When I found a dronkie I did the same. The oompie I chose was at the side of a road, snorking lekker. I knew he was going to buy more wine when he stood up so it was better that I had his money. I found a tiny pink R50 rolled into a ball, wrapped in a piece of newspaper, inside his pants pocket, under his overall. He thought it would be hidden from thieves there but I found it. That’s a lot of money. We can buy sugar and flour and coffee for R50.
It was good I learnt what those boys do to get money. Now if I find someone lying so drunk they can’t stand up, I am going to take all the money out of their pockets. A dronkie lying in the road deserves to have no money. When Pappie is drunk I look after him. I take his money and give it back in the morning and he and Mamma laugh.
“Ja, my seun. I would have been robbed if it wasn’t for you.”
Mamma never has money in her pockets. Maybe a packet of tobacco or matches, but that is all.
Tonight they will make camp near the high riete that are good for hiding. The easiest way is down the busy road in the middle of the houses. I play that I am a child, running home with Mamma’s shopping. I dream she is waiting for me with a bowl of curried afval. Mmm, my mouth is watering. It’s just what I feel like eating. It’s getting dark now and I want to break a piece off the brood.
“Leave it, Fansie,” I say in a cross voice like Mamma. “Mamma must have the whole beautiful and full brood. You can’t give her half a brood.”
For a long, long time I walk along the river, between old paint tins and broken bottles, looking for their camp. A cat runs between the riete and hides. Two dogs are eating out of a packet and they bark at me but I pretend they aren’t there and they go back to their eating. Stars are starting to twinkle and I stop and look up to find Meitjie’s star. It’s always the brightest and it’s always in the sky.
Hullo Meitjie, where are you tonight?
The air is full of wood smoke so I can’t sniff them out. I want to cry. I am hungry and I don’t know this place. I want to see Pantoffel and Rinnik and feel their ears and their backs.
Let your ears hear, Fansie. Shouting voices, barking dogs, running water, cars, crying. I am still too close to town, so I walk on.
Where are you, Mamma?
Riete sway in the night breeze. Now I hear a night bird call. Feel them. I look for the yellow from their fire. And then, at last, I see it and I hear Rinkhals barking. He is barking like a mal hond, and then I know something is wrong and I run. When I am close, I see everything. That oom is there and he is holding Mamma with his blade at her throat. Sponsie is sitting, looking up at Mamma.
“Los, los,” she is saying and her little arms are reaching up, but Mamma can’t pick her up because the oom is holding her and a knife is cutting into her. He has another one, the same as before. How can he have two of the same? Pappie is half sitting, half lying. He can’t get up. Mamma sees me and her voice is a cry. “Fansie.”
Everyone is quiet and one word, my name, floats up like smoke on the night air.
I want to shout, “I have come, Mamma, and I have a beautiful brood and money for you.”
Witpop is by the fire where she has made a heap of stokkies. Now her wild eyes look into mine. Without a sound, while Mamma and the oom are watching me, Witpop stands up and walks off into the dark, like she always does, like I taught her, when there is trouble.
Hide Witpop, keep your body still. Don’t make a sound and they will never find you.
That’s what I taught her to do when they are drinking and the fighting starts.
Sponsie has gone to Pappie now and he holds her, telling her, “Bly stil, bly stil.”
The oom looks at me and smiles so that his teeth show and even in the dark I see the glint of the stone in his front tooth that he wears to make him look like a rich man.
Everything is quiet now, even Rinkhals. And then Mamma starts to cry.
He is holding her shirt but he kicks her to shuddup and she screams in pain.
“Don’t hurt my mamma, Oom,” I say in a strong, cross voice. He looks at me and smiles.
Behind him, the moon is rising, a big yellow ball, like a night sun in the black sky. We look at each other, him smiling and me watching his face, waiting for it to change, waiting for him to slice through Mamma’s throat. I must jump then, I must kick and hit and bite.
