Child of the River

by Irma Joubert

  Sissie had the falling sickness. They all had to look out for her, Pérsomi’s ma said, because you could see when Sissie was about to get a fit. Then you had to make her lie down. The most important thing to remember, their ma said, was to put something between her teeth, or she would bite right through her tongue, which would be a very bad thing.

  Sometimes Sissie got the falling sickness at school. The first time it happened Pérsomi was in grade two. When Sissie began to jerk and kick like a rabid jackal, everyone ran away. Pérsomi noticed that her teachers were so flustered that they forgot to put something between Sissie’s teeth. Pérsomi told them to roll Sissie onto her back and hold her down. She took Meester Lampbrecht’s pointing stick and struggled to insert it between Sissie’s locked jaws. All the while Sissie looked at her with froth bubbling from her lips and wild eyes, as if she didn’t know Pérsomi at all.

  “You’re a very brave girl,” Meester told Pérsomi the next day. After that she was never afraid again when Sissie got the falling sickness.

  And Meester never ever raised his voice at her.

  Gerbrand had been gone for more than six months when Piet also left for Joburg, and Sissie began to cry at night. But not because she missed her brother.

  There was no one Pérsomi could talk to about it. “Heavens above, Pérsomi, sweep the front room and stop making up stories,” her ma said, tucking her red hair behind her ears.

  cinderella slept on the floor in front of

  the cold stove with the broken

  oven door she took care to sleep close

  to the back door so that she

  could run away

  at night when the wolf was on the prowl

  the sister cried

  and cinderella ran away

  she came back at dawn the wolf was gone

  she slept on the mattress with

  hannapat as if she had never

  been away

  The next day when she had finished her sums and was waiting for Meester to give the standard fives their next task, she remembered that there was no wolf in Cinderella’s story.

  Pérsomi made sure she slept close to the back door every night.

  During the 1939 April school vacation, Gerbrand came home after an absence of nine long months. One evening after dark he appeared in the doorway. “I came with De Wet and Boelie,” he said, “from Pretoria.” That was where the Fourie boys were studying at the university.

  Pérsomi stood against the wall next to the back door. She stood quite still. She couldn’t stop looking at Gerbrand. She couldn’t believe he was really there.

  “You should have let us know,” their pa said. “We would have kept you some supper.”

  She wished she could touch her brother. But she knew she couldn’t.

  Gerbrand lifted the lid of the cast-iron pot on the cold stove. Pérsomi knew there was just a little cold porridge inside. She wished there was some meat for Gerbrand.

  “Nothing has changed, I see,” said Gerbrand, annoyed. He took a spoon and scraped out the burnt remains. “What happens to the money I send every month?”

  Pa takes it all, Pérsomi wanted to say. But she kept silent.

  “I said you should have let us know you were coming,” their pa said, frowning. “We’re careful with the money, it doesn’t grow on my back!”

  Gerbrand turned to Pérsomi. “What did you have tonight?” he asked.

  “Porridge,” she answered.

  “Thought so,” he said. “Get off that chair, Hannapat, I want to sit. And that’s my mattress, Sissie. Lift your fat behind.”

  “Ma-a,” Sissie complained shrilly, “listen to Gerbrand! He says it’s his mattress. When he left—”

  “Shut up, Sissie,” said their pa, pointing a finger at her. “Gerbrand sleeps on his mattress and that’s the end of it. Stop moaning.”

  Tonight Pérsomi wouldn’t have to sleep close to the door, because Gerbrand was there. Tonight she was going to put her mattress next to Gerbrand’s and lie close to him all night.

  Friday morning Pérsomi heard Gerbrand get up at the crack of dawn. He left his mattress and blankets on the kitchen floor, stepped over her and the sleeping Hannapat, and went out through the rickety back door.

  Pérsomi slipped out from under the rough blanket, taking care not to wake Hannapat, and followed him outside.

  The sun wasn’t up yet, but it was light enough. Gerbrand walked some way ahead of her on the footpath leading down to the river.

