A Chain of Voices

by Andre Brink

  “But you didn’t protest either.”

  “You’ve already arranged everything the way you want it.”

  “It’s because I—” How could I say those words to her: Because I love you? That was what, more than anything else, I longed to say. But if I did it would be a repetition of the day with the lamb. Except this time she would be holding the knife.

  “Hester, I want you.” I found it difficult to speak.

  “You’ve always got what you wanted.”

  “But with you—” I took her by the arms. She didn’t resist.

  It wasn’t necessary either. She must have known already—the still, dark arrogance of her eyes—that for the rest of my life I would pay the price for that one outrageous and irremediable decision.

  Part Two

  Cecilia

  It was raining the day Nicolaas and I got married. Father—Mother had died long ago; few women survive in these parts—Father and the other menfolk were foolishly happy. They saw the hand of the Lord in the rain, after so many months of drought; and to Piet van der Merwe it was a sign of fertility. But I was worried. It was the wrong season for rain, drought or no drought; and when something misses its appointed time and place it usually spells misfortune. It was no ordinary rain either. Not the kind that brings relief and soaks the earth and causes growth, but an excessive flood that washed away the soil and tore rocks tumbling from the mountains and broke gashes into the earth and drowned cattle and sheep. It was almost impossible to ride up the Witzenberg after the ceremony in the Drostdy. From up there the whole mountainside seemed to be streaming down to the valley below, there was nothing solid left, only one vast flood. One of the oxen slipped and fell up the last stretch of road and broke a leg. It had to be shot. The carcass was brought home on the wagon, staining my wedding dress with blood, which was no good omen either. But the men were in exuberant mood. They roasted the ox on a spit in the shed and almost burned the building down.

  “Why not?” shouted my father-in-law. “What’s the use of a wedding if it doesn’t set the world alight? You should have seen the place the day I got married.”

  He always gave me an uncomfortable feeling. That boisterous laugh reverberating throughout the house. Those large hands with their hairy backsides. The patches of perspiration on his shirt. His smell. His way of staring at one: as if one were a heifer brought to auction. And the things he said at the wedding feast, gesturing with a chunk of meat in one hand and his brandy in the other: “Cecilia is a daughter-in-law after my own heart. I’ve always told my sons to choose their women with care. Tall ones, large ones. They breed well. And we Van der Merwes will tame the land for our descendants. It’s not that I have anything against Hester”—she stood apart from the rest in the shadows, thin and dark, smoldering in her angry way like a fire burning without giving off light—“but Cecilia is the sort of woman I’d have chosen for my son myself. Eat and drink up, my friends. The blessing of the Lord is on us.”

  I didn’t see Hester again that day. She had this habit of disappearing unnoticed from a group. I know she bore me a grudge for moving into the house at Houd-den-Bek, which she somehow regarded as her own since the time her father had been Oom Piet’s foreman. But what concern was it of mine? It was their decision; and it was the Van der Merwes who prepared the house for us; Father gave the furniture and lent us his wagon to transport our things. And the dowry; the hundred sheep, the five milking cows, the two horses, the slave woman Lydia, and the twenty bags of wheat ready for the mill. That, I guessed, was what I was worth to him. (And Lydia was thrown in only because he found her unmanageable on his farm, a useless creature, soft in the head, always ransacking the yard for feathers and odds and ends. What for?)

  I had nothing against Father, but it was a relief to move from Buffelshoek to Houd-den-Bek. He’d always tolerated me—he was a God-fearing man and had no choice—but he could never forgive me for not being the son who’d been the purpose of his marriage. Mother had given birth to two boys before me, but both had been stillborn; and since my own birth she remained bedridden. He had little use for me on the farm. Although I tried to prove both to him and myself that I could fill the place of a son, he never seemed impressed. I did much of the outside work, looking after the poultry and tending the kitchen garden, even taking the sheep out to graze when no one else was available; I would drive the wagon to Tulbagh when he was unable to go, and shoot game when we wanted venison; often I rode out on horseback to inspect the grazing places, especially Elandskloof which would have been my farm had I been a boy. After Mother’s death I once asked him directly: “Why can’t I take over Elandskloof? You can’t manage two farms on your own.”

