Child of the River

by Irma Joubert

  Reinier laughed. “Bring me everything as well, thanks,” he told the waiter.

  When the waiter had left, she said: “I don’t want Bucket for free. I’ll pay you.”

  “You’re full of nonsense,” said Reinier. “Here, hold out your glass for some champagne.”

  “Tell me now, what are we celebrating?”

  “And a typical nosy woman too.”

  “Speak!” she said menacingly.

  His expression became serious. “Pérsomi, I submitted a rough draft for the new municipal buildings. I never thought I stood a chance or that they’d even consider me for the job.”

  “You didn’t tell me,” she said.

  “No, I didn’t . . . tell anyone.” He still looked earnest, slightly uncertain.

  This side of Reinier was new to her. “And?”

  He shrugged and the familiar smile was back on his face. “I was assigned the project.”

  “Reinier!” She held out both hands to him. “It’s . . . wonderful! I’m so proud of you!”

  “Champagne?” he asked, embarrassed.

  She raised her glass. “To Reinier de Vos, architect of the year!”

  “Well, maybe not quite,” he laughed. “Cheers!”

  She took a large gulp. The ice-cold bubbles danced in her mouth, tickled her throat, warmed her stomach. She shuddered. “Gosh, it’s strong!” she smiled.

  He laughed again. “Remind me to teach you how to drink,” he said.

  “And drive a car,” she said.

  The next afternoon Boelie was waiting for her in front of the office. “What brings you here?” she asked, surprised.

  “I missed you. Tell your mother you’ll be late tonight, then I’m taking you out to the farm.”

  “Boelie, she’ll have a fit. I was out last night as well,” she tried to stop him.

  “I’ll wring Reinier’s neck,” he said, but his smile contradicted his words.

  “He just wanted to celebrate. He got the contract for the new municipal buildings, can you believe it?”

  “I’m very happy for him, but even so, he must stay away from my girl.” Boelie was still smiling. He stopped in front of her home. “Go tell your mother, and come back at once.”

  Her ma was nowhere to be found, but soon enough Aunt Duifie appeared, so Pérsomi left a message with her.

  “That was easy enough,” she said as she got back into the car.

  “Come, sit closer, you have no idea how I missed you,” Boelie said and drew her to him.

  “You were gone only four days,” she smiled.

  “Actually I don’t want to be away from you at all,” he said, holding her closer. “I want you near me forever.”

  “Oh, Boelie,” she said happily.

  They drove the nine miles to the farm. They spoke about this and that, but even their silences were happy.

  “Let’s go down to the Pontenilo. I’ll get the picnic basket,” said Boelie as he stopped in front of the Big House.

  “Not to the cave?” she asked.

  “No, too far and too late. I have to toe the line, at least until I speak to your mother on Saturday morning.”

  She smiled and nodded. She was so incredibly happy that not even the thought of that conversation could spoil it for her.

  When he had fetched the basket they walked down to the river, then carried on upstream, almost to the kloof. The late afternoon air began to cool down, and a light breeze came up.

  At a big old willow tree he stopped and spread the blanket on the grass. She unpacked the food: savory biscuits, sliced biltong, cubed cheese, fruit. He poured two glasses of red wine.

  “To the prettiest, smartest, dearest girl in the world,” he said, raising his glass.

  “To you, Boelie,” she sat next to him. “I’m getting used to the taste of wine,” she said after a while.

  “Hmm. Hand me another biscuit with cheese, will you?”

  “Please?” she said.

  He smiled. “Please. And put your head on my lap, please?”

  She did as he asked and looked up at the branches overhead. He stroked her hair. “The branches make patterns, like lace,” she said.

  He looked down at her. “I love you more than words can say, Pérsomi,” he said softly.

  “Boelie . . .”

  He put his finger on her lips. “Don’t say anything, I know you’re still getting used to the idea,” he said. “I don’t want you to say anything now that you may later regret.”

  “I . . . okay.” She wanted to say I love you. She loved him so much.

