by Irma Joubert
“Sir?”
“I’m going to ask only one thing of you.” He had stopped at the window again. For a moment he looked at her, then he averted his eyes.
“Sir?”
“It’s . . . that you stay away from Reinier, Pérsomi. Completely.”
His words hit her in the pit of her stomach. “Reinier?” she asked. Reinier, whom she had phoned the day before, with whom she’d had a long talk, with whom she could partly share her grief about Boelie? Reinier, who had consoled her about their scandalous behavior? Reinier, who had laughed at the truth? “We were both a little sad, Pérsomi, and then we got a little drunk, that’s all.”
“Reinier?” she said again, shaking her head in disbelief.
Mr. De Vos sat down at his desk and faced her. He looked at her, his hands motionless on the desktop. “I’ve been worried about your friendship for a while now,” he said. “For years, actually. But now it has reached a stage where I have to speak out. I have no other option.”
Her shock and confusion changed into irrational anger. “Because I misbehaved on Saturday night?” she asked. “Or because I’m a bywoner child without breeding?”
Mr. De Vos looked her in the eye. “No, Pérsomi,” he said, “because I’m your father.”
PART III
FIFTEEN
THAT SAME AFTERNOON SHE HANDED IN HER RESIGNATION.
“I understand how you feel, Pérsomi, but I don’t accept your resignation. You’re staying,” Mr. De Vos said firmly. “You and De Wet are a rare combination in the same firm. Together you will be a formidable team in the future. And . . . er . . .” He ran his hand over his bald head, avoiding her eyes, fumbling with his papers. “This is your legacy. On merit, I might add.”
She thought about it long and hard. She had no one to talk to.
She withdrew her resignation. Mr. De Vos drew up a document that transferred his share in De Vos and De Vos to Pérsomi Pieterse in the event of his retirement.
She did not thank him. She would be angry with the egocentric man forever.
Right from the start she was angry with her ma, who had caused the misunderstanding with her clumsy handling of the situation. But Pérsomi couldn’t remain angry. Her ma was a simple soul who had stuck to the terms of her promise to the best of her ability.
Pérsomi was angry with herself. She should have gathered more information.
She was angry with Boelie, who had lost no time in welcoming someone else into his heart. And when little Nelius was born only seven months after the extravagant wedding, the ground fell out from under her feet once again.
If she stayed in the town, it slowly dawned on her, she would be unable to avoid Boelie and his family. He drove along the streets, he used the post office and bank and shops, he attended church. He was married to her boss’s daughter. He was her partner’s brother and neighbor. No matter how she withdrew, he would always be a part of her inner circle.
Acceptance came to her slowly. I’m not someone to hide, she told herself over and over, and lifted her chin. I can’t turn my back on this opportunity that has fallen into my lap, on this thriving practice that is my rightful inheritance.
Her grandfather had begun and built this successful law office. She stared at his portrait in the hallway. A seed of pride began to grow. The knowledge that she came from a real family sprouted in her.
Two years after her ma had cried out, “What if you marry your own brother?” Pérsomi could finally face life again.
Gerbrand was in standard three. He was doing well at school and on Saturdays he was captain of his rugby team. Pérsomi spent most Saturdays beside the field with De Wet and Christine, and once or twice Boelie came to watch. Next year Annetjie would also spend her afternoons with Jemima, followed two years later by Lulani. At Christmas, Sissie and Hannapat came to visit. Mercifully Piet no longer came. Oom Polla was still living with his phthisis and the rotund Aunt Duifie. Under the enthusiastic hands of Aunt Duifie, her ma’s hair underwent a regular change in style.
On Sundays Pérsomi and her ma often drove out to Oom Freddie le Roux’s farm. Her ma spent the day with Auntie Sis and Oom Attie, while Pérsomi visited De Wet and Christine. She got to know her nieces and nephew well, and grew to love each of them individually. When Gerbrand asked, she spoke to him about his father. My-daddy-who’s-dead, Gerbrand called him. But most of the time the boy was in the veld while his two little sisters tagged along behind Pérsomi, wanting to comb or plait her long hair. She and Christine became firm friends.
