The Rose of Bonnievale
On one of my rare nights out last Saturday evening, I talked to a hairdresser who opened up my eyes to everything I lack in this drowsy and shiftless existence I call a life. Forgive me for springing such a self-absorbed confession on you, but I'm impressed by very few things in this futile hour which we so presumptuously call the "modern" and "scientific" age. Everything gives you the false impression of being stable, and yet everything is less stable than ever. I am extremely restless of late. I have plenty of sleep but so little rest and all it comes down to the fact that in this stark and soulless moment of history, I don't regard anything our generation holds as meaningful. What Harry Haller went through in the decade before World War II, I feel myself living in the flesh.
Now, Harry Haller was a middle-aged man, and far wiser and better-read than I, yet he didn't have the problem of nuclear fallout weighing on his mind. Nor did he face the widespread ignorance of our Kardashian-centric generation. With that said, even though my dreams paint dark and apocalyptic scenarios that steal joy from my spirit and life from my bones, not all is grim and fearful in my waking hours. There are nights for instance when driving along the coast, my mind drifts to a distant balcony, and I feel myself lifted into heavenly communion with a ghostly woman whom I love most dearly. She is not a real woman, but the embodiment of all I aspire to understand. These are the secrets of which our society remains completely oblivious. Her fingers comb through my hair in the form of soft breeze as she whispers to me of a keenness of feeling I do not yet possess. Such moments are what I consider to be true wealth and the essence of a good and even meaningful life. They intimate a world far apart from this shoddy state of limbo, in which every desire can be boiled down to the empty pursuit of money, power and respect.
For those things I have little regard. What is concrete and what we do not see I spend my life pursuing. Indeed my whole life is built upon pillars of wind. And even though I am only 30, soon to turn 31, this heart of mine is very old. It finds a common chord in classical values. To that end, I'm quite willing to grow frail in my mother's basement seeking out a higher message of revelation. Even if I have nothing but Boccacio's Decameron in hand, wouldn't I be far better off than I am in this culture so leeched of values, so bereft of naivety? The modern world is for me a kind of hydra of worn down values that come to nothing in particular, and when I emerge from my 40 year slumber, I will no doubt be less than surprised to find a race of humans who have found no reason for advancement, no motivation for improvement; no need to stave off the rising stench of corruption which even now causes society to recoil ever inward into a state of permanently shrinking pathos. The cracks are already apparent in every area, from finance to academia. Even science, a field in which I lay great store will have declined into a great slumbering disappointment, or if we keep on our apathetic path, a total technocratic nightmare.
As I say, it is easy to trick my consciousness into a state of bliss, but little can come from a world transfixed as it now is on the outer shell of existence, rather than the essence of what makes us human. What plato calls the "Agalma."
So I wonder: have you ever sought out such a thing? A glimpse of eternity in the way that men who stare at balconies with araucarias do? If so, then my story will appeal to you. And as for petty love affairs which follow the pattern of today's television dramas, I must just tell you that the very idea of romantic relationships as we now conceive of them does not suit me at all. If someone says for instance, "You will meet the right person one day" it puts me in the position of a now ageing and desperate man clinging onto the hope of acceptance before reaching middle age. No, this does not fit my needs or ideals at all. Such things as spiritual unions must be written in the stars, not desperately hunted down. Or perhaps, as Kafka said,"I am only a cage in search of a bird." But my presiding feeling on love - if it truly be love - is that it presents itself whether you pursue it or not.
In short, I long for a place and a time where all guile, all deception, all shameful pretensions are swept away in a flood of Biblical fire. Where the soul of a person can be acknowledged once more. Now that is what I mean when I say that this hairdresser opened up my eyes. The thread which connected us went right to the core of our beings and transgressed even the laws of time. It moved like an eye-beam into our childhood years so that we were once again two children playing in a magnificent garden under the stars. Yet, even she held nothing back, I know that I did. Now, do I feel guilty for being closed-off as usual? For only giving onto one tenth of what I felt? Of course. I hid from this poor woman the very thing she deserved; probably craved; my emaciated appreciation for her existence! Of course I've read such things in Kafka's letters to Felice Bauer, but never had I believed that such madness, such atrophied exuberance could belong to me. And now that it is over - as I always do - I keep reliving that goodbye. Turning it over like some trinket in my mind. That is the way things always are with me. I have learned to hoard the dullest and cruelest of treasures on earth; My regrets keep piling up.
Do I seem daft? But now that I've told you all of this; now that I've let you in on my secret, and if you aren't already bored with these effusions, allow me to describe the incidents of that evening.
This happened, as I have said, last Saturday. It was, as fate would have it, during the Whale Festival which is held in Hermanus annually and has become something of a consistent let-down. The seven of them gathered that evening, outside the old church trying to wave down a passing car. Even though they were waiting on the main road, no one had stopped for them for at least the first ten minutes when I came along.
Eventually, with boredom setting in, with a creeping anxiety that the evening would be wasted one, the group heartily elected Marcelle to save them from such doom. She was the most striking of the group. A walking magnet for male attention, something she knew perhaps all too well. And all of these traits were exuberantly magnified whenever she was drunk. She launched into the road with her right hand splayed out madly in the night air, the other hand clutching an empty glass pilfered from the Italian restaurant in the alley just behind them. The first driver, as I say, did not stop, nor the second. Nor the third, and so on. At length, I came by and I decided there would be no harm in giving this girl a lift. I could, after all, do with the company.
"Kan ons a luggie kry na die nuwe hawe?" she shouted in a breathless voice as I stopped to open my door. I nodded. "Yes, sure." but what that 'ons' comprised, I had no idea. At that single gesture, a mad shuffling suddenly possessed the car. On account of my night blindness, I had not accounted for the others. First two figures came tottering in from the lane then three, then it was four, materialising as if from nowhere; piling onto one another and stretching the frame of the car to its limits. At length, five, six, seven women were all somehow seated inside the car with me. Somewhere in the surreal chaos of all this, I saw my guitar being jammed between someone's knee and the back of my car seat. "No!" I clamoured bitterly. "My guitar!" But it was only with some effort that I was able to convince them to get out again so I could recover it and place the thing safely in the boot.
