The Complete Voorkamer Stories

by Herman Charles Bosman

  “It was before daybreak. I was going by ox-wagon to Ramoutsa. We had started early and there was that thick mist that hangs over the turflands by the Molopo on winter mornings. The voorloper was carrying a lantern to see the road. I was walking by the side of the wagon. And it was in the light of the lantern that we saw a motor-car on the road in front of us.

  “A motor-car was a new thing in those days, and so I guessed that it must be the motor-car that Chief Umsufu had bought some time ago. I was surprised that it was going so slowly, though – not even at walking pace. It must be that some part of the machinery wasn’t working like it should, I thought. Or perhaps Chief Umsufu had put the brakes on, I thought, since he might prefer not to go so fast in the dark.

  “Afterwards, the driver put his head out of the window. Out of curiosity to see how a motor-car went, I had by that time got almost level with the motor-car, so that Chief Umsufu and I both recognised each other by the light of the voorloper’s lantern coming on behind.

  “When Chief Umsufu told me I could have a lift I climbed in pretty quickly. It was the first time I had ever been in a motor-car and I didn’t want to miss any of the ride. It was only afterwards, when it got properly daylight, that I could see through the mist what it was that was making the motor-car move, and I felt pretty disappointed, then, I can tell you. But I didn’t get out then, all the same. For one thing, it wouldn’t be polite, I thought.

  “And then, for another thing, it was, after all, a motor-car that I was riding in, and for years to come I would be able to talk about it, telling people about how I once went to Ramoutsa in a motor-car. And there would be no need for me to say that it was Chief Umsufu’s motor-car and that it was being pulled by a team of oxen. What I might mention, perhaps, was that the motor-car was not travelling particularly fast, that time, because of the roads.

  “But, in the meantime, sitting in the motor-car on that early morning and not knowing that the engine part of it was rusting by an ant-hill next to the chief’s cattle-kraal, I must say that I got a lot of enjoyment out of the journey.

  “I could feel by the soft cushions that it was a very good class of motor-car. And then, also, the motor-car didn’t make a noise. I already knew that you could tell it was a good motor-car if the engine was silent. And I don’t think there has ever been a motor-car engine as silent as Chief Umsufu’s was, on that misty morning. In fact, in talking to the chief, I hardly had to raise my voice at all, to make myself heard.

  “Another thing I noticed was that there seemed to be lots of cattle on the road. I saw, a good number of times, through the mist when it lifted slightly at intervals, a pair of horns or the back part of an ox. At times I also heard what I took to be cattle-drovers shouting out Sechuana words. Some time later I began to realise that it was the same words, all the time. And when day broke I saw clearly that it was also the same pairs of horns.”

  Gysbert van Tonder said, in a nasty way, that it would appear that already in those days Oupa Bekker’s faculties had started failing.

  “Either that, or –” Gysbert van Tonder said, concluding the remark with a gesture to indicate that, as likely as not, Oupa had been drinking.

  “What Chief Umsufu said to me afterwards,” Oupa Bekker continued, “was that it was because he believed in progress that he had bought the motor-car in the first place. But I would never believe what trouble he had with it, the chief said. And then he found out that what was wrong with an ordinary motor-car was that it didn’t have enough progress.

  “And so he used his brains and worked out how to remedy it. And since then he had had no trouble at all with his motor-car, he said. And he didn’t have to worry anymore about what the roads were like, either. Where an ox could go, there his motor-car could go, too, now, the chief said. And also where a mule could go. You could see that he was very proud of what he had done. ‘Engelsman!’ the chief shouted at the oxen, ‘Witvoet! Lekkerland!’ at the same time bringing his foot down on some piece of machinery that, I suppose, would have made the motor-car go faster in the days when the engine was still there, before Chief Umsufu used his brains on it.”

  Thereupon Chris Welman said that, as he had mentioned earlier, there was nothing funny anymore in stories that had to do with motor-cars. The long story Oupa Bekker had just told proved that, Chris Welman said. Since the motor-car had come into the Transvaal, life on the platteland was no longer the same thing.

