Nicky & Lou

By Nataniël

Nataniël se jongste bundel is ’n keuse van 46 stories (15 in Engels en 31 in Afrikaans) uit sy verhoogproduksies sedert 2007, onder meer uit Predicting Snow, Men who Fly, Egg Whites and Angel Food, Coronation, Cathedral, Knowing your Microwave and other Magical Moments, Combat. Magiese vertellings oor ons absurde wêreld: die vreemdheid maar ook die bekendheid daarvan. ’n Meesterstorieverteller.Lof vir Nataniël se stories:“Nataniël se hantering van die groteske en absurde kom by hom so spontaan, onpretensieus en maklik soos wat dit vir ander mense is om ‘n eier te kook.” – Jeanne Goosen“In enige ander tydvak of kultuur kon Nataniël dalk ‘n sjamaan gewees het.”  – Cas van Rensburg Nataniël’s latest collection includes 46 stories, some in English some in Afrikaans, selected and adapted from his shows staged since 2007, amongst others Predicting Snow, Men who Fly, Egg Whites and Angel Food, Coronation, Cathedral, Knowing your Microwave and other Magical Moments, Combat. Magical stories about a world both strange and familiar.  Praise for Nataniël’s stories:“Nataniël has always been a master storyteller as he creates an extraordinary world filled with lonely people all struggling to find their way.”  – Diane de Beer“Nataniël’s stories are arguably modern fairytales.” – Derek Wilson

• Language: Afrikaans
• Publisher: Human & Rousseau
• Release date: Sep 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9780798155731

Nataniël

Nataniël is op Grahamstad gebore. Hy het skool gegaan aan die Laerskool Riebeeck-Kasteel en Hoërskool De Kuilen in Kuilsrivier. Na skool studeer hy musiek aan die Universiteit Stellenbosch. Hy het aanvanklik bekendheid verwerf as kabaretster en verhoogkunstenaar, maar sedert die 1990’s is hy veral gewild as skrywer en koskenner. Nataniël was born in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape. He studied music at Stellenbosch University and first became popular as a cabaret and stage artist, but since the 1990’s has also built a reputation as a writer, columnist and celebrity chef. 150 Stories dominated the bestseller charts for weeks on end.

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Nicky and Lou title.jpg

Contents/Inhoud

High Heels

Angel Food

Screw

Exotic

Church

Friedland

Allergy

Penny in the Pudding

Clementine

Too Big

A Great Building

Miracles

Microwave

Nicky

Lou

Fluit

Sneeu

Vrugtekoek

Ballon

Hangman

Du Preez

Spoeg

Tafels

Onder die kas

My ma se niggie

Persepsie

Pastei

Mejuffrou

Slap kar

Hout en vis

Bel

Voëltjie

Hoes

Groot poeding

Venesië

Klein dingetjies

Bekruip

Kol

Plonks!

Bylas

Geen skottelgoed

Miskyk en uitlos

Kabelkar

Kadet

Mercia

Eloise

High Heels

I was fifteen years old when I received the first evidence of another world, a world completely different from the one I was living in. That year at school I sat next to a girl called Helette Kniesel. She had long white hair and a fully developed bosom and was obsessed with the meaning of words.

One day in class she put up her hand and asked the teacher what the meaning of ‘parent’ was.

A parent is a person who takes care of you and shows you how the world works, said the teacher.

What if that person does not know how it works? asked Helette.

That person gave birth to you and is a figure of authority, said the teacher.

Rabbits give birth, said Helette, Are they figures of authority?

Yes, said the teacher, In the rabbit world.

The next day Helette put up her hand again.

What is a Spanish dancer? she asked.

What is wrong with you? said the teacher.

A Spanish dancer, said Helette, Is it a Spanish person who dances or a person who does Spanish dancing?

Both, said the teacher.

Does that mean two different things can be the same? asked Helette.

Sometimes, said the teacher.

Helette looked at me.

Last weekend we went to see the Spanish dancing, she whispered, Victoria Daniels who is repeating standard nine because of the baby, she has a brother who dances with them. He was born here but he is a Spanish dancer.

What do they do? I whispered.

The women have skirts and shawls, whispered Helette, They look really angry and hit the floor with their heels like those machines that flatten the road. I don’t like them. But the men are fantastic. They wear eyeliner and tight, tight, tight pants and very high heels.

