The Complete Voorkamer Stories

by Herman Charles Bosman

  “Take the time the Stellaland Republic issued its own banknotes, now,” Oupa Bekker said. “Well, of course, the Stellaland Republic didn’t last very long. And it might have been different if it had gone on a while. But I am just talking about how it was when we first got our own Stellaland Republic banknotes, and of about how pleased we all were about it.

  “For the trouble in that part of the country was that there were never enough gold coins to go round, properly. Even before the Stellaland Republic was set up, there was that trouble. You could notice it easily, too. Just by the patches a lot of the men citizens had on the back parts of their trousers, you could notice it.

  “And so, when the Stellaland Republic started printing its own banknotes, it looked as though everything would come right, then. But the affairs of the nation did not altogether follow out the course we expected. One thing was landladies of Boardinghouses, I remember. What they wanted at the end of the month, they said, was, I remember very clearly, money. I don’t think I have ever in my life, either before or since, heard quite that same kind of sniff. I mean, the kind of sniff a Stellaland Republic landlady would give at the end of the month if she saw you feeling in an envelope for banknotes.

  “Then there was the Indian storekeeper.

  “I was with my friend, Giel Haasbroek, in the Indian store, and I’ll never forget the look that came over the Indian’s face when Giel Haasbroek produced a handful of Stellaland Republic banknotes to pay him with. Amongst other things, what the Indian said was that he had a living to make, just like all of us.

  “‘But these notes are perfectly good,’ Giel Haasbroek said to the Indian. ‘Look, there’s the picture of the Stellaland Republic eagle across the top, here. And here, underneath, you can read for yourself the printed signatures of the President and the Minister of Finance – signed with their own hands, too.’

  “I’ll never forget how the Indian storekeeper winced, then, either. And the Indian said he had nothing against the eagle. He was willing to admit that it was the best kind of eagle that there was. He wouldn’t argue about that. From where he came from they didn’t have eagles. And if you were to show him a whole lot of eagles in a row, he didn’t think he would be able to tell the one from the other, hardly, the Indian said. We must not misunderstand him on that point, the Indian took pains to make clear to us. He had no intention of hurting our feelings in any way. He would not take exception to the eagle in any shape or form.

  “But when it came to the signatures of the President and the Minister of Finance, then it was quite a different matter, the Indian said. For he had both their signatures in black and white for old debts that he knew he would never be able to collect, the Indian said. And of the two, the President was worse than the Minister of Finance, even. The President had got so, the Indian said, that for months, now, on his way to work in the morning, he would walk three blocks out of his way, round the other side of the plein, just so that he didn’t have to pass the Indian’s store.”

  Oupa Bekker interrupted his story to get a match from the school-teacher. That gave us a chance to ponder over what he had said. For they had fallen strangely on our ears, some of his words. There appeared to have been a certain starkness about the texture of life in the old days that our present-day imaginings could not too readily embrace.

  “But they never caught on, really, those Stellaland Republic banknotes,” Oupa Bekker continued. “Afterwards the Government withdrew the old banknotes and brought out a new issue. But even that didn’t help very much, I don’t think. Although I must say that the new series of banknotes looked much nicer. The new banknotes were bigger, for one thing. And they were printed in more colours than the old ones were. And they had a new kind of eagle on the top. The eagle seemed more imposing, somehow. And he also had a threatening kind of look, that you couldn’t miss. It was like the Stellaland Republic threatening you, if you got tendered one of those notes for board and lodging, and you were hesitating about taking it.

  “But, all the same, those banknotes never really seemed to circulate, very much. Maybe that Indian storekeeper was right in what he said. Perhaps after all it wasn’t the eagle, so much, that they should have changed, as those two signatures on the lower portion of the banknote. Perhaps they should have been signed so that you couldn’t read them.

  “And, as I have said, the queer thing is that there was nothing wrong with those Stellaland Republic banknotes. They weren’t counterfeit notes in any way, I mean. They were absolutely legal. The eagle and the printing were both all right – they were the smartest-looking eagle and the smartest printing that you could get in those days. And yet – there you were.”

