This Life

by Karel Schoeman

  There is no daybreak any more, only the dark; first darkness, then sleep. The dark has obliterated the moonlight, the dark has snuffed out the candle-flame; Pieter falls wordlessly from the window-sill, back into the darkness whence he had come, and only Sofie’s black dress still glistens for a moment as she dances alone to the rhythm of the soundless music until she too disappears, a shadow in the shadows. They have found peace, and now this life can end too, the report delivered, the account given and the balance determined. The water has dried up and the soil did not retain the footprint. The darkness obscures it all.

  I wished to get up and move through the sleeping house, I wished to go out in search of something, but that desire has also passed, as did the anxiety and the memories, and everything has been engulfed by the vast darkness, and surrendered. What could I still search for now? Let others come, other people one day long after us. Amongst the burgeoning undergrowth where the porcupines have dug their burrows they may find stones for which there is no apparent explanation and the weathered remains of inscriptions that can no longer be deciphered or understood: they may make out a single name or year, but who could determine its authenticity or say what it had once meant? Where the stacked stones of an old wall have fallen apart, among shrubs and stones and grass, no one will ever search for the remains of wood or metal that was once hidden there, and even if splinters or fragments should be found, who would still recognise them for what they had once been, a cross or a ring? The stones once stacked there, have broken up and fallen apart, and there is no sign of them among the rocky ledges, outcrops and ridges in the flat, faded landscape of stone.

  GLOSSARY

  BASTER: person of mixed race; half-breed (sometimes derogatory)

  BASTERSFONTEIN: a place name, fountain where the Basters live

  “BLINK JAKOB”: Shiny (Sleek) Jakob

  BOERS: inhabitants of the Transvaal and the Free State in the time of the Anglo-Boer War

  BOTTERBLOM: African daisy, Gazania krebsiana

  BRANDSOLDER: fireproof loft

  BROEDERBOND: fraternal society for Afrikaner men

  BOEGOE: buchu, Agathosma species

  BYWONER: share-cropper, person with no land of his own, farming on the land of others

  DASSIE: rock-rabbit, Cape hyrax

  DOMINEE: reverend, clergyman, also used as title

  DUIWELSDREK: asafetida, a resinous plant gum with an ammoniac smell used for medicinal purposes

  GEELBOS: yellow bush (lit.); Leucadendron salignum

  GOUSBLOM: marigold; Namaqualand daisy; Arctotis species

  HARPUISBOS: resin bush, Euryops species

  HARTBEESHUISIE: mud-and-daub house, also known as wattle-and-daub hut

  KAREE: Karoo tree, or bastard willow; Rhus lancea

  KAROSS: blanket or mantle made of skins with the hair left on

  KATSTERT: cat’s tail, Bulbinella species

  KIST: box, chest

  KLIPSPRINGERTJIE: small antelope, African chamois

  KNEG (pl. KNEGTE): farm labourer with slightly higher status; overseer, foreman

  KOLONIE: the Cape Colony

  KRAAITULP: Homeria species

  MEESTER: Master (title given to schoolmaster)

  NAGMAAL: Holy Communion

  PADKOS: provisions for a journey

  PERDEUINTJIE: Babiana curviscapa

  PLAKKIE: Cotyledon orbiculata

  REEBOK: a small South African antelope with sharp horns

  RENOSTERBOS: rhinoceros-bush, Elytropappus rhinocerotis

  RIEMPIE: leather thong (used for making riempie-seat chairs)

  SETIES: dance, also known as schottische, or Scottish polka

  SJAMBOK: short, heavy whip, originally of rhinoceros-hide

  SLAMAAIERMEID: Malay woman (derogatory)

  SPEKBOS: shrub of the genus Zygophyllum

  STUIPDRUPPELS: anticonvulsive drops

  TESSIE: container with handles for hot colas, placed inside a foot-stove

  TREK: long, arduous journey, especially on foot; can also refer to travelling by ox-wagon

  TREKBOER, TREKKER: migrant farmer

  VELDKOS: veld foods, edible wild plants and fruit

  VOORHUIS: front room, living-room, parlour

  WILDE ANYS: wild aniseed, Pharnaceum lanatum

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