African Pens 2011 Read online

  First published by Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd in 2011

  10 Orange Street

  Sunnyside

  Auckland Park 2092

  South Africa

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  www.jacana.co.za

  copyright © 2011 in text is held by the author of each story

  copyright © 2011 in this printed edition: Jacana Media, SA PEN

  All rights reserved.

  Job No. 001494

  ISBN 978-1-4314-0120-8

  Cover design by Shawn Paikin and Maggie Davey

  Set in Stempel Garamond 11/15pt

  Printed by Ultra Litho (Pty) Limited, Johannesburg

  See a complete list of Jacana titles at www.jacana.co.za

  PEN/Studzinski Literary Award

  Prize Winners 2011 – as selected by JM Coetzee

  1st The Story by James Whyle

  2nd Heatwave by Beth Hunt

  3rd The Ticket by William Oosthuizen

  ‘The following five stories deserve honourable mention’:

  Quiver by Rosemund J Handler

  The Sunday Paper by Rosamund Kendal

  Parking the Guilt by Kyne Nislev Bernstorff

  Claremont Park by Bobby Jordan

  July by Joline Young

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  PEN/Studzinski Literary Award

  Write! Africa Write!

  Comment from Nobel Laureate JM Coetzee

  The Story

  Heatwave

  The Ticket

  Quiver

  The Sunday Paper

  Parking the Guilt

  Claremont Park

  July

  Evolution

  The Power of Plums

  Lullaby for Angel

  Pinch

  Situation Orange

  The Bewitched Bookkeeper

  It Isn’t Pretty

  Six Teaspoons of Sweetness

  Pigeon Fancier

  Snake Season

  Changing Perceptions

  Man Dies Alone

  Nkisi

  Acknowledgements

  Write! Africa Write!

  In an editorial note for the first PEN volume of new writing, published by Purnell & Sons in 1964, I said this:

  ‘PEN is not necessarily looking for new literary forms but we are looking for new writers whose work is sincere. Any creative piece which is original and lively, which has about it the stamp of individuality, has also a permanent integrity of its own. Even in harsh light sincere work of quality can stand without shame. Written at a particular time, reflecting a particular mood, betraying a fear or touching on a permanent truth, each piece lives alone.’

  Each literary piece lives alone, just as each book lives alone. Many authors whose work was published in our PEN series have gone on to publish their own titles. At least one has signed a three-novel contract with leading global publishers so that her future work will appear simultaneously in Europe and in America. It is also a pleasure to record that author Kyne Nislev Bernstorff has had her stories published in all five of PEN’s recent anthologies. All stories are assessed anonymously and no reader or Editorial Board member knows the identity of any author. Likewise, the scripts are numbered for final judge John Coetzee but are without names. Kyne Nislev Bernstorff’s creative writing has been selected every time because of its literary quality.

  Books have been an important part of my own life and I deeply respect the main objectives of International PEN – to defend freedom of expression and encourage literature. I became a member of PEN after my first novel was banned by the apartheid government in 1958. As a young writer, I was censored by central authority and I am still wary of all those who wish to control individual writers. I strongly object to the unconstitutional purpose of those in South Africa who draft a Protection of Information Bill and propose a Media Tribunal to control the press. I support those who fight for writers imprisoned for their words.

  We should all be deeply grateful to International PEN, the American PEN Centre, and the Writers in Prison Committee for taking up the case of Liu Xiaobo, President of Independent Chinese PEN, who has been locked up for 11 years for criticising central authority. His Nobel Laureate Chair is empty today because his ‘Charter 08’, so dangerous to the government of China, and to many other governments of the world, suggested simply that his country should uphold ‘freedom of speech, freedom of the press and academic freedom’.

  Young creative African writers of today can also reject efforts to control thought and expression and hasten a permanent age of intellectual freedom, already started in South Africa. Where people are free, literature and creativity thrive.

  I would like to thank those individuals in private-sector companies who have believed in SA PEN’s aims and have supported SA PEN financially over the years. I also want to pay tribute to two outstanding individuals who have recognised the vital need to encourage creative writers in Africa.

  John Coetzee has willingly helped SA PEN by selecting Literary Award winners for five PEN anthologies. John is a Vice President of our parent body, International PEN, and an Honorary member of SA PEN. As a Nobel Laureate for Literature his encouragement is very important to this whole project. I would like to thank John most sincerely for the time and attention he continues to give to South African PEN.

  John Studzinski CBE was instrumental in urging HSBC Bank plc to support our earlier HSBC/PEN series, and he now offers the annual £10 000 prize for the PEN/STUDZINSKI Literary Award. John’s Genesis Foundation has the admirable objective of ‘nurturing emerging talent in the arts’ and I would also like to thank him with warm appreciation for supporting our similar purpose.

  PEN works to uphold freedom of expression and to encourage literature. I invite you to read these compelling stories out of southern Africa.

