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out!’

      That was ten years ago and I still feel like that little girl when I come home to visit Ma from college. Nowadays Ma looks old. Her face is small and tired. I do not recognise her any more. Everything about her irritates me. She snaps at everything I do and sometimes she just comes to my room and looks at me. I hate being here with her and our life. The house no longer smells like Jik and washing powder. The walls have turned yellow from all the cigarette smoke and the white ceilings are dotted with specks of mould. It reminds me of stale bread. As a child, Ma would always tell me that stale bread gives you a nice voice. I see the cups are half washed and the cupboards are almost empty, just a bottle of fish oil, flour, a packet of yeast and pot of salt. The fridge is switched off and stands in the kitchen like an ornament. I am standing at the door observing our street, it is still as busy, with neighbours doing washing and gossiping.

      ‘Oumatjie! Jonie! Jonie Felicity Gibson! Antwoord tog?’

      It is Ma calling me. I walk towards my room.

      ‘Ja Ma. What is it?’

      ‘Don’t come and what me. I am still your mother.’

      She is scratching through my things. Sometimes it seems like she looks through my things hoping to find me there. She completely ignores me watching her go through my things. In my mother’s house, there is no such thing as private.

      ‘Look what I found!’ she says excitedly.

      She gives it to me. It’s a picture of my brother and me.

      ‘He was darem a beautiful child,’ she says, smiling.

      ‘Ja.’ I say, ‘Ma se oogappel’ in a resentful way.

      She turns with her hands making fists in her hips, ‘Haai! No child, I have never treated you children like vis en vleis.’

      I look at Ma sitting with her legs crossed on the tapyt floor laughing at the picture. I can’t help but join her.

      ‘Look Oumatjie,’ she says, ‘it’s you! Always a koddige kint.’ She sighs. ‘You know, when you were born you were so small you could fit into a shoebox. Pa said that it was a blessing, such children become clever children. Ai, that man was never wrong. Ma Emmie was very concerned. She was too scared to hold you. “Oe gotta kintjie, gat die dingetjie lewe,” Ma Emmie peeped. ‘You were two years old,’ she goes on with a smile on her face, the same sort of smile that I imagine she would have had the day the photo was taken.

      ‘Look, Antie Giena, she looks drunk,’ I say.

      ‘Yes,’ Ma says, ‘she is the biggest holy clown in Aster Street now. And there is Old Jim too, I miss the old devil.’

      ‘Why did they call Old Jim a duiwel?’

      ‘Loved women,’ she says simply. ‘And here stands Pa, your oupa,’ she continues. ‘Pa loved you, spoiled you rotten, tot in die afgrond in. I remember this one time, you were just starting to crawl, and we were living by Koekie-them on the hill when you fell off the blerrie steps. Pa could only think of one person to blame …’

      ‘Wapie!’ we say together.

      ‘When I got home the poor child was in tears and on top of that Pa only bought sweets for you, so I had to run to Andries Kafee to get Wapie some with my last pay. You know he really did love you, your brother,’ she says. ‘He would abba you on his back. The day I brought you home he looked at you all the time with his little legs hanging from the bed kicking, and he’d kiss you on your little forehead.’ She goes on talking. ‘Ai,’ she says, ‘you mos remember Annie Têtjiebek, nè?’

      ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘that lady with the voice that sounds like a hooter.’

      ‘That one looked after you,’ she continues, ‘she only worked for me for a week. I was so thankful at the time. I couldn’t stay home any more, you mos know your pa was drinking, as hy mos syp, dan syp hy sy werk onder sy gat uit. I nogal paid her R20, die bleddie fool,’ Ma says. ‘Then one day, I come from work and as soon as I put my bag down she starts scolding like a crazy hoenner. Annie says, “This damn klimeidjie tells ME that I’m too drunk to look after HER, can you believe it? Dè,” she says, “take your fokken kint, I will get my money later. Bye!”’ Ma laughs as she tells me about Annie.

      ‘What did I say?’ I asked, laughing.

      ‘You loved counting teeth. You must have overheard me talk to Giena,’ she says.

      ‘Ma, uhm, do you still miss him?’ I ask.

      ‘Who?’ she asks, fixing her eyes on the photograph like she is trying to copy every detail in her mind.

      ‘Wapie.’

      ‘Ja.’ She says, ‘I miss you,’ stroking my face and Wapie’s face on the photo.

      Fraans

      God became a ghost when I came to work on the boats in Gansbaai. Boet Haas got me a job as a cook on Marlene. Marlene was the most beautiful boat I had ever seen. She lay next to Blougans and Kolgans in the Ou Hawe.

      The sea is a strange thing. If I wade in the water, she feels light, like nothing. When we were on sea it was a different thing. When we cast our nets she became rammetjie-uitnek. Marlene had to bore through the sea like a drill machine.

      She sank the other day and I knew Marlene was tired of her beatings. We were on standby a lot those days because of the strong wind. I think the sea sank us on purpose to show us wie’s Baas en wie’s Klaas. But I’m very glad the sea took her. I would not have wanted to bury her anywhere else. I came walking down Gousblom Street, my heart just as heavy as my wet clothes. Sophia was leaning over the door. She looked at me as if I make her sick. I’d almost died and she only had bitter words to spare.

      ‘Now can you see, Fraans? God is talking with you. It’s because that skipper is Lucifer himself that the boat sank. You work, work, work, but we are still poor and we are still hungry. You are drinking our lives away, gemors. Wapie can’t eat bread and coffee, people will talk, hy is kla so min en dun.’

      My thoughts quieted down her scolding. Why, God, are you punishing me like this? Every job I find I lose. Everything I touch dies. Once I tasted that bitter sweet wine it controlled me, but my Sophia doesn’t understand, my brother Japie doesn’t understand, and his children are too dead to understand. I killed them with Japie’s car. It is my fault. How many times do I have to say I’m sorry? I am tired. Well God, if you’re not listening, then I am glad to die with the devil in my heart. It would not make a difference anyways.

      ‘Dit help nie jy kyk in my bek nie, lafaard,’ Sophia said.

      ‘Man, fok jou en jou God, Sophia! Fo–’

      She pushed me out and locked the door. I fell backwards, my head spinning for a while, a deep anger burning in my chest. Lying there, I felt like I could lift that house from its roots and kill her with my bare hands. But I was too tired so I got up silently and left her.

      Just like the day Pêreberg turned its back on me and I walked that orange muddy road like a dog with its tail between its legs. Standing next to the road, hoping for a lift, the air was clean and potblou and not a single cloud in sight. It will be a cold night, I thought, holding onto my papsak. A bakkie stopped. ‘Klim op,’ the driver said. I smelled the air again. It smelled of the fish maize Kallie-them made at the factory. It was a familiar smell that clung to our lives. It was the smell we endured to put bread on the table.

      The bakkie stopped at Stanford’s Cross. I got off and the bak­kie drove towards Hermanus. I turned right towards Pêreberg. My vroutjie Sophia is the moer in with me, I thought while I walked Paardenberg’s road. How could I tell this stubborn woman of mine that I loved her? She’d become so hard. The soft voice that I fell in love with in church choir had changed into a thunderstorm. I had never cheated on her. But then when she smiled it reminded me of our wedding. It had been a simple one. Antie Loesie had lent her wedding dress and Ragel had made her a veil

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