Heartfruit
Ingrid Wolfaardt
Human & Rousseau
For my friend
Jannetjie Muller
ONE
This land is not his land.
Tired of travelling, Isak longs for heat and dust and an expanse of sky. Troubled, he checks the traffic in the mirror, staring at the child, glued to the car window ahead, recalling his own lonely journey as a boy.
Here, there are no kestrels on telephone poles.
Here, there are no mountains overlooking broad plains.
The land is not his land, nor the people.
He feels nothing for the gentle landscape surrounding him. For the most he longs for her to be sitting here with him, gesticulating excitedly in all directions.
Dark skies clear as he pulls off the road next to lawns lined with white crosses. Cars stream past. He climbs out, stretching his body in the cold, worried that he has not heard anything from her.
Perron. Isak rolls the sounds out loud.
Perron, he thinks of home.
Geese feed off snails as he studies the map, running his finger along the road from Paris to the Dutch border. It is the name of the village that changes his mind to stay, and the crosses too. He wants to know more about them, their wooden simplicity moving him inexplicably.
Stiffly, he descends the embankment towards the Fiat, taking the turn-off from the highway that leads to the main street where old men lock up for the night. Some have ribbons pinned onto their blazers and it is the first time since Rungis that he has seen men wear berets like himself.
He parks next to a dilapidated scooter under the flickering name of the hotel, cracking his knuckles in thought, when a man comes out through the swinging bar doors with a clumsiness that catches his attention. Isak hesitates but two others, jovial and younger step out of the bar, cradling the jerking body onto the scooter’s seat. One of them kick-starts the engine while the other maneuvers the scooter off the pavement.
The man’s head lolls to one side.
The taller one turns to Isak, tapping the side of his head. “Idiot,” he mouths exaggeratedly and the other laughs as they shoulder their way back into the bar.
He watches the man drive erratically down the avenue, until the swinging doors quieten. Inside, the ceiling is low and there is a woman behind the desk with rouged cheeks.
“Excusi moi, ja ne parle pas Français?”
“You speak Anglais?” she asks charmingly.
“Un peau.” Isak measures with his fingers to show how little.
“Visa?” She offers her hand, commenting appreciatively on his younger image. “Beau homme.” Her bangles tinkle as she passes it back. “Afrique du Sud … Mandela?”
“Yes, yes,” he replies, grimacing impatiently. “Just hurry,” he murmurs under his breath.
“Une chamber.” A flamed fingernail makes her point clear.
Together they mount the staircase, his bag between the two of them. She unhooks a key from her cleavage, chatting in broken English as he studies the number on the door.
The room is Spartan and the Madam gestures expansively. “Perron, Verdun, Somme is famous for bloody fighting.” She pushes open the shutters and he can see the endless fields of crosses. “Land, men killing men for land,” she tries to explain the view.
Beneath the artificial ruddiness, there is skin like Ouma’s.
“Merci.”
“Cle.” She hands over the key, while indicating the time for dinner with her fingers but he curtly dismisses the offer.
Above the bed is a crucifix with a carved Christ figure and he stays at the open window until she closes the door. The room is sided by watercolours of men fighting in trenches with haloes around their heads. Shoving off his shoes at the heel he pulls the beret off his head. Made in China, it reads on the inner satin. Disgusted, he kicks it under the bed.
Madam calls as she goes down the stairs and her gaiety adds to his frustration.
Brochures are piled on the bedside table. Idly he flips through France. Versailles, Montmarte, the Moulin Rouge, cafés on the Champs Elysees. Tossing them to the floor, he recalls the Peripherique long before sunrise. Him caught that very morning in the swirling motion around the city. An enormous spinning wheel of vehicles that never rests. Then Rungis with its stark halls, large enough to house bomber planes, deceptive in their tattiness, displaying perfect fruit from all over the world.
Made in China, he thinks again. Nothing is sacred. What is worse, the battle of the body or the mind? He knows both, the fight to survive in grass and swamps and the fight to survive in a competitive world of money. A man who has turned his back on the old order of things and yet the fight has gone out of him, long ago. Only he knows that this last attempt to save everything they have worked for, believed in, is like sending a cripple to the front lines, without weapons.
It is hopeless.
A gong sounds in the passage of the hotel. He sits up and yawns. Out in the back yard, kitchen staff feed geese through funnels. Isak closes the shutters to their cries. There is mud on his shoes. Carefully he wipes at the spots, remembering Japie in the shed, praying a blessing over him.
Their trust in him is too much to bear.
Accordion scratched out on vinyl, rises up from the dining room, while the e-mail from Danie lies untouched in his pocket. His visit to Europe is to kill two birds with one stone and one has already been put to flight, while the second remains hidden from him.
It would be good to see you again.
Once again he opens the shutters for fresh air, endless crosses creating endless vistas. Disturbed, he checks the cellphone for messages from her but there is nothing. Despite his disappointment, he keeps her updated and the tone light.
On my way to becoming a real Frenchie. Clumsily, he presses the OK button, continuing with the second part. Paris, now Perron, registers on the screen. Frogs making a racket outside, like scooters with cut-off exhausts – perhaps from fear? He struggles to find the question mark option, deleting his failed attempt at humour. There are a number of voice mails from the bank and the agricultural co-op. Without listening, he deletes each one, moving over to the basin where he brushes his teeth, staring absentmindedly at the scentless rose.
France has not been a success. He has misread the enthusiasm of the French clients. It is one of admiration and not of commitment.
Despondently, he sits down on the bed picking at a hair on the pillow, seductive in its solitariness. Violently, he kicks at the bedding of the too-short bed.
Who has guilt? Who has guilt over Africa? Maybe the British? The memory of the concentration camps still fresh in their collective conscience, the diamond and gold desecration, their African legacy. Perhaps the guilt of the Dutch about Jan van Riebeeck and his bitter almond hedge. And the French, he thinks in the dark, the French have had Africa, the Belgians under Leopold, too.
At last it is quiet downstairs. He studies the paintings in the dark, calling up her face before him. How he loves the way her hair falls and the way she woos him with her joy. He catches her doing it but it is impossible to resist. He loves them both, her and the child, and yet the farm is his mistress, his lover, a prison that ensnares him. And there is no way out of this self-induced sentence. He has made the mistake to think work equates with love and now that it is almost too late it is their love that he wants most, the only constant in all of the uncertainty. And yet he fears he will lose it with everything else. Other fears haunt him too, his fear of losing the land, of losing Perron. So he is pulled between his two loves.
The morning spent in