An Instant in the Wind

by Andre Brink

  “As soon as we get back I shall ask the Governor to pardon you. That's what we have arranged, isn’t it?”

  “But suppose I really killed Lewies when he tried to stop me that night? There is no mercy for a murderer.”

  “Even if you did kill him, you’ve paid for his death with my life.” She looked at him urgently. “Adam, why won’t you believe me?”

  “I do believe you. But I’d like to be more confident about the Cape.”

  “You used to say you couldn’t live without the Cape any more.”

  “I know. But now I must find out whether I can live with it.”

  “You’ll be free,” she reminded him. “As free as I am. You’ll be able to come and go as you wish. No one will interfere with you. You’re still thinking of the past too much. You’re a new person now.”

  “But will the Cape be a new Cape?” he insisted.

  “What do you want to do then?” she asked angrily. “I’m not going without you. But I can’t stay here either.”

  “I’m not going without you,” he said with a wan smile. “If only you understood…”

  “You must trust me, Adam.”

  “Have you thought about yourself? It may be even more difficult for you. Your own people will disown you.”

  “You are more important to me than they. If I am forced to choose— I have already chosen.”

  “But once we’re there; as the years go by… Suppose I notice how you are cut off, how they avoid you in the street, how they turn their noses up at your children, how you become more and more lonely. Do you think I could swallow that, knowing it's all because of me?”

  “But there are other white people married to blacks!” Her eyes are flaming. “Even old Governor Van der Stel—they said his mother or his grandmother had been brown.”

  “That was fifty years ago. Things are changing. And it's easier for a black woman with a white man. But a white woman… !”

  “Adam, I promise you… ! Please believe me.”

  “They’ll never forgive you,” he persisted relentlessly. “If their white women start doing this sort of thing: it undermines everything in which they’ve got to believe if they want to remain the masters in the land. Don’t you realize that?”

  “It's you who can’t forget about your past suffering. It has wounded you so deeply that you don’t even want to admit that another way of life is possible any more.”

  “Do you really think I don’t want to?” he asked. “My God, do you really think so?”

  She bowed her head slowly. The horse lay motionless among the crushed white flowers. Bees were humming in the grass.

  “Suppose everything turns out all right as you believe,” he said at last. “Suppose they do accept us and we live together happily ever after. Then I shall really be free, and I’ll owe it all to you. But will it make any difference to my mother? She’ll remain a slave on the Master's farm. Will it make any difference to a single other slave in the land? You and I can’t do anything to change their lives. The Cape will always remain what it was. At most I’ll be an exception to their rule.”

  “Then you should never have come back,” she said.

  “What else could I do?”

  “Do you want to take me there and then turn back and roam through the land on your own as before?”

  “That would be worse than the sentence of death. Then I’d rather give myself up to them.”

  “But what can we do then?” she pleaded. “What else is there to do?”

  “Nothing. That's what makes it so terrible. Didn’t you know that one asks most of one's questions only because one knows they cannot be answered?”

  He looked down at his hands, and the long festering wound on his arm, the purple-black flesh flaming angrily all round it. Everything of these past months, everything that has happened, good or bad: neither of us willed it or chose it. We even tried to withhold ourselves from love. We didn’t want anything to happen. But it did, and we are caught in it; and that is all that matters. And because it has happened, because our possibilities have changed into facts, we can but endure what we have and what still lies ahead. We cannot escape the guilt. We cannot escape the cat o’ nine tails and the irons, the sound of gulls in the endless wind. And then, one day, once again the sound of oars in black water and a new beginning? Perhaps that is the most we can ever hope for.

  “Come,” he said gently. “We must go on to the Cape.”

  But they reckoned without his wound. The herbs the Hottentots had given him had neutralized the poison for a time, but it didn’t heal as it should. Perhaps the strain of their journey through the mountains had aggravated it; or the rain, or something. Whatever it was, soon after the death of the horse it became critical. One long night he couldn’t sleep at all, but he didn’t want to wake her, she needed the rest. However, when she opened her eyes soon after sunrise she was shocked to see his contorted face and the ashen color of his cheeks. In spite of his efforts a groan escaped through his clenched teeth. The arm was swollen and black with inflammation. There was perspiration on his forehead. At times he didn’t seem to know what was going on any more.

  Following his instructions she broke one of their ostrich eggshells and powdered some of it between stones, and propped him up to lick the powder from her hand. But it made little difference to his fever.

  The wound itself she gently rubbed with honey, as he’d been doing all the time. But that, too, had no visible effect.

  “Is there nothing else we can put on?” she asked in desperation.

  “Herb-of-grace,” he said painfully. “Or wild wormwood, or touch me-not. That should draw out the fire.”

  “Where can I find it?”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  But within a few minutes he had to lie down again, too dazed with fever to go on. He tried to describe the shrubs and leaves to her, and she left him under a tree and went in search of them, gathering whatever seemed useful.

  During the last few days they had often passed farms on their way, but deliberately avoided them, as she was apprehensive of how he would be received. So far from the authorities in the Cape the farmers were really a greater menace than the wilderness itself. And yet: if only there had been a farmhouse near them now! But there was nothing.