  “There’s just one more thing I want to say, Pers,” he said. His hand brushed the hair from her face, then he resumed stroking her hair and her face.

  “Boelie?”

  “Before I . . . we . . . speak to your mother on Saturday, I want you to know that I’m very serious. I want to be with you for the rest of my life.” There was a moment’s silence. “One day, when you’re ready, I’m going to ask you to be my wife, Pérsomi.”

  Pérsomi was drunk with happiness when she softly closed the door behind her. She couldn’t wipe the smile from her lips.

  “Where have you been all this time?” her ma asked from the dark sitting room.

  She jumped. “I . . . I told Aunt Duifie I’d be late, to tell you not to worry.”

  “Were you with a boyfriend?”

  She didn’t have the energy for an argument on the happiest night of her life. But neither could she explain. Boelie would be here Saturday. “I went out to the farm with Boelie, Ma. I’m tired, I’m going—”

  “Boelie?” Her ma sounded anxious. “Boelie?”

  “Night, Ma,” said Pérsomi and headed for the bathroom. She turned on the water to fill the basin, washed her face, and brushed her teeth.

  “Pérsomi?” her ma whined when she stepped into the passage.

  “No, Ma, I’m going to bed. It’s past midnight and I have to work tomorrow,” she said firmly and shut her bedroom door.

  But sleep evaded her. Bubbling anticipation, exuberant happiness, overwhelming joy coursed through her veins, putting sleep completely out of the question.

  Why had she never been able to tell Boelie she loved him?

  She knew he was waiting to hear her say it. She knew she loved him with all her heart. She knew she wanted to make him happy.

  Was she so jaded, so dulled by her childhood that she couldn’t lift her head and offer him her lips? That she couldn’t say the simple words I love you?

  Her ma was waiting in the sitting room when she came in from work the next afternoon. “We must talk,” she said.

  Pérsomi felt suddenly exhausted. She knew what it was about. Maybe it was a good time to try and resolve the issue, before Boelie turned up the next day.

  “I’ll just fetch a glass of cold water, then I’ll be with you,” she said.

  When she was sitting opposite her ma, she asked, “What’s bothering you?”

  “You must stay away from men. Stay away completely, d’you hear me?”

  It was just as she had expected. It was time to put the matter to rest.

  “Ma, I’m sick and tired of this old story,” she said firmly. “Give me one good reason why I should stay away from men.”

  “Heavens, girl, stop asking questions. Haven’t you seen what a man does to a woman?”

  “Not all men, Ma. Look at De Wet and Christine. Or Oom Polla and Aunt Duifie. They’ve been married for donkey’s years and they’re perfectly happy.”

  “Don’t be cheeky!” her ma snapped.

  “I know it’s your way of protecting me, I know you’ve had bad experiences with men. You’ve had a hard time,” she tried a gentler approach. “But I’m careful, Ma, I know what I want in life, where I’m going. And it includes a real family, a husband, and later children as well.”

  “Pérsomi . . .” Her ma was almost pleading.

  Pérsomi knelt before her ma, covered the rough hands with the broken nails with her own manicured fingers. “I�
��m going to get married one day, Ma, sooner than you think.”

  Pérsomi saw her ma’s fear. She watched her grow noticeably paler. Her hands flew to her face. “You can’t!” she said.

  “Yes, Ma, I can,” Pérsomi said and got to her feet. “I’m twenty-four, and if the right man asks me to marry him, I’ll do it.”

  “Heavens, child, that’s what I keep saying. You can’t!” Her ma looked desperate, panic-stricken.

  “But why not, Ma? You keep saying I can’t have boyfriends, but it’s natural for a man and a woman to be together. It’s how God created us. And you’ll always be cared for. I won’t leave you alone, don’t worry,” she said.

  “It’s not that.”

  “Well, what is it then, Ma?” She heard the impatience in her own voice.

  Jemima wrung her handkerchief into a tight ball. “I promised not to talk and I never have.”

