me!' She paused, then asked, ‘Who washed you dirty clothes? Was it that one-certificate nurse that you went tippy-toes around our backs to befriend without getting first our permission?'

There wasn't any point in lying any longer. ‘
Ja
, Mevrou.'

‘Well, you can tell this so-called “mixed grill” nurse, who works in a mother's café and knows from nothing things that are medical, that if Meneer Prinsloo and Mevrou Van Schalkwyk decide to send a dirty person to a wedding we don't expect a clean one to come back. We won't be insulted like we just pieces of dirt!'

‘It was my fault, Mevrou, I didn't tell her I had strict instructions to stay dirty.'

‘
Ja
, I can see you also to blame and that's why now you getting six of the best,
Voetsek
. Bend! Now touch your toes.'
Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!
‘And now two
bansella
to remove the bumps on your eyeballs.'
Whack!
Whack!
‘And put some bumps on your arse.'

The months passed quickly, and it was soon coming up to the time to leave for the Bishop's College. The closer the time came the more I worried about Tinker. I simply couldn't imagine being without her at my side, or even how she'd cope without me. Doctor Van Heerden asked if he could look after her while I was away, saying he missed Helmut a lot and it would be a great honour to have Tinker around.

‘I know she's a one-man dog, Tom, but I could sort of be her uncle. There's plenty of rats around the place and they take the newly hatched chicks, she would be doing me a great favour.'

I could see he
really
wanted her and that was one small good thing, that she didn't have to stay at The Boys Farm. Even though old Mevrou Pienaar loved her a lot, but with Mevrou and Meneer Prinsloo you could never tell what might happen.