A Chain of Voices

by Andre Brink

  He made himself as comfortable as he could on the woodpile next to the baking oven, keeping his raw back away from the wall. “Did you know,” he said, staring past me into the mist as if he could see right through the mountains, “did you know there was a place where slaves can run away to, where nobody ever finds them again?”

  “Where’s that place?”

  “Across the Great River. There’s a whole lot of them there.”

  “I’ve seen what happens to slaves who run away.”

  He paid no attention: only sat there staring at things I couldn’t see, making me feel quite uncomfortable; and when he spoke he seemed to be talking to himself. About a man in irons he’d met in the jail at the Drostdy, and who’d got away in the fog. About a slave who’d run amok in the Cape and whose head had been put up on a spike for the vultures to pick clean.

  “Just forget about it, will you,” I said. “You back home again now.”

  “Yes, I’m back,” he said. “But my heart isn’t back.”

  I’d seen other slaves before him with that expression in their eyes, as if they couldn’t see what was happening right there in front of them; and it worried me because I’d always been fond of Galant. “Pull yourself together, man,” I said. “We’ve all been flogged before. It’s not so bad.”

  “It’s not the flogging.” Once again he stared right through me. “Abel,” he said, “you call this a life?”

  I laughed, but there was an uneasy feeling in me. “What else do you expect? I’m not saying it’s easy or it’s all right. But we got our bit of fun, don’t we? You can still drink your mug of tea. You can have your honey-beer, or even your brandy if you’re sharp. You can puff a bit of dagga when the world looks bad. And there’s women too.”

  “You think it’s enough?”

  “I don’t think anything. But it’s the same for everybody. You get born, you live a while, and then you die. Me, you, the lot of us. What’s so bad about it?”

  He was staring into the drizzle again, his eyes screwed up against the thin wind. “We’re stuck in it.”

  “It’s just because you got a raw back on you that you talking like this,” I said. “Why don’t you ask Ma-Rose for some herbs and stuff when you ride by her place just now, then it’ll be all over in a couple of days.”

  “You still think I care about my back!” He stood up as if he had an itch in his ass. “There’s something I don’t understand at all, Abel. When they untied me from that post in Tulbagh I could kill Nicolaas with my bare hands, I tell you. But as I’m standing here right now—you know what’s the worst of it?—that I even feel sorry for him.” Shaking with anger he spat, almost hitting me. “I don’t understand it, Abel. I don’t understand nothing no more.”

  “I’ll fetch you some more tea.”

  “I don’t want no bloody tea!” He pushed past me; but then he came back. “Abel, you think that man in the irons managed to get away?”

  “How must I know?”

  “I’m asking you. I got to know. He was sitting beside me all night. He was like a lion in the dark. And last night, when the fog came down, I kept on thinking: ‘If only he can get away in this fog they’ll never find him again. He’ll reach the Great River.’ Now how do you explain that? I’m asking you. I want him to get away. Not just for his own sake. For mine too. And if he can’t—”

  “You can’t go on eating out your head like this, Galant.”

  He didn’t even hear me. “As I was sitting there beside him I kept wishing the whole damn building would fall in so the man could get away. I never wished anything so hard in my life.”

  Strange that he should have spoken about the building, I thought afterwards. For only a couple of days later we got the news from over the mountains that there had been a terrible storm at Tulbagh: and as far as I could make out it must have happened the very night after Galant had left. The whole front gable of the Drostdy, we were told, had cracked, all the way from the foundations upward, so that the rain fell right through to the cellar. Almost all the windows were blown in. The pillars of the back stoop had been washed away, as well as some outbuildings.

