A Chain of Voices

by Andre Brink

  “You leave the old man out of it,” he said. “He’s already dying in his bed, he got nothing to do with this.”

  “But he’s their father,” said Abel. “That’s where they all come from.”

  “His time was different,” Galant said. “He understands nothing of all this. With him one always knew what was right and what was wrong; he may have been a hard man, but he had a good heart. Our war is not against him.”

  “You getting soft?” asked Abel.

  “Take out your kierie, then we’ll see who’s soft.”

  So we obeyed him. Right, he was different from Abel, but that’s not what I’m talking about. The war was in him, same as in us. But by the time we rode back from Elandsfontein that other darkness was in him that made him different; I don’t know what it was: a darkness that made light, the way Ma-Rose’s Lightning Bird lies brooding in an antheap, showing only its gleaming eye. And afterwards, in the mountains, he was changed even more. I know, for we spoke a lot those last days.

  “All the others are rounded up now,” I said to him then. “But they’ll never find the two of us here in the mountains. We can tackle one farm after the other at night until there’s no baas left in the Bokkeveld.”

  “You think we’ll be free then?”

  “That’s what you said.”

  “Yes, Thys, I suppose that’s what I said.”

  “So what’s wrong with you then? You not beginning to regret that you killed Baas Nicolaas, are you?”

  “I’m not regretting anything. I had to do it. But it makes no difference.”

  “Galant, I really don’t understand you.”

  “No, you won’t.” Then he would look at me for a long time before he added: “Thys, you just a boy. It’ll be much better for you to give yourself up to them; then you still have a chance.”

  “I’m not a boy.” I felt hurt and humiliated. “The night we set out you said I was shit-scared. Didn’t I show you? I stayed with you all the time. It was I who brought Baas Jansen back when he tried to escape on his horse. It was I who broke Baas Barend’s front door open with the spade. It was I who helped you take the guns from the Nooi. And when the women and children went to hide in the attic I went up with my saber to bring them down again—”

  “I know, Thys. You did a man’s job. But that’s not enough.”

  It scared me to hear him talking like that. And in the end I let him be; I could no longer understand him. He tried to stop me when we saw the commando coming towards us, but I charged down the side of the mountain on my horse, shooting as hard as I could. When there’s only death left one puts everything into it. And charging towards them like that, right into their guns, was all I ever understood about this freedom thing we’d been talking about so much. Everything was over for me. There was nothing I could go back to: I could only go on, deeper into the veld fire. It was a strange feeling, the way one feels when one gets drunk; the way I felt that first night we rode out.

  That night, when Abel arrived with the horses from Elandsfontein, Galant said: “You all ready? The time for talking is over. Now it’s war.”

  And I rode out with them into the dark. The hooves of the horses were thundering in the night. Where they struck rock they sent sparks flying like swarms of fireflies. Let them set the red-grass alight, I thought. Let the whole world catch fire. Here we come!

  Hester

  It was the time of the month when desire sears my womb like a flame. Yet I fought Barend off when he approached me: for that very reason I fought him, as the acceptance of his assuaging seed would seal my submission, a humiliation more unbearable than my physical need. It was made worse by the fact that, for once, he had refused even to turn out the lamp. In its yellow light, heavy as dust, we fought and tossed on the bed and as he tore the nightdress from me I could see our shadows staggering grotesquely on the blank enclosing walls and ceiling. Forcibly, as often before, he entered me; but feeling his frenzy approaching I managed to wrestle myself free from him, feeling his futile seed spurting against my hip—his cry of rage, his fist crashing against my skull—burning my skin, liquid fire. A child whimpered in his sleep, a sound heard not with the ears but the guts. In disgust and frustration he turned away from me, and snarled, and slept. Defeat and victory were irrelevant in themselves. What mattered was that my revolt had become unavoidable lest in my continued subjection I became as corrupt as he in the exercise of his male power.

