Strangely, It's the afternoon I remember clearly. I can see the perfectly cut lawns; the silver tea pot; my mother's hand resting on my aunt's forearm as my mother leans over to whisper something in her ear; the sides of their straw hats brushing against each other; my aunts quick glance over at me. I can hear my aunt calling out: "be careful of the nettles dear. they're hidden in the grass." I can see the dogs. They were boxers and they drooled; saliva streaming from pink gums and glistening in the sun they followed me, their short tails wagging. Yes, the dogs I saw that afternoon became linked to what happened earlier. So closely tied in my memory that from that day on I became afraid of dogs.
My memories of when it happened, at what time of year, are contradictory. The memory of my dress sticking to my back in the car on the way to my aunt's farm, red dust blowing up from the road and into my eyes as I leaned out of the window, suggest the summer. But the erect hairs on my mother's arm and her purple lips suggest winter. "Aren't we lucky?" she said, ""We have the whole pool to ourselves. These South Africans! They think anything under seventy is cold. Just think - this is their winter - and they're all inside probably looking out at us and wondering if we're crazy."
We were staying at the Sunnyside Hotel. I was six years old. The sky was very blue, so blue, that it hurt your eyes to look at it. My mother and my two sisters lay by the swimming pool. I remember the bikini my mother wore, probably because the dark green bottom didn't match the fuchsia top. I remember sitting in the shadow of my mother's deck chair so the our backs almost touched through the cloth. I did not listen to my mother's fairy tale. I was thinking of the porcelain doll my grandmother had not wanted to give me at first. I kept seeing my grandmother's fingers stroking the doll's blond hair, the way she had lifted the velvet dress to reveal the lace petticoat and then the smashed pieces on the floor.
I remember very little of what happened. I do remember the time of day; That time one hesitates to still call morning, when everything, the trees, the flowers, even the air seem to be holding their breath; when the grass is dewless but the stones not yet burning from the sun.
I remember the pink tiles. The way they shone. They were still wet. The tall elegant woman dressed in a green silk dress which reached the floor, hair piled up high above her head; the crease in her white neck as she turned and stared at me. The smocked dress I wore with its matching underwear; the way the underwear came very high, a couple of inches above the waist and left faint red circles around my stomach and the tops of my legs.
I remember that man, the place and myself separately; as if we had no connection to one another, as if I, the man and the place had never been in the same frame.
The Man.
He wears tennis shorts and a white sweater, but he doesn't carry
a racket. His brown hair is parted to the side and neatly plastered
down. His hands are white and move gracefully through the air,
as if independently of him. Between two yellowed fingers he holds
a cigar; the smell of the cigar is very strong and sweet; he inhales
deeply and exhales slowly, letting the ashes fall onto my dress
and hair; I do not notice them then, it is only later that I see
the black streaks. I do not remember the sound of his voice; whether
it was high or low, harsh or soft; I remember that he said, "She's
so lovely she has no one to play with." And then, after viciously
crushing his cigar as if it were a scorpion he says, "You're
a selfish girl. How would you feel if you had no one to play with?"
He looks up, he looks down, he looks to the right and then to
the left. He says, "Aah." He walks fast and then faster,
taking tiny steps, looking over his shoulder. He calls out, "Lisa.
Lisa. Now's no time to play hide and seek."
Me.
I walk slowly at first. My mother's voice growing fainter and
fainter, until I can no longer hear it. Then I sit down. I see
a shadow. I say, "No, I won't come." I stand up. I shift
my weight from one leg to the other. I stare at my bare feet.
I walk quickly, then quicker and quicker until I run. I feel my
cheeks becoming warm until they are very hot. I slow down, then
I stop. All the time I see Lisa very clearly; she is sitting in
the corner of a large bedroom staring at me, one arm wrapped around
her raggedy ann doll, legs pulled up so that they touch her chin.
Her blue eyes are filled with tears, she is rocking her body forward
and backward, forward and backward; it seems to me I can hear
her whispering. But the further I walk the harder it becomes to
see her, first I can't see her eyes; they melt into her white
face, then her nose disappears and her body begins to fade into
the velvet curtain, fades until there is only the doll left and
that too disappears when white hands wrap themselves around my
neck. These hands have nothing special about them. They could
belong to anyone. My cheeks are still warm but now they are wet.
I hear a door bang shut and then again I run and run, until I'm
out of breath.
The Place.
Suddenly, I remember precisely the path leading to the wet pink
tiles: from the rectangular shadow under my mother's deck chair
to the path of flattened stones winding up the hill, in and out
of African daisies and torch lilies, and over to a place where
many streams cross. I remember the patch of clover; the stained
yellow stairs leading to the side entrance of the hotel. The cool
shadowy interior after the brilliant light. The thick gold rug
leading to the ballroom. The empty ballroom itself even colder
and darker, so different from the night before when it was filled
with light, filled with the clatter of knifes and forks against
porcelain, with the high pitch laughs of women, white table cloths
dazzling white, glasses reflecting one another and brilliantly
colored dresses against dark black suits.
Today the ballroom is filled with shadows, the white cloths appearing gray, tables arranged against the wall, only one chandelier half lit by a ray of the sun slipping through a pair of dark velvet curtains. The rug is so thick here that every one's footsteps cannot be heard and the ceiling seems exceedingly high. The bathroom with its pink shiny tiles. The four white stalls. The click as the door is closed. The open white toilet seat and behind the toilet seat a window through which one can see trees. But I think I have imagined the window with its trees. Again, the bathroom, the ballroom, but all very quickly, then the elegant woman in the green dress and the garden again. Down and down the hill to where my mother lies still telling her fairy tale. And how the sun is high in the sky, but I do not see it; I feel the way it hits my shoulders, as if it has leaned down and smacked them with its palm. I hear the air rushing in my ears. Then silence again and only a few feet away from my mother I stop and force myself to look up. I see a thin white line tearing through the middle of the sky.