What Kind of Child

By Ken Barris

Bernal Díaz del Castillo is a tattoo artist who is five hundred years old, or believes he is five hundred years old. His mind is filled with images of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. He lives in Cape Town, working out of a tiny studio in Long Street. He is dying, and feels the need to chronicle his remarkable experiences.Luke Turner is a freelance journalist with three obsessions: cooking, women, and the art of tattoo. His ironic style masks the emptiness of his identity. Searching for the truth of his life, he is driven to work through what he calls his ‘alphabet of women’. He is equally obsessed with becoming an illustrated man, and so becomes the perfect canvas for Bernal Díaz.Malibongwe Kwetani is a child from Khayelitsha, on the outskirts of Cape Town. Born on the margins, living without means or hope, he is driven to the streets, traversing the city like a ghost in its architecture. Unlike Luke, he does not have time or opportunity for questions of identity.What Kind of Child weaves a startling, fascinating tale as the lives of these three characters intersect and contrast with each other within a city that is, in reality, a different world for each of them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kwela
• Release date: Feb 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9780795704291

Book preview

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KEN BARRIS

What Kind of Child

KWELA BOOKS

What kind of child can seed like that give life to, seed driven into the woman not in love but in hatred . . .

J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace

ONE

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The Skin Artist

The old man wakes up on Friday morning. The rheum in his eyes has dried, and they itch infernally. His throat is sore from snoring, the tissues at the back have dried out during the night. He reaches out for the cup of water he keeps at his bedside, and knocks it over. A curse on the Mother of God, he mutters to himself. He lies back in bed and tries to remember something, anything. He doesn’t know that his mouth gapes open, puckered and small as the beak of a fish; his teeth are out of his mouth, resting in a second cup of water.

Eventually he remembers that there has been no headache the whole week. He discovers that he has an erection. Then he remembers his name: Díaz.

He reaches for his teeth, and takes them out of the water. He shakes them, and inserts them into his mouth.

‘My name is Bernal Díaz,’ he says triumphantly, though his diction is slow and dignified as always, his voice high-pitched for a man, and yet rough-edged. ‘My name is Bernal Díaz, and I am alive so far.’

He lifts the water cup in which his teeth rested, and drinks. Then he climbs out of bed, and staggers to the bathroom. By the time he gets there, his erection has failed, but he remains proud of that memory.

‘What a long history you have had,’ he says, fishing out his member. ‘It is a pity that no-one knows the tale, or cares a damn.’

He urinates loudly and at length, shakes off the last drops, and chuckles.

There is a flash of light, and a talon of pain claws through his head. The headaches often begin this way, as if the world illuminates him briefly, in merciless clarity. Then the pain returns, and he doubles over. Blood of Christ, it is hard to endure. He falls to his haunches, violently. Cold beads of sweat appear on his forehead. He rests it on the rim of the toilet: he can no longer convince himself that these are migraines.

The pain recedes over the next hour, in the copper light; he is able to make breakfast. He doesn’t feel like eating, but knows that if he doesn’t eat, he will feel faint later in the day. He never eats lunch when he works, only on Sundays. He melts butter in a battered steel pan, and fries a kipper. He eats about one fifth of the fish, and leaves the rest for his evening meal; but he takes courage from the salt flesh, which reminds him of the taste of the intimate part of women.

Glancing sideways, he discovers a little girl at his door, which is open, watching him toy with his food. She is nine years old, and lives next door. She has a cicatrix of ringworm on her cheek, which her mother has daubed with gentian violet. Her gaze is serious, unwavering.

‘Good morning, little girl,’ he says, with corresponding dignity; however, he cannot remember her name for the moment. He lifts a forkful of kipper and points it at her: ‘You want some?’

She shakes her head.

‘You don’t want to eat, because you are young. I am not hungry, because I am old. Appetite only comes with the middle years. Your history is in the future,’ he says, waving the fork at her.

He remembers Cortés’s golden beard flashing in the sun, his infinite appetite. What can you teach a little girl about such glorious monsters?

He puts the kipper in his mouth and chews, for a long time. His teeth make little sucking noises. He puts thumb and forefinger to his lips, and extracts a long, delicate bone.

You will have children, he muses. You will take men as lovers, or they will take you. You will labour, bear the bruises of life with fortitude, toil till your strength is gone. There will be no statues made of you.

It is wearying to turn his head to the side for so long. He looks away from her, at the peeling wall beyond, at nothing. The child goes away.

* * *

His movements, as always, are methodical: Díaz inverts a clean plate over his plate of fish, and places it in the fridge. He washes the frying pan, and stacks it. He checks that the stove is switched off. He pours himself a small shot of white rum, downs it with a grimace, and rinses the glass. This habit, he knows, is the secret of his prodigious age and good health: it keeps his veins supple. Then he puts on his jacket, closes the windows and leaves the house, locking the front door with care.

