The Complete Oom Schalk Lourens Stories

by Herman Charles Bosman

  Louisa sat with her eyes lowered. And, as I am talking to you, I can sense how unwillingly she comes into this story, even now.

  Anyway, the stupidity of that wood-carver caused a good deal of merriment in the Marico Bushveld for a while. When Radi­pa­long brought me a carving of myself, with a jaw like an aardvark and big, flat feet, I laughed so much that I just pulled the thing away from him roughly, without paying him anything – not even for fun. And when Radipalong gave Hendrik Pretorius his likeness, Hendrik was so amused that Radipalong had a lump behind his ear from where Hendrik Pretorius hit him with a piece of wood that was harder than the wood out of which he made the carving.

  Shortly afterwards, Radipalong went out of the business of carving images of white men.

  The white men laughed too much.

  It was some time later that the engagement between Louisa Wessels and Karel Nienaber got broken off. Although nobody knew all the details surrounding the circumstances under which those two young people parted, we had a pretty good general sort of idea. And we were not surprised when, shortly afterwards, Karel Nienaber left the Marico Bushveld to go and work for a blacksmith in Zeerust. He said he felt it wasn’t healthy living in the Bushveld, among all those dark trees.

  But what we never understood clearly was how Karel Niena­ber had come to open the tamboetie kist in which Louisa Wessels was collecting her trousseau. We did know, however, that Karel found, lying on top of the bridal silks and ribbons, the wooden image that Radipalong had carved of him. And, driven into the place where the heart was, were several rusty nails.

  The Picture of Gysbert Jonker

  This tobacco-bag, now (Oom Schalk Lourens said, producing a four-ounce linen bag with the picture on it of a leaping blesbuck – the trademark of a well-known tobacco company), well, it is very unusual, the way this tobacco-bag picture fits into the life-story of Gysbert Jonker. I had occasion to think of that only the other day, when at the Zeerust bioscope during the last Nagmaal they showed a film about an English lord who had his portrait painted. And it seemed that after that only the portrait changed, with the years, as the lord grew older and more sinful.

  Some of the young people, when they got back from the bioscope, came and called on me, on the kerkplein, and told me what a good film it was. A few of them hinted that I ought also to go to the bioscope, now and again – say, once in two years, or so – to get new ideas for my stories.

  Koos Steyn’s younger son, Frikkie, even went so far as to say, straight out, that I should go oftener than just once every two years. A good deal oftener. And that I shouldn’t see the same film through more than once, either.

  “Important things are happening in the world, Oom Schalk,” young Frikkie said. “You know, culture and all that. That’s why you should go to a film like the one we have just seen. A film with artists in it, and all.”

  “Yes, artists,” another young fellow said. “Like an artist that got pointed out to me last time I was in Johannesburg. With his wide hat and his corduroy trousers, he looked just like a Marico farmer, except that his beard was too wild. We don’t grow our beards so long in these parts, anymore, since that new threshing machine with the wide hopper came in. That machine is so quick.”

  “That is the trouble with your stories, Oom Schalk,” Frikkie Steyn continued. “The Boers in them all grow their beards too long. And the uppers of their veldskoens have got an old-fashioned look. Why can’t you bring into your next story a young man with a pair of brown shop boots on, and” – hitching his pants up and looking down – “yellow-and-pink striped socks with a –”

  “And a waistcoat with long points coming over the top part of the trousers,” another young man interrupted him. “And braces with clips that you can make longer or shorter, just as you like.”

  Anyway, after Theunis Malan had demonstrated to me the diffe­rence between a loose and an attached collar, and then couldn’t find his stud, and after an ouderling had come past just when another young man was using bad language because he couldn’t get his head out through his shirt again – through somebody else having thoughtfully tied the shirt-tails together while the young man was explaining about a new kind of underwear – well, there wasn’t much about their new Nagmaal clothes that these young men wanted me to leave out of my next story. And the ouderling, without knowing what was going on, and without trying to find out, even, merely shook his head solemnly as he went past.

