Coovadia - Tales of the Metric System

TALES OF THE METRIC SYSTEM

MODERN

African
Writing

from Ohio University Press
Ghirmai Negash, General Editor Laura Murphy, Series Editor

This series brings the best African writing to an international audience. These groundbreaking novels, memoirs, and other literary works showcase the most talented writers of the African continent. The series also features works of significant historical and literary value translated into English for the first time. Moderately priced, the books chosen for the series are well crafted, original, and ideally suited for African studies classes, world literature classes, or any reader looking for compelling voices of diverse African perspectives.

Books in the series are published with support from the Ohio University National Resource Center for African Studies.

Welcome to Our Hillbrow A Novel of Postapartheid South Africa

Phaswane Mpe

ISBN: 978-0-8214-1962-5

Dog Eat Dog: A Novel

Niq Mhlongo

ISBN: 978-0-8214-1994-6

After Tears: A Novel

Niq Mhlongo

ISBN: 978-0-8214-1984-7

From Sleep Unbound

Andre Chedid

ISBN: 978-0-8040-0837-2

On Black Sisters Street: A Novel

Chika Unigwe

ISBN: 978-0-8214-1992-2

Paper Sons and Daughters Growing Up Chinese in South Africa

Ufrieda Ho

ISBN: 978-0-8214-2020-1

The Conscript A Novel of Libyas Anticolonial War

Gebreyesus Hailu

ISBN: 978-0-8214-2023-2

Thirteen Cents: A Novel

K. Sello Duiker

ISBN: 978-0-8214-2036-2

Sacred River: A Novel

Syl Cheney-Coker

ISBN: 978-0-8214-2056-0 (hardcover)

978-0-8214-2137-6 (paperback)

491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

ISBN: 978-0-8214-2102-4 (hardcover)

978-0-8214-2101-7 (paperback)

The Hairdresser of Harare

Tendai Huchu

ISBN: 978-0-8214-2162-8 (hardcover)

978-0-8214-2163-5 (paperback)

Mrs. Shaw: A Novel

Mukoma Wa Ngugi

ISBN: 978-0-8214-2143-7

The Maestro, the Magistrate & the Mathematician

Tendai Huchu

ISBN: 978-0-8214-2205-2 (hardcover)

978-0-8214-2206-9 (paperback)

Tales of the Metric System

Imraan Coovadia

ISBN: 978-0-8214-2225-0

978-0-8214-2226-7

TALES OF THE METRIC SYSTEM

A NOVEL

IMRAAN COOVADIA

OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
ATHENS

Tales of the Metric System 2014 Imraan Coovadia By Agreement with Pontas Literary & Film Agency

Published in the United States by Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701 ohioswallow.com

All rights reserved To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax).

Printed in the United States of America

Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper

First published in 2014 by Umuzi an imprint of Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd Company Reg No 1966/003153/07 Estuaries No 4, Oxbow Crescent, Century Avenue, Century City, 7441, South Africa PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa

Cover design and illustrations by Joey Hi-Fi

Author photograph by Victor Dlamini

26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 5 4 3 2 1

ISBNS:

978-0-8214-2225-0 (hardcover)

978-0-8214-2226-7 (paperback)

978-0-8214-4564-8 (electronic)

I set forth how I viewed the history of my people in the light of Gods Word. I began by addressing my hearers: People of the Lord, you old people of the country, you foreigners, you newcomers, yes, even you thieves and murderers!

Paul Kruger, Memoirs

CONTENTS

1970 SCHOOL TIME

The Jaguar wouldnt start. Ann sat behind the leather steering wheel and watched the ruby-red light fade in the dashboard. Neils late mother had donated the car to them at a time when she had been lying in a hospital and writing letters to parliament in fountain pen despite a catheter in the neck. It was difficult to refuse her mother-in-laws gifts. Sometimes the old woman seemed to have crockery in her face.

Ann spied her neighbour on the porch. She got out of the car and tried to attract his attention. Mackenzie was her shot. He liked to help her. When the mains tripped Mackenzie had his man bring the step ladder and climbed up to the panel. He would reset the stiff green switches, one by one, until he found the broken fuse. In July the Security Branch had arrived while Neil was away. Mackenzie had sat in the lounge for moral support. He had read his own magazines on the couchScope, for men, and Creamers Illustrated News, an engineering gazettewhile the policemen had examined Neils desk, checked the numbers circled in the directory, and searched the cupboards.

Mackenzie brought his servant, a muscular old man who must have been in his sixties and who sat perfectly upright in the back of the Hillman Avenger when accompanying his employer.

For a moment Ann thought Mackenzie was going to put his hand on her shoulder. Instead he placed it on the bonnet of the car.

Its the salt in the air. The same engine that runs for five years in London may only survive eighteen months out here. But your husband must see to the maintenance.

Ill tell him.

Get in and release the handbrake. This fellow will push you to the top and you can start the engine. Coming back you should be fine. The battery will charge on the motorway.

Mackenzies man, as old as he was, started to push, the thick brown veins standing out on his dark arms. He began to perspire immediately, his body shining, and allowed the car to stop at the top of the road. The engine caught on the downhill. By the time she went past the Caltex garage the car was moving fast.

To see Mackenzies servant in the mirror, standing exhausted in the road, reminded Ann that she had never learned the mans name. She wasnt sure of her own. From her first husband she was Ann Rabie. She had once been Ann Bowen, whose father, commodore in the Royal Navy, met her mother at a ball during shore leave in Durban. For some reason which lay between herself and Neil she had never completed the switch to Ann Hunter.

In town, she parked near Greenacres. The shop assistants were dressing the plaster-of-Paris mannequins in the window, holding pins in their mouths as they went over the clothes. Something to do with the wirework and the gluey brush strokes on the dummies arms disturbed Ann. They would hex the car. After her conversation with Lavigne, she would have to wait in their papier-mch company until the truck arrived from the Automobile Association.

She hurried. Her son Paul had been caught with alcohol on the school grounds. Curzon College was strict. The penalty could be as severe as a suspension for the whole of Michaelmas term. Lavigne represented the school board. In his first letter home, Paul said Lavigne defined College as a place where punctuality came second to godliness. She couldnt afford to be twenty minutes late.

She went past the telephone booths occupied by white men and women. The newsagent was setting out the overseas newspapers, his blue shirt rolled up above the elbow. The shops sold signs and flags claiming the province of Natal as the last outpost of the British Empire. Curzon College was a school of the same empire, attracting the sons of factory owners and Midlands farmers, members of the United Party who proposed extending the franchise to educated Bantus, Durban lawyers and bank managers.