Story dedicated to a young girl who was killed on the Cape Flats

Helena Reid

She crumbled the sandwich in her pocket into small bits and pieces and started feeding the street pigeons. How long must she still wait? She tapped her feet impatiently while the pigeons' beaks went tip-tap, tip-tap against the cement sidewalk. "Voetsek!" she screamed at the starlings that tried to force their way into the inner circle of the feeding pigeons. Why must they always try to show off and spoil everyone's fun? "Julle is onbeskof, man!" she scolded them in an angry voice. Just like the gangsters in her neighbourhood, she thought. Always charging up and down their otherwise peaceful street, showing off their cars, their music turned up loud, their tyres screeching, exhausts sawed off, dark windows …

Didn't her mother say her cousin would be here at four, and now it's already five o' clock? Surely her grandmother must be worried. Her hot chocolate and freshly-baked gingerbread man must be cold by now. Shouldn't she just run up the road, across the veldjie, to the small hill across the way to get a better view of the veld beyond? Then she can see if her cousin is on her way.

"No, better not. Mommy would kill me. OK, and it's one, two, one, two, one, two and turn. One, two, one, two, one, two and turn." She played hopscotch on the pavement blocks until her feet were sore underneath from all the hopping, skipping and turning.

"Yes, I'll go. I'll charge across as fast as I can and leave my stuff here on the pavement. I'm sure it's no further than fifty paces." She ran across the road as fast as she could, counting as she went: "… 48, 49 and 50. Oh-oh, I'm, not quite there yet." She stretched her legs to try and get closer to the edge of the veldjie.

As she was about to reach the top of the hill to get a better view of the long winding voetpaadjie that led to her grandmother's house, she heard a voice. "Hello, there you are!" She almost fell on her back from fright. Knowing that she had done something that her mother had forbidden her to do had made her whole little body tense …

He had a deep, rasping voice, and his teeth were stained from smoking too many cigarettes. His eyes were dark under his cap. "Your granny sent me to come looking for you. She's been worried sick."

She looked suspiciously at the one hand in his pocket.

He held his hand out towards her, to take her by the hand. His palms were dry like a piece of driftwood and his nails long and stained yellow. They scratched the inside of her hand.

She hesitated for a moment. Something didn't feel right. But then she remembered her grandmother and the gingerbread man … "Let me just run back quickly to get my coat and dolly …"

She didn't wait for an answer from the stranger, but could feel his disapproving stare stabbing her in the back when she turned around. When she got to the pavement, she grabbed the doll and her coat and stuffed the half-eaten sandwich in her pocket. As she ran back, she thought of all the surprises her grandmother might have for her: a dress for her dolly, or a new Alice band …?

She didn't look at the stranger when she eventually got back to him. She stuck out her hand obediently. As they walked along he clutched her hand tighter. She crumbled the sandwich in her pocket and let bits spill from her hand onto the ground. She didn't quite know why, but for some reason it made her feel less nervous about walking with a stranger. Just maybe, who knows, something unpleasant might happen. And then, just, just in case, that something bad happens, like in the story her grandmother loves telling her, someone will follow the trail of crumbs and will find her wherever she is. But of course, nothing bad will happen. He knows her granny, and everything, and Granny sent him to fetch her. But just in case that something dreadful happens, even if no one else sees the trail of crumbs, the pigeons with their sharp, small eyes might spot them and will remember the girl who fed them so kindly. Then they would fly off and go and whisper something in her grandmother's ear, her healthy ear, that is, so that she might know where to find her … just in case, you know, just in case ... And pigeons can be very clever, you know. Her Uncle Edwin's racing pigeons can do remarkable things. He can release them almost anywhere in the world and they always find their way back to his house …

"And it is up and down the sand dunes, all along the narrow winding path. Only two sand dunes left now, and then we turn to the left. And then it's just a short way to Granny's house."

"But isn't that the turnoff to Granny's house?" she asked when they walked past the turnoff, expecting him to turn back now that he realised that he had made a mistake. Instead, he grasped her hand tighter: "No, I know a short cut through the bushes up ahead …"

Her Granny waited all afternoon. With her arthritis knees she paced up and down the kitchen, sighing: "Ai toggie, ai toggie toggie tog, Hemelse Vadertjie."

