by Guy Butler
Yes, dust and ashes. But as they drew nearer the mountain top, his tune changed.
Life might seem to have gone horribly wrong for Olive and him, but this life was not everything. Death would bring peace, love, reconciliation, union. On the top of Buffelskop.
How could Johanna, from her own agony, tell him what she felt – what most people felt – that the proposed burial was at best a nice romantic idea, but rather ridiculous? It is one thing to carry the body of a beautiful young woman up a mountain to lie in due course side by side with the body of her handsome young man: but to carry Olive Schreiner, a squat, fat, old lady up there was something else. And what for? To meet, eventually, the dust of the man who felt he’d given up too much for her, whose flesh at this moment was hungering after Johanna or Susannah, or any healthy, youngish woman who crossed his path? It was all cruel, an impossible pretence, a denial of their mutual failure in marriage, almost of their humanity.
That was bad enough – to be making advance plans for his separated wife’s funeral and his own; both funerals difficult to execute, and already the source of hilarity and smiles among those who knew of it. But Olive and Cron were not to lie alone. The coffin of their unnamed baby girl was to go with them up the mountain; and also the coffin of Nita, the fox terrier. Four coffins destined for one grave.
The handsome, practical, obsessed man tried to explain these arrangements. When Olive left for England she had abandoned the embalmed bodies of Baby and Nita – to Cronwright’s devoted care; she left them under the bed in De Aar. Now he’d sold the De Aar house, but had made a brick-lined vault in the garden for their storage until such time as needed by Olive again, on the top of Buffelskop.
The purpose of Cron’s visit was to inform the present owners of Buffelskop that, sooner or later, together or in dribs and drabs, four coffins would be carried across their property to that little piece of Schreiner earth on the mountain top. It was unlikely that all four coffins would arrive at the same time.
Old Mr Van Dyk muttered: ‘It will never happen. The English are mad, but not so mad.’
Cron left for Cape Town and England. The endless boredom of Johanna’s unhappiness and her husband’s discontent took possession of Buffelshoek once more.
Two important things did happen, though. Susannah had her first baby, and she was a joy to every one. And Andries tore up Johanna’s teachers’ certificates so that she could not go off to find a job and make a new life for herself.
Then the Cape papers brought the news that Olive Schreiner had returned to South Africa, alone, and that her husband had stayed behind in England. Johanna felt inclined to weep. She had prayed that a reconciliation might take place. Well, perhaps they had faced up to their incompatibility; perhaps he had found someone else.
Then came the news of Olive’s death, in December 1920, in Cape Town. She was buried in Maitland Cemetery, in the Schreiner family plot, with her parents and Het, her big sister, and Will, her little brother, who had been Prime Minister. And all the big-wigs of the nation had been present, or had sent representatives, to see her laid to rest in Cape Town.
‘So that’s the end of that mountain-top nonsense!’ said old Van Dyk. ‘When his turn comes, Mr Cronwright must be buried in Maitland too. And they can send the dog and baby from De Aar to Cape Town by goods train.’
These were the sentiments of most sensible persons who cared to spare the matter a thought. But the Schreiners never did what sensible people expected of them.
One day in June, 1920, when the men were away at stockfair, Johanna heard a car pulling up outside. It was Mr T.J. Schooling, Cradock’s undertaker, and Cron. She asked them in, to escape the strong, cold, northwest wind. Cron was looking very strained.
‘No thank you. As you see, it might come on to snow. We’ll stop on the way back.’
They drove further into the Hoek, leaving Johanna time to think of that sad marriage and her own. It started to sleet.
She lit a fire. When they returned, after an absence of four hours, they were very grateful for that warmth and hot coffee. Schooling, who was not fit, fell asleep in his chair almost at once.
While waiting, Johanna had come to hope that the bitter cold and the wild wind might have persuaded Cron to abandon the whole scheme, and let Olive rest in peace in Cape Town. Not a bit of it. The very difficulties, the essential wilderness of nature, filled him with a poetic elation such as Johanna had not seen in a man before.
