Jane Rosenthal
Trekking to Teema by Pieter-Dirk Uys (comPress/Book)
In this very readable novel, now in actual book form after an Internet debut, Pieter-Dirk Uys manages to be both richly entertaining and rather serious. Written from the heart, it is often tongue-in-cheek, an unpretentious but well-told tale.
It concerns one Dawid de Lange who, having fled conscription in the Seventies and made good in the United States, is suddenly struck by a midlife crisis which sends him back to Cape Town in search of his nanny. At first this strikes the reader as ridiculous, or at the very least highly unlikely. But as he wanders around the street where he used to live and where his nanny, Teema, short for Fatima, was the most loving presence in his life this basic element of the plot begins to grow on one. In fact, it has much potential as a metaphor for the innermost concerns of white South Africans, whether they admit it or not.
As usual Uys has dared to broach an unmentionably embarrassing subject, in this case the affection and guilt many white South Africans feel for the black women who took care of them in their infancy, the mothers of the nation in more ways than one.
When De Lange eventually tracks Teema down he finds his affection reciprocated but is required to cough up reparations of 31 missed birthday presents. (Would it were that easy!) He gets drawn into her family, which has flourished while his white family, whom he abandoned just as callously as he did her, have perished. All that remains of them are a couple of distant, bitter right-winger cousins in the far north. Both families are subject to warts-and-all scrutiny, but Uys is a little more sympathetic to the Masekelas and Dawid is accepted into the fold more wishful thinking? But Uys’ message is clear and simple: this is where the future lies, and if you want a meaningful life at home in South Africa, embrace it!
In a Cooks Tour of South African political attitudes and situations the reader as tourist Uys explores the anger and fear, love and hope that beset us.