Under the oak tree, visibly amused, a young man in a steel-grey, freshly pressed business suit has followed the race.
“I bet on the right horse,” he cries as he takes Zoe’s reins, holds her leg and skilfully helps her to dismount.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” he answers in a polished English accent.
Zoe turns her head in time to catch André’s childish, annoyed expression.
“You cheated, as always.”
Her brother quickly dismounts, the light of mockery still in his eyes. Then, turning to the man in the grey suit: “Zoe, let me introduce you to Cyril Kunene. Cyril, this is my sister, Zoe Du Plessis.”
Mr. Kunene — to her he is not Cyril, yet — shakes her hand formally, looking straight into her eyes. The tall black gentleman standing in front of her shows the lean and selfassured look of a New Yorker accustomed to doing business in the city. He belongs in another league, she senses, as she takes in his features: soft, full lips, high cheekbones, beautifully shaped almond eyes slightly turning downward — indeed, a perfect poster man for the post-apartheid era.
They sit around a wooden plank in the oak tree’s shade.
Kunene takes out a bottle and three glasses from a cooler handbag.
“I thought you might be interested in tasting our new Merlot, aged in Nevers oak barrels.”
He uncorks the bottle, briefly sniffs the cork, pours a small taste in his glass and checks the wine before pouring it into their glasses, starting with Zoe’s. Despite being the descendant of nine generations of winemakers, she doesn’t consider herself a connoisseur. At all. Thus, she leaves it to her brother, who’s already sniffing the wine and checking its colour before taking a liberal sip to get the wine’s mouthfeel. André swallows and waits for the aftertaste to kick in before expressing his approval: “It has a lovely character, soft and velvety. Perhaps that trace of wild fruit that makes our wines unique is a bit too pronounced here. It’s still young, but quite promising.”
“Goed,” Cyril says, switching to Afrikaans. He too breathes in the southern fragrance from his glass, his eyes flashing proudly. “What about you, Mejuffrow Du Plessis?”
She looks at him slightly disconcerted. The change of language hasn’t gone unnoticed, nor has the subtle statement it implies. Cyril doesn’t mind using a language he might despise if it helps to create a bridge between them, a space of familiarity. Yet, how ironic. A Black chooses to speak Afrikaans, the language of the former oppressor, while we Afrikaners are purposefully erasing it from our lives, ashamed to reveal what our blood sounds like. She hasn’t forgotten the pang of embarrassment she felt when Dario once asked her: “How come you never speak Afrikaans with your people in public?”
She got herself off the hook, back then, with a pleasantry so out of her character: “Darling, since you don’t understand it, it wouldn’t be polite.” When in fact she would have had to admit she too was tacitly responding to the pressing need of changing skins on the run.
The prospective partner graciously gestures at Zoe’s glass, bringing her attention back to it: “So?”
“I’m not an expert like you two ...” she replies in a hushed voice, as it often happens to her when she feels, even briefly, the centre of attention. As she speaks, Zoe meets her brother’s anxious expression. How he longs for my approval. Thus, she improvises. “But I confess I have a soft spot for Merlot. In this one, in particular, I recognize those notes that are dearest to me — the smells of the French countryside in autumn; the scents of distant things, perhaps lost forever.”
“I admire people who can read poetry in a sip of wine,” Cyril says, straightening his back. “A rare bunch, on the verge of extinction.” Embarrassed, Zoe lowers her head and looks at her fingers tightly clasping the glass stem. Kunene senses her uneasiness and quickly changes the subject, turning to André. He makes some general remarks about the international wine market and chats casually with her brother about his experience with Californian grape growers. Then, almost inadvertently, he leads Zoe to talk about her research work at the Witwatersrand University, as if vines, wines and fossils had always been intimately related.