  “How can you handle a farm?” he asked, sighing. “If only you were a boy. You’re my punishment for some sin I must have committed unwittingly. God’s ways are inscrutable.”

  “I can do anything a boy can.”

  “I know you’re trying hard, Cecilia. But you were born a girl and the best we can do now is to find you a good man. A Lubbe perhaps, or one of the Van der Merwes. We can approach them when you’re ripe,”

  “We’ll do nothing of the kind!” I objected. “I won’t be put up for auction.”

  “You don’t want to sit around until a man like Frans du Toit asks you, do you? You know he doesn’t skip anything in his way.”

  It pained me to think of that unfortunate man with the hideous birthmark on his face, conjured up by all the mothers in the neighborhood whenever they wanted to strike the fear of God into their nubile daughters. But I refused to budge: I would not be auctioned off like that.

  “But you can’t stay unmarried forever!” Pa retorted. “What will become of you when I’m no longer there to look after you?”

  “Then God will provide, if it’s necessary.”

  “Cecilia, you’re not too old for a thrashing yet.”

  “That won’t change my mind, Father.”

  On another occasion he would not have taken such recalcitrance lightly, but that afternoon he was too dismayed to speak. He trembled, not with anger I think but with incomprehension. And all he finally said was: “You’ve set yourself against your own father. God will punish you for it in His own good time. And when He does, you mustn’t complain.”

  Instead of pursuing the argument he went out to the shed where he kept his kegs of brandy. From that day he retreated to the shed much more regularly than before, while his solemn curse continued to burn in my mind like a live coal. I went on my knees to humble myself before God; but not before Father. What had been ordained would happen, and I would accept it. My obstinacy to him had not been prompted by any resistance against the idea of marriage—that was my destiny, and I would submit—but God forbid that I would offer myself to anyone. Since childhood I had accepted Father’s word on good and evil. But this once his right was my wrong.

  God must have approved, for when His time was right Nicolaas turned up. I was already much older than the age regarded as suitable in these parts: in fact, I was twenty, and Nicolaas only eighteen. But if that was God’s will I would not question it. Suppose it had been Frans du Toit? So Nicolaas put the question and I gave him my word, and Father seemed content as well. It happened very much out of the blue. We’d just heard the news that Barend was going to marry Hester; and all of a sudden Nicolaas turned up on his horse. Without beating about the bush, that same evening, he asked: “Well, shall we get married?”

  “I thought she was never going to be asked,” Father said before I could answer. “It meets with my approval, Nicolaas. Sit down, I’ll fetch the sopies.”

  There was a curious reticence about Nicolaas in those days. Sometimes he became moody, almost as if to blame me for having said yes; but men are hard to fathom, and I knew my place. If it is not a shameful thing to confess I must admit that I felt motherly towards him. As if I were much older than my age, and he much younger than his; as if he were more in
need of my protection than I of his. Some nights I lay awake in doubt and wonder, and not without a feeling of resentment; but in the end I overcame this pride in myself. I’d been brought up to accept that one day I would marry in order to be a help to my husband; and I felt ashamed at the signs of resistance I’d discovered in myself against the will of God. If only I could be entirely sure that this were the only way to do His will; but it would be sinful to ask for a sign. It was a question of faith. And so we were married in the torrential rain. Was that perhaps the sign I’d prayed for? But God reveals Himself in ways inscrutable to us. Humility. That is what is required. So that the wife can glorify the Lord through submission to her husband.

  The boisterous nature of the wedding feast also irked me, but I accepted it as another ordeal to be endured in order to strengthen the spirit. The strange thing was that after everybody had finally left in the rain, leaving the two of us behind in disconcerting silence, I suddenly missed the noise. Even that small house seemed too big for us. In the bedroom the shadows of the candle were dancing on the walls, while the rain came dripping through the leaking roof. Nicolaas and I alone: it was the very first time. He stood by the window looking out, although there was nothing to be seen, only blackness.

