My Children Have Faces

by Carol Campbell

  I could feel tears coming in my eyes and I also walked into the veld, pretending to help look for stokkies but was really so that they couldn’t see my sadness.

  I want to be a town girl with shoes and roll-on and a Bible with a rose. And I want to go to school and learn about one-two-three and letters.

  We can be deep in the veld, far from any town, and Pappie still brushes his shoes every day. Pappie wears brown shoes, with long laces, that Baas Johan bought him from the koöperasie shop when he worked on Tierberg. He has polished those shoes so many times that the heels are red and the leather soft. Now that I am planning my school shoes I sit with him every night when he cleans his shoes to see how it’s done.

  “To get your shoes really shiny you must spit on them,” he tells me.

  “Really, spit on your own shoes?”

  “Watch me.”

  He spits on the shoe in his hand and rubs the spit into the shoe, whip-whap with the brush. That brush moves so fast over the shoe I can’t see it.

  “Whew, Pappie, but you polish fast.”

  “Practice, meisiekind. It makes perfect.”

  I don’t know exactly what he means, but his shoes look perfect and mine will too if I polish them.

  It started one night, when Fansie asked Pappie: “Pappie, when Mamma gets an identity and we get pay, can I also get black school shoes?”

  Really, I looked at him as if he was mad but I kept my mouth shut.

  “Yes, Fansie. Your feet are nearly as big as a man’s feet now. Maybe we must get you koöperasie shoes.”

  Really! Fansie liked it when Pappie said that and his smile was so big I could see all his teeth.

  I wanted to say, “Mamma doesn’t have an identity and we can’t get pay so how are you going to get koöperasie shoes, huh?” but his smile was beautiful and he was so excited that I didn’t want to make him sad like he made me, so I laughed with him.

  “You two are going to look like real larney klonkies stomping around the Karoo in fancy new shoes,” Pappie laughed.

  We both stood up and pretended we had our shoes on, walking around with our noses in the air. I gave my foot for Pappie to see and he pretended to brush it.

  “Don’t spit on my foot, Pappie,” I said.

  Fansie started laughing when I said that and then Pappie started laughing and me too. We were laughing so much we couldn’t stop. Even Sponsie was laughing and I saw Mamma smiling and shaking her head.

  Many times after that night I saw Fansie sitting alone staring into the veld and I knew he was thinking about his koöperasie shoes. His hands would move in a way that I could see him stroking the leather, then he would knock the air with a finger when he was feeling the thickness of the sole.

  Every night we polished our shoes in our minds with Pappie. We sat with him and spat and rubbed even though we had nothing in our hands. Pappie said nothing. We just talked and laughed like we were all doing a job together.

  But now, since we’ve been in Leeu Gamka, it’s been different. Mamma is so quiet and Pappie just wants to find work, so he hasn’t worried about shoes again. Then tonight the oom came and everything has changed. If that oom is dead the police are going to be after us in the morning. If he is not dead then he is going to come after us. One thing I know is that he will want his knife back. Fansie thinks he’s clever, but I see him running in front with the donkeys and playing with that knife he took out of that oom’s hand.

  Anyway, we are going to have to run very fast to get away.

  22 FANSIE

  Tonight, after Pappie smacked the oom over the head with the knobkerrie, he said we are going to Oudtshoorn. I don’t believe him. Mamma has been asking him for so long to go to Oudtshoorn so she can get an identity.

  Every time he says, “Yes, yes, we’ll go.”

  But we never go. Now tonight he says we are going to Oudtshoorn. Even if we go all that way I don’t know how Mamma will ever get a picture. For an identity you must have a picture. That’s the most important thing, so that the government can look at you and then look at your picture and say, “Yes, this is this person.”

