3rd Prize

Catherine van Niekerk with:

Kierie-Kierie

At the end of a quiet Sunday morning, Rudi pulled the shutter door down over the front of his small bookshop and stepped out onto the pavement and into the wind. They call it the ‘Cape Doctor’, this steady, cold South-Easter. It sweeps in from the Antarctic, over the eastern flanks of Table Mountain, swirls around the city bowl and then out to sea, scouring away disease, pollution and bad tempers. Or so they say.

Rudi pulled his hood up over his dark curly hair, and, lowering his head, pushed along Bree Street, heading for the station and home. The clouds were low on the mountain and the wind carried spits of rain. Strand Street, when he turned into it, was almost deserted. A few pedestrians, bowled along by the wind, hurried to their cars. From somewhere, faintly at first, then louder, came the sound of a penny whistle playing a melody both lively and sad. Rudi turned his head inside his hood, trying to get a fix on the sound. He had loved Kwela music since childhood, and the melody sounded familiar. Pushing back the hood, he stopped and looked around. Maybe it was a street musician, although it seemed unlikely, here, at the end of winter – here, in the empty Sunday afternoon streets. He saw no sign of life except a small black and white dog regarding him with mournful eyes from a shop doorway nearby. Shivering, he pulled up his hood and hurried on down towards the station.

The next morning when Rudi arrived to open the shop, he found a small black and white dog sitting hard up against the roller shutter door, collarless, its ears flat in the wind. It looked like the one he had seen the previous day and assuming it must be lost or abandoned, he thought he might let it in and give it some water, and then maybe call the SPCA to see if anyone had reported a dog missing. The dog trotted into the shop as soon as the door opened and its little curly white rump vanished in among the book shelves. Rudi switched on the lights and went through to the small kitchen at the back to put the kettle on for coffee. He found a saucer in the cupboard under the sink and after a moment’s hesitation, filled it with milk and put it down in the corner. His Ma had never allowed him to have a dog and he wondered, did dogs drink milk or was that only cats?

‘Brakkie, waar’s jy? !’ he called softly into the shop, but there was no response from the dog. Rudi made a mug of coffee and walked slowly towards the street door, looking down each row of shelves. He found the dog right in the corner, sitting against two unopened boxes of second-hand books that had come in from a house clearance the previous week. The dog swivelled sad eyes in Rudi’s direction, and placed one small paw against the side of one of the boxes. Rudi crouched down and lifted the dog into his arms, feeling its heart beating fast beneath the rough, curly pelt. Putting it down in the kitchen next to the milk, Rudi went back to the boxes, deciding that now was as good a time as any to sort through them. He took them to the desk in the middle of the store, and opened the lid of the first.

To his delight, the books were in good condition and included local history and poetry, in English and Afrikaans. There was a good market among collectors for Africana, especially about the Cape. Rudi whistled softly as he found a rare copy of La Guma’s banned book, ‘A Walk in the Night’. Towards the bottom of the box was a battered copy of ‘Kitaar My Kruis’. It wouldn't be worth much now as the spine was broken, and the pages came loose as he lifted it out of the box. He let it fall open, and found himself looking at an old black and white photograph, tucked between the pages. Holding it up to the light he saw that it was of a young boy, sitting on a low wall at a street corner, playing a penny whistle. At his feet was a small black and white dog. Rudi frowned and looked closer. The dog looked uncannily like the one that was in his kitchen at the back of the shop. What was that mutt up to anyway? Rudi put the photograph down on top of the pile of books and went to check. The dog was nowhere to be seen and the milk in the saucer was untouched. Puzzled, Rudi checked the few places in the kitchen where it could be hiding, and checked that the door leading into the yard was locked as usual. A search of the rest of the shop yielded no trace of it either. He was standing, perplexed, when the street door opened and a neatly dressed, elderly man came in, nodding his head at Rudi.

‘Dagsê.’

‘Dagsê, Oom.’ answered Rudi politely ‘Waarmee kan ek help?’

