“The name tells of someone who has suffered through very, very hard times. Just as you are suffering now. It’s a strong name. We didn’t have time to talk the last time we met. What does your name mean?”
She repeated the story of her dry skin as a baby.
“Well, that’s a nice story too! Your name tells of the love your ouma and oupa have for you. Vaselinetjie, we have to talk about the holidays …”
Vaselinetjie sat motionless while Mr Kedibone spoke. She left his office without a word.
Back in her room she opened her cupboard and ripped off the home-made calendar stuck behind the door. There was only a week and a half left before the holidays would begin, but it wasn’t important any longer.
“Nothing matters any more! I will never, never ever care about anything again!” she screamed, burying her head in her clothes. She sobbed and pummelled her school uniform with her fists. Mr Kedibone had just told her that the government didn’t have the funds to send those children who lived far away home for the holidays. She’d have to stay in.
For the next week Vaseline did nothing but sit on her bed, or on the stairs, or in the public phone booth, reading and rereading her ouma’s letters. She kept all her letters of the past six months in a shoe box at the bottom of her cupboard.
After her conversation with Mr Kedibone she called home almost every day, reversing the charges, until Oupa was forced to tell her it was getting too expensive and it broke Ouma’s heart to hear Vaseline cry and plead on the other end of the phone about something they couldn’t do anything about.
“Oumie’s baby must be strong and stand on both feet,” Ouma sobbed along with Vaseline time and again. But Ouma never said the words Vaseline was longing to hear. That she could come home. That sending her away had been a terrible mistake and that she would never have to return to this awful place.
“We’re going to eat Kentucky,” and “My dad’s going to take us for Wimpy burgers,” the kids who were going home for the holidays boasted. And even though she and the others who had to stay in couldn’t care less about the treats they had in store, they couldn’t help overhearing.
“And check, hey, I’m packing everything, ’cause I’m telling you now: this place is never going to see me again,” one after the other vowed as they filled their suitcases and emptied their cupboards.
Some who were going to foster families would be back long before the holidays were over, and the others would sneer because their placements had failed. But at the moment that possibility was far from their minds.
“At least you escape from the home for a few weeks and you score some new clothes that the foster people allow you to keep because they feel guilty about not being able to stick it out with you,” Killer said.
Some children returned from the holidays with so much stolen goods that they continued to cash in for weeks – selling watches, sunglasses, jewellery and cellphones to the town children during breaks. With the takings they bought chips and pies at the tuck shop and shared the spoils with their buddies for as long as the money lasted.
“We’ve had enough of Madiba’s mieliepap-and-bread, mieliepap-and-bread,” chanted the kids who were leaving, laughing excitedly.
When the buses departed, Vaseline was standing directly under the notice proclaiming RIGHT OF ADMISSION RESERVED. Long after the buses had disappeared down the hill she was still kicking the posts rhythmically. If she could, she would carry on kicking until the entire home had been levelled with the ground. Brick by bloody brick.
At least anger was better than tears.
“Mail for Bosman. Bosman, mail!”
The social workers’ offices were closed during the holidays but one of them was always on call. For the kids who went bonkers because they had to stay in, or those who got the heebie-jeebies for no reason other than that their lives sucked.
The person on duty stuck his or her head through the doorway of the sitting room, prised apart the older ones who were busy giving each other hickeys, and handed out the mail.
Vaseline was glad it wasn’t Mr Kedibone today, because she’d still not forgiven him for making her look forward to the holidays in vain. Killer said kids at a children’s home learned to endure a lot, but hope was by far the worst thing. And the cruellest.
It was a parcel from home. She knew at once that Ouma had wrapped it, because the paper had been stuck down with a double layer of tape. And it must have been Oupa who’d tied up the parcel so neatly with string. In large, shaky black letters he had written: Miss Helena Bosman.
Hastily she ripped off the paper. There were lots of goodies inside. Shop-bought as well as home-made. She wanted to remain angry with Ouma and Oupa for making her stay at this place, but the more she dug around in the box, the more her anger evaporated and an aching sorrow began to pulse in her throat instead.
The parcel also contained toothpaste, shampoo, a new pink roll-on deodorant, moisturiser and a packet of disposable razors. She felt embarrassed to take it out in front of the strange social worker, because she hadn’t begun to shave her legs yet. There was also a gift from the church ladies: two snow-white facecloths decorated with hand-embroidered red roses.
And a letter with a green banknote inside. Earlier Vaseline had sent a message to Ouma, instructing her to hide any money they might want to send her in a toothpaste carton. Otherwise she would have to hand it to the social worker, who would give it to her matron. Then she would receive the money only as the matron saw fit. At a children’s home one was always short of money for the phone and for food. And for bribes, of course.
Politely Vaseline offered the social worker a packet of rusks, but the lady told her to hang on to it, for the other children would be lying in wait to make certain they also got some of the spoils.
She was right. Before Vaseline could disappear into her house, a few high school boys stopped her in the passage. “Hey you, what have you got there? Owe us a little something, ag please, Baby Girl!”
She didn’t like the boys – Killer said they were scumbags and dagga smokers – but she took out a packet of koeksisters with syrup so thick that it stuck to the plastic wrapping and offered it to them. She felt sorry for them and she felt sorry for herself, because they were all stuck in the same prison. This stark building with its empty passages, where the children dug out the cigarette stubs visitors had left in the shrivelled pot plants to smoke them again.
1
The day before her grade 7 year began Vaseline realised: “Even though it’s been only six months since I left home, I’ve already become someone else. I’m changing into someone completely different from the Vaseline who used to recite poems to Ouma and stuff Oupa’s pipe.” It was in the girls’ toilets that she explained this to herself, while studying her reflection in the cracked full-length mirror. Only a few long shards of mirror remained.
The mirror was so old that the back had flaked off. When you looked at yourself there were little holes all over your body. She turned sideways and pushed out her bum to see if she had Bushman-holle or Boereboude. She’d heard the big girls talk like that when they teased one another about their backsides.
Despite everything, she was looking forward to going back to school the next day. She was proud of the fact that even in this dreadful place she had done well enough to be awarded a “Most Improved” diploma at the prize-giving ceremony.
If she had still been at her old school, Ouma and Oupa would have been sitting in the front row and as soon as they arrived home, Oumie would have propped up her diploma on the sideboard and a tin of condensed milk would have been waiting for her on her pillow.
That was the old Vaseline in her old life.
She thought of the night of the prize-giving. What the people had thought they were seeing had not been the truth.
She