After a while she put the hot chocolate and biscuit in the fridge. And every time a dog barked or a car hooted she shuffled to the window. Once a group of lively children ran past and she could swear she heard Sharon shout: "Grannny-y-y-y-y!" Like she always did when she opened the gate, charging up along the garden path to the front door, jumping on her grandmother, who breathlessly tried to remain standing on her wobbly legs: "Ag liewe kindjie, jy's darem 'n klein willewragtig!" The house echoing with the child's laughter and the grandmother's old, toothless dog giving breathless, asthmatic barks and wagging his tired tail.

Everything seems to lighten up when this child comes, she would muse happily to herself. It's as if even the madeliefies in the front garden and the asters in the back put up a better display, turning their colourful petals up and out for my little girl to see.

"No, no, first come and sit here with me a bit and tell me all the news about school and your mother, you can feed the birds later," she would say to her. "See, I've already filled up the birdbath for you. Let me turn the radio down. I can listen to it blaring all day, but your little voice I hear only once a week."

"Speak louder, dear child, I can't hear you, and come sit on the chair here on my left side so that I can hear you better. You know the right ear can't hear a thing."

"Wanneer gaan Granny een van daai magęfters kry wat mens beter laat hoor? Granny mis altyd die juicy stukke van my stories!"

Granny didn't hear the police when they knocked on the door that day either; her ears were still listening for Sharon's footsteps: tip tap, tip tap. Her ears were finely tuned, her head tilted, just at the right angle, she wasn't going to miss the first sounds of her little girl at the door …

"Mevrou Malgas!" He cleared his throat and asked, once again, in a louder, more urgent voice. "Mevrou Malgas, kan ons maar binnekom?"

Those sniffer dogs sniffed everything - even her hot chocolate. They sniffed poor Mavis right back into her basket at the door. There she lay quietly with her ears down and her tail between her legs.

They had found her doll: eyes stiff, forever smiling her soulless smile.

Even when the police left after they had explained everything as sympathetically as they could, Granny waited: her head tilted, her healthy ear finely tuned … at night she lit a candle.

Lots of people came with many questions. Children peeped curiously over the garden fence. She got tired of the staring, and pulled the curtains closed, only to open them at night so that the candle could burn brightly at the window.

The birdbath dried up, the birds flew away and the flowers wilted in the garden.

Then, after many days, when the old woman realised that Sharon might never return, she started looking for pieces of her in the house. Pieces of herself that she forgot to take with her when she disappeared so suddenly that day: two marbles, round and shiny like her eyes, a bell, piercing the silence like her cheeky little voice, two ribbons to tie her hair, the feathers she collected, the dried flowers, still faintly fragrant, the crushed insects she had found under rocks in the garden, the speckled kiewiet shell from the veldjie next to the house. At night, she would pack them on the table, around the burning candle, feeling the coolness and roundness of the marbles in her palm, smelling the dried flowers, crumbling the ginger biscuit. Then she would put them all away in a box to rest for the night. Whichever way she packed them, rearranged them, fingered them, positioned them, the different parts never seemed to quite fit together. Yet, night after night, she would go back to the table, finding comfort in packing and unpacking, organising and reorganising, and then shuffling off to bed with a sigh.

One morning Granny woke up with the southeaster banging noisily at her door and windows. Unlike the people whom she ignored and who eventually went away, the wind was relentless. "Maar sal so 'n woestewind my lewe kom deurmekaar krap!" she mumbled to herself. She was irritable at the wind for reminding her that there was still a world out there that could somehow demand something of her.

She was particularly gloomy that morning. When she woke up, she heard a voice whispering: "How will you carry on living without her?" It disturbed her, especially since she could hear the words through the deafness in her right ear. The chronic heaviness on her chest told her there was no answer. "Ai toggie, toggie, Hemelse Vadertjie," she sighed and shuffled towards one of the banging windows.

She bent forward across the table with Sharon's box to try and close the window more tightly against the ferocious wind. But as she tried to turn the handle tighter, her hand slipped and the wind blew the window wide open with a bang. It slapped her across the face and she straightened her arched back in fright. The light poured into the room and Sharon's box tumbled to the floor. Out came the feathers, and the bell rolled across the floor with a cling-a-clang, cling-a-clang.

