Bubbles, by Rahla Xenopoulos

Bubbles, by Rahla Xenopoulos. The Penguin Group (South Africa), 2012. ISBN 9780143530169 / ISBN 978-0-14-353016-9

Bubbles, by Rahla Xenopoulos. The Penguin Group (South Africa), 2012. ISBN 9780143530169 / ISBN 978-0-14-353016-9

Rahla Xenopoulos's novel is a fictional account of what might have been the life and death of Bubbles Schroeder whose murder has never been solved.

Once a fellow came to the front door to collect Ma for a date, he took her to see Duck Soup with the Marx Brothers. You know, it was the only time a fellow took her out to a movie but he must have been a jolly chap, the only thing that ever made her laugh in all her sorry years was the memory of that evening. Otherwise, the maids who came and dropped dirty laundry arrived through the kitchen door and we came and went the same way, through the back door, which was never bolted, and past the outhouse, Poor folks like us didn't have a toilet inside the house. So you see, the first impression Dr Snyman got of my family, well, in fact of me, must have been of the smell, the smell of the outhouse. Pity that, especially since 1 take such great care with first impressions. Not that it affected Dr Snyman, oh no, he always just loved me to bits; I imagine that would have been on account of me being so pretty. Pretty, pretty, pretty, Jacoba Bubbles Schroeder, that's been me all my life. Ma was probably lying on a mattress on the kitchen floor. All the ironing and cleaning that Ma took in was done in the kitchen so it was the warmest room in the house and I was born in the middle of winter. Lichtenburg could get mighty cold on a June evening. I was always rather soothed by the smell of our kitchen - well, once I was past the outhouse of course. It was a combination of detergent, perfume, men's cigars, bleach and danced-out sweat. In my little mind the piles of dirty laundry created what I believed to be the smell of a world where gentlemen held on to the tiny nipped-in waists of ladies, spinning round dance halls like swans or ballerinas. Sometimes when Ma was out Freda would hold a gown up against her body and dance around the kitchen to the songs playing on the wireless, 'Some day hell come along, and he'll be big and strong, the man I love. Maybe 1 shall meet him Sunday, maybe Monday maybe not... maybe Tuesday will be my good news day.' She would dance and sing at her own ungainly reflection in the kitchen window. But when Dr Snyman entered our kitchen that evening I don't suppose he thought of dance halls and romance. No doubt he just smelled the outhouse, dirty laundry, blood and poor people. That's what we were really, poor people living in a house with an entrance through the outhouse, dirty laundry and blood. Well, that's all they were until the eighth of June 1931. I myself was more, I was jacoba Bubbles Schroeder. I know for certain that on that night my mother cursed; she cursed every night. And I know for certain that wherever he was on that night my father took a drink; he took a drink every night. I'm quite sure, that Picasso's father took a drink and I'll bet your bottom dollar that his mother cursed. I'll bet your bottom dollar that his aunt held his mother's hand just like Aunt Freda held my mother's hand, and maybe his mother shouted out, 'l'll never forgive this child!' just as my mother did. [...]

This is an excerpt from the novel Bubbles, by Rahla Xenopoulos.

Title: Bubbles
Author: Rahla Xenopoulos
Genre: Novel
Publisher: The Penguin Group (South Africa)
Cape Town, South Africa 2012
ISBN 9780143530169 / ISBN 978-0-14-353016-9
Softcover, 15 x 21 cm, 238 pages

Xenopoulos, Rahla im Namibiana-Buchangebot

Bubbles

Bubbles

The still unsolved murder of Bubbles Schroeder, who ended up strangled in the age of 18 in 1949, is the matrix to this South African novel.