South of Nirvana

By Sue Randall

After being involved in a nasty car accident, Andy goes on a weekend yoga retreat with a friend of hers and unwittingly steps into a whole new world. She is amazed to find people living at the retreat centre who prefer less of the things that most people value: less meat, less money, less alcohol, and more cow-dung, insects, pollen, and dust. But also more birdsong, more open spaces, and greater spiritual depth. The setting is south of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Andy needs a couple of weeks to get her head around the idea, but then she decides to apply for the post of voluntary (unpaid... that is, U N P A I D) cleaner at the centre. She quits her job as a corporate secretary and moves to the retreat centre—and her poor aging parents are horrified. Her older brother, who was drunk while driving the car at the time of the accident and who shows no remorse about what happened, says stupid things that hurt her. Her best friend thinks she’s lost her marbles.

Andy quickly finds out that there are plenty of self-professed gurus around, but they are a lot less enlightened and a whole lot more human than anyone wants to admit. By contrast, the true teachers remain hidden in the background. Jacob is one such person: the real backbone of the retreat centre, and a gem of a friend who selflessly teaches her what she needs to know about life, Buddhism, and the Uniperverse.

When the role of cook becomes vacant, Andy bravely takes on the task of feeding all the weird and wacky people who come and go at Hillcrest. Most of them are just crazy stress-balls from the city, but some are real live monks, musicians, or vegan New Agers. Each chapter of the book describes a specific weekend retreat or one of Andy’s other encounters, such as her visits to an almost blind acupuncturist who explains the metaphysical meaning of her leg injury. During her two years at the retreat centre, Andy also rescues a baby bird, uncovers an old grave, reflects on the Goddy of her early childhood, and falls in love with a man who is not Jacob.

South of Nirvana is a novel that runs the gamut from lighthearted and totally irreverent to pensive, with flashes of scholarly brilliance thrown in (borrowed from the hidden gurus). The story offers a poignant illustration of the need to balance spiritual ideals with material reality here on Planet Earth. The book will appeal to readers who are interested in Buddhism and Eastern philosophy but who, for good reason, prefer to stay living in their comfortable city houses rather than do what Andy did.

Readers have described the book as a very enjoyable journey with a gentle pace and memorable message.

The author based the story on her own experience of living at a rural retreat centre (though it was north of Johannesburg) for six years, where she met her good friend Johann who is thinly disguised as the character of Jacob in the book. Any other resemblance between the characters in South of Nirvana and real living people is entirely accidental, a bizarre synchronicity that should be blamed on the Uniperverse. Because as Andy comments at the end of her narrative, “I expect that if you look closely, you may even recognise from my story someone you know, or thought you knew. In fact, if you look more closely than that, you may even begin to recognise yourself.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sue Randall
• Release date: Apr 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301896790

Sue Randall

I was born in 1965 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Africa is a hot country. There are lions, eagles, monkeys and snakes in the middle of Johannesburg (at the zoo). As a young child, I developed the bad habit of writing with my left hand, but these days I use a keyboard and three fingers: two on my left hand, and one on my right. And a thumb sometimes. I have a Master's degree (Wits University, 2006) in research psychology and I enjoy some statistics and analytical stuff. My past life memories were a huge problem for a long time, but it's all sorted out now. (It was just a little hard to get my head around how that could have happened, but it really did). I work as a freelance academic editor, and as a creative writer, and as a Reiki healer and past-life hypnotherapist. I still live in Johannesburg, where it is still very hot, except when it's cold.

Book preview

Goddy and the Moo-pooh

It’s one of my first memories. Not just a part of that fuzzy blur of childhood that gets lodged somewhere deep inside you, but can’t be accessed, except maybe under hypnosis. It’s a crystal-clear moment, one that I can play and replay like a video.

I was four years old, and I was walking with Granddad on his farm. We walked past some blue gums, which filled the air with their sunny eucalyptus smell. The sky was blue with a few patches of white, and the day was neither hot nor cold; it was just about a perfect day. Some butterflies were out for their afternoon flutter, and there was an occasional burst of birdsong.

It had rained that morning, and the earth’s skin was soft, not hard like the dry face it wore in winter. Huge black ants wended their way across the dirt track where Granddad and I walked. Those ants were intimidating for someone whose face was as close to the ground as mine was, but I strode bravely on, keeping no more than a wary eye on their activities.

Ants weren’t, after all, real trouble-makers. They weren’t like scorpions and snakes. Young as I was, I already knew what to do in an emergency involving a snake or scorpion. I was much too small to be allowed to walk alone through the bushlands of the farm, but it made the adults happy to scare me with the information anyway.

Granddad and I walked past the neatly-kept lawn of kikuyu grass, past the long veld grass along the sides of the driveway, and on towards the blue gum trees that marked the boundary of his lands. I took two steps to every one of his, but he walked slowly, clipping his wooden walking stick against the earth with every arm-swing. His other hand, large and warm, clasped mine.

