When I was. Nataniël

that covered it completely. My father said the town was still unspoilt and offered more opportunities. My mother said she hoped the opportunities came before the end of the world so we could move to a place that was visible from heaven.

      Life was predictable and without passion. Until Mrs Temple died in her sleep. She was a widow who lived in a large house and drank gin every day from two o’clock. The day after the funeral we heard she had left all her money to the church. She wrote her will by hand and said that it was a disgrace to baptise and marry people in a church with such a short little tower. It was because the youth had nothing to look up to they became such feeble people and that’s why she drank herself to death. They should use the money to build a better tower.

      One month later there was a meeting in the hall. The architect showed everybody the plans and then told them Mrs Temple’s money was not enough, they needed to make a plan. Una Staple suggested they should have a cake sale.

      Then feminine Celia said maybe Una should try a new recipe, how many caramel cakes do you need to bake in one lifetime.

      Then Una said baking a decent caramel cake is better than having your car parked in front of the hotel every time there is a male visitor in town.

      Then the preacher said maybe they should have a sale where people could bring anything.

      On the day of the sale people arrived at the church hall with everything from live chickens to caramel cakes, handmade radios and wheelchairs for couples. In an effort to broaden a few horizons, my mother decided to bring a map of the world and sell geography lessons, an enterprise which, by the end of the day, had strengthened the building fund with the breathtaking amount of R37,80.

      Outside in the parking lot feminine Celia was selling hugs and kisses. By lunchtime she was so bored she started slipping the tongue to anything with R5 and a deep voice. By four o’clock she had guided every single high-school boy into manhood. Old Mr Buckman took his wife home, returned, queued twenty-eight times and made a contribution that took Celia’s final takings to a total of more than six thousand rand.

      Three weeks later a bus filled with builders stopped in front of the hotel, Celia shaved her legs and work on the tower began. For weeks people spoke of nothing else. Every day they went to the church and looked in wonder at the new tower being built. But by the time the tower became as tall as the trees, people suddenly became nervous. Some of them stopped going to the church completely, while others found it really hard to look up as high as the scaffolding.

      By the time the tower was rising above the trees, most people were too afraid to go near the church, those brave enough to look all the way up started hyperventilating and some even fainted.

      One week before Christmas the new tower was complete. The builders got into their bus and left. Suddenly the town was quiet. Apart from feminine Celia trying to start her car in front of the hotel, there was not a sound. People were staying inside, keeping quiet and decorating their tiny Christmas trees.

      Why does nobody want to look up? I asked.

      They’re afraid they might see something unbelievable, said my mother.

      Why? I asked.

      When you see something you do not believe, it changes everything you know, said my mother.

      What happens then? I asked.

      You might become somebody else, said my father. Somebody unexpected, someone who will surprise himself and many people. We looked at each other. Then we stormed out the door and ran down the street.

      And since then, every Christmas while the world decorates trees, worries and looks elsewhere, you will find our family outside, looking for a church or a tower, desperate to see something unbelievable.