Whitethorn

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘We can only write our names,’ Stoffie said quietly. ‘In the Boys Reformatory we learned our trade, him driving trucks, me a mechanic. We did it so we could steal cars better, but we didn’t do much book learning.’

  I was taken aback, and in an attempt to recover, asked, ‘Can I read it to you?’

  ‘Ja, man, we’d like that. I admit we a bit curious to know.’ Stoffie grinned, trying to put me at ease. ‘You see, Dippie and me, we experts at running away, man.’

  I read out Doctor Van Heerden’s letter and when I’d finished it, I looked up to see that Stoffie was crying and Dippie suddenly pulled the truck to a halt at the side of the road. ‘Fok!’ he said, his head was turned away from me and he was looking out of the side window.

  After about four hours on the road and half an hour after leaving Potgietersrus we hit a police roadblock. Dippie saw it first. ‘Police!’ he cried out.

  ‘Quick man, Tom, get under the dashboard,’ Stoffie commanded. There was plenty of room in that big Fargo and all I had to do was to sit hugging my knees. I was suddenly very frightened. I heard Stoffie say, ‘There’s four cars and a lorry stopped, and they searching the cars!’

  ‘Fok!’ Dippie cried.

  But then a miracle happened. As we began to slow down, we suddenly picked up speed. ‘Hey, man, he’s waving us through!’ Stoffie shouted happily.

  There must be a definite difference when you take the trouble to be a bed-kneeling boy when you pray to God, because His hand was definitely guiding me. First Gert and David in the jeep, then finding Dippie, Stoffie and Auntie in the army truck, now this narrow escape from the police. In church the Dominee would sometimes say, ‘If you got faith in God, then He’s going to have faith in you. With God, you understand, it’s not only a one-way street.’ Although, in this case, I was hoping for it to be a one-way road, with me being the one to get to the end safely.

  Ten minutes or so after leaving the roadblock, Stoffie told Dippie to pull over. ‘We don’t know if that’s the last roadblock, Tom, so I think you better get in the back with Auntie. If we is stopped, then hide behind some furniture or get in the wardrobe at the back and let Auntie do the talking. She was on the game when she was young and beautiful, and knows more about talking to the police than anyone in South Africa, you hear. Take it from me, when she’s finished talking their ears will want to go on a holiday from listening.’

  I couldn’t help wondering what sort of a game Auntie played when she was young and beautiful. It must have been a pretty rough sort of sport, like wrestling or boxing, because she was not very pretty any more. But, of course, I knew women can’t wrestle or box, so it was a mystery. Perhaps, I decided, when I got in the back with her she might tell me. There were two of these big lounge chairs, and Stoffie and Dippie arranged them side by side in the back of the truck. Auntie seemed pleased. ‘It’s nice to have some company, Tom. Sitting here alone, I’m nearly breaking a world record for stom and I’m not a person that doesn’t like to talk.’

  Lucky I was a good listener because she started up and never let off. Talk about talking the hind leg off a donkey! She told me her whole life story in District Six in Cape Town where her people had lived for 300 years. ‘Maybe, who knows, even the same street,’ she said. ‘In the Cape it’s not like up here, you understand? Down there a coloured person is not a black and not also a white man. But everyone knows some hanky-panky has been going on a long time now, so we in the middle, not the one and not the other, also in the olden times some Malay thrown in, so in the Cape we got some respect, you hear. Up here in Pretoria they ignorant boeremense, and they show no respect for a person. When you on the game you soon learn it’s the boere who always wanting it. They think because we brown and not black and we don’t have peppercorn hair that it’s not such a big sin to play with a coloured woman.’

  Try as I might I couldn’t guess what sort of game involved policemen as referees and was obviously played by coloured women mostly against the boere. How could a game be a sin? The Dominee said gambling was a sin, maybe it was some sort of gambling? If I could have got a word in sideways, I would have asked her to explain the rules of this mysterious game. But then she got onto the topic of Frankie Bezuidenhout, who turned out to be the person lying on the front stoep with the moon shining on his bald head. He was the subject that took us all the way to Pietersburg, and not once did Auntie have a good thing to say about him. ‘Ag, Tom, my sister Elsie says that washing the sheets and towels from the hospital is not always nice work. “Ha!” I said to her. “Never you mind that, Sissie! With Frankie you don’t need a hospital! You can’t tell me about dirty towels and sheets and the mess that comes from inside a drunk! This time it’s not my own blood, you hear? No more black-and-blue!” ’ She turned to me and placed her forefinger on her nose and pushed, and it practically disappeared into the soft flesh of her face. ‘Once it was straight and I was beautiful, now it’s mashed potato!’

