“Do you happen to know where this Cassandra ... I presume her last name is Colijn ... was born?”
“Miss Ammie once said something about Fien being in South Africa. But I really don’t think I should say anything more, Professor. I’m betraying someone I work for, but worse than that, someone I really care about. Good day.”
There was no chance to say goodbye, or to try to keep her talking a little longer. Still, it had been a fruitful conversation.
Josefien Colijn. Cassandra—perhaps Colijn. César—perhaps Janssen. Tabia. Elijah. He wrote the names down, one below the other, and folded his hands behind his head.
South Africa. In her affidavit she had referred to a baby she had lost. Not true. She had paid one Josefien Colijn to raise the child.
Grote, gulle Griet.
Where in South Africa did this happen? Jacarandas. Ammie once showed him pictures in a magazine of jacaranda trees in full bloom. Panorama. The name of the magazine. The city was Pretoria.
She had also mentioned people who had helped her return to Belgium, but she was always vague about the details. She was ill when she arrived here, she had said. Was taken by ambulance directly from the plane to the hospital. He couldn’t remember her ever saying what the illness was. Could it have been malaria? She’d contracted it in the Congo and had suffered relapses for years. The last time, if his memory served him correctly, shortly before he went to school.
Fine, what did he have? A thousand questions, but one overshadowed all the others. No, two. What had happened to Cassandra, presumably Colijn, presumably from Pretoria? And why did he want to know?
Because he wanted to understand Ammie, and the rift between her and his father. But that wasn’t all. He was curious. The eternal student. Besides, his life was so incredibly dull that others’ lives inevitably seemed more interesting than his own.
Curiosity aside, if his father had found out that Ammie had lied, not only about her name and marital status, but also about a child she’d fobbed off on someone else ... No wonder he had been shocked to the core. To a man who put honesty and integrity above all else, it would have been a fatal blow to hear what his “wife” was guilty of. A wife who had been a mother to his own child. Was that why he had forbidden her to make contact with any of them?
Ammie was never motherly in the true sense of the word, but she was good to her stepchild. He had never wanted for anything. She tended to his cuts and abrasions with kisses and plasters and always saw to it that he had had enough to eat and drink and that he slept warm.
In his teenage years she often defended him when his father was too strict. After he had left home he was always welcome to drop in and stay as long as he wished.
She was a good mother to him. But their relationship lacked true intimacy, real mother-son affinity. He could speak to her about most things, but it was as if her mind was elsewhere. As if she forced herself to seem interested, but never really was.
The conversation about the birds and the bees had never taken place. To his relief at the time. But when he looked back, it might have been a symptom of something that was lacking.
Of course his father had been hopeless with the father-son relationship. He was an introvert, caught up in his studies, his professorship and academic duties. The academic world was his universe, Ammie the morning and evening star in his personal constellation and Luc a comet that claimed sporadic attention.
He presumed Jacq and Ammie had sex but he never saw signs of it. For all he knew, his father could have been a eunuch and Ammie a virgin.
But she wasn’t. She had given birth to at least one child— before or during 1961. There were probably only a few months between himself and the daughter who was given such an unfortunate name.
Lost in thought, Luc sipped his coffee, scarcely noticing it had grown cold.
Why had Ammie been scared of her first husband? Of her daughter? So scared that she remained in hiding for more than half a century? Three more questions Luc would like to learn the answers to.
Okay. Start at the beginning. Ammie was Amelie de Pauw, married to César Janssen. Political unrest broke out and she had to flee.
Had it really been only political unrest, as everyone had assumed? Or had she fled from her husband?
Why? How? He couldn’t remember her ever telling him who had accompanied her. Her parents were long dead. Her mother died of blackwater fever when Ammie was nineteen and her father and stepmother four months after her wedding.
He looked at his notes. In an aircraft incident. An unusual way to die. He typed “Bakwanga” in the search box.
