Whitethorn

by Bryce Courtenay

  Ovulate to produce ova or ovules, to discharge them from the ovary.

  So now I’ve got to find what is an ovary and ovules discharging? Back to the dictionary, but now there’s two explanations, the first one is:

  Ovary (1) each of the female reproductive organs in which ova are produced.

  We are definitely going around in circles now. There’s that ova again, but I still don’t know what is a reproductive organ. Then I see the second explanation.

  Ovary (2) the hollow base of the carpel of a flower containing one or more ovules.

  Gottit! Remember how I told you when Marie kissed me on the lips that she smelled of roses? Ovulation was when a woman smelled of roses. So Sergeant Van Niekerk must have asked her to marry him before she started smelling of roses, which just goes to show how much he loved her. He didn’t even wait until she smelled nice. Although, I must say, in my opinion, she always smelled nice, sort of clean, with a bit of a nurse’s smell of methylated spirits added. Mevrou, for instance, always smelled of brandy and peppermints and sweat.

  Later, of course, I learned that ovulation was called ‘my monthly’ and also ‘menstruation’ or ‘my period’ and when you didn’t get it you got a baby. That’s why Doctor Dyke had to give Tinker her operation to stop it happening otherwise his big dogs would come sniffing around.

  Mevrou called me in several days before the big day because, thank God, Meneer Prinsloo hadn’t made a big fuss in front of everyone at supper about this particular wedding. While Sergeant Van Niekerk was a high-up, he was about the same height in community standing as Meneer Prinsloo, so it was no insult not to be invited. Besides, the two men obviously didn’t like each other, mostly because of Mattress’s death and the book fire. So when Doctor Van Heerden called Meneer Prinsloo to ask if I could attend the wedding, Meneer Prinsloo must have said okay right off and didn’t bring it up. But, of course, Mevrou knew I was going, so the usual clothes issue came up.

  ‘So now we going to the one-certificater’s wedding with the stomach already big out front. Sis, man! You’d think a policeman would be more careful when he shoots his revolver,’ she cackled. ‘But, what can you expect? People like that just don’t know how to be God-fearing. Take, for instance, selling a café to an Indian. That is disrespectful to this town and the Boerevolk. It’s dirty money, you hear? It comes from cheating people.’ She sighed, her voice slowing down. ‘But always greed comes first in this world. Even someone who is now a doctor’s wife can be totally corrupted when it comes to money. A person should be ashamed selling a café to a curry-muncher over other people’s heads. There’s plenty of good Afrikaners who would like a café like that. People whose husbands are away in Pretoria, and who must try to make an honest living. But because they haven’t got cash, but want to pay it off from the profits, this greedy person won’t do it. Six good women who could sell also honeyed ham that’s the best in the land from such a café. But no, it must go to that dirty crook, Patel, who pays the rich doctor’s wife blood money from robbing people blind!’

  It was the first time I realised that the wives of the six Van Schalkwyk brothers now in prison in Pretoria for blowing up the power line in Potchefstroom were interested in getting hold of the Impala Café.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear this,’ I say to Mevrou. Of course, it was a lie and I wasn’t really sorry at all. Can you imagine what it would be like with lots of junior Mevrous running about town? It was bad enough having them up there in the mountains making honeyed ham. At church, since their six husbands went to prison, they’d all come down in the one big lorry, the two old people ouma and oupa in the front and the rest of the wives in the back, sitting on a mattress, with about fifteen children. They’d all sit in one row in church with their arms folded over their big bosoms and wouldn’t sing hymns or anything. The kids don’t come into the church but play outside. There are no babies because of the husbands being you-know-where. They’re all big fat women with their teeth missing.

  When church is over, they only talk to the Ossewabrandwag members, and scowl at the rest of the congregation. Now on a Sunday, Mevrou goes back to her farm on the back of the lorry. I can tell you it’s a tight fit all round. They’ve got this little ladder they climb up to get to the mattress in the back, and if you look you can see their bloomers and hairy legs.

