“Where Mommy?” Joanne asked.
Elaine pointed, “See… there it is, falling down the mountain!”
“Why do they fall down like that? Will they fall into our house?”
“No, silly,” Elaine laughed, “we won’t be living so high up. The clouds float down because the South Easter huffs and puffs all the time. People call it the ‘Cape Doctor’ because it blows away the bad things and keeps the air clean.”
“How about a song?” laughed Adam. “Ta-dee-dah…”
He, Elaine and Joannie began to sing, while Lena covered her mouth shyly and pretended to hum. “We are moving to Orangezicht, Orangezicht, Orangezicht, we are marching to our brand new house!” Poncho, the golden Spaniel, wagged his tail. All the way they sang as their car meandered through the green corridor that circled Table Mountain, waving to the Springbuck that skipped and chewed and played on its grassy slopes, passing pine forests, climbing up, through the lower socioeconomic suburb of Gardens until they reached the brick dwellings that stood proudly on the heights.
“Are we there yet?” Joannie kept asking.
“No, no – be patient. Close your eyes and count to a hundred; then we’ll be there!” Elaine laughed. “Oh, you’ll see, it’s a lovely house, Lena,” she said, pointing out the different architectural styles. “Do you notice how no two are the same?”They passed houses with gables; Victorian homes with spires and steel filigree fences, double and triple stories built high on small pieces of land. While Elaine’s excited face looked up to the heights,
Lena’s looked down to the Flats where the black people of Cape Town squatted in shantytowns. She tried to find the area where her people lived, but now, covered in thick fog, she could not discern the dusty tree-less streets where children in threadbare clothes barely covering matchstick bodies played with tin cans and makeshift bats and balls. Turning her eyes to meet those of her employer, she said, “It is far from my home. I shall have to catch many busses to get to Guguletu to visit my family.”
Elaine nodded slightly, turning to Adam. “We’ll see what we can do to help you, Lena.”
“Madam, how is my room in the big house,” the maid asked shyly, covering her mouth and looking down at her lap as she always did when she spoke up for herself.
“Well it’s not exactly in the house, Lena,” Elaine said catching her husband’s eye. “You have your own little building…nice and private. But you’re going to like the kitchen. We put in brand new cupboards; no excuses for leaving things lying around on the counter, there’s room for everything! And a huge garden and pool.”
She nudged Adam happily. Moving into Orangezicht was her dream-come-true. “And as for you, young lady,” she said, reaching over to the backseat and taking her daughter’s hand, “Your new school is just across the road. Imagine, Joannie! No more busses, no more lifts. You’ll be able to leave five minutes before the bell and Bob’s your uncle – you’ll be there!”
“Who’s Bobs-your-uncle?” Joannie asked, bouncing on her seat.
“Honey – it’s just a saying,” chuckled Elaine as they turned into Deerpark Drive. She smiled at Adam, "Oh, the generation gap!" A moment later, she sang: "Here we are, pointing to a large split-level ranch-styled house set firmly in a wooded garden. “Let’s say it together: Hello New House!”
They squealed with excitement as Adam backed carefully into the driveway and they tumbled out. They surveyed their surroundings: the expanse of greens and browns, ribbons of hard-leaved, flowering Proteas, Ericas and Cape Reeds, the dark woodland, above, the jagged edge of Table mountain covered
“Did you smell the fresh air as you came in?” Elaine asked her husband. “People say that one of the good things about living here is that the Cape Doctor cleans away all the pollution.”
“Heh!” said Lena, in awe, wiping her brow and grasping her skirt close against the wind, “Madam – this is a big house!”
“I told you, Lena,” Elaine exclaimed. “It’s much bigger than what we had in Rondebosch.” She giggled, a little embarrassed, “Seven rooms! What will we do with seven rooms?” Seeing the dismay on Lena’s face, she added, “Don’t worry! We’ll get someone in to help with the heavy work and the garden.” She shouted to Adam, “Lena’s having a fit thinking of all the extra work she’ll have to do to keep the place clean!”
Lena smiled blandly and for a moment Elaine felt guilty about her beautiful house while Lena’s family probably lived in makeshift construction on an earthen floor that turned muddy after the rain. But Lena just said, “You got a nice place, Madam,” nodding.
Let loose, Poncho the dog, went crazy, barking and jumping and sniffing the rocks and tufts of Gazania and bushes of pincushion Protea and Silver trees, that lined the driveway like a welcoming banner.
