Circus. Irma Venter
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Ranna!”
The phone rings. I flee into the shrubs and reeds.
ADRIANA
1
Johannesburg, September 1986
“Ouch!” The woman next to me cringes when Jonas “The Hammer” Gumede takes a third consecutive blow on the chin. His head jerks to the side, his eyes unfocused. She shakes her head. “Brian Mitchell he ain’t.”
“Brian Mitchell is going to win,” I say, though I don’t know who she is. “He’s going to knock Alfredo Layne out.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Alfredo Layne? What do you know about boxing?”
She looks me up and down. I know what she sees. Faded sweater, school uniform, the skirt direly in need of lengthening, scuffed shoes, dog-eared standard-seven history book on my lap.
I return her gaze. It’s not like she can talk. I guess she’s about forty. Her bright-blue dress is thin and skimpy. Pep Stores, rather than Stuttafords. Bottle-blonde hair. And the accent? Afrikaans, but with a couple of twists I can’t place.
“I know enough.” I speak up to make myself heard above the noise in the Hillbrow Boxing Gym. Oom Tiny is having a go at Jonas for not being fit enough. Sweaty men are struggling to bench-press weights far too heavy for them. “I’ve been watching boxing for years.”
She nods, points at my history book. “What are you doing?”
“Studying. I have a test tomorrow.”
Her eyes search among the people on the floor. “Your dad training here?”
“No.”
She gives me an inquiring look.
“He travels a lot,” I volunteer reluctantly. “For his work. I have lunch here and study until my dad picks me up or Oom Tiny drops me off.”
I have no desire to say any more about myself. Next moment she’ll be asking about my mom, or my dad’s job. I close my book and get to my feet.
She stops me with a hand on my arm. “I’m Daisy. Daisy Czerniak. Just Daisy.”
“Adriana van der Hoon. Hello, Daisy Cze-… Czerniak.” I pronounce her name the way she said it, with a “che” at the beginning. Then I give in to my curiosity. “Where are you from?”
“Poland. It’s just to the left of …”
“I know where it is. Next to the Soviet Union.”
She leans forward as if she’s about to share a secret with me. “Before we came here, I was the best knife thrower in the entire Eastern Bloc. I had a circus act with my father. He taught me. The Great Czerniak. I could peel an orange from a distance of fifteen metres. Shoop, just like that!”
I size her up. Can it be true? I’ve seen her here a few times, mostly in Oom Tiny’s office. Never with knives. I think she might be doing the gym’s books. And where have you ever heard of a bookkeeper who has also been a circus performer?
She laughs at my disbelief. “Let’s have something to eat. You like ham-and-cheese sandwiches, don’t you?”
How does she know? Has she been watching me?
I look from her to Oom Tiny. Watch as he removes Jonas’s boxing gloves, turns and gives her a smile. A smile like I hope Peet van Vuuren will one day send my way.
I put my book in my satchel. “May I have coffee as well?”
Oom Tiny had a new machine delivered from Italy that grinds the beans and produces black coffee with a thin layer of foam on top.
It smells the way I hope heaven will smell one day.
2
Johannesburg, October 1987
“Your wrist needs to be quicker.” Daisy’s hands are on her hips. “You must be like water. One smooth movement, liquid.”
She moves to my side, picks up a knife. “Remember, each throw builds on the one before. Add one, then another one, and another, until your hand trusts your eye and your brain, and you no longer have to think. We’re talking thousands of hours of training.”
The knife flies from her hand and embeds itself in the breadboard on the wall. She gives a contented smile. “Enough. Let’s eat.”
“I want to practise some more.”
“You’ve been here since three.” She looks at her watch. “What about your homework? Tiny will be mad. Your dad thinks you come here to study, not fool around.”
We practise in the storeroom in the afternoons without Oom Tiny knowing. My books lie open on the table as though I’m studying.
I take the knives out of the breadboard. “How do they know each other? My dad and Oom Tiny?”
“Don’t you know?”
“No.” I’ve never thought to ask.
“I don’t either. Tiny once said your dad lent him money. A long time ago.”
I turn the knife around and around in my hand. “I can’t imagine my dad ever had enough money for that.”
“It might have been when he was lecturing at the university. Just after he arrived here from the Netherlands to marry your mother. I think.”
I throw the knife. Just to the left of the black dot in the middle of the breadboard.
Daisy puts her hand on my shoulder. “You throw as though you want to kill someone. Leave it now. Do your homework.”
“I’ll do it tonight.”
“What’s bothering you? Is your mom okay?”
No, but I don’t say it. The Dutchman, my dad, has gone overseas and my mom has retreated into her head again. Maybe one day I’ll understand, like everyone says. Right now, it’s hard.
I draw my arm back. Thwack. Again, just to the left of the black dot.
I like the sound of the knife in the wood. Clean, solid, warm. The simplicity. You hit the mark, or you miss it. Nothing in between.
“Adriana. Come. You must study.”
Daisy isn’t going to stop nagging until I do my homework or talk about something she’s interested in. “Have you heard from Jonas?”
The Hammer disappeared three days ago without telling anyone where he’s going.
She keeps silent.
I turn to her.
“Jonas was arrested,” she says at last.
My hand, ready to throw, comes down. “What? What did he do?” Jonas wouldn’t hurt a fly.
“Something about the government. I don’t really understand. Tiny is trying to find out, but no one will tell him anything, not even where Jonas is being held.”
“Someone must know.”
“In this country people get arrested all the time without anyone knowing why.”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. And I know I should keep my thoughts to myself, as the Dutchman is always telling me.
For a long time Daisy gazes at her shoes. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything? Like what Jonas was busy with? He wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“What do you mean, would I know anything? How would I know?”
“Your dad. This place. Tiny.” She shrugs. “You don’t live like most white South Africans.”
I throw the knife, almost entirely missing the board. “Neither do you.”
She