  My throat felt taut. But I went to him and stopped behind him.

  “I suppose we should go to bed now.” I almost added: “My child.” He was looking like a small bewildered boy.

  “I—well—,” he stammered. “The roof is leaking.”

  “We can fix it in the morning.”

  “I’d better have a look right now.”

  “It’s raining so hard. Why don’t you send the slave Galant?”

  But he was already on his way. The candle was nearly blown out when he opened the back door. Black water came streaming in and formed a puddle on the floor. I didn’t want him to leave me behind alone. Suppose the foundations were washed away and the house fell in? I pulled open the door to call him back. In a moment I was drenched.

  “Go back!” he shouted out of the night, with such vehemence that I obeyed.

  In the corner of the half-dark kitchen there were bodies under a blanket on the floor. The slaves Galant and Ontong, sent by Father Piet; and Father’s slave woman Lydia. I found it repulsive to see them so brutishly lying together under the coarse blanket, the kitchen pervaded by their smell. Indignant, I pushed against the bundle with my foot: “Lydia, get up. Make me some coffee.”

  “Yes, Nooi.” Meekly, and dazed with sleep, she stumbled out, naked. I couldn’t make out the others in the gloom, but their eyes were an invisible presence, an intrusion in my own home.

  “For God’s sake, Lydia, put on your clothes!” I ordered. “You can’t go about like that. It’s indecent.”

  “Yes, Nooi.”

  Still vexed, I went to the bedroom to take off the wedding gown and put on my new night-dress. I sat down on the bed. Outside it was still raining heavily. I felt myself abandoned by Nicolaas. And when he came back? I shuddered lightly at the thought, remembering the bundle of dark bodies on the kitchen floor; the smell. When Lydia brought in the coffee my eyes penetrated her dirty shapeless dress, resentfully discovering the body and the breasts. My God, we aren’t animals. Yet soon, as meek as she, I should have to submit and be dominated myself.

  Without moving, without bothering to pour the coffee Lydia had made, I remained sitting long after she’d gone away on her soundless bare soles. Steeled against predestined humiliation, I wanted Nicolaas to hurry up now and get it over with.

  When he returned he was drenched, his blond hair dark and plastered wetly against the skull.

  “I thought you’d be asleep by now,” he said, sounding almost reproachful.

  “I was waiting up for you. Come, you’re shivering.” I got up to pour him lukewarm coffee. He was still standing in his dripping clothes.

  “You must undress now and come to bed,” I said.

  His eyes seemed unnaturally large in his wet face. The oblong shape of his skull. Who was this stranger, my husband? An unexpected, shaming desire for him began to glow inside me. Breathing deeply, I slid into the bed and turned my back so that he might undress.

  After a very long time he crawled in, wearing his nightshirt, shivering with cold. He blew out the candle and remained rigid on his side of the bed. It suddenly struck me that he was scared of me; much more scared than I’d been a little while ago; and again there was the feeling that he was more son than husband to me.

  “We’re married now, Nicolaas,” I said, my voice sounding hoarser than I’d meant it to be. “Now you must take me as your wife.”

  “I’m sure you’re exhausted,” he said. “It’s been a long day for you. Sleep now.”

  “There’s a right way and a wrong way of doing things, Nicolaas,” I insisted softly. “Do not let us provoke the wrath of the Lord.”

  He bent over me, still shivering lightly. “Goodnight, Cecilia.” His lips felt cold and damp, like raw flesh. Then he turned away to sleep. I lay in the dark listening to his breathing and to the rain beating down outside. The roof was still leaking; I could hear it dripping. I felt sympathy for the unknown man beside me, but it was mixed with—what? Fear. Anguish. A sense of inadequacy, of having failed, of being at fault. What had happened—what had been avoided—was incomprehensible to me. Was I so repulsive then? In the flood in which we seemed to be drifting, drifting like a dilapidated little ark, there was neither reply nor hope.

