by Andre Brink
After the funeral I’d wanted her to come and live with us, assuming that she would be relieved to leave the farm after so many years of struggling. But I hadn’t reckoned with her tenacity. In the beginning it hadn’t been all that obvious:
“Just give me some time to find my feet first,” she’d said. “I think I’ll manage all right.”
I’d let her have her way, assuming it would be a matter of only a few months. But she became more and more obdurate, and after a while I discovered that the solitary life on the farm had indeed become indispensable to her.
In short, Ma had begun to flourish. Ma, but not the farm. That continued the steady decline of the previous years and on several occasions I had to invest large sums of capital just to keep it going. An irking responsibility, since she would never ask for help herself. In the past, when Dad had been alive, she’d always been the one to warn me when things weren’t going well (“It’s not that he’s ashamed to ask, sonny. It’s simply he doesn’t realise when he needs something”). Now that, because of the drought, she needed more help than before, she never said a word. If I hadn’t enquired on my own initiative from time to time, God alone knows what would have happened to her.
The crunch had come one Saturday (I only learned about it months later and quite by accident): all the labourers had been drunk and not a soul had turned up for work. Instead of resigning herself to the inevitable as most others in her position would have done, Ma took a sjambok from the stable and walked up to the huts, half a mile uphill from the house, where she promptly started flailing left and right among them. One of the men, swaying on his feet, grabbed the sjambok and hurled it away. The next moment he pulled out his knife. Even the women had stopped wailing and screaming and suddenly it was deadly quiet on the hillside. The man came closer.
Ma waited until he had planted himself right in front of her. Then, looking him in the eyes, she said: “Now put away that knife and go down to the milking shed.” Without waiting for a reaction she turned her back to him and walked away. And he followed.
It was that episode which had finally anchored her to the place, as if it hadn’t been the unruly labourers only but the farm itself she’d tamed that morning.
Her people, the Neethlings, had an old-established reputation in the Sandveld for taming the land in the face of marauding animals, and Bushmen, and the vagaries of nature. By the time I met them, in my earliest childhood, they’d already settled in Malmesbury, where we regularly went for holidays.
One thing I’ll always remember about those visits is how, every Sunday afternoon after coffee, we would all set out to the graveyard in our church clothes. The two old people had selected a spot for their dual grave years ago; even the hole had been dug and remained there in readiness, covered by iron sheets. And on Sundays we would pay our solemn family visit to “Oupa’s hole” to make sure everything was still in order. In the attic of their old house in Hill Street their coffins stood waiting, filled with dried apricots and raisins and figs for the time being. A family steeped in death, almost voluptuously conditioned by it.
In the cold dark dawn, listening to Ma’s morning hymn, it all came back to me very vividly. On the bed opposite, Louis was still asleep. I could hardly see him in the dark; but I could hear his peaceful breathing. From the kitchen the noise of the servants was increasing. In the yard outside, and from the direction of the dairy, came deep, cold voices; a calf lowed plaintively. And in the dining-room, Ma. I felt a sudden urge to be with her. In my childhood she’d always been the first to rise, serving Dad his coffee in bed and scurrying about in the kitchen to prepare breakfast for us. Then I’d often get up too to have my coffee in the kitchen with her – seated on a window-sill or on the table in summer, and in winter in the corner at the coal stove, beside the pail of dough which had been set out the evening before to rise overnight. There had always been an intimacy about our early-morning conversations not superseded by anything else in my life: it had been a form of mutual acknowledgement and of recognition, immediate and frank, an attitude inconceivable at any other hour of the day, when we’d both have entrenched ourselves in the routine of our respective lives.
I got up, shivering in the cold, my hands fumbling with my clothes. In the bathroom the icy water took away my breath.
Ma had just pushed the Bible aside on the table when I came in. Kristina, placing a cup of coffee before her, looked up.
“For the Baas also?” she asked.
“Yes, please.”
“I’d hoped you would get up,” said Ma, content. “But I thought you’d be too tired after the long drive.”
“Actually I was too tired to sleep.”
The first dark grey light was just beginning to filter through the windows; it was as yet impossible to distinguish anything outside. The lamp isolated us at a corner of the large table. Kristina brought in my coffee, bringing with her a whirl of warmer air.
“Why don’t you stay in bed a little longer in the mornings?” I asked Ma. “You’re not getting any younger.”
“What’ll become of the farm?”
“I’m sure the labourers can cope.”
“What sort of respect will they have for me if I lay in bed till all hours?”
“It’s no life for a woman, Ma.”
She shrugged. “In dry times like these it isn’t easy, I admit. But one still scrapes through. We’re used to it. It’s only the English people in the district who can’t take it. There have been many stories of selling up and moving out lately.” Her eyes scrutinised me as if she were reading my thoughts: “But you know what an Englishman is like, sonny: he thinks a farm is only a piece of land he can get rich on. He knows nothing of the earth itself.”
“You say people have started selling?” I asked cautiously.
“Yes, all over the place. Even old Lawrence on the next farm.”
“He’s always been such a help to you.”
