During the school holidays at the end of the second term, at the after-supper Meneer Prinsloo talk, the superintendent held up this envelope above his head. You could immediately see from his expression that he wasn’t very happy with it.
‘I have here a letter!’ he announced, then paused and brought the envelope down to eye level and half squinted at it, then reached back to the platform table to get his spectacles, which he placed across his nose. You could see that he was already play-acting. ‘It is addressed to Master Tom Fitzsaxby,’ Meneer Prinsloo began. ‘Magtig! Now already we a Master. Well, let me tell you, in here he is just a boy like you all, you hear?’ He extracted the letter from the already opened envelope, then looked up and across the room taking us all in. ‘Where is this fine specimen? Stand up, Master Tom Fitzsaxby!’ he said with a sneer. There was a bit of a titter from all around the dining room.
I stood up and everyone looked at me. I knew I was in the deepest-of-deep shit again, but I couldn’t think why. I’d had the usual on appro weekly sjambokking from Mevrou, but my bum had hardly any Chinese writing on it nowadays. The punishment ever since the fire was simply ignored. Nobody had anything to do with me, I had just disappeared from the face of the earth. Besides, there must have clearly been some mistake. I’d never received a letter at The Boys Farm. This was because all the Miss Phillips letters went ‘c/o’ Meneer Van Niekerk at the school. I’d once told her that letters sent to boys at The Boys Farm were opened and often read to everyone after supper. So it couldn’t be from her as she deliberately never wrote to me in the school holidays. Instead, she sent all the work I had to do for the holidays in advance so that it arrived at school before the end of each term. If it wasn’t from her, well, I didn’t know a single other person in the whole world who would possibly write to me.
‘Now I want you all to listen very carefully, you hear?’ Meneer Prinsloo said. ‘You remember the Dominee’s sermon when he told us about evil hidden in books? The German ones that were burned and the English that we mustn’t read because they haven’t got a Joseph Goebbels to find the devil’s work in them.’ He raised the letter above his head again and waved it. ‘In this letter there are also secret codes that a good Afrikaner must learn to interpret. You are all young boys who have innocent hearts, so now I must give you a lesson in the interpretation of evil. It is for your own good and we cannot start early enough spotting evil lurking around the place.’ He adjusted his spectacles and began to read.
Dear Master Tom Fitzsaxby,
I have the honour on behalf of the Bursary Committee to inform you that your name is among the three winners of the Bishop’s College Scholarship for the coming year 1945. Congratulations.
I must, however, inform you that your name must now be submitted to the Board of Governors, as the school does not, as a general rule, accept scholars into Form One under the age of thirteen years old.
Should the Board of Governors decide against making an exception for a scholarship boy, I am pleased to inform you that the Bursary Committee has agreed to defer your scholarship until the first term of 1947.
For your interest, here are the placings and the names of the three winners.
Nathan Feinstein, overall mark 98 per cent
Tom Fitzsaxby, overall mark 95 per cent
Julian Solomon, overall mark 94 per cent
Two thousand and seven hundred candidates from all over South Africa and Rhodesia sat for the examination so that you are entitled to be very proud of your effort. We look forward to welcoming you to the Bishop’s College.
I will inform your sponsor Miss Janneke Phillips, your examination supervisor Dr A M van Heerden and your headmaster Mr de Wet van Niekerk by separate mail.
I remain,
Yours faithfully,
Rev. John Robertson, MA Oxon., Headmaster.
When the superintendent read out the overall mark I’d got, there was a gasp around the place and then a general murmuring. No boy at The Boys Farm, not even Gawie Grobler, had ever got an average mark for all subjects near as high as that. Nor, of course, had I. If I hadn’t been standing there in the middle of a room where everybody was expected to hate me and where I was about to be humiliated, I too would have reacted with astonishment. As it was, I clasped my hands behind my back and looked down at the floor, summoning up the courage for what was to come.
