Whitethorn

by Bryce Courtenay

  When Doctor Van Heerden came in at last, a black maid brought us coffee and cake and she was told to give Tinker some of the stew left over from the doctor’s lunch. I was surprised to know that high-up people also ate stew, which was all watery gravy and old vegetables and some potato in it. That was two meals Tinker would have in one day and I had to explain that I had to go outside to give her the eating password as, judging from the marks on her face, the maid was from the Venda tribe and wouldn’t understand Zulu.

  I was wrong about the stew. You should have seen Tinker’s dish! In it were lots of big whole pieces of meat swimming in thick, brown gravy. She must have thought it was Christmas. I’d only had breakfast and it was now late afternoon and the piece of cake was nice, but I was really hungry because I hadn’t had the mixed grill like Gawie. Nobody was looking, so I took two big pieces of meat out of Tinker’s dish and quickly ate them. It was all right to do this because there was too much in it for one small dog. The meat was delicious and I changed my mind about high-up people eating stew because it was a whole different lekker thing.

  So now finally we were all together in Doctor Van Heerden’s parlour. Sergeant Van Niekerk cleared his throat and said, ‘Now boys, I want to hear the whole story from the beginning of the fire you were supposed to have started.’

  If I had been a grown-up this would have been an ideal time to escape to Mozambique, which was owned by the Portuguese. I would have to cross the Kruger National Park and take a chance on being eaten by a lion but it would be better than Pretoria. But I wasn’t a grown-up and besides, I couldn’t leave my best and only friend behind to face the music.

  Gawie and me looked at each other because we couldn’t both start talking at once. ‘Voetsek saw it first, Meneer,’ Gawie ventured.

  ‘Voetsek?’

  I knew that Sergeant Van Niekerk knew it was my nickname, but he wanted Gawie to call me by my proper name. But Gawie only looked confused. Maybe he didn’t understand or he’d forgotten I was named Tom.

  ‘It’s my nickname, Meneer,’ I explained. Doctor Van Heerden shook his head slowly and went ‘Tsk’.

  ‘What we doing here is taking down evidence,’ Sergeant Van Niekerk explained. ‘I must have proper names.’ He looked at Gawie. ‘Your name is Gawie Grobler.’ He pointed over to me. ‘His name is Tom Fitzsaxby.’

  ‘Ja, Meneer,’ we both said together, not looking at him.

  ‘So Tom, if you saw the fire first, are you telling me you didn’t start it?’

  So I told him about us watering the vegetable garden and me seeing the smoke coming from the library rock. Then I told him about Miss Phillips and my books and how it was now too late and all the books were already burning and how I managed to rescue the red book that was only burned on one corner and then the fire got out of control. I didn’t tell him the bit where Gawie kicked at some burning books and the pages rose up and flew away, and the thornbush and grass around caught on fire.

  ‘As a consequence he received a nasty burn to his hand,’ Doctor Van Heerden said.

  ‘And this book that’s only burned on the corner, do you have it?’

  ‘It’s drying in the kitchen at the café,’ Marie answered for me.

  ‘Good,’ Sergeant Van Niekerk said. ‘If we can discover who started it and why, then I may need you both as witnesses as well as the book.’

  ‘Why it was started is simple enough,’ Dr Van Heerden said, turning to Sergeant Van Niekerk. ‘Were you at church last Sunday?’

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ Sergeant Van Niekerk answered. ‘Saturday night the natives play up in the Location, there’s plenty of kaffir beer around and I always have to be at the police station on Sunday mornings to write out the charges.’

  ‘And I am at the hospital to mend the broken heads,’ the doctor grinned. ‘The sermon was about burning books and the evil contained in English books.’ He explained what I had said to him about the Dominee’s sermon.

  ‘I’m a good Afrikaner myself, but sometimes I don’t know what’s wrong with that guy. Too much hate.’ Sergeant Van Niekerk shook his head slowly. ‘He calls himself a man of God and it’s just hate, hate, hate.’

  I thought maybe I should tell them that the reason for the Dominee’s hate was all about a red-headed Englishman who brought the barbel with ten-inch whiskers and then slept under his ouma’s goosefeather quilt that came out of her glory box, whatever that was, but then I decided not to because I’d already said too much.