Zoe notices Kunene’s natural ability in reading people. He shows a self-confidence, a natural ease in connecting with his interlocutor and exploring unfamiliar emotional territories that are unimaginable to her. He speaks slowly, distinctly enunciating each word, his hands spread on the table, his fingers perfectly manicured. She takes it all in: his ultra-thin, square-cased Vacheron Constantin wristwatch, his single-breasted tailored suit, the monogram embroidered on his shirt pocket. She hasn’t seen his shoes yet. She doesn’t resist the temptation and takes a quick look at his feet. There they are, a pair of handmade, black leather oxfords, polished and worn just enough not to look too new. Kunene intercepts her look.
“I don’t blame you, Mejuffrow. Dressed as I am, you might think I’m slightly out of place here in rural Africa, in the middle of a vineyard, under an oak tree.”
“Well ...” she mumbles.
“I assure you I’d feel much more comfortable wearing my jeans and a T-shirt, as you do. But let’s be honest. We didn’t meet here just to have a friendly conversation over a reasonably good glass of wine. We’re here to talk business.”
Zoe turns her head slightly to check her brother’s reaction. André keeps looking into his glass; only a slight sheen of perspiration on his upper lip betrays some hidden tension. Kunene’s voice lowers while he lays his honour bare at her feet.
“I’m never allowed to forget I’m black, least of all here in South Africa. Dressing up has become part and parcel of my business card. I’m sure you know what I mean.”
Struck by the frankness of his confession, Zoe forces herself to keep her eyes on his, prodding him to go on.
“If I had shown up in casual attire, you’d have seen in me none other than another common black, one of those thousand ‘garden boys’ who patiently water plants and continue to be called ‘boys’ by their white baas. They never become ‘men,’ even when they’re well into their seventies.”
He is so very right. Cyril Kunene can’t hide behind anything, neither an Ivy League degree, nor an honourable career, nor a posh uptown apartment. His skin colour stands before everything else, even when it’s covered in an Armani suit. Although unsettling, he has finally played the one card left in his hand: his frankness. Why then doesn’t she openly acknowledge his good reasons? What’s holding her back?
“Well, let’s talk business then,” she says facing both men, lifting her chin a little higher. “Have you two taken into account how the other farmers in the valley will react to the ... novelty?” She is trampling on unknown ground here. “They might not like it, even boycott you ...”
“Yes, we did,” her brother answers a bit too hurriedly. “While you were busy with your fossils, you may not have noticed, but things have been changing pretty fast. Our move is less risky than you might think.”
She nods, and from that moment on she lets her brother manage the conversation. Again, she has the subtle feeling that the two men have known each other for some time now and that this little act has been staged just for her. Nor can she dismiss the impression of having landed in this grape field after having travelled through some sort of wormhole. As if her role could only be that of the outlier, watching from a distance as people go by their lives, or that of an intruder, prying into people’s lives in search of secrets, of hidden bones.
Zoe chimes in on the men’s conversation only on a couple of occasions, asking for clarifications. She finds Kunene intelligent, canny, coldly professional, and she resents him for this, for he represents the West’s renewed encroachment — this time Wall Street-style — on Africa. “After all, what chances did you Boers ever give us?” he might well retort. Fair enough. Blacks will seek compensation and renewal through the dominant U.S. culture, the one now dictating economic policies to the world. Perhaps, this is how Kunene wants her to see him, while i
nstead inside him there still lies, unblemished, the human warmth and generosity of his people. Perhaps, in spite of new and old colonialisms, in his veins, under his velvety skin and stylish clothes, Africa — the ancestors’ soul-land — still throbs irrepressibly.
They part with a handshake. Their future partner — it looks as if it’s now a done deal — helps Zoe to mount Jolly before taking the path back to Mont Rochelle. As they trot away, Zoe turns and watches him walking straight ahead with elegant ease, as if he were crossing Fifth Avenue instead of an alfalfa field at the tipping end of Africa, carrying a patent leather briefcase instead of a plastic cooler bag.
André quickens his horse’s pace and she does the same.