His route through Schotsche Kloof never varies: down Bryant Street, right turn into the steep cobbled hill that is Bloem Street, down to Buitengracht. The smell of iron in the air tells him it will be hot later on, but for now a breeze from the harbour refreshes the City Bowl. Then further down to Long Street, where he keeps his tattoo parlour, a hole-in-the-wall sandwiched between a bottle store and a shop that sells books. It is sometimes difficult for customers to find his place, because the entrance is obscured by one of the two grimy palm trees that grace Long Street.

He unlocks his shop, raises the blinds and turns on the radio. He sits down, staring dreamily out the window at the trunk of the palm, and waits. This morning the brilliant light of Cholula fills his mind, as they had found things there, the strong wooden cages crammed with young men and sleek boys. They were being fattened for the sacrifice, for the grisly supper still to come. Even now, Díaz remembers the stillness in their eyes, and how that didn’t change when Cortés ordered the cages destroyed, releasing the youths to return to their own locales. A man can never forget a thing like that, though it was undoubtedly one of the least remarkable events of the long campaign.

Sometimes he waits for many hours before a customer walks in. Sometimes he is inundated, with two or even three people who sit and wait their turn, talking to each other. It is always better in summer. Today, business is slow: the first client comes in at about ten, and finds Díaz stretched out on the floor, unconscious, and the chair toppled over.

This client is a young coloured man, slightly plump, probably in his early twenties. He kneels down and notes the chalky face, the extreme age, of the man on the floor. The old man still breathes, though the action of his chest is shallow and hard to discern. The young man rises and looks around for a phone. There isn’t one. He walks out into the street, limping awkwardly, and goes into Scribe’s African Books next door, in order to get help.

The woman behind the counter in that dusty shop has a smooth pale skin. A cigarette dangles from generous lips. She has short silver-blonde hair and grey eyes. The young man notes that her ring and index fingers are stained by tobacco, particularly the flesh on either side of the large middle knuckle. There are five small gold rings in the upper rim of her right ear. She looks up, but doesn’t say anything, waiting for him to take the initiative.

‘The man in the shop next door,’ says the client, ‘in the tattoo shop. He’s lying on the floor, unconscious.’

The woman still says nothing: she merely studies him, attentively, as if he were a portrait hanging in a gallery.

‘The man next door,’ he says, with exaggerated patience, ‘needs help.’

She takes the cigarette out of her mouth, and coughs gently to cover her confusion. She is struck dumb by the beauty of the man standing before her. She is particularly troubled by his eyes, which seem to shift without warning between boredom and amusement.

‘What must I do?’ she asks, temporarily incapable of deciding.

‘I don’t know. You must get an ambulance, perhaps. You should take a look, see if you can help him.’

She stubs out the cigarette.

‘Where is he?’ she asks.

‘Next door,’ replies the young man, now openly impatient. ‘In the tattoo shop.’

The white skin of her face turns scarlet. Without another word, she comes round the counter and walks out into the street. Limping after her, the young man follows more slowly.

She stops and turns impulsively, sticking out her hand. She says, ‘I’m Ana Kokt.’

He shakes her hand without enthusiasm – he reads the familiar hunger in her eyes – and says his name softly: ‘Luke Turner.’

She can’t hear him over the noise of Long Street. She does not ask him to repeat his name. Then both enter the tattoo parlour, dodging the palm tree that obstructs the entrance.

Bernal Díaz is still stretched out on the floor. Ana Kokt kneels down beside him and straightens his head. She doesn’t really know what to do, but feels obliged to take charge.

‘He’s fucked,’ she says. ‘Serious, we’ll have to call an ambulance.’

‘There is no phone here. That’s why I came to your shop.’

‘Stay with him then, I’ll go back and phone.’

She leaves Turner in the little tattoo parlour, standing above the ancient form of Bernal Díaz. The man on the floor stirs, and groans. His eyes flicker, but don’t quite open. ‘Tras una larga ausencia,’ he whispers, ‘por fin la muerte se complace en llegar.’

* * *

There is a certain heaviness in the name of Ana Kokt. It is present in her body as a heaviness, a sensuality. It is present in her name, a weight that sags in the middle, but pleases as it sags; or perhaps it is more present in the body that fills her clothing obtrusively, in the curves and soft masses, in the skeletal girders of her frame. As Ana Kokt grows on Luke she becomes ever more complicated, like a skein of wool that gets hopelessly tangled. And yet on the surface she grows smoother. Indeed her skin is smooth – impossibly smooth for a woman who smokes as much as she does – and pale. Her skin reminds Luke Turner of his mother’s skin.

