“Stop crying. Just stop crying.” I lost count long ago of how many times I have said these words in the past five years. “Just breathe.” My chest is burning. I shake my head. I was not prepared for the workout of running the two kilometres from the main house across the farm to the old chapel. Never mind, doing it while crying.
“I hate that woman. I hate her. I HATE YOU!” I scream into the ivy grown thick over the stone walls, absorbing the sound and containing it within the courtyard. Another deep breath. “Just calm down. Breathe. And 4-5-6 just stop crying already.” Frustrated, I sit on the cold cement bench and look out the window that is nothing more than a hole in a crumbling wall. I love this spot, despite the only reason I come here being because of her. I imagine what’s on the other side, like Alice and her rabbit hole, I want to climb through this window into another world.
A sick feeling in my stomach, like a sucker punch knocking my air out, brings me back to reality. My hand finds a tender patch on my ribs where the flying pot hit me. I dodged the first two but didn’t duck in time for the big one. This was not the first tantrum that resulted in violence.
“What am I going to do about this woman?” Talking out loud makes me feel less alone. Maybe the sound of my voice will wake me up from this horrible nightmare. “This can’t be my life. I’m supposed to be happily married and making babies.”
I’m careful not to mention my career, even to myself. I fight back the image of my husband’s mocking eyes – that’s not a real job, Maggie he has said one too many times.
I check my phone, but there are no calls or messages. “Maybe I should call Vince.” I shake my head again. I complain to him enough about his wicked grandmother. “Not that he believes me anyhow.” Sighing, I know I’m alone in this and mimic his pleas, She’s old. Humour her. She won’t be around much longer.
He’s been saying that since I met him six years ago, just after the crazy woman turned seventy. She was rude to me even then, and he dismissed it. It has only gotten worse since we moved onto the farm after our wedding a year later. But Johanna de Klerk just won’t die, and my tolerance has run out.
Not for the first time, I plead, “No one knows her like I do.” I’ve been by her side almost every day for years. As the only other woman in the family of seven on the farm, the duties of taking care of Ouma Johanna somehow fell in my hands. “Why can’t we get a nurse if she’s that frail?” I once asked Vince and he glared back at me with disappointment and said, But you are family now and not doing anything else. You’re home all day so it makes perfect sense for you be my Ouma’s companion.
I argued that as a genealogist I could work from home or travel to clients, visit libraries and state record departments and have the life I always dreamed for myself and for us. But he waved me off, dismissing the idea entirely, “But there’s no need for all that. Just take care of my Ouma.” And the subject was closed.
Since then I’ve been stuck. Months go by in a blur before I realise just how much of my life is wasting away. Then it all becomes too much, like today, and my emotions see-saw between self-pity and bitter resentment.
“She’s not even sick!” I shout out into the lush garden all around me. Sure in front of her brothers, son and grandsons she’s frail and oh so sweet. I’m rolling my eyes even now. But the minute we’re alone the real Johanna comes out. The Eminem song, Will the real Slim Shady please stand up comes to mind.
“Yeah, will the real Johanna de Klerk please stand up?” I wish Vince could see her for who she really is – a ruthless, sharp-tongued woman who is so far from frail that I’m sure she’ll outlive us all.
“But he won’t will he?” I whisper now to the heavens, hoping someone will answer my prayers. Vince is loyal to her because Johanna took care of him and his twin brother Richard since they were two years old when their mother Rosa died. No one talks about it and Johanna is quick to silence my questions. Their father Henry is no help. He barely says a word to anyone about anything. The mystery of the De Klerk family history is taboo.
“OK enough already, Maggie. Get your butt back into that house before she tells the boys you’ve left her alone to do all the cooking and cleaning and God only knows what other lies she’ll come up with to make you look bad.”
Reluctant to leave my safe haven I drag my feet, walking now, no longer needing to run. I let my feet decide their route home. Home. The word means nothing now. Will I ever feel I’m home here? I shake my head again and then my eyes fix on a patch of cosmos growing a few metres away – in the wrong direction. I look towards the homestead, as Johanna calls the cluster of houses. Although I can’t see it I know where it is and where I’m supposed to be going.
“A few more minutes won’t make a difference.” I head towards the purple and white flowers, the hot summer breeze swaying their long stalks. They remind me of roadtrips with my parents as a kid, these flowers lining the long hours staring out the window.
“Oh my fffffffork!” I feel like an idiot for not swearing, cursing Johanna and her old-fashioned rules but I’m also glad no one saw that. Lying face down in the now crumpled flowers I search on all fours crawling backwards to where my toes got stuck. I can’t see what it is but I know cold cement when I feel it.
Actually too cold for cement. I pull at the patches of grass and leaves, “What on earth …” I discover a square patch of white marble not much bigger than a normal sheet of paper. I wipe away the sand and feel grooves.
A cold shiver runs down my spine. “C’mon Maggie. Pull yourself together.” I lean forward to read the engraving: ROSA, MY LOVE.
I jump up, wiping my hands on my jeans, walking backwards.
I know what it is but I don’t want to think about it and irrationally run, scared of the grave which in itself is harmless but clearly holds a secret I probably shouldn’t know.
I first wrote this in 2012 (with a few minor edits now to get it ready for publishing here). It was a submission to a blog I followed at the time. I can’t remember what it was called or find anything in my email history relating to it. I only remember that the blogger had put up a photo – of a crumbling wall overgrown with foliage – and asked for what we think of when we look at it. This story came to mind.