  The heavy body of the night crushing the house after the lamp was turned out; the smell of paraffin stinging my nostrils. The shutters shut; the wide world unattainable outside, and we imprisoned in that oppressive heat, he in obtuse oblivion as I remained awake, lying on my back and staring at the ceiling, every muscle in my body tense in lust and hate, my clenched hands pressed numbly against my mound. Until at last, in, some nameless hour, I heard the sound of sheep breaking from the kraal and then the barking of the dogs.

  Klaas

  Truth is in the Bible; lies lie about on the ground. All I can say is what I know. I’d arranged with Abel that, when he came back from Houd-den-Bek with the others he’d repeat the hoot of an owl three times; then I would drive the sheep out of the kraal to lure the Baas outside, where we would take over.

  I was waiting for the owl. Already in the early dusk, when the Baas made his last rounds through the yard in search of work half or badly done, and the Nooi moved in and out through the kitchen door to bring the children in, I could feel my heart contract. Not long now, I thought, and that man would be out of the way for good. Then I’d have a go at the woman to avenge myself on her both for that flogging of long ago, and for the recent beating for which she was responsible because she felt guilty about Galant. She’d be soft in my hands. She would scream when I broke into her. All these years I had to accept a woman standing over me. Now at last my chance would come to prove to her I wasn’t just a slave but a man. I’d teach her to say please. And after I was through with her I’d throw her to the next like a used old skin.

  The shutters were closed for the night. After the washing of the feet, and doing the supper dishes, Abel’s Sarie came from the kitchen; then the doors, too, were closed. The farmyard grew silent. In the shed one could hear the cows gently chewing their cuds. I sat waiting for the owl to call.

  Then everything went wrong. Before I knew what was happening the sheep came breaking from the kraal by themselves. My efforts to stop them just made them more bewildered; soon the whole flock was streaming out in the moonlight, and the dogs were barking frantically.

  I heard the bars drawn away from the kitchen window; Baas Barend leaned out to call: “What the hell’s going on there, Klaas?”

  Before I could say anything the men and their horses were all round me. In the confusion I hadn’t even heard them.

  “Help me!” I said to Abel. “The bloody sheep all broke out. We got to round them up again.”

  “But that’s as it should be,” he said.

  “Don’t argue, man. It wasn’t I who let them out. They broke out by themselves. For God’s sake, help me!” Only afterwards it struck me how ridiculous it had been of me; but at that moment I was too bewildered to think properly. All I knew was that things were going wrong and we had to get those sheep back to the kraal. The Baas was already on his way across the yard when I glanced up to see Galant and Abel scrambling through the kitchen window—it could only have been they; the others were still with me—and disappearing inside.

  Then I heard the Baas calling from the shed: “Klaas, you bloody bastard, why are the dogs going on like that?”

  “I got visitors, Baas,” I stammered.

  In the house someone must have lit a lamp, for suddenly there was a glow behind the kitchen window, as Galant and Abel came jumping out again, each with a gun.

  “Baas,” I began; but then they fired and he stumbled like a wounded buck and fell down. For a moment I thought he was k
illed, but the shot had only grazed his heel. On all fours, his backside up in the air, he came scrambling towards me in his flapping white nightshirt, grabbing hold of me: not to throttle me or attack me, but in panic. “Help me, Klaas!” he shouted. “For God’s sake, help me! Klaas, I’ll give you anything you want. I’ve always been good to you. Please help me!”

  I hadn’t expected ever to see a thing like that. This man, ruling over us all so cruelly for so long, now whimpering and grovelling like a scared dog. I was so flustered—and from the house I could see Galant and Abel coming towards us; ready, no doubt, to shoot us both—that I could only stammer: “But Baas, I got no gun. How can I help you?”

  I don’t think he even heard me. Seeing the others approaching with their guns he let go of me again and ran away, round the nearest shed, back to the house.

  “Klaas,” Galant said sternly, “listen to me. If you help Barend tonight I’ll kill you with my own gun.”

