The Complete Oom Schalk Lourens Stories

by Herman Charles Bosman

  We all thought that it was very fine of Petrus Lemmer to sacrifice his own comfort in that way. And we were very glad when he said that this was one of the most respectable dances he had ever attended.

  He said that at two o’clock in the morning. But before that he had said a few other things of so unusual a character that all the women walked out. And they only came back a little later on, after a number of young men had helped Petrus Lemmer out through the front door. One of the young men was Dirk Prinsloo, the school-teacher, and I noticed that there was quite a lot of peach brandy on his clothes. The peach brandy had come out of a big glass that Petrus Lemmer had in his hand, and when he went out of the door he was still saying how glad he was that this was not an improper party, like others he had seen.

  Shortly afterwards Petrus Lemmer fell into the dam, backwards. And when they pulled him out he was still holding on to the big glass, very tightly. But when he put the glass to his mouth he said that what was in it tasted to him a lot like water. He threw the glass away, then.

  So it came about that, in the early hours of the morning, there were four of us driving along the road back from Withaak. Petrus Lemmer had wanted to stay longer at the dance, after they had pulled him out of the dam and given him a dry pair of trousers and a shirt. But they said, no, it wasn’t right that he should go on sacrificing himself like that. Petrus Lemmer said that was nothing. He was willing to sacrifice himself a lot more. He said he would go on sacrificing himself until the morning, if necessary, to make quite sure that nothing disgraceful took place at the dance. But the people said there was no need for him to stay any longer. Nothing more disgraceful could happen than what had already happened, they said.

  At first, Petrus Lemmer seemed pleased at what they said. But afterwards he grew a bit more thoughtful. He still appeared to be thinking about it when a number of young men, including Dirk Prinsloo, helped him on to my mule-cart, heavily. His sister’s step-daughter, Annie, got into the back seat beside him. Dirk Prins­loo came and sat next to me.

  It was a cold night, and the road through the bush was very long. The house where Dirk Prinsloo boarded was the first that we would come to. It was a long way ahead. Then came Petrus Lemmer’s farm, several miles further on. I had the longest distance to go of us all.

  In between shivering, Petrus Lemmer said how pleased he was that nobody at the dance had used really bad language.

  “Nobody except you, Uncle,” Annie said then.

  Petrus Lemmer explained that anybody was entitled to forget himself a little, after having been thrown into the dam, like he was.

  “You weren’t thrown, Uncle,” Annie said. “You fell in.”

  “Thrown,” Petrus persisted.

  “Fell,” Annie repeated firmly.

  Petrus said that she could have it her way, if she liked. It was no use arguing with a woman, he explained. Women couldn’t understand reason, anyway. But what he maintained strongly was that, if you were wet right through, and standing in the cold, you might perhaps say a few things that you wouldn’t say ordinarily.

  “But even before you fell in the dam, Uncle,” Annie went on, “you used bad language. The time all the women walked out. It was awful language. And you said it just for nothing, too. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Uncle. And you an elder in the Reformed Church.”

  But Petrus Lemmer said that was different. He said that if he hadn’t been at the dance he would like to know what would have happened. That was all he wanted to know. Young girls of today had no sense of gratitude. It was only for Annie’s sake that he had come to the dance in the first place. And then they went and threw him into the water.

  The moon was big and full above the Dwarsberge; and the wind grew colder; and the stars shone dimly through the thorn-trees that overhung the road.

  Then Petrus Lemmer started telling us about other dances he had attended in the Bushveld, long ago. He was a young man, then, he said. And whenever he went to a dance there was a certain amount of trouble. “Just like tonight,” he said. He went to lots of dances, and it was always the same thing. They were the scandal of the Marico, those dances he went to. And he said it was no use his exercising his influence, either; people just wouldn’t listen to him.

  “Influence,” Annie said, and I could hear her laughter above the rattling of the mule-cart.

