Child of the River

by Irma Joubert

  Pérsomi got up, too, and clinked her mug against his. “To us,” she said.

  “I’m going to work,” Hannapat told Pérsomi and their ma just after Christmas. “Piet has contacts, he can organize a job for me.”

  “Work!” Pérsomi said, dismayed. “But you only have standard six!”

  “I’ll be sixteen next month. I’m not staying in school any longer.”

  “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

  But Hannapat was adamant. “Piet says there are a lot of rich men in Joburg who drive smart cars and buy their girls perfume and necklaces and things. If I can catch one of them, even if he’s a bit older, I’ll be well away. Then I’ll leave you lot behind and never come back again.”

  Pérsomi watched with sadness when her younger sister waved good-bye in Pérsomi’s faded white church dress. Hannapat was a shapeless child with her hair bleached bone-white, her face smeared with rouge, her dreams of the future built on a train ticket to the bright lights of the City of Gold. She had never even switched on an electric light.

  Pérsomi and her ma were alone in the house for the first time in their lives.

  During the day Ma went over to the Big House or the Old House to do the ironing or other chores. On Tuesdays and Fridays she went to Oom Freddie’s house to iron.

  The day after they heard Pérsomi had been granted all the scholarships she’d applied for, her ma said, “Klara says you must come to the Big House tomorrow.”

  She went reluctantly the next afternoon. Klara had company in the kitchen.

  “Pérsomi, you remember Annabel, Reinier’s sister?” said Klara, pointing at the beautiful girl with the long black hair.

  “Hello,” Pérsomi said. She remembered seeing the beautiful creature a few years earlier in this very kitchen with Klara and Christine, though she had never seen her with Reinier.

  “So you’re Gerbrand’s little sister?” Annabel asked, tilting her head. “You don’t look anything like him.”

  Pérsomi stood motionless. The dark eyes studied her, sizing her up. She felt as if her skirt was shrinking, as if the old school shirt was suddenly tighter around her chest.

  “We heard yesterday that Pérsomi was awarded scholarships,” Klara said. “She’s going to study law at Tukkies.”

  “I hear poor whites don’t have any trouble getting scholarships,” said Annabel. “You’re right, Klara, my old clothes will fit her.” She turned from Pérsomi. “My closet is crammed with clothes I never wear. In my profession you can’t afford to be seen in last year’s styles. You’re always in the public eye. I’ll put a few things in a bag and send it over with De Wet.”

  “De Wet works for Annabel and Reinier’s father at his law office now,” Klara explained.

  Pérsomi flushed and felt her cheeks grow hot. Her bare feet felt even more exposed in her shabby clothes. “Thanks,” she said softly.

  Annabel looked her over from head to toe. “Well, I hope you manage if you plan to study law,” she said skeptically. “My dad would probably have liked me or Reinier to follow him, but neither of us was drawn to it.” She tossed her long loose hair over her shoulder.

  Pérsomi turned and quietly left through the back door.

  One day, she told herself, no one would treat her like rubbish again.

  “What will you do when Lewies Pieterse comes out on parole?” she asked her ma one evening.

  “Heavens, child!” Her ma’s hands flew to her face. “Don’t say that!”

  “You should think about it,” she said seriously. “He’s been in jail four years already. It’s going to happen, sooner or later.”

  “Oh heavens above,” said her ma.

  A few mornings later she was walking to the Big House with her ma for newspapers when Klara called her. “Annabel has sent her clothes, Pérsomi. But you’ll have to iron them. They’ve all been stuffed in a bag.”

  “There aren’t enough irons in the Old House for us both,” her ma said at once.

  “Come and do it here in our kitchen,” Klara said to Pérsomi. “We’ve finished our breakfast.”

  “Thanks,” said Pérsomi.

  She entered the Big House filled with a strange mixture of dread and anticipation. She had taken note of Annabel’s beautiful clothes, but she was afraid of being humiliated. What if Boelie or, even worse, Irene, came into the kitchen while she was ironing Reinier’s sister’s castoffs?