It was the original name of the town known today as Mbuji-Mayi, he discovered. Bakwanga was also the name of one of the biggest diamond mines in the DRC, formerly Zaire, and before that the Belgian Congo.
Luc read on, but what followed was merely an anecdote about a girl who had discovered an enormous diamond in a pile of mining waste in the Mbuji-Mayi district in the eighties.
Luc closed the internet page. He was wasting his time. The Congo was full of diamond mines and in the primitive circumstances of those years plane crashes were probably not unusual.
The question remained: How did Ammie travel from the Congo to Pretoria? Surely she couldn’t have embarked on a weeks-long flight across a large tract of African soil on her own?
Another thing: How did she pay Josefien Colijn’s bribe money? The money couldn’t have come from a bank account. There was a document that certified her dead. She was living under an assumed name.
Cash? Had she carried it with her without being robbed? And what would Congolese francs have been worth in South Africa? Next to nothing. Belgian francs, not much more.
It didn’t make sense. Raising a child was a lifelong task and, if Lieve’s memory served her right, a task that a greedy woman had been prepared to take on. A greedy person wouldn’t do it for a pittance.
Ammie
Leuven
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Ammie looked up at Lieve. For the past week she had deliberately been ignoring the meddlesome woman.
Lieve nervously wrung her hands. “Miss Ammie, please, can we make peace? I’m sorry the professor’s visit upset you so much.”
“Too late now.” How dare Lieve disturb her equanimity like that?
“I was trying to do something good.” Lieve seemed on the verge of tears.
Ammie gave a deep sigh. Lieve was right. They couldn’t go on that way. “I know, Lieve, but talk to me first the next time you get a sudden urge to do something like that.”
Relief showed in Lieve’s eyes. “I will, Miss Ammie. Good day then. Until tomorrow.”
“Good day, Lieve.”
When she closed the door behind her, Lieve looked a good deal more cheerful than she had during the past few days.
She had reason to be upset with Lieve. Since Luc’s unexpected visit the memories had been more persistent than ever. The worries as well. Why on earth did she tell him what had caused Jacq to chase her out of his life? But when Luc asked her so bluntly the answer simply popped out.
Not that she told him the whole truth. Only the bottom line.
Ammie closed her eyes, tired of fighting against the memories she tried to keep at bay.
When Tabia told her to get out of the country, to go to Southern Rhodesia or South Africa, Ammie didn’t think she would survive the journey.
She was not only afraid of what might befall her along the way. She was afraid César would be waiting for her. Or track her down. He’d had more than enough reason, after all. And with his contacts, there was every chance that he would learn that her “body” had disappeared. He would reach the logical conclusion, though he might not guess that Tabia was the one who had saved her and robbed him.
Tabia. The woman with magical powers. The woman who knew things. Sometimes because she was s
hrewd and sometimes in ways Ammie couldn’t understand. Her grandmother was said to have been a nganga.
Was Tabia still alive? There couldn’t be an age gap of more than two years, either way, between the two of them, but life expectancy in the Congo was short. Especially for women.
Ammie
Katanga
“In Angola people will help you. But you must pay.”
Ammie lowered her head into her hands. “With what, Tabia?” She peered through her fingers. “With my body?”
“La!” Tabia clicked her tongue. Ammie could see she was insulted.
“How then, Tabia?”
Tabia put her hand in César’s canvas bag and brought out a bulky linen pouch. She held it out to Ammie.
Ammie’s hands trembled when she untied the drawstring and opened the bag. She tilted it and shook out a number of stones in her hand. Even uncut, the dull gleam told her what she was holding.
When she looked up disbelievingly, Tabia nodded. “Almasi.”
“God’s truth, Tabia. Where did you find these?”
“I steal them.” She smiled for the first time. “From César.”
“How did you know? That César had diamonds? Where he hid them?”
“I know.”
“Tabia, if he should find out ... He’ll kill me.”
“He will kill you anyway. I give you protection.” She entered the hut again and came out with two wooden objects. The