by Irma Joubert
The ice-blue eyes were open but showed no sign of recognition.
Jakób’s heart shrank. He reached out and stroked her face. “Gretz? Gretchen?”
Slowly the eyes focused. “Jakób?” She struggled to get the word out. “I didn’t know where you were,” she whispered in Polish.
Gently he wiped the hair out of her face. He was afraid his heart would break. “I’m in Pretoria, you know that, at work, and at home in my apartment.”
Her icy hand came out from under the covers and clung to his. “I thought you were gone.”
“I’m here, Gretz, I’m here.” He bent over the bed and put his other arm around the small figure bunched up under the quilt. His head was close to hers. “I’ll stay here with you. I’ll sit by your side. Sleep now.”
“You won’t go away?”
“I won’t go away,” he promised.
She gave a deep sigh and closed her eyes. Her hand was still clinging to his. Her mother drew up a chair for him. He sank into it slowly.
The striking woman watched her sleeping daughter with a sad expression in her eyes.
Once or twice the blue eyes flew open.
“I’m here,” Jakób assured her.
The woman smiled. “Thank you,” she said and left.
Long after Grietjie had fallen asleep, he continued to stroke her silky curls.
Later, Grietjie’s mother quietly brought him coffee. He took the cup with his free hand.
“Thank you, Mrs. Neethling.”
“Please call me Kate.”
“Thank you, Kate.”
They spoke softly, in whispers. “It’s the first time she’s been calm. I hope she’ll sleep for a while. I’m sorry, but we didn’t know who you were.”
“I knew Grietjie when she was young,” said Jakób.
“When she was at junior school, Karin said. When I tried to speak to Grietjie in German, she didn’t react.” She looked at him and asked, “What language were you talking?”
He hesitated for a moment. These people really knew nothing. “Polish,” he answered. “My last name is Kowalski. I’m from Poland.”
“Poland?” she asked, perplexed.
“Mrs. Neethling—Kate, there are things you don’t know.” He looked at the sleeping girl and pushed the hair back from her face. “I don’t want to say anything. Grietjie should be the one to tell you. Do you agree?”
She nodded and sighed. “She never wanted to speak about her experiences during the war or her time at the orphanage afterward,” Kate said. She looked up at him with sorrowful eyes. “She has the most terrible dreams.”
“Yes,” he said, “she’s been dreaming of the fire since she was very young.”
“Do you think it’s the explosion in which her mother and grandmother died?” Kate asked.
It was never going to stop—his own nightmare about the train. “No,” he said, “she didn’t really see it. And it was only much later that she learned they were dead.”
“Are you sure she didn’t see it?” the woman inquired.
“She saw the glow and heard the blast,” said Jakób, “but she didn’t see any fire.” There had been no fire, he thought, just a train being ripped apart, and open cars plunging into a river far below.
“How’s she doing?” Grietjie’s father asked softly from the doorway.
Kate’s tears began to flow again. “She’s sleeping peacefully,” she said.
“Then you should go to bed as well.” He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and drew her to him. “We’ll call you as soon as she’s awake.”
When she had left, Mr. Neethling sat down and looked at Jakób across the bed. “Excuse me for being so direct, Jakób, but Grandpa John tells me you are from Poland.”
Now I’ll have to be careful, Jakób thought. Not just to find the right words in Afrikaans, but also to tell the truth without letting Grietjie down.
“I had to flee Poland because I didn’t agree with the Communist regime.”
The man looked at him. His eyes were almost as blue as Grietjie’s.
“So you came to South Africa?”
Jakób switched to English. “I’m an engineer. Iscor was recruiting staff in England, so I decided to come.”
“Why here?”
“It was a good opportunity. And I heard your government takes a strict anti-Communist line. And I knew Grietjie was here.”
The man facing him frowned more deeply. “What exactly is your connection with Grietjie?” he asked.
Jakób rubbed his chin. “I knew her during and after the war.” He tried to sidestep the question.
“In Germany?”
“No, in Poland, Mr. Neethling.”
“Call me Bernard.”
“Bernard, I’ve told your wife as well, there are things you don’t know about. And I’m not the one who should be telling you.”
Bernard closed his eyes for a moment. “We knew the child was bearing too great a burden,” he said, “but she wouldn’t confide in us.”
Jakób hesitated, then decided against saying anything more. “I understand,” he said. “Why don’t you try to get some rest too? I’ll stay with her.”
It was late afternoon when she opened her eyes. “Jakób?”
“I’m here, Gretz.”
“I don’t know where Jurgen is.”
He had no idea who Jurgen was. “Where was he before, Gretz?”
“On the bed.”
“The bed in your room?”
She closed her eyes again. “The bed that burned,” she said.
