David's Story

by Zoe Wicomb

  Only there remained a distant memory of the defeated French missionary taking a dry cure of warm ashes packed around his scaly white feet, discoursing on his ill health, for that, he claimed, blinking in the harsh light, was what kept him in darkest Africa. Eduard, whose psalms had over the years been replaced by secular texts culled from an interrupted education, had muttered an immortal passage about health that rumbled through the years to haunt the imagination and resonate in the soul of Andrew Abraham Stockenstrom le Fleur, who had been waiting since childhood for its meaning to be revealed. The old man, staring into the ashes, talked wildly about an Irish writer, Sterne, to whom the words once belonged, and told a mixed-up tale about an uncle who had been manservant to that mad writer of tall stories, foolish pranks, and prevarications as he journeyed through Europe. Twice daily he recited:

  O blessed health! thou art above all gold and treasure; ’tis thou who enlargest the soul—and openest all its powers to receive instruction and to relish virtue. The whole secret of health depending upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture.

  The word, radical, rushed like wine through the boy’s mind: root burrowing into the earth, root as conduit, root as source, God as the root of his being, or plucking that which is undesirable by the root. Still he could not get to the root of what he believed to be a sacred text. Body and soul; radical heat and radical moisture; open and secret. Tormented by the tug of opposites and haunted by these words that he believed would someday reveal his destiny, the young Andries disappeared from time to time, roamed the hills in search of ancestral history, and waited for a sign on how to conduct the struggle for justice, how to fan the dying embers of self-respect of a people driven and crushed and robbed of their land, which is to say of their selves. Until, years later, on a soggy winter’s morning, finding his chest constricted, he rolled up his sleeves, for to interpret is no less than to act.

  Another trek, he declared, and this time to the border of Namaqualand, where our Grigriqua forefathers tended their herds in the radical heat and payed not the slightest attention to the secondhand stories of the ghostly foreigners and their sails billowing in Table Bay.

  Ag, no shame, Andrew man, Rachael sighed, fortified by a fresh reading of the letter, there is nothing left. Neither people nor livestock, nothing with which to trek. We’ve lost everything in the last one, and the poor people who escaped the Spanish flu so far away from home, still left on those plains of Touwsrivier with blighted crops and dead horses. All our plans have come to nothing and now we must be off again, and to such a terrible dry land. How can you be so sure that that’s what God wants?

  She was careful to use the plural, to take responsibility for the failed trek, to make no mention of the charge brought against him by their own greedy and ungrateful people, who did not want to share their resources with the poor. Not that she had not foreseen it all, even though seeing into the future was a business with which she would rather have nothing to do.

  Then she had said meekly, Chief—using his title by way of buttering him up—it will not do to spread the money across, for the equality plan is only popular amongst the poor and really what the poor think has never been of any interest to the world. Were there not rich and poor even in the times of Jesus?

  Andrew drew himself to his full height and, drilling his eyes into her own, said that people had to be forced into decent behaviour and that making a fine pumpkin fritter did not mean that she could comment on weighty matters.

  And now she had once again overstepped the mark, but who could blame her. Not even the great man himself, who knew that a trek to the Western Cape seemed like madness, but what else could be done. They had been sorely tried, and now there was no looking back: if they were to be a decent God-loving people, natives in their own land, tilling their own soil, they would have to trek, just this last time, for there was no salvation other than in a land base. He would bring the scattered volk together, search them out, those who had in bygone times strayed like mules away from Griqualand West into Namaqualand. That too was the vision of his youth, the bleached bones in the valley. Gather together the bones of Adam Kok, that was what the voice had said. So instead of chastising Rachael, he explained patiently that they had gone in the wrong direction, that a whirlwind conjured up by Satan had distorted earlier messages, and that like the Israelites of old they had to be patient. Now God was finally leading them to their rightful place, the cradle of the volk. Kokstad, Kimberley, Leliesfontein, these were places they had been driven to by Europeans, where they lost sight of themselves and followed the foolish doctrines of missionaries. Naturally those early treks had come to nothing, were plagued by droughts and locusts, but this time they would return to the ancestral land of the Grigriquas, the land of radical heat.