Meneer Prinsloo looked up from the letter. ‘Now, at first, when you read a letter like this, you see nothing,’ he began. ‘It is just a letter about a boy that won some scholarship, but now you must take it carefully apart. For instance, I ask now, who has bishops?’ He looked down at us before saying, ‘Roman Catholics. They the one that got bishops! So you see, the first thing you know is that this is an Antichrist school where they worship the Virgin Mary. Hanging on the walls are false idols and there is a Pope who, to them, is next to God Himself. Now you see, Jesus Christ who is His only begotten son only comes in fourth place after the Pope and that Mary woman they had the cheek to make a saint! So now you all know where this boy Master Tom Fitzsaxby is going. Roman Catholicism is where! He should be ashamed!’
I glanced up and saw that the superintendent’s stomach had grown so large that if he’d been lying in the water on his back and all of a sudden there was this jet coming from his bellybutton you would have to think he was a sperm whale. His hands were going round and round so fast the letter was making a sort of whirring sound. Surely he’d have to get new braces soon because these ones must be just about worn-out from going beyond the stretch limit set for braces. You see, I had to think funny things like this because, if I didn’t, I would have started to cry on the spot. It’s a trick you learn so as to distract your mind from what is really going on. You try to think about something funny, then it doesn’t hurt so much. I learned this when I was little, and I’d do it with Mevrou all the time. Then after a while, what’s the use, you going to get the sjambok anyway. But now with Meneer Prinsloo, if I didn’t do it, who knows what would happen? Maybe I’d even shit my pants.
‘Now, don’t you worry! That is not all the wickedness to be found in this letter,’ he continued. ‘Look who also wins scholarships? Two Jews! Two thousand and seven hundred children sit down to do this so-called examination and how does it end up? A Jewish sandwich! One Jew, Nathan Feinstein, is the top slice, in the middle Tom Fitzsaxby is the Engelsman meat and the bottom slice is Julian Solomon, another Jew.’ He glared down at me. ‘Shame! Shame! Shame!’ He stopped and took a deep breath. ‘And another thing! I am like a father to you all. The Government picked me and my good wife, Mevrou Prinsloo, to be parents of all you boys. Wouldn’t you think a bit of courtesy is due to someone who is a genuine government-selected mother and father? They, this Bishop’s College, don’t think so. They are now going to send a letter to Meneer Van Niekerk who only stands up in church and blasphemes! Then also another one to Doctor Van Heerden, who never even comes to church because he’s sewing up the stomachs of black bobbejane! Black baboons! As for this lady.’ He glanced down at the letter again. ‘This Miss Janneke Phillips who is a corrupting influence and deliberately sends an innocent boy to a Roman Catholic school that’s full of Jews, she also gets a letter!’ He paused to let this iniquity set in. ‘But not the hostel father! Not the official person the Government makes responsible for the welfare of this certain Master Tom Fitzsaxby. There’s no letter for him, is there? No letter for the good Afrikaner who wins ribbons at Easter shows!’
By this time my knees were knocking together like billyo, so when Meneer Prinsloo had folded the letter and put it back in the envelope and said for me to come and fetch the letter from the platform table, I was hardly able to walk. When I approached him, he dropped the letter at his feet and I had to bend down and pick it up next to his shiny brown boots you could see your face in. My knees were still knocking for everyone to see, but at least I didn’t cry in front of them all, just a bit of a sniff that I don’t think anyone could see, snot pulling back, because it happened all of a su
dden when I was bending down. It was very hard walking back to my place with my wobbly legs.
At breakfast four days later, it was a Saturday and we were just beginning to eat our porridge when we could see through the big window in the dining room the police van pulling up in front of the hostel. Sergeant Van Niekerk got out and went straight to the staff quarters to see, I suppose, Meneer Prinsloo, who didn’t have breakfast with us boys, only supper. Then, just as I’d finished porridge someone came and told me to go to Meneer Prinsloo’s office.
Sergeant Van Niekerk was waiting when I arrived and Meneer Prinsloo said, ‘The sergeant wants to take you into town for further enquiries about the fire.’ He sighed, ‘This verdomde fire, will it never go away!’ I don’t know who he said it to because I don’t think Sergeant Van Niekerk was listening, he was now looking out of the window. He then turned around to face Meneer Prinsloo. ‘I must warn you, we may be away for most of the day, Superintendent.’