“The explosion was in the kitchen.” He tried to make sense of the conversation.
“Everything was in the kitchen, the bed as well,” she said.
He tried to think. “Who else was there?”
“Just Mutti and me. And Jurgen. He was asleep on the bed.”
Something began to take shape. “How old is Jurgen?”
“Very young,” she said. “I’m so tired.”
He bent over her and tucked the quilt around her. It was hot outside, but she was bunched up with cold. “Go to sleep, I’ll stay with you,” he said softly.
She turned on her side, took his hand, and put it under her cheek. With both hands she held on to his arm. She did not relax her grip, even when she fell asleep again.
Awhile later a younger version of Mr. Neethling entered the room. “You must be Jakób,” he said in English. “I’m Kobus.”
Jakób came halfway to his feet. “How do you do?” he said in Afrikaans.
“Sit, sit, I see she’s holding you down,” Kobus protested. “Goodness, I’m glad she’s asleep. It’s the first time since the accident.”
“How are your hands?” asked Jakób.
“I’ll survive. It’s just a nuisance. I have work to do.”
“At the pigsties?”
Kobus laughed. “You clearly know more about us than we do about you,” he said.
“You must put me to work,” said Jakób. “We used to farm with pigs where I grew up.”
“Your job is to get Grietjie better. That alone would be a miracle. The doctor even considered sending her to a clinic where patients are treated with electric shock therapy to get all their ducks back in a row.”
Jakób didn’t understand where the ducks came in, but he could almost feel an electric shock jolt through his own body. “I’d never allow it!” he said and placed his hand on Grietjie’
s forehead.
“Nor would I,” said Bernard. He entered the room with his wife, who carried the family Bible.
“We’re going to have our evening devotions in here tonight,” Kate explained.
They sat in a circle around Grietjie’s bed. Bernard opened the Bible. “I’ll be reading in Afrikaans,” he told Jakób.
“Don’t worry, I’ll understand,” Jakób answered in Afrikaans.
He listened to the well-known words of Psalm 8: “ ‘When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars . . .’ ” Familiar words in an unfamiliar language. He listened to Bernard’s strong voice, looked at the big hands respectfully holding the Bible.
This faith was her anchor, he knew. These people, this home, this Bible in a strange language had become her anchor.
Bernard’s prayer was long and earnest. Jakób understood very little, yet he understood everything.
It was the simplicity that struck him, the big man’s respect for the Almighty Father, the humility of the beautiful woman and the strong young man and the dignified old gentleman as they bowed to their Creator. Here, in this bedroom, in this small domestic circle, they were talking to God. It was strange to talk to God like this. But it was good.
When Bernard said amen and they raised their heads, Grietjie said in Polish, “Daddy prayed for you too, Jakób. He thanked God for sending you to us and he asked that you’d be happy with us.”
Deep in the night he woke when he felt her stroke his hair.
“Jakób, are you still here?”
He had fallen asleep in the chair, with his head resting on her bed. Pale moonlight was falling through the window.
“I won’t leave, Grietjie.”
“The moon is shining in Poland as well, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said, “if there are no clouds.”
“If there are no clouds, yes.”
Grietjie woke hungry. She ate porridge for breakfast. She spoke a few words in Afrikaans to her mother but became distraught when Jakób got up to leave the room.
“I just want to wash you and dress you in clean nightclothes,” her mother soothed her. “Jakób can come straight back.”
Bernard was waiting on the veranda. “Kate is washing her,” said Jakób.
He nodded.
“It’s hot so early in the day,” Jakób said. He could manage short sentences in Afrikaans, but in a conversation he soon reverted to English.
“I’m driving to the fields if you want to come along,” Bernard said.
“I’d love to see the farm,” Jakób replied. “I grew up on a farm myself. But I’ll have to convince Grietjie to be without me for a while.”
“I can wait half an hour or so,” said Bernard. “I’ll be in the barn, with the tractor.”
Convincing Grietjie turned out to be harder than Jakób had anticipated. Her blue eyes flew open. “Jakób, you can’t go with Daddy. He doesn’t know you!”
“He knows me now, Grietjie. He’s often spoken to me. Don’t you remember that he prayed for me last night?”
She nodded slowly. “You were with us, at devotions,” she remembered. Her blue eyes looked vulnerable. “I don’t know what’s going on. I’m terribly confused.”
Kate watched anxiously from the other side of the bed—she didn’t understand a word they were saying. “She says she’s very confused,” he interpreted. To Grietjie he said, “I came to visit you here because you were asking for me. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“But, Jakób, I’m scared.”
“If you’re too scared, I’ll stay with you. But I think your mommy wants to sit with you so that I can go with your daddy to take a look at the farm. I won’t be long.”
