Tales from the Old Karoo

by Guy Butler

  In the course of the afternoon, Mr Scott saw the twins and had a long talk with their uncle, Abraham Vose. And I went into town to the library and looked up ‘twins’ in various books. So at lunch the next day I could hold forth like a real fundi.

  ‘About those twins: For desert people, like the San and the Khoi, twins are unlucky. According to Schapera they used to bury both or one of them at birth.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Mr Scott.

  I had found the answer.

  ‘A nomadic people in a semi-desert with no pack animals – for them twins must be a disaster. How can the mother feed, let alone carry, both when they have to move through desert country? So only one can be allowed to live.’

  Mother expressed her satisfaction: ‘So there’s some method in their madness.’

  ‘Or used to be’, said Father.

  Mr Scott asked: ‘But for people who don’t live in arid countries, like the Xhosa people round Qumbu – twins are a good sign?’

  ‘Yes’, I said. ‘They symbolise fertility.’

  ‘It reminds me’, he said, smiling, ‘of a “boy” who looked after the vegetable patch at college. Whenever it came to planting the pumpkins he got a twin from the township to put in the pips. And I must say he did get a marvellous crop. We ate pumpkins till our skins turned yellow!’

  But Mother persisted: ‘Either way – good luck or bad, they are not ordinary.’

  Mr Scott got up to go, but added, with a mixture of puzzlement and irritation, ‘They are supposed to be closer to each other than is usual with siblings – as though they are two persons with one spirit. They are supposed to do everything together – even dying. And they are supposed to have the gift of prophecy, and second sight, and they are supposed to be very musical.’

  The flyscreen door clapped shut behind him.

  The next day old Abraham brought the twins to the office to express their thanks to Mr Scott for his hospitality. Mr Scott’s great friend, Jannie Venter of Môreson, twenty miles to the north in the mountains, happened to be with him.

  ‘They’re looking for work’, said Father. ‘Can you help?’

  ‘I can take one.’

  A long discussion ensued, in which old Abraham was much torn. In the end it was agreed that Mr Scott would keep the younger, Sinquos; his uncle Abraham could care for him on Riversbend. Sipho, the elder, must go off on his own. And Mr Venter was prepared to try him on Môreson.

  While their fate was being decided, the twins stood motionless and silent in the shade of the toddy palm near the end of the stoep. When Abraham announced the half-expected decision, they shook hands, like men might do, going over the top into no-mans-land. As his brother got into Venter’s bakkie, Sinquos swung off his blanket, and flung it to him.

  ‘It is cold in the mountains’, he said in Xhosa. And his brother Sipho threw his own blanket back in exchange, with words I could not understand. Old Abraham’s eyes were sharp slits with sparks in them, deep under his puckered forehead.

  The next day I had to return to ‘varsity.

  I soon forgot about the splitting up of that twin. But when we were having a beer after a rugby match, the referee, an ageing member of staff, told a story from way back in the early thirties about a contemporary of his. A neat, fine scrum-half he was, but subject to terrible black moods, so much so that he had to take pills for them. A Pommy from Hailebury, or one of those posh English schools, he’d been sent out to the colonies, but for none of the usual reasons – like having got one of the housemaids pregnant or forging his father’s signature – but to separate him from his identical twin brother: so identical that they presented identity problems for each other. He had an aunt, a lovely pink-cheeked, blue-eyed woman from Elgin, with whom he spent his vacs, apple-farming. She said the black mood would descend on the twins at the same time, no matter how far apart they were – even when the brother in England joined the army and went out to India.

  The ref had been on a rugby tour of the western Cape with him. The team was doing very well; but in a crucial match the scrum half lost his touch; he seemed to be in a daze, almost like a drunk, his co-ordination was so bad. They lost the match, and his poor performance preyed on his mind.

  After the tour they went for a weekend to his aunt’s farm. The Elgin hills were all whipped cream with blossom among dark pine woods. They went for long walks in the spring weather and the black cloud lifted. The ref had left him in a cheerful mood.

