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dad’s, where we’d watch Formula 1 racing instead of casting out demons.
I celebrated my birthday with my dad every year, and we spent Christmas with him as
well. I loved Christmas with my dad because my dad celebrated European Christmas.
European Christmas was the best Christmas ever. My dad went all out. He had Christmas
lights and a Christmas tree. He had fake snow and snow globes and stockings hung by the
fireplace and lots of wrapped presents from Santa Claus. African Christmas was a lot more
practical. We’d go to church, come home, have a nice meal with good meat and lots of custard
and jelly. But there was no tree. You’d get a present, but it was usually just clothes, a new
outfit. You might get a toy, but it wasn’t wrapped and it was never from Santa Claus. The
whole issue of Santa Claus is a rather contentious one when it comes to African Christmas, a
matter of pride. When an African dad buys his kid a present, the last thing he’s going to do is
give some fat white man credit for it. African Dad will tell you straight up, “No, no, no. I
bought you that.”
Outside of birthdays and special occasions, all we had were our Sunday afternoons. He
would cook for me. He’d ask me what I wanted, and I’d always request the exact same meal, a
German dish called Rösti, which is basically a pancake made out of potatoes and some sort of
meat with a gravy. I’d have that and a bottle of Sprite, and for dessert a plastic container of
custard with caramel on top.
A good chunk of those afternoons would pass in silence. My dad didn’t talk much. He
was caring and devoted, attentive to detail, always a card on my birthday, always my favorite
food and toys when I came for a visit. But at the same time he was a closed book. We’d talk
about the food he was making, talk about the F1 racing we’d watched. Every now and then
he’d drop a tidbit of information, about a place he’d visited or his steakhouse. But that was it.
Being with my dad was like watching a web series. I’d get a few minutes of information a few
minutes at a time, then I’d have to wait a week for the next installment.
—
When I was thirteen my dad moved to Cape Town, and we lost touch. We’d been losing touch
for a while, for a couple of reasons. I was a teenager. I had a whole other world I was dealing
with now. Videogames and computers meant more to me than spending time with my
parents. Also, my mom had married Abel. He was incensed by the idea of my mom being in
contact with her previous love, and she decided it was safer for everyone involved not to test
his anger. I went from seeing my dad every Sunday to seeing him every other Sunday, maybe
once a month, whenever my mom could sneak me over, same as she’d done back in Hillbrow.
We’d gone from living under apartheid to living under another kind of tyranny, that of an
abusive, alcoholic man.
At the same time, Yeoville had started to suffer from white flight, neglect, general
decline. Most of my dad’s German friends had left for Cape Town. If he wasn’t seeing me, he
had no reason to stay, so he left. His leaving wasn’t anything traumatic, because it never
registered that we might lose touch and never see each other again. In my mind it was just
Dad’s moving to Cape Town for a bit. Whatever.
Then he was gone. I stayed busy living my life, surviving high school, surviving my early
twenties, becoming a comedian. My career took off quickly. I got a radio DJ gig and hosted a