  The overflowing bag sat on a chair.

  Pérsomi took out the pieces one by one.

  She was glad she was alone.

  They were the most beautiful clothes she had ever seen: dresses, skirts and blouses, a jacket, a sweater, four nightgowns, even two pairs of pedal pushers and a pair of kidskin shoes.

  She ironed the pieces one by one and folded them neatly.

  At the bottom of the bag she found two evening gowns. She drew in her breath. The first one was a deep-red satin cut on the bias. It was made to cling to a tall, slender figure and accentuate every curve.

  She shook out the dress carefully and held it in front of her. The glossy fabric draped softly over her chest. With one hand she held the waist of the dress to her own waist and lifted her leg. The deep-red fabric rested elegantly on her rough, bare feet.

  Pérsomi was Cinderella, in the kitchen where she belonged.

  The second evening gown was a sophisticated black dress with a long slit at the back and a plunging neckline. She held it up.

  “That’s pretty,” Klara said from the doorway.

  “I’ll never wear it,” Pérsomi mumbled, stuffing it back into the bag.

  “Pity,” Klara smiled. “You’d look ravishing in it.”

  “Ask De Wet if you can go into town with him tomorrow,” her ma said one morning.

  “What for?” Pérsomi asked.

  “To open an account.”

  “What account, Ma?”

  “At the bank.”

  Pérsomi frowned. “Ma, I don’t understand, what account must I open at the bank?”

  “Heavens, Pérsomi, don’t be stupid! It’s for money.” Her ma handed her an envelope.

  Pérsomi carefully opened it. “Ma, where does this money come from?” she asked.

  “How much is it?” asked her ma.

  Pérsomi did not count it. She folded the envelope and put it in the pocket of her dress. “Do you mean a savings account? Must I open a savings account at the bank and deposit this money?” she asked.

  “That’s what I said,” her ma said, annoyed.

  Pérsomi sighed. “Okay, what bank?”

  “Heavens, child, stop asking so many questions.”

  “Okay, I’ll decide. Is my mysterious father going to deposit money in it for me?” she asked directly.

  But her ma turned and walked away.

  Pérsomi walked to the kloof where Boelie was building his dam. She stood for a while, surveying the activity down below. The Italian, Antonio, was nowhere to be seen. Slowly she walked down. Boelie saw her and met her halfway.

  “Your dam is coming along nicely,” she said, looking at where a laborer was scraping the dam with four donkeys.

  “If only my dad wasn’t so tightfisted with money and diesel, we could have been finished. But by the time he realizes the value of the dam, the rainy season will be over. So, you’re just about on your way to Tukkies?”

  She gave a slight smile and nodded.

  He nodded as well. “I think you’ll enjoy it.”

  “I have no idea what to expect,” she said.

  “Oh, it’s a lot like a big high school and a big dormitory, just with more freedom and no uniform,” said Boelie. “You also go to classes and write tests, but it’s just . . . I don’t know, better than high school, so much better. You’ll like Pretoria.” He thought for a moment. “You realize you’ll be initiated during the first few weeks?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think initiation is so bad in the women’s residences,” Boelie said, “but I don’t suppose it’s
very nice.”

  “They say during the first two weeks we’ll have to wear the same dress every day,” Pérsomi said. She laughed. “It won’t be anything new to me.”

  “No, you’re used to getting by with very little,” he said. “Stand over here and I’ll show you how the dam will work.”

  She stood beside him on a slight rise. “Look over there.” He pointed at the wall taking shape from mounds of soil. “When the wall is as high as that post I planted over there . . . Do you see it?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “When the wall is that high, it will catch all the rain that presently flows away to the sea. And the water will rise until it reaches that rock I marked with paint. See?”

  “It’s going to be quite a puddle.”

  “Of course there will have to be good rains first,” he said. “But with all that water we’ll be able to irrigate some of the dry land as well, besides the citrus trees. We’ll be able to plant additional grazing.”

