A Quilt of Dreams: A Novel

By Patricia Schonstein

Set in Grahamstown, South Africa, during the 1990s at the height of political unrest and opposition to apartheid, this is the bittersweet story of two people whose lives intertwine with-out them knowing each other-one a heavy-drinking white man and the other the young daughter of a black activist.

Reuben Cohen van Tonder's battle with unresolved grief and his search for hidden peace and Vita Mbuli's innocent resolve to remove the bad luck that has troubled her family for generations climax together in a wondrous resolution of personal and national triumph.

In this captivating and heartfelt novel, Patricia Schonstein captures the harsh and brutal realities of South Africa's past with its raw and sore racism, interlacing them with enchantment, tenderness, forgiveness . . . and hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 7, 2010
• ISBN: 9780062030290

Patricia Schonstein

Patricia Schonstein is the author of the novels The Apothecary's Daughter and Skyline, which won the Percy FitzPatrick Prize in 2002 and was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She has a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Cape Town. Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Schonstein now lives in South Africa.

Book preview

Baby

BABY COHEN VAN TONDER, THE PROPRIETOR OF Goldberg Bottle Store in High Street, decided, on the morning of his thirty-second birthday, in his pistachio-green-tiled bathroom, which was hung with ferns and purple-leaved Wandering Jew, to do something about his life.

He also determined that people should henceforth address him as Reuben, the name his mother had given him and the one by which his grandparents had always called him. Why he had allowed Baby to stick was anybody’s guess. What was certain, however, on the day in question, and after the night he had drunk a bottle and a half of Chivas Regal and fallen over unconscious on the back veranda, waking with a head that throbbed like mad, was that the name had to go; as did his paunchy stomach; and his heavy drinking. He admitted too that it was time to leave his wife.

Leaning over the basin, feeling nauseous, he looked at himself in the Oregon-pine-framed mirror. His eyes were red and puffy, his cheeks pale and gaunt, his hair lifeless and sticking up all over the place. He felt sick just looking at himself but stopped from turning away to light a cigarette, instead forcing himself to behold the ghastly, ghostly face leering back at him. He cleared his throat and spat into the basin. He took four pain-killers from the medicine cabinet and swallowed them, head bent, drinking from the Victorian brass tap. Then he turned on the shower, hard and cold, and stood under the water until his shivering made him stop and dry himself.

‘Today,’ he threatened his life, holding his arms around himself as though to give comfort, but also support, for it was a brave amendment he was preparing to address. ‘Today. From today things are going to be different.’

He walked through to the bedroom, still naked and feeling cold. His full-bodied wife, Georgie, turned over in half-sleep and mumbled, ‘Why’re you making so much noise, Baby? Can’t you see I’m sleeping?’

‘My name’s Reuben.’

‘What?’

‘Reuben. My name’s not fucking Baby. It’s Reuben. Reuben, after Jacob’s eldest son.’

‘God! You can talk rubbish,’ said his wife, heaving herself up. She packed her pillows behind herself and pulled her magenta hair back and away from her face. ‘There! Now, are you happy? I’m awake. Absolutely and completely awake. You did that on purpose, didn’t you? You just have to crash around in that bathroom and wake me up on the one and only morning my neuralgia isn’t stabbing my back. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Since when do you wake up before nine? Either come back to bed or get out the room. Go tell the town you’re Reuben. I’m not interested in your pathetic identity!’

But, because he, Reuben Cohen van Tonder, had just reached a crossroad at which he was to take an untravelled turn, he didn’t get back into bed or leave the crowded, busily decorated bedroom. Instead he looked through his wardrobe for something to wear which would help him hold steadfast to his resolution and also signal to the world that things had changed. He took out one of his two black suits, last worn some years before to his grandparents’ funerals, a dress shirt, a clean pair of Jockeys, a clean vest, black socks and his good, black shoes.

Georgie watched in disbelief as he buttoned his shirt, sucked in his stomach to zip up his trousers and carefully did his tie, pinning it down with his mother’s pearl brooch, which he had retrieved from his wife’s jewellery box. He sat on the bed to pull on his socks and shoes, and paused for thought. He stood up and looked at himself in the dressing-table mirror, picked up a comb and drew his wet hair backwards, noticing for the first time the grey at his temples.

