A Chain of Voices

by Andre Brink

  “Come on, Barend, up you get.”

  The Oubaas doesn’t let a man off so easily. This time the men try to hold on for a bit longer before they let go. Barend has time to pull up his knees and to dig his heels firmly into the great animal’s flanks. But once again the horse pulls in his neck and kicks up his hind legs, throws him back into the dung, landing this time against the wooden gate which winds him.

  “Come on, Barend, what’s the matter with you?”

  After the third fall Barend refuses to get up again, defying even his father’s ready sjambok. Tears have formed white streaks in the green dung covering his face.

  “You try, Nicolaas.”

  Nicolaas is four years younger, not nearly as strong as Barend, and almost before he’s started he finds himself back on the ground, a sorry bundle. Now it’s Ontong’s turn, and he is an old hand at breaking horses, a knack they say he’s brought from Batavia. But Ontong is also thrown, after a single raging gallop round the kraal; and before he can be caught again the stallion clears the wall in one wild bound and is gone. It takes two full days to track him down and bring him to the kraal again.

  Once more the Oubaas orders Barend to get on the horse. And when he lands in the dung the first time, head first, his father wallops him with the sjambok on his up-ended unprotected backside. Another try; another landing with a thud and a skid. In spite of the sjambok Barend refuses to get up again. Then Nicolaas. Then Ontong. And each time a rider comes flying through the air something inside me jumps with joy and I feel like shouting: That’s it, that’s it, my beauty, throw the lot of them, for you’re mine.

  Suddenly the Oubaas says: “Your turn, Galant.”

  A rush of fear numbs me. I can feel my knees knocking together. How can anyone be expected to ride lightning or the wind?

  “What does he know about riding?” asks Barend, still shaking with angry sobs and nursing a bloody knee.

  “Let him try.”

  “It’ll be the death of him,” says Ontong, clearly upset.

  “No. Let him try.”

  I scramble on to the back of the grey while they hold him tight, catching the rein round my wrist in a loop and drawing up my knees in a firm grip. My eyes are misty and I can feel my stomach rising to my throat, but somehow I manage to croak: “All right, let him go.”

  Like a blue flash he bolts with me. Holding on like a tick, thinking of nothing else except to stay put, I survive the first few bucking rounds in the kraal. For brief breathless moments it feels as if he’s sprouted wings, as if we’re soaring right across the wall and the mountains. Then it’s down again, my ass hitting the saddle in a blow fit to crunch a backbone. Once I land on my balls, sending a taste of green gall into my mouth, blacking out my eyes. Still I manage to hold on, thinking grimly: Even if you kill me I won’t let go. Up he goes again. Then down, head drawn in, hind legs thrown into the air. It feels as if my arms are plucked right from their sockets. But I hold on.

  He makes a rush straight at the gate, obviously intending to throw his full weight against it and crush me. Just in time someone flings it wide open, tumbling head-over-heels out of the way. And there we go. I’ve never known a horse to run like that. Thundering across the veld, drawing a stream of tears from my eyes. Very suddenly, he stops, nearly shooting me right over his head. Another bout of rearing and bucking. Then he sets off towards the dam, galloping madly, the booming of his hooves drowning out all other sound. All right, I think, drown me if you wish. I still won’t let go. For now I’ve recognized the frenzy in him and I know he’s scared too, and of me. We charge into the dam at full speed, spraying us with mud and water. If he decides to roll over now, I think, I’ll be drowned. But I swear to all the gods of Ma-Rose and the Oubaas: if he does that I’ll hold him under until he drowns with me.

  At that moment, in the middle of his maddest madness, he suddenly stops dead. For a moment the great body remains tense. Then I can feel the muscles relax, trembling like water.

