The Good Life

Plotnik's cold was over, he thought, until he and Ducknik flew from Durban to Cape Town. Going up was fine. Coming down was hell. Plotnik's ears froze in pain. A day and a half later they were still closed. That is a pain Plotnik does not wish upon anyone. But it passed. It all seems like a long time ago now.

Today, Plotnik and Ducknik, intrepid wine tasters, sat in a cafe too beautiful for words, in Franschhoek, a very old Huguenot town in Cape Town's wine country, down a lane with towering eucalyptus on both sides and blue, craggy mountains in the background. The sky was the blue of Van Gogh, though Plotnik's ear was feeling better. The wine steward lady set up ten glasses, and a tray of cheese, biscuits, fruit and nuts. Ten glasses. One-oh.

In the first glass Plotnik tasted cloves and vanilla. In the second he got peaches and pepper. By the fifth he was finding the wine DANGED good and by the tenth neither he nor Ducknik were sure which continent they were hanging on to. This lovely tasting came after the one down the lonely dirt road with African women marching slowly on the sides carrying firewood on their heads, which followed the one in the estate built in 1690, and the dinner last night with five courses and five more wines, and the ride to Franschhoek from Stellenbosch over the Hellswooghte Pass. None of these words are pronounced even closely to how they are spelled. Think 'tschhh whoosh tschhh.'

It's easy to see why these Afrikaaners, who devised their demonic language, and still own and run these wineries, have not wanted to give up their good lives. Times have changed in Jo'burg and Cape Town, but the days move through a slower groove out here. Beauty in these quantities defies anger. There is always time for another glass.

Yesterday South Africa played Australia in rugby. Both teams were integrated. Nelson Mandela sat in the audience. Plotnik cried when the entire pub, where he and Duck were watching, sang the national anthem out loud, with tears in everyone's eyes when they saw Mandela. After one goal, when a white South African passed to a black South African for the score, and embraced afterwards, and Mandela cheered, and the pub cheered, Plotnik started thinking once again that this country is going to beat the odds.