As we walked, Granddad was telling me about God. He told me how amazing it was that God had made all of this.

All the grass, he said, and the trees, the sky and the clouds, all the ants. All of everything we can see everywhere, wherever we look, My-randy! Truly amazing.

What was even more incredible was that God had made Granddad and me, wonderful human beings that we were. I wasn’t sure why human beings were so special, but I supposed that if I carried on listening to Granddad, he would tell me.

He said, God made those cows in that field over there. Every hair, every hoof. And he made these blue gums smell just the way they do. Can you smell them, My-randy? Splendid!

I was quiet, listening. Smelling. I looked up at the blue sky, and pointed to a piece of white that was slowly making its way across the sunny open space.

Looks like a horse, Granddad said cheerfully. Then he pointed out what part of its face and body went where. It was a strange horse, with an upturned nose.

Perhaps that’s how all sky-horses look.

Then it happened. The moo-pooh. With my pretty little red sandal, I stepped straight into it. The pooh sludged down inside my sandal and between my toes, and its cloying weight stopped me in my tracks. I cried.

Granddad looked down and grunted. He said, Oh, you’ve stepped in some cow dung, now, My-randy.

I should have told you this already: my name is Miranda. But Granddad always called me My-randy. The Randy part stuck, and by the time I was ten, everyone was calling me that. When I turned sixteen, I announced that I was to be called Andy instead. Only Granddad was allowed to carry on calling me My-randy.

Granddad! I sobbed. Pick me up!

Hm, he said. We’ll have to clean you up a little first.

He bent down and took off my shoe, while I clutched his shoulders and wobbled around on the other leg. Then he pulled a beige handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped my foot. Soon the hanky was filthy, and my foot was no cleaner. The stuff was stuck between my toes. It was everywhere. There was even some on my knee, though I didn’t know how it had got there.

There I stood, stuck to the bare earth with tacky moo-pooh. The sensation was unfamiliar, and I couldn’t tell if it was a good or bad one. I guessed it was bad. If it was good, people would have started telling me long ago to stand in dung. Then again, they hadn’t warned me never to do so, so it couldn’t be one of the great dangers, like scorpions and snakes.

Maybe, I figured, dung was pretty much like mud. No-one really minded if you stood in mud, as long as you didn’t get it on their clothes or inside their car. Once, I had even heard my mother crossly telling my father that it was good for girls to play in mud, too.

What else is it good for us to play in? I had wondered.

But here I was, with my foot stuck to the ground. Granddad was doing his best to clean my sandal with his filthy hanky.

Mud? No way! This stuff had come out of a cow’s backside. If there was nothing else I knew by now, it was that backsides were bad things, even if God had put them there. Alarmed, I tried to assess the damage. But I couldn’t tell. There was a certain amount of pain, to be sure, but I could not tell where it was coming from. I cried: a long, lonely, heart-wrenching sob.

Don’t cry, sweetheart, Granddad said. It’s just moo-pooh.

My tears became a veritable scream.

Granddad spoke sternly. It’s just old grass and stuff that’s been through a cow’s tummy, My-randy. Cows eat grass. When they make a pooh, it’s just the grass and leaves that come out. That’s what you’ve stood in. That’s all. It’s really nothing to cry about—it can’t hurt you. We’ll get you home and into the bath, and we’ll clean up this little shoe of yours, and soon you’ll be as right as rain.

Don’t want rain! I screamed. Hate Goddy! Hate moo-pooh!

What does God have to do with this? Granddad asked, surprised.

Made moo-pooh! I sobbed.

No, he didn’t. The cow made the moo-pooh. Goddy just made the cow.

Goddy made moo-pooh!

Don’t be silly, Granddad said.

A few minutes ago, he had been telling me that God had made everything we could see, everywhere. Why was moo-pooh excluded? My sobs faded to a sulky whimper as I mulled this over. Maybe he’s lying. Adults sometimes do that when they’re afraid.

Look, My-randy. Look up at that horse cloud. There’s a lady sitting on it now… can you see?

I lifted my sad face to the blue sky, and saw that—indeed—a buxom lady with long hair had appeared. Behind her, on the next cloud, which was much smaller, Baby Jesus was balancing in his swaddling clothes. A recalcitrant tear made its way down my cheek.

Granddad fished around in all of his pockets, muttering. I don’t have anything… here, my girl, there’s a clean corner here. He wiped my nose carefully with his handkerchief. Then he bent down and fastened the shoe to my foot.

We started making our way back to the house, me walking with a great limp because of my slimy, gritty sandal, and my uncertainty about the cause of my pain. But Granddad was quite sure that my foot could not be sore. He told me so.

He’s wrong. Something’s wrong. It’s horrible.