  We all ran back to the house, but just as we came round the corner the door was slammed shut. Thys went out ahead of us and, finding a spade somewhere, started hammering on the front door with it. It shuddered under his blows, and soon we heard the sound of splintering wood.

  “It’s down!” shouted Galant.

  At the same time, we saw the Baas scurrying away into the dark from the back door, still in his nightshirt, disappearing up the quince hedge. Abel ran after him for a few yards, aiming a wild shot—but the Baas only gave a little jump of fright and went on running. Galant also aimed a shot but the cock of his gun got stuck, and so Baas Barend got away in the mountain. Thys was all in favor of going right after him, but Abel held him back. “Let’s take the house first,” he said.

  We all rushed inside, struck by a new sort of madness. How often had I been in that house before, meekly holding my hat in my hands—Yes, Baas. All right, Nooi—and now suddenly it was all ours. We started smashing everything in our way, tables and chairs, cupboards, shelves. We tore open the pillows and strewed the feathers all over the place. Abel found the brandy jug and passed it round from mouth to mouth. It was like a New Year’s festival. All that was visible of little Rooy through the feathers clinging to his clothes and sweaty face was his big bright eyes.

  After a while I remembered about the woman again. It was time for it now; my blood was hot. I went in search of her but she was nowhere to be found. I stripped the bed and turned it right over, thinking she might be hiding under the down-mattress in fear, but there was no sign of her. In disgust I poured the contents of the piss-pot over the bundle of crumpled sheets and blankets.

  “What you doing?” the others asked behind me.

  “Looking for the woman.”

  “She slipped through the front door long ago,” one of them said. “Galant told Sarie to take away the children.”

  “Where’s Galant?”

  “Have another drink,” Abel insisted, thrusting the jug into my hands.

  I drank deeply. The others returned noisily to the front room, leaving me behind in the bedroom with the broken remains of the big stinkwood bed. My head was reeling. Nothing seemed real any more. A terrible numbness slowly sank into me as I stood looking at the mess in the room. The Baas had run away, I thought; so had the Nooi. And sometime soon they would be coming back bringing all their neighbors with them to avenge this ruined house. I should have foreseen it when the sheep broke out. Already it was all over for us: and yet they were dumb enough to go on drinking and breaking up the place.

  Stumbling to the middle door I began to shout at them in panic and rage, but no one heard. I was shivering. Any moment now, in another minute, in an hour, the horsemen would come streaming over the hills towards us.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Abel suddenly asked me, taking me by the shoulders and shaking me. “You look like death itself.”

  “We got to get out of here. Quickly.”

  “Why?”

  “Can’t you see? They all got away. Even the woman.”

  Then, to my shock, I saw the woman standing in the darkness outside the broken front door. I stared at her. I was still shivering; but I gulped. She was wearing her nightdress and it was torn. I began to move towards her like someone walking in his sleep.

  “Let her be!” I suddenly heard Galant say as he appeared in the darkness behind her.

  “That’s right,” Abel said. “Our war is against the masters. Let her go.”

  “I need someone who can take her away to safety,” Galant said. “Over the mountain to the grazing place of Oubaas Piet, where Moses and the others are.”

  “Klaas?” said the woman, not sounding very sure of herself.

  “Yes, Nooi,” I replied, thinking of the long road over the mountain in the dark. There wouldn’t be anyone near us. But I also thought of the commando which would surely be coming to this place to seek retribution: if I could lead her away from there I wouldn’t be among the victims. They might even be grateful to me.

  “I’ll take her,” I said hastily. “I know the way.”

  Galant stared at me. What you looking at? I thought. What you seeing in me?

  “I’ll take her,” I repeated as urgently as I could.

  “Where’s Goliath?” asked Galant.

  “I want to stay with you,” pleaded Goliath. “I want to be with you all the way.”

  “You heard me!” Galant irritably cut him short. “Goliath, you take her away over the mountains to Moses’s place. Make sure she’s safe. Look after her until we come back. I’m holding you responsible.”

