Child of the River

by Irma Joubert

  He laughed softly. “You look a bit tousled, yes, especially your hair.”

  She pushed her fingers through her long, loose hair. “How did you get here in the dark?” she asked again.

  “I used a flashlight. My days of walking in the dark are over. It’s a lovely evening, isn’t it?”

  “Night,” she said. “It’s a lovely night.”

  Together they looked at the stars, as they had done so often in the past.

  The deep peace she had felt before had been replaced by an overwhelming joy. No, not replaced, because the peace was still inside her. Her entire being seemed to have expanded to embrace the joy of his presence and a peace she would cherish and remember.

  “I brought us a picnic,” he said and began to dig in his pockets. From one he produced a small flask and from the other a piece of biltong and a knife.

  “What’s in the flask?” she asked warily.

  “Sweet wine.”

  “I don’t drink wine.”

  “Then I’ll have it all,” he said calmly and began to carve. He held the biltong in his right hand and carved thin slices with his left, the knife stopping when it reached his thumb.

  “Don’t cut yourself,” she said, “you’re using the wrong hand.”

  “I won’t. I’m an experienced carver, even with my left hand,” he said and held out a small sheaf of sliced biltong.

  “You’re left in everything you do, Boelie,” she smiled. “Thanks, it looks lovely.” She took the biltong, felt the light touch of his fingers ripple like a shock wave through her body.

  They chewed in silence.

  “Klara and Antonio are going to have another baby,” Boelie said.

  “A third! Oh, that’s good news!”

  “I don’t know how she’ll cope with another one. Why don’t you taste the wine, Persomi? It’s really nice.”

  “I’ll have a small sip. Were you all together today?”

  “Yes.” He opened the flask, wiped the top with his handkerchief and handed it to her.

  She sipped. “Gosh, it burns my throat!” She shuddered and handed back the flask. “Why aren’t you at home with them?”

  “Same reason as you,” he said.

  “Our situations aren’t exactly alike,” she said.

  “They’re probably equally unbearable,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “Here, have some more biltong.”

  “Thanks.” She hesitated a moment, decided to ask after all. “Unbearable with your father?”

  “Yes, Pers. And of course it affects everyone else.” He snapped the knife shut and returned it to his pocket. Then he leaned back on his elbows.

  She was aware of his right arm behind her back.

  Her heart was thudding.

  “I feared we wouldn’t be able to work together. We really can’t. I tried.” His rich voice came from slightly behind her in the dark.

  Her heart was beating wildly, like it used to before an important track meeting. She drew a deep, slow breath. If she leaned back about three inches . . .

  She didn’t move. “What’s the chief problem?” Even her voice sounded strange, as if she were speaking in a tunnel.

  Then she felt it—he had moved his arm slightly. His right arm was touching her back.

  “It’s not just our personalities,” he said evenly. “My father can’t accept that the farm belongs to me, that I have a say in important matters now.”

  Maybe he was unaware that he was touching her. “Can’t you share the responsibilities, so that you don’t get into each other’s hair?” she said, just as evenly.

  “I don’t know, Pers. He shoots down all my proposals before I’ve even explained them. Maybe I’m introducing too many new ideas at once. He’s ultraconservative, not just with money, in everything. I believe in taking the odd risk. Pérsomi?”

  “Yes?”

  “Relax.” It was the calm, steady voice of someone in control.

  She tried to. She was sitting almost in the crook of his elbow.

  “You have no idea how we clash, about everything, even petty things.”

  She had to concentrate hard to follow the conversation. “And . . . it’s affecting the rest of the family?”

  “Yes, especially my mom and ouma. The right thing is probably for me to go back to Pretoria and find a job as an engineer for the next few years, until my father is ready to hand over the farm.”

  Slowly she began to relax. She felt it not only in her shoulders and back, but also in her soul. The joy had turned into excitement, flooding her. He was definitely aware that his arm was touching her back.

