QHAMISA PUBLISHERS

The Plan

2011-11-07T12:19:00.000-08:00

He was just settling down to a game of rugby on the TV when the doorbell rang. He set down his can of Castle, arranged his face into one of deep mourning and went to answer it. He expected it was one of Elsie’s friends, bringing him a pot of hot food or even a cake. He shuffled some newspapers out of the way, kicked an odd shoe into touch, and went to answer.

For a moment he didn’t recognise the man standing on the step. Mockingly, the man took off his cap and gave a little humorous bow:

“Morning, baas. Ek soek werk baas.”

Very funny. He struggled to remember his name. Something African, biblical?

They had found Elsie’s body in the boot of her old Morris. The car had sat in the airport car park for several weeks, until someone noticed the flies buzzing around the boot and decided to investigate. In that heat, she was hardly attractive and they advised him not to look at her. They brought her wedding ring and empty bag to him, and he identified them as hers. They also found her ID card and driving licence in the glove box of the car.

Oh, my God, my God. He had bent over in his grief, sobbing into his hands. What did they want with my poor Elsie? She was my life.

The newspapers had been full of it. Poor Piet, devastated by Elsie’s disappearance, breaking down when he finally got the news. Murdered white woman in her fifties. Her husband devastated by loss. They published pictures of their wedding day, a happy midsummer day in the garden, showing Elsie carefree and happy. Piet received letters from all over the country, some to his amusement containing marriage offers.

He had got away with it. You just needed careful planning. Everyone knew that people got carjacked regularly. Maybe this one had gone wrong. Maybe they had shot her to keep her quiet and then decided to dump the body in the car and abandon it. Anything was possible in this new South Africa of ours. Crime everywhere.

“I’ve come for the rest of the money, Mr Piet. You’ve got your life insurance now. I want my share.”

“But I paid you. I gave you R20 000. That was the deal.”

“That was a down payment, my bru. I’m back for the next instalment.”

Piet was outraged. He had been so careful to cover his tracks. He had waited two long years after taking out life insurance in her name. He had bought a policy for himself too. After all, who would look after the other if one of them should unfortunately die, he told her. He had played the long game. Not like that idiot who came to South Africa on his honeymoon and had his wife killed. Or the girl who had her boyfriend killed when he took up with someone else.

The man (oh what was his name?) was leaning insolently against the doorpost, smiling for God’s sake. These bloody people had become so cheeky.

“Voetsak man! Bugger off! I never said you could share the money. I’ll call the cops if you don’t go away.”

Over the man’s shoulder, Piet saw Mrs van Vuuren, from across the road, pulling into her drive, and waved. She got out of her car and came over.

Smiling, the man straightened up and strolled down the path, standing to one side as Mrs van Vuuren bustled up to the front door. He raised a hand as he turned out of the gate.

“I’ll see you later, Mr Piet. In a couple of days like you said, nè.”

Mrs van Vuuren gazed after him in some distaste.

“What did he want? These people just come to the door all day asking for money. They’ve got the new government they made such a fuss about. It’s not our fault they’ve made such a gemors of it. Why don’t they do some work for a change?”

“Oh, just money”, said Piet.

After exchanging a few words with Mrs Van Vuuren who promised him a nice bobotie for his supper, he went back to the rugby. He hadn’t missed much it seemed but he picked up his beer and settled down. He had been very careful not to spend too much of the money too soon. But a nice big TV set was essential. To keep his mind off things, he told his visitors. He had so little to live for now. He chuckled as he remembered the hushed tones in which his boss had offered him compassionate leave, “for as long as you need, Piet. We’ll keep your job open, man”.

The next day, when the doorbell rang, he went into the bathroom so the man would think he was out. But on the following day, he caught him as he was getting into his car. This time there was a woman with him, with a small child curled into her back.

“No so fast, Mr Piet. Not so fast! We’ve come for the money. This is my wife, Nandipa. And this, he said, is my son Cyril. Yes, we named him after our great negotiator, Cyril Ramaphosa. Now there is a man who knows how to play his cards right, nè?”

Piet tried to close the car door but the man grabbed it and pulled it open. Piet was finding it hard to control his breathing.

“And I, as I am sure has slipped your mind, am Jonah Makana, the man who rendered you a service for which you now don’t want to pay.”

That was the name. Jonah.

“I am going to the bank”, Piet said, playing for time. Wait here if you like.”

“We don’t mind coming to the bank with you, Meneer Piet.” And opening the back door for his wife, Jonah joined Piet in the front.

Piet realised he had no option. He would have to drive to the bank, then maybe he could lose them somehow. As he drove slowly down the road towards the shopping precinct, he tried to think what to do. He would park the car in the parkade and tell them he would meet them there later. He would even offer to drive them to the township. Well, maybe not. He shuddered when he thought of the reports of what happened to white people in townships. Crime was out of control. Only yesterday he had read of a man who had been carjacked and robbed in broad daylight.

The sun was hot and the glare intense. He drove into the dark mouth of the shopping centre, temporarily blinded as his eyes adjusted. Stopping at the check in point, he pulled out the ticket and put it in the cash tray, where he kept his change, and followed the spiral, looking out for a parking place. It was only when they were out of the car, and he had clicked the control to lock the doors, that he realised he had forgotten the ticket.

“Moenie worry nie”, said Jonah, waving the ticket at him. “I’ll keep this safe for you. You go and get the geld and we’ll wait for you.”

He cursed as he walked into the centre. He was being stupid. He had to outwit these people. Jonah was obviously one of the smarter kind of black. A real skollie, full of tricks. What his pa would have called a clever kaffir, a smooth operator. Nothing Piet couldn’t handle though. He just had to pay them and get rid of them.

He thought back to their first meeting, the evening he had first met Jonah. After his big idea. Waiting until he was sure Elsie was asleep in the room next door, he had slipped out of bed and, pushing the car out of the driveway, drove to a pole dancing joint he had visited from time to time. He knew he was safe as the place was on the other side of the city and he had never bumped into anyone he knew. He also knew that these places were raided from time to time, so he chose a seat near the back exit so he could get out quickly if he had to. He ordered a brandy and coke and sat watching the dancers. One in particular was very sexy and he wondered whether he should get the drinks waiter to take her a note. Nee man, he was here on business not pleasure, tempted though he was.

At the next table was a group of three black men, talking earnestly to each other. He finished his drink and ordered another. There was a burst of laughter from the next table, then two of the men got up, and shaking hands warmly in the double handshake that the blacks used and left. The third man ordered another drink. He caught Piet’s eye and, drink in hand, ambled over to Piet’s table.

“Can I join you”, he said? And sitting down waved at the waiter to bring another brandy and coke for Piet.

Things were falling into place. Too quickly perhaps. He took a gulp of his drink. What did he want to say to this man? He cast his eyes to the dance floor where a girl was rubbing herself against the pole and felt a burst of lust. Down man, he silently addressed himself, plenty of time for that later.

“Ja, well I can see you’re not here for that, nè”, the man said, turning to scrutinise Piet. “So what do you want? What can I do for you?”

Piet told him his plan. With the warmth of the brandy in his belly, he became fluent. Jonah was encouraging, said he understood. An ageing woman with no interest in sex. No problem. He patted him on the back and ordered another round.

“Two thousand”, said Piet tentatively. He had heard this figure bandied around. You could hire a black to do the business for you for a couple of grand.

