by Andre Brink
When at last the flood spills me on a dry bank, I look at Thando through dishevelled hair – like a moth, I suspect, peering through the broken silk of its cocoon as it approaches the blinding light of day – and shake my head. ‘I don’t know what’s come over me.’ With the back of my hand I wipe my face, too exhausted, too relieved, to feel embarrassed.
‘Here.’ He shakes out a handkerchief which through the prism of tears seems as big as a tablecloth – the sudden smell, again, of freshly laundered, ironed linen – and offers it to me. ‘I did the same when I visited my parents’ graves for the first time.’
‘I messed up your waistcoat.’
‘Good. We can all do with some messing up.’
‘Don’t we have enough of a mess already in this place?’
‘Not the right kind. We still need the mess of forgiveness.’
‘I always thought forgiveness was a tidying up.’
‘It depends. True forgiveness opens you up to all the darkness in yourself. It must be something like this house, don’t you think, when it suffered the forgiveness of fire.’
‘I wish you were my grandfather.’ I smile, thrusting the crumpled handkerchief into his hand. ‘Why don’t we two just adopt each other?’
‘I must warn you I’m a very difficult old man.’
‘I think I’m a difficult young woman. I’m sure it will be a good match. Then you can come and live here with me. Happily ever after.’
‘No. Happily ever after sounds too much like heaven. And that, I think, must be unbearable to old sinners like us.’
‘Do you have children, Thando?’
He shakes his head slowly. ‘I had two sons. Both died. One here in the country, in detention. The other in a raid in Lusaka.’ He squeezes my hand. ‘That was what I cried for, you know, the day I went to our graveyard. For the graves that were there, yes, but especially for the graves that were missing.’ He takes me by the elbow. ‘And now we must go in. If you are ready?’
We find Sam and Mongane in the kitchen with Trui.
‘Where is Nomaza?’ I ask.
Trui motions upstairs. ‘You all right?’ she asks, clearly worried by my looks.
‘I’m better than I’ve been for a long time, Trui.’
‘Mongane and I are going to have a word with her son,’ says Sam. ‘You two go upstairs.’
We find Nomaza beside the coffin, talking eagerly. I haven’t had time to warn Thando about the coffin, but he shows no surprise.
He bends over and gently raises Ouma’s hand to his lips.
‘What is this?’ asks Ouma. ‘A wake?’
‘I’ve been wanting very much to meet you,’ says Thando.
‘I hope you haven’t come to commiserate,’ says Ouma. She winks mischievously at me. ‘This woman can’t stop talking about what a terrible thing it is that’s happened to me. I keep telling her it’s nonsense. If it took an explosion to bring you back home then it was a stroke of luck.’
‘It’s not a stroke of luck if it kills you, Ouma!’ I protest.
She pretends not to have heard me. ‘Who are these people, Kristien?’ she asks. ‘You said they were friends.’
‘They’re from the ANC, Ouma. They’ve come to try and calm the district down after all that’s happened since the bomb.’
‘ANC?’ She looks from one to the other. ‘You don’t look like terrorists to me.’
‘No more than you are,’ I tell her.
‘If they’re like me they must be dangerous.’ She nods slowly. ‘So you’re here to close the old books and write the new chapter.’
‘Write a new chapter, yes,’ says Thando. ‘Close the old books, no. We can’t imagine the future by pretending to forget the past.’
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Kristien,’ says Ouma. ‘I’m not sure she understands. I’m telling her stories. Giving her back her memory.’ She shakes her head slowly. ‘But there’s been such a lot of blood in this country. Sometimes I wonder whether it’s not going to prove too much for us.’ She corrects herself, ‘For you, I mean: I’ll be out of it.’
‘That’s what we’ll be working on,’ says Thando. ‘We owe it to people like yourself, you see.’
Ouma turns her pale eyes to Nomaza. ‘Will you be in the new government too?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Good. We need the women. So much of the blood could have been avoided if we’d been there, you know.’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ says Nomaza. ‘Many others too.’