  We agreed with Oupa Bekker that the problem of money was pretty mixed up, and always had been. Shortly afterwards the Government lorry arrived from Bekkersdal. The lorry-driver’s assistant went up to the counter.

  “Change this fiver for me, please, Jurie,” he said.

  This was Jurie Steyn’s turn to be funny. He took full advantage of it. He turned the note over several times.

  “The printing looks all right,” Jurie Steyn said. “And for all I know, the spelling is also all right. And the lion hasn’t got a pipe in his mouth. What kind of a fool do you think I am – handing me a note like this …? About the only thing it hasn’t got on it is an eagle.”

  Since he didn’t know what our talk had been about, the lorry-driver’s assistant looked only mystified.

  Forbidden Country

  But surely the shortest way,” At Naudé said, with reference to yet another expedition from overseas that was setting out for the Kalahari, “would be for them to go through Ramoutsa and then through the Tsifulu –”

  “Not so fast,” Gysbert van Tonder interrupted him. “The expedition from abroad can’t go through that part of the Tsifulu just as fast as you’re saying it now, At.”

  “Not through the Tsifulu,” Chris Welman concurred.

  “The Tsifulu is forbidden country,” Gysbert van Tonder explained.

  “Forbidden country,” Chris Welman echoed.

  “It’s forbidden to go through there,” Gysbert van Tonder repeated, in case he wasn’t properly understood the first time.

  “Forbidden,” came from Chris Welman with the sombre inevitability of a one-man Greek chorus.

  Oh, that, At Naudé said. That sort of thing just made him tired. We all knew the Tsifulu was called the Forbidden Country, At Naudé said. But it was just a name given to that part. It didn’t mean anything. It was just like Gysbert van Tonder’s farm being called Paradise Kloof.

  He could picture the surprise of a visitor to Gysbert van Tonder’s farm, At Naudé continued, that visitor going by just the name of the farm, and then that visitor suddenly seeing who it was sitting on the front stoep drinking coffee. Seeing Gysbert van Tonder sitting there, the visitor would think that he had come to the exact opposite place of paradise, At Naudé said.

  But Jurie Steyn said that he was in agreement with Gysbert van Tonder and Chris Welman. As long as he had been in the Marico he had known that that section of the Tsifulu was the Forbidden Country. And that was enough for him, Jurie Steyn said. If it was, as At Naudé claimed, just a name, then why did it have that name?

  “If the place is all right,” Jurie Steyn added, “why don’t they call it by a name like ‘Potluck Corner’, or something meaning ‘Home from Home’, say? Maybe that part of the Tsifulu isn’t really forbidden, but I’ve never been around to look. The name is enough for me. I can take a hint as well as the next man, I suppose.”

  Young Vermaak, the schoolmaster, said then that he had also heard that there was that part, there, known as the Forbidden Country. He had never given it much thought, he said, but now that mention was being made of it, well, it did seem interesting to him as to how it should have got its name in the first place. Since Oupa Bekker was the oldest inhabitant of the Groot Marico, did Oupa Bekker know, perhaps?

  But Oupa Bekker said, no, during all his years in those parts h
e had just always known of that section of the Tsifulu as being the Forbidden Country. How it got the name, he would not presume to guess, Oupa Bekker said.

  “One thing, though,” he added. “In the old days, when you spoke of the Forbidden Country, you would say: it with more of a respect for it in your voice, sort of. You would also, as likely as not, take your hat off, then, without thinking, even.”

  That made it sound yet more interesting, young Vermaak said. “But that expedition from overseas, now,” he asked. “How will they be able to tell, when they come to the Tsifulu, what part of it is forbidden? Why can’t they go just straight through it? I don’t suppose they’ve got notice-boards up there to say: ‘Forbidden Country – No Visitors’ or ‘This Area Taboo – Keep Out.’ Not that it would help much, I should think, putting up notice-boards like that.

  “Because, seeing what human nature is, even if the expedition had no intention of going through there, just to be told they weren’t allowed in would awaken their curiosity. You can’t beat just a plain word like ‘Unholy’ for getting you really interested. I mean, it sounds much more inviting than ‘Pull in Here for a Nice Cup of Tea’.”

