How some writers can just put a sparkle in one’s eye! I love the contained madness of Lewis Caroll, the sardonic humour of Saki, the witty social commentary of Terry Pratchett’s fantasies.

Maybe that is why I have always wanted to write a leap year story. I haven’t. Yet. (You can read someone else’s here). But I love the idea of dates that don’t exist: 31 April (now there’s an April fool!), 31 September, 29 February 1971. One day I’m going to put that down as my birth date.

I often wish I had the gumption of Vera, the girl in Saki’s short story “The Open Window”, who could spin a tale “at short notice”. How I would liven up boring conversations with a fabricated life! Alas, I’m not swift with the tongue. My tongue is not the pen of a ready writer, as the psalmist proclaims. I am the ready writer. So, what if…
 
Self-portrait
(with apology to Breyten Breytenbach aka Jan Afrika – see his poem “selfportret” from Papierblom)
 
Here I am in the back row
third from the left
(also the third daughter of a third daughter
my grandmother’s loneliness, my mother’s abundance)
with my hands on the shoulders
of giants.
My eyes are not blue.
 
I was too late for the Anglo-Boer War,
the children’s graves are not mine,
and I hold my native tongue
where it trespasses on holy or bloody ground.
There is nothing extraordinary
about my webbed feet.
 
Visions follow me like dreams
into the houses where I sleepwalk at night.
Sometimes I talk to the trees about God
and the state of the highway, because I scribble
self-portraits on rock walls in forgotten languages
and lie in the lee of the land.
 
The woman who swam the Irish Sea
is not me;
indeed, I have never seen the Pole Star
though I wish on every fallen dream.
There are rings on my ankles and rings on my toes.
 
Someone else translated the songs
of Hildegard von Bingen from Latin.
Jane Goodall does not count me
among her friends.
I do not drink wine but sometimes
my lips are red with the sound of singing.
I was born in an ocean
like a floundering whale.
 
Years ago I danced the tango
and believed in a flat earth
and listened to the subsonic rumblings
of elephants in dark equatorial jungles.
Look, I know a woman with one arm
who breeds unicorns: I comb and plait
their manes at show time.
 
The smell of dogs doesn’t scare me.
Sometimes I break the law.
At times I have danced on the sea,
soft and cold in the moonlight.
God speaks when I am not listening.
 
So this is I, this is my life.
 
 
All fantasy, of course…

In memory of my mother (mentor and inspiration) who would have been 71 this week, I offer you this suitably eccentric little tale (both in the original Afrikaans and translated into English).

’n Mens moet wegbly van los vroue, anders soek jy vir moeilikheid. Om nie te praat van los mans nie. Dan is daar nog los skroewe, los drade, losloperhonde, noem maar op. Ek kan nie aan een los ding dink wat ek nie met ’n sweempie wantroue sal bejeën nie. Toe ek dus die storie van die los visse hoor, was ek nie verbaas oor die uiteindelike verloop daarvan nie.

’n Los vis, so vind ek uit, is nie die een wat weggekom het nie. Dis ook nie die een wat jy terug gegooi het nie. Ook nie ’n teologiese eufemisme vir dwalende lidmate nie. Dwalende ledemate? Nee. Los visse kom in pakkies. So tussen die ander vriesgoed in die supermark ingepak. Lossies ingepak bo-op, sodat die klante kan sien dis ’n bargain dié, mens kry nie aldag hier in die binneland vars vis teen so ’n prys nie.

Die storie loop nou so, dat ’n goeie vriendin, ook maar nie te welaf belaai in die beursie nie, een van die klante is wat die winskopie raaksien. En dis juis so aan die stertkant van die maand. Self weet sy ook nie mooi van wat vir ’n ding ’n los vis is nie, maar dit lyk heel skoon en heilsaam. Nou wel met die kop en stert nog aan, maar is dit nie hoe sy dit al in die vertoonkoelkasse van winkels gesien het nie? ’n Delikatessen, verseker.

Sy dink nogal hoe baie die twee visse lyk soos die prentjie in haar Kinderbybel. Iets diep esteties daaraan, die blink lyfies so teen mekaar. Met ’n bietjie brood by, eet sy dalk nog ’n paar dae aan dié vonds. Met ’n gebedjie by, dalk ’n hele week. Moreel en finansieel tevrede gaan sy dus huis toe met die los visse in haar greep.

Natuurlik is daar geen aanwysings of opdieningsvoorstelle op die pakkie nie. Net die een etiket wat sê los visse, eet voor die en daai datum, en dan die gawe prys. Sy’s ook nie bereid om so lank te wag nie. Netnou is die goed verstommend lekker en dan kan sy maar haar vrieskas bietjie aanvul voor alles uitverkoop is. Jy moet nooit onderskat hoe mense kan toesak op ’n winskopie nie.

