BALLERINA
“The problem with this country,” said the American, “is that if you can’t read Afrikaans you have no notion of what’s happening in Bloemfontein. A civilized place would have theatre information in a civilized language.” This he said shortly before the pieces of rusk and a bit of egg or two came flying at him and lodged in his hair and shirt. “But it is so,” he protested while cleaning himself up. “I missed the ballet at Sand du Plessis last week because no-one told me of it until I heard a report on SAFM radio this morning.” The regulars at Slightly Nutty considered his complaint in silence because the undeniable truth of it was evenly balanced with the awful realisation of what it meant for an unmarried man to confess a desire to watch ballet. Such a thing in our experience required a wife at least; a female insistence on culture can justify unmanly behaviour and we knew the rooinek had no wife to excuse him. “That ballet,” said Oom Willie, absently picking up a piece of egg from the table where the American had brushed it and popping it into his mouth, “that ballet is something I once did most deliciously well as you all should want to learn.” Sitting in his rubber boots and stained overalls, making the most of his 110 kg presence, he stared around at each of us to see if any would presume to declare such knowledge unnecessary. Satisfied, he leaned back in his chair and gave us a smile from beneath his moustache. “Yes, it was a good show, even in Afrikaans, but I shall tell it in English because there is an ignorant person here.” The American put on his face of displeasure but we are not fooled – he really is happy to get insults like that.
“No, you remember the NG kerk of me?” continued Oom Willie. “Not the one I don’t go to now since the dominie asked me ‘is this ten percent of what exactly?’ in just that tone of voice, but the one I didn’t go to since thirty years – that one? Well, before I didn’t go there we did many things in the community to help – the farm workers and their families mostly because if they didn’t get paid enough in fifty-one weeks so at Christmas it was good to make up for it a bit.”
We all agreed that especially at the festive season there should be good will to men (“and women” said Bani but he is young and we ignore him) and one year was a good long time to build up generosity.
Leon started to tell a story about the time he was riding a bicycle on Dan Pienaar and stopped to hand a loaf of bread to a beggar at the robot except his brakes did not work so well and he rode into the man by mistake which was a good thing he was there else Leon might have been killed going through the red light, unable to stop and waving a loaf. We were interested to learn what kind of loaf it was and what happened to it but Oom Willie put a stop to that.
“I am telling this story, Leon” he said, “and you should listen carefully in case it may happen to you also, which is not likely because your wife is not mine – but if they talk . . . well, you cannot be sure where their ideas come from. My wife, that is Marita, my wife she must have talked to someone because she comes to me and tells me she has been made in charge of the charity show and the bring-and-buy sale for Christmas and also the bring-and-braai. For this, I must bring a sheep or perhaps two. I joked did she want to sell these sheeps but, no this is for the braai and I must be ready to slaughter them at the church - but this year not out there next to the living Nativity”.
We agreed that was sensible and ordered another pot of coffee for this had all the marks of a long tale.
“Now, Marita she says that they have a talent show but in these farms there is not much talent. The men can sing hymns very badly and there are one or two ladies she can count on to lecture about sewing but there is needed something to raise money for the farm people. Something, she says, that could be sponsored – a person would agree to do something and then if they did it, their friends give them money. It sounded like gambling to me, a fine thing to be happening in an NG church! So I said of course I would do it. She has an idea – it should be a dance. Maybe I could get one or two other men to dance on stage with me for a long time and people would pay money for each fifteen minutes – something like that.”
Oom Willie leaned forward, having reached an important part, and poked my arm with his finger. “But you see the problem, neh? To get good money we must dance a lot – and how can I dance and slaughter sheeps at the same time? It would be interesting to watch that but not at all a good idea. So I told Marita, don’t worry my chicken, I will do ballet and when she finished laughing I said you see how that is making you? They also will enjoy such a thing and pay a lot of money to see it too. And there is no need now for all of you to stare at me like this – it was a good plan as I shall tell you.
“And so I went to see Junior and said he must also do this ballet with me – did he know of any? He did not, which is quite right and as I expected, but his wife she came in and told us there was one with a Sugar Plum fairy in it. That is the one, I said. We will be the Sugar Plums and dress like girls and now we must go out and visit our friends and they will sponsor - that is the word, American? – sponsor us very much to see this ballet. Yah we got the promises and it was almost 500 rands, which in those days was a good number, and all we had now to do was get ready.
“We do not know how to do this either. But I looked in the telephone book and found there a school for ballet – just an evening school place – and I rung them and asked where is a place to buy ballet clothes . . . for my daughter maybe will join your class. They told me a shop and I got right in the bakkie and drove to town and went straight in, quickly in case anyone sees me. There was a lady and she asked me what did I want? But I do not know, I said, what should my daughter wear for ballet? She brings out many things, lace and satin and pink and white, with tights and shoes, and that thing like a doughnut – what is it called?”
We didn’t fall for that trick – everyone shrugged and tried hard to think about rugby. Everyone except the American who knew no better and said “Tutu. It’s called a tutu”.
“Nie man!” said Bani, “that’s the Archbishop. Well it is… I tell you it is!” He stalked out of the restaurant with our amusement trailing behind.
“A tutu then,” said Oom Willie. “And this woman asked me how old is my daughter? I said about thirty-five years old. Now she wonders how a young bull like me could have such an old daughter but she is brave and asks what size is my daughter? I said perhaps about my size would be right and perhaps it should be made special because I didn’t see they had anything quite so sturdy. And I needed one for my friend also, same size. Should I stand up on this box? Oh you could see what she was thinking with her hand to her mouth with some orange piece of fluff in it but I did not move any muscle in my face. Finally she collects the largest ballet clothes and starts to hold them around me and pin them but I asked did she not want me to take off my overalls first? While I was in the little room to change, that was when she called the police.