  All through the day she brought him leaves, but none was useful. In the end they started trying whatever she found, bruising the leaves and boiling them in an eggshell, applying the pulp to the wound—as hot as he could stand it—before she set out again.

  He remained under the tree, covered by the kaross, his knees drawn up, palms pressed against his head, teeth clenched.

  If something happened to him now, he thought, it would really make it easier for her. They were close enough for her to reach the Cape. But his very guts rebelled against the thought. He hadn’t come all this way, all these years, to die practically within sight of his destination! He had always survived. When the snake had bitten him he was closer to death than now. When he’d been struck down by thirst, the end was near. Yet every time there had been someone at hand to help, someone who’d known the land. Now there was no one but Elisabeth. And how could she recognize a herb-of-grace or a touch-me-not?

  Grandmother Seli, you would have known. All the slopes of Padang were covered by it, you said: all those quivering leaves curling up at the touch of a finger. Different from the Cape variety. Different and more beautiful. Everything you used to know was different and more beautiful: volcanoes, palm beaches, coral reefs, hibiscus and cinnamon and jasmine. Now you lie buried in the Malay graveyard below the mountain. At least they set you free to die. Poor thing, it's so exposed up there, a single row of trees against the wind, so different from the bulky wall enclosing the churchyard of the Dutch.

  Was that the day it all began? When the news came of her death, and my mother slipped away to the funeral, and the Baas called me to the backyard? So far, Ma, and no further: all these years you’ve persuaded me to accept the white man and his laws,
one for him and one for us. All we have ever been allowed to do has been to kneel down and say: Thank you, Baas God. But no longer. This is the end. I shall not raise my hand against you. My father and my grandfather I never knew—one dead, the other sold— but you I’ve known. You washed my wounds and comforted me when I was a child; you’ve been my mother. Now I take this piece of wood, this beautiful smooth stink-wood I planed with so much care (can you smell the shavings? there is no artisan in the Cape like me) and I bash in his head. All right, let them come for me and take me away. Let them tie me up in front of their stone Castle under the crying gulls. My only regret is that they have sentenced me to no more than scourging and branding. My grandfather Afrika was a better rebel than I. He died here, perhaps tied to this same stake, his bones broken on the wheel: in my death I become a man. I am not worthy of you, old Afrika. Now even less than before: look, here I’m on my way back to the Cape, I’m playing white, I’m going to open a shop and make furniture. They’ve tamed me and drawn me under the yoke. Forgive me, my Grandfather, Grandmother Seli, Father, Mother. All of you. I no longer know my rightful place. But I love her.

  The day I came through the wild figs towards the wagon, after following it for so long, watching them destroy themselves bit by bit: was that my own choice? Or was I chosen? Had everything been decided long before?

  It was still possible to turn away then. What concern of mine was a white woman lost in the wilderness? How many others—brown, black, white—lie strewn across the empty plains? Would one more have made any difference?

  What did I want of her then? Not her body. One body I had loved before, in the dark among the others, and lost her: that was enough. After that one uses barrenness as an excuse. So what did I want of her? That first evening when she washed herself in the wagon, the yellow lantern behind her casting her black shadow on the canvas—arms above her head, firm breasts, the gentle curve of her belly: no, that was not desire. Not desire only. One learns to control that. Desire is easy, and easily stilled. What else then?

  The day she appeared on the flat rock at the river: what forced me to wade out towards her and take up my clothes and tear them to pieces—her husband's clothes, not mine—strewing them over the branches of our shelter? Did I want to taunt or insult or threaten her? But it didn’t really concern her at all. It had to do with myself. With how much quaking defiance dare one admit: Here I am, I am human? And how easy to miscalculate!

  Did I still have a choice the day I left the deserted cottage in search of a buck, wandering on and on past all the game I found, with the firm resolve to escape and never to return? Or had it already been sealed by then?—To return to everything I feared. To say voluntarily: Here, take me, take my freedom.

  And can all that be undone merely because there is no touch-me-not growing in this valley?

  With touch-me-not leaves in her arms she returned in the twilight, not even realizing that she’d found what she was looking for. They pulped the leaves again and boiled them and applied them, scalding hot, to his arm. And while he lay mumbling to himself in the night she remained watching beside him.

  When I was dying of hunger and thirst in the Karoo you went out and found a blesbuck that had protected her fawn against the jackals all night long. You drove her predators off. She must have thought you’d come to save her. But then you killed the fawn, and her too, to quench my thirst with her milk. And to avenge the treachery she slit open your arm with her horns. Now it's your turn. I know I’ve come too late. If only I’d known what to look for I could have been back so much earlier: these shrubs grow all over the valley. I’m learning so slowly and so belatedly.

  Here you’re lying helpless as a baby, delivered to me and my handful of leaves. I can go on from here. Within a day or two there will be people to welcome me or abuse me. In the end they’ll take me to the Cape. To Mother with her grudge against the world and her dreams of Batavia and Amsterdam. Poor Father with his dead-end life, faithful servant of the Company. There will be parties again, and banquets at the Castle, picnics on the Mountain, excursions to Stellenbosch or Drakenstein, officers to entertain, explorers from other countries. One Sunday, who knows, another bullfight. Life will continue as before: never as before. But how can I leave you here? Even if you died in my arms tonight I cannot abandon you. You stayed with me. You liberated me. You have me cornered in yourself.