I continued to whimper now and then, to remind him of my suffering. He walked more slowly than ever to keep pace with my pathetic stagger. That was one bad thing about Granddad: he was too old to carry me. He said it was me who was too old, but actually it was him.

We had a little accident, he announced to my mother as we arrived.

She saw my tearful face and looked alarmed. I could tell what she was thinking: scorpions and snakes. Well, this was worse. No-one had warned me about moo-pooh. And they should have. Now, in the safety of the kitchen, I was annoyed with the lot of them. I felt my lower lip drooping downwards in the way my older brother Derek loved to mock me for. I could not help it.

The adults made things worse by laughing. Granddad told my mother what had happened, and she laughed out loud in relief. I sulked, and walked towards the lounge, but was called back by my mother’s voice telling me to take off my sandals and rinse my feet under the outdoors tap before I went anywhere. She was not having moo-pooh on Grandma’s nice carpet, thank-you very much.

Granddad did not give my mother an accurate account of events. He left out the most important part, which was that it had all happened because I had been looking up at God’s white cloud-horses in the sky.

Why did Goddy make me step in moo-pooh? Granddad said God is always good. I whimpered quietly, realising the source of my pain.

Derek came running inside, his feet covered with sand.

Goddy didn’t make him step in moo-pooh!

Derek came and stared right into my eyes for a long moment, and then thrust out his lower lip to mock me. I felt the tears welling up again. Then he did something which he often did at times like this, and it was something he was not allowed to do—but there were no adults around now. He licked his finger and pushed it against the side of my face, then blew on the place he had just touched. Then he turned, laughed wildly, and tore back outside.

I wiped the wet spot on my cheek. My mother had told me that the red mark there was called a birthmark, and she made it clear that Derek was to keep his sticky fingers off it. But he always found a way. I would come to hate that puff of breath more with every passing year, and a long time later—when I was about eight—I would simply begin screaming at the top of my voice whenever he tried to touch me there. Derek stopped with the birthmark torture very quickly after that.

But that was later, and I was telling you about what came before. There I was, sitting in my grandparents’ lounge, with damp feet and tearful eyes, and a burning sensation on my birthmark.

And now Granddad was just ignoring the matter of the cloud-horses. He and my parents were talking about the way that cows chew grass and then spit it out again, or something. It was the most stupid conversation I had ever heard. I sulked right through supper and bedtime, and I never forgot what had happened.

Hillcrest

I moved to Hillcrest after the accident. Because of the accident. The accident happened when I was thirty-five, and it marked a turning point in my life. It was a horrible thing to have happen, to be sure, especially given that it was my own brother who was driving. Derek came out of it unscathed, of course. The accident didn’t even sober him up.

Afterwards, while my leg was in plaster and Derek was trying unsuccessfully to stay off the booze for longer than a day, my parents seemed to care only about him. To be fair, he probably was the greater invalid, since his drinking problem was bigger than a removal truck. His whole life fitted into it, with room to spare. My injured leg was just a single lousy limb.

Jacob says nothing in life happens by accident, but I don’t agree. How, if you tank up with a bellyful of booze and then travel at a hundred kilometres per hour in a sixty zone, while your sister screams at you from the passenger seat to slow down, can nothing happen by accident?

I suppose I could have continued working in the corporate world, although I wasn’t paid for the month I had to take off straight after the accident, and it was awfully difficult to carry those heavy files while balancing on crutches. Truth be told, I’d had enough of being a secretary, but I had no other marketable skills. I did have a Bachelor of Arts majoring in sociology and English, but there was nothing one could do with that.

Hillcrest seemed a good enough destination.

I went there with Kim once my leg had healed up enough to carry the weight of my body unaided. Kim had done a meditation retreat at Hillcrest some months previously, and now we were attending a weekend yoga retreat there together.

My first impression of the place was of two rows of poplar trees, one on each side of the driveway, stretching their branches high into the spring sky. We had been driving for just over an hour, travelling south, away from Johannesburg, through flat highveld scenery with its low hills and wild grasses. Then we had come to the village which Kim had told me about, with its pretty sandstone church and slightly run-down main street.

We headed towards the koppies—the small mountains—behind the village. Hillcrest was situated at the foot of those koppies. We passed houses with generous gardens and wide pavements, with old-fashioned lampposts planted at lazy intervals. Then the tar road became a dirt track, and we passed the last house in the village and continued towards the koppies.

Eventually Kim turned the car into a narrow road, where a simple sign with an arrow declared Hillcrest. The track narrowed again and became stony, until it was no more than two tyre-tracks with a grassy ridge running between them.

We came to the driveway of Hillcrest, and here the road widened again. Ahead of us stretched those poplars which I would forever associate with the place, flanking the sides of the road. The first summer rains had already fallen, and tiny leaves coloured the trees a soft green.

Kim drove slowly towards the house, a beautiful old face-brick building. This must once have been an impressive farmstead, she said, and I agreed.