‘Olive knew what she wanted, Johanna. One can think of her great soul hovering up there, in endless delight, like her “vast white bird with silver wings outspread sailing the everlasting blue;” What a site! How the thunderstorms roar and crash over the kop! How the lightning strikes it! How the wild animals roam there! How her Karoo stars shine over it! And it can also know The Silence that is in the starry skies, The Peace that is among the lonely hills.’
Johanna had thought of opening her heart to Cron, to ask him as a lawyer, for advice. But, after that speech ending with a piece of poetry, she knew that he was not a man who would consider divorce.
The wild winter weather had tried to tell Cron that Buffelskop was no place for a grave, but he wouldn’t listen. So the mountain itself sent a message with equal clarity. Three days after Cron had left, Joe Mann, Schooling’s mason, had gone up Buffelskop with his two old coloured stonemasons, one of whom he had to bail out of the tronk: to dig a grave, and line its rim. They’d come down early the next day: the top of that mountain was solid ironstone. At no point was the soil deep enough for even the shallowest of graves. The Van Dyk men smiled and said, ‘Maybe he’ll take no for an answer now.’
Three days later Joe Mann was back with detailed instructions from Cron to build a raised sarcophagus out of ironstone, on the ironstone, shaped rather like those old round-topped straw huts of the Xhosa, only oval in shape. He drew it in the sand for Johanna and Susannah. ‘Difficult’, he said, ‘but we’ll manage’, and they disappeared into the mountain. Twice a coloured man came down with the donkey to fetch supplies of cement and food. They got water from the dam on the plaat. Andries went up once out of curiosity.
‘It’s freezing up there. Old Joe Mann mixes the cement for pointing, a jam tin only at a time. The cement turns to ice before he finishes the tin. He’s a real mason that one: he’s got a couple of big stones at one end for a sort of a door to slip the coffin in; and a keystone which will make it easy to open up again when Cron’s box comes.’ And Andries shook his head with a kind of wonder.
Joe Mann came down after a fortnight, the job done. Schooling sent a telegram to Cron in Cape Town.
The grave being ready to receive its guests, Cron went into action. He dug Olive’s coffin up, and put it in a special van, with a laurel wreath brought to the station by her old friends, the Browns.
So he came home to Kransplaas through the Karoo, alone with Olive in the van, past all the places he and she had known together or alone – Matjiesfontein, De Aar, Hanover Road, Taaiboschlaagte, Naaupoort. At De Aar he picked up the coffins of Baby and Nita.
Johanna did not want her girls to witness that burial. She sent them into town to be with their aunt until it was all over.
Mr Schooling arranged for Daniel and ten of his men’ to carry the coffins halfway up the mountain before sunset; they would sleep there; and do the final climb the following morning. Johanna went on the wagon with Daniel to Halesowen Station to fetch the coffins.
Mr Hilton Barber of Halesowen Farm was leaning over the fence talking to Cronwright, his one-time neighbour. They had always cracked jokes at each other’s expense, those two Englishmen; but there had never been love lost between the Schreiners and the Barbers, the liberals and the jingoes. Johanna heard him say: ‘Pity cremation hasn’t caught on. You wouldn’t need this wagon and twelve carriers. You could carry the ashes of all three up there in one orange pocket.’ There was a brittle silence, broken by the throb of the approaching train. As it drew to a halt both Cron and Barber removed their hats, holdin
g them on their chests. Daniel followed suit, and his men swept off their battered bits of felt and straw. Johanna got off the wagon and stood to one side.
First out of the van came Nita – a box with an old striped blanket sewn round it.
Then Baby – the same. Then Olive, draped in black.
Then Cron appeared from the van with a single laurel wreath in his hand, and took it with him into Mr Schooling’s car. He did not notice Johanna, who had half hoped to be asked to drive back in Schooling’s car. She returned with Daniel, lumbering across the veld into Buffelshoek, with a load of three coffins.