“Yes, I know. A real Christian, even though he’s an Englishman. Pity he’s such a communist.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, it’s true. You should hear him. Blaming the Government for not doing enough for the Blacks.” She grunted. “You should see what he pays his own labourers. Worst wages in the district. But I don’t want to say anything bad of a neighbour.”
“Is it because of the drought they’re selling their farms?” I deliberately feigned ignorance.
“Yes, what else? Just wait till you get outside. I don’t think you’ve ever seen the farm quite as bad as this. Even the stream has dried up.”
“Down there in the kloof?”
“Yes. And the borehole is getting weaker too. There’s a man coming today to look for water. Perhaps we can sink a new hole.”
“Is it really as bad as that?”
“I tell you. But one can’t give up just because it’s dry. The Lord knows His own time.” And before I could interrupt, she was off on one of her reminiscences: “I remember, in the Sandveld when I was small, it used to get just as dry as this. Once it lasted for years. Pa was nearly finished that time. Then the hail came. It started from the north, then it turned south. And after a while it came from the east and the west too. Sonny, I tell you, in the end it seemed as if the hail was coming up right from the ground. There was nothing left of Pa’s orchard. You know what the Lord is like: He got no respect for anything a man has made on his own.”
I had to use the opportunity before the day grew older and Ma more obstinate: “Perhaps there’s more reason than just the drought for selling the farms around here.” Seeing the lines round her mouth deepen as she looked at me, I continued: “I understand the Government is buying up farms to add on to the Ciskei Homeland.”
“Is that why you came?”
The greyness outside had grown lighter. From the dairy the calves were lowing more insistently: the milking must be nearly done. One felt less protected in the small circle of the lamp as the daylight slowly intruded.
“You know I of
ten get confidential information in my work, Ma. And I can assure you it’s true. They want to consolidate the Ciskei.”
“As long as they leave our farm out of it. I hope you told them so.”
“If we sell now, we can get a decent price for it, Ma. But if we put it off and they decide to expropriate it, we’ll have to take whatever they offer.”
“What do you call a decent price, sonny?”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand rand.”
“If that’s the truth you must be lying.”
“It’s true, Ma.”
She looked at me for a long time before she asked quietly: “And every man has his price?”
I knew my face was flushed. “That’s nonsense!” I said sharply. “It’s you I’m thinking about. I know you love the farm life, but you must be reasonable. You’re not young any more and you can’t go on like this. Apart from anything else, it’s becoming much too dangerous for a woman on her own.”
“I’ve never had any trouble so far.”
“You’ll be very comfortable with us.”
“That’s not the problem.” She remained quite calm. “I’m just not the sort of person you can transplant at my age.”
“Think of the expense to keep the farm going, Ma,” I said, trying another approach. “It’s never become profitable enough to make a proper living.”
“Can’t you afford it any longer?”
“Of course I can afford it, but —”
“Well, if it’s not that, we needn’t discuss it any further. We’ve pulled through other bad times and we’ll do it again.”
“But you don’t understand. If the Government —”
“You’re a man with influence. You just tell them.”
“Don’t be so damned pig-headed, Ma!”
She pushed back her chair and went to the dresser to put away the Bible. At the window she stopped to look out.
“It’s not just a piece of land you can sell like that, sonny,” she said after a while. “There’s your father and all his people lying in their graves. This place has been ours for generations.”
“I’m just as attached to it as you are, Ma. But let’s try to look at it in a practical way: neither Theo nor I will ever come to live on the farm. Our lives are different. And it’s foolish to let it go to waste.”
“Perhaps Louis would like to come back here one day.”
“Nonsense!” I had to laugh. “He’s become quite unmanageable as it is. Angola messed him up completely.”
“You never know.” Her back remained straight and unyielding. “Things have looked bad for the farm before this. But there has always been someone in our family prepared to come back to it, and it will stay that way. Our roots are here.” She turned round, pushing back a few loose strands of hair behind her ears. “Now forget about this silly business and enjoy your weekend. We won’t talk about it again.” And she went through to the kitchen.
2
EVER SINCE MY student days I’d known Charl Jansen, the secretary of the Department headed by Minister Calitz. We’d never been close friends. We were probably too ambitious, both of us (at university we’d competed fiercely in events like the annual orator’s competition, for example, taking turns to win the cup), but after each had chosen his own career, excluding the possibility of further rivalry, we’d established a firmer footing for our relationship. He could benefit from my confidential information on shares etc., in exchange for help with permits and other favours. We were, in fact, looking after each other’s interests quite well.
With Calitz’s predecessor, Peet Louwrens, Charl had had an excellent understanding. Louwrens had been one of the Old Guard who’d spent many years in the political wilderness with his Party; finally rewarded with a Cabinet post, he was content to sit back and reap whatever benefits came his way, leaving the run of his Department to his secretary, which suited Charl’s ambition and initiative perfectly. And the Department itself prospered as a result.