  In a way the news seemed to comfort Galant when we next spoke about it. But that wasn’t the end of it. Nothing is ever over when it’s done. It’s like water running, and then the stream dries up: but below the ground it continues on its way, invisible to the eye, and in the most unexpected places it comes out again. In the late winter, when the North-wester was at its worst, Frans du Toit who’d just been made Field-cornet brought a report that because of the bad damage to the buildings in Tulbagh the Drostdy was being closed and the Landdrost was to be moved to Worcester. Imagine: almost a whole day’s journey further. I suppose, I said to Galant, they did it just to make it more difficult for him to complain next time. But he didn’t find it funny. Anyway, the move hit the masters as badly, for in order to pay for the rain damage a new tax was levied on the slaves, all the way from Worcester and Tulbagh, through the Warm Bokkeveld and the Cold Bokkeveld, to the most distant mountains: two rix dollars on every one of us, man and woman; and a couple of shillings on every child. Right, I thought, let the bloody Dutchmen pay. But Baas Barend was so mad we all had to stay out of his way. Fortunately it was just about that time when the Nooi had her second child, another boy, which caused the Baas to forget about his anger as he strutted about the farm as if he was the only man who’d ever had a son. We were all given a double sopie of brandy, and a special sheep was slaughtered, and that night the fiddle sang and cried again like a woman in rut.

  It gave me the feeling again. I don’t understand this itch in a man, but that’s the way it is: in the early days when I had to come all the way from Wagendrift to Elandsfontein to be with Sarie a week was almost too long to be without her. Joy is but a finger’s length and I could think of nothing else than to get back to her and ride her again. But now that I had her to myself, nightly available, a desire for other women returned to me. It was Pamela’s wetness I lusted for. Just after she’d come to Houd-den-Bek I’d been with her a few times: not much, she wasn’t easy to tame. But of course that only added to my heat. But unlike other women whose no could turn to yes just like that Pamela kept the men at bay, including me. That fig wasn’t there just for the picking. I’d soon discovered that she was really eyeing Galant, but after his break with Bet he was still keeping away from women, fool that he was. And so I got it in me to pay Pamela another visit that night.

  “Where you going?” said Klaas as I led the horse from the stable.

  “Riding.”

  “You looking for trouble again.”

  “I’m looking for fun. Stay out of my way.”

  For a while I rode very slowly so as not to be heard from the house. But once I was out of earshot I kicked the horse to a gallop. Even so, the fires were already down by the time I reached Houd-den-Bek. But I woke up the people and gave them a tune on my fiddle. Old Achilles brought out his oldest honey-beer and soon most of them were dancing. Only Galant didn’t join in. No matter: my aim was Pamela, sitting there opposite me, the light of the new fire dancing on her pale brown skin, the cheekbones, the shoulders, the round nippled breasts that trembled when she moved, a trembling like that of water barely touched by wind; enough to make a man’s spine grow rigid.

  But Pamela did not feel that way inclined, and when I pressed the matter Galant interfered angrily: “Let the woman be, can’t you see she’s otherwise?” So I had to unload on Lydia who was always available; except she would just lie there like a joint of meat on her feather mattress, waiting for a man to get it over and depart. It left one with an insipid taste in the mouth; and I felt very gloomy on the way home, plodding through the night, fiddle over my shoulder. The lust had gone; only weariness remained. I thought: What’s the use? A night is short, and then it’s day again.

  The day turned out even worse than usual, for Klaas had split on me as I m
ight have expected; so there was another fallout with Baas Barend. And for the first time I remembered what Galant had said the day he’d come back from Tulbagh: “It’s not the flogging.” Now I began to understand. Indeed, it was not the flogging. Yet what it was I couldn’t tell. Except that it had something to do with the fun of the previous night, the drinking and dancing and music; and then the dark road home. Not Pamela’s stand-offishness. Not at all. Something else, something much more complicated. The Baas had had a son, so he’d encouraged us to break out and enjoy ourselves. For one night we were free to indulge, to abandon ourselves to music and joy, wilder than wild hemp and sweeter than bush-tea, its taste lingering on the tip of the tongue. But once it was over one had to turn back to the yoke. Always back. Always the same. At the end of every joyous road: the Baas and his sjambok.

