Tessa leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath. She wasn’t sure what exactly had happened. She marched to Andrew’s room, a fist poised in the air, inches from the door, but it dropped to her side. She pressed her ear against the wood. No sound came from the room. She wouldn’t bother him now, she thought. Andrew needed his sleep, and even if she did manage to stop Flippie, he’d just leave again another day. She went to her room and shut the door.
Benjamin
“Bennie?” The shrill voice drifted from the bedroom as soon as he walked into the apartment. Benjamin quickly locked the door behind him. The kitchen was dark, no smell of food to indicate that there would be a meal tonight. Headache-powder wrappers lay strewn on the floor. Cigarette butts spilled over the sides of a saucer perched on the armrest of a worn couch. A melancholic Afrikaans ballad blared from the radio, too loud for the late hour. Benjamin turned it off, freezing the female voice mid-vowel.
“Bennie, where are you?”
The smell of camphor assaulted his senses as he opened the bedroom door. Twin beds with gray-white bedspreads stood against the wall, divided by a small nightstand covered in liniments and bottles of drops. Matrone Jansen’s bony, shriveled figure lay in the twin bed closest to the door, her hair hidden under a scarf, a sliver of her parchment neck visible above the top button of her faded yellow nightdress. Benjamin opened the curtains and reached for the window catch.
“Don’t.”
“A l-little f-fresh air?”
“You know my lungs don’t like cold, son. I’ll be up all night.”
Benjamin sat down on the empty bed, his hands folded together in his lap.
“You did not sleep in the room last night.” Matrone’s words were an accusation, demanding a defense.
“I had h-homew-work. It was l-late. I didn’t want to w-wake you.”
“The couch is not big enough. You have to sleep in here, with me.” She pushed herself into a sitting position with effort, pain distorting her face, and held out her hand, motioning him to come closer. “A good boy.” Matrone Jansen ran the back of her hand over his cheek. “Such a good boy.” Benjamin noticed a long cut running from her index finger across her palm, yellow pus drying on the edges. This had been happening a lot lately. More often than not, he’d come home and find that she had injured herself, a burn on her forearm, bruises from a fall in the tub.
“You h-hurt yourself?” He took her hand in his, trying to examine the cut.
She bristled. “Leave it.”
Benjamin’s stomach rumbled. “Is there s-something t-to eat, Matrone?” His cheeks flushed.
Matrone Jansen looked distraught, her eyes watery. “My hand made me forget to go to the pension office.” She pushed the cover aside and tried to get up. “I’ll go now.”
“No, M-Matrone.” Benjamin stopped her. “It’s n-night, see? They’re closed. If you w-write a letter again, I can—”
“No!” She slapped him suddenly, a ringing noise starting in his left ear. “Devil. I know what you did last time. Thought I wouldn’t notice two rand missing? I’ll call the police.”
“No, p-please. I t-told you, I used it to buy b-bread.” Benjamin held her at arm’s length, her hands clawing at his face. She had called the police before and accused him of stealing. They had taken him to the station. There was no court or jail for juveniles, only corporal punishment. And who would believe that he was a man if they saw his smooth cheeks and scrawny body? A constable he remembered, a brute who had barely graduated from high school the year before, whipped him with a sjambok until there were thick lines over his back and it hurt too much to go to school the next day.
“I won’t let you do that again,” Benjamin said, his voice wavering.
Matrone Jansen’s face flushed crimson. “Honor thy father and mother, for anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.”
“No, Matrone. I’m a g-good b-boy, remember?”
Matrone Jansen looked at him with unseeing eyes, something changing in her expression. She stopped suddenly as if remembering something and looked around the room, an embedded groove between her gray eyebrows. “Bennie? You’re home?”
“Ja, M-Matrone.”
“My hand hurts. Why must it hurt?”
“God t-tests us in m-many ways, Matrone. We have to s-stay s-strong. B-believe. The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Benjamin recited. He knew that the familiarity of the words would calm her down, make her feel safe, even if they had lost real meaning. Matrone Jansen sank back onto the bed, confusion on her face.