  “But there was one dance I went to,” Petrus Lemmer continued, “on a farm near Abjaterskop. That was very different. It was a quiet sort of dance. And it was different in every way.”

  Annie said that perhaps it was different because they didn’t have a dam on that farm. But Petrus Lemmer replied, in a cold kind of voice, that he didn’t know what Annie was hinting at, and that, anyway, she was old enough to have more sense.

  “It was mainly because of Grieta,” Petrus Lemmer said, “that I went to that dance at Abjaterskop. And I believed that it was be­cause she hoped to see me there that Grieta went.”

  Annie said something about this, also. I couldn’t hear what it was. But this time Petrus Lemmer ignored her.

  “There were not very many people at this dance,” he went on. “A large number who had been invited stayed away.”

  “It seems that other people besides Grieta knew you were going to that dance, Uncle,” Annie remarked then.

  “It was because of the cold,” Petrus Lemmer said shortly. “It was a cold night, just like it is tonight. I wore a new shirt with stripes and I rubbed sheep-fat on my veldskoens, to make them shine. At first I thought it was rather foolish, my taking all this trouble over my appearance, for the sake of a girl whom I had seen only a couple of times. But when I got to the farmhouse at Abjaterskop, where the dance was, and I saw Grieta in the voor­kamer, I no longer thought it was foolish of me to get all dressed up like that.”

  Petrus Lemmer fell silent for a few moments, as though waiting for one of us to say what an interesting story it was, and would he tell us what happened next. But none of us said anything. So Petrus just coughed and went on with his story without being asked. That was the sort of man Petrus Lemmer was.

  “I saw Grieta in the voorkamer,” Petrus Lemmer repeated, “and she had on a pink frock. She was very pretty. Even now, after all these years, when I look back on it, I can still picture to myself how pretty she was. For a long time I stood at the far end of the room and just watched her. Another young man was wasting her time, talking to her. Afterwards he wasted still more of her time by dancing with her. If it wasn’t that I knew that I was the only one in that voorkamer that Grieta cared for, I would have got jealous of the way in which that young fellow carried on. And he kept getting more and more foolish. But afterwards I got tired of standing up against that wall and watching Grieta from a distance. So I sat down on a chair, next to the two men with the guitar and the concertina. For some time I sat and watched Grieta from the chair. By then that fellow was actually wasting her time to the extent of tickling her under the chin with a piece of grass.”

  Petrus Lemmer stopped talking again, and we listened to the bumping of the mule-cart and the wind in the thorn-trees. The moon was large and full above the Dwarsberge.

  “But how did you know that this girl liked you, Oom Petrus?” Dirk Prinsloo asked. It seemed as though the young school-teacher was getting interested in the story.

  “Oh, I just knew,” Petrus Lemmer replied. “She never said anything to me about it, but with these things you can always tell.”

  “Yes, I expect you can,” Annie said softly, in a faraway sort of voice. And she asked Petrus Lemmer to tell us what happened next.

  “It was just like I said it was,” Petrus Lemmer continued. “And shortly afterwards Grieta left that foolish young man, with his piece of grass and all, and came past the chair where I was sitting, next to the musicians. She walked past me quickly, and what she said wasn’t much above a whisper. But I heard all right. And I didn’t even bother to look up and see whether that other fellow had observed anything. I felt so superior to him, at that momen
t.”

  Once again Petrus Lemmer paused. But it was obvious that Annie wanted him to get to the end of the story quickly.

  “Then did you go and meet Grieta, Oom Petrus?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Petrus answered. “I was there at the time she said.”

  “By the third withaak?” Annie asked again. “Under the moon?”

  “By the third withaak,” Petrus Lemmer replied. “Under the moon.”

  I wondered how Annie knew all that. In some ways there seemed little that a woman didn’t know.

