Betrayed (4 page)

“Look, I'll put her on a drip and make a final decision in the morning,” he said.

“You mustn't be upset,” Tracey told Johannes the gardener when we got home. “The vet is going to save your dog.”

I pulled her aside and admonished, “Sasha is very, very sick and she may well die tonight. Don't get your hopes up – or his.”

She stamped her foot, refusing to believe that Dr Henry wouldn't be able to save Sasha. Such belief! But she was right. A few days later he phoned to tell me to come and fetch the now recovering animal. We found her a little unsteady on her legs but very happy to see us.

“Why did you decide to treat her when you thought the outcome was so bleak?” I asked.

“Every time I thought about putting her to sleep, all I could see was Tracey'
s face pleading with me not to let her die. I couldn't disappoint her,” he confessed.

When Tracey was ten, we heard that the Pretoria Zoo was offering junior nature conservation courses in the June school holidays. Her eyes lit up and
she was determined to participate, even though it would be a mission to get
her from Benoni to Pretoria and back each day. She wasn't a morning per
son and it was a constant battle to get her up and ready for school. But
working with animals was so exciting a prospect that now she happily woke before sunrise so Buddy could drop her off at the zoo before driving to work in Centurion.

Some days she was so tired she would fall asleep in my car on the way
home, but her exhilaration at being with the animals was plain. Only one
thing spoiled her perfect contentment: the ten-year-olds worked in the petting zoo, not with the wild animals.

“The older children are allowed to help clean the wild animal cages,” she
complained. “Why can't I? I'm not too little. I want to help take the baby ele
phant for his walk.”

I smiled wryly. Knowing she was never shy about speaking her mind, I was sure that this was something the zookeepers were hearing regularly, too.

Each day she seemed to come home dirtier and smellier than the day
before. Towards the end of the first week, she had to take gumboots be
cause she was going to be cleaning out the duck pond. That afternoon, having refused to wear a swimming costume like the other kids, her shorts
and T-shirt smelled foul, with mud that stuck like glue. Her hands were
stained a swampy green.

On a bitterly cold day towards the end of the holidays one of the zoo
employees who looked after the baby elephant told Tracey that as a re
ward for working so hard cleaning the duck pond, she would let her take it
for a walk the next day. Tracey was so excited she could barely sleep. The more she willed herself to sleep, wanting the time to pass quickly, the less likely it was to come. She wriggled and squirmed, hoping to find a position
that would let her drift into sleep. She punched the pillow and pulled the bedclothes over her head, but nothing seemed to work.

But the day eventually dawned bright, if breezy. Early morning sunshine streamed into the kitchen as Tracey wolfed down her Jungle Oats, jiggling all the while on her chair in her haste to be gone.

“I did it, Mom, I walked the baby elephant!” she beamed later that after
noon. “I stroked him and he doesn't look hairy but he is, his trunk was flopping around all over the place and his little mouth was pink, he was so
cute.” Sentences ran into each other as they tumbled out of her mouth.
She was smiling, the sun was shining and it was good to be alive.

With the end of the holidays came the end of a splendid course. Tracey loved every minute of it and learned a lot about the importance of zoos in conservation, even though she also learnt in a really hands-on way how much mucky work was involved in working with animals. It cemented her love of animals so when the children were asked if they would like to do volunteer work at the weekends, Tracey was the first to shoot her hand up and say, yes please.

This love of animals overflowed into her love for children. Tracey wasn't the most patient child and had a stubborn streak that would put a mule to shame. I remember telling her to put warm clothes on one freezing winter's morning, but she was adamant that she wasn't cold. Her lips were turning blue but she refused to admit she had misjudged the weather and should
have put on something warmer. Yet with children she was as patient as a
saint, like putty in their hands.

She was about eleven when, encouraged by her primary school to parti
cipate in a community service initiative, she asked if she could do volunteer
work at a home for street children and Aids orphans in Benoni. The home
was supported by donations from the private sector and got no help from any other source. The people who ran it were only too happy to have someone entertain and interact with the children at the weekends.

At first Tracey spent many hours helping the older children with their soccer skills. At the age of five she had begged to play soccer and our local club agreed to let her join the boys' team because there were no girls' soccer teams. She threw herself into the game heart and soul. At first the boys were wary, but they soon learnt she was rougher and tougher than any one of them. Over time, she became a skilled player. Although there was often a lot of laughter from opposition teams about her being a girl, she would soon wipe the smiles off their faces by scoring a goal.

Tracey also taught karate to the children at the home. Years earlier she had demanded, as only four-year-olds can, to take karate lessons. She was piqued when I suggested she might be too young. She nagged and bullied us and we finally said yes, hoping it might help to get rid of some of her ex
cess energy. It was the start of a long and passionate love affair. Now she
was passing on some of what she had learnt.

As the months passed, she started helping in the home's kitchen and looking after the babies, feeding and bathing them.

“A new baby came today,” she told me one Saturday. “The lady says she's eight months old but she's so tiny she looks much younger. She's got Aids.”

Over the next few weeks Tracey spent more and more time with this sickly baby, talking to her, stroking little hands that should have been chubbier, tickling her tummy and counting her toes, trying to make her life a little brighter. She was down in the dumps when she came home after these visits, knowing how sick this little girl was, seeing how dull her eyes were.

Concerned by her growing distress, Buddy and I suggested she take a break for a few weeks, staying at home to romp in the garden with the dogs or play soccer with cousin Ryan, who lived with his mother in a cottage on our plot. Anything but upset herself by dealing with sadness that she was too young to fully understand. She agreed but she didn't forget about the orphaned baby.

