by Guy Butler
‘No one understands’, said the unhappy woman.
‘We do try’, said the doctor, rising, stiff from his long ride, thinking of Janet, alone, away in a strange village in this semi-desert populated with eccentrics.
Pausing on the stone landing, he looked back at the picture he had just left: and there, at the end of the tunnel of her life, in a candlelit would-be death-bed of her own choice, lay Petronella, trying to write the story of her life’s end.
‘Look after her’, he said to Griet. ‘What is your grandfather’s name?’
‘Choro.’
‘And among whites?’
‘Speelman.’
Walking down the ample stone staircase under the cool of the stars, he wished it were much, much longer. He feared that dinner conversation downstairs in Arries Graf homestead would be no easier than medical advice in the loft.
The smaller children had gone to bed, but there were still enough bodies to do justice to the magnificent stinkwood table. Stoffel sat at one end, opposite the empty chair of Andries. Stoffel’s wife sat on his right, and his children, in age sequence, below him. He, the Doctor, was given the chair on his left. Andries’ wife, who would normally have slotted into the same pattern at the other end of the table, was invited to sit on his right. He wondered where, in God’s name, Petronella would fit into this regimental mess?
The food was excellent, of the flavoursome but fattening kind he used to long for in Europe. Particularly the sousboontjies and the sweet potatoes. Proper respect for the food made conversation unnecessary. One listened to the minor clinkings of cutlery on china, and gentle masticating noises; and, from outside, came the long desolate cry of a nightjar. The crying of a jackal followed; then, disturbingly enough, the bleat of a lamb.
At which point one of the younger children, in a pink flannel night-gown entered, and approached Mrs Andries.
‘Yes, my child?’ she asked in a disapproving voice.
‘The water jug is dancing.’
‘Not again!’ said the mother.
One or two of the heads lifted from their troughs, but the jaws continued to work.
‘You’re fibbing’, said one of the girl twins.
‘Come and see! ‘
‘Go’, said the mother.
‘Did I hear correctly?’ the Doctor asked. ‘The water jug is dancing?’
The good woman nodded, but made no further comment. The big sister returned.
‘The jug is quite still. But the others say they also saw it.’
She shrugged her shoulders, sat down and picked up her implements.
Everybody helped themselves to seconds of everything in orderly age sequence. The beginnings of a row over the last of the sweet potatoes (a sign of disorderly humanity which the doctor found welcome) was stopped by the entry of another small child in red flannel. She approached Mrs Stoffel, who got in first:
‘Now, don’t you tell me the water jug is dancing.’
‘No, ma, it’s the walking stick. All by itself; hop, hop, tap, tap, along the end of my bed.’
‘Never mind, child. It can do you no harm.’
‘But it keeps me awake.’
Mrs Stoffel sighed, turned in her chair, and gave orders to one of the twin boys.
‘Hennie, take your food and go and eat it in their room.’
Hennie rose, grumbling. ‘It’s not my turn, it’s Koos’s.’
‘Don’t argue, my son.’
She turned apologetically to her guest.
‘We are sorry about the children disturbing your meal, Doctor.’
‘Don’t mention it. What, may I ask, is disturbing the children?’
‘You heard what they said – just a jug and a walking stick dancing. We never see these things; only the smaller children do.’
The remaining twin boy, Koos, volunteered. ‘I also –’ but his mother silenced him sharply. ‘You are old enough to stop.’
Stoffel volunteered. ‘It’s best to take no notice.’ (There was a clatter as of pots falling in the bowels of the building.) ‘We do sometimes hear things, of course. And things fall down without reason sometimes.’ (More metallic noises, but from outside.) ‘Stones on the tin roof of the outhouse. It’s common enough, you know. Poltergeist, they call it. Never hurts anyone. Only a nuisance.’
Mrs Andries served the dessert, which she had prepared. It was delicious. An old Cape recipe out of Hildegonda Duckett, born Versveld. The Doctor made the mistake of asking for details, as he would like to get his Scots wife to make it for him. Mrs Andries was halfway through the recipe when Hennie returned, with his plate empty, looking puzzled, even a little upset.
