Child of the River

by Irma Joubert

  “It was brave, wasn’t it, Meester?” Pérsomi asked.

  “Yes,” Meester replied. “No wonder they say Britannia rules the waves. But don’t forget, Pérsomi, they’re still the enemy.”

  “Why are they our enemy? I thought Prime Minister Smuts—”

  “Is obligated to support the British, yes, thanks to the defense pact.”

  “But you don’t like them.”

  “One cannot be pro-Afrikaner and pro-British, child. Hertzog understood this.”

  “Then why did he lose the election?”

  Meester set his lips in a thin line and shook his head, then said, “Why certain citizens are so eager to rush to war, I’ll never understand.”

  Two weeks later, she read in one of the papers that the first South African troops had left for Kenya in British East Africa. They were going to fight the Italians in Abyssinia.

  The next day she looked for the places she had read about on the map on the classroom wall. “Are we at war now, Meester?” she asked, worried.

  “Not our people, Pérsomi,” Meester said calmly and ran his hand across his thinning hair. “Only the English and the Red Tabs.”

  “Who are the Red Tabs?” she asked, frowning.

  “Smuts is not such a fool to force South Africans to enlist, or he’d have a civil war on his hands as well,” he mumbled. “But he has called for volunteers to fight beyond our borders. Those who go wear red tabs on their shoulders, on their epaulettes,” Meester explained. “But don’t worry. Our people won’t be affected.”

  One morning during the second week of the July vacation, Lewies Pieterse said: “You women must plow the land today. I can’t do everything around here. I have to check the fences all week.”

  Old Jeremiah lay buried in a shallow grave near the erosion gullies—lazy and stubborn to the end.

  The patch of land they were expected to till was parched and rock-hard. They tried to plow with Pérsomi and Hannapat tugging at the front, while their ma tried to break the soil with the plowshare. But it was no good, so Pérsomi and her ma each struck the ground with a hoe, while Hannapat stood on the two-pronged fork, trying to force it into the unyielding soil.

  If only Gerbrand were here. But he was in Joburg, working in the mines.

  Sissie sat leaning against the back wall in the sun, her legs stretched in front of her, her feet wide apart. Sissie had been sitting like that for nearly a month. Her time was drawing near.

  But no one mentioned it, because no one was supposed to know.

  When the morning sun had moved into the afternoon, Pérsomi heard something at the front of the house. She put her hoe down and hurried around the corner, then froze.

  Mr. Fourie’s daughter Klara was at the front door. She was home from university for the holidays, she and Boelie and De Wet.

  “Hello, Pérsomi, is your ma around the back?” asked Klara, making her way around the corner.

  Slowly Pérsomi followed. She saw Klara’s surprise when she noticed Sissie.

  She saw her ma’s fear.

  Sissie didn’t move.

  She heard Klara say, “Good morning, Aunt Jemima.”

  “Yes, Klara,” her ma said, not moving.

  Klara looked uneasy. “It’s nice to be home from varsity,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Pérsomi’s ma.

  Silence. Then Klara said, “It’s lovely here on the farm.”

  “Yes,” said her ma.

  A dove called loudly to its mate.

  “I’ve brought a letter from Gerbrand,” said Klara.

  “Thanks,” said her ma and held out her hand. She tucked the envelope into the front of her dress without opening it.

  “He also sends a message,” said Klara. She licked her lips, as if they were dry.

  The dove kept calling.

  “What does Gerbrand say?” asked Pérsomi. “Is he coming to visit?”

  “Yes, but not soon,” said Klara. “Gerbrand says he’s doing well. He no longer works in the mines. It’s good, because he didn’t like working in the tunnels.”

  Her ma’s hand flew to her mouth. “Did he lose his job?”

  Klara turned to her. “He’s enlisted . . . He’s joined the army, the soldiers.”

  In her mind’s eye Pérsomi saw the caterpillars in the newspaper photographs. She saw the soldiers crouch and run, rifle in hand, she saw their round steel helmets, she saw the bombs.

  “He . . . what?” she blurted.