  Perhaps I was beginning to understand a bit more, then, about Galant and his torn jacket. And I was more prepared than before to discuss things with him. It certainly was a time when a lot of talking went on all over the place. For the newspapers were stirring up trouble again in our parts; and whenever one of them made its way through the Bokkeveld you might know in advance that Galant would be in a black mood. Something was building up again, as I gathered from old Ontong and the others. And when the next harvest came there was another quarrel between him and Baas Nicolaas. Soon after the fruit had been brought in, just before the beans, he went all the way to Worcester to complain. It was Pamela who told me, when I went to Houd-den-Bek one night to have another go at her; and this time she told me outright: “No. I’m lying with Galant now.” Of course I left her alone after that. It was a bad time for me anyway, for that was when Baas Barend took me to Cape Town with him.

  The Nooi was supposed to go with, but she was obstinate. Sarie told me about the quarrel, she’d heard it all. “You’ve got to come with me,” Baas Barend said to the Nooi. “There’s nowhere else you can go while I’m away.” “I’m not going anywhere,” the Nooi replied. “I’m staying right here with my children.” And that was that, for the Nooi never took orders from anyone; and rather than keep on nagging her the Baas loaded the wagon and the two of us rode off, leaving Klaas behind to run the farm. For once I was happy not to be mantoor. A second wagon came from Houd-den-Bek, driven by the two youngsters Thys and Rooy: Baas Nicolaas didn’t go with us as he’d been to the Cape the year before and there was an arrangement between the brothers to take turns so there would always be one of them to keep an eye on the farms.

  Away from home, all alone with the wagons, Baas Barend and I got along very well. And in the evenings by the fire, after Thys and Rooy had done their chores, I used to play my fiddle for them. The Baas enjoyed that. He seemed to loosen up on the trip, not only towards me but in his hold on himself too. And the music, I think, helped. One night, I remember, when the Baas got properly drunk, he told me: “Abel, you really know how to tickle a man’s insides. We’ll be going a long road together, the two of us, I can see that. We belong together.” Then I brought the bow back to the strings and in that music we sat together till the morning star came out.

  All the way to the Cape life was fine; and even better once we got there. Drinking and cavorting night after night; splendid blow-ups with other slaves at the water pump, and throwing dice and fights with knives and kieries, the lot. But best of all was the cock-fights every afternoon in the stone quarry below the Lion’s Rump. Especially Sundays. All the slaves of the Cape crowding round the cocks in the hollow while a few men kept watch, as the constables could make life difficult if they came upon one unawares. Some of the cock-men had been running their business for generations, handing down their tricks from father to son. Once the cocks were let loose, wings flapping and spurs flying, it was blood and feathers everywhere. The crowd roaring and shouting and screaming and jumping up and down. For those cocks were big business. There were men in that quarry, I was told, who’d risked flogging and prison sentences to steal a few shillings they could bet on the fighters. And with my own eyes, one Sunday afternoon, I saw a man from Constantia, his name was Josua, betting and losing his wife and three children on the cocks. Just like that.

  It’s with sadness I remember it, for that was how I lost my fiddle, the very same Sunday.

  “Why you coming here day after day just looking?” they asked me. “It’s not a show, it’s money business.”

  “What can I put up then?” I asked them.

  “Whatever you got,” they said.

  I started with the handful of rix dollars I’d got for my jackal and lynx pelts. But the other man’s fighter, a fierce little red fellow, tore mine to a messy little bundle of feathers. By that time the urge was already in my blood and when the last two cocks of the day were brought out I put up my fiddle.

  At first I didn’t feel so bad about losing it, for the winner, a thin stick of a man called Achmat, assured me I could try to win it back the next afternoon; if not, he’d be prepared to sell it back to me for five rix dollars. All I could dream about that night was the fighting cocks. Couldn’t wait to get back to that quarry. But when I told Baas Barend about it he got so angry he refused to let me go, let alone lend me five rix dollars for the fiddle. And when I kept on pleading with him—for it gave me a terrible shock when I thought about really losing my music—he gave me a clout in the face, and that in front of Thys and Rooy. Back home, on our own farm, it was different: there he could do what he wished. But in that town square in front of two youngsters still wet behind the ears I took it badly. A proper blow with the fist might have been all right too; but not a slap. That was the way one dealt with women and children, not grown men. To make it worse, Baas Barend appointed Thys and Rooy to keep an eye on me so I wouldn’t slink off to get my fiddle back. And purely out of spite he ordered us to make ready for the return journey two days sooner than we’d planned.