I was a little anxious of course. After all, who had I just picked up? But since they were all ladies, I was, more than anything, intrigued. All of this was, to put it mildly, bewildering. I spend too much time at home with my mother. I read the classics. I ride my bicycle up the hill toward Caledon and back when I'm bored. Nothing had prepared me for this. As you'll imagine, this sudden explosion of female presence had the effect of making them much more daunting but also more mysterious. From an evening of despair had suddenly emerged a beautiful Orchid that gave off the scent of not one, but seven different personalities. A much older woman than Marcelle had taken a seat on Marcelle's lap. She had shortly cropped blonde hair and thick, straight eyebrows. She had a hardened face, but it was she who had helped me to convince the ladies to get out so I could recover my guitar, and it was her who broke the silence by asking my name. "Thomas," I had said stoically. Then, once all the complaining about having to get out for the sake of my guitar was over, she asked where I was originally headed."I was just on my way home actually," I said, scratching my head nervously."I wanted to get some petrol."
"Where's that? Where's home?" interjected a dark headed girl who had just appeared from between the headrests. Her eyes glistened underneath two pitchy gulfs of mascara. "Stanford," I replied. A sudden murmur of collective disaproval. "No, don't go home! come with us!" came another voice. "Yes. We'll pay for the petrol" said the oldest lady; "And your drinks. Come to the Gecko." "Well, alright," I replied. I wasn't nearly as reluctant as I might have seemed. The seconds stretched on. Minutes felt like hours. I couldn't think of anything to say that would paint me in a good or even half-decent light. Eventually, I tried a question: "Where are you all from?" But my conviction fell flat and no-one answered. I was not surprised. This happens to me more often than you'd believe. "Do you have any music in this car? Where's the mp3 player?" said the girl with the heavy mascara in a playful demand. "I only have CD's" I said apologetically. They were all happy when I slipped in a disc and skipped to a dance club remix of Passenger's "Feather on the Clyde."That also took away the burning need for conversation. The bar would solve the problem more permanently. Stupefaction. Lowered inhibitions...As long as beers flowed, conversation would not be a problem.
A shopping complex with a petrol station came into view. This was where they asked me to stop. We swung around the back of the station toward the kiosk where the attendants were waiting. The petrol attendant merely laughed when he saw the phenomenon that came grinding to a halt next to the pump. It must have looked pretty debaucherous. I was fashionably dressed, and here was a scene from the roaring, cocaine-fueled 80's - minus the red convertible of course - but it would suffice. The debonaire with his seven beauties. I shot an overwhelmed smile at him. I hoped it would be the kind that verged on despair from too many nights of dissipation. It said, "I'm exhausted with all this female company. Please help me." Of course, I was having some fun with the whole idea. "I don't actually know what's going on tonight," I shouted. He gave a hearty chuckle and told me he liked my jacket with a consolatory grin.
The women paid for the petrol and this too, delighted the attendant to no end. I made a show of producing my wallet, but since I'm fairly broke, I hoped I wouldn't have to pay. And magically, before I even noticed it, these ladies had passed a R200 note to him through the back window.
Where are you all from," I tried again, as we pulled out of the petrol station. There was a moment of silence, then one of them answered "Merdeville." It was the lady with the dark eyes again. "And where's Merdeville?" I asked in all seriousness. "Somewhere up North?" A sudden outburst of laughter. "No, no," replied the oldest woman. "We're from Bonnievale." The other, French association would only come to me afterwards. "Why are you so quiet?" Marcelle asked. I'd forgotten to turn the music back up. She didn't give me a chance to answer "Because he's never seen so much pussy before!"
There was now a rank silence which placed the spotlight squarely on me; exactly where I didn't want it to be right then. "Well, there it is," I thought. My inadequacies laid bare. I was somewhat pathetic, wasn't I? Picking up these strangers." And while it wasn't sexual gratification I was seeking, the raw thrill craved by some men, one thing was for certain: I needed their company much more than they were in need of mine. Women can smell loneliness on a man. But by the same measure, the female essence of times past has been supplanted by erogenous organs in modern times, and I wasn't able to explain this without coming off like the idiot. Women can pick up a great many things; Even false reluctance to drive them places. In retrospect, I realise that this was just the thing Marcelle was hoping to disarm. Who wants to be taken somewhere by a woebegone man with the spirit of Bach? When life is short; when excitement is rare enough, when everyone is nervous about criminals in politics, and farm murderers; and the insanity of the social order, who can blame someone like Marcelle for trying to barter with a collection of vaginas as collateral?
We were at this point, driving through a township to get onto the road which takes you to the new harbour, and the car had been consumed by silence again. Feeling bad about Marcelle's quip, one of the other girls offered,"You're a good person. Don't mind her" She said it with a softness that was surprising and came just at the right moment.
*
"So. Bonnievale," I said, as I closed my car door and took a breath of fresh sea air, my shoes negotiating the gravel. The sea was roaring down beneath us "Is Bonnievale near Barrydale?" They all laughed again. "No, not at all," explained the oldest woman off-handedly." Everyone was putting themselves back together after what I imagine was a rough journey. The Gecko Pub and Grill is a rustic place, and while the rest of Hermanus has lost its character, very little has changed in the new harbor which it overlooks. It would make pleasant refuge from the teenyboppers (and other philistines in other words.) And these women were eager to begin drinking again as soon as they could. They were at the door of the Gecko faster than I could close my car door in fact, and that's a good distance away. In these situations, in the glory of such company, it only makes sense to put on one's wolf-mask and make the most of it. Even if one is not a crude man. For, indeed, there would be a sudden curiosity from all corners of the bar when we entered it, something on which anyone who wasn't completely dead in their spirit would capitalize. No sooner had we passed through the two sets of wooden doors, than a short, middle-aged man, a worn out, hard-drinking man with thinning red hair, surveyed us all.
I said confusedly, with a conspiratorial grin "I don't know what's going on, man. Things are a little..." I paused for effect, "a little crazy tonight."
