VIA ORLANDO

Martella wants to venge me, I can tell.

The way she is standing there; her legs at twenty past eight. Her torso askance, right shoulder like a boxer’s, at her jaw. Hand, gripping a big knife, peeling a carrot before chopping it. Her eyes following me cutting – cutting. This was no way to behave at a vigil.

Rumour is she was named after a V.O. brandy and that’s all I am going to say about that. I grew up with her, if you can call all the times I was assigned to my grandmother and little aunt’s care growing up. She is now a woman of the neighbourhood, hence she would be here.

As for the runs in her stockings, the poor girl must never have outgrown poverty. I remember my grandmother, the same late great matriarch we have come to bury, would send me looking for her in her yard to come eat with us, from the age of five until I made a little over a decade. Oftentimes I would find her in the yard unwashed playing with discarded bottles of Old Buck gin, Borstol cough medicine and bricks. At the invitation she would go head first under the outside tap, no matter the season, disappear into her family’s four-room and come out unevenly greased in Vaseline as if it were applied in slaps.

I have never in my life stepped foot in her house. That one back-opposite of a shebeen. The four room that was full of people and carelessness. Her mother was known to jump the wall to get to the shebeen on some days. It was unbecoming.

And now Martella stands there in her stockings with ladders snaking up her impressive calves, legs apart, her eyes so tight for me that they won’t even spare a tear for the onion she is chopping. Between her legs crawls an unfortunate boy of six, seven or maybe eight or nine years of age, nose as runny as Martella’s stockings and the most remarkable ears. One can’t help but remark on how prominently they stick out from his head. She stops her venging to knock the boy’s one ear with the knee, commanding him to stop. He continues albeit with a wary eye and she complains to him about how he doesn’t listen. He stops his belligerent cameo appearance only after cocking an ear as if hearing something distant and faint. He then leaves of his own accord. She returns to her chopping board and fixes me with that vengeful eye. 

This one time – if memory serves, I was six or seven – my grandmother sent me after her as usual, but she was of no concern of mine I had made a new friend a few streets over and I walked right past her gate. I don’t think she saw me, and if she had, and had come up to me, I would have shooed her away. I had a pressing need to impress that new friend. For the life of me I can’t remember his name.

What did happen was I got a memorable beating from my grandmother. With a succession of three slaps to the back she scolded me for disappearing, followed by a flurry of slaps around the head for going to strangers’ houses on an empty stomach. Then there were a few slaps to the posterior for not doing as I was told. This is where she paused and asked if Martella had eaten. Of course I had no way of knowing but my grandmother demanded an answer, so I answered that Martella had. I got pinched all over for lying. No amount of pleading and apologizing placated her. I took a hiding for Martella and now she stands there at her station mutilating phallic root vegetables: carrots, aubergine, and cucumber. Her audacity is unbecoming.

Surely I can’t be imagining that this woman has it in for me. I take a turn in the house, to escape her stone shrinking gaze. Immediately the smell of baked goods strikes a march up my nasal passages and mounts a two pronged attack on my saliva glands and memory centre. The oven must be tending to my little aunt’s famous scones, buttery delights that powder into a soft krummelpap on the palette. I nearly forget my place in time, harkened back to the days of ashy ankles, short sleeves and the ringworms on my arms until my jacket is jerked and tugged by the slew of my youngest nieces and nephews. To escape their clutches, I give the eldest nephew among them the keys to my new luxury sedan and tell him where I keep the boiled candy. The eldest girl I tell to be responsible for ensuring every child gets their fair share.

The man I was avoiding, an unplaceable uncle whose relation I believe a figment of the family’s collective imagination, corners me on the threshold of the kitchen and lounge. He is worse than the children. I tell him he will get the alcohol as promised and take my leave of him. Finally I find my cousin, my little aunt’s daughter, who has lived here most of her whole life. I make small talk then ask her: what is Martella’s problem?  