‘Pa’, he said.
‘Quiet!’ said his father. ‘Your aunt is speaking. Don’t interrupt.’
The recipe was a long one. The doctor’s attention had switched to the obedient boy, who was swallowing as if his mouth were very dry.
‘… and then you dust it all over with grated cinnamon bark.’
‘You are finished? asked Stoffel of Mrs Andries.
‘Yes’, said Mrs Andries.
‘Well?’ he asked, turning to the boy.
‘Pa, I saw something myself.’
‘The jug dancing? … The stick? … Then what?’
‘Through the window. An old, old man, in a long, long coat of jackal skins.With a jug in one hand, and a stick in the other.’
Stoffel frowned, puckered his mouth a little.
‘I’m so sorry, Doctor. You’ve come on rather a bad night.’
Mrs Stoffel volunteered. ‘Perhaps Andries will return with someone who can stop this nonsense.’
The doctor volunteered: ‘He said he was going to look for someone. But he didn’t think it urgent, not necessary yet.’
‘Nor do I’, said the twin brother. ‘Only when we, adults, see something – see, not hear – will I think it’s urgent. One cannot take too much notice of children’s and old wives’ tales.’
‘What steps will you take if and when you do see something?’
‘Get a priest, or a rabbi, or a witchdoctor. Someone who knows about these things. And if that doesn’t work, I’m taking my wife and family back to my old house below at Dassie Krantz. You see, we only moved here when my father died, two years ago. Doctor, people say there’s a curse on this place. Now, I don’t believe in nonsense like curses. As you can see, I’m a sensible man. But if, for any reason, a place does not suit his family, and he has the option, a decent man should move, not so?’
‘Would Andries move too?’
‘Andries? Never!’ said Mrs Andries.
‘Never is a long time’, said Stoffel.
‘Dassie Krantz is nicer than Arries Graf’, volunteered Koos. ‘The poplar bush, the orchard, the pools in the river.’
There was a loud crash from the kitchen quarters. In ran old Cupido.
‘Sir, sir, the two bread bins!’ and he looked back over his shoulder. ‘They’ve emptied themselves at the kitchen door, both of them. And here they come, dancing a riel together down the passage.’
And he disappeared at speed out of the front door. The clatter in the passage increased. All eyes were fixed on the entrance to the dining room.
In came the bread bins, as if dancing round each other, first to the right, then to the left. The twin girls sensibly climbed on to their chairs, followed by the two mothers, who went one higher, on to the table, all smoothing their skirts in a decent, sensible way. The twin boys looked to the Doctor and Stoffel for a lead. Stoffel walked to the hallway, keeping the table between himself and the dancing bins. He returned with his double-barrel shot gun, moving with no more nor less deliberation than if a cobra had appeared. The Doctor shouted, ‘Don’t shoot!’ but it was too late.
The enormous flash and bang of the two barrels would have been enough to blast any geist, polter or otherwise, back to where he’d come from; but not a bit of it. Two bread bins, riddled with holes, pulled themselves together, and continued their dance, limping a little, but dignified, as if to the
valse triste of Sibelius. The Persian carpet was damaged, a floral arrangement ruined, and much glass in the sash windows destroyed.
From upstairs came the high cries of Petronella. In the doorway crowded the faces of the smaller children. The bins waltzed out on to the stoep, along it, and up the stone stairs towards the loft. No one followed except the Doctor. On the top step, with her chin cupped in her hands, sat Griet, next to a single, calm candle.
‘Griet!’ cried the Doctor sternly, ‘that’s enough for one night.’ No response. So he cried out: ‘Namies, Namies, that’s enough!’
She rose, as if shaking herself. And the two now-lifeless breadbins clattered down the stairs, one on either side of the Doctor.
‘Bring the candle!’ he said to Griet, and walked into the loft.
The bed was disordered, the great curtains all pulled down on one side. The patient was struggling feebly to disentangle herself. Startled, she looked at the Doctor.
‘Don’t tell me! He shot himself?’
‘No; he only ruined the breadbins.’
She relaxed, back onto the pillows, relieved and exhausted.
