A Chain of Voices

by Andre Brink

  “You allowing yourself to be fooled by this man,” says old Achilles. “Can’t you see he’s white?”

  “I’m not fooled by anyone,” I reply. “What I’m saying here comes from deep inside myself. All he did was to loosen it up so it could come out. It was already lying there; and I thought I could still keep it down, but now I know it’s time to bring it out into the open. For it’s past Near Year.”

  “Here I am!” said Dollie, planting himself beside me, the muscles moving on his bare shoulders and arms and chest, grey with the dust of the chaff, and streaked with sweat.

  With my raised fork I go from one man to the other. “Are you with me or not?” I ask them. And as the points of the long fork touch their bodies, one after the other says: “I’m with you, Galant.”

  “What are we going to do now?” Achilles asks after I’ve spoken to each in turn; his face the color of old ash.

  “We must provoke the man,” says Campher. “Make him angry. It won’t take much to make him strike out, it’s his nature. Right here on the threshing-floor. Then we have the reason we need.”

  “Right here? Today?” asks Achilles, gulping.

  “You can do it,” Campher says to me.

  “Yes, I’ll do it.”

  But I can’t help thinking: This is the way it’s always been. When there are nests to be robbed it is I who have to put my hand in first to make sure there are no snakes; I must test the strength of the willow branches; I must break in their horses or walk ahead when we go hunting: they’ll follow with the gun but I must lead the way.

  One by one we squat down at the edge of the floor. Some light their pipes; others begin to chew tobacco. Old Plaatjie takes another pinch of snuff. The horses wander off towards, the reaped fields. Rooy gets up to bring them back, but I stop him: “Let them go if they want to. We not budging from here.”

  At lunchtime we watch Bet as she comes down with the food, followed by Pamela with the wine calabash.

  “Why you sitting around like this?” asks Bet, surprised and suspicious.

  “Just sitting,” I answer.

  “If the Baas heard you—”

  “I want him to hear.” I get up. The others remain sitting, but I can see they’re watching me closely. Taking the heavy pot from her I put it down on the hard smooth surface of the floor and take off the lid. Calmly, deliberately, I push the pot over with my foot and watch the thick stew spill out.

  “What you doing now?” asks Bet, shocked.

  The others are still watching, tense as newly tied thongs.

  “Look at this dirty food,” I say, scraping it with my foot. “You go and tell your Baas we won’t have it.”

  “This will be big trouble, Galant!”

  “Just you go and tell him.”

  Pamela puts down the calabash and hurries over to me. “For Heaven’s sake, Galant—!” But I push her off and after a while she also goes away, her shoulders drooping.

  Once or twice we see Bet glancing over her shoulder as she walks on through the beanfields and into the trees of the cherry orchard. With a strange feeling of peace I look after her, as if all my life I’ve been waiting for this moment; and now, at last, it’s there.

  The cicadas are shrilling away in their summer madness.

  Nicolaas stays away so long that I begin to fear Bet never told him. But at last we see him coming down, walking very slowly, carrying in his hand a sjambok with which he flicks the bottom of his trousers.

  As he reaches the edge of the floor where the sheaves still lie untrodden, I get to my feet and pick up the long fork again, staring straight at him. For the first time, as I see him coming towards me, I think of him not as Nicolaas but as Baas.

  “Well, Tatters?” he says playfully, stopping a few yards away from me, twitching the sjambok. But his strained, anxious eyes belie his light manner.

  “We not eating this food.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s slave food.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see the others rising to their feet, one by one. Only Campher remains seated in the shade a little way off, leaned against the wagon.

  The Baas looks at each of us in turn, all of us standing there in silence, each with his fork or broom.

  “Why don’t you beat me now?” I say. “You got the right to do it. You’re baas.”

  “What are you up to today, Galant?” he asks, a frown between his eyes.

  “Call me Tatters,” I say. “For you I’m no longer Galant.”