Then the old man resigned (after an unfortunate incident with a Coloured cleaning-girl in his office in the Union Buildings) and the Hon. Jan Calitz proved a very different boss altogether. The day he became Minister he announced – his silver Hitler moustache trembling with emotion – that he was firmly resolved to “leave his own imprint” on the Department. Charl’s freedom to manoeuvre was drastically curtailed, and from the outset there was a clash of personalities. That was the position when he telephoned me in May this year.
He didn’t want to talk on the phone. I was forced to cancel a date with Bea in order to meet him for lunch, but it proved to be more than worth my while.
He came straight to the point: “I’ve got a tip-off for you. Cigarette?”
“No thanks. Tell me.”
He lit a cigarette. “I’ve had enough of His Excellency’s shit.”
“I know. But what can I do to help you?”
“It’s straight from the hand of God.” And then he told me about the Government’s decision to transfer more land to the Ciskei. It had been decided in principle only and no final choice of land had yet been made. Calitz had set to work immediately, profiting from the drought to buy up, through intermediaries, a vast block of farms at ridiculous prices. Almost in the centre of the block was our family farm. In fact, it had been the knowledge that the farm belonged to me which had prompted Calitz to decide on that area in the first place: in the light of dealings he’d had with me in the past, he was under the impression that I’d be willing to “co-operate”. Five farms had already been bought, at an average of about R40,000; but he was willing, I learned from Charl, to offer me up to R50,000. He had already signed a contract with the Department of Bantu Administration, in terms of which they would buy the whole block from him for half a million rand, leaving His Excellency with a net profit of about R250,000 (to be divided between him and the responsible official in Bantu Administration).
Everything was in the bag. All that remained was for me to sign a deed of sale, a detail of which Bantu Administration was ignorant.
“I thought I’d warn you in time,” Charl said, winking. “So you can have time to think it over.”
He didn’t want anything for his trouble, but I insisted on offering him R 10,000. And when His Excellency invited me to lunch barely a week later, I was well prepared. Throughout the meal, while he was making polite conversation, I kept my cool and pretended to be greatly astonished when finally, over coffee, he mentioned casually that he was prepared to offer me a good sum (R40,000) for my farm.
“But Mr Minister, I won’t think of selling the place. It’s been in our family for generations.”
“Fifty thousand,” he said calmly.
I shook my head.
“Mr Mynhardt,” he said, “surely you know how badly the drought has hit the Eastern Cape. I know of people who would be eager to sell at half the price.”
“Then it’s a matter for their own conscience, Mr Minister, not mine.”
“I’ll tell you what, Mr Mynhardt.” In a show of confidence he leaned over to me. “I am prepared to pay you sixty thousand cash.”
“But why should you be so interested in a farm in a drought-stricken area?” I gave him no time to reply. “Or does it form part of a plan to consolidate the Ciskei?”
He grew pale, but his face remained expressionless; he even managed a hoarse laugh. “In these times of economic recession, Mr Mynhardt?”
I looked him in the eyes. “I shall be frank with you, Mr Minister. Your offer did not come as a surprise to me.”
“Really?”
“No. A friend of mine, a newspaper editor, mentioned it to me yesterday. I believe they’re working on the story at the moment.”
“Impossible!” In the pale blue flickering of his eyes I could see both fear and fury. “Which newspaper is it?”
“You will appreciate that it was told me in strict confidence, Your Excellency, so I’m afraid I’m not in a position to tell you more. It’s possible, of course, that they’re on a wild g
oose chase.”
“Oh, undoubtedly.”
“In which case it would be better to leave it at that.” I paused for a moment. “But in case you are really interested, my price is a quarter of a million.”
“Ridiculous!”
I shrugged.
We picked up our coffee cups simultaneously. A few minutes later he said: “I’m sure we can come to some sort of an agreement, Mr Mynhardt. You are a reasonable man.”
I knew I’d won.
In the career of an entrepreneur, as in some highly competitive sports, there is that element known to boxers as the killer instinct. If you lack it, it’s better to clear out as soon as possible: then it’s simply not your scene. You need a tennis player’s “hunger”, otherwise you cannot win. And winning is the name of the game. Nothing else. No fancy labels. Just winning. I think I inherited it from Ma: but in her it still assumed a different, old-worldly form. In my generation we have discarded the niceties. We call it by its Christian name.
His Excellency knew only too well that to save his reputation – compromised by concluding that contract with Bantu Administration before he had all the cards in his hand – he had no option but to clinch the sale. The price had been named. It would leave him with a new net profit of only R50,000, half of which still had to go to his accomplice. Peanuts. Still, he wouldn’t be left penniless. That, too, was part of the game.
He pretended that the matter was closed: he wouldn’t even consider such a preposterous proposal. I assured him that I would be only too glad to drop the whole thing, and on that note we went our separate ways.
I waited for his telephone call, knowing he had no choice but to come back. Without my farm his transaction with the Government could not go through and he would be exposed to the worst kind of publicity. The Government, of course, could still save face by acquiring an entirely new block of farms – but then Calitz would be left with the five he’d already bought for R200,000; and he wasn’t the sort of person to play it that way.