At the top of the driveway, a small attempt at a traffic circle emerged out of the grass, no more than an island of veld itself. Ahead of us, to the left, stood a cluster of magnificent old blue gum trees. Three smaller blue gums stood closer to the house. It looked as if they had been planted there to lend their shade to the buildings.

A wide verandah skirted the house on all sides. White plastic garden chairs were pushed up against the walls, some stacked together.

Kim parked the car around the back of the house, and led the way to the front door, where we were met by an elderly man. Well, he wasn’t exactly elderly, but he wasn’t middle-aged either. I guessed he was in his late sixties, on the younger side of old; he walked with a slight stoop and the faintest hint of a shuffle. His face was kindly and more youthful than the rest of him, although deep lines furrowed the skin at the sides of his mouth, and his eyes were surrounded by creases.

The man greeted Kim warmly, and held out a hand to me. Arthur, he said, and the timbre of his voice was soft and deep.

I introduced myself in return, and then a younger man appeared from inside the house.

Arthur glanced at him and said, George, my son.

George was a stocky man on the short side of average, who looked to be in his early forties. His hairline was receding, but the rest of his head was full of close-cropped light brown curls. His features were striking; he resembled his father, but had a firmer jaw line. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt and denim shorts, and I noted that the muscles of his body were nicely developed: not too little, not too much. He sported a healthy tan, and his dark blue eyes glinted. There was something quite appealing about him.

Andy, I said, as George studied me back, and we shook hands. I said, I’m pleased to meet you both, at last. I’ve heard a lot about Hillcrest.

George smiled and nodded, then excused himself. Arthur gestured for us to enter the house, and offered to give me a guided tour. Even though Kim knew the place, she came along too.

To the left of the entrance hall, on the northern side of the house, was a meditation area. It was large and square, and Arthur said it had once been an open-plan dining-room-cum-lounge. Elegant bamboo blinds blocked the harsh African sun, and gave the hall a refined atmosphere.

On the opposite side of the front section of the house was a vast studio. This had apparently once been three adjacent bedrooms.

They must have built bedrooms big in those days—I could fit six of mine in here!

Sunshine streamed in through the studio windows, where the beige sun-filter curtains had been drawn open. A bookcase stood against one of the walls, four shelves high. Later, I would discover that the books crammed into these few shelves—which passed themselves off as Hillcrest’s library—dealt with diverse topics: Buddhism, Hinduism, yoga, alternative health, metaphysics, philosophy, ecology, Tibet, psychology. There were even some Jewish and Christian texts.

On the far side of the studio, a large glass sliding door opened onto the outside verandah.

We left the studio and walked down a passageway shaped like a T, and turned right. This brought us to a dining-room in the southern end of the building. It, too, was delightfully spacious, and contained four tables, each with six chairs.

The décor was simple: a single flower in a single vase on each table, one woven wall-hanging, and a large woven rug on the floor. The curtains were made of mottled maroon fabric, and a calendar hung on the wall. An urn stood on a low table.

The dining-room, Arthur said, was converted from the original master bedroom, although we did extend the back wall by a few metres.

Back in the crossbar of the T-shaped passageway, Arthur pointed out two toilet cubicles which had been created out of the original bathroom.

Next came Arthur’s office. This was a slightly cramped affair, with a workstation consisting of a computer and printer, a telephone, and a copy-fax machine, all placed on top of a dark wooden desk. Beside the computer was an in-tray containing an untidy pile of papers. In one corner of the room stood a bookshelf, with a filing cabinet beside it.

A poster of a rambling flat-roofed building of unusual dimensions hung on the wall behind Arthur’s desk. Arthur saw me staring at the picture and said, That’s Potala Palace, in Lhasa.

I looked at him questioningly.

Tibet, he said, in a tone that did not invite further discussion.

Jacob told me later that the photograph had been a gift to Hillcrest. Arthur had wanted to hang it in the dining hall, where it could be seen by everyone, but George was not as fond of Tibetan Buddhism as was his father. So the poster had been hung in the office, where Arthur could see it every day and it would remain hidden from public view.

At the end of the passage was the kitchen, still in its original place, and—according to Arthur—relatively unchanged. A huge window dominated the back wall, and a smaller one overlooked the eastern verandah. The kitchen cupboards, with their pale surfaces, looked quite new. The appliances: two double toasters, a kettle, another urn, two fridges, a microwave oven, and an electric stove, were all modern, though the same could not be said of the kitchen sink.

The pantry, Arthur said, opening a door, buffers the meditation hall from the noises of pots and pans.

I glanced inside the walk-in room and saw tins, bottles, sacks and boxes of all descriptions. And a vacuum-cleaner, a broom and an ironing-board. I nodded, impressed.

From the kitchen door we stepped outside onto the eastern verandah, and were back at the car park.

Arthur pointed to some outbuildings a few metres away. That’s the laundry, he said, and the storeroom.