  “There’s not much more to tell,” Petrus Lemmer said. “And I could never understand how it happened, either. It was just that, when I met Grieta there, under the thorn-tree, it suddenly seemed that there was nothing I wanted to say to her. And I could see that she felt the same way about it. She seemed just an ordinary woman, like lots of other women. And I felt rather foolish, standing there beside her, wearing a new striped shirt, and with sheep-fat on my veldskoens. And I knew just how she felt, also. At first I tried to pretend to myself that it was the fault of the moon. Then I blamed that fellow with the piece of grass. But I knew all the time that it was nobody’s fault. It just happened like that.

  “As I have said,” Petrus Lemmer concluded sombrely, “I don’t know how it came about. And I don’t think Grieta knew, either. We stood there wondering – each of us – what it was that had been, a little while before, so attractive about the other. But whatever it was, it had gone. And we both knew that it had gone for good. Then I said that it was getting cold. And Grieta said that perhaps we had better go inside. So we went back to the voor­kamer. It seemed an awfully quiet party, and I didn’t stay much longer. And I remember how, on my way home, I looked at the moon under which Grieta and I had stood by the thorn-tree. I watched the moon until it went down behind the Dwarsberge.”

  Petrus Lemmer finished his story, and none of us spoke.

  Some distance further on we arrived at the place where Dirk Prinsloo stayed. Dirk got off the mule-cart and said good night. Then he turned to Annie.

  “It’s funny,” he said, “this story of your uncle’s. It’s queer how things like that happen.”

  “He’s not my uncle,” Annie replied. “He’s only my step­mother’s brother. And I never listen to his stories, anyway.”

  So we drove on again, the three of us, down the road, through the thorn-trees, with the night wind blowing into our faces. And a little later, when the moon was going down behind the Dwars­berge, it sounded to me as though Annie was crying.

  Splendours from Ramoutsa

  No – Oom Schalk Lourens said – no, I don’t know why it is that people always ask me to tell them stories. Even though they all know that I can tell better stories than anybody else. Much better. What I mean is, I wonder why people listen to stories. Of course, it is easy to understand why a man should ask me to tell him a story when there is drought in the Marico. Because then he can sit on the stoep and smoke his pipe and drink coffee, while I am talking, so that my story keeps him from having to go to the borehole, in the hot sun, to pump water for his cattle.

  By the earnest manner in which the farmers of the Marico ask me for stories at certain periods, I am always able to tell that there is no breeze to drive the windmill, and the pump-handle is heavy, and the water is very far down. And at such times I have often observed the look of sorrow that comes into a man’s eyes, when he knows that I am near the end of my story and that he will shortly have to reach for his hat.

  And when I have finished the story he says, “Yes, Oom Schalk. That is the way of the world. Yes, that story is very deep.”

  But I know that all the time he is really thinking of how deep the water is in the borehole.

  As I have said, it is when people have other reasons for asking me to tell them a story that I start wondering as I do now. When they ask me at those times when there is no ploughing to be done and there are no barbed-wire fences to be put up in the heat of the day. And I think that these reasons are deeper than any stories and deeper than the water in the boreholes when there is drought.

  There was young Krisjan Geel, for instance. He once listened to a story. It was foolish of him to have listened, of course, especially as I hadn’t told it to him. He had heard it from the Indian behind the counter of the shop in Ramoutsa. Krisjan Geel related this story to me, and I told him straight out that I didn’t think much of it. I said anybody could guess, right from the start, why the princess was sitting beside the well. Anybody could see that she hadn’t come there just because she was thirsty. I also said that the story was too long, and that even if I was thinking of something else I would still have told it in such a way that people would have wanted to hear it to the end. I pointed out lots of other details like that.

  Krisjan Geel said he had no doubt that I was right, but that the man who told him the story was only an Indian, after all, and that for an Indian, perhaps, it wasn’t too bad. He also said that there were quite a number of customers in the place, and that made it more difficult for the Indian to tell the story properly, because he had to stand at such an awkward angle, all the time, weighing out things with his foot on the scale.

  By his tone it sounded as though Krisjan Geel was quite sorry for the Indian.