  Klara turned to her ma. “He’s in the army, Aunt Jemima. And . . . he’s enjoying it, it’s better than the mines. The money is also . . .”

  Pérsomi’s mouth was dry. In the army? With the . . . enemy? “Where is he now?” she asked.

  “He said to tell you not to worry. And he sends his regards.”

  The dove was quiet now. Hannapat stood motionless beside the garden fork, her bare feet on the dry clods. Sissie sat leaning against the wall, her chapped toes stretched in front of her. Only Gertjie’s hacking cough broke the silence.

  “Where is he now?” her ma asked in a strangled voice.

  “He asked me to tell you”—Klara drew a deep breath—“that he’s boarding a ship for Kenya this coming week. With the troops.”

  The words struck Pérsomi like a blow to the head. They entered through her ears and reverberated through her body.

  Gerbrand . . . Kenya . . .

  She ran. Her feet flew across the turned clods, across the dry stubble and the loose stones and the thick sandy patches. She fled from her ma’s fearful eyes and Hannapat’s blank face and Sissie propped against the wall. She fled from the small house and Gertjie’s coughing.

  She fled from Klara’s voice.

  She ran until she reached her mountain. She dashed up the steep incline and across the rocky plateau. She skirted the baboon cliffs and ran past the wild fig desperately clinging to its precarious patch of soil and through the ravine where Gerbrand always found honey.

  The sun blazed down on her bare arms, her chest was on fire, her parched tongue stuck to her dry palate, the sharp stones and thorns tore at the soles of her feet.

  Klara’s words burned and tunneled through her body, all the way to her heart.

  When she reached the open cave, she sank to the ground. She couldn’t go any farther.

  The words turned into newspaper photos.

  After a while she lay down on her back. The sun was on the decline but still blazed down on the earth and the rocks. The sky overhead was blue, and pale fleecy clouds drifted through the branches of the wild fig.

  Klara’s words and the photos in Meester’s newspapers merged to form a single picture, with Gerbrand at its center.

  Once, long ago, Gerbrand had comforted her. He stroked and stroked her hair and told her not to cry, because he had no idea how to treat a girl who was crying, he said. So she stopped, and he stroked her hair one more time. “Don’t cry again, d’you hear?” he said, getting up.

  “Fine,” she said. “Will you stroke my hair again?”

  “No,” he said, “it’s over now.” Then he left.

  Afterward, she had often felt like crying again, so that he would touch her. But she didn’t, because she had promised she wouldn’t.

  He never touched her again.

  Now he had gone to war.

  When the sun was low, she went down to the fountain and drank some water. Then she picked up a flat stone and used it to dig a shallow hole in the warm sand of the cave.

  She crawled into her mountain.

  The picture shaped from the words and the photographs moved in front of the sun, darkened the blue sky, and hung in the branches of the tree like a broken moon.

  With the darkness came the cold. There was nothing between her and the cold.

  But not even the bitter cold just before sunrise could take the words away.

  She saw the new day break. She heard the baboons wake up. When the sun was warm enough, sleep enfolded her like a blanket.

  When she woke, sh
e saw him sitting on a flat rock. Motionless. Mr. Fourie’s eldest son. He had covered her with his jacket.

  “Boelie?” she said softly.

  He kept staring at the horizon. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  Hungry? She didn’t know what it was not to be hungry.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He put his hand into his pocket and produced two rusks. “Here,” he said and extended his hand behind him.

  The dry rusk stuck in her throat.

  “Gerbrand joined the war,” she said after a while.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She looked at his back. It was broad, like Gerbrand’s. His khaki shirt stretched across his shoulders.

  “Meester says our people don’t go to war,” she said.

  “Meester is right,” he said.

  She remained silent for a long while. Then she asked, “Then why did Gerbrand go, Boelie?”

  He turned. For the first time he looked at her. His eyes were dark, like the water in the pools in late summer. “Weren’t you cold during the night?” he asked.

  The night was still inside her. “Klara says it’s better than the mine tunnels?” she asked.

  He turned his back on her again and looked into the distance below. “Bloody Khakis with their bloody war,” he said after a while.

