by Helen Brain
He gives me a filthy look. “Why are you going there? You want to cause trouble with my family?”
“No, I don’t,” I say, colouring. “And I’m not asking you to take me to Boat Bay. Just to the harbour. I want to see what produce is being exported.”
His glare says he doesn’t believe me.
I’ve had enough of him. “I’m not asking you,” I say. “I’m telling you to take me to the harbour.”
I can feel his resentment smouldering as we set off along a narrow road that runs along just inside the wall. It’s harsh and stony here and the wall casts a long shadow, turning the air chilly. We round a corner and the guard post lies ahead. Soldiers with guns stand at the gates, and there’s a queue – wagons, buggies, people on donkeys, pedestrians, all waiting to go through.
Leonid scratches in his pocket and pulls out a small green book.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“My passbook.”
“I haven’t got one. Will they let me through?”
“You don’t need one.”
Ahead of us two soldiers are shouting at an old woman in tattered clothes who’s carrying a basket of linen on her head.
“What’s going on?” I ask, craning my neck to see. We’re high up on the wagon, and as I watch, a soldier grabs the woman roughly by the shoulder and pushes her against the wall. She knocks her head, and it starts to bleed.
“What’s she done?” I ask, standing up to see better. It’s outrageous. I’m going to get the soldier’s name and report him to the High Priest.
“Lost her pass.”
“They beat people up for not having a pass? Even an old woman like that?”
He doesn’t answer. His jaw is clenched as the soldiers punch her again and then shove her through the gate.
It’s another fifteen minutes before we reach the front. The woman has disappeared around a bend in the road. A soldier approaches our wagon. “Passbooks,” he snaps.
Leonid holds his out without a word. The soldier checks it and tosses it back. Then he looks me up and down with one eyebrow raised.
“I’m Miss den Eeden of Greenhaven Farm,” I say.
His attitude changes immediately. “Go ahead, miss,” he says, saluting. “Enjoy your day further.”
We’re almost at the harbour when I see the old woman again. She’s sitting on the side of the road looking dazed.
“What will happen to her?” I ask Leonid.
“She won’t be able to go back into the settlement. She’ll have to stay outside forever.”
“What do you think she does for a living?”
“She looks like a laundry woman. She probably washes clothes for rich people in the settlement.” The tone in his voice says, What do you care?
“So she’ll starve?”
“Probably.”
I grab the reins. “Go back. I want to talk to her.”
He sneers at me. “You think another little handout is going to help her?”
“Leonid,” I say firmly, “go back.”
“You’re all the same, you rich people.”
I jump down from the wagon and run back along the road. She’s still sitting there, slumped on the basket, crying.
“Miss,” I say, touching her shoulder. “Can I help you? Can we give you a lift to your house? Have you got family we can take you to?”
Her eyes are sunken. She has a hacking cough and blood is trickling down her face. “There’s no one,” she murmurs.
I can’t leave her here, bleeding on the side of the road. There’s no one I can ask in the harbour to help, and Leonid won’t take me to Boat Bay. There’s only one thing to do.
“Do you want to come with me?” I ask her gently. “Do you want a job in Table Island, on my farm?”
She doesn’t answer. She just stares at me, as though I’m the Goddess herself. Then slowly she nods.
I wave to Leonid. He turns the wagon in a tight circle and drives back up the road towards us.
“She’s coming with us,” I say. “She has no one here.”
“They won’t let her in,” he says, gesturing towards the wall. “Not without a passbook.”
I look around for something. Anything. Then I see her basket of washing. I tip it up and search through it. At the bottom I find a grand robe in saffron orange. It must have belonged to someone very wealthy. It’s got a big stain across the middle, and it’s pretty creased, but I tell her to stand up. I slip it over her head and it falls against her frail body. Her collarbones stick out like rods against the embroidered neckline.
I pour the last bit of water from our water bottle over a cloth and wipe the blood off her face. The wound is still oozing, but there’s a red scarf in the basket. I wind it around her head in a turban, and pull it over so it covers the wound above her ear. Then I take off my sandals and put them on her feet.
“Up you get,” I say, helping her onto the wagon. “You go in the middle.”