  Anthony Fleischer

  President SA PEN

  Comment from Nobel Laureate JM Coetzee

  The 21 stories that made it to the final round this year are of a generally higher standard than the finalists for the last award, which suggests that the standard of entries as a whole may be higher. If so, this is a promising development. On the other hand, the kind of short-story writer we are all hoping that an award of this magnitude will attract, recognise, reward, foster, and perhaps even launch into the wider world – the newcomer with naked talent, a feel for language, and a fresh vision of the world – stubbornly fails to arrive.

  As usual, the stories from South Africa tend to be better than those from the rest of the region. Among the South African writers there is a welcome new trend: a readiness to go back in history for setting and material (I refer to such stories as ‘July’ and ‘Pinch’).

  First prize goes to ‘The Story’ (#8), an assured and professional piece of writing about a simple-seeming interaction between two men in which the true drama takes place beneath the surface. Dialogue is particularly deftly handled. In all, a fine illustration of the adage that, sometimes, less is more.

  Second prize goes to ‘Heatwave’ (#14), an impressive exploration of a woman going through a dark night of the spirit.

  Third Prize goes to ‘The Ticket’ (#9), an original and suspenseful story let down by a somewhat predictable ending.

  The following five stories deserve honourable mention: ‘Quiver’ (#2), in which the opening pages are particularly good; ‘The Sunday Paper’ (#15) and ‘Parking the Guilt’ (#17), two stories marked by their strong human interest; ‘Claremont Park’ (#18), a fresh and interesting piece of work though more a sketch than a story; and ‘July’ (#21), which vividly re-evokes slave life in the old Cape.

  J M Coetzee

  17 November 2010

  James Whyle

  James Whyle was born in South Africa and lives in Johannesburg. He is a writer. His plays include National Madness and Hellhound. His radio dramas Dancing with the Dead and A Man Called Rejoice were broadcast by the BBC. He has also published stories, including ‘Sapper Fijn and the Cow’.

  The Story

  Frank was slightly stoned and he drove up to the dump and thought about work and Pringle Bay. Pringle Bay was a great setting for a story. The quiet little seaside village in the fynbos on the southern tip of Africa. There’d be a body, a dead woman, and as the story progressed it would transpire that beneath the waters lurked great white sharks and abalone poachers who traded their product for heroin across the Indian Ocean and the story would also include a lithe blonde dancer in her late thirties with a startling bikini tan and blue eyes.

  Frank was smiling as he drove into the dump and a woman was driving out and she looked at him strangely. Like she was puzzled by something Frank was doing or he brought back to her some terrible memory. Frank pondered over her look as he took the rubbish bags out of the Nissan and walked across the gravel and placed them in the big steel cage designed to keep out the baboons. Maybe the look was nothing. Maybe he was just stoned. He got back in the vehicle and started it and drove back round towards the entrance. The road was blocked by a police van and a small Japanese car and there was a cop talking to the woman who had just driven out.

  Frank got out of the Nissan and walked up to the police van and waited. The cop finished his conversation with the woman and turned back. Frank was waiting in his shorts and his black T-shirt. He was in his early forties and he had some lines on his face and his hair was starting to grey. The cop look at Frank and Frank gestured to the cars.

  Can I get out, he said. The cop looked
at his vehicle blocking the road. He was chunky in his uniform and his skin was a deep walnut brown and he carried a Z88 9mm pistol in a holster on his belt and he was perhaps twenty-four years old. He looked at Frank a little more carefully.

  No, he said.

  Frank stared at him.

  Can I see your driver’s licence, said the cop.

  Frank sighed and the cop looked at him.

  It’s back at the house.

  The cop looked at Frank and nodded and then he walked up to Frank’s white Nissan double cab and he did a slow assessing circuit of it and he looked at the vehicle licence disc on the windscreen.

  This is out of date, he said.

  Frank lifted his arms and groaned and the cop looked at him and then Frank remembered and he pointed.

  It’s in the cubbyhole, he said. The new one is in the cubbyhole.

  Okay, said the cop.

  Frank got into the driver’s seat and leant across and opened the cubbyhole and rummaged through it. There was a yellow plastic container for a chamois and some Fisherman’s Friend lozenges and two ballpoint pens and a cheap imitation Leatherman. There was his ID book and a couple of petrol receipts from the drive down and a small black plastic film canister containing a little milled marijuana and a touch of fragrant pipe tobacco to mask the ganja’s peppery aroma. Frank stared at the cubbyhole and the cop waited at the window.

  My wife said it was here, said Frank.

  He moved back and sat upright in the driver’s seat. It was hot and still and there were insects singing in the fynbos and the steep dark stony olive hills were baking in the heat.

  So your car’s not licensed, said the cop.

  No, it is. I just forgot to put it up.

  Why?

  Dunno. I realised at the last moment and we were travelling and the kids ... I never got round to it.

  So where is it?

  Must be at the house.

  Driving without a licence. Unlicensed vehicle ... Five grand?

  Frank stared at the cop and then he leant over and took his ID document out of the cubbyhole and offered it.

  Why don’t you keep this and I’ll drive down quickly and get my driver’s licence and the new disc.

  No can do, said the cop.