  Early the next morning the aunt was woken by a shot. They found him under one of the apple trees, half his head missing, the shotgun beside him.

  Later she heard from his mother that two telegrams had reached her within an hour: one son in Africa, dead from self-inflicted gunshot; the other son in India, married, and on his honeymoon in the Himalayas.

  Terrence got up, to adjust his sitting posture.

  I put down my brush, got up too, and stretched, saying, ‘It all sounds too bad to be true.’

  ‘Wait till you hear what happened to Sinquos’, he said. ‘Here comes Mrs Scott. I’m off!’

  And off he hobbled between his crutches, his plaster-weighted legs swinging like a slow white pendulum.

  Molly Scott drew near with a flower basket and secateurs, inspecting the perennial shrubs which she had put in to line the approach road. I rose to meet her. She glanced at my impressionistic sketch.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it’, she said.

  ‘Nor do I.’ There was a pause.

  ‘What do you make of our manager’s bright boy?’

  ‘Bright’, I said.

  ‘And difficult’, she added.

  ‘Who isn’t at nineteen? With both legs in plaster, too.’

  ‘Isn’t he a bit bolshy?’ She didn’t wait for a reply, but went on. ‘Come up to the house for tea.’

  In the cool interior, while she was pouring my second cup, I said: ‘Tell me about Sinquos.’

  Her eyes sharpened. She put down the teapot.

  ‘Everybody raises the topic. Why? Why?’

  It was clear that I had touched a painful spot.

  ‘Because there’s something extraordinary about it, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so’, she said, pursing her lips. ‘Very well –’

  There’d been trouble with Sinquos from the start. Within a week Johannes made a formal complaint against the bad luck that Sinquos had brought to the huts, and perhaps to the whole farm. James dismissed ‘bad luck’ as nonsense. He told Johannes straight that the new owner of Riversbend would take no notice of un-Christian superstitions about twins. Johannes explained that he himself was superstitious, but most of his people were; and so were many of the black people, the Xhosa. It was only the Xhosa from deep in the Transkei who thought twins to be lucky.

  It was quite extraordinary what things were laid at the door of the hut in which Sinquos was living – anything from the miscarriage of a heifer to a tractor puncture on the national road.

  James shrugged it all off as nonsense. Sinquos was intelligent and a good, hard worker. He would soon prove himself and make friends, who would take up his cause. But the young men were nervous of him and as for the young women, he let it be known that he had his own girl in the Transkei and had come to earn enough for lobola.

  Sinquos was an excellent stick fighter but the game had died out among the Xhosa in the Karoo. With Abraham’s encouragement, however, he started introducing youngsters to the finer points of the ancient skill, from the selecting, cutting and shaping of their sticks, to the cunning sidesteps and double feints of the fights. But this promising start all came to grief in a violent clash, about which no two witnesses would agree. It seems his excellence was envied, and he was set upon by three of his pupils when without his sticks; but he had dashed foward through a hail of blows, flung the leader to the ground, wrenched his sticks from him and driven the other two off with open weals across their heads.

  This victory was put down to witchcraft, not superior courage or skill.

&
nbsp; I was busy serving mealies and sugar from the farm shop at sunset when he was brought to me by old Abraham to be patched up. He had received a nasty gash across the left temple.

  Having no Xhosa, I could not talk to him except in monosyllables, facial contortions and signs; but I think he did understand that I was sympathetic. Was he not homesick for Qumbu? To see his mother? His old father? His younger brother? Not really. To see his girl, Nomatemba? There was a faint smile – one did not discuss one’s girl with the boss’s wife. No, it was Sipho he wished to see.

  Then a middle-aged woman, a nursemaid to a doctor in town, arrived to see him, claiming to be his sister. I have given up trying to understand Xhosa family relationships. Perhaps she was his half-sister, by an older, different mother. She’d left the Transkei fifteen years before and not been back to Qumbu in all that time. She wanted news of their father. I felt pleased for Sinquos as I introduced them, but I don’t think she made much difference to his isolation, although he did visit her once or twice in the township.

