“So it’s R200?” Pappie asks for the third time. “That’s your price, R200?”
The shack-man stands up.
“Okay. Okay!” Pappie wants the gun.
Coals burn red on a piece of sinkplaat on the floor and I cough. Jissie, there is no air in this place. Pappie feels for the brown notes wrapped in an old hankie and tucked in his shirt.
“Ha, boy, had enough of buying arms already?” The shack-man laughs. I can see his eyes in the dark and the flash of white teeth. We aren’t buying arms, what does he mean? We are buying a gun to protect ourselves from a malletjie. The shack-man looks at me and chuckles.
“Come, ou man, make up your mind. I have other business today.” This is a town man, he is not used to Pappie taking so long when he thinks about what he wants.
I keep my eyes down and I see bones scattered on the dirty cement floor. The shack people have sat around a pot on this fire and as they ate they threw the bones over their shoulders. The dogs haven’t been in this morning to clean up.
This place where we are buying a gun is called Blomnek. Stem of a flower. How it got this name I don’t know because there aren’t flowers here and one with a stem wouldn’t last. It’s the lokasie for De Rust. The white people live in De Rust and everybody else lives here. It’s very early morning and outside children are crying and mothers are shouting.
Somebody called Benny doesn’t want to go to school.
“Die fokken kind kort ’n pak!” There’s the sound of a klap on skin and a child howls.
Dogs are barking at the boerebakkies coming and going as they fetch workers. Early morning, when the lokasie smells of mieliepap, we are buying arms.
“We’ll take it,” Pappie says eventually. “Are the bullets inside?”
The shack-man sighs. “It is fully loaded, yes.” He takes the gun out and opens it again. I can see five small silver circles. “Just shoot, it’ll work.” He can see we know nothing of guns.
“Look here, ou man, this is the safety. You must pull it back before you shoot, you got it?”
Pappie nods his head up and down like Sponsie when Mamma gives her coffee and says she mustn’t mess. When I look at the shackman he is watching me and our eyes meet and we both smile at Pappie. Pappie is holding the gun saying, “The safety must come backwards, then I can shoot.”
“That’s right, you got it now ou man.”
Pappie hands over the R200. Our donkey money. The man hands us the gun wrapped in its dirty lappie.
“Put it in your broek,” Pappie says, giving it to me. Nobody will think a klonkie will be carrying a gun like this. It is difficult because I don’t have an onderbroek, but I stick it in the waist of my pants and pull my jersey down. Pappie is so nervous he doesn’t notice it’s not properly in my broek. It pokes me but I feel important.
“Get rid of it when the job is done,” the shack-man says. “Throw it in a deep river.” At last we go outside and I take a breath of the morning air. Fresh in my lungs. The shack-man heads down the road with our donkey money in his hand.
Pappie and I walk down the hill back to Mamma and Sponsie and Witpop who are sitting near the fast road to Oudtshoorn. Witpop has tied string around Rinkhals’s neck to stop him from running in the road. All we have now is Rinkhals and three plastic packets, our pot and our blanket.
Pantoffel and Rinnik are gone and a terrible feeling comes over me. The donkeys and the karretjie are gone. Tears begin sliding down my cheeks and dripping on my jersey. I wipe my face on my sleeve but nobody notices. Pappie, Mamma, Witpop and Sponsie all have their heads down. We pick up our packets and our pot and our blanket and slowly we start the walk to Oudtshoorn.
32 WITPOP
The hills around De Rust are red, like blood, and I think that many people have died here to make them so. The donkeys are gone but I hear clip-clop, clip-clop behind me and keep looking back to see where they are. No. I shake my head. No donkeys. No karretjie. They are sold. Pappie says Pantoffel was going to die anyway, so it’s better that somebody else has that problem.
We are on the other side of the Swartberg. When I look back at the mountains I can’t believe there was a way through. On the other side are the vlaktes, with the roads and pathways we know so well. This side it is all farmland with goats and people. A person can’t get lost here, there are too many people. Fansie is walking with me and while we walk tears run like flooding rivers over his cheeks but I pretend I don’t see. I know why he is crying.