‘What the hell’s got into you, Baby? Have you gone mad? Have you finally drunk yourself out of your little mind? Where are you going in that funeral suit, at this time of day, for the love of God? And will you stop rummaging through my things. Go dig around in your bottle store. Leave my stuff alone.’

‘Reuben. My name is Reuben. If you want an answer from me, in fact if you want anything at all from me, fucking call me by my name. Better still, just don’t talk to me, you damn whore. I’m sick of your voice,’ he said and left the room, slamming the door.

‘What did you say? What did you call me?’ shouted Georgie, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and leaning forward, taking in small pants of breath as her chest constricted. Her feet felt their way into her slippers and she pulled on her silk gown. ‘Baby! Baby! You just come straight back here! Come and say what you have to say to my face, you lousy alcoholic!’ she shouted, then struggled for breath. But he was already downstairs in the kitchen. She fell back against the pillows and reached for her Bible and asthma pump.

Reuben, as he watched his coffee percolate, pondered change. With one hand in his jacket pocket and the other lighting a cigarette held between his pursed lips, he realized he hadn’t shaved. So I’ll look artistic for the day, he thought, running a palm across his jaw. Pouring a mug of coffee, he reflected aloud on his resolution: ‘That’s three changes already— drop the Baby bit, wear a suit to look smart, kill the drinking.’

He threw back the sliding door and went out into the garden, which sloped down to a canalized river, where mist was rising from the water. Dense oleander growing against his neighbour’s boundary fence hung into the yard, heavy with seemingly perpetual pink blossom. Two syringa trees at the end of the plot were laden with golden berries. A dove sat in one, murmuring. Reuben’s head still ached but he could feel the pain-killers starting to work. The whole area was a mess and spoke of attempts at all things failed— a chicken run (Georgie once planned to sell eggs at the local co-operative, in an effort to lift herself from one of her depressions); a feeble row of grapevines strangled by aggressive morning glory (she was also going to sell bottled juice); a line of citrus trees, all in need of pruning; a vegetable patch that had never yielded so much as a whole tomato and was now overcome by blackjacks and duiweltjies.

The rusting body of a Morris 1000 languished near the river (it had belonged to the original owner of the bottle store, and Reuben had had plans to restore it). One side of the veranda was piled with crates of empty whisky and other bottles, waiting for collection. For a moment the disorder leapt up at Reuben, flaring its permanence at him like a spurred, angry cockerel and blocking his way along his new-chosen path. His stomach agitated for the trouser button to be undone and every cell in him called for its regular early-morning zing of alcohol to revitalize it. There was still a half-full bottle of whisky on the veranda table, his glass, the pieces of the bottle he had finished and smashed against the wall, and the ice bucket, now full of water and floating, drowned midges. He picked up the half-full bottle and, overpowering the desire to drink from it (drink all of it), poured its contents onto the grass, then went back inside, where the maid, who had just arrived, was preparing to wash the plates from the last night’s meal.

‘Good morning, Mr Baby,’ she greeted him, without emotion.

‘Gladness, I want you to call me Mr Reuben from now. That is the name my mother gave me. Mr Reuben, all right? I’m finished with Mr Baby. Now, tell me, do you think one of those sons of yours can come to clean up the yard?’ he asked. ‘Tell one of them to come tomorrow and I’ll give him ten bucks to take that car and chicken shack away and rake up the vegetable place. Give them something to do instead of sitting around boycotting school and waiting for trouble. I want to plant a lawn and roses. I want red and yellow roses in front of the stoep. And I want to put climbing roses along the fence: peach-coloured, like the ones that used to grow along my grandmother’s veranda. I’m sick of this mess.’

