The Complete Oom Schalk Lourens Stories

by Herman Charles Bosman

  And Petrus Steyn said that why he went into the Kalahari perio­dically was in order to get fresh inspiration and guidance in regard to the future. He also said it was written in the Bible that a prophet had to go into the desert.

  “I wonder what the Bushmen thought of Zephaniah, when he was in the desert,” Maans Prinsloo asked. “I suppose they painted portraits of him, on rocks.”

  Maans Prinsloo knew that Zephaniah was Petrus Steyn’s favou­r­ite prophet.

  “I don’t know whether Ekron was rooted up, like Zephaniah said would happen,” Petrus Steyn replied. “I read the Bible right through to Revelations, once, to find out. But I couldn’t be sure if Zephaniah was right or not. That’s where my prophecies are different. When I see a thing in the Kalahari Desert, that thing comes out, no matter who gets struck down by it” – and Petrus Steyn looked sternly at Maans Prinsloo – “and no matter how long it takes.”

  That was how Petrus Steyn always talked about his prophecies. And maybe that was the reason why they believed in him, even when they should not have done so.

  Anyway, I can still recall, very clearly, that particular Nagmaal at Zeerust when I first understood in which way Stoffelina Lemmer came into the story. And I also knew why Maans Prinsloo and Petrus Steyn were on unfriendly terms. Stoffelina Lemmer had dark hair, and eyes that had a far-off light in them when she smiled, and that were strangely shadowed when she looked at you without smiling. And she had red lips.

  Stoffelina Lemmer was much in Maans Prinsloo’s company at this Nagmaal. But she was also a great deal with Petrus Steyn. She was nearly always one of the little group that listened to Petrus Steyn’s Kalahari stories, and even if Maans Prinsloo was with her, holding her hand, even, it still seemed that she listened to Petrus Steyn’s talk. That is, she appeared, unlike anybody else, actually to listen, and with an interest that was not simulated.

  Once or twice, also, after the rest of Petrus Steyn’s audience had departed, it was observed that Stoffelina Lemmer remained behind, talking to the prophet. And to judge by the animation of Stoffelina Lemmer’s lips and eyes, if they were talking about the future it was not in terms of Petrus Steyn’s desert prophecies. Beside the burnt-out camp-fire they lingered thus, once or twice, Stoffelina and Petrus, with the dull glow of the dying embers on their faces.

  It was only reasonable, therefore, that Maans Prinsloo should want to know where he stood with Stoffelina Lemmer. That he was in love with her, everybody knew by this time. It was also known, shortly afterwards, that Maans had asked Stoffelina to marry him. And from the way that Maans Prinsloo walked about, looking disconsolate and making remarks of a slighting nature about the whole of the Kalahari, and not just the parts that Petrus Steyn went into, it was clear to us that Stoffelina Lemmer had not accepted Maans Prinsloo just out of hand.

  Then, when it was becoming very tense, this situation that involved two men and a girl, Stoffelina Lemmer found a way out.

  “Let Petrus Steyn go into the desert again, after this Nagmaal,” Stoffelina said. “And let him then come back and tell us what he has seen. He will learn in the Kalahari what is to happen. When he comes back he will tell us.”

  Although he believed in Petrus Steyn’s prophecies, in spite of his pretence to the contrary, Maans Prinsloo nevertheless seemed doubtful.

  “But, look,” he began, “Petrus Steyn is sure to go in just a little distance. And then he will come out and say that Stoffelina Lem­mer is going to marry Petrus Steyn, and that …”

  Petrus Steyn silenced Maans Prinsloo with a look.

  “I shall trek into the Kalahari Desert,” he said. “It will be the longest journey I have ever made into the desert. And whatever I see will be prophecy. And just as I see it I shall come back and an­nounce it. Zephaniah may prophesy wrongly, dishonestly, even … Petrus Steyn, never! I am still not satisfied about what Zephaniah spoke against Ekron.”