  “Come on,” I say gently. And when we reach the side of the dam, I say: “Hoho,” parting him on the neck. His whole body stands shivering beneath me. He is flecked with foam, white with saltpetre. With wobbly legs I slide from his back and blindly pluck handfuls of grass to rub him dry. He makes no move, utters no sound, only stands there shivering as if in cold. After a long time I take the reins and begin to lead him back to the yard. In the distance I can see the men running towards me from the kraal. They must have expected to find me dead. As I reach them, they stand aside in silence to let me pass. I lead the grey to the gate of the kraal. But there is no feeling in me. It is as if something has died inside me the moment the fury left him. As meek as a donkey he follows me into the kraal, while a desperate urge inside me silently shouts at him to break loose again, for God’s sake, and to gallop away to where no one, not even I, will ever find him again. But the madness has gone from him. One can see it in his eyes, moist and round and mild as any cow’s.

  “Well done, Galant,” says the Oubaas. “You’ve broken him in properly. You can have him now.”

  “No,” I stammer bluntly, angrily. “It’s Barend’s horse.”

  Let him have it, I think as I stumble away from them. For I swear I’ll never forgive the grey stallion for this. To have allowed himself to be broken in so shamefully. I walk back to the dam and hurl myself into the water, trying ridiculously to drown myself; then lying, panting, on the side to recover, wishing something would wipe out the memory of this miserable day. By the time Barend and Nicolaas come to join me there is no anger left, only a dull sadness which I will not share with them.

  The dam has its own way of soothing grief; it is as motherly as Ma-Rose. Our tracks lie all over the farm; but it is to the dam we always return. A gritty mudwall on the lower side, a grass-covered slope above; and willows with the nests of weaver-birds hanging down almost to the surface of the muddy water. These nests are constantly raided: and more than once there’s a snake curled up inside. Then you simply let go and tumble back into the water shrieking with exquisite fright. I’m always the one sent to scout for snakes before the others follow; likewise, I must test the springy branches to make sure they will support our weight. If one breaks, I am the one to fall, while they dance and roll about laughing. But it doesn’t put me off. As long as the nests are there we will go after them. At other times we have mud fights, lasting until only the whites of our eyes are visible. Or we duck one another to see who can last longest, emerging more dead than alive since no one is prepared to give up first. Some days we take the dogs with us, the males, and hidden behind the mudwall reach for their pricks to pump them, feeling the tight muscle contract into a knob in our hands as each excitedly cheers on his victim, to see which will be the first to shoot: the tension heightened by a sense of danger, since some of them, as the spurting approaches, will snarl and snap at one without warning. Often, tired of games and swimming, we simply lie about naked on the grass, chewing reeds or rushes and staring up at the clouds to see who can make out the most unlikely shapes: a cow with a huge udder, a team of oxen, a wagon, a face, a grasping hand, a shoe, a woman’s breast, a heron, a hammerhead. Sometimes we linger so long that we forget about the work we have abandoned—birds are ravaging the wheatfields, and there are sheep to be rounded up, cows to be milked, wood to be chopped, a vegetable garden to be dug. And when we try to sneak back unnoticed, the Oubaas is there waiting.

  Not that it scares one off for long. The very next day we are back at the dam. It is of course easier for Barend and Nicolaas who have less work than I. Mine never really stops, and Achilles or Ontong is always there to keep an eye. But no matter how hard the work, I always slink back to the dam. That is where most of the footprints of my childhood lead to. And it is always best when Nicolaas and I are alone, which happens more often than not, for Barend has outgrown us very soon.

  One afternoon, still wet from swimming, the two of us start digging a ho
le into the earth wall on the lower side. At first we’re looking for a rat we’ve seen burrowing. But soon the rat is forgotten, yet our digging goes on. Deeper and deeper into the sand, our wet shoulders touching. The earth is waterlogged and crumbling, quite different from the hard clay near the outlet. Our feet, soles turned up, still feel the sun; behind us lies the whole afternoon world of weaver-birds and water; but here we’re burrowing into the gullet of the earth, as eager and untiring as worms.

  But suddenly the tunnel caves in on us. One moment we’re still digging and scooping: then there is a strange motion all around and everything is clogged with sand—eyes, nose, ears, mouth. Huddled together in shock, we try to push ourselves up into a kneeling position, to force open some breathing space. We’re going to die like this, I realize; and I no longer know whether it’s my body heaving and shuddering, or his.