She hated the wind, the way it intruded, its boisterousness: "Jou duiwelskind!" she shouted as she tried in vain to close the window. After a while, she realised the wind was too strong for her. She fell back in the nearest chair, exhausted. And then, as if pleased that she'd finally admitted defeat, the wind suddenly died down. She looked at the box on the floor: light was shining through the marbles, casting a rainbow pattern on the wooden floor; Mavis was gobbling up the ginger biscuit, licking her lips with satisfaction; and the last feather was blowing out through the window. She got up to follow the feather.

As she walked through the door, the light was too bright for her old eyes. She tried to shield it from her face. There were dried flower petals on the steps leading to the garden. She shuffled along, following their faintly fragrant trail. A bunch of children ran past shouting "Hello Auntie!" at the top of their voices. It was autumn when Sharon left, now it was spring, she realised.

There was a feather at the bottom of her old fig tree. She bent down slowly to pick it up. She looked up and there was a nest with a bird in it. Suddenly Sharon was everywhere. She was alive in the flight of the bird when it unexpectedly left its nest, disturbed by the presence of the old woman who hadn't been around for months. Sharon was alive in the relentless buds of the fig tree that forced their way through the bark of the old tree that was bound to sprout new leaves, despite being neglected for so long …

"Auntie, where have you been all this time? They say you are crazy these days. They say you have gone blind from crying too much. Is it true, Auntie? I don't believe them. I am not scared of you …"

She looked up at the little girl at the gate. She must have been watching her for some time now. She was eating a packet of chips and her nose was runny. There were scabs on her legs and her T-shirt was stained.

"You should be scared of me, child. I'm the big bad wolf and I might bite you to pieces." The sound of her voice sounded strange to her own ears. How long has it been since she's spoken to someone? She still wanted to wear her sadness around her like an impenetrable cloak, to ward off those around her, and felt exposed by the little girl's intense stare. Then she saw the wounded look in her brown eyes and let down her guard.

"Come inside, I've got something for you." The child immediately opened the gate and let herself in. "You're too trusting, it's no good," the old woman mumbled under her breath.

"What did you say, Auntie?"

"Never mind, just mumbling to myself."

They walked into the house and the old woman opened the kitchen cupboard. "Shall we make some biscuits, ginger biscuits? Come stand on this side, child. I can't hear you."

"Are you deaf in that ear, Auntie?"

"No, this ear isn't deaf. Let's just say it's tuned to a different frequency. Like a radio, you know?"

"But how can I know then, Auntie, when you and I are on the same station?"

The old woman started chuckling unexpectedly: "Jy's bekkig, nč?" Then she lowered her body onto the chair next to the girl and looked her in the eyes. No, not exactly in the eyes, almost through the eyes, to something beyond …

"Child, with this ear that's no good for hearing your voice, I listen for another little voice. She might just need something, you never know."

The little girl had decided that the old woman was not completely sane, after all. She wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but the other children were probably right. No one can stay in their right mind if they spend so much time all by themselves. While the old woman spoke she looked at her with a puzzled expression. Then her eyes almost glazed over while she reasoned with herself about the pros and cons of knowing her … There's definitely something wrong with Auntie, let's face it, but I still don't think she's dangerous. She might be a bit crazy, but she does seem to know her way around a kitchen, and she definitely knows how to bake biscuits … While she was sitting at the table Mavis, the old dog, moved closer and started licking her bare feet. That settles it then, she thought to herself. They say animals know things people don't, and this old dog is telling me to stay.

The little girl wanted to stay. It had been a long time since she'd been in such a cosy kitchen, and the warm feeling that entered her stomach just at the thought of the biscuits made it almost impossible for her to move. She rested her chin on her hands and watched the old woman scratching in the cupboards, looking for ingredients.

"Auntie?" The old woman looked up at her, shuffled closer to her chair and then stroked her hair briefly.

"Yes, child?"

"Auntie … I just wanted to say, it doesn't matter that your one ear is tuned to a different frequency. As long as we're on the same station I guess things should be all right between you and me."

The old woman chuckled and the old dog barked, excited by the sudden liveliness in the house. "Jinne, kind. Waar het jy uitgeval met 'n bek soos daai?!" Then the little girl started laughing as well, and the old woman could hear bells jingling - in both her ears.

Helena Reid ...studied journalism...worked as a copywriter for one year, and then for five years as an editor at a non-fiction publisher...has been working as a freelance editor for the past three years, and is trying to study part-time...

LitNet: 10 December 2004

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