Page 20 - In a different register - Sample

especially children in her charge, through rigorous inculcation of the fear of God. Paul, the eldest boy taught her Hebrew and chess. Much to his parents chagrin, long before he reached the age of discernment he turned to Judaism. During the Apartheid era he mysteriously disappeared and later still, shame enshrouded whispered rumours had it that he had gone to Israel and become a Rabbinic scholar.It was a time of misery. Her mother had always said that her imagination would be her downfall and she was proved right. The Pastors’ children teased her mercilessly on account of her believing their stories: Hordes of giant ants lurked under her bed in wait for her to fall asleep so that they could come and eat her. Tormented by day in anticipation, by night she would at last fall asleep exhausted, only to wake up with a start, to feel the beginnings of their predatory activity on her toes. Her anguished screams would bring everyone running only to be reprimanded by Aunty Evelyn to not be a silly little girl. She was even more terrified by this God-fearing, imposing figure of a woman. But worse to come, Paul took on the role of School Principal while she, Helen and Grace were pupils. Paul commanded morning assembly: ‘Shut your eyes while I will open with prayer’. (He was after all a good pastor’s son) There was a long silence. With the interminable passing of the time she ventured to peep to see what was going on. Her eyes met Paul’s who was gazing at her steadily waiting for this delicious, to be expected, moment. With a roar of victory he shouted: You have opened your eyes at PRAYER! A never to be forgiven sin worthy of hell fire and damnation. Father must know about this. Telling father meant that father would tell The Father and all three of them would figure out a punishment befitting the crime. For days, for weeks, she waited to know what unbearable cross she was going to have to bear, but no news ever came. Had she known it, the tension she lived under was more than enough punishment for all her sins put together.Her parents came back having resolved to stay together but at what cost to both of them no one will ever know. Her father was devoted to her mother and only her, all his life. But she, poor woman, wanted too much. The pristine cloister was not for her. Even more she wanted things for her children which only she could provide. They lived in incompatible worlds until at the age of fifty she realised that she hadn’t gotten far in terms of happiness so perhaps it was time to turn to her Christian duty and pay more attention to the will of God.Mary told J that it seemed that more and more, as she grew older, there was the constant limiting of any life other than that which could be construed to be the will of God by her father. Of course this precluded ballet, boyfriends, make up, ‘trousers’ (the Biblical prohibition of women wearing men’s clothing), parties, dancing, movies, sport on Sundays ............... the list was inexhaustible. It was left to her mother to socialise her and give her a taste for ‘the world’. Contrary to her husbands’ forebodings, she took her daughter to a movie for the first time when she was eleven because she thought Mary might become an alien to her classmates. Television, another possible field of contestation, was non-existent in South Africa for years after it was second nature to the rest of the world. The Government feared its racial contaminating influence on the population – rightly so! At twelve, her mother gave her an Elvis record which she played unremittingly so long as her father was out of earshot. She was almost thrown out of the house at seventeen because she had brought home the Sunday Times. ‘Not under my roof’ said her father and gave her a clear choice: ‘Either you do not read the Sunday paper in my house or you must go’. Period. Family prayers morning and evening, Church twice on Sundays, were de rigueur. Little matter that to her embarrassment her friends would have to wait for her at the bottom of the steps to the kitchen, while these unutterably archaic family rituals were engaged.But Music was her mother’s real gift to her. Rustle of Spring, A Mozart Piano Concerto, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, A Bach Prelude, all the depth and agony of a life pouring through the notes as her mother’s hands stormed and trickled over the keyboard. On summer evenings, there was too, the lilting joy of being young and in love, as ‘Ramona’ or ‘I’ll be loving you, Always’, wafted through the lounge windows and mingled with the smell of the Syringa blossom.