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Foreword
Some facts about my homeland, which have influenced
this tale:
First, a concern dear to my heart -- my country
is ranked no.1 in the world for rape. Only a small percentage of
rapes are reported, but the 2005 SAPS statistics showed 55114 cases
of rape, that is 150 rapes per day. It happens everywhere, even
on our World Heritage Site, the pristine and magnificent Table Mountain.
Second, a concern dear to the hearts of all
addressing the crime challenge: 38% of economically active South
Africans are unemployed and wanting work. On the matter of employment,
something close to home – of the women who are employed, 18.6%
are employed as domestic workers.
Third, a concern of the wallet – we are
a nation in debt. South African households owe the banks more than
R680 billion Rand. This year, the debt to income ratio reached a
record high of 76%. Citizens are tempted into debt traps; debt is
a threat to liberty.
Finally, concerning our mother tongues and
our history – during Apartheid all education was given in
English or Afrikaans, even though these languages were the home
languages of only 20% of the population. As third and forth languages,
schools offered the languages of Europe: French, German, Dutch,
and Italian. A couple of generations of South Africans have grown
up alienated from our own languages.
Teacher: Amanz’eedonga.
Student: It means ‘beautiful brown like the water near a river
bank’.
Naked. Zukisa Radebe was stripped of all clothes and streaked with
river mud, moss and tears when she came running down the log stairs
from the Contour Path and into the arms of Darryl van Deventer who
was inspecting a fine specimen of Disa ferruginea at the
time.
“Qa! Help me, please!” she cried, clinging
to Darryl. “There is a man after me, he tried to rape me ...
Ndincedeni! Help me!”
Darryl was more scientist than poet and so in that most traumatic
of moments he could find no grandiose manner in which to describe
the naked beauty shivering in his arms. Even so and even though
her cheek was cut, bleeding, and her right eye was beginning to
swell, there was no doubt in his mind that she was the most perfect
woman who had ever embraced him. With her long black hair flapping
in the berg wind and her big eyes flashing and feet, bare, toenails
painted pink like the petals of wild cineraria, stamping, eager
to run further, she reminded him of an ostrich in a rage. No, she
was more elegant than an ostrich, he decided, she was, Gladiolus
hyalinus, the brown iris found buffeted by wind and rain on the
slopes of Devil’s Peak during the winter months––the
surviving beauty.
Beyond them, the path was bursting with yellow shrublets. Darryl
looked but could see no man. Between sobs Zukisa spoke in another
language, explaining her story.
“He’s gone, that man, you don’t have to worry
anymore. He’s gone. I am here, my name is Darryl and I will
help you.” Darryl took a shirt and a kikoy out of his backpack
and had to help Zukisa put them on because she was still in shock
and trembling. “You need to eat something sweet; it will help
with the shock.” He unwrapped a bar of chocolate.
She took it and ate the chocolate.
“You’re safe now. You’re going to be fine. Everything
is going to be okay.”
When she was calm, he said, “We need to go to the Kirstenbosch
security office and report this man and make a statement to the
police…”
“No! No, I can’t.” She started crying. “I
don’t want anyone to know what happened to me. Please.”
Darryl agreed, but managed to coax Zukisa down from the log stairs
and into the gardens. “We’ll sit here for a while, so
you can recover. I have a flask of coffee. That might help too.”
They sat on a bench— one of many in the garden donated
in memory of lovers of the garden and those loved by lovers of the
garden. This was a bench donated in memory of Violet May Meintjies
Prinsloo. Over Darryl and Zukisa, the leaves of a Wild Olive tree
swished. In front of them startling green grass curved between patches
of restios, proteas and grand trees down towards a suburb hidden
by forest and then out towards city with buildings, dark, light,
beige, pink, white, heaped close like washed-up shells all the way
to the Strand and out to the sea that flowed over the earth’s
curve to the South Pole. A pair of Egyptian Geese waddled past,
one quacking, adding to the general chatter of birds in the thousands
of branches of that most sublime of places.
“It’s soothing, this view,” she said. “All
the trouble in the world cannot taint it.”