“Do you think she's okay?” she would ask every few days.

“I'm sure the home will let us know if anything happens,” I answered, berating myself for the euphemism. What was going to happen? The poor little mite was going to die; it was just a matter of when.

Weeks passed into months and summer turned into autumn as the trees began to shed their leaves. The sun lost its intensity and the days began to cool, bringing welcome relief from the scorching heat. Then Tracey asked to go back to the home and see how the children were doing, so I dropped her off again one Saturday morning in May.

I was just starting to drive out of the gates when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw her running after the car, sobbing uncontrollably. Her baby had died. Not knowing how to comfort her, I held her and let her cry, then took her home. She sat alone in her bedroom for the rest of the day, an unusual quietness descending over a child who generally couldn't sit still, couldn't stop talking.

“Why didn't they tell me, Mom?” she asked in a small voice. “I didn't
hav
e a chance to say goodbye.”

I had no answer for her. Dealing with so many deaths, so many traumatised children, the staff probably hadn't realised that this young volunteer cared so much or that it would hurt her so deeply. She still continued to visit
occasionally, but soon her other love was dominating her life as sports began more and more to fill her mind and her days. From karate and athletics
to soccer and baseball. School sports on weekday afternoons, club sports
on the weekends. There was little time for anything else.

The year Tracey was twelve, soccer season had come and gone and it
was time for provincial baseball trials. Her excitement was palpable. She
thrived on competition and although she was better at team sports than
sports like tennis, she still set herself very high goals as an individual.

A friend and I were helping in the catering tent during the two days of trial
s
and the hoards of thirsty youngsters didn't give us much time to take a break. We kept telling the kids to get away from behind the counter; we
were worried they might trip over the electrical cord of the tea urns or fall
against one of the gas cookers. Always eager to help, Tracey and my friend's
daughter were selling cold drinks. One moment we were all laughing and
talking, the next there was a blood-curdling scream.

“The urn has fallen on her,” Tracey shouted, pointing at the other girl.

She helped us get the girl, screaming in pain from her burns, into the zinc bath that was filled with ice and water for the cold drinks. Then Tracey whispered to me that her own foot had been burnt as well. I sat her down and
tried to remove her baseball boot, but the socks she was wearing were nylon
and had burnt into her foot. I picked her up and put her foot into the zinc bath. As I peeled away her sock, I saw with horror that much of her skin was coming away too, exposing her anklebone and tendons.

“Wait,” I called out, “Tracey needs to go to hospital as well.”

At casualty, the sister on duty smeared a white cream over the burnt foot and ankle. As we waited for a doctor to arrive, Tracey kept talking to my
friend's daughter, calming her down and telling her that everything was
going to be okay. She bantered away and kept us all amused with her slick
wit and funny stories. It was hard to believe I had peeled part of her foot
off with her sock.

A doctor gently cleaned off the cream and spent two hours cutting out the burnt and damaged tissue, and the blisters. Tracey sat and watched, asking endless questions. No flinching or complaining, not a single tear, just questions and responses.

“I'm covering the wounds to encourage the skin to grow,” the doctor explained. “You're going to have to be very, very careful not to get dirt in the burns. The dressing will have to be changed twice a day, but your mom can do that.” He turned to me. “Just bring her back every three days until I'm sure it's healing well.”

The next morning, foot still bandaged and small blisters appearing higher up on her leg where the boiling water had splashed, Tracey was dressed and ready to play. Feeling that I couldn't let the other moms down in the catering tent and knowing that she wouldn't be able to play without boots on, we set off together to the baseball field.

Busy with cold drinks and hotdogs, cups of tea and sandwiches, I'd look up every now and then to check that Tracey was okay. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw her on the bench. One boot on and one foot bandaged, she had spoken to the selectors, umpires and coaches and they had agreed that she could play without a boot. She was determined to earn her baseball colours and wouldn't let a burnt foot stop her from trying – or slow her down between bases.

She was a rough and tumble player, giving her all to whatever sport she played. Afraid of nothing, it wasn't surprising that she was dogged by injuries. Twisted ankles, dislocated thumbs, torn ligaments and tendons were all part of our daily lives, but her bones seemed unbreakable.

Then one afternoon when she was thirteen, an awkward pitch was thrown
down during a league baseball match. Being fast on her feet, she twisted and leapt for the ball, making an excellent catch. But the umpire's steel
mask collided with her spine. Tracey grimaced and walked around in a few tight circles, then went back to her catching position. After the game, she insisted her back was fine, just a little tender.

Around midnight, when the house was dark and silent, the sound of Tracey's
crying woke me. This was so unusual that I went to her room to check on
her, trying not to wake the rest of the family or send the dogs into a chorus of barking. She was crying in her sleep so I assumed she was having a nightmare.

The next morning was the usual battle to get her out of bed.

“Come on, Trace, get a move on. If you're not ready in five minutes, I'm going to drop you at school in your pyjamas,” I threatened.

That evening she was subdued and went to bed early. Again, this was unusual. As hard as it was to get her up in the mornings, it was just as hard to get her to sleep at night. Later her crying woke me again.

“My back's so sore I can't sleep,” she told me between her tears. “I can't even bear the sheet touching my back.”

“I'm sorry, Trace,” I soothed. “We'll get it checked out first thing tomor
row.”

The x-rays revealed that one of her vertebrae had been cracked in half. Miraculously, her spinal column was untouched. The doctor gave her painkillers and anti-inflammatories and told her to take it easy. He booked her off school for six weeks and all sport for a further six weeks, to allow her back to heal.

The first week Tracey spent at home without complaining too much, but the next week found her up, dressed and ready for school.