  About the six Van Schalkwyk wives and their missing teeth. Now I know you thinking missing teeth means only one or two gaps here and there, like a picket fence with some planks missing, but you wrong. In these farming parts, having no teeth is your twenty-first birthday present from the family. All your teeth are taken out, except the big molars at the back. This way you don’t get toothache when you on a faraway farm and suddenly there’s no dentist. It also saves future costs. The molars stay in the back of your mouth for chewing meat. If you’ve got to spend money at the dentist it has to be on the molars and not on the pretty teeth. Then one day, when you get rich enough, you can get false teeth to wear to church. But the six Van Schalkwyk wives didn’t worry about getting them. What’s the use? It’s a lot of money for only one day a week, and by the time you get home from church your mouth is sore, the gums rubbed raw as anything. Mevrou had them, but sometimes after a bad night she’d come in half-jack in the morning, and she’d forgotten to put them in, and she’s all gums mashing as she shouts at us, with her chin nearly touching the tip of her big nose.

  ‘So now it’s wanting clean clothes for the shotgun wedding again, I suppose?’ Mevrou asked.

  ‘Ja, Mevrou,’ I answered meekly.

  She did this long sigh. ‘Ja, well, I’m not a spiteful person, you understand? This is not an important wedding, where not to be invited is not an insult to a person like Meneer Prinsloo, so the answer is yes. You can get your clean clothes early. But you got to understand, Voetsek, going to this wedding means you can’t have your Government Permission Monthly Outing for three months, because a wedding is like a feast, so one wedding is worth three invitations to Sunday lunch.’

  The three months, I realised, included Christmas. I’d been invited to spend Christmas Day with Doctor and Mevrou Van Heerden, Sergeant Van Niekerk and Marie, and Meneer Van Niekerk and his wife. Lunch was to be held at the doctor’s house. It was going to be the first Christmas I had ever spent away from the orphanage.

  ‘Does that mean Christmas also?’ I asked anxiously.

  Mevrou seemed taken by surprise, obviously she hadn’t thought about Christmas when she said what she’d just said. Then her lips drew a thin line across her flat face, and her big nose did a sniff as she made up her mind. ‘Ja, we can’t go making exceptions, you understand? An outing is an outing. The Government can’t go giving permissions all over the place. In life, you always got to make choices, Voetsek. So, now you got to choose again. It’s the one-certificater’s wedding that is nearly going to turn into a christening or Christmas with all your tippy-toes-behind-a-person’s-back friends? So make up your mind.’

  I’d already been to a wedding, but I’d never been to a Christmas. So, all of a sudden I was faced with a big problem of what to do. I knew I’d rather choose Christmas, because all the same people I loved would be at the wedding and at Christmas lunch. But I knew I wasn’t allowed to choose because if I didn’t go to Marie and Sergeant Van Niekerk’s wedding they might think I was jealous and angry that he’d married her, and she hadn’t waited for me to grow up.

  I admit, I was jealous and unhappy. It’s not every day you love someone enough to want to marry them, but in life you can’t show these feelings, and when you can’t change something happening, being unhappy is a waste of time. Also, I knew I was too young to give Marie a baby, which is what she said she wanted ‘more than anything in this world’. A policeman’s baby, if a boy, would be a good thing to have because nobody would bully him at school. But a half-English baby, you couldn’t guarantee. And like I said before, you couldn’t fault Sergeant Van Niekerk for being a first-class father-to-be in every department.

  ‘I�
�ll take the wedding, Mevrou,’ I decided. At least, I thought, I’ll be getting my Christmas present early and the food at a wedding would be much the same as on Christmas Day. We got quite nice food anyway at The Boys Farm for Christmas. Not chicken, but other stuff; plum pudding and custard, meat pies, stuff you didn’t normally get.

  ‘That’s a very stupid decision, Voetsek, but if you want to go to a social-disgrace wedding, then I can’t stop you. Remember, at a wedding you don’t get presents.’

  I didn’t tell her about my early Christmas present. So what was the difference? At The Boys Farm you didn’t get presents either, but saying this would be cheeky, ungrateful and disrespectful of the Government, and would lead to a certain sjambokking.

  But then, all of a sudden I thought, Wait on! Mevrou is only the clean-clothes person. Meneer Prinsloo is the permissions person. How come she’s banning me from going to Christmas lunch? So I said, ‘Excuse me, Mevrou, are we talking clean clothes here or am I allowed to go to only one thing, the wedding or Christmas lunch?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Voetsek?’ she answered, raising her voice. ‘Didn’t I make myself perfectly clear the first time?’