I was Martella’s age mate, not her peer, we were not of the same age – I was and will always be slightly older. Her only friend at that point, when we were growing up – sure, I was a friend of varying quality, like: not long after the hiding I remember to this day, we were playing a game of Chicago. She was my team mate but I took her out of the game. This is how it happened. I was still itching from my grandmother’s pinching and suddenly I was seized by an undeniable fury. So I caught her unawares with the bald Spalding tennis ball square under her eye. Everyone was stunned. The throw was so furious that no one was seized by me catching out my own team mate but rather by the sight of seeing the welt grow under her eye. It squirmed like it was alive and grew into quite the shiner.

The air was not stirred by a single breath in that moment. Everyone stared intently at Martella to see if she would cry. The dumbu grew big enough for her to be able to see it. She took one look at it then turned to face me. That’s when I first saw it, in the split second before the tears welled up. That’s when I first saw her ‘I will venge you’ stare. It screamed one day is one day. It shrieked after school is after school. And then it was gone. She cried and the children in the street burst out laughing. Mirthless laughter; laughter brought about when one is less miserable than another. That laughter followed her to her home. I left the game soon after.

Here I am all reminisce. I am here to lay my grandmother to rest. She toiled her whole life proving once and for all the fate of Sisyphus was to be condemned to the life of a South African domestic. And I can’t offer her a moment’s thought. Because of this vengeful woman, you know.

My grandmother once said she was tomboyish because of me. Up until the age of nine, we would climb the fig tree – it is gone now save for a stump – and I never imagined it was untoward that she was up there with me risking life and limb. I was never cruel to her, I don’t think so. When it was time to play with boys, I’d shoo her away, and if she didn’t go, I’d then throw stones in her direction. If she was particularly stubborn on that day, I would blame my incompetence at marbles on her for good measure. The boys would rib and tease and have good fun at my expense.

You know, I tell my cousin, that I greeted her when I arrived two days prior and she replied with ja, wena. I was aghast to say the least. She was out to confirm me? Was that any way to greet someone who… who…

When it was just me and her in my grandmother’s yard we would play house. She had a strange way of playing house for a girl of five or six years. Ways unbeknownst to my seven or eight year old boyhood. The usual would happen I would be the father her, the mother. The pretend tea would be served along with the usual mud cakes. We would look after the stone children, there were many but I favoured the boys. But afterwards she would unceremoniously drag me behind the big zinc storage box – since gone and supplanted by my cousin’s room in the backyard. There she would peel down the corduroys my grandmother gave her and tell me to lie on top of her – very peculiar.  Once my little aunt discovered us and yanked me off and berated and spanked me all the way into the house. Again I took a hiding for that girl without a fault being mine.

I tell my cousin that we were so close that Martella told me her secrets. My cousin having gotten her nosiness from my little aunt wants to know what secrets. I can’t remember for the life of me but that’s not the point. She, my cousin, says she can’t help, sweeping two warring nephews into her arms, when she finds out the conflict is over sweets from me; I must take my leave of her, one more woman’s scorn would be too much.

I leave through the front door, which to this day feels strange to do. I tiptoe across the stoop even though it doesn’t look like it has been polished in years. I walk out the gate after a few short steps and make for the line of cars where the boys from the neighbourhood are.

They are not boys anymore but I left them as boys and they still go by their same street names. It’s been some time, a meanwhile. The cruelty of the years is not lost on me.  They are stuck here to grow out of short pants and into limited opportunities outside of this place. Their names are signposts along this street, their parents dead or dying, now we ask for their house instead of calling it by the family name.

The chancing uncle comes looking for me his amble like a marionette’s because I think he has the gout. I say I think because that’s one of the many conditions I am told he has when I am being hit up for money. He joins us. Asks one for a cigarette, hits up one for a light, looks at his gold plated stopped watch then requests the time. His watch is just for show hasn’t worked since his first stint in prison for robbing people, back when whites still rode the train. He asks me, his mchana, in front of everyone to make the things to happen. The boys agree it is about that time. I reach for my wallet and part with a reasonable amount. By reasonable I mean show the compartment the money comes from is emptied so he has no reason to ask me again. Knowing that another compartment stores more, growing up you become wise in these ways.

