by Andre Brink
“Never trust a slave, my child,” said her father. “You can treat him as well as you can, you can bring him up with the Bible, you may think he's civilized, he may seem as tame as any house-dog. But sooner or later he suddenly shows his teeth and then you discover he's just a wild animal after all.”
Trembling, she sits down. Casting small pebbles into the water, watching them sink. What's wrong with her now? She's seen naked slaves before, paying as little attention to them as to any animal in the Company's menagerie. And what is he but a slave? He has never been a slave so totally as today with that nauseating pattern of scars on his back. Why, then, this weakness trembling in her legs? Why recall his body so meticulously: chest and belly and hips, legs, his penis bobbing on his balls? Why should she even have noticed it? He is, indeed, the savage she called him. She need never fear him again.
Yet it is nearly dark before she finds enough courage to get up and return. Tonight she is afraid of the camp, of the firelight, of his undaunted arrogant eyes.
The first she sees as she enters the small shelter is his clothes: the shirt and trousers torn to shreds and flung across the branches. For a moment, in a panic, she wants to flee. But where can she go? And why? A strange new resignation flows through her: after all, this is the wilderness, he is the savage, what else does she expect? Through these weeks since his first appearance at the wagon, and especially since their sojourn with the Hottentots, she has begun to believe that he might be different. That, in fact, is what has been most unnerving about him. But now it's all clear, their roles are defined and manageable. If he decides to become violent now, she’ll simply have to accept it as part of the risk of her situation. The only thing which surprises and unsettles her is the question: why hasn’t he used violence yet? Surely it would have made everything much easier for him, and in the long run even to herself, knowing exactly what to expect and to resign herself to it. The violation of her body, if it had to happen, would have been so much simpler to cope with than all these weeks of wondering and anxiety and uncertainty.
Controlled and outwardly calm she comes into the shelter and piles up the branches in the opening to seal it off. She barely glances at him— yes, he is sitting naked at the fire—goes to her unpacked things and, very deliberately, takes out her journals. Opening the unfinished volume, she tries, or pretends, to write, barely able to control her trembling pen, oblivious of what she sets down on paper.
But soon she finds his silence aggravating, grating her consciousness like a grain of sand in the eye. She looks up; he is watching her. Drawing in her breath, she resumes writing, stringing together random words, drawing the graph of an Amsterdam skyline from memory, listing the names of animals and plants she can recall. Until she becomes annoyed by her own confusion.
She looks up again. “You may bring me my food when it's ready,” she orders laconically.
“It's waiting.”
“Well, bring it here.”
She deliberately keeps the journal opened on her lap, watching him as he lingers stubbornly. If he doesn’t obey this time, it will be proof of open, final, revolt. She is conscious of the danger weighing heavily in the deep silence between them. The moment seems endless.
Then, with an abruptness which startles her, he gets up and brings her food to where she sits: thick milk-roots dug out yesterday and sliced to soak overnight; now he has roasted them: it smells like meat.
He remains standing before her, his eyes unabashedly on hers, trying to force her to say something, expecting it, demanding it. But she refuses. She will not be dominated. Taking the plate, she turns her head away so as not to look at the blunt, obtuse head of his penis, now half-swollen, so close to her.
He returns to the fire. But while she's eating she remains aware of his eyes not leaving her for a moment. And she decides: to stay silent is mere evasion. She’ll prove to him that she cannot be intimidated so easily, even if it means direct confrontation.
“Come and fetch the plate,” she orders.
Adam gets up, obeying instantly, but with deliberate insolence. Brooding, defiant, he stands before her.
“Why don’t you put your clothes on?” she asks.
It is obvious that this is what he's been waiting for.
“I’m a savage. Savages don’t wear clothes.”
“You’re behaving like a child!”
“Aren’t savages just like children?”
Elisabeth rises to her feet, refusing to look up at him any longer. “I’m not amused by your little game, Adam,” she says. “Rape me if you want to. If you think you can get me in your power like that. But if that's what you want, then for God's sake do it openly. Don’t skulk around waiting for the dark.”
“What makes you think I want you?” he asks viciously, like a snake striking. “If I wanted you I would have taken you long ago.”
“I’m not so sure.” Her voice sounds uncertain, but she controls it. “I think you’re afraid of me.”
With a sudden jerk of his arm he shatters the plate on a stone between them. She stands waiting. He doesn’t move.
“You’re the one who is shit-scared,” he says.
“Yes,” she says, restrained. “I am scared. But at least I know what I am scared of. And I don’t think you’re so sure. That makes it worse, doesn’t it? That's why you can’t stand me. That's why you’re trying to take it out on me.”
What we really fear, she thinks, is this space forcing us inward to one another. It's like the night of the lions again. They stand opposite each other, weighing, weighing; the most insignificant gesture is important, a single word can decide the future. With hate, and longing, anguished, dismayed, they stare at one another. I’m frightened, you’re frightened; the night is endless. That's all. If I make a gesture and put out my hand to you, will you comprehend it?
He is the first to turn away. Reluctant; almost meek, almost sad, it seems to her. Perhaps she has “won” this time. But it is not the sort of victory which proves or decides an issue; it is, in fact, irrelevant. It only complicates everything. And in near despair she asks what she does not want to know:
“What happened to your back?”
