Rachel Weeping (16 page)

‘Guess the first round is on me then.'

‘Music to my ears,' Elize butted in, putting her hand on his shoulder too.

Chris shook his head and laughed. ‘What are you ladies drinking?' he asked

‘Tequila!' they both chimed.

 

 

 

It was well past midnight and Rachel was still awake. Shouting coming from the house earlier had told her that all was not well with the Jordaans. She had heard the sound of Chris's car leaving the property and the Z4's tyres screeching in the road as he drove off. Sleepless as usual, she hadn't heard him return yet.

She reached under her pillow and pulled out the stolen ultrasound, staring at the outline of the baby in the moonlight that came from the window. While she had nothing against the baby itself, she hated everything that this fuzzy grey outline represented. In it was all the loss that she had suffered in her time here at the Jordaans. Channelling her pain into the ultrasound had become a nightly ritual for her. It had gradually replaced prayers and scripture, time that Rachel now used to will her hatred out from herself and direct it towards Michelle.

As Rachel found herself drifting towards sleep, the ultra-sound on her chest, suddenly the ghastly screaming cry of the pool cleaner brought her to an instant sitting position and she was back: back to the day when her world had fallen apart. It was a sound she would never forget because she had heard it moments before – In fact it had been the screams of the pool cleaner that had drawn her to the garden, as though that soulless machine had been calling to her, warning her that her life was about to be shattered forever.

Shaking, she lay back down again, but her heart was racing. The sound was relentless, unearthly. It shrieked and sobbed and screamed, begging to be released from wherever it was stuck. As it began to choke and gasp, Rachel felt the tears begin to flow. She turned onto her stomach and pulled the pillow over her head.

 

 

 

Michelle woke with a start. The space where Chris usually slept was empty but the static from their argument still felt tangible in the air. The wretched pool cleaner was stuck again. Even though Chris had identified the sound for her, and she knew that the machine was just struggling to return to the depths of the pool, she still found it impossible to ignore. She tried to block it out but the screaming was too much.

Climbing awkwardly out of bed, Michelle walked through the empty house and, after deactivating the alarm, made her way to the kitchen door. The cold grass burned her warm feet as she walked across the lawn towards the swimming pool, the light from the house casting harsh shadows that made it difficult for her to see where she was going.

The shrieks grew louder. They were coming from the corner closest to her. Michelle bent over and yanked the cleaner out of the water, the hard plastic head struggling like a live thing in her hands. She screamed at the machine in frustration and ripped the head from the pipes. Then she hurled the whole contraption to the ground as hard as she could.

Unattached, the lengths of tubing slithered back into the water. The garden fell into an uneasy silence. Exhausted and sopping wet, Michelle strode over to the decapitated head and threw it back into the pool. She stood and watched it sink to the dark bottom beneath the deep green layer of scum.

Wiping her forehead, she peered into the filthy water for a few minutes. Then, decisively, she walked over to the shed that housed the water pump and opened the wooden door. There was a very large bottle of chlorine inside and she picked it up and took it back to the edge of the swimming pool. She unscrewed the lid and was hit by a pungent, almost overpowering chemical smell. Holding the open container at arm's length over the surface of the pool, she began to dispense the chlorine, casting the white powder like snowflakes in wide arcs. Where one cup would have sufficed, Michelle kept pouring until her arm ached and the container was empty. She watched as the chlorine dissolved into the murky water. Then she threw the container into the pool.

Standing alone in the dark garden, her arms at her sides, Michelle waited for the normal nighttime sounds of the suburbs to return now that the cries of the pool cleaner had gone. Now, however, that desolate noise was replaced by something else, something deep inside her head, a sound that no chemical could erase.

‘This has to end,' she murmured. ‘This has to end.'

 

 

chapter 20

Rachel climbed into
Chris's BMW. The carriage was lower than any vehicle she had ever driven in. She settled into the black leather seat and looked around for the seatbelt while she waited for Chris to get in the driver's side. The car was beautiful, without a doubt, but as Rachel looked over her shoulder she saw that there was very little room for anything other than two passengers and possibly a few additional items. There was no room for a baby, let alone a pushchair or a car seat. Rachel wondered if Chris would sell the car if he and Michelle ever had children.

The engine and the aircon roared to life at the same time as the sound system filled the car with the music from Jacaranda FM, the local radio station Chris must listen to when his smartphone wasn't plugged in. Rachel held her papers and handbag rigidly on her lap and smiled at Chris as he closed the door and started to reverse up the driveway.

