Rotten Peaches

by Lisa de Nikolits

  An Afrikaans man has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Voortrekker Monument. Here is an excerpt from a five-page letter that the man wrote, explaining his actions: “Afrikaaners no longer deserve the monument and what it stands for. We have lost our way. We have lost our morality. If they want to have monuments, we have to earn them. Have we forgotten Bibault’s cry from the heart; ‘Ik been een Africaander’? It seems we have.

  “Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger stated that ‘in the voice of my people, I have heard the voice of God’ but no longer do we speak with the voice of God. We have become godless, rudderless, empty. Our Bible came from our Afrikaner tongue, forging our Christian morality but where is that now?

  We are a nation of fornicators, liars, and thieves. The Regte Afrikaners, the true Afrikaners, are dead. We had a divine sanction and we ignored it.

  The Dear Lord placed us in Africa and provided us with the Afrikaans language and what have we done with it?

  Have we forgotten everything the Great Trek stood for? We fought for our freedom as a people, as a nation and now look at us, content to be ruled by the savages from whom we took the land.

  Die Ossewabrandwag (the Ox Wagon Sentinel) told us Gesonde Huisgesinne Bou ’n Lewenskragtige Volk. Yes, Healthy Families Build a Vibrant Nation! Where are our families now? We are divorced and divided. Where is our blood suiwerheid, our blood purity?

  We have lost gesin (family), bloed suiwerheid (blood purity), godsdiens (religion), vaderlandse bodem (fatherland), vryheidsliefde (a love of freedom) and we have lost our greatest cultural and national inheritances of our volkerfenis, of our nation.

  The monument is gone because we did not deserve it any longer. Perhaps one day we will earn it again. And if and when that day comes, we will build it again.

  I turn the radio off. I don’t want to hear any more. A part of me isn’t surprised this has happened. What an idiot the man is.

  And so what if I gave him the money? I thought it was for a racehorse. I wasn’t responsible for what he did with it. He stole from me. I’m as much a victim in this as anybody.

  Luckily, no one was killed when the monument went down. At least he got that right. But the logistics of it…. I still wonder how he orchestrated it. The thing was huge, a granite man-made monolith and ugly as shit. I’m not sorry it’s gone.

  I concentrate on driving and I pick up speed. I’m going way over the speed limit but I don’t care. I need to get to the farm as soon as possible.

  I haven’t visited my childhood home in the eight years since my father’s death and, truth be told, I have hardly thought about it. I realize that I should have called Isaac, the groundsman, to tell him I’m coming. I also know I should stop in at the police station in the town to tell them I’ll be at the farm, and get hooked up to the farmer’s radio for the security network but first, I just want to get there. I’ll sort out everything later. Let me be inside that cool house, that quiet, peaceful house where light falls through the windows like liquid gold and where everything is serene and lovely. I’ll find peace there. I drive even faster, my need increasing as I grow closer.

  When I arrive, I get out of the car and stretch, my hands firm against the the small of my back. Yes, there’s the smell that brings my soul back to life. The hot dry dust of the baking earth. I dig out my keys and unlock the front gates. The padlock is rusty and stiff and the steel chain grumbles as I unwind it. The gate creaks with protest as I push it open. Yes, it has been a long time since I have been home. I get back into the car and turn into the long driveway. My shoulders relax and I slow down. The grounds look good. I drive past the cottage where Pa’s mother stayed until she died and I drive past the stables that haven’t been used in years. The sheep sheds are quiet and empty.

  A rusty old windmill turns idly in the breeze and there is a quietness to the place as if the heat and dust have silenced even the birds and crickets.

  I drive past the empty swimming pool. The grass around it looks dried out and burnt. I’ll need to get the pool filled.

  I pull up outside the house and switch the engine off. The car makes ticking noises, and it seems to shake slightly from exertion of the drive, like a panting dog.

  I tuck my gun and phone into my purse and get out of the car. I slam the door behind me and the sound echoes in afternoon silence.

  The house looks exactly the same as when I left it. Colonial and yet African at the same time. Built in the late 1800s in the traditional Cape Dutch style, the high rounded gables and white-washed walls with their green wooden window shutters gladden my heart as I approach. The wide, wrap-around verandah welcomes me, the floor polished and shiny, and even from a distance, I can imagine the smell of Cobra wax polish.

