You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town Read Online Free PDF Page A

helpings of mealie porridge. He does not know that I have long since come to despise my size. I would like to be a pumpkin stored on the flat roof and draw in whole beams of autumn’s sunlight so that, bleached and hardened, I could call upon the secret of my glowing orange flesh.
    A wolf whistle from one of the boys. I turn to look and I know it will upset Pa. Two girls in identical flared skirtsarrive with their own radio blaring Boeremusiek. They nod at us and stand close by, perhaps seeking protection from the boys. I hope that Pa will not speak to me loudly in English. I will avoid calling him Father for they will surely snigger under cover of the whining concertina. They must know that for us this is no ordinary day. But we all remain silent and I am inexplicably ashamed. What do people say about us? Until recently I believed that I was envied; that is, not counting my appearance.
    The boys beckon and the girls turn up their radio. One of them calls loudly, ‘Turn off that Boere-shit and come and listen to decent American music.’ I wince. The girls do as they are told, their act of resistance deflated. Pa casts an anxious glance at the white policeman pacing the actual platform, the paved white section. I take out a paper handkerchief and wipe the dust from my polished shoes, a futile act since this unpaved strip for which I have no word other than the inaccurate platform, is all dust. But it gives me the chance to peer at the group of young people through my lowered lashes.
    The boys vie for their attention. They have taken the radio and pass it round so that the red skirts flare and swoop, the torsos in T-shirts arch and taper into long arms reaching to recover their radio. Their ankles swivel on the slender stems of high heels. Their feet are covered in dust. One of the arms adjusts a chiffon headscarf that threatens to slip off, and a pimply boy crows at his advantage. He whips the scarf from her head and the tinkling laughter switches into a whine.
    â€˜Give it back . . . You have no right . . . It’s mine and I want it back . . . Please, oh please.’
    Her arm is raised protectively over her head, the hand flattened on her hair.
    â€˜No point in holding your head now,’ he teases. ‘I’ve got it, going to try it on myself.’
    Her voice spun thin on threads of tears, abject as she begs. So that her friend consoles, ‘It doesn’t matter, you’ve got plenty of those. Show them you don’t care.’ A reproachful look but the friend continues, ‘Really, it doesn’t matter, your hair looks nice enough. I’ve told you before. Let him do what he wants with it, stuff it up his arse.’
    But the girl screams, ‘Leave me alone,’ and beats away the hand reaching out to console. Another taller boy takes the scarf and twirls it in the air. ‘You want your doekie? What do you want it for hey, come on tell us, what do you want it for? What do you want to cover up?’
    His tone silences the others and his face tightens as he swings the scarf slowly, deliberately. She claws at his arm with rage while her face is buried in the other crooked arm. A little gust of wind settles the matter, whips it out of his hand and leaves it spreadeagled against the eucalyptus tree where its red pattern licks the bark like flames.
    I cannot hear their words. But far from being penitent, the tall boy silences the bareheaded girl with angry shaking of the head and wagging of the finger. He runs his hand through an exuberant bush of fuzzy hair and my hand involuntarily flies to my own. I check my preparations: the wet hair wrapped over large rollers to separate the strands, dried then swirled around my head, secured overnight with a nylon stocking, dressed with vaseline to keep the strands smooth and straight and then pulled back tightly to stem any remaining tendency to curl. Father likes it pulled back. He says it is a mark of honesty to have the forehead and ears