“I walked out in my underwear whistling, which you almost all should know my underwear is always clean but rather old, when there is a konstabel of maybe twenty years and eager to come to grips with this communist, this criminal who wanted a pink outfit for him and his friend. Those days were not like now since the great enlightenment. He had his pistol out, pointing at me, at the floor, at the ceiling, trembling and I admit it frightened me a little bit. In fact it frightened a little bit out of me with a sound like a pistol shot and the shock upset the konstabel because he pulled the trigger of his gun and put a hole through one of the dummy children modelling the tutus”.
Around the table we were amazed and alarmed and laughing all at once – not just because Oom Willie’s story was funny but because he’d given a well timed re-enactment of having a little bit frightened out of him, which at his age now is always a risk.
“Well it was a bit of time before he believed my story about the ballet at the church with Junior but as it turned out his own father had stopped going to that church when he was a boy, so he felt almost as if we were friends. His father turned out to be a Presbyterian and that was a lot worse than wearing ballet clothes. The dress shop lady was very kind and sorry for the mess she’d made, but not half as sorry as me about mine and telling her I would come back tomorrow for all this measuring and fitting but I had now to leave and she said it was a better plan. So I should tell you that she made a good job next day of the size and it took only two more days for the dresses to be made.
“Junior was not happy when I took our clothes to him so we could practise. There are no shoes – we cannot do this thing, he said. I told him that we would take ordinary shoes, church shoes, and put some material around them – something to match the tutus. His wife watched us when we came out of the bedrooms wearing our ballet clothes and said we looked foolish. She was a humourless woman right until she died, which shows there is always time to improve. But now we had clothes and no music. Back to town I go in the bakkie and to the record shop in Westdene but in that place they have no idea what is a Sugar Plum fairy. ‘Is it Four Jacks and a Jill?’ they ask me ‘because it sounds like that kind of rubbish’ – you should have heard what they played even then, such a noise, rude buggers”.
Leon started to hum a tune and several of us started to sing - “It’s a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack, you taught me all I know and I’ll never look back. Something, something, something, Master Jack” and we trailed off in the face of Oom Willie’s displeasure.
“But an old lady there, she helped me find the Nutcracker Suite and there it is, the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy by Tchaikowsky”. Oom Willie pronounced it Chy-cow-skee and we let it pass right by – probably because no two of us would agree on how it should be said. “So there we had it – the music and the ballet clothes and no idea how to dance a ballet. Neither one of us had seen one but there was standing on toes, so we heard, and standing on one leg. These seemed easy things to do and on the day of the show all was well. The sheeps were far away from the Nativity except that one of the wise men kept trying to take them to see baby Jesus. He was quite angry and used bad words so Mrs. Oosthuizen took him into church and put soap in his mouth which made him ill and so we had two wise men that year, as one of the younger angels announced very loud many times.
“Junior and I hid in the back of the stage. It is not really a stage of course but that raised part at the front of the church, which was a little Roman for some of those NGK members back then but they hadn’t seen anything yet, I can tell you. Junior was frightened now that in front of so many people he should not be seen in a church with white tights and a pink tutu so he was trying to calm down with brandy. He had forgotten his shoes and was wearing very big yellow rubber boots that would be good to help with the slaughtering of the sheeps but just murder for Sugar Plums.
"I put on the record as we waited at the side and gave him the signal and off I danced onto the stage, left and right, left and right and stretched up my arms like so, and the satin of my blouse ripped up the side and out fell the two nartjes I had put in there for the best effect. These were ballerina size nartjes – Marita said small so I did that - but they came out anyway and rolled around on the floor. I tried to stand on tippy toes and it hurt but I tried harder because if girls could do it, certainly it should not stop a true boer. Then Junior came on.
“Now it’s not true if you ever were told that a big man can take brandy in a large amount and wear rubber boots of a certain size and do ballet in a tutu with any great success. Junior had no ear for music. No feet either. He reeled up to me and then into me and stepped on those nartjes and they were too small to trip him but he tripped anyway and went head first off the stage and into the aisle, hitting his head on a pew and going full length face down on the ground with his tutu stuck up from his behind like a sail. Someone cried out ‘A sugar bum fairy’ and that really was the end of the show”.
Oom Willie sat back, sipped on his coffee and looked around at each of us, waiting for comments. We sipped our coffee. We looked at each other. Someone cleared their throat and asked the obvious question.
“So Oom Willie. Why did you leave that church?” There was a pause, as the question seemed to float above the table and settle softly on the chequered tablecloth.
“Why, isn’t it plain?” asked Oom Willie. “The kerk was forced to discipline Junior for the drinking and he was so ashamed that he would never come back. When I heard that, I also went away. In this ballet business you know, a man cannot dance alone”.
And Oom Willie creaked to his feet, gave us all a sweet smile from under his foam covered moustache and walked out of Slightly Nutty to the parking area. But one of us was not at all happy because Oom had delivered his final explanation not in English but in Afrikaans.
“What?” said the American. “What did he say? Why did he leave the church? Why did he tell that story?”
One by one we shook his hand and departed over his strenuous protest, some shaking their heads, others hiding their grins without success. We’d probably tell him next day or next week but for now we left him with no idea of what was going on in Bloemfontein. And we left him with the coffee bill too.