Jonah leaned back in his chair. “If you want a botched job you find someone else to do it. Maybe pick up one of those out of work people on the side of the road. They’ll do it for that kind of money. They’re desperate. But you know the risks of that. Those are the ones who crack when the cops come around.”

“So what”, asked Piet, feeling a bit light headed from what was now his fifth brandy and coke.

“I’ll do it for 20 thou, man. Not a cent less.”

Well, maybe the man was right. Better to hire a professional. Anyway, he would have plenty of money soon.

And not a cent more, said Piet jovially. And they laughed and shook hands on it, the African way.

“We won’t meet again”, said Jonah. “I need ten thousand up front and ten thousand once it’s done. I’ll send somebody for the money tomorrow.”

In the car afterwards, Piet switched on his cell phone. There was a missed call from Elsie. Shit, he thought. Well he’d just tell her he hadn’t been able to sleep and had gone for a drive. She couldn’t argue with that. Anyway, he thought, she was the one who had moved out of the bedroom and into their son’s old room. She was the one who hadn’t forgiven him when their son died doing his army training all those years ago. As if it was his fault. His blood boiled when he thought of the way she had locked the door against him, refused him his marital rights.

Now these bloody people wanted more money. He had no choice, of course. This man was unscrupulous, grasping for what he could get. Typical. Just typical.

“This is the last you’re getting from me”, he said, glancing into the rearview mirror. He saw that the child had fallen asleep with his head in his mother’s lap. “The very last.” But his mouth was dry. He would have to think of something else in case he decided to continue blackmailing him. Move house or go overseas or something. But what did he know about overseas. Niks! Nothing.

Back at the house, he gave Jonah a wad of notes and watched him counting them. Twenty thousand rands. Double the amount they had agreed. Still it was worth it if the man went away. Feeling sorry for himself, he watched some TV and began working his way through a 6-pack of Castles. Remembering that he had a pack of Camels that he had put away just in case giving up smoking didn’t work, he opened the pack and smoked one or two. It calmed his nerves.

The next morning he woke up with a foul mouth. He would not smoke today he decided. He found the packet and discovered he had smoked nearly all of them. Well, he would just have this last one and that would be it. Inhaling deeply, he decided he must do something about moving house. He’d get an agent in to value it then put in on the market. He decided to try it out on the neighbours. He’d lived here for thirty years; he didn’t want them to start asking questions when they saw a removal van outside his house. Better to give them some warning. Crossing the road, he knocked on Mrs van Vuuren’s door and asked her if she knew of a good house agent.

“Ag nee, Piet”, she said. “You must stay here where we can look after you. This is your home. It’s just the grief speaking.”

Piet put on his best face of despair.

“Ja, I know. But sometimes I think I will never recover from Elsie’s death. Perhaps if I move away …”

“Just come in and have a cup of tea, Piet. I’ve got some of those homemade cookies you like.”

The neighbour on his right also chose to give him sympathy rather than information. The neighbours on the left he had hardly ever spoken to. They had moved in in 1995. They looked Indian to him. He was not prejudiced of course but he hadn’t liked the way Elsie talked to them, making friends with the woman in her sari. They had been very nosey after Elsie died, suspicious, though what they had to go on he didn’t know. The wife had been in her garden when Jonah and Nandipa arrived yesterday.

He would have to look for a house agent himself, and try to keep it all low-key so he could disappear. If he set a low asking price the place should sell. But first he would have to get it cleaned up. He looked around. The place was a tip, empty beer cans and pizza boxes everywhere. The bed sheets were grey and grubby; it hadn’t occurred to him to change them. He didn’t really know where the sheets were kept. He slept mainly in front of the TV anyway. The only tidy room was their son’s room to which Elsie had retreated. The bed she had slept in was neat and made up. There was a framed picture of Jannie on the bedside table, his hair curling down his neck, his soft mouth. How she had cried when they got the news. What had he done to deserve such a son, a boy who didn’t even want to fight for his country, do his army training? Jannie had been a mommy’s boy but Piet had been convinced that the army would make a man of him. Anyway, he had to go like every other white male. So why was this Piet’s fault?

There was also a computer, which Elsie had insisted on having. Piet knew nothing about computers and he despised Elsie for the way she sat there, tikking away. Sometimes the maid used it too, he had noticed, and she and Elsie could sometimes be heard talking softly in her room. He had fired the girl after Elsie died. He hadn’t liked the way she looked at him, as if she knew something. As if Elsie had said something to her. But Elsie couldn’t have known what was going to happen so how could she have confided in anybody? He put the old pizza boxes and beer cans into black plastic bags and put them in the bin, but the place still looked messy. He’d have to find someone to help. He was proud to say he had never cleaned a house in his life . Even in the new South Africa there was still plenty of labour to be found cheap.

The next day he drove back to the shopping centre to have a look around. There were two estate agents and he decided to check them out. One of them, part of a chain, looked too laanie, too fancy and efficient. He had a look at the houses advertised in the window. Hm. Very grand. They sold houses for rich people and they might look down there noses at him, ask awkward questions. He smiled to himself when he remembered that he too was rich now. But still, not the place for a quick sale. The other agency was in the corner under the escalator. There was one woman inside, talking on the phone. This looked more like it. He would come back here when the place was clean.

In the meantime Piet thought he would check out the shops to cheer himself up. He bought himself two shirts from Woolworths and a new pair of jeans. Good quality but nice and ordinary. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself. Then he sat down at a burger place and had a lekker burger with chips and a big coke. When he had sold the house, he decided, he would stay in a hotel for a while. Maybe a Holiday Inn where he would be inconspicuous while he thought what to do, where to go. There was no rush. He could just chill out, find a nice joint where he could watch the girls dance and maybe buy himself a night of fun, a real old-fashioned jol.

As he was going up the escalator to the parking area, Piet caught sight of a luggage shop. Might as well get himself a couple of suitcases. He would need those. There was a beautiful set in leather and he dithered a bit, wondering if it would look to fancy when he made his getaway. But finally he couldn’t resist it and made the purchase. Not cheap but very classy. Before he left the centre, he bought himself a couple of packs of Camels, just in case.

As he packed the suitcases into the boot of the car, Piet told himself that he would trick that black bastard. Next time he came around for money, the house would be sold and Piet would be gone. He estimated he had a couple of months in hand as Jonah had run out of the first R20 000 in about three months. That gave him time. He felt cheerful for the first time in days as he drove home.

He stopped over at Mrs van Vuuren’s to ask for the loan of her maid, as he remembered to call her, though heaven knows Mrs van Vuuren still referred to her maid as a girl, despite her advancing years. Her husband even flew the old South African flag when there was an international rugby match. He was one of the stubborn ones, didn’t want to change. Who could blame him considering the mess the blacks were making of the country. Piet’s own situation was a case in point, he thought. He had paid generously to get a job done and now the man was back with his hand out. Typical. Give them a hand, his Pa used to say, and they’ll take the whole arm.

As he turned the key to his house, he heard the noise of a vacuum cleaner. Puzzled, he opened the door a crack and peered in.

Piet was horrified. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

Nandipa pushed the vacuum cleaner into the front room, the child keeping step with her all the way, looking up at him with fear in his eyes.

Jonah appeared out of the kitchen. Oh, shit! Why were they back so soon, ruining all his plans. Jonah smiled broadly.