She shifts up, next to Leonid. She’s so thin that she takes hardly any space on the bench.
“Home please, Leonid,” I say.
He rolls his eyes and sets the horses trotting.
“What’s your name?” I ask as we near the border post.
“Sarie, miss.”
“Well, Sarie, I want you to sit up straight and hold this book. Pretend you’re reading it.” I give her the book I brought in my bag in case I got a chance to practice my reading. She holds it upside down, so I turn it the right way up, and pat her knee. “You’re not Sarie right now. You’re Miss Sarah, my aunt, visiting from the mainland. We fetched you at the harbour. Understood?”
“Yes, miss.” She manages half a smile before she doubles up coughing. She only has three teeth.
Leonid rolls his eyes again, but I ignore him. When we reach the border post, a different soldier comes over. The sight of the rifle strapped to his shoulder makes me sweat.
“Passes,” he says curtly. “Hurry up.”
Leonid holds his out and the soldier checks it briefly. “You. Give me your pass,” he snaps at Sarie. She looks terrified. Her mouth opens and shuts.
I put on my snootiest expression and stand up regally. “I am Miss Ebba den Eeden of Greenhaven, and I do not carry a pass,” I proclaim. “This is my aunt, Miss Sarah den Eeden, newly disembarked from Stellenbosch.”
The soldier looks like he’s not sure whether to believe me, but clearly the idea of a citizen smuggling in a boat person is too bizarre to warrant further checking. He waves us on.
The moment we’re around the bend in the road, Sarie is wracked with coughs. She’s running a fever. I’ve got to get her home and into bed.
LEONID DOESN’T SAY a word to me all the way back. I try to talk to Sarie, but she twists her hands together and answers in such a soft voice I can’t hear her. She’s burning hot, and I start worrying. What medicines will Aunty Figgy have to help her? In the colony I could have harvested some herbs and made an infusion, but I’ve never tried to heal someone so frail and so obviously ill before.
What if we can’t help her? I push the thought out of my mind. We have to help her.
It’s almost evening when we get home. Micah is outside with his shirt off. He’s washing himself at the pump. He waves to me. Aunty Figgy comes to the kitchen door to fetch the shopping we’ve brought from the market. She sees me helping Sarie down from the wagon, and shakes her head. “What have you done?” she exclaims.
“This is Sarie,” I say. “She needs help. Please can you find me some medicine for her cough, and help me get her to bed.”
“Ebba!” she scolds. “You can’t bring her here. It’s against the law.” Her voice drops and she comes closer to me. “You can’t go bringing just anyone onto Greenhaven. You don’t know who this woman is.”
“But she’s got nowhere to go,” I say. “She was beaten by the soldiers because she lost her pass.”
“How are you going to explain this to Shorty? When the authorities hear, they’ll come here and arrest you
.”
“They’re not like that, Aunty Figgy,” I say. I’m getting irritated with her negativity. “I’ll talk to the High Priest. I’ll tell him that the soldiers were beating her.”
“Just listen to yourself,” Aunty Figgy says. “Do you think he’ll care? He believes that people who are poor and sick are being punished by Prospiroh for their sins.”
I stare at Sarie, biting my lip. She’s standing next to the pump, as thin as a mealie husk, and her cough shakes her whole body.
“You don’t know what diseases she has,” Aunty Figgy whispers, shaking her head. “She’s very sick. You can’t have her in the house – she’ll infect us all. She’ll have to sleep in the barn. Or Leonid must take her back to the harbour. “
“If Shorty sees her, he’ll report you to the High Priest,” Leonid says as he comes back from the kitchen. “I told you so, but you didn’t want to listen.”
“You listen to me,” I say, grabbing him by the front of his tunic. “I have had enough of you yelling at me. Just shut up, shut your mouth. And you, Aunty Figgy,” I say, turning to her with my hands on my hips. “I thought you were all ‘earth mother, the Goddess, loves us and protects us, we need to care for all living things’. But I guess I was wrong.”
“There’s no need to take that tone with me, my girl,” Aunty Figgy snaps. She grabs the crate of shopping and marches off into the kitchen.
