When the police came to question her she said niks. But Miskiet knew what had happened. He said it was a darkie from the trucks who raped Muis and killed Jan. I could see that. The dom meid, she was always hanging around that Ultra City, smiling at Jan and drinking cooldrinks with the petrol-jokkies. One of those trucker darkies must have smaaked her. But they never found who it was.
Jislaaik, it wasn’t a nice time.
I wondered how Miskiet would cope after the killing. Shame man! Poor bliksem didn’t ask for all this drama in his life and now he had a dead brother and a woman with a broken heart.
We all thought she would go back to her people in Fraserburg straight away, but she didn’t. Then, in a few months, we knew why. She was expecting. A girl who is expecting can’t go home to the farm, her father will beat her black and blue. She stayed and I wondered if Miskiet would make her his woman. But people talked. They said Muis slept in the hok at the back waiting for her belly to grow, thinking what she could do. She wouldn’t let Miskiet near her. That’s when I knew it was him. He killed his brother and raped Muis in one of his rages.
So that’s when I thought she would be a nice one for me. A plaasmeid with a baby would suit me fine. I like babies. I wanted to look for work on the vlaktes. My hands needed to get busy again. Too much blerrie sitting around gets you down. She was sitting under the pepper tree feeding the baby when I asked her if she would come as my woman. What I wanted was a person to talk to and someone to cook.
“Ja, dankie, dankie, Oom Kapok, ja I want to come with you on the karretjie.” She was so happy when I asked her, like it was the chance she had been waiting for all this time.
I was pleased.
“Just promise me one thing?” she said.
“What?”
“Promise me we will never come back here.”
Ag jissie, I wasn’t really going to promise that. Leeu Gamka was my home. But I said, “Ja, it’s a terrible place this. I will take you to the mountains where there is water in the river and lots of trees to sit under.”
“Just get me away from Miskiet to a place where he can’t find me.” I looked at her to see if she was being funny, but her face was so sad that my heart did a little jump.
“Okay, I’ll make plans,” I said. “I’ll come tell you stilletjies when I am ready to go.”
But now, all these years later, I can’t understand why she is still so afraid of Miskiet. She moans so much about us having no work and no money – I thought she would be glad to come back here to regular pay and a once-a-week braaisak instead of a plat porcupine for supper.
And now, since we arrived, she hasn’t said a word. Miskiet is almost family to her, but say his name and she goes doodstil and when you look carefully you see her hands are shaking.
And this blerrie Oudtshoorn thing. All this time, at every place, all she wanted was to vanish between the koppies. She didn’t even want to come near the farms where I worked. She would make me uitspan two or three kays away until she saw exactly who was there and then kruip closer with the children. Now, all of a sudden, she wants to go to blerrie Oudtshoorn for birth certificates and ID books and I don’t understand why it is important.
But here we are in Leeu Gamka. The one place Muis said she never wanted to see again. Maybe, as she gets older, she is becoming less hardegat. She’s here but her whole body is shaking. I told her “Relax, man. Leave him to me. Tonight we are going to suip and by tomorrow Miskiet will be my best pal.”
14 WITPOP
Tonight we are sleeping in the veld. Fansie told me to get the blanket ready and make sure Sponsie ate something so she wouldn’t cry. If she cries and they find us then it is hit, klap, kick till Fansie tells them where he’s buried Pappie’s fence-making tools. When Pappie buys a papsak then Fansie always buries the tools. If he doesn’t then Pappie and Mamma sell everything when the dop hits. Last time Fansie forgot the pliers and Pappie traded them for half a papsak.
One time, when I was very little, before Sponsie was born, Mamma was very drunk and tried to give me to a man for another dop. Really, she did. Fansie screamed, “Run away, Witpop, run!” That time Mamma tore my shirt when she tried to grab me but she was too drunk to catch me and the papsak-man was too drunk to chase me so I didn’t have to run far. I sat in the dark for a long time listening to them fighting and then singing.
“Witpop? Witpop?”
I jump when I hear Fansie’s voice.