As they backed into the street Rachel saw Maria standing on the pavement outside the house where she worked. A huge smile spread across her face when she recognised Rachel in the passenger seat. Maria started to laugh and flick her finger in the air, an action which caused Rachel to smile and shake her head. She didn't want to draw Chris's attention to her friend's behaviour, but he had already noticed.

‘Why's she doing that?' Chris asked, waving at Maria as they drove past.

‘She's teasing me.'

‘Why?'

‘Well, it's not every day that I get a ride in a car like this to the taxi rank,' Rachel replied, looking shyly down at her papers.

Chris laughed as he turned down the street, the car slowing down to a painful pace as it joined the rest of the morning traffic. Rachel watched Chris glance in the rearview mirror, his fingers drumming to the beat of the music on the radio, then reach up to the mirror and adjust it. Rachel sat in silence, unsure how to communicate with her employer in this context.

‘So how long do they give you on the visa?' Chris asked.

Perhaps he was trying to dilute the awkward silence and for that she was grateful.

‘Six months,' Rachel answered, even though she knew he knew that information already.

‘I heard they're cracking down on the illegals who jump the fence.'

‘It's getting difficult to be here if you don't have a visa.'

‘Good thing you've got one then.' Chris inched the car forward.

‘Yes, your letter helped me a lot.'

‘How are things in Mozambique now? It hasn't been in the news for a while.'

‘They are okay,' Rachel replied, talking to her papers. ‘My mother and father say that it's getting better.'

‘Where are you from again?' Chris asked. ‘Something with an ‘I', isn't it?'

‘Inhassoro,' Rachel said.

‘Oh yes, Inhassoro,' Chris said. ‘I've heard there are some great diving spots out there. I had a friend who went on holiday to Mozambique a few years ago and he couldn't stop talking about how nice it was. Especially all the cheap seafood.'

‘It is a beautiful place,' Rachel murmured.

They fell into silence until they were near the taxi rank.

‘You can just drop me here, Chris,' Rachel said.

‘Don't be silly. I'll take you right in.'

Chris nosed the BMW through the taxi rank area, negotiating carefully around the beat-up vehicles and coming to a stop close to the exit. Rachel discovered that she had slid quite far down into her seat. The expensive car drew more than its fair share of attention and, as Rachel opened the car door, she could sense the collective eyes of the passengers and taxi drivers all over her. This was one of the reasons why she had not wanted Chris to take her to the taxi rank in the first place, let alone right inside, but to try and explain it to him would have been a waste of breath.

‘Thank you for the ride,' she said.

‘Anytime.' Chris replied. ‘Anytime.'

With that, Rachel closed the door and Chris drove off with an embarrassing burst of speed and music. She walked without looking back towards the taxis that were going in her direction. The taxi rank was an open space of tarred chaos, filled with people and vehicles coming and going to different parts of the city and its environs. There was the occasional vendor but for the most part they were outside, up on the road; this was a space filled with litter and busy commuters. With no shade or trees to protect them from the morning sun, the place was already boiling hot and Rachel was forced to stop and take off her jersey before carrying on.

She did her best to ignore the stares and rude comments that were coming from the people around her but one driver, a short Zulu man, seemed hellbent on making sure she didn't miss out on what he had to say to her. Running up alongside Rachel and matching his pace to hers, he put his arm around her waist and walked with her as though they were a couple. His breath stank of old cigarettes and cheap whiskey.

‘Hey, sweetie. What do you have to do to get a ride in such a nice car?' he asked.

Rachel ignored him and walked faster, a response that just caused the driver to laugh and step up his pace. He put his arm around her shoulder and sniffed her neck, leering as he smelled her. Rachel shrugged her shoulders forcefully in an attempt to get him to let go of her and as soon as she was free from his embrace, she walked as fast as she could to put distance between them. The driver stood still and watched her leave, sucking his browning teeth before spitting on the dirt.

‘Fuckin' makwerekwere bitch,' he said, grabbing his crotch to prove a point. ‘They suck on anything to get ahead.'

Rachel ignored the racial slur that local South Africans used for foreigners and soon she had disappeared into the crowd of people. She pushed her way to the front of the line so that she could get a seat on the taxi. When most people thought of racism in South Africa they usually simplified it to black versus white or European versus African, she knew, but it was so much more layered than that. During her time in South Africa Rachel had found that the attitude of local black people towards those who came from some other countries in Africa was much more aggressive than white people's.