His eyes shift and I turn. Witpop is back, standing on the other side of the fire, both arms straight out in front of her with Pantoffel’s gun between her hands, pointing at him and Mamma. Sweat shines on her face. Her eyes are strange and black and she stares straight at him. One finger is on the trigger and I wonder how she knows what to do and if she can shoot.
That gun. I didn’t want to take it when I was looking for food. If I was caught with a gun, it would have been taken off me. It is our donkey-gun, it is all we have. The oom laughs quietly and lifts the knife from Mamma’s throat and lets her go. She slides to the ground and lies at his feet, too scared to move but watching Witpop with wide eyes.
“Give me the gun, girlie.” His smile is a begging smile and he reaches out to Witpop with the knife still in his hand.
“You don’t want to kill anyone. That thing is very dangerous.”
Her hands are shaking but her fingers tighten and she keeps her grip. Pappie and Sponsie stay sitting on the ground by the fire. Sponsie is quiet, watching Witpop. Mamma lies at the oom’s feet, like a sack of flour. Then, before my ears are sure what they have heard, there is a growl, like a rooikat in a vanghok. An angry, wild sound that makes you step back. It takes a second before I realise it is Witpop. I don’t know if she is starting to cry. The oom hears it too and he steps towards her. A drop of sweat slides from her face.
Then he speaks: “We are family, girlie, I am Fansie’s father.” He takes another step and reaches his empty hand out for the gun.
“You can’t shoot, girlie.”
40 KAPOK
When it comes it’s not what I expected. I feel the change in her before she moves. Jislaaik. Just a small twitch and her finger closes.
The shot cracks the air like a sjambok. My ears ring and then I hear people shouting. Miskiet looks at her with surprise and smiles again. There is blood on his shirt. Then he goes down slowly, on to his knees and on to his side with the knife in his hand. On the ground he turns and looks at Fansie and tries to speak but all that comes is a borreling. We watch him, nobody moves. The shouting up on the road is getting more and more.
Then me and Fansie move together. Fansie fetches my knobkerrie from the riete where Miskiet threw it and pulls me on to my feet. Jinne tog. Wat het nou gebeur? Jissus. I stamp out the fire and push Sponsie to Muis, who is still on the ground.
Fansie takes the gun from Witpop’s hands while I push Miskiet on to his back. Spit and blood run from the corner of his still-smiling mouth, the tooth with the stone shines in the moonlight. His eyes, soos blerrie moddergate, look into nowhere and I know he is dead for sure this time.
“Check him for money, Fansie.”
The boy gives me Pantoffel’s gun and I kapok-run to the edge of the riete and throw it as far as I can. With one little splash it is gone.
“Hier’s R500 in sy sak, Pappie.”
“Give it to me.”
Fansie uncurls Miskiet’s fingers from the knife. Muis’s blood has made a thin line on the blade and he rubs it one, two in the sand, wipes it with a piece of Witpop’s fire paper, snaps it closed and slips it in his pocket.
“I want one of those knives, hey,” I tell him. “You’ve got two now.” He smiles.
“Come this side, Fansie.” We drag the body to the riete and then into the cold black water. It’s shallow when we start, but as we walk it gets deeper and we keep going, pulling the body between us. When it is up to our middles we let it go.
“No one will find him here. What’s left of him will wash away with the next flood.”
We push through the riete to the bank.
“Kom julle,” I tell them. “We must move now before th
e people come.”
Fansie spreads the ashes from the fire and brushes away our tracks. Muis is up, picking up our things, ready to move. I pick up Sponsie and take Witpop by the hand. Rinkhals sniffs the blood in the sand then turns away and trots ahead.
High up on the hill I see the blue lights of a police car coming down the road to the river. They are looking to see where the shot was fired, they are looking for the gun and what it has done. People are shouting, dogs are barking.
In the dark we move along the river bank, away from the voices. After a long time we cross the main road to George and rest under the bridge. Muis and Witpop haven’t talked. Fansie makes a small fire and boils coffee, then we break up his stolen bread and eat. We are wet but there is no time for drying clothes now.
