Ouma and Oupa dragged me away when we arrived. I hadn’t seen them for two years, figured they’d tell me how tall and ‘handsome’ I’d grown. I never believed this stuff, but it was caring at least. They said these things, but it was perfunctory. Something bigger was on their minds. It was my birthday. my first in a foreign country. But South Africa was no foreign country to me: it was another home. They say that things can skip a generation, and I don't know much about that, but my parents seemed less thrilled about being there than I always did.
‘My boy,’ Oupa said, smiling. He put his hand over mine, firm and gentle. He and Ouma beamed, leant in.
‘You’ve seen the flying saucer, yes?’ Ouma said. I blinked. There was no hint of a joke. I waited for a punchline. They waited for an answer.
‘Yeah, we drove past it on the way here,’ I said. We always passed it, the house that sat on a hill. When I was little, I’d pretend that aliens lived inside, but I was turning twelve, I couldn’t think like a kid anymore.
‘It came from the stars,’ Oupa said, our hands still touching. It was a comforting weight that lent credence to what he said, no matter how bizarre his words were. I held Ouma’s hand as well, savoured any time I spent with them.
‘Did it?’ I said. It made no sense to me, but I was somehow comfortable in this discussion. Entering the 'weird' side of things didn't abide by my parents' demand for logic, fact, science, whatever you want to call it.
‘Yes,’ Ouma said. ‘It came from there, and once the right person comes along, it will go back to them.’ She twisted her fingers around the metal rectangles hanging from her necklace. ‘We can’t go back to it, we’re too old now. Maybe you will, one day, and find your way back to us.’ I didn’t get what she was saying. Forgotten it was my birthday until my parents and Afrikaans family came in bearing a cake and singing ‘Happy birthday’. Ouma and Oupa joined in, and celebrations pushed the talk to the back of my mind.
I thought about that conversation on-and-off for a few years, but time disappeared it from my thoughts. After they had passed, we didn’t go to South Africa as often. Going back was different. Something was missing. Ouma left me her necklace, which my mother found odd: she said it was a very ‘feminine object’. Perhaps I was meant to give it to a girlfriend? She could go on thinking that: that was never gonna happen.
Over time I worked various jobs but being a climbing instructor was my career path. It was all I enjoyed but staying in one place was so boring to me. I loved the elevation that climbing gave me. It was never enough. I wanted more.
One day I got an idea to visit South Africa, climb there and see the family while I was at it. I hadn’t seen much of any family for a few years, not since moving out of my parents’ house. I gave the centre a couple of weeks’ notice, more than they expected, flew out to Johannesburg.
Travelling from the airport, that conversation with Ouma and Oupa came to mind, and I asked the taxi driver if he could take a detour. ‘Of course,’ he said. I asked to see the saucer house, if he knew where I meant. He nodded, said, ‘That’s a half-hour drive, miles from your hotel, you sure?’ I said I was, that I’d pay him 500 Rand on top of the cab fee if he took me. I couldn’t explain why, but I needed to see it. Their voices were calling me.
The driver took me too Roodepoort. I saw it looming over the road as we approached. I remembered our conversation. ‘Can you take me closer?’ I said.
‘Sorry, it’s fenced off, sensors and stuff. Too many kids come by, trying to break in,’ the driver said. The rockface below it seemed climbable, with a footpath that would take me halfway up. The driver took me to my hotel and I messaged my aunt and a couple of cousins. I didn’t know I had their numbers until I considered the trip.
We had a braai at my uncle’s house. My family had changed a lot. Most of my cousins had more than one kid. Being the only single person here, I felt out of place, alien to everything around me.
My eldest cousin drove me to the hotel, told me to cancel my taxi. ‘You were quiet tonight,’ she said.
‘Just tired from the flight,’ I said. She gave a single-glass-of-wine laugh.
‘Ya, but you haven’t changed since you were twelve.’ She pulled into the hotel car park after going through security, switched off the ignition and looked at me. The bars on Ouma’s necklace reflected the streetlight above us. ‘You’re still the same, quiet boy who sat in the corner reading space books.’
‘Is there something wrong with that?’
‘No, no, it’s just an observation.’ Her tone was too defensive. I realised I’d been confrontational. It was a bad habit. Must’ve contributed to why John left. She looked at Ouma’s necklace. ‘You wear that so well.’
‘I take it everywhere with me.’
‘When I was younger, I always used to want it, but I think I would’ve looked awful with it. You’re very handsome in it, though.’ I loved how my Afrikaans family said ‘hendsome,’ no ‘a’. But there was still a distance, something keeping me apart from them. I hugged her, mainly because I didn’t know what to say, said I’d message them in a day or so, once I got myself sorted and climbed a bit.
The night was restless. Considering I’d had an eleven-hour flight and a long taxi ride and no coffee, I was too awake. There was a buzzing in my ear. Not a mosquito. It was something else. Like static. And Ouma and Oupa’s voices ran through my mind. But only that conversation. The flying saucer. From the stars. Going back.
I chucked my covers off. I wasn’t sleeping tonight. I could get some climbing done, though. Smarter to go at night anyway, I figured. Not because of security: the rocks would be cooler. I called reception, asked if they could call a taxi, and gathered my climbing stuff.
The taxi driver arrived at the door, asked me where I wanted to go. I described the layby near the cliff bottom, before entering Roodepoort. ‘It’s not very safe for me to drop you there. I’ll take you into Roodepoort, to a bar or restaurant. No trouble then,’ he said. I offered him some more money, said I wanted the walk, to work out the travel kinks in my legs. He sighed, but agreed. ‘I don’t want to read about you in the papers tomorrow though, okay?’
‘You won’t, don’t worry,’ I said. He stopped in the layby, and I went over the road barrier, took the off-road path. I made it to the path’s end, put on my equipment. I just had my chalk bag and shoes with me. It was a few hundred metres, but I didn’t care. Being closer to the house made Ouma and Oupa’s voices change. They weren’t quieter, but calmed. I pulled up, used the natural handholds.
The cool rock was nice against my skin, and I continued the ascent. My body-sweat was rampant. I was fine though, a couple of minutes from reaching the top, and a new pull had started. It wasn’t with their voices: it was Ouma’s necklace. As I came over the top, the bars pulled forward an inch, lifted into the air. Ahead of me was the giant shape.
It was different up-close. More. The fencing around it didn’t remove any of the house’s mystique, looked flimsy against such a wonder. I went over the fence, set off an alarm. Some security service would come in a few minutes, but no matter what happened next, I had a feeling that I’d be gone.
Suspended in the air, the bars directed me to the house’s bottom, where it ‘sat’. The voices continued. A group of openings lay where it met the ground, hollows in the moonlight. The chain bore into the back of my neck, the bars wanting to escape into those holes. My skin broke. I removed it, and the four bars flew out of my hand and into the gaps.
A square panel shifted out above the bars. It was dull black and had a magnetic quality. My hand rose to meet it and touched the smooth metal. It vibrated against my palm, and the panel returned. The necklace ejected back into my fist. The bottom of the house hummed and revealed a ramp. No lights. I ascended the ramp.
I felt Ouma and Oupa, close to them once more. The structure rumbled when I came onto some sort of observation deck. There were no buttons. I didn’t know what I was doing or what was happening.
It smelled like them, the saucer. A circle of strip-lights came on around me. Outside, it was leaving the cliff. I touched the window, which felt like sticky air. Johannesburg shrunk below me, and a cube rose from the floor. I sat on it.
The saucer was going back to the stars and taking me with it. Ouma and Oupa were there, even if I couldn’t see them.
It felt like home.