  But Mamma doesn’t have a picture and she doesn’t know how to get one. Mamma also doesn’t know when she was born, and a person needs to know that if you are going to ask the government for an identity. Her mamma told her she first saw the night stars at Buffelsgat on the vlaktes but she doesn’t know where that is and we have never been able to find it. She also doesn’t know the day or year. That’s very important for white people who make identities. You must know the date and the year. You can’t say you are fifty years old when you are only thirty years. The identity people want to know nineteen-something. And a month. January or July. Something like that and a number like 21 or 17 for the day. You must have a number. All Mamma knows is that she was born at Buffelsgat after her brother Charlie but before Vlooi. At least Mamma thinks she came after Charlie. That’s what her mother told her, but she has ten brothers and sometimes her mother calls one Charlie and the other one Dusi and the other one Fillies. The next day the names are all deurmekaar and Charlie is Dusi and Dusi is Fillies and Fillies is Vlooi. It gets very confusing with ten brothers.

  “I came easily into the world, never giving my mother any trouble,” she always tells us. “Not like Vlooi – he nearly killed my poor mother coming out backwards and upside down.” We laugh when she tells that story. Can a baby come into the world backwards and upside down? Jissie.

  From the beginning of her life, Mamma has been a quiet, hidden away person. That’s why she is called Muis. She is a little mouse who doesn’t make a noise and hides from snakes and cats and people. That’s what other people think about Mamma Muis but, don’t make a mistake, this Mamma Muis can bite. She gets very cross with me sometimes and then she chases me and tries to hit me, but I just laugh and run away. That makes her spit like a snake then I tease her and say she should be called Slangetjie not Muisie. I always see Pappie laughing quietly when we have these fights. Witpop makes her fed up too and then she is a very noisy mouse, shouting and swearing at all of us. Mostly, though, she is quiet and hides away when people come near us. Ja, but you know, what our Mamma Muis wants most in the world is an identity. A book that says her real name and gives the day when she was born and says she is a person who lives in South Africa. I think this will make her feel like she is a real person, not a mouse who must hide away.

  Mamma’s father was a donkey-cart man like Pappie, which is why she never went to school and why she doesn’t have an identity.

  “We would stay on a farm and I would go to school but then he would get fed up and we would pack the donkey karretjie and move again. In the end the teacher said I mustn’t come back anymore,” she says. She can’t read and write letters. None of us can.

  Mamma never went to school but she remembers everything about me. It was cold when I was born and she cried tears like rivers for my dead father and his new son. Ja, she told me, my father was dead before I was born and Pappie took me to be his own because I was beautiful. That’s what Pappie says too.

  “Fansie was brown all over with his eyes closed tight and hair that stood straight up.” Witpop laughs and then Sponsie laughs because Witpop laughs when Pappie tells that story. They think it’s funny that I had hair like a porcupine. It makes me very happy that Pappie chose me to be his boy.

  Witpop was born after me but I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t here.

  “Ja,” Mamma says, “the flies drove me crazy when Witpop was born because it was so hot and she has been driving me crazy ever since.” Witpop doesn’t care when Mamma says that. She just looks at Mamma and gets a cross face.

  Sponsie came in the cold too, like me. I remember that night not long ago. After Witpop and before Sponsie there was Meitjie but she died at that time when she was learning to walk. Like Sponsie is now. Pappie said it was her chest that closed in the winter and we had no medicine. I helped him dig a hole for her body. I remember, before we laid her in the hole, I took
her little fingers in my hands but they were like cold stones. Then Pappie lifted her and put her body into the hole at the bottom of a koppie on the farm Skilpadberg and then we packed lots of rocks on top of the grave so the jackals couldn’t dig her up. Afterwards Pappie said a prayer to the Liewe Jesus asking him to take care of our little sister. When he was done we all climbed on the karretjie and walked on, leaving her there alone in the veld in that gat. For a long time I looked back, feeling the tears coming fast over my cheeks. Mamma didn’t talk. She just had that look on her face when her eyes go big and wild like an animal. She has never talked about Meitjie again. Our baby became a star that I sing to when I am alone.

  “Meitjie is my baby, Meitjie is my darling girl.”

  I don’t think I can even hum that song when Mamma is around. It would be too sad for her.