For the most part white and black still lived very separate lives here. For black people, things were different. Many South African blacks were forced by circumstance to live alongside the foreign ones, in townships or other densely populated informal settlements. Sometimes this proximity resulted in xenophobia, and attacks against the descendants of Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi and Nigeria were not uncommon. The locals felt that the foreigners were stealing their jobs, their women and their land and, with unemployment statistics on the rise, they felt that it was their duty to protect what Mandela had given them by using the very tactics that he had stood against in the later part of his political career.

South Africa was a melting pot of cultures. The pot could explode at any time. It just needed the slightest of sparks. Rachel dreaded the day she herself might be caught in the crossfire of a xenophobic attack. This was why she chose not to talk too much at taxi ranks and marketplaces, knowing that her foreign accent automatically placed her in a potentially dangerous position.

She climbed into the taxi and took a seat by the window where, holding tightly to her paperwork and passport, she waited for fifteen other passengers to board the vehicle. The taxi roared to life and the radio began to crackle with loud kwaito music. Frantic township rhythms throbbed through the vehicle. Rachel closed her eyes and held onto the window as the minibus left the taxi rank and sped into the traffic, the driver honking on the horn as he tried to move past cars and take gaps wherever they presented themselves – and even when they didn't.

Rachel rocked back and forth with the rhythm of the taxi, trying not to drop her bag and papers. She hoped Maia was behaving herself with Michelle. The last thing she needed was to get back and find out that she had broken one of Michelle's expensive vases or knocked over one of the sculptures that were positioned around the house. Maia was getting a little too comfortable with speaking her mind amongst adults, too, a bad habit she'd picked up from the other children at school, and Rachel was struggling to figure out the best way of dealing with this. If they were in Mozambique, the attitude would have been smacked out of her but here in Johannesburg it looked as though she would need to employ a different method to correct her child.

Just don't spill anything on the white carpet, Maia.

 

chapter 21

Michelle flipped through
the classifieds in the news-paper, the fresh pages crinkling as she went. It was just before 7am and, unable to sleep, she had gone through to the study to pass the time until Rachel started her day. She hoped Chris would arrive home before he had to be at work so that he could at least shower and have something to eat.

Her tea had gone cold on the table beside her. She scanned past the sections advertising property and second-hand goods until she found the Jobs section, which took up almost half of the page. Picking up a red marker, she started to read the small paragraphs that marketed the services of gardeners and domestic workers, stating their qualities and what services they were able to provide prospective employers.

She had found Rachel by doing a similar search all those years back and had learned quickly how to discern which applicant best suited what she was looking for. One thing she had learned from her experience with Rachel was to ascertain whether the applicant was pregnant or planning on starting a family. Had Rachel told them up front that she was expecting Maia, they probably wouldn't have hired her and, when she revealed it to them, it was too late to look for another maid. Legally, they would have been obliged to give her maternity leave anyway, which would have meant that, for four months, they would have had to have a second domestic worker come in on a casual basis to do the work that Rachel had been hired to do. Even though Michelle respected and understood that this was a given for any employer/employee relationship, she was well aware that Rachel had taken advantage of them by keeping her pregnancy secret when she had applied for the job. She hadn't really resented it then, but she did now. What could have ended up being a poor start to their working relationship had been alleviated by the fact that both she and Chris had believed sincerely that this was an opportunity to provide security and support to someone who needed it the most. They had been reading a lot about social upliftment during that time and saw it as a chance to ‘give back'.

Michelle circled a couple of names, noting that just about all the ads were from people from Malawi or Zimbabwe. Most of her friends employed foreign gardeners and domestic workers and were perfectly up front about their motives: because they worked harder, they claimed, than local workers, and for a lot less money. The locals had an air of entitlement about them and were more likely to take their employers to the labour court if they were fired, whereas foreigners were grateful for the work and would do their best to please their employers because their visas and families back home depended on them. Michelle recognised that in many ways she was taking advantage of the unfortunate situation this workforce found themselves in but she also believed that a low-paying job was better than no job and so was happy to give the job to someone who was willing to take it over someone who would end up being lazy and entitled.

Michelle heard the front door open. She looked up from the paper. Chris was about to walk past the study but took a step back when he saw her sitting there. He was wearing the same clothes he had worn the night before and his face was covered in stubble.

‘Are you ready?' Chris asked, acting as if nothing had happened between them the night before and that it wasn't unusual for him to stay out all night.

