Jooste didn’t move.
“Well?”
“What about the money?”
“You’ll get what we agreed on.” Leath clutched the book under his arm and headed to the door, his spine straight, a stiffness in his step. “Be a good chap and take her to the kitchen so Sarah can clean her up. She reeks.” He disappeared into the house.
Jooste came up behind Anna, pressing into her. “Sorry to let you go, Suster,” he said, his mouth close to her ear. Shame and fear swept through Anna in hot waves. After the night at the blockhouse, Jooste had taken her across winding game paths, staying off the main roads, traveling only at night. They had passed burnt-out farmhouses and dead things, big empty sky stretching endlessly. Sometimes Jooste repeated what he did to her in the blockhouse, right there in the veld like an animal, spending himself, his sweat dripping on her, clinging to her skin, like she was a thing to be used, nothing more. She didn’t know what this Dr. Leath had in store for her, but anything was better than staying with Jooste.
“When the war is over,” Anna said, her voice wavering, “the Boere will shoot you for what you have done to your people.”
Jooste laughed. “The Boere are losing, Suster. By the time this is done, they’ll be too busy making nice with the Khakis to worry about me. See I know which side my bread is buttered. Loyalty doesn’t fill your stomach.”
A young black woman with deep-set dark eyes, high cheekbones and a wide mouth, dressed in a rust-colored dress and white apron, stood in the kitchen doorway, her hands clasped in front of her, two lines etched between her brows. The kitchen was much warmer than the rest of the house. Tall iron pots and a stack of tin plates and mugs stood on a table, the food smells intoxicating.
“You Sarah?” Jooste shoved Anna toward the woman. “Deal with this. I’ll eat in the front room.”
Sarah watched Jooste walk away, her expression filled with loathing. She pointed Anna to a low chair next to a black stove. “Sit here, Nooi. Get warm.”
Anna was unable to take her eyes off the plate of stiff maize porridge and a sloppy stew that Sarah dished and handed to her. She stuck spoonfuls of it her mouth, barely chewing. The meat was fresh, the meal salted. She was sure it was the best thing she had ever tasted.
“Slow down. You’ll get sick and I’m not cleaning it up.”
Anna only looked up for a moment before she scraped the drops of sauce up with her fingers, sticking them in her mouth. Sarah shook her head. She dished more plates, placing them in a row on the table before ringing a brass bell mounted on the wall. A petite young woman appeared at the door. She had light-blond hair, partially hidden under a black kappie, and wore a simple black dress that didn’t disguise her bulging stomach. She looked at Anna with little more than passing interest before taking a plate from Sarah.
Another woman appeared. She had sad blue eyes and sandy hair tied in a bun. The rounding under the black dress wasn’t as far along as the first woman’s, but she moved uncomfortably, her lower back curved, her breasts heavy. She stared at Anna. “Another?”
Sarah nodded. She handed the woman a plate. “Go on now.”
Yet another girl appeared, very fair with light freckles dusting her turned-up nose. She was followed by a girl with greasy blond curls.
“Hester?” Anna rushed to the familiar face.
Hester looked up, shocked out of her daze. “Anna?” Her face contracted. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. “Is my ma all right?”
“I don’t know. When did you …?”
“I got sick and they took me to the hospital. Yesterday. Maybe before that.” Hester wiped her eyes again. “The Englishman he—”
“Enough.” Sarah stepped closer.
Anna held on to Hester. “What’s going on?”
“In the room. He—”
Sarah forced Anna and Hester apart. “I said, enough. Come with me.” She grabbed Anna by the wrist.
“Wait.”
“You listen to me now before there is trouble.” Sarah dragged Anna to a small room with boarded-up windows. Against the far wall lay a mattress with a thick blanket, a chamber pot next to it.
“What is this place?”
“This is where you sleep.” Sarah backed out of the room and shut the door.
Panic thickened in Anna’s throat. “Please! Don’t leave me alone.”
A key turned in the lock. Sarah’s muted voice came from the other side. “Be quiet now. The doctor doesn’t like noise.”
