FOURTH PLACE – BONANG GAUTA! (SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2020)

Congratulations to Bonang Gauta, who placed fourth in our first annual short story competition. Bonang took us on the sweetest trip down memory lane when she picked the topic “Write about a unique house in your SA suburb.” She is a 23-year-old accountancy student at the university of Venda. She describes her writing style as ‘simple but captivating’. We couldn’t agree more! Here is Bonang’s charming story:

“A VORTEX INTO PARADISE” BY BONANG GAUTA

Growing up in dusty Siyabuswa, Mpumalanga was ordinary. There was hardly anything to marvel at or about. Everything about our middle-class neighbourhood was mundane. The face brick bond houses were mostly identical, apart from those that had a small lawn, a garden, a brick fence with steel gates, or any combination of those additions. The women gathered to gossip, the teenagers hung around the street corners and dated in secret, and the children played well into the sunset. Meanwhile,  the dads would sit in the house, mow the lawns, or tend to the gardens.

I was a child when we moved to Siyabuswa; probably 6 years old. I had not even started grade school. I loved it there, though. Despite the fact that we had just moved there, everybody was so warm and welcoming. Settling in was a breeze and I did so quite quickly. I made new friends and learned IsiNdebele, the native language of the area. Soon enough I too played in the streets well into the sunset.

On the weekends me and the other kids from my street – a group of 6-9 year old boys and girls – would go to the local place of safety to play with the orphans. We played on their swing sets, mock beach, and jungle gym. It was great fun.

We made a great excursion of our journey there. We would buy ice-pops and snack packets for the road. Then we would line up and pretend to be in a bus that one of us would pretend to drive. ‘Hummmmmhhh hummmmhhh’ they would go as we clung onto the backs of each other’s T-shirts, and ran or walked at the driver’s pace. Sometimes in a straight line; sometimes in a zigzag; sometimes at great speed.

Along the way we would not come to a complete halt until we got to our special pit stop, elected by popular demand. It was beneath a big, broad tree that beared no fruit. However, it was green all year round and wide enough to shelter all 9-12 of our small bodies with ease.

The stop was not about the tree at all though; we would have stood at this exact same spot even if it were in the scorching sun. Neither was it about us needing to rest; we could have done that anywhere. It was the house that stood in front of the tree that drew us here: a monument.

The house had a large green, manicured garden at the front, that framed the sides of the short concrete driveway perfectly. Each side of the fringes were accentuated by three standing moon-like lights. A lush lawn covered the surface. On the far right stood a handful of pine trees, or ‘Christmas trees’ as we used to call them – they were so tall; probably as tall as ten of us stacked on top of one another. All over the garden were shaded flowers arranged into a beautiful landscape, so precisely done it was almost as though it had been drawn onto the ground. The shrubs were trimmed into shapes: spheres, cubes, and heart shapes, and this one time I saw a poodle. It was magnificent in a whimsical way.

We would sit there in awe, lost in time, always imagining what the house was like on the inside, and dreaming of living in it; other times creating theories about the man who lived there, or arguing about which of us would get to live in it when we grew up. On many occasions we would stop again on our way back, never minding the fact that it was getting dark and we might get a hiding for coming home late.

Then, in the evening, it would be even more magical – the pathway lights would grace the driveway like some aisle to hidden treasure. The outside lights would adorn the entire surrounding. And at Christmas time, fairy lights would light up the tallest of the Christmas trees and the small patio. And if our timing was perfect, we would get to catch them all set themselves alight; like God had commanded them and they were all obeying in unison.

The house was even more of a spectacle. It was a white double-storey that towered over the garden and all the houses in our neighbourhood. Its architectural style was of Greek influence, I later came to know. Starting from the flat roof, to the big arched doorway that led to the patio, that then led to a grand blue, rectangular, two-sided door on either side of the patio downstairs and the balcony upstairs, matching the shuttered windows. It looked like it had been cut out of a different place and time…I didn’t know what shutters were back then and neither did any of my friends, so after much deliberation we finally agreed that they were second windows intended to keep the heat out. It didn’t really make any sense but that made the house all the more fascinating. So much about it was a mystery to our inquisitive minds; like how the builders had got high enough to build a second storey.

