Tea at the Conservatory – Part 1: The Orchid Bench

The glasshouse at the old conservatory had been built in 1898, and it still smelled of wet stone, orchid roots and the sweet dust of old paper. On Wednesdays, Thandi came early, before the tourists, to check on the rare orchid in the far corner that had refused to flower for three years.

This Wednesday, someone else was sitting on the bench beside it.

A woman with a sketchbook open on her knees, pale hair tied back in a loose braid, a sharp pencil in one hand and an expression of total absorption. She did not look up when Thandi came in. She did not look up when Thandi set down her flask. She simply went on drawing, the pencil moving in quick, sure lines across the paper.

"You're in my spot," said Thandi, eventually.

"I'm in the orchid's spot," said the woman, still not looking up. "It doesn't mind. It's been very patient."

"It's been in a bad mood for three years."

"Then it needs better company." The woman finally glanced up. Her eyes were grey, clear, with a smudge of graphite on her cheekbone. "I'm Hanna. I'm drawing the orchid for a book about South African flora. My editor says I'm two months late."

"I'm Thandi. I'm the botanist who's been trying to make it flower for three years."

"Then we're both stuck," said Hanna, and smiled, a little crookedly.

Thandi sat down on the other end of the bench, close enough to see the drawing. It was precise and beautiful, every petal and vein rendered with care, but the orchid's stem had been drawn bent, as if it were leaning towards someone out of the frame.

"You've drawn it reaching," said Thandi.

"I think it is," said Hanna, quietly. "It's trying to find the light."

"It's not very good at it."

"None of us are, in the first year," said Hanna, and then, looking straight at her: "Can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to share the tea? I brought too much, and I'm terrible at finishing things."

Thandi hesitated. Then she laughed, short and surprised, and unscrewed her flask.

"Yes," she said. "But only if you tell me why you're really in Cape Town. Not for the book."

Hanna's pencil paused on the page. She looked at the orchid for a long moment, the light from the glass roof falling in pale green stripes across her hands.

"Because I left my job in Berlin," she said. "I was drawing other people's houses for a living, and I stopped being able to see my own life in the lines. So I came here to draw something that didn't belong to anyone."

Thandi poured the tea into two paper cups. Her hands were steady, but her chest was tight.

"I came to the conservatory every Wednesday for three years," she said. "Alone. Because I didn't want to explain why I wanted something to bloom so badly."

Hanna looked up, and the grey of her eyes was soft.

"Can I ask you something else?" Thandi said.

"Yes."

"Would you like to come back next Wednesday, and bring a different drawing? One of the things you haven't finished?"

"Yes," said Hanna, very quietly. "But only if you promise to tell me what you're hoping for, when the orchid finally flowers."

"That's a deal," said Thandi, and passed her a cup. "Green?"

"Green," said Hanna, and their fingers touched around the warm paper, and neither of them moved away.