‘It will be tough. It will be painful.’
‘I think I can take it,’ Nomaza says quietly. ‘I’ve had my share of pain. But that’s beside the point.’
‘That’s not beside the point,’ says Ouma firmly. ‘Tell me.’
‘I’ve been in exile. I’ve lost my husband. And a child. And many friends of course.’ She seems impatient. ‘But we’re not here to talk about my life. It’s you we’ve come to see.’
But Ouma will not be discouraged so easily. ‘What work have you been doing?’
‘Since I came back I’ve been working with the wives of migrant workers.’ She hesitates, still reluctant to accept the spotlight Ouma has turned on her; then decides it’s worth it. ‘They’re the ones who hold the whole community together, Mrs Basson. Yet no one takes them seriously. It’s always expected of us black women to honour our men more than ourselves, to regard their sacrifices as more important than our own.’
‘What else is new?’ asks Ouma in a modish turn of phrase that makes me smile.
‘Unless we are taken seriously now, we can’t hope for a better deal later. And since no one’s going to do it for us, we have to do it ourselves.’
Ouma slowly turns her head to look at me. ‘And what are you going to do, Kristien?’
I try to move out of her field of vision, but she has her eyes fixed on me. ‘I still have decisions to make, Ouma.’
‘Don’t wait too long,’ she says crisply.
‘She’ll be all right,’ Thando comes to my defence. ‘I’ve taken a good look at this one. She comes from the right stock.’
‘I should hope so.’ An impish smile. ‘I wish we had the time, I’d have liked to tell you the stories I’ve been subjecting her to.’
‘I’d like to trade stories with you,’ he says.
‘We’ll do that when we’re dead. We’ll have all the time in the world.’
‘That’s a date then,’ says Thando.
Soon after that they take their leave. Ouma is almost regretful to see them go. I accompany them downstairs.
Sam and Mongane are waiting in the kitchen, with Trui and her family. ‘I want you to meet my husband and my son too,’ she says, nudging the two forward. ‘And this,’ she tells them, quite unnecessarily, ‘is now the other people from the ANC.’ As if she’s been hobnobbing all her life.
‘Have you had your talk?’ I ask Jonnie.
He smiles with new confidence. ‘Ja, we’ll be seeing each other just after the elections.’
‘All set up,’ confirms Mongane.
We make small talk for a while; Trui and Nomaza immediately hit it off, and when Nomaza compliments her on her son Trui becomes an ally for life. Jonnie appears embarrassed but flattered; even Jeremiah emerges briefly from his inherent solemnity.
Then it is time for the visitors to go. Mongane smiles brightly as he takes his leave. His double handshake is easy and relaxed. I decide that I like the man – unlike Vusi he has nothing to prove. Thando puts his arm around me and turns to Trui. ‘You look after this one,’ he tells her, hugging me. ‘She’s now my granddaughter.’
As Sam opens the car doors for them, I kiss Nomaza goodbye on the cheek. ‘It was good of you to come. For the town, and for Ouma.’
‘I wouldn’t have missed her for anything. Now about that question she asked you –’ Somehow I knew she wasn’t going to let this pass. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I wish I could tell you. That’s about as much as I can say. I’m
confused.’
‘About what?’
‘About myself. About the country. About you.’
‘Me?’
‘Not you personally. I trust you.’ Why should I not make a clean breast? ‘But the whole new government. Not all of them will be like you and Thando and Sandile and Mongane.’
‘Of course not,’ she says. ‘You’ve seen enough of the struggle to realise it takes all kinds. You of all people should know.’
‘There will be many like Vusi around.’
‘You don’t like him?’
‘I cannot trust him. He is too smooth. He can’t wait to lay his hands on power. And he dislikes women.’
‘He couldn’t keep his eyes off you,’ she says.
‘You know very well that’s not what I’m talking about.’