  When at last I manage to cough and throw up, it is daylight again and I can see Ontong’s legs, and others, around us, standing like trees.

  “Please don’t tell Pa!” Nicolaas is pleading. “He’ll kill us. Won’t he, Galant?”

  “He’ll kill us dead,” I say, spitting and spluttering.

  Long after the men have left, the two of us remain there together in the darkening day, two boys who have discovered death together.

  That is what I cannot understand. For at this very dam where our tracks merge they also run apart, his in one direction, mine in another. And all because of the writing, it seems to me. Their mother, the Ounooi, has been teaching them for a long time to read and write: I know, because they always talk about it at the dam. And one day Nicolaas flattens a patch of the clay, and smooths it with his palm, and with a twig draws a series of strange marks on it, lines and curls and squiggles like the tracks of some small animal. “What’s this?” he challenges me. “How must I know?” I reply. “Looks like the spoor of a chameleon.”

  “It’s my name,” says Nicolaas. “See?—It spells Nicolaas.” It still looks rather suspect to me. “How come,” I say, “that you can be standing over there and your name is lying in the clay here?” He laughs again. “I tell you it’s my name.” He traces the separate marks: “Ni-co-laas.” Then he wipes it out and draws a new row of marks: “This is Barend’s name.” Whereupon Barend starts throwing mud at us, and the lesson gives way to our more usual cavorting in the water.

  But a few days later, when Barend is off into the veld with the Oubaas, I drag Nicolaas back to the dam. “Put down your name in the clay again,” I tell him.

  “Why?”

  “I want to see.”

  He shrugs, and draws the marks as he did before. For a long time I sit on my haunches studying them, tracing their outline with one finger.

  “Can you put down my name too?”

  “Of course.”

  “Show me.”

  He smooths a new square and draws new signs in the wet clay.

  “Is that my name?”

  “Yes. It says Galant.”

  I find it hard to believe. If you look down into a still pond you can see your own face looking up at you; and when you start moving to and fro, or pulling faces, that other you does the same. It’s a strange thing to see, but in a way one can understand it. But these tiny tracks marking my name, Galant, confuse me.

  “Leave it just like that,” I tell him when we undress for swimming. And, having covered the marks very carefully with leaves and twigs, I let them lie undisturbed until the next time when Barend is also with us. Without giving him any warning I uncover the marks and ask him point-blank: “What’s that?”

  “Why, it’s your name,” he says. “Galant.”

  So I know it must be true.

  “I want you to teach me to make those marks and to read them,” I ask Nicolaas.

  “All right,” he says.

  But Barend stops him rudely. “Why bother? He’s only a slave boy. What use is writing to him? It won’t help him to bring in the cattle or to cut wheat or chop wood.”

  “Will you teach me, Nicolaas?” I repeat.

  He stares at me with a little frown between his eyes. Absently, with a shrug of annoyance, he throws a pebble at a frog. “I suppose Barend is right,” he says at last. “Writing is no use to you at all, you know. Come on, see who’s in the water first.”

  That night one of the Bokkeveld’s wild thunderstorms breaks out over the farm; and when I return to the dam the next day there is no trace of the marks in the clay. It is as if they’ve never been there.

  “They don’t want to teach me to write, Ma-Rose,” I complain to her. “Will you show me?”

  “What do I know about writing? All my life I got on very well without. It’s just looking for trouble. You keep your eyes open and you’ll see: every time there’s a newspaper from the Cape the Oubaas is out of sorts for days and days.”