"My man..." He said in astonishment, "You have seven women with you. I would be in the same position, hey."
This was exactly the reaction I'd hoped for. Not because it serves my ego so much as it enriches a life which is short on these kinds of compliments. Now, I'm sorry if that offends some people. But it's good to know what you've missed out on your whole life. At any rate, as we made our way to the back, I could feel the weight of about two dozen eyes examining us from all directions.
When we had settled at the back of the long bar, within an alcove that had a set of tall, round tables, Alzanne said something which immediately unsettled my rising sense of self-worth: "So, almal van ons is boerevoue. Haar man is a boer, en syne, en syne, en syne." She pointed to five of the group. I was too taken aback to see which ones. She went onto explain that they were having a girls night out and that the following week their husbands would have a boys' night out. After that, everyone introduced themselves by name.
That statement, as you can imagine, changed the dynamic of the evening quite dramatically. I tried not to show it, but I breathed out a sigh of heavy disappointment. I was no longer wearing the rose-tinted glasses of one who had been picked up - chosen as it were - by seven ladies who had come to repay him for his miseries. It was, of course, a silly idea, so the collapse of it was no more explosive than a sand castle one had cherished being washed away by a sudden and annoying set of waves. I got over it in a minute.
"What are you having?" Alzanne asked"Castle Lite" I announced. They hadn't disappeared to find better company, but were, to my amazement, surrounding me curious to know things. I was confused whether this was my consolation prize or some kind of authentic desire to be around a man who showed no outward emotion. Probably the former, I thought. Nevertheless, they had plenty of questions. The first one was whether I'd hand my keys to the barman so that I wouldn't leave them in that crusty old tavern.
"So you're a musician?" said a lady who had introduced herseslf as Suzanne. She had a mousy look about her, a look augmented by her mousy brown hair.
"I'm a retired musician," said I. "I used to be in a band."
"Oh, you're in a band," said Alzanne who was still standing to my right "I'm an events organiser. "We could use you."
"That's cool," I said, still sounding perhaps a little too standoffish.
Suzanne looked puzzled: "You're lying! So are you really a musician?" But she said this with a mad smile. I was taken aback at first, it didn't take me long to realise that this was her way of paying a compliment. She took to me warmly that evening. She started asking questions about me. "So why are you no longer playing music?" she asked.
"I used to be in a band with Tinus Basson," I explained. But he had a bad motorbike accident and we decided to call it quits."
"You're lying!" She laughed in that same mad way as before. "You know what you need to do? Go and find him. He's probably lonely," she told me. "Right," I thought to myself." Either this woman is a fortune teller, or she's slightly touched."
It was around that time when Marcelle and Veronique came towards me; evidently to settle a debate they were having between themselves. "which of us did you notice first when you picked us up?" inquired Marcelle. Her striking, fox-like eyes peered through a mascara-darkened set of eyelids. So did the other's and I wasn't sure which had waved me down now. The other looked at me inquisitively. I surveyed both of them again, quite puzzled. They looked fairly similar by way of height, hair color and even complexion. but Marcelle was by far the most striking of the two. Largely because of too much makeup. "You!" I said with a laugh, pointing to Marcelle. There was satisfaction from her and a cry of dispair from the other.
"And why did you pick us up?" asked Suzanne. She seemed fearful of losing the bond we'd formed in talking about my no-longer-existant band. After a thoughtful pause, I made up some story about wanting to help ladies in need. The beer had a mellowing effect which made this sound pretty credible.
"But," I added impressively, or so I thought, "I wasn't sure if someone was trying to use you as bait. You know... In order to steal my car? Anything's possible these days. But it seemed legitimate, so I stopped."
"And you figured this all out in those few seconds," Marcelle asked.
"Well, yes," I said.
Her and Veronique minced off towards the front of the bar satisfied with my answer. Beer was no-doubt having its magical effect upon me; endowing boldness, making the others more credulous too.
At this point, the ladies had a barman bring out 8 shots of vodka, which, to my embarassment, I didn't know the proper way of drinking, because it involved using lemon and salt in some mystical way I haven't hung around bars long enough to learn.
"What do you do for work?" asked Alzanne. Here was another threatening question, but the beer helped me here too.
I took a long sip of my beer to delay the answer. "I'm into crypto-currencies," I said."I trade crypto-currencies." This answer had the advantage of baffling anyone I mentioned it to. The truth is, I'm completely unemployed. I live with my mother. I don't know what I'd do for work, since philosophizing doesn't constitute a paying profession. But I'm not about to tell that to seven ladies I've just met.
One of the ladies was clearly not amused by all of this conviviality. I don't remember her name, but she had pale hair, a pale complexion and a very rigid way of carrying herself which reminded me of some type of large buck. When I tried to converse with her through some playful comment, her eyes glazed over. It was slightly chilling, in a ghostlike way. Was she ignoring me or simply shy? There seemed to be no clear answer but in any case, she stayed put, looking right through me with a peculiarly cold stare.
On the opposite side of her, was another unassuming, but far more feminine figure. She too, placed herself on the outside of everything that was happening. It seemed that she was half-there and half-absent in her mind's eye, which was the very thing that made her seem invisible at first glance. There was no special magnetism about her when I first noticed her, just a sort of kindness and delicateness in her facial features. This was Marelize. She was quite pretty. And so compelling was her resemblance to someone in Stanford, where I live with my mother, that I felt the need to ask her if she had any family there. She replied demurely that she hadn't. That lady of whom she reminded me is a veterinarian. She is also Afrikaans, and she has a smile of the softest, the most delicate, the most lonely intelligence. This might explain why she took on a woman as a partner, but that is another issue for another time. In any case, Marelize didn't have a relative in my town, not even a distant cousin, or I might, even now, all these weeks later, have had cause to visit her. She had something in common with her though, something which is not common to humankind at all; the softness of a true saint. A long-suffering, gentle soul full of kindness and free of vice.