“S-shall I rub salve on your h-hand?” Benjamin took her hand in his, uttering soothing sounds when she winced. He gently covered the open wound with the camphor before wrapping it in a bandage. He covered her with the blanket, hoping that tonight would be an easy night as he watched her head loll to one side.
“Don’t go, Bennie.” She reached for him as he tried to steal away.
“I have to do h-homework, Matrone.”
“No. Sit a little while.” She looked like she would cry, her mood threatening to turn again.
Benjamin acquiesced, perching on the edge of her bed, taking her rough hands in his. As long as she needed him, as long as he could do something for her, he was wanted. Tessa’s image danced before him, inescapable since the moment she had touched him. Maybe she would need him too. He dared to utter the thing on his mind. “D-do you think there are other people l-like m-me, Matrone?”
Matrone’s eyes stared glassily past him. He wondered if she had understood the question, or if she was willfully ignoring him. Some days she was better than others. When she spoke again, her lucidity surprised him. “There was a boy long ago. They brought him after the war, but he was a monster. Full of demons. You could feel it when you got close to him.” She lowered her voice. “Evil.” The word escaped in a whimper. “They called him Apie, the nurses. He cried so much. He had no hands, no ears, face all wrong. Horrible, horrible. But his eyes …” Matrone became lost in the memory, her hands drifting to Benjamin’s face, caressing his cheek.
“What happened to him?”
“Don’t bother yourself with him, Bennie. He was from the other place. Not like you. He couldn’t stay here, see? He had to go back.” She looked around the room, confused, a smile forming on her cracked lips when she looked back at him. “My feet.” She said, meek as a schoolgirl. “They ache so much tonight.”
“Tell me about Apie, Matrone. Please.”
She shook her head. “My feet.”
Benjamin knew that was the end of it. His prodding would only make her obstinate. He opened the covers at the foot of the bed and gently removed her thick socks, revealing feet gnarled from arthritis and years of abuse.
“For the creation …” Matrone looked expectantly at him.
Benjamin nodded. “For the creation was subjected to futility …” Romans flowed from memory with ease, her favorite verse. He rubbed Matrone’s feet, warming up the muscles, softening the knots. Her body relaxed, her jaw slack against the pillow. He lowered his voice. “The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
Benjamin allowed his mind to wander to Tessa. Beautiful Tessa. The thought of her made him feel strange, intense effervescent joy prickling his scalp when he remembered her eyes mirroring his longing. Her touch that afternoon had inexplicably changed him. A tightness inside him had let go. He willed his thoughts to the moment of her lips on his cheek, the sense memory vivid as the rose soap smell on her skin and the feel of her small breasts against his chest. Matrone’s breathing morphed into a snore next to him, but he didn’t notice. He replayed the moment again, as if it was a record, Tessa’s arms around him, her lips on his cheek. As soon as the scene played itself out, Tessa turning away, he went all the way back to the beginning, to the moment of revelation, when she truly saw him.
Nobody had ever lo
oked at him that way. The children at school dismissed him, didn’t allow their thoughts to linger on him for more than a moment. Even the teachers kept their distance, sparing the rod unless there was no other way. When he was called to bend over, the punishment was disproportionate to the crime, a warning that he should keep his distance in the future, lest they were forced to deal with him again. Yes, he had suffered. He had wandered in the desert, alone and afraid always. But God rewards his faithful, Benjamin thought as he replayed the memory again. God rewards his chosen ones.
Tessa
The dress itched. Tessa kept stepping on the hem. She didn’t know how the Voortrekker women made it across the Drankensberg in these outfits. It would have been easier to do it naked. Even the kappie was like a tent on her head, threatening to blow away with the slightest breeze. She refastened the bow under her chin, tightening the knot until it was hard to move her jaw.
