“Whale tooth. Fuckin’ big, hey?”
If Ma saw me there and heard Hein’s language, and smelt Oom Basie’s breath!
I knew I’d better go home. But if I left, I wouldn’t be able to look at that whale tooth any longer. It was a beautiful thing. Smooth. Its colour somewhere between white and yellow, like the two hippopotamuses carved from ivory Pa had brought back from the North after the war. But I liked the whale tooth better.
“Do you think I could also get one?”
“Yes, if you go to the whaling station. And if you have two rand – those kaffirs who do the slaughtering are bloody greedy.”
Well, that was that then. I might as well forget it. Where would I get two rand? Now that I wasn’t helping with the trees any more I wouldn’t get a cent from Pa. He always asked whether I had any idea how hard he had to work for the money he brought home at the end of the month.
Now I wanted to go to the whaling station more than ever. You never knew. And even if I didn’t get a tooth, I could still watch them slaughter the whales. Braam always promised to take me, but I knew he’d never get round to it.
I could go there on my own, but Pa said he’d skin me alive if I did. It was too dangerous, he said, that area between the South Pier and the whaling station on the seaward side of the Bluff.
My bladder was starting to hurt from holding up my pee for so long.
I held out the tooth to Oom Basie, but Hein said: “No, give it here, it’s mine.” He took the tooth and put it into his pocket as if it was just any old thing you found behind a bush.
“I have to go inside,” I said.
Oom Basie put his crutches under his armpits and turned round on one leg. “Yes, I suppose I have to go in too. Are you coming, Hein?”
“In a minute, Pa.”
Luckily, Oom Basie switched off the light.
“I can’t keep it in any longer,” I said. I half turned my back on Hein and began to pull up the leg of my shorts.
“What are you ashamed of?” he asked.
“I’m not ashamed.”
“Then why are you turning away?”
“No reason.”
I took aim carefully, trying to keep it in one spot. Perhaps there’d be a miracle and Hein would witness it, I thought. There were bubbles all right, but they kept bursting.
“Fuckit,” Hein said, “what kind of bladder do you have?”
I shook my willie and put it away. “Is there foam when you pee?” I asked, not as if it was important to know. Casually, that was how I asked.
Without answering, he turned slightly, and took out his willie. “As we seem to be shy of each other all of a sudden …”
I was sorry he’d turned away, for I’d have liked to see the size of his willie. Hein Ahlers could be spiteful when he felt like it.
The stream hit the grass and in two ticks there was foam. “There’s your answer,” he said.
I pretended not to see. “Where?”
“There, you fool, don’t you have eyes?” The bubbles were bursting. I waited till they were nearly all gone before I answered.
“Mine is like that sometimes, but not all the time.”
Hein laughed. I thought it might be better to listen to Ma after all and stop talking to Hein Ahlers.
Sarel hadn’t laughed when we’d peed outside one evening. He was different from the other guys who called on my sisters. I liked him. Ouma Makkie had told Ma she saw a wedding on the horizon.
I heard Ouma ask Erika: “Child, tell me where you found this nice young man.”
Erika’s eyes shone. “Haven’t I told you, Ouma?”
Sarel was coming for lunch. Lately he’d been coming every Sunday, and on Friday evenings too. Pa didn’t want them to see each other more often, so that Erika wouldn’t neglect her school work. Lovesickness and school work don’t go together, Pa claimed.
“We met on the Trans-Karoo, Ouma, last December, on our way back from the farm.”
All day they’d stood talking in the corridor outside our compartment, till Pa had stuck his head through the sliding door and said: “Erika, come in now, tomorrow’s another day.”
A faraway look came into Ouma’s eyes. “Last December? Your oupa was still alive then.”
“Yes, Ouma.” You could see Erika didn’t want to talk about Oupa now.
“Shame.”
Suddenly I felt sorry for Ouma Makkie. It struck me for the first time how lonely she had to be. And sad – about Oupa and the farm and everything. When Ouma moved into my room, I hadn’t really considered her feelings. Now I realised how difficult it had to be for her to live in the city.
“I don’t want to be a burden to you, Awerjam,” I’d heard her say shortly after her arrival here.
Pa said: “Charity begins at home, Ma.”
And Ma told Ouma: “You’ll be like a fresh breeze in this house, Ma.”
At the time I was still angry about Ouma Makkie, but later I was glad that we got her and the rest of Ma’s family got only the chairs and tables and stuff. Even though her bedroom didn’t always smell of roses.
“But wait,” Ouma Makkie told Erika, “all that’s in the past; we were talking about your Sarel, weren’t we?”
“I love him a lot, Ouma.”
“And he loves you too, I can tell by the way he looks at you. Tell me, has he given you a nickname yet? You can learn a lot about a man’s feelings for his girl by the pet names he calls her. Don’t blush, child.”
Erika looked at the floor. “When we’re alone he calls me Spinnekop, Ouma. I know it’s silly, but he says it’s because, like a spider, I’ve spun a web of love around his heart so that he couldn’t break free even if he wanted to.”
Ouma put her hand on Erika’s arm. Her fingers were like twigs. “It’s not silly at all, Erika. Hold on to him. This man is the marrying kind, and his kind is very hard to come by. I always say, don’t trust a good-looking man – he’s everybody’s man – but your Sarel is cast from a different mould.”
“That’s true, Ouma.”
“I see your mother likes him too and that says a lot.”
“Even Pappie says he’s a fine boy.”
Ouma patted her hair and winked at Erika. “If I was about five or six years younger, I would have gone for that boy myself.” She laughed so that her dentures almost slipped from her mouth. She took them out anyway and curled the tip of her tongue into her nostril.
“Sis, Ouma!” Erika took a step back.
Ouma laughed. She looked at the dentures in her hand. “Teeth are just a nuisance, you know. If the good Lord had wished us to have teeth, we would’ve been born with them.” Then she laughed even more heartily.
Erika wasn’t amused. “Ouma, don’t you dare take out your teeth when Sarel is around, do you hear me!”
If only I could get to the whaling station, someone might give me a tooth, you never knew.
I was standing on the wooden jetty that extended into the harbour. If you walked along it, away from the shore, it was as if you were walking on water. The jetty rested on submerged poles. There was a soft lapping sound, like when you got the rare chance to take a bath on your own, and you lay there,