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ACTS OF GOD
By Shona aka Woodwitch
We were the usual sunrise conglomeration that one = finds in the very early morning on beaches: tacky, grubby, warmly smelling of tobacco and incense and wine after the night's revels, our eyes sandy and tired but our spirits soaring. We sat on the beach in the pale gray light of dawn, before the sun begins to roll up, when everything is damp and in shadow.
The beach was clean, the tide having recently gone out, and the sand was damp and cold and gritty. New rocks were exposed and the waves gently washed up, almost touching our bare feet. We sat, huddled against the early morning chill, passing the bottle of sticky sweet sherry back and forth. In spite of the cacophony of the night, the loud rock music, the shrieking voices, the hoarse laughter, we were silent now. Silent and waiting for the goddess to kiss the earth.
A few mewling seagulls were already aflight; solitary Indian fishermen were shady silhouettes upon the rocks, lines outcast. The tarred car park behind us was almost empty - few people were about. Shinela, suddenly beautiful for the first time yesterday evening, was contemplative. Hendrik was sifting the sand through his long, fine fingers, rubbing it between his finger and thumb, tracing figures on the ground. Horace smoked carefully, holding the joint gently, blowing the smoke out in front of him and watching the plumes dissipate into the ether. I was watching them.
How innocent, how invulnerable we were, on the beach that morning. Jaded, surely. Tired and worn down, feeling a little fragile. But we had no barriers and no carapaces then; it was the last morning of our innocence.
Our reunion had begun with a surprise: Shinela, the tomboy, had flowered with a radiance which had taken everyone's breath away. Expecting our usual, serious radical, our young, idealistic environmentalist to dinner, I had set about preparing a vegetarian supper which was, at the same time, nourishing. I had always taken a protective stand with Shinela - when I met her she was still at school, a brilliantly intelligent Moslem girl who was constantly arguing and questioning. She examined and took apart everything she encountered, picking at things until they were in shreds, and then she stood by and pronounced her judgement - she was hard on life. She was equally hard on herself, then, though now I saw a new gentleness in her and it gave me hope.
I worried about her relationships, her thoughts, her philosophies, and her life. I am much older than she - ten years, in fact. I always hoped to influence her in the right ways, to build her self esteem, to set her upon the proper paths. She, naturally, always knew better and had previously been disapproving of me for my bohemian lifestyle, and sometimes my friends and my lovers - fiercely protective of some and dismissive of others.
Horace is naturally protective of every young woman he meets: he is convinced that the world is a terrible place and that we are all far too naive. We tease him about this. He loves me more fiercely than anyone I have ever known; he wants to breathe my breath, possess me completely. I fight against this, while still loving him. I feel his concern smothering me, keeping me safe and stopping me from growing, and I try to teach him how to love a woman; with respect and with the wish that she will grow, and become all that she can, and the best that she can. I don't know why I don't realise that men who wish to hide you away from the world in a nest are destructive; they kill your potential, they murder your hope, and they leave you a shell of yourself. Shinela, predictably, does not approve of Horace. Having had to overcome the strictures of her religious upbringing, she is proudly independent and able to cope at all times.
If truth be told, I am the weaker one in our relationship. When we go on walks, I am the one who swats away the insects and complains if the terrain is too steep. I am the one trapped in a suburban house in a mediocre and stifling relationship; Shinela soars with life. I would never consider driving from the coast to Johannesburg on my own, and yet she - the younger - does this all the time. I may be older, with my own home and career mapped out; I have, certainly, had many more experiences, but in many ways I am the spirit and she is the flesh. Or at least, that was how it used to be, had always been..
Strange to think, now, that we had chosen that particular day to stay up for the sunrise; that we had all agreed at five thirty that there was really no point in going to bed. Not that it was summer and warm, you understand. Winter in Natal in July can be fierce; the days coldly blue and clear, and the nights frosty. We were all curled up in little bundles around the fire, somnolent and content, when Shinela said "Hour and a half 'til sunrise. And listen, not a breath of wind."
"We could go to Rocky Bay," suggested Horace, "and watch her rise from the sea."
In that moment, there was a kind of connection. We all knew we were thinking the same thing. I stirred, and Hendrik began to gather his long thin limbs together. Shinela got up languidly, and stretched. I wonder if she knew, then, that every eye was upon her? If she realised how truly beautiful she had become? The fire had turned the dusky skin upon her cheeks sweet apricot, her lips were pink and full, and her glossy raven hair fell across her face. We were all still bowled over by Shinela. "I'll find blankets!" she said, and moved off to the stairs. I went in search of a bottle of sherry and the cigarettes; the two men hunted car keys and jackets. We were all filled with a sense of purpose.
When we left the smoky house, the night assaulted our senses. The air was still, but very fresh, and the stars seemed bright and close to us. We all, instinctively, breathed in deep, and watched clouds issue from our mouths. We felt bathed in air so fresh and prism-pure that we were baptised, renewed. Suddenly awake and alive, we hurried to the car, and drove off towards the sunrise.
Rocky Bay is a very pretty little beach on the Natal South Coast, with rolling green lawns and little, peaceful bays and lots of rich rock pools. Hendrik and Shinela had never been there before, and exclaimed over it. Horace and I felt a kind of proprietorial pride. Running down to the sea with her arms lifted above her head, Shinela looked like a nymph. Hendrik, in his usual, limpid fashion, slouched down to sit midway between the car park and the sea. Horace and I joined him, and lost no time opening the sherry. It really was cold, and a slight mist hung over the very surface of the sea. Beyond, the sky was pearly gray, the horizon yet indistinct. I watched Shinela, and mused.
