A Chain of Voices

by Andre Brink

  “Christmas wasn’t just wind, Pamela. Remember what happened on the land at Lagenvlei. We all standing there reaping wheat when we hear Oubaas Piet give a shout—and when we look round, there he is, lying like a dead horse. I got a real fright at first: thought he was trying to catch us out. For the man Campher was with us and we were talking the way we always talk on the lands. But afterwards I knew it was a sign that the masters are going to be taken away from us. So we better be prepared for the New Year.”

  “There’s nothing you can do, Galant. There’s nothing no one can do. It’s not in our hands. We’re slaves.”

  “After New Year no one will be a slave. Old Moses heard it with his own ears when he was in the Cape with Nicolaas. Joseph Campher knows it. And then there was the sign of Oubaas Piet. Ask anybody.”

  “Galant. Galant.” She presses my head against her breasts and her body moves from side to side. “Oh God. Don’t you understand?”

  “Who are you to ask if I understand?” I cry. “You got a child that’s white.”

  “Don’t!” she says, shaking with sobs. Her tears run down from her face on to her breast and on me.

  I grab hold of her. Like two animals fighting tooth and nail we grapple with each other. I drive and thrust and pound her, fit to break her bones; while she claws into my back with her nails, shouting like a savage. Are we trying to destroy one another then? Hurting, breaking, tearing, trying to break loose, to break out, to break free. I don’t know how or why. All I know is we’re fighting, wrestling, clawing at each other in the nights. And what comes of it? Around us the night stays as dark as ever.

  The child lies sleeping in a corner; but she remains between us. The little girl with the muddy blue eyes and the frizzy white hair. Sometimes when Pamela isn’t there I pick the baby up ready to dash her to the ground, to tread on her so she won’t be there any more: but I know I won’t. I’ll never be rid of her; it’s like David who still comes back to me in the night.

  I don’t understand it. I don’t understand it at all. It’s as bad as the ants from the newspaper that gnaw at me in my sleep until I have no insides left. David’s death cut me off from Bet; I never wanted to have anything to do with her again. But Pamela’s baby cannot cut me loose from her. And it should. Deep in the womb of my woman Nicolaas planted his seed and poisoned her. His child. I know I’ll never be free from her while the child is alive: yet I can’t touch it. For a child is without any defense; it knows nothing; it’s tomorrow’s sun; and it brings a trembling weakness to me. Now it’s Nicolaas’s sun that rose from Pamela’s womb, and yet it keeps me tied to Pamela. Oh godly god in the blue heavens: I don’t understand anything about it. And it gnaws at my heart and devours me utterly.

  If only New Year would come. It must come quickly now.

  New Year’s eve, all the neighbors turn up at Houd-den-Bek to celebrate, bringing their laborers and slaves with them. While the masters are dancing in the voorhuis and in front of the house we make merry among the huts at the back, like every other year. Abel is the leader of the dance, as always. But tonight I can’t stand their merriment. From the dark stable I quietly lead Nicolaas’s black horse and ride into the night, bareback. It’s a very still night, but our speed tears wind out of the sky and the sparks fly underneath where the hooves strike rock. I go on riding and riding until the horse is exhausted. It’s the last night I have to be careful. Tomorrow it’s New Year’s Day. Tomorrow I can come and go as I please. Tomorrow I’ll be wearing shoes on my feet like a man. That’s what the word of freedom means.

  Impossible to sleep on a night like this. When the horse can go no further I tie him to a wagon-tree and go up the mountain alone to watch the day break from up there. The slightest dulling of the stars. A grey smear creeping up from below. Cocks crowing more and more insistently. Then a dirty smudge of red. A day like any other day. Except it’s New Year.

  Only when the sun is fully risen do I go down to the horse again and ride home very slowly. The farmyard is deserted. Here and there people have slumped down in drunkenness and exhaustion, sleeping where they fell. Only Lydia is moving about picking up feathers and talking to herself.

  “What you doing? Why you not sleeping?” I ask her.

  “I got work to do. It’s the feathers,” she says. “I got to fly.”