All along the newly named Eeufees Road, hundreds, maybe thousands of kappies and bearded men in felt hats lined up to see the procession. Their excitement sizzled like a dynamite fuse. They had flocked in from the farms and nearby towns, some following the wagons since they’d left Cape Town. A murmur went through the crowd, erupting in cheers as the first wagon appeared, a speck in the distance, accompanied on both sides by costumed men on horseback. A second wagon followed. All around them women wept, while men bellowed, lifting their sons onto their shoulders.
Tessa caught a glimpse of the wagon through the forest of bodies. Young men in the brown Voortrekker uniforms were at the yoke, drawing the wagons. She turned to Ben, who had donned his own Voortrekker uniform for the occasion. “Why aren’t there oxen?”
“To s-show Mr. P-prophet he can s-stuff it.” Ben raised his chin proudly.
Tessa thought of the unassuming mayor of Bloemfontein. “Why?”
“He’s n-not an Afrikaner.” Ben said it as if it explained everything. He craned his neck. “He didn’t w-want to s-support the celebrations. D-didn’t w-want to change the s-street names or n-nothing.”
“What’s that got to do with drawing a wagon?”
“The t-trekkers get n-new oxen at every t-town. Now the Voortrekker boys are pulling the wagon to show the m-mayor we d-don’t need him.”
“Why aren’t you there, then?”
“They d-d-didn’t choose me.” Benjamin looked away, his thin arms crossed. Tessa looked over at the young men pulling the wagon, all thick-necked masses of muscle. She felt sorry for asking.
An old woman stepped out from the sidelines, hunched over a cane, and lay her hand on one of the wagons as it drew near, tears streaming over her cheeks, her body shaking. Another woman stepped forward to do the same. Soon, bodies crammed close to touch the wagons, guiding them forward. Tessa stumbled as the crowd heaved around her, a confusion of long skirts and suspenders. Her breath came in short panicked puffs as she realized that they were trampling her, knees and elbows dealing blows to her body. A hand closed around her wrist. Ben pulled her up in one motion, setting her back on her feet.
“I don’t like this.” Tessa tried to move to the edge of the stampede, but Ben held on to her.
Ben fixed his gaze on the wagons. “It is an imp-portant m-moment in history of the v-volk. Don’t you see? We can t-tell our children and their children.”
The wagons rolled through the center of town, past the big two-steeple church. More people joined the procession. The Women’s War Memorial, a thirty-five-meter obelisk with a semicircle wing on each side, rose up to meet them. At its base, a large bronze statue of two women stood on display, one sitting with a dead child in her lap, the other staring off into the distance, her face partially covered by a kappie. The models could have been any of the women in the procession. Tessa felt relieved as the stampede around them eased, people scrambling to find a good vantage point. She looked down, reading the engraved rose-colored stone at her feet.
WINBURG
Persons 15 years and younger 355
Persons older than 15 132
Total 487
“How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, violence! But you do not save.” (Hab 1:2)
Long rows of similar stones lined both sides of the walkway. Each bore the name of a town where a concentration camp was located, with the total deaths, most of them women and children, a whole generation decimated. Could this be what had happened to the frail woman with the blond hair that once held her? The memory was sheer, clinging on through the abyss of time. Overwhelming sadness suddenly took hold of Tessa.
The crowd suddenly hushed, a church-like reverence descending over them as the trekkers lighted the relay torches. Some of the women scorched the edges of their handkerchiefs in the flames and tucked them away next to their breasts as mementoes.
A platform had been erected next to the monument for the choir, which was comprised of singers from all the schools of the district. Their footsteps were the only sound as they arranged themselves. Mrs. Uys gave the note. The power of hundreds of voices united in singing “My Sarie Marais.” It sent an involuntary shiver through Tessa. She found herself drawn into the drama around her. Her mind reeled with an unfamiliar sense of belonging, pride and indignation at what had been done to people she never knew. She didn’t know what to make of this thing that felt and moved together, faces blurring among the sameness of kappies and beards. Ben seemed to disappear, his eyes burning with a fervid passion, mirroring the expression of everyone around them. It scared Tessa.