The man was looking for a book about Cape furniture, and Rudi found him one in good shape. As Rudi entered the sale on the computer the man leaned over and picked up the photograph. A small smile appeared and he looked up at Rudi over his glasses.

‘Hanover Straat,’ he said, tapping the photo, ‘District 6.’

After the customer had left, Rudi searched among his shelves until he found a book of photos of the old District 6. He had more photos just like these, at home in a box that was all that was left of his father, who had died when Rudi was only five. His Ma always said she didn't want to look at them or talk about what happened in their childhood when the bulldozers came. There was a map in the front of the book and he found Hanover Street easily. Flicking through the book he saw familiar images of the vibrant, mixed-race community, laughing faces in dance halls, houses jumbled together, churches and mosques in profusion. Today, Hanover Street was an empty space on the hillside not far from his shop, scrubby grass blowing in the cold South-Easter, where the houses had once stood.

Lifting the box down from the desk, Rudi noticed that at the bottom was a roll of cloth, tied with thin string. Lifting it out and unrolling it, Rudi saw with a small jolt of excitement that inside was an old penny whistle. He turned it over reverently, and saw that it was an original Hohner G, a classic piece and worth a tidy sum. Rolling it back into the cloth, Rudi went to look up the number of a friend of his who would be able to value the whistle. He had forgotten all about the dog.

The wind dropped during the afternoon and bright sunshine brought the tourists out. Rudi sold two history books, a book on fynbos flowers, a cookery book and several old loose photographs of Cape Town, from the box on the desk. Picking up the black and white photo of the boy and the dog to put into the box, he turned it over to inspect the back. Written in pale blue ink were the words, ‘Jantjie en Tekkies 1965.’

Rudi paused, his brow furrowed. ‘Jantjie?’ Jantjie was his father’s name. He scrutinized the picture again. That dog – implausibly – really did look like the very same dog that had been in his shop that morning, he could swear to it! There was the irregular black patch over its eye, and the little curly tail. And surely – surely, that whistle at the boy’s lips was a Hohner G? Rudi stood with one brown hand to his forehead, trying to work it out. On the desk, his phone began to vibrate in small circles. He saw the call was from Katy, his wife, and he answered it

‘Hallo Liefie!’ she said, her voice warm and excited. ‘Don't be late tonight, hey? I’ve got a surprise for you!’

Smiling, Rudi told her that he would lock up a little earlier to make sure he caught the five thirty train. With a last puzzled look at the photo, Rudi put it into his shirt pocket and started to cash up. Later, as he put his hand up to pull down the roller shutter, he thought again about the dog. It appeared to have vanished without trace, but he suddenly wondered if it could still be trapped somewhere inside. Uncertain, he paused for a moment and then, as clear and arresting as the sound of single bird singing at dawn, he heard the sound of the penny whistle again. It was the same hauntingly familiar melody that he had heard the previous day. His hand still on the shutter handle, Rudi looked up and down the street to try and work out where the sound was coming from. It seemed one moment to float down from the mountain and, the next, to be coming, slightly muffled, from inside the shop. The playing was masterful, the melody sometimes dancing, sometimes slowing into long keening notes in a minor key. Suddenly a long lost memory of his father arose in his mind, and he remembered that the name of the tune was Kierie-Kierie,

And then, he knew.

He knew what his wife was going to tell him. He knew that it would be a boy. And he knew that one day he would give his little son a penny whistle, wrapped in a cloth, a gift from a grandfather whom the child would never know. The last notes of the melody faded away as he turned to walk up Bree Street in the golden light of late afternoon. Rudi’s eyes were a little blurred, but he just caught sight of a small black and white dog, as it turned the corner onto Strand Street, heading towards the station, and home.

"Winning third prize in the WB Short Story Competition was a delightful surprise. I recently embarked on the Writers Bureau Comprehensive Writing Course and although I didn’t think I had much chance, I decided to write a story for the competition anyway. The Writers Bureau tips for writing a successful short story as well as the tutor’s blogs were very helpful and the whole experience has made me even more determined to hone my skills as a writer."
Catherine van Neikerk