The Anniversary
Grandma takes the yellowing lace tablecloth from the drawer in the sideboard and shaking it out, she sniffs the material. “This could have done with a wash, Rosy, but it has to do for now. It is only family that we are expecting for tea this afternoon to celebrate my anniversary.”
Helping Grandma spread the cloth over the dining room table Rosy can’t help to but compare their hands as they touch. Grandma’s are showing signs of rheumatism in the joints of the fingers; tanned brown from the sun. Gardening is a passion of hers and the vegetables she grows on her small plot in Elsies River, augments her meager state pension. Her face is still relatively unlined and many a time she has admonished Rosy for going about outdoors without wearing a hat.
“I wish I could do fine needlework like you.”
“The youth of today do not have the patience for crafts. Everything is bought in the shops and thrown away when they get tired of it. I made things to last and to bring me pleasure for many years to come. I made this edging to the piece of lace that you see before you. I had found the lace at the Grand Parade stalls in Cape Town one Saturday morning. Oh, the sights and sounds of the old Grand Parade in those days …” She lets the sentence hang in the air like an unfinished painting.
“I cannot thank you enough for raising me, Grandma. It could not have been easy for you with Mum and a baby, especially after my dad had died in an accident at Pollsmoor prison. He only had been six months at the job of warden and there was an uprising …. What is it, Grandma?”
“I did not want to tell you like this, but this family seems to be founded on lies, and lies beget more lies.”
“Beget? What does that mean?”
Grandma gives one of her characteristic chuckles. “The word means that it just breeds more of the same thing. A lie will result in many more lies to support the original lie. Telling the truth is the best policy, but it is not always in the best interest of all parties concerned.”
The then laws of the country had been adjusted twenty years ago to allow for mixed race marriages. Grandma and Grandpa were married according to the customs of his culture, but it was not legal in the eyes of the then government. Things like his pension fund (which could only go to his legal wife upon his death) could not be claimed by Grandma in the case of such a tragic event. Unbeknownst to Grandma, using this as an excuse (albeit a flimsy one), one Friday morning in front of the local magistrate, Grandpa had gotten married to a young girl almost half his age. His reasoning had been that he did not wish, upon his death, that his pension should default to the company where he was working.
When the laws had changed and not long after, it was announced that the first Democratic elections were to be held at the end of April 1994, Grandma had decided to celebrate the occasion by getting married as soon as the new government came into power. It would have been a victory for them and the people to be able to celebrate that historic event for generations to come on such an auspicious date. That is when the whole debâcle about his wedding had come to light and it had been a bitter pill for Grandma to swallow, especially as the young girl seemed to have usurped Grandpa’s affections. He had promised to have the marriage annulled as soon as the hustle-and-bustle of the elections was over. I am sure that Grandma would have held him to his promise if Fate did not take a hand in the proceedings.
The elections had run over a period of three days and many businesses and government institutions had been closed to allow their employees time off to travel and to vote. At most polling stations, queues of unusual lengths had been reported. It has not uncommon for people to stand for four hours (often in pouring rain) in the lines before they were able to cast their vote. There had been a festive spirit about the proceedings and the Doomsday prophets had to find something else to portend their message of doom and gloom over. The Geel-, Rooi- and Swartgevaar did not hold the power of the bogeyman anymore. The supermarkets had lamented the loss of revenue, discounting the record sales of candles, toilet paper, and tinned goods prior to the elections (mostly to the white population of the nation). The peaceful transition had not been welcomed by all, but the majority vote had carried the day and the world applauded the dawn of a new democracy.
Grandpa had been up early that Wednesday morning and was pleased that he did not have to stay that long. The officials had let him jump the queue as he was one of the volunteers from their local church who helped in the transport of frail people.
That evening, he had complained about a sore throat and had retired early to bed after managing a cup of tea and a painkiller. The next morning he was dead. Grandma did not give the details of how or what had killed him, but the doctors had said that the same heart condition that had killed Rosy’s mother at an early age, was hereditary. Grandma celebrated the day as the beginning of a new life and refused to wear black or mourn Grandpa on that day, saying that a life should be celebrated however short it might have been.
“I have marked that date as the date of our wedding anniversary in my heart, although Grandpa’s death had interrupted our plans to marry under the new laws. No laws of a country can dictate to one’s heart. A piece of paper is just that: a piece of paper. The love that binds your grandfather and me is written up in the Book of Life. The 27th of April will continue to be celebrated on the anniversary of the courage that all the brave souls in this beloved land had demonstrated.”
It was past nine o’clock when Rosy heard her grandmother pack the last of the tea service in the sideboard. Rosy was on the verge of dreamland when she realised that her grandmother did not elaborate on the statement about the lies that people lived by. She would ask her in the morning, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.
Twice during the week, Rosy had tried to ask her grandmother about the lies which she had referred to but was told that that was not the time to discuss the matter.
Sunday dawns bright with a light breeze from the southeast. When Rosy goes to open her grandmother’s curtains, she finds her slumped in the chair by the window. The Bible is lying open on the title page and a fresh inscription was made in the unique turquoise ink that her grandmother used. She had written in the name of Rosy’s father, Clinton Amos, and his age at the time of death as thirty. Her mother was only fourteen when Rosy was born. Underneath Grandma had started to write: ‘I did not understand the culture …’
‘Yes, sometimes answers only raise more questions,’ Rosy thought as she took the book from the cold hands and placed it on the dresser.
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