Anna jerked awake the next morning when the key turned again, confused when she didn’t find dirty straw under her. Her mind felt thick, her body stiff. The door opened and Sarah carried a porcelain basin of water into the room and set it on the floor. She lit a candle.
“The doctor wants to see you.” Sarah took soap and a rough brush out of her apron pocket and held them out to Anna. “Be thorough. There too.” She motioned to the place between Anna’s legs.
Anna gripped Sarah’s arm as she turned to go. “What does he want with me?”
“You saw the others.” Sarah freed herself from Anna’s grip. “Don’t keep him waiting.”
Anna held the pink soap to her face. It smelled like the flower garden her mother had kept at the back of the house. “There is little enough pleasure in the world, Anna,” her mother used to say. “You have to make your own.” Her father was different. He only believed in work and the Bible. A flower garden was a waste of time to him. There were more important things that needed tending on a farm. Anna wondered if he was still fighting in the veld, or if he was being held prisoner in Ceylon. She refused to let her mind wander to the third option. She prayed to God that he would never know of her shame. She broke out in goose bumps as the cold water touched her body, her pale skin flushing as she ran the rough bristles of the scrub brush over it. She pressed harder, wishing she could wash off everything that had happened, leave it with the stink and filth in the water, to be tossed out and forgotten.
The door swung open. Dr. Leath stepped into the room. Anna reached for her dress so she could cover herself.
“That is only fit for burning. Put this on.” Leath handed her a black dress. “I’ll wait.” He stayed there while she turned her back to him and dressed, her skin damp under the thick black cloth, her hair dripping down her back. “Come.” He led her back to the room from the previous day and gestured to the bed as he closed the door behind her. “Lie down.”
Anna had to get on her toes to get on top of the bed. The thin mattress was covered in starched sheets that crackled when she moved. She lay down and crossed her arms.
“Let’s start with base measurements.” Leath took her temperature and pulse, noting everything in his book. Then he lifted her dress.
“No,” Anna pleaded. She pushed the skirt back down, tears welling.
Leath pursed his lips. “I have no use for you if you don’t cooperate.” He clutched his hands behind his back. “Would you prefer to go back to the camp?”
What could he do to her that hasn’t already been done? Anna thought. In the camp there were men like Jooste, and there was hunger, and filth, and the constant stench of death. Here she had a bed, warmth, food that wasn’t rancid. She had thought many times of dying, but the Bible said it was her duty to stay alive until God took the decision out of her hands. Maybe then He would forgive her for doing this. Anna gathered the skirt of dress and lifted it slowly, exposing herself from the waist down.
A smile played at the corners of Leath’s mouth.
After that first day, Anna’s life became a dependable routine. Two meals a day, interspersed with a morning visit to Leath’s room, which he called his surgery. There she would receive “treatment.” Leath always draped a sheet over her, covering her face so she couldn’t see what he was doing. His touch was cold, but he never did what Jooste had done. She sometimes felt him move something inside her. A dull soreness would linger after. Leath showed little sympathy for her discomfort, obsessively noting everything he did in his bo
ok. She had to stand very still in front of the machine every day. It didn’t hurt. Leath said he could see the baby in her with it, but he never showed her anything. Before she was allowed to leave, Leath gave her a mug of milk that he called “nutrients.” It tasted strange, metallic.
Once a day she could go outside with the others for an hour. The girls were all young, some barely thirteen. There were a couple of older ones, around twenty, whose husbands had been captured and sent away. They always led the Bible reading and prayers. There was a lot of talk about revenge against the British, of how they would be made to pay one day. Anna sometimes thought of Andrew. Every time the women asked God to smite their enemy, Anna silently asked that Andrew be spared. One by one, their number diminished as they went into confinement. Only Leath and Sarah were allowed in the rooms. Anna knew her time would come soon. The child’s kicking grew stronger, pains waking her up at odd hours as the skin on her stomach grew taut, marred by red lines.