‘This haunting – will it ever stop?’
‘It will stop when you come downstairs; and when you don’t need Griet.’
‘But I can’t! I’ve tried!’ And she picked up, and dropped, the torn curtain, hopeless. ‘You see, Doctor – old Arrie cursed my grandfather.
With a likkewaan, or was it a tortoise?’
‘A likkewaan? A tortoise?’
‘Don’t laugh, Doctor. Something like that. After he’d tried all the experts in Cape Town, he called in Arrie. Perhaps Arrie’s son, Choro – Griet’s father – perhaps –’ and her voice trailed away.
Doctor Martyn took a deep breath, and exhaled, making a slight whispering sound, as though pondering. He spoke like a man who had achieved clarity of thought.
‘Mrs Vosloo, I think Choro is somewhere outside, tonight. In his cowrie shells and jackal skins. Do you want us to find and bring him to you?’
‘I only want you to consult with him.’
‘Hottentot medicine does not only consist of herbs. The sick person has to consent to do things, some of them strange to us.’
‘I will try’, she said.
What passed between the young white Doctor and the old Hottentot Wizard that night is of a highly technical nature, and might sometime find a place in the SA Medical Journal or the Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Society. Or even, sufficiently edited, in a highbrow novel influenced by Derrida and Sir Laurens van der Post. The fact is that the technicalities of the African pharmacopoeia demand immense detail, and readers would lose interest in the spectacle of that odd couple moving from shrub to healing shrub for the best part of an hour by moonlight, gathering sprigs, and pods, and bark, and roots. Even more difficult and tedious to tell would be the elaborate Khoikhoi lore of the mountain tortoise, or how a large one was found by nine the next morning, and carried by two Khoi shepherds into the front hall.
Having been dressed in a floral gardening frock by her daughters-in-law, Petronella was carried downstairs into the hallway by her twin sons, who made a cradle with their arms and hands. There she sat, in a large upright chair, in the cool gloom of the hall. The tortoise was solemnly inspecting the skirting, looking for an exit. His feet made little scraping noises on the floor.
Out in the veld, near the huts, Choro in his jackal skins was watching a little iron pot on a fire of specially gathered twigs. The pot contained many different leaves. As soon as it came to the boil he added six berries of one and six of another, and after a minute removed the pot from the flame. He then signalled to Griet, who came with a china jug. She held a small swath of grass across its mouth to act as strainer. Choro’s brew was poured into the jug, quietly, without any incantation.
Griet approached the house via the kitchen and poured the potion into a glass, put it on a tray, and brought it into the hall. She offered it to the white doctor with her characteristic little Victorian bob. He smelled it – wonderful herbal scent. But what, he thought for a moment, if it’s poisonous? On a very ancient principle, he tasted it himself. Bittersweet. He smiled, and handed it to Petronella. She drank it, pulling a very wry face, and smiled and said thank you, and handed the glass back to the doctor.
The shepherds now picked up the tortoise who retracted his head and legs with the usual great hiss. They placed him like a footstool in front of Petronella’s chair. With a polite ‘Ekskuus, Miesies’, one removed her slippers, while the other, taking her by the ankles, pulled her feet forward slightly and placed them firmly, one on either side of the spinal row of knots on the shell.
‘Miesies must now wait until the tortoise walks. Then you must stand up, on his back, and let him take you outside.’
Petronella started to speak, but the shepherd put a silencing finger to his lips with a friendly frown. His companion opened the great doors, flooding the hall with light. Everybody waited. The farm labourers on the great stoep stared in silence.
As if taking his cue from the opening of the doors, the tortoise put out his legs, and then his head, and started to walk. The two shepherds took Petronella by the elbows, and held her erect on the tortoise, taking some of her weight.
Progress to the door was slow, but steady. Petronella’s children and grandchildren followed, wondering. The stony hero of the occasion looked from side to side with a lordly indifference. As he staggered over the threshold into full sunlight, there was a burst of clapping, and the farm folk spun round singing a hymn tune turned into a dance.
