Child of the River

by Irma Joubert

  “Man, I punched him on the chin, lights out,” Lewies said. “Later I heard they took him to hospital, couldn’t bring him round at all.”

  “You don’t say!” said Oom Attie, impressed. “What happened next?”

  “What about Sissie?” asked Pérsomi’s ma.

  “The other policemen stepped away”—Lewies was demonstrating with hands and body—“when they saw I wasn’t going to be messed with. When the little sergeant gave me a piece of paper to sign, I said, ‘What do you mean, sign? Lewies Pieterse doesn’t sign anything without his lawyer.’ The weak-kneed little chap stepped back when he realized I know my rights.”

  “Did you punch the little sergeant as well?” asked Oom Attie.

  “No, by then the whole lot of them were like putty in my hands,” said Lewies, spreading his fingers. His hands were big and hard. “When I said, ‘Where’s the coffee?’ they brought it chop-chop. I’d say, ‘I want meat with my samp,’ and there would be meat. I’ve never seen so much meat. No, I had them eating from my hand. They won’t bother Lewies Pieterse again, that’s no maybe!”

  “What did you see, Sis?” Pérsomi’s ma kept saying.

  Auntie Sis asked, “Where’s Sissie now?”

  Lewies said, “If I get hold of that boyfriend of hers, I’ll choke his last breath out of him. I’ll cut off his—”

  “Did you bring us a little something from town?” asked Oom Attie.

  Lewies held up a bottle of amber liquid.

  Pérsomi walked out through the back door. This time she remembered to take a blanket.

  At the crack of dawn the next morning Pérsomi watched Mr. Fourie stride to the little house on the riverbank. He was wasting his time. Lewies Pieterse was still sleeping it off.

  But within minutes both men appeared from the house. Mr. Fourie led the way, walking fast. Behind him came Lewies, rushing. He didn’t even have his veldskoens on his feet.

  On the other side of the Pontenilo Mr. Fourie turned and grabbed Lewies by the throat. Pérsomi was startled. What if Lewies punched Mr. Fourie like he punched the policeman? Then they would definitely be chased off the farm.

  But Lewies didn’t do anything. Mr. Fourie shook him, then slapped him soundly around the ears, swung his finger under Lewies’s nose and shoved him so that Lewies fell on his backside. Lewies threw his hands in front of his face and shook his head and began to cry.

  Then Mr. Fourie turned and strode back to the Big House.

  Maybe they could tell Mr. Fourie if Lewies wanted to kill them, Pérsomi thought.

  She didn’t go home before the sun went down behind the mountain.

  Early in September the police came again for Lewies Pieterse. They came in the morning, when Pérsomi and Hannapat were at school.

  When they returned, he was gone. And Sissie was back, her eyes swollen from crying.

  “Where’s your baby?” Hannapat asked.

  Sissie burst into tears. “They took my baby!” she moaned.

  “How can they take your baby?” Hannapat demanded. “It’s your baby, they can’t just take him!”

  Sissie cried harder. “They told me to write my name on a piece of paper, then they took my baby!”

  “Where’s Ma?” Pérsomi asked. “And Gertjie and Baby?”

  Sissie cried so much she could hardly get a word out. She sounded just like the female baboon who had howled about her dead baby for days, carrying him around until he looked like a piece of dry biltong.

  “They took Gertjie and Baby, too,” she managed to say at last. “That Aunt Marie smiles, but you can’t trust her.”

  Pérsomi grew afraid. The friendly lady who had said she would try to arrange for Pérsomi to go to high school next year had taken Gertjie and Baby? And was her ma gone too?

  “Where’s Ma?” she asked again.

  “With Oom Freddie. He’s talking to Ma,” Sissie sobbed. “Ma and I are just the same. They took our children!” And she began to wail again.

  Oom Freddie was an important man, a member of the Provincial Council, a leader in the district. And he was always very friendly. If anyone could help, it was Oom Freddie. Provided Old Anne didn’t have her way.

  Pérsomi went out and gathered some wood. She blew on the fire and fetched water from the river. She stirred maize flour into the water and put the heavy lid on the pot.