  Maybe Gerbrand would take her along, she thought as she followed him. Maybe he would turn and say: “Pérsomi, would you like to come with me? You can look for honeycomb and I’ll hunt a mountain tortoise.”

  Instead of going up the mountain, he crossed the Pontenilo and followed the rutted track through the orange grove to Mr. Fourie’s house, the Big House. He would fetch Mr. Fourie’s sons, Boelie and De Wet, if he was going to hunt a tortoise. Pérsomi followed at a safe distance and sat down on a rocky ledge under a wild plum tree. This time of year the tree had none of its delicious sour fruit, which ripened around Christmas time.

  From her seat she had a good view, but she could no longer see Gerbrand. Eventually a shiny black car stopped at the Big House. Christine, the daughter of Freddie and Anne le Roux of the neighboring farm, got out with a friend.

  Oom Freddie was the nicest of all the real people, but his wife, Old Anne, was the unkindest. No bywoner’s child was welcome on her property, ever. She wouldn’t think twice about putting the dogs on you if you dared go there. But Christine was kind and really pretty. Sometimes she would give them some of her old clothes.

  After a while the girls came back out of the Big House, along with Mr. Fourie’s daughters, Klara and Irene, and they set off along the footpath in the direction of the kloof.

  When she could no longer see them, Pérsomi got up. She knew every trail on her mountain, so she chose a roundabout route to follow the group. She knew where they were heading.

  In a ravine higher up, the river formed a small waterfall. Under the waterfall was a pool—not very big, but so deep that you couldn’t see the bottom. It was full to the brim this time of year.

  She hurried around the back of the mountain and clambered down until she reached a spot where she had a good view of the pool below. She sat down, resting her back against a stone.

  She could see Gerbrand playing in the water with the other young people. A large dead tortoise lay in the shade, waiting for Gerbrand to take it home.

  Pérsomi leaned forward to get a better view. The girls were all in bathing suits. They were all pretty, especially the friend Christine had brought along. She had long dark hair and long legs and she wore big sunglasses.

  Pérsomi heard Gerbrand laugh. The girls shrieked and splashed as they tried to get away from him and the other boys, Boelie and De Wet.

  Gerbrand was playing with them as if he were a real person.

  What if Gerbrand looked up and saw her? What if he laughed, the way he was laughing with the girls? What if he called out, “Pérsomi! Come and play with us!”

  Klara looked up. Pérsomi sat quite still, but she was sure Klara had seen her. “Come and join us, Pérsomi!” Klara called out.

  Pérsomi felt Irene’s eyes on her. Slowly she slid backward. When she could no longer see the pool, she got to her feet and retraced her footsteps home.

  That evening Gerbrand said, “Don’t slink after me like a sly jackal. If you want to come along, come. If you want to stay, stay. You’re a human being with a head on your shoulders, Pérsomi. It’s not there just to keep your ears apart.”

  On Monday afternoon she found Gerbrand down at the river.

  Gerbrand was holding a reed with a line attached to it. A cork bobbed in front of him in the wavelets churned up by the wind. She sat down quietly, a short distance away, so that she wouldn’t touch him by accident.

  “I ran away,” she said after a while. “Many nights.”

  He nodded. “Good,” he said, his eyes
on the cork in the water. Then he turned to her. “Pérsomi, I’m going to tell you something. But you must never, ever repeat it to anyone.”

  “Okay.” He had never told her a secret before.

  “Swear.”

  She spat on her fingertips, crossed them, folded her hands over her heart and said, “Cross my heart and don’t say.”

  He was quiet for so long that she thought he had changed his mind. Then he blurted out the words: “Pa isn’t your real pa.”

  She turned her head and looked at him. His eyes remained fixed on the cork in the water.

  She didn’t understand, so she waited for an explanation.

  He looked at her and said, “Lewies Pieterse is a pig. It’s important for you to know he’s not your pa.”

  The words stayed in her ears for a while, then slowly began to take on meaning.

  That man in the house, that man who was her pa, was not her pa.

  She wasn’t sorry, neither was she glad. She felt kind of confused and almost . . . pleased.