  The steps leading up to the main door are lined with pink and scarlet bougainvillea and wild roses, yellow, white and red, while thick cactuses grow against the low verandah wall. The flowerbeds are filled with crimson geraniums and orange nasturtiums and vibrant marigolds, hardy plants that thrive in the heat and don’t need much water.

  The burglar bars are a cruel reminder of a harsher reality, marring the loveliness of the idyllic house with their prisonlike appearance.

  I walk up the verandah steps and yes, there’s that smell of floor polish. The chairs on the verandah are as I remember; a white wicker set with a low coffee table in between them. Everything gleams and shines.

  Being home is a like a hug and I inhale deeply. Yes, coming here was the right thing to do.

  I unlock the door and walk through the house, from room to room. The curtains are drawn and the drop cloths are in place. There’s a stillness to the house, and the air is stale, like the breath of an old person with unwashed teeth. The first thing I will do is air it all out.

  I’m sitting on my old bed, running my hands over the duvet cover. It’s dark blue with tiny daisies in a paisley pattern, and I feel a surge of affection for my younger self. And that’s when I hear the sound of footsteps, and I pull my handbag towards me.

  The footsteps stop and my heart is a hammer drill in my ears, so loud I am sure that whoever is in the house can hear me.

  I cock the gun. I sit dead-still, the gun pointed at the door. The footsteps get louder and I can’t blink, I mustn’t blink, if I blink they will kill me, me sitting there with my eyes closed like an idiot.

  When a face cautiously eases around the door, I scream like a banshee. My voice is stuck at first, a squeak, but it loads up well and the person drops to floor and starts screaming.

  Dear god, it’s Isaac. I lower the gun.

  “Don’t shoot, Madam, don’t shoot,” Isaac sounds terrified and I kneel down on the floor next to him, leaving the gun on the bed.

  “Isaac. I am so sorry. Ag shame man, I should have come and found you first. Come on, get up. I am very sorry. I came home without telling you or anybody. I should have told you.”

  His dear face has aged and is a study in wrinkles. It’s been that long since I saw him.

  “You nearly gave me a heart attack, Madam,” he tells me with a toothless grin and I laugh and hug him. “How are you?” I ask. “How are Elsie and your children?”

  “They are fine Madam, thank you. The children are all big now. At school. Elsie has got work, that is good.” He looks around, uncomfortable at being in my room.

  “Let’s go to the kitchen,” I say and he turns and limps off speedily. I wonder why he is limping. I follow him. “Isaac, why are you limping?” I ask him.

  “I was moving some machinery the other day,” he says, “and it fell and hit me. My leg was broken. It only got better the other day.”

  He looks like the last place he wants to be is in the kitchen with me and he shifts uneasily. I’m a bit hurt by his reticence.

  “So the place looks in good shape,” I say. “You took good care of it. Thank you. You got the bonuses I sent you?”

  “Y
es Madam, thank you.” He studies his hands.

  “Is there anything I should know, Isaac?”

  “No Madam. The borehole is working well. Lots of water, we are lucky. Lots of farmers around ask me if they can take our water but I say no, they must ask you.”

  “They never did ask me. Well, a lot of water is good. The land in good shape?”

  “Yes, everything is good. We had rain too. This is a good farm. Madam, how long will you be here?”

  “I don’t know Isaac. Listen, do you want to take off and go and see Elsie for a couple of days? Be with your kids. I’ll be fine here by myself. I’m sure you must miss your family, living here all by yourself, so much of the time.”

  An expression crosses Isaac’s face that is hard to read. Where has he gone, my old friend who used to lead me around on my pony, the man I’ve known since he was a boy and I was a baby? He’s treating me like a stranger.

  “I would like that very much, Madam,” he says and without further ado, he bolts out the door.

  I watch him hurry across the back yard to the servant’s quarters, as fast as his limp will allow him to.

  I go out the back and watch him as he hobbles down the driveway. Very strange, his sudden departure. His whole manner is odd. My curiosity is aroused and I decide to take a peek around the servants’ quarters.