  I must admit that while I think I’m a good listener, there was a point, like the paintings in the art gallery, when you can’t take in any more. I knew we were getting closer and closer to Tinker, and my mind became totally occupied with getting to her before her little heart finally broke. So I didn’t hear some of the stuff about Frankie Bezuidenhout, which was more than you could find in a book about one person. One thing was for sure, I wouldn’t have liked to be married to him, but on the other hand, maybe he did some of his black-and-blues just to shut Auntie up. Talk about a talking machine!

  It was getting late in the afternoon when we reached the outskirts of Pietersburg and Dippie pulled over to the edge of the road. Stoffie came to the back of the truck. ‘Tom, we safe now, man, come sit in the front again, we wondering where you living in Pietersburg so you will show us, hey?’

  ‘Stoffie, can you drop me at the turn-off to Tzaneen?’ I asked.

  ‘Tzaneen? You don’t live in Pietersburg?’

  ‘No, in Duiwelskrans.’

  ‘How far is that?’

  ‘About sixty miles.’

  Stoffie was somewhat taken aback.

  ‘Don’t worry, I can get a lift,’ I assured him. ‘There’s plenty of trucks on that road, farmers who come here to shop,’ I half lied, anxious to impress him.

  ‘Let me talk to Dippie a moment, Tom,’ he said, and walked back to the driver’s side of the truck. He returned in a few moments. ‘We’ll take Auntie to Auntie Elsie’s house, unload the furniture and then take you home, Tom.’

  ‘No, no! Please, Stoffie,’ I begged. ‘I can get a lift, I promise. You’ve already done enough.’

  ‘Ag, jong, it’s only sixty miles, about two hours, that’s not far, man,’ he said.

  ‘And two hours back to Pietersburg, and then back to Pretoria.’

  ‘No, man, don’t worry, we’ll take a mattress and put it in the back of the truck and sleep at Auntie Elsie’s house and go back tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked again.

  ‘Ja, no trouble, man.’ He paused, then said, ‘Tom, can you do running writing?’

  ‘Ja, of course.’

  ‘Dippie and me, we need a favour?’

  ‘What is it?’ I said, hoping it might be something I could do to repay their kindness.

  ‘Have you got a fountain pen?’

  My heart sank. ‘No.’

  In the distance, as there seemed always to be on the outskirts of any town, there was an Indian shop. I pointed towards it. ‘There’s an Indian shop, we can borrow a pen from there. What must I write for you?’

  Stoffie pointed to the forty-eight-hour leave pass and the vehicle destination pick-up consignment that were now dry, the papers glued to the dashboard from the water drying. ‘The ink has washed away, can you write it all out again for us, also make up some signatures, we’ll give you the names.’

  ‘Give me the papers, I’ll take them into the shop.’ But it soon became apparent that the papers were stuck to the dashboard and wouldn’t separate without tearing.

&nbs
p; ‘It’s okay, man, as long as we got them in the truck. Can you write on them stuck down, Tom?’

  ‘Ja, I think so.’

  The Indian turned out to be an Indian wife who looked doubtful when we asked if we could borrow a fountain pen for a few minutes.

  ‘Why do you want it?’ she asked suspiciously.

  I’d already learned that the red dot on her forehead meant she was married. ‘We have some documents in the lorry, army documents, we have to fill in please, Mevrou,’ I explained, smiling at her.

  She gave this little smile, and I knew she was smelling a rat. ‘I am thinking also you are too young to be in the army.’

  ‘No, not me, it’s for the two soldiers outside.’

  She’d heard enough and went into a back room that was separated by strings of beads hanging down to keep flies and other insects out. I wasn’t sure what to do. If I’d been a grown-up and white she wouldn’t have dared to leave me standing like that, but she could see I was still a young boy and it didn’t matter. Then the hanging beads parted with a rattle and a male Indian appeared. ‘We are wanting now a fountain pen. I have a very, very nice fountain pen, Waterman, solid-gold nib, you are wanting to buy? I give you a very, very good pre-war price.’

