questioned, I could end up not getting any tomato juice for my Bloody Mary. So I kissed her, gave her a pat on her annoyingly perfect backside and said, ‘Hawu, Sis Pertunia. Uyazi kuthi uSiz uyadlala nawe. This house looks very clean for a place with two children. Eish, my house doesn’t even look this neat and I have only one child so not to worry, ibabalasi kuphela. But now for my hangover cure s’thando sami, since you are the woman of this house, I know where the bar is but where is the tomato juice?’
And she answered, ‘Ja ndiyazi but there are people who don’t appreciate all the work,’ and Siz, wanting to save herself from an angry maid said, ‘Ndiyaxolisa Sis Pertunia. Thandi is right, I overreacted.’ And with a mischievous grin she added, ‘S’right s’thando?’ which Pertunia ignored. She placed two cans of tomato juice in my hands and said, ‘I will take the bus to my class today.’
Siz and I shared a look, and Mandla said, ‘Damn Siz, you got one pissed off maid.’ To which Siz responded, ‘Who is saving me on petrol with her outburst. I think I’ll ask Vuyo to pick her up from her classes. Because if I go, she might ignore me. And that way I can take a nap.’ As she spoke, Mandla got a funny look on his face. ‘Talking of that man of yours, where is he? By this time all the Sowetan drinkers are on their fifth drink. He seems to be forgetting his roots now he’s in suburbia.’
When Mandla left the room to go and wake Vuyo up, Siz continued worrying about Pertunia. ‘Pertunia’s been like this for the last few days. I don’t know what her problem is. Eish, sometimes maids can be problematic.’
‘Maybe she is PMSing,’ I offered. ‘Or maybe she misses her children in the Eastern Cape. When are you giving her leave?’
Siz answered, ‘Girl, she better forget about leave until Vuyo’s kids go on school holidays. Who would cook for all the Vuyos? You know I can’t cook to save my ass.’
‘You must cherish Pertunia, man,’ I told her. ‘Ay, I hope to high heavens that I will be so blessed, and Marita is as good a worker as Pertunia.’
Siz started laughing, ‘I think now you are smoking some bad shit because you know your white maid will be whining about blisters just from using the feather duster on those two-hundred and one Biko and Sobukwe framed posters of yours.’
As I was telling her to shut it, the men walked in. After our Bloody Marys, and after hearing Hintsa ask for the umpteenth time when we were going to pick up Marita, we left. On our way out, Siz suggested, ‘Hey Mister and Missis, why don’t we get together for drinks with Lauren and Mike later on this evening? I haven’t spoken to that girl all week.’
I told her it was a good idea, ‘But maybe tomorrow. Better if Marita just unpacks today before we throw her to Lauren.’
Marita was blown away when we showed her the cottage. Her eyes lit up, she laughed a deep guttural laugh and said, ‘Jissus, this is mine? I never had my own television before!’ This sent her on a reminiscing trip, ‘You know when I was growing up we had this small black and white TV, the picture was so unclear. And when I got married, the bastard man always wanted to hold the remote control. He wouldn’t let me watch anything if I didn’t make him enough money!’ I was glad she liked her cottage, but her enthusiasm seemed a little OTT to me. I was never really good with people thanking me, anyway. It was embarrassing. So I just said, ‘Make yourself at home, tomorrow I will show you around.’ One might suppose that she was receiving too much privilege for a maid, but I partly did it for selfish, snobbish reasons – so that I could still maintain my space with my family and not fraternise with the help. This was, naturally, very different from Lauren’s outlook, but that is because Lauren enjoys having a constantly full house. I often wonder why she doesn’t seem to miss having time to herself with just her husband and kids.
I was looking forward to the working week ahead as I have one of those gratifying civil service jobs where you get to be your own boss. As Executive Director of a Soweto office for the provincial Department of Tourism, I find my job highly satisfying – I daresay had I not met Mandla before I started the job I would still be single, fully satisfied, working late each day and creating new goals for myself.
My immediate superior is the Director General of Tourism in the Minister’s Office, a useless chap who is one of those remnants from the apartheid era who seems to be our token white guy – another interesting aspect of this country we all love. I’ve noticed that in the ‘New South Africa’, to use an overused and abused term, corporations usually employ a token black person to show that they are willing to transform, and government usually keeps a token white person to prove that the blacks are not taking over everything in the country and giving all the jobs to their relatives. This is how we in the DOT got saddled with our boss. JD (Johann du Preez, not to be confused with the hip-hop JD) as we all call him, seems to have zero knowledge of tourism. He had no idea where the Hector Peterson Museum was, or even who Hector Peterson was, last time he was here and I had the pleasure of taking him on a tour of places of interest in Johannesburg. And he seems content in his ignorance, unless he feels someone wants his job. Fortunately for him, none of us provincial EDs want his job, because we are glad to have our own fiefdoms far away from Pretoria, sorry Tshwane, politics. All of us, however, have to write him monthly reports on what we are up to, and his poor PA has to compile these into one document every time JD has to pretend to the head honcho (Mr Minister) that he is actually working and overseeing all provinces satisfactorily. It’s a small price to pay to stay away from Tshwane: a town mired in apartheid traditions even to this day – I visit there only if I absolutely have to.
The beauty of having offices in Soweto is that, nowadays, it seems to be the ‘in’ place for tourists coming to Gauteng. The other beauty of working in Soweto is that when I am not involved with my usual hectic schedule (read: when I do not create a busy schedule for myself), I get to drive to and from work with Mandla, since he has set up his surgery in Soweto.
Mandla, by the way, is a cardiologist who initially got into medicine because he ‘wanted to make a difference’. After six months working at Bara upon his return from Harvard Med, he realised that making a difference may make your conscience feel great but it seldom pays the bills.
So he set up shop – a surgery and pharmacy – with two friends in Orlando West.
His colleagues are Chukwu Anyaokwu, a Nigerian divorcé, Romeo, and surgeon (in that order), and the pharmacist, Kamau Kariithi. The three of them do a pretty splendid business: Chukwu charms, Mandla listens, and Kamau has a marvellous Kikuyu thrift that keeps the business side going. Their patients love them. Apparently though, the doctors deal more with sexually transmitted infections and dispensing Anti-Retroviral Treatments than anything they specialised in.
Mandla having a surgery works out well for both of us as it ensures one of us has a normal nine to five schedule, and this is the reason he is the listed emergency contact at Hintsa’s pre-school.
I love Mondays, I really do, because they hold the promise of a fresh start. However, this was not the case today. On arrival at the office my useless deputy had bungled the budget I am supposed to submit to the DG by tomorrow for our annual financial report. I was stuck with doing all the facts and figures, in addition to rushing to Ubuntu Kraal at lunchtime to ensure that the logistics for the four-day conference starting the next day would run smoothly and guarantee us more American conferences in future. At the end of the day, I carried my work home on a laptop so I could complete and email the budget before I went to bed.
As if that were not bad enough, my bloody maid showed that she is total trailer trash and unused to cleaning floor tiles. Despite my having Cobra One-Step in the cleaning cabinet, she had mopped the floors with water and soap, leaving streaks all over. To add salt to the wound, she took it upon herself to be ‘helpful’ by making supper. The supper comprised boiled ribs (who the hell boils ribs?) swimming in water and oil, with tomatoes, onions and green pepper for company. The starch component was half-cooked rice. Did this woman think my family was gonna eat this? I take my food very seriously (my bum did not get this big from nothing). I get extra-annoyed when a meal is badly prepared, which accounts for why I don’t often eat at other people’s houses.
I knew she meant well but, having already had a sucky day, I