| dc.description.abstract | His brown hands, tanned darker than they already were from hours of supervising men shoveling sand and mixing concrete on building sites, gripped the steering wheel. Hendrick Vermeulen drove down Voortrekker Road after a long day's work. He had dropped off the last of the guys with his bakkie and was looking forward to resting. He was enjoying the cool night air blowing up his arm. And there it was, that mountain. There was nothing more to think about it. It meant nothing to him; a big rock, a marker to remind where he was. The rich people were there by the mountain; he was not. He drove on. The sun had gone down and he was making his way home. He looked at his eyes in the
rear view mirror, the lines on his forehead more visible than they had ever been. He lived close to the university that he dropped out of thirty years ago. He drove past it often - a reminder of a life he could have had. He was supposed to be a teacher and help his mother move out of the coloured townships and into a nice house, nessie wit mense, like the white people, she would say. She always said that and she laughed, with a cough at the end as she slapped her knee. That was a long time ago. He often thought of the past, but he always made
sure he snapped out of it soon enough. No time for that, he thought. And then he saw her, the young· lady walking down the street. He slowed the car. What do you think you are doing, he thought to himself as he idled down the main road. She had a plastic shopping bag and was probably on her way home from the Pick 'n Pay. Student life, he thought. He hardly had a taste of it before the riots and state of emergency and all that. Now he was a contractor. Men like him are not supposed to look at girls walking down the streets going home to their flats. Jissus she was beautiful though, he thought as he stopped at the intersection and she crossed the road. She ran across and as she walked under a street light, he got a better view. A thick, brown coat and black pantyhose and not much else. Heshook his head and laughed. These kids of today. But that's how Chalita used to dress. When they were young themselves and fell in love. They were free. When they had dreams and hopes and she thought that things were still decent and they were going to have a double story and everything will be ... | en_US |