  “Oom Freddie will help,” said her ma when she returned at dusk. “He gave us this chicken to eat, and money too. Freddie le Roux is a good man.”

  The next morning, while Pérsomi was doing sums and the standard threes were reading to Meester, the students heard a car stop outside.

  “The welfare woman is here, Meester,” Irene said, stretching her neck to peer out of the window. “I think she wants to speak to Pérsomi because her pa is in jail.”

  Humiliation washed over Pérsomi like a sudden shower, soaking her, chilling her to the bone.

  Meester sent Pérsomi to find out what was happening.

  Slowly she walked over to Aunt Marie’s car.

  They sat down in the thin shade of a thorn tree.

  Aunt Marie talked and talked, and the more she talked the better Pérsomi understood. She didn’t want to understand, but her mind did.

  Gertjie was very weak. If they left him with Ma, he would die. He had TB.

  And Baby—Aunt Marie called her Johanna, which was Baby’s real name—wasn’t getting the right food, so she was bound to get sick as well. Once the two little ones were better and the situation at home improved, Aunt Marie would bring them back.

  “Sissie can’t stop crying,” Pérsomi said.

  Aunt Marie explained about Sissie. Everything. And that Sissie’s baby wasn’t quite right. Then Pérsomi understood that Aunt Marie and the Department of Social Welfare had also made the right decision about Sissie.

  “There’s going to be a hearing about your father, Pérsomi,” said Aunt Marie. “I think you’ll be our strongest witness, because you’re a clever girl. It all depends on whether you think you’re up to it.”

  “Yes,” said Pérsomi. “I’ll do it.”

  “Your father will be in the dock. He’s going to be looking at you all the time you’re in there. He’s going to hear everything you say,” Aunt Marie warned her.

  “I’ll do it.”

  “And the defense attorney, the man defending your father, is going to ask you a lot of questions. Hard questions, to try and prove you’re lying.”

  “He won’t be able to, because I’ll speak the truth.” Then she raised her eyes and looked straight at Aunt Marie. “I can definitely do it.”

  At the car, Aunt Marie said, “I have some good news. The department approved my application. You can go to high school next year. They’ll pay your full board and your books as well.”

  For the first time in many, many weeks, maybe for the first time in months, happiness filled Pérsomi’s heart, warming her entire body, making her ears ring. “Thank you very, very much, Aunt Marie. I promise to study really hard.”

  When the welfare lady drove away, Pérsomi kept waving long after the dust cloud had disappeared around the corner.

  That afternoon after school Pérsomi tried to explain to her ma about Gertjie and Baby. “Gertjie is sick, Ma, he must get better first, he’s got TB,” she explained.

  “Yes, I know,” said her ma, staring into space.

  “And Baby must just get strong and get the right food, then she’ll be coming home too.”

  “Yes,” said her ma. “Next year when you’re working in Joburg we’ll be able to afford good food.”

  Pérsomi felt a chill run through her. “Aunt Marie said I can go to high school next year, Ma. Welfare will pay for me, for my books as well.”

  “No,” said her ma and for the first time in a long while she seemed determined. “You’re going to get a job in Joburg next year, or I won’t be able to buy good food for Gertjie and Baby. That’s what your pa says too.”

  A huge dark cloud moved in front of the sun.
But not the kind that brings rain.

  When Pérsomi fetched the newspapers at the Big House in the middle of November, there was mail: a brown envelope without postage, just a rubber stamp that read: Official. Censored.

  The letter was addressed to her ma.

  Gerbrand’s handwriting was on the envelope.

  Pérsomi ran home like the wind. She raced through the orange trees, stopped for a split second to leap across the pool, then sprinted up the hill to the house.

  “Ma! A letter from Gerbrand!” she gasped, throwing the letter on the kitchen table.

  “Oh, heavens above, Pérsomi!” her ma said, startled. “Open it, child, read it! Heavens, see how I’m trembling!”

  Carefully Pérsomi opened the letter. She took out a pound note and handed it to her ma.

  “Thank you, thank you, God!” said her ma, tucking the note into her bosom.

