‘Not much,’ said Mr Knight, sharply. ‘It’s your brother Joel Blitz I’ve come to see.’
‘My brother’s seriously ill.’
‘Well, I knew that. But all the same I have to serve notice on him. Laws of the land, and all that.’
‘Whatever it is, you can tell me.’
‘I really have to serve it on your brother.’
Barney rolled down his sleeves with two or three aggressive tugs at his cuffs. ‘Either tell me, or get the hell out of here.’
‘Very well. I suppose you could be considered to be standing in for him as his legal proxy. The fact of the matter is,’ and here he cleared his throat, ‘the fact of the matter is that I represent a young lady named Dorothy Evans, or “Dottie”, as she is known to her friends. She came to me very early this morning in order to press her ownership of claim No. 172 at the Kimberley Mine which previously belonged in whole to Mr Joel Blitz.’
‘I think the young lady must be making a mistake,’ said Barney. ‘Claim No. 172 belongs to my brother and that’s it.’
‘Well, you’re wrong, I’m afraid. Miss Evans has written proof – written and witnessed – that your brother handed the claim over to her, complete with all mining equipment, at Dodd’s Bar at approximately eleven o’clock last night.’
Barney looked at Mr Knight steadily. There was no doubt at all that Mr Knight was enjoying every moment of this. A sweet and legalistic revenge for the way in which Barney had tricked and humiliated himself and his family. ‘There is no better situation for a Jew,’ Mr Knight had told Dottie Evans that morning, ‘than to be wriggling like an insect on the end of a very sharp stick.’
Barney said, ‘What written proof? Show me.’
Mr Knight produced a crumpled piece of paper from the breast pocket of his coat, like a children’s conjuror. ‘A humble piece of paper,’ he smiled. ‘The label from a bottle of patent bitters, if I’m not mistaken. But the writing on it has all the weight of English law.’
Barney took the paper and read it. In a sloping scrawl, Joel had written the words, ‘I Joel Blitz hereby pass all title in my claim No. 172 at Colesberg Kop to Dottie Evans, and all my mining equpt.’ That was all. Joel must have been so drunk that he had even stipulated what favours Miss Dottie Evans was supposed to give him in return.
‘This is worthless,’ said Barney. ‘Joel was totally drunk at the time. I have witnesses.’
‘Witnesses? A collection of lechers and confirmed alcoholics?’
‘Miss Dottie Evans herself is a whore,’ Barney reminded him.
Mr Knight raised a beatific hand. ‘She was a whore. She was, indeed, a whore. But now she has seen the error of her ways, and raised herself from the mire.’
‘She can afford to, I suppose, now she has a free diamond mine.’
‘Don’t be so sour,’ grinned Mr Knight, snatching the bitters label back between two grey-gloved fingers.
‘I’m not,’ said Barney. ‘Right now, I haven’t time to be sour. My brother is badly hurt and I have to get him to a doctor.’
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ said Mr Knight. ‘I truly am. But – the law is the law.’
He looked around the living-room. ‘Wasn’t today supposed to be the day you were going to marry that little black girl?’ he asked. ‘I heard the banns read in church, and I must tell you that I stood up for you when one or two of the congregation started expressing objections. “Why should we allow a Jew and a blackie to get married in an Anglican church?” they asked. But I said, “Is that your spirit of Christian charity? The Griquas are just as much Christians as we are, and with any luck the Jewish fellow will learn the error of his ways.” ’
‘You’re right,’ said Barney. ‘I have learned the error of my ways. And it was you who taught me the lesson. You momzer.’
Mr Knight widened his eyes interrogatively.
‘It’s a name we give to anybody who’s clever,’ Barney told him. ‘You know the type. Wily, smart, that type of person.’
‘Well,’ said Mr Knight, ‘I’m glad you’ve taken the whole thing so well.’
‘Monzer also means bastard,’ Barney added.
Mr Knight pressed his tongue thoughtfully inside his cheek. Then he said coldly, ‘I have to warn you that any attempt by you or your kaffirs to dig in claim No. 172 will be regarded as claim-jumping, and theft, and that if you are caught trespassing on claim No. 172 my client will consider your action as a most serious breach of her digging rights.’
