Silence

At the traffic lights outside the Bruma flea market, a street vendor selling Chinese goods holds a small wooden cage at my car window. Inside an artificial bird with a bright orange beak, protruding black beads for eyes, and a shocking pink, feathered tail swings back and forth. “Support, Mama! Support”, the man whines. 

Four garish gold chimes and a diamond-shaped wooden disc with the word ‘luck’ or ‘fuck’ carved into it hang down from the base of the cage. The whole contraption makes a high-pitched mechanical shrieking sound that bears no resemblance to birdsong.

“Support, Mama, support, support.” I give the man the twenty rand he is asking for.

There is apparently no means to turn the high-pitched sound off. At home I take the still shrieking contrivance into the outside room, hang it up on a cupboard door and throw a rug over it to soften the sound. My little dog Daisy runs around in circles , emitting demented yelps and trying to get at the bird.

The high-pitched shrieking persists in the background. Close to breaking point I pour out my troubles to the first person who calls. “There must be some way,” my brother consoles, “to remove the thing that makes the noise. Get a screwdriver!”

Abandoning my commitment to non-violence, I approach the cage armed with a variety of screwdrivers, hammers and other weapons of mass destruction. All the while Daisy runs around my feet yelping and doing a mad dance. 

With trembling hands, I find a screwdriver that fits, remove the cover of the cage and wrench out the bird’s mechanical heart.

Now soundless, the creature dangles from the kitchen light.

Daisy collapses on the bed.

Silence has become an imperative.

Neighbours

Properties here are small and close together. There is a mingling of sounds and smells and emotional  states. It is inevitable. I know when one of my neighbours is ill before I get told. I know when things are going well and not so well.

Rikkia, my neighbour to the right, shares her scrumptious meals generously. I don’t have to wait for Eid to receive gifts of curry and roti and homemade cookies and other delights through the gap in the blade wire fence dividing her property from mine.  Even during Ramadan she calls me to the fence: "Here are some feta pies I know you like so much..." I share too, though not as generously. In my wildest dreams I wouldn't be able to cook the way Rikkia does.   

Rikkia likes flowers – pink flowers of any variety. I buy her a bunch of pink flowers from time to time.

At Easter I give the children Easter eggs and at Christmas, sweets and cake.  When my neighbours celebrate Eid, such a stream of treats is passed through the fence it is almost overwhelming.

Through this sharing we understand one another’s traditions and habits and preferences and also our struggles and the sadnesses of our lives. According to Rikkia, God has a minute by minute interest in what is happening to us too. “The Almighty knows everything about you and me, Melody…” she says with confidence.