  He was never quite present where he was. His feelings were in another place. He had an unsettling effect on people.

  Old Abraham was at his wits’ end. With great deference he pleaded with James; first, to make place for the twin, Sipho, at Riversbend, then to persuade Mr Venter to take Sinquos at Môreson. Finally, in desperation, would Mr Scott find out if the mines would take a twin?

  James believed that time, thought and common sense solved most problems. He suggested to Abraham that Sinquos be given a place to live a little removed from the huts – like the room in the Arab stables. Sinquos was so responsible that he deserved to be promoted to the care of the angora kids – among whom there were many twins. And it would be interesting to see if the number of twin births would increase or decrease next year. Abraham Yose was sure they would increase. So Sinquos took up his lonely residence in the Arab stables.

  Some evenings when the sun had set and the glare was gone from the sky, James and I would stroll up on to the ridge to enjoy the space, inspect the sheep and the goats in the nearby camps, talk about the condition of the veld, and check on the number of lambs and kids. And we’d stop for a few words with Sinquos; always on duty, spotless, neat, meticulous. And alone.

  So, on impulse, I brought him a rooster and three hens and told him to look after them, and breed more for himself. These he loved, particularly the proud old cock. It was a great day when the chicks appeared. But I remained uneasy about him. As James said: ‘Half of him is somewhere else.’

  Well, before his contract was up, he asked to see James. We had guests – smart friends from the Natal Midlands. Sinquos had decided that he must go back to Qumbu, even without enough money for the lobola cows. Why? He must see an igqirha there – not a witchdoctor, but a diviner; he needed the muti made from plants in the Hlatikulu forests. James, my dear, patient James, spoke long and gently with him. He took infinite trouble on the stoep – while the dinner got cold and the conversation inside flagged. The upshot? Sinquos would stay at least another month, until the kidding was over and the kids weaned.

  James gave him a one gallon oil tin, and a plank, and lent him the tools to make a ramkiekie for himself. ‘Twins are supposed to be exceptionally musical’, he said.

  One evening, coming back from our walk, we heard, in the still air, the sound of his guitar. We stopped, and smiled at each other – but only for a moment: for the sound and the song, simple as they were, were the utterance of a longing and a grief so deep we would have preferred not to hear it.

  We consoled ouselves with the idea that it was good for him to be able to express his grief like that. But I seldom walked that way at sundown again with James. He went alone.

  James was away at the sales in Bloemfontein; but before going he’d arranged for a lorryload – 120 goats – to be taken through to Adelaide, by Johannes, with Sinquos in charge of them. He’d forgotten that there was tension between them – or he believed it had disappeared.

  The evening before they were due to leave I was called to the door. There, in the twilight, on the path below the stoep, stood Sinquos; and, with Sinquos, the manager’s son, Terrence, who knew a little Xhosa and acted as interpreter. I resented this. You know what these leftwing students can be like – so righteous and bolshy.

  Could he see the Master?

  The Master was away.

  A long, long silence; so long I said, ‘Well?’

  Terry said: ‘He does not wish to go to Adelaide.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Johannes is driving.’

  ‘What difference does the driver make?’

  ‘Johannes has a black heart.’ He couldn’t say more. Terrence added: ‘He’s got a premonition of disaster.’ And I remembered James talking patiently to Sinquos while my guests fretted and the joint spoilt. How could I change James’s plans, merely because a man had a premonition?

  ‘Sinquos, you must go with Johannes. Those goats are the goats you have looked after, and you must take them to Adelaide.’

  Then Terrence said: ‘Mrs Scott – couldn’t I drive instead of Johannes?’

  ‘Have you got a heavy duty licence?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then the answer must be no, mustn’t it?’

  They were to set out early the next morning.

  At lunch time I was startled to see Sinquos approaching the house from the direction of the Arab stables. So he’d not gone! I was angrier than I have been in a long time: he’d defied me, and by defying me he had defied James. I felt like telling him to leave the farm at once. I tried to stare him out of countenance, but he showed no sign of shame.

