Circus. Irma Venter
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whips through the car. I shiver, wrap my arms around my body. I should have dressed more warmly.
Sandra looks at Peet, a resigned expression on her face. In the passing street lights I see that her curly brown hair is tousled and her mascara smudged. I’d rather not know what they got up to in the backseat earlier.
“And you?” Peet asks. “Are you really going to study after matric?”
“I want to, yes. It looks as if I’ll be getting a bursary. I just have to study hard next year and get a good pass.”
“And one day you’re going to London,” Sandra says. “Or Amsterdam. That’s what you’ve always wanted to do.” She pulls down the sun visor, inspects herself in the mirror and applies fresh lipstick. “At least one of us is going to get out of here.”
2
Johannesburg, July 1989
“Here.” The Dutchman leans over and places a cup of tea in front of me. He adds milk and too much sugar. I watch his long, thin fingers as he stirs the tea. “Drink. You’ll feel better.”
I stare at the cheap white china, the chip in the ear of the cup. How is tea going to make me feel better?
My dad folds his lean body into the chair next to mine, pushes the spectacles back up his nose. My mom gazes at her hands resting on the table, as if they don’t belong to her body.
The silence grows.
At last her eyes turn to me. “I’m … I’m sorry about Peet.” Her voice sounds creaky and old, unaccustomed to use.
“Sorry?” My voice rises. “How does sorry help?”
“Adriana. Meisje … no.” The Dutchman’s eyes are pleading: Stay calm.
He crosses his legs, the top foot swinging up and down in its usual restless way, betraying what is going on inside him.
He’s right. It’s no good upsetting my mom, taking out my anger on her.
I stroke her hand, small and pale under mine. “Sorry. Thanks.”
She nods, gives me a brief smile.
I sip the overly sweet tea, look through the kitchen window at the garden, where the feeble sun is battling to dispel the late-winter cold. The soil must have been hard when they dug the grave, everything is so dry. A little rain would have made it easier.
Not that there was much to bury. Constable Petrus Johannes van Vuuren, aged twenty, died in a bomb blast. A limpet mine, at a shop where he made a quick stop for something to eat.
The Dutchman and I went there immediately after we heard the news. A man with a short haircut, dusty brown shoes and a white short-sleeved shirt said he was from the Security Branch. It’s the ANC’s work, he said, motioning with his cigarette at the blood, the shattered glass, the warped bits of steel scattered everywhere.
Bloody terrorists, he muttered under his breath.
The Dutchman snorted at the back of his throat, turned and walked away, his mouth pale. I didn’t even know he liked Peet, though I do remember how upset he was when Peet’s dad forced him to join the police.
Peet’s dad didn’t shed a tear, not even at the graveside. Neither did Peet’s brothers. Except for the youngest, who sobbed in his mother’s arms.
Sandra also cried. Non-stop.
She’s pregnant. Her mom doesn’t know yet. Nor does Peet’s family.
3
Johannesburg, August 1989
I lie in bed, listening to the footsteps in the passage, slow and careful not to disturb anyone.
My bedroom door opens. It’s the Dutchman. He came back from Germany yesterday, irritable and exhausted. Something’s not right, but I don’t know what. His shoulders are stiff and tense.
I keep my breathing steady, pretend to be asleep.
The door closes.
The green dials of my alarm clock say it’s twelve-thirty am.
I wait. Hear the back door open. Click shut.
I get up. I studied until eleven, but sleep won’t come. I’m worried. Too many things are changing. And what’s supposed to change stays exactly the same.
Jonas hasn’t worked out at the gym for weeks. Daisy thinks the cops might have nabbed him again, but when Oom Tiny tried to find out, they just shrugged and said they had no information. And Peet is dead and Sandra’s little girl is due shortly. Peet’s dad is drinking as if he’s set on killing himself. His brothers are spewing venom. They talk about joining the right-wing AWB, about fighting to the bitter end.
The country is burning. I hear it everywhere I go. Only the TV and the Afrikaans newspapers make it sound as if everything is under control.
Somebody is lying.
All I want to do is go to varsity. Graduate and get away from here. The Dutchman can look after my mom. It’s his turn, after all, isn’t it?
I pray he won’t drop me now and do something stupid.
I put on my slippers, carefully open my bedroom door and walk down the passage to the kitchen, then out through the back door. I sneak over the cold grass to the garage.
Light shows under the door. Inside it’s quiet.
At least he doesn’t have another woman in there.
I open the door.
I startle the Dutchman. He sweeps piles of paper – money? – from the workbench into a blue toolbox and slams it shut.
“Adriana! What are you doing here?” He looks at his watch. “Can’t you sleep?”
I stare at the toolbox. “No.”
He gets to his feet, putting himself between me and the box. “Shall I make tea?”
I point at the box. “What are you hiding? What’s all that money?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Rubbish.”
He laughs, surprised by my anger. “It belongs to the Education Trust.”
“All that money?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t believe you.”
His smile vanishes. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Says who?”
“Dammit, Adriana. Let it go!”
I fold my arms. No way am I going to do that. Something is going on. Something is bubbling and simmering, threatening to boil over.
He takes a step closer, squeezes my arm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be so curt.”
I shake my head. “Don’t be sorry, show me.”
“The money belongs to the Trust, I’ve told you.”
“Then it won’t matter if you show me.”
He thinks for a moment, then opens the box. My eyes skim over the foreign money. Piles and piles of notes. Used notes.
“What’s going on with your work? You spend your nights in the garage. Something’s not right.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because it’s the truth. And I’m not stupid. Something is eating you.”
“I’m the director of the Trust. Obviously I’m going to be worried now and again.”
“About what? This money?”
It feels as if it doesn’t belong here.