“That cut hasn’t stopped bleeding, you should see a
doctor. I can organize with Garden security to…”
“No!” Then she spoke in that language Darryl did not
understand but wished he could. He regretted that in all his years
of studying at university, he had not found the time to learn Xhosa
beyond the few words he learned at the knee of his mother’s
domestic worker when he was a child. Not being able to speak Xhosa
was one of his many regrets.
“You do not understand,” she said, irritated. “I’m
not speaking to anybody about this and you mustn’t either.
That man has shamed me, violated me, and if I have to repeat it,
it will be like living it all over again. I will not. If you want
to help me, take me home.”
So they left the garden.
Darryl apologised for his car, a yellow Mazda that had survived
the eighties, the nineties and was still choking along in the new
millennium. “Excuse the smell in here. There’s a leak
and it’s been there for decade––I’m sure
the inside of the back seat must be rotten. It’s not old socks,
I promise.”
Zukisa said in Xhosa, “In the country of the blind, the
one-eyed man is king.” Then in English. “At least
it is a car Darryl and you can drive and soon I will be home. Thank
you.”
“I think you should see a doctor. Are you sure you don’t
want me to take you to a doctor?”
“No. In any case, as you can clearly see I have no money and
I hate going to the doctor at the best of times.”
Darryl felt foolish and insensitive. Although he didn’t earn
much, he took private medical treatment for granted, but now he
was reminded that most of the people in the country had to rely
on government facilities notorious for long queues and slow waits.
Of course, a woman who had been through what Zukisa had been through
would not want to wait for hours to see a doctor who’d be
in a hurry, perhaps overworked, underpaid and too exhausted to be
interested. “I will pay the doctor’s bill. We can go
to the Tokai Medicross. There won’t be a queue or anything.”
She looked at him for a long time as if considering the matter but
when she finally spoke she said, “You’re a kind man
Darryl, but you do not understand me. Thank you for the offer but
please take me home.” She saw the time on the Mazda’s
dashboard clock. “Shit. Look at the time. I need to get home
quickly, my boss is expecting me. Shit!”
“Surely your boss will understand … under the circumstances,
after what happened…”
“Thula! Quiet, please. Don’t talk about that,
ever, to anyone. It is all erased, it cannot have happened to me.”
Home, where the boss was waiting, turned out to be a mansion called
Platinum House just off Southern Cross Drive. As Darryl pulled up
at the front door, he made an assumption about Zukisa. “The
people you work for must be very rich. Please tell you boss what
happened to you. I’m sure…”
Zukisa gave him that look again. He felt her eyes studying his face,
feature by feature: fair hair, fair skin lightly tanned from daily
hikes through the fynbos, fine lips, and eyes the gentle blue of
the flowers of Bloublomsalie, the African Salvia.
“You’re right, I don’t understand,” he said,
again feeling that pang of his own ignorance. “I don’t
know how it feels to experience what you have experienced. Look,
I know you don’t want to, but you need to go to the doctor.
There are diseases…”
“Ndicela uthule! Nothing happened, do you hear?” She
covered her mouth with her hand and couldn’t keep back tears.
“This has been the worst morning of my life … thank
you so much Darryl. If not for you, I don’t know what I would
have done. I will repay your kindness.”
“Anyone would have done the same.”
“No. I’m not sure how, but I will find a way to repay
you.”
“Please…” Darryl wrote his telephone number on
a piece of paper. “I really don’t want any kind of repayment,
but if you need to talk to somebody or if you change your mind about
going to see a doctor, just phone me and I’ll take you. I’ll
pay. You don’t have to worry about going to the government
hospitals; I’ll take you to the Tokai Medicross.”
She covered her mouth again and shook her head, but couldn’t
find the words to say all she was thinking.
Darryl put the paper with the number in her hand. “Phone me
anyway to let me know that you’re okay.”
Teacher: Ndingumpha.
Student: It means ‘I am a shelled cob, robbed of everything’.
Darryl lived with a sand-coloured cat, one he’d found starving
between the dunes on the beach near the Koeberg nuclear power station.
He’d brought the cat back to his one-roomed apartment in Plumstead
and christened the creature Grielum Grandiflorum, after the straggly,
yellow-flowered Duikerwortels that live on the beach and survive
against the odds.