  The schoolmaster was partly right, Gysbert van Tonder said. It was indeed a truth that there were no notice-boards up. Furthermore, it was all mostly nothing more than thorn-trees and sand in that part, so that, just to look at, you would hardly even know which was the Forbidden Country area and which wasn’t.

  “But all the same you don’t need notice-boards,” Gysbert van Tonder said.

  “Don’t need them,” came from Chris Welman by way of endorsement.

  “When you’re there you just know it,” Gysbert van Tonder added. “You can feel it in your bones.”

  “Bones,” Chris Welman echoed, his voice sepulchral. It made you think of the mortal remains of some unhappy traveller lying bleaching in the sun.

  “But where Meneer Vermaak is wrong,” Gysbert van Tonder said, “is in thinking that when you are there you would want to go in further, after some passing Bushman or Bechuana has told you that it’s the Forbidden Country. Because that’s sure to happen. At some time or other a Bushman or Bechuana is sure to come up to you to ask for tobacco. And then you are also certain to ask him which is the best way of getting to where you want to go. Because it doesn’t matter if you’re going by a map, and you’ve got a very good map. Or if the way got explained to you so clearly at the Indian store in Ramoutsa that you just can’t miss it.

  “For, by the time the Bushman comes up to you to ask for tobacco, you are sure to have already passed a whole line of koppies that it says nothing about on the map. You will already have come across three dry river-beds and a deep donga and a petrified forest that not a word was spoken of in the instructions you got in the Indian store at Ramoutsa. I mean, it’s always like that with a road you can’t miss. After the first half-hour you know you should have had more sense than to have listened to the Indian. It is also not nice for you to know that you will one day be held accountable for all the things you have thought of the man who made the map.

  “So you’re glad when you come across that Bushman. Or, if it’s a Bechuana, you’re just as glad.”

  Chris Welman interposed to say that the only time you were not glad was when it was a Mshangaan mine-boy, and he was riding a bicycle on his way home from the mines, and he came and asked you where he was.

  What you at least felt about that Bushman, Gysbert van Tonder continued, was that he was not the dishonest kind of person who would deliberately mislead a stranger. You couldn’t think of him as working behind a store counter, for one thing. Nor could you think of that Bushman as sitting down with a ruler and a pen and ink and drawing a map that would get printed to confuse the unsuspecting traveller, Gysbert van Tonder said.

  “And after you’ve told that Bushman where you want to go, he’ll point to the right or the left,” Gysbert van Tonder continued. “You must turn off for half a day’s journey, he’ll say, before you again go on. It’s also not impossible that the Bushman will point straight back, along the way you’ve come, and he’ll make it clear to you that it doesn’t matter very much whether, after that, you remember if it’s the right or the left, you’ve got to turn to – just as long as you don’t waste any time about getting straight out of where you’re in.

  “You’ll have guessed, by that time, that where you are in is in the Forbidden Country.

  “The Bushman will also most likely advise you not to waste time in cutting off some roll-tobacco to hand him. Just drop the whole roll where you are, right in the sand, he’ll say, and he’ll pick it up himself afterwards. He doesn’t mind how much sand there is on the roll of tobacco, the Bushman will tell you, just as long as you get out of the Forbidden Country in time.”

  But he still didn’t see why, the schoolmaster said, you had to turn back, simply on account of an ignorant Bechuana or a Bushman. No sensible person would be influenced by that sort of thing, young Vermaak said.

  It wasn’t the same thing, Gysbert van Tonder explained, as sitting in Jurie Steyn’s post office, drinking coffee.

  “It’s quite different, when you’re out there,” Gysbert van Tonder said. “When you’re in the Tsifulu. With nothing but the sun and the sand and the thorn-trees. You feel quite different about things there. And if somebody tells you, then, that that area is forbidden country, you just take one look at it, and you know that it is so. I mean, it’s no good saying it here, where we’re sitting, now. You’ve got to be there, actually in the Tsifulu, to understand it. It’s – well, it’s Africa, there, see?”