  Maans Prinsloo was convinced. And so the matter was decided. We inspanned on the Nagmaal plein at Zeerust and journeyed back to our farms by ox-wagon, and shortly afterwards we heard that Petrus Steyn had set out on a long trek into the Kalahari Desert.

  Nothing remained to be told after that Nagmaal at which it was decided that Petrus Steyn should trek into the Kalahari once more. The story ended when the last red ember turned to ashes in that camp-fire on the Nagmaal plein.

  Maans Prinsloo remained nervous for a very considerable period.

  Because this time Petrus Steyn went on a trip that was longer than anything he had ever undertaken before. In fact, he trekked right across the Kalahari, right through to the other side, and far into Portuguese Angola. Indeed, it was more than fifteen years before we again heard of him, and then it was indirectly, through some Boers who had trekked into Portuguese territory in order to get away from British rule.

  I often wondered if those Boers had ever asked Petrus Steyn what it was that he had trekked away from.

  But before that time there were many Nagmaals, one succeeding the other, when Stoffelina Lemmer and Maans Prinsloo sat near each other, in front of the same camp-fire, each one waiting, and each one’s heart crowded with different emotions, for the return of Petrus Steyn from the desert.

  No, Stoffelina Lemmer never married Maans Prinsloo.

  The Prophet

  No, I never came across the Prophet van Rensburg, the man who told General Kemp that it was the right time to rebel against the English. As you know, General Kemp followed his advice and they say that General Kemp still believed in Van Rensburg’s prophecies, even after the two of them were locked up in the Pretoria Gaol.

  But I knew another prophet. His name was Erasmus. Stepha­nus Erasmus. Van Rensburg could only foretell that so and so was going to happen, and then he was wrong, sometimes. But with Stephanus Erasmus it was different. Erasmus used to make things come true just by prophesying them.

  You can see what that means. And yet, in the end I wondered about Stephanus Erasmus.

  There are lots of people like Van Rensburg who can just foretell the future, but when a man comes along who can actually make the future, then you feel that you can’t make jokes about him. All the farmers in Droëdal talked about Stephanus Erasmus with respect. Even when he wasn’t present to hear what was being said about him. Because there would always be somebody to go along and tell him if you happened to make some slighting remark about him.

  I know, because once in Piet Fourie’s house I said that if I was a great prophet like Stephanus Erasmus I would try and prophesy myself a new pair of veldskoens, seeing that his were all broken on top and you could see two corns and part of an ingrowing toenail. After that things went all wrong on my farm for six months. So I knew that Piet Fourie had told the prophet what I had said. Amongst other things six of my best trek-oxen died of the miltsiekte.

  After that, whenever I wanted to think anything unflattering about Stephanus Erasmus I went right out into the veld and did it all there. You can imagine that round that time I went into the veld alone very often. It wasn’t easy to forget about the six trek-oxen.

  More than once I hoped that Stephanus Erasmus would also take it into his head to tell General Kemp that it was the right time to go into rebellion. But Erasmus was too wise for that. I remember once when we were all together just before a meeting of the Dwars­berg School Committee I asked Stephanus about this.

  “What do you think of this new wheel-tax, Oom Stephanus?” I said. “Don’t you think the people should go along with their rifles and hoist the Vierkleur over the magistrates’ court at Zee­rust?”

  Erasmus looked at me and I lowered my eyes. I felt sorry in a way that I had spoken. His eyes seemed to look right through me. I felt that to him I looked like a springbok that has been shot and cut open, and you can see his heart and his ribs and his liver and his stomach and all the rest of his insides. It was not very pleasant to be sitting talking to a man who regards you as nothing more than a cut-open springbok.

  But Stephanus Erasmus went on looking at m
e. I became fright­en­ed. If he had said to me then, “You know you are just a cut-open springbok,” I would have said, “Yes, Oom Stephanus, I know.” I could see then that he had a great power. He was just an ordinary sort of farmer on the outside, with a black beard and dark eyes and a pair of old shoes that were broken on top. But inside he was terrible. I began to be afraid for my remaining trek-oxen.

  Then he spoke, slowly and with wisdom.