  “It might be a solution, but I think the city would stifle you,” she said.

  “You’re right. And I can’t just abandon the farm. It’s my career, my future!”

  She shook her head slowly. “No, Boelie, you can’t. And you can’t tell your father to give up farming. He’s done it all his life, and he’s still your father. It’s . . . I don’t know.”

  They were quiet for a long time. Even the veld was silent. Only the stars flickered light years overhead. Age-old currents.

  They found themselves on an island in an infinity of space and time.

  An island of quiet camaraderie.

  “You listen to me,” he said at last, “and you understand so incredibly well.”

  She laid her head gently on his shoulder. “You, too, Boelie.”

  He drew her head toward him, stroked her hair and rested his lips on the crown of her head. “You’re an exceptional person, Pérsomi,” he said. “A truly exceptional person.”

  TWELVE

  JANUARY 1951

  “I’LL FETCH YOU ON SATURDAY NIGHT TO GO TO THE MOVIES,” said Boelie when he came in to sign a document.

  Her little office was filled with his presence. Her heart leaped, she blossomed with joy. She tried to rein herself in. It was just a movie in the town hall, where she and Reinier went at least once a month.

  “I’ll meet you there. You know how Ma feels about my going out,” she said calmly.

  “It’s not my style not to fetch a girl at home.”

  “Boelie, if you come for coffee in the middle of a Saturday, it’s bad enough. To arrive at my home at night is a mortal sin.”

  He smiled slightly. “Compromise. I’ll wait across the street.”

  Long after he’d left, wild horses were still galloping inside and around and through her. All that night and the next day and night the joy remained.

  Saturday morning she drew money from her savings account and walked over to Mr. Ismail’s store. She wanted to buy something new. She wanted to look pretty.

  As always, the store welcomed her with the familiar scents of brown sugar and garlic and leather saddles and incense. And as always, everyone was glad to see her. “Miss Pérsomi herself!” cried Mr. Ismail, “and more beautiful than ever! My, the lads of the district must be lining up at the door! Ossie, bring Miss Pérsomi a cup of tea.”

  His grandson hastened to the little kitchen at the back.

  She bought a green sundress with thin shoulder straps and a full skirt. And a new pair of strappy sandals with high heels. In the afternoon she washed her hair and rinsed it with vinegar as she had seen the girls at Tukkies do. She was almost too excited to eat. “I’m going to the movies, Ma,” she called over her shoulder as she left the house.

  “With a boyfriend?” her ma’s voice followed her, but she closed the door.

  She saw him immediately. His Chevy was parked diagonally across the street. He was leaning against the car, his feet crossed, watching her. A small smile played around his mouth. When she reached him, he shook his head.

  “You look lovely.”

  “Thank you.” Compliments usually made her feel awkward, but Boelie’s words turned her into the most beautiful girl in the world.

  They drove the few blocks to the town hall and parked under a jacaranda tree on a side street. Boelie bought their tickets.

  Every time she and Reinier cam
e to watch a movie, he would ask, “Do you want to watch or make out?” Then they would laugh and sit in the fourth row from the front.

  It was different with Boelie. He bought the more expensive balcony tickets. His hand was on her elbow as they went up the stairs.

  Like he had held Annabel’s elbow the night of the play.

  Forget about that night! she told herself for the umpteenth time. Annabel was still far away in London.

  The balcony had only four rows of seats. They sat down in the middle of the back row. “There’s a good view from here and usually no kids,” said Boelie.

  “Yes, these are good seats,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Boelie.

  Silence.

  The lights went down. A single beam came from behind their heads, narrow and full of flurrying dust particles. It funneled wider and wider until it filled the entire screen at the front of the hall with images.

  The sound also came from behind their heads, loud enough that the people right at the front could hear.

  In the short silence between the end of the serial Western and the start of African Mirror, Boelie said, “It’s a real pity the sound is so loud.”