41 MR HENDRIKS
They are at the gate when I round the corner in my car. Their black, expressionless eyes watch me when I unlock the padlock on the gate but I ignore them. Today I am early. Today I will be one step ahead of the rows of idiots waiting for help, including this lot.
“God grant me patience,” I say out loud.
What will the next eight hours bring? Rude whites wanting instant passports, fourteen-year-old girls registering newborns so they can claim welfare grants, septic-looking identity documents that I wouldn’t touch with a pair of tweezers but which I have to open to see the grime-smeared youthful face of the old man waiting in line.
Once I have parked, in the shade of the only tree, I see they have followed me in and are waiting in a corner near the gate. Father, mother and three children, all bloody starving, that much is obvious. They look dishevelled, first time in town from the Great Karoo, I guess, and probably not a flaming official paper between them.
Oh, for the love of Nelson Mandela, give me patience today.
I let myself in through the red door of the prefabricated building and close it. Home Affairs opens at eight sharp, and it isn’t eight, not yet. They can wait. For a precious few minutes, before the queue, Home Affairs belongs to me.
I am getting fat. I feel it when I squeeze through the narrow entrance that allows staff to go behind the counters. First, like I have done every day since taking on this job when the government changed in 1994, I fill the kettle.
“Ag nee, man.” Someone has used my cup and left it, dirty, on the filing cabinet. They better not have eaten my chocolate digestives in the bottom drawer.
Miss Oliphant walks in just as the kettle boils.
“Mr Hendriks,” she calls to me, “there is a nice little challenge waiting for you outside.”
I hear her giggle.
“You can start with them, Miss Oliphant.”
“No way, first come first served.” She giggles again.
Miss Oliphant’s slim frame is tucked into a colourful gypsy skirt and flimsy brown blouse. She teeters on gold high-heeled sandals that, she told me, she had bought the previous Saturday from a Nigerian with a blanket spread out at the taxi rank in town. They were some of the best shoes she had ever seen and her size four feet had slipped, like Cinderella’s, easily into these glimmering towers.
Before Miss Oliphant works, she needs coffee. I know this and I wait at my desk for her to join me.
“Thanks for the best coffee in Oudtshoorn,” she smiles and winks as she slides a small hand into my box of chocolate digestives.
I don’t want to share my biscuits, but if I do I can watch a pretty ankle and gold-clad foot swing back and forth as she chews and sips for a few minutes.
After twenty minutes, when Miss Oliphant has eaten most of my biscuits and made herself more coffee, it is time to open up.
I look at the family through the window before I hook open the doors.
“Kom.”
It takes them a few minutes to gather their things. They don’t have much but the mother bosses them and they listen to her. The girl folds their only blanket and the boy carries a pot. The old man is a cripple with a stick but he has the toddler by the hand. They have tied a dog to the fence. The woman comes first, slowly, like she has all the time in the world.
“Kom mommy, kom, kom, kom,” I say. “Wat soek julle?”
“Identities,” they say in unison, even the children.
“Then you’re in the right place.” Miss Oliphant giggles behind me and I have to smile too.
I think the woman also smiles, but when I look at her again her eyes are down.
“We’ll start with daddy, the rest of you sit over there.”
There are rows of seats set well back where they can wait. Their smell is incredible. Strong enough to make a person cough. I am used to unwashed bodies, they face me every day, but this is different, this is straight out the veld. They smell of wood smoke and tobacco and sweat.
Miss Oliphant is covering her mouth and nose with her hand and giggling as she pretends to ignore me and work on her computer.
I have been trained to deal with people like this. It involves bending rules and compromise, not something I am fond of doing, but nearly always inevitable with indigents.
“Right, daddy. Let’s see what we can do about your identity. What is your name?”
For an identity you have to give the name your parents gave you, I explain. He can’t be Kapok in his id.
“My name is Joseph Bitterbessie,” he says.