  I am done with politics, Andrew declared. At which she looked up in alarm. Yes, Dorie, he said firmly, we must apply ourselves to the tilling of the earth. It is in agriculture that our salvation lies and that is just what I have written to the new prime minister, General Botha. That is now a man of good sense. He has shown great enthusiasm for our idea of a Griqua volk living in a separate territory, and I have no doubt that the Afrikaner Landbank will give us the help we need.

  He did not manage to disguise the pleading tone. Rachael Susanna sighed. She was his wife, and foolish as she knew it to be, she would obey, fling herself into the new plans, outstare those who were hostile, who thought him a cheat and did not understand or could not imagine his zeal. Oh, she understood only too well how irksome he found living amongst the shameless settlers, so that there was no need to remind him that the Landbank would once again refuse to help natives. As for General Botha, well, she would rather not know what they had to say to each other; would rather not have Andrew air his strange new views in her presence.

  Namaqualand, Home of Strange Tales: Coloured people seldom manage to hang on to their money.

  Lawrence G. Green, Karoo

  BEESWATER 1922

  On the crest of the last hill, the new Griqua trekkers saw before them the promised land of Beeswater rolling down from low hills in the west, hemmed in by the Soutrivier in the east, and in the distant south the gleam of Varsrivier’s white rocks. Here were the radical opposites: these rivers, salt and fresh, dragged their meandering beds of stones for fourteen miles apiece before joining the Olifantsrivier that bounded full tilt just within the boundaries of the white village. Already a red hot sun hovering above the horizon sent quills of heat as they descended into the plain where the Grigriquas of old once roamed.

  A godforsaken place, Rachael murmured under her breath. Was this what his new trust in the Boers had brought? Her eyes, searching for shelter, found only a scattering of ragged grey tamarisk trees along the river, but the Chief, oblivious to the heat, spread his arms at the wonder of the hills, encrusted in white pebbles that shone in the light.

  Look, he cried, common stones glittering like diamonds. What a sign of the marvellous treasures, of colour, to be found in the depths of the earth. Rubies and garnet, beryl and jade.

  Why not diamonds themselves, she ventured, fighting the bitterness in her voice.

  He said soberly, They would have speculated, Dorie; they would not allow diamonds to pass to us, and for that we must be grateful. Let us not get involved in their squabbles over riches; we are here to till the land and to watch our food grow through our own efforts. God will provide; He’ll enrich our lives with the colour of precious stones. And this, he exclaimed, picking up a fragment of shiny layered rock, testing its mirror smoothness against his cheek, if this is not a sign of prosperity, I’ll eat my hat.

  Namaqualanders call it baboon’s mirror, Gert Klaassen, his righthand man, explained. He prised off several layers to show how a number of mirror surfaces were embedded in the rock.

  So, the Chief laughed, even the baboons have not been neglected. But let this rock be a warning against personal vanity. God has provided mirrors for baboons in order to r
emind us that we are human. The lower species may be given to peering at themselves; we have to rise above such vanity through toil.

  The evening was cool, and in the hum of the earth releasing its balm of wild thyme and buchu, the people lay to rest their implements. The young men from the north, watching the thornbush crackle and fire its stars into the sky, and rejoicing in the smell of roasting meat and the curled smoke of mutton fat, unpacked their ramkies fashioned out of paraffin tins, wood, wire, and sheep’s intestines. Their bodies curved around the instruments as they touched the strings; sound trickled like fresh water through their fingers, and around them tired feet tapped in anticipation of the feast, of dancing the kabarra under the stars.

  Bounding down the hill where he had been exploring, the enraged Chief waved his arms and thundered: No, it cannot be, there will be no heathenish music, no dancing like savages. The instruments of the devil have to be laid down, here—he stabbed his finger into the air—right here by the fire.