  A week later I told him resolutely. “Nicolaas, if you don’t do it now I shall have to speak to your mother.”

  “There’s a time for everything.”

  “Our time was a week ago. Or do you have something against me?”

  “I wanted to make it easy for you,” he said wretchedly.

  “I’m your wife.”

  He lay stiffly beside me in the big bed, much too big for us; paralyzed it seemed by anxiety or resentment or both. I realized that it was up to me now. A disconcerting feeling for one who had always had to bow to the will of men. From it I seemed to draw a form of determination I hadn’t been aware of in myself before; a strength previously denied me. But it seemed shameful as well, for this was presumption and beyond the province of what could rightfully be expected of me. Still, I knew that if I were to shirk from it our marriage would become a mockery. And if this arrogance were the punishment brought upon me by Father’s curse years ago, then it was only proper to yield to it. God, I prayed by myself, if this be sin, then let me through this smaller sin ward off a larger. I turned to his body, soothing him at first the way one comforts a dog. He tried to resist; then yielded to my more insistent caresses. In the end a wildness seemed to take hold of him and he crushed down on me in a frenzy. It did not frighten me; it was as I’d anticipated it and for the sake of his pride I was prepared to undergo the shame. How could he know that long after he’d gone to sleep I remained wide awake: not because of the humiliation of my torn flesh, but because of a discovery so momentous that even then it was too much for me to grasp. Only in the years to follow did it define itself for me: that through his use and abuse of my body a peculiar power of my own over him had been asserted.

  In due course the child was born. The girl. Salt in the wound I’d borne since childhood, as daughters could bring only shame and sorrow.

  “Forgive me, Nicolaas,” I said. “I prayed the Lord for a son. But He thought differently.”

  His reaction was not what I’d expected: neither disappointment nor resignation, but almost relief. “There is enough time for sons,” he said, looking down at the baby and touching her small head with what seemed like awe. “We must call her Hester.”

  I looked him in the face but without seeing him; long after he’d gone out I was still lying with the knuckle of my forefinger held between my teeth, biting myself to contain the deeper pain. For the first time I began to understand something about his
reticence.

  The child was christened Helena. It had been my mother’s name and I insisted on it as the proper thing to do. The second could be Hester if he really wished; and so she was. The third was also a girl, Katrien. Nicolaas still showed no resentment at all. From the first day he was fond of them and loved to take them with him wherever he went on the farm; especially little Hester who was his favorite. Sometimes I even had the impression that he preferred them to sons, unless it was to spare my feelings. Father was the only one who refused to resign himself to the fact that even a grandson was denied him.

  “What was the use of working my hands to the bone to build up those two farms?” he asked after Helena was born. “There’s Elandskloof. There’s Buffelshoek. Where can you find a better site than up there on the Wagenbooms River? It’s the most fertile soil in the Bokkeveld. And all I have is a daughter and a granddaughter.”

  His disappointment lay heavily on me. Surely he deserved some reward for all his toil in his old age. But it was out of my hands; basically it was no longer my concern. In marrying Nicolaas I had shifted my weight from Father’s farm to Houd-den-Bek. This was my new responsibility. And here, in a sense, I was in charge. Through patience and submission I had achieved this: I would not easily let go again. I had acquired a hold on my husband. In this house I was mistress. In this yard I had the final say. I had alterations made to the house to suit my own needs, especially after the first child. Not for the sake of more space, but to have it adapted to myself, cancelling its past connection with Hester. I had the walls raised so that a proper attic could be fitted in under the thatch, with a broad stone staircase running up the side of the house. On the right a bedroom was added for the children. Outside the kitchen I wanted, and got, a dairy; and the shed that later became the schoolroom. In the hearth I had a baking oven built so that I could work more comfortably indoors. The kitchen garden I changed to my own taste and way of cooking.