Adam opened the boot of the car and unloaded some boxes. “Bring what you can,” he said, lugging a suitcase of clothes and a box of odds and ends they might need to get them through their first day.Grabbing whatever they could, they climbed the stairs to the entrance. With some ceremony, Adam opened the door and ushered them into a large hallway, tiled in terracotta. He led the way: “This is your room, Pumpkin,” he called to his daughter. “Ours,” he said delivering a suitcase to the master bedroom. They walked past a second bedroom. “For Mommy to use as a work room,” he said elaborately, “This is where your mother is going to produce the Great South African Novel!”
“Yeah, yeah!” Elaine laughed. “But in the meantime, as they say, I won’t give up my day job!”Adam pointed: “Your bathroom, young lady – now you see that Mr. Nice and Tidy stays here!”
They passed other rooms. The last, at the end of the house, was a self-contained ‘granny flat’ with its own bathroom and door leading to an enclosed yard. Beyond that, through the yard, a little way down some stairs set in a rockery, was a small outbuilding.
“Lena, that’s your home!” said Adam. “You can go and settle yourself in while we wait for the movers to arrive with the furniture.”
Joannie and Poncho bounded from room to room, finding nooks and crannies and places to explore. They made for the garden, where Joannie clambered up a low-branched apricot tree and tried out a wooden swing suspended from it. Poncho barked and jumped around her feet. They approached the rectangular swimming pool, where Joannie felt the water and squealed. The wind blew down a mess of needles and pine-cones which Joannie tried to gather into a rusty old scoop lying on the lawn.
Watching her daughter through the large picture window framing her bedroom, Elaine said, “Oh Adam, we’re going to be so happy here. The view is stunning!” She looked through a forest of pine trees that had been pushed forward by eons of wind, so that they sloped with the mountain down to the sea. In the distance they had a view over the tops of the houses, right through to the docks below, and the sea, which shimmered like quicksilver. From the opposite window of the room, Elaine could see the road streak up the mountain, cutting through verdant areas and granite cliffs. At the top it disappeared beneath an ever-present cloud that hovered and fell in smoky tufts.
“It’s so high,” Elaine said, “I’ll be frightened to drive down the hill. It’ll be like going down a rollercoaster in an amusement park!”
“You’d better get used to it, said Adam. “Everything’s either up or down; there is no level ground!”
He went to the kitchen, calling back to Elaine. “How about a cup of tea? Thank goodness for Lena’s foresightedness in bringing the tea things with us.” He switched on the kettle and while he waited for the water to boil, ran his fingers over the freshly painted walls, admiring the new fixtures he’d had put in; the carpeted passage and richly stained wooden cabinets.
“How are you doing?” he called down to Lena.
She didn’t answer.
“Lena,” called Elaine, walking into the yard. “Everything alright?” She walked to the stairway. “Lena!” There was still no answer. She said, “I’ll go and see.” A small green lizard scuttled out of her path as she descended the steps, and startled, she jumped back. “I sure hope Poncho doesn’t start bringing these inside the house!”
She knocked on the open door to Lena’s room. “Hellooo – Lena? Can I come in?” When there was no answer, she entered the room. Lena was standing against the wall of her dark cubicle, with her hands over her black face.
“What’s the matter?” Elaine asked in alarm.
Lena shook her head but kept silent. She seemed to shrink into her heavy frame.
“Your room? You’re not happy—?” Elaine looked around, for the first time seeing the room as Lena must see it: cement floors painted red, whitewashed walls. A built-in cupboard made of chipboard, stood against one wall, and on the other, high up on the wall, was a small slash of window through which could be seen a patch of sky. She frowned. “What?”
Slowly Lena lifted her brown eyes towards the door inside the room.
“The bathroom?” Elaine asked. She pushed open the door. It was a very small room, with a dirty porcelain toilet bowl without a seat. The floor was raw cement. There was no ceiling to the room, just rough wooden beams that held the sloping tiles of the roof. From the cistern of the toilet, fastened high on the wall, hung a rusty chain. Above the toilet hung a shower rose fed by a single tap.
“Oh dear,” said Elaine grimacing, “This isn’t very nice.”
Lena, stood against the wall. The room was cold even though it was mid-summer and her arms were covered with goose bumps.
“Yech!” Elaine said guiltily. “I have to admit that when we bought the house, we didn’t really give the room a good look.” She seemed embarrassed, “I took it for granted… I mean, the house is so beautiful… I mean—.” She looked vexed. “I can’t believe this. I mean this is not a new house. People have been living here all these years.” She tapped Lena lightly on the shoulders, “Don’t worry, we’ll fix it up. Tomorrow first thing, I’ll call in a plumber and get a hot water system installed.”
Elaine returned to the kitchen, upset. Somehow the fun had gone out of the move.
“What’s the matter?” Adam asked.
Elaine pursed her lips. “Sometimes this country gets me down!”
“You’re talking in riddles,” her husband said.
“Lena’s room. It’s an embarrassment. The bathroom,” Elaine replied. “Did you see it?”
