Out of Bounds (2 page)

Veronica was trembling, but she had to find out what was happening. She stretched forward to see around the corner. A small number of servants stood at a short distance from the massive figure—his face just a shade lighter than his blazing beard and hair. In front of him stood a black child with thin spindly legs, wearing a pair of torn khaki shorts, his eyes fixed on the ground. The man grabbed the boy’s ear and jerked his head upward, with his other hand forcing an orange into the boy’s face.

“
Kyk hierso!
Look at this! I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget!”

“Please, Baas, this boy has learnt his lesson. He won’t do it again, Baas. I will speak to him, Baas!”

It was the old housemaid, her hands together as if in a prayer, pleading, moving nearer to Meneer Venter. His arm swept out, dismissing her.

“He must learn a proper lesson. Talking is not good enough!”

The old woman was insistent. “He’s only a child, my Baas. Once the Baas was also a child!”

Meneer Venter turned on her now. “You go too far now, Lettie. Watch out or I’ll give you a lesson too!”

The old woman covered her face with her hands, shaking her head.

Meneer Venter shouted instructions to a couple of servants who disappeared through the side door. One came back with a wooden chair and the other with a cane. For a moment after his ear had been released, the boy looked around wildly. In the second that Veronica glimpsed his eyes, she almost called out. He looked like Selo, Rebecca’s son, in the photograph! It couldn’t be him, could it? Rebecca’s family lived far away. But Rebecca had said Selo was always getting into trouble.

The boy was ordered to lean over the chair. One of the male workers was ordered to stand in front and hold him down. Meneer Venter took the cane. Veronica did not look after the first two strikes. The boy’s cries pierced her ears. She was shivering all over. Her stomach heaved.

When the cries reduced to a soft whimpering, Veronica looked up. To her horror Meneer Venter was walking in her direction in a slow swagger. There was no time and no where to run. Standing transfixed, she dropped the flower she was holding in her hand. His eyes were odd, glazed, as if not seeing anything. Then, as he drew close, they flickered.

“
Jy is ’n van Reenen, nè?
Tell your father I’m satisfied with the fence.”

Before Veronica could even think what to say, he patted her hair lightly and walked on, up the steps and into the house. He had thought she was Marika.

Guiltily, Veronica looked down at the fallen poinsettia. She was aware of the old woman gently holding the boy, making soothing noises. The servants were talking quietly among themselves. Hastily she picked up the blood-red flower. The milky oozing had stopped and sealed up the stem. Grabbing a branch above her, she snapped off four more stems, careless of the sticky sap. A flower each. Sprinting down the road, she passed the old woman and the boy who had begun making their way painfully toward the huts behind the blue
gums. No sounds followed as she entered the orange trees. She stopped running. She could walk the rest of the way now and give herself time to regain her breath. Then she could present each flower quite calmly. She might even take the gang some oranges.

1955

The year I turned ten, apartheid gripped me fully by the throat for the first time. Of course its fingers had been there all along, but I had been too busy to take much notice. In school I had to watch out for the tentacles of my slipper-happy teacher. At home, next door, it was Mrs. Busybody James. She was always lurking behind her net curtains and would tell Mommy everything and anything. When her little terrier, Wolfie, lunged at my ankles, I couldn’t even give him a quick kick without her complaining. As soon as she saw Mommy turn the corner of the road, her flip-flops would be flapping down the polished red steps of her front stoep. Mommy could be struggling with a fat bundle of sewing in one arm and my little sister Lisa in the other, but Mrs. James wouldn’t even wait for Mommy to reach our house and off-load before starting.

“Shame, Mrs. Peters, it’s not nice to see a boy
mistreating a small creature like my Wolfie….”

And that would be just the beginning. Funny but she never complained to Pa. She would just say “Good morning, Mr. Peters” or “Good evening, Mr. Peters” as if butter could melt in her mouth. I think she looked up to Pa because he was a supervisor in a clothing factory.

But my sharpest “red alert” was not switched on for Mrs. James nor my teacher. It was for when Omar, Billy, and I walked into town, ready for the white boys who tried to storm us whenever they caught us passing their patch. Their younger brothers and sisters had tangled hair, smudged faces, and running noses and played games on the pavements like the little children down our streets. They were even the same games. The boys with their marbles and beaten-up Dinky cars. The girls with their one-armed dolls and skipping ropes tied to drunk-looking fences or gates. Sometimes they shouted names after us, or even tried to throw stones, but usually we ignored the young ones. If we did anything back, some adult would always be in the house and that would mean a lot bigger trouble! Of course if the older boys trapped us, those adults were not going to help us. Once when
I managed to pin down my attacker, and Omar and Billy were dealing with theirs, my one started yelling wildly. I was twisting his arm sharply behind his back. Two big hulks appeared on the stoep above us.

“Kom hier, klonkie!”
one growled, starting to bound down the stairs.

I didn’t wait and neither did Omar and Billy. We scarpered off faster than the Pony Express chased by a stream of Apaches. Our feet pounded like horses’ hooves until we judged it safe to slow down and duck into an alley.

