The Woman Next Door Read online

‘It’s the … Commission … it deals with land claims, things like that.’

  Hortensia rolled her eyes. Not that she cared but, naturally, she knew all about it and said so, explained that the Commission was set up in the Nineties to restore land to the disenfranchised. While reaching into the hallowed folder, Marion spat a look at her.

  Marion pulled out a map of Katterijn, which she unfolded in the centre of the table with a reverence Hortensia had seldom seen shown for paper.

  ‘The Land Claims Commission, Sarah, is one of those things with a self-explanatory name. And now,’ she rose to point out the parcels of land, ‘a group of some …’ she rifled papers, more a show of importance than a real search for information, ‘some three families … well, one big extended family, the Samsodiens.’

  Marion rifled some more, until Hortensia had to concede that perhaps she was actually looking for information and, more than that, the woman looked nervous.

  ‘What’s the claim, Marion?’

  ‘Just a moment, Hortensia. Just a moment.’

  She found what she was looking for. ‘The claims process has just this month been reopened, so … what I mean is they’d been closed since 1998 and then, for various reasons, on the first of July—’

  ‘Why were they closed?’ asked a woman whose name Hortensia could never recall.

  ‘Well, Dolores, they were closed because …’ She rifled. ‘Doesn’t say here, but—’

  ‘The Commission was only open to claims from ’94 to ’98. That was the window-period.’ Hortensia was enjoying herself. It wasn’t like Marion to give away such easy points but, while she was being generous, it was Hortensia’s aim to collect. Their rivalry was infamous enough for the other committee women to hang back and watch the show. It was known that the two women shared hedge and hatred and they pruned both with a vim that belied their ages.

  Marion looked crestfallen. She was of course accustomed to doing battle with Hortensia, anywhere from the queue at Woolworths to outside the post office, but these committee meetings were like sacred ground to her, sacrosanct – she never got over the shock each time Hortensia questioned her authority.

  ‘The Commission,’ Hortensia continued, ignoring the glare in Marion’s eyes, ‘came about as a result of the Restitution of Land Rights Act that was passed by the then-new government.’ Hortensia relished the use of those words ‘new’ and ‘government’, aware of how much they affected the women.

  ‘Alright, alright, Hortensia. If we can just get back to the actual issue that we – gathered here – must deal with. The history lesson can continue after the meeting is over. Thank you. The Samsodiens are claiming land. The Vineyard basically. I’m surprised the Von Struikers aren’t here, I’ll make a call and request they attend the next meeting. It might be their land, but something like this will affect us all. Don’t even get me started on what it’ll do for property prices.’

  Hortensia hated the Von Struikers. Bigots of the highest order, they owned the Katterijn Vineyard, bottled a limited-edition white wine and sometimes a red, neither of which Hortensia found drinkable. Not because of its taste; even if the wines were the best thing ever, she would have found them unacceptable. The thought of drinking anything made by Ludmilla and Jan Von Struiker made her sick.

  ‘They make me sick,’ Hortensia had once railed to Peter after a dinner at Sarah Clarke’s, where Ludmilla had let slip the year that she and Jannie had arrived in Cape Town to start their ‘small venture’. ‘It took her a whole minute to realise what was wrong with coming to South Africa in the Sixties.’

  Ludmilla pronounced ‘v’ with an ‘f’ sound and resembled the largest of the babushka dolls. Once, when Hortensia still deigned to entertain them, she’d offered her cheeks to be kissed in greeting and caught a whiff of foul breath. All these details she piled together as incriminating.

  ‘The claim dates back to the Sixties when the Von Struikers acquired the land. I’ve made copies here for all present – you can study the details so we can discuss at the next meeting. It’s going to be a long haul.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Hortensia felt like a fight.

  ‘Well, we’re going to challenge it of course. I certainly won’t be allowing this and I doubt Ludmilla and Jan will be, either. I’m sure, if pushed, these people would be hard pressed to substantiate the claims. People looking for easy money, if you ask me.’

  ‘When you say “these people” what you really mean is black people, am I right?’

  ‘You most certainly are not, and I would—’

  ‘Marion, I’m not in the mood for your bigotry today. I distinctly remember asking you to keep your racist conversations for your dinner table.’