Away from her mother, Hester became talkative, animated. She gained weight on potatoes and fatty meat, her cheeks rounding out, her body becoming soft. She was kind to Anna. They always sat together in the courtyard, talking about life before the war and what they were going to do once it was over. They sometimes talked idly about escaping, but there was nowhere to go. The farm was near a British stronghold and soldiers regularly crossed the property. Hester had a young man, Theunis, and they were going to get married once the war was over. But Anna noticed that as Hester’s stomach grew she talked less and less about Theunis, the hope she had clung to devoured by the unborn child. Anna tried to cheer Hester up, but she too knew that kind of sadness. It sometimes threatened to swallow her and there were days when she couldn’t leave her dark room. The latest talk among the women frightened her. About babies that never drew a breath, mothers taken away at night by soldiers, heads of the deformed monsters that came from their wombs smashed open against the walls of the house by Leath himself, so that nobody would know of his failures. Anna didn’t want to listen to such things. She remembered how one of the ewes on their farm had given birth to a lamb without front legs. Her father had killed it right away, bashing its head in as it struggled for life. Maybe that was what grew inside her. Something only God would pity.
Sarah carried a tray into Anna’s room, set it down on the bed, and took the baby from her. “She’s fat, the little one.” She swaddled the girl in a blanket and put her down in the crib next to Anna’s bed, running her hand over the girl’s wispy white hair. The baby fought with sleep, her strange silver eyes losing the battle by degrees. Anna couldn’t remember ever seeing Sarah smile before.
Since giving birth, Anna had been locked in her room. Sarah brought her food and emptied the slop bucket and Leath came twice a day. He seemed tense these days, irritable, barely noting her presence in the room as he examined the child. Anna dreaded Leath touching the baby, but there was little she could do to prevent it. The thought that the child might lose its life on the whim of this madman scared her. She had thought of naming her daughter after her mother, but a name would make a loss unbearable, so she just called the child Baby.
Sarah handed Anna a tin mug off the tray. “The doctor says you have to drink this before you eat.”
“He’s back?” Sarah nodded. Leath hadn’t been to Anna’s room in two days, and she had heard him argue with Sarah outside her door the day before he’d left.
“The commanders, they …” Sarah pressed her lips together. “Finish all of that,” she said, folding her hands, waiting until Anna had swallowed the last of the thick white liquid. It tasted different than the nutrients she had had before Baby was born, like bitter almonds.
Anna met Sarah’s eyes as she handed back the mug. “It’s true, then? About the inquiry? That they’ll—”
“What do you know of that?”
Anna felt a flicker of hope. She glanced at the crib. “If they come, maybe she’ll live.”
“Do not concern yourself. Your baby is healthy.” Sarah turned to go.
“Why are you helping him?” An indignant hysteria welled in Anna’s chest. She was overwhelmed by her own powerlessness, her inability to protect her child. “Why did you turn against your people?”
Sarah turned back from the door. “My people?” A perplexed frown crept over her brow.
“The Boere that once owned this farm. The family who fed you and gave you a place to sleep.”
“My people.” Sarah scoffed. “Let me tell you about how it was before, Nooi, before the doctor came here. About how the baas owns you, not just your labor, but your body too if you want to feed your family and keep a roof over your head. How he whipped me and my brother when we were only little children and forced himself on my mother at night. How sometimes he made us watch. How it became my turn when I was barely old enough to be thought of as a woman. How his wife and children thought it their birthright to humiliate us every opportunity they got.” A hardness had settled into Sarah’s face. “One white man is as good as another to me, even if the language they speak is different.
“The day the Khakis rode in here, they tied us to the back of the ox wagon the white family rode in. Old people and small children all had to keep up, there was no mercy. I know what happens in the black camps. Native people are treated worse than animals. At least when you’re white the Khakis think twice. The doctor said he’d keep me out of the camps as long as I work for him. I can do nothing about what he does here. If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else. They would be safe instead of me. My mother, my family, they’re all gone, but I am alive. That is good enough for me. Death is not beautiful or peaceful, that much I know from working for the doctor. Death is ugly, and terrifying, and empty, and it means nothing—”
A scream of raw anguish interrupted Sarah. Her anger dissipated, her eyes suddenly wide and scared. “I have to go.”
“Is it Hester? Her time is near.”
