Sweef | Die Laaste Maaltyd – Louise van Niekerk | English Summary

Sweef en ander Verhale

Die Laaste Maaltyd – Louise van Niekerk

Suné is a girl who is bulimic, hiding her bulimia from her mother. She is obsessed with losing weight and goes the extra to lose weight. For her, losing 5 kilograms means she’ll get into the hockey A-Team, that she’ll win the eisteddfod, that she’ll pass the ballet exam with flying colours. It means that Deon will notice her. Suné runs twice around the school hockey Astro. Her friend Marié notes that Suné is getting seriously thin, but Suné thinks that her friend is trying to get her to be as fat as she is.

Marié is completely satisfied with her own plumpness; she consumes pies, doughnuts and cokes at break times, scrapes by academically and has a boyfriend who loves her – she couldn’t possibly understand Suné’s goal. Marié also lives with a mother who stays at home and is always manning pots in the kitchen, ready to feed the legion of teenagers for whom she has provided a home. In contrast, Suné’s mother is a perfect busybody with awards and not a single wrinkle or blemish. When Marié tells Suné that she’ll pick her up to go to the sokkie, Suné tells her that she has to do her Social Sciences homework. Suné buckles a little bit from the pain of a stitch in her side. However, as she tells herself with everything else, it’s under control. Everything is under control.

Marié comments that Suné hardly has any fun, and Suné contemplates that statement for a bit. She knows grade 5 was fun, back when life wasn’t so complicated - she played cricket with the boys, swam in the pool for hours and ate whatever she wanted. They’d have braais on Fridays with chops, sausages and ice cream with chocolate sauce. On Sundays, they’d have mutton with big, golden potatoes, pumpkin fritters and malva pudding. However, just before the ballet exam in grade 7, the instructor told Suné that she was getting “Decidedly plump”. However, she’ll never forget the nightmarish day in grade 8, when she was still getting accustomed to the massive size of the grade 12s, the new teachers and getting around the school grounds to find her classes. She overheard student councillors talking about selecting students for roles in the school newbie concert, saying that the “thick, blonde little girl who was the head girl at her primary school” would make the perfect Little Red Riding Hood.

That same winter, Suné caught the flu, and it worsened into pneumonia. She spent twenty days in the hospital, and when it was time for her to get back to school, she realised that she was practically drowning in her school uniform. She also discovered her pelvic bones, her cheekbones, collarbone and her eyes, which were massive in her “sleeker” face. “You look amazing!” echoed across the school grounds. People even commented that they’d like pneumonia too since it “works wonders”. Boys started texting Suné by droves. A year later, she’s gained only 5 kilograms since then and is working hard to lose it again – it’s all under control. The sharp pain in her side isn’t subsiding, but she stands up. It’s under control.

The world is spinning, her head is buzzing, and suddenly, Suné feels the prickly texture of the Astro on her cheek. She can hear voices around her, arms now cradling her body. They’re calling her mother, and now the weakened Suné can only think about the poker- faced lecture she’ll receive from her mother, who’s undoubtedly going to make a big deal out of this.

They return from a bout of shopping. Things like ice-cream and pizza now populate their fridge and pantry. Suné sits in the corner of her room, slowly gulping food without so much as swallowing before washing it down with some juice. However, she realises that she no longer has to force her fingers down her throat as the rhythmic squeezing of her stomach indicates her body’s learned behaviour – she’s going to vomit.

As her body rejects the food, Suné realises she forgot to close the door. Her mother shows up and sits with her daughter on the bathroom floor. With the distance between them reduced to null, Suné sees the various wrinkles on her mother’s face. She thought her mother was perfect. Her mother pulls her into a tight hug, and for the first time, Suné asks her for help.

Now in a clinic, Suné has felt her laugh return to her. Her cell phone beeps endlessly with various well-wishes, but none of them makes her stomach churn quite like the last one. “You just disappeared. Please get better in time for the Winter Ball. Deon”. For the first time in a while, the feeling in Suné’s stomach is not the foreboding of something painful.

SummariesKeroshan PillayComment