Chapter four
There is a kind of beauty in imperfection.
Conrad Hall
With the shrieking Greek Chorus of the village gossips already taking sides – Dot’s shop on the corner or a new supermarket in the old co-op building? – the people of the Paal took the news in, thought about it and went on with their lives; meanwhile the likes of Giel Swiegers started hatching dark plans to turn a shopping war into personal profit.
Gertjie Swiegers de Beer, baptized Getruida Johanna in the Dutch Reformed Church at Breipaal, only child of widower Giel Swiegers who believes cheating people is admirable thinking, widow of drunkard Dawid de Beer who drove his four-by-four under the influence once too often, has every right to be a dark and bitter woman. And yet, and yet…
When she sees perfection in the birth of a healthy lamb, the courage of her sheepdogs saving a greensick ewe from a rooikat’s jaws, and a mathematically correct flight of red falcons swooping over the farm, her heart melts and she needs at least a moment to thank her Creator for these miracles.
The man walking into the Breipaal Hotel’s sitkamer, talking quietly to his companion who’s probably his bodyguard, is far from a miracle. He’s just a human being, a very imperfect one according to the gossip magazines. Three failed marriages, one clandestine treatment in rehab, two not-really-secret visits to a plastic surgeon, plus a forest fire of affairs with married beauties in Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, every bleddy where. And yet, and yet…
He’s Tom Ryder, star of big screen adventures entertaining and terrifying because everyone knows he does the miraculous stunts himself. Racing a fast car over a high cliff then jumping out with a parachute, walking on the wing of a Tiger Moth without parachute. What saves him from a lynching or stoning by furious husbands and indignant church ladies, is the undeniable fact of his courage in action scenes and all his billion-dollar successes at the box-office.
And, if Gertjie may be the judge of that, the striking power of the sapphires he calls eyes. He’s taking his cheap sunglasses off right now, as if aware of the effect those blue eyes will have on her.
“Hi,” Tom Ryder says with that smile and that voice to Gertjie de Beer in the small hotel of an insignificant Karoo village lost on the vast African map. “You don’t work here, do you?”
She opens her mouth but can’t speak.
He walks closer to her, places a hand gently on her arm. “Bad manners, I’m sorry, we’re looking for a waiter. This heat calls for a double ice and water.”
Gertjie realizes Tom Ryder is actually touching her, but she’s saved from another speechless moment by a very human fact: never mind what the gossip rags claim about nip and tucks, up close his wrinkles reveal the vulnerable signs of age, his curly eyebrows are seriously turning grey. Up close he’s not all that younger than his grey-haired bodyguard, could be fifty, fifty-one.
Gertjie speaks. “I’ll call him for you,” and she flips a switch on the wall.
In the hotel bar a bell rings.
The bodyguard speaks, smiling. “Thank you. We kinda prefer sitting here, bars can get a bit loud.”
They don’t want film fans in the bar bothering Tom Ryder for his autograph, Gertjie decides.
She considers telling them most people around here will never recognize him. Paal viewers watch television, nothing else. The only famous Tom the dorp and district could know of, would be someone like Tom Selleck because he’s on television. Since the death of the drive-in cinemas only film lovers do the three-hour drive to Bloemfontein for the city’s cinemas.
Leah Haasbroek steps into the sitkamer from the manager’s office. She’s about to speak to Gertjie but glances at the men, then stops walking.
Gertjie and Leah do the trip to the city cinemas once a week. They watch two films, eat at a seafood restaurant because there’s no such thing anywhere near the Paal, and driving back in Leah’s fast six-cylinder Toyota they debate the films seen that day. They will watch anything but adore adventure films, and Tom Ryder’s middle name should be adventure.
“Bleddy hell, bugger me.”
That’s not really what Leah meant to say, Gertjie can see that in the self-conscious twist of her friend’s lips. The two men look at Leah.
“Two lovely ladies,” Tom Ryder smiles. “Gabriel, I think we broke down at the right place.”
Gertjie accepts the compliment with a smile, Leah acts as if she’s suddenly disappointed. “Let me guess, you’re the twits driving a four-by-four Porsche, nice, don’t you Yanks have any taste in cars at all?”
This breaks whatever ice there may still have been on the water of the unexpected meeting. The men laugh and explain they just wanted a fast and trustworthy vehicle with automatic gearbox, the car rental place said the Porsche was what they wanted. It proved to be a smooth and fantastic ride until the road outside this town Braypole decided to teach the fancy car a lesson in humility.
Gertjie and Leah enjoy Breipaal being called Braypole, and they like both these men. Gabriel, the bodyguard, has to be in his mid- fifties but obviously takes excellent care of his muscled body. The nose is on the beak side, but it gives him an imposing eagle look.