It’s not lekker to see Fansie walking when he always runs. Is he going to slow down forever, now that Pantoffel and Rinnik and the karretjie are gone?
Really, what are we going to do? When we go back will we still walk in the veld but with no donkeys and karretjie?
“Sss, Sss.”
I am thinking and I don’t hear him straight away.
“Sss, Sss.”
Fansie makes a movement with his head for me to fall back and walk with him.
Far in front of us Mamma has Sponsie on her back and Pappie is just behind her, carrying the pot and the blanket. We slide into a ditch by the road and sit for a little while. Then he talks. He talks to me like a sister, not a shouting talk but a real talk, and I nod. I understand.
When we are back on the road we run to catch up. Mamma and Pappie’s heads are still down. They didn’t see we were gone.
Now I walk with my head up and my shoulders back. I am not a dom meid. Now I am an important sister with a big job to do for my brother. I am not afraid, I am brave and I am clever.
All day we walk. When it’s nearly dark I see the lights. First it is a long star-snake twinkling far away. I can’t take my eyes off it and I stumble over rocks by the road. Once I nearly fall down a steep bank next to the road. “There is Oudtshoorn,” Pappie shouts back to us.
For the first time I hear hope in his voice. There is Oudtshoorn where we will get identities. And, please, some food.
My stomach is squeezing and turning, telling me it wants to eat. We did eat a little today. A big fat policeman sitting by the road gave us his bread and polony. He was a nice man to do that. If he didn’t give us that bread and polony I would have stopped walking long ago. Now it is getting dark. I am afraid and I run to be with Mamma. Pappie waits for me so that we can walk into Oudtshoorn together.
There are lots of cars now and their lights are shining in my eyes.
“They are town people,” Pappie says. “They need cars to get around.”
“Mamma?”
She doesn’t look up and the sound of my voice hangs in the air.
I want to say, “Mamma, I am tired and I am hungry.” I want to ask her, “Mamma, can we stop now and make camp here?” In the end I say nothing. One foot in front of the other. My head down now so the cars’ lights don’t hurt my eyes. Walking under the snake lights. I wonder if we could get a car if we lived in a town. We don’t need donkeys and a karretjie if we have a car. Fansie and I could crawl underneath at night to sleep and Mamma and Sponsie could sleep inside. Pappie knows how to drive donkeys. I am sure he could drive a car.
The star-snake is made of streetlights. From far away you couldn’t see it was lights on poles, just a silver snake sliding into the sky.
How do they do that? How do they get a light on the top of a pole?
Streetlights make it easy to see, even in the dark, and I watch the faces of people standing around. They look at us as if we are wild animals that have come out of the dark.
Mamma in her brown rags with a baby tied to her back. Pappie limping after the long walk today. And me. Me. Barefoot in boy’s pants and a jersey full of holes, my hair sticking up like grass and the sores all over my mouth. Again I hear clip-clop, clip-clop and I look back for Fansie and the donkeys but there is nothing there. And then I see that Fansie has gone.
33 KAPOK
Blerrie Oudtshoorn. Shoo … My leg thumps like a knife is being pushed into it all the time. We don’t talk anymore. We just walk. On and on and on. This afternoon we pas
sed the road to Dysselsdorp and I said to Muis we should rest under a tree for a while.
There was a nice tree not very far up the road but when we came closer I saw there was a speed cop sitting in the shade, taking pictures of cars that went too fast. We sat under a tree nearby and watched him for a while. This speed cop was very fat. When he had a fast one and he wanted to take a picture, he leaned forward quickly. His stomach hung over his pants and, between the buttons of his shirt, his hairy skin peeped out. He didn’t talk to us but just worried about taking pictures.
I liked watching him and I waited for a car to see if he was going to take a picture. Soon I could hear if a car was coming too fast and I thought, “Oohh, you are going to get a photograph.”