Without waiting for her to respond, he strode through the kitchen and unlocked the door leading to his bottle store. Bottles of whisky, cane spirit, vodka, red wine, port, sherry and liqueur lined the shelves in neat order. A small walk-in fridge was stacked with beer and white wines. The bottles stood, as they did each morning, in greeting, their glorious colours glowing through their glass, their promises of transcendence strapped across them like the lights of angels — their partnered nightmares hiding far away.

Reuben took out the phone directory and paged through it, looking for an agency that would direct him towards help for his drinking problems. His own doctor could have helped, but he thought it better to see someone who knew nothing of his past. He wanted a fresh start. He reasoned that rather than going to Alcoholics Anonymous he would seek out a personal therapist. Why did they call themselves Alcoholics Anonymous? he wondered. There was nothing anonymous in this town. As soon as anyone walked into the Masonic Hall, where the alcoholics met and confessed to one another, everyone knew there was another wretched drunkard trying to shrug a demon from his back.

Reuben wanted counselling from someone on the edge of town, or even right out of town, as far away as Bedford, or Salem, to whom he could drive out. For his first appointment — he had it all planned — he would take with him a crate of whisky, and line up the bottles, just to show her that drink had no power over him. She could open all the bottles and let that heart of whisky escape and try its damnedest to trap him. But he’d show his therapist a thing or two about self-control. This is Reuben here, he imagined introducing himself. Not fucking Baby. Reuben, son of Lilianna Cohen, the beautiful Lilianna who should never have got involved with Jacobus van Tonder, and who died because she was a little bird and life did not deserve her. He needed a therapist who would understand why he drank in the first place; one who would empathize with him, who would keep confidence, and who would not abandon him should his inner devil surge. Perhaps this person might even like him. Most importantly he did not want to argue with anyone. There was already enough disagreement in his life. And he did not want counselling for ever. He would have to make that clear. He just needed help for a few weeks, just to get through the first, dark level of abstinence’s hell.

‘I am not my father’s son,’ announced Reuben to the room. ‘I never knew him. He was just a stud. I am my mother’s child.’ He circled the University’s mental health clinic, tore out the page, folded it and put it in his jacket pocket.

Upstairs his wife got up, rubbed rose-perfumed talc under her considerable breasts, kicked aside her husband’s sleeping-shorts and made her breathless way to the bathroom. ‘Baby!’ she shouted. ‘Can’t you rinse off your gob when you spit in the basin?’

The Cohen van Tonders lived behind and above Reuben’s bottle store, at High Street’s intersection with the top end of Bathurst Street. It had once belonged to Benny Goldberg, Reuben’s grandfather’s only friend.

Their bedroom window had a view across the road to the ornate Victorian two-storey shops of High Street, and overlooked a more-than-man-size bronze statue of a robed angel protecting a dying soldier who lay at her feet — a memorial to the Anglo Boer War’s dead. The angel’s head was wreathed in curls; her great wings stretched out from her back, as though ready for flight; her garment clung about her strong, masculine limbs. In her left hand she held a laurel wreath. The wounded soldier in her care wore an expression of deep and innocent sleep. Rain and time had leeched colour from the effigy’s alloy, so copper-green trailed down the white marble plinth, staining it in sorrowful rivulets.

It was a spacious but crowded bedroom, annexed by Georgie’s walk-in cupboard and filled with their king-size brass bed, their side-tables, ornate, freestanding wardrobe, dressing table and large, deep, soft, Biggie-Best cushion-festooned divan.

Leading off the room was an old-fashioned parlour, furnished with plush, faded floral armchairs, a chaise longue, little coffee-tables, a television and a cabinet filled with a collection of antique dolls. Three of the walls were generously hung with two watercolour landscapes, three oil paintings of different views of a vase of flowers, a mirror framed in padded cloth, and a printer’s tray packed with small ornaments. A handmade quilt, large enough to cover a double bed, and worked in various herringbone patterns, colours and textures, took pride of place hanging alone on the fourth wall. The windows looked down onto the yard and river and, beyond, over the roofs of houses.