‘Get out of my house before I hit you,’ said Barney.
Edward came back just as Mr Knight was leaving. He raised his hat to him, and was mildly surprised when the laywer brushed past him without even saying, ‘Good day.’
‘That was your legal chap, wasn’t it?’ he asked, emptying his coat pockets of dozens of glass vials of white powder. ‘He didn’t seem very jolly did he?’
‘What are these?’ asked Barney, picking up one of the vials and examining it. ‘Are these painkillers?’
‘Dover’s powder, old chap. Ten per cent of opium, to be given in doses of five grains to begin with, up to ten if the pain gets worse. And I’m afraid you owe me eleven pounds for this little lot. Four pounds for the medicine itself, and seven to persuade Dr Tuter to give them to me. Mind you, he’s quite addicted to the stuff himself.’
At that moment, the bedroom door opened. Barney turned around, and there stood Mooi Klip, in her pale blue overdress and hat, her gloves held tightly in her hand, her eyes swollen from crying.
Edward said quickly, ‘I’ll just go and give Joel his first dose. Dr Tuter said to start as soon as possible.’
‘Thank you, Edward,’ said Barney, his eyes on Mooi Klip.
Mooi Klip stepped out into the living-room. The sun from the open doorway sparkled on the 2½-carat diamond betrothal ring that Harry Feinberg had ordered for Barney from Capetown, and which Barney had slipped on to Mooi Klip’s finger one warm evening when they had been sitting on the verandah outside, under a moon like a tiger’s-eye.
She raised her hand and twisted the ring around and around, the way that women do when they feel anxious. She would not look at Barney, but stared sadly at their wedding-breakfast instead.
‘I’ve packed my clothes,’ she said.
‘You’re really going?’
She nodded.
‘You know how much I love you, don’t you?’
She nodded again.
He bit his lip. ‘What can I say that will make you stay? Can I say anything?’
‘Not now,’ she said. ‘Right now, you have to look after your brother.’
‘I had to bring him in. You understand that, don’t you? He’s – well, he’s probably going to die anyway.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mooi Klip. ‘What I said outside, about never speaking to you again – I didn’t mean it. I was just –’
‘If you didn’t mean it, then stay. Please. What do you think I’m going to do without you?’
Mooi Klip slowly shook her head. ‘You don’t need me now. I won’t be anything but a burden. And everything that’s happened … it’s spoiled this day for us, and we’d be foolish if we tried to patch it up. I don’t want to be married with a broken wedding-cake. I don’t want to be married while we’re arguing. I want to be married to your properly, in peace, and in love; and to know that we can have nothing but happiness.’
‘We will be happy.’
She smiled at him. A smile of such sadness and regret; but also a smile of determination. ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘We’re not ready for each other yet, even if we ever were. I love you, Barney. I don’t think you even understand how much. You’ve taught me about the world, and about all kinds of things. But I’m not really what you want, or what you need, am I?’
‘You’re going back to Klipdrift?’ he asked her.
‘As soon as my mother and father arrive.’
‘And what are you going to tell them? And Jan Bloem?’
‘I shall tell them the truth. That’s all. T
he truth isn’t difficult to tell. I still love you, and I’m not ashamed of that.’
‘What about the baby?’ asked Barney.
She laid her hand on her stomach. ‘I shall cherish the baby. And when she’s born, if we’re still not together by then, I shall send someone with a message to you, so that you can come and see her.’
Barney felt as if a dry ball of desert weed had caught in his throat. ‘You’re so sure it’s going to be a girl,’ he said, trying hard not to cry.
‘Wouldn’t you like a pretty little daughter, just like me?’
Barney nodded. Mooi Klip came over to him, and put her arms around his waist, and held him very tight. He could smell that familiar smell of hers, like flowers and spices, and he wound her curls around his fingers the way he had always done, ever since their first night together under the stars at Jan Bloem’s encampment. He could not believe that she was going. He could not believe that he might never hold her again. Her hard stomach, still high under her breasts, was pressed between them like the most precious possession they had ever owned. Brighter, and more valuable, than diamonds.
