Page 17 - In a different register - Sample

wife’s heart and sailing over the horizon with her to South America. Then there were sixteen – the additional one in the Skipper’s cabin. It didn’t last for long and the women on the yacht vindictively hoped that her husband would refuse to take her back when she finally went the way of previous women. Of course his only woman was Klaraborg herself to whom he was faithful to the end.Matt had gone off to Peru with Paul on some precipitous Andean descent to a tributary of the Amazon supposedly to take them through seldom navigated waters of the Indian, while she stayed on in Rio. Mary said she unaccountably found herself as ‘The English Governess’ with the celebrity plastic surgeon Dr. Morado, who bred monstrously large cross Weimarana-German Mastiff who only roamed the property at night under the surveillance of a security guard. He was the president of Museu d’Arte Moderna in Parque do Flamengo. The Belgian ambassador’s son maintained that plastic surgery was his secret longing to be a great artist. He also told her that her ‘Englishness’ added status to the household. Relinquishing a pariah South African for a pseudo-English status was gratifying. A martial arts teacher arrived each morning to give o Doutor a work out in the Pagoda high up on stilts in a miniature forest. On some weekends we would travel to his island, one of the Ilha Angra dos Reis south of Rio. On others, we went to his mountain lodge beyond Teresopolis - a rambling beauty draped in forest and waterfalls with the aura of forgotten magic swirling through the trees. Matt wrote repeatedly begging her to meet him in Lima. Since she was desperately wanted, she took her time; lingering over the taste of Europe in Buenos Aires which even extended to a night out at the Opera and savouring the four day ride on the only peasant-packed train to La Paz. Who can forget the Andes? The Lake of the Sun God Titicaca. The jagged peaks of Machu Picchu dissolving in the eternal mists of the Urubamba Valley, the haunting sound of ‘El Condor Passé’ and building blocks of stone weighing fifty tons or more marking palaces, baths, temples, tombs, storage rooms, in this sacred valley of the Incas. She arrived in Lima to find an emaciated, disturbed and impenetrable Matt. All he could say was: it is over. He would give no reason. What was there to do but to leave. I went home via Manaus, Brasilia, and Salvador, arriving in Cape Town after some months to find that Matt had gone to Bulawayo to do a locum. He asked me to come up and see him. I did a few times but never got to the bottom of it and he never told me what had happened in Peru. A year had passed when suddenly I received a letter from him saying that he was immigrating to Canada. He wrote me a poem: Love is more than twenty moons over the mountains .......... And I knew he was referring to the Hottentots Holland across False Bay. On summer nights enter-twined on our perch high on the Constantia ridge above Kirstenbosch we would gaze across at the rising moon.One of my earliest memories, she told J, was that at age three my porcelain doll was smashed. It used to reside on top of the cupboard with the identical one that her sister, her sister Martha had. As she pulled it down it fell on the floor and the face shattered. No amount of tears could put dolly together again, nor could tears manipulate her sister into giving up her own intact doll. Neither could she persuade mummy or daddy to get another one or to put pressure on her sister to give in to her pleas. It was a significant moment of truth. In later years it seemed symbolic of the differences between her sister, her sister Martha and herself.Another significant moment of truth was the day her dog died. Smokey was the forerunner of many companion dogs who saw her through the loneliness of being five years younger than her sister, her sister Martha and having a mother who was away at work during the day. She had a black nanny and there was John the large black gardener. Actually Majola was his name. But the tactile comfort and ever ready ear of Smokey were a balm for her solitude. She must have been about four when her father said that he had something to tell her: ‘why don’t we take a little walk at the top of the garden’. They strolled near the dam. It must have been difficult for him. Smokey ..., Smokey ..... he isn’t around anymore. There was a car accident. Instantly breathless, then like some wounded bird her heart flapped with a wild pain. Whatever he said, she got what he meant. It was fortunate that after that I had other beloved dogs, said Mary. But I knew it would never be for ever.Talking of the gardener reminded her of the time he had invited her to his room. (Actually she used to like to go to his room and he didn’t invite her, but she always said that he invited her, even to herself, because that sounded better and didn’t make her culpable for what happened). She used to talk to him and ask him questions. One day when he was changing, pointing between his legs she asked: Can I