  One by one they laid them down. Hungry fingers lingered over the pattern of zigzags and waves burnt into the wood. Like invalids, the tin guitars with cut out bellies coughed and spluttered their feeble notes of protest.

  They must burn, he said, rubbing his hands over his ears, up and down, as if he could not believe those organs, as if to wipe away all sound, the very memory of music, the mocking echoes from he knew not where. God has given us the human voice, and that is enough for singing his praises.

  Then Rachael, trusting in the hymn, put in a trembling Juig aarden juig that would stop all action. There was no choice but to take up the singing, the sullenness of the young people drowned in descant, so that by that last line—Eer Hom met ’n lofgedig—all was well, the meat cooked, and Rachael risking all, stooped to gather the instruments.

  We’ll put them out of harm’s way, store them with the ropes and harnesses in the wagon kists, she said briskly.

  That night she ate too much meat. That was what brought the dreams, the frightening cacophony, and the picture of a bearded God stretching a single goatskin taut across the sky, across the moon and stars, stretching all into a drum of darkness.

  The faithful from the Eastern Cape wilted as soon as the sun rose. The Namaqualanders whom the Chief had persuaded to trek southward may have been used to the heat, but they were unused to his regime of physical work. Having secured contracts from the Boers in the dorp, he sent them out to dig a canal, set the vine on the banks of the river, and build large houses with cool verandahs and lawns until the dorp gleamed like an oasis, white and lurid green in the parched valley. At the end of each week as they returned to Beeswater he collected their meagre wages and distributed the money among all the families. For some stayed at the settlement to till the fields, dig at the quarries, and build small raw-brick houses, wobbly-lined Griqua houses with postage stamp windows.

  There was no end to the work, Ouma Ragel remembered her mother, Antjie, complaining. From first light to sunset it was work, work, work. Through sickness and health, women tied their babies to their backs and hacked at the hills for red and yellow ochre with which to paint the buildings. Of course, not on the outside. The Chief did not approve of decoration. No place for frivolity, he said, but after all that hacking and carrying in the sleepy afternoons and watching the piles of ochre grow, he gave in: Alright, no harm in colouring the inside walls, but no patterns. Even the dung-smeared floors had to be smoothed down without the old decorations, not even the plain old swirl pattern of fingers swivelled around the thumb. No, that was what savage natives did and we are no cousins to Xhosas; we are a pure Griqua people with our own traditions of cleanliness and plainness and hard work. Which is why they didn’t complain, even those who hacked at the quarries. For the semiprecious stones, the Chief said, but the men knew that it was for no reason other than to keep them busy.

  Ag, but it was hard to get used to drinking Jantjie Bêrend. No more coffee, Chief Andrew said as the depression fell on them and the Boers paid even less for building the village with water running in and out of their houses and through their orchards and vineyards. So for those who worked on the settlement there was no coffee. It was harder for the men, who had already given up drinking at weekends: no ready-bought wine, no corn beer or mtombo brewed at home, and not even a drink of magou, in case the mealie-meal fermented too long and went to the head. No, they had to pick bitter Jantjie Bêrend pods in the veld and brew what the Chief said was God’s own healthy drink that would strengthen them in body and mind, yes, even in church they took it for holy communion. Although there, Ouma Ragel said, a bitter drink is to be expected, but after a morning’s hard work in the sun, aai, and she shook her head.

  Only when he was away did old Miss Rachael bring a billy can of sweet black coffee to the quarry. Which they drank without saying a word, for they all had to pretend that it was the bitter medicinal herb, but it was as if the sky had gone deliciously grey and cool, and the coffee was brought by an angel from heaven.

  And now my boy—even though he was no longer her little boy, was already a revolutionary who had gathered the youth to raid shebeens, preach at the political apathy of adults, and pour their flagons of wine and home-brewed skokiaan down dusty township lanes—they say we’re a drunken people, so just you stick to coffee and remember that it was Jantjie Bêrend that built us into a strong, God-fearing nation. See, the Chief would not allow drinking, not after Touwsrivier, where he refused to have prohibition, believing that people should practise self-restraint. And of course that didn’t work; they travelled, in the end, the ten miles for drink, especially when things didn’t go so well on the farms.

