Aunt Bertha.

We all have someone from our past, who affected our lives – not necessarily in a ‘mentor type’ fashion, yet who remains embedded in our memories forever. My aunt Bertha was one of those people.  If nothing else, she developed my sense humour …  She was an inherited aunt, and not family (thank God). I referred to her as the ‘crazy lady’. 

Aunt Bertha used to live in the big house down the street.  My mother, a seamstress, used to do her sewing, contouring her dresses to fit her tall, lanky frame.  Aunt Bertha had a scrawny body, and a silver, permed hairdo. Never a hair out of place. She wasn’t exactly an oil painting, and its fair to say that I was secretly scared of her. Aunt Bertha did not like dogs, and we believed that she was the culprit who used to poison the neighbourhood dogs. 

Aunt Bertha was old. I didn’t know how old, but she always looked the same, ageless.

I remember that she was married when I first met her, to an old man who always wore a felt hat and his collar up, although, for the life of me, I cannot remember anything else about the man, barring the fact that he died and left her the house and great deal of money, which she hung onto frugally.  They never had children and she lived her life in solitary confinement, locking her doors and I think I was only in her house on one occasion. I recall that the house was filled with valuable antiques and was pristine, although she had no outside help and no visitors to entertain, which is unusual in Africa. The house was dark inside, uninviting, no music and I was told not to touch anything inside the house, as we would be accused of stealing. Aunt Bertha had a habit of hiding her cutlery under her mattress and sleeping on it, just in case someone stole it. She would count the pieces daily to ensure they were all there, and often accuse my mother of ‘stealing her stuff’. This would lead to horrible arguments, with my mother eventually showing her where her cutlery was, and that would shut her up for a while. Until the next time.  My mother hated going there, so aunt Bertha either phoned my mother or came to our house.

Aunt Bertha inherited a car along with all her money although she could not drive. Once a week, she would ask my mother to drive her to the cemetery to visit her husband and other relatives or past friends who were buried there. (These seemed to be her only friends and the only people she could relate to. Dead ones. Come to think of it, perhaps that was the only way she could relate to the dogs … dead.)  My mother would walk to her house and use the newly washed car to drive her and her pet ‘Freckles’ (‘Sproetjies’ in Afrikaans) to the cemetery. Freckles – her only pet. Freckles was a mottled chicken, who aunt Bertha loved and cared for. Freckles used to sleep in aunt Bertha’s bed with her. Freckles was the cleanest chicken in town, bathed daily. She used to spread Freckles little drumsticks and powder his privates. We would often see her walking down the road, on the way to the corner café, holding Freckles under her arm and pointing out all the birds in the trees to him. She talked to him constantly. Anyway, I digress, the cemetery trips were planned weekly, so off they went, with freshly picked flowers from her garden, and powdered Freckles.

At dinner, my mother would tell us how aunt Bertha would arrive at the cemetery, and walk between the tombstones, telling my mother about each person buried there, and who had affairs and who were just horrible people. Then she would get to her late husband’s grave, tell him all her news, and then tell him what an awful person he had been in life, and how badly he treated her and then place flowers on his grave.  After two hours or so, it would be time to leave, she would put a few Rand (SA currency) in my mother's hand, tell her it was for her time, although she didn’t feel that she should be paying for the service, and then get driven home, my mother silently fuming.

When I asked my mother why she put up with aunt Bertha’s abuse, the answer always was; “My child, if I don’t do it, who will?”

I don’t know if aunt Bertha got her white coffin with brass handles and her two dozen red roses on, as was her desire, but I do know that she lies buried in that same cemetery with her husband, perhaps driving him nuts in the afterlife. Where Freckles is buried, I don’t know. My mother now lies in that same cemetery, but hopefully not too close…