Although he had no intention of submitting it for peer review at
any scientific publication, Darryl was working on a paper relating
to the architecture and allometry of flowering trees. Greilum, the
sandy cat, was sitting on Darryl’s lap purring like a lawnmower.
Lunch was toast and a tin of tuna, and soon Darryl would go to work
at the call center, a place so depressing, the thought of it gave
him a sharp pain in middle of his body, in his belly. He tried not
to remember any aspect of it over lunch; he tried to think of the
faces of the two thousand six hundred species of flowering plants
he had long-ago committed to memory. He was a walking encyclopedia
to the Cape Floral Kingdom, but worked as a debt-collector. It was
an afternoon-to-night shift, which meant in the mornings he was
free to hike and to do research.
Life had not turned out the way Darryl had expected. As a preternaturally
gifted post-doctoral student at the University of Cape Town he’d
been full of promise, won several awards, was lecturing, published
and his professors were confident he would go on to become a credit
to their institution, but the pressure had been too much. On a certain
date in his life the world stopped, a shadow came over his brain,
his body froze, he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t talk,
he couldn’t even remember the two-thousand six hundred species
of flowering plants he so admired. So ended a career that had barely
begun. His family in Pretoria was in no financial position to pay
the slew of medical bills that followed. Fortunately, Darryl was
still a student. With a letter of support from the head of the Botany
Department, he took out a student loan to pay his debts.
When he was walking again and talking and thinking, he tried going
back to lecturing but his body refused––at even the
slightest hint of stress he fell apart, he became overwhelmed with
exhaustion or suffocating anxiety that scattered his thoughts and
left him stammering and confused. The same happened with research
papers and as a result it was impossible for him to function as
an academic. After several attempts at working in the private sector,
he discovered he could only handle jobs he was indifferent to, so
there was no pressure or even desire to perform, to excel.
He had been working at the call centre for five years. Every morning
he hiked from six to ten, making notes of the changing flowers and
trees. Once home he worked on his papers. Over the years he had
written dozens of potentially significant papers, but the only reason
he could keep writing was the silent agreement he had with himself
that none of them would ever be published. The scientific community
would be forever oblivious of this stash of insights wasting under
a bed in Gabriel Road, Plumstead.
Grielum was purring, Darryl was typing. Occasionally he paused to
bite into a piece of toast spread with anchovy paste and tuna mostly
licked off by the cat. Darryl didn’t notice the lack of flavour
–– he was thoroughly absorbed with an aspect of the
differential growth rates of the indigenous forest trees Yellowwood,
Stinkwood, Assegai and Ironwood.
When the phone rang, out of habit, he was anxious––nobody
ever phoned him, he was social outcast. In the recent past it was
only debt-collectors who did. Your monthly instalment has not
been received Mr van Deventer. Your account is in arrears. When
will you be making that payment?… You did not make the payment
… Immediate payment is required to prevent legal action. This
will affect your credit rating. This is the final notice. You will
be blacklisted. Your reference number is…
Debt-collectors, he’d hated those people. They always phoned
at the most inconvenient time and they were dogged, abrupt, often
rude, treating him like a disobedient child.
Ironically, it was the job of debt-collecting that got him out of
debt. It also gave him an insight into the lives of those wretched
souls who end up working at call-centres. Most do not want to be
there, harvesting interest from people broken by debt––
it is not a happy job, nobody is ever pleased to hear the voice
of a debt-collector. Some debtors cry openly, some choke down tears,
others swear, are haughty or are never available, but eventually
all, or nearly all, are worn down by the relentless telephoning
of the call-centre agents, who themselves, are often people in debt.
The telephone was still ringing. Darryl hesitated but when he answered,
he was thrilled to hear the voice of Zukisa on the other end.
“I’m much better, enkosi kakhulu,” she
said. “And I really do want to repay your kindness …
tell me, what do you need most?”
Although his apartment was small and his car was crock and most
of his sweaters had holes from fishmoths, Darryl wasn’t bothered
with these things. He didn’t want things; he wanted the freedom
to study, to write his papers and enough money to buy food. He had
all that.
“Nothing, I have everything I need.”
“Please, think of something.”