  ‘I beg your—’

  ‘Ladies. Please. Let’s try and finish the meeting. Marion, I assume that’s all for now?’ Sarah had her uses. Thick as she was, she made a good buffer. ‘Shall we continue at the next meeting? Do we need to type up a formal response to the Commission? Perhaps you want to speak to Ludmilla first then feed back to us.’

  ‘Well, yes, but actually.’ Marion was smiling; so soon recovered, Hortensia thought woefully. ‘There is one more thing. Specifically with regards to the Jameses’ property.’

  Hortensia’s ears pricked up.

  ‘This is a special case. Well, not case as such. It’s not a claim but rather a request.’ Marion relished the moment and, despite her absent-mindedness just moments before, she appeared to have memorised all the details of this ‘special case’; she knew it word-for-word, and the spaces in between – as if she’d written it herself.

  ‘I received a letter from a woman, Beulah Gierdien. She had a grandmother named Annamarie, who was born in 1919, right here,’ Marion said and a few of the women looked around the meeting room, half-expecting to still find the afterbirth dangling on the back of a chair or laid out on the plush azure carpet. ‘Annamarie’s mother was a slave woman on the farm for which No. 10 was the main house.’ Marion looked pointedly at Hortensia. ‘It states here that No. 12 – that would be my property – is where the adjoining slave quarters were, but that … well, that bit is … I think they got their facts wrong there. I do intend to challenge that but, anyway, where was I …? I must say it’s a rather protracted and odd request.’ She was enjoying herself. ‘There’s no money involved, Hortensia, so you can relax.’

  ‘Get on with it, Marion. I need to be getting home soon.’

  ‘Well, it’s precisely that home that Beulah Gierdien seems interested in, Hortensia. Or at least one of the trees on the property. She refers to it as a “Silver”.’

  ‘The Silver Tree. Yes, I have one of those. What, she wants the tree?’

  ‘It’s not quite that simple.’

  The librarian, Agatha, coughed. A woman, lips newly Botoxed, poured herself some water but struggled to drink. People stretched in their chairs; someone’s yawn cracked and silence settled again.

  ‘Apparently our Silvers – your single Silver Tree and my several – marked the edge of the properties in that day. There were no fences. Anyhow apparently the trunk of your Silver has some carvings on it.’ Marion arched an eyebrow. ‘You’d need to confirm that, Hortensia, but that’s what she’s saying were the markers.’

  ‘Markers for what?’

  ‘For where Annamarie’s children are buried. For where Annamarie requested, in her last will and testament, that she be buried.’ Marion was beaming.

  ‘She wants to bury her grandmother on my property?’

  ‘Correction, she wants to bury her grandmother’s ashes on the property. The woman’s been dead a while already.’

  Through the excited chatter Hortensia snapped her fingers for Marion to hand over the documents. There were several sheets of paper, handwritten in a neat cursive. Hortensia started to scan the pages.

  ‘Perhaps, while you familiarise yourself with that, Hortensia, we can call a break. Ladies.’ Marion, her face beatific, rose and the other women followed suit.

  ‘And the reason she w
rote to you?’

  Marion shrugged. ‘She got the contact for the committee via the Constantiaberg Bulletin. My guess is she assumed the owners lived overseas and her best bet was to write to the committee.’ It was always gratifying when outsiders acknowledged the significance of having a local committee.

  Hortensia stayed sitting; she continued reading. The Katterijn Estate had originally been 65 hectares of land that, as the years collected, got parcelled and sold and parcelled and sold. By the 1960s only a small portion was being farmed, and this was the land the Von Struikers now owned.

  In the mid-nineteenth century Annamarie’s grandfather, Jude, had worked on the original wine farm. He’d also formed the group of slave men used to construct most of the buildings from that era, some of which still stood: the post office, Beulah wrote; the library, which was actually stables. They built the roundabout and planted most of the trees that formed the generous groves within the suburb. Jude was a dark man with paper-white eyes and small feet that his wife, apparently, had teased him about. Hortensia grimaced as she read, just the sort of memory-lane nonsense she found difficult to swallow – people fawning over their individual and collective histories.