Braam began to call again. “I want to apply for a post at the high school, Pérsomi. What do you think?” he asked in May.
“If it’s a promotion, you should definitely go for it,” she answered cautiously. She didn’t want to encourage him—not so soon, in any event.
“It is,” he said, “and it would be nice to live here, near you.”
When he didn’t get the appointment, she was secretly relieved. “There will be other jobs,” she tried to comfort him.
“Yes, but not here,” he said.
On May 29, 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary became the first person to reach the peak of Mount Everest. “I used to be a very good mountaineer back in the day,” Oom Polla wheezed. “I used to jog up the Magaliesbergs. Before breakfast, mind you. But Mount Everest is high. I never tried a mountain that high.”
“Of course, Oom Polla,” said Pérsomi and slipped off to her room with a pile of documents.
It took hours of research and reading to keep track of the proliferating laws of the new government’s apartheid policy.
In 1953 the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act came into being, restricting each racial group to the use of its own public amenities.
“It’s not the whole truth, Pérsomi,” said Yusuf Ismail. “There are only separate amenities for whites. Everyone who is not white”—he left a deliberate pause between not and white—“is lumped together. The Indians and natives stand in the same line at the back door of the post office or bank. In rural areas they have no movie theatres to go to. They travel together by train, not separately, in third class. Just look around you.”
Dr. Verwoerd had the Bantu Education Bill passed, and all black schools were placed under government control, their study material adapted to meet the needs of the Bantu.
“Needs determined by whites, Pérsomi,” said Yusuf Ismail. “To honor the Bantu’s tribal heritage, but, in reality, to keep them from advancing.”
“I hear Braam is beating a path to your door?” Reinier said as they shared lunch.
“He came to visit last weekend,” she protested. “Where did you hear he was beating a path to my door?”
“Aunt Duifie, in the post office. She just wanted to tip me off. She probably thought he was poaching on my territory.”
Pérsomi wondered what Reinier would say if he knew she was his half sister. Aloud she said, “Did you tell her not to stick her nose in other people’s affairs?”
He gave her an amused look. “What do you think?”
Smiling, she shook her head. “No, you’re much too kind,” she replied.
“Your sandwiches are getting better by the day. Pass me another one,” he said. “So does the Braam thing mean I no longer have a movie partner?”
“Weekends when he’s not here, I’m game for a movie, as long as it’s not a Western or a war movie, or one of those spy stories or that stupid Laurel-and-Hardy stuff or—”
“What’s left?” he interrupted, laughing.
“Romances, musicals, historical dramas . . .”
He gave a loud groan. “I’m going to start looking for a new movie partner without delay.”
“If she’s female, she’ll like the same things I do,” Pérsomi said. “Do you want to share the last sandwich?”
She began to feel again: real feelings, more than just anger and sadness.
“My parents are moving to Margate,” De Wet mentioned one teatime.
“Margate?” she said, trying to imagine the
farm without the elder Fouries. “Why Margate?”
“I suppose they want to spend their last days at the seaside,” he said offhandedly.
“But the farm!”
De Wet was quiet for a long time. “My father and Boelie can’t live on the same farm, Pérsomi.”
She nodded. “Yes, I know there has been conflict.”
“It’s more than conflict,” he said, “especially with Annabel also there.”
Pérsomi wondered whether Boelie had someone to talk to. Annabel, of course. She ignored the jealous pang that suddenly rose to the surface from a place deep inside. “De Wet invited us to the Le Roux farm for New Year’s Eve,” Braam told her shortly before Christmas. “What do you say: shall we welcome 1954 with a good old shindig in the barn?”
Boelie and Annabel would be there, maybe with the baby. Could she face them?
“We can do something else,” said Braam when he noticed her hesitation.
She couldn’t keep running away. She wasn’t a child anymore. “No, let’s go, it’ll be fun,” she said firmly.
