When the woman saw that the flower had opened, beautiful things moved inside of her. She kneeled in front of the flower and cupped her hands around it. She loved the long slender petals that lay like sunrays in her palms.
The day changed for her then, because her body heard music. The swishing sound of the broom spoke secrets into the dusty corners of the house. The woman smiled because she understood the secrets. She tapped the duster lightly on the things she was dusting and listened to them give their sounds. When it was time to wash the dishes her fingers sang the plain blue lines around the rims of cups and plates. She leaned her head to one shoulder and dreamed of a garden path bordered with splashes of the flower that had opened her to the beauty of all this unexpected music.
She could see herself walking down the garden path – knowing about a row of red flowers first on her left and then as she turned around having the flowers on her right. She knew how her smile would move deeply into her and how her body would move with that smile.
After the woman had shared her joy in the flower with her house, she got into a bath fit for a queen. She allowed the water to cover her and made slow rolls with her body so that she could feel the smooth movement of water on her naked skin. She washed her hair. She dried herself carefully, feeling the different shapes of her body through the towel. Always remembering the open flower and her dream of the garden path.
When the woman had dried her hair outside in the sun and had breathed deeply into the fragrance of shampoo, she went to admire the flower again.
It was difficult for her to believe its wholeness. How simple it was – and how perfect. She knew that flowers were the happiest beings on earth because of the joy they give human beings.
She sat with the flower and told it about her dream. About the row of red rays she will plant and how she would walk up and down beside them. Towards the garden gate and up to the front door again. The flower listened and believed the woman because of the joy it could feel in its long slender petals and because of the beauty in the woman’s voice and the passion of her dreaming words.
After the woman had set the table and cooked supper, she went through the house tidying and straightening out the details. She wanted everything to be to the man’s satisfaction when he got home. She wanted to please him so that he would listen to her telling of the open flower. When she was certain the house was perfect, she sat very still and listened into the dark night for the sounds of his return. Listening for the way he turned the corner and the way he put on brakes. Listening for the way he opened and closed the car’s door.
When the man arrived blowing the hooter and yelling for her to open the gate, she knew.
Her body became a stiff ugly thing like a coil. She became an animal. Small. Witless. Scared. She could taste the fear in her mouth. The rushing of her blood was a wild sound in her ears. Her heart was trying to beat itself out of her body.
The man grabbed her by the hair and began doing ugly things to her. She smelled his angry breath and her own blood in the words he was shouting into the void. Sometimes she was acutely aware of the one thing that was being done to her. At other times it was like watching an old, old movie of someone she didn’t know and wouldn’t particularly want to meet. In the end it all went into the blackest part of the night and the woman wasn’t sure whether it was the man’s fists or her own heart breaking her.
When the man was done bruising her soul and her mind and her body, he fell onto the couch and began snoring.
The woman remained cowered until she was sure he was sleeping. She stared at his arm flung over the back of the couch and thought how innocent his hand looked with the fingers gently curled towards the palm.
She knew very well what she had to do next. What was expected of her. What he taught her to do. How he liked things done in his house.
She walked carefully towards the figure on the couch. With shaking fingers she untied the laces of the heavy boots. As gently as possible she slipped them off and placed them silently on the floor. She got a blanket and draped it over the man, making sure that his stockinged feet were covered and that the blanket wasn’t touching his face.
She went into the bathroom and opened the tap, keeping the sound of the trickling water low. She folded the wet corner of the facecloth around her index fingers and washed away all visible traces of blood. She removed her torn dress and replaced it with one that was clean and crisply ironed - and had long sleeves and a high neck. It infuriated the man to see her bruises. She combed her hair, ignoring the loose bunches that got stuck in the bristles and the pain the brush was causing her tender scalp. Only now, here in the bathroom, did her body begin to remember its hurting.
She never once looked into her own eyes in the mirror.
Because she needed to get out of the house and into the outside, she carefully, noiselessly unlocked the front door and slipped into the night. She stood there trying to breathe her sobs away and to calm her shaking body. She knew she would have to make coffee with calm fingers and smooth movements when the man awoke. He liked things to appear normal.
What she didn’t know and couldn’t understand was how all this had become part of a marriage vow she made in a silent church five years ago.
She remembered the flower then and began looking for it in the moonlight. But the staggering body and careless boots of the man had broken it. The woman found a bruised and bleeding dream lying at her feet in the dark earth of the garden path.
*******
Much, much later – people who knew people who knew of people – told the man of a woman who looked like his wife. They said she was playing on a green lawn with lost and lonely children and that she shared a lot of laughter with the children in silly moments. As the people talked the man recognised the woman’s scars, but not her laughter.
The people told him that the woman who looked like his wife moved like a queen up and down a garden path. They said her hair swayed smoothly and her eyes sparkled as she smiled with the red Barberton daisies that lined the path.
The man shook his head. He said no.
The woman he had been married to for over five years, he said, the one who disappeared for no apparent reason, didn’t like flowers.
In South Africa today security plays a vital part in any business or private home. This book and the volumes to follow, will guide you step by step through the essential precautionary measures to be taken in protecting your family and valuables. From employing security guards, evacuation of your site and security measures to burglar bars and alarms in your private home.
a Book compiled by me from experience gained after 10 years in the security industry as Industrial relations officer with Nosa qualifications, 1st Aid, fire protection and also S.O.B. grade A.
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