  Pérsomi unfolded the letter and began to read:

  30 OCTOBER 1940

  Dear Ma and Pérsomi,

  I am well. We haven’t gone to battle yet and the food is good. I’ve made good friends here. My best friend is a guy we call Jackal.

  We traveled by ship from Durban to Mombasa in Kenya. Our officer reads all our letters before we can mail them so I can’t tell you everything. It was a big ship but it was very crowded. We slept in hammocks in the hold and we couldn’t use any lights and it was very stuffy and we got a bit seasick. So most of us slept on deck. The sea was wild and we threw up. But we’re in Kenya now.

  I am in the Royal Natal Carbineers, C Company, the best Company.

  We eat a lot of venison because we shoot buck with our machine guns. We fry the liver when we get a chance. The cooks make stews from dried vegetables like cabbage and carrots and potatoes. The potatoes are okay because they get mashed but the other vegetables are awful. For breakfast we get maize porridge. Worst of all are the powdered eggs. No one wants to be a cook in the army.

  We drive around in three-ton trucks. Each section has a truck. A few times we heard that the Italians are close but so far I haven’t seen one. We call them Eyeties.

  We have a lot of fighter planes. They are the Junkers JU 86, the Hurricane, the Hartbees, the Fury and the Fairey Battle light bomber. When I come home, I’ll bring photos. Jackal has a camera.

  Our commander is Brigadier Dan Pienaar and I have a lot of respect for him.

  The English ladies in Cape Town send us parcels with hand-knitted socks that shrink when you wash them.

  I think I’m going to stay on in the army. I would like to fly a fighter plane.

  Write to me Pérsomi. Write down what Ma says. And read my letter to Ma.

  Gerbrand

  Carefully Pérsomi folded the letter. “Read it again,” her ma said. “I want to hear it again.”

  She unfolded the letter again. “Gerbrand didn’t give his address,” she said, dismayed. “How can I write to him if he doesn’t give his address?”

  “Ask Klara when she comes again, she’ll know,” said her ma.

  Pérsomi thought of something else. “Ma, if Lewies Pieterse isn’t here anymore—”

  “Heavens, Pérsomi, since when do you call your pa by his name?” her ma scolded.

  “Lewies Pieterse is not my pa and you know it.”

  Her ma’s head snapped up, her eyes wide. “Child, what story are you making up now?”

  It was too late now, the words had been spoken.

  “If Lewies is no longer here to take Gerbrand’s money, you can use it all to buy healthy food,” Pérsomi continued. “It will be enough. I won’t have to go and work next year.”

  “Heavens, Pérsomi, stop making up stories. You’re going to work next year and that’s the end of it,” said her ma. “Now read the letter again.”

  Aunt Marie came to speak to all three of them about the hearing. She explained what to expect: the oath they would have to take, the magistrate sitting at the front on a kind of stage, the prosecutor who would try to prove Lewies Pieterse was guilty, and the defense who would be on his side. She made a sketch of where all of them would be sitting, and where Lewies would be.

  “You needn’t be afraid, we’ll be there to protect you,” she kept reassuring them.

  But that night, when Aunt Marie had left and only the four of them remained, her ma said, “Lewies Pieterse is going to kill us. They can lock him up now, but one day he’ll be out. And then we’ll all be dead.”

  Two days before the hearing, Pérsomi went to fetch the papers at the Big House and found Boelie and De Wet in their kitchen, home for the December vacation.

  “Hello, Pérsomi,” De Wet said through the open kitchen door. “Come in, I want to talk to you.”

  Hesitantly she stepped into the Big House.

  “Hello, Pérsomi,” said Boelie. He looked strange. His hair was longer than usual and there was a dark shadow on his chin and jaw.

  “Hello,” she said from the doorway.

  “Sit down,” said De Wet. He got up and went to the stove. “Would you like some coffee?”

  She didn’t know what to say. Her legs were tingling with the desire to run.

  “Sit,” said Boelie, pointing at a chair.

  She sat. De Wet put a cup of coffee in front of her.

  She took a cautious sip. It was hot, but it was the most delicious coffee she had ever tasted.

  “Rusk?” De Wet asked and pushed a tin full of the dry cookies across the table.