  A small muscle jumps in his jaw, a tiny shadow flickering from time to time.

  The cicadas go on screeching.

  “You shall eat what I give you,” he says. “Otherwise you can go hungry.”

  The handle of the fork is getting sweaty in my hand.

  “And you better hurry,” he continues. “On Friday I’m going to fetch the schoolmaster for my children. By that time all the wheat must be in the loft.”

  We look at him in silence.

  “Is that understood?” he asks.

  Bending over, I pick up the calabash Pamela has brought, and pull out the stopper, tipping over the calabash so that the wine runs out on the hard floor where slowly it oozes in, leaving only a dark stain.

  “You’ve been given food and wine,” says Nicolaas. “What you do with it is your business.”

  With that he turns round and begins to walk away. The hand holding the sjambok is very stiff now. He doesn’t stop once to look round.

  Long after he’s disappeared through the orchard, Ontong says: “You see, he didn’t want to take offense.”

  “You getting scared again?” Campher calls from his shady spot. “I expected more of you.”

  He cannot make me angry any more. It’s no longer his business. I’ve taken over.

  “Let’s finish the threshing,” I tell them. “And when Nicolaas goes to fetch his schoolmaster on Friday I’ll go with him and speak to the people on all the other farms we come to. Because it’s not just here at Houd-den-Bek we’re taking our freedom: it’s every man and woman and child who’s a slave, in the Bokkeveld and everywhere else. What’s begun on this floor today will go on till the whole land has been threshed and winnowed. It’s a wild horse we saddled today, but it’s the best horse that ever was; and once a man is on his back you can’t get off again before he’s broken in. On this horse we’ll gallop all the way, from farm to farm, throughout the Cold Bokkeveld and the Warm Bokkeveld and over the mountains; through the Land of Waveren and Paarl and Stellenbosch; till we reach the Cape. And if that road is closed to us we’ll go to the Great River where the free people live. But whatever we do, we’ll ride this horse.”

  “It’s a lot you asking,” mumbles old Achilles. “And that on a hungry stomach too.”

  “We hungry now,” I say. “But tonight when the people are asleep we’ll take the fattest sheep from the kraal and slaughter it. From now on we’ll take whatever we need. All of us will eat together. And then we’ll all get on that horse and we’ll gallop through the land like the wind itself.”

  Taking up our tools again we return to the threshing. The hooves of the horses tread out the fat grain, bank upon bank of it, rich and thick; and the chaff is winnowed out, over and over, a fine golden dust disappearing in the wind; and the wheat that remains is clean and pure and good to eat.

  In the reddening dusk we go home in a long row, each man carrying his fork or broom over the shoulder. At the vlei where we go to wash ourselves a couple of hammerhead birds are standing in the muddy water unmoving, like weird-shaped brown stones, staring at the fish. In silence we hold back, paralyzed, too numb to interfere. For we know it’s not fish they see in that dark water, but the face of a man marked for death.

  Bet

  We all ate of the sheep that was killed that night, and on Galant’s instruction each of us washed his h
ands in the blood at the slaughtering stone. I was against the idea but from the way Galant picked up his kierie I could see he meant trouble for whoever opposed him. I felt resentful towards him for having treated me so meanly for so long—and it wasn’t my fault, was it?—but there was more pain than anger in me. He’d cast me out. Everybody had rejected me. And I was left alone with the hunger of my body, and loneliness like an illness in my bones. Like death.

  Could I still have stopped them had I tried? But who would have paid any attention to me? I was frightened of what I felt coming; and eating the sheep and washing our hands in its blood was but the beginning. And the next night it was the same thing. We were all there. Even Ma-Rose, to my surprise, turned up and held the sheep down when Galant drew back its neck, cutting the throat with a single stroke of the long knife so that the dark blood came spurting over his hands and arms.

  After the second sheep I spoke to the Nooi, for I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer; and it was all I could think of to try and ward off disaster.