‘For what?'

‘Your appointment.'

Michelle put the lid on the marker. To be honest, she was surprised that, after all that had happened and the terrible fight they had had last night, Chris still
wanted
to go with her to her appointment with Dr Pieterse. He looked as though he had slept in the car but she chose not to say anything about his appearance. A snide comment right now would do more harm than good.

‘Almost,' she said.

‘I'm going to go change my shirt and then we can go.'

Michelle folded the newspaper and left it on her desk, then followed Chris down the passage to their bedroom to freshen up.

 

 

 

 

Rachel had just finished her morning bath when she heard the electronic gate open and the Z4 reverse up the driveway. She took her time getting ready for the day. First she returned the ultrasound photograph to the red biscuit tin. Then she put on her uniform, bent to look in the mirror, and adjusted the collar and belt.

The first signs of spring had finally started to appear. She looked forward to walking down the path from her room to the Jordaans' house in the morning sun instead of the dark cold.

The coffee machine was already on from Chris's morning fix and, knowing that Michelle no longer drank it, Rachel turned it off so that she could clean it. It didn't sound like Michelle was awake yet and so, once she had finished stacking the dishwasher, she walked through the house to assess the damage that awaited her in the other rooms.

Were this her own house, Rachel would have had family members in every room, and not necessarily by choice. One of the things she had never understood about the culture here in the suburbs was the way that families lived apart from each other, even if it was only a few streets away. In Inhassoro, families lived on the same property, raised their children together and shared the costs of living. And while it could sometimes get very crowded, back home she could never say she had ever spent a night in loneliness.

It was as though need brought people together, and plenty split them apart.

As she walked past Michelle's study she spotted a half-full mug on her desk and went into the room to collect it. She was about to leave when she noticed the newspaper. She picked it up, intending to see if there was anything worth reading with her mid-morning tea. As she scanned through the pages her attention was drawn to some blots of red bleeding through the newsprint and she navigated her way towards the marked page.

Rachel stared at the red circles. They had been drawn around the names of four women looking for domestic work. She lowered the paper in shock, trying to process what she had just discovered.

The Jordaans were planning to replace her.

Suddenly the telephone in the study started to ring, its shrill voice startling Rachel. Hastily she folded the newspaper and put it back on Michelle's desk. She cleared her throat and picked up the receiver.

‘You're through to the Jordaans' house, Rachel speaking, how may I help you?'

‘Rachel, it's me.'

The sound of her mother's voice brought with it a sense of comfort, even as it mixed with dread as she anticipated the bad news that would have prompted her mother to call her on the Jordaans' landline.

‘What's wrong?' she asked.

‘Your father is sick, my girl. We need money for medicine.'

‘What's wrong with him?'

‘He has had a chest cold for many weeks. The doctor says it might be TB.'

‘How much do you need?'

‘Five thousand meticais.'

Rachel gasped before she could stop herself.

‘I don't have that much, Mama.'

‘Can't you borrow from your boss? I'm sure they would understand.'

Rachel looked over at the folded newspaper, the red stains from the marker pen still visible. The Jordaans would not understand; in fact they were the last people she could turn to for help right now.

‘I'll find a way to get it, Mama,' Rachel said.

She hung up the phone and hurried to the front door. She ran up the path to her room, got down on her knees and and pulled the biscuit tin out from under the bed. At the wooden table, she popped the lid open and took out all the cash that was in there, first counting out the meticais and then
the South African money, most of it what she had managed to save over the last few months, and a few notes from Michelle's purse. She counted R500 and just under MZN1 000.

It wasn't enough. Not even close.

She replaced the money in the tin and pushed it under the bed with her toe. Then she locked her door and went back to the house. In the kitchen she paced back and forth like an animal testing the perimeters of its cage. She needed to find the money quickly but there was absolutely no way she could ask Chris or Michelle for it. She hadn't even been able yet to process the fact that they were looking for another maid and that she would shortly be out of a job. The urgency of her father's situation had moved to the forefront of her mind and was demanding all of her attention.

As she paced back and forth past the window that overlooked the garden, she noticed the heavy rug she had asked Richmond a few days ago to hang out on the washing line to air. Chris kept an old tennis racket in the broom cupboard beside the fridge. He used it for hitting tennis balls around the garden for Hugo to chase. She took it out and marched straight over to the rug and began beating it as hard as she could. Clouds of dust rose with every stroke. Rachel struck the rug again, harder and harder, until she was thrashing wildly at the lifeless thing, beating it with all her strength, tears of anger soon mixing with the dirt that was flying around her.