Suddenly my mouth was dry.

They wear what? I whispered.

High heels, whispered Helette.

Everything around me started changing. At first I thought the sun was rising for a second time but then I looked up and saw a light bulb had appeared above my head.

My father thought it was disgusting, whispered Helette, My mother said maybe the men’s clothes got lost with all the travelling, but I thought they all looked pretty and normal.

Then she put up her hand and asked the teacher what the meaning of ‘normal’ was.

When something is normal, it is how it should be, said the teacher, It does not upset or scare or confuse us.

Helette put up her hand again.

Nobody’s upset or scared or confused when Reverend Stephens and Jonathan’s mother make the combi rock after choir practice, she said, Or when Gerry Polson throws up because his father makes him shoot animals on their holiday or when Mrs Redelinghuys buys cat food for her husband because he can’t see or when Mr Neethling’s shoes are wet because the sherry drips from the drawer in his desk. Does that mean it’s normal?

The teacher said nothing. She just looked really tired and sent Helette to the principal, who was Mr Neethling.

I woke up in the middle of the night because my room was so bright. I looked up and saw that the light bulb was still there.

It stayed there until I was old enough to leave the house and go look for the other world. A few times I have found it, more often I have lost it. It is hard when those around you can’t decide what’s normal and what is not. But I will always know there’s another world, a new and better one. And I will always be happy and excited because I will always be in tight, tight, tight pants and very high heels.

(from the Aula Concert, 2008)

Angel Food

When I was fifteen and a half years old my parents called me into their bedroom. They were sitting on the bed, looking really uncomfortable.

My mother said they were very happy that I did not have acne or mood swings like other teenagers.

Yes, said my father, that was true, but they did notice that I sometimes had small attacks of strangeness and creativity.

My mother said there were children at school who were a little bit upset by the fact that I sometimes accessorised my school uniform with jewellery and pieces of embroidered cloth.

My father said Mr Brynardt, the geography teacher, had phoned and said he too had experienced surges of creativity as a teenager and knew how it felt. If ignored it could lead to a lifelong feeling of loneliness and excessive use of hair gel or perfumed products.

My mother said Mr Brynardt had suggested that I find an outlet for my waves of inspiration. He had said that if I regularly came into contact with things like glitter, glass pebbles and crinkled paper my urges could be controlled. My mother said she had phoned Eileen Boon and asked if I could help with the decorations for her wedding.

One week later I went to the Boons’ house to find out what my duties would be. Eileen said the theme of the wedding was fresh air and everything was going to be white and light blue. She said the flower arrangements, the bouquet, the cake and the containers for the confetti were all going to be in the shape of the church roof, because it pointed upwards to the sky. She said it would be like an ocean of arrows, all pointing upwards.

Her father said it would be cheaper to just make the guests lie on their backs but in a small town that always led to pregnancy.

Then Eileen laughed nervously and touched her stomach.

She said my job would be to make the confetti containers, they would bring the paper to my house and I had to fold 150 small churches.

Three weeks later my life was destroyed. My room was filled to the ceiling with churches, I still had a hundred left to do, my creativity was not under control and I had started accessorising again. Luckily it was near the end of the year and the school had closed, but my parents were getting more nervous by the day.

And then the news came of an outbreak of disease in the area and that thousands of chickens had died. Mrs Boon was running from house to house because she needed to bake the wedding cake but there was not a single egg in town. Then somebody remembered that the mountain people had two chickens and that they would not be infected. The mountain people were a family of thin people who lived near the waterfall. They made pottery and spoke to no-one. Mr Boon had to drive up there three times before they agreed to sell him the eggs. At two per day it would take eight days before there would be enough for the wedding.

Why don’t they just postpone the whole thing? asked Father.

Then mother lost her speech and mimed the words, SHE IS WITH CHILD.

Three days later we received notice that the wedding would include a short Christmas service, because there would never be enough eggs in town for Christmas cakes and what would Christmas be without cake? This meant I had to make a hundred more churches, because everybody in town was coming.

Five days later Mr Boon drove up the mountain to fetch the eggs. That afternoon a scream was heard. Mrs Boon had broken the first egg and found that there was no yolk inside, just white. Then she phoned a cousin with a college diploma who told her that eggs laid at a high altitude often had no yolks, that was part of the reason mountain people were so thin.