  Pappie has the reins tonight and Witpop and me and Rinkhals are running in front with the donkeys. It’s dark and these donkeys are very cross that they can’t sleep so we are running with them to keep them moving. We have to keep running. That’s one thing we two know for sure. Pappie is still gesuip but he’s getting better with the cool night air on his face and the worry of the oom behind him. He thinks he killed that oom, that his heart will stop, and that it will be the police chasing us in the morning. But I know that oom isn’t dead, and, if we are being chased tomorrow, it will be by him not the police. This time I think he is going to be very dangerous. His bees are buzzing in a big swarm looking for someone to sting.

  Why does that oom want to bother us? We were not doing anything to anybody, so why did he come to worry us? Tonight he wanted to kill Mamma and it was like she had no fight in her when he pulled his knife. She was like a sheep after it’s been caught and is about to have its throat slit. It just gives up struggling and lets the knife cut open its throat. Mamma is still lying in the karretjie, sleeping with Sponsie. She is not even trying to help Pappie keep the donkeys moving. “Run, Pantoffel. Kom Rinnik! On, on, on. Run.”

  When Pappie lets Witpop on the karretjie, I run alone in front and I take the oom’s knife out of my pocket to have a look at it. It’s a very sharp knife but the blade is inside. If I press a button it flicks out and then I push it in again. They never saw me take it but I think it is better if I have it and not the oom. He will want to get it back. That I know for sure.

  23 MUIS

  His smell is on my skin. It crawls over me like a tick looking for a place to suck. It’s a smell that makes my mouth dry and my stomach naar. I rub my lips and nose over Sponsie’s hair and her smell makes me feel peaceful. Her little body is curled next to me and she sleeps easy, even on the hard boards of the karretjie. The donkeys have stopped running now and their clip-clop matches the thump-thump of my heart. A yellow moon hangs over the far-away mountains. It’s a long time until sunrise and the stars are bright. The big star is the one Fansie calls Meitjie’s star. My little Meitjie, watching her Mamma shiver in the back of a cart as we run across the vlaktes, away from fear.

  “It’s not death I am running from, Meitjie,” I say to her. “It is just I don’t want to die being kicked and punched and stabbed, that’s all. Are you waiting for me, Meitjie? Are you watching us?”

  When I was little I gave the stars names. Girl, Spider, Porcupine. They all twinkled, no matter how my heart was breaking. My body is stiff and cold and I sit up trying to balance against the rocking of the karretjie. Kapok sees me and pulls the reins.

  “Whoa, whoa.” The donkeys stop and Rinnik snorts and tries to grab at dry grass.

  I climb out and stumble into the veld to pee. There is no one else out here. This is an alone world. All that will be left of us tomorrow are our tracks. I watch the sky and think about the stars and the people who live in the black heaven, away from suffering.

  Kapok has rolled a skuif and I go back to the karretjie and climb up on to the bankie next to him. We smoke without talking and then he picks up the reins. Sponsie is still asleep in the back. Fansie and Witpop take the donkeys’ bridles and pull them on again. Kapok brings down the whip and we move off, slowly.

  Everywhere I am aching. The skin inside one arm is broken and stings from where he dug in his nails when he grabbed me. My head throbs and my backside aches where I hit the ground when he shoved me. We carry on during the night, listening to the creaking karretjie until Kapok breaks the night silence.

  “The donkeys must rest. We are near Tierberg now.”

  Kapok knows these tracks and we go through a farm gate with a board swinging on a pole and begin the long trek to the farmer’s house. The road is sandy and many times we all push the karretjie while Fansie talks to Pantoffel and Rinnik, telling them, “Pull, pull.”

  “Baas Johan will give me something for the donkeys to eat in the morning,” says Kapok.

  Kapok likes Baas Johan. He strung wire for him here, before Sponsie was born.

  “Baas Johan has got a soft spot for a donkey,” he says.

  “Remember when Pantoffel and Rinnik ran away?” I say and he chuckles.

  “Blerrie donkeys. They ran all the way to the Beaufort West road.”

  All night Kapok followed their spoor before he saw them on the other side of the highway.

  “Ai, these donkeys!” Kapok laughs when he remembers that day. “Baas Johan came looking for me, but I was already on my way back and he said, ‘I can give you a lift, Kapokkie, but the bakkie is too small for two blerrie donkeys.’ When I got back to the farm he let me off to sleep. Ai, blerrie donkeys.”