  “No need to go on working,” I tell her. “It’s New Year today. Just now you’ll see Nicolaas coming from the house to tell us. Otherwise there will be a man on horseback from over the mountains.”

  “I got to fly,” she says.

  “Then fly to hell!”

  In the hut I can hear Pamela’s child crying, but I don’t go there. First I take the horse back to the stable and brush it down and give it an extra portion of wheat. Have your fill, I think as I go on brushing and stroking the animal. Today’s New Year.

  It’s late morning, while we’re all sitting in silence round the breakfast pots, most of the others sulking with headaches, before Nicolaas comes down from the house carrying the bag of presents. Clothes for everyone. Trousers and shirts for the men; dresses for the women. Only Lydia is left out as usual, but what does she know about presents anyway?—she’s wandering among the chickens in their run.

  After handing out the clothes and the rations of tobacco and sugar, Nicolaas folds up the empty bag again. “Well, I hope it’s going to be a good year. Enjoy your rest today. At the first sign of wind we’ll have to start threshing.” He turns to go back.

  The others meekly sit around inspecting the clothes and trying out the tobacco, but I push my bundle aside.

  “Is this all we getting?” I ask.

  Nicolaas looks round as if he doesn’t understand what I’m saying. “Were you expecting something else then?”

  On his feet are the new yellow boots the little old man made: the boots that should have been mine. “What about shoes?” I ask.

  “Since when do slaves wear shoes?”

  The others have all stopped fidgeting and are watching us without moving.

  “It’s New Year today,” I say quietly. “There are no more slaves.”

  “Galant, I told you long ago not to listen to idle talk.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I say. “There’ll be a man on horseback from over the mountains before the day is over.”

  “The sooner you put that out of your mind the better for us all.” He changes his grip on the bag. “Here at Houd-den-Bek we’ll be going on just as before. And anyone looking for trouble will get it.”

  “So that’s how it is,” Ontong says after Nicolaas has gone home.

  “The man on horseback will be coming soon. Just wait.”

  But all day long there is no sign of a messenger. All that happens to break the silence on the farm is Lydia’s business. What else can anyone expect of a madwoman? Rolling in the mud of the vlei, as naked as my finger, then plastering herself all over with the feathers she’s collected over these many years; and climbing into a peach tree, to steal some green peaches I suppose, and losing her grip and falling out. When Ontong carries her off to the hut, covered in mud and blood and feathers, she’s crying and laughing at the same time, a sorry sight. And that was the end of our New Year’s Day.

  Lydia

  I can fly. Look, I can fly. Why don’t you believe me? No man will ever force me down again to ride me. No more beatings that cut me to bits. Nothing. Look, I can fly.

  Ontong

  “Now you see what comes from newspapers and New Year,” I told Galant. “All I got out of it is that even Lydia isn’t what she used to be. There she lies, more chicken than woman.”

  If she hadn’t kept me so busy with looking after her in her sickness—the Nooi came to help, and Ma-Rose came to help, but nothing made any difference: Lydia just lay there—I might have had more time for Galant. But it’s hard to say. Perhaps I didn’t want to be involved with him those days, for I could
see there was something brewing. Ever since the day Oubaas Piet got ill on the land I knew there was something corning.

  After New Year’s Day we had a bad time on the farm. The odd jobs went on as usual; but we were all waiting for the wind to come up so the threshing could be done. All summer the wind had been blowing; but now that we needed it there was no sign of it. The silence pressed down on us. Our tempers were all strained—like a plank that’s bent further and further, and you just wait for it to splinter. Nobody discussed it openly, at least not when I was present. Galant mostly just stared away into the distance as if he was still expecting to see a man on horseback. But I knew there would be no one. If anything were to happen it would have happened long ago.

  If only the wind would come up.

  How were we to know that when at last it did nothing in its way would be spared?

