You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town by Zoë Wicomb

together testify to the wisdom of the arrangement. Beatrice loves the yearly visits to Kliprand where Ousie Sofie awaits them with armfuls of presents, not always the sort of thing a girl would want in Town, but so jolly is Sofie telling her fabulous stories with much noiseand actions that they all scream with mirth. A honey mouth that cousin of hers has, full of wise talk which only gets a person into trouble. Just as well she has kept to the country; Cape Town would not agree with her.
    Beatrice has brought nothing but good luck. After serving the terrible English family in Cape Town – they paid well but never talked to her, nor for that matter did they talk to each other except in hushed tones as if someone in the family had just died – came Tamieta’s lucky break at the UCT canteen where she could hold her head up high and do a respectable job of cooking for people whose brains needed nourishing. She was the one who kept the kitchen spotless, who cooked without waste and whose clockwork was infallible; it was only right that she should be chosen to run the canteen at the new Coloured university. The first kitchen boy was quiet, eager to please, but this Charlie is a thorn in her flesh. Full of himself and no respect for his elders. Why should he want to go on about the pondokkies of country folk? She casts a resentful look at the girl just sitting there, waiting for her coffee with her nose in her blinking book. She too is from the country. Tamieta knows of her father who drives a motor car in the very next village, for who in Little Namaqualand does not know of Shenton? The girl speaks English but that need not prevent her from saying something educated and putting this Charlie in his place. She, Tamieta, will turn on him and say as she rolls the pastry, pliant under her rolling pin, strike him with a real English saying which will make that know-all face frown. She has not worked for English people without learning a thing or two. She has learned to value their weapon of silence, and she has memorised Madam’s icy words to the man with the briefcase, ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’ Oh to see Charlie’s puzzled lookbefore he pretends to know exactly what it means. Her fingers stiffen as the boy rises with his board of chopped onions, but what if he were just to laugh at her if she said it now? If only she could leave him alone, but Tamieta calls out just as he is about to drop the onions into the pan. Curtly, ‘It needs to be finer than that.’ Charlie’s onion tears stream down his face.
    â€˜See how you make me cry, Tamieta? This is the tears of all my young years, and I’ll have none left for your wedding. They say you getting married, Tamieta, when is the happy day?’
    He runs his hand over the mirror surface of his greased hair, asserting his superiority. This Charlie with his smooth hair and nose like a tent will find every opportunity to humiliate her. She ought to ask him to wash his hands. No one wants Brylcreem-flavoured bredie. But her legs ache and her back starts up again, the itching pores like so many seething hot springs, so that she really can’t give a damn. The stove will tend to the germs. This is no ordinary itch.
    Tamieta turns to Charlie. ‘We must get a move on. All tomorrow’s work has to be done this morning as well ’cause this afternoon is the memorial and the cafeteria will be closed.’
    â€˜Ooh-hoo,’ the boy crows loudly, ‘I’m going up Hanover Street to get the material for our Carnival uniforms. We start practising next week and this year the Silver Blades is going to walk off with all the prizes.’
    â€˜Sies,’ Tamieta remonstrates, ‘I don’t know how you Slamse can put yourself on show like that for the white people to laugh at on New Year’s Day.’
    â€˜Oh, you country people know nothing man, Tamieta man. The best part is when we come out at midnight in our