He would never ask this woman to buy anything for him, having judged
that as a domestic worker she probably had less money than he did.
“Well … if you have time, I’d like to learn to
speak Xhosa. Can you teach me?”
Teacher: Translate: The bull frog is
fighting over a meal of pig melon and mealie-meal.
Student: Lixaben’ixoxo ngomxhaxha womxoxozi.
The first lesson, Introductions, was held
at nine-thirty under a Transvaal Beech tree on a bench in Kirstenbosch
garden donated in memory of Donald and Peggy Ratcliff.
Darryl had collected Zukisa from Platinum House. She’d been
waiting in the road outside, dressed in a pink tracksuit.
“Won’t your boss miss you at this hour?”
“There’s no-one at home.”
“That’s lucky. Well, we best keep the lesson to forty
minutes.”
“As you like.” Zukisa smiled and winced because her
cheek was still badly bruised.
On that ideal day in the garden, Zukisa taught Darryl to say hello,
goodbye, good morning, good evening, what’s your name, nice
to meet you, see you soon and thank you. She taught
him the three clicks: ‘x’ the snapping click, ‘c’
the sucking click and ‘q’ the hard click. By way of
practice he had to sing lines from Miriam Makeba’s ‘Click
Song’. He couldn’t quite get the snapping click and
so Zukisa made him repeat lixaben’ixoxo ngomxhaxha womxoxozi
over and over until he was laughing and she was satisfied with
his progress.
“I’m glad you convinced me to come back here.”
Zukisa watched a sugar bird hovering between orange flowers. “It
would have been a shame to spend my life avoiding this place because
of that man.”
“He should be caught and punished. You should tell…”
Zukisa gave Darryl a look of warning and then went on to teach him
to count from one to twenty and to name the various members of a
family. He remembered all the words easily because his memory was
close to photographic.
“That’s all for this morning. Tomorrow I will test you.”
“You should take up teaching full-time.” Darryl frowned.
“Why do you work as maid … you’re so intelligent,
you could be anything…”
“Thula. Stop being stupid, you will ruin the day.”
She seemed irritated, so, hoping to restore her good humour, Darryl
took the opportunity to give her a short lesson on the flowers and
trees in the immediate area around them.
“Cyclopia galioides,” she said, repeating after
him. “Of the Fabaceae family.”
“Yes, you see, you really could do anything. You’re
beautiful and intelligent. I just don’t understand why you
do what you do…”
“Ho! Do you think I understand you and your car that
smells of socks? You’ve remembered all the Xhosa words easily,
you can even click well now and you know about all the plants. Even
though you’re stupid, clearly you are very intelligent too.
I don’t understand why you do what you do, but I am not so
rude to ask you to explain yourself.”
“Sorry, Teacher,” he said.
They met at the same time the following day and Zukisa chose the
bench in memory of Charles and Anni Fincham under a Silky Bark tree
as her classroom. She taught basic verbs, days, months, time and
more numbers.
Darryl remembered the words perfectly.
“You are a good student Mr van Deventer.”
“Thank you Inkosikasi Radebe. You are a good teacher.”
“Tomorrow, bring a picnic,” she instructed. “We
are going to learn about food.”
On the way back to the butterscotch Mazda, Darryl told Zukisa all
about the plant family Ericaceae.
“I have always loved gardens,” she said. She was a true
naturalist at heart and in Darryl had found a soul mate. “Gardens
and plants. The garden at Platinum House is magnificent.”
“One day you could have your own garden.”
“A famous man said, to be without some of the things you
want is an indispensable part of happiness.” She smiled.
“Besides, who could want more than this?” She gestured
to the garden beyond a bronze Dylan Lewis sculpture of a leopard
frozen against a world of leaves in many shades of emerald, silver,
yellow and cinnabar. “For two-hundred Rand a year, I have
free entry to Paradise with Silky Bark trees. What a bargain. Yes?”
“Yes! That’s exactly how I feel!” Darryl was impressed
to learn Zukisa was a member of the South African Botanical Society.
In fact he was impressed with everything about her.
