Afterwards we fitted out a wagon with fresh oxen; we took an abundant supply of water and went back into the desert to look for the Steyn family. With the help of the Sechuana kaffirs, who could see tracks that we could not see, we found the wagon. The oxen had been outspanned; a few lay dead beside the wagon. The kaffirs pointed out to us footprints on the sand, which showed which way those two men and that woman had gone.
In the end we found them.
Koos Steyn and his wife lay side by side in the sand; the woman’s head rested on the man’s shoulder; her long hair had become loosened, and blew about softly in the wind. A great deal of fine sand had drifted over their bodies. Near them the Englishman lay, face downwards. We never found the baby Jemima. She must have died somewhere along the way and Koos Steyn must have buried her. But we agreed that the Englishman Webber must have passed through terrible things; he could not even have had any understanding left as to what the Steyns had done with their baby. He probably thought, up to the moment when he died, that he was carrying the child. For, when we lifted his body, we found, still clasped in his dead and rigid arms, a few old rags and a child’s clothes.
It seemed to us that the wind that always stirs in the Kalahari blew very quietly and softly that morning.
Yes, the wind blew very gently.
Francina Malherbe
After her father’s death, Oom Schalk Lourens said, Francina Malherbe was left alone on the farm Maroelasdal. We all wondered then what she would do. She was close on to thirty, and in the Bushveld, when a girl is not married by twenty-five, you can be quite certain that she won’t get a man anymore. Unless she has got money. And even then if she gets married at about thirty she is liable to be left afterwards with neither money nor husband. Look at what happened to Grieta Steyn.
But with Francina Malherbe it was different.
I remember Francina as a child. She was young when Flip first trekked into the Bushveld. There was an unlucky man for you. Just the year after he had settled on Maroelasdal the rinderpest broke out and killed off all his cattle. That was a bad time for all of us. But Flip Malherbe suffered most. Then, for the first time that anybody in the Marico District could remember, a pack of wolves came out of the Kalahari, driven into the Transvaal by the hunger. For in the Kalahari nearly all the game had died with the rinderpest. Maroelasdal was the nearest farm to the border, and in one night, as Flip told us, the wolves got into his kraal and tore the insides out of three hundred of his sheep. This was all the more remarkable, because Flip, to my knowledge, had never owned more than fifty sheep.
Then Flip Malherbe’s wife died of the lung disease, and shortly afterwards also his two younger sons who were always delicate. That left only Francina, who was then about fifteen. All those troubles turned Flip’s head a little. That year the Government voted money for the relief of farmers who had suffered from the rinderpest, and Flip put in a claim. He got paid quite a lot of money, but he spent most of it in Zeerust on drink. Then Flip went to the school-teacher and asked him if the Government would not give him compensation also because his wife and his sons had died, but the teacher, who did not know that Flip had become strange in the head, only laughed at him. Often after that, Flip told us that he was sorry his wife and children had died of the lung disease instead of the rinderpest, because otherwise he could have put in a claim for them.
Francina left school and set to work looking after the farm. With what was left out of the money Flip had got from the Government, she bought a few head of cattle. When the rains came she bought seed mealies and set the kaffir squatters ploughing in the vlakte. For three months in the year, by law, the kaffirs have to work for the white man on whose land they live. But you know what it is with kaffirs. As soon as they saw that there was no man on the farm who would see to it that they worked, the kaffirs ploughed only a little every day for Flip and spent the rest of the time in working for themselves. Francina spoke to her father about it, but it was no good. Flip just sat in front of the house all day smoking his pipe. In the end, Francina wrote out all the trek-passes and made all the kaffirs clear off the farm, except old Mosigo, who had always been a good kaffir.
In those days, Francina was very pretty. She had dark eyes with long lashes that curled down on her red cheeks when her eyes were closed. I know, because I usually sat near her in church, and during prayers I sometimes looked sideways at her. That was sinful, but then I was not the only one who did it. Whenever I opened my eyes slightly to look at her, I saw that there were other men doing the same thing. Once a young minister, who had just finished his studies at Potchefstroom, came to preach to us, so that we could appoint him as our predikant if we wished. But we did not appoint him. The ouderlings and diakens in the church council said that perhaps they could permit a minister to look underneath his lids while he was praying, but it was only right that his eyes should be shut all the time when he pronounced the blessing.
For the next two years I don’t know how Francina and her father managed to make a living on the farm. But they did it somehow. Also, after a while they got other kaffir families to squat on the farm, and to help Mosigo on the lands with the ploughing time. Once Flip left his place on the front stoep and got into the mule-cart and drove to Zeerust. After two days, the hotel proprietor sent him back to the farm on an Indian trader’s wagon. Flip had sold the mules and cart and bought drink.
Shortly after that I saw Flip at the post office. The dining room of Hans Welman’s house was the post office, and we all went there to talk and fetch our letters. Flip came in and shook hands with everybody in the way we all did, and said good morning. Then he went up to Hans Welman and held out his hand. Welman just looked Flip Malherbe up and down and walked away. But with all his nonsense, Flip was sane enough to know that he had been insulted.