  “Is he your pa then?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, “my pa is dead. Piet and Sissie are Pa’s children. Their ma died. You and I are Ma’s children. Hannapat and Gertjie and Baby are Ma and Pa’s children.”

  She thought for a while. “Do you and I have the same pa?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, “my pa is dead. He wasn’t a pig.”

  She sat quietly, going over his words in her mind. Lewies Pieterse was not her pa. And her pa wasn’t dead. “Do you know who my pa is?” she asked.

  “No,” he said.

  After that she often wondered about her real pa. But she couldn’t ask her ma, because she had made Gerbrand a cross-my-heart promise.

  She never thought of Lewies Pieterse as her pa again.

  Meester Lampbrecht went to the map of the world that was mounted on the wall above the standard fives’ desks.

  “Children, this is a date you must never forget: the first of September, 1939.” Meester pointed with his stick. “Last Friday, Germany”—he placed his stick in the middle of Germany, then moved it over to Poland—“invaded Poland.”

  “That’s stale news,” Irene said. “It’s been on the wireless all weekend. There’s a war.”

  Pérsomi was shocked. War? Like when the British put the Boers’ wives and children in concentration camps?

  “Irene,” Meester said wearily, “put up your hand if you have something to say.” He tapped England with his stick. “England immediately served Germany with an ultimatum—”

  “What’s that?” Lettie Els asked, sniffing loudly.

  “It’s a message, a . . . warning, that if Germany didn’t withdraw from Poland at once, England would enter into a state of war with Germany.”

  Pérsomi drew a deep breath. It sounded serious.

  “By Sunday,” said Meester, turning to face the class, “the Germans had not responded to England’s ultimatum. The two great powers, England and Germany, are therefore now at war.”

  Irene flew out of her desk, her hand up, her fingers snapping. Before Meester could give her permission to speak, she shouted out the news: “And Smuts won the election against Hertzog and now the Union is smack in the middle of the war and my brother Boelie says—”

  “Irene Fourie, sit down and be quiet!” said Meester, running his freckled hand over his sparse hair. “The Union of South Africa is at war, too, yes, but luckily it won’t affect us here in the bushveld. Take out your arithmetic books.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell us a Bible story today, Meester?” Irene asked.

  That afternoon, Pérsomi tried to tell her ma about the war, but her ma just said: “Good heavens, Pérsomi, stop making up stories and fetch a bucket of water.”

  “Serves you right for making up lies,” Sissie taunted as Pérsomi took the bucket.

  It was dark by the time Lewies Pieterse came home. He nearly upset the candle on the table. Pérsomi looked up, startled.

  “There’s a war,” he mumbled, his tongue thick with drink. “The Khakis are making war again. And it seems Smuts wants to join in, bloody Khaki-lover.”

  “Smuts?” her ma asked, baffled.

  “The general and prime minister, you dumb cow,” Lewies snapped. “Where’s my food?”

  Her ma scurried about in front of the stove. “But I thought Hertzog . . .” She stopped, too afraid to carry on.

  “Yes, yes, you shouldn’t be thinking at all. You’re much too stupid.”

  “I’m not stupid!” her ma protested.

  His open hand struck the side of Ma’s head. “Shut your trap, woman.”

  Lewies began to dig in his pockets. “Sissie, my girlie, come see what Pa’s got for you.”

  Pérsomi knew Lewies was giving Sissie sweets.

  that night the three little pigs slept in the

  cleverest piglet’s house, made of stone

  they lay snugly behind each other’s backs

  on the cleverest pig’s mattress

  the wolf huffed and puffed and growled and puffed

  then sissie cried

  then the fastest piglet ran away

  Lewies Pieterse was a wolf. But she said nothing, because she wasn’t sure exactly what had happened.

  No, that wasn’t true. Her mind knew, but the thought froze before she could turn it into words.

  When Pérsomi woke up one morning she knew at once that something was dreadfully wrong. She could see it plainly.

  “Ma-a!” Sissie shouted shrilly. “Auntie Flo has come to visit Pérsomi!”