I had opened the door yesterday evening not to my Tom Sawyer, my ragamuffin friend, but to a woman, tall and slender, with swinging glossy locks and cheekbones like a Cherokee. She who had never smoked, had smoked. She who had criticised my drinking, had drunk wine. She who had never worn a skirt, except to school, raided my wardrobe and tried on my ball gowns. She was not at all the girl I used to know. Hendrik, too, had a new attitude with her: where before he had been argumentative, adversarial, he was now generously indulgent, proud, paternal. He was quicker to claim her: quicker to reach out and touch her, to brush away a lock of hair. I was flabbergasted, and couldn't wait for Horace to get home so that I could show him the new She, the 21 year old who lived in Jo'burg, now, and who was so different and somehow so much more complete. Not that she had sacrificed her principles: still vegetarian, idealistic, passionate and young. But a beauty had kissed her which was not there before.
Hendrik, in his strangely Afrikaans way, loved Shinela with all his heart. He was a rebel against the Volk, and no one is more mixed up or manic depressive than a rebellious Afrikaner! He had to deny his Church, political idealism, his family, their way of life. An Afrikaner who wishes to believe differently, to break bonds, to question, must, in many cases, face the rejection of his entire world. To Hendrik, Shinela was someone brilliant, bright, and different. And yet, she, too, had no markers, for she had questioned and rejected the very things in her own society that he had in his. Two of a kind - twins, in fact. He adored her mystique, her duskiness, her oriental way of approaching things, as she adored his intense love for the land, the earth, for nature and the goddess.
I did not like Hendrik. I had never seen them laughing together ; they were always so intense. I felt that at their age they should be having fun - a stupid point of view, really, because at 21 I had been every bit as intense and controversial as Shinela. Hendrik was the first man she brought home to meet me, although he was not the first broken being. Always she arrived with nestling doves, chameleons, or rodents. She reached out, and touched, and tried to heal, with all good intention, every broken thing that she encountered. Most of them died.
My first impression of Hendrik was of a very tall, thin, sensitive young man with an intellect his physical body could not contain. He was quietly, intensely ferocious. They fought from the moment they first entered my house together. She was, then, still the tomboy, and being far too aggressive and articulate. I secretly laughed to myself to think that it was probably the first time Hendrik had encountered an intellect of this proportion in a person who really looked like a little girl. I didn't sense any love there; I sensed conflict and competition. Perhaps they were both nervous, and trying to impress. However, my first view of the two of them together had not been favourable.
Shinela was knee deep in the water and her white skirt clung to her bare legs. I watched Hendrik watching her. He stood, and went down to meet her at the water's edge. They embraced, and I saw the way her body strained towards his, the way her brown hands reached up to tangle themselves in his hair. And I thought: This is the love I wanted for you; I am so glad that the two of you have found it. The sight of the two lovers at the edge of the sea in the gray of the dawning morning was so sweet that I felt a lump come into my throat, and when I reached out my hand for Horace, his met me halfway across the blanket, and when I looked at him I knew that he saw it, too. We left them in their embrace and sank back onto the blanket to entangle our own limbs.
A few minutes later, Hendrik and Shinela joined us, puffing from running up the slope of the beach, and we all sat up, and passed the bottle around. It was much lighter now, and the sea birds had begun to call in earnest. A Pied Kingfisher searched the shallows, a woodcut in black and white. With a haunting whistle, a train clacked over the lines behind us, and went south. The tips of the waves glinted silver, and the surface of the sea was the most gentle blue. And then, like an apricot, the sun peeped over the edge of the horizon, and began to roll into the sky. We sat, quite silent, passing the bottle from hand to hand: I, snuggled into Horace's chest; Shinela, leaning over Hendrik's legs. The sun rolled up, and the surface of the sea turned to gold. Horace stood and pulled me up from the blanket. Taking my hand, he walked me down to the rocks at the edge of the sea, and put his arms around me. "They are happy," he said "We are happy. Is not this world a bounteous, beautiful place?" I flung my arms around him and felt his rough shirt against my cheek. "I love you." I said.
Shortly afterwards, we climbed into the car and began the drive home, planning a big breakfast with fried bananas and tomatoes and mushrooms. By the time we got to the house, the sky was completely light and day had arrived. The birds were singing in the trees, and the sky was crisp, benevolent blue.
After breakfast, Horace and I planned to go to bed, and sleep until three. Shinela and Hendrik wanted to press on; they had, they said, to be in Jo'burg by two p.m. Horace asked them to sleep a few hours first; they could take the old road - a shortcut - and get there with time to spare. But no, said Shinela. She had a meeting that evening; she had to leave right away. Hendrik didn't seem to mind. So Horace and I saw them off, with blessings and cries of love; we watched them drive away. Then, arms about each other's waists, we turned, and went into the house, feeling that we had shared something special with special people in a wonderful moment in the continuum. We staggered to our bed, and slept for eight long hours.
The telephone call came at 2 a.m. It was Shinela - Shinela shocked, and numb, and almost dumb with terror. An accident - a collision - Hendrik dead. Hendrik dead and Shinela's voice at the end of a long, black tunnel, crying out. Instantaneous. I sensed the thought "Thank God!" well up, and then wondered how I could thank God in any way for this. Hendrik dead. Odd, pale, washed out Hendrik, who only two nights ago had seemed filled with a kind of delicate passion; whose eyes had lit Shinela like a Catherine wheel, had made her sparkle and flaunt, and be beautiful. Hendrik dead, and never again would Shinela be as beautiful as she was, knee deep in the foam, with her white dress clinging to her legs, on the beach the other day.