Kim told me that at the end of the weekend we would be asked to carry our dirty linen to the laundry, so as to lessen the workload for the centre staff.

It was hard to imagine Hillcrest as a family home. To me, it could be nothing other than a retreat centre. It had a deeply peaceful atmosphere, and I had fallen instantly in love with the place.

The yoga workshop was great, though I had never before done any yoga positions, which the teacher called asanas. The teacher was a nimble lady of sixty who was more supple than I had been in my teens. She had a wild, delighted laugh, which she whooped out every now and then to ease the suffering of her students.

I sat out one of the sessions, and rested in a chair on the eastern verandah. Jacob found me there, just sitting, with my eyes closed, enjoying the sound of the birds and the distant low whispers of the blue gums.

Are you all right? he asked.

I opened my eyes and saw Jacob looking down at me from beneath his dark hair. When he moved, it was with a slight limp. I knew who he was; Kim had told me that Jacob was in charge of maintenance at the centre.

I showed him the scars on my leg, and explained that I just needed a little rest.

I see, he replied. Well, please help yourself to tea and biscuits in the dining-hall, at any time. Then he disappeared along the small path that led past the blue gums, towards the chalet where Kim and I and most of the other guests were staying.

Over supper on Saturday night, I overheard someone say that Hillcrest was looking for two new staff members. I went over and joined the conversation so as to find out more. Had I not done that, it probably never would have crossed my mind that people actually went to go and live at a place like Hillcrest.

Then it occurred to me that Hillcrest did not appear to employ any black domestic staff. This was most unusual for a public establishment in South Africa, even in these post-apartheid days.

They’re looking for someone to help with laundry and cleaning the rooms, said a woman, glancing at me as I joined the little group. And to cook once or twice a week when Taryn wants time off.

I wish I could, murmured an older woman with greying blonde hair. I fantasise about moving here… all the time! But there are the kids, and the bills. She sighed.

They’re also looking for someone to help with administration, said the first woman. But that’s not so urgent. Arthur says he can carry on doing it himself, if necessary.

During the following week, back in Johannesburg, as I lay on my bed each evening listening to the city’s summer sounds, I thought about these two jobs. I thought about them a lot. The administrative post made sense to me, but the other position did not.

Laundry and room preparation? Full-time?

In the prim suburban world of my childhood, those kinds of jobs had always been done by servants—black servants, women. Theirs had been the very lowest rung on the social ladder.

Why would anyone do this kind of thing out of choice? Why would a well-educated white person do it?

As I contemplated matters further, my aversion turned to admiration. The people at Hillcrest looked like an intelligent bunch. Kim had told me that Taryn, the cook, had a university degree. Arthur and George, between them, clearly had a fair deal of money, since it was they who had started the place up. Kim had told me that George still worked in the advertising industry, and he came and went from Hillcrest, usually staying there on weekends.

Hardly a loser.

As for Jacob, well, it was hard to be sure what his background was. I could hear from his accent that he was Afrikaans, and his name confirmed that. He later told me that the original spelling was Jakob, but he changed it when he began to mix with Buddhists, since most of them were English.

Jacob was shy, and he had a certain kindness about him, but I could not begin to guess his educational level or financial status.

Importantly, these people were living at Hillcrest out of choice. They had done the unthinkable, that which so many city folk dreamed of and spoke about, but would never dare to do. They had filled their lives with menial tasks and birdsong. They had opted to live in smaller, not bigger, spaces. They had chosen to be closer to—not more removed from—the natural world, with all its cow-dung, dust, pollen and insects.

They preferred less, not more, of everything: less noise, less smog, fewer cars, fewer neighbours, less meat and less alcohol.

All of this intrigued me. I tried to imagine myself working at Hillcrest. Doing administration? Yes, probably. That would not be too different from what I’d done already; not too much of a shock to the system. I could imagine it.

Cleaning rooms? Doing the laundry?

I had no way of evaluating that. The very concept was alien. But my aversion had passed, and if I was honest with myself, I knew that my body wouldn’t mind being more active than it had been for all those years of sitting behind a desk. The accident had left me with immense gratitude for the simple act of walking, albeit with a limp. And my time on crutches had given me new arm strength.

I supposed that one might apply for both positions at once, and if they accepted you, they’d put you wherever you were needed most. From what the woman had said, that would mean the laundry and room preparation.

I thought about it for a couple more days, and then telephoned.

Arthur rambled on for about twenty minutes, telling me about the birth of Hillcrest and all the different roles various people had played there in the ten years since its inception. The phone call was costing me money, and it seemed that Arthur had forgotten why I was calling. I nibbled my lower lip, and uncurled the telephone cord. Eventually, Arthur asked if I had had any experience of community life.

No, I replied.

I listened to another few minutes of explanation about why this might make everything a little awkward, and I was about to tell Arthur to forget it when he said he would get Jacob to send me an application form.