The ancient waiter called Kleinpiet enters from the bar, like his name small but wiry, and more yellow than brown. He describes his color as cinnamon. Regulars of the bar tease his great-great-grandma couldn’t outrun a yellow hunter who had just done a mud porno painting on his cave wall.
Kleinpiet takes one look at Tom Ryder, claps his hands and shouts a toothless laugh. “Tom Selleck, Magnum Pee-eye! Nice, where you fall from, man?”
Tom Ryder loves it. Gabriel orders two lime and sodas with ice. Kleinpiet asks if Magnum Pee-eye came all the way here in his lekker red wheels. Tom Ryder acts sad, informs Kleinpiet the Ferrari’s been sold, probably a true story.
Gertjie and Leah like him even more for this.
A sparkling Kleinpiet exits to the bar and Dot Volschenk enters from it, cautiously cool, holding her orange juice and ice and a lit cigarette. She’s getting thinner and thinner, coughs more; both caused by the heavy smoking, of course.
“Sorry I’m late,” she tells Gertjie and Leah, her glance sliding over the men, dismissing them as strangers.
“Lady, are you allowed to smoke in here?” Tom Ryder adds a smile to take the sting out of his question.
Dot gives him what Troffel Fouche calls her rooikat smile, the deadly grin a predator aims at its prey. “So what’s it to you? I own the bleddy place, mate.”
Tom Ryder, Gertjie and Leah realise, can do the predator grin too. In the States it would probably be called the puma smile.
Gabriel moves fast when he has to work for his pay. “What do you say, Tom, let’s take our drinks in the bar, doesn’t sound too busy in there.”
“Okay, let’s do that.” Tom Ryder gives Gertjie and Leah a real smile. “Parting is such sweet sorrow, etcetera. We have to hang around here for a while, gas station had to order a new tyre, but if you don’t mind we’d really love to see you again.”
And right there Gertjie invites them to the farm, says Leah can pick them up at the hotel whenever they feel like it. Leah doesn’t mind this sudden burden, tells them her house is the large one on the north side where the Paal suddenly stops against the desert, please drop in anytime. She neglects to mention it’s the house with the live-in ghost.
Dot is not pleased at all. She waits until the men are gone and then switches to what Troffel calls the cripple kiewiet look. “Ag sorry, jislaaik, I didn’t mean to insult anybody, it’s this bleddy chronic headache, turns me into grandma Florrie and I’m not sorry the cow is buried in her grave.” Whenever the kiewiet, the plover bird, fears a rooikat or jackal is about to discover its nest, the bird goes into a broken-wing act and offers itself as easy prey, trying to lure the predator away. “Only the Creator of heaven and earth knows how much time I’ve got, Sister Sanna says my whole bleddy system’s crashing. For all we know Tony Fivaz could be boxing me tomorrow.”
There is nothing wrong with the sly kiewiet’s wing, of course, Gertjie and Leah know this all too well.
“Maybe you should stop smoking,” says non-smoker Gertjie.
“Maybe you should keep to just a packet a day,” says smoker Leah.
Dot looks at them, the crippled kiewiet turning into the deadly grin of the rooikat. “Bugger that. Let’s lunch and talk business, alright?”
The village gossips say:
Dot will probably buy Gertjie an imported ram or two with blue bloodlines to service her ewes, and Leah a brand-new imported car she couldn’t bleddy afford herself, and then everything will stay the same. There will never be a supermarket around here.
Dot knows her hotel kitchen, orders a t-bone steak and baked potatoes without looking at the menu.Gertjie and Leah order the same. Leah refuses a red wine, wants to stay sharp. Gertjie orders ice-cold beer. Dot stays with her orange juice.
The village gossips say:
Gertjie could try to offer Dot shares in the supermarket, telling her that way her shop would share in buying bigger bulk, but Leah could be the prickly pear because she has doubts about getting too close to Dot. The Paal still won’t get a bleddy supermarket, nice, end of story.
Over lunch Gertjie, with Leah supporting her, does offer Dot a deal in which the supermarket and the shop can buy bigger bulk together and both save money. Dot goes quiet, poking at her t-bone steak, her mind probably doing the same with the offer.
“Auntie Dot,” Leah smiles, trying to give her a subtle push, “I think we all think we don’t need anyone ‘cos we’ve been doing it on our own for so long. Big mistake, we all need someone, really, no-one bleddy knows everything. One of the planet’s biggest film stars is staying here in your hotel right now, but you don’t bleddy know that.”
Gertjie’s chin comes up sharply, she immediately knows Leah went over the cliff without a parachute. Dot looks up from her t-bone, holds in a cough and aims the rooikat smile at Leah.
“Let me tell you something, Haasbroek,” she says, “I sell those silly bleddy bioscope magazines to girls like you. Dot Volschenk will never ever go into business with silly bleddy girls.”
The silence in the hotel’s dining room is made even worse by the whisper of the air-conditioning. No-one is staying for dessert, of course.