‘Ag, man, you can take him as long as you like. As far as I’m concerned, it’s good riddance of bad rubbish!’
I saw Sergeant Van Niekerk stiffen and his eyes suddenly grew hard. ‘You know something, Pietrus Prinsloo? If I could arrest anyone for that fire, it would be you! We can’t go on living in the past, man! What is done is done. It is not the railway workers, lorry drivers and timber cutters you turn out in this place that matter, it is clever boys like Tom Fitzsaxby and Gawie Grobler who are the future of our land. We must forget the past and get on with life.’
Meneer Prinsloo stuck out his stomach. ‘I am an Afrikaner, Sergeant, first and foremost. I will die an Afrikaner with the vierkleur, the glorious flag of the republic, draped over my coffin. You do not know what you are talking about, Jan van Niekerk. My own mother had to sleep with an Australian sergeant who is worse even than an Englishman so we could put a little food on the table. A God-fearing woman who had never sinned in her life, now she is drinking brandy and sleeping with a drunken Australian soldier in my ouma’s bed and staying out all night until the early morning. You think I can forget this? Never! My mother, who was as pure as the snow. A good woman who never missed going to church every Sunday before that Australian came, now they calling her a whore. Wragtig! These people, they are devils who corrupt the soul, man! You think I can trust their offspring? Never, you hear? Rubbish is always rubbish!’
Sergeant Van Niekerk shook his head slowly. ‘C’mon, Tom, we got to go, man,’ he said.
I would have liked to ask Meneer Prinsloo if there was a goosefeather quilt from his grandmother’s glory box involved in the affair with the Britisher who was an Australian. Or was it only the Dominee it happened to? Maybe they didn’t have goosefeather quilts in England or even in Australia and this was a nice opportunity for Britishers to sleep under one. Although, judging from what Meneer Prinsloo had said, his mother and the Australian hadn’t spent a lot of time sleeping under it. We only got one blanket in winter at The Boys Farm and when it got cold I can tell you something for nothing, I myself would have liked to sleep under such a cosy-sounding quilt, even with someone else, if it was big enough for two people of course.
When we were out of Meneer Prinsloo’s office Sergeant Van Niekerk said, ‘Better go and fetch your dog, Tom. I’ll wait for you at the front gate.’
I knew Tinker would be waiting at the back door of the hostel and I brought my fingers to my lips and did a loud whistle. In only a few moments here comes Tinker around the corner of the hostel, running flat out, her little legs sending puffs of dry winter dust rising up behind.
‘She is a good little dog,’ Sergeant Van Niekerk said, as Tinker did her leap into my arms and started to lick my face. ‘A dog can love a man better than anyone else.’
‘Ja, she is what is called “A one-man dog”,’ I explained happily.
‘And the best ratter in the Northern Transvaal I hear, hey?’
It was a nice compliment, but it just goes to show, a police sergeant knows everything that’s going on around the place.
‘Eight is the record,’ I said, patting Tinker. ‘That’s the most she can count.’ I thought momentarily of Frikkie Botha who was lying in a hospital somewhere with no face. He always hoped for nine rats. ‘One day we going to get nine, just you wait and see, that little ratter will do it I guarantee.’
On our way into town we turned left into a farm road that headed towards the high mountains. It wasn’t my place to ask and I thought Sergeant Van Niekerk may be visiting a farm or something before we went to the police station to do further enquiries on the fire. A subject that, I must say, I too was a bit tired of hearing about.
‘Aren’t you wondering where we going?’ he asked after a while.
‘Ja, I thought maybe somebody’s farm you had to go and see,’ I replied.
We were beginning to climb, going round narrow curves on a dirt road with Sergeant Van Niekerk constantly changing gears. Sometimes the road was so narrow the tyres sent small rocks down the steep slope at the one side of the road.
‘Have you ever been on a picnic, Tom?’
‘Ja, Meneer, once with the church to the sports field, we all had to help with the work. Nearly the whole town was there.’
‘No, a proper picnic by a waterfall in the high mountains?’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘No, Meneer, does it have boerewors?’ I had heard all proper picnics had boerewors and a braaivleis.