  The Cape must be a wonderful place; and the newspaper is a truly wonderful thing. When they talk about it they call it the Gazette; and by the very name you can hear it doesn’t belong to these parts. There’s no telling when it will come, that depends on who’s going to Tulbagh and for what. Sometimes there’s only one; but when a long time has passed there may be a whole stack, all of them thin and mysteriously folded. Then the Oubaas puts on the small round glasses he uses to read the Book at supper, and he drags his chair outside the kitchen door, and there he sits reading, frowning and mumbling by himself, for many hours. It’s better to stay out of his way on such days. Afterwards the newspaper is put away in a yellowwood kist in the front room, Ma-Rose tells me, so it must be very valuable. From time to time an old one, curiously yellowed, may reappear: in the wood-box beside the hearth, or for wrapping eggs when the wagon goes to Tulbagh. But mostly it is kept quite out of sight, and not to be touched by slave or Khoin, Ma-Rose warns, for it is a thing with a dark life of its own and she has no remedy for it.

  In the past it has never bothered me. But this once, after Nicolaas has refused to teach me, I decide to do the unthinkable. For days, for weeks perhaps, I stay on the prowl in the yard, keeping a close watch on all the comings and goings, until at last the Field-cornet arrives with a new newspaper. After allowing the Oubaas enough time to read right through it and vent his bad temper on everybody in sight, I wait for a chance to slip into the house and filch it from its hiding-place in the front room. It is thin enough to wear close to my skin, under my shirt, for fully five or six days, until I’m quite sure they won’t miss it anymore. Then, at last, all by myself in the veld with the sheep, I carefully take it out and unfold it on a flat rock, straightening out the worst creases. With my fingers I nudge and prod the rows upon rows of small black tracks running like ants across the smooth paper; I even press my face against it to smell it. But it says nothing to me. And yet I know only too well it must be speaking of the marvels of the Cape.

  Ever since their first visit Nicolaas and Barend are trying to outdo one another in their accounts of that distant, incredible place; and when they run out of stories I ply them with new questions, pumping their memories the way we pump the dogs behind the dam wall, until I’m left quite dazed with new thoughts and images. The streets crossing each other in straight lines, paved with flat stones. The Mountain, higher than any of ours, its top as flat as a table. The big dam they call the sea, endless, bigger than the whole Bokkeveld, its water alive and moving all the time. And ships taller than houses, arriving from lands beyond this sea, further than the horizon. Flags on the rump of the mountain, and a cannon booming every day at noon, scaring the pigeons in the streets. Horse races where one can win a fortune in a single day. People with splendid clothes and tall hats. Houses where you may buy anything you can think of. And even slaves, they say, are allowed to keep their own shops there and get rich; and although they go barefoot like us their clothes are as fine as any gentleman’s. Once Nicolaas brings me a scarf from the Cape, of fine red silk; another time it’s a conical hat; strange
things I’ve never held in my hands before. Some place, this Cape.

  “You wait,” I tell Ma-Rose at night. “One day I’m going there to see for myself.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says I.”

  “It’s not for you to say. It’s the Oubaas.”

  “The day I go to the Cape, Ma-Rose, I won’t ask anybody. I’ll just go. And I’ll take you with me.”

  “I’ve seen the place before.”

  “Is it really like Nicolaas says it is?”

  She sits staring through the open door of the hut to where the evening shadows are gathering. “Yes,” she says at last, her voice almost too low to hear. “Yes, the Cape is truly a wonderful place. But it’s not our place. It belongs to the Honkhoikwa, the White people.”

  “Why can’t it be ours too, Ma-Rose?”

  “That’s not for you to ask.”

  And in the silence of that maddening newspaper, spread open on the flat hard rock, I hear those taunting words again: in silence the rows of black ants run across the paper, telling wild stories of the place that haunts my dreams. But all they say to me is: It’s not for you to ask.

  I start shouting abuse at them, but they give no answer. Here’s a curse for the bloody cunt of your own mother! The small black tracks remain unmoved. In rage I start tearing the paper to shreds, crumpling the bits, trampling on them, hurling them against the wind, winnowing them like chaff so that they may blow to the end of the earth, back to the Cape they came from, into the blue flames of the Oubaas’s own hell.

  Yes, go to hell. I don’t need your goddamned newspaper. And why should I write my name on clay? I know it without seeing its marks. Galant is my name.