Hitting it one last time, she let out a scream of sheer frustration. Then she flung the racket onto the grass and dropped to her knees, feeling all the fight drain out of her. Out of breath and with a now throbbing headache, she lay crying on the grass, sobbing into her arms.

 

 

 

Michelle sat back while Dr Pieterse carried out her examination. Chris was seated a few feet away, watching the image on the monitor. The baby moved as it responded to the pressure from the doctor's hand and Michelle shifted her position to compensate. There was no doubting that there was a human on the screen; the detail in its fingers and toes was remarkably clear. Satisfied with what she had seen, Dr Pieterse smiled at them.

‘I'm happy to see that your blood pressure has returned to normal, Michelle,' she said.

Chris and Michelle smiled back, glad that they had the doctor's approval.

‘Heartbeat's strong, the placenta is in a good position and your baby is growing steadily, following a nice curve. Are we still happy to go the caesarean route?'

Michelle nodded and Dr Pieterse checked a box on her notepad.

‘And the sex? Have you decided whether you want to know?'

‘We want it to be a surprise,' Chris answered, not looking at Michelle.

‘All right then.' Dr Pieterse put the notepad on a side table and took off her reading glasses. ‘Well, all that's left for us to do now is decide what date you'd like your baby's birthday to be.'

 

 

 

‘How much can I get for this?' Rachel asked, pushing the diamond ring across the glass counter towards the man in the Cash Converters store. ‘It's four carats.'

She watched as the balding white man held the piece of jewellery up so that he could examine it in the light, clearly not as enamoured with it as Rachel had been when she'd found it on the beach all those years ago.

‘Five t'ousand,' the man said in a thick Mediterranean accent. ‘You won't get better anywhere else.'

Rachel had expected the ring to fetch at least R7 000. She wondered whether it was worth trying to negotiate with him. The problem was that men like this could sense the desperation on the people who walked through their doors. They knew they carried all the power in the situation. She slid her cellphone across the counter.

‘And now?'

The Cash Converters man smiled condescendingly. It was an old cellphone and they both knew it.

‘Five t'ousand five hun'red,' he said.

Rachel nodded.

In one practised movement the man scooped up both items. He disappeared into a room at the back of the store and returned a few minutes later with a wad of notes, which he counted out until Rachel had a small pile in front of her. She waited. The man raised an eyebrow.

‘Can I have an envelope, please?' Rachel asked.

He looked at her and sighed. Then, as though he were doing her the biggest favour in the world, he reached under the cash-till and pulled out a grubby brown envelope. He put the money inside it and handed it to her, at the same time looking over her shoulder at two young men who had entered the store with a sound system. His eyes flickered impatiently towards Rachel. He gestured for her to move aside.

Rachel turned to one side and slid the envelope inside her bra. As she left the store she glanced around to see if anyone was following her. It was well known that petty thieves would identify people as they left pawnshops and rob them of the cash they had just collected in exchange for their goods. Satisfied that she wasn't being followed, she made her way back to the taxi rank where she waited for a ride to her side of town.

She had enough money for the emergency back home now and she felt a sense of relief. She would send it to her parents that afternoon.

 

 

 

Chris swung his racket with all his might, sending the black rubber ball hurtling across the squash court into the wall, where it bounced back towards Hannes, who returned with a shot of equal vigour. They were in the middle of an intense rally and Chris was down, with Hannes needing two more points to win the game. Chris swung again, narrowly missing the ball.

Match point.

Hannes served and Chris returned the shot. He swung wildly as he prepared himself for the return. Hannes ran forward and lightly tapped the ball, causing it to fall short of the area where Chris had been expecting it to land. He ran forward and lunged for the ball but it was already on its second bounce before he could get to it. Unable to check his momentum in time, he slammed into the wall, his shoulder taking the full force of the impact. Cursing, Chris threw his racket to the ground. His lungs were burning. He bent over and put his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath, sweat pouring from his forehead.

After a couple of minutes, he straightened up and walked over to Hannes. They shook hands and Chris patted his friend on the back to congratulate him on his win. Usually on the occasions that he beat Chris, Hannes would gloat jokingly but today he held back. Puzzled, still breathing hard after his exertions, Chris headed to the glass door at the back of the court but Hannes didn't follow him.