  “Bloody Khakis,” she said.

  “Watch your language, you’re a girl,” he said, getting to his feet. “Are you coming home? Your ma is worried.”

  “In a while,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said and set off down the mountainside.

  He forgot to take his jacket. She curled up under it. The rough fabric was warm and comforting on her cold body.

  TWO

  AT THE END OF THE FIRST SCHOOL DAY AFTER THE JULY VACATION, Pérsomi walked home slowly. She had wanted to tell Meester about Gerbrand joining up, but she didn’t know if she should. The Red Tabs were often mentioned in the papers, and what Die Transvaler wrote about them was especially bad. She didn’t want Meester to think badly of Gerbrand.

  So she just took a good look on the wall map to see where Kenya was.

  From a distance she saw a commotion at the little house on the ridge. Mr. Fourie’s pickup was parked among the orange trees on the riverbank. There was another pickup, covered at the back.

  Then she saw Lewies Pieterse come out of the house. His arms were flailing, he was shouting, but she was too far away to make out the words. She froze to the spot.

  Another two men came out of the house. One of them grabbed Lewies Pieterse by the arm. Lewies looked furious. He pulled and tugged, but the man was stronger.

  Over to one side stood Mr. Fourie, smoking his pipe.

  Hannapat came rushing around the corner. She raced down the footpath to the river. Pérsomi stood motionless on the opposite bank.

  “Pérsomi!” Hannapat shouted. “They’ve come for Pa, the police have come to fetch Pa!”

  The police?

  “And some ladies are talking to Sissie! Ma says you must come!”

  Pérsomi felt her legs get ready to run.

  “Pérsomi!” Hannapat screamed. “Ma says don’t run away again! You must . . .”

  But she was already running.

  From the mountainside she watched them: two policemen held Lewies Pieterse and threw him into the back of the pickup. A strange lady and Mr. Fourie walked on either side of a sobbing Sissie, helping her across the stones. Hannapat and Gertjie stood on the bank, watching. She could make out her ma’s forlorn figure at the side of the house, Baby on her hip.

  They drove off, taking Lewies Pieterse and Sissie along. Pérsomi hoped they’d remember to give Sissie her medicine.

  The next day when she came home from school, the ladies were back. Sissie wasn’t with them. They were talking to her ma.

  Her ma looked dazed and sat staring into the distance. “Mr. Fourie is going to chase us away,” she mumbled. “If Lewies goes to jail, Mr. Fourie will chase us away.”

  One of the ladies turned to her. “You’re Pérsomi, aren’t you?”

  “Yes?”

  The lady gave her a friendly smile. “I’m Mrs. Marie Retief from the Department of Social Welfare. I’ve come to give you a hand. Mrs. Fourie tells me you’re a smart girl?”

  Pérsomi didn’t know how to respond.

  “Walk with me, and we’ll talk,” the lady said.

  They walked on the footpath down to the river and sat down on the bank. “Sit here beside me,” the lady said.

  She spoke about all kinds of things, like the sun on the water and the oranges, so colorful in the trees, and the hadeda’s shrill call. After a while Pérsomi began to relax.

  Then the lady said, “Pérsomi, do you know why we’re here?”

  “Not really, Aunt Marie,” Pérsomi admitted.

  “You know what happened to Sissie?” the lady asked.

  Pérsomi hesitated. “Yes, she’s going to have a baby.”

  “And do you know how that happened?”

  “No.” She was too scared to say what she was thinking.

  The lady was silent for a long time, then she said, “You all sleep together in the front room, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Pérsomi said cautiously.

  “Tell me what happened at night,” the lady said.

  Pérsomi sat quite still. Could she tell? And what should she tell? “Only some nights,” she said.

  “What happened some nights?”

  Pérsomi licked her lips. “Sissie cried,” she said.

  “Why did Sissie cry?”

  “I think she had bad dreams,” she said. She closed her eyes. “Or maybe he hurt her.”

  “Your father?”

  Pérsomi said nothing.

  “Pérsomi, look at me. Did your father ever hurt you?”