  ‘I suppose I must take you both back to The Boys Farm, hey?’ Sergeant Van Niekerk turned to Marie, ‘And I’ll drop you off at the café, Marie.’ He saw the look of consternation on our faces. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything to Meneer Prinsloo. You won’t be punished.’

  I know what Gawie was thinking, because it would be the same thing as me. Even Sergeant Van Niekerk didn’t know how things worked at The Boys Farm. But then Doctor Van Heerden said, ‘I’ll reinforce what you say, Sergeant, and give Prinsloo a ring. I want to call anyway to tell Mevrou Van Schalkwyk that we’ll attend to the dressings on Tom’s hand in town.’

  Marie sat in the front of the police van and Gawie and me at the back with Tinker, like we were prisoners which we would soon be anyway. It was quite dark in there and Tinker must have smelled the big Alsatians because she kept sniffing and whimpering. At the Impala Café we got my red book back, which was not yet dry but much better already and only some of the pages crinkly. There was this big burned scallop out of the top left-hand corner of the leather cover but only the top of the pages were burned and only a few of the words on each page were gone forever. It could have been much worse. Mevrou Booysens gave us both a sucker and then we sat in the front of the police van with Tinker on my lap. She’d had so much to eat in one day her stomach was tight as a rugby ball, especially from that delicious high-up stew.

  At The Boys Farm Sergeant Van Niekerk said we must come to see Meneer Prinsloo, who was already waiting. But, at first, it turned out not as bad as we expected. Meneer Prisloo greeted Sergeant Van Niekerk and ignored us, which was a good sign, but things changed when the police sergeant said he wanted to go down to the library rock and take Meneer Prinsloo and the two of us with him. I don’t think Meneer Prinsloo was too happy because he would have to walk through all the blackened bush and grass, but he reluctantly agreed. Sergeant Van Niekerk asked me to take them to the spot where the fire started. He’d not mentioned any books to Meneer Prinsloo.

  When we got to the library rock Meneer Prinsloo was pretty grumpy because his always-shiny brown boots were now black from walking through the burned grass. We showed Sergeant Van Niekerk the exact spot, and you could see bits of book and charred pages all over the place.

  ‘Tom, I want you to make a list of every book that was burned here. I will need it for my evidence,’ Sergeant Van Niekerk said, looking at Meneer Prinsloo.

  ‘What evidence?’ Meneer Prinsloo asked. All of a sudden his stomach started to stick out and his arms came up into the windmill position.

  ‘I have reason to believe that someone on The Boys Farm has deliberately destroyed some very valuable property belonging to Tom Fitzsaxby. Whoever it was must be arrested and prosecuted, Meneer Prinsloo.’

  Well, you should have seen the windmill and the braces stretch begin! It was an almost all-time best performance.

  ‘I will not have police officers snooping around private property, you hear?’ Meneer Prinsloo blustered. ‘I must ask you to leave at once, Sergeant!’

  Sergeant Van Niekerk didn’t appear to be even a bit frightened, although Gawie and me sure were. When Meneer Prinsloo got like this it was like the German tanks going into Poland, the whole place could explode! It was all very well for Sergeant Van Niekerk, he didn’t have to live at The Boys Farm afterwards.

  ‘I must remind you, Meneer Prisloo, that this is government and not private property and I, like you, am a government servant. I am only doing my duty, Meneer Prinsloo,’ Sergeant Van Niekerk said calmly. ‘Please do no
t destroy this crime site as I shall be returning tomorrow for further investigation and will bring a search warrant with me.’

  ‘Verdom!’ Meneer Prinsloo shouted. ‘You will be reported to the highest authorities in Pretoria, you hear! You come sniffing around and accusing someone of crime! I’ll tell you what is a crime! These two boys who lit that fire in the first place, that is a crime! We have witnesses, you hear!’ Meneer Prinsloo was so red in the face that he could easily have matched the Dominee’s ears.

  ‘I have no problems with these two boys, they are now only witnesses,’ Sergeant Van Niekerk said calmly.