  She shook her head. She was afraid it would stick in her throat.

  “My mom tells me you’re a witness, Pérsomi,” De Wet said in a friendly voice.

  She nodded.

  “I just want to make sure you know what to do,” he said. “I’m a law student, see? One day I’ll be a lawyer. So I thought I could help you.”

  “Oh,” she said. She didn’t know if she should tell him Aunt Marie had already spoken to them. He looked so eager to help. So she listened to everything again: the oath, the magistrate, the prosecutor, defense, accused, everything.

  “And I’ll be going with you,” he said. “I’ll be there, in the courtroom, if you need help.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “You’re thirteen, Pérsomi, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can give evidence in camera, if you wish. It means it’ll be only you, the magistrate, the prosecutor, and the defense attorney. No one will look at you, especially not your father.”

  Aunt Marie had explained it to her. “No,” she said, “I want to speak where everyone can hear, so that they’ll know Lewies Pieterse is a pig. Gerbrand thinks so too . . . that he’s a pig.”

  De Wet nodded. “Very well,” he said. “I just hope you realize what you’re letting yourself in for.”

  “She knows,” Boelie said from his chair. “I told you: this one knows what she’s doing.”

  Pérsomi turned to Boelie. “Are you coming, too, Boelie?”

  He thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said, “yes, I think I’ll go to court after all.”

  On Sunday Auntie Sis came round to help pick out their clothes. They had to look decent in court the next day. They might be dirt poor, but it was no reason not to be clean, she said.

  Pérsomi had three dresses. All three had once belonged to Sissie, so they were a bit too short and much too wide. “You’re so tall,” Auntie Sis said almost crossly.

  “Wear Ma’s belt or people will think you’re pregnant,” said Hannapat.

  “Heavens above, Hannapat,” her ma said, startled, “where do you hear such talk?”

  “You’re so thin,” said Sissie. “People will think you don’t get food.”

  “A good thing you’re going, too,” Hannapat laughed, “so people can see we’ve got food.”

  Pérsomi went down to the river with her green dress. She washed it as clean as she was able and flattened it on the rocks. While the hot bushveld sun baked the dress dry, she washed her hair in the pool. Then she washed herself all over. She put her
clothes back on and combed her long hair with her fingers.

  She wished she had a ribbon to tie it with. But she didn’t. All she had was some underwear elastic to tie her braids with.

  When her dress was dry, she walked home slowly.

  Monday morning, Boelie and De Wet drove the family to town. The veld flew past the car, much faster than any man or horse could run. It was far, much farther than she had imagined.

  Pérsomi clung to the door handle, but after a while she began to relax.

  In town the road surface changed from gravel to tar. She had heard about tarred roads at school. They drove along the smooth road with houses on either side. She saw a church with a spire reaching into the sky.

  “This is the high school, Pérsomi,” De Wet said.

  Pérsomi looked through the window. The school was a big building with hundreds of windows. She had never imagined a school could be so large.

  It was the school Gerbrand had gone to as well.

  “I take it you’ll be coming here next year?” De Wet said.

  “She’s going to work. In Joburg,” her ma said brusquely.

  “Oh.” He sounded surprised.

  Past the school and the church there were stores, all in the same street. They drove past Smit’s Garage, where there was a picture of a winged horse on a signpost that said Pegasus Petrol. Next door was Cohen Tailor and on the other side of the street, Thom’s Liquor Store. She tried to take in everything: the Grand Hotel, the Bosveld Butchery, Johnny’s Café & Bakery, the red-and-white striped pole with the barber sign swinging in the wind, Dr. Louw: Surgery, and the Bosveld Pharmacy next door—but it was too much. She could easily get lost in this town.

  “Shall I take you to the General Dealer for the shoes?” Boelie asked her ma.

  “Shoes?” Pérsomi asked, looking down at her bare feet.

  “No,” Ma said to Boelie, “to Ismail’s. The General Dealer is too expensive.”

  “Where did you get money for shoes?” Pérsomi asked.

  “Heavens, Pérsomi. Don’t embarrass me. You need shoes for court.”