He shuffles off tender of foot, goes through the neighbouring yard to use the dub-laap to get to the street of the shebeen. I tell the boys I got the good stuff in the car and they clap me on the back and rub their hands, the way they did when I had coins for the arcade game, back in the day. I was always entrusted with money by the adults and trusted to have money by them. A check for my car keys comes up empty handed and not wanting to fall out of their good graces I call at the top of my voice for my nephew to bring me my keys. His frail voice comes from around the corner to inform me he does not have them.

Not only does he not come to me when called, but he calls me uncle in English. I command him to come to me at once. Intimidated by the grown folk he gasps that the keys were taken from him by a younger boy with ears that stood out like they were pointing for a taxi – his words not mine. You see it is not bizarre that he would be dispossessed by a boy smaller than him, because this particular nephew was not raised around here. Being raised in town self preservation wins over reputation and he didn’t worry about getting a hiding because he knew how to use the telephone and the numbers 0-800-0-55555 off by heart. His towniness was infuriating in these circumstances so I instead asked him to find the boy. His arm shot up and our heads swivelled, our eyes following the latitudinal of his point, approximately the length of four houses, arriving at the boy of the perpetual ears, squatting like a squirrel and looking back at us squarely with ears pricked. One of the boys confirms it is Martella’s son.

From the ages of five to eleven we ran these streets via various exercises. This one time at nine or ten I was in a foot race with the boys. I must admit I was clumsy; it was hard to find my centre of balance only having just lost my puppy fat. So that one time running from the corner to the telephone pole outside my grandmother’s I was about three houses away when I fell and skidded a whole yard length, scraping myself raw on the exposed gravel of the street because back then it wasn’t tarred as now. The boys finished the race panting and guffawing. I did my best not to cry, not allowing my towniness to get the better of me. No one came to my aid except Martella.

Martella in her corduroys that my grandmother had given her. Came to me unsummoned, spat in her hand and began to rub my grazed elbow. The boys made like they were swooning, falling over themselves in giggling fits. Now I chalk up the sudden departure of pain to total embarrassment, nothing to do with Martella’s spit. I flailed my arms disparaging her and went to sit out the rest of the contest on the grass outside my grandmother’s. What did she do? I will tell you. Once the boys had caught their breath she joined them at the starting line at the corner, several houses down from my grandmother’s. All the boys were older than her and jibed that she stood no chance. The boys posed at the start line like sprinters, she crouched like she was making a squatting impression of a frog. The race started either with ready-steady-go or on-your-marks-ready-steady-fire-go. There’s no telling I was too far away.

Off it went with the boys in the lead. That lasted for three houses. Martella caught up by the fourth. She crossed the finish line by the length from the second windowsill of the neighbour’s house to the telephone poll outside my grandmother’s. Of course the boys accused her of starting early, their chests heaving whereas she was not visibly out of breath. She replied to their accusations by flaring her nostrils and sticking her tongue out. The boys challenged her five more times and she easily beat them every time. She ran unperturbed, her uncombable hair atop her head like an Olympic flame. Head slightly tilted with a bored expression on her face. Unshod because her torn hand me down tennis shoes would tear as she went. What these boys didn’t know was under those faded corduroys were calves like pistons. She was ubeatable.

Everyone in Martella’s house drank. When her mother, a pitiable person despite her deplorable nature, couldn’t make it over their backyard wall or round the bend to the shebeen she would send Martella. Now if you know the impatience of a bitter drunk you would know that Martella was running a fools errand against time and no matter how fast she ran she could never win and with every loss there was a beating.

Most of the boys she beat are here; spare a thought for the ones dead or in prison. We are watching her son streaking toward us with the speed and precision of a guided missile. He arrives and stands there totally composed as if he didn’t just break the land speed record for all mammal kind. I get my keys from him that he had in the right front pocket of his orange corduroy pants.  Martella appears at my grandmother’s gate and calls her son. Quietly she picks him up and carries him away without a glance more in our direction. This reminds me of how irked I am at this woman. I unlock the car. The boys are impressed by the boot opening at the touch of a button – and so of course for no reason, I show them the keyless starting feature. I must admit Martella’s sinister air had me paranoid there for a second. What if she had sent her son as an agent to exact her vengeance on my new sedan? A quick reassuring walk around and it seems unlikely.