As the sun set, the mood seemed to calm down. A traditional Boer orchestra with concertinas and accordions accompanied school groups and adults going through their dance steps on the grass. Tessa and Benjamin joined in under Mrs. Uys’s glare, mechanically going through the steps they had rehearsed, Benjamin’s face twisted in painful concentration, his awkwardness excruciating. Tessa felt his discomfort deep in her own core, the connection between them palpable. As the last notes died down, they assembled at the base of the monument, where the trekkers conversed with town officials, frowns marring almost every brow.
The trek leader, a short man with an unkempt beard, held a Bible in front of his chest. “Broeders en Susters.” He bellowed. “Brothers and Sisters. Bloemfontein is a proud Afrikaner city, a place where our forefathers deemed it fit to raise their children as faithful Christians. Your hearts are warm, but the Orange Free State has been a cold place for us. Why should an Afrikaner like myself feel like a stranger in his own city?” A murmur rippled through the people. “Therefore, before we have our reading and prayer for the evening, I would like to request that Mr. Prophet leave the proceedings.” A violent cheer burst from the subdued crowd, all eyes focused on a blushing man in a dark suit. He looked around nervously, his hands clutched in front of him. Tessa felt sorry for the mayor as two trekkers escorted him off the stage.
The trek leader held up his hands again once the mayor was out of sight. “We are welcomed in slums, but men like Mr. Prophet deny us here, in a place we rightly belong!” The murmurs turned to jeers. Eyes rested upon those present who were known to be English—businessmen, politicians, neighbors. The trek leader nodded his head, the corners of his mouth drooping in disgust. Behind him, town officials in suits and slicked-back hair stood expressionless.
“While the Afrikaner works with a pick and shovel, the Stranger occupies the offices of this land. There are monuments to men who gave their lives to foreign countries, but where are monuments of our Afrikaner heroes?” He pointed to the heavens with his right index finger. “We will erect those monuments in the cities they belong. Cities like this. Today I plead with you to stand together, my Brothers, my Sisters. The time is here for the Afrikaner to demand an Afrikaans government, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. To inspire us, bind us together in unity and power as God destined it. Join me, for we will no longer be strangers in this land, a land paid for by the blood of our ancestors.” He took his hat off, his tenor almost inaudible above the crowd’s
cheers as he began to sing. “Uit die blou van onse Hemel …”
One by one voices joined, singing the song by the poet, Langenhoven, “Die Stem van Suid-Afrika.” The Voice of South Africa.
There was an eerie silence as the last note died down. Tessa touched Ben’s arm. He jumped, relaxing as their eyes met.
“I’m hungry, Ben.”
He looked away. “I d-don’t have any food.” There was an apology in his voice.
“I have some money,” Tessa smiled. “You like fat cakes and mince?”
Tessa bought them food from the stall at the back of the monument, where women worked feverishly to feed the crowd. They sat on the ground, watching the bonfire as they ate. Sugar syrup seeped from the dough of Ben’s koeksister, running down the side of his mouth, pure joy on his face as he licked his fingers. It made Tessa happy to think that she was the cause. With Ben there were no lies, no hiding. She had tried to tell Andrew about him, but a chasm had opened up between them after Flippie left. Andrew came home later than usual now, and barely talked to her, his mood desultory. He didn’t even say anything when she appeared in the kitchen that morning wearing her costume. Though it was ugly, the accomplishment of making it herself had given her a sense of pride, but Andrew barely looked up before going back to his paper. Tessa knew at that moment that he blamed her for everything.
Tessa reached to wipe syrup off Ben’s cheek, his whole face sticky. “I’m glad I found you.”
Ben smiled, hesitantly placing his hand over hers. “Me too.”
“We found each other.” She thought of what Sarah had told her. “There must be others like us.”
Ben frowned. “God will reveal them, if that is His plan.”
Tessa shifted. “You believe that?”
“Don’t you?”
Tessa shrugged. She had always read the Bible the way she read Homer or the Brothers Grimm. “The Greeks and Romans had gods, and even Arabs have their own Bible. How do you know which one is real?”
The Monster's Daughter Page 14