  The servants’ quarters. I haven’t been back there since I was a child. Not since I was seven years old and hungry, annoyed that Betty wasn’t in the kitchen.

  I knew that she lived in the mysterious rooms that lay in the shadow of the house, across the broom-swept red dirt backyard, hidden from view by the washing lines. There was no washing on the lines that day long ago and I, full of fury and self-righteous authority, crossed the expansive space, ready to find Betty and scold her for neglecting me.

  The first room was a washroom, narrow and dark, a tiny cave. The toilet didn’t have a lid or a seat, and the small, oval, rust-stained basin had one tap. I didn’t find Betty there.

  The next room was Isaac’s. His room was spotless, with a thin mattress on the floor and a pair of overalls hanging from a nail on the wall. A small, battery-operated silver radio was next to the bed, as well as a dented candlestick holder with a stub of a white wax candle and a box of Lion matches. I had seen Isaac carrying the radio on his shoulder, holding it close to his ear as he walked down the driveway and into town.

  Betty was in the next room, with Rosie. I was about to shout at Betty when Rosie’s look stopped me. Rosie was cross-legged on the floor, the broken piece of a wax crayon in her hand. She was leaning over her colouring book, and Betty was asleep on the single bed, her mouth open and her hands folded across her chest.

  The bed was high off the ground and I wondered about that. Why was Betty’s bed so high and Isaac’s just a mattress on the floor? Later I learned about the tokoloshe, which Betty feared and Isaac scorned.

  A faded orange rope of twisted hay-baling twine was stretched across the room, nail to nail, hanging below the flat corrugated ceiling that clicked and creaked in the heat.

  Betty and Rosie’s clothes hung on bent wire hangers, the kind I had seen my father twist and throw out after he got his special church shirts back from the dry cleaners. The shirts he didn’t even trust Betty with. When the shirts were returned home, they were protected by a filmy, thin sheet of delicate plastic and collared with a mysterious white paper wimple, similar to those worn by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy. I always tried to grab the white paper to play with it, before my father crushed it into a ball in his hand.

  Betty’s white-and-blue Church of Zion uniform had pride of place at front of the clothes line, and it was so starched and immaculately ironed that I could smell its cleanliness from where I stood. I wondered, in one of those thoughts that flashes through your mind and vanishes before you know it, where Betty ironed her clothes. The room was surely too small for an ironing board.

  A battered kerosene stove was pushed underneath a rough pine plank that was held up on either side by four red bricks. Chipped yellow and green enamel tin mugs and plates were stacked next to a pile of bent tin knives and forks, alongside, a half-full bag of Mielie-pap, with a frying pan and two tin cooking pots with flat, thin lids.

  I was but a child and yet, in the time it took for a fat housefly to buzz into the room and settle on the windowsill, I saw it all.

  And Rosie’s eyes, filled with hatred, made me scramble away, my heart pounding.

  I scurried back to the big house, my hunger forgotten. What other land had I just visited?

  And I never returned. I took care to avoid the servants’ quarters. I didn’t want to know, it was all too complicated.

  When Betty came to stay with me in Westcliffe, I made sure that her room had a brand new bed and I got it made as high as she wanted it and I made sure it was sturdy. I bought her a brand new pillow and a duvet and a pine chest of drawers. I bought her a kettle and I even got her a microwave. I made sure her toilet had a seat and a lid, and that her basin had two taps, with hot and cold water. And then I left her to it and never thought about it again.

  And I am not thinking about Betty’s room now. I am thinking about Isaac’s. Because as soon as I push open the door to his room, I know the answer to his hasty retreat. He hasn’t been staying here alone. It’s clear that Elsie is living there with the kids. There are thin foam mattresses in each of the rooms and the place looks lived in and organized.

  I close the doors to each of the rooms and lean against the brick wall, thinking. Why didn’t he tell me? I wouldn’t have cared. Or would I?