  Pérsomi had no idea what Sissie was talking about.

  “Sissie, show Pérsomi what to do. Heavens, it’s hard to be a woman. And Pérsomi”—her ma gave her an earnest look—“from now on you stay away from boys and men. Completely. Understand?”

  “Yes, Ma,” said Pérsomi. She followed Sissie to the river.

  There was indeed a war. From the very first week, Pérsomi knew all about it. All the stories were in the papers. With photos.

  She could hardly wait for Mondays, when she could fetch the previous week’s papers from the Big House. Before tearing them into squares for the outhouse, Pérsomi sat down with them in the orange grove and arranged the papers according to their dates, so that the stories would be in the right order.

  Then she began to read. A new world opened up to her.

  On the tenth of April, when the leaves were turning yellow and red, Pérsomi read in the previous week’s paper that Germany had invaded Denmark and Norway and issued an ultimatum, demanding that those two countries accept the protection of the German Reich without delay.

  She knew an ultimatum was a message. She liked the phrase issued an ultimatum.

  Hurriedly, she unfolded the next day’s paper and read that Denmark had surrendered without striking a blow. Not a single shot had been fired. Nice words, without striking a blow, she thought. The reporter found the right words to describe the war. Norway had resisted, she read on, but their harbors, airports, government buildings, radio, and railway stations were now controlled by the Nazis.

  She was not quite sure who the Nazis were.

  She looked at the photos. One caption said: “Hitler’s armored corps crawls west across the northern German plains like an army of caterpillars.”

  She folded the two sections containing the articles neatly and took them to school. She wanted to ask Meester about the Nazis and she wanted to show him how well the reporter wrote. When Irene saw her she muttered, “You like sucking up to Meester, don’t you? Must be why you always get the highest grades in the school.”

  Something was wrong with Sissie. Not the falling sickness, something else.

  Pérsomi found her ma down at the river with the washing. She went down on her knees, grabbed the first piece of clothing within reach, and rubbed clean sand into Hannapat’s blue dress. “There’s a stain on the front you must try to get out,” her ma said.

  “Ma, what’s wrong with Sissie?” she asked.

/>   Her ma flinched. “Heavens, Pérsomi, there’s nothing wrong with Sissie. Don’t make up stories!”

  Pérsomi rubbed and rubbed at the stain on Hannapat’s blue dress. After a while she said: “Sissie is going to have a baby, I know.”

  Her ma’s head jerked up again. “Goodness, Pérsomi, what kind of stories—”

  “I’m not stupid, Ma, my head isn’t just for keeping my ears apart,” she said firmly. “I know what you looked like before Gertjie and Baby came.”

  Her ma sat back on her haunches. She closed her eyes. “Heavens, child,” she said. “Have you told anybody?”

  “No, Ma, I’m asking you now. Do you know Sissie is going to have a baby?”

  Her ma lowered her head and pushed her wet fingers through her hair. “We mustn’t say anything. If Mr. Fourie hears about it, he’ll chase us from the farm. And where would we go?”

  Pérsomi rubbed the collar of Hannapat’s blue dress. “Why would Mr. Fourie chase us away?” Pérsomi asked.

  “Heavens, child, don’t talk about things you don’t understand. Just keep quiet,” said her ma and rubbed the shirt really hard against the stone. “Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  She lifted the blue dress out of the water. It looked reasonably clean.

  “It’s hard to be a woman, child.” Her ma sighed and picked up one of Baby’s nappies. “Hard, I’m telling you.”

  Before the June chill began to creep across the bushveld, the Nazi caterpillars had rolled across the Netherlands and Belgium, all the way to the French border. One Monday Meester brought Pérsomi his own newspaper. British, French, and Belgian troops were trapped on the beaches at Dunkirk, she read. Hundreds of thousands of them. Stranded. Without supplies.

  Two days later Meester told her that boats of all shapes and sizes had rescued a quarter of a million British soldiers in an almost superhuman operation. Some of the vessels that set out from the coast of England across the wide, stormy sea to France to rescue the stranded soldiers were nothing but fishing boats.