Marion remembered the information, hard and small like bird droppings, that she massaged out of her parents, but mostly they had nothing to say about where they had come from. When they claimed not to remember she understood, even at four, that they were lying. And in the easy logic of children, lying became an alternative to remembering. It became a thing in the world. The way walking had become a thing. The way words and speaking had. Lying became something else to master.
Marion knew some things about the past. She knew that her parents felt lucky to have got away when they did from a Lithuanian village they never named for her. They settled in District 6 in Cape Town, her father learned English and encouraged her mother to do the same. He traded well and soon could afford to move the family out to Wynberg, where Marion had the experiences that would become her first memories. She grew into the kind of girl who liked ribbons, but only brown ones, and she hated wearing shoes and preferred not to brush her hair.
Marion knew her mother disliked the fact that they lived not far from Mortimer Road where the shul stood. She disliked that she could see the roof of the shul from the kitchen-sink window, where she spent most of her days standing. Having moved away from the most horrifying danger, her mother would have liked very much never to see another shul or say another prayer. Like closing your eyes so the monsters can’t see you.
The house in Wynberg had not been large. It had a tin roof and thick white walls that were always rough and cool to the touch. There was a leak that never stayed fixed and a half-step up into the kitchen that Marion banged her foot against on a weekly basis. Once, running for an unremarkable reason, she knocked her foot on the step hard enough to bleed. Her mother put on the plaster. Girls don’t run, she said. Girls never run. There were many versions of the same admonition. Girls don’t chew gum. Girls don’t whistle. What did girls do? Marion once asked her mother. The question stumped her mother for a few seconds. She was shelling peas, she was showing Marion how to shell peas. Girls crossed their legs when they sat. What else? Marion had asked. Again a long silence. Girls shelled peas.
That Marion undid her mother had always been evident to her. You don’t need to be an adult to understand the concept of ‘bothersome’; you don’t have to be able to spell it, either. From very early Marion realised she could upset things. Her unsweet self remained so, despite being clapped in pressed lace blouses that became almost instantly unpressed, and dainty velour booties that never stayed clean. She realised that she was failing. She failed to be petite, failed to enjoy pink. She failed without trying. In just waking up, walking in a straight line, opening her mouth to say something, she could annoy her mother. And because she wanted love – what six-year-old did not? – she said quiet prayers to a God her parents never introduced her to and tried to negotiate with him to garner more favour. She learned how to sit still. She made a point of mastering how to shell the peas.