  I feel very tired all of a sudden. Between Betty and Isaac, it’s clear to me that I haven’t behaved very well towards my employees. In fact, I’d never even seen them as employees to be respected and looked after, rather they were simply incidental people who had been a part of my life forever, there to do whatever it was that I wanted. Such was my upbringing. What would I have said if Isaac had asked me if Elsie and the kids could move in? Would I have said no? I don’t know the answer. I’d like to tell myself that I would have said yes, but I never liked Elsie and maybe it would have made me nervous, the thought of all those people living here. All those people? Most of them were children. And had I expected Isaac to live alone all that time? The truth was that I’d never given it any thought at all. And I am too tired to think about it now.

  I sink down to my haunches and look around. The farm is very quiet. The old windmill creaks and turns against a clear blue sky and the veldt grasses rustle with the heat. I smell the beautiful dusty red sand and the air is perfect. A few crickets chirp and a bird calls Piet, my vrou, over and over again and I smile. A red-chested cuckoo.

  And that’s when I realize how very alone I am. And that no one knows I am here, none of the farmers or the people in the town. I stand up, dizzy from the sudden movement, there is a blackness to my vision and my heart flutters in my chest like a tiny trapped bird. I gather myself and run across the yard, into the kitchen, and through the house. The panic room. I will be safe in the panic room.

  I run down the hall, my footsteps echoing through the house. I reach my father’s bedroom. It is like a beautifully decorated prison cell, a barred-in box with a sliding security barrier. I draw the steel-barred door closed and insert the key into the lock. But the lock has been tampered with. It is broken. I jiggle it back and forth, as if I can fix it by desperate action. But it is broken and the sliding bolt has been sawn off.

  Despite the heat of the day, my armpits are filled with ice cold sweat and goosebumps prickle my skin. A metallic click echoes through the house and I press myself back against the wall, my hand to my mouth to stifle my scream. Don’t let them know where you are. But it’s just the grandfather clock in the living room, stretching out in the heat of the day. It used to be a family joke, how, when you least expected it, the clock would make a chirp as if to say “I am here!” and
then go back to sleep.

  And still, I remain pressed against the wall, my thoughts spinning. The panic room is broken. What have I done by coming here?

  And I can hear my father’s voice in my head.

  My girlie, what were you thinking? All alone? On the farm? Have you lost your mind?

  And he’s right. I press my palms against the cool wall. I am here because I lost my temper. I didn’t think things through. I let my anger and my hurt get the better of me. I ran home without thinking clearly. Should I go to a hotel? But where? I don’t even know if there is one in town and I suddenly feel too tired to talk to anybody. It took all of my energy to get myself here, and now that I am here, I can’t bear to leave. But slowly, like a red tide rising, the rage builds inside me again and I feel my energy returning. I straighten up and stand tall, my hands balled into fists at my side. I have been fucked over by just about everybody I know. I don’t know if my fears are founded but one thing is for sure. I will be ready for these fuckers if they come. They sawed off the bolt. The broke the lock. They have been preparing for this moment. I cannot afford to assume anything otherwise.

  My rage is like an amphetamine. Time to get started. I walk around the outside of the house. The security lights are still in place, but there’s no way of telling if they will work until darkness falls.

  “What should I do, Pa?” I ask my father. “Tell me.”

  And he does. He asks me, one final time, if I really do want to stay, and I tell him I have no choice. This is my home. MY home.

  Then fine, we deal with it. Worst case scenario, they will come and kill you in your sleep. They will rape you first. And maybe after. But by then you will be past caring. You don’t want to be killed in your sleep, do you?

  “No, Pa, I don’t.”

  Then think. Where will they come in? Let’s start there. Remember cookie, what they say, a boer maak a plan. So, make a plan.

  “Okay, Pa.”

  I go to my father’s study. The safe is hidden behind a large bookcase and Isaac had no way of knowing it was there. I take the books off the shelves and move the bookcase. I open the safe and remove one of the rifles and I load it, taking the spare ammunition with me. I pull on a pair of tactical hunting gloves that Pa kept for me in the safe, and I reach for what he called my last resort, the Glock 21. It is already fitted with a silencer. With a thirteen-round magazine capacity, and hollow-point bullets, I have no doubt that this ugly brute will save my life. The gun is a stolen one, with the serial number removed and Pa said that even the ammunition had fallen off a truck and could not be traced. I load the gun and put it on the table.