  “Won’t the dam wall be washed away?” she asked.

  “We’ll shore it up with stones,” he said.

  They stood looking out over the terrain. She wouldn’t come back before April, maybe even July. She was going to be homesick, she realized.

  “I love the farm,” she said.

  Boelie nodded. “Me, too,” he said.

  They stood together in a cocoon of silence.

  “Why did you choose to study engineering and not agriculture?” she asked. “Don’t you want to farm rather than . . . build bridges and dams, or whatever it is that you’re going to build?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I do.”

  “And De Wet won’t be a farmer, so why don’t you come and help your dad on the farm?”

  He stood looking out over the farm for a long time. “I won’t be able to work under my dad, or even with my dad. We’re just . . . too different.”

  “Or maybe too similar?”

  He shrugged. “I hope the war ends soon,” he said. “I’d like to finish my studies and begin to stand on my own two feet. The sooner the better.”

  He broke through the cocoon and went back to his dam. She turned and headed in the direction of the bywoner cottage where the sun set against the ridge.

  The first weeks at the university were a relentless turmoil of new people and English textbooks and noisy nights. The hours rushed past, the days stampeded through the week.

  “We’re going to die of exhaustion,” said Lucia, Pérsomi’s roommate, when they were ordered by their seniors at midnight to sleep under their mattresses.

  “I have to write an exam tomorrow,” Pérsomi groaned. “I won’t be able to think clearly.”

  “I think I hate res,” said Lucia. “I definitely hate the seniors.”

  The next Tuesday Pérsomi ran into Reinier at the library door. “Are you surviving?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, “how about you?”

  “Not a chance!”

  But after a few weeks things began to fall into place. Most of the seniors had grown bored with the initiation, or maybe they simply had too much work.

  The lounge in Pérsomi’s res had big leather couches where the senior girls could sit and read. Every day the newspapers were placed on a big table under the window. The freshers were allowed to read the papers, as long as they remained on their feet and didn’t sit on the couches.

  Pérsomi read standing at the table every day.

  On May 1 the Germans surrendered in Italy. Berlin was in the hands of the Red Army, and on the bridge across the Elbe River the American and Russian soldiers drank a toast to victory.

  On May 8 all the girls in the women’s residence sat in front of the wireless, listening to the victory speech of the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, broadcast directly from England. He ended with the words: “God save the King!” Trumpets clamoured, sirens wailed, cars blew their horns, trams sounded their bells. People cheered, shouted, and sang.

  Some of the girls, including Lucia, got carried away, raising their hands and singing along: “Send him victorious, happy and glorious . . .” But most got up and left. “Bloody Khaki lovers!” they sneered.

  “Everyone has lost, not only Germany,” said Pérsomi, back in their room. “It was all so terribly unnecessary.”

  “The first returning troops will be parading down Church Street on Saturday morning,” said Reinier when she ran into him between classes on Thursday. “I feel like going. I’d like to see the troop carriers.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Pérsomi said at once. The gaping wound of Gerbrand’s death had slowly healed, but the scar remained.

  “Okay,” he said, kicking at a stone. “Come to bioscope with me on Saturday? It’s a kind of war movie, but I don’t think there’ll be too much fighting, because it’s a musical. It’s called Anchors Aweigh, with those two guys who sing and dance, Gene Kelly and Frank somebody.”

  “Sinatra,” she said.

  “Yes, that’s right. What do you say?”

  She hesitated.

  “Come on, Pérsomi, we can catch up like in the old days. It feels as if we haven’t spoken for years.”

  “Oh, all right.” She began to laugh. “You make it sound as if we’re very old.”

  He smiled. “Studying is making me old,” he said and shifted his books to his other arm.

  Saturday night she spent a long time in front of her closet. She would have to wear her kidskin shoes. She couldn’t go to bioscope in her old school shoes. Pérsomi picked a full skirt and a blouse that more or less matched.