It was only after two trips to the bathroom that I really spoke to her however. Outside the bathroom, during the second trip, I spoke to a Nigerian man in a spontaneous burst of African patriotism. "The thing is, my soul is a black man," I said to him. "Despite all appearances, I am not, nor will I ever share the concerns of my people." He smiled with a wide toothy grin. I said,"No, it's true. We have a very dishonest existence and I don't fit in. Not in the least. In everything we do, we have to always make sure we fit some kind of... image." This was no act of empty patronization, either. I was paying a genuine homage to an honesty that I have long hoped to find but never known in any of my white compatriots. Always, I'd find myself the outsider. I no longer wanted this burden of being white. To be unemployed is to lose the joy of simply being human; to be forced into the position of someone who has to belong to a certain income bracket to be worthy company; to risk never having a wife. This is an anxiety that does not sit well with me. He handed me a cigarette. I do not smoke, but I thought I'd make an exception because this was, after all, the moment of a profound revelation. I took the pastel green stick of the cigarette. "And another thing," I said to him to dispel any sappy sentimentality, "You could really mess me up. I mean, if you wanted to, you could break every bone in my face, man." This was also true. "He had monstrous biceps which would make any ordinary mortal afraid to pick a fight. He was a healthy man; a real archetype of manhood, where I was a spindly jackanapes with an oversized quaff of hair. White people are so contrived, so complacent I thought.
It was at this point that I bid him a good evening and strode back to the alcove where Marelize was standing. This was a kind of portico where the music system stood. The look that the cigarette conferred in my imagination had emboldened me and I fancied myself a Camus or some other serious intellectual. "n' Ou rooker." She told me as a walked up to her. A delicate smile played over her face. "No," I smiled in return. "Actually, I don't smoke at all." Well, there are some occasions, actually, come to think of it. Like when my cousin came down from Jo'burg. I only smoke as a celebration. I'm smoking for the Whale Festival now. See?" After a pause, I blew smoke through my nose and said,"So what do you do in Bonnievale?" "Ek's 'n haarkapper" she replied. "Oh, I knew you were one of those artsy types" I told her. Then there was a silence between us. And it was the most uncanny thing. Not only did I feel her drawing closer to me despite her standing quite still; not only did I know that her thoughts were on me while she knew mine were on her, but there was a sense that we'd always known each other. And despite this knowledge, there was no body-language on her part to prove any of this. I simply knew it. The silence grew further still and formed a magical bond between us. Then all of a sudden, I was saying things to her that I've never said to someone I've just met, and it was quite fine as well. "Do you ever go to Stellenbosch?" I asked her. "I really love the town at night. Don't you think it's sophisticated? the way the light shines on those old white buildings at night? Don't you think it's haunting?" She agreed that it was. "It's the oldest town in the country," she told me.
It was now more than certain that she understood the very things I'd imagined in my private moments. The unsaid greatness of times past. The psychological link between all beautiful periods of history which make us more open to the beauty of life." What we shared in that evening consisted in much more than words. It was the warmth of a heavenly communion which for most people only arrives in times of pure desperation: between persecuted Christians who broke bread together while Roman demons stalked the catacombs; or between sweethearts who bid each other goodbye during wartime; or between all those crew members on the sinking Titanic who accepted their fate would offer them no lifeboats on that particular night. All of which might sound melodramatic, but I will argue that people who understand and embrace beauty are necessarily persecuted in evil times such as these. Even while her friends looked on in the half-light, she did not turn me away.
Despite this angelic aura, she was also no pushover. I said another thing to her.""Do you know," I said, "that women can get away with anything?"
"I thought that," she told me,"but it's not true at all." And she told me a story which I won't repeat; not because it's crude or anything, but I don't think she'd want it repeated.
*
By the time the evening was over with and the barman announced closing hour, we were inseparable. I admired Marelize's jacket which was tied around her waist. It was a copper hue, obscure enough to paint her as a real hipster. And she had on a black top advertising The Doors. Her dark brown hair reminded me of Donna Hayward's in Twin Peaks. Indeed, everything she wore was impeccably suited to her. Did she know Twin Peaks? I wondered. Did she understand the level of sophistication she had reached in a dusty old town like Bonnievale? Of these things, I cannot be sure. I did not, after all, want to ask too much that was related to her physical appearance. The bond we'd formed was based on an invisible and very spiritual magnetism. We both knew it. I drove them to the house they had rented in Onrus.
*
I am only regretful of the unceremonious way it ended and also the permanency of that end. And oh, I cried. I cried after leaving Hermanus the next morning. I cried because I had once again to return to the world of the misunderstood. The world assigned to those wretched who have seen and believed something transcendent, yet who are doomed to never find belief from others regarding it. And I cried for her too. I still have the glass from the Italian restaurant which I saw Marcelle held in the frosty winter air that nigh, and it's the glass slipper of our times. It's what women drink from to escape a reality devoid of fairytales; bereft of any romance which hasn't devolved into parody. It's not Fair enough, it's not Marelize's glass, but one of her mad friends. Nonetheless, it has sentimental value to me. More so than any sexual conquest could ever do. I took them all home and Marelize invited me outside to talk about art and music. We couldn't get enough of each others' company, and this was cause for celebration.She brought out a bottle of Bonnievale's very own prestigious sparkling wine. But I declined. I was already pretty well fuddled. In that courtyard she showed me photographs of her wedding.
"A strange thing, marriage, isn't it?" I observed. "I mean, you'd think that it should be a long process. It takes a lifetime to grow together. But there it is. Now you're single, now you're married. Just like that." The clouds were passing over the Akkedis mountains like mystical banks of snow. "It's very strange," she agreed. "It was one of the strangest feeling I've ever had." I played a little guitar for her in her room, where her friend was getting ready for bed. This was the girl who had sent chills down my spien. And Marelize, whether eager to let her sleep or whether she sensed the loneliness in my voice when I sang Nirvana's "About a Girl" said,"Kom hierso," in a sisterly voice. She led me to the sofa in the lounge and covered me with her own blanket. Then she went across to an adjacent sofa to rest her head there.
"Jy het nou pragtige Afrikaans gepraat," she said. "Rerig. dit was pragtig."
