It's Me, Anna

Part 1

I was eight years old when my mother brought Uncle Danie home. Eight. From then until I turned sixteen, my life was . . . different. That’s the only word I can think of to describe it – different. That’s why I’m in my car now, on an eight-hour journey – so that I can wipe out eight years of injustice, eight years of hell. If all goes well, at three o’clock tomorrow morning I’ll be standing at their door. Three o’clock on a weekday morning in Bloemfontein. That’s good. They’ll still be fast asleep. Most crimes take place in the dead hours of the morning, don’t they? But before I get there, before I am able to do anything, I have to make myself see all those things that I’ve suppressed for so long, that I’ve driven from my mind. Then, when I remember the pain, when I feel it, I’ll have the courage to do what I need to do. I have to see it all again, feel it. Like I’m going to see him now, like I’m going to smell his fear.

I was six when I first realised that all was not well between my mom and dad. I went to nursery school during the day when they were at work. My father was a sergeant in the South African Police and my mother worked in Bantu Administration. We lived in a small town in the Eastern Cape.

My mother and I were in the lounge. The radio played softly in the background. I was busy building a tower with my wooden blocks and my mom was just sitting there. Like a dead person. Or someone who wanted to die. Then my father walked in and she suddenly came to life.

Look at him. Look at your father! she shrieked. He doesn’t love you any more, Anna. Or me.

Johanna! my father warned, but my mom was beside herself.

Do you want to hide the truth from your child? She struggled for breath, then screamed even louder: He loves another woman with three children more than he loves us. A slut! He wants to be with her, Anna. Alta the slut and her three children!

Alta. I still hate that name with a passion. And I can’t distinguish that Alta from others – when I meet one, she immediately becomes the woman who stole my father, the one with three children whom my father loved more than me. I’m immediately antagonistic towards anyone with that name.

Without a word, my father walked past and went to shower. Then he lay on the double bed, smoking a cigarette. My mother got up and walked out. I went and lay down next to my dad, held tightly in his arms, like always. Then she walked in with his service revolver in her hand.

You pig! You fucking pig! I’ll kill you. That’s what a man deserves for pushing his wife and child aside for another woman!

I wasn’t scared. Maybe because I didn’t realise that you should be scared when your mother threatens to shoot your father and he pulls you across his chest and says, Shoot, then. Afterwards, whenever I remembered that incident, I wondered

who’d really loved me. My mother, who didn’t shoot, or my father, who used me to prevent her from shooting him like . . . a pig?

My father was the approachable one in our family. The one who always made time for me. Who dragged me off, sometimes unwillingly, to rugby and cricket matches. At these matches, he’d bring out oranges and roll them between his palms to soften them. The oranges were packed into two separate containers. Mine were plain orange – the sweet juice would drip down my chin and make my fingers sticky. My father would doctor his with syringes full of brandy the night before, and he was usually very jolly by the time the final whistle was blown. When we arrived home, full of laughter, especially when our team had won, my mom’s face would loom over us like a dark thundercloud. She wouldn’t say anything. Just send me off to my room after supper. She’d keep it all inside until she couldn’t stand it any more. Later, a torrent would explode from her mouth. She screamed at my dad, not at me. Not back then. As I lay curled up on my bed, wrapped in my blankets against the biting cold, words or snatches of conversation drifted through the walls. How could you? Can’t you be more responsible? Think about how scared she must be when you look like this. Car crash . . . accident . . . You’re supposed to be a father, someone she can look up to.

On and on until, eventually, I’d fall asleep from sheer exhaustion. I never heard my father’s voice. It was as if he wasn’t there, as if he had already left.

I mustered up enough courage to talk to my mother one Sunday morning after church.

Mommy, Daddy looks after me when we go to rugby. I’m not afraid.

Anna, she said, and went down on her haunches to look me in the eye, I know you have fun, but it’s not the right way of doing things. Your father is supposed to protect you, with his life if needs be, and not place you in danger. That’s unfortunately what happens when he drinks and drives. He can make errors of judgement, and it gets dangerous. Do you understand?

I didn’t, but I nodded. How could having fun with your father be dangerous? After that day, I was forbidden from going to watch rugby with my dad. I had to sit on the stoep and wave goodbye as he drove off.