  ‘No, Meneer,’ I pointed to the fountain pen clipped to his shirt pocket, ‘I just want to borrow yours for a few minutes to sign some important army papers for the two soldiers outside.’

  ‘Papers? What papers? Important papers you are signing for the army? Bring in so we can see them.’

  ‘I can’t, the papers can’t leave the truck,’ I explained.

  ‘You are wanting my fountain pen for confidential documents? My goodness gracious me, we don’t want trouble, you hear?’ He turned to his wife and shrugged. ‘How can I lend my Parker 51 gold nib and gold-cap fountain pen for the signing of secret war documents? I am telling you, definitely no.’

  ‘Go away! Go, please!’ his wife said with a sweep of her arm. ‘We are not wanting trouble.’

  At that moment Stoffie walked into the shop. ‘Here, man, what’s going on? We can hear the gentleman shouting from outside.’

  I’d never heard an Indian called a gentleman before, but from the way Stoffie said the word I’m not sure it was the same meaning as usual. ‘He won’t lend his fountain pen to us.’

  A nice smile appeared on Stoffie’s face. ‘I see,’ was all he said, and then took a step closer to the Indian, looking him directly in the eye. The Indian immediately clasped his hands over his pocket to conceal the fountain pen. Stoffie wasn’t a big man, only slightly taller than the shopkeeper. Now he simply stuck out his hand, waiting for the pen to be placed in it. ‘Please,’ Stoffie said politely, the smile still on his face and his eyes still locked on the Indian man’s face. Slowly the Indian man’s hand lifted from his shirt pocket, then the other followed, then he plucked the pen from his pocket and placed it on Stoffie’s outstretched palm. ‘Thank you,’ Stoffie said. ‘If you send your wife outside in five minutes she can get it back when we finished using it, you hear?’

  We both turned to return to the truck, and as we were going out of the shop the Indian shouted, ‘India also is fighting the war on our side! We are not being the traitor and we are also liking Winston Churchill very, very much!’

  I was rather proud of my handwriting. I’ll say this for Duiwelskrans school, we all had to do running writing in copperplate and they were very strict, so my handwriting didn’t look like it was written by only a nearly twelve-year-old kid.

  I returned the fountain pen to the shopkeeper and thanked him.

  ‘My goodness gracious me, what is happening now?’ he said accepting the pen.

  ‘Honesty is the best policy, Meneer,’ I replied haughtily, and giving him a cheeky smile asked, ‘How about a bansella?’

  ‘Bansella! Who is giving a Parker 51 fountain pen, you or me?’

  ‘Ja, you right, you gave it, but I gave it back!’

  The shopkeeper shook his head and sighed, then reached into a glass jar and gave me a green sucker. I didn’t have the courage to ask him to exchange it for a red one.We got going again, the two documents were still stuck to the dashboard but now neatly signed with the two pretend signatures of Captain Rigby and Lieutenant Crosby. I asked Stoffie what he would have done if the Indian had refused to give him the pen.

  ‘Ag, jong, easy man, I would have sent Auntie in to get it,’ he replied, and both brothers laughed.

  We spent the next hour unloading Auntie’s furniture. Her sister Elsie lived on the outskirts of the whites section of Pietersburg and just before you came to the native location. The house was in a dusty street full of scrawny chickens and stray, mangy-looking dogs that had long tails that never rose above the curve of their hind legs. The chickens squawked, and the dogs snapped and growled a lot amongst themselves. The house was small, and I wondered how all of Auntie’s furniture would fit in. Elsie’s house was in what was known as the coloured section. She had this old rusty bakkie parked in the front garden with a sign painted on one of its doors in faded letters: ‘Tante Elsie’s Laundry’. The front fence was half broken down with some palings standing and others lying flat in the tall grass. Inside the house it was very clean and smelled of wax polish, and outside at the back the lavatory smelled of Jeyes Fluid, but she had a nice vegetable garden. She also had shit squares nearly as good as the ones Gawie made. One read, ‘Allies cross the Rhine’.

  It was nearly six o’clock in the evening before we left, and Auntie came out to say a second goodbye because we’d already done it in the house. She gave me a kiss, and even for me she had to stand on tiptoe. ‘When you grow up, take my advice, don’t marry pretty, marry clever. Pretty gets ugly, clever stays clever.’ She stood back and looked at me carefully, then smiled approvingly. ‘Ja, Tom, I can see you not the black-and-blue type.’