  ‘Ja, Mevrou, but I was just thinking, doesn’t Meneer Prinsloo give the going-out permissions, and you give the clean-clothes ones?’

  She glared at me threateningly. ‘What are you trying to say, Voetsek? That I haven’t got the authority?’

  ‘No, Mevrou. I was just asking, does Doctor Van Heerden call you now, or is it still Meneer Prinsloo?’ I realised it was a direct question and I’d probably get into trouble for asking it, but I was eleven years old and in two-and-a-half months when I went to the Bishop’s College I would be free of Mevrou forever. All she could do now was give me six of the best for being cheeky. She’d been doing Chinese writing on my bum since I was six years old and one more sjambokking on top of the hundreds I’d received from her wasn’t such a big ordeal.

  To my surprise, instead of exploding and reaching for her sjambok, she seemed to be seriously considering my question. Then she began talking, almost as if she was thinking aloud.

  ‘In a funny way, I owe you something. You know when your books got burned, and the fire got out of control, and the pigs died?’

  I knew she didn’t expect me to answer, so I remained silent and merely nodded as she continued.

  ‘All Meneer Prinsloo’s power around this place comes from that high-up inspector of orphanages in Pretoria. Without the honeyed leg of ham every Christmas he has got no power whatsoever. Now that the pigs are all gone up in smoke, he is a desperate man.’ She glanced at me. ‘I am a Van Schalkwyk and not stupid, you hear? A donation of a special blue-ribbon honeyed leg of ham sent as usual to the Government inspector in Pretoria this Christmas from your humble servant Superintendent Pietrus Prinsloo is a problem easily solved. But in return, maybe I can also decide a few things around the place, hey?’ She paused, looking at me steadily. ‘From now on it is yours truly who decides that you can only go to one thing, the shotgun wedding or the tippy-toe Christmas. Do you understand me now, or must I explain it to you all over again, Voetsek?’

  ‘Ja, I understand, Mevrou,’ I said, totally defeated.

  ‘You tell Doctor Van Heerden to call me, the theatre nurse who saw him leave those tweezers in that kaffir’s stomach. I know it’s only a dead kaffir, but murder is murder and the law is the law. And he’s the one who’s taken the Hypocrite oath!’ She stabbed her forefinger at my chest. ‘Wragtig! As God is my witness, if he gives me any trouble I will swear it was murder in front of any judge you want to bring to me!’

  The last time she told me the story of the kaffir who had died, it was not because of the tweezers, but from the stab wounds in his stomach. Mevrou claimed she’d put it all in her report afterwards. Now she was claiming it was murder, and she was willing to swear it in front of a judge. It’s funny how people can take something that means one thing at one time, and then turn it around to mean something else that suits them better at another. Mattress once told me that people’s eyes see different truths at different times. ‘It is like looking at the big rock, Kleinbaas. In the morning it is a wet rock from the dew, at midday the rock is bright and shimmers in the hot sun, in the late afternoon it is in dark shadow, and at night it has disappeared and you can swear there is no rock there at all. People always decide what time of the day or night it is when they tell the truth.’ Not only was I totally defeated, but also, if Doctor Van Heerden tried to get permission for me to go to Christmas lunch at his house, I might be responsible for getting him charged with a murder. But, of course I knew this couldn’t happen, and that Mevrou was bullshitting. But a woman like her – if she wanted revenge she could still cause a lot of trouble.

  Now we’ve already done one wedding, don’t worry, I’m not going to do another one. It all went off without any hitches, even if Marie’s stomach in her white wedding gown was by now sticking out all over the place. It was late October and the baby was due at the end of January. You could see it kicking already and Marie had let me put my hand on her stomach, and I think it must be a boy because already it’s got a truly powerful kick. Sergeant Van Niekerk said, ‘Tom, with a kick like that maybe we got us another Benny Osler here, hey?’ In case you don’t know, Benny Osler was a famous Springbok rugby fly-half.

  No more about Marie’s wedding, except you’ll never guess what my early Christmas present was. We’ll start with boots. Marie and Sergeant Van Niekerk gave me a pair of brown boots. I don’t know how she found the time, with babies kicking and cafés being sold and wedding arrangements having to be done and goosefeather quilts being sewn, but Marie knitted me three pairs of grey socks to go with the boots. How they got my foot size was dead simple, next to the kitchen steps was some damp sand, and I must have left some footprints behind. Sergeant Van Niekerk, who had also once done a detective course in Pietersburg, knew just how to measure my footprint and take the information to the bootmaker. Next thing you know, there’s a perfect-fitting pair of boots that never once gave a single blister.