“Dumela, Mr Piet. Good morning. I see you’ve bought yourself some suitcases. You planning to take off somewhere?”

“Ja, well I just thought I might take a little holiday sometime.” Piet hated the fact that his voice was shaking. He had a strange breathless feeling and sat down heavily. What were these people trying to do, give him a heart attack?

“How the hell did you get in?”, he asked, once he had recovered his breathing.

Jonah dangled a set of keys in front of him.

“I guessed your wife wouldn’t be needing these again so I just somer borrowed them. You don’t mind do you?”

Of course, Elsie’s keys had never been found. How could that have slipped his memory. He had been so sure he had got away with it that he had forgotten that the keys had been removed from the car, along with the contents of her bag. The answer to Jonah’s question was, of course, yes, he did mind. He was angry. He had always prided himself on being a strong decisive person who stood down to no-one. And here was this kaffir, half his size, trying to intimidate him. Instinctively, he raised his arm to give him a good klap but thought better of it. He wasn’t looking for more trouble. Also, he realised that he was afraid of this man and that made him feel ashamed.

Piet went down the passage to his bedroom and shut the door after him. He hardly noticed that the bed had been freshly made and his clothes folded neatly on a chair. Glancing at himself in the mirror, he was shocked by what he saw. A paunchy, pasty-faced man with fear in his eyes. He needed a shave and should do something about that big boep. Too many beers and pizzas. But now he needed to decide what to do. If he shot Jonah, would Nandipa go away? If he shot them both, or all three of them, what could he do with the bodies? He crossed to the wardrobe and felt for his gun on the top shelf. It wasn’t there. Maybe he had put it somewhere else. But after ten minutes of ransacking the room and pulling everything out of the cupboards and onto the floor, he realised it had gone. Oh shit, shit and more shit. Legs shaking, he sat down on the bed and tried to think.

He must have fallen asleep. It was evening and he could smell wors and onions cooking. He realised he was hungry and, after having a pee and splashing his face in cold water, he went through to the lounge.

Jonah was watching TV with a big plate of wors, onions and pap on his lap.

“Kom sit, Mr Piet. Nandipa has cleaned your house and cooked us a nice meal. She’ll bring yours now.”

Piet drew the curtains. He was afraid his neighbours might look through the window and see this well dressed black man, stretched out comfortably in front of his TV set. What would they think? Things were out of control. He realised that he was really afraid.

“Sit. Make yourself comfortable,” said Jonah. Nandipa came through with a tray and gave him a plate of food. She even opened a can of Castle for him. She settled the child down on the couch. Piet noticed that she had taken off her overalls and was wearing the skirt and cardigan that Elsie used to wear. The cheek of these people!

“Oh, by the way,” Jonah said casually, his eyes fixed on the latest episode of Isidingo. “I have taken your gun for safekeeping. You are supposed to keep it in a safe. Didn’t you know that? That’s the new law.’ Of course he knew. He and his friends and colleagues had had meetings about it, really worried that they would not have their guns to hand if something happened. After all, with all these break-ins and murders, you never knew when you would need a gun. So Piet had hidden his away in the wardrobe, loaded and ready for use.

“You see how we are looking after you”, Piet continued amiably. Nandipa has cleaned the whole house and I’m looking after your gun. You should think about saying thank you, Piet. It’s only polite.”

Piet mumbled a thank you, then was furious at himself for doing so. These people had invaded his house, taken his gun and appeared to be controlling the television as well. But he knew they had to go sometime so he decided to bide his time until they did, then pack his suitcases and leave at first light. No, first he would have a new set of keys made for the house agent and fit padlocks on the doors so Jonah and Nandipa couldn’t get in next time. That should work. But now he needed a real drink. He got up, belched loudly in what he hoped was an assertive manner, and went to the kitchen to get a bottle of whiskey and a glass. He couldn’t see Nandipa, but she had cleaned up the kitchen nicely.

“Thanks, I’ll have one of those”, said Jonah as he took his glass back into the lounge.

Don’t lose it, thought Piet. The main thing is that I have a plan now. He would call the cops from his hotel, from one of those big cool lekker rooms in the Holiday Inn. Call the cops? Is ek befok? This wasn’t the old days when you could call the cops to take away any black that was annoying you. Jonah might even have contacts in the police. No, he would just lie low for a couple of weeks while he decided what to do, where to go.

“By the way”, said Piet, “we have been reading your wife’s diary. She seems to have been a nice lady, with plenty of reason for complaints against you. Nandipa was very upset. She cried.”

Elsie’s diary? She hadn’t kept a diary had she? Then he remembered the computer. It was probably all in there, that piece of electronic crap. He knew he shouldn’t have let her buy it. He didn’t even know how to switch a computer on and was proud of it. Or he had been. Now he wouldn’t be able to read this diary to see what she had to say about him. What did these people know about his marriage? How dared they snoop around like this? He would need to destroy the computer once they left this evening. There just might be something incriminating, something that could be used against him.

His sense of grievance and hurt returned. He had been as good a husband as any, he told himself. Like any husband, he had had to assert himself from time to time, to give her a bit of a slap when she went off the deep end. Even when he insisted on exercising his marital rights, she had annoyed him. Afterwards, she had got up with a quiet dignity, had a shower. It was she who had removed herself, withdrawn. But he schemed he had been a good husband on the whole, and this was how she had repaid him.

Things were all happening to quickly. He felt confused, unable to think. One minute he had a plan, the next he had to change it again. He looked around at his lounge. The child was asleep on the couch. Nandipa had reappeared and sat watching the TV, her child asleep against her. Jonah was drinking his whiskey, apparently at peace with the world.

Piet went down the corridor for a pee. On his way back, he looked into Elsie’s old room. He couldn’t see her computer but was surprised to see some of his own clothes, carefully folded, on the bed. Opening the wardrobe, he saw his shirts and jackets hung up neatly.

Panicking, he opened his own bedroom door. Nandipa had been busy. There was a cot for the child and a brand new red cover on the bed. Everything was spotless. It was then that a terrible truth began to dawn on him. They would not be going home tonight, or on any other night. They were here to stay. He needed to think what he could do. But he was too shocked to come up with another plan now. He would decide in the morning, sort out this mess.

Back in the lounge, he poured himself another drink and, after a moment’s hesitation, one for Jonah. Remembering the Camels, he opened one of the packs, struck a match and lit a cigarette. Inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs, he remembered his old Pa coughing his way to the grave. He would give up again when this was all over. In the meantime, it would calm his nerves.

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Publishing What You Like!

A Black Son Of A Yenta

2011-08-16T01:36:00.000-07:00

I was born among the ruins and dust of the city of Port Elizabeth’s possies. My first playground were frothing sewages and rubbish dumps. Most of my family died from cheap alcohol and the related violence of poverty. Then came AIDS. We were at sixes and sevens about it for a long time. We buried our heads in the sand, went on with our lives as if we didn't notice the sword of Damocles hanging over our pernicious lives. The underlining truth is that no one was going to stop fucking around because of AIDS, not from the mentality we grew up with. Call it fatalism, or whatever, that’s how things were. Subsequently death mowed sometimes coming as relief to our stranded lives.