  “There are also magistrates’ courts at Mafeking and Zwart­ruggens and Rysmierbult,” he said. “In fact there is a magistrates’ court in every town I have been in along the railway line. And all these magistrates’ courts collect wheel-tax,” Oom Stephanus said.

  I could see then that he not only had great power inside him, but that he was also very cunning. He never went in for any wild guessing, like saying to a stranger, “You are a married man with five children and in your inside jacket-pocket is a letter from the Kerkraad asking you to become an ouderling.” I have seen some so-called fortune-tellers say that to a man they had never seen in their lives before in the hope that they might be right.

  You know, it is a wonderful thing this, about being a prophet. I have thought much about it, and what I know about it I can’t explain. But I know it has got something to do with death. This is one of the things I have learnt in the Marico, and I don’t think you could learn it anywhere else. It is only when you have had a great deal of time in which to do nothing but think and look at the veld and at the sky where there have been no rain-clouds for many months, that you grow to an understanding of these things.

  Then you know that being a prophet and having power is very simple. But it is also something very terrible. And you know then that there are men and women who are unearthly, and it is this that makes them greater than kings. For a king can lose his power when people take it away from him, but a prophet can never lose his power – if he is a real prophet.

  It was the schoolchildren who first began talking about this. I have noticed how often things like this start with the stories of kaffirs and children.

  Anyway, a very old kaffir had come to live at the outspan on the road to Ramoutsa. Nobody knew where he had come from, except that when questioned he would lift up his arm very slowly and point towards the west. There is nothing in the west. There is only the Kalahari Desert. And from his looks you could easily believe that this old kaffir had lived in the desert all his life. There was something about his withered body that reminded you of the Great Drought.

  We found out that this kaffir’s name was Mosiko. He had made himself a rough shelter of thorn-bushes and old mealie bags. And there he lived alone. The kaffirs round about brought him mealies and beer, and from what they told us it appeared that he was not very grateful for these gifts, and when the beer was weak he swore vilely at the persons who brought it.

  As I have said, it was the kaffirs who first took notice of him. They said he was a great witch-doctor. But later on white people also starting taking him presents. And they asked him questions about what was going to happen. Sometimes Mosiko told them what they wanted to know. At other times he was impudent and told them to go and ask Baas Stephanus Erasmus.

  You can imagine what a stir this created.

  “Yes,” Frans Steyn said to us one afternoon, “and when I asked this kaffir whether my daughter Anna should get married to Gert right away or whether she should go to High School to learn English, Mosiko said that I had to ask Baas Stephanus. ‘Ask him,’ he said, ‘that one is too easy for me’.”

  Then the people said that this Mosiko was an impertinent kaffir, and that the only thing Stephanus could do was not to take any notice of him.

  I watched closely to see what Erasmus was going to do about it. I could see that the kaffir’s impudence was making him mad. And when people said to him, “Do not take any notice of Mosiko, Oom Stephanus, he is a lazy old kaffir,” anyone could see that this annoyed him more than anything else. He suspected that they said this out of politeness. And there is nothing that angers you more than when those who used to fear you start being polite to you.

  The upshot of the business was that Stephanus Erasmus went to the outspan where Mosiko lived. He said he was going to boot him back into the Kalahari, where he came from. Now, it was a mistake for Stephanus to have gone out to see Mosiko. For Mosiko looked really important to have the prophet coming to visit him. The right thing always is for the servant to visit the master.

  All of us went along with Stephanus.

  On the way down he said, “I’ll kick him all the way out of Zeerust. It is bad enough when kaffirs wear collars and ties in Johannesburg and walk on the pavements reading newspapers. But we can’t allow this sort of thing in the Marico.”

  But I could see that for some reason Stephanus was growing angry as we tried to pretend that we were determined to have Mosiko shown up. And this was not the truth. It was only Eras­mus’s quarrel. It was not our affair at all.

  We got to the outspan.