Downstairs, the large, open-plan kitchen and dining room were furnished with a yellowwood table and chairs, a kitchen dresser bearing antique storage jars, a large divan and a second television. Here the walls were hung with Settler copper pots, pans and bed-warmers, and the tops of shelves lined with old biscuit tins and tea caddies. It was a home decorated with tastefully chosen, expensive things, but too many of them.

The territories were clearly defined. The bottle store was Reuben’s and Georgie seldom entered it. Upstairs belonged to her, and he was grudgingly accommodated. The backyard had become no man’s land. The kitchen was the maid’s domain during the day, for, in addition to cleaning the house and bottle store, it was one of her tasks to prepare her employers’ lunch and light supper, though she never ate with them.

Reuben and Georgie enjoyed good and full, though repetitious, meals. Both had hearty appetites which were never curbed by the everyday tensions and acrimony that beset their lives. Georgie did not know how to cook, and Reuben, whose grandfather had set the example of always preparing the meals of his household, never expected her to. When he and Georgie married, Reuben took charge of the cuisine. He found a copy of Leah W. Leonard’s Jewish Cookery in his grandparents’ dining-room credenza and from this selected a set of recipes, which he wrote out for the newly appointed Gladness.

You could tell the day of the week by what was on the table. From Monday to Friday, lunches were served in this order: old-fashioned pot-roast beef; breast of lamb (rice-stuffed); chicken casserole; baked white fish with tomato; and veal roulladen. These main dishes were served with potatoes (roasted or baked or mashed) and two boiled vegetables, followed by a green salad and dessert. The week’s desserts were rice pudding; baked apple with custard; coffee soufflé; lemon meringue pie; and prune whip. The evening meal, warmed up each night by Reuben, was a soup (clear beef with dumplings; barley krupnik; chicken broth; potage of lentils; and spinach borscht) served with anything left from lunch, bread and fruit. During the weekends, when Gladness did not come to work, Reuben braaied lamb chops and boerewors, which he and Georgie ate with coleslaw and finished off with a cake from Oram Bakery. In the early days they drank a bottle of wine with their meals. Once Georgie stopped drinking, Reuben still enjoyed this on his own.

Reuben unlocked the shop’s double door and security gate and stepped out onto the pavement and into the morning sun. He left the metal security screens on the windows. The street was deserted. The town had been in the grip of a black consumer boycott for the past two weeks and a partial work stay-away (only the municipal workers were striking). There wasn’t an African face to be seen.

The boycott had been called by the civic association in response to one given by the United Democratic Front for national unity in opposing the government through civil disobedience. Although the call was for non-violent protest, anyone who broke the boycott faced the wrath of the community. Initially stones would be thrown through their windows, but more recently people were beaten publicly for defying the call to shun business in town. Lately a new form of execution had taken place: that of placing a tyre around the neck of a victim, filling it with petrol and setting it alight.

Reuben lit a cigarette and looked up and down High Street. This, the lower side of the racially segregated town, marked the end of the white and the start of the Indian business areas. The dividing point was the Methodist church with its hewn-stone walls, tall, ornate spires and huge oak door. Reuben’s bottle store stood on one side of it and was the first of the white-owned shops leading up to the heart and more prosperous part of town. A narrow service lane led to the tall, back gate of Reuben’s garden. On the other side of the church stood Goodwill’s Cash and Carry. From Goodwill’s, High Street was lined all the way down to the station, on both sides, by W. Patel’s Laundry, Diva Shoes, Bombay Bazaar, Naidoo Factory Shop, Ratanjee’s Corner Store, Wellington’s Café and Taj Mahal Radio and Television Repairs.

Reuben’s neighbour on the other side was Mozambique Fishery and Chips, which was run by his one-time close friend and drinking buddy Joey (Joaquim) Gonçalves. Because of Georgie, they could no longer be friends. Carmen, Joey’s wife, loathed Georgie and had forbidden friendship, on pain of divorce, something both men lamented when they occasionally had the chance to talk, usually when they did reservist duty together.

Having closed the security gate behind himself (but not locked it), Reuben strolled down to Aziz Philander, who stood outside his shop, Goodwill’s. Philander had not taken down the bars from his shop window either. ‘What’s the use, Baby?’ he reasoned as both men stood on the pavement. ‘When there’s trouble brewing, it’s better not to have to rush around locking up. Did you sell anything this week?’