My brother and I stayed with our mother, a bitch that bonked whoever was prepared to pay for her liquor. Some of her boyfriends stayed longer than others, alternating from a day to three years. Our township was called New Brighton, something to do with a town in England or NewZeland. We were told some comrades went there for education in how to oppress us through the democratic dispensation and economic theories of imperialist who control global institutions like the UN, IMF, World Bank, etc. None of us really gave a damn on the ground where we were faced with more immediate problems. Between our mother’s boy friends, at least the ones with a heart who provided some modicum of meagre groceries, my brother and I were expected to fend for ourselves from when we could walk. For me this meant earning a living at the taxi ranks.

My first real recollections is when my brother was three and I was nine –going on eighteen. My golden goose, the taxi rank, called Njoli, was about four blocks from our house, not a place to fuck around after dusk, unless you had a death wish. During the day the rank was always teeming with commuters, and deafeningly loud music- bubble-gum stuff of the likes of Brenda Fassie, or Kwaito. However, at night an eerie silence brooded over it and tragedy hid in the shadows. We had a game we played when we were younger, following the blood steps to the ditches where whoever found the body took the prize. A winner would shout, ‘found one’ and announce what point he/she was at. For every body you found you gained a point –I was at six the last I remember. The winner got to treat the rest of the gang as his slaves for the day, asking for whatever he/she wants, which usually meant the slaves had to steal something, and sending wherever to do the “master’s” bidding. We didn’t see any need of reporting the bodies to the elders, who were fed up with our finds, so mostly the bodies lay putrefying for a while until a police van came to collect them.

I preferred to hang around the non-probing mini-taxi divers than my mother and her “flavour of the month” boyfriend. The taxi-drivers were always in need of someone to send to the shops or fast food stalls for something to eat, or just to break a 50 for change. At first I went to the rank after school, but as time went by, it felt silly to waste hours at school learning things I had no interest in, from people who didn’t show much enthusiasm in teaching them anyway. Once the school principal saw me at the rank when I should have been at school. Hey you, he called out forgetting my name but evidently not my face, what are you doing here? Who stopped you coming to school? Not who, Mr Principal, I smirked, but what! I said slamming the passenger door on his face and the driver pulling fast from his suffocating questions. Seating and reading at the library eight years later I found an appropriate answer from what the emperor of Hindustan, Aurangzeb told his former tutor when he asked why he no longer availed himself for the tutorials; I’m tired of reading about things I’ve no interests in –things hard to understand and very easy to forget . . . a multitude of barbarous adventures in dark words. To this day I wished I had enough education to have said that. Consequently I unwittingly joined the Huckleberry club. If my recollection is correct it was during a short break I left school. I asked our teacher for permission to go to the toilet. She refused. During the short-break I was consumed by the urgency of an idea to relieve myself at home, not in the squalid school toilets with stall doors broken off and an non-flushing urinal. As my bladder bulged I eventually went with the idea. I never saw the inside of that classroom again. I can’t say I’ve missed it except for the occasional twinge of guilt, like that of a cad jilting a once fond of lover whenever I recalled that I’d left behind my well-sharpened pencil. I’m certain the long fingers of that locust faced Maqanqa pinched it; a dirty feeted bastard with garlic smelling hair. Once when he was about to be flogged for not doing his homework he wet his pants and begged the teacher; “Please don’t flog me teacher, I’ll bring you R100 tomorrow.”

“And how is the porridge brained fool like you supposed to come up with hundred bucks?” The teacher asked amused.

“There’s a baboon at our house’s attic that brings us money at night.” The locust faced clown said shivering like a leaf. Can you believe how pathetic that ingratiating starveling could be? He got the flogging despite.

Before I left for the taxi rank I would spend time carrying for mother’s boyfriends who sent me here and there, mostly to buy quarts of Castle Lagers and loose fags. Beer quarts were R4,50 then, and for some reason people always had R5 notes. The fifty cents change would be my tip, if I was lucky. Then after collecting enough I'd buy a half a loaf for my brother and I. We'd disappear to the cane ditch and eat our fresh bread with Choice butter blocks melted on it. The fun was always slightly soiled by the fact that our mother would normally be in a drunken stupor or something. One day, my brother and I were hungry. There was a pot of smiley on top of the iron stove. You know mos how you can smell smiley from afar even before you open the pot; that inviting smoky smell of scorched wool from the sheep’s head, mixed with peri-peri and fried onions, chakalaka, and next to it, on a sink cupboard, was idombolo wrapped in a towel to cool down . The temptation was just too much. I cut a small piece of smiley and a slice of the steamed bread. I also dished chakalaka for my brother and I. The piece of meat was very good, the stinging pungency of peri-peri, the bitter sweetness of green peppers and all. There was no question of not going back for more. In the end we ate the whole half of smiley with cheeky emotions; mos a man cannot keep washing the dishes holding meat he never gets to eat forever. I didn’t feel a shred of guilt. It’s a strange thing, being guilty and unremorseful, as though the gods are taking your side. That evening I got such a thrashing from my mother’s boyfriend I thought I would die. Next morning when I felt the stiffness and pain, I wanted to. Blisters had formed at my back like bags of troubled waters, busting into a river of pain on the third night. I woke with a map of blood carved on the sleeping sponge I shared with my brother. Later on that day I found myself wandering with strange thoughts and feelings at the banks of a sewerage dam where my friend and I once threw a rusty gun into that we had found in the bushes.

Those of my mother’s friends that were friendly proved too friendly in pederasty style. Once I woke to a poking stick and the heavy breath of alcohol on my back. When I discovered it was one of my mother’s boyfriend friends I punched on the balls and jumped up to wake my mother. She was unconscious from the drink. In the morning when she came to I told her what had taken place she waved me away, saying I’d misunderstood. Like hell I misunderstood, I never went home that night, preferring to sleep under the peach tree watching stars twinkle between the branches, my mind wondering about death. After that I found myself spending more and more time at the taxi-rank also, partly to avoid pederasts and drunken abusive friends of my mother, and partly to make more money. It was a Catch-22 situation really, because I spent half the time in the taxi-rank worried about my brother as I had left him unprotected among the self same abusive and pederast wolves.

Life at the rank was appealing for its constant cash flow. Mini-bus drivers don’t have time nor inclination to run their own errands, being much too fat for that. Hanging around them and running their errands earned you a De Klerk (R2 coin) per request. The errands were varied: buying lunches of fish and chips; delivering R20 to a driver’s home without the knowledge of the taxi owner, or keeping an eye on their khwaphenis.

‘Tis warm in there (the armpit) unlike the cold ring of a wife;’ one of them once confided in me as I handed her a pilfered R50 note. Little did she know that my real duty was to secretly monitor her movements—making sure her cart was not pulling with more than one stud and all. I found out soon enough that she was double dealing, a very dangerous game in the township as you might easily end with a cold iron inside you. When I caught her in a compromising position—kissing her departing lover—I gave her a chance to buy my tongue, an even deadlier game, which meant I got R10 of her weekly allowance. The arrangement appeared perfect to me: The stallion kept more than one mare on his stable, the maiden was pulling more than one string in her bow, and I was scoring at least R20 every week from being the understanding middleman. But like all good things that did not last. Things took on a strange turn for me when I started using. They kept on getting into the complicated the more I sniffed. You would not believe the shit we used to sniff, glue, petrol and other toxic shit like benzene. Within no time I graduated to alcohol, white spirits at first, mixing it inside cool drink bottles so that the taxi-drivers would not notice. I only noticed how it was messing with my brain when my takings as a tout kept coming in short. The driver let it go at first, but the last straw was the day I was short by a whooping R20. The fuckin’ bastard chucked me off the taxi in the middle of a Freeway. I walked towards the opposite direction towards a light I saw through misted eyes. My head felt heavy. Things in general had a strange faint glow that day. The traffic noise was muffled as though coming from a distance even as cars were passing precariously close, hooting in screeching loudness. The nearby ocean clapped its waves against the promontory slabs that checked its pride. I kept my distance. I didn’t trust the roar of the sea. That was unusual for me; always, always, when we passed by the ocean there was affinity of old compatriots between the sea and I. I walked and walked until I could not feel my numb legs. I wandered around Highway rails and columns.

