The room was crowded. Packed full of beds and wardrobes. Wooden wardrobes that smelled damp and musty. Like when you’re at the beach. Except now there are no warm or happy feelings. This kind of damp was nauseating. It smelled like years of neglect and sadness. It smelled like brown.
Brown was the colour of being seven years old. Sometimes being seven was light blue, like on my birthday when my mom and granny came to visit me and gave me a “My First Recipe Book” and it was raining and I was so excited. But then I remembered where I was, and being seven turned brown again.
We stayed in that room, all six of us crammed in during the week. My mom made me a bright bed cover that smelled like home for a while, but after a time it faded. This room, that had bars on the windows to keep intruders out, felt like a prison with an unlocked door. This room, where everyone seemed happy but me, where nothing flourished but the fat pigeons that mated on the roof and soiled the windowsills.
“Go away, fat pigeon! You are not my turtle dove from home, or my piet-my-vrou, or my bulbul. You mock me from your perch. You can leave – but you don’t”.
Play time was controlled by a hand bell and strict rules. “Where are your shoes?”, the hoarse voice of a life-long smoker growls from behind me.
“I don’t need shoes! I don’t want to wear shoes! My mom doesn’t force me to wear shoes!” I say with a sudden surge of courage.
I wait for the consequence. I watch the eyes behind the thick smoky glasses. They are devoid of emotion.
I wait.
Nothing happens.
The silence is worse.
My heart beats faster, the acid rises in my stomach.
The yellow nicotine mouth opens with a sneer to reveal the brown teeth and it laughs, “cut your feet then, your mother obviously doesn’t care if you do, so neither do I”.
I run away, over the tar and into the garden that is made of sand. Nothing has survived because children ruin gardens… or so they say. Beneath the tree the sand is not as hot but the spiked round balls that have fallen out of the beefwood tree now pierce into the thick skin under my feet. Stupid tree, I hate this tree. It is tall and sharp. It hurts me. But I cannot show it, so I brush them off and walk to my friends.
We’re playing with a skipping rope where you jump three times and duck for one. I love this game. “One, two, three, eh-le-le, one, two, three, eh-le-le” we chant as we jump, forming a long line of sandy children waiting to run in during eh-le-le two at a time. We get covered in the brown sand as the rope beats the ground, we’re dirty and our faces are flushed red. We are happy. My friend’s pony tail flies as she jumps and we laugh. We forget for a moment. Until the hand bell rings and we have to go inside for supper even though the sun is still shining.
While waiting in line outside the dining room, I lean against the wall and feel the cool, solid comfort of the light green plaster against my warm, sandy skin. It makes us pray – but instead of thanking God for the food we are about to receive, I’m asking him to make me a grown up, and I wonder whether I will go to hell… Or if perhaps I’m already there. Amen.
I am about to walk in and I feel a bony hand grip my shoulder and pull me back. The course voice rasps ‘You don’t have shoes on’. This time I have to concede because I need my food so I run to fetch my shoes. When I get back I am forced to wait until the end after the other children all have their places. I am being punished because I ran indoors. Rule number one is: NO RUNNING INDOORS. I finally get my seat in between two others. The middle seat is the worst because it is difficult to cut your food. And my arms are long. And my tummy is round. I don’t really fit here, but I’m not allowed to not fit, so I say nothing.
I gulp my strawberry Nesquik that my mom bought for me and I quickly make another one before anyone notices how much milk I’m using. I put in three heaped teaspoons and the milk turns pink and smells like marshmallows. For a second I am transported back home where I can run without shoes on and feel the soft grass beneath my feet. It is moist and green and smells like life. When I fall it is painless and soft. I can lie down and dream until I’m finished. I don’t have to wait in a line for my food, I can get it at the same time as everyone else. The smell is home.
A loud clatter of metal pots brings my thoughts back to the dining room and I wipe the tear off my cheek and count how many more hours until I can get out. Four sleeps. 89 hours.
After supper we have to bath. Two people per bath to save water. My soap is called Breeze and it is orange. It stays in a pink soap box with my pink face cloth. After I’m finished bathing I pack my toiletry bag into my locker next to my bed and I put my underwear in my laundry bag and my socks in the sock bin and I put on my pink nightie and gown and brush my hair. Just like my mom taught me.
We are allowed to watch TV for half an hour but I rather want to read my book and the others want to stay in the dorm and chat. We all get into our beds, some reading, some chatting, some laughing and joking.
I am halfway through a page in my favourite book series “Sweet Valley Kids” and the light is switched off. The voice reminds us that we may not speak after lights out and I feel for my locker in the dark so that I can put my book and my thick, brown glasses away.
As I lie in the stuffy, full room that smells of brown wardrobe and soap, with my black school shoes tucked neatly underneath my bed, I feel the darkness envelop me. It clutches at my stomach and my throat and I turn my face into my pillow.
‘Good night mommy, I miss you’ I whisper, my face wet with tears, before succumbing to a deep, sad sleep.