By Karoo Kriek
There was supposed to be an eclipse.
Before six, my phone said the moon would turn red.
Cradock said fokkol.
I ran outside before coffee in my Woolies pyjamas and K-Way slippers, locked the house and bundled Poncho, my nearly fifteen-year-old cocker spaniel, into my Polo.
A tiny reddish patch showed through the clouds.
That was it.
I drove down one street and then another, cigarette in my mouth, as if the moon might be clearer from the other side of town.
I had been away for almost thirteen years. My hands still knew which way to turn.
Nope.
Poncho sat beside me in the dark, not happy about being dragged from bed for astronomy.
I took one photograph, went home, made my first coffee and climbed back into bed.
Ja nee. Klein dorpies.
Exactly forty minutes later, I woke to the foghorn of my phone alarm.
My hair was short, bleached and taking no instruction from anybody. I had already done enough to it in Cape Town to look like a Camden Town escapee.
That same morning I went to a hairdresser in town for a cut and some thinning out.
Trusting Cradock with my hair should not have felt like an act of faith.
It did.
This is Karoo small-town hair now.
R150.
Not Cape Town wildness for hundreds of rands.
I had come back carrying an old version of Cradock in my head.
The one with Steers.
Graaff-Reinet had a Spur back then, which made it THE town.
We were so jealous.
My version of Cradock did not have a Vida e Caffè either.
It does now. At the Shell.
I bought a Dirty Chai, tapped my phone to pay and even earned loyalty points.
Cradock also has a Spur now.
It is strange to finally get something after you have stopped wanting it.
Cradock even has sushi.
Sushi.
I went with someone I had known at school. We have drifted in and out of each other’s lives for years.
And there we were again. Older. Different. Having sushi in Cradock.
The town was different too.
And also not.
A few nights earlier, at a warthog spitbraai, someone asked me if I lived here.
“No,” I said. “I live in Claremont. In Cape Town.”
The answer came out before I had time to think about it.
Except I don’t live there anymore.
I packed my life into boxes and left.
Still, I was not ready to say I lived in Cradock.
Cradock has Vida, a Spur and sushi. Cape Town has my old address. I have Poncho in the passenger seat and no idea what to tell anybody.
Alles is anders.
Alles is dieselfde.
I am here.
For now.
I am in the between.
It is lovely having options, though.