“Your people put the cat o’ nine tails to it.” He remains with his back to her, while he adds with subdued fury: “But what about it? It's nothing. It happens every day.”
“Is that why you ran away?”
“What difference would it make?”
“All the difference in the world. You said you left of your own free will.”
“I never said anything. You assumed it.”
“You allowed me to think so. You wanted me to think so. You didn’t want me to find out you’d run away because you were flogged.”
“Now you know. Are you satisfied now? Have you got me down on the ground?”
“I don’t want you down on the ground.”
He swings back to her. “Why do you keep on asking then?”
“Why did they do it, Adam?”
“I raised my hand against my master,” he says bluntly.
“One doesn’t do that sort of thing without any reason.”
“My reasons are my own.”
“You scared about that too?” she taunts him. “You’ve taken off your clothes in front of me. What else is there to be ashamed of?”
“Ashamed?” He is shaking with rage. “It's you must be ashamed! You’re the one who can’t stop asking questions. That's also a way of flogging a man. You women are good at it. Always ready to bring on the salt for the wounds, long after the men have stopped.”
“If that's what you think, you needn’t answer my question.”
The wall again, she thinks. Every time. And she turns away to go from him.
“Ah right,” he says, choking. “I’ll tell you if you want to know. If it’ll make you feel proud that you’ve pried that out of me too.”
She looks round, with a defensive gesture; but now he won’t be stopped.
“You wanted to know, didn’t you?” h
e says harshly. “So I’ll tell you. Madam! I raised my hand against my master because sooner or later one reaches a point where one has got to say no. I was his mantoor, I had to supervise everything. I even had to punish the other slaves when he ordered it. He had a bad heart, a thrashing would tire him out too much, so he only watched. I never wanted to. Not my own people. But I was a slave, I had no voice against him.” He is quiet for a moment, breathing heavily. “And then my old grandmother died of cold because I wasn’t allowed to deliver her firewood. My mother wanted to go to the funeral, but the Baas refused, he needed her for pruning in the vineyard. So she went off on her own to put away the old woman. And when she came back, the next day, she went into the vineyard as if nothing had happened. Singing.”
He looks past her, into the night.
“And then?” she asks, when he doesn’t go on.
“He had her taken to the backyard, to the post. And he gave me the sjambok and told me to flog her.”
“It can’t be true, Adam!”
“This time it is the truth,” he says, looking at her as if he wants to scorch her with his eyes. And she stares back, unable to look away. “I pleaded with him. He refused to listen. I kept on. He grabbed a piece of wood—I was working there, making a table, and he grabbed one of the stinkwood legs—and hit me in the face with it. I wrenched it from him. And I only stopped beating him when he was lying on the ground.”
“And afterwards?”
“Nothing.”
“They punished you and then you escaped?”
“What else could I do? I didn’t choose the wilderness because I wanted to. I simply had to. And by now I’ve learned to stay alive, to survive like an animal. But I’m not an animal. I’m a human being. And I want to live with people again. So I must go back some day: not crawling like a runaway dog, but walking on my own two feet, straight, with nothing to be ashamed of.”
She bows her head.
“How can it ever happen?” she asks.
“It can happen if I take you back to the Cape. Not only to the sea, but all the way, home. Back to the Cape and its Mountain. You can explain to them. If you tell them I brought you back, if you will tell them I saved your life, if you demand my freedom, they’ll give it. You can buy me my freedom. No one else can. I am in your hands.”
She stands dumb, unable even to look up.
“Do you understand it now?” he asks in a new surge of anger. “You needn’t fear I’ll rape you. If I do anything to you, I kill myself.”
“My safety for your freedom: is that your bargain?” she asks, numb.
“If you see it as a bargain.”
“I asked you.”
“Does it matter what name we give it?” He sounds exhausted. For the first time he seems to become conscious of his nakedness again. He turns away swiftly, his maimed back towards her, and returns to his place beside the fire. He adds some more wood to it, then rolls himself in his skins and lies down in the half-shadow on the far side.
Elisabeth sits down, looking at him, that shapeless bundle. How terrible to live on the edge of another's world, aware of the possibility of discovering him. But is it really possible? Dare one allow it to happen? Can one survive it? For how long can a snail exist outside its shell? Why should one try to reach across the flames, into that other darkness, fearing it? Or does that very anguish drive you on?
He has no idea of when she came to sleep. Waking up somewhere in the early hours, he hears her sighing and moaning in the dark. He props himself up on an elbow, listening to her panting and uttering small half smothered sounds, moving about restlessly, almost frantically, opposite the deep orange glow of the coals. Perplexed and anxious, he rises and goes to her. Only when he bends over her does he grasp what she is doing. With brooding fascination he stares at her hands writhing between her thighs, his throat tautening. He cannot turn away. Independent of his will, his sex begins to stir.
She stops abruptly. “What are you doing here?” she pants. “Go away!” Tugging at the blankets in the dark.
He cannot move. Woman: you, wilderness in which to lose oneself.