  Why not?

  Because you’d be driving an unlicensed vehicle and you don’t have a licence. Breaking the law.

  Frank stared at him.

  It’s Christmas Eve, he said. I just came up quickly to do the dumping. I didn’t even get out of Pringle Bay. I didn’t even get onto the main road.

  The cop looked at him for a long time and then he turned and walked to his vehicle and got in. Frank followed him and stood at the window. The cop looked tired. He picked up the microphone from its place on the dash and toyed with it.

  Phone your wife, he said.

  Frank looked at him for a moment.

  I don’t know her number.

  The cop looked at him and shook his head.

  I mean ... my phone knows it. The number’s on my phone.

  So phone her.

  Frank patted his pockets and felt about and then he lifted his arms and shoulders in the air and let them fall again in a gesture of resignation.

  I haven’t got my phone.

  Where is it?

  Must be at the house.

  The cop stared at him.

  Like your vehicle licence was in the cubbyhole.

  I’m sorry, said Frank.

  Me too.

  Frank stood there and looked at the cop and the cop returned the look and they were connected by an ancient and visceral instinct. They might, for all their accoutrements of urban life and provincial writ, have been apes.

  Get in the vehicle, said the cop.

  Frank shook his head. He lifted his eyes to the hills.

  Can I just get my car out the way?

  The cop looked at Frank for a time and then he nodded.

  Frank walked back to the Nissan. He got in and reversed it back onto the edge of the gravel parking area and he got out and clicked the key and the automatic locking device flashed the indicator lights. Frank turned and walked across to the cop car and got into the passenger seat and closed the door and the cop stared at him.

  So, said Frank. What do we do now? Take me to Kleinmond? Lock me up?

  No, said the cop.

  He started the vehicle.

  Must be your lucky day.

  They drove out of the dump and turned left into Pringle Bay. The cop picked up his microphone and spoke into it.

  What’s the fine for not carrying a licence?

  There was discussion on the other end. A man and a woman talking Afrikaans. Frank rubbed his jaw. He pulled down the seat belt and felt for the slot but couldn’t find it so he held the seatbelt across him in a kind of ridiculous pantomime with the cop sitting next to him. The cop didn’t have his seatbelt on. The crackling discussion on the radio came to a close and the cop lifted the microphone back to his mouth and said thanks and he put it back in its cradle on the dash.

  Two grand for yours and two grand for the car’s.

  Well, said Frank. There you go.

  Everyone knows that you have to carry a licence when you driving you car. It’s not a secret.

  I know.

  So why don’t you do it?

  I was just going up to the dump for five minutes.

  It’s against the law.

  I know. I made a mistake.

  Why you so stupid?

  Frank looked at him.

  Because sometimes, he said, I’m a doos.

  He pronounced the Afrikaans word with the vowel sound like the vowel in dour. It meant box, but it also meant cunt.

  The cop looked at Frank and nodded. He drove on and he looked about at the big new houses built as high as possible by people from Johannesburg so that they got a view of the bay and the Peninsula rising up into the sky on the other side like you could swim there.

  What you do, said the cop.

  Frank glanced at him and looked back at the road.

  What do I do?

  Yes.

  I write, said Frank. I’m a writer. He named a television series.

  The cop looked at him.

  You write that?

  Yes.

  Just you?

  No. There’s probably twelve, fifteen people. Doing different things. It’s a factory.

  They drove on slowly and Frank looked out of the window at the sheer face of The Hangklip that loomed over the village and guarded the eastern entrance to the bay. He liked to think of baboons sitting up there on the cliffs with long philosophical faces and watching the sun go down over the western oceans.

  So how do you write it?

  It’s a big process. It’s complicated.

  Not something a policeman would understand.

  Frank looked at him.

  That’s not what I meant, he said.

  They drove on in silence.

  So you got a house, said the cop.

  Yes, said Frank.

  And you got a phone.

  Yes.

  And a wife.

  Frank looked at him.

  I’m just a holidaymaker who was going to do the dumping.

  Either way you in trouble, said the cop.

  They drove on. They passed a group of kids walking to the beach with towels over their shoulders. They passed a woman walking a small dog.

  How far, said the cop.

  You turn right at the shops. Look, if you got to fine me, then fine me.

  The cop looked at Frank and then he looked at the road and he pointed at the turn-off coming up.

  Here?

  No. The next one.

  They came to Boundary Road and Frank pointed and said here and the cop turned right. They drove down through the houses. A few were old holiday shacks but most were big and new and only about a quarter of them were occupied because of the recession.

  It’s just there on the left, said Frank.

  The cop parked the car on the grass and they got out and walked up the steps onto the patio area in front of the veranda. The cop looked around at the bare cracked concrete and the places where the weeds that grew in the cracks had been recently scraped off with a spade. There were plastic chairs with damp beach towels on them and a pair of flippers and a bellyboard against the wall and some sandy slip-ons and sandals were scattered on an old asbestos table. Frank lifted the rubber mat in front of the door and took the keys from beneath and the cop was watching him as he opened the door.