Summertime_ Scenes From Provincial Life - J. M. Coetzee [55]
They drive the sixteen hundred kilometres from Johannesburg in twelve hours, taking turns at the wheel of the BMW. This feat affords Klaus much satisfaction. He and Carol have completed advanced driving courses and have certificates to show for it; they are looking forward to driving in America, where the roads are so much better than in South Africa, though not of course as good as the German Autobahnen.
Ma is not at all well: she, Margot, can see that as soon as she is helped out of the back seat. Her face is puffy, she is not breathing easily, she complains that her legs are sore. Ultimately, Carol explains, the problem lies with her heart: she has been seeing a specialist in Johannesburg and has a new sequence of pills to take three times a day without fail.
Klaus and Carol stay overnight on the farm, then set off back to the city. 'As soon as Ma improves, you and Lukas must bring her to America for a visit,' says Carol. 'We will help with the air fares.' Klaus embraces her, kissing her on both cheeks ('It is warmer that way'). With Lukas he shakes hands.
Lukas detests his brother-in-law. There is not the faintest chance that Lukas will go and visit them in America. As for Klaus, he has never been shy of expressing his verdict on South Africa. 'Beautiful country,' he says, 'beautiful landscapes, rich resources, but, many, many problems. How you will solve them I cannot see. In my opinion things will get worse before they will get better. But that is just my opinion.'
She would like to spit in his eye, but does not.
Her mother cannot stay alone on the farm during the week while she and Lukas are away, there is no question of that. So she arranges for a second bed to be moved into her room at the hotel. It is inconvenient, it means the end of all privacy for her, but there is no alternative. She is billed full board for her mother, though in fact her mother eats like a bird.
They are into the second week of this new regime when a member of the cleaning staff comes upon her mother slumped on a couch in the empty hotel lounge, unconscious and blue in the face. She is rushed to the district hospital and resuscitated. The doctor on duty shakes his head. Her heartbeat is very weak, he says, she needs more urgent and more expert care than she can get in Calvinia; Upington is closer, but it would be preferable if she went to Cape Town.
Within an hour she, Margot, has shut up her office and is on the way to Cape Town, sitting in the cramped back of the ambulance, holding her mother's hand. With them is a young Coloured nurse named Aletta, whose crisp, starched uniform and cheerful air soon set her at ease.
Aletta, it turns out, was born not far away, in Wuppertal in the Cederberg, where her parents still live. She has made the trip to Cape Town more often than she can count. She tells of how, only last week, they had to rush a man from Loeriesfontein to Groote Schuur Hospital along with three fingers packed in ice in a cool-box, fingers he had lost in a mishap with a bandsaw.
'Your mother will be fine,' says Aletta. 'Groote Schuur – only the best.'
At Clanwilliam they stop for petrol. The ambulance driver, who is even younger than Aletta, has brought along a thermos flask of coffee. He offers her, Margot, a cup, but she declines. 'I'm cutting down on coffee,' she says (a lie), 'it keeps me awake.'
She would have liked to buy the two of them a cup of coffee at the café, would have liked to sit down with them in a normal, friendly way, but of course one could not do that without causing a fuss. Let the time come soon, O Lord, she prays to herself, when all this apartheid nonsense will be buried and forgotten.
They resume their places in the ambulance. Her mother is sleeping. Her colour is better, she is breathing evenly beneath the oxygen mask.
'I must tell you how much I appreciate what you and Johannes are doing