  A boy’s first pair of boots is very important. At The Boys Farm, you got them from the Government along with two pairs of socks when you were thirteen, and what that meant is that now you beginning to be a grown-up man. The boys who had them would spit-and-polish them until they shone better than Meneer Prinsloo’s. Then they’d tie the laces together and wear the boots around their necks and resting on their chests until they got to church when they’d put them on and then after church put the boots around their necks again, so the Government didn’t have to worry about the boots ever wearing out. But sometimes if the boy’s feet would grow and the boots would get too small, the boys could apply for a new pair. When you got these from the Government you had to give the old pair, that sometimes had hardly been used and still had hundreds of miles of walking left in them, back to Meneer Prinsloo. He sold them in town and said he used the money for something called general expenses, which everyone said was just another name for his own wallet.

  Then the next part of my early Christmas present was five white shirts made from some of Marie and Mevrou Booysens’ single bed sheets, because now nobody could use the single sheets because both women were married and now slept in double beds with their husbands. Which is another thing I didn’t know about being married, you are forced to sleep in one bed. Marie made the shirts on her Singer sewing machine. Boy, was she ever a sewer and a half! All the shirts were a bit big, but it didn’t matter because they allowed me to grow into them, which was beginning to happen at long last, and you could always turn up the sleeves at the cuffs.

  To top everything off, from Doctor Van Heerden came three pairs of grey flannel shorts and a navy blue blazer and a navy tie with silver stripes. On the blazer pocket was the school badge, which is a bishop’s hat and a crossed mitre, and under these the words in Latin, In deo speramus. Doctor Van Heerden said it means ‘In God we trust’. Miss Phillips had bought the blazer and tie and the grey flan
nel material, and sent them up from Johannesburg to Doctor Van Heerden who paid her for them. Marie also made the shorts. A leather belt and six white handkerchiefs were from Meneer Van Niekerk and his wife, Anna, who also knitted me two pairs of grey socks and a navy blue jersey with the school colours on the ‘V’ around the neck.

  Being the best boy, my job is to stand next to the best man in church, Meneer Van Niekerk. Instead of being in my clean khaki shorts and shirt and bare feet, I am about the best-dressed person in the congregation, wearing boots and a blazer and tie and, of course, one of Marie’s lovely new white shirts with the cuffs of the sleeves rolled up a bit. Talk about posh all of a sudden.

  We’re talking a lot about me and I apologise but it’s just that I want you to get the picture of all this kindness that’s coming my way. But Gawie is also in the same boat, with school uniforms and stuff he needs.

  So the Dominee announces there’s going to be a braaivleis, a fair and a tiekiedraai put on by the church, that’s going to go all day Saturday and it’s all in aid of the new Afrikaner genius, Gawie Grobler.

  The Dominee is in a good mood for once, and the beetle isn’t munching angry-beard grass. At the end of his usual well-rounded sermon, that was about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when Judas Iscariot turns out to be a traitor and the cock crows thrice, he says, ‘Now we just had a sermon about loyalty and betrayal. To be loyal is to support your own kind and this is what I am asking you to do now. We need to help a boy, who has no mother and no father, but is still a genius. We are not a big community, but we are a generous one. So bring your canned fruits and vegetables and your jams and your sewing and embroidery, and sell it for charity next Saturday. We’ll have a braai and a tiekiedraai and we must have enough money at the end to pay for Gawie Grobler’s uniforms and a suitcase and some pocket money. Also, he needs socks, grey, if we have some knitters in the congregation. Now listen, this is God’s work also, a boy like this from a small town who has brains can change the world of Afrikanerdom. Who knows, maybe he is also a Moses who can lead us out of the wilderness? So we calling Saturday “Meet the Genius”. I don’t want to hear you couldn’t come, you hear? Because, if we don’t all support the next generation, then it is the same as the cock crowing thrice in the Garden of Gethsemane. It’s finish and klaar for all of us. Our salvation and true revenge must come from the next generation.’ He paused and looked around. ‘And God in His infinite mercy may have chosen an orphan to bring us justice.’