"Rerig?" I said
The oddest thing was that I hadn't been speaking Afrikaans for at least the past hour. She'd somehow transposed everything into her own tongue. And whatever she said had also transcended language for me. It was neither English nor Afrikaans. It was pure Marelize. It was as if we didn't need language in the first place. We spoke for a while longer, and then drifted off to sleep.
Now, Harry Haller was a middle-aged man, and far wiser and better-read than I, yet he didn't have the problem of nuclear fallout weighing on his mind. Nor did he face the widespread ignorance of our Kardashian-centric generation. With that said, even though my dreams paint dark and apocalyptic scenarios that steal joy from my spirit and life from my bones, not all is grim and fearful in my waking hours. There are nights for instance when driving along the coast, my mind drifts to a distant balcony, and I feel myself lifted into heavenly communion with a ghostly woman whom I love most dearly. She is not a real woman, but the embodiment of all I aspire to understand. These are the secrets of which our society remains completely oblivious. Her fingers comb through my hair in the form of soft breeze as she whispers to me of a keenness of feeling I do not yet possess. Such moments are what I consider to be true wealth and the essence of a good and even meaningful life. They intimate a world far apart from this shoddy state of limbo, in which every desire can be boiled down to the empty pursuit of money, power and respect.
For those things I have little regard. What is concrete and what we do not see I spend my life pursuing. Indeed my whole life is built upon pillars of wind. And even though I am only 30, soon to turn 31, this heart of mine is very old. It finds a common chord in classical values. To that end, I'm quite willing to grow frail in my mother's basement seeking out a higher message of revelation. Even if I have nothing but Boccacio's Decameron in hand, wouldn't I be far better off than I am in this culture so leeched of values, so bereft of naivety? The modern world is for me a kind of hydra of worn down values that come to nothing in particular, and when I emerge from my 40 year slumber, I will no doubt be less than surprised to find a race of humans who have found no reason for advancement, no motivation for improvement; no need to stave off the rising stench of corruption which even now causes society to recoil ever inward into a state of permanently shrinking pathos. The cracks are already apparent in every area, from finance to academia. Even science, a field in which I lay great store will have declined into a great slumbering disappointment, or if we keep on our apathetic path, a total technocratic nightmare.
As I say, it is easy to trick my consciousness into a state of bliss, but little can come from a world transfixed as it now is on the outer shell of existence, rather than the essence of what makes us human. What plato calls the "Agalma."
So I wonder: have you ever sought out such a thing? A glimpse of eternity in the way that men who stare at balconies with araucarias do? If so, then my story will appeal to you. And as for petty love affairs which follow the pattern of today's television dramas, I must just tell you that the very idea of romantic relationships as we now conceive of them does not suit me at all. If someone says for instance, "You will meet the right person one day" it puts me in the position of a now ageing and desperate man clinging onto the hope of acceptance before reaching middle age. No, this does not fit my needs or ideals at all. Such things as spiritual unions must be written in the stars, not desperately hunted down. Or perhaps, as Kafka said,"I am only a cage in search of a bird." But my presiding feeling on love - if it truly be love - is that it presents itself whether you pursue it or not.
In short, I long for a place and a time where all guile, all deception, all shameful pretensions are swept away in a flood of Biblical fire. Where the soul of a person can be acknowledged once more. Now that is what I mean when I say that this hairdresser opened up my eyes. The thread which connected us went right to the core of our beings and transgressed even the laws of time. It moved like an eye-beam into our childhood years so that we were once again two children playing in a magnificent garden under the stars. Yet, even she held nothing back, I know that I did. Now, do I feel guilty for being closed-off as usual? For only giving onto one tenth of what I felt? Of course. I hid from this poor woman the very thing she deserved; probably craved; my emaciated appreciation for her existence! Of course I've read such things in Kafka's letters to Felice Bauer, but never had I believed that such madness, such atrophied exuberance could belong to me. And now that it is over - as I always do - I keep reliving that goodbye. Turning it over like some trinket in my mind. That is the way things always are with me. I have learned to hoard the dullest and cruelest of treasures on earth; My regrets keep piling up.
Do I seem daft? But now that I've told you all of this; now that I've let you in on my secret, and if you aren't already bored with these effusions, allow me to describe the incidents of that evening.
This happened, as I have said, last Saturday. It was, as fate would have it, during the Whale Festival which is held in Hermanus annually and has become something of a consistent let-down. The seven of them gathered that evening, outside the old church trying to wave down a passing car. Even though they were waiting on the main road, no one had stopped for them for at least the first ten minutes when I came along.
Eventually, with boredom setting in, with a creeping anxiety that the evening would be wasted one, the group heartily elected Marcelle to save them from such doom. She was the most striking of the group. A walking magnet for male attention, something she knew perhaps all too well. And all of these traits were exuberantly magnified whenever she was drunk. She launched into the road with her right hand splayed out madly in the night air, the other hand clutching an empty glass pilfered from the Italian restaurant in the alley just behind them. The first driver, as I say, did not stop, nor the second. Nor the third, and so on. At length, I came by and I decided there would be no harm in giving this girl a lift. I could, after all, do with the company.
"Kan ons a luggie kry na die nuwe hawe?" she shouted in a breathless voice as I stopped to open my door. I nodded. "Yes, sure." but what that 'ons' comprised, I had no idea. At that single gesture, a mad shuffling suddenly possessed the car. On account of my night blindness, I had not accounted for the others. First two figures came tottering in from the lane then three, then it was four, materialising as if from nowhere; piling onto one another and stretching the frame of the car to its limits. At length, five, six, seven women were all somehow seated inside the car with me. Somewhere in the surreal chaos of all this, I saw my guitar being jammed between someone's knee and the back of my car seat. "No!" I clamoured bitterly. "My guitar!" But it was only with some effort that I was able to convince them to get out again so I could recover it and place the thing safely in the boot.