Adam frowned. “No. Not really. I just glanced over the room— what’s the problem?”
Elaine sighed, “It’s oh… so tiny and dark. The toilet has no seat and the shower hangs - if you can believe it - over the toilet. How is she supposed to use it? And there’s no hot water.”
“No hot water? Can’t be!” Adam exclaimed.
Elaine nodded, “Go and see for yourself.”
Just then the movers arrived and in the pandemonium of carrying furniture, unpacking possessions, dumping newspaper wrappings into boxes, making beds and trying to get control over the chaos, Lena’s bathroom was all but forgotten.
Th next day Elaine called in a handyman. ”What can be done?” she asked.
Jim, a young man who could handle all kinds of jobs, sniffed around the room, checking the single globe that hung from a wire in the center of the roof, examining the electric plug and pulling the chain of the toilet to see if it worked. He let the water run in the small basin that was barely large enough to hold two hands. Then he scratched his head and wiped his hands on his overalls. “We can put in a hot water system,” he said, chewing on some gum, “but a geyser will be expensive and there isn’t really room. We’d have to put it in the roof. What I suggest is that we get a small system that we can connect to the tap. The girl can switch on the electricity half an hour before she wants to wash and it’ll give her enough warm water for a decent shower.”
“Oh,” Elaine said. “That sounds fine. But what about the shower – how will she wash over the lavatory?”
Jim shrugged. “That’s the way they do it. It’s better than the hole in the floor she’d have in the townships. Hard to believe… an expensive area like this.”
He studied the room and thoughtfully, said, “I don’t see what else we can do, unless you wanna build a bathroom. I can replace the toilet for a few hundred bucks, but there’s nowhere else for her to shower. I can’t make a cubicle in her bedroom; it’s too small.”
No matter which way they looked at it, there seemed to be no solution. In the meantime, Lena’s face continued to be stony.
“What’s the matter with Lena,” Joannie asked her mother that evening while she was having a bath.
Sitting on the toilet-set while she creamed her hands and painted her nails, Elaine said, “Why? Did she say something to you?”
“Not really,” Said Joannie. “But she looks cross and when I went to her room and wanted to play cut-out dolls with her, she told me to go away. I don’t think she likes the new house, Mommy.”
Elaine didn’t know what to say.
“What will we do?” she asked Adam, that evening, at the dinner table. Despite the mess, Lena had roasted a chicken, which she served with creamed potatoes and green peas. Lena ate at the kitchen table on the other side of the door, where she could hear their muted conversation.
“Is it really so bad?” Adam asked. “I mean, she spends most of her days in the house. It’s more her house than ours – we’re both out working all day while she has the run of it. And she has her own garden. I could put a bench behind the washing lines so that she has some privacy. And she can wash her hands inside – it’s just the shower and the toilet.”
Helping herself to salad, Elaine looked at her husband guiltily. “Our house is so beautiful and she’s -!”
“Wait a sec Honey, we’re putting in a hot water system and a new toilet. We’re not made of money. This move… the expenses…” he protested, “We’re not millionaires!”
Elaine pushed aside her food and shook her head. “We should have checked before we bought the house. Besides, I can’t have someone who can’t keep herself clean, working inside and making my food. ” She called to the kitchen, “Lena, you can come and collect the dishes. The meal was excellent, thank you.”
“How are you settling in?” Adam asked. “The Madam has arranged for a water heating system to be put in for you. And we’re going to replace your toilet.”
Poker-faced, Lena nodded. “Yes Sir, thank you.”
“And your room? Your bed fits comfortably? The cupboard-?”
“Yes Sir.”
Elaine said, “Slowly, slowly…. Did you put your white bedspread over your bed? The one you embroidered? I’m sure it will look very nice when you have finished decorating it. Maybe we can pick up an inexpensive cover for your light.”
“Yes Madam, thank you.” Lena piled the plates onto the tray and walked out of the kitchen.
“I know what,” Lena heard Joannie say. “Lena can use my bathroom. “I don’t mind sharing.”
Her father frowned. “Shhh!” he said, shaking his head. He put his finger to his lips, “Lena can’t use your bathroom.”
“No?” she whispered back. “But I don’t mind.”
Elaine called to Lena, “Don’t forget to take the leftover chicken and some fruit for your family, when you visit them tomorrow.”
They sat side by side on their new wooden slatted garden furniture alongside the pool watching Joannie and Poncho gambol in the blue water. Elaine picked up a twig from one of the pine trees, and threw it for Poncho to catch, but he just looked up at her with cocked ears and an eager face. “Stupid dog,” she laughed, pretending to throw it. “Fetch!” Poncho wagged and waited. “I’m not going to fetch it for you,” Elaine said. “Joannie, call your dog. He’s trying to make me feel bad for not fetching the stick for him.”