  There were only three other couples on the balcony, all of them older people, all of them in the front row.

  A trumpet announced the start of African Mirror. Fighter planes soared from a runway into the sky until the entire sky was filled with planes.

  Boelie’s arm lay on the back of her seat.

  “There was high acclaim this week for the South African Air Force and their fighter pilots’ brave performance in Korea,” the metallic voice said. Would the world never stop making war?

  Gently Boelie’s hand began to stroke her bare shoulder. She froze.

  Rows of long-legged girls clad in bikinis moved from left to right across the screen. They stopped at the edge of a pool, neatly in line, one leg slightly in front of the other. “In London, Kiki Håkansson of Sweden was crowned as the first Miss World this week. Eric Morley and his wife, Julia, founders of the competition, believe that the pageant has come to stay,” the announcer said.

  He stroked so gently that she didn’t know if it was really happening. Her lungs seemed to have frozen as well.

  The screen was filled with rugby players. There was a crash tackle right in the middle of the field. “Big things are expected from the center partnership between Ryk van Schoor and Tjol Lategan in the upcoming Springbok tour to Great Britain and France,” the newscaster said.

  Her body was tense, hard as stone.

  His hand stopped but he didn’t remove it.

  “Bobby Locke became the first person in the history of the South African Open Golf Championship to achieve a score lower than sixty-five,” the announcer said enthusiastically.

  When the lights came on for intermission, Boelie turned to her. “Am I making you nervous, Pers?” he asked.

  She looked at him. The expression in his dark eyes was serious. She gave a slight nod. Don’t stop, she wanted to say. But her throat had turned to stone.

  The corners of his mouth turned up in a small smile. “It’s not my intention,” he said and briefly stroked her hair. Then he went to buy them drinks.

  The lights went down again, the film began. It was an oldish movie, nearly fifteen years old—Maytime, with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in the leading roles, a tale about an overambitious opera singer who chooses her career over love.

  They watched in silence. Sadness welled up inside Pérsomi, filtering through the stone and filling her body.

  It wasn’t the movie that was making her sad.

  Too late the opera singer realized that success could never make her happy, that she was standing in the spotlight alone and terribly lonely.

  How could she tell Boelie to put his arm back? Please put his arm back? Please stroke her shoulder again?

  The two actors on the big screen at the front of the hall got another chance: the young hero got the opportunity to perform with the famous opera singer. The audience sat entranced.

  Should she just say, Put your arm around me again, Boelie? Should she rest her head on his shoulder?

  The lovestruck singers declared their undying love. They would run away together that very night. But the opera singer’s husband appeared, producing a revolver from his pocket.

  Pérsomi couldn’t move. She sat staring at the screen.

  The husband fired a shot. The young hero died in the arms of his beloved.

  For a few seconds the audience was silent. Then someone gave a deep sigh.

  It’s so sad, so unnecessary, Pérsomi thought. People should just talk to each other, listen.

  “God Save the King” blared from the sound system overhead. Reluctantly the moviegoers got up. Boelie and Pérsomi remained seated. They waited until almost everyone had left before they walked to the quiet side street where the Chevy was parked. He opened the door for her, then got in on the driver’s side.

  I must do something, she thought, panic-stricken.

  When he was about to put the key in the ignition, she said: “I don’t want to go home yet.”

  His hands stopped moving. He turned to her. “What would you like to do?”

  “Just . . . talk, like we used to.” She thought for a moment. “About anything, like . . . how things are on the farm.”

  Both his hands rested on the wheel. “Fine, Pérsomi.”

  “I’m glad. Could you sort out matters?”

  “No, I meant fine, we can talk. The situation at home has gone from bad to worse.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.

  He shrugged.

  The streetlight cast a feeble glow through the branches of the big jacaranda tree.

  The conversation petered out to almost nothing.

  All she had to do was reach out and touch him, she knew. It couldn’t be too hard, it couldn’t. If it were Reinier next to her, she would have no problem placing her hand on his arm.