“How do they make the roads fly?” I once asked our grandmother when she was still alive. I was younger and innocent then. She liked taking me shopping when she got her pension money.

“White people can milk a bird my child,” was her answer, which satisfied me.

Grandma was my favourite person, and a mysterious soul, wrapped in an enigma of silence. I’m sure she said less than twenty sentences in the last decade of her life, and all of them when she was with me, her only grandchild at the time. People didn’t believe it when I told them Grandma could speak; they said she was possessed by a mute demon. The family members reached a stage whereby they would talk about grandma as though she was not there. One day my mother was talking with her neighbour in that manner when Grandma suddenly retorted. “Pfxim! You’ve no idea of what you’re talking about.” Our neighbour who had never heard her speak nearly keeled over. There was a distilled essence of isolation about grandma's character I liked.

I had walked and walked so far I was ready to give up, when I saw a covered area under the Highway. I went for it and rested for a while next to some homeless people. I decided to crash there for the night, in a cradle of humiliation. A play of pride and shame rolled up the bundle of troubles in my mind, embarrassment came tumbling down my cheeks. When the concrete roof of the Highway refused my command to come crumbling down on me I wondered who would fetch death for me. Having grown up avoiding death in the township, where it is as common as sunrise, I could not believe its scarcity when I wasn’t trying to avoid it. They say suicide is a blunt admission of futility, a solipsistic admission of failure –as if you first take a philosophical discourse before deciding to do away with your life. Not all of us are Nietzsche, and if I remember well, he himself found a nice way of explaining his lack of nerve in considering suicide unnecessary for a person who was brave enough to have decided on it –these clever people are astute like vipers!

A man with a mangled beard, lying not very far, irritated me with wailing and jeremiads as I lay there. He went on with the jeremiad kind of shit; ‘Woe unto me, my mother has born me to be a man of strife and dissension. Let me die and acquaint myself with the rest of my ancestors.’ He didn’t seem too acquainted with the mysteries of this life, let alone the next one to me. ‘Fuck off! The peace of the Lord has gone to us all. Now shut the fuck up and go to sleep.’ Somebody down the row shouted. The fleas and hallucinations of the prophet kept me awake all night. I could not believe the manner by which my life was suddenly roughed up by the dark night.

When I managed to join the city streets the next morning they were already swimming with people going to and from work. I felt grateful and impressed that my legs were still in the place I’d left them the night before. Never before had I realised the importance of having two legs like that day. It is amazing the clarity you find from waking on the gutter. I looked around: so many people, so few men! I merged easily with the anonymous crowd. I tried marshaling within myself reasons for going back home. None came. I decided to perambulate the streets with a vividly shocking realisation that I was done with home. It felt strange being so bankrupt of reasons for going home and bereft of the desire to either. I walked the city streets with Patrician adoration and excited fatigue. In time I hooked up with other street children whose main base was behind the Spar supermarket at Newton Park. With fridge exhausts farting warm air through air ducts all night, things became tolerable even during cold spells. Luckily Port Elizabeth does not have long too much ill tempered weather. As far as the earnings were concerned, the place was truly a gold mine. On bad days we made R50 a day each, begging from madams. You had to target white ladies, use their guilt against them, to maximise your profit. If the madam asks your story you came up with a saddest thing you've ever heard, adding, as a final touch—and this was my personal genius culled from an old mining magazine I found on the bin—that your father died of mesothelioma, on the mines in Joburg, or something.

One Easter Friday we made about three hundred bucks each. To celebrate, five of us bought three ‘straights’ bottles of brandy. Alcohol worked well to suppress a certain sadness that always visited us during the holidays. The following day I woke up with a terrible hang-over, parched from the previous night’s indulgence, and went to the Greek café at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Cape Road for something to quench my thirst. On entering the shop I scooted to the fridge before the owner could see and block my entrance as he always did with us street kids, especially when there were other customers around. Our presence was tolerated only as a operational nuisance. When important people came around, we were expected to make ourselves scarce, like the Queen of England, Elizabeth, who visited the city because it was named after her or something. Wherever street kids were found roaming about the city streets that week they were promptly arrested and I escaped by the skin of my teeth.

I felt the embarrass de choix before the fridge of the shop. I had the money to buy any kind of cool drink I wanted but the choices made me dizzy. It was almost a double embarrassment after deliberating my choices to settle for a measly coca-cola. I had thought I'd come up with something classy, more sophisticated, like I saw suburb kids sometimes drink. I went to the counter wishing that it was the Greek’s valetudinarian wife instead of ‘the father bear.’ She was nicer. To my eternal surprise the Greek owner waved me away, signalling that I can leave without paying for the cold drink. I promptly left before he got other ideas. Outside Nigerian Muslims looked like Afghan mujahedin in their flowing salwar khameez and loose black turbans, some in white kaftans. They had stalls, selling ugly masks of African gods, which reminded me, oddly, that it was Easter Sunday, the day of resurrection. Somehow this realization inspired vague hope; reminded me of my grandma who always took us to Mass on Easter Sundays. On our way she'd share with us her toffolux toffees—boy were those toffees soft and sweet from the warmth of her breast. I allowed my imagination to run wild, thinking how if I were given powers of rising from the dead I’d haunt my enemies with ugly Nigerian masks til’ they shit their pants. 'Maqanqa, I want my pencil you aromat smelling bastard! Thou shall meet me at Philippines!' Or some shit like that. That, to me, was the disappointing thing about this Christ chap; the refusal to revenge himself on his enemies even when he had the power. Emerging from those thoughts I suddenly remembered that Sunday liturgy for suburban housewives was shopping, and berated myself for allowing my mind to divagate on crucified Jews and their complicated relations with Godly parents. At least the African gods had a better sense of staying aloof and remote to human affairs, even if that costs us culturally a well-developed artistic expression, and a void that missionaries only too readily filled. To master art expression, if Gide is to be believed, the gods must come and dwell within the people. But if our Xhosa gods are nearly as ugly as those mother-fucker Nigerian masks then I understand why our people didn't want them around. The African way is sensible, because we know the gods are always up to mischief, they must keep their haunting distant, and their abodes away from ours.

I identified my madam from a distance. I stalked her like a lion: observe and choose from the herd an isolated or limping one; mentally prime yourself, perhaps subconsciously lick your lips, then in a flash, go for the fast kill. I later learned that her distracted appearance was not due to an ailing spirit, and so catching her would have improved the herd overall, it was simply because her best friend was immigrating to Australia. I felt a curious thrill as I watched her single herself out even more as she tried to rouse a bergie lying stinko against the supermarket wall. I thought it wise to offer my help.