Adam, wearing bathing trunks, stood up and stretched, squinting into the sun. “This is the life!”
Elaine said, “Why don’t you swim? You’d better do so before the South Easter starts blowing. We won’t be able to sit out here much longer.”
“The garden’s going to need a lot of work,” Adam replied. “I’ll try to sweep up the pine needles, but whew!” He fetched a straw broom and began sweeping the clumps of debris that covered the lawn. “It’s really hot t— maybe I’ll work up a sweat and then swim!”
“If only we could fix Lena’s bathroom, everything would be perfect,” complained Elaine.
“Come off it, honey,” Adam said crossly. “We can’t solve all the problems in the world. We’ve got nothing to feel bad about. She’s gone to visit her family in Guguletu – do you think they have it any better there in the location? They probably live in a tin hut with a benzene heater to boil water! She has a good life with us – and I’m pleased we can give it to her. She’s like family. But I’m not gonna let this get me down. We’ve worked too hard for this house… it’s ours… and I’m damned!”
“It’s just that… we’re sitting here with three bathrooms …three full bathrooms fitted with the best of everything. It’s all so great and our housekeeper… nanny… ‘member of the family’- whatever you want to call her - is living in a backroom with a shower in her toilet.”
“Elaine — just tell me what you want to do!”
Elaine called to Joannie, “Do be careful Lovey.” She stood up and walked to the edge of the pool, “Maybe you’ve had enough water? Your fingers are beginning to wrinkle.” Poncho came and sprayed water over her legs. “Ych!” she jumped. “Go, scat!” she ran away from the dog who thought it was a game and chased after her. When she sat down again, he jumped onto her lap.
“Off, get off!” Elaine yelled.
Using Joannie’s towel, Elaine wiped her legs. “How could people have lived here for so many years and not done anything about the maid’s toilet?”
“Maybe they didn’t have a live-in servant,” Adam offered.
“Hmm,” said Elaine.
“Why can’t Lena use my toilet,” Joannie grumbled, approaching her mother with chattering teeth.
“I can’t explain,” said Elaine. “You tell her, Adam.”
“Well… just because.” He gave Elaine a look. “Lena’s black and we’re white and she’s our servant. And she has to have her own place to live. We can’t share.”
“But why?” Joannie demanded.
“It’s just not done.”
“So okay then, “Joannie offered, “Lena can stay in the granny suite. It has a bathroom and door.”
Adam smiled and ruffled Joannie’s hair. “That’s a good point, Pumpkin. But if Lena moved in… where would Granny stay when she came to visit?”
Joannie wrinkled her forehead and looked at her father strangely. “Granny?” she asked. “Silly Daddy, Granny never ever comes to stay!”
“That’s enough from the peanut gallery,” her father said.
Elaine turned her head away.
No more was said about Lena’s room or the problem of the toilet and shower. Lena said nothing, and Elaine and Adam, faced with the impossibility of doing anything further to make their domestic comfortable, simply put the matter out of their minds. If Lena didn’t look particularly happy, they hardly noticed. Or perhaps they concluded that she was having personal problems and they didn’t want to pry.
That Friday evening, they invited Renata, Adam’s mother and his sister Kate and husband, for dinner. Elaine, Adam and Lena had worked hard all week to unpack and put things away, and at last, everything was in order. Adam had bought Elaine a bouquet of roses and she’d made a particularly stunning arrangement for the table. “How beautiful it all looks,” she said as they set out the good dinner service. Noticing a speck of dirt on a plate, she grimaced and passed it to Lena to wash.
Everything went smoothly; the relatives admired the home and the efficiency with which Elaine and Adam had settled in. Renata admired the view and Elaine proudly showed her how from one angle it seemed as though the mountain sloped right into their living room, while from another perspective, one had a clear view of the docks.
“Where are the Flats?” Renata asked, peering through the wide picture window in the lounge.
“One of the reasons your clever son chose this house was that the townships are just to the east of us and are quite obscured by the Pine trees,” explained Elaine proudly.
It was while Lena was carrying a tray filled with desert dishes and leftover cream caramel back to the kitchen, that the family was startled by the sound of crockery smashing to the floor.
Alarmed, her hand to her throat, Elaine ran to see what had happened. Adam followed. In the kitchen they found Lena staring helplessly at a mess of broken dishes, their beautiful terracotta tiles muddied with caramel sauce and scratched by shards of Waterford crystal glasses.
Outside the wind blew and the puffs of cloud that covered the mountain seemed to float right into her kitchen. Looking with dismay from the mess on her floor to Lena’s face, it seemed to Elaine that she heard the Cape Doctor laugh.
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