“Witpop? Where are you?” He finds me in the dark.
“You mustn’t let her give you to a man,” he says. “If that happens again and I am not here then you must run away and hide until the dop is out of her.”
In the moonlight I can see his eyes shine.
“A man will take you away from us and hurt you and then, when the drinking is finished, Mamma will be sorry about what she has done.”
I nod and lean in closer to him. He is sitting on the ground next to me and his arm goes around my shoulders and I feel safe. For the rest of the night we sit in the dark laughing at Mamma and Pappie fighting and dancing like real dronkies. At last it is quiet and we sleep together between the stones and the bushes.
In the morning, before they are awake, we dig up Pappie’s tools and lay them carefully in their place under the seat of the karretjie. We run together to find Pantoffel and Rinnik in the veld. Last night Fansie chased them away too. Otherwise, he said, they would also be sold for a papsak and the two of us would be pulling the karretjie.
“It’s the wine talking,” he says. “They don’t know what they are saying and when the wine is all peed out they can’t remember anything.” I am glad he told me that.
Tonight we are sleeping in the veld again because Pappie has a papsak.
“It’s to settle this business,” Pappie says.
I don’t know what the business is, but we all know there is going to be a lot of drinking and fighting. Mamma’s eyes are different today, like deep pools of black mud. She looks, but she doesn’t see. If you talk to her she doesn’t hear you. When the sun starts dropping in the sky I make Sponsie coffee and bread and then, when we see Pappie pouring wine into his cup, we walk off quietly, disappearing like jackals into the night.
15 MISKIET
Klein Muisie, after all this time, I am paying you a visit.
Ducking and diving between rocks and bushes for fifteen years hasn’t helped you hide. In the end you had to come back to see what life you missed, hey? If you knew how I dreamt of feeling my fingers around your bony throat. I want to push a lap in your mouth and see the fear in your eyes as you wait for death. It’s a funny thing but my mind can be busy with something like dominoes or cards when, out of nowhere, it settles on killing you.
It’s because you ran. You took my son and ran away when I was ready to be his father. You were disrespectful. You were disrespectful and now you are going to pay.
Tonight I will visit you in your camp. If I know Kapok he will be gesuip, singing to his papsak. Useless piece of shit. With Kapok it’s always about a dop and I am sure you are the same. Oh yes, I am sure you will be drinking too. Kapok and Klein Muisie come to town and the first thing they want is wine to make a party. You can’t help it. Too many long weeks away without a doppie, hey Klein Muisie? There comes a time when that doppie becomes more important than anything else. I know that. I have seen it many times. By sunset Kapok will have sold his draadtrekker for R25. You won’t even notice what he has done because the two of you will be wiping out the pain of your rubbish lives with cheap wine. But I’m warning you. I’m telling you now, that pain is only going to get worse now you have turned up on my doorstep again.
Look at you. Filthy. All of you in rags carrying on like rats running in the veld for food. So useless you can’t stay in one place long enough to find out the clinic hours or put your name on a housing list. You can’t even get All Pay because you can’t get to a town on the right day of the week to register your children. So they stay nameless and always hungry.
My son can live and eat with me now. I waited for him to come back and I knew one day he would. You should never have taken him away. If he had stayed by me I would have fed him and bought him toy cars and ice-lollies.
And you, Muis, you could have lived with me and my son in my house on the hill.
I would have been the one in charge and you could have kept the place clean. Omo-smelling sheets would have flapped on my line; lamb stew would have cooked on the stove while my boy played with wire cars in the dirt at the back door. And, when he saw me trekking up the hill after work, he would have run to meet me and hugged my legs and shouted “Pappa’s home”. He would have run behind me and cried that I went to the Ultra City without him.
Now, he is going to come and stay by me. That is what I have decided.
My son will be with me. He will sleep in his own bed and eat at the table with his father. I will teach him to slaughter a sheep and tighten a fence. In the evenings we will play cards and drink tea with three spoons of sugar and milk.
It’s dark now but I know every turn in this path. I pick my way quietly and easily towards you. You and Kapok are alone in the uitspan on the far side of the highway. For a while I sit on the koppie and watch you.