  You baptized me with blood; I you with the moisture of my love. We have come such a long way on our trek through one another: there has been so much drought, so little to quench the thirst; dead children. But we have also found hidden jackal's food and ngaap and elephant's foot; there were ostrich eggs, and honey on a dead god's grave; there was buck's milk and a slaughtered new-born fawn. And there was a forest and a sea. Don’t ever forget that. There was a paradise. There was. And for that reason you must live on: Adam in the sweat of your brow. And I. This is how it happened. This is how it is. We are.

  If you recover I shall cherish your life. I shall no longer be vain or try to fight for myself. Humbly, I shall try to protect you from the disillusionment and hate of every day. Till death us do part. Don’t die.

  “Sooner or later you’ve got to die, man, whether you want to or not,” said the old man with the network of purple veins covering his nose and cheeks, his green eyes laughing at her. He sat with legs apart on the riempie chair to leave room for his rotund belly in the expensive brocade waistcoat brought from Patria a month ago. “That's why one must lead a decent life, you see. The Devil is keeping watch day and night. And if he catches you sinning, he takes you down to the pool of fire and brimstone, to everlasting destruction, with wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

  “I don’t want to go there, Uncle Jacobs,” she said, pale, her throat contracting. “Although I wouldn’t mind just to have a peep.”

  “A terrible sight,” he proclaimed. “The beast with seven heads bearing the scarlet woman on his back. The screaming and crying of the damned. Much worse than the criminals tortured at the Castle. And it goes on for ever and ever.”

  “Don’t frighten the child like that,” reprimanded her father sitting on the opposite side of the small table they had set down in the shade of the mulberry tree. “Your move, Stephanus.”

  “But I want to hear all about it, Father.”

  “It's not fit for young children,” he insisted, annoyed.

  “It's better to know it and be warned,” said Jacob, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t you agree, Elisabeth?”

  She nodded. He moved his hand down her back, allowing it to rest on her bottom for a moment. Aware of what was coming she began to breathe a bit faster, moving her feet slightly apart in anticipation and a thrill of fear.

  “One of these days the young men will start courting you,” he said, running his hand down her legs. She stood pressed against his chair. Her father, opposite, was concentrating on the chessboard.

  “Elisabeth isn’t thinking of such things yet,” he said irritably, without looking up.

  “You’re at an age when a young girl is so easily led into temptation, so it's better to know beforehand what to expect,” Jacobs continued, unruffled. From the low hem of her dress his hand was moving slowly upward, over her calf and the back of her knee. “This is your move, Elisabeth. I want to see whether you can remember what I taught you last time.”

  She moved a horse.

  “You should have watched your father's bishop,” the old man scolded her gently. Moving his hand higher he pinched her lightly on the inside of her thigh. “And if the young men can’t behave themselves you’ll keep them firmly in their place, won’t you?” he resumed.

  “Yes.” She nodded, breathless.

  Her father executed a move.

  “You again, Elisabeth.”

  She studied the board, biting her lower lip; then moved a pawn.

  “That's better.” A gentle caress of approval. “You see, a young girl's most precious possession is her chastity. Don’t ever forget that, my child. Y
ou know what is by far the best you can do? Leave all those upstart suitors and come and look after your old uncle. I’ll treat you like a little princess.” His hand had reached the top, touching the small tendon of her groin.

  “Yes, Uncle Jacobs.”

  She didn’t stir against his knee, her face a flaming red, unable to explain why she allowed him to have his way like that. It wasn’t intimidation: the dear old man had never been anything but gentle towards her. She needn’t even discourage him with open protest or gesture: the slightest movement of her body away from him, closing her legs, would not only prevent his explorations but undoubtedly finally discourage him. It was something entirely different. Not embarrassment in the presence of her father, but a curious elation for the very reason that he was present—sitting directly opposite her, reacting to her uncertain moves, unaware of anything; the temptation of danger which left her trembling, the proximity of fire and brimstone. And once again she moved a piece on the chessboard, conscious of his finger brushing the down on the lips of her sex.

  “Now keep an eye on that castle of your father's. One must be very alert in this world. Else you get caught.” Repeating the gentle caress of her mound with almost loving warning. “Then all your pawns end up in the pool of fire.”

  “It's only a game, Stephanus,” said her father.

  “Chess is a very serious sort of game, Marcus. That's why I want Elisabeth to learn it from an early age. It prepares one for life, it teaches one to keep one's eyes open. You must admit it's not easy for a young girl to go through life unscathed.”

  “And how did you manage to get through it all unscathed?” enquires the old farmer, keeping one eye on his wife who is pouring the tea the slave woman has brought in.

  Elisabeth shrugs. “It just happened like that,” she says, “And this man protected me. He's been with us for so many years, one can depend on him for everything.”

  “You’re lucky,” says the old man, stirring his tea. “One can’t trust today's slaves any more. An ungrateful lot.”