  The only kind of story about the Transvaal that was worth listening to, Chris Welman said, was a story about the Transvaal before there were motor-cars, or before they had that machine on Rysmierbult station that you put pennies in for chocolates.

  “Or before they had cameras,” At Naudé said. Then he asked Oupa Bekker if there was already a photographer at Ramoutsa, the time he went there with Chief Umsufu’s motor-car. Oupa Bekker, after reflecting for a few moments, said, yes, he thought there was.

  “And did you have your photograph taken?” At Naudé asked. “Before the motor-car was outspanned, even?”

  After thinking about it for a bit, Oupa Bekker said, yes, he did seem to remember something about it.

  “Well, take another look at that, then,” At Naudé said, passing the newspaper cutting back to Oupa Bekker. “I said that nobody had studied it properly. Who do you see sitting in that motor-car? Don’t laugh too loudly, now.”

  Oupa Bekker examined the bit of newspaper carefully.

  “Yes,” he said, at length. “Yes, it does look something like Chief Umsufu. In fact, it is Chief Umsufu. I would recognise him from this photo anywhere. But when I said at the start that it wasn’t Rabusang –”

  “Nobody is talking about Rabusang,” At Naudé interjected, sounding cross. “But who’s that white man, sitting there large as life, next to the chief? Don’t laugh, now.”

  Oupa Bekker looked at the picture some more. Then he handed it back to At Naudé.

  “It’s no good,” Oupa Bekker said. “It’s some white man I don’t know. Some white man with a silly-looking kind of moustache. But, of course, that sort of moustache was worn quite a lot, in those days.”

  VII

  Making boerewors for the New Year festivities of the Dwarsberg Boerevereniging, Nietverdiend. December 1965

  Sixes and Sevens

  “Smells good,” Gysbert van Tonder observed. His manner was expectant.

  “Tastes good, too,” Jurie Steyn replied, with his mouth full.

  Jurie Steyn was seated behind the counter. In front of him was a dish of mealie-pap and ribbok ribs that he was eating mainly with his fingers.

  “Cooked it myself, too, with the wife away in Johannesburg,” Jurie Steyn continued, in between taking a kick at a couple of mongrel dogs that were fighting under the counter over a bone that he had thrown on the floor.

  “Sets you up, a good feed like this does,” Jurie Steyn added. “I cooked it just on the ashes of a fire I made next to an ant-hill. No nonsense with a kitchen stove. I don’t understand a kitchen stove.”

  In the main, we agreed with Jurie Steyn that we did not have much understanding of the workings of a kitchen stove, either. We would have agreed with him on anything, then.

  A few minutes later Chris Welman came in.

  “Smells good,” Chris Welman remarked. His voice sounded hopeful.

  “Cooked it myself,” Jurie Steyn answered. “Just on the ashes.”

  Not long afterwards At Naudé came in at the front door.

  “Smells good,” At Naudé said, coughing in an insinuating way.

  “Just on the ashes,” Jurie Steyn informed him.

  It was only natural, then, that we should spend some time in discussing sundry aspects of the culinary art as practised in the open. Cooking on a fire made next to an ant-hill, we said. Or made next to a boulder. Or made just next to nothing at all. And then you didn’t need such a thing as a pot, either, we said, except maybe for the mealie-pap. And for that just a tin would do, also. And you needed hardly such a thing as a kettle, either, ex
cept, of course, for the coffee. And cooking out in the open we didn’t need plates, at all. In fact, about all you ever used a plate for, out in the veld, was to dish the food into, that you’d cooked. And we didn’t need such a thing as a knife and a fork and a spoon, either, we said, except maybe just to eat with.

  About then, Oupa Bekker arrived. “Smells –” Oupa Bekker began.

  “– on the ashes,” Jurie Steyn declared.

  From there Gysbert van Tonder started to talk about how much simpler life was on a farm than in a city; and about how much more enjoyable it was, too. You never felt that you were really alive in a city – not really living, that was. Take Johannesburg, now, Gysbert van Tonder said. It was all just big shops with plate-glass windows and bright lights and bioscopes and saloon bars with green curtains in front of them. Could you really call that living, spending your days in a place like that, Gysbert van Tonder demanded.