  Pérsomi felt herself grow cold. Her ma was dead serious. Suddenly she realized: all these years her ma wasn’t just being possessive, as she had thought. Her ma’s warnings were more than the awkward, naive attempts of a simple woman to protect her attractive daughter against life’s hardships. Something was seriously wrong, and her ma’s promise “not to talk” had been standing in the way of the truth.

  “What is it, Ma?” she asked again.

  “If you want to find yourself a boyfriend, you’ve got to go away from here, far away,” said her ma.

  “Ma?”

  “You can’t have a boyfriend from around here, you can’t! Go find a boyfriend somewhere else, somewhere far away,” her ma pleaded.

  “I can’t go away, Ma. My work is here, my home is here, it’s where I want to live,” she tried to reason with her. “And there are many nice young men around here to choose from.”

  Her ma closed her eyes. “But heavens, Pérsomi, what if you marry your own brother?”

  FOURTEEN

  THE FURTHER THE NIGHT PROGRESSED, THE MORE EVERYTHING made sense. That was why Mr. Fourie had never chased them off the farm. That was why he kept helping, even after they could no longer work for him. That was where the pounds had come from at Ismail’s, and her pocket money in her student days.

  She poured herself a cup of milk and shook a headache powder out in her palm. Her head was about to burst.

  She should have seen the likeness between herself and De Wet. How could she have been so blind? They excelled at the same subjects at school—they chose the same field of study. She should have understood the rivalry with Irene—a girl born within a few months of herself.

  Blood knows without words. Blood knows. Only she had been too stupid—deaf and blind to the logical, clear evidence.

  She was tall, with dark hair and dark eyes, like Mr. Fourie.

  Like Boelie.

  “Boelie?” her ma had said the night before when she’d come home. “Boelie?”

  Blood knows without words. That was why her usually glib tongue had been silent.

  Because Boelie was her brother.

  For weeks he kept trying: Pérsomi, it can’t be—something must have happened—your feelings for me couldn’t have changed overnight—for heaven’s sake, just talk to me.

  “Please accept it, Boelie. I’ve given it a lot of thought. You’re like a brother to me.” It was terribly, terribly hard to see his pain, to hide her own pain.

  It’s your childhood, he said. It’s because of what you saw and heard and experienced when you were too young—I know, I understand. Together we’ll overcome it. I love you, Pérsomi.

  “It’s not that, Boelie, please believe me. No, I don’t need time, this is final.”

  He tried a different angle. I shouldn’t have been so hasty. I shouldn’t have mentioned marriage. Can we try again, please? Heavens, Pérsomi, I love you! I know you love me, too, I know it. I know you.

  “You came into my life when Gerbrand left. You’ve always been there for me. I appreciate it more than words can say,” she said. Her tone had been unemotional, matter-of-fact. Debate and argument were second nature to her. “Of course I love you, Boelie, but not the way a woman should love a man. I love you like a brother. I’ve only just realized it, I’m truly sorry.”

  Then he stayed away. Completely.

  By day she knew it was better to have no further contact, preferable by far to the arguments and conversations that kept going round and round in her head. Her mind began to accept the finality.

  At night her heart wept like never before.

  Then, when her words had driven him away and she had escaped from the futile arguments, she learned the meaning of the word self-contempt. She had fallen in love with her own brother. The horror choked her.

  The nights became a black bottomless pit.

  Night after night. After night.

  Annabel returned from London, her contract finally over. She was elegant and stunningly beautiful and brilliant. The town couldn’t get enough of her.

  And she set her sights on anything she liked.

  In January 1952 Yusuf Ismail moved into the surgery Reinier built for him in the center of town, close to Mr. Ismail’s store. He was as excited as a child before his birthday.

  “These rooms are in the perfect location,” Yusuf said when she went to call on him one lunchtime.

  “Where do you think your patients will come from, Yusuf?” she asked.

  “Well, apart from the Indian community, which is not really that big, I hope to have a lot of black patients. I have so many ideas, Pérsomi,” he said, switching on the kettle in his small reception room. “Most of my work will be in the nonwhite hospital. My first priority is to see if we can get better equipment for the theatre. Lettie, Dr. Louw’s daughter, has joined her father’s practice and she said she’d help me. She also studied at Wits, you know?”