She whispered against his shirt, ‘I heard everything that Edward said, about your losing the claim.’
‘And Mr Knight?’
She said, ‘Yes. I’m so sorry.’
‘I guess I can start again.’
‘You’ll need money for Joel’s operation,’ she said.
‘I’ve got enough in the bank.’
‘You’ll need the money in the bank, to buy another claim.’
‘I’ve got the farm, too, at Derdeheuwel. I can always sell that, if I have to.’
Mooi Klip stood away from him, and opened her purse. ‘I’ve been meaning to give you this, anyway. It wasn’t really right that I should keep it.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Tied tightly in a roll, and tucked into the small pocket at the side of Mooi Klip’s purse, were scores of English five-pound notes. Mooi Klip pushed the roll into Barney’s shirt pocket, and then kissed him on the lips, quickly, so that he could not make the kiss linger.
He took the money out again. ‘Where did you get all this?’
‘From Derdeheuwel, the day we buried Monsaraz. I admired your gesture, burning the money, but sometimes I think that women are more practical than men, even if their gestures aren’t so admirable.’
‘There must be six or seven hundred pounds here.’
‘Six hundred and twenty. I’ve counted it.’
‘I should burn it,’ said Barney.
‘You have your brother to look after.’
‘What are you going to do for money?’
She smiled. ‘My people will look after me now.’
‘Aren’t I your people?’
She came close again, and touched the unshaved bristles on his cheek. ‘You will always be my people,’ she told him. ‘Oh, Barney, I love you so much.’
Edward coughed politely at the bedroom door. ‘He’s sleeping again,’ he announced. ‘But he’s only going to get worse, not better. Do you want me to help you make up a bed on the waggon?’
‘Yes, please,’ said Barney, and turned away from Jooi Klip feeling as if there were nothing inside of him but tears that could not be cried.
Mooi Klip’s mother and father arrived at eleven o’clock, all dressed up in their wedding outfits. Jan Bloem was there, too, and two of his favourite cronies, and Piet Steyn. Their shoes were all brightly polished, their hats were brushed, and in their morning-coats and striped trousers they looked, in the sarcastic words of Harry Munt, who had watched them pass from the boardwalk outside of Dodd’s Bar, ‘like the guests of honour at a gorilla’s ball.’
Mooi Klip’s mother was small as her daughter, but plump, and she was dressed up in a lemon-yellow day frock with a grey-piped bolero, and a hat that was dancing with huge white ostrich feathers. Her father was tall, handsome, and very black. Neither of them spoke English – only the curious Afrikaans of the Griquas.
There were tears and arguments and explanations as soon as they arrived. It had been enough for Mooi Klip’s father that she should live with a man outside of wedlock, and be carrying his child. Now, using a confused Jan Bloem as an occasional interpreter, he started to shout in a loud demanding voice at everybody, including his wife. Barney sat tiredly on the verandah steps, his head in his hands, and waited until everybody had finished squabbling. The waggon had been made ready to carry Joel to Durban, with blankets and pillows and leather straps to keep his broken leg straight, and all Barney wanted to do now was go.
At last, Mooi Klip’s father came marching over to Barney, with Jan Bloem beside him, and let out a burst of guttural Afrikaans. There were diamonds of sweat on his shiny black upper lip, and he was as indignant and upright as any father that Barney had ever seen. There was a fresh white orchid in his buttonhole.
Barney understood only one or two words of what he was saying, but the strain of the tirade was inescapable. Jan Bloem said dryly, ‘You hear what he’s saying, my friend? He’s saying you took everything from his daughter, and gave nothing back. He’s saying you should be ashamed of what you and your brother have done, and that if it wasn’t flying in the face of the Lord, he would turn you inside-out, and use your insides to feed his dogs.’
‘Tell him he’s quite justified in being so angry,’ said Barney.
Jan Bloem translated. Mooi Klip’s father listened, and then lifted one quivering finger, and came out with another interminable salvo of explosive rhetoric.
‘He’s very upset,’ explained Jan Bloem. ‘He wants to know what you’re going to do.’