‘Reuben’s the name, Aziz. No, I didn’t do much trade. Just some Old Brown’s and wine to students. Not a single black came in. What do they think they’ll achieve by boycotting?’

‘What’s that you say, Baby? You taking on a new name?’

‘No, I’m not taking a new name. Reuben’s my real name. It’s the name my mother gave me. The name my grandparents called me by. Reuben. From now on, call me Reuben, Aziz.’

‘Right. Reuben. I’ll have to be mindful. You know, we’ve been trading neighbours for a long time, Baby. I only know you by that name, all these years. You must show patience if I slip a bit. Reuben — that’s not a bad name, I must say. But why the change?’

‘It’s time for change. Everything’s changing. I can feel it in my bones. They’re not a set of baby bones any more. You’ve got to admit, with the amount of alcohol they’ve soaked in, they’re a man’s bones now. Wouldn’t you say? But to tell the truth, I’m just sick of the name. I want to be who I am. It’s that simple.’ Reuben threw down his cigarette butt and squashed it with the tip of his shoe. ‘I don’t think I’ll open today. I’ve got a whole lot of other things to do. Anyway, I don’t think we’ll do better today than yesterday. I hope you do OK, Aziz. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

‘Are you going to a funeral, Baby? I mean Reuben,’ asked Aziz. ‘You’re dressed so smart.’

‘No, I’m not going to a funeral. Well, maybe I am. Hard to say,’ answered Reuben, who then thought to himself, I suppose it is a funeral. Something’s going to give. Something’s going to die today and need a burial. He loosened his tie and lit another cigarette, as both men stood looking up the road.

‘You been called up, Baby? I think they’re expecting trouble.’

‘Reuben. Yes, I got called up, but you know, this time, I asked for a break. I’ve not been feeling too good of late, Aziz. I shake quite bad in the mornings. I need a check-up and a break. Nothing’s really wrong. I just don’t feel right. Actually, I haven’t been right for a long time. Come to think of it, not since my grandparents died.’

‘Just take a holiday. Go somewhere nice. Take a break with your missus,’ suggested Aziz.

‘Yes, that’s probably all I need. Cheers, Aziz,’ said Reuben, turning to leave. He walked back to his shop and closed his security gate as he entered. ‘A break with my missus!’ he repeated to himself. ‘Fucking hell!’

He had to be careful not to pour himself a drink, just from habit, from routine. Instead he dialled the University’s mental health clinic and left a message on the answering machine to see one of the therapists.

Though he was born a Jew, Baby Cohen van Tonder was brought up by the nuns of St Michael’s Orphanage in Beaufort Street, having been placed there by the Welfare after his young unmarried mother’s death. He should rightfully have been sent to a Jewish institution, but the nearest one was in Cape Town, and the social worker dealing with his case was sympathetic to his grandparents’ frantic fears that they would lose all contact with him if he were sent so far away.

He grew up with unwanted and abused children who had been removed from the homes of poor whites — children of drunks and drug abusers and violent people. He was not such a one. He was wanted and adored by his grandparents, but they worked long hours in their township shop and the Welfare judged that they could not properly care for him.

It was at the orphanage that he was named Baby because there he cried through the first five years of his life. As one among twelve babies in the nursery, with his neglected nappy full and burning, he wailed to be held and cuddled and whispered to. The other infants stopped making demands early on and settled into the rhythms of four-hourly feeds, given dispassionately and without tenderness. But this little Jewish boy knew in his bones that small people are to be held and coddled all through their lives. So he cried. As he grew up, he whimpered over the bland, boiled meals he was forced to eat; sobbed in the cold, bare-bulb-lit bathroom; bawled himself to sleep at night under the scratchy blanket and thin darned sheets that smelt of carbolic; wept when he woke to the sharp neon lights which heralded the dawn, before even the sun itself had arisen; whined because his nose was always red and sore and because the other children teased and taunted him mercilessly. The only