  Galant

  The day on the threshing-floor. There’s much that gets threshed out on a day like this. Ever since my childhood it’s been the best time of the year for me, as if all the lesser days are brought together in one heap. It’s back-breaking work, and at night one is too tired even to lift an arm; and when you lie down on your woman the weariness puts its heavy foot on the small of your back; and the stubble is itching in your eyes and nose and throat and between your shoulder-blades and all the places you cannot reach properly. But it’s a man’s work and it gives one a proud feeling, as if you’re a tree that begins to grow, roots sprouting down from your feet and discovering all that’s hidden, stone and earth and secret water; and from your roots it rises up through your trunk, through your body that bends and sways and swings like a tree in a high wind; and into the wind one hurls spade upon spade of wheat, for the heavy yellow grain to fall down and the chaff to be carried away; until only the pure grain is left and everything else is winnowed away; and in one’s body the good deep ache of a tree. Fulfilling work indeed, beginning well before sunrise, when the first light is showing up below the fading stars, until after the last blood of the sunset has drained away over the black mountains. The wagon is brought from the shed, stacked high with wheat; and the hard floor is covered thickly. Then I bring in the horses, a man’s got to know his step right there in the center, for the young ones are wild and unpredictable, and the older ones shrewd, keeping well to the inside where the rounds are shorter. The others spread out the wheat and beat down the bundles, as the horses come past, a rhythmic swaying motion that goes on till the horses are up to their knuckled chests in straw, when it’s time to take them off so the chaff can be forked out of the way, more and more of it, leaving the grain in deep golden banks on the floor. Endlessly, without a moment’s rest in the baking sun, the men scrape and sweep, and scrape and sweep, cleaning away the stubble for the last dust to be winnowed out in spadefuls spread out against the steady flow of wind. We’ve been waiting for a long time for this wind to come up, a wind that goes through the lands like a great man striding. Now at last it’s come, rising in the middle of the night and still blowing strongly at daybreak, as if at long last the year has settled into its course. The quiet days are over. Once again the farm has come to life, and in the strong dependable wind we hang out the spadefuls of wheat like washing hung out to dry; and the heavy grain seems almost reluctant to fall back to the floor, streaming down in a steady rustling sound like rain falling.

  Every year it’s like this. But this year there is an added darkness to the work, a heaviness, submerged thunder. For Christmas has gone; and New Year has gone. Already we’re deep into January and nothing has happened yet. The word of freedom has been blown away and all we are left with is the sound of it.

  If only I could force something out of Nicolaas. But ever since my return from the mountains he’s sealed himself up against me. He is longsuffering and patient with me even if I deliberately challenge him. That makes it unbearable. For if only he were to raise his hand against me it would give me the reason I need. Now he’s keeping even that possibility from me.

  But if he goes on refusing to give me a reason I shall have to force him. And that is what the day on the threshing-floor is all about.

  From early morning it’s Campher who’s at us again, just like when we were reaping. We’re all working together, including the seasonal workers and old Plaatjie Pas and Dollie from D’Alree’s place; the sun is beating down on our backs and gradually all talk dies away in the heat; only Campher never stops.

  “Galant,” he says, leaning on his broad broom. “New Year’s come and gone, hasn’t it?”

  “So?” My stomach contracts like a fist clenching, but I stick to the horses, round and round.

  “Weren’t the slaves supposed to be free by now?”

  There’s nothing I can say against that. I know what I feel. Still, I don’t like the man. Why did he come all the way across the sea to meddle with our lives?

  “Let’s finish the threshing first and bring in the wheat,” I say. “There’s enough time to talk afterwards.”

  “Well now,” says old Achilles, rubbing his sore back. “We certainly have a lot of talk on this farm. Suppose you also found out it’s easier said than done, hey?”

  “You shut up!” I tell him.

  “Didn’t you say that if they hadn’t set you free by New Year’s Day you’d take your freedom yourselves?” Campher goes on.

  “That’s right,” I say. “And that’s the way it’s going to be.” I feel tempted to pick up a fork and bury him under the bank of grain.

  “How are you planning to do it?” he asks. “Will you be going up to Nicolaas to tell him: ‘Now I’m free’?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Suppose he just tells you to go back to your work?”

  I go on steering the horses, chaff burning my neck.

  “I’m asking you, Galant,” says Campher defiantly. “One can’t go on talking for ever, you know. Sooner or later you must do something about it.”