“You go to hell, Hans Welman,” he shouted.
Welman turned round at once.
“My house is the public post office,” he said, “so I can’t throw you out. But I can say what I think of you. You treat your daughter like a kaffir. You’re a low, drunken mongrel.”
We could see that Flip Malherbe was afraid, but he could do nothing else after what the other man had said to him. So he went up to Welman and hit him on the chest. Welman just laughed and grabbed Flip quickly by the collar. Then he ran with him to the door, spun him round and kicked him under the jacket.
“Filth,” he said, when Flip fell in the dust.
We all felt that Hans Welman had no business to do that. After all, it was Flip’s own affair as to how he treated his daughter.
After that we rarely saw Flip again. He hardly ever moved from his front stoep. At first young men still came to call on Francina. But later on they stopped coming, for she gave them no encouragement. She said she could not marry while her father was still alive as she had to look after him. That was usually enough for most young men. They had only to glance once at Flip, who of late had grown fat and hearty-looking, to be satisfied that it would still be many years before they could hope to get Francina. Accordingly, the young men stayed away.
By and by nobody went to the Malherbes’ house. It was no use calling on Flip, because we all knew he was mad. Although, often, when I thought of it, it seemed to me that he was less insane than what people believed. After all, it is not every man who can so arrange his affairs that he has nothing more to do except to sit down all day smoking and drinking coffee.
But although Francina never visited anybody, yet she always went regularly to church. Only, as the years passed, she became faded and no more young men looked at her during prayers. There were other and younger girls whom they would look at now. She had become thinner and there were wrinkles under her eyes. Also, her cheeks were no longer red. And there are always enough fresh-looking girls in the Bushveld, without the young men having to trouble themselves overmuch about those who have grown old.
And so the years passed, as you read in the Book, summer and winter and seed-time and harve
st.
Then one day Flip Malherbe died. The only people at the funeral were the Bekkers, the Van Vuurens, my family and Hendrik Oberholzer, the ouderling who conducted the service. We saw Francina scatter dust over her father’s face and then we left.
That was the time when we began to wonder what Francina would do. It was fifteen years since her mother had died, so that Francina was now thirty, and during those fifteen years she had worked hard and in a careful way, so that the farm Maroelasdal was all paid and there were plenty of sheep and cattle, and every year they sowed many sacks of mealies. But Francina just went on exactly the same as she had done when her father was still alive. Only, now the best years of a woman’s life were behind her, and during all that time she had had nothing but work. We all felt sorry for her, the womenfolk as well, but there was nothing we could do.
Francina came to church every Sunday, and that was about the only time that we saw her. Yet both before and after church she was always alone, and she seldom spoke to anybody. In her black mourning dress she began to look almost pretty again, but of what use was that at her age?
People who had trekked into the Marico District in the last four years and only knew her by sight said she must also be a little strange in the head, like her father was. They said it looked as though it was in the family. But we who saw her grow up knew better. We understood that it was her life that had made her lonely like that. On account of having to look after her father she had missed much.
One day an insurance agent came through the Bushveld. He called at all the houses, Francina’s also. It did not seem as if he was doing much business in the district, and yet every time he came back. And people noticed that it was always to Francina’s house that the insurance agent went first. They talked about it. The old people shook their heads in the way that old people do when, although they don’t know for sure about a thing, yet all the same they would like to believe it is so.
But if Francina knew what was being said about her she never mentioned it to anybody, and she didn’t try to act differently. Nevertheless, there came a Sunday when she missed going to church. At once everybody felt that what was being whispered about her was true. Especially when she did not come to church the next Sunday or the Sunday after. Of course, stories that are told in this way about women are always true. But there was one thing that they said that was a lie. They said that what the insurance agent wanted was Francina’s farm and cattle. And they foretold that exactly the same thing would happen to Francina as had happened to Grieta Steyn: that in the end she would lose both her property and the man.
As I have told you, this last part of their stories did not come out in the way they had prophesied. If the insurance agent really had tried to get from her the farm and the cattle, nobody could say for sure. But what we did know was that he had gone back without them. He left quite suddenly, too, and he did not return anymore.
And Francina never again came to church. Yes, it’s funny that women should get like that. For I did not imagine that anything could ever come across Francina’s life that would make her go away from her religion. But, of course, you can’t tell.
Sometimes when I ride past Maroelasdal in the evening, on my way home, I wonder about these things. When I pass that point near the aardvark mound, where the trees have been chopped down, and I see Francina in front of the house, I seem to remember her again as she was when she was fifteen. And if the sun is near to setting, and I see her playing with her child, I sometimes wish, somehow, that it was not a bastard.
The Ramoutsa Road
You’ll see that grave by the side of the road as you go to Ramoutsa, Oom Schalk Lourens said.
It is under that clump of withaaks just before you get to the Protectorate border. The kaffirs are afraid to pass that place at night.