  “Afri –” Chris Welman started to chime in, and then checked himself because it sounded foolish.

  “But will anything happen to a person that goes into that part of the Tsifulu that’s forbidden?” the schoolmaster asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Gysbert van Tonder said. “Nothing more than would happen to him anywhere else, I suppose.”

  “Well, would he come back alive, for instance?” young Vermaak enquired further.

  Gysbert van Tonder looked surprised.

  “Alive? I don’t see why not,” he said. “I mean, there’s nobody going to murder him there, is there? What’s there about it that he shouldn’t come back alive?”

  It was the schoolmaster’s turn to look puzzled.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “If there’s nothing going to happen to you for going into that part of the Tsifulu – just nothing at all – then what’s going to stop you from going there?”

  “Because it’s Forbidden Country,” Gysbert van Tonder said.

  “Forbidden,” Chris Welman said.

  Thereupon the schoolmaster asked Gysbert van Tonder and Chris Welman if they would go into the Forbidden Country, the two of them going in together, if they were in that part of the Tsifulu – seeing that nothing would happen to them for it.

  “The Lord forefend,” Gysbert van Tonder said, his voice sounding hollow.

  “God forbid,” Chris Welman said.

  That kind of talk seeming to be getting nobody anywhere, Oupa Bekker made mention of an excursion he had once made into the Forbidden Country in the very old days.

  “I was young, then, of course,” Oupa Bekker said, by way of apology. “And another thing was that in those days there was a Swiss mission station in the Forbidden Country. So I thought perhaps it would not be too bad to go in there, after all. I had a whole lot of glass beads on my wagon to trade with the natives for cattle. I don’t know how that story got around that natives, who are cattlemen themselves, would be so foolish as to trade off a cow or an ox for glass beads. In any case, I never found any that would. And after a chief offered me some brass wire for two of my lead oxen I knew it was no use trying anymore, either.

  “I camped out for a quite a while near the Swiss mission station. And in the evenings I would go over and talk to the missionary. He was glad to see me because, since it was the Forbidden Country, there was no white person, with the excepti
on of his wife and daughter, that he had to talk to from one year’s end to the other.

  “The missionary’s daughter had quite a simple name – Ettie. And she had laughing eyes and dark hair. And she used to bring us in coffee while her father and I sat talking. One night when she came in she smiled at something I said. The next night when she gave me my coffee her hand brushed against mine. The night after that she was at the front gate, in the starlight. And that was the last time that I saw Ettie.

  “It was on account of the missionary coming upon us unexpectedly, from behind, just as I was reaching sideways over the gate to kiss Ettie, that I didn’t see her again, of course. Because he was a Swiss missionary, I don’t think it meant very much to him about it’s being starlight. And the next thing I learnt was that Ettie had been sent back to Switzerland for more education.

  “I don’t need to tell you that I felt very bad about it – and for a long time, too. Naturally, I knew that it was the Forbidden Country, there, right enough. But still I couldn’t help feeling that it needn’t have been quite as forbidden as all that.”

  At Ease on the Dung Heap

  It wasn’t that he didn’t agree that the Government soil experts were doing useful work, Chris Welman said to At Naudé, after At Naudé had told us of a new way of planting sweet-potatoes that had been announced over the wireless in the half-hour farming talk that was called “At Ease on the Dung Heap”. But a lot of the advice they gave you wasn’t practical, Chris Welman maintained.

  “That’s right,” Jurie Steyn said. “And it’s on that point that I don’t hold with the agricultural experts, either. I have found out, myself, that in nearly every case of new advice they give you, it means you’ve got to do more work. They’re not practical, at all.”

  It was for that very reason, Jurie Steyn said, that he had long since come to disregard the so-called skilled counsel of the agricultural authorities. There was so little, in the suggestions they made, that could be usefully applied. He had also, at one time, set some store by the pamphlets issued by the department, and he had found that you could count them on the fingers of one hand, Jurie Steyn said, the practical kind of expert who would just tell you to stick the thing in the ground and leave it.