Name, enter, search. No point asking him to spell anything, he won’t have a clue what I am talking about.
“Place of birth you say is Brakwater? What is the nearest town?” I tap-tap on the computer keys. “Ah, Leeu Gamka.”
“Date of birth? You don’t know? How old are you?”
The father has the body of an old man, bent double from hard labour, but his face is young. The skin is pinched around his eyes and his teeth are black stumps but his eyes still show some life. I estimate his date of birth as 1960.
“Who was your father, Mr Bitterbessie?”
“Ah yes.”
There on the computer are the sketchy details of this itinerant’s life. Someone, long ago, took the trouble to register him.
“You are lucky. The boer where your father worked when you were born had you registered.”
It is unbelievable to find someone like this on the system. With any luck his woman and children will also prove easy. Today might just not be too bad. I fingerprint him and then, because I know I have to, I break all the rules and take the identity photos myself. No point in sending them all into town for that, they will never do it properly and my job is to ensure these people get id books.
“Okay. You are done, you can sit. Mommy, kom.”
Hopefully, someone long ago has registered this filthy creature too. Her parents are probably labourers. If they work for a good farmer she should be on the system. Some of the boere are meticulous about their staff’s paperwork, others don’t give a damn.
“Christina Muishond,” is all she says.
Her eyes are filled with need and hope. If she isn’t in the system it is going to be tricky. Who would have ever bothered with a nobody like this one? Her teeth are gone, just one or two on each side. She is tiny and her complexion is yellow, like her Boesman ancestors. The black rubber bangles on her wrists hang loose. A piece of animal skin is tied on one arm, to ward off evil. Her nose is small and hooked like a little witch and there is fight in her eyes. She has a stubborn mouth.
“Where did you people walk from?” I ask, genuinely interested.
“Leeu Gamka, Meneer.” She lowers her face when she sees me studying her.
“Why didn’t you wait for the Home Affairs truck to come there?”
“We are never there on the same day as the truck,” she says simply.
“So, you trek to Oudtshoorn?”
She is not in the system. This one is going to take some doing.
“Where did you grow up?”
“Gansvlei, Meneer.”
“Nee man, what was the nearest big town?”
She thinks for a moment.
“Fraserburg, Me
neer.”
“How old are you?” She shakes her head.
To get her on the system I need to fill in an E55. There is one in the filing cabinet at the back of the office. Slowly, painstakingly, I begin outlining the details of this pathetic creature’s existence. She doesn’t have all the answers. Sometimes the father limps forward to see if he can provide a detail. But she knows the basics: her name, her parents’ names and where she was born. Dates are a blank. She has no concept of years or days or months and I look hard at her before estimating her age at thirty-seven. A hard life might make this too high. I give her my late mother’s birthday, 26 January. The year of her birth I write as 1974.
After an hour, when I can see she is battling to concentrate, I say she can sit down. I am going to take a break, then we can start on the children.
“Mr Hendriks, why don’t you eat your polony sandwich?” Miss Oliphant says kindly, unwrapping it for me and putting it next to my mug. I go into the office at the back, switch the kettle on again and, for a little while, I close my eyes.
None of the children have been registered but there are procedures to deal with that. When I ask about the boy’s father a flicker of concern crosses the mother’s face and I know instantly the father isn’t the boy’s biological parent.
“Who is his father?”
“He is dead,” she says.
The production of a death certificate and an affidavit should be the procedure, but naturally there is little chance of that ever happening.
“Breaking all the rules today, are we?” Miss Oliphant whispers. She knows she will never be allowed to do what I am doing.
“We will register him without a father,” I decide.
They are at my mercy and today I am being merciful.
The little girls are easy. The man nods enthusiastically when asked if they are his. The beauty of our system is that birth certificates are instant and I am able to give this mangy little group something immediately. The printer at the back of the room purrs. One by one each of the children’s birth certificates tick-tick out of the machine and I lay them carefully on the counter.
My Children Have Faces Page 12