The Saturday after my mom scolded my dad about his drinking and driving, we went fishing. I don’t know how my dad convinced Mom to allow me to go with him, but this time she didn’t say a word. She just hugged me tightly before I got into the car.

We never went fishing in the sea, even though it was close enough to our home. Too rough, my father would say. I was born in the Free State. We catch fish, we don’t go angling – and definitely not in the sea.

That’s why we went to the dam. It wasn’t a big dam, just large enough for fishing. It was a beautiful day, sunny and windless, and my father had packed enough food and cooldrink for both of us, so that we wouldn’t go hungry.

Anna, he said, not looking at me, but staring out at the water as if looking for help, your mom and I have decided to get divorced. Do you know what divorced means?

Yes. A lot of the parents of the children in my nursery-school class were divorced. It meant they had two houses and got two presents on their birthdays and at Christmas.

Daddy wants you to know that Mommy and I love you very much. It’s not your fault that we’re getting divorced. We, your mom and I, just can’t be with each other any more. Do you understand? He looked at me. Anna, I’m so sorry that I’m doing this to you.

The tears welled up in his eyes.

I held his hand and gave it a little squeeze. It’s okay, Dad.

I don’t remember much about the divorce itself. Only that my cat was run over on the same day and that my father came to tell me just before we moved out. My heart was broken. Was it because of the cat? The divorce? I don’t know. I just know that my heart still aches when I think about that day.

After the divorce, my mother and I moved to the city, near the sea. My father asked for a transfer and also came to live in the city. He rented a house close to the sea – because I just miss my little girl so much, he said.

My mom worked during the day and I stayed with Paulina. Paulina Willemse knocked on our door for work shortly after we’d moved in. You could see she’d lived a hard life. My mom must’ve felt sorry for her because she started working for us the very next day. Paulina stayed with us for many years. She sometimes used her own bus fare to buy me ice cream, especially when my mom had shouted at me. I’d lie on the mat and lick one side of the ice cream while Snowy, the white cat my mom bought me after we moved in, licked the other.

Why do you buy me ice cream, Paulina? This afternoon you’ll have to walk home, and it’s far, I asked.

My children live with my sister. If I’m good to you, then the Lord will make sure that she’s also good to my children. She stood with her hands folded across her stomach, which was slightly pushed out, a smile at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Paulina always stood that way. I loved her very much.

I had my cat, Paulina during the day, ballet twice a week, my mom at night and my father every second weekend. I was happy.

It was only later that I realised why they had to get divorced. I never blamed them for it – they were chalk and cheese. My mother was hyper-neat, a pain actually. She didn’t smoke, drink or throw parties. She hated all that. Mom went to church every Sunday, while I went to Sunday school. My dad drank and smoked – a lot. He was crazy about women and parties. My mother believed alcohol and parties were a lethal combination, and as usual she was right. My father had met Alta at a party. He’d jumped into bed with her after drinking too much, and ended up moving in with her and her three children, into a house paid for by her ex-husband. Just like my mother had always predicted.

Before I was born, my dad, who was a deacon in the church, had had an argument with the dominee. After a service, he hadn’t wanted to say a closing prayer in the vestry, but the dominee had forced him to. My father had vowed that he would never set foot in church again.

People, Anna, he once told me, believe God lives in the church. That the dominee talks to Him for us. But they’re wrong. He lives here, he said, pressing his hand to his chest. If you don’t have Him in here, you won’t find Him in a church.

My father only went back on his word once, and that was when I was christened. I suspect my mother threatened him with something terrible if he didn’t accompany her to the ceremony. Even at his funeral, we weren’t allowed to take his coffin into the church.

No, I never blamed them.

School was everything I’d dreamt of. I learnt to read and write and do sums. I loved all of it, but most of all I loved to read. With reading, there were no limits to my world. I really only began to see other children, the way they really were, in primary school – playful, fun-loving. Boys fascinated me. Maybe because I didn’t really know much about them. What was it that made them different? That’s why I didn’t hesitate when a boy in my class asked me during a break if I’d like to see his willy. We scuttled away from the other kids and stood in the shade of a tree. He pulled down his pants and gave me a quick flash. A little worm, I thought.

I showed you mine, now show me yours! he demanded.

I pulled my dress up and dropped my panties – but pulled them up again quickly when I saw the shocked expression on his face as he stared at something behind me.

Standing in Mr Van Pletzen’s office, at age seven, while he phones your mother to tell her what you’ve done is a terrifying experience.