After that Mrs Boon screamed once more, then she put all the egg whites in a bowl and started beating them. She beat them for almost an hour while trying to decide what to do. She knew a cake without egg yolks could have no fruit or icing. She started beating sugar into the egg whites, then she added vanilla and folded in some flour. She spooned the batter into a large cake tin and placed it in the oven.

Two days later we received notice that the wedding would include a short funeral. Mr Classen had died on his couch, he had only been discovered the next day and the arm that held the whiskey could not be manoeuvred to be next to the body, so the coffin would be open. And with the current egg situation he had to be buried at the wedding, because what was a funeral without cake? That meant I had to make fifty more churches because his family was coming.

On the day of the wedding the church was packed with hundreds of people holding small churches pointing upwards. In front was a large Christmas tree pointing upwards. Next to that was the coffin with Mr Classen’s arm pointing upwards and next to that the whitest, lightest, highest cake pointing upwards.

Mr Boon shook his head. A cake without icing, he said.

Shut up, said Mrs Boon.

She did not know that what she had baked was a world-famous historical recipe called Angel Food Cake, the lightest confection in the world, prepared by legendary chefs, ate by kings and princesses and believed to be the food of angels. She just knew it was the best thing she had ever done, that it was an event that brought everybody together and a day never to be forgotten.

(from the Egg Whites & Angel Food stage production, 2008)

Screw

On a Tuesday not too long ago, three people arrived at the office of Doctor Friedland, popular psychologist, specialist in genetics and author of the book A Name Is Not Enough.

Heather Heather was a primary school teacher who had seven ginger cats and no children and was part of a loveless marriage.

Marcus Marcus had dreamt of being a successful athlete but was injured at twenty and was now working for his uncle who imported clothes from the East.

Paulson Paulson was a brilliant neurologist who, at 35, was still a virgin because of his shyness, religious confusion and fear of rejection.

One after the other they told Doctor Friedland of their shame, anxiety and low self-esteem. He told each of them to go home, write down the happiest and proudest moments of their lives or those of their families and return one week later.

This is the story Heather Heather wrote: In 1947 my grandfather was twenty years old and lived with his parents in Pietermaritzburg. His mother, my great-grandmother, was a solid woman with arms like trees and a chest like a verandah. His father was a tiny little man who worked at the town hall and rolled thirty cigarettes a day.

The previous year my grandfather had worked as a delivery boy at Bonita’s, a huge department store, but then he stole a gramophone record from the postmaster’s wife and got fired.

Grandfather said he didn’t want the record, but if you hadn’t done anything wrong by the time you turn twenty, you spent the rest of your life trying to find something. He said Great-Grandmother hit him so hard, he was walking to the left for weeks.

Grandfather was still unemployed when the British Royal Family visited the town. He said everybody was working day and night, they were cleaning and painting, planting trees and flowers and renovating furniture. People were borrowing money and having new clothes made for watching the parade. There would be a band in front, then some soldiers, then the car with the king and queen and at the back Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.

Grandfather said he did not have new clothes to stand next to the road with, so he sat in a tree. He said the princesses were not really attractive, so he just looked at the cars. He said when they got to the town hall there was a gun salute and then his father was supposed to ring the bell, but because he had lost so much weight from the stress, he went up with the rope but didn’t come down again, so the bell only rang once. He said Great-Grandmother was boxing her way through the crowd to get to the bell tower and just as he decided to get down from the tree to go and help, he noticed the wheel of the car.

He said those were beautiful cars that came on the royal boat and the wheels had shiny spokes, but one of the screws on a back wheel of the princesses’ car was coming loose. Grandfather ran to the car, kneeled down and tightened the screw. At first nobody noticed him, but then Margaret leaned over and asked him if he had a cigarette.

He told her he would get one from the bell tower, she just had to tell the others to wait, but then the guards grabbed him and people started screaming. He said they dragged him away from the car, he was trying to explain what happened, but nobody would listen. He said he screamed at Margaret to tell them about the wheel, but she just turned around and pretended to like Elizabeth.

Grandfather said he did not go home for a week. He said he had heard Great-Grandmother hit Great-Grandfather so hard he climbed back up the