  “But—” Goliath seemed ready to burst into tears.

  “Let me take the woman,” I insisted.

  “I’m sending Goliath!” Galant shouted. And as Goliath went off into the night with the woman Galant turned to us. Kicking at a broken chair in his way, he snarled: “Is this all you can think about? Is this your freedom?—breaking and drinking and arguing?”

  We all felt rather crestfallen as we followed him back to where Rooy was holding the horses. He ordered me to saddle Baas Barend’s horse and ride beside him, as if he’d seen my hidden thoughts and wanted to make sure I wouldn’t escape on the way.

  I kept thinking about the woman going into the night with her torn nightdress. It felt like the morning after a night of much drinking. And if one feels in advance what should only come later one has really had it.

  Goliath

  Since the day I allowed myself to be talked into complaining I was stuck. There were some who never seemed to care a damn about beatings and floggings, but I was different. And that was what weighed me down. Not the Baas, but my fear of him; my fear of pain. That evening when I saw how even Abel was too scared to raise a hand against him, my own fear got worse. And when the word came that we were going to rise up it was like being given another chance. It was not so much the masters but fear itself I was going to root out. In that big fire, I thought, my fear would be burnt out, leaving me a new man, a free one, for the first time in my life.

  In order to rid myself of the burden I would have to do something that almost didn’t bear thinking about: I would have to kill, and cover my hands in blood. Preparing myself for it I forced down the terror I felt, swallowing it like a lump of dry bread as I dashed about through Baas Barend’s house with the others, shattering whatever we could lay our hands on. The brandy made it easier. I was working myself up to a state where I knew I could do what I’d most dreaded. Freedom was very close now.

  And then Galant appeared and ordered me to lead the woman through the mountains to old Moses, and to take responsibility for her safety.

  It was the last thing I wanted to do. I knew that if he took away from me this chance to murder my way to freedom, I would never again have the guts to throw off the fear which had so long paralyzed me. But he told me to lead the woman to safety; and I had no choice.

  Not a word was said between us all t
he way. I knew I had lost the only chance I would ever have. Now the others might become free, but not I. And the resentment I felt against Galant was one of the fiercest and bitterest feelings I’d ever had in my life.

  Only afterwards, when the others were arrested and taken away to Cape Town, I began to wonder whether perhaps Galant had known me better than I had myself. Had he already seen what I’d been blind for: that I would never really have enough courage to root out the fear in me? Had he realized long before the rest of us that it could only end in defeat and disaster; and had he wanted to save me from it?

  Because of the woman. But of her I cannot talk. I am not free to say what I know.

  Plaatjie Pas

  In Ma-Rose’s hut near the place of old D’Alree I hid away that night when the horses came past. As soon as I heard them I crawled under her skins and lay in the corner, too scared to move. I heard Ma-Rose say to them: “No, I don’t know anything about Plaatjie. If he’s not at his hut he isn’t there, that’s all.”

  The night before Campher had taken me into the mountains and shown me the runaway Dollie. He ordered me to tell the Oubaas they were going straight to the Landdrost. Which gave Oubaas D’Alree quite a fright. “If the Van der Merwes hear about this,” he said, “especially that Barend, they’ll never let me hear the end of it.” So he told me to keep quiet about it until the Landdrost had finished with the case.

  It scared me too. Wouldn’t the others take it out on me when they came for Campher and Dollie and me? What would become of the whole business without those two? All day long I went about with this fear in my mind. And when the sun set I left my hut and went to hide with Ma-Rose.

  All right, so I’d told them I would join them. But I was an old man. I didn’t want to leave them in the lurch; but I didn’t want to die either. I had few enough days left to spend in peace. My tobacco and my sopie and my draught of tea was enough for me, and a patch of sunlight to warm my old bones in, and an occasional breathtaking ride with Ma-Rose. This madness was too much for me.