The patio and balcony where both elegantly furnished. The patio had two steel vintage chairs with flower detailing, and green cushions to sit on, and a small, cute side table on which sometimes sat a pretty vase of flowers. The balcony had one reed armchair and a matching table large enough to dine on. But nobody ever sat on either one.

I dreamt of how I would sit there everyday given the chance. How I would read the paper and have breakfast there in a silk robe, like the people on TV. How I would own a furry, little, ridiculous dog small enough to fit into a purse, that would run about the yard and bark that silly bark. I would dream about it all day at school and get excited about the walk there despite the blazing Mpumalanga heat. I would anticipate sitting underneath that tree with my legs stretched out and my torso half-raised, balancing on my elbows and listening to the others ramble while I just daydreamt some more.

Those big blue twin doors opened into a spacious living room that had cream white walls and the biggest flat screen TV I had ever seen, mounted on one of the walls.

“Wow!” I exclaimed, trying hard not to keep my eyes too wide open in case they would fall out of my skull. The room was semi-modern and big enough to fit fifteen people sitting down, and lots more standing. It had one greyish square corner couch and two velvet single-seater armchairs in a complementary darker grey, all centred on a beautiful antique rug with multiple colours and an oriental pattern, that lay beneath the coffee-brown coffee table. The chairs and couch were dressed in scatter cushions of all colours and textures: orange, white, purple, cotton, burgundy, fur, and some in a gold beige that matched the curtains. And finally, artwork – pictures of places, and paintings were sparsely placed around the room, giving it a simple but elegant finish. I wanted somebody to pinch me.

I couldn’t believe that after all those years of dreaming and wishful thinking, 12-year-old me was actually sitting here, in this very house. My feet were dangling from one of the bar stools by the island in the kitchen and I had a glass of orange juice in my hand, taking it all in, in half silence and dreamy absentmindedness as I listened to Beauty talk about homework. Imagine! She was so used to all this luxury that she wanted to talk about homework.

My friends and I had stopped coming to watch the house and had stopped playing with the orphans, all in the false sophistication of adolescence. The old man had died, and his son had inherited the house and moved in with his family. Rumour had it that they used to live in another mansion in the city. The house had gotten slightly worn over time but that added to its charm. Most of it had remained in the same kempt condition. I’d had the privilege of coincidentally befriending the new girl at school, who turned out to be the old man’s son’s daughter, Beauty, who invited me to hang out at her house – which turned out to be This House.

In the kitchen were bright white cupboards with dark marble counter tops and copper door handles. Four black leather bar stools stood by the island, which was guarded by three hanging chrome lights; they had such tiny back rests that if you leaned on them too comfortably you would probably fall over. All the appliances were silver except the two black ovens that were stacked on top of each other. I don’t know why there were two; at my house we only had one and that worked just fine. I also don’t know how or why they were detached from the stove top, which had a flat surface and touch buttons. Everything was so shiny and so clean.

The wooden dining room table was seemingly never-ending, like the one in the image at church of Jesus at the last supper, though it had chairs on both sides and a big crystal chandelier hanging right at the centre. The table was a light, glossy brown that you could see your reflection on if you looked closely enough. I was now leaning over it, afraid to touch, smiling at my reflection as Beauty ran her fingers on it on the other end. She was now giving me a tour as I had asked.

We walked on as she opened the sliding door in the living room, that led to a bigger patio at the back. This time I could not control my wonder. The patio had pool chairs, and in front of it was a big kidney-shaped pool. Tiles surrounded the other side of it, followed by a lawn and the back stonewall covered by a hedge. House plants in tall ceramic pots were in one corner and a statue of what looked like an Indian god in the other. Trees everywhere. It felt like paradise. I didn’t tell her it had been my dream house growing up. I didn’t tell her that now, looking at the inside of it and looking in the backyard, it was everything I had dreamt it was and more. I didn’t say that I felt like I had been sucked into a vortex that took me to a place far away from our plain, old neighbourhood.

WELL DONE, BONANG!

KREST Publishers is a reputable independent small press publisher based in sunny Durban, South Africa. Visit the KREST online bookstore for the best book prices on new and used copies of your next read! Want to publish your own book instead? Submit your manuscript to us for consideration – we don’t bite!

Our personal best

KREST Publishers