The last door
My drive to get home stopped together with the car. I wanted to stay in the vehicle with them. I wanted to keep moving. But I smiled goodbye. I felt as if I’d left myself behind in the rain. Another two lifts got me to the familiar turn-off from where it was a short walk to my parents’ home. It had started raining again. When the last car door slammed shut I paused for a moment as jubilation danced with tribulation.
My mom will be surprised. She has no idea I’m coming home today. In my imagination I see the chilled champagne and smell my favourite dishes as we prepare to celebrate my homecoming. It is early Friday afternoon. Mom is always home on a Friday.
What I find when I get there is dooiemansdeur. Nobody home. At least the dogs are there and happy to see me. They don’t mind that I’m wet and smell of many, many different people. Steeped in stories.
I phone my mother’s cellphone and she actually answers. She doesn’t usually take it with her. She is about a hundred kilometres away, travelling to Balito with her friend Barbara who did not want to drive alone. ‘Well, enjoy it, mom,’ I say bravely – she lives such a frugal life – but when the call ends I feel completely deflated.
I want to climb inside my mom’s tummy. The closest, next-best thing would be to get inside her fridge. Not necessarily because I am hungry. No, it is the familiarity of my own that I crave. That and a hot shower.
What now, do I wait? Pop in for a visit next door? Or do I do that trick with the laundry room window? I can see the fridge through the curtain. Tango and Cindy’s rapturous attention and drool are getting a bit much and my dad’s outside workshop is open. My dad is my hero. He won’t mind if I break in. The irony of coming home to a locked door, after experiencing hundreds of welcomes in the homes of complete strangers, almost escapes me so fixed am I on finding the right screwdriver.
It doesn’t take long before I am in my motherless kitchen and smell home. It is almost too sweet to bear. And there is a heaviness, a weight on my soul. How to bear it?
I take a sneak peek into way back when the dream was all I had. When clutching it was hanging on to an island of sense. I close my eyes and step back in time.
To the last door.
* * *
I knock.
‘Hello?’
The young woman who answers the door is unsure and insecure, but she has big dreams floating in the clouds just behind her eyes. She seems afraid, but not of me. There’s a light dusting of flour on her forehead and she is barefoot. She looks so vulnerable through the security gate.
She says that she is in the middle of something, but she can give me some food and something to drink to take with me. I feel the prison that is her world. Her life behind this slamlock door. How will she make her food offering? Will she unlock the gate or push it through the bars? Maybe I should just turn around and let her be.
She disappears into the depths of the house, sucked in by its cool darkness. I stand on the little step, turn my back on the house and let my gaze sweep across her garden. There is a beautiful acacia tree that seems to be the heartbeat of it all. I imagine her sitting in its lacy shade, feeling like a queen.
Her garden is her grace. Her feet become light, her sway a dance when she’s out here. The bees up in the owl house, where they made their home, know her scent. The flowers stretch towards her when she walks past, in the hope that she would see them. The weaver birds thank her for sharing the palm tree that provides them with nest-building material. There are vegetables and herbs planted in her flower beds. The other plants are indigenous. The aloes carry sweet sap for healing. This is her home.
Heavy, burdened footsteps can be heard and the inmate returns with a skyscraping plate of sandwiches and some cold drink. A big smile hides behind her tear-stained cheeks. And indeed, she unlocks the white lattice frame of her in- security. She steps outside to be with me. She sees her garden in my eyes.