In the early afternoon she was at the foot of the mountain to watch the men start the climb: six to Olive’s coffin, two to Baby, two to Nita. The mountainside was steep and rough, and the men struggled to handle the awkward shapes across the contours. Daniel and Mr Schooling gave instructions.
Not wishing to watch until one or more of the boxes was dropped, and the cursing began, she turned round and walked back. She soon caught up with the empty wagon, and rode back to the farm on it, alone in the veld and in herself.
Cronwright returned to the house after dusk, when she was lighting the lamps, and her sister-in-law was preparing the supper. The three Van Dyks were having their heavy sundowners on the stoep. Cron reported: ‘The coffins have reached the halfway mark without mishap. The porters are happily gathered round a fire roasting the generous supply of meat which Daniel has supplied. The coffins are stacked in the manner they will assume in the tomb: Olive, with Baby on top of her, and Nita at her feet. Their square shapes look rather odd among the round rocks and bushes, and the men huddled about the fire in their blankets, drinking hot coffee.’
None of the Van Dyks said very much. It was too unusual an experience to encourage small talk, and they didn’t find Cronwright’s English presence congenial.
Undressing for bed, Johanna imagined the coffins in the cold starlight, and the shapes of sleeping men about them. For a moment her misery and questioning ceased. Death can be beautifully diminished by exposure to the stars. She fell asleep.
She was woken by loud banging on the kitchen door. She slipped on her dressing gown. By the time she got there, Andries and Willem were also there, listening to the breathless and terrified boss boy Vaaltyn. All the bearers – all ten of them – had taken fright and stampeded down the mountain, abandoning the coffins.
So Schooling and Daniel were alone up there with Olive, Nita and Baby, in the wide still night. It seemed a pack of baboons had started barking at the intruders. A baboon’s bark in the dark night is an unnerving sound, even for a white man.
‘Rather them than me!’ said Andries, with a funny laugh.
Old Van Dyk said: ‘I warned Daniel, I warned him! What now?’
Andries said, with a look at Johanna: ‘The ringmaster of this coffin circus must take charge. Wake Mr Cronwright-Schreiner.’
But Susannah retorted: ‘Let the poor man sleep. We must sort this out – if only to keep Daniel out of trouble.’
It was a bitterly cold night. The bearers were in the wool shed, wide-eyed, confused, their teeth chattering with terror and cold. Willem told them to make a fire. Johanna made a hot, thick bean soup. Andries gave them tots of brandy, and took a few himself.
At first light, Cron and the men climbed up the mountain, reaching the coffins as the sun came up: much to the relief of Mr Schooling and Daniel. They, too, confessed to having been terrified by that vigil and had tried to sleep – in vain – several hundred yards away from the coffins. They would have stampeded down the mountain too, except that the fear of breaking their bones was more powerful than the cold fever that a blend of unburied coffins and barking baboons induces.
At the best of times Johanna found it difficult to dress fittingly for a funeral. To find something suitably funereal that you can also climb a mountain in is impossible. She discussed the matter with her sister-in-law. They agreed so entirely that they ended up looking almost like twins – except that Johanna was short and putting on weight, while Susannah was still tall and straight.
Oupa was too old for the funeral; he’d stay at the farmstead. The Van Dyks wondered who else would be there, besides themselves, the black bearers, and Schooling. Then Susannah had her inspiration.
‘It’s a lovely day. I’m going to take my baby up. Kantoni can carry her, so that I can give her her two-hourly feeds.’
Johanna gave one of her rare smiles. All that the crazy funeral needed to make it complete was Kantoni and that baby.
It was a sunny but frosty morning. In spite of the cold, there were butterflies about the aloe rods, and kokkewiet cries echoing in the kloofs.
They reached the coffins at about eleven o’clock. Cron shook hands formally with them all. He was delighted that they’d come. He asked after the baby’s name. It had not been baptised yet. He took it in his arms and asked: ‘I’d be grateful if one of its names could be Cronwright.’ Susannah said she’d put it to her husband, and Willem said he’d think about it.
