apart from me.
I had never felt this way about my father. There was no mystery hidden in the hatch marks of the crinkled, leathery skin on the backs of his hands or within the tangle of dark hairs that dovetailed down his shins. The hammerhead toe that was so curled it couldn’t be forced flat, the candle-taper fingers, and honest, square fingernails were as familiar to me as my own. I had memorized them long ago, and I searched daily for their echoes in my own feet and hands. Sometimes I saw them; mostly I didn’t.
Halfway through that first night, I woke up in a pool of wetness and instantly felt a chill of fear run through me: what would Ma say when she found out? Bedwetting was excusable from a child Hansie’s age, but there was no defending a twelve-year-old girl who couldn’t wake up in time to relieve herself.
Outside, the first gray light shimmered. Further inspection of my cot revealed that I’d not wet myself, after all. The water was dew: moisture that had drained in off the tent, and Gert and I were both soaked through.
That same morning, Antjie was transferred to the hospital.
HEROD’S WORK
T he doctors came for her just as Ma was taking the scissors to Gert’s hair. My mother was so busy trying to hold back her welling tears she didn’t even have breath to curse the British nurse as Antjie was wrapped in a musty-smelling blanket and levered onto a stretcher and carried out of the tent. When they had gone — the doctors and Antjie and Agnes, who was supported by her two other daughters and Nandi — Ma snipped the last of the golden tendrils that curled behind Gert’s ears and collected the strands into a bundle.
“So much hair,
boytjie …
” she said wistfully. I wondered if she was going to tie his hair with a ribbon and treasure it as a keepsake, the way people did in olden times.
My brother rubbed his head with both hands and grinned.
“It feels lighter,” he said.
I told him that he looked like a drongo chick, and Ma cuffed me upside the head.
“It’s your turn next, my girl.”
Agnes had told us that there was no point waiting for the lice to come before cutting our hair; she said it made it easier to pick them out if you worked off a shaved scalp. As much as it pained Ma to shear her sons like a couple of gormless lambs, she seemed to have little difficulty tearing through my mousy locks. Gripping a clutch of hair in one hand, she managed the scissors like they were a scythe slicing through mealie shoots.
It’s just hair
, I thought. And yet, the way she pulled at it made me think she hated my sandy-brown curls. Lindiwe had once observed that my hair looked red when the sun caught it, the color of tea — something that I’d taken as a compliment. But when I proudly reported this to Ma, my mother had flown into an instant rage. Lindiwe had no right to say such things, she’d said. And I was a vain and stupid girl to think my hair was anything special. She told me she’d sooner see it all cut off than tolerate such nonsense about having a redhead in the family.
She couldn’t have known then that one day she’d get her wish.
There was no mirror in the tent to inspect the results. All I could do was feel my head with astonished fingers and look to Gert for affirmation.
“You look funny.”
“Not as funny as you,” I snapped.
We hung about the tent until midday, when Agnes returned with her two daughters and Nandi. The smallest one seemed to have taken a liking to Gert, so the two of them puttered about outside while Ma and I brewed some bush tea for Agnes and the older girl. Her name was Marieta, and I thought her quite beautiful: raven-haired, with eyes the color of grass after a storm, porcelain skin, and a queen’s stately bearing. She wore a white pinafore over a robin’s-egg blue dress, and somehow she managed never to look as dusty or rumpled as the rest of us. She rarely spoke, and when she did, it was in such a low voice that I wondered what must be going
I had never felt this way about my father. There was no mystery hidden in the hatch marks of the crinkled, leathery skin on the backs of his hands or within the tangle of dark hairs that dovetailed down his shins. The hammerhead toe that was so curled it couldn’t be forced flat, the candle-taper fingers, and honest, square fingernails were as familiar to me as my own. I had memorized them long ago, and I searched daily for their echoes in my own feet and hands. Sometimes I saw them; mostly I didn’t.
Halfway through that first night, I woke up in a pool of wetness and instantly felt a chill of fear run through me: what would Ma say when she found out? Bedwetting was excusable from a child Hansie’s age, but there was no defending a twelve-year-old girl who couldn’t wake up in time to relieve herself.
Outside, the first gray light shimmered. Further inspection of my cot revealed that I’d not wet myself, after all. The water was dew: moisture that had drained in off the tent, and Gert and I were both soaked through.
That same morning, Antjie was transferred to the hospital.
HEROD’S WORK
T he doctors came for her just as Ma was taking the scissors to Gert’s hair. My mother was so busy trying to hold back her welling tears she didn’t even have breath to curse the British nurse as Antjie was wrapped in a musty-smelling blanket and levered onto a stretcher and carried out of the tent. When they had gone — the doctors and Antjie and Agnes, who was supported by her two other daughters and Nandi — Ma snipped the last of the golden tendrils that curled behind Gert’s ears and collected the strands into a bundle.
“So much hair,
boytjie …
” she said wistfully. I wondered if she was going to tie his hair with a ribbon and treasure it as a keepsake, the way people did in olden times.
My brother rubbed his head with both hands and grinned.
“It feels lighter,” he said.
I told him that he looked like a drongo chick, and Ma cuffed me upside the head.
“It’s your turn next, my girl.”
Agnes had told us that there was no point waiting for the lice to come before cutting our hair; she said it made it easier to pick them out if you worked off a shaved scalp. As much as it pained Ma to shear her sons like a couple of gormless lambs, she seemed to have little difficulty tearing through my mousy locks. Gripping a clutch of hair in one hand, she managed the scissors like they were a scythe slicing through mealie shoots.
It’s just hair
, I thought. And yet, the way she pulled at it made me think she hated my sandy-brown curls. Lindiwe had once observed that my hair looked red when the sun caught it, the color of tea — something that I’d taken as a compliment. But when I proudly reported this to Ma, my mother had flown into an instant rage. Lindiwe had no right to say such things, she’d said. And I was a vain and stupid girl to think my hair was anything special. She told me she’d sooner see it all cut off than tolerate such nonsense about having a redhead in the family.
She couldn’t have known then that one day she’d get her wish.
There was no mirror in the tent to inspect the results. All I could do was feel my head with astonished fingers and look to Gert for affirmation.
“You look funny.”
“Not as funny as you,” I snapped.
We hung about the tent until midday, when Agnes returned with her two daughters and Nandi. The smallest one seemed to have taken a liking to Gert, so the two of them puttered about outside while Ma and I brewed some bush tea for Agnes and the older girl. Her name was Marieta, and I thought her quite beautiful: raven-haired, with eyes the color of grass after a storm, porcelain skin, and a queen’s stately bearing. She wore a white pinafore over a robin’s-egg blue dress, and somehow she managed never to look as dusty or rumpled as the rest of us. She rarely spoke, and when she did, it was in such a low voice that I wondered what must be going
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