‘I’m going to take my brother to Durban to try to save his life,’ said Barney, flatly. ‘Then I’m going to come back here to marry his daughter.’
‘He doesn’t believe you,’ said Jan Bloem. ‘He says you’re a scallywag.’
‘Tell him I love Natalia.’
‘He says if you love her, how could you treat her so wrongly?’
‘Tell him it was all a series of tragic mistakes, and that he doesn’t have to keep shouting at me because I think I’ve suffered enough already. I love his daughter, and for the time being I’m losing her. I love my brother, and he’s hurt the only woman I love. Just tell him to look at my face and see what’s there.’
There was a long frowning pause from Mooi Klip’s father when Jan Bloem had translated these words. Then he leaned forward, his hands on his knees, and stared at Barney’s face from only five or six inches away, his jet-black eyes searching Barney’s expression as narrowly and as painstakingly as Barney himself ever inspected a rough stone from the mine. At last, Mooi Klip’s father stood straight, and self-importantly brushed a little fluff from the cuff of his coat.
‘Well?’ asked Barney. ‘I’m going to have to go soon, if I’m going to make any distance before dark.’
‘He says he still thinks you’re a scallywag,’ smiled Jan Bloem. ‘However, he believes what you say, that you love his daughter. When your brother is well, he says, you must come to speak to him again. But he says he will not easily let you marry her, unless you have proved your good intentions.’
‘I see,’ said Barney, and attempted a friendly nod towards Mooi Klip’s father. The Griqua’s face remained impassive, and Barney found himself converting the nod into a stiff-jointed twist of his neck, as if he had been sleeping all night at an odd angle.
‘He says one thing more,’ said Jan Bloem. ‘He says he has brought you a gift, and that he wants you to accept his gift regardless of what has happened today. He says he is not a rich man, but this is a good gift; and he hopes you will accept it.’
‘Tell him I’ll be delighted,’ said Barney, cautiously.
Mooi Klip’s father went off to get his gift, and Jan Bloem screwed his monocle into his eye and watched Barney with mischievous anticipation.
‘You know why he’s insisting that you accept this gift?’ he asked Barney.
‘Not entirely,’ said Barney.
‘I don’t,’ said Barney. ‘If I had any control over events, I’d marry his daughter today.’
Jan Bloem gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘I spoke to Natalia,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t blame her.’
‘I blame myself.’
‘That’s just as ridiculous. Learn to attribute blame where blame should be attributed. Don’t be a martyr. That’s my motto.’
‘You’re full of mottoes.’
‘It’s better than being wise.’
Mooi Klip’s father came around the side of the bungalow, leading behind him on a frayed rope a swaybacked, moth-eaten horse. Barney took one look at the animal and glanced at Jan Bloem in quick, furtive desperation. Jan Bloem kept up his friendly grin, but his monocle dropped out of his eye and swung on its black silk cord. Barney could tell that he was only a sixteenth of an inch away from laughing.
‘This is for you,’ translated Jan Bloem, while Mooi Klip’s father watched him expectantly. ‘His name is Alsjeblieft.’
‘Alsjeblieft?’ asked Barney. ‘That means please, doesn’t it?’
‘That’s right,’ grinned Jan Bloem. ‘Every time you want this horse to do anything for you, you have to say Alsjeblieft.’
Mooi Klip’s father held out the rope. Barney hesistated for a moment, and then took it. The horse snuffled and whinnied, and swung its head around.
Barney said, ‘Please tell Mooi Klip’s father that I am delighted by his gift, and that if I had the time I would invite him to have a drink with me. But he obviously understands that I have to go.’
‘He understands,’ said Jan Bloem. ‘He says that this horse used to belong to an old kopje walloper, one of the fellows who went around buying up diamonds from the small diggings around Klipdrift and Dutoitspan. It was a good horse, in its day.’
Barney nodded and smiled to Mooi Klip’s father. Mooi Klip’s father nodded, unsmiling, in return. Then he let out a short, sharp volley of Afrikaans, which he ended up with an emphatic, ‘huh!’ as if to say ‘so there!’
Solitaire Page 27