‘Ja, for sure. All you can eat and maybe even fish, there is a pool and sometimes you can catch bass.’
I’d never tasted fish, but it didn’t matter, because if I didn’t like it, I could just taste a little bit just to be polite. Then eat boerewors as much as I could eat. Which was a lot, because I only had porridge this morning, not even a cup of coffee.
We climbed for more than an hour and passed only one farm that had four houses on it. ‘Van Schalkwyk,’ Sergeant Van Niekerk said, then did this sort of spit out the window.
So this is where Mevrou lived when she grew up, I thought to myself. The four houses must be for the six brothers and the mother and father. Even with all the houses it looked a lonely place. There was also a big shed and a kraal but no cattle because they were probably grazing in the mountains. Outside the biggest house there was a Dutch oven and a smokehouse and a bit further on a big piggery.
‘They breed also pigs. I must say their ham is the best you ever tasted, they can do it with honey so you think it’s Christmas every day,’ Sergeant Van Niekerk remarked.
We travelled even higher and not changing gears because only the low gear was needed. You could see further than I had ever looked. The country all around had huge rocky outcrops and the bush veld stretched down into green valleys, and thousands of flat-topped fever trees and aloes dotted the countryside. It was the most beautiful country I had ever seen. I became aware of something else, although I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.
‘High mountain country,’ Sergeant Van Niekerk said, as if he was reading my thoughts. ‘This is where the rainforest begins.’
It was true, the surrounding kloofs were deep green with tall trees and monkey ropes and even above the whine of the engine you could hear that the bird calls were different. At last, we turned into a roadway that you could hardly see and Sergeant Van Niekerk stopped and went to the back of the van and produced a sharp post with a small paper flag on it and pushed it into the ground at the entrance of the turn-off. We proceeded down this hardly-a-road-at-all and sometimes I had to jump out and pull a dead branch out of the way. There was very little sunlight and it felt sort of damp and cool and dark. Once a lourie called out and then a bird I’d never heard. ‘Cape parrot,’ the sergeant said. We kept putting down these little flags for about a mile in the bush road, when suddenly you couldn’t believe your eyes. There was first this thundering sound, then we turned into a sunlit clearing and I saw we’d come right up against a high krans from which a waterfall tumbled, a ribbon of whitewater that must have been 300 feet high. It seemed to
fall in slow motion into a deep mountain pool and all about us were tree ferns and gigantic trees that rose up to the sky. Monkey ropes twisted and turned about them as well as other vines with huge green leaves big as dustbin lids that I’d never seen before. High up in lichen-and-moss-covered tree forks wild orchards grew.
‘Magtig!’ was all I could say. ‘I didn’t know there was such a beautiful place in the whole world!’
‘Nice, eh, Tom?’ Sergeant Van Niekerk said, switching off the idling engine.
‘Is this where we going to have our picnic?’ I asked somewhat foolishly.
‘Ja, don’t you like it? Would you rather go somewhere else then?’ he teased. ‘We’ve got to collect some dry wood and get the fire going before the others come. For a good braai we need only embers or the meat will burn on the outside and be raw in the middle.’
‘Others? There are going to be others?’
He grinned. ‘Ja, your friends, just you wait and see, man. Now let’s get some wood. It’s not so easy, hey, this is true rainforest where it rains every day, finding dry wood can be difficult.’
I didn’t know I had any friends, so it was all rather confusing.
Tinker and me went looking for wood and it wasn’t too hard and soon we had a big pile. When Sergeant Van Niekerk came and looked at it he laughed. ‘Ag, man, Tom, this wood is all rotten, it will burn up in five minutes, look for some that has some weight.’
How could I make such a mistake? Me, above all people, who had been collecting wood every Saturday for the boiler room at The Boys Farm and now that I was past ten years old had been chopping it for ages. Sergeant Van Niekerk must have seen the shameful look on my face because he laughed.
‘It’s different country up here, Tom. Everything is different, wood rots before it dries, you can see the trees and plants are different and at three o’clock in the afternoon it rains every day, you can set your watch by it.’
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