her face with his finger. Then, gently, he drew a diagonal line across her cheek.
‘I was trying to figure out a sequence,’ he said. ‘You remember what a sequence is, don’t you?’
Karabo nodded. ‘An ordered progression of numbers,’ she said slowly. ‘Is this for a new class?’
‘No. It’s not for a new class.’ He took the paper from her and crumpled it in his hand. ‘Come,’ he said. He freed Karabo from the cocoon his limbs had made around her. ‘That’s enough for one day.’
Karabo puffed out her cheeks and held her breath until he relented.
‘All right,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Let’s play the old-school game. You go first.’
Karabo thumped a fist on Teacher’s chest. ‘I always go first! It’s your turn.’
‘Very well,’ Teacher said. ‘I’ll start.’
He stood her on the floor in front of him and screwed up his face as if he were deep in thought.
‘You know this is a man’s world, Karabo,’ he said at last. He looked at her gravely and waited for her to respond.
Karabo smiled brightly. She knew this one. ‘But it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman or a girl,’ she said.
‘It wouldn’t be anything,’ he corrected her. ‘Not nothing. Anything.’
Karabo stamped her foot impatiently. ‘You’re spoiling the game! That’s not how James Brown sang it.’
‘I know, but we should stick to the rules of grammar.’
‘Then it wouldn’t be the old-school game anymore!’
Teacher lifted his hands in defeat. ‘You know what? You’re right. Not everything needs to change.’
‘Times are changing, Teacher,’ Karabo replied. ‘I see it all the time.’
Teacher raised an eyebrow in appreciation. ‘Brass Construction. Very good,’ he murmured, then countered with another line, this time from Frankie Beverley and Maze. ‘That’s why the things that make us happy …’
Karabo looked at Teacher as if she’d expected better from him. She finished the line with a theatrical flourish. ‘ … also make us sad.’ She paused and screwed up her face. ‘Do I make you sad, Teacher?’
Her father took her hands in his and said, ‘On the contrary, you make me extraordinarily happy.’
Karabo wriggled out of his grasp and, giggling, launched into another round. ‘Don’t blame it on the sunshine,’ she sang. ‘Or the good times. Blame it on the …’ She leaned forward expectantly, waiting for Teacher to complete the line from the Jacksons but he seemed suddenly distracted.
‘What’s the matter, Teacher?’ she asked.
Teacher rubbed his nose. He sniffed loudly as if he’d caught a sudden cold.
‘Your mother loved that song,’ he said in a faraway voice. ‘We used to dance to it.’
‘All night long?’ Karabo asked eagerly and Teacher looked away.
CHAPTER 6
After the violin lesson with Mrs Harrison, André did not go home straight away. He drove until he had left Mthatha behind and the land began to lift and fold itself into a crumple of green hills. He guided his mother’s car off the road and parked on the bank of a small river. He sat in the car clutching the steering wheel as if he dared not let it go. As always, the sight of the angels had filled him with delight. He had seen them too often to be afraid but he still shivered with the sheer wonder of it all.
He sat in the car until the sun was high in the sky and the reflection of the trees in the water took on a silvery hue. It grew warm. He unbuttoned his shirt, and then took it off altogether. Then, with a shyness as if someone were watching him, he reached for his violin and stepped out of the car.
At first he played with great care and tenderness, as if that would coax the angels back. He’d give his life to see them again. He played the same piece he’d played for Mrs Harrison, Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in D major. The notes he played mingled with the soft gurgle of the water and together they caressed him, teasing and soothing his senses. But the angels did not return and André’s passion grew dark and intense. Why wouldn’t they come? With a wild cry, he flung the notes into the treetops. The birds scattered and fled from him in screeching clouds of black confetti. Enraged, André hurled the violin away from him and fell to his knees on the river bank. He put his face in his hands and began to weep.
It was late afternoon by the time he got home. He was hardly out of the car before his mother was upon him.
‘André!’ Marietjie cried, her voice shrill with anxiety. ‘Where have you been? Mrs Harrison said you left her house hours ago!’
‘I went for a drive.’
‘A drive? By yourself?’
‘Who else would I go with? I went for a drive, that’s all.’ He busied himself with his violin case and the music stand and the leather briefcase that contained his sheet music.
‘I was worried about you.’
‘Why? No one bothers us here. That’s what you always say, don’t you?’
She ran across and blocked his path. She stared at him for several seconds, her eyes searching his face. Then she gasped and seized him by the arms.
‘You saw them,’ she whispered. ‘Jy het die engele weer gesien.’
‘Not now, Ma. Please – not now.’
But she held onto André and would not let him enter the house.
‘I’ll call Doctor Viljoen right now! He said to call him if you ever saw them again.’
‘They’re gone,’ André replied with exaggerated tiredness. ‘There’s nothing Doctor Viljoen can do.’
‘At least he gave you medicine.’ She looked at him suspiciously. ‘You’re still taking his tablets, aren’t you?’
‘I threw them away.’
Marietjie’s face fell. ‘Oh, André!’ she exclaimed. ‘You know what happens to you when you don’t …’
‘When I don’t what, Ma?’ he interrupted her rudely. ‘Doctor Viljoen is nothing more than a quack. The pills he prescribed were shit. They made me so sleepy I couldn’t play anything properly.’
‘At least they kept the engele away.’
‘But I don’t want them to stay away!’ André roared. When he saw his mother’s face twist in fear, he grew suddenly embarrassed. He knelt and spoke to her in a more gentle tone. ‘I’m not sick, Ma, and I don’t need medication. And certainly not from Doctor Viljoen.’
‘At least he gave us answers,’ his mother said stubbornly.
‘No, he didn’t. Everything he told us he read up on the internet. I could have done that myself.’
‘But he’s a doctor!’ his mother cried.
‘He’s a paediatrician, Ma, not a neurologist. He should stick to diagnosing babies with colic and nappy rash.’
He stood up and walked into the house. Marietjie followed him, chirping like a small bird in distress. They said little to each other over dinner and just passed the dishes back and forth in silence.
‘This can’t go on much longer,’ André said quietly.
‘What do you mean, André?’ His mother’s eyes were dark with worry.
‘Let’s forget about the engele for a moment.’
His mother was poised to interject