I knew Hendrik Oberholzer well. He was a good man. Unlike most of the farmers who lived here in those days, Hendrik Oberholzer was never caught smuggling cattle across the line. Perhaps it was because he was religious and would not break the law. Or else he chose only dark nights for the work. I don’t know. I was rather good at bringing cattle over myself, and yet I was twice fined for it at Zeerust.
Hendrik Oberholzer lived on the farm Paradyskloof. When he first trekked in here he was already married and his son Paulus was about fourteen. Paulus was a lively youngster and full of spirits when there was drought in the land and there was no ploughing to be done. But when it rained, and they had to sow mealies, Paulus would be sulky for days. Once I went to Paradyskloof to borrow a sack of cement from Hendrik for a sheep-dip I was building. Paulus was on the lands, walking behind the plough. I went up and spoke to him, and told him about the cement for the sheep-dip. But he didn’t stop the oxen or even turn his head to look at me. “To hell with you and your cement,” he shouted.
Then he added, when he got about fifteen yards away, “And the sheep-dip.”
For some time after that Hendrik Oberholzer and I were not on speaking terms. Hendrik said that he was not going to allow other men to thrash his son. But I had only flicked Paulus’s bare leg with the sjambok. And that was after he had kicked me on the shin with his veldskoen, because I had caught him by the wrist and told him that he wasn’t to abuse a man old enough to be his father. Anyway, I didn’t get the cement.
Then, a few days before the minister came up to hold the Nagmaal, Hendrik called at my house and said we must shake hands and forgive one another. As he was the ouderling, the predikant stayed with him for three days, and if he was at enmity with anybody, Hendrik would not be allowed to share in the Nagmaal. I was pleased to have the quarrel settled. Hendrik Oberholzer was an upright man whom we all respected for his Christian ways, and he also regularly passed on to me the Pretoria newspapers after he had finished reading them himself.
Afterwards, as time went by, I could see that Hendrik was much worried on account of his son. Paulus was the only son of Hendrik and Lettie. I know that often Hendrik had sorrowed because the Lord had given him no more than one child, and yet this one had strange ways. Because of that, both Hendrik and his wife Lettie became saddened.
Paulus had had a good education. His father didn’t take him out of school until he was in Standard Four. And for another thing he had been to Sunday school since he was seven. Also his uncle, who was a builder, had taught Paulus to lay flat stones for stoeps. So, taken all round, Paulus had more than enough learning for a farmer. But he was not content with that. He said he wanted to learn. Hendrik Oberholzer reasoned with him and, very fairly and justly, pointed out to him what had happened to Piet Slabberts. Piet Slabberts had gone to high school, and when he came back he didn’t believe in God. So nobody was surprised when, two months later, Piet Slabberts fell off an ox-wagon and was killed by the wheels going over his head.
But Paulus only laughed.
“That is not so wonderful,” he said. “If an ox-wagon goes over your head you always die, unless you’ve got a head like a Bushman’s. If Piet Slabberts didn’t die, only then would I say it was wonderful.”
Yes, it was sinful of Paulus to talk like that when we could all see that in that happening was the hand of God. At the funeral the ouderling who conducted the service also spoke about it, and Piet Slabberts’s mother cried very much to think that the Lord had taken away her son because He was not satisfied with him.
Anyway, Paulus did less work on the farm. Even when the dam dried up, and for weeks they had to pump water for the cattle all day out of the borehole, Paulus just looked on and only helped when his father and the kaffirs could not do any more. And yet he was twenty and a strong, well-built young man. But there was something in him that was bad.
At first Hendrik Oberholzer had tried to make excuses for his son, saying that he was young and had still to learn wisdom, but later on he spoke no more about Paulus. Hendrik’s wife Lettie also said nothing. But there was always sadness in her eyes. For Paulus was her only child and he was not like other sons. He would often take a piece of p
aper and a pencil with him and go away in the bush and write verses all day. Of course Hendrik tore up those bits of paper whenever he found them in the house. But that made no difference. Paulus just went on with his sinful, worldly things, even after the minister had spoken to him about it and told him that no good could come out of writing verses – unless they were hymns. But even then it was foolish. Because in the hymn-book there were more hymns than people could use.
Instead of starting to work for himself and finding some girl to whom he could get married, Paulus, as I have said, just loafed about. Yet he was not bad-looking and there were many girls who could have favoured him if he looked at them first. And from them he could have chosen a woman for himself. Only Paulus took no notice of girls and seemed shy in their company.
One afternoon I went over to Hendrik Oberholzer’s farm to fetch back a saw that I had bought from him. But Hendrik and Paulus had gone to Zeerust with a load of mealies, so that when I got to the house only Hendrik’s wife Lettie was there. I sat down and talked to her for a little while. By and by, after she had poured out the coffee, she started talking about Paulus. She was very grieved about him and I could see that she was not far off crying. Therefore I went and sat next to her on the riempiesbank, and did my best to comfort her.
“Poor woman. Poor woman,” I said and patted her hand. But I couldn’t comfort her much, because all the time I had to keep an eye on the door in case Hendrik came in suddenly.
The Complete Oom Schalk Lourens Stories Page 4