9
AUNT ADÈLE
Peeling potatoes, shelling beans, slicing onions: Sometimes simple manual tasks help one to slip out of one’s thoughts. Zoe busies herself on the chopping board under Georgina’s supervision. She has decided to spend her last afternoon at the Cape with her, in the kitchen. But this doesn’t help to keep her mind at bay. Thoughts come rushing to her, wave after wave. I can’t resume my daily routine at the lab as if nothing had happened. I won’t stand my colleagues’ pitiful looks. I won’t bear the sudden emptiness of my house in the city. My project is too far-fetched. I will never be able to convince Kuyper to send me into the nowhere.
“Are you done with those aubergines?” Georgina urges her into action. After Zoe told her about Dario’s accident, her aia is even more considerate of her needs. Precious Georgina, always so present, yet always so discreet — like tens of thousands of other mixed-blood maidservants, all shrouded in invisibility within white households, their lives thwarted by the master’s needs. How many aias have remained silent, buried their secrets, let tears fall between the folds of daily laundry, onto polished Sunday mass shoes, over weekly bread dough? How many sorrows have been swallowed by silence, undetected?
Zoe’s memory races back to her childhood.
She isn’t thirteen yet and still wears braids. On this spring day, while at school, she feels a warm fluid trickle down the inside of her thighs — she is bleeding and her apron is already stained. Too ashamed to let anyone notice, she waits for recess to sneak out of the class and run home with a kerchief between her legs. It takes her less than an hour to reach the Finistère.
She is about to enter the kitchen — her fingers already on the door handle — when she hears someone grunting, perhaps moaning, then her aia sobbing, begging in a low voice: “Nee baas, baas nee.” Startled, she flings the door open. Georgina’s plump body is mercilessly thrown over the kneading board — her breasts, uncovered, sinking into the bread dough; her skirt up to her waist. A man is holding her head pressed against the board, while harshly thrusting his hips against her buttocks. That man is Willem. His furious gaze for being caught in such a brutal act freezes her. But what stuns Zoe even more is Georgina’s shameful look, her eyes encrusted with tears and flour, her mouth stiffened in a desperate grimace.
Zoe stands there for a brief eternity, horrified, before rushing out and hiding among the grapes, in the furthest field from the house. She remains there, protected by a sea of green leaves, blood dripping copiously down her legs, until Georgina finds her. Less than six months have passed since her parents’ death and Zoe has just become a woman. “Please, my baby, don’t tell anyone,” Georgina pleads as she dries Zoe’s tears with her apron. “If your aunt finds out she will send me away.”
“He is the one who must leave, not you!”
“It’s not that simple, my precious. The baas is never wrong. And she needs him to run the farm. She would never manage by herself. While me, there are plenty of maids like me.”
“Nee, you’re my aia, my only one!”
Georgina is thirty-two and has four children to support. Zoe knows that. On that day, though, her aia tells her something else. Two years ago her husband left to work in the mines in Jo’burg. After he stopped sending money, she went to look for him and found him drunk in a shebeen in Soweto. He had lost his job, but wouldn’t go back home with her. His excuse was that he was too ashamed to look into his children’s eyes. She spat at him and left. Georgina’s story is short and bleak, but effective. Willem will stay then, unpunished. He is a monster and the world is cruel. In tears, Zoe promises to keep her mouth shut. Her aia hugs her tightly, rocking back and forth, rocking in their pain.
Since then, they have never talked about that day. That day, Zoe discovered how bitterly she could hate someone. She promised to herself she would never forgive Willem for what he did, for what he could still do.
Back in her bedchamber, Zoe takes Aunt Charlotte’s diary out and opens it at the page where she has placed her tassel. She takes a slow, deep breath and starts reading.
Franschhoek, January 16, 1897
Poor Aunt Adèle, she must be seriously worried about what might happen to me; otherwise, she would have never told me her story. “Charlotte,” she started, “I know I have sinned. Do not judge me for that.” Her pain was so obvious that I had to hug her. She looked so tiny and helpless under that starched bonnet of hers. She recovered quickly, though, and gestured to let her speak. As I did in my previous entry, I’ ll try to relate her story as faithfully as possible, with the only help of my memory.
