John Matshikiza:WITH THE LID OFF
‘To the untrained eye,” says Achmat, ”these dogs might look a bit lacksy-daisy.” ”A bit what?” I say. ”Yes, they might look a bit lacksy-daisy now, in broad daylight, to you, because you don’t know them,” Achmat says, ”but at night their ears go back flat on their heads, and they’re off round the place like a couple of panthers on the prowl.”
We look at the two timid old Alsatians, sleeping in whatever shade they can find, and it is hard to believe anything about them, except that they look like more trouble than they’re worth.
But the snoozing hounds seem to be a minor detail in the greater scheme of things. We have been house-hunting for weeks, and have finally fetched up in a part of the dreaded northern suburbs that looks like it might finally be an answer that everyone is happy with.
OK, it’s not the most fashionable part, and friends and acquaintances are handing out dire warnings about crime and hijacking, but where, we ask, is it possible to live in Johannesburg without these evils? The place we’ve found suits our collective pocket and actually lives up to the hype in the newspaper ad: huge garden, bathrooms, roof, office space – even a swimming pool.
Now we are going through the famous voetstoots process, the bit where you find out what you’re really taking on.
As I understand it, the peculiarly South African concept of voetstoots normally applies to fixtures and fittings – peeling walls, missing taps and so on. But in this case, voetstoots embraces moveable objects as well, some of which, like these dogs, also eat, drink and indulge in associated bodily functions.
Achmat and his family are not the owners. They are the present tenants. But they are promoting everything about the place with the glassy-eyed passion of American tele-evangelists. They are in a hurry for us to love this homestead because they are in a hurry to get out of the country, and if we sign a lease with the landlords, they won’t be penalised on the contract they will be breaking by leaving early. It all sounds a bit dubious, but in spite of it all, the place still seems to offer more pros than cons.
So we agree to take on the dogs, in the hope that they’ll provide some sort of protection. We turn down the unlicensed gun (Achmat’s assurance that ”you don’t need a licence if you only intend to use it privately on your own property” sounds a bit far out). We also turn down the aging BMW with the balding tyres, as well as a couple of ugly lounge suites and various other bits of furniture.
We do, however, agree to buy the TV set and the curtains. We also agree to keep on the maid and the gardener. We’re going to need all the help we can get, from people who know the territory and are familiar with the dogs.
With that, all parties are satisfied, and we set a date for Achmat and family to move out and for us to move in. Gentlemanly handshakes are shook all round.
I found out later that we shouldn’t have signed anything without having a vicious lawyer, armed escorts, a Home Affairs hit squad and the psychiatric unit of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on our side.
Achmat and company took everything that would be useful in their new lives in the Far East with them (including the curtains and other items we had paid for). They left behind two years’ worth of household garbage and a string of problems.
The maid and the gardener were top of the list. They’d had a long-standing hatred for each other, which we hadn’t been warned about, and now proceeded to do everything they could to bad-mouth one another and get each other sacked.
The maid accused the gardener of being a substance abuser with homicidal tendencies. The gardener accused the maid of being an illegal alien from Malawi. I was beginning to reel under the weight of what had previously been the white man’s burden, and discovering that I was not very good at it.
In the midst of this mayhem, the Alsatians, far from being pillars of strength, were proving to be cowering wretches who never moved far from the safety of the kitchen door. When we discovered that the female was pregnant we thought we would at least have some sturdy pups to train up as savage protectors, but even that dream was shattered when she ate the whole litter as soon as they were born.
We braced ourselves and started firing people. We fired the dogs. We fired the maid when it turned out she was an accomplice in the theft of the curtains and went on long periods of unexplained leave besides.
We tried to fire the gardener, but we couldn’t find him. He was off on a binge. When he came back he was so badly beaten up we hadn’t the heart.
So now we sit on our northern ‘burbs ranch and wonder what is going to happen next.