She looks relieved; smiles her generous knowing woman’s smile. ‘I wanted to hear you say that.’
‘Perhaps I have an answer for you,’ says Thando, taking my arm. ‘In one of Boccaccio’s stories a Jew thinks of becoming a Catholic and he asks the priests what he should do. “Go to Rome,” they tell him. So he goes. And comes back a Christian. “Good,” they say, “the devotion of our people in Rome must have persuaded you.” No, he replies. When he came to Rome he saw the Church in all its debauchery and corruption and worldliness. Priests living in sin, nuns with children, the Holy Father himself a miscreant. And so he thought, a church which commits all these wrongs and yet has managed to survive a thousand years must have something going for it.’ Thando smiles and enfolds me in his huge embrace. ‘Think about it. By the way, are you going to vote on Wednesday?’
‘I haven’t even thought about it. I’m a British citizen now.’
‘You’re a born South African, you qualify,’ says Sam. ‘If you need documents, let me know.’
‘Go well,’ I tell them all.
‘Salani kahle,’ says Thando. ‘Stay well.’
‘Why do you greet me in the plural?’ I ask, intrigued.
‘Because you’re not alone. You have all your ghosts with you.’
A minute later they are gone. Without the customary din of birds bedding down, the farm sinks into a deep silence.
Waiting for me at the kitchen door, Jonnie still wears his new smile like something he has taken on appro; Jeremiah looks more subdued, pensive; Trui puts a conspiratorial hand on my shoulder and steers me away from the others, into the house.
‘Now which one is he? I hope it’s Mongane, the others are too old for you.’
‘Which one is who?’ I ask.
‘The one you said you wanted to marry when you were over there.’
I close my eyes for a moment. ‘He didn’t come.’
‘But you said –’
‘It’s all right. I saw him earlier today. But he had other business in the district this afternoon.’
‘Ag, shame, man.’ She takes me in her arms. ‘But I’m sure you will see him again.’
‘Perhaps.’ I struggle free and put on a smile. ‘Actually it all went very well, Trui. It’s better this way.’
‘Tsk.’ She grins wryly. ‘And now I was so friendly with them and all, just because I thought one of them was your man.’
‘What did you think of them?’
‘They’re very nice,’ she says. ‘Not what I expected at all. They’re just like white people, only they’re black.’
8
OUMA IS WAITING for me when I enter. It is dark already. It has been a momentous day; and it is not yet over. I have had a walk, I’ve taken a shower to revive myself. What has happened still clings to my skin, dry and insidious as dust, entering through my pores. But it is time now for my hour, my several hours, with Ouma. The nurse has made her comfortable for the night. Even though I should by now be used to her lying in the coffin, I still find it disturbing. Yet she seems serene, hands folded on her sunken chest, one swathed in bandages, the other free. She is barely breathing, but her eyes are open. And when she notices me, she gives the happiest little smile I have seen on her face this past week.
‘Come in, Kristien,’ she says. ‘I’ve been waiting for you. We have a guest.’
I stop to inspect the room, surprised, a bit annoyed. But I see nobody.
‘On the bed,’ she says. ‘It’s Wilhelmina, can’t you see? You’ve asked to meet her.’
‘Ouma, really –’ But I am conscious of a tingling feeling on my face.
‘I know you think I tend to exaggerate. So I’ve asked her to tell you her own story.’
‘She isn’t here, Ouma,’ I say as gently as possible. ‘I don’t see anyone.’
‘Those are two quite different things.’ She sighs. ‘All right, I’ll do it then. Sit down where I can see you. But not on the bed, Wilhelmina needs all the space she can get.’
I pull over the nurse’s low chair. In spite of myself I glance at the empty bed; to my dismay it does seem to be sagging, as if straining under a heavy weight. I turn the chair sideways to shut out the bed from my field of vision, and yield to the swell of Ouma’s new tale.