“Hey, those Boers nearly had us!” Omar sucked the air between his teeth.

“
Ja!
Ever been hugged by an elephant?” I panted, clasping my ribs. We all laughed to cover up our nerves. Of course, we could have tried to avoid the older boys. We could have used a longer route and zigzagged our way to town, away from the cluster of houses where the “poor whites” lived. But we had our pride. Besides, our narrow escapes were exciting. We had our own enemies, ambushes, and tactics to talk about as well as those of our special heroes.

For a long time Omar, Billy, and I had pooled all
our savings for comics and, when we had enough, for a Saturday matinée. Half the fun was checking every detail of the film afterward. We remembered scenes we had seen months earlier. The Lone Ranger was our clear favorite. So when Mommy began making a cowboy suit just like the Lone Ranger’s for the son of one of her white customers, I was jealous.

“Please, Mommy, can’t you make me one as well?” I begged.

“When will I have the time? Can’t you see all this here for sewing? And these things here for mending? And all this to pack before we move!” Mommy swept one arm around our small living room. A heap of material and another of clothes were stacked on the sofa. A pile of cartons stood by the door. “I’m racing against the clock!”

“
Ag
please, Mommy! I’ll do anything you want! I’ll help you pack. I’ll wash potatoes. I’ll—”

Mommy gave me one of her “leave it now” looks. Her warning signal. I watched for a few moments as her right hand coaxed and twirled the brass wheel of her Singer sewing machine. With her left, she steered the brown material under the needle as expertly as the Lone Ranger might
guide his trusty Silver through a narrow ravine. Swallowing my pleas, I squeezed between Mommy’s chair and the boxes to go outside on to our stoep.

“Just check with Mrs. James that Lisa’s all right!” Mommy called after me.

I leaned over the stoep wall to peer into our neighbor’s backyard. Lisa and Mrs. James’s grandson were playing with a cardboard box as a cart. There was no sign of Wolfie. Mrs. James must have locked him up. I think she had felt sorry for Mommy and offered to help by looking after Lisa. Since my sister was playing happily, I decided there was no need for me to go across to Mrs. James. Instead I jumped up on to the stoep wall, swinging my legs over the edge. It was a good lookout point, and I still couldn’t really believe that this wasn’t going to be my lookout and my territory forever.

We were one of the first families who were leaving. The Boers who were in charge of the government wanted Jo’burg to be all “white.” Everyone who wasn’t white in our neighborhood had to clear out. I looked down our road. Our block had houses with red tin roofs and steps leading up from the
pavement to each stoep. But the block to the left was crammed with shops. People lived in between, behind, and on top of them. From our stoep I could see the flickering
FISH
&
CHIPS
neon sign on one corner and
ABC BAZAAR: SPECIALISTS IN RUGS, BLANKETS AND SHAWLS
painted in large red letters on a balcony opposite. You could get almost anything down our road, and that end was often jammed with cars until late at night. The pavements were always busy with shoppers, hawkers, people walking by or just hanging around with friends. Sometimes Mommy complained it was like the Tower of Babel with so many different languages, but I loved it. The streets in Coronationville—where we had to go—were boring. It was a township only for Coloreds, and you only heard English and Afrikaans there. Down our street there was always music. Often it was from a scratchy Gramophone or a radio, or it could be someone singing or the Imam calling Moslems from the top of his mosque. Some black kid might come blowing his pennywhistle or you could hear some guys twanging their guitars, trying to copy Elvis. What would our road be like when the whites took it? I had never seen any of the poor whites
who lived near us do much work. They couldn’t even prevent their own fences and gates from sagging. How would they manage all these shops and everything else? Why should we have to move? This place was home. It just didn’t make sense.

“They’re rounding us up and fencing us in!” Mommy had grumbled. “They like our work, but why must they push us away so far?”

Pa had managed to remain his calm, quiet-tempered self.

“It’s no use winding yourself up,” he had said to Mommy. “You’ll just give yourself a heart attack. It’s just lucky we’ve only been renting all along. Think of our neighbors who worked themselves to the bone to buy their homes! They’re the ones who will really lose out.”

That was so like our Pa. To think of someone worse off. But it didn’t seem to help Mommy feel any better. Since my little sister was born, Mommy had been working from home as a seamstress. She had white customers and went to their houses to collect and deliver orders. It would be much further for her to travel to her customers from the Colored township. For myself, I would have to change schools, but frankly that didn’t bother me.
I didn’t think the teachers in one school would be much different from another. Billy’s family was also coming to Coronationville so we would still be together. The person I would really miss was Omar. His parents had been told to go to an area much further away that was just for Indians. Omar, Billy, and I had been a threesome for as long as I could remember. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like not to spin around together any more. To make ourselves feel better, we promised that we would still meet up. No matter how many miles the government pushed us apart! Just how we would manage this was left for the future.