I was a little anxious of course. After all, who had I just picked up? But since they were all ladies, I was, more than anything, intrigued. All of this was, to put it mildly, bewildering. I spend too much time at home with my mother. I read the classics. I ride my bicycle up the hill toward Caledon and back when I'm bored. Nothing had prepared me for this. As you'll imagine, this sudden explosion of female presence had the effect of making them much more daunting but also more mysterious. From an evening of despair had suddenly emerged a beautiful Orchid that gave off the scent of not one, but seven different personalities. A much older woman than Marcelle had taken a seat on Marcelle's lap. She had shortly cropped blonde hair and thick, straight eyebrows. She had a hardened face, but it was she who had helped me to convince the ladies to get out so I could recover my guitar, and it was her who broke the silence by asking my name. "Thomas," I had said stoically. Then, once all the complaining about having to get out for the sake of my guitar was over, she asked where I was originally headed."I was just on my way home actually," I said, scratching my head nervously."I wanted to get some petrol."
"Where's that? Where's home?" interjected a dark headed girl who had just appeared from between the headrests. Her eyes glistened underneath two pitchy gulfs of mascara. "Stanford," I replied. A sudden murmur of collective disaproval. "No, don't go home! come with us!" came another voice. "Yes. We'll pay for the petrol" said the oldest lady; "And your drinks. Come to the Gecko." "Well, alright," I replied. I wasn't nearly as reluctant as I might have seemed. The seconds stretched on. Minutes felt like hours. I couldn't think of anything to say that would paint me in a good or even half-decent light. Eventually, I tried a question: "Where are you all from?" But my conviction fell flat and no-one answered. I was not surprised. This happens to me more often than you'd believe. "Do you have any music in this car? Where's the mp3 player?" said the girl with the heavy mascara in a playful demand. "I only have CD's" I said apologetically. They were all happy when I slipped in a disc and skipped to a dance club remix of Passenger's "Feather on the Clyde."That also took away the burning need for conversation. The bar would solve the problem more permanently. Stupefaction. Lowered inhibitions...As long as beers flowed, conversation would not be a problem.
A shopping complex with a petrol station came into view. This was where they asked me to stop. We swung around the back of the station toward the kiosk where the attendants were waiting. The petrol attendant merely laughed when he saw the phenomenon that came grinding to a halt next to the pump. It must have looked pretty debaucherous. I was fashionably dressed, and here was a scene from the roaring, cocaine-fueled 80's - minus the red convertible of course - but it would suffice. The debonaire with his seven beauties. I shot an overwhelmed smile at him. I hoped it would be the kind that verged on despair from too many nights of dissipation. It said, "I'm exhausted with all this female company. Please help me." Of course, I was having some fun with the whole idea. "I don't actually know what's going on tonight," I shouted. He gave a hearty chuckle and told me he liked my jacket with a consolatory grin.
The women paid for the petrol and this too, delighted the attendant to no end. I made a show of producing my wallet, but since I'm fairly broke, I hoped I wouldn't have to pay. And magically, before I even noticed it, these ladies had passed a R200 note to him through the back window.
Where are you all from," I tried again, as we pulled out of the petrol station. There was a moment of silence, then one of them answered "Merdeville." It was the lady with the dark eyes again. "And where's Merdeville?" I asked in all seriousness. "Somewhere up North?" A sudden outburst of laughter. "No, no," replied the oldest woman. "We're from Bonnievale." The other, French association would only come to me afterwards. "Why are you so quiet?" Marcelle asked. I'd forgotten to turn the music back up. She didn't give me a chance to answer "Because he's never seen so much pussy before!"
There was now a rank silence which placed the spotlight squarely on me; exactly where I didn't want it to be right then. "Well, there it is," I thought. My inadequacies laid bare. I was somewhat pathetic, wasn't I? Picking up these strangers." And while it wasn't sexual gratification I was seeking, the raw thrill craved by some men, one thing was for certain: I needed their company much more than they were in need of mine. Women can smell loneliness on a man. But by the same measure, the female essence of times past has been supplanted by erogenous organs in modern times, and I wasn't able to explain this without coming off like the idiot. Women can pick up a great many things; Even false reluctance to drive them places. In retrospect, I realise that this was just the thing Marcelle was hoping to disarm. Who wants to be taken somewhere by a woebegone man with the spirit of Bach? When life is short; when excitement is rare enough, when everyone is nervous about criminals in politics, and farm murderers; and the insanity of the social order, who can blame someone like Marcelle for trying to barter with a collection of vaginas as collateral?
We were at this point, driving through a township to get onto the road which takes you to the new harbour, and the car had been consumed by silence again. Feeling bad about Marcelle's quip, one of the other girls offered,"You're a good person. Don't mind her" She said it with a softness that was surprising and came just at the right moment.
*
"So. Bonnievale," I said, as I closed my car door and took a breath of fresh sea air, my shoes negotiating the gravel. The sea was roaring down beneath us "Is Bonnievale near Barrydale?" They all laughed again. "No, not at all," explained the oldest woman off-handedly." Everyone was putting themselves back together after what I imagine was a rough journey. The Gecko Pub and Grill is a rustic place, and while the rest of Hermanus has lost its character, very little has changed in the new harbor which it overlooks. It would make pleasant refuge from the teenyboppers (and other philistines in other words.) And these women were eager to begin drinking again as soon as they could. They were at the door of the Gecko faster than I could close my car door in fact, and that's a good distance away. In these situations, in the glory of such company, it only makes sense to put on one's wolf-mask and make the most of it. Even if one is not a crude man. For, indeed, there would be a sudden curiosity from all corners of the bar when we entered it, something on which anyone who wasn't completely dead in their spirit would capitalize. No sooner had we passed through the two sets of wooden doors, than a short, middle-aged man, a worn out, hard-drinking man with thinning red hair, surveyed us all.
I said confusedly, with a conspiratorial grin "I don't know what's going on, man. Things are a little..." I paused for effect, "a little crazy tonight."
"My man..." He said in astonishment, "You have seven women with you. I would be in the same position, hey."
This was exactly the reaction I'd hoped for. Not because it serves my ego so much as it enriches a life which is short on these kinds of compliments. Now, I'm sorry if that offends some people. But it's good to know what you've missed out on your whole life. At any rate, as we made our way to the back, I could feel the weight of about two dozen eyes examining us from all directions.