Klein Muisie, you know I am coming. I can see you sitting on an upturned tin staring into the fire.
Kapok doesn’t sit. He moves around adding wood to the flames, then walks to the edge of the ring of light and stares into the dark. Then he scratches in the donkey karretjie and finds a tin which he sets down next to the fire. An empty seat. An invitation to your party. The children are gone but I know where they are. Hiding in the veld and watching the camp, just like me. The donkeys are missing too. I stand up and stretch.
Okay, Klein Muisie. The time has come.
16 FANSIE
Tonight I saw the man again, that oompie who watched us from his red brick house when we came this morning. Even from where I was hidden I could smell his spray. When Pappie washes he smells like wood smoke and Lux and we tease him by running up close and sniffing him and screaming. Even Sponsie was doing it last time. It was so funny seeing her run on wobbly legs, laughing and sniffing Pappie. His body always looks so small and krom when he takes off his shirt and shaves with a bowl of soapy water balanced on the seat of the karretjie. Pappie buys his blades at Pep Stores when we are in Prince Albert. Blades and carbolic soap. He likes to shave and he hates a blunt blade.
This man in the red brick house is much bigger than Pappie. I checked him. That oompie has eaten lots of boerewors because he looks lekker strong. When I spied him tonight his jeans looked new and very blue and he had black All Stars just like the ones Kobus, my cousin, wears. I don’t need All Stars. I go barefoot because my feet are strong.
After standing for a few minutes the oompie came out of his house, locked the door with a big gold padlock and pointed his nose to our camp. At the gate he turned and went back and checked the padlock again, pulling it twice to make sure it was really locked. I thought about climbing into his house. He locked it with a padlock but I could just lift the plaat on the roof and jump in if I wanted.
When he came out I didn’t move. When you are stalking an animal you must move very slowly. If you move the animal sees you from the corner of its eye and is gone. If you stay still it can smell you but it can’t see you. Sometimes it will come right to your feet. Then you have to move fast, like a cobra, to catch it. It’s the same with stalking a person. This oompie is easy to track – I saw straight away where he was heading and that Mamma and Pappie are waiting for someone. It looks like it’s him.
He walked with a spring, like someone on their way to something they are really looking forward to. Even in the dark I had to run to keep up. He headed straight, along the edge of the lokasie, along the koppie path to the tunnel under the road. When he got to the tunnel he looked back. I think he wanted to be sure he went in alone. It’s got a strong feeling, that tunnel. When I went in there, I didn’t smaak the feeling, so I climbed up to the bank and crossed the highway. Just before the oompie disappeared, jumping down the tunnel steps two-bytwo, he looked back up at the koppie, his eyes moving over me as if I was a rock. When he was gone I walked along the highway and watched the big trucks for a little while. On the other side I could see Mamma and Pappie by the fire; the oompie wasn’t with them. Then I saw him, on the other side of the highway, sitting on a rock watching our camp.
It was a strange night. For once Mamma didn’t shout and tell us we were all useless and lazy and that she had to do all the work. She sat like a little mouse on her tin with a far-away look in her eyes like she was thinking about something deep inside her. If you got her attention then she looked at you like you were a spook and her hands started shaking. I didn’t smaak having Mamma like this. I told Witpop there was trouble coming and that she must take Sponsie and go and sleep in the veld. She better listen or I am going to cut a big stick from a pepper tree and piets her backside. That Witpop will leave Sponsie sleeping under a bush and creep back to camp to listen to what is going on.
At last the oompie stood up from the rock where he was sitting and walked down the bank to our uitspan. He walked into the camp and went straight to the fire and kicked the coffee-pot into the flames. Just like that. It was fresh coffee that Witpop made so they wouldn’t start too early on the papsak. Even though he did that Pappie said nothing, just handed him a mug of wine. I ran over the highway and scrambled down the bank into the circle of light. The oompie saw me and smiled. There was something in his pocket that he touched all the time. When he is drunk, I’ll take it.