“Please madam, that one will never wake, he’s under the tap.”

“Will he be alright though?” asked the madam with a concerned look, searchingly as thought secretly looking for the tap the poor man was lying under.

“O! Yes mem, the effects of umtshove alale don’t linger too long. It’ll vomit him soon, then somebody will have to clean after him.” I said, chuckling, signalling with my hand that he would have soiled his pants.

“Agh man, I only need somebody to help me load some chairs on the bakkie,” she moaned disappointingly, moving away from the bergie.

“He won’t be much help to you now. Why doesn’t mam try me?”

“Suka wean! Get away from here! What can you carry, a stripling like you?” “Everything mam. Mem underrates.” I answered, assuming a serious face.

“Agh, you are a skelem wean. I don’t believe you.”

“S’true’s God mam I can.”

“Okie dokie, hop in, laat ons wai.” Madam gave in more out of desperation than impression. It felt good to be ridding at the back of that bakkie, drinking the morning air. There's something about that sort of wild, jerking movement that gives a sense of hope and freedom; the wind pushing against your face, a biting force with vague whispers.

I looked around to see a tottering homeless jolie laide with gaunt face, puffed eyes, fire wood stick legs and strained neck muscles lying like a bundle of misery on the pavement. ‘That's my subject,’ I said to the wind. Another bergie, with a depthless stare and mocking face. ‘That too is my subject! Those urchins running wild, stoned from sniffing too much glue, are my subjects also. And even you, in your luxury BMW, with constipated pride! You must pay homage to the king at the tollgate, the shopping centre parking lot. These blood tessellated pavements are the red carpet treatment my kingdom affords.’ So went my musing in the universe of my mind where everything is as I want it to be and we practise communalism. ‘I’m the emperor! The emperor of vagabonds! Here everyone is free to be whomever he or she wants to be! To reveal! To conceal! To re-invent! According to fancy; free from prying eyes and rude questions. Ours is the only republic without boundaries that sails closest to the republic of heaven. If only the rides on madams bakkies didn't reach their destinations. If only madams drove their cars a little faster so the air at the back of would compress time into a single moment of a toffolux on the mouth and warmth against your cheek. If only pain could be bankrupted by the force of the wind. If only …’ A swerve is a last thing I remember.

There was a violent sound. The tolling of bells. A stonemason building. The writing on the wall: MATER DOLOROSA. A humble earthnotropic statue. then there was silence, dust; the beginning in the end. Then voices; ‘Call the ambulance, here is my cell phone, call the ambulance.” My body, below the waist, was on fire. Something pressed me down. “Asseblief, asseblief meneer. Call the ambulance, asseblief, asseblief.” Somebody said: He rolled!

Other things are born on a steep decline. From the start they cannot do much but roll-on through the latent force of gravity. And when their time comes they shudder against the ground into shards. That’s the nature of things, the verdict I’ve collected with my life.

I woke to a glimpse of myself bloody face on the hospital lift mirror. It amused me to see myself lying there on the stretcher, with people fussing over me; made me feel important even. I could not believe that in this life it takes your dying for people to notice your life. There was dried blood on my nose. The skin of my right foot was badly flayed. Every part of my body burned.

It's been six years since her death, twenty four since that fated day behind the supermarket. It seems like only yesterday she welcomed me with her kyphonic hug after my three week hospitalisation, telling me she had decided to adopt me if I'd let her. It was something of a shonda in those racist times for a white woman to adopt a black child. She wanted to adopt my brother too, but it was too late for him. Instead he had to be permanently confined into a mental hospital, because one of my mother's boyfriends had smashed his head against the wall, causing some internal injuries. He was never right after that. We've been together with madam ever since. Now she is dead her kind arcus senilis eyes often visit me in my sleep, especially when I have difficult decisions to make. It feels as though I've known her forever, all my life and more. Perhaps I have.

It is because of her I didn't end up just another statistic, and a product of my environment. If it had not been for her, I'd probably be long dead by now. She took me to school and, when I matriculated, to university. In an attempt to devote myself to the best that has been thought and said, I studied classical Literature and Philosophy. On the side she thought me Yiddish, more to amuse herself initially, until she noticed my interest. After school I found myself working as a columnist for a national paper with an intellectual bent, hard-pressed on each column to register new tonalities of cultivated self-protective sarcasm our readers regarded as high culture. With every thought I found myself sinking, depressed with our politics and morals, drinking more to cheer myself. It was, again, madam who rescued me for that second death. Her death found me stuck on this horizon of this exhaustive rounds of reflected glory and ostentatious display of learning that was becoming a norm on my columns. Her death put a hauntingly urgent need to get into the nucleus of my life. Sometimes, I swear, I can hear her whisper on my ear, just as in those past days when she called me for dinner; 'Time to create something more lasting in this house of sand. We're running out of decades to burn.’ The day I looked at her die I made a promise to lift myself from the modern tunnel of heroic self-destruction.

Last year I went to Germany. I’m not sure why, but I also wanted to do a little research on her ancestry. I was, then, still obsessed with this stupid need to repay her kindness, forgetting that my life, lived to its full potential, is the only repayment I can really grant her. Her home town is popular for art and music near the forests of Thuringia, where I was surprised in meeting people who spoke English with what all my life I thought to be her accent and now know it's Thurigian. They were just as astonished when I introduced myself as her son. No one had enough courage though to ask how come since I'm black, which in turn amused me. The closest was the blunt old lady who stayed in the block of flats madam was born in, leaving just before the Nazi storm. She came to touch and rub my skin a little. My guess is she wanted to see if the blackness would rub off. Then she yelled to others; “Come see a black son of a Yenta.”. She eventually told me enough about madam’s childhood, they’d been at school together before the emperor of lies uprooted their lives. I told her madam provided me with a heimat. The old lady explained to me how a heimat is not merely a matter of roof on top, or geography, but where the heart lies. And so I repeat, madam gave me a heimat, as hers is in my vagabond heart. I carry her wherever I go. My life has been gemutlich, comfortable and pleasant, ever since I met madam, making me feel guilty for it sometimes when I think about those who didn’t make it through the night that was my life; asking myself what I had done to deserve her. Everything she ever did for me exceeded my wildest dreams.

As I sat in a German café, enjoying kaffee und kuchen, it suddenly dawned on me that she actually gave me a life, and hence she's my mother in more than one way. I wondered how her life might have been before the Nazi madness. She never talked about it, so it felt awkward trying to find out about it. Suddenly it didn’t feel comfortable probing so I simply let go. I know that what will come to me about her she'll bring to me as a relief of my loneliness for her absence. What a woman! Hatzlacha u-brakha to her next life.

------------------------------------

The Grape Thieves

2011-08-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

I stowed my hand luggage in the storage locker and thankfully settled into my window seat on Flight 109 to San Francisco. The check-in procedure at Kennedy Airport had been long and tedious but necessary, I supposed, in the light of the recent terror attacks on the World Trade Centre. It left me feeling a bit ratty and not in the mood for company, so I was quite relieved to find that the aisle seat next to me remained vacant.

The plane taxied to the runway and sped down the tarmac into the blue sky. The 'Fasten Seat Belts' light went out, I uncoupled mine, eased my seat back and settled down for a rest before the flight attendants would serve drinks. The tap on my shoulder jerked me awake and I found myself looking into the leathery face of a rather huge man with a jutting chin and black jowls. Not someone to be trifled with, I quickly decided, and my rattiness increased.