  “I can run fast,” said Pérsomi.

  The lady nodded. “That’s good,” she said. She thought for a while, then asked, “Pérsomi, do you know how your father hurt Sissie?”

  Pérsomi bit her lower lip. She didn’t know how to say it.

  After a while she said, “Was he . . . making out with her?”

  The lady nodded. “Tell me, does Sissie have a boyfriend?”

  “No, Aunt Marie,” Pérsomi answered.

  “Thanks, sweetheart. You’re a very smart girl.” The lady got up and dusted off her skirt. “Come, that’s enough for today. But we’ll talk again. And if there’s anything you want to tell me, anything you think isn’t right, you must go ahead and tell me, understand?”

  “Okay,” said Pérsomi.

  When they were walking back, the lady said, “You’re in standard six now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Pérsomi.

  “What will you be doing next year?” the lady asked.

  “Looking for work. In Joburg.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to go to high school instead? Finish Form III, at least?”

  “Yes,” said Pérsomi. “But we don’t have any money.”

  “Social Welfare gives grants to needy children who do well at school,” said the lady. “If you want me to, I’ll see if I can arrange something. And if your grades are good enough.”

  “My grades are good. And I want to,” said Pérsomi. “But my ma and pa want me to find a job.”

  “I’ll talk to them,” the lady said.

  The next day Aunt Marie Retief was back, and two days later she was there again. She brought sweaters for them all and medicine for Gertjie’s cough.

  “Sissie is fine,” she said. “She’s at a special home, where she’ll stay until her baby is born. Then she can come back.”

  “Sissie should have stayed here,” said Pérsomi’s ma.

  “And the baby?” asked Hannapat.

  “We’ll talk about the baby later,” the lady said. “There’s going to be a court case, Jemima. You and Sissie will have to give evidence, and possibly Pérsomi as well.”

  “Court?” Pérsomi’s ma asked, alarmed.

 
; “Yes,” Aunt Marie said. “Jemima, what do you feed Gertjie and Baby? Besides porridge, of course?”

  “Give . . . evidence?” asked her ma.

  Aunt Marie put her hand on her ma’s arm. “It’s nothing to be worried about, Jemima,” she said calmly. “But Lewies Pieterse will have to stand trial and you—”

  “He’s going to kill us,” Ma said, shaking her head wildly.

  “The law will protect you,” said Aunt Marie.

  But her ma kept shaking her head. “The law is in town, Mrs. Retief. Lewies Pieterse is here, in this house.”

  Long after Aunt Marie had left, when darkness was closing in, her ma was still sitting at the kitchen table. “Lewies Pieterse is going to kill us,” she kept saying.

  At the end of the week, Lewies Pieterse was back. That same afternoon, Ma’s sister, Sis Els, and Sis’s husband, Attie Els, walked up the hill to visit. They lived with their daughter Faansie in the bywoner house on Freddie le Roux’s farm. They wanted to hear the stories.

  “I knew there was going to be trouble,” Auntie Sis gasped. “I had a vision last Sunday.”

  Jemima nodded. Auntie Sis had premonitions, and they came from another world, visions that called for great respect.

  “You were right, Sis,” Lewies Pieterse said somberly.

  Auntie Sis nodded and lowered her heavy bulk onto the tea chest. “My visions are always right,” she said.

  “Well, see,” Lewies began, “they took me to town in the van, to the police station. In the back, never you mind, like a dog. Yanked me out when we got to town. Man, I’m telling you, my blood was boiling.”

  “And then?” Oom Attie leaned forward in his chair.

  “Pushed me and shoved me, I’m telling you, all the way inside. I thought: Watch out, you buggers, watch I don’t lay into you with my fists. But I kept calm, because I didn’t want to cause trouble, you know it’s not like me. But when a snot-nosed constable gave me lip, I let him have it.”

  Pérsomi held her breath.

  “Good for you!” said Oom Attie, punching the palm of his left hand with his right fist. “They think they can bugger us around just because we’re poor!”

  “And Sissie?” asked Auntie Sis. “I saw her, too, poor girl, with a—”