She couldn’t sleep, she said. Aunt Desirée had died and her story about Gustave’s curse haunted her. She would lie awake, eyes wide open, contemplating her barren future. In the end, she convinced herself that she had to ask the help of a sangoma, a shaman. She thus started making inquiries among their home servants, their labourers and those of other farms. She did it in the most discreet way so as not to arouse any suspicion. It took her almost a year to find out that the most powerful diviner-healer of the region was named Unathi and lived fifty kilometres away from their farm — a whole day’s horse ride.
She now had to find a way to leave the farm unnoticed. If she tried to secretly slip away, her father would order his Khoikhoi hunters to follow her tracks and bring her back. Neither could she ask openly for his permission; if she confessed the truth, sooner or later everyone — starting from their predikant, her father’s closest friend — would find out about the curse and no one would want to have anything to do with the influential family of the Du Plessis. Thus, she kept quiet and waited for the spring Nagmaal, when all the families in the valley would load their wagons and head for Stellenbosch; there, they would spend four days together, celebrating holy communion, eating, dancing, socializing.
“On the morning they left, I pretended I didn’t feel well,” aunt told me. She feigned a fever and promised father she would join them on horseback as soon as she recovered; Xabbo, their most trusted servant, would escort her. Instead, one hour later she was riding north-east. Xabbo was with her and increasingly concerned about her baas’ daughter’s flight off the farm — if they found out, he would be punished harshly for not having stopped her.
They rode all day. When they reached Unathi’s village, it was already getting dark and Aunt Adèle was exhausted. “As we entered the village, any hint of bravery I was left with quickly slipped away,” she said. But it was too late to go back.
The chief received her in his hut and she offered him the tobacco and cornmeal she and Xabbo had brought with them. In the basic Xhosa learned since childhood from the house servants, she told him she wanted to see the medicine man.
“I tried not to show it, but I was terrified,” she said. I bet she did: a white woman, alone, accompanied by a Khoikhoi, in the midst of a Xhosa kraal!
The chief invited Aunt Adèle to share a meal in his tent with his wives. When, later, the women led her to Unathi’s hut, she literally had to drag herself, as much as she was overtaken by fatigue. She found herself sitting in front of an old man, barely dressed, his hips wrapped in a leopard skin. In the dim light of a small fire, she could scarcely make out his wrinkled face, his chest adorned with necklaces made from cowrie shells, his braided hair and beaded-headdress topped w
ith porcupine quills.
Aunt started explaining why she was there, but the medicine man raised his hand and invited her to be quiet. He took a satchel made of steenbok skin and threw the contents on the mat between them. A collection of bones, stones, shells and small, smoothed objects tumbled out, creating a pattern. The sangoma looked intently at it, then frowned. Three times he threw his bones and three times the rhino’s horn fell with its tip pointing at aunt. Only then Unathi spoke, saying that the white woman had a powerful enemy, an unclean spirit. He didn’t know if his medicine was as powerful. He then sent her to sleep and told her to come back in the early morning.
Aunt left the sangoma’s hut and reached Xabbo, who by then had made a fire for them and prepared their bedding. She sank into a deep, dreamless sleep and woke up with the first light. Unathi was already waiting for her at the entrance of his hut. A pot was simmering on the fire; the sangoma poured its dark, steaming content into a bowl, which he then handed to her. At that point, Aunt Adèle was terrorized. She still remembers Unathi’s words: “You must be ready to fight the evil spirit. Alone. I can only help you to see your enemy.”
It was a bitter, disgusting concoction, with bits of shredded bark floating on the surface. As soon as she was finished, she started gagging, but the sangoma told her she would need to hold on till she was among her own again. Xabbo had already saddled their horses and off they went.
It was a hellish journey. She kept shivering, felt fever rising. And the nausea: The more she tried to dismiss it, the more it grew. She was increasingly weak and struggled to stay in the saddle; Xabbo rode by her side, supporting her when she felt faint. She covered the last stretch of the trail in a semi-conscious state, leaning on the mare’s neck. When they finally reached the farm, at twilight, Xabbo dragged her to her bed and stood by her side all night, while the fever went up and she started to rave.
The Afrikaner Page 6