Dis dan ook sommer die volgende dag vir middagete dat sy die visse uit hulle pakkie skud en net so, oë en al, in die pan gooi. As mens dit met ander vriesvis kan doen… Maar dis nie hoeka nie of sy kry hond se gedagte toe sy die blinklywe só staan en bekyk, want iets is nie reg nie. Sy pluk die pan van die stoof af en ja wragtie, die goed is dan, behalwe vir hulle skubbe, nog net so heel soos toe hulle uit die water gekom het. G’n naat of niks waar ’n skoonmaakmes moes naat maak nie.

Nou is die ergste vries al af en sy sit die visse maar eers weer op ’n bord en glip die mespunt hier aan die agterkant in en skarnier dit vorentoe, dat dit die onderste naat netjies oopsny. Vars gevries, dié los visse, so haastig dat die gedermtes nog lê waar hulle gelê het. Soos oerdiere wat deur die ystydperk oorval is so in die vreetslag.

Dit kan maar nie anders nie, die visse moet eers skoon en dan maar verder. Mens mors nie met kos nie. Sy krap en wikkel en spoel en nie lank nie of die visse lê weer in die pan.

’n Bietjie van dié kruie en ’n bietjie van daai en die kossie begin al te lekker ruik. Sout en peper en ’n suurlemoen van die boom af en siedaar, koningskos. So lekker dat dit saam met die brood nie eers vir meer as een ete genoeg is nie. Skoongeëet tot op die laaste graat, tot onder die kieue in.

Nou lek ek al self my lippe af en ek vra, as dit dan so lekker was, al die varsheid ten spyt, het sy dan nog los visse gaan koop? Nee, sê my vriendin en sy word nog so bleek van die onthou, want het jy al gehoor van ’n los maag…


One must stay away from loose women or you’ll get into trouble. Not to mention loose men. Then there are loose screws, loose wires, loose dogs, you name it. I cannot think of one loose thing that I won’t regard with a hint of suspicion. So when I heard the story of the loose fish, I wasn’t surprised at how it turned out.

A loose fish, I learn, is not the one that got away. Neither is it the one that you threw back. Also not a theological euphemism for wandering congregational members. Loose members? No. Loose fish come in parcels. Packed among the other frozen stuff in the supermarket. Loosely packed on top, so customers can see that this is a bargain, one seldom finds fresh fish inland at such a price.

The story goes like this. A good friend, not too well off, is one of the customers who sees the bargain. And that at the tail end of the month. She herself does not quite know what a loose fish may be, but it looks clean and healthy. Admittedly with the head and tail still attached, but isn’t that how she has often seen it done in the display cases of shops? A delicatessen, for sure.

She ponders on how much the two fish look like the picture in her Children’s Bible. Something deeply aesthetic about it, the shiny bodies together like that. With some bread added, it might fill the gap for a couple of days. With a prayer added, maybe even a whole week. Morally and financially satisfied, she goes home gripping the loose fish.

Of course there are no instructions or serving suggestions on the parcel. Just the one label that says loose fish, eat before this or that date, and then the good price. But she isn’t going to wait that long. Imagine they are marvellously tasteful, then she can stock up her freezer before they are all sold out. One must never underestimate how people can pounce on a bargain.

So just the next day she shakes the fish from their parcel and throws them, just like that, eyes and all, in the pan for lunch. If you can do it with other frozen fish…

But it doesn’t take long for her to smell a rat as she watches the shimmering fish, for something isn’t right. She plucks the pan from the stove and what do you know, the things are, except for the scales, just has whole and hale as the moment they came out of the water. No slit or anything where a knife should have slit.

The worst of the freeze is off by now and she puts the fish on a plate and slips the knife in here at the back and hinges it forwards, neatly slitting open the bottom seam. Freshly frozen, these loose fish, so hastily that their innards still lie where they have always lain. Like ancient animals overtaken by an ice age whilst having a chew.

There’s nothing for it; the fish must be cleaned first and then on with it. One does not waste food. She scrapes and wiggles and flushes and before long the fish are back in the pan.

A pinch of this herb and a pinch of that and the dish is starting to smell really good. Salt and pepper and a lemon from the tree and voila, food fit for a king. So good, in fact, that even with the bread it isn’t enough for more than one meal. Eaten clean to the last bone.

By this time I am salivating and licking my lips, so I ask, if it was that good, in spite of the frozen freshness and all, did she go back to buy some more loose fish? No, says my friend and she pales at the memory, for have I ever heard of a loose tummy…

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