"I have a seat in the middle section, but I really need to be by a window. Be a sport and let me have yours, will you? I was too late to bag a window seat."

His voice was gentle enough, coming from such a rough-looking man, and I recognised at once that he was a fellow South African. That didn't immediately make me feel better at the inconvenience of having to deny his request and send him packing, but it did put our meeting on a different footing.

"Look," I said, "have the seat beside me if you must, but I specially requested a window seat, so -- no, you can't have it."

He took the aisle seat and sat there quietly for a while before trying again. "I really need to have a clear view of the clouds, especially as we approach the Sierra Nevadas. I have come all the way from Cape Town just for that."

Good try! I thought, but I couldn't help being curious. "Are you a weatherman?" I asked.

"No, I'm looking for alien grape thieves, little people who come in a space-ship to steal grapes." He might have been having me on, but he said it so earnestly that I had to hear more, so I changed seats with him, but not without some resentment!

He was on his way to the Sierras, he said, because he had seen on the Internet that lenticular clouds frequently form over them.

"Lenticular clouds?" he said in answer to my puzzled look, "Lenticular means 'like a lens'. The clouds are called that because that's what they look like -- like a lens seen edge-on. I'll show you one if we see any on the way. If we do, and there are vineyards nearby, I’ll be ready to bet you that the wine farmers there will know something about grapes disappearing mysteriously in the night!

The man was obviously a nut case, I thought, but as his story unfolded, I wasn't quite sure what to make of him. He introduced himself as Jakobus Labuschagne.

He told me his strange story in between pointing out different cloud formations as they passed by the window. Apparently, in Cape Town where he came from, there was an old legend about Grape Thieves from Mars. The legend had started sometime before his grandfather landed in South Africa in 1900. It was sparked off by a coincidence of happenings, the first being the mysterious disappearance of grapes right off the vines in the Klein Karoo region of the Western Cape, not too far from Cape town.

Unexplained thefts had occurred at intervals before that, but there was never any reason for anyone to connect the disappearance of the grapes with visitors from other worlds until the other two happenings. One was the positioning in 1894 of Mars particularly close to Earth, and astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli reporting seeing "canali" on the planet. The Italian 'canali', meaning 'channels', was misinterpreted in English as 'canals', suggesting objects purpose-made by intelligent beings. This led to much speculation about life on Mars.

Then, in 1898, came Mr. H G Wells' story about Mars making war on Earth, and suddenly there were rumours flying about everywhere --Martians in space-craft had come to steal grapes in the Klein Karoo! My new friend's grandfather didn't think that any person had actually seen a space craft or missile such as Mr. Wells described, or any other strange object that aroused curiosity. However, one persistent story doing the rounds was about feminine voices being heard in the night, and strange looking little footprints in the softer soil.

Returning to live permanently in the Western Cape after many years in other parts of the country, Jakobus learned, on discussing the legend with the old-timers that since his grandfather's days further spates of grape thefts had been reported. These occurred at intervals of twenty-five or thirty years, each spate usually lasting over three or four consecutive years. But, of course, no one now believed in 'men from Mars.' Mr Wells and his stories were all but forgotten, and it had been scientifically established many years before that Mars was a dead planet where no life could possibly exist. The farmers around there usually attributed the rumours to superstition, and the thefts (completely unjustly, in Jakobus' opinion) to clever manoeuvring on the part of the 'wiley' (their term) citizens who supply labour for the farms. That was how the matter rested; the events had ceased to be of any interest, and the numerous wild stories and rumours were again almost forgotten.

But things were about to change. One Friday, as Jakobus drove down to Montagu in the Klein Karoo to spend the weekend at his country home, he saw clouds drifting high over the Langeberg mountain range, and lower down, immediately over the peaks, a number of lenticular clouds. With no thought in mind at that stage of the legends about alien visitors, he imagined that some of the clouds looked very much like space-ships, or what he pictured space-ships to look like. Some were elongated like cigars or torpedoes, and others more like submarines with their conning towers sticking upwards. They were fascinating to watch, and he drove the long distance beside the mountain range with an eye on them, seeing some of them moving slowly and changing shape as the wind caressed them, and others lying quite static, as if sculpted on the top of the mountain.

"Quiet, Rex," he said to his border-collie who was making low rumbling noises out of the window. "Those are not woolly sheep on the mountain. They are only clouds." Rex always travelled with him, sitting in the front passenger seat, his head usually sticking out the window and tongue out of his mouth, with eyes half closed against the wind, taking in the sights and scents.

The next morning Jakobus went to the Winelands Coffee House, as he usually did on a Saturday, for breakfast. The Winelands Coffee House, he said with obvious relish, served the most tasty scrambled-egg on toast, and real coffee -- "I mean real coffee, brewed in a pot on the wood-stove, with the grains in a little bag inside the pot." His cousin Gabriel was there as usual -- he also likes his eggs and coffee on a Saturday morning when he brings his farm workers into town on his lorry for them to do their shopping. They sat at tables near each other. "Hello Gabriel. Are things well with you?" Jakobus asked.

"Yes -- no," Gabriel replied, 'yes -- no' being the manner of responding among the farming community, because there is always some good mixed with the bad, "things are not too bad, except for those thieves who stole my grapes again last night." From his demeanour, Jakobus could see that, at the moment, the bad things were outweighing the good.

"Stole your grapes?" Jakobus said, "You mean somebody picked some bunches?'

"Some bunches? Not some bunches, all the bunches! They stripped the whole vineyard. They came and took my Cabernet grapes this time. Two weeks ago my Hanepoort, this week my Cabernet."

It turned out that on the day before Gabriel had looked at this one vineyard (he has about ten on the side of the mountain) and decided it was ready to harvest. He said to Klaas, his farm manager, who was with him, 'Klaas, these are ready for the cellars. On Monday, call the people in and we will pick them.' Klaas has regular contact with the community who live in the shacks just outside Montagu, all of whom make a living as casual workers doing seasonal work on the farms in the district.

Gabriel had gone to have another look at the vines that morning before coming to town, Jakobus said, and there was not a single bunch left in the vineyard! Jakobus wouldn't repeat to me some of the words his cousin used, but he understood why he used them -- Gabriel was very upset. As my new friend told me, his cousin was absolutely convinced that the people from the shacks had been there in the night and picked the grapes!

"Klaas," Gabriel had said, "as soon as you told them the grapes were ready for picking, they decided to come when it was dark and steal them!" Of course Klaas denied it. He said the people from the squatter shacks don't steal. They are poor, honest, hard-working people, and why should they steal the grapes when they were going to be paid for picking them? "Actually, Mr. Lootz," Klaas had said, "I think the thieves came down the mountain. They must live on the other side. Some folks said they heard sounds of people –a lot of people –coming down the hiking trail in the night. I think it must have been the thieves."

Gabriel didn't believe Klaas, but Klaas had worked for him for many years and Gabriel didn't know what to say, so he just turned on his heel and stalked away. Jakobus said he thought that perhaps Gabriel should have taken time to examine the field more closely, and the trail coming down from the mountain. He might have picked up some evidence to clear up the mystery.

"Baboons?" Jakobus suggested.