  “Are you going out tonight?” Lucia asked behind her.

  “Yes,” said Pérsomi.

  “Where?”

  “Bioscope.”

  “With a guy?” Lucia asked, surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Just someone who went to school with me.”

  “Is he handsome?” asked Lucia. “If he is, you must introduce him to me.”

  “The girls at school thought he was good-looking,” she answered. “But to me he’s just a good friend.”

  “You can’t wear those shoes with that skirt,” said Lucia.

  “They’re all I have,” said Pérsomi and began to brush her hair.

  Boelie was granted the chance to finish his studies. At the beginning of the third term, Irene and Pérsomi drove back to university with him. They drove in Boelie’s small new Chevy Deluxe, a secondhand car his oupa had bought for him. They drove across the Springbok flats to Pretoria, past the dozens of small platforms where the train stopped for milk cans and mailbags.

  “Next Saturday we should take a look at how the Voortrekker Monument is coming along,” Boelie said when they stopped to eat the cold sausage and thinly sliced venison and the sandwiches his ouma had packed for them.

  “Count me out,” said Irene. “The cornerstone ceremony was one of the worst weeks of my life. I ripped the horrible Voortrekker dress I was forced to wear and Ouma pretended it was nothing.”

  So only Pérsomi stood waiting for Boelie in front of her residence Saturday morning. It was still early and the air was fresh and nippy. Pérsomi rubbed her hands together to warm them. When Boelie stopped next to her and leaned over to open the door, she got in quickly, knocking her head against his.

  “Ouch!” she said.

  His dark eyes were laughing, inches from her face. “Wild thing,” he teased her.

  “It’s cold,” she protested and quickly closed the door.

  Suddenly the car felt different, smaller than it had a week ago. It felt strange to be sitting beside Boelie. The gum trees threw long shadows across the road in the feeble winter sun.

  “It’s a nice car,” she said to fill the awkward silence.

  “Hmm,” he said, “I’m very happy with it.”

  She looked at his hands on the wheel: the broad fingers; the short, square nails; the dark hairs on the back of his hands. She remembered how those hands had stroked her hair in the da
rkest night.

  “It’s been nearly seven years since I last visited the monument,” Boelie said.

  She looked at his strong profile as if seeing it for the first time. “I’ve never been there,” she said.

  “I’ll never forget the cornerstone ceremony,” he said. Even his voice sounded different. “There were thousands of people, all of them Afrikaners. That week I realized, Pérsomi, that I could never be anything but an Afrikaner. It’s in my marrow and in my blood.”

  She nodded.

  When they arrived at the national symbol, she had even less to say. She was faced with a colossal roofless block, a huge cube with granite walls—like ruins—doggedly clinging to the rocky soil, its bare walls surrounded by stark scaffolding.

  She stood motionless, staring.

  “This place is almost sacred,” said Boelie. “Here we are reminded of the Covenant the Voortrekkers made more than a century ago in the face of death. Here we know that God planted our nation at the southernmost tip of Africa for a reason.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  The strangeness remained: a strange place, a strange conversation, a strange Boelie.

  “Do you feel it, Pérsomi?” Boelie asked beside her.

  She didn’t know what she felt. She was scared of what she thought she felt, so she said nothing.

  “What do you think of the monument?” he asked after a while.

  “It looks like”—she had to be honest—“a half-finished building.”

  “It will be a great church to honor God and our ancestors, a reminder of the great courage of our forefathers. It’s where we Afrikaners come from, Pers, remember that and be proud.”

  They walked across the uneven terrain surrounding the building. Boelie looked at the half-finished monument from every side, talking and waving his hands. If Reinier had been here, he would have joined in the conversation, Pérsomi thought.

  That evening Lucia asked: “How was your morning?”

  “Interesting,” Pérsomi replied. “Actually . . . weird.”

  “Yes, I also find the obsession with the monument weird.”

  But Pérsomi had not been referring to the monument.