  And so Chris Welman said, no, it was too awful to think of it, even. Especially the saloon bars with the green curtains in front of them were too awful to bear thinking of, Chris Welman added, reflectively passing the back of his hand over his mouth as he spoke.

  “And you don’t really need cups, either,” Gysbert van Tonder remarked, reverting to his consideration of the simple delights afforded by the great outdoors, “except maybe just for drinking coffee out of.”

  “Or a razor, either,” young Vermaak, the schoolmaster, supplemented, “except perhaps just to shave with. In fact, it seems to me that you don’t need anything out on the veld, except just to use that thing for what it was meant for.”

  Naturally, young Vermaak would talk like that, we felt. Since he was a schoolmaster, it was only to be expected that he would miss some of those finer points, which you had to be born and bred on the veld to be able to understand.

  “Actually, what I feel for city people,” Chris Welman said, “is just pity. I mean, just think how miserable a person from the city looks, when he comes to a farm, to visit. Right here in the Marico, even, I’ve seen it.”

  “It’s particularly when the farmer shows the visitor from the city over his lands,” Gysbert van Tonder interjected. “And the farmer explains to the visitor where he’s going to plough, next year, and where he’s going to sow sugar beans. And the farmer takes the visitor right round the twenty-morgen patch where the barbed-wire fence is to come for the new camp, but where there is now just nothing but thorn-bush.”

  Yes, Chris Welman agreed, and at the end of it, through his having accompanied the farmer through that stretch of thorn-bush, it would appear to the visitor from the city as though the barbed wire that the farmer had been talking about was already there, in place. What would give the visitor from the city that illusion, Chris Welman said, was the way his sports blazer looked, consequent on the visitor having been through those thorns.

  “What makes it even more miserable,” Jurie Steyn declared, pushing aside his empty plate with a gesture expressive of contented repletion, “is when the visitor acts as though he enjoys it all. You get that sort, too. Queer idea of enjoyment, though, I must say. Give me just a plain piece of ribbok – just roasted on the ashes. That’s all I ask.”

  Thereupon Oupa Bekker said that, speaking for himself, he wouldn’t ask much more than just about that, either. With, say, perhaps just a slice of raw onion to go with it. It was funny, though, that when Jurie Steyn was out there by the fire, it didn’t occur to him that he would that afternoon be having visitors in his voorkamer. Seeing that Jurie Steyn’s was the only farm in those parts where you could still get an occasional ribbok in the rante, Oupa Bekker said, expressing what we all felt, there would have been no harm in his having roasted a few more pieces.

  “I did,” Jurie Steyn said, “roast a few more pieces. And I ate them.”

  Even though we had really come there just for our letters and milk-cans, At Naudé remarked, we were still, in a sense, visiting Jurie Steyn. And if he had been properly brought up, Jurie Steyn would have treated us accordingly.

  Jurie Steyn puffed at his pipe with an air of deep satisfaction.

  “I know you’re a visitor,” Jurie Steyn said to At Naudé, “but with my wife away, I can’t be as polite as I would like to be. I’ve got nobody to look after this place. But if you’ll wear your Nagmaal jacket next time you come, I’ll be glad to show you all over my farm where I’m not going to plant potatoes next season. That is, among the haak-en-steek thorns.”

  It was clear that this was not one of Jurie Steyn’s friendly days. Perhaps all that ribbok he had eaten was already beginning to disagree with him.

  “All the same,” Chris Welman said, after a pause, “I can’t see that there’s anything so very much wrong in having a bit of fun at the expense of somebody that comes from the city to visit you on your farm. I don’t mean anything rough, like playing tricks on a person, for instance, because he’s a stranger.”

  So we said, no, that positively was something we could not associate ourselves with, either.