‘Who are we waiting for?’ asked Andries.
‘The Cawoods from Gannahoek – Olive taught them all as children. And someone to report for The Midland News and Karoo Farmer. Also a teacher from the Training College who admires Olive’s writing. And the photographer. That’s about all, I think.’
The Van Dyks watched them arrive.
First came the photographer, Mr Lidbetter. He was a heavy, bearded man with asthma, carrying a camera almost as big as Nita’s coffin. They all knew him because he photographed everything unusual in their lives, or in the lives of the town, like visits by General Smuts, or promulgations of death sentences on rebels in the Market Square. A shrewd man, who said little, standing to one side, watching. Some people thought him a Bolshevik, because he maintained there should be more than three taps in the Cradock location.
Next, the Press representative, Miss Mary Butler, the part-time reporter from The Midland News and Karoo Farmer. She was also well-known. As a nurse she had helped babies into the world, and old people out of it, all over the district. She was a puzzle, like the Schreiners. Her father, the editor, was about the only English editor in South Africa to be pro-Boer but he spoilt things for the Van Dyks by also being pro-black.
Miss Butler had solved the funeral dress problem by putting on her nurse’s uniform and white cap, and her cape, for the cold. A calm woman, thoughtful and deliberate. Like Lidbetter she was a Quaker, and therefore a pacifist, like Olive. For years she had been running a dispensary in the location for the blacks.
With her came Mary Waters, a teacher at the Training College who had a pretty monkey face and red hair, which she never brushed; it sat like a dry rolbos all around her head. She wrote books of African folk tales in Xhosa and in English. Like Olive, she was a missionary’s daughter. She had no dress problems to solve. She simply never thought about dress at all. She and Miss Butler were great friends and both protagonists of the liberation of women from imprisonment in the kitchen and bedroom. They admired Olive’s book, Woman and Labour. Johanna sometimes longed to talk to such people.
Those were all the mourners from the Cradock side. So they set out, expecting to meet the Gannahoek party on the top, who would have to approach from the south. But they were late – they had underestimated the distance they’d have to walk across the mountain top. The Van Dyks knew all six of them vaguely, as neighbours who inhabited the next valley. They all had memories of Olive. The family is still there, in Gannahoek.
So that was all who came to the second funeral of the world-famous authoress, Olive Schreiner. A handful. It was very strange, because there had been ten thousand present at her sister Het’s funeral in Cape Town.
It was even stranger, because there was no proper service, Cron and Olive being free-thinkers. Cron, trying hard not to break down, said some nice things about Olive, and South Africa, and its peoples, and also made a point of including the blacks. He had placed the laurel wreath carefully in front of the coffin.
> Then came the photographer’s turn: He was a painstaking man. Although the wind was cold, he took his time. First, there was a group shot of the whole party, including the blacks; then of the whites only. Susannah’s baby started crying; so she sat down in the shelter of the tomb to get out of the wind, and fed it.
When she returned, Mr Lidbetter was taking final photographs: of Cron and the coffins just before they were put into the sarcophagus: the coffins of Olive, the baby and Nita with Cron, standing like a dutiful sentry over them. It made an unusually sad and grim family group.
Then Susannah had another inspiration. Cron had spoken about immortality and new life, and had wanted her child to bear his name, so she offered her full-fed baby to him to hold – a sort of living symbol of the fulfilment of all his hope and longing.
He took it in his arms from Kantoni. The baby sensed the transfer to someone not used to handling babies, and started a nervous whine. So Johanna mimed a rocking movement with her arms, which Cron imitated, smiling. The baby stopped crying. The photographer signalled that Cron must stand still for a moment. Which he did; but not being used to cradling babies, he lifted a knee to support his forearm, and so inadvertently put his foot on the head of Olive’s coffin. The picture was no longer so awful, so grim. The camera clicked.