  Jude and his wife had children as slaves, but grew old in freedom. Their daughter, Cessie, gave birth to Annamarie. Jude and his wife, on being granted their freedom, had been permitted to remain on the land as workers and earn wages. Annamarie’s parents had inherited the same agreement and stayed on in Katterijn – raising their family. Annamarie learned how to read. But by 1939 the Land Act of 1913 caught up with the small family and they were forcibly moved off the land. By then Annamarie was twenty years old, a mother herself and a wife. Except her first child had died at birth and, after another child died too, her husband walked off somewhere one night and was found floating in the lake. Father and babies were buried under No. 10’s Silver Tree.

  Hortensia looked up. Marion was standing by the refreshments table chewing something; their eyes met. Marion offered a smile, which Hortensia ignored and returned to Beulah Gierdien’s notes.

  After the tragedies Annamarie settled in Lavender Hill and married again. They had a boy, Beulah’s father.

  Hortensia laid the papers down.

  A few of the members were milling around the tarts, the meeting having gone on for longer than seemed bearable. Someone had prepared flapjacks, scorned at first (for fat content, for too-largeness) but eaten by all. People piled their plates, filled their cups and settled back in their seats.

  ‘So you see, Hortensia, this is not about your favourite topic, the race card. For once we’re on the same side.’ Marion’s smile looked set to burst and set the world alight.

  ‘Not so.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Not so, Marion. We are not on the same side. You should know this by now. Whatever you say, I disagree with. However you feel, I feel the opposite. At no point in anything are you and I on the same side. I don’t side with hypocrites.’

  Marion was red. And quiet.

  ‘I am not in agreement with you to push back on the Samsodien claim. Let those who are justly claiming their rights to the land – land owned by hoodlums, I might add – let them claim it.’

  ‘And the Gierdien woman?’ Marion managed to let out in a squeak.

  ‘This,’ Hortensia indicated the pile of papers in front of her, ‘is sentimental claptrap and I won’t be taking any notice of it at all. That you thought to waste precious committee-meeting time on something so trivial is, indeed, a puzzle to me.’

  Marion’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Sarah Clarke slurped her tea. The meeting was adjourned.

  TWO

  ON THE DRIVE back home after the meeting, Marion played Hortensia’s derision over in her head.

  ‘Well, she can’t just brush the whole thing aside,’ Marion told the steering wheel. ‘Just watch me. See if I let her just brush it.’

  It was a cool evening, not too chilly and only just darkening.

  ‘Race this, race that. Everything race – “when you say ‘these people’” … Cow!’ Marion braked in time to spare a cat scuttling across the road in the half-light of dusk.

  Over the years the two women had argued about many things, each new encounter tense with enmity. In truth, they couldn’t have been more opposite. Hortensia, black and small-boned, Marion, white, large. Marion’s husband dead, Hortensia’s not yet. Marion and her brood of four, Hortensia with no children.

  In the early days, when Hortensia still attempted to socialise, the Clarkes, who lived across from the Jameses, had had a dinner party. Peter pleaded fatigue, Hortensia went out of boredom. It was uneventful, until Sarah mentioned an article she’d seen in the latest Digest of South African Architecture. Hortensia hadn’t seen it. It was a Who’s Who of local architects. Sarah looked innocent enough when she said that she’d expected to see Marion listed.

  ‘Well,’ Marion was caught off guard. She’d read as far as K (Karol) and then put the magazine away.

  ‘Marion?’ Hortensia pressed, the party suddenly looking up.

  ‘I don’t remember any women from my generation being included,’ Marion said. ‘There might not have been many of us but from reading that thing you’d think we didn’t exist at all.’

  ‘We hardly do,’ someone Hortensia didn’t know piped up and the conversation was steered safely away. Then, like a gift, Marion casually commented on Sarah’s Mackintoshes and Hortensia ventured to point out, in a loud enough voice to be heard by most in the parlour, that the chairs were fakes; and, without being asked, she took the trouble to explain why. Dinner parties became a place to posture. Marion once held court on the wisdom of pedestrianising Long Street. She showed her sketches (her handbag was never without a notebook and a pencil). In return, Hortensia spoke for several minutes on the error of formalising the informal.

  ‘If you take the cars off Long Street, you’ll take away the people. There will be too much space and too little chaos.’