Wilhelmina was the only woman in our family who actually played a part in recorded history. Not because she went on the Great Trek, many others did the same; but because she was not content to remain in the shadows and allow the men to make their habitual mess of things. She intervened. She became involved. She took charge. For some time at least. And then – but let me not get ahead of my story.
You already know something about her childhood with her mother Samuel. Not an easy way to grow up: a time of almost incessant war along the frontier: thousands of Xhosa expelled from the Suurveld on the Colony side to make room for white colonists with their cattle; massive reprisals; even more massive counterattacks; murder and mayhem, large tracts of land and many homesteads going up in flames; one Cape governor after the other blundering straight into the confusion and conflict to sow even greater confusion and conflict; the arrival of a few thousand British settlers in 1820, poor unsuspecting victims dumped in the wilderness to populate a buffer zone between the warring nations; thousands of uprooted Khoikhoi vagrants swarming across the eastern districts, denied a right to the land, and turning to arson and plunder to avenge themselves; all of this exacerbated by the attempts, alternately visionary and misguided, of missionaries to reconcile the work of God and the shortsightedness or the greed of man. Representatives of most of these fractious peoples, at one time or another, turned up on the farms where Wilhelmina lived with her mother – first among the rowdy crowd of Steenkamps on the bank of the Riet River; later, after Marga had joined them, beyond the Great Fish River in what to the colonists was ‘enemy territory’. But their farm was a neutral zone, and quite remarkably acknowledged as such by the warring groups. If they had any real allies these came from among the Xhosa, who treated the household of females with great respect, even with affection; at the same time, through ties of blood and language, the women got along with the frontier boers. The real, and ultimately the only, enemy was the English – not so much the wretched Settlers who were engaged in much the same struggle for survival as their Dutch counterparts, but the faceless rulers in Cape Town who dictated from afar and whose representatives in that remote part of the country were officious magistrates and high-handed public servants.
But Wilhelmina’s successive ordeals occurred on a much more personal level: the wars and raids and rampages happened on the periphery of their existence, occasionally spilling briefly across their private territory but always moving on again to more distant destinations. What Wilhelmina had to contend with was, initially, the loneliness of an existence in the bush, with only her mother Samuel, herself lost in her own thoughts and guilts and yearnings; afterwards the rough and tumble of the uncouth crowd of Steenkamp boys, among whom she was forced to hold her own through feats of physical strength and prowess; still later the much more subtle threat of another woman vying for her mother’s love.
Of these tests those of strength and agility were the easiest: Wilhelmina was
a sturdy lass who’d been initiated by her early Xhosa mentors into the mysteries of the veld; and among the battering, bullying boys an indomitable will to survive, linked to the skill and strength of her body, soon taught her to outrun, outwrestle, outfight and outshoot the best of them. Even as a child her explosions of temper were legendary. Through bloodied noses, plucked-out hair, pulverised toes, bruised groins, twisted ears and dislocated joints they soon learned to respect the young lady in their midst. It was to stand her in good stead through the rest of her life.
By far the most agonising problem of her youth was her relationship with Samuel. Wilhelmina’s mother was a difficult man. This was presumably the crux of the matter. I doubt whether the girl ever really grasped the full extent of the intricate territory inhabited by her mother. She was taught to address Samuel as ‘Father’; she was never allowed to divulge the secret of her sex to others; yet in the unavoidable bodily contact she had with Samuel there must have been an intimation of a different kind of presence altogether, physical, emotional, spiritual. No wonder she was confused. And all the more so after Marga became part of their joint and several lives.
On the whole Wilhelmina treated Marga with suspicion. But this was never an uncomplicated emotion. Because Marga also brought the greater immediacy of an acknowledged female presence; even more important, perhaps, Marga taught her to read from the Bible and the odd copy of the Gazette or the Commercial Advertiser that found its way into the interior on the wagon of some trader. And her feelings of gratitude were hard to reconcile with resentment. Situations arose which could not be resolved through physical confrontation.