My name is Vaselinetjie. Anoeschka von Meck

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СКАЧАТЬ did it matter that her complexion was lighter than everyone else’s? Ouma said she’d always looked like that.

      The welfare lady bought her a pie, potato crisps and a Fanta. Vaselinetjie loved Fanta but she held the can in her lap without opening it. Still, she found it hard to be rude to a strange grown-up, for that wasn’t how Ouma had raised her. At church everyone always commented on her good manners. But today she didn’t care whether the lady thought she was rude or not.

      In order to forget about the welfare lady she read the names on the signposts along the road. She wasn’t stupid. She knew Johannesburg was in Gauteng – a very long way from the Northern Cape where she lived with Oupa and Ouma.

      She pretended to be studying for an exam and tried to memorise all the names along the way, for the day she’d have to find her way back.

      I’ll find my way back home sooner than they think, she told herself.

      But there were too many names, and they passed through too many places, and in the end she became confused. She cried soundlessly. At last she fell asleep, her face in the puddle formed by her tears on the vinyl upholstery of the car door.

      The hostel was situated outside a town that looked as if its streets had grown so tired that they had collapsed sideways. A narrow tarred road snaked halfway up a hill till it reached a gate. A large sign read: RIGHT OF ADMISSION RESERVED.

      In the gloom Vaselinetjie could make out a few buildings with broken windows, a parched lawn, and a tennis court with weeds pushing through the cracks. The gate hung on a single hinge and clanked eerily against a rusty post. The welfare lady parked in front of an H-shaped double-storey, in which only a few lights were showing.

      No one came out to welcome them and Vaselinetjie struggled to lift her large suitcase out of the boot while the welfare lady knocked on the front door.

      After a long wait they heard a click, a dim porch light came on and they heard someone sliding the bolts on the inside.

      “Is it a new arrival?” a voice asked through a chink in the door. “If so, go round the back and knock on the first door you see.” The voice didn’t wait for a reply and without another word the door was shut in their faces.

      “Come!” The welfare lady led the way on clicking heels. Vaselinetjie could hear that she was annoyed.

      The lady knocked on a door behind a safety gate. It took quite a while before someone arrived to let them in. While the lady was completing forms, Vaselinetjie looked around. Through the window she could see a quad, and rooms leading off it. A small redheaded boy was sitting behind a curtain at a window on the first floor. It looked as if he was crying. When he saw her, he stopped and waved, wiping his nose on the curtain.

      The welfare lady had finished completing the forms and turned to her. “Now don’t let me hear any bad things about you, all right?” She seemed in a hurry to leave and gave Vaselinetjie a brief pat on the back. The hostel lady opened a door that led into a passage and pushed the safety gate aside for Vaselinetjie to enter. She heard whispers in the dark.

      “Lights out, lights out!” the lady called as they walked down the passage, Vaselinetjie lugging her heavy suitcase behind her. The lady had hair on her upper lip and chin – too creepy for words. Vaselinetjie noticed that her slippers were worn and shapeless and that her heels were rough and cracked. She was munching away at a toasted sandwich and licking her fingers, with Vaselinetjie’s admission forms clasped under one arm.

      “There are several units in the building, but they all look alike. We call them houses and they all have different names. Each house has its own matron who looks after the children in that house. All the front doors open into a long passage at the centre of the building,” the lady explained over her shoulder, chewing on the last crust.

      At the door of the fourth room she motioned for Vaselinetjie to enter. She remained in the doorway just long enough to make sure that Vaselinetjie found an empty bed.

      “I said lights out!” She looked past Vaselinetjie at the inquisitive faces peeking out from under bedding everywhere.

      Vaselinetjie wanted to shut her eyes tightly and scream and scream until she woke from the nightmare. Each bed stood a metre away from the next and had a locker and a tall, narrow clothes cupboard. Some of the cupboards had no doors.

      The lady flicked off the light and her footsteps receded down the passage.

      “Don’t worry about her. Actually you’re lucky to be in this house. She’s one of the nicest matrons,” a voice whispered from the neighbouring bed.

      Vaselinetjie couldn’t make out the face of the speaker and she was too afraid to answer. Hurriedly she took her nightie from her suitcase and put it on under the duvet without making a sound.

      Where was Ouma Kitta to tuck her in? Where was her own big, soft bed with the colourful bedspread and the springs that creaked when she flopped down on it? This mattress was so thin that she could feel the spaces between the wooden slats of the bed.

      She wanted to pee and she wanted to cry but she was afraid to move and afraid that someone might hear her sniffling. She buried her head in her pillow and tried to hold back her fear and her sobs.

      2

      The next morning Vaselinetjie was startled awake by the noise of fifteen girls living together in cramped quarters. A crazy hullabaloo of voices talking and laughing and shouting from room to room. In the midst of this chaos the matron was trying to hurry everyone along.

      A scrawny girl with badly cut mousy hair that reminded Vaselinetjie of a toilet brush was standing at the bed next to hers. Her front teeth were broken stumps, stained brown. Vaselinetjie quickly averted her eyes when the girl looked in her direction.

      Two coloured girls had opened Vaselinetjie’s suitcase and were rifling through the contents. “Leave my stuff!” She jumped from under her duvet and made a grab for her belongings.

      “Aikona.” One of the girls was holding an item of clothing out of her reach. “All this has to go to the laundry first, and then you can label it and put it away.” She laughed. “Were you born in a pharmacy?” She showed the other girl the name on the tags Ouma Kitta had sewn neatly into the back of each item. “You’ll have to unpick all these, here you get only a number.”

      A tall white girl with the longest black braid Vaselinetjie had ever seen entered the room. She yanked open the doors of all the cupboards and started tossing out clothes. She peered under the beds. Under the pillow on the bed next to Vaselinetjie’s she found a pair of panties, a dirty pair of school socks and a one-legged doll.

      The girl picked up the doll and with one determined movement twisted off its head. “Just as I thought,” she said when something fell out. “You’re gated for the afternoon, Albie!” she said sternly.

      Vaselinetjie watched as the child with the toilet brush hair fell down as if she had been shot in the head. Her fists hammered on the floor and her legs thrashed as if she was trying to swim. The other girls laughed but Vaselinetjie stared at her, shocked. She had never seen a grown child carry on like this.

      “Why haven’t you made your bed yet?” The girl with the braid turned to Vaselinetjie, who was so panic-stricken that she was speechless. She had very seldom yet spoken to a white girl and it made her especially nervous to realise that this girl was a senior. Vaseline could tell because she was taller than the rest СКАЧАТЬ