The person in our house who most definitely refused to stick up his hands and give in quietly, however, was Uncle Richard. He had been a teacher in Cape Town, and when he had lost his job, he had come to live with us in Jo’burg. Uncle Richard had black friends, and I knew that losing his job was something to do with that. Once, two of his black friends called on him at our house. Uncle Richard was upset because Mommy didn’t invite them in and they didn’t call again. We didn’t have a spare room so Uncle Richard shared mine. He was Pa’s younger brother and had the same deep
brown watchful eyes, but Pa was taller, darker, and spoke a lot more softly. Uncle Richard was more like one of those firecrackers that surprise you because just when you think they’ve finished, they spark off again. Pa would usually listen quietly, but sometimes Mommy would try to smother him and then end up getting more hot and bothered herself. They even argued over words. When Mommy talked about the “natives,” Uncle Richard tried to correct her.

“Look, we’re all natives because we were all born in South Africa! Black people call themselves Africans. What’s wrong with that? Why must you follow what the white people say?”

Mommy replied that Uncle Richard’s mouth always got him into trouble, and if he didn’t watch it, he would end up getting us into trouble too.

But Uncle Richard hated how the government was big on sorting everyone into groups. Everyone had to have an Identity Card with their group’s name stamped on to it. Uncle Richard said they wanted to stop Coloreds from “playing white” and passing as one of them.

“They should have a proper look in the mirror themselves! What kind of pure human would they
see?
Hmmmhh!
” Uncle Richard was a master of the scornful snort. Afterward he would inhale deeply on his pipe, almost closing his eyes. As if he was trying to wipe the people in charge completely out of his mind.

Of course he couldn’t. From Uncle Richard I knew that another of their laws was to stop black and white people from getting married and having children. In fact, making more Coloreds like us. Uncle Richard said what else would you expect from people who wanted Hitler to win the war? But he also said that all this talk about the Boers starting apartheid was rubbish. He said the English had been helping them all along to make the rope to tie up black people and us Coloreds. The Boer government was just making new knots to pull the rope tighter.

“Hek!”
he used to say. “White people have had the noose around all our necks ever since your great-grandpa’s people sailed from over the seas with their bibles and your great-grandma’s people had the land. Now his people have the land, her people got the bible, and we, in the middle, landed in the ditch!”

It was from Uncle Richard, and not from Pa,
that I knew that their own grandpa had come from Europe and their grandma from Africa. He was white and she was black. Pa and Mommy didn’t talk much about such things. In fact, if Mommy were around, she would interrupt him.

“Stop it, Rich! Don’t you be stuffing Jacob’s brains with all this politics! He’ll end up like you. With no job and a cracked head!”

Ever since Uncle Richard had come home one evening with a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his skull, “cracked head” had become one of Mommy’s favorite sayings. Police with batons had charged into the hall in town where he had been attending one of his political meetings. The cops had broken up the meeting and a few heads as well, including Uncle Richard’s. The wound had healed, but Mommy wasn’t letting the matter drop. She was always warning Pa’s younger brother that he was “cracked” to think that he and his friends could change the government’s mind by fighting talk.

But Uncle Richard would just gently finger the left side of his forehead and smile.

“
Ag,
Sis, one day you Coloreds who keep praying that Brother Whitey will invite you to eat at his
table will realize that the drawbridge to his castle was pulled up a long time ago! The only place he’ll have you is toiling in his kitchen with our black brothers.”

Uncle Richard could say the most fiery words but end them with a dry laugh and stay cool. That made Mommy even madder. Often she ended her argument by suddenly clamming up. Her face would fix into grim silence. But whatever she was doing, she would do it more loudly. So we would hear pans banging, water swirling, china rattling, or the iron thumping.

Although there had been months of talk about our removal, it still came as a shock when Pa announced that he wasn’t waiting for the government to send its trucks and herd us away like cattle. A friend had offered to bring a delivery van to help us move to the house in Coronationville. That’s when Mommy started panicking about finishing her orders on time. The school holidays had begun, and this was the time when she usually complained that either I was under her feet or that she was worried I would get into mischief with Omar and Billy. To make matters worse for me, it was going to be my tenth birthday just the day
before Pa’s friend was to come with his van. Although they never made a big fuss about birthdays, Mommy and Pa had always given me a present and a little treat to make the day special. I had even been dropping hints about a cap gun that I had seen in Solly’s Seconds on the way to town. So when Pa revealed his plans for our move, I tried to remind him about my birthday. He had looked at me sternly and told me that at ten I was entering double figures and nearly grown up. Couldn’t I see what a difficult time it was for everyone in the family, especially for Mommy? Then to add to my bad luck, Mommy started making the Lone Ranger suit just like the one I had always wanted—but for somebody else’s son!

I don’t know for how long I sat dangling my legs over the stoep wall. My little sister and her playmate were no longer out in the backyard, but I was still dreaming and thinking when Omar and Billy appeared on the pavement below me. I hadn’t even seen them coming.

“Hands up! Got you covered!”