“Okay,” she reluctantly agreed.
He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’m going with Bernard,” he told Kate and left.
His body walked to the barn, but his heart stayed behind in the bedroom.
They drove in the pickup truck along the bumpy farm road to where Bernard had planted his new vines. They inspected the cattle licks and made certain that the troughs were filled with water. They wound along a narrow road up the rough mountainside until they could see the entire farm. Bernard pointed out the house and the kraal, Kobus’s pig farming units, the fields, the enclosures for the cattle, the dam higher up in the gorge.
“The people in this country are blessed to have farms like these,” said Jakób. “In Europe the farms are the size of a postage stamp compared to these vast open spaces.”
“Water is our big problem,” said Bernard.
“Which influences the capacity of the pastures, I presume.”
Bernard nodded.
On their way back they came across a place where the fence was broken. They got out and fixed it.
“The last time I put up a fence,” said Jakób, “must have been about ten years ago, with my father and brother.”
“Your father taught you well,” said Bernard.
When they were back in the truck, Bernard didn’t immediately switch on the engine. He turned to Jakób and said, “Jakób, we realize you don’t want to say anything behind Grietjie’s back and we respect you for it, but we have no idea how things fit together.”
He wished he could tell this man with the open face the whole truth—he knew it wouldn’t make the least difference to his love for his daughter. “I found Grietjie after her family died,” he said, “and I took her to my parents’ home in Poland.”
He knew the other man was waiting for an explanation, but he did not elaborate.
“And then?”
“She stayed with us until I took her back to Germany, to an orphanage. From there she came to South Africa.”
Bernard shook his head in disbelief.
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything more.”
In the late afternoon Grietjie joined the family on the veranda—Grandpa John with his whiskey, Kate with a glass of sherry, Bernard with a cup of coffee, Kobus with a beer.
“Can I get you a beer?” he asked Jakób in Afrikaans.
“Yes, thanks,” said Jakób.
“And some orange squash for you,” Kobus said to his sister.
The beer was ice-cold and bitter on his tongue. He took a long sip—the first one was always the best, Stan had always said. That was why your first sip had to be a long one.
The sun went down behind the rugged mountain. The veld lay around them, golden, peaceful. Darkness began to descend and the first stars appeared. Unfamiliar stars.
“The bushveld is beautiful, don’t you think?” Grietjie asked beside him.
“It’s lovely, yes,” he replied. “You must speak Afrikaans to me, or your family won’t understand what we’re saying.”
“But will you understand?” she asked.
“Yes, I will.”
“Jakób told me to speak Afrikaans so that you’ll understand,” she told the rest of the group.
“It would be a relief,” said Kobus. “I’ve suspected all along that you were talking about me behind my back!”
“We were!” she said. “And you’ll never know what we said.”
“I can always choke it out of you,” he threatened.
“Daddy won’t allow it, because I’m sick. Isn’t that right, Daddy?”
Bernard smiled and shook his head. “Don’t be flippant,” he said. “You’ve been very ill.”
“Well, I’m better now,” she said, smiling.
But shortly after
ward Grietjie felt tired and returned to her room.
That night Jakób had his own bedroom. He was grateful, because his body ached from lack of sleep.
But when he looked in on Grietjie, she was wide-awake.
“I’ve had too much sleep,” she said. “Will you come and talk to me?”
“I’m old, Grietjie. I must get to bed.”
She laughed heartily. For the first time in a long while he heard her laugh again, and his heart melted. “Oh, come on, Jakób, you’re not old!”
“You’re always telling me I’m old,” he reminded her and lowered himself onto the chair beside her bed.
“Only when you behave like an old man,” she protested. “Like when you think anyone studies on a Friday night!”
He gave her a keen look—despite her scorched hair and pale face she was still the loveliest girl he had ever seen. He reached out to push a lock of hair behind her ear, but withdrew his hand. Jakób, he told himself, get a grip!
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
“Do you remember the explosion?”
Her blue eyes looked straight at him. “I lost my hair, Jakób Kowalski, not my mind.”
“And the previous explosion, in the ghetto?”
She gave him a searching look. “Yes, Jakób, I remember,” she admitted.
“You didn’t remember it before?”
She closed her eyes. “No.”
Should I continue? Jakób wondered. But he knew he had to. “Who was Jurgen, Grietjie?”
She took a deep breath before she whispered, “My little brother.”
“Did he die in the explosion?”
“I remember his terrible screams.”
“Where was your grandmother?”
“She and Elza weren’t there.”
“And your mother?”
“She tried to put out the fire with her hands, but the flames were too high.”
He took her hand. He wished he could stop asking questions—he was bringing the terrible events into the room. But for her sake he had to continue.