  Mosiko had hardly any clothes on. He sat up against a bush with his back bent and his head forward near his knees. He had many wrinkles. Hundreds of them. He looked to be the oldest man in the world. And yet there was a kind of strength about the curve of his back and I knew the meaning of it. It seemed to me that with his back curved in that way, and the sun shining on him and his head bent forward, Mosiko could be much greater and do more things just by sitting down than other men could do by working hard and using cunning. I felt that Mosiko could sit down and do nothing and yet be more powerful than the Kom­mandant-General.

  He seemed to have nothing but what the sun and the sand and the grass had given him, and yet that was more than what all the men in the world could give him.

  I was glad that I was there that day, at the meeting of the wizards.

  Stephanus Erasmus knew who Mosiko was, of course. But I wasn’t sure if Mosiko knew Stephanus. So I introduced them. On another day people would have laughed at the way I did it. But at that moment it didn’t seem so funny, somehow.

  “Mosiko,” I said, “this is Baas Prophet Stephanus Erasmus.

  “And, Oom Stephanus,” I said, “this is Witch-doctor Mosiko.”

  Mosiko raised his eyes slightly and glanced at Erasmus. Eras­mus looked straight back at Mosiko and tried to stare him out of countenance. I knew the power with which Stephanus Erasmus could look at you. So I wondered what was going to happen. But Mosiko looked down again, and kept his eyes down on the sand.

  Now, I remembered how I felt that day when Stephanus Eras­mus had looked at me and I was ready to believe that I was a cut-open springbok. So I was not surprised at Mosiko’s turning away his eyes. But in the same moment I realised that Mosiko looked down in the way that seemed to mean that he didn’t think that Stephanus was a man of enough importance for him to want to stare out of countenance. It was as though he thought there were other things for him to do but look at Stephanus.

  Then Mosiko spoke.

  “Tell me what you want to know, Baas Stephanus,” he said, “and I’ll prophesy for you.”

  I saw the grass and the veld and the stones. I saw a long splash of sunlight on Mosiko’s naked back. But for a little while I neither saw nor heard anything else. For it was a deadly thing that the kaffir had said to the white man. And I knew that the others also felt it was a deadly thing. We stood there, waiting. I was not sure whether to be glad or sorry that I had come. The time seemed so very long in passing.

  “Kaffir,” Stephanus said at last, “you have no right to be here on a white man’s outspan. We have come to throw you off it. I am going to kick you, kaffir. Right now I am going to kick you. You’ll see what a white man’s boot is like.”

  Mosiko did not move. It did not seem as though he had heard anything Stephanus had said to him. He appeared to be thinking of something else – something very old and very far away.

  Then Stephanus took a step forward. He paused for a moment. We all looked down.

  Frans Steyn was the first
to laugh. It was strange and unnatural at first to hear Frans Steyn’s laughter. Everything up till then had been so tense and even frightening. But immediately afterwards we all burst out laughing together. We laughed loudly and uproariously. You could have heard us right at the other side of the bult.

  I have told you about Stephanus Erasmus’s veldskoens, and that they were broken on top. Well, now, in walking to the outspan, the last riem had burst loose, and Stephanus Erasmus stood there with his right foot raised from the ground and a broken shoe dangling from his instep.

  Stephanus never kicked Mosiko. When we had finished laughing we got him to come back home. Stephanus walked slowly, carrying the broken shoe in his hand and picking the soft places to walk on, where the burnt grass wouldn’t stick into his bare foot.

  Stephanus Erasmus had lost his power.

  But I knew that even if his shoe hadn’t broken, Stephanus would never have kicked Mosiko. I could see by that look in his eyes that, when he took the step forward and Mosiko didn’t move, Stephanus had been beaten for always.

  Mampoer

  The berries of the kareeboom (Oom Schalk Lourens said, nodding his head in the direction of the tall tree whose shadows were creeping towards the edge of the stoep) may not make the best kind of mampoer that there is. What I mean is that karee brandy is not as potent as the brandy you distil from moepels or maroelas. Even peach brandy, they say, can make you forget the rust in the corn quicker than the mampoer you make from karee-berries.