After a while Muis stood up and tied Sponsie on to her back. First a knot on her chest and then another on her stomach. She started walking again without talking.
I reached out my hands to Witpop and she pulled me up. When I looked at the traffic cop for the last time, he was watching us, but quickly he leaned forward into his camera when a car flashed past.
As we moved the traffic cop shouted, “Hey!”
I was so on my nerves that I did a little jump.
“Ja, Meneer?” I called back to him.
He pointed at Witpop and waved a paper packet at us.
“Gaan, gaan,” I said to her.
I gave her a push.
She walked towards him, unsure what he wanted. He gave her the packet and smiled.
Witpop took the packet without a word.
Inside was polony and a stukkie brood.
When I looked at the traffic cop to smile and wave he was leaning forward again to take a picture. He had already forgotten us. Muis was far ahead but Witpop ran to catch up with her and I saw her breaking off pieces of the bread and pushing them into Sponsie’s mouth.
On and on. The grey backs of Pantoffel and Rinnik come into my mind. My hands move reins that are not there. Pantoffel came with the karretjie so many years ago I can’t remember. There was a pony too, but he died. Donkeys do better in the langkampe. They have sharper teeth to eat the bossies. Rinnik was Pantoffel’s foal who used to run next to the karretjie. When the pony died I put her in next to her mother. Those blerrie donkeys. “Dié kant!” and they would go this way, “dáái kant” and they would go that way. I bought the karretjie, the pony and Pantoffel from Oom Chrisjan at Rietbron for R50. That was before Fansie was born, before I knew Muis and when Mina and I rode through the Karoo.
Pantoffel came a long way with me and in the end I beat her until she fell down and then I sold her for a gun.
When we had food, that donkey would lick out the pot like a dog. Muis would laugh and say, “Pantoffel, you are the only donkey in the Karoo that eats meat.”
I think that donkey was just hungry, the dry grass of the langkampe isn’t always enough to keep a donkey going.
By night the lights of Oudtshoorn are clear. We are here. As we walk into town I feel excited. Today we have passed a difficult test. All that I worry about now is that Fansie has not come back. Fansie and Pantoffel’s gun.
For a while we stand on a street corner not sure where to go until a woman asks Muis “Wat soek jy?”
“That place where you get identities,” Muis says.
“Ah, that’s not difficult,” the woman answers. “Turn down here and walk straight and when you get to the bottom turn and walk up the hill, that way.” She points and smiles. “And this child,” she asks. “This child has been carried a long way?” She touches Sponsie’s cheek and presses a R5 into Muis’s hand. “Buy her some milk.” Then she walks on and, in the dark, we go the way she pointed to the place where you get identities.
34 MISKIET
They are spread out, walking very slowly. I was lucky. A bakkie picked me up when I reached De Rust and then it was caught behind a truck just when we passed them. All they could see was a labourer on his way to the farm for another day behind a shovel. A grey blanket pulled over his head. Hidden. One, two, ah, Kapok, three. Dragging behind, limping. She is far ahead, not looking back, not waiting, not caring. The girl is between them, barefoot. Once the girl turned to look for Kapok but he was too slow and she carried on before he caught up. The boy has gone again. Useful to have a quick boy like that to send around when you have a limping leg and want food.
They never saw me. They didn’t notice a man with a blanket pulled over his head on the back of a bakkie. Their heads were down, aiming for Oudtshoorn.
I never thought they would go through the Swartberg and now I am excited that they chose this way. I followed their spoor and when I came to the tar road I went to Klaarstroom and then a little way to Prince Albert, but I could soon see no donkeys went that way. Then on the Willowmore road there were no tracks. So, mense, you chose the mountains, eh? Braver than I thought. If I could have caught them there it would have been good but I wasted time looking up and down the side roads. But that’s no problem. They don’t know which way to go in the town. The crowds and the traffic will confuse them. I will get her there.