  ‘No problems!’ Meneer Prinsloo exclaimed. ‘What are you talking about, man? It is for me to decide who has problems! I am the one who must be the father! That is my government duty!’ His right hand pointed directly at me. ‘This boy, Tom Fitzsaxby, he is nothing but trouble and is an Engelsman!’ He pointed to Gawie. ‘This one, I am ashamed to say, is an Afrikaner, but he is lacking in his character. We are not pleased with him, he is reading English books!’

  ‘The books you just burned?’ Sergeant Van Niekerk asked.

  ‘Not me!’ Meneer Prinsloo replied hastily, bringing his hands up in front of his chest. ‘But we Afrikaner people, the volk, must keep the faith. Even you, Sergeant!’ Meneer Prinsloo said. ‘First you are an Afrikaner, then you are a policeman!’

  ‘No, Meneer, first I am a policeman, then an Afrikaner!’ It was the first time I had ever heard Sergeant Van Niekerk raise his voice.

  ‘You ought to be ashamed!’ Meneer Prinsloo shouted. ‘I will report you to the Broederbond! A police sergeant is not such a big thing nowadays!’ He snidely added, ‘An ignorant person can be a policeman these days.’

  It had all of a sudden become a personal thing between the two men, who seemed also to have forgotten our presence. ‘In my family, only my brother could be educated, you understand? There was no money for a younger brother to go to the teachers’ college. Now he is the headmaster of the school and I am the policeman. But, wragtig! I am still my father’s son and we are proud Afrikaners, but we are not bigots!’

  ‘Who you calling a bigot? We will soon see about that!’ Meneer Prinsloo shouted, and then he turned and started to walk away.

  Sergeant Van Niekerk had regained his calm. ‘Ja, sure, in the meantime I will be back tomorrow with a search warrant.’ He called after the superintendent, ‘I should remind you that arson is a serious crime!’

  Gawie and me were standing looking down at our feet and I wished all of a sudden I could be invisible or even disappear. The row between the two grown-ups had put us even deeper into the shit and Gawie had been told he wasn’t a good Afrikaner any more because he’d read my books.

  ‘I want to know if Meneer Prinsloo gives you a thrashing, you hear? I will be back tomorrow to get to the bottom of this nasty business. You can be sure we will find out who did it,’ Sergeant Van Niekerk said before departing.

  Ha! That will be the day! First of all, we would never tell him if we got the sjambok, because that would just get us another thrashing worse than before and you had to survive in that place. Second, the whole of The Boys Farm could have seen who burned my books and they wouldn’t tell. Even Joseph Goebbels, who was Hitler’s expert on burning books, would not be able to get a confession out of them. At The Boys Farm, except for Pissy Vermaak who was now in Pietersburg, nobody talked to grown-ups in that place. It was like some oath you took, only you never said it in words, you just knew it was so. Outside was different. Although Sergeant Van Niekerk wouldn’t know this and we couldn’t go and tell him.

  That night after supper I had my name called to see Mevrou. Only me and not Gawie.

  ‘So, this afternoon I got a call from Doctor Van Heerden,’ she said, closing the door to the sick room after I’d entered.

  ‘Ja, Mevrou.’ I stood with my hands behind my back, looking down at my feet, which were still very dirty with the black from the fire between my toes because I didn’t have enough time to wash them properly before supper.

  ‘So, I am a registered nurse who worked in the theatre in the hospital also and now I am not good enough to change your bandage, Voetsek!’

  ‘Nee, you are a very good nurse, the doctor said so,’ I lied, looking up at her for the first time.

  ‘You lying, Voetsek! That Doctor Van Heerden never liked me, because I saw once he left a pair of tweezers in a kaffir’s stomach and I wrote it in my shift report.’

  ‘What happened to the kaffir?’ I asked, curious despite myself.

  ‘Ag, he died. But not because of the tweezers. The stabbing he got did it and we couldn’t stop the bleeding. But I still did my duty, you hear? Maybe it was only a kaffir, but medical neglect is medical neglect and a person, if she is a theatre nurse, has to make a proper report.’

  I didn’t know what to say to this but then she asked, ‘Let me see your hand?’