Sarie twists her hands in the folds of the stained saffron robe. “I’m going now, miss,” she mutters, looking at the ground. “I don’t want to cause trouble.”
“It’s quite alright,” I say firmly, taking her arm. “My housekeeper is just being bossy. Come with me.”
I take her through the front of the house and put her to bed in the spare bedroom. I know it’s against the law, but I’m certain the authorities will understand when I explain that she’s ill and possibly infectious. And hopefully Shorty won’t see her until she’s better, and I’ve had a chance to explain it to the High Priest myself.
Sarie gets into bed and lies there, exhausted. Her forehead is wet with sweat and she’s struggling to breathe.
“I don’t want to be any nuisance, miss,” she murmurs when I bring in a bowl of chicken soup.
“You’re not a nuisance.” I lift the spoon to her lips. “Please drink some soup.”
She turns her head away.
“I’m going to see what medicines we have for you,” I say, putting the bowl down. “You rest quietly, and I’ll come back soon with something to help you break your fever.” I wipe her forehead with a damp cloth and go back to the kitchen. I have no idea what kind of medicine to give her. I’ll have to ask Aunty Figgy to help me.
But it’s suppertime. The workers have arrived, stamping their boots at the back door, their hair wet from washing off the day’s dirt at the pump. I see Leonid and Jasmine whispering together in the yard, and Jasmine is scowling when she comes in. I can’t leave the kitchen now without raising suspicion.
“How was your day, miss?” Shorty asks. “Did you enjoy the market? We were very busy here – Victor and Mike were ploughing the new lands, and I helped a bit, though I’m not much good.” He ends with his annoying giggle.
I bite my lip and remember that I have to act like there’s nothing wrong. “Is that so, Shorty?” I say. “The market was busy too. It was interesting, but exhausting.”
Micah is watching us. He gives me a tiny nod. “Why don’t you tell us about yourself?” he says to Shorty. “You were telling us a funny story this morning about when you were growing up …”
Shorty’s baby-face breaks into a grin. “Ja, that was hilarious. You’re going to love this one, Miss Ebba. Once me and my brothers we were making go-karts and we couldn’t find any wheels, so we took the chassis off an old Volkswagen Beetle we found in the veld and we built this double-decker go-kart …” And he starts off on a long story. I switch off, worrying about Sarie. How am I going to keep her hidden until I’ve had a chance to see the High Priest? Maybe it would be better to drive through to the shrine first thing in the morning and confess what I’ve done. But what if he’s angry that I’ve broken the law? What if he decides to punish me? I should have thought this through before I acted on impulse.
At last Shorty’s interminable story, and supper, are over.
“I’ll be off, if that’s alright, miss,” Shorty says, shovelling in the last mouthful. “I’ve got to go through the sales today from the market.” He gets up and dumps his plate in the sink, leaving a mess of spilt gravy on the tablecloth.
Victor puts his knife and fork neatly on his empty plate. “Excuse me, please. I have to feed the pigeons.”
“WE NEED A plan of action, Ebba.” Micah says, when he’s checked that the back door is shut and the Victor and Shorty have gone.
Aunty Figgy stares at him with raised eyebrows. I know she’s wondering why he’s calling me by my first name when he’s just a farm worker. But that just proves to me that he’s the Micah we grew up with. If he didn’t know me, he’d call me “miss” like Shorty and Victor do. But why’s he pretending to be a labourer? And why does Leonid defer to him like he’s a hero? It doesn’t make sense.
“There will definitely be consequences to bringing Sarie here,” he says. “We need to be ready.”
“I’ll go to the shrine tomorrow morning,” I tell him, trying to sound more confident than I feel. “I’ll ask to see the High Priest, and I’ll explain everything. Hal will come with me, and I’m sure the High Priest will be fine with Sarie staying here until she’s better.”
“You’re fooling yourself,” Aunty Figgy says. “I vote we take her back to the harbour, right now. If you want to help her, we can find a family who will look after her in return for produce from the farm.”
“Ja,” Leonid says in his surly voice, “but how am I supposed to get her through the border post without a pass? I don’t want to get arrested because Miss Ebba decided to be a hero without thinking about how it would affect everyone around her.”