Huddled in her blankets, she sits up. The glow of the coals hardly gives off any light. All she can make out is the silhouette of his thin body, the shape of his shoulders and his lean belly; and then that threatening, fierce thing jutting out towards her like the erect head of a snake.
Don’t force me any farther. Can’t you see I’m terrified and hungry, and all I need is peace; I can’t bear it any longer, not alone.
He knows he need only lean over and touch her, diving into the moment like deep water. But beyond the moment, vast as the night, is everything of the future: all the impossible possibilities, everything which can be confirmed and petrified by a single gesture, created or destroyed by it.
From his bent position he rises up again and turns away with something like a stifled sob in his throat, back to his place in the dark.
Don’t. Don’t. Don’t utterly disarm me. This is the last freedom I have left.
She utters no further sound. He cannot even hear her breathe. Perhaps she has fallen asleep again; perhaps she lies awake staring with wide eyes in the dark. But he does not turn his head. On the far side of the mound of firewood he sits down, with one of the loading skins of the ox across his lap, and slowly, patiently, he begins to cut himself an apron and a belt.
And then the second ox. It started with the storm, one of those violent outbursts characteristic of the Eastern Cape, exposing the deception in the mild and gentle appearance of the region.
At that stage they must have been close to their destination on the coast, probably no more than three or four days away. For some time the weather had been building up slowly, an unbearable oppressive heat saturated with humidity. No movement of air; no clouds either, to begin with—only that invisible clammy heat leaving one drained and out of breath.
They trekked past the fringe of a dense forest, through smaller patches of tall trees — sneeze wood, sour plum, redwood and white-wood and blackwood—reaching a long easy slope with thickets of wild olive and saffron, Hottentot's bean, horse-piss bush, wild apricot, ghaukum and numnum and dry-my-throat and the ubiquitous euphorbia. And suddenly the river was below them, breathtaking, broader than any of the others they’d had to cross.
That is the scene as she describes it in her journal. It is easy to presume the rest.
While he is keeping watch for crocodiles she lies down to drink, splashing handfuls of water over her glowing face. In the sweltering heat of the past few days, not finding any water, they’ve been forced to rely on what Adam could provide to quench their thirst, mainly wild figs and the watery bulbs of kiepersol roots. Now, miraculously, there is this broad and swiftly flowing current.
Immediately after drinking she wants to cross the river, but he stops her. The bed is much too treacherous here. They must either trek half a day upstream to a shallow ford or construct a raft for the load of the ox. Moving on in this heat is out of the question, so she resigns herself to staying there, gathering bibrikos and tubers at the riverside to tie up the logs he has selected. In the late afternoon, exhausted, they have everything ready.
“Shall we cross now?” she asks.
“Better wait till tomorrow. It’ll take us the best part of an hour to get through, and by then it’ll be too late to make a proper camp. We need good shelter for tonight: look at that storm coming up.”
Too weary to argue, she resigns herself, but grudgingly, feeling that he is deliberately slowing them down to keep her away from the sea. The sea which, by now, has become a consummation to her, an answer to all problems, fulfillment, utter peace.
As if he is trying to compensate, conscious of her resentment, he says: “I don’t think we’ll have any more bad weather after this storm.”
“How do you know?”
“That's how it always is.”
How grateful, she thinks, Erik Alexis Larsson would have been for the information.
She
watches him as he gathers logs and branches for the habitual shelter; occasionally he stops, wiping his face with an arm, shiny black stripes of perspiration running over the pattern of scars on his back. As always, she shudders looking at it, revolted and fascinated at the same time. You’re tired too, she thinks. It's not only I. Yet you say nothing, toiling away. Why? For my sake? I can’t imagine you taking all this trouble for yourself. How did you sleep on all your journeys those many years before you came to my wagon? There is so little I know of you.
Then the wind comes up. At first they are aware of it only as cool refreshment after the harrowing heat: a touch of life breathing against their palms and faces; perspiration turning sticky and cold in their hair. Then the leaves start moving, each tree with its own peculiar sound: the grey rustling of the wild figs, the more delicate, high-pitched music of the yellow-wood with its tiny leaves, the shuddering of the assegai wood twigs, the restless whispering of the underbrush. Heavy branches swaying and creaking. Next, as they look down the slope running down bare and unprotected to the river, the grass suddenly, silently, flattened by a giant hand. The sky is black. Far across the river a single final shaft of sun still transfixes a mountain in unearthly colorless light. Thunder rumbles, dull and dark, still very distant; but it is coming nearer, and over the hills the lightning is dancing like fiery cracks in the sky.
But it is the wind that predominates, thundering over the forest like an animal let loose. Terrified, the ox tramples the ground, straining at its heavy thongs, its eyes showing white.
“We’d better eat while it's still light,” says Adam.
There is some honey left from last night, and he had shelled and fried some Hottentot's beans which they wash down with a small ration of Cape tea. But neither finishes the meal: the wind is too terrifying. In a low, wild roar it comes charging across the veld; the great trees toss and sway; from time to time there is the tearing sound of branches ripped off and tumbling down. The ox is bellowing now, jerking its head against the confining thongs, and every few minutes Adam has to get up and calm it down.
