EVERY SHADE OF PURPLE

Jackie Lagus
Her swollen fingers gingerly held the porcelain teacup.
As the steam rose off the milky-brown liquid suspended inside the delicate
embrace of fine china passed down the generations, Marie Brink felt the chill of
Hannes presence. t threatened to grab her in the bouncing shadows on the
stoep, or in the distant reaches of her timid thoughts.
Her life had been one long submission to dangerous men. t was their distance
from themsel!es, the detachment from their humanity, which made them unsafe.
Marie hid the pain of this in the layers of weight and underneath the ill-fitting
clothes, like a uniform of indifference.
t was in her bed at night that she could not escape the ghostly terrors that
haunted her, minute after agoni"ing minute, until the cracks of morning light
e!entually cut through the blinds and struck the crocheted bed co!er, signaling a
brief reprie!e for her.
#he did find pleasure in parts of her life. Moments shared with her two
grandchildren, one boy and a girl, separated in age by two-years. $hey !isited her
house most afternoons, in the suburb decorated by lines of %akaranda trees, like
sentries to time.
$heir childrens mother sought refuge in Maries wise embrace, her nurturing
ways. t was Maries birthright, the talent to care and nourish, descending from a
long line of formidable women, the matriarchs of the &loete clan 'she used to be
a &loete before marriage changed her to a Brink(, that anchored their families like
roots of an ancient tree, to the soil of their homeland.
$hese women used the produce from their land to bake breads, create the sweet
)ams, warm stews and thick, syrupy desserts. But Maries grandchildren li!ed in a
different world, out of touch with nature and the old ways.
$heirs was a world of ready-made products, fast technology, and ready
consumption. $he more these kids had, the more they seemed to want. Marie
was grateful her days as a parent of small children was o!er. #he could cope with
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the pain of a bad marriage, but not the mindless mill of consumerism that created
a cycle of debt and despair for many families now.
Maries consolation was the afternoon hours with her grandchildren, time when
they could )ust play, no tele!ision, no plastic toys from &hina, )ust the quiet shade
of her back garden, where peach and lemon trees grew from the burnt-red soil.
Backwards, forwards, up and down, their little feet slicing through the air as she
pushed them on the swing with the sil!er-painted seat. Hours would pass in this
sanctuary, where mud cakes were made from garden soil mi*ed with water from
the copper tap that was fi*ed to the outer wall of the maids room.
Maries maid, Minah, had died the pre!ious year. #he had been a solid companion
to her employer, e!en though in those years there were laws in the country that
di!ided people like Marie and Minah into solid camps of colour. +,oure Black
Minah. -o .hite /estaurants for ,ou. #how 0s ,our 1ass Minah. -o .alking 2n
the #treets After 3ark 4or ,our 5ind.6
Marie had her own conscience about this, but felt it was easier to slip out of the
guilt into the more comfortable space of denial. #he filled her thoughts instead
with recipes for milk tart and apricot squares. n those days she used to in!ite
friends around for afternoon tea, while the kids played in the garden her
grandchildren now occupy.
$hose were the days when $ri*ie, the fo* terrier, chased at their little heels,
barking in short beats with tail swishing left and right. -ow $ri*ie is buried in a
little gra!e in the corner of the yard, a shrine to another old companion. 1robably
the only true friend Marie had besides Minah.
-ot e!en these friends had e!er been taken into confidence when it came to the
truth about Maries marriage and the spectre of Hannes. t was best, she decided,
to endure the agony and torment brought on by Hannes frequent appearances.
He usually caught her off guard in her most !ulnerable moments, a game he
played in death and life, sliding saucers an inch here or there across the
stainless-steel sink. #teaming the bathroom mirror with his hot, ghostly breath.
#he had considered going to see a specialist for ad!ice. But decided against this.
$hey would diagnose her as delusional or neurotic. n this day and age there was
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no one who really cared about the world occupied by spirits. t had to be
quantifiable, like the endless list of te*tbook disorders classified into neat
categories, something tangible that seemed to present order to an unstable
world.
#o Marie resigned herself to li!ing with Hannes e!er-present spirit. n a way she
felt pity for him that his soul had ne!er found rest from the layers of anger that
had hardened around his heart, pre!enting him from finding any contented place
in the corners of his life.
And now, in death, peace continued to elude him. 1erhaps the cruel punishments
meted out to Marie during their marriage, was his way of bringing someone else
into his suffering. #o that he did not ha!e to endure the pain alone.
t had started well enough. n the beginning, as young lo!ers, they had done the
dance of intimacy and performed the courtship ritual according to their tradition.
Marie was too young and ine*perienced then to understand !ery much about life,
let alone the trials of marriage. And by the time Maries marital life started to take
on the shades of abuse, sealed by the scars carefully hidden, it was too late.
$here was no way that Marie could shame the &loete name by complaining, and
e!en worse, lea!ing Hannes for another life. #he had three children to consider.
As long as they ne!er had to witness his slaps and punches, Marie would continue
to play the role she had rehearsed so many times in her mind of the dutiful wife
and attenti!e mother.
Broken from her re!erie by the chill that had started to settle on the stoep, Marie
felt too that the tea had gone cold. $he milky bits had formed little clusters of
skin, riding on the surface of the liquid, an end to the promise of one of her
temporary pleasures.
#he drew her )ersey to her breast, and put the cup down so that she had use of
both her hands to push her from the soft comfort of the cane seat. .earily she
said goodbye to the fading light of another day, and breathed deeply as she
stepped indoors to the shadows of the house.
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Marie knew that someday her time on earth would also come to an end. And in
her mind she settled it that this would be the beginning of a freedom she had not
known for most of her adult life.
#he reckoned that her own fate had been sealed by the performance of mostly
good deeds and the endurance of others peoples bad ones. And that this would
be enough to tilt the spiritual scales in her fa!our. 4or now, that was enough to
li!e for.
ENDS

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