"No," said Gabriel curtly. "Baboons raid the grapes, but they leave a mess behind. This is a clean sweep. This is not baboon work!"

Jakobus returned to the city early on the Monday morning, and then drove again to his cottage in Montagu on the Friday two weeks later. The clouds were there once again. They were really intriguing and pretty! He stopped the car and sat there for a long time just looking at them.

Lenticular clouds form when the moisture-laden wind from the sea hits the mountains and rises straight up, but one of these looked like it was arriving 'ready-made', drifting in from the south-west. ‘Maybe they are things that the aliens use to disguise their space craft,’ Jakobus mused to himself. He didn't really believe anything of the sort at the time, but he found the thought amusing.

That evening Jakobus took Rex outside to have a run before going to bed. It was a beautiful night; there was no moon but the stars were lighting up the sky with a brightness such as one never sees in the city. There weren't any clouds, except for one of those lenticulars which still hovered near the top of the mountain. He stood relaxing and enjoying the stillness until Rex suddenly gave up smelling the trunks of trees and started growling at nothing. Jakobus took him inside before he barked and disturbed the neighbours, got undressed and went to sleep.

The next morning he was having breakfast at the Winelands Coffee House when Gabriel came in and took the vacant seat at his table. "Don't ask," Gabriel said before Jakobus could say anything. "Those thieving thugs from the squatter camp! They are going to steal me out of business if it goes on like this!"

"How can you be so sure it's the squatters, Gabriel? Maybe Klaas is right. Maybe it is people that come over from the other side?"

"They can't come over the mountain in the dark! Anyway, there would have to be a couple of hundred of them to pick all the grapes and carry them over the mountain. No, I know it's the squatter camp people. They know what's going on around here –when the grapes are ready –so they know exactly when to come and pick them just before we do."

"Did you tell the police?" Jakobus asked him. "They should be able to catch them."

"Yeah! I told the police. Two weeks ago, and again this morning. They don't seem to be able to do anything. There's no evidence, they tell me. They would have to catch the thieves red-handed, they say. I know they did search in the squatter camp one time, but found nothing so now they just take down the statement and say they will investigate, but I know they will do nothing."

Jakobus and Gabriel ate in silence for a while, and then Gabriel said: "You know, I did have a closer look this morning and saw lots of little footprints. They weren't shoe prints. They were like bare-foot prints, but with no separate toe marks, a separate big toe, but all the other toes are together, like those socks Japanese women wear with their wooden clogs. That's it! I think they were all wearing socks. They were small prints, like children."

"Sounds unlikely to me -- not children." Jakobus thought it was at that point that he first made the connection in his own mind between the present thefts, the ancient legends, the cloud on the mountain, Rex rumbling out of the car window at sight of the clouds, Rex growling at nothing the night before. "I really think they did come down from the mountain. Can I tell you why?" he said to Gabriel.

"What do you know about it, Jakobus?" Gabriel asked a little impatiently, then continued thoughtfully, perhaps feeling a little guilty, less sure of himself: "Klaas says some people saw a light on top of the mountain, like a faint blue glow in the cloud. He says they also heard voices like women talking and laughing in the vineyard. They were afraid to go and look." Then looking Jakobus full in the face, he asked: "What makes you think the thieves came over the mountain from the valley the other side? Anyway, do you think they could see the way in the moonlight?"

Jakobus didn't have the heart to even point out to Gabriel that there had been no moon the previous night. If people did come over the mountain without torches, they would have to be able to see in the dark, or at least by starlight! He plucked up courage to say what he was thinking, but he said it with much hesitation because he was not yet ready to let Gabriel think that he believed in alien visitors!

"Perhaps it was people from a space-ship," he said. "Maybe the space-ship was hidden in that strange cloud I saw on top of the mountain last night!"

"Strange cloud? Space-ship? Rubbish! How can you possibly believe in those fairy stories?" said Gabriel. "It's either people coming over the mountain from the other side, like Klaas says, or it is the people from the squatter camp as I say! Man, Jakobus, where do you get this nonsense about little men from other planets?"

Jakobus said he quickly changed the subject at that point because he could see a useless argument looming, but it was the very next weekend that things between the cousins really came to a head, which is the reason why Jakobus was now sitting in my window seat on this plane to the west coast of America to visit the Sierras. He was making the trip to try and find some proof to convince Gabriel that it could have been aliens! It happened on the Saturday morning in the Winelands Coffee House, as we might have guessed. My new friend Jakobus had by then convinced himself that the space-ship was real, and that it was aliens who were stealing the grapes, but Gabriel was made of sterner stuff and was not ready to believe any such nonsense. On that morning, Jakobus was, as usual, enjoying his coffee and scrambled egg-on-toast when Gabriel arrived and sat at his table. Jakobus said "Hello Gabriel," and, without pausing for a reply, he continued, "They stole your grapes again last night?"

Jakobus had seen the familiar cloud again when he drove down to Montagu the day before. Most of the clouds over the mountains were true lenticulars, but there was the one that looked so very, very, much like the cloud that had been there the previous weekend. It just had to be the same one. Of course, it could have been a mere coincidence, because the contours of the mountain in that spot might cause a cloud to form in the same way every time the wind comes from the south-west -- but hardly so exactly alike every time.

Gabriel looked at him sharply. "How do you know my grapes got stolen last night?" he asked, looking at him in astonishment. It occurred to Jakobus from the way he glared at him that Gabriel was thinking that Jakobus had something to do with his grapes disappearing, especially since Jakobus seemed to be on the scene every time it happened!

Jakobus said he was hoping, at that stage in the conversation with Gabriel, that it would sound as if he was only pulling Gabriel's leg even though he himself was now completely convinced about what he had seen and deduced: "There was a cloud on top of the mountain above your vineyard –exactly the same cloud as I saw there last weekend when your grapes were stolen. I think it is a space-ship. The alien men or women come in it to steal your grapes." Then, smiling broadly, and tongue-in-cheek, he continued; "They live on Mars, but grapes don't grow there –not enough water, you know –but they like wine, so they come and steal your grapes."

"You're crazy," Gabriel burst out, looking at him suspiciously, and after that things became, as Jakobus said, 'rather strained' between him and his sceptical cousin.

That's how matters stood until one day Jakobus saw something on the Internet about the wonderful lenticular clouds that form over the mountains here in America. He quickly made plans to come and see, as he said, "if there might be someone over here who has had an experience that would support my theory."

At that point, Jakobus stopped talking and pointed out of the window. "There are the Sierras now." Then he shoved his face right up against the glass and clutched my arm excitedly. "There, there!", he said moving his head aside to let me see out of the window, "over there! That cloud over that peak. The one that looks like a lens viewed from the side, the one sitting on top of the mountain, that's the same cloud I saw. Exactly the same! It has to be a space-ship! I'll bet you anything you like that some grapes have been stolen from the vineyards over here!"

"I'll take your bet," I said. The man was nice, but nuts –or maybe a clever story-teller with a ruse to get my window seat! The plane landed, and before we parted, we exchanged addresses agreeing that we would make contact again when we were both back home in South Africa. But then, a few days later, while I was still in the United States, I caught sight of a headline in a local paper: "Alien Abduction? –Grapes' Theft Investigator Disappears."

I didn't get to read the whole report, but it seemed as though Jakobus had finally convinced Gabriel, and I had lost my bet.

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'The Grape Thieves'