  Your Oupa Gert’s cousin, Japie Boois, who dared to brew mtombo, was beaten outside the church hall for all to see, seven lashes of the aapstert, the whip which was of course not a monkey’s tail at all, and that was exactly what Japie shouted, insolent with brave beer: Why call it an aapstert when the whip’s made of cowhide, why not call things by their right names? he wailed. It’s cowhide tanned by my own hand; I made that whip myself; it’s not right to beat a man with the thing he made himself.

  Which made the Chief say, Give him two extra strokes that the lesson might sink in. And he turned away in disgust and disappointment.

  Oh, we were a hardheaded people with so much to learn. What a job the great man had to civilise us, to get the message through our peppercorn heads. And now they say we are a drunken people, Ouma Ragel sighed. We Griquas have never been a drunken people, not since we became Griquas. Struggling drunkenly to her feet, for she was now all but blind, and shaking her fist, she shouted, But I ask you, as I ask these little police brutes in their safari suits who come to search out our dagga-smokers and drunkards, Who makes the wine? Who owns vineyards? Yes, it is we who built their canal, we who planted the vines that made them rich and turned our children into drunkards. Only now do we understand the great man’s prediction that children will rise against their parents.

  Kill your children, he said, kill them now, for the next generation will rise up against you, will turn you into their own bald and grey-headed children.

  Ouma Ragel, by then an apologetic carrier of steatopygia, had little more than disconnected anecdotes about the old Griquas, about the Chief or the great-grandmother, Antjie. She would stop halfway through a story, only the slack muscles about her mouth would go on working soundlessly for a while, as if she were swallowing her own words; then she’d stare into the distance and shake her head, unable to remember how things came about. But it was Ragel herself, who was given to mystification and who made much of sharing a name with Rachael Susanna le Fleur, the Griqua First Lady, whose muddled tales seemed to suggest an irregularity of her birth. Which brings us once more to the field of concupiscence, a subject that after all cannot be avoided in the writing of this story. For David and I were left to patch together a family history, and more’s the pity that it would seem to support the colonial assumption that concupiscence and steatopygia are necessarily linked.

>   With his own hands and in secret, Andrew made her a coolbox of coke packed between two layers of chicken wire stretched across a wooden frame, and watched with shiny eyes her regal acceptance of the gift. Over which she poured brackish water that evaporated in the draught of the afternoon wind. Here her mutton packed in salt would keep maggot-free during the day. In the evenings she hung out the meat to dry.

  We must be patient, Dorie, he pleaded.

  Yes, she replied cheerfully, for in that enervating heat and drought she had also learnt to ventriloquize, all will be well when we find the radical moisture.

  At the new Griqua settlement at Beeswater, Antjie of small Khoisan stature bends over a pile of wood. Stomping with her new veldskoen, she crackles and flattens the dry bushes into fans for stacking on the fire. She is alone in the cooking shelter. In the growing darkness her silhouette is that of a mythical creature, which she transforms again and again with movements of her wiry torso, snaking hither and thither as she builds the fire. She is unaware of her sorcery. When she stops, stretches, lifts her arms in adoration of the full saffron curve of a rising moon, her loose shift draws up over the high step of her buttocks, lifting the hem immodestly towards the swell of her calves. Perhaps she stretches her arms to relieve the stiffness or to feel the pleasurable ache of the muscles. Her torso is not lifted in pagan obeisance—she has been baptised into the new Griqua church—but because she has carried the pile of wood for some distance. All along the dry bed of the Eersterivier, Antjie has been making wood, an appropriate expression since it is not simply a matter of gathering the wood. The land is bare; only the practised eye finds the dried stumps of last year’s shrubs, rust red as the earth. These she has worried like loose teeth until they lifted out of the sand. The bundle, a tall mast balanced on her head, was surprisingly heavy.