She imagined every possible scenario, preparing herself mentally as she had done before track meetings so many years before. I’ll win this race, she thought as she was washing her hair. I’m strong enough, she told herself as she put on her new dress. I look good, she decided as she studied herself in the full-length mirror.
Pérsomi decided to enjoy the evening.
A campfire was burning high when they arrived on the farm. There was a lamb on the spit, and soon the men would begin to rake hot coals under it.
De Wet came walking toward them, his hand outstretched. “Hello, Braam, Pérsomi, how lovely to see you.” He turned to Pérsomi. “You look beautiful, colleague. What do you think, Braam?”
“She sweeps me off my feet every time I see her,” Braam said honestly, sounding almost too serious.
“Thanks, you two,” Pérsomi laughed, embarrassed. “Look, there’s Christine.”
“It’s self-service tonight,” De Wet said when Christine had welcomed them. “Braam, the drinks are over there.” He turned. “Oh, look, Boelie and Annabel have arrived.”
Pérsomi turned, bracing herself as she had rehearsed at home. She saw him approach, a spring in his step. She took in the strong figure, the thick, dark hair combed back tonight. Beside him was his beautiful wife, elegant in her wide calf-length skirt and snug top, a wide belt round her slender waist. She wore her dark hair on her shoulders, the ends cheekily flicked up. Her calves were perfectly shaped, her ankles slim, the nails of her fingers and toes painted crimson. There was a barely visible swing in her hips as she approached. She had perfected the art.
“Come, brother, get yourselves drinks,” De Wet said.
“Hello, you two,” Christine beamed.
“Don’t you look sweet,” said Annabel. She leaned forward and gave Christine a peck on the cheek. Christine looked somewhat taken aback.
De Wet put his arm around his pretty wife’s shoulders. “She might be a mother, but she still looks sixteen, doesn’t she?” he said. “Look, there’s Lettie.”
“How wonderful! Christine, Lettie, and I—almost the old four again,” Annabel smiled. “Only Klara is missing. Look, Braam’s here as well.” She was in control of the entire conversation. “We should spend more time together! It’s just like the old days.”
Then she turned to Pérsomi. “Oh, you’re here as well, Pérsomi? How are you faring at my dad’s office?”
“Good evening, Annabel,” Pérsomi said calmly, her eyes level with Annabel’s. She was the only woman present who was tall enough.
Annabel looked away first, striking up a conversation with Lettie. Pérsomi turned to Braam. “I’m going to the kitchen to see if I can lend Christine a hand,” she said.
He smiled and squeezed her arm. “Don’t stay away too long,” he said.
The kitchen looked as if a hurricane had passed through it. “It’s a bit of a mess in here. I want to make a salad, and I still have to give the girls their supper,” Christine apologized helplessly.
“Carry on with the kids, I’ll finish up here,” Pérsomi suggested.
Two or three others also came to lend a hand, and in a flash everything was running smoothly. “I’ll never be a good housewife,” Christine complained when she returned to the kitchen half an hour later.
“You don’t have to be one,” said Pérsomi, linking her arm with Christine’s. “You’re a wonderful wife and mother, and that’s what’s most important. Let’s join the guests.”
The men were gathered around the fire, watching De Wet at the spit. The women sat to one side, talking. Lettie waved at Christine, motioning at two empty chairs beside her.
“You sit, I want to check on what Gerbrand’s doing,” said Christine.
Pérsomi sat down, but Lettie and Annabel were talking about their children, and she couldn’t join in. After a while she stopped listening, yet she couldn’t help overhearing scraps of the conversation. “You’re lucky to have joined your dad’s practice, Lettie. You’ll be able to carry on working after the birth of your children,” said Annabel. “I really miss my work. I don’t find changing diapers and bottle-feeding every four hours very stimulating. If it wasn’t for Maggie, I don’t know what I’d do. She’s very good with the baby.”
She didn’t hear Lettie’s soft reply. Actually she didn’t want to hear any more. She got up and joined Braam, who was sitting on a log, watching the lamb roasting over the coals. “Oh, here you are,” he said and motioned for her to sit.