  At last the farmhouse appears in the grey morning light. Kapok stops the karretjie next to a windmill with a dam and a drinking bak.

  “We’ll uitspan for the rest of the day,” he says. Fansie and Witpop unhitch the donkeys and the animals walk off to roll in the dust before drinking.

  “Not too much water,” Kapok shouts to Fansie as he walks towards the house. “Watch for their stomachs.”

  A little more and Fansie pulls up their heads and chases them off. When the donkeys are settled, eating dried leaves and seeds off bossies, the children make a fire on the far side of the dam. They don’t want us to be seen from the house. Maybe Baas Johan will be angry we are here and we’ll have to go.

  We have some coffee, but no sugar, and a little bread flour and yeast. Witpop looks at me and I nod. “Make bread, we can eat.”

  Kapok squats at the back door of the house until Baas Johan comes outside. I see him pushing his hat on, ready for the day. There are others too and I can see Kapok talking. He knows people here.

  For a long time I sit by the fire and let Sponsie drink. Fansie and Witpop are quiet, moving around the uitspan looking for stokkies to make krummel coals. Witpop brings me bitter coffee. Fansie is hungry but he says nothing. I can see from the way he moves he is ready to move off to find something for us to braai. Then he is gone and Witpop is working the last of the bread flour into dough.

  She leaves the white ball in our bowl, with a wet lappie covering it, to rise in the morning sun.

  Fansie will bring us something to eat. As I wait for Kapok to come, the chain tightens around my ankle and I feel Miskiet moving into our circle again. His voice is in my head and I can’t make it shuddup.

  “Your children don’t exist.”

  “They have no papers.”

  “I can kill them.”

  “They won’t be missed.”

  “Nobody cares you were ever born.”

  You can’t kill a person and think they won’t be missed. Other people know about us. But it’s like he is right here in front of me, and he won’t listen when I tell him he’s wrong.

  “The police don’t look for someone who is not on the government’s computer.”

  I must stop this thinking now. We are going to Oudtshoorn so we can get on to the government’s computer. No more of this nothingness. My children have faces.

  Kapok comes back with the scraping of a pap pot.

  “We can stay today if I help with the sheep dockings,” he say
s. “It’s a good job, Muis. Lots of meat. The mevrou sent some pap for the children.”

  Fansie has gone into the veld alone. He wants to play with that knife he took off Miskiet. The one that was meant for my guts, which was in Miskiet’s closed fist. Miskiet will get his hands on another one, I know that.

  Witpop and Sponsie eat the pap while I sit by the dying fire, warming my hands around my cup and waiting to see if it will be the police or Miskiet who comes for us first.

  24 FANSIE

  The ground looks soft but I know it’s hard and stony.

  “Sleep,” my head is telling me but my legs say “run”.

  All night we have run but now I need to be away from her fear. My legs have forgotten how to walk so they run everywhere. Why does that oom want to hurt her? Last night wasn’t a nice run. Jissie, it was a hard run. Now I run easily through the veld between bushes, jumping rocks. At a sheep’s water bak I sit down on the ground and stretch my legs in front of me. Thin brown sticks with old black scratches and scabs. The boereseuns have thick, strong legs with no sores. That would be nice, to have thick legs like a white boy who eats meat every day. If I had long pants then I wouldn’t be covered in scratches and sores.

  There is nothing I can do about my brown sticks. I don’t take food when there is only a little, otherwise Sponsie and Witpop are hungry. Sponsie cries when she is hungry, a lot of small little sounds, not like real crying, and Witpop gets very cross. I would rather be hungry than have one sister going “waa, waa” and the other one shouting “los my uit, los my uit”. Those girls give a boy a bad headache. Now I am hungry and my sisters are not here. Now I am a boy who wants meat and that feeling is making my eyes, ears and nose sharp. There is a rustling and a hare runs from a bush, one way then the next, before I can think of catching it.

  “It’s your lucky day, hare,” I say softly. If Rinkhals was with me he would have caught it but I don’t want Rinkhals here. I chained him to the karretjie at the uitspan to force him to sleep, otherwise I don’t get any peace.