Weeks passed, pink March Lily’s blossomed and died back, Mountain
Dhalia’s nodded their orange heads and shed flame-petals all
over the earth, at the end of April flowers sprouted between the
prickles of the sweet-smelling Katbos and that was when Darryl realised
he’d fallen in love with his Xhosa teacher. They were ‘at
the supermarket’ in Zukisa’s lesson plan learning how
to say ‘Excuse me, where is the dairy products aisle?’
When she ran through the words for milk, butter, yoghurt, cottage
cheese, cream, cream-cheese, buttermilk, low fat, full cream, unsweetened
and no-salt, he had not been paying attention. For the first
time he failed when she tested him.
“If you are too bored of Xhosa lessons to listen Mr van Deventer,
we can stop.”
“No, I’m...” He wanted to invite her for dinner
but he was concerned she’d take offence and he was shy. In
the lessons, she never gave any information about her life, all
examples were from his life, but he longed to know more. “Where
is your favourite place to eat?” he asked in Xhosa.
“At home.”
“Me too.”
“Well said.”
“What is your favourite food?”
“Fish.”
Nervous excitement caused him to chuckled, because fish was also
his favourite food.
“That’s funny? I like fish and that’s funny?”
Although he wanted to invite her for dinner, all Darryl managed
was: “You should meet my cat one day. He’s a great fan
of fish too.”
“We are not doing pets yet,” she said, firmly. “That
will only be four weeks time when we do the home.”
It was not until the Suikerbossies were filled
with gold and copper flower clusters, and the rivers were rushing
and full that Darryl finally found his courage. They were both wrapped
in anoraks and walking with umbrellas through the garden in the
rain. The lesson was on Police and Crime.
“So,” said Zukisa, “how do you say, ‘I’ve
been robbed’?”
Darryl stopped walking and to stave off anxiety he pointed out a
Protea lepidocarpdendron with pink base and furry black
tips. When he could stand it no longer he said in Xhosa, “Zukisa,
I’m not a good stove but please have dinner with me at my
home. I’ll stove fish.”
She laughed.
He realised his mistake. “Cook! I mean cook.”
Teacher: Akamhle, lilanga liphuma.
Student: It means ‘she can’t be so beautiful, it must
be the sun rising’.
Grielum was waiting at the door when Darryl brought
Zukisa along the open-air corridor to his apartment.
Darryl had been feeling stressed about the date with his impressive
teacher. He’d baked four tuna pies and burned them all. To
cover the smell of charred pastry he’d sprayed the place with
a heavy dose of Spring air freshener. Zukisa started coughing as
soon as she walked in. Darryl, having been out for a while, away
from the pungent smells of smoke and chemical blossoms, noted as
he entered just how ghastly the combination was. Quickly, he opened
all the windows.
“It doesn’t normally stink like this. I was baking and
it didn’t work. Sit. Please. There.” He frowned and
pointed to a couch he’d spent a long time vacuuming in order
to rid it of sandy-coloured cat hairs.
The wind swirled in through the open windows. Zukisa kept on her
anorak and sat on the edge of the couch. Darryl pulled a heater
with two glowing elements closer to her feet –– as close
as the limited electric cord would allow. He tried lighting some
candles but the wind sweeping away the stench that clung to fibres
of the curtains and the couch, also swept the flames from the newly
lit candles. Zukisa watched as Darryl struggled to make his tiny
living space romantic.
Earlier that day, on his fifth trip to buy the ingredients for the
tuna pie, he’d seen piles of fleecy blankets in fashionable
colours rolled up artfully in the window of Woolworths. They were
R99 each. He did not need a blanket, he had one, and had never had
any issue with its scruffiness, but when he saw those new blankets
he realised that his blanket would not be good enough for Zukisa.
He went into the expensive grocery store and purchased a blanket
the colour of the leaves on an Apelliefie plant, Physalis peruviana
–– Cape Goosebury green.
In the icy room, Zukisa couldn’t resist the blanket. She kicked
off her shoes, curled her legs under her and draped the warm blanket
over her knees.
“I think we should have hot chocolate,” she said.
“Oh?” Darryl was disappointed; he’d spent a long
time choosing a suitable wine––Three Cape Beauties,
was the one he selected. It had been expensive, and he was looking
forward to it. He couldn’t get through this without alcohol.
