Xhosa man and the white boy through the island of oleander and the mirage haze hanging over the tar. Empty tables are decked with plaid cloths and pink plastic flowers to lure travellers in.
Moses unlocks the padlock. The barbed gate swings and basking lizards scutter into the gaping eyeholes of broken headlamps. The junkyard is a graveyard of dented, gutted motorcars. A stray cat combs against my leg. I see the nodes of its arched backbone through its fur.
Moses points out an old, boxy Volvo. It is sky blue, but in patches it is the colour of the sea after an eclipse, churned rust red by the moon. The roof is caved in and the tyres flat, the rubber cracked dry under the sun. The Volvo stares at me, through one broken eye and one good eye, a sad old hobo of a motorcar begging to be painted, tuned and ridden.
Moses grins as he flicks a key to me. It catches the sun like a spinning coin. Out of instinct I want to call out: heads.
– The key was in the cubbyhole, Moses says.
I look at the husk of a motorcar and think she must feel lonely, stranded south in this desert place, so far from Sweden and her whizzing youth. I wonder if she came over the sea by ship and if she ever wove along the banks of a fjord, dodging moose or whatever kind of buck they have in Sweden. I realise I know nothing about Sweden, other than fjords and buck. And Björn Borg.
The seats, once the cherry red of the seams, are bleached pink. Wire springs snake out of the gashed back seat. I imagine she feels ashamed of her leaking guts and rusted husk.
I tap a tune on the dashboard. And Abba. I almost forgot Abba.
– So what do you say? smiles Moses.
– She’ll do.
I can tell I have hurt his feelings.
– A coat of paint will perk her up, I add.
– Yes. And we can use the tyres from the jeep.
The jeep looks as if it was stamped to death by a rogue elephant avenging all the elephants who ended up as elephant-foot stools.
– I thought maybe we saw the roof off, Moses goes on. There has been no rain for two years. We just throw a canvas over at night.
I flinch. I am becoming like my mother, who could not bear to look when Byron, the gardenboy, hacked off branches from the coral tree when it reached too far over the lagoon road.
– So, you can see her on the road?
A hobo Volvo, jazzed up as a beach buggy on jeep wheels, bopping down Delarey with a black man and a white boy up front, and on the backseat a crazy bobtail dog biting at the wind.
– Ya . I can see her.
– Kulungile. I have only Sunday afternoons for working on the car. I need to sand it down and paint it and fix the engine. It growls but does not catch. And when you get your licence we drive down the N1 to Cape Town.
– But four years is forever.
– Forever for a boy, but years go by like river fish for an old man.
green apples
I DROP FROM THE window sill and hold my breath. Chaka does not stir. Just a cluck from the coop and the distant din of tin lids as the dustmen empty the bins on Delarey Straat. It is still dark, but there is a hint of mussel-shell pink and blue in the east. Fish-scale dew glints in the grass.
On the far side of town I hear the cargo train go uloliwe uloliwe uloliwe . This is the time Moses stirs to unlock the pumps. This is the time Marsden and I, rattled out of sleep by the milkman’s clinking bottles, caught some waves before school.
Marika’s backyard borders on the veld, miles and miles of bare veld. She climbs over the barbed wire, like a boy. Two horses graze the wet yellow grass. They lift their heads and stare at us, their jawbones shifting, as Marika walks up to them.
I hang back. Dirkie taught me to ride on the farm, but I am wary of horses: the way their nostrils flare and their muscles twitch randomly under a sleek hide, and the way they toss their heads to flick flies away from their wild black glassy eyes.
Marika whistles and the horses come to her. She combs her fingers through the mane of the patchy horse and rubs the hard
Moses unlocks the padlock. The barbed gate swings and basking lizards scutter into the gaping eyeholes of broken headlamps. The junkyard is a graveyard of dented, gutted motorcars. A stray cat combs against my leg. I see the nodes of its arched backbone through its fur.
Moses points out an old, boxy Volvo. It is sky blue, but in patches it is the colour of the sea after an eclipse, churned rust red by the moon. The roof is caved in and the tyres flat, the rubber cracked dry under the sun. The Volvo stares at me, through one broken eye and one good eye, a sad old hobo of a motorcar begging to be painted, tuned and ridden.
Moses grins as he flicks a key to me. It catches the sun like a spinning coin. Out of instinct I want to call out: heads.
– The key was in the cubbyhole, Moses says.
I look at the husk of a motorcar and think she must feel lonely, stranded south in this desert place, so far from Sweden and her whizzing youth. I wonder if she came over the sea by ship and if she ever wove along the banks of a fjord, dodging moose or whatever kind of buck they have in Sweden. I realise I know nothing about Sweden, other than fjords and buck. And Björn Borg.
The seats, once the cherry red of the seams, are bleached pink. Wire springs snake out of the gashed back seat. I imagine she feels ashamed of her leaking guts and rusted husk.
I tap a tune on the dashboard. And Abba. I almost forgot Abba.
– So what do you say? smiles Moses.
– She’ll do.
I can tell I have hurt his feelings.
– A coat of paint will perk her up, I add.
– Yes. And we can use the tyres from the jeep.
The jeep looks as if it was stamped to death by a rogue elephant avenging all the elephants who ended up as elephant-foot stools.
– I thought maybe we saw the roof off, Moses goes on. There has been no rain for two years. We just throw a canvas over at night.
I flinch. I am becoming like my mother, who could not bear to look when Byron, the gardenboy, hacked off branches from the coral tree when it reached too far over the lagoon road.
– So, you can see her on the road?
A hobo Volvo, jazzed up as a beach buggy on jeep wheels, bopping down Delarey with a black man and a white boy up front, and on the backseat a crazy bobtail dog biting at the wind.
– Ya . I can see her.
– Kulungile. I have only Sunday afternoons for working on the car. I need to sand it down and paint it and fix the engine. It growls but does not catch. And when you get your licence we drive down the N1 to Cape Town.
– But four years is forever.
– Forever for a boy, but years go by like river fish for an old man.
green apples
I DROP FROM THE window sill and hold my breath. Chaka does not stir. Just a cluck from the coop and the distant din of tin lids as the dustmen empty the bins on Delarey Straat. It is still dark, but there is a hint of mussel-shell pink and blue in the east. Fish-scale dew glints in the grass.
On the far side of town I hear the cargo train go uloliwe uloliwe uloliwe . This is the time Moses stirs to unlock the pumps. This is the time Marsden and I, rattled out of sleep by the milkman’s clinking bottles, caught some waves before school.
Marika’s backyard borders on the veld, miles and miles of bare veld. She climbs over the barbed wire, like a boy. Two horses graze the wet yellow grass. They lift their heads and stare at us, their jawbones shifting, as Marika walks up to them.
I hang back. Dirkie taught me to ride on the farm, but I am wary of horses: the way their nostrils flare and their muscles twitch randomly under a sleek hide, and the way they toss their heads to flick flies away from their wild black glassy eyes.
Marika whistles and the horses come to her. She combs her fingers through the mane of the patchy horse and rubs the hard
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