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Overview
Set in Grahamstown, South Africa, during the 1990s at the height of political unrest and opposition to apartheid, this is the bittersweet story of two people whose lives intertwine with-out them knowing each other-one a heavy-drinking white man and the other the young daughter of a black activist.
Reuben Cohen van Tonder's battle with unresolved grief and his search for hidden peace and Vita Mbuli's innocent resolve to remove the bad luck that has troubled her family for generations climax together in a wondrous resolution of personal and national triumph.
In this captivating and heartfelt novel, Patricia Schonstein captures the harsh and brutal realities of South Africa's past with its raw and sore racism, interlacing them with enchantment, tenderness, forgiveness . . . and hope.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780062030290 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 12/15/2023 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Patricia Schonstein is the author of the novels The Apothecary's Daughter and Skyline, which won the Percy FitzPatrick Prize in 2002 and was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She has a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Cape Town. Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Schonstein now lives in South Africa.
Read an Excerpt
A Quilt of Dreams
A Novel
By Patricia Schonstein
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2006
Patricia Schonstein
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060562447
Chapter One
Baby Cohen van Tonder, the proprietor of Goldberg Bottle Store in High Street, decided, on the morning of his thirty-second birthday, in his pistachio-green-tiled bathroom, which was hung with ferns and purple-leaved Wandering Jew, to do something about his life.
He also determined that people should henceforth address him as Reuben, the name his mother had given him and the one by which his grandparents had always called him. Why he had allowed Baby to stick was anybody's guess. What was certain, however, on the day in question, and after the night he had drunk a bottle and a half of Chivas Regal and fallen over unconscious on the back veranda, waking with a head that throbbed like mad, was that the name had to go; as did his paunchy stomach; and his heavy drinking. He admitted too that it was time to leave his wife.
Leaning over the basin, feeling nauseous, he looked at himself in the Oregon-pine-framed mirror. His eyes were red and puffy, his cheeks pale and gaunt, his hair lifeless and sticking up all over the place. He felt sick just looking at himself but stopped from turning away to light a cigarette, instead forcing himself to behold the ghastly, ghostly face leering back at him. He cleared his throat and spat into the basin. He took four pain-killers from the medicine cabinet andswallowed them, head bent, drinking from the Victorian brass tap. Then he turned on the shower, hard and cold, and stood under the water until his shivering made him stop and dry himself.
'Today,' he threatened his life, holding his arms around himself as though to give comfort, but also support, for it was a brave amendment he was preparing to address. 'Today. From today things are going to be different.'
He walked through to the bedroom, still naked and feeling cold. His full-bodied wife, Georgie, turned over in half-sleep and mumbled, 'Why're you making so much noise, Baby? Can't you see I'm sleeping?'
'My name's Reuben.'
'What?'
'Reuben. My name's not fucking Baby. It's Reuben.
Reuben, after Jacob's eldest son.'
'God! You can talk rubbish,' said his wife, heaving herself up. She packed her pillows behind herself and pulled her magenta hair back and away from her face. 'There! Now, are you happy? I'm awake. Absolutely and completely awake. You did that on purpose, didn't you? You just have to crash around in that bathroom and wake me up on the one and only morning my neuralgia isn't stabbing my back. What's the matter with you, anyway? Since when do you wake up before nine? Either come back to bed or get out the room. Go tell the town you're Reuben. I'm not interested in your pathetic identity!'
But, because he, Reuben Cohen van Tonder, had just reached a crossroad at which he was to take an untravelled turn, he didn't get back into bed or leave the crowded, busily decorated bedroom. Instead he looked through his wardrobe for something to wear which would help him hold steadfast to his resolution and also signal to the world that things had changed. He took out one of his two black suits, last worn some years before to his grandparents' funerals, a dress shirt, a clean pair of Jockeys, a clean vest, black socks and his good, black shoes.
Georgie watched in disbelief as he buttoned his shirt, sucked in his stomach to zip up his trousers and carefully did his tie, pinning it down with his mother's pearl brooch, which he had retrieved from his wife's jewellery box. He sat on the bed to pull on his socks and shoes, and paused for thought. He stood up and looked at himself in the dressing-table mirror, picked up a comb and drew his wet hair backwards, noticing for the first time the grey at his temples.
'What the hell's got into you, Baby? Have you gone mad? Have you finally drunk yourself out of your little mind? Where are you going in that funeral suit, at this time of day, for the love of God? And will you stop rummaging through my things. Go dig around in your bottle store. Leave my stuff alone.'
'Reuben. My name is Reuben. If you want an answer from me, in fact if you want anything at all from me, fucking call me by my name. Better still, just don't talk to me, you damn whore. I'm sick of your voice,' he said and left the room, slamming the door.
'What did you say? What did you call me?' shouted Georgie, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and leaning forward, taking in small pants of breath as her chest constricted. Her feet felt their way into her slippers and she pulled on her silk gown. 'Baby! Baby! You just come straight back here! Come and say what you have to say to my face, you lousy alcoholic!' she shouted, then struggled for breath. But he was already downstairs in the kitchen. She fell back against the pillows and reached for her Bible and asthma pump.
Reuben, as he watched his coffee percolate, pondered change. With one hand in his jacket ocket and the other lighting a cigarette held between his pursed lips, he realized he hadn't shaved. So I'll look artistic for the day, he thought, running a palm across his jaw. Pouring a mug of coffee, he reflected aloud on his resolution: 'That's three changes already--drop the Baby bit, wear a suit to look smart, kill the drinking.'
He threw back the sliding door and went out into the garden, which sloped down to a canalized river, where mist was rising from the water. Dense oleander growing against his neighbour's boundary fence hung into the yard, heavy with seemingly perpetual pink blossom. Two syringa trees at the end of the plot were laden with golden berries. A dove sat in one, murmuring. Reuben's head still . . .
Continues...
Excerpted from A Quilt of Dreams
by Patricia Schonstein
Copyright © 2006 by Patricia Schonstein.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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