Dinaane by Davey Maggie;

Author:Davey, Maggie;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Saqi

WILLEMIEN DE VILLIERS

Coming in to Land

‘In the unlikely event of decompression ...’ a voice starts, and I turn my gaze towards the window. Lately, I don’t like the look of oxygen masks. Just before take-off I have a brief vision of an explosion, obliterating the entire airport building. And then we lift up, and away from my imagined danger. Now, my eyes catch a glimpse of sparkle below, a car overtaking a slow truck. Another shimmer approaches from the opposite direction: the two vehicles narrowly miss. Even if a head-on collision occurred, I would remain unaffected.

Instead, I look at a faded blue serpentine river below. Next to it, a cluster of circular sewerage tanks offers a strange patterned beauty.

The familiar Cape Town landscape recedes and is gradually replaced by a two-dimensional rust-coloured map, contoured by several pale, flat-topped ridges. The plane noses through a dense cloud; small puffs drift free to float above their shadows, which form dark splatters on the landscape below. Human imprint is visible everywhere, in the precise geometry of agriculture, the ploughed fields turned into pattern.

We fly over the flooded areas surrounding Arniston and Bredasdorp, where I met my father for the last time. He made the trip from Johannesburg, to introduce me to his place of birth. We walked and talked; found an old abandoned bakoond in the veld and agreed that the yeasty smell of freshly baked bread still lingered in the air. My father was a shy but violent man. Although I had longed to take his hand as we walked, I didn’t, because I knew he would fluster and pull at the collar of his shirt and lengthen his stride, so that my hand would slip free of his.

Breakfast is being served. I order two whiskies, and register a flicker of interest from the man sitting next to me. The top of the first miniature bottle twists open with a satisfying snap of the seal. I empty it over the ice cubes in the plastic cup on the tray.

‘We are approaching Kimberley now, on the right,’ the captain’s voice announces, and I notice a large X-shape, close to the familiar landmark Big Hole. I imagine God’s fist punching, as I lift the cup to my lips in a silent toast to my father.

I try to decipher the landscape below. Cemeteries appear as enormous tablets, with the scattered headstones forming lines of coded text. Soon my father’s stone, placed next to my mother’s, will form part of this Morse code from the departed.

Last night I lay awake for a long time, watching grey flakes of ash sifting through the dense canopy of flowering gum trees outside my bedroom window. It formed a veil covering the burnt haunches of the mountain. Time – primordial, patient beast – kept me company. Along with first light, the sound of drums and singing appeared. Just before finally drifting into a deep sleep, I thought how strange it was that I could sense how this dawn song would end.

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