When we had settled at the back of the long bar, within an alcove that had a set of tall, round tables, Alzanne said something which immediately unsettled my rising sense of self-worth: "So, almal van ons is boerevoue. Haar man is a boer, en syne, en syne, en syne." She pointed to five of the group. I was too taken aback to see which ones. She went onto explain that they were having a girls night out and that the following week their husbands would have a boys' night out. After that, everyone introduced themselves by name.
That statement, as you can imagine, changed the dynamic of the evening quite dramatically. I tried not to show it, but I breathed out a sigh of heavy disappointment. I was no longer wearing the rose-tinted glasses of one who had been picked up - chosen as it were - by seven ladies who had come to repay him for his miseries. It was, of course, a silly idea, so the collapse of it was no more explosive than a sand castle one had cherished being washed away by a sudden and annoying set of waves. I got over it in a minute.
"What are you having?" Alzanne asked"Castle Lite" I announced. They hadn't disappeared to find better company, but were, to my amazement, surrounding me curious to know things. I was confused whether this was my consolation prize or some kind of authentic desire to be around a man who showed no outward emotion. Probably the former, I thought. Nevertheless, they had plenty of questions. The first one was whether I'd hand my keys to the barman so that I wouldn't leave them in that crusty old tavern.
"So you're a musician?" said a lady who had introduced herseslf as Suzanne. She had a mousy look about her, a look augmented by her mousy brown hair.
"I'm a retired musician," said I. "I used to be in a band."
"Oh, you're in a band," said Alzanne who was still standing to my right "I'm an events organiser. "We could use you."
"That's cool," I said, still sounding perhaps a little too standoffish.
Suzanne looked puzzled: "You're lying! So are you really a musician?" But she said this with a mad smile. I was taken aback at first, it didn't take me long to realise that this was her way of paying a compliment. She took to me warmly that evening. She started asking questions about me. "So why are you no longer playing music?" she asked.
"I used to be in a band with Tinus Basson," I explained. But he had a bad motorbike accident and we decided to call it quits."
"You're lying!" She laughed in that same mad way as before. "You know what you need to do? Go and find him. He's probably lonely," she told me. "Right," I thought to myself." Either this woman is a fortune teller, or she's slightly touched."
It was around that time when Marcelle and Veronique came towards me; evidently to settle a debate they were having between themselves. "which of us did you notice first when you picked us up?" inquired Marcelle. Her striking, fox-like eyes peered through a mascara-darkened set of eyelids. So did the other's and I wasn't sure which had waved me down now. The other looked at me inquisitively. I surveyed both of them again, quite puzzled. They looked fairly similar by way of height, hair color and even complexion. but Marcelle was by far the most striking of the two. Largely because of too much makeup. "You!" I said with a laugh, pointing to Marcelle. There was satisfaction from her and a cry of dispair from the other.
"And why did you pick us up?" asked Suzanne. She seemed fearful of losing the bond we'd formed in talking about my no-longer-existant band. After a thoughtful pause, I made up some story about wanting to help ladies in need. The beer had a mellowing effect which made this sound pretty credible.
"But," I added impressively, or so I thought, "I wasn't sure if someone was trying to use you as bait. You know... In order to steal my car? Anything's possible these days. But it seemed legitimate, so I stopped."
"And you figured this all out in those few seconds," Marcelle asked.
"Well, yes," I said.
Her and Veronique minced off towards the front of the bar satisfied with my answer. Beer was no-doubt having its magical effect upon me; endowing boldness, making the others more credulous too.
At this point, the ladies had a barman bring out 8 shots of vodka, which, to my embarassment, I didn't know the proper way of drinking, because it involved using lemon and salt in some mystical way I haven't hung around bars long enough to learn.
"What do you do for work?" asked Alzanne. Here was another threatening question, but the beer helped me here too.
I took a long sip of my beer to delay the answer. "I'm into crypto-currencies," I said."I trade crypto-currencies." This answer had the advantage of baffling anyone I mentioned it to. The truth is, I'm completely unemployed. I live with my mother. I don't know what I'd do for work, since philosophizing doesn't constitute a paying profession. But I'm not about to tell that to seven ladies I've just met.
One of the ladies was clearly not amused by all of this conviviality. I don't remember her name, but she had pale hair, a pale complexion and a very rigid way of carrying herself which reminded me of some type of large buck. When I tried to converse with her through some playful comment, her eyes glazed over. It was slightly chilling, in a ghostlike way. Was she ignoring me or simply shy? There seemed to be no clear answer but in any case, she stayed put, looking right through me with a peculiarly cold stare.
On the opposite side of her, was another unassuming, but far more feminine figure. She too, placed herself on the outside of everything that was happening. It seemed that she was half-there and half-absent in her mind's eye, which was the very thing that made her seem invisible at first glance. There was no special magnetism about her when I first noticed her, just a sort of kindness and delicateness in her facial features. This was Marelize. She was quite pretty. And so compelling was her resemblance to someone in Stanford, where I live with my mother, that I felt the need to ask her if she had any family there. She replied demurely that she hadn't. That lady of whom she reminded me is a veterinarian. She is also Afrikaans, and she has a smile of the softest, the most delicate, the most lonely intelligence. This might explain why she took on a woman as a partner, but that is another issue for another time. In any case, Marelize didn't have a relative in my town, not even a distant cousin, or I might, even now, all these weeks later, have had cause to visit her. She had something in common with her though, something which is not common to humankind at all; the softness of a true saint. A long-suffering, gentle soul full of kindness and free of vice.