  “What I mean is all right, for instance,” Chris Welman continued, “is to push a small likkewaan down the back of a visitor’s neck, and to pretend to him that it’s a mamba. Now, there’s no harm in a little joke like that, and it’s usually also very amusing for the children. And what there’s nothing wrong with, either, is when you’re with a visitor in the bush at night and you tell him that almost anything that he sees stirring is a mamba. That’s also just fun. And so is also, when he’s in bed, pulling a length of hosepipe over the visitor with a piece of string, and making out to him that that’s a mamba. You see what I mean? I don’t believe in playing pranks on a stranger.”

  In his list of playful deceptions which could, with advantage, be practised on visitors from the city, Chris Welman did not betray any marked originality. Nor did he make it clear as to the stage at which a jest ceased being broadly funny and became a prank. Maybe it was the stage at which a mamba actually bit a visitor. Maybe it was that sort of thing, too, that imparted to a visitor from the city that aspect of a peculiar melancholy of which we had already made mention.

  “After all, we haven’t got very much that we can entertain ourselves with, here on the veld,” Gysbert van Tonder agreed with Chris Welman. “And it gets so lonely here, too, sometimes, with only the bush and the koppies, that you can go just about mad, almost.”

  “Whereas, in a city, people have got everything,” Chris Welman said. “If you want something from a shop you haven’t got to drive eleven miles there. And there are the bioscopes. And all the people on the sidewalks. And the bright lights at night. And there is also –”

  “Yes,” Gysbert van Tonder said, “with a green curtain in front.”

  “Taking a visitor from the city over your farm,” Jurie Steyn said, musingly. “Well, my grandfather was great on that. Right until the time of his death, my grandfather would tell this story, and laugh. What made it even funnier, as far as my grandfather was concerned, was that this visitor from the city, who wore a black frock-coat, actually was entitled to be shown all over the farm. For the visitor had come from the city with a lot of papers to buy my grandfather’s farm. And my grandfather sold the farm to the visitor, my grandfather getting fifty pounds more for the farm than what he had paid for it. But, all the same, my grandfather just couldn’t resist having a joke with the visitor. And because there wasn’t any bush on the farm, seeing that it was a highveld farm, my grandfather got the visitor in his long frock-coat and all to climb through a barbed-wire fence, instead, quite a number of times. And why my grandfather laughed so much was because the visitor didn’t know it was the same barbed-wire fence that he was climbing through, each time.”

  Jurie Steyn paused to pull at his pipe some more. And in between he informed us that he had also been having a little joke on us, that afternoon, seeing that we were visitors. “I’ve got a piece of ribbok meat wrapped up for each of you in the kitchen,” he said. “I’ll fetch it out for you when the lorry comes. But if you’ll take my
advice, you’ll get your wives to cook it for you properly on the stove. It’s no good roasted on the ashes. For one thing, all the gravy runs to waste. And it also tastes queer, cooked just on the ashes. I don’t know where the old people got that idea from.”

  After that he started talking about his grandfather again.

  “Whenever my grandfather told this story,” Jurie Steyn said, “he would laugh so much that he would slap the top part of his leg, laughing. But there was one side of the story of the farm that my grandfather sold for fifty pounds more than he paid for it that my grandfather never used to lay stress on, that you would notice. And I only understood that side of it properly when I went on a journey one day to the highveld to go and have a look at that old farm again. And I had great difficulty in finding it, seeing that everything about it had changed so much. They had even changed the name of the old farm. They now called it Benoni. And there was a mine head-gear where the stable had been.

  “And I have often thought since then of how that visitor from the city must have laughed when he told his side of the story – how he must have slapped the top part of his leg, I mean, laughing.

  “And it doesn’t seem to me as though it’s shreds of the stranger’s frock-coat hanging on the barbed-wire fence. It’s like it’s my grand-father’s own clothes hanging there, blowing in the wind.”

  Mental Trouble

  It was bound to happen, we said, talking of At Naudé’s nervous breakdown. Living by himself like that and listening in to the wireless all the time and reading the newspapers, we said, was a sure way for a man to go strange in his mind.

  “Not that you can see it on him, much,” Gysbert van Tonder said, “except, maybe, from that wild glare that comes into his eyes, at moments.”