During the yoga workshop, Arthur had remained in the background, since he was neither participating in the retreat nor running it. He had appeared only during meal times. Even so, he had offered anyone willing to listen a rather long-winded explanation about the philosophy of yoga.

Historically, he had said, yoga was about conquering the body with the mind. The Buddha himself went through a period of extreme asceticism, in which he completely denied the needs of the body. But it didn’t work—it didn’t get him anywhere. So, after his enlightenment, he preached the importance of the middle way. He said there’s no point in indulging the body, but nor is there any point in trying to deny its needs. Today’s yoga is like that… the middle way.

Yoga also has fascinating Hindu roots, the real yoga teacher had commented, and Arthur had nodded.

The teacher had added, Yoga today is a good way of bringing mind, body and spirit into balance. For us, it’s not so much about things like self indulgence or self denial. It’s about self development.

So, as I had discovered, Arthur had a tendency towards verbosity. But it was harmless enough. He rambled on in the manner of a young-old person, and was always quick to spot an opportunity to talk about the past. But his stories were usually quite interesting, and his philosophy about life certainly came through when he spoke. Knowing as little as I did then about the Eastern traditions, I could not tell how much of Arthur’s philosophy had been shaped by those traditions, and how much was just his personal stuff. Either way, his take on life was inspiring. I sensed that beneath his foibles was an immensely gentle soul, whose main desire was to accept whatever life dished out, without labelling it as good or bad.

Arthur also had a keen sense of humour, though quite often this was clouded by vague melancholy. In time, I would come to regard him as being just a little emotionally unstable.

When Jacob faxed me the application forms, I reminded myself that Arthur was not the only member of the Hillcrest community, and I completed the forms and faxed them back that same afternoon.

The next day Jacob called to ask when I could visit Hillcrest for an interview. It was a relief not to have to deal with Arthur again just yet. Jacob was as straightforward and sparse with his words as Arthur had been otherwise. I arranged to visit the following Saturday.

On Saturday, my job interview started with an hour’s conversation with Arthur, another rambling and informative discussion which again required me to do most of the listening.

Arthur had a strange way of summing a person up. It was as if he was looking through me, or past me; anything but at me. I supposed he was using his third eye. His unfocused gaze left me slightly uncomfortable, but it also touched me in a deep place that I had not known even existed until now. It was nice not to be taken at face value. I very much wanted Arthur to like me, even if he bored me a little.

Most people stared at my birthmark when they first met me. To be sure, it was a major distraction, strawberry-coloured glob that it was, painted carelessly onto my left cheek in front of my ear. And as if that wasn’t enough, thanks to Derek I now had a grape-shaped scar from the accident positioned half-way across the birthmark. Anyone could be forgiven for staring.

But Arthur didn’t seem to notice my birthmark, any more than he noticed anything else about me. He looked, but I was not sure whom or what he saw. He spoke, but I was not always sure what he said.

Eventually, Arthur appeared to have decided that I might be a suitable staff member for Hillcrest. I was pleased when he said, I’d like you to talk to the others, to see if they agree about you coming here.

I had a half-hour chat with Taryn, the cook, followed by twenty minutes with Jacob. Both of them liked me. I liked them well enough too.

By this point I had pretty much figured out where everyone fitted in. Now, as you may be thinking, Hillcrest was supposed to be a community, with everyone being equal. But of course things are never as they are supposed to be. So Arthur was at the top. Not only was he the oldest resident at Hillcrest, he had also founded the place; in addition, of course, he was indispensable in his role as a teacher of Eastern philosophy.

George’s position at Hillcrest was less clear. Jacob later told me that George had ploughed a fair deal of his own money into the place, and that Arthur would not have been able to finance the venture alone. Still later, once I had been living at Hillcrest for some time, Arthur himself told us a thing or two about George—but I’ll tell you about that another time.

For now, all I knew about George was that when he visited Hillcrest he stayed in his father’s cottage. At any rate, George was not around on the day when I had my interview.

Then there was Jacob. At first, I thought that Jacob must surely be a reincarnated slave. He would do anything that needed doing, as long as you didn’t pay him for it. Hillcrest was a good home for him, because there were always things that needed doing. At least, that’s how Jacob seemed to me at first. I found out a lot more about him in time.

Jacob said, There are two other people you’ll meet in due course, although neither of them is officially part of the community. Their names are Simon and Louise, and you’ll see them around, especially Simon.

And then there was Taryn, the cook. On the weekend of the yoga workshop I hadn’t had much to do with her, but had gained the impression of a petite, softly-spoken woman. And I had noticed that her meals left me feeling nourished on more than just the physical level. It was an unfamiliar sensation.

Arthur asked, When could you move here?

In a month? I suggested. I have to give notice at work.