She didn’t speak to me on the way home. I can’t bear to look at you, she said when we got there. I’ll never forget the disappointment and disgust in her eyes as she ordered me to my room. I couldn’t forgive myself for doing this to her. I knew that what I’d done was naughty, but I hadn’t realised it was so terribly naughty.

My mom phoned my dad. She told me I wasn’t allowed to leave my room when he arrived and that she wanted to talk to him in private. That night an entire conversation, not just disjointed words, drifted into my room. It was a one-sided monologue, as usual.

Where did she learn to do that?

Silence.

It can’t be normal. Not all children do that.

Silence.

She gets it from you.

Silence.

It must be genetic.

Silence.

It’s not a joke. You’re not the one who had to face the school principal. What kind of child are we raising, you and me? A slut! It’s because you never stand your ground against her. She’s got you wrapped around her little finger.

Silence.

My father had to take me to school the next day, because my mother still couldn’t bring herself to look at me. Daddy, I asked him as we stopped at the school gates, what’s a slut?

Where did you hear that word?

I heard when Mom –

He held up his hand, stopping me. Anna, what you did yesterday isn’t a sin. You were just curious, and that’s normal. I know you didn’t mean to be naughty. And that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

I nodded, still not sure what slut meant.

Anna, no matter what you do, I want you to remember that I love you.

Mom says I’m a rotten apple. She says I have to listen to her and then our life together will be better.

Your mother says lots of things. I wouldn’t take any notice if I were you. Come on, run, the bell’s already gone.

My mom didn’t speak to me for a long time after the episode at school. She was too angry. But one day she thawed, called me to the dining room and told me to sit down at the table.

Anna, she said, I want you to listen to me carefully. Will you?

I nodded.

It’s just you and me now. Your father doesn’t want us any more. From now on I have to work harder and so must you. I want you to do your best at school. I want you to work hard. Do you understand?

I nodded again.

Anna, she said with a deep sigh, I’ve never spoken to you about that day at school.

I hung my head. She needn’t have said anything else. I knew which day she was referring to.

I just want to tell you that I’m not angry with you any more. But, and she wagged her finger in my face, you must never do it again. Do you hear me? What you did was dirty. Your hands will fall off if you fiddle down there. Do you understand?

Yes, Mom, I replied timidly.

Good. She got up. Then we understand each other. Anna, this is our chance to start over.

Our lives took on a peaceful routine. We learnt to live with each other’s moods. Mom was less strict, more tolerant – even though she still forced me to wear dresses, which I hated. In the summer, my classmates would play in shorts while I sat around in frocks. I had two pairs of jeans and two tops that I left at Dad’s house. He’d bought them for me the previous holiday. I could wear them there. My mom hated jeans, she thought they were clothes that ducktails wore. I noticed that my father always wore neat long pants when he came to pick me up, but that he quickly changed into his jeans when we got to his house. The only thing he couldn’t hide was his beard. She hated that too. She would look at him disapprovingly but say nothing.

Weekends at my dad’s were the highlight of my life. He always bought a small present for me, but that wasn’t what I liked most. The best was just being together again, like in the old days. We’d watch rugby and go fishing, and there was no one to sneer at our catch. We cleaned the fish together, cut it up and braaied it.

My father didn’t live with Alta for very long. He’d still visit her, and on my weekends he’d call her late at night when I should already have been asleep. But I never saw her, and those weekends were mine alone.

My mother worked as a saleslady in a department store. She hated the job. I have to find another job, she often complained despairingly. I feel that I’m in a dead-end street. It’s just the same routine over and over.

I felt sorry for her sometimes. You could tell she wasn’t happy – her heart was broken over my dad and she hated her job. She cried a lot and sometimes she just stared out into nothingness. She didn’t pay me much attention. I didn’t hold it against her, but in some ways, the first two years on our own were hell. It was like standing outside in the cold and looking through a window at a happy family sitting around the fireplace inside. Of course a lot of my school friends’ parents were divorced, but there were others who didn’t come from broken homes. The difference between the two groups was obvious to me: children who came from happy homes seemed more relaxed, less moody, and not as desperate to please their teachers or their friends.

I was eight and in Sub B when Miss Lubbe handed out our first English reading books.

Only read the first page for tomorrow, was her instruction.

I couldn’t. I finished the whole book that same