  “That’s right, yes.”

  “I want to put up a shelf for patent medicines, mostly traditional Eastern medicines. I met a girl, Jasmine, she’s . . . er . . . she . . .” He hesitated, seemed embarrassed.

  “Is she your girlfriend?” Pérsomi asked.

  “Not really. In our culture the two of us don’t have much say in those matters. But let me put it this way: if our parents and grandparents can reach an agreement, she might become my girlfriend, yes.”

  “Affairs of the heart are always complicated,” said Pérsomi.

  Yusuf nodded. “Maybe more than we realize.”

  “Yusuf’s surgery is a fine-looking building. You’ve made your mark, Reinier,” said Pérsomi the following day at lunchtime.

  He frowned. “Have you been there?”

  “Yes, I called on him yesterday at lunchtime. Yusuf showed me . . .”

  “You can’t do that,” he interrupted her.

  She gave him a puzzled look. “Can’t do what?”

  “You can’t just walk in and pay him a visit!”

  “It was lunchtime, Reinier,” she said. “Besides, he’s not all that busy.”

  “Pérsomi, he’s an Indian.”

  “I know he’s an Indian. A Muslim as well,” she said, losing her patience. “Next you’re going to say he’s a Communist.”

  “I don’t know whether he’s a Communist,” Reinier said calmly, “but I know you can’t just walk in there for a social visit. It’s not proper.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “What difference does it make whether I walk into his grandfather’s store to buy clothes, or into the surgery you designed for him?”

  “There’s a huge difference, Pérsomi, and you know it.”

  At night she didn’t know what was worse: the scorching self-contempt, or the intense pain that forgave and longed and yearned for him, all at the same time.

  Annabel de Vos popped into her father’s office at all hours. She arrived with a fanfare. Could Ms. Steyn make her a cup of tea? This town was wearing her out. She tossed her long, shiny black hair over her shoulder with the flick of a hand.

  Could one of the typists type this letter for her? She had to
get it in the mail, but first she had to discuss something with her father. She held the teacup to best show off her manicured hands.

  Could the other typist pop out to the post office and buy her some stamps? She really didn’t have time to stand in line. She stood in front of the mirror, dabbing on lipstick, and wiping the corners of her mouth with her little finger.

  Could Ms. Steyn cut out these articles for her and file them? Ms. Steyn was such a darling.

  Annabel wrapped her father around her little finger. “It’s so lovely to be home again,” she purred like a kitten. By day she drove around in Mr. De Vos’s new Mercedes-Benz, until he bought her a brand-new DKW.

  Even De Wet didn’t get off scot-free. “Coo-ee! De Wet, are you here?” And the office door closed behind her.

  Pérsomi was the only one who had little contact with her. Annabel seemed to deliberately ignore her.

  But one morning she ran into Pérsomi in the reception room. Mercifully the waiting client was already in Mr. De Vos’s office. But both typists were at Ms. Steyn’s desk, discussing the day’s tasks.

  When Pérsomi turned to go into her office, Annabel said, “No, wait a moment.”

  Pérsomi stopped.

  Annabel took a step back and tilted her head. Everyone’s attention was focused on her. “You know, Pérsomi, you could be quite an attractive girl, but I’ll have to take you in hand,” she said, regarding Pérsomi critically. “We must get rid of that hairstyle, it makes you look old. And we must really do something about your wardrobe, not to mention your shoes.”

  Pérsomi lifted her chin. “I’m sure you mean well, Annabel, but I’m quite happy with my appearance, thanks,” she said calmly.

  “You can’t think only of yourself,” Annabel said dismissively. “This is my father’s firm. Over the years it has always projected a particular image.”

  The typists’ eyes were like saucers.

  “The image I want to project to the world,” Pérsomi said coldly, forcing herself to stay calm, though she was seething inside, “is one of professionalism. I think my clothes and hairstyle are quite suitable.”