Yes, Muis. Every step of this journey is one you chose.
Tonight you will have a visitor again. Tonight this visitor will finish what he started.
The bakkie overtook a truck and they disappeared. I wanted to get off at once and wait for her. I could hide behind a tree then step out as she walked past.
“Ja, Muis. Now we can have some fun.”
“No, please Miskiet, I am sorry.”
“Sorry? It’s too late for sorry. You are a hoer.”
Even though I am on the bakkie I open Jan’s knife and I stab the air. I feel the pleasure of plunging it into her guts and pulling it out so that it makes a wet sucking noise and she tries to breathe in and that is wet too. I have to fight with myself to stay down and not to jump off the moving bakkie.
Sit, Miskiet, sit. Patience. Wait. Be still like a cat watching a nest of mice.
Then the warm feeling is gone and rage floods into me, making my head feel like it is going to explode.
Close eyes, head down. In my pocket I find my Disprins and I take two to suck.
That filthy, scrawny chicken, who should be scratching around the backyards of a lokasie, turned her back on me. She, a nothing, walked away from me with the son I wanted.
You come to us you and you look at me with hot eyes and I can see you thinking I am a mooi outjie. I see you licking your lips when I am near and checking me out when you think I’m not watching. You spy on me through the back window when I am washing. I see everything. But then one day it’s Jan buying you cooldrink and Jan who you wait for at the tunnel and Jan lying with you on the floor on the other side of the curtain.
She trapped my brother and, because of her, he had to die.
Tonight her witch’s blood will soak into the ground of their dirty Oudtshoorn camp.
You have run all this way, Muisie, and when you get to Oudtshoorn, I will be waiting for you.
35 FANSIE
Before today I never touched a gun. This one is small and black with brown on the handle and it is heavy. While they were walking I climbed down a bank next to the road to have a good look at it. I put my eye over the little hole on the end but I couldn’t see anything. That’s where the bullets come out. It smelt like matches.
“Pow!”
For a while I let my finger rest on the place where you shoot. I could kill something if I wanted to. There was a bird in the grass, hopping around catching goggas.
“Die bird,” I said, and I pointed the gun.
“Boom.” The bird heard me and flew away. There were sheep in a field in front of me and I took shots at them.
“Boom, boom, boom.” They never lifted their heads, just carried on eating. This small, smooth thing kills people. At first I didn’t want to touch it. It was like touching a snake and I thought it would spin around and strike. But now that I have had a good look at it I can see it’s only a thing. For the first time in my life I feel like I am the
baas with a skivvie.
Be careful of me for I have a gun.
Respect me for I have a gun.
Now I understand why the Boere like their guns so much. A gun makes you feel like you can boss people. The Boere have much bigger guns than mine, long guns. Shotguns. Now, when I sit and think about it, I am not jealous because in the end, it’s the same. This gun can also kill.
When we were staying at the farm Hartseerbos, Meneer Kobus used his long gun to shoot the cats on the farm. One night he had no sleep because the cats were “maauu, maauu, maauu” outside his window. We heard his wife, Mevrou, try and chase them by spraying water with the hose pipe in the middle of the night.
“Voetsak!” she shouted.
“Weg is julle!”
“Shoo, shoo.”
The next day Meneer Kobus told Pappie and the other workers to catch all the cats on the farm and put them in feed bags. Some bags had five cats. Then he shot up all the bags with his long brown gun. Boom, boom, boom. He stopped to put bullets in his gun then carried on. As each bag stopped wriggling and blood dripped through on to the dust, Pappie’s job was to take it away and burn it. Pappie made a big fire with old car tyres and a long black cloud hung in the blue sky. The air was thick with that smoke and it made all the children cough and choke. Pappie never opened the bags, he just threw them on the big fire while Meneer Kobus carried on shooting.
“Sss, sss,” I stood up and called Witpop. “Come sit with me for a while.”
We both held the gun and I let her smell its little mouth.
“It does smell like matches,” she said.
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