  I held out my bandaged hand and she examined the bandage carefully. ‘Tsk! This bandage is no good. See where is the safety pin.’ She pointed to the large safety pin that was in the end of the bandage in the centre of my palm. ‘It will catch on things,’ she explained. ‘This is another example of medical incompetence.’ She unclipped the safety pin and began to unwind the bandage. What could I do? I couldn’t exactly say that Doctor Van Heerden had said she mustn’t. She lifted the gauze dressing that smelled vaguely of sulphur.

  ‘Ag, it is not so bad,’ she sniffed. ‘If I had my way we would put on some honey. That doctor thinks he knows everything! Sometimes volk medicine is better. We Boere have used honey for burns since the Great Trek and even before that. But what would we know, eh?’

  ‘If it was honey a person could lick it off,’ I said, attempting to smile.

  ‘You trying to be funny, Voetsek? To laugh at our old ways?’

  ‘Nee, Mevrou!’ I said quickly, sorry I’d opened my big mouth for such a feeble joke.

  Mevrou sighed and replaced the gauze and did up the bandage, this time the safety pin was positioned so that my wrist protected it from being caught on anything. I must say it was very clever.

  ‘Now take down your pants and touch your toes,’ she said suddenly.

  ‘What for, Mevrou?’ I cried. ‘I didn’t start the fire and I lost all my books also!’

  ‘You lucky, man. Meneer Prinsloo should do it, but he says I must. You know you can’t go into town without permission, you were out of bounds.’

  ‘What about Gawie Grobler? He came with?’ I protested, pushing my khaki shorts down to my ankles and bending to touch my toes. I know I shouldn’t have said this, Gawie getting off was all right, but it was just so unfair picking on me.

  ‘You the leader, he only followed you,’ Mevrou explained.

  ‘But he is two years older than me!’ I protested, turning to look up at her.

  ‘Ag, it doesn’t matter about his age. He is not a strong person and is easily led. An Afrikaner boy who reads that English rubbish with evil in it is not a leader of men.’

  For a moment I wondered if it had been Mevrou who had burned my books. She’d been in church last Sunday and heard what the Dominee had said about books in English. But I had to admit to myself that I’d never seen her walking anywhere near the library rock. She was too fat to walk such a long way and would never go through thornbushes and stuff. When she walked she planted one leg down – ‘Boom!’ – then the other – ‘Boom!’ – shifting her weight from one side to the other. Her fat shoulders also rolled with each step. You could see her coming for miles with her great stomach sticking out and her chin in the air.

  Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! I waited for the next two whacks, but they didn’t come. Out of bounds is six of the best and they always came from Meneer Prinsloo’s long cane that I was now old enough to get if the crime was bad enough. Sometimes you can get lucky in life.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A Women’s Selfless Love

  OF COURSE, SERGEANT VAN Niekerk’s enquiries came to nothing. Over four we
ekends he conducted interviews with every boy in the place. I could have told him all along it was a useless waste of time and energy. At The Boys Farm, in terms of volunteering information, he’d have to wait for hell to freeze over first. The thing was no boy there would have wanted to help me anyway. They thought the same as I did before Doctor Van Heerden told me I must read everything, every opinion, good or bad, then make my own mind up about things. They would believe the Dominee about English books being full of evil with the devil’s messages lurking around every corner. Whoever burned my books would think they were doing a good thing and helping God’s work. Sergeant Van Niekerk sniffing around the place would have made them even more secretive, more stom. The only thing that came out of it was that Gawie was now a surrogaat Engelsman, a surrogate Englishman. ‘Surrogaat’ was a big word for anyone to use and nobody would have known it normally, but Meneer Prinsloo had used it in his after-supper talk the night after the fire.

  The fire, of course, was a very big subject and he really went to town. ‘You all know there has been a big fire and we have lost our pigs and nearly the dairy, so for this Christmas no pork on the table. We won’t be able to send a gift of a nice leg of ham that Mevrou Van Schalkwyk kindly cures for us on her farm to the Inspector of Children’s Institutions in Pretoria. This is a great shame because for ten years now since I came here we have killed a pig for Christmas and Mevrou’s delicious cured-with-honey-in-her-smokehouse ham has gone to the good Inspector, who is always very accommodating to The Boys Farm. It is good to have a friend in high places in Pretoria, and now he doesn’t get his Christmas ham.’