Sarah nodded. “She is having trouble.” She rushed off, closing the door behind her.
Anna didn’t hear the key turn in the lock. She shifted to the edge of the bed, still sore from the birth, her legs weak, the floorboards rough under her bare feet. The door opened without resistance, the hallway empty, Hester’s screams the only sound. In her long white nightdress and cap, her long blond hair falling past her pale face, Anna cut a ghostly figure in the dark as she slowly made her way toward Hester’s room. The rooms she passed were stripped bare, the smell of lye thick, memories of the girls that occupied them only weeks ago scrubbed away.
A baby’s first screams cut through the quiet hallway. Anna froze at the sight that greeted her as she turned the corner. Sarah stood in front of Hester’s open door, her hands covering her mouth, her expression one of horror. Leath emerged, his sleeves rolled up, carrying a wriggling newborn in his bloodied hands. Sarah held her hands out to take the child, but Leath ignored her.
“A male. This one must survive.” Leath headed down the hall.
Anna pressed her back against the wall, slinking into the nearest empty room.
“What about the girl, Doctor?” Sarah called after Leath. He stopped for a moment outside the room where Anna hid. She was sure that he would hear her frantic heartbeat.
“She is not needed. Do what must be done.”
Anna waited until Leath’s footfalls disappeared before she left her hiding place. Sweat broke out on her brow as she made her way toward Hester’s room. Sarah looked up from where she stood next to Hester, her expression when she saw Anna one of dismay rather than anger. A deep gash ran across Hester’s naked abdomen, her chest rising infrequently. Anna felt dizzy. She grabbed hold of the bed to steady herself, her hand sinking into warm wet, red seeping between her fingers. A crimson drop separated from the edge of the saturated wool blanket and fell in slow motion, spreading onto the wooden floor, its edges disintegrating. Hester turned her head slowly, recognition in her glassy eyes. She opened her mouth. A final breath escaped and she was still.
“No!”
“Shhh.” Sarah knelt down next to Anna, tears brimming in her large eyes. “You have to go. He might come back.”
“Hester, she …” The room suddenly swam around Anna, nausea rising from the pit of her stomach.
Sarah held Anna close, her brown dress full of cooking smells, a faint odor of spirits lingering on her sleeve. “There is nothing you can do.”
Waves of nausea rippled through Anna. She tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t hold her. “What’s wrong with me?”
Sarah averted her eyes. “The doctor told me to pack everything when he came back from town. He says the ones in charge don’t understand his work. They are sending soldiers.”
Sarah wrapped both arms around Anna’s waist and lifted her off the ground. She forced Anna out of the room and back down the hallway. Anna’s heart pounded, each short step paid for in agony. Edges became soft, colors blending, the house suddenly unfamiliar. Faces of girls peered from the corners, their hands reaching, trying to hold her back. Sarah dragged Anna the last few steps. Crippling pain ripped through Anna’s stomach as she doubled over on the bed. The baby cried, distressed by the commotion around her.
Anna grabbed Sarah’s wrist. “He’s going to kill Baby too.” Sarah tried to pull away, but Anna held on with all her strength. “You have to save her.”
“Aikona.” Sarah struggled against Anna.
Pain rippled through Anna’s body. She fought against the darkness pulling at her. “Take her to the Khakis.”
Sarah stared uncomprehendingly at her. “They will be here tomorrow.”
“No. There is a soldier. He was stationed near George. He will help.”
“Why would he? The Khakis are not your people.”
“Ask for him. Tell them she is his.”
“It’s been a long time, Nooi.” Sarah’s voice softened as she freed herself from Anna’s weakening grip. “He won’t be there anymore.”
“You have to try. Please …”
Sarah could barely hear Anna’s plea, the lights rapidly fading from her eyes. She backed away. Leave these white people to themselves, she thought. They brought this war, soaking the land in blood. All this suffering for the love of yellow metal. Boer or Brit, no matter, they cared about little else. She had to get away before the troops arrived. She had siphoned money and supplies from the household over the past two years, enough to get her to the border. But with a white child? Never. They would shoot her on the spot.
The Monster's Daughter Page 4