  So I spoke to him very firmly.

  “The Indian in the store at Ramoutsa,” I said, “has told me much better stories than that before today. He once told me that there were no burnt mealies mixed with the coffee-beans he sold me. Another one that was almost as good was when he said –”

  “And to think that the princess went and waited by the well,” Krisjan Geel interrupted me, “just because once she had seen the young man there.”

  “– Another good one,” I insisted, “was when he said that there was no Kalahari sand in the sack of yellow sugar I bought from him.”

  “And she had only seen him once,” Krisjan Geel went on, “and she was a princess.”

  “– And I had to give most of that sugar to the pigs,” I said, “it didn’t melt or sweeten the coffee. It just stayed like mud at the bottom of the cup.”

  “She waited by the well because she was in love with him,” Krisjan Geel ended up, lamely.

  “– I just mixed it in with the pigs’ mealie-meal,” I said, “they ate it very fast. It’s funny how fast a pig eats.”

  Krisjan Geel didn’t say any more after that one. No doubt he realised that I wasn’t going to allow him to impress me with a story told by an Indian; and not very well told either. I could see what the Indian’s idea was. Just because I had stopped buying from his shop after that unpleasantness about the coffee-beans and the sugar – which were only burnt mealies and Kalahari sand, as I explained to a number of my neighbours – he had hit on this uncalled-for way of paying me back. He was setting up as my rival. He was also going to tell stories.

  And on account of the long start I had on him he was using all sorts of unfair methods. Like putting princesses in his stories. And palaces. And elephants that were all dressed up with yellow and red hangings and that were trained to trample on the king’s enemies at the word of command. Whereas the only kind of elephants I could talk about were those that didn’t wear red hangings or gold bangles and that didn’t worry about whether or not you were the king’s enemy: they just trampled on you first, anyhow, and without any sort of training either.

  At first I felt it was very unfair of the Indian to come along with stories like that. I couldn’t compete. And I began to think that there was much reason in what some of the speakers said at election meetings about the Indian problem.

  But when I had thought it over carefully, I knew it didn’t matter. The Indian could tell all the stories he wanted to about a princess riding around on an elephant. For there was one thing that I knew I could always do better than the Indian. Just in a few words, and without even talking about the princess, I would be able to let people know, subtly, what was in her heart. And this was more important than the palaces and the
temples and the elephants with gold ornaments on their feet.

  Perhaps the Indian realised the truth of what I am saying now. At all events, after a while he stopped wasting the time of his customers with stories of emperors. In between telling them that the price of sheep-dip and axle-grease had gone up. Or perhaps his customers got tired of listening to him.

  But before that happened several of the farmers had hinted to me, in what they thought was a pleasantly amusing manner, that I would have to start putting more excitement into my stories if I wanted to keep in the fashion. They said I would have to bring in at least a king and a couple of princes, somehow, and also a string of elephants with Namaqualand diamonds in their ears.

  I said they were talking very foolishly. I pointed out that there was no sense in my trying to tell people about kings and princes and trained elephants, and so on, when I didn’t know anything about them or what they were supposed to do even.

  “They don’t need to do anything,” Frik Snyman explained, “you can just mention that there was a procession like that nearby when whatever you are talking about happened. You can just mention them quickly, Oom Schalk, and you needn’t say anything about them until you are in the middle of your next story. You can explain that the people in the procession had nothing to do with the story, because they were only passing through to some other place.”

  Of course, I said that that was nonsense. I said that if I had to keep on using that same procession over and over again, the people in it would be very travel-stained after they had passed through a number of stories. It would be a ragged and dust-laden procession.

  “And the next time you tell us about a girl going to Nagmaal in Zeerust, Oom Schalk,” Frik Snyman went on, “you can say that two men held up a red umbrella for her and that she had jewels in her hair, and she was doing a snake-dance.”

  I knew that Frik Snyman was only speaking like that, thoughtlessly, because of things he had seen in the bioscope that had gone to his head.