Ana Kokt is different to his mother, Caitlin, in many respects. She is not a silently angry woman, and her emotions play out on the surface. She speaks crudely. Later, he will accuse her of crude speech, but only because the density, the weight of her obscenities gives him pleasure, and the force of her insensitivity amuses him: ‘Why do you speak so crudely?’ he is to ask, outright.

‘Like fuck what?’

‘Like how can a woman who works in a bookshop be so crude?’

‘I’m the cleaning lady.’

It isn’t true. Her job is to sit behind the till, looking bored and unhelpful.

Their love affair, their brief festival of sex and hatred, begins over the barely animated husk of Bernal Díaz. The old man is still lying on the floor; Ana has taken off her light cardigan and folded it under his head.

Díaz stirs, only half-conscious, and says, ‘I am more than five hundred years old.’

She catches Luke Turner’s eye, and, despite her efforts, mirth creases her face.

‘I myself am only a hundred and sixty-three,’ says Luke.

A howl of laughter bursts from her throat, ricochets off the walls. She slaps a hand over plump lips, apologetically.

‘I do not need an ambulance,’ mutters the man on the floor. ‘I require only that you take me home.’

‘Do you know where he lives?’ Turner asks Ana.

She shakes her head, trying to recover propriety. ‘I don’t know. Not too far, because he always walks.’

Silence envelops them. It is a rich silence. To her it feels like the first few drags of a cigarette, when the smoke still tastes clean as paper, filled with oblique promise. And then it grows unpleasant, because there is too much of it. The best way to divert a silence like this, she feels, is to barge into it and say something obvious. But she is cautious about the way Luke Turner might react to her, and takes out a cigarette instead.

‘Match me,’ she says. She’d once known the movie from which the phrase came, but no longer.

Luke stares at her, puzzled.

‘Light me,’ says Ana Kokt, and snaps her fingers impatiently.

Luke is not a smoker, and carries neither matches nor lighter. She gives him hers, a scarlet plastic one, making sure their fingers touch. He lights the cigarette for her; she leans forward into the flame, squinting against the smoke. He returns the lighter.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t,’ he says, gesturing down at Bernal Díaz.

‘Won’t kill him,’ she retorts, inhaling and releasing a generous diagonal blast.

‘That’s no good, the old man needs air.’

‘If you say so.’

She looks at him like a frustrated cat, and walks out, leaving him to manage Díaz on his own. Cigarette smoke lingers, filling every crevasse of the tiny parlour. The brand she smokes is especially noxious.

* * *

Without any explanation of his long absence, or indeed apology for the delay, thinks Bernal Díaz, death approaches at last; but that is the nature of death, to come and go without due notification. Shortly before he opens his eyes, he catches the eucalyptus-scented breath of an angel. It isn’t, or so he feels, the angel of death. Its voice lacks the august timbre he would expect from that being. Also, his head aches insistently. It is a pedestrian throbbing that doesn’t seem to call for the last rites, and indeed proves that he lives.

He opens his eyes and sees the divinity crouching above him, occluded by its nimbus of light. Still, he can see it is magnificently beautiful, though surprisingly plump.

‘Are you alright, sir?’ asks the angel.

The flaring light fades slowly, and the angel resolves into a young man. The young man is chewing gum.

‘I am alright,’ says Díaz. ‘I must get up now, and go to work.’

‘You are at work. You’ve been taken ill, or had an accident.’

Díaz tries to sit up. Luke bends down, and places a hand under his shoulders. They are bony, the old man is light as a feather.

‘I have called an ambulance for you,’ he says.

‘I thank you, but that is not necessary.’

Luke isn’t sure how to respond, not wishing to injure the dignity of the old man.

‘You were on the floor,’ he points out.

Díaz raises a trembling arm, and tries without success to restore the chair to its upright position. He gives up before Luke can assist him.

‘Please,’ he says, his face bitter, even angry, in reaction to his helplessness.

Luke straightens the chair, and helps him up. He can see that the old man needs time to recover from this small exertion.

Ana Kokt enters with a glass of water.

‘I’ve been trying to get hold of an ambulance,’ she says. She bends down and offers the water to Díaz. ‘Are you alright?’ she asks, loudly and distinctly. He takes the water, and sips. ‘This is Mr Díaz,’ she informs Luke. ‘He comes into our shop to use the toilet.’

‘What about the ambulance?’ asks Luke.

‘It is not necessary,’ objects Díaz.

‘It is necessary,’ says Ana. ‘You’re sick as a dog.’

Bernal Díaz ignores her. He takes a little more water, and with a trembling hand, puts down the glass.

‘What can I do for you?’ he asks Luke.

‘Pardon me?’ replies Luke, bewildered by the idea that the stricken old man can do anything at all.

‘You are in my shop, you came into my shop. What can I do for you?’

Luke hesitates, glances