  And, of course, Frikkie Steyn, just to make sure that I had it right, told the bioscope story of the English lord all over again – all the time that I was filling my pipe from a quarter-pound bag of Magaliesberg tobacco; the sort with the picture of the high-bounding blesbuck on it.

  So I thought, well, maybe Gysbert was not an English lord. But I could remember the time when his portrait, painted in the most beautiful colours, hung in his voorkamer. And I also thought of the way in which Gysbert’s portrait was on display on every railway platform and in every Indian shop in the country. And al­most until the very end the portrait remained unchanged. It was only Gysbert Jonker who, despite all his efforts, altered with the years. But when the portrait did eventually change, it was a much more incredible transformation than anything that could have happened to the portrait of that lord in the bioscope story.

  It was while we were sitting in the Indian store at Ramoutsa, drinking coffee and waiting for the afternoon to get cool enough for us to be able to drive back home by mule- and donkey-cart, that we first noticed the resemblance.

  Our conversation was, as usual, of an edifying character. We spoke about how sensible we were to go on sitting in the Indian store, hour after hour, like that, and drinking coffee, instead of driving out in the hot sun, and running the risk of getting sunstroke. Later on, when some clouds came up, we were even more glad that we had not ventured out in our open carts, because everybody knows that the worst kind of sunstroke is what you get when the sun shines on to the back of your head through the clouds.

  Of course, there were other forms of conveyance, such as Cape-carts, we said. But that sort of thing only undermined you. Naturally, we did not wish to be undermined. We spoke about how the younger generation was losing its self-reliance through – and we started naming some of the things we saw on the shelves around us. Gramophones, we said. And paraffin candles in packets, we said, instead of making our own. And tubes with white grease that you squeeze at the end to polish your plates and spoons with, one of us said. No, it was to brush your teeth with, somebody else interrupted him. And we said that, well, what­ever it was for, it was undermining. And we said that our own genera­tion was being sapped, also.

  After we had asked the Indian behind the counter to stand to one side, so that we could see better how we were being undermined, Hans Bekker pointed to a shelf holding tins of coffee. “Formerly we burnt and ground our own coffee,” Hans Bekker said. “Today –”

  “Before I could walk,” Andries Claassens said, “I used to shred my own tobacco from a black roll. I could cut up plug tobacco for my pipe before I could sharpen a slate-pencil. But now I have to sit with this little bag –”

  I don’t know who made the following observation, but we laughed at it for a long time. We looked back from Andries Claas­sens’s tobacco-bag to the shelf on which dozens of similar bags were displayed. On each was the picture of a farmer with a black beard and a red-and-yellow checked shirt; and in his right hand, which was raised level with his shoulders, he held, elegantly if somewhat stiffly, a pipe. Perhaps you remember that picture, which did not appear only on the tobacco-bags, but was reproduced, also, in the newspapers, and stood on oblong metal sheets, enamelled in bright colours, in front of every store.

  When our attention had been drawn to it, we saw the resemblance very clearly. In respect of both his features and his expression, the farmer on the tobacco-bag was almost the exact image of Gysbert Jonker. Gysbert’s beard was not so neatly trimmed, and his eyebrows were straighter; also, his mouth considerably larger than the ma
n’s on the picture. But in every other way – taking into consideration the difference in their dress – the likeness was astonishing.

  Gysbert Jonker was there, in the Indian store, with us, when we made the discovery. He seemed very much interested.

  “You will now have to push your ears in under the sweatband of your hat, in the city fashion,” Hans Bekker said to Gysbert. “You can’t have them bent anymore.”

  “And you will now have to hold your pipe up in the air, next to your shoulder, when you walk behind the plough,” Andries Claassens added, “in your riding-breeches and leggings.”

  We were more than a little surprised at Gysbert’s answer.