An idea came to him––years ago he’d flown to Joburg
to a conference for botanists. On the flight he’d collected
a dozen or more small bottles of liqueur. Since then they’d
come to form an integral part of his ‘décor’,
they were treasured items, covered in dust but still a wealth, and
one he’d never before considered plundering. “Yes! I
have some delicious French orange liqueur and fresh cream, and I’ll
grate chocolate on the top.”
All the candles were blown out, but Zukisa, with her hands tucked
under the gooseberry green blanket, was gazing through one of the
windows at a large moon, a wisp away from full. “Magnificent,”
she said. Then in Xhosa she said: “Make the hot chocolate
quickly Darryl and come and sit with me under this nice blanket,
so we can watch the stars following the moon.”
In the end, they finished off Darryl’s entire collection of
dinky bottles of liqueur, two slabs of chocolate, many cups of hot
chocolate and the tuna pie burned for the fifth time because they
fell asleep, head to head, and warm despite the wind blustering
around them.
It was Grielum’s loud mewing that woke them. The cat clawed
his way up onto Darryl’s shoulder.
“Ouch! Go away,” Darryl began, but then he saw smoke.
“Zukisa! Wake up!”
The kitchen counter was ablaze with blue-hearted flames. Darryl
grabbed the green blanket and beat the flames down. Zukisa found
the electrical box and turned off the power to the stove, then went
to help Darryl in the fight against the flames. In fact, it wasn’t
as bad as it had first appeared and soon the fire was conquered.
“Next time, I’ll do the cooking,” Zukisa laughed
and she kissed Darryl on the cheek.
It was an insignificant kiss but unforgettable, it lingered in his
memory and although it had only been a few seconds in length, it
seemed to him all the world had paused and she was there, close,
for a length of time beyond time.
When she was no longer there, and he was alone again, he closed
his eyes and could feel her cheek against his. In reality and even
in his dreams, being near her and with her was so comfortable, so
easy, he could imagine years with her, he could picture himself
with her hiking through fynbos, talking over dinner, reading in
bed, buying groceries, laughing, holding hands. He wished he had
more to offer her than a bed-sit with a burned-out stove.
Teacher: Yajal’ipudini.
Student: It means ‘the pudding has turned sour; life is no
longer sweet’.
Summer came suddenly, before the end spring even,
in the form of a tremendous heat-wave and people blamed global warming.
Zukisa and Darryl were in Kirstenbosch walking up an avenue of Camphor
trees when he turned to her. “Zuki, would you ever consider
marrying me?” He was so shy he could barely look her in the
eyes. He tugged on the straps of his backpack containing a flask
of coffee and everything required for a post-lesson picnic.
She took his hands in her hands. “I would consider it, if
you asked me.”
“Ndiyakuthanda. Will you marry me?”
“I love you? I didn’t teach you that. Have you
been seeing another Xhosa teacher?”
“I found it on the internet … So, will you?”
“First, I must tell you something.”
“You’re married already?”
“No. Nothing like that.” She paused for too long; it
was an awkward matter.
“Yes, come on … I’m getting nervous now, what
is it?”
“What do you think I am?”
Having to pluck up the nerve to ask her the question in the first
place, was bad enough. Darryl was anxious, he laughed, then frowned,
looked at their hands, then at his feet and then at her eyes and
said in Xhosa: “You are loved.”
“My Sweet.” She squeezed his hands. “That is a
good answer, but tell me again, in the real world, outside of this
garden, what am I? … Not that same answer, really what am
I?”
“I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“How much do you know about me? That’s what I’m
asking.”
“If you don’t want to marry me, just say ‘no’.
I know I don’t have much.”
“Don’t be stupid … It’s my fault, I should
have told you this before, but all my life people have judged me,
one, because I’m a woman, two, because of my colour and three,
because of my bank balance. They say they aren’t, they know
it’s politically incorrect, but in truth I’m in a category
‘black diamond’! I hate that. I’m not a category;
a new market segment for luxury goods, I’m a person. With
you, I can just be myself. It’s like you’re from another
planet, and I don’t have to worry about appearances or pre-judgements.