  Slowly she reached out and laid her hand on his arm. Carefully she forced the words past the stone wall inside her. “I . . . didn’t want you to . . . take away your arm.”

  He took her hand and gently pressed it to his cheek, which was rough and slightly prickly. “It’s my fault, I want . . .” He stopped and moved her hand back to her lap. But this time his big hand covered hers.

  When he spoke again, his voice was husky. “Pérsomi, I know we’ve been good friends in the past, or maybe like . . . brother and sister. But . . . I feel more than that for you.”

  She heard herself gasp.

  “The last thing I want to do,” he said, removing his hand, “is to upset or frighten you. I don’t want to do anything to harm our friendship. It’s one of the most precious things in my life.”

  She had to speak. “Mine, too, Boelie.” There was a pleading note in her voice.

  He turned to her with a hint of a smile. “We’ll try, Pérsomi,” he said confidently, “and if anything bothers you, if at any stage you think our friendship is suffering, please tell me. I don’t want to lose you as a friend and confidante.”

  “Me . . . neither,” she said. Why was she so tongue-tied tonight?

  “Are you going to make me a cup of coffee before I go back to the farm?” he tried to ease the tension.

  She shook her head. “My ma,” she said.

  He nodded and started the engine. “I plan to speak to your mother, Pers,” he said. “I don’t want to wait in the street like a criminal every time I come to pick you up.”

  “Wait until it’s . . . absolutely necessary,” she said.

  “I’ll wait, with everything,” he promised, as he reversed the car. “But it’s one of the first things I want to do.”

  When they were in the street, he said, “Come sit beside me, please?”

  She moved closer. He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. “This is where I want you,” he said, smiling down at her.

  She focused on relaxing her shoulders.
>
  Close to home, she moved away. “I’ll get out here,” she said, reaching for the door handle.

  He nodded. “Thank you for a lovely evening, Pérsomi. We’ll do it again soon. Okay?”

  “Yes. Thanks, Boelie.”

  He waited in the car until she had closed the front door behind her. Then he drove away.

  She sank down on a chair in the sitting room. Her heart was beating wildly. Her cheeks were burning. Her breathing was shallow and jerky.

  An impossible dream was coming true. And all she wanted to do was run away.

  “Pérsomi, I’m a man who knows my politics, as you well know,” Oom Polla said importantly one Tuesday evening. They were having coffee in the sitting room. Aunt Duifie’s cup was neatly balanced on her ample bosom. Pérsomi’s ma sat bolt upright, proud as a peacock in her new frizzy hairdo given to her by Aunt Dufie. She seemed afraid to move her head, as if the stiff curls might drop off at any moment.

  “I know you know your politics,” said Pérsomi.

  “But this thing in Die Vaderland?” Oom Polla handed her the paper. “Look, it’s not that I don’t know what’s going on, I just want to . . .” He began to cough.

  She had seen the headline. Mr. De Vos and De Wet had discussed it at the office. She had listened, not in total agreement, but said nothing. She looked at the front page again: “UP Drags Government to Court,” said the headline, and in smaller print below: “Separate Registration of Voters Act violates entrenched Coloured franchise.”

  “. . . make a hundred percent sure of the legal aspects,” Oom Polla completed his sentence.

  “Oom Polla, when the South Africa Act came into being in 1909 and the Union was established, there was a clause entrenching the Coloured vote. This could only be changed if a two-thirds majority was achieved in a joint sitting of both houses of Parliament.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Oom Polla, but his eyes told a different story.

  “The Coloured people are almost all Smuts supporters—”

  “Yes,” he nodded, “like me, and Aunt Duifie here.”

  “—so they voted for the United Party in the previous election.”

  “Yes, that is so,” Oom Polla agreed.

  “Don’t you think your ma’s hair looks nice, Pérsomi?” Aunt Duifie interrupted.