  “There’s a bad thing coming,” I told her. “I thought I’d better tell you before it breaks out, so you can do something about it in time.”

  “You’re just being a nuisance, Bet,” she said sharply. “Why must you always sow suspicion against everybody?”

  By the Thursday I couldn’t stand it any more. I waited for the Baas at the kitchen door when he came back from the wheat-loft where the men had stored away the last, bags of wheat; the threshing was all done.

  He stopped in his tracks when he saw me and tried to avoid me at the last moment.

  “Don’t go away from me again, Baas,” I said. “I’ve come to tell you something.”

  “What is it, Bet?”

  “You mustn’t go to fetch that schoolmaster tomorrow. There’s an ugly thing brewing here.”

  “And what can it be?”

  “It’s Galant,” I said, glancing over my shoulder to make sure there was no one to hear me. “You better be careful, Baas.”

  “I know you’ve been bearing a grudge against Galant for a long time now, Bet. And against me too. But I’m getting tired of it now.”

  “You don’t understand me, Baas.”

  “I understand you only too well and I won’t have any more of it.”

  “But Baas, it’s Galant.”

  “Galant and I grew up together,” he snarled. “We have our misunderstandings from time to time, but we’ve always been able to sort it out in the past and we’ll do so again.”

  “Baas, you must listen to me. Don’t go away from here tomorrow and leave the place unprotected behind you.”

  “Galant will be going with me. I don’t need any advice from your bitchy tongue. Now go away and let me be.”

  I looked after him as he went into the house and closed the kitchen door behind him to keep me out, as if I was an animal that might attack him. The yard was dark. Inside the oil lamps were burning, and in their glare the windows appeared frank and exposed. The shutters would only be closed after prayers. The windows stared out into the night like eyes: but they were blind eyes, seeing nothing at all; and one could stare right through them from outside.

  I had done my best. They wouldn’t listen. In that darkness, for the first time, I began to feel ashamed of what I’d been doing, running after him like a bitch on heat. He hadn’t understood at all. Perhaps he really was scared of me, because of the child. What did he know about the fire in my body—the fire only his seed could put out? For only by drawing a man into one’s body can one get power over him. Now he remained in charge; and I following in his tracks, year after year.

  But even a bitch might turn to biting in the end.

  D’Alree

  No matter how old I get—and I won’t last for much longer; already my health is failing—I’ll never forget that journey. While it was in progress I did not pay much attention to what was happening; I was just there, dozing from time to time on the jolting four-horse carriage. There was absolutely nothing unusual about it: not then. Only afterwards, when all the particulars came back to me, did I relive those few days, all sound shut out, witnessing our progress through landscapes of parched veld and bare brown wheatfields, between the rough ridges of endless grey mountains, under a sky from which occasional loosely drifting clouds cast dark shadows below, speeding along swiftly in the wind: a macabre journey on the chariot of the dead, our bones rattling, on the driver’s seat Death with his long whip, straight-backed and silent, and the young boy next to him; on the narrow benches I, and the pale blonde girl holding her baby; and the two corpses in solemn conversation, one of them wearing my new boots on his feet.

  There was a blankness about it: for who of us at that stage anticipated what was already so close? Only a few days later it would be all over. Two of them would be dead and buried, one widowed, the others dispersed or in chains, and I deprived of the little I’d had. And all that remained unmoved would be the veld and the mountains, and the shadows of clouds chased by an invisible wind.

  When I heard that Nicolaas van der Merwe was planning to fetch the schoolmaster from the Joostens that Friday, I immediately asked him to take me with him, grasping not only at the prospect of a brief escape from those inhibiting mountains but at the opportunity of discussing, at last, with Nicolaas the circumstances of his father’s stroke. In that, alas, as it turned out, I was inhibited by the presence of Galant—while Nicolaas, in turn, made it impossible for me to air with Galant the unfortunate misunderstanding about the boots. Only two evenings before he’d unexpectedly turned up at my place again—it was in fact he who’d told me about the planned journey—and he’d been in a foul mood.