  Marion made snide remarks about commercialised plastic-making; fiddling with crayons and thread was her approximation of textile design – any three-year-old can do it. Hortensia mentioned the presence of one of her fabrics – a brocade – used to panel a wall in the new Cape Grace wine bar. A modest article (Hortensia kept the clippings, as she did of all her works that made the news) in the Sunday paper, decor section, on the consolation of beauty in otherwise unsettling times. Trivial, Marion said, but struggled for words when Hortensia took pains to impart her disdain for a six-year degree that teaches you to knock walls together.

  ‘You do realise Architecture can exist without Architects?’

  Hortensia referred to the profession as one of the biggest cons and had absolutely no time for the navel-gazing self-importance and total inconsequentiality of architectural academia and their ponderous supposings. She knew a little about it as she had once been the guest of the architecture department at the University of Cape Town. She’d been invited to join a panel of external examiners on a project involving textile fabrication. She’d consented out of hubris but remained unimpressed.

  ‘I visited your alma mater,’ she’d told Marion the first chance she got.

  ‘And?’

  Apparently Hortensia’s dislike was too much for words. She simply grimaced and walked on, leaving Marion in no doubt that her architecture school had just suffered the worst form of insult.

  Other times they argued about maids and madams. It started at the grocer’s. Hortensia behind Marion in the queue. She observed as her neighbour started to empty her basket.

  ‘How are you, Precious?’ Marion asked the woman at the checkout counter.

  ‘Fine,’ she responded.

  ‘Truly? Promise?’ Marion asked again. ‘You usually look happier.’

  The woman offered an uncomfortable smile. As Marion unloaded her items onto the counter she seemed to think it necessary to explain to Precious why she had bought them.

  ‘That’s for Mr Agostino. Tummy troubl
e. Oh, this is for my granddaughter. Fussy baby, that one. She likes this type, won’t eat any other. This is for Agnes – you know Agnes, my girl at the house. Oh, and I saw that and thought: wouldn’t Niknaks like that? Niknaks, that’s Agnes’s child. We thought of adopting her, but … you know … How much does all that come to, Precious?’

  Hortensia had stared aghast through it all, in the rare position of being tongue-tied. She had a chance to set her tongue free at a gathering. Marion said that Agnes, her housekeeper, was part of the family: that the sixty-five-year-old woman had been pivotal in raising her kids, one boy and three girls, and that Marion in turn had attempted to make her life easier, sent Agnes’s kid to a good school, built her a house.

  ‘You want credit for that? That’s blood-money. Mixed in with missionary work. You think you did well by her, don’t you? Perhaps you’d like a medal?’

  Marion was speechless.

  ‘St Marion. Charity-giver. My foot! You can’t buy it, Marion. You want to give something, you know what you should have given? You should have given Agnes your own house. And taken hers. Swopped suburbs. That’s what you should have done, my friend … Or, better, here’s a thought: Hero Marion, you should have ended apartheid … if you later wanted something to be able to brag about. Oh, and she is not like part of your family, she is employed by you. If she were part of your family, she wouldn’t have to clean up every time she visits.’

  Hortensia made a hook with her index and middle fingers, to go with the word ‘visits’. Marion left the party.

  Everything seemed to be about race for Hortensia, but Marion thought life was more complex than that, more wily.

  She parked her car. As she climbed her stoep, her cellphone began to ring.

  ‘Darling … why do you sound so upset? … I’m sorry I missed Innes’s birthday … No, I didn’t forg—… No, I didn’t just not come … Marelena, I’ve had some issues to deal with here … The accountant called me, about Dad and his … well … What do you mean, am I surprised? How was I to know? … Your brother isn’t even taking my calls, Gaia refuses to give me her number in Perth … I sent her an email the other day; don’t suppose I’ll hear back … As for Selena, you’d think Jo’burg was the North Pole, the amount I hear from her … I need some help, is what I’m saying … Help-help. Money! … Zero, is what the accountant said … Marelena, would you please listen? … Marelena? … Yes, gone – all of it, gone … All … I see … Okay, Okay … Yes, of course you need to speak to your husband first … Well, will you call me? … Okay. Bye.’