Jasmine has to have her two cents’ worth too. “I don’t get it. You won’t save Fez and Letti, when all it will cost is an old necklace. But you’re prepared to risk all of us here by smuggling in a sick old woman. You’ve turned into such a bitch.”
“You just don’t understand, Jasmine,” Aunty Figgy says gently. “That’s not just an old necklace. It’s priceless and irreplaceable.”
“More valuable than two human beings?” Jasmine sneers. “Honestly, Ebba, you’ve only been up here a little while and already you’ve turned into one of them.”
“This is not the time for personal attacks,” Micah says firmly. “We have a problem and we need to focus on it until we find a solution.”
Jasmine colours.
“Actually,” Aunty Figgy continues, “what Ebba has done shows a lot of compassion.” She pats my hand. “Your mother would have been proud of you.”
Then suddenly the back door opens and Victor is standing there. “Excuse me, miss. There … there’s someone here. I found her around the front, on the driveway. She’s unconscious, miss.”
I jump up. He’s carrying Sarie. Luckily she’s still wearing the saffron robe so she looks like a citizen. “It’s my aunt!” I exclaim. “She must have come to visit me. She hasn’t been well lately.”
“Here, let me carry her,” Micah says, lifting Sarie’s limp body into his arms.
“Thank you, Victor,” I say. Then because I’m flustered, and he’s still hanging around looking concerned and I’m scared stiff that she’s going to die, I say, “Please don’t tell Shorty that you found her.”
“Of course not, miss. I’ll get back to the dovecote, if that’s alright?”
“Perfectly alright. Thank you for bringing her.”
He disappears back into the yard, and I rush through to the spare bedroom. She’s lying on the bed. Her face is sunken and her breath is rumbling in her throat.
“Do something,” I beg, grabbing Aunty Figgy’s arm. “You must have
some medicine or something.”
Aunty Figgy is sponging Sarie’s forehead. “It’s too late,” she says quietly. “Listen to her breathing. That’s the death rattle.”
I sit in the chair next to her bed, watching Sarie sleep. Her mouth falls open, and suddenly her rattling breaths stop. I lean forward. Is this it? I watch, trying to see if the sheet is moving even the tiniest amount. Then she gives a deep gasp and her breaths come fast and jagged.
“Was it like this when my mother died?” I ask Aunty Figgy when she comes back into the room. I know she doesn’t like to talk about it, but I have to know.
Aunty Figgy sighs and sits down on the window seat, her shoulders drooping. “Your mother was dead when we found her. You were alive, in the baby sling. The bullet missed you by millimetres.” Her voice cracks. “She had put the necklace on you. It saved your life.”
I haven’t taken the necklace off once since Cassie tried to take it. I hold it to my lips imagining my mother doing up the clasp. It must have fitted twice around my tiny newborn neck. But she put it on me, to protect me. And then she was killed by a bullet and I survived unscathed.
I’m never going to take it off again, no matter what Jasmine says.
I sit by the bed and watch as the night lengthens. Sarie’s breathing follows the same pattern: a long pause, a gasp, and then her breaths grow slower and slower. Then the pauses start to last longer. Her breath, when it does come, is shallow. And just when the candles have nearly burnt down and I think I need to go and fetch more, her breathing stops. No juddering breath following the silence. There’s nothing. The room is quiet.
Aunty Figgy puts two fingers on Sarie’s scrawny neck. “She’s gone.”
“What do we do now?” I ask, getting up and pacing the floor. “Must I report this to somebody? Will someone come and take her away? Where will they bury her? Will there be an enquiry?” I’m close to panic. When I picked her up on the side of the road, I never imagined she’d die.
“We must bury her at first light, before Shorty wakes up. I’ll send Jasmine to tell Leonid and Mike to dig a grave.”
We wash the thin body, brush her hair, clean and trim her nails. I open my great-aunt’s wardrobe and take out a yellow robe. It’s sunny and happy, and I hope Sarie would have liked it. We dress her, and wrap a scarf around her hair. Aunty Figgy rolls a small towel into a block and wedges it under her chin.