  “It is absurd to think that I could do farm-work in that rig-out,” he replied. “But on Sundays, and some evenings after work, I shall wear riding-pants and top-boots. And it’s a queer thing, but I have always wanted a shirt with red-and-yellow checks. In any case, it’s the least I can do, in view of the fact that this tobacco company has honoured the Marico by making use of the portrait of the district’s most progressive cattle farmer in this way. I suppose the tobacco firm selected me for this purpose because of the improvements I made to my cement-dip last year.”

  Gysbert Jonker added that next year he intended erecting another barbed-wire camp on the other side of the dam, and that he could bring this to the notice of the tobacco company as well.

  We suddenly found that we had nothing more to say. And we were so taken aback at the way Gysbert responded to the purely accidental circumstance of his resembling the man in the picture that we were quite unable to laugh about it, even.

  And I am sure that I was not the only Marico farmer, driving back home later that afternoon over the dusty road through the camel-thorns, who reflected earnestly on the nature (and dangers) of sunstroke.

  After a while, however, we got used to the change that had taken place in Gysbert Jonker’s soul.

  Consequently, with the passage of time, there was less and less said about the gorgeously coloured shirts that Gysbert Jonker wore on Sundays, when he strolled about the front part of his homestead in riding breeches and gaiters, apparently carefree and at ease, except that he held his pipe high up near his shoulder, somewhat stiffly. In time, too, the ouderling ceased calling on Gysbert in order to dissuade him from going about dressed as a tobacco advertisement on Sundays – a practice that the ouderling regarded as a desecration of the Sabbath.

  In spite of everything, we had to admit that Gysbert Jonker had succeeded to a remarkable degree in imitating his portrait – especially when he started shaving the sides of his eyebrows to make them look more curved, and when he had cultivated a smile that wrinkled up his left cheek, halfway to his ear. And he used to smile carefully, almost as though he was afraid that some of the enamel would chip off him.

  Jonker on one occasion announced to a number of acquaintances at a meeting of the Dwarsberg debating society: “Look at this shirt I have got on, for instance. Just feel the quality of it, and then compare it with the shirt on your tobacco-bag. I had my photo taken last month in Zeerust, in these clothes. I sent the photograph to the head office of the tobacco company in Johan­nes­burg – and would you believe it? The tobacco people sent me by the following railway-lorry, one of those life-sized enamelled pictures of myself painted on a sheet of iron. You know, the kind that you see on stations and in front of shops. I nailed it to the wall of my voorkamer.”

  Gysbert kept up this foolishness for a number of years. And it was, of course, this particular characteristic of his that we ad­mired. We could see from this that he was a real Afrikaner, as obstinate as the Transvaal turf-soil. Even when, with the years, it became difficult for him to compete successfully with his portrait that did not age, so that he had to resort to artificial aids to keep his hair and beard black – then we did not laugh about it. We even sympathised with him in his hopeless struggle against the onslaughts of time. And we noticed that, the older Gysbert Jonker got, the more youthful his shirt seemed.

  In the end, Gysbert Jonker had had to hands-up, of course. But he gave in only after his portrait had changed. And it was so stupendous a change that it was beyond the capacity even of Gysbert to try to follow suit. One day suddenly – without any kind of warning from the tobacco firm – we noticed, when we were again in the Indian store at Ramoutsa, that the picture of the farmer in riding pants had disappeared from the tobacco-bags. Just like that. The farmer was replaced with the picture of the leaping blesbuck that you see on this bag, here. Afterwards, the blesbuck took the place of the riding-pants farmer on the enamelled iron sheets as well.

  Meanwhile, however, when it dawned on us that the tobacco company was busy changing its advertisement, we made many carefully considered remarks about Gysbert Jonker. We said that he would now, in his old age, have to start practising the high-jump, in order to be able to resemble his new portrait. We also said that he would now have to paint his belly white, like the blesbuck’s. We also expressed the hope that a leopard wouldn’t catch Gysbert Jonker when he walked about the veld on a Sunday morning, dressed up like his new portrait.

