far from this parched dustbowl where upscale Cape Town hides its poor.
The wind, roaring in unchecked from distant False Bay, blankets the box houses and squat apartment blocks in yellow grit. Pedestrians stagger like drunkards, clothes flapping as they fight their way to buses and taxis whose headlights glare through the dust.
The houses and ghetto blocks give way to a patchwork of shacks, cramped hovels thrown together from sheet metal, plastic and cardboard. A stench comes in on the wind, strong enough to make the driver seem fragrant. Before she can stop herself Louise puts her hand over her nose.
The older undertaker laughs. “Welcome to Paradise Park, Missy.”
A landfill looms through the dust, standing higher than the ghetto blocks, the wind scouring its face and raining down filth on the streets like some ticker-tape parade for the poor and the powerless.
A soiled disposable diaper suctions up against the windshield, obscuring the driver’s view. He curses softly in Cape Flats Afrikaans and triggers the wiper blades, which judder and scuff across the glass, frisbeeing the diaper onto the sidewalk.
Jesus, no wonder you were tikking , Lynnie, Louise thinks. You’d have to be out of your bloody head to keep coming back to this hellhole.
The truck bumps onto a sand track, flinging Louise against the driver, his fleshy arm slick with sweat. Closing her eyes, she imagines that this brutal day is over, that she’s back home, standing under the shower, washing away the foulness and the death.
Then she sees her mother lying unconscious in the clinic and the furtive, guilty look on Michael Lane’s face that morning, and she knows that the cottage will never be a sanctuary again.
When she opens her eyes the pickup is rattling through a graveyard, shacks built among the headstones, the crosses and concrete angels used to anchor sheets of plastic that billow and shriek in the gale.
The truck noses through a gate that has been flung open by the wind, and they’re in the Muslim burial ground, most of the graves just mounds of earth, a few marked by low, unadorned headstones.
Through the dust Louise sees two men wrapped up like Bedouins against the sandstorm, sheltering with their shovels inside a partly dug grave.
The pickup grinds to a halt and the older undertaker points toward a sheet iron lean-to, the roof banging in the wind.
“You go wait in there, Missy that’s where the body gonna get cleaned.” He slides out of the truck, covering his eyes with his arm, wincing as he’s stung by grit, his long beard blown back over his shoulder like a stole.
Louise grabs her backpack and runs into the three-sided tin structure, her eyes tearing. She finds the most protected corner, where a spigot juts through a gap in the sheet metal, a coiled garden hose tied to its mouth with baling wire. Setting down her backpack Louise kneels, removing the Sunlight soap and the length of rope.
Fighting the wind, the two men carry Lyndall’s body from the truck, the blanket flapping open on his small feet—the same size as hers. When they were kids, Louise was forever bitching at her brother for filching her shoes when he lost his at school or playing solitary games in the forest.
They lie Lyndall down near the spigot. The driver leaves and Louise hears the truck door slam. The older man hovers, not meeting her eyes.
“Where’s the guy who is going to wash my brother?” Louise asks.
The undertaker crouches beside her, his beard ochre with dust. “Missy, he just phoned me. He can’t come.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was a bus accident over by Mitchells Plane. Nine men from a Muslim choir killed and they need him for that.”
“So who will clean Lyndall?”
The man looks away, out over the cemetery. As if a switch has been flicked, the wind dies with a last ragged gasp and the two grave diggers emerge from the hole like they’ve been resurrected. They dust themselves off and start to dig, the blades of their
The wind, roaring in unchecked from distant False Bay, blankets the box houses and squat apartment blocks in yellow grit. Pedestrians stagger like drunkards, clothes flapping as they fight their way to buses and taxis whose headlights glare through the dust.
The houses and ghetto blocks give way to a patchwork of shacks, cramped hovels thrown together from sheet metal, plastic and cardboard. A stench comes in on the wind, strong enough to make the driver seem fragrant. Before she can stop herself Louise puts her hand over her nose.
The older undertaker laughs. “Welcome to Paradise Park, Missy.”
A landfill looms through the dust, standing higher than the ghetto blocks, the wind scouring its face and raining down filth on the streets like some ticker-tape parade for the poor and the powerless.
A soiled disposable diaper suctions up against the windshield, obscuring the driver’s view. He curses softly in Cape Flats Afrikaans and triggers the wiper blades, which judder and scuff across the glass, frisbeeing the diaper onto the sidewalk.
Jesus, no wonder you were tikking , Lynnie, Louise thinks. You’d have to be out of your bloody head to keep coming back to this hellhole.
The truck bumps onto a sand track, flinging Louise against the driver, his fleshy arm slick with sweat. Closing her eyes, she imagines that this brutal day is over, that she’s back home, standing under the shower, washing away the foulness and the death.
Then she sees her mother lying unconscious in the clinic and the furtive, guilty look on Michael Lane’s face that morning, and she knows that the cottage will never be a sanctuary again.
When she opens her eyes the pickup is rattling through a graveyard, shacks built among the headstones, the crosses and concrete angels used to anchor sheets of plastic that billow and shriek in the gale.
The truck noses through a gate that has been flung open by the wind, and they’re in the Muslim burial ground, most of the graves just mounds of earth, a few marked by low, unadorned headstones.
Through the dust Louise sees two men wrapped up like Bedouins against the sandstorm, sheltering with their shovels inside a partly dug grave.
The pickup grinds to a halt and the older undertaker points toward a sheet iron lean-to, the roof banging in the wind.
“You go wait in there, Missy that’s where the body gonna get cleaned.” He slides out of the truck, covering his eyes with his arm, wincing as he’s stung by grit, his long beard blown back over his shoulder like a stole.
Louise grabs her backpack and runs into the three-sided tin structure, her eyes tearing. She finds the most protected corner, where a spigot juts through a gap in the sheet metal, a coiled garden hose tied to its mouth with baling wire. Setting down her backpack Louise kneels, removing the Sunlight soap and the length of rope.
Fighting the wind, the two men carry Lyndall’s body from the truck, the blanket flapping open on his small feet—the same size as hers. When they were kids, Louise was forever bitching at her brother for filching her shoes when he lost his at school or playing solitary games in the forest.
They lie Lyndall down near the spigot. The driver leaves and Louise hears the truck door slam. The older man hovers, not meeting her eyes.
“Where’s the guy who is going to wash my brother?” Louise asks.
The undertaker crouches beside her, his beard ochre with dust. “Missy, he just phoned me. He can’t come.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was a bus accident over by Mitchells Plane. Nine men from a Muslim choir killed and they need him for that.”
“So who will clean Lyndall?”
The man looks away, out over the cemetery. As if a switch has been flicked, the wind dies with a last ragged gasp and the two grave diggers emerge from the hole like they’ve been resurrected. They dust themselves off and start to dig, the blades of their
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