You’re in a social circle all of your own. You don’t
even read the newspaper do you?”
“It’s true; I’m more interested in plants than
people. That sounds terrible….”
“No. It’s what makes you, and it’s the reason
I love you because you have no pretensions at all, and so much talent.
You’re beautiful Darryl and I will marry you, but…”
“You will?” He embraced her with great delight. “You
will!”
“Wait.” She pushed him back. “I’m not finished.
Darryl, you think I’m a domestic worker.”
“So what, there’s nothing wrong with that…”
“You’re not listening. For an intelligent man, you are
remarkably stupid sometimes. I’ve mislead you. I’m not
a maid.”
“Okay. So, you’re a black diamond? What is that anyway?”
“I have a degree in Politics and Economics. I don’t
work at Platinum House; I own it. My boss, an Italian property developer,
comes for meetings there periodically. The house was a gift from
my father who used to be the Chairman of a large mining empowerment
company and is now the deputy minister of finance. That’s
why I didn’t want to report what happened to me on the mountain,
because the media would have had a field day. Crime is so bad, they
love it when something happens to someone in government (or their
relations); it’s like being in a schoolyard surrounded by
children shouting ‘I told you so’. Being attacked and
violated was bad enough; I couldn’t have lived through a media
frenzy.”
Darryl was stunned into a long silence.
“I’ve never felt happy, Darryl. I can buy anything,
go anywhere but wherever I look the world is false, full of madams
and black diamonds and people trying sell things to madams and black
diamonds. Except here in this garden and in your apartment, where
everything is real. When I’m with you, I’m happy, and
life is simple.”
“But at night you go home and sleep in a palace.”
“What does it matter where I sleep? I’m the same person,
regardless.”
“Can you honestly tell me that you behave the same, dress
the same, and eat the same when you’re with your rich friends?
Do you think they’d like me, and my cat and my sweaters eaten
through by fish moths? Do you think your father would be happy to
know you’ve been dating a call-centre debt-collector who earns
fifteen Rand an hour?”
“When we’re married, you can resign from that job …
I’ll buy you new sweaters.”
“I hate the job, you know it, but I can’t live off you,
no matter how much I love you …”
“X! If the tables were turned, you’d expect me
to be overjoyed to have discovered that my true love disguised as
a shabby debt-collector turns out to be a prince––it’s
the stuff of fairytales, Darryl. But because I’m a woman,
a Black woman…”
“Don’t bring that into it…”
“Why?”
“Zuki, in fairytales the woman who is overjoyed is overjoyed
because she’s always dreamed of living in a castle, but I
haven’t. I don’t want to live in a ten-bedroomed house,
I’d be ashamed, embarrassed, to show my face in the street,
knowing how much other people in the country are suffering while
I rattle around in my mansion. Those places are a disgrace.”
“Ho! So I’m a disgrace?”
“No. Sorry, oh god, that came out wrong … I’m
not judging you … I just don’t want any possessions
–– and you’re used to them, it’ll never
work. I aspire to have nothing.”
“Then nothing’s what you’ll have. Yajal’ipudini!”
Stripped. Zukisa Radebe was robbed of all joy and
trembling with sorrow, anger and disillusion as she strode along
the bricked lane under the Camphor Trees away from the arms of Darryl
van Deventer who was little cheered to spot a rare orchid just opening
its petals to the Kirstenbosch sun.
When it occurred to Darryl, how good it would feel
not to have to be a debt-collector and how lost he would be without
his teacher, he understood he had been deceiving himself, that he
did aspire to something and so he ran after Zukisa.
“People will say I’m interested only in your money.”
He caught up with her. He swung his backpack to his front and rummaged
in it as he spoke. “But the truth is I just want a lifetime
of free Xhosa lessons.” He found what he had been looking
for – a small pack of sugar he’d taken from the Kirstenbosch
tea room the last time he’d been there. He held it out to
her. “For the pudding.” He stifled a smile, looked at
his feet, and then he was brave. “Sugar for the pudding so
it’s not sour anymore … Zuki, I’m certain I’ll
never find a better teacher than you. Please, will you marry me?”
“You have a lot to learn, My Sweet,” Zukisa said. 
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