It was only after two trips to the bathroom that I really spoke to her however. Outside the bathroom, during the second trip, I spoke to a Nigerian man in a spontaneous burst of African patriotism. "The thing is, my soul is a black man," I said to him. "Despite all appearances, I am not, nor will I ever share the concerns of my people." He smiled with a wide toothy grin. I said,"No, it's true. We have a very dishonest existence and I don't fit in. Not in the least. In everything we do, we have to always make sure we fit some kind of... image." This was no act of empty patronization, either. I was paying a genuine homage to an honesty that I have long hoped to find but never known in any of my white compatriots. Always, I'd find myself the outsider. I no longer wanted this burden of being white. To be unemployed is to lose the joy of simply being human; to be forced into the position of someone who has to belong to a certain income bracket to be worthy company; to risk never having a wife. This is an anxiety that does not sit well with me. He handed me a cigarette. I do not smoke, but I thought I'd make an exception because this was, after all, the moment of a profound revelation. I took the pastel green stick of the cigarette. "And another thing," I said to him to dispel any sappy sentimentality, "You could really mess me up. I mean, if you wanted to, you could break every bone in my face, man." This was also true. "He had monstrous biceps which would make any ordinary mortal afraid to pick a fight. He was a healthy man; a real archetype of manhood, where I was a spindly jackanapes with an oversized quaff of hair. White people are so contrived, so complacent I thought.
It was at this point that I bid him a good evening and strode back to the alcove where Marelize was standing. This was a kind of portico where the music system stood. The look that the cigarette conferred in my imagination had emboldened me and I fancied myself a Camus or some other serious intellectual. "n' Ou rooker." She told me as a walked up to her. A delicate smile played over her face. "No," I smiled in return. "Actually, I don't smoke at all." Well, there are some occasions, actually, come to think of it. Like when my cousin came down from Jo'burg. I only smoke as a celebration. I'm smoking for the Whale Festival now. See?" After a pause, I blew smoke through my nose and said,"So what do you do in Bonnievale?" "Ek's 'n haarkapper" she replied. "Oh, I knew you were one of those artsy types" I told her. Then there was a silence between us. And it was the most uncanny thing. Not only did I feel her drawing closer to me despite her standing quite still; not only did I know that her thoughts were on me while she knew mine were on her, but there was a sense that we'd always known each other. And despite this knowledge, there was no body-language on her part to prove any of this. I simply knew it. The silence grew further still and formed a magical bond between us. Then all of a sudden, I was saying things to her that I've never said to someone I've just met, and it was quite fine as well. "Do you ever go to Stellenbosch?" I asked her. "I really love the town at night. Don't you think it's sophisticated? the way the light shines on those old white buildings at night? Don't you think it's haunting?" She agreed that it was. "It's the oldest town in the country," she told me.
It was now more than certain that she understood the very things I'd imagined in my private moments. The unsaid greatness of times past. The psychological link between all beautiful periods of history which make us more open to the beauty of life." What we shared in that evening consisted in much more than words. It was the warmth of a heavenly communion which for most people only arrives in times of pure desperation: between persecuted Christians who broke bread together while Roman demons stalked the catacombs; or between sweethearts who bid each other goodbye during wartime; or between all those crew members on the sinking Titanic who accepted their fate would offer them no lifeboats on that particular night. All of which might sound melodramatic, but I will argue that people who understand and embrace beauty are necessarily persecuted in evil times such as these. Even while her friends looked on in the half-light, she did not turn me away.
Despite this angelic aura, she was also no pushover. I said another thing to her.""Do you know," I said, "that women can get away with anything?"
"I thought that," she told me,"but it's not true at all." And she told me a story which I won't repeat; not because it's crude or anything, but I don't think she'd want it repeated.
*
By the time the evening was over with and the barman announced closing hour, we were inseparable. I admired Marelize's jacket which was tied around her waist. It was a copper hue, obscure enough to paint her as a real hipster. And she had on a black top advertising The Doors. Her dark brown hair reminded me of Donna Hayward's in Twin Peaks. Indeed, everything she wore was impeccably suited to her. Did she know Twin Peaks? I wondered. Did she understand the level of sophistication she had reached in a dusty old town like Bonnievale? Of these things, I cannot be sure. I did not, after all, want to ask too much that was related to her physical appearance. The bond we'd formed was based on an invisible and very spiritual magnetism. We both knew it. I drove them to the house they had rented in Onrus.
*
I am only regretful of the unceremonious way it ended and also the permanency of that end. And oh, I cried. I cried after leaving Hermanus the next morning. I cried because I had once again to return to the world of the misunderstood. The world assigned to those wretched who have seen and believed something transcendent, yet who are doomed to never find belief from others regarding it. And I cried for her too. I still have the glass from the Italian restaurant which I saw Marcelle held in the frosty winter air that nigh, and it's the glass slipper of our times. It's what women drink from to escape a reality devoid of fairytales; bereft of any romance which hasn't devolved into parody. It's not Fair enough, it's not Marelize's glass, but one of her mad friends. Nonetheless, it has sentimental value to me. More so than any sexual conquest could ever do. I took them all home and Marelize invited me outside to talk about art and music. We couldn't get enough of each others' company, and this was cause for celebration.She brought out a bottle of Bonnievale's very own prestigious sparkling wine. But I declined. I was already pretty well fuddled. In that courtyard she showed me photographs of her wedding.
"A strange thing, marriage, isn't it?" I observed. "I mean, you'd think that it should be a long process. It takes a lifetime to grow together. But there it is. Now you're single, now you're married. Just like that." The clouds were passing over the Akkedis mountains like mystical banks of snow. "It's very strange," she agreed. "It was one of the strangest feeling I've ever had." I played a little guitar for her in her room, where her friend was getting ready for bed. This was the girl who had sent chills down my spien. And Marelize, whether eager to let her sleep or whether she sensed the loneliness in my voice when I sang Nirvana's "About a Girl" said,"Kom hierso," in a sisterly voice. She led me to the sofa in the lounge and covered me with her own blanket. Then she went across to an adjacent sofa to rest her head there.
"Jy het nou pragtige Afrikaans gepraat," she said. "Rerig. dit was pragtig."
"Rerig?" I said
The oddest thing was that I hadn't been speaking Afrikaans for at least the past hour. She'd somehow transposed everything into her own tongue. And whatever she said had also transcended language for me. It was neither English nor Afrikaans. It was pure Marelize. It was as if we didn't need language in the first place. We spoke for a while longer, and then drifted off to sleep.
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