17 MUIS
A jackal is circling our camp waiting to snatch his prey. When a person lives in the veld for a long time you feel the air change when another creature is close. So many times I know a snake is there before I see it. The cobra under the bush where I want to pee never surprises me, and the hissing of the puff adder lying next to the rock where Sponsie is walking warns me to grab her into my arms. It’s the same now – the air has changed. There is movement around us, I can hear the hiss.
Sponsie is crying in the dark and Witpop is saying, “Shhh, shhh.”
Fansie is nowhere.
“Take her away, Witpop. You are too close. Move off, hide, hide away in the night. Use your brain for once,” I whisper.
I shift my weight on the old paint tin where I am sitting by the fire. My legs are stiff from holding the same position for so long. All the time I have been sitting in a way that I can jump. Then, from the corner of my eye, I see a movement, a flash of Fansie’s T-shirt disappears towards the crying and shhhing. Has he been here all the time? When Sponsie cries again it is a far-away weeping. She wants her mamma’s titty on the blanket in our place under the karretjie.
My stomach, my head, my shoulders ache with waiting. Waiting for hitting and kicking. I stretch my legs in front of me and take a deep breath. Kapok hands me a skuif and I drag hard. The tobacco smoke burns my lungs and my head feels light. When he comes will he punch my face and then go for my guts? If I fall will he kick me and then take a rock and bash my head? Will he rape me?
Kapok is wrong. This jackal, this snake, this murderer, hasn’t forgotten about me. He is coming back to show me he is stronger, that he is powerful and that, in the end, he will be the winner. All those years ago he wanted to be in charge of my life but no person will do that to me. Mamma taught me that I belong to Liewe Jesus and, in my life, I decide what is right and wrong. In the end I must stand before the Liewe Jesus and answer for what I have done. Nothing says I have to answer to Miskiet.
I have stayed away from here so I can live but, in the end, it is my children’s hunger that has brought me back. Sponsie crying for a piece of bread, Witpop snatching at kaiings, Fansie’s black eyes looking for a chance to eat. This is what made me come back to Leeu Gamka. These children and their hunger are eating out my heart. We can die of hunger wandering up and down langkampe in the Karoo or I can have my head bashed in by a killer who is not right i
n the head.
This is the only place where Kapok knows enough people to find work quickly, this hard, struggling place of suffering called Leeu Gamka.
There are footsteps coming. They stop but I don’t move and I don’t look up. He has been on the bank near the road watching us. Kapok built the fire big so that there is enough light to see him coming but I don’t want to see him. I can smell his spray and soap. It’s his same smell, like bleach mixed with spray from Pep, the one I remember, and it makes my stomach turn over and I want to be sick.
When he comes it is with big fast steps and he kicks over the coffee-pot on the fire. Fresh coffee that Witpop made.
I know he is standing next to me. He laughs softly and says, “Hullo, Klein Muisie.”
My eyes move from the fire to his black tekkies. I can see a pattern on his green socks.
Kapok says, “Hullo Miskiet, are you going to join us for a little wine?”
He takes the wine cup Kapok is holding out and sits on the paint blik that Kapok has prepared on the other side of the fire, facing me.
“Is Muis not having anything?” he asks. Kapok hands me a cup of wine and I take a long sluk. Why not face death drunk? I sluk again and hold up my cup for some more.
When I look up, I see Fansie is on the other side of the camp behind him. Miskiet glances over his shoulder and, when he sees the boy, he stands up and walks towards him.
Fansie, go, go, go.
“Leave him alone, Miskiet.” For the first time my voice doesn’t fail me. “He is Jan’s boy.”
I shout the words and they hang for a long time over the silent veld. Fansie has vanished like a duikertjie in the dark, and Miskiet laughs and comes back to the fire for more wine.
18 FANSIE
Pappie sold the saw to Oom Dollars for R25 so he could buy a papsak. Next time he gets a job he is going to ask the farmer for a voorskot, a little money in advance, so he can buy a new one. That’s what he said to Oom Dollars.
My Children Have Faces Page 5