The tortoise reached the flight of stairs, and stopped to consider. The shepherds lifted Petronella off, placing her feet behind the creature, and without any fear that she might fall, let her go, and turned their attention to her saviour.
Amazed, she watched them pick him up and carry him down the steps, on and on, across the farmyard to where the first Karoo bushes were. Only when they put him down did she turn to her twin granddaughters, saying to one: ‘Bring me my walking shoes, dear’, and to the other: ‘And my garden hat.’
9
The Musical Policeman
The Grahamstown Club had welcomed the ex-servicemen with open arms, but there were times when the old regulars resented the push and crush of brash and thirsty young men. It seemed to them that several behaved too badly to have been anywhere near the front line. They lacked the reticence of men who’d been shot at with live ammunition. Some of the old sweats also had a kindly eye for those whose nerves were smashed, the potential alcoholics and suicides. Among these old stagers was a wiry bachelor, a farmer, Danfield Long, known as Uncle Danby, weatherbeaten as the skipper of a windjammer, who didn’t mind telling youngsters off and handing out occasional good advice. A generation before he’d been through it all himself. While talking to Padda Ford, he was watching one, Charlie, seated in front of a row of empties. Charlie was fending off the efforts of his friend, Leon, who was trying to get him out of the pub.
‘It’s no use behaving like Hamlet – just because she fancies herself as Ophelia. Come, let’s go!’
‘Stop going on about Hamlet!’ Then ‘Do you think they – the class – noticed?’
‘Noticed what?’
‘Dammit, you know!’
Leon groaned – ‘I’ve said before – an occasional attack of the jumps’ll soon be forgotten. Becoming a steady soak won’t.’
Charlie got up very deliberately and strode to the bar counter, pushing between two front-rank forwards, who continued arguing across the back of his head, while he ordered another drink.
Leon followed him, saying, “Phone the girl, man, ask her to the flicks.’
‘Can’t.’
‘Napoleon said there’s no such word. Ag come on, Charlie, let’s get out of here.’
‘Leave me alone, I don’t need any pity.’
‘Pity? Who’s talking of pity? We are in a sensitive mess, aren’t we?’
Charlie flung his beer in Leon’
s face. Leon retaliated, missed the mark, sousing the bull neck of the hooker, who swung round, head down, dripping. An elbow knocked over Padda Ford’s glass. He showed his gigantic annoyance by throwing the offender over the counter and on to the barman’s chest. Charlie went completely beserk. Yelling, out of control, he knocked one of the front-rankers out. He was looking for more Gerries when Uncle Danby pinned him by expertly twisting his arm behind his back. People helped the front-ranker off the floor, dusting the crown corks out of his hair. Padda Ford’s victim was passed back over the counter, none the worse for wear.
Charlie had lost the sympathy of all, including Leon, who had walked out into High Street, where he wiped his face on a silk handkerchief, and jumped up and down on his right foot to get the beer out of his right earhole. Inside the Club Charlie was apologetic but truculent.
‘Sorry. You can let go now. I’m OK. Let go!’
‘Not just yet. Sit down!’
Taking advantage of his grip, Danby forced him to sit. With a jerk of his head he instructed Padda to get things back to normal so that he could have a heart-to-heart with Charlie.
‘You must stop this. It’s the second time. Do you want the Club to kick you out?’
‘I don’t choose – it just happens.’
‘Maybe you don’t need to be at University at all. Too old for it.Maybe you need a regular job – farming, maybe.’
‘Maybe, maybe, maybe.’
‘You’re not unique, you know. When I was demobbed in 1919 – Royal Flying Corps – it took me a couple of years to shed my wings and find my feet.’
‘So you told me, last time.’
‘Well, I didn’t begin to shape until I proved to myself that I could do what I needed to do, not what the army or anyone else needed me to do.’
‘And what was that?’
‘Farm.’
Charlie’s face darkened, almost as though the subject of Hamlet had been raised again.
‘There’s a family farm waiting for me – not in Bedford, South Africa, but in Bedfordshire, England. My cousin was killed in Normandy, and his parents wanted to adopt me as heir apparent.’
‘What do your own folk say?’