  ‘Sinquos!’ I cried. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Not Sinquos’, he said gently. ‘Sipho.’

  My exclamation of surprise did not surprise him. He smiled. I told him Sinquos would be back next day.

  Could he stay until he returned?

  Yes, he could sleep in the Arab stables.

  He went off. The phone rang. It was Jan Venter, wanting to know if Sipho was here. Yes. Venter was very angry, and yet relieved. Evidently Sipho had insisted that he had to meet Sinquos, on that day and no other, even if it meant getting the sack.

  ‘Will you sack him?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He s a very hard worker even if a little strange.’ At three the police ‘phoned. Our truck had a blowout on Bruintjieshoogte. The driver was fine, but the herdboy was dead. Sinquos’ body was in the police mortuary; Terrence was in hospital with badly broken ankles. And sixty goats were dead.

  I got through to Bloemfontein and told James. I repeated the details and he jotted them down. Then, ‘James’, I said, ‘Sipho is here, waiting for Sinquos. What do I do?’

  ‘Tell Abraham the whole story. I’ll be back early tomorrow.’

  I told Abraham the whole story. His face was a mask. He asked permission to take Sipho into town to see his brother’s body in the mortuary. When they got back he asked permission to bury Sinquos the next day but one: it was important to bury him before Sipho returned to Môreson. I agreed. Could the grave be dug now? I agreed.

  Then Johannes, the truck driver, came, a little shaken, to give me his account: the blowout on the curve, the truck rolling, flinging goats out as it rolled down the slope, how he woke up in the heat to the bleating of lost and mutilated goats, and to the shouting of the Manager’s son: ‘Sinquos!’ There was in this fact something profoundly hurtful to Johannes. If the Manager’s son had been worried about him, Johannes, that would have been different.

  Molly seemed to have completed her story.

  ‘It was hard on you that it happened when James was away’, I said. ‘Yes’, she said, ‘but harder on James when he got back. He saw Abraham and Sipho. They said the death of a twin, far from his home, was a serious thing; that a beast should be sacrificed; and that this had to be done properly, by a senior member of the clan, who had the special spear for the task; that he lived in Somerset East, that it would take a litt
le time to find him; but they expected he would arrive on Sunday. Could the funeral be delayed until then?

  ‘James took over all the charges of the funeral, including the sacrificial ox.

  He phoned Venter and got permission for Sipho to remain until the Monday. Xhosas came from far and wide. And the singing rose and fell in great waves in the valley.

  We did not attend the funeral, but watched from the little krantz above the water furrow. Men carried the coffin to the grave’s edge. Sipho and old Abraham were supported by a dozen men of the same clan, and then came the ‘sister’, dressed in her shining black best, with other women in tasselled shawls. Abraham raised his hand for silence. He spoke for a time.

  When he stopped, Sipho stepped forward to the very rim of the grave in his blanket, wrapping it close about himself. Then he was gripped by the armpits and let down into the grave. As he lay down in it, flat, I remembered that Xhosa twins are supposed to do everything together.

  ‘But they can’t! They can’t!’ I cried, expecting they would lower the coffin of Sinquos on top of Sipho.

  James put his arm across my shoulders. ‘They won’t: it is a symbolical burial. The ancestors and Sinquos will understand.’

  There was silence, followed by a melancholy song; and then Sipho, almost naked, was helped out at the other end of the hole. He’d left his blanket behind.

  They then lowered the coffin of Sinquos into the hole, where his brother’s still warm blanket lay waiting for him.

  The next day the sister called. I gave her the remaining blankets, his little tin trunk, his ramkiekie. She looked at me: ‘Is there not something else?’

  I said, ‘Yes, there is his lobola money in the book. This I will send to your old father in Qumbu.’

  She nodded, and left with the crate of chickens.

  That crate of chickens touched something in Molly, and her voice cracked, and she left me alone in the room. I sat there sadly marvelling at how much I had learnt about Riversbend in less than twenty-four hours.