“Gosh, it smells lovely, doesn’t it?” She smiled and sat down, stretching her long legs.
When she looked up, she noticed Boelie sitting directly opposite her, frowning slightly, watching her.
For a moment their eyes met. Then he looked away.
She felt the familiar tenderness. For this, she hadn’t been prepared.
After more than two years, the pain was no less intense.
She didn’t understand it. She led a full life, almost too full, she sometimes thought. Besides her job, which kept her busy and which she truly enjoyed, she’d joined a club at church and made friends with other young women, though most girls her age were married. She had wonderful friends in De Wet and Christine, a very special friend in Braam, and Reinier was still her very best friend. Yet deep inside she remained unfulfilled. There was a bottomless vacuum, a loneliness that never left her.
After supper someone put dance music on the gramophone De Wet had placed on a table beside the threshing floor. “We’ll dance out here,” he’d said earlier, “it’s much too hot in the barn.”
“Come, guys, let’s raise the roof!” someone cried merrily. “Let’s dance till daybreak!”
“The stars, not the roof!” someone else said, laughing.
The merriment increased by the hour.
As the night progressed, an unpleasant realisation grew inside Pérsomi. She wasn’t being fair to Braam. She’d never love him the way she once loved Boelie.
She danced with Braam again and again. She danced with De Wet and Reinier and Antonio’s brother, Marco. She danced with the new bank clerk in town and with almost all the neighbors, even Oom Freddie.
Boelie never asked her to dance. As it should be, she knew.
Later she danced to dull the ache in her heart. In April Annabel stormed into the reception area and headed straight for her father’s office. “Your father isn’t here, Annabel!” Ms. Steyn called after her.
She turned. “Well, is De Wet here?” she asked, opening the door to De Wet’s office. One of the typists peered inquisitively down the passage.
“No, no, De Wet isn’t here either, only Pérsomi,” said Ms. Steyn.
Annabel burst into tears. “Drieka, bring some tea,” Ms. Steyn called down the passage. She took Annabel by the arm and led her into De Wet’s office.
Later Drieka came out of the office, her eyes wide. “She’s just come from the doctor. She’s pregnant again, and she’s very angr
y. She doesn’t want another baby. Gosh, you won’t believe how Ms. Steyn is comforting her.”
Will the pain never stop? Pérsomi wondered.
At the end of September Boelie and Annabel’s daughter was safely delivered in the hospital for whites. “Auntie Annabel doesn’t want the baby, I heard her tell my mom,” Annetjie told Jemima and Aunt Duifie.
“Heavens, Pérsomi, the baby doesn’t even have a name yet!” her ma told Pérsomi late that afternoon. Aunt Duifie nodded so energetically that her plump figure bobbed up and down.
“Don’t encourage Annetjie to tell tales,” Pérsomi warned them. “What if she repeats it at school?”
“No, no, we told her not to say so,” Jemima protested, her hand going to her new hairdo.
But that night sleep evaded her again. What was Boelie going through? What kind of life was waiting for the nameless little girl?
And the next Sunday at church, when Boelie sat down alone again, she didn’t look away, like every other Sunday. She looked at the back of his head four pews ahead and to the left, at the dark curls that touched the collar of the white shirt, at the dark jacket that fit so neatly across the broad shoulders. She didn’t wonder where Annabel was. She thought of nothing—she just kept looking.
The Star reported comprehensively on the Congress of the People, held at Kliptown in June 1955. The young guard in the ANC and their leaders Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Oliver Tambo were given a lot of prominence.
A Program of Action was adopted, meant to pave the way to equal rights. The Freedom Charter, as it was called, was drafted and adopted.
Pérsomi studied the published document and read various commentaries. She sat reading the paper late into the evening, understanding that some people were skeptical and defensive. But looking at the document objectively, she found it quite fair. It proposed a democratically elected government with equal rights for all, equality in front of the law, security, education, and housing for everyone, peace and friendship.