S. Naudé - The Alphabet of Birds

When she stops and gets out, the dust envelops them. Brenda is barefoot, her dress thin, fists against her sides.

‘Open your hands!’

Brenda puts her hands behind her back. Sandrien grabs her by the upper arms.

‘Show!’

She brings her hands forward and drops five crumpled R100 notes in the dust. Sandrien screws her eyes.

‘It’s her, isn’t it, it’s Lerato who had me sent to Twilight Lodge, who bribed the sangoma to play on your superstitions?’

She looks Brenda in the eye. A crafty little operator or a superstitious pawn?

With folded arms, Sandrien awaits Lerato on Thursday morning in the municipal parking area in Aliwal North. Lerato is late; Sandrien has been standing in Lerato’s parking spot for hours. On her way in, Sandrien filled up at the petrol station. Through the Wimpy’s window, she saw Lerato eating breakfast with Manie Maritz. She considered going in, but decided to come and await her here instead.

‘Have you been in PE?’ Lerato asks when she sees Sandrien.

‘Forget PE, Lerato, forget everything. Just tell me why?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re plotting with sangomas and paying people off. It was you who had me sent to Twilight Lodge.’

Lerato looks at her watch, shifting the designer handbag under her arm. She looks important and bored. Lazily she removes her sunglasses.

‘Sangomas also have their place in the public health system.’

‘You used me, Lerato. You wanted to threaten me with disciplinary proceedings so that I would help you to influence Walter regarding the corruption allegations, and help you fight your political battles. And on top of that, you wanted to undermine my credibility with the community.’

Lerato looks through Sandrien, at things way beyond her.

Sandrien continues. ‘Let me tell you now. If you don’t provide ARVs to my patients, then I’ll make a formal complaint.’

Lerato throws her head back. She crows with laughter until the tears start rolling.

‘ Ag, meisietjie ’ — she shakes her head, still overcome with hilarity — ‘and to whom will you be complaining? Whose interests do you think are at stake?’ She pinches Sandrien’s cheek playfully. ‘If only you had an idea of the scale of things, of how puny you are.’

Sandrien pushes Lerato’s hand slowly but firmly out of her face.

‘I have a better idea than you might think. I know of the big plans, about Twilight Lodge.’

Lerato stiffens, her face hard now. She tucks the handbag heatedly under her other arm.

‘Let me tell you how things work, meisie . Nobody likes death. And you,’ she comes closer still, her index finger against Sandrien’s chest, ‘shove it into people’s faces. Shortly we’ll have important guests. You have no idea who you’re irritating. Be careful, meisie , be careful.’

Lerato turns around, walks away.

From Aliwal, Sandrien drives to Mara. Upon entering the farm, she sees two men with their hands in the soil. They are digging small holes, like graves for birds. She stands outside the house, so that Manie has to come outside. He greets her stiffly.

‘Geologists,’ he answers when she asks about the men. ‘Where the graves are currently located, the ground is as hard as stone. A bugger to dig there. And bloody expensive. Soil structure determines profit. I’m looking for the most appropriate place for expansion.’

Sandrien does not answer, turns her back towards the graves and the diggers.

Manie starts relaxing, points out outbuildings on the other side of the house. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘a new crematorium. I converted the ovens where we used to smoke meat.’

She turns towards him. ‘What are you up to with Lerato, Manie?’

‘Sandrien, you are meddling now. But, if you must know, I’m having discussions with her about formal permissions for the expansion. This kind of business is strictly regulated. And so it should be.’

‘It’s not only permissions she’s wangling for you, is it, Manie? What else do you pay her for?’

He is quiet for a long time. Then he speaks softly. ‘Business is business, Sandrien. And survival, survival.’

She nods, speaks with a deep and slow fury. ‘I understand,’ she says. ‘Your business is death. And the condition for survival a steady supply of cadavers.’

He turns around and enters the house, closing the door behind him.

Sandrien misses Vloedspruit’s storms, the waters rushing down from the mountain and the violence overhead. She misses the way in which the electricity in the sky incites the skin. The storms have something to do with why she calls Mrs Nyathi that Friday, why she is looking for answers from her, for consolation or explanations.

In her mind’s eye, she can see Mrs Nyathi in a rocking chair in the lounge, throw over her knees, her legs too short to touch the floor.

‘Mrs Nyathi, I don’t want to involve you in all of these things, but let me tell you anyway—’

‘Oh, I’m hearing all the stories, you know. Yes, I have my sources — Walter, Shirley, the rest. I heard how Lerato and her hangers-on lured you. But her henchman couldn’t go through with his job and just warned you in the end.’

Sandrien can hear how she carefully takes a sip of her brandy.

‘Henchman? Job?’

‘Don’t err about motives. The forces are greater than you reckon. You’re nothing to them, just a thorn in the flesh to be got rid of.’

Sandrien can hear someone whispering something to Mrs Nyathi in the background. Mrs Nyathi suddenly strikes her as a puppet master. Her instinct is to put the receiver down, and that is what she does.

Ma Karlien’s funeral is arranged for the weekend. Saturday, after the service, refreshments are served in the homestead at Dorrebult. Sandrien asks the twins, home for the weekend, to look after the guests. She only stays for half an hour. When she pulls away in her van, her daughters look at her with the same expressions as when they arrived at Dorrebult for the first time in months, no longer as children, but as guests. The punctured exhaust drones. She has become the district’s batty woman, she realises. She does not give a fig. Her people are waiting elsewhere. Let one of her patients come here, let him fall over like a stick, a piece of driftwood amidst the scones and rattling saucers. Let them see. She does not look at Kobus where he remains standing, helplessly, on the veranda. The departing with the departing, Kobus. Thus we join the ranks.

On Monday they move Grace to the Helpmekaar homestead, she and Brenda. Who, other than Brenda, could help her? They carry her into the house between them on a sheet, slip her onto Ma Karlien’s iron bed. Over the weekend Grace has weakened suddenly. Sandrien bends over and turns her ear towards her, the breath barely noticeable against her temple.

‘You’ve become as light as a leaf, Grace,’ she whispers.

The blankets under which she is lying are the first two that they wove together. Sparks crackle and chase across the wool when she pulls one blanket over the other. For a second, Grace is surrounded by a pale glow.

Sandrien prepares a bed for herself in her old room. Her creaky childhood bed has long since been replaced. The throw that used to cover it has been cremated or buried with a woman from Ethiopia. The window frames, originally wooden, are now made of steel. But it is still her room.

She walks out to the van to pick up her medicine chest. The morphine, she realises, has been left behind at Dorrebult. The van’s headlights do not work. In the dark she drives back with the help of the moon and her memory. Not a single light is on in the house. The door is open. Kobus is sitting at the dining table in the moonlight.

‘Sit, Sandrien. Grant me a moment.’