Zoe Wicomb: October

Mercia’s Afrikaans is rusty; her ability to make small talk rudimentary; and small talk would surely have to precede such big talk. It is of course not only a matter of language. Everything in her dealings with Sylvie is uncomfortable, creaking with embarrassment. A problem of class, Craig had proffered after her last visit, without the benefit of having met the woman, but what did he, a Brit, who had visited the country only once, know about the complexities of rural colored life?

It is midnight. Mercia props herself up in the sagging bed and kicks off the hideous nylon cover. Since her arrival in Kliprand she has been plagued by menopausal hot flashes. But there are drugs, she consoles herself, and there will be freedom from the monthly discomfort. She fans herself with a newspaper. Burying her head to weep into the easi-care pillowcase is not an option; instead, she must press on. Mercia reaches for her laptop. Too agitated to carry on where she has left off, she could at least revise the last chapter.

When Mercia arrived in her hired car that afternoon, Jake was in bed. Sylvie brought the message that he was unable to rise, that he would see Mercia the next day. Mercia said, Nonsense, she had come all that way, and with a brief knock on his door, barged in to his bedside.

Jake made as if to sit up, but fell back against the pillow. Mercia all but choked with nausea at the stale air, but so shocked was she by his sunken eyes, his skin a sickly yellow-brown with lack of sunlight, that she laid a hand on his head, pressed his bare shoulder. What had happened to him? There had been no mention of illness.

Jake, you didn’t say you were ill! she exclaimed in alarm.

He laughed weakly, pulling up the covers. Yissus, Mercy, so you got here. Welcome to Rainbowland. Then he pulled the sheet over his head, and turning his back, muttered, Yissus, my head. I can’t. Got to lie down, I’ll catch you later. And tell that bitch to keep out.

Appalled by his language, she backed out of the room without a word.

So what’s the matter with him, Mercia asked Sylvie, what does the doctor say? Why didn’t you say anything about his illness when I called?

Sylvie looked at her intently, as if to ascertain what she knew, so that Mercia panicked. Is it AIDS? Is that why you won’t say?

The girl laughed. That’s what they think overseas isn’t it, that everyone’s got AIDS in South Africa. No, with Jake it’s just the drink. Nothing wrong with him.

Mercia squirmed with embarrassment. She would have to leave further questions until later.

Having prepared dinner, Sylvie refused to rouse Jake. He’ll just swear at me. Effing and blinding, that’s all he has to say. He doesn’t eat, that’s why he can’t get better.

They ate in awkward silence the festive food that Sylvie heaped onto their plates: a mound of braised mutton, yellow rice with raisins, potatoes and sweet pumpkin. Tomorrow, Sylvie said, I’ll make sousboontjies. Jake is now very fond of the beans. Perhaps that will bring back his appetite.

The child, who sat in an armchair with his food on his lap, piped up, I also like sousboontjies. I don’t eat pumpkin.

Wouldn’t you like to come and sit with us at the table? Mercia said, but his mother replied that he wasn’t one for sitting up, that slouching was his thing, and as for pumpkin, there was no way of getting him to eat it. See how stubborn Nicky is, he’s his father’s child all right, no question of that, and she shook first tomato sauce, then chutney over her meat.

Mercia stared at the child, who looked so like his father and his grandmother Nettie. Did Jake have nothing to do with the raising of his child? And how was Mercia to eat all that over-salted, sweetened stodge? Would she have to eat such heavy dinners every day? What would she do in this strange house? How was she to speak to the girl? What could she possibly say? She said, Ah, I remember Mrs. Ball’s chutney, that’s what we used to have, and I still miss it.

The girl looked panic-stricken for a moment. O Gits, I haven’t got any; this isn’t Mrs. Ball’s. I’ll get some tomorrow. Jake, you see, doesn’t like it much, but I do.

Oh no, Mercia protested, I didn’t mean that. This chutney is fine, I mean, it’s lovely, but also, there’s no need to do without because Jake doesn’t like it. When will he have his dinner? He must be persuaded to eat. It can’t do him any good lying in that stuffy room. Driven by embarrassment, the words spilling from her lips could not be stopped.

Lately, Sylvie explained, Jake has more or less been confined to bed. His legs, they’re bad, and his chest is kaput. He can’t breathe; he has no appetite, no energy. And he won’t let me clean or open the window even. I’m not used to living in a mess. Lowering her voice she added, He just drinks and drinks like there’s no tomorrow. Anything he can lay his hands on. He used to stagger out to the bar but in the last few days he’s not had the strength. He goes berserk if I don’t get home on time with his bottle.

How strange then that Sylvie thought there was nothing wrong with him. Tomorrow, Mercia resolved, when Jake roused himself, they would talk, and she would get to the bottom of this.

Mercia said she was sorry but such a huge plate of food was beyond her; she could eat only half of it, delicious as it was. Girls like Sylvie still had the capacity to digest, but when you reached Mercia’s age, you had to be careful.

Girl! Sylvie shrieked, I’m thirty-eight.

How Jake slept through all that screaming was a mystery to Mercia. The girl, or rather woman, had only one register, declamatory, as if the most mundane statement had dramatic potential in the telling. And the volume was deafening. How could anyone bear it? Mercia found her own volume dropping in the presence of such declaiming, so that the girl — she must think of her as woman — often had to say, Excuse me, I didn’t catch that. Why did Mercia do it? What would it cost to let go and shout along merrily? But that was as far as she went — the posing of questions.

Sylvie carefully transferred the food from Mercia’s plate into a Tupperware container and placed it in the fridge. That will do for lunch tomorrow, she said. Mercia wondered if she should offer to help bathe the child, but it seemed he would go to bed just as he was, dusty legs and all. Should she not have read him a story? Is that not how children go to sleep? But the child called a hurried good night and crept into the dark room where his father snored, surely, Mercia thought, with an unpromising night ahead. Of course, she knew nothing of children, felt a certain fear of the boy, but the mouth and eyes were so like Jake as a child, so like her little brother with his snake belt bunching together the too-large khaki shorts into which he would have to grow, that she offered to share her room, said she didn’t mind Nicky sleeping with her, but his mother said no, that he wouldn’t like that.

•••

When Mercia staggers out in the morning, Sylvie brings in from the yard something in a checkered cloth that she drops hastily onto the kitchen table. Ouch, it’s hot, she cries. The smell of wood smoke wafts in with that of freshly baked bread.

I thought you’d like roosterbrood for breakfast. It’s quick to cook on the coals, she explains. I kneaded last night. She leans over the latched lower door and shouts for the child, Nicky. God knows where he goes, she complains. So early in the morning and already he’s disappeared.

Mercia slides a knife through the grilled bread and stuffs butter into the envelope. Butter on roosterbrood? Sylvie says boldly. Her voice contains a hint of scorn. It appears that only namby-pambies, or is it the gluttonous, would butter such bread.