  It was almost eight o’clock when we finally arrived at Doctor Van Heerden’s house. It was just getting dark, and the fireflies were out dancing under the deep shadows cast by the mango trees, green phosphorescent pricks of light in the approaching darkness. I asked Dippie and Stoffie to come in, assuring them that they’d be welcome, but you could see that they’d already sniffed the nature of the town.

  ‘No thanks, Tom, this is no place for an army truck, you hear? We got to get going, man.’

  ‘Some coffee, maybe?’ I asked.

  ‘No, man, really, we got to kick the dust,’ Stoffie insisted.

  ‘Fok!’ Dippie suddenly exclaimed. ‘Look over there!’ Our eyes followed to where he was pointing at Sergeant Van Niekerk’s police van parked at the side of the house.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ I laughed. ‘It’s only Sergeant Van Niekerk. He is my friend.’

  ‘A policeman is never a nothing,’ Stoffie said quietly. ‘We got to go, Tom.’

  I shook their hands and thanked them, and then they were gone. I watched until the rear lights disappeared in the distance before walking around the house to the back so that I could enter through the kitchen, like I always did. The maid was washing the supper dishes as I walked in and greeted her. She looked shocked to see me, as if she’d suddenly seen a ghost, and she brought her hands up to her mouth and you could see the white soapsuds popping on the back of her dark hands. ‘Baas Tom!’ she exclaimed. ‘It is you!’

  ‘Katrina, can you please tell the missus I’m here?’ I asked.

  Katrina grabbed a dishcloth and hurriedly dried her hands, and then went running into the rest of the house. ‘Missus! Missus! Kom gou!’, which means ‘Madam! Madam! Come quickly!’ Moments later the kitchen filled with all the people I loved. Marie came first, took one look at me and burst into tears, grabbed me and pulled me to her bosom.

  ‘Thank God! Oh, thank God!’ she bawled.

  Then Mevrou Van Heerden started to cry, and Doctor Van Heerden, Sergeant Van Niekerk and Meneer Van Niekerk all surrounded me. I disengaged myself gently from Marie, and still sobbing Mevrou Van Heerden kissed me and the three men shook m
y hand, everyone was talking at the same time and saying things you couldn’t hear all at once.

  Then Sergeant Van Niekerk put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Tom Fitzsaxby, you under arrest.’ Everyone laughed and he turned to his brother. ‘You owe me five bob, I told you it would take more than a few police roadblocks to stop Tom getting here.’ He squeezed my shoulder. ‘This boy never gives up.’ It was a nice compliment and I would have to tell him later how easy it had been so he didn’t think nice things about me that I didn’t deserve.

  ‘You’re the first boy from Duiwelskrans school to become a general alert on the wireless all over the Transvaal,’ Meneer Van Niekerk said.

  ‘Tom, we know why you’ve come,’ Doctor Van Heerden said.

  ‘Tinker?’ I asked anxiously.

  He nodded. ‘She’s still alive.’

  ‘I’ve come to mend her broken heart,’ I said, trying to hold back my tears.

  Doctor Van Heerden touched me lightly. ‘Tom, Tinker is a very sick little dog, you mustn’t —’

  ‘I can make her better!’ I sobbed. ‘When she sees me her heart won’t break any more.’

  There was silence and I couldn’t see anyone because of my tears.

  ‘Come, Tom, she’s in the surgery.’ I felt Doctor Van Heerden take my hand and lead me out of the kitchen. I stopped at the door, and wiping my eyes with the back of my hand turned and said, ‘Sorry.’ I saw that Marie and Mevrou Van Heerden and Katrina were all weeping silently.

  Tinker lay on a big cushion covered with a towel, and next to her was a stand that held a rubber bag and a rubber tube that went from the bag into her little pink tummy. She was so thin her hipbones stuck out, and her tiny rib cage showed through her fur. I dropped to my knees sobbing and started to stroke her and she gave this tiny little whimper so I knew she knew it was me, that I’d come back. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please forgive me,’ I sobbed. ‘If you get better I promise I’ll never leave you again.’ I just couldn’t stop crying and crying, and then I felt her tongue licking my hand.