  “I came for my shoes,” he announced.

  “They’re not finished yet. You know I’ve had a lot to do lately.”

  “It’s my shoes you gave to Nicolaas.”

  “I’d never do a thing like that. Your shoes are coming on. Just be patient. I’ve even cut out the soles as I promised.”

  “Where are they?”

  There was so much rubbish lying around that I couldn’t find them. I knew they were there; and when I cleared up later, when everything was over, I found the soles. But because I couldn’t produce them that evening Galant wouldn’t believe me. He insisted that it was his leather I’d used for Nicolaas. “You just like all the other masters!” he stormed. “But you better watch out: if the wind comes up it’ll blow you away with the rest of them.”

  I had no idea of what he might be talking about. Only afterwards I understood. But then, of course, it was too late.

  Very early on Friday morning we set out. The woman and her three daughters stood at the front door to see us off; I could see the children waving until they disappeared in our dust.

  We went from farm to farm, starting with Frans du Toit’s, through the Wagenbooms River and the Elands Kloof, past the Long River and beyond; and, as was customary with these farmers, we stopped at every place for tea, or coffee, or a sopie, or a meal, and for some conversation—although I found the latter much too unremarkable to recall afterwards: while they were talking I would occupy myself with my own thoughts. It was already getting dark by the time we reached the Joostens’ farm where we found the schoolmaster waiting—Jan Verlee, a thin, stern-faced man, with a pale and learned look—and stayed for the night. On Saturday we rode as far as Buffelsfontein, the farm of Nicolaas’s father-in-law, old Jan du Plessis, who insisted that we stay over. The next morning, having slept badly, I rose very early. As it was Sunday, there was no one else about yet, not even the slaves (not surprising, after their carousing until God knows what hour of the night). Remembering the protruding head of a nail on the bench that had rendered the previous day’s journey extremely painful to me, I took a hammer from the shed and clambered on the carriage. Having secured it, and as I was getting down, I noticed under the seat a bundle that hadn’t been there before; covered with Galant�
��s old frayed jacket. Idly, without much interest, I inspected it and found, somewhat to my surprise, a bullet mold. Still, there was no reason to suspect anything unusual, except possibly in the manner of its stowing. Before I had time to dwell on it old Jan du Plessis came from the kitchen door to ring the slave bell and invited me in to breakfast. The morning passed in a drone of prayers and conversation, and it was only after dinner that afternoon that we finally set out for home.

  Verlee spoke compulsively about himself, but his wife never said a word—a frail blonde waif who sat absently rocking the baby the way a girl might play with a doll. And at sunset we were back at Houd-den-Bek. I might have broached the matter of the mold, if only I didn’t feel so blunted by the heat and the effects of the copious meal. If only the schoolmaster hadn’t prattled on so incessantly. If I hadn’t felt so uneasy about talking to Nicolaas in Galant’s presence, or to Galant with Nicolaas beside us. If—if—if. Where does guilt begin, and with whom?

  There is little to tell about it, and yet I remain reoccupied with those few unremarkable days as if somewhere hidden in them I might find a clue to it all.

  Briefly and superficially my life had brushed theirs. Alida, old Piet, young Nicolaas, and Galant. I’d scrupulously tried never to become involved, never to take sides, never to give offense. But the merest touch had disturbed the balance: an idle conversation; the promise of a pair of boots. If I’d given Galant the boots he’d wanted—? Or if I hadn’t, after all those years, gone in search of Alida again, would old Piet have been spared the stroke? And if he’d been well, would not he have seen in time what was happening and found the means to prevent it? Or was it indeed unavoidable for all of us? Is it the land itself which renders evasion impossible, forcing even the ignorant spectator into a position of complicity?