That’s fine. Good. He paused, then added, I’d like you to do the laundry and room preparation. This needs attention every day, since we get a constant trickle of visitors. They come mostly on weekends, of course, but often there’s also someone here during the week. So… can you do that kind of work?

Of course. I nodded, and told him I had expected this. I was happy—no, delirious. Enough of the futile relationships, the stress of the corporate world, and the traffic jams!

Now that we all knew I would be joining the community, Jacob offered to take me on an extended tour of the place. I gladly accepted.

Anyone could see that Arthur was top dog, because he lived in a nice cottage with its own kitchenette. The cottage was about seventy metres from the main house, just past a small fruit orchard. Jacob and I wandered between the trees of the orchard, some of which, he said, bore lemons in winter. Now—in summer—there would soon be peaches, apricots, and plums. Jacob told me that guests were always invited to pick a bag of fruit, since whatever was not picked fell to the ground and rotted.

At the lower end of the orchard was a tired old grapevine, which had grown gnarled and woody on its rusting supports. Jacob said, It produces a few bunches of grapes every year. They’re best jammed.

After peeking through the front door of Arthur’s cottage, Jacob and I walked back through the orchard, and then down a wide footpath towards the bottom end of Hillcrest.

As we walked, Jacob told me that when Hillcrest had been a maize and dairy farm, Arthur’s cottage would have been inhabited by a farm manager. Farm managers were always white men, he added. The labourers were always black… men, women, and children. If the farm owner had another business or a city career, a manager was essential. A good one could make you, and a bad one ruin you. They were sometimes paid quite well. But the black farmhands weren’t. They usually received only food, in lieu of wages.

So the blacks did the work, while the white man bossed them around and took the credit. Good old South Africa.

Jacob chuckled once, a soft grunt. All of that was before the apartheid laws were brought in. So it didn’t get any better after that. Anyhow, these days you have to pay your labourers a minimum wage. You can’t just keep them like slaves.

I know, I said.

And if they’ve been living on the land for more than a generation, they have a right to stay there, together with their whole family. Forever. Even if you yourself sell up and leave. Well, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this… I guess it’s because I grew up on a farm myself. And I didn’t even realise, as a kid, what the blacks went through. At any rate, we don’t have any domestic workers or manual labourers here at Hillcrest.

Jacob and Taryn lived in a place which they nicknamed The Compound. I would be living here, too. The compound was situated about a hundred metres past Arthur’s cottage, at the lowest end of Hillcrest land, and was reached via the footpath that we had just walked. Just after you turned into Hillcrest’s driveway, coming in from the village, you would pass the compound on your right, but the building was hidden from sight by thorn trees and bushes.

The compound had originally been built to accommodate the black farm workers, and it had apparently once consisted of several dingy rooms with an outside shower and an adjacent open shed. The workers had shared a single outside privy, though Jacob assured me they would have used the bush too, without any fuss.

Arthur had renovated the compound into respectable living quarters for Hillcrest staff. It now consisted of five single units, each comprising a small bedroom with a built-in cupboard and desk, and a tiny en-suite bathroom containing a shower, toilet and basin. The floors were of concrete, sealed with a red-brown stain, and each room sported a cotton rug and plain beige curtains. A mosquito net hung from the ceiling above each bed. The rooms were sparsely furnished, but comfortable enough.

The units had been positioned so that each bathroom backed onto another bathroom, and each bedroom onto another bedroom. Jacob said, This arrangement minimises your chance of being woken by your neighbour’s early-morning farts. Actually, the real problem is when someone snores. But they didn’t realise that when they were doing the renovations.

I laughed.

The compound was laid out in the shape of a horseshoe, with two rows of rooms whose doors looked directly onto each other. Three units faced north, and the other two south. At the closed end of the horseshoe were a couple of small storerooms, and between these was a kitchen and a communal bathroom with two bath cubicles. I noticed a washing machine in the bathroom, too.

The courtyard in the middle of the horseshoe had been tiled, and there were generous roof eaves all around. Shelter from the sun and rain, Jacob said, gesturing upwards.

I nodded, and glanced around the compound one last time. Simple, Adequate. I can live like this.

From the compound Jacob took me to see three small self-catering cottages which were set off to the western side of the main house. When we were finished there, he looked at me and said, Well, that’s about it. You’ve stayed in the chalet, so I don’t have to show you that.

Altogether, it was the strangest job interview I’d ever had. I supposed that was because it would be the strangest job I’d ever had.

Sheltered unemployment, Jacob would call it, once I knew him well enough.

The Ties that Bind

Although Kim liked Hillcrest—raved about it, in fact—she saw it as the kind of place you visited only for a weekend. She was aghast that I wanted to move there.

Who will I have coffee with on Saturday mornings? she demanded. And what about your life policy? How will you pay your premiums? What will you earn, a thousand bucks a month?

Five hundred, I replied.

