The foldaway girl
by Willemien de Villiers

Stepping into the small gift shop she bends down, holding onto the doorframe for support. She adjusts the strap of her sandal and notices a large metallic object lying in a bright cerise basket, among stuffed giraffes, lions and monkeys. About thirty centimetres long, it is a giant version of the yellow inner capsule of those Kinder Surprise eggs her daughters love to receive at Easter. She lifts it out and holds it to her ear, listening. Her curved palm grows warm as she walks to the counter.

The tissue-wrapped gift fits snugly into the side pocket of the suitcase on the back seat of her car. Sliding her sunglasses down over her eyes she starts the car and steers it into a gap in the traffic. An hour later she arrives home. Her two daughters, accompanied by her neighbour, run through the open gate to where she is parked. They bang on the closed passenger door. "We missed you Mommy, we missed you!" they shout, jumping up and down. Rita pulls them away, scolding. "Give her a chance to catch her breath! Go inside so long and put the biscuits out, like I showed you." She lifts Sarah's case from the back seat. "How are you?" she asks.

"Oh Rita, I can't now. Talk about it, you know?" They hug before joining the girls inside.

She is sitting on a sofa, facing her daughters who are cross-legged on the floor. They are miniature versions of her: glossy black hair, fringed and bob-cut just below the ears. She removes the capsule from its wrapping and holds it up for them to see. Their faces collapse in disappointment. "Why did you bring only one present?" they wail. "What's inside?" Vanna, the oldest, asks. Lily covers her face with her hands. "I don't like it," she says.

"But you don't even know what it is!" Sarah exclaims, exasperated. "Come," she says, "come feel how warm it is." They move on hands-and-knees towards her, and poke at it with their fingertips.

"I'm scared," Lily says, sitting back and pushing out her bottom lip. "I don't want to see what's inside. It's an ugly, ugly thing."

The telephone rings. Vanna is playing with the capsule, rolling it around on the carpet. "Don't open it while I'm gone," Sarah cautions. "Lily? Vanna? Do you hear me?" They look up and nod, and she walks to the kitchen. Their eyes follow her and both girls lean slightly to the left. They tilt their ears up to catch their mother's words. "No, I can't come…it was my decision to make! I said no! Why can't you accept that? It's over…no…it's over. It's done…didn't you hear what I just said?"

At the scraping of chair legs on the kitchen floor, Vanna pushes the capsule - still sealed - into the gap between the two overstuffed seat cushions. Both girls move back to their original position, cross-legged and facing the cream-coloured couch. "She's not crying," Vanna tells Lily, "don't you worry." They look at each other and call out, "Mom! We're hungry! Can we go out for pizza?"

On their way to the pizzeria they walk past a surf shop with chipped plaster dummies dressed in bright sarongs and bikini tops. As part of the display one of them is tied to a surfboard with the plastic leash that usually connects the board to the surfer's ankle. In another they see rows of left shoes standing on boxes.

"Uncle Raymond will like you in that pair," Vanna says, pointing to a strappy, gold high-heel sandal.

"I'm done with high heels." Sarah replies and points at their reflection in the glass. "Look Vanna, you are almost as tall as me."

That night, she dreams that she enters a shop, and buys a shiny capsule for her daughters, a gift to make up for the week she had spent away from them. In her dream she knows that never before has she found such a special gift. Her palms grow warm as she picks it up, and turning around in her bed, she moves her hands from under the pillow. The dream continues. Arriving home, she holds it up for the girls to see, then slides it open. A fleshy, oblong shape emerges. Vanna and Lilly lean closer. "It's a girl!" Lily exclaims. "A real, live girl!" Vanna confirms. Together they watch as she slowly unfolds her limbs, which were hinged and bent to fit into the small space. Once free, the girl starts to dance. Vanna and Lily croon in delight. "Can we keep her? Please Mom, please?"

The foldaway girl stops mid-dance and slowly turns towards Sarah. Her dark eyes reflect nothing. As they lock their gaze on her it feels as if all the sound in the world drains away into the deepest core of the earth. Before she can open her mouth to answer, the girl holds a finger to her lips, and starts to fold herself away into the capsule, limb by supple limb, never breaking eye contact.

Vanna and Lily run into the room and jump onto her bed. "Mom, Mom! We forgot to open our present last night! Lily found it on the couch, can we open it now?"

She keeps her eyes closed, trying to hold onto the dream she was having - a dream that left her pillow wet with tears. But like a strong wind shifting and rearranging patterns on a sand dune, the dream frays into fragile fragments - a pair of dark, solemn eyes, a sound like a suitcase snapping shut, a pale hand of a child. Useless strands. She can feel her heart beating against the damp fabric of her T-shirt.

Sighing, she opens her eyes and smiles at her children. The dream is gone. "Of course, yes. Open it. I can't imagine what we will find inside."

© Willemien de Villiers