The boys are excited by my seemingly unending supply of distinguished booze. The first bottle finishes quickly, the second one just as fast. When I produce the third without flinching they relax some and drink at a steadier pace. By the fourth bottle we are out of politics, complaints about our local soccer team, compliments on my new sedan and eulogies for my grandmother. We unsayingly settle for beers and the lone whiskey bottle amongst us is at the toe. The unplaceable uncle arrives and makes a nuisance of himself finding no other booze forthcoming he downs the last of the whiskey showingly, mouth agape posture upright like he is swallowing a sword. He walks back into the yard of my grandmother’s house we watch him as he goes; pretending to chase after the kids with the gout in his knees making his ambling comical, all my Grandmother’s grandchildren avoiding his grasp. He manages only to catch Martella’s son by the ears because he is just sitting there lost in thought. Perhaps listening to a radio broadcast from halfway across the world. When one of the boys quips how Martella’s laaitie looks a lot like I did at his age. I instinctively thumb the lobe and ridge of my left ear. A nervous tick I hadn’t pulled in years.

It is true my ears were obvious at that age, but I have since grown into them. They were so obvious that they were the easiest things about me to ridicule but by the time puberty hit and my head doubled in size they became less manifest. But now at the mention the similarities between me and the boy are more apparent to everyone, augmented of course by the booze. The more I deny it the more the boys feel a compulsion to prove it. Just like in the good old days.

But you see I have what the mafia dons call leverage. Soon as they see I’m irritated to the point I could cut off the liquor supply they cease with the joke making post haste. Dusk pulls the cover of night over us and we go into my grandmothers yard where we sit around the fire and get served supper by the women folk. As Martella gives me my plate she sniffs at me – it could be a cold but who knows. I ask her what her problem is and she walks away. The boys tell me to pay her no mind. That she had gone funny; that upstairs she is room-to-let.

My tongue loosed by food and ethanol alcohol I tell them of my bereavement. How I am here to bury my grandmother and all day I have suffered this woman’s persecution. I might embellish and say she sucked her teeth at me but this is not a lie in as much as elaborating on the intangible. The boys nod approvingly and agree that she is in the wrong, but say there’s no recourse as she is not entirely there, so there’s no one to hold accountable.

A quiet descends; our bellies warm, faces to the fire. One pipes up saying, that even though she is a crazy person she is a good lay. Everyone but me agrees with a deep all-knowing grunt. It is a fact for every one of the man-boy; everyone knows but me. Neither my bladder nor I can take much more of this piss up so I excuse myself. I stumble to the outside lavatory my head spinning from suddenly standing up, no maybe it was the sudden transition in temperature from hot to cold as I was stepping away from the fire. Something, whatever it was, had my head spinning. I bang on the lavatory door and it is locked. Pressed I go behind the outhouse and slash at the weeds going there trying to regain my composure.

My bladder relieved; the slash is over and Martella is at my back with the knife in her hand.  She was always like that. You could never see her coming. One minute I am playing marbles about to make a critical shot and the next moment she is at my ear; whispering that my grandmother is calling me. Now, one moment I am alone blinding lizard with my satisfactory stream and the next she has crept up on me ready to execute me

Martella                                               I say                       Skeelo                                  She says

What’s With the knife?                 I ask                       It needs washing              She replies

What witchcraft is this                   I exclaim              You were going to fall    She remarks

No, I wasn’t                                        I deny                   You’ve lost your shoe    She observes

That I haven’t – it is there            I defend               The paving is un even    She says

And so?                                                                I ask                       And Nothing                      She leaves

*

I am climbing into my car. The funeral was a success. I put this place in my rear-view; the street quieter than the day before. I look forward to going home.