  Nevertheless, I had the feeling that Gysbert Jonker did not altogether regret the fact that his portrait had been unrecognisably changed. For one thing, he was now relieved of the strain of having all the time to live up to the opinion that the tobacco company had formed of him.

  And although he removed the enamelled portrait from the wall of his voorkamer, and used it to repair a hole in the pigsty, and although he wore his gaudily coloured shirts every day, now, and while doing the roughest kind of work, just so as to get rid of them – yet there were times, when I looked at Gysbert Jonker, that my thoughts were carried right back to the past. Most often this would happen when he was smoking. To the end, he retained something of his enamelled way of holding his pipe – his hand raised almost level with his shoulder, elegantly, but just a shade stiffly.

  Some years later, when Gysbert Jonker was engaged in wearing out the last of his red-and-yellow checked shirts, I came across him at the back of his pigsty. He was standing near the spot where he had replaced a damaged sheet of corrugated iron with his tobacco-advertisement portrait.

  And it struck me that in some mysterious way, Gysbert Jonker had again caught up with his portrait. For they looked equally shabby and dilapidated, then, the portrait and Gysbert Jonker. They seemed to have become equally sullied – through the years and through sin. And so I turned away quickly from that rusted sheet of iron, with the picture on it of that farmer with his battered pipe, and his beard that was now greying and unkempt. And his shirt that looked as patched as Gysbert Jonker’s own. And his eyes that had grown as wistful.

  The Homecoming

  Laughter (Oom Schalk Lourens said). Well, there’s a queer thing for you, now, and something not so easy to understand. And the older you get, the more things you seem to find to laugh at. Take old Frans Els, for instance. I can still remember the way he laughed, that time at Zeerust, when we were coming around the church building and we saw one of the tents from the Nagmaal camping-ground being carried away by a sudden gust of wind.

  “It must be the ouderling’s tent,” Frans Els called out. “Well, he never was any good at fixing the ground-pegs. Look, kêrels, there it goes right across the road.” And he laughed so much that his beard, which was turning white in places, flapped about almost like that tent in the wind.

  Shortly afterwards, what was left of the tent got caught round the wooden poles of somebody’s veranda, and several adults and a lot of children came running out of the house, shouting. By that time Frans Els was standing bent almost double over a fence. The tears were streaming down his cheeks and he had difficulty in getting his breath. I don’t think I ever saw a man laugh so much in my life.

  I don’t think I ever saw a man stop laughing as quickly, either, as what Frans Els did when some people from the camping-ground came up and spoke to him. They had to say it over twice before he could get the full purport of the mes
sage, which was to the effect that it was not the ouderling’s tent at all that had got blown away, but his.

  I suppose you could describe the way in which Frans Els carried on that day while he still thought that it was the ouderling’s tent, as one kind of laughter. The fact is that there are more kinds of laughter than just that one sort, and it seems to me that this is the cause of a lot of regrettable awkwardness in the world.

  Another thing I have noticed is that when a woman laughs it usually means a good deal of trouble for a man. Not at that very moment, maybe, but afterwards. And more especially when it is a musical sort of laugh.

  There is still another kind of laughter that you have also come across in your time, I am sure. That is the way we laugh when there are a number of us together in the Indian store at Ramoutsa, and Hendrik Moolman tells a funny story that he has read in the Goede Hoop. What is so entertaining about his way of telling these stories is that Hendrik Moolman always forgets what the point is. Then when we ask, “But what’s so funny about it?” he tries to make up another story as he goes along. And because he’s so weak at that, it makes us laugh more than ever.

  So when we talk about Hendrik Moolman’s funny stories, it is not the stories themselves that we find amusing, but his lack of skill in telling them. But I suppose it’s all the same to Hendrik Moolman. He joins heartily in our laughter and waves his crutch about. Sometimes he even gets so excited that you almost expect him to rise up out of his chair without help.