  “My God, Baas,” I pleaded with him. “I can’t leave that fiddle behind.”

  “Serves you right for gambling it away.”

  “Baas!”

  I wondered whether he regretted his own hastiness on the way back, those quiet sullen evenings around the fire with not the slightest sound of music to cheer us up; but he never mentioned it. It must have been the first time in my life I kept silent for a full week, saying not a single word apart from yes or no in reply to a direct question.

  All right, so it was my own fault. I’d gambled and lost, just like that poor fool Josua who’d put up his wife and children. So what? I could have won that damn fiddle back. Achmat had said so. I’d had the chance. But the Baas had stopped me.

  As we got back to the farm Sarie and the others came running out to meet the wagons. “Hell, Abel,” they said. “We been missing you, man. This place is quiet without you. Tonight you going to play the fiddle for us again, hey?”

  “Fuck off,” I said. And I sent them away and rode Sarie. It was all I could do. But my heart was crying for that fiddle that had been my friend for so many years.

  Looking back now it seems to me that the trip to Cape Town and our return to the farm marked the end of a term of my life. Not that we had any lack of fun afterwards: I even made a new fiddle and although it wasn’t the same sound it was better than silence; and we still had drink and women. But something had been shut off as if a gate had been closed behind me.

  The newspapers were coming thick and fast; and every time a new one had gone the rounds in the Bokkeveld we could see a difference in the masters: in the looks they gave us; the unexpected rebuffs; the way they bunched together talking and gesticulating, and falling silent the moment one of us drew near. It hit Galant badly, I could see that: worse than most of the others, for he’d always had a thing about newspapers. In the earlier days one could ignore the papers: what did they really matter?—one could still have all the fun one needed, there was no need to cut out the music or the drinking or the boisterous riding of women. But something had changed and a shadow was moving acr
oss our veld, something you couldn’t lay your hand on. It was like water oozing into the ground; reappearing when you least expected it.

  There were funny moments too, admittedly. I could kill myself laughing about Frans du Toil and the newspaper: but Galant saw nothing ticklish in it and so he never told me the full story. But as far as I could make out, Baas Nicolaas had gone to Lagenvlei that day, his mother being ill or something; and Frans du Toit arrived in his absence with the latest newspaper. He must have been pissed, he’d always been fond of his sopie and over the years it had grown worse, which is what happens to a man without a wife. What woman would have him, with the birthmark on his face? No wonder he started behaving like that. His weakness was well known all over the Bokkeveld, and mothers usually made sure their daughters were out of the way when the poor man was around. And it was just because he was so thick with the English in Worcester, they said, that he’d been made Field-cornet: nobody in our part of the world would have chosen him if they’d had a say in it. So there he was, arriving at Houd-den-Bek, dead drunk and rinding nobody at home; and as he stumbled about in search of someone to leave the paper with he came round the pigsty: so it was he and the sow. It was Frans du Toit and the sow and a hell of a mess in the dung and the mud; and when Galant came upon it, he was promptly ordered to hold down the pig. I wouldn’t have cared a damn if it had been me, I’d known about his weakness all along, we’d grown up together; but Galant was the hell in, especially when Nicolaas turned up unexpectedly and chased the man off his farm, trousers round the ankles, leaving the newspaper hopelessly fouled up in the mud, with all its new tidings about the slaves and the Government. I laughed fit to kill myself when I heard about it, but Galant just sulked. And it was only after we’d discussed it that I started seeing it his way and thought that maybe it wasn’t so funny after all; maybe a man should rather cry. For a white man is supposed to be master, and to see him galloping off like that with his bare white ass bobbing up and down on the saddle and the scared sow squealing in the mud, must have been a sight to set a man thinking about things. If it went on like that we might soon have to say Baas and Nooi to the pigs.