  “You talking about dangerous things now,” warns Ontong, pausing with his pitchfork in the air.

  “True,” says old Plaatjie Pas who’s stopped for a pinch of snuff before he clutches the broomhandle with his small black paws again. “What do we know about freedom? The day the masters say we’re free we’ll be as free as they want us to be. No more and no less.”

  “That’s why it’s useless to wait for the masters,” says Campher. “What you don’t take with your own hands no one will give you.” He’s stopped working now.

  “Easy for you to talk,” says old Plaatjie Pas. “You a stranger here and as soon’s there is trouble you can clear out.”

  “I’m in it with you,” he says calmly. “I’ve come here to stay. If you decide to go all the way I’ll be right at your side.”

  The brooms and forks have all stopped working. In the distant orchard one can hear the birds twittering.

  “What’s ‘all the way’?” I ask him.

  “That’s for you to say,” he answers, turning his colorless eyes to me. “How far are you prepared to go now that they’ve gone back on their word to set you free?”

  “Just give it time,” Thys says playfully. “Perhaps the messenger is still on his way. It’s a long way from the Cape.”

  “They said Christmas, and they said New Year. The moon has almost grown full again since then.” Campher looks at me again. “Well, Galant? Aren’t you saying anything?”

  There’s a whole world struggling inside me. The mother I cannot remember and the father I’ll never know. Early days at the dam, and breaking in horses, and pressing a snake-stone against Hester’s thigh, and hunting a lion, and staring at rows upon rows of ants crawling across a page and attacking me at night, and Bet lying to me about being able to read, and my child beaten to death and my jacket torn to shreds; a man with the voice of a lion, and chains on his arms and irons on his legs, and free men living across the Great River, and a woman chained to a rock for life; and a nigh
t on the mountain in the fog: things too many to think about separately, but they’re all there, all of them at the same time, growing and swelling like a thing wanting to be born; and in my ears the sound of a terrible wind blowing.

  “One man can’t do it on his own,” says Campher. “But when many act together it’s possible. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. There are more than enough of you right here; and there’s only one baas.”

  One by one we put down the brooms and forks. I let go of the horses and they head for the winnowed wheat, but little Rooy chases them off. There are flies. I can hear them buzzing.

  “What do you want us to do?” I ask Campher.

  “It’s not for me to say. You must decide for yourselves whether or not you’re up to it.”

  “Over the years they been telling us many things,” I say after a long time. “But never as clear as this time. They said there would be men coming from the Cape to free us. But those men never came and now it’s past New Year.”

  “So what now?” Thys asks cautiously.

  “Campher is right,” I say. “No use just to talk about freedom unless you ready to take it when the time comes. And that cannot be done with words.”

  “How you going to do it?” asks Rooy in a timid voice.

  I look round for a while. Then I grab one of the pitchforks and stab its prongs into the wind.

  “Watch out, Galant,” says Achilles. “What’ll happen if the Baas sees you?”

  “Let him!” I shout at him. “Or are you all too scared? You want to remain slaves?”

  “Talking about freedom is one thing,” says old Plaatjie. “Killing is another.”

  “What if it’s the only way to be free?”

  “I won’t have anything to do with blood,” says Ontong.

  Slowly I come across the threshing-floor towards him, crunching the grain under my feet. I press the prongs of the fork lightly against his bare chest. “We’re all together here,” I say softly, “We all speak with one voice.” Inside me something is still pressing and pushing to get out; now that I have begun I can’t stop talking. “All these years we been bearing it in silence. Bad food. Harsh words. Floggings. Cold. Heat. Hunger. He took our women when he wanted them and planted his white children inside them. He killed my child. All that I suffered. We all did. But there’s one thing a man cannot take, for if he does he got no right to call himself a man.” I have a strange feeling of listening to myself from a distance. “And that is if he’s promised his freedom and not given it. One can take a lot for a long time. But in the end, like a horse that rears up against the whip, you got to refuse to take any more. When that day comes you say: ‘Now I’m taking my life in my own hands. Otherwise I’m a dog or a snake or a worm, not a man.’”