Oh, Andy. Kim swooned histrionically, forcing a passing waiter to swerve. Now you’ve really lost it. You’re giving up a salary of eight thousand rands a month—a bit low, granted, but with prospects of promotion—for a pittance of five hundred? And a huge gap in your CV! Domestic work, too! I can’t believe you.

It’s a really special place. You should know that.

But an educated girl like you? This is to get back at your folks, isn’t it?

I shook my head.

Andy, do you really want to waste your life?

No. That’s exactly why I’m doing this. My life here in the city is worth nothing to me. Nothing at all. I feel completely out of touch with my own soul.

Soul schmole! You’ll never be able to get back into formal employment.

Maybe not, I said, and shrugged. "But Kim. Really. It’s not about my folks. I want to do this. I want to live at Hillcrest and learn about this Eastern stuff. What has life in the Western world taught me? Okay—what has it given you?"

She looked at me, disbelieving, glowering. But apparently she was not in the mood to argue. In fact, nor was I. Listening to Kim had only made me want to flee to Hillcrest—where the sound of birds was louder than that of human voices—all the sooner.

It’s my fault, she muttered, and clicked her fingers impatiently at the waiter.

I realised something which I had not allowed myself to admit before. It was this: I really, truly, absolutely hated it when Kim did that finger-clicking thing at waiters. It made me cringe inwardly, my heart recoiling in shame.

If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even know about Hillcrest, she continued, still muttering as if I wasn’t listening.

I pretended not to. I was wondering if I would ever have coffee with her again.

My parents’ reaction wasn’t much better. My mother said, I thought you were planning to buy a new car?

I was, I replied. But I changed my mind. I’m going for a new lifestyle instead.

There’s nothing new about it, my father said. Nothing new at all. People have been doing this kind of thing for decades. This chap, Arthur, he’s a retired hippie, I presume?

I didn’t bother to answer. I just drank my tea and sat out the rest of the Sunday afternoon visit as politely as I could. What my parents thought hardly mattered any more. They had also thought that I shouldn’t claim anything from the Road Accident Fund for the injuries I had suffered in the accident. And this despite the fact that I had been an innocent third party, the kind of person whom the fund was supposed to serve—after the medical and legal professionals, of course.

They thought it was okay for me to walk around with the grape-shaped scar on my face, and no chance of plastic surgery.

There were too many people with far worse scars and far more dysfunctional bodies, and the state hospitals couldn’t help everyone. While the orthopaedic doctors hadn’t completely ignored my questions about cosmetic surgery, they had let me know that this kind of thing was not essential for the maintenance of good health. They had told me to come back once my leg had healed, in case someone else was interested in operating on my face.

Not that the situation was much better regarding my leg. The physiotherapists in the state hospital were trainees, and what they had tried to make me do was so painful that I had refused. I went to a private physiotherapist a few times, and she showed me some exercises to do at home and gently massaged my leg. It felt great. But I could not afford more than a few sessions with her.

My parents hardly seemed to notice that my broken leg had effectively cost me my job, since I had been on contract and did not have things like extended sick leave and medical aid. My post had been filled by a temporary secretary, and then I had been re-employed as a temporary secretary myself, in a different department. My parents thought I should just get another job.

Should. Could. Would.

Well, I did. Hillcrest wasn’t a retirement village. It wasn’t a holiday camp. I was going there to work.

They thought that it was more important to protect my drunken brother from the law, despite the fact that he had most definitely caused the accident. Had I claimed from the Road Accident Fund, the facts would have come to light and Derek would have been charged with the crime he had committed. Drunk driving.

On the night of the accident, I had been protesting from the passenger seat, asking him to slow down; asking him to let me drive. I seldom travelled anywhere with Derek, but an uncle had died and my family had attended the wake. Derek had slipped out for a couple of hours, returning just as my parents and I were leaving, and my father had suggested I should travel home with Derek.

Can’t you see he’s drunk? But I supposed my parents needed a private moment. Reluctantly, I had agreed.

Derek! The light’s going to change! Slow down—! I had yelled, and my foot had involuntary braked against the floor below the passenger seat. I covered my eyes with my hands, and then peered out anxiously. We were about to enter the intersection, and the traffic light had just turned red.

Don’t be such a frigid little bitch, Derek had drawled. At least, that’s what I thought he said, though his words slurred together. Relax and enjoy the ride.

He had just about finished saying all of that when the other car slammed into the door beside me, breaking my left leg in two places and shattering the side window into my face.

My parents did not seem to mind about any of that. I was not sure if they had ever really grasped what had happened in the accident. Derek sure as hell couldn’t tell them, because he didn’t know. And for some reason, they weren’t particularly interested in my version of events.

So now, if they minded my moving to Hillcrest, I didn’t mind their minding. From now on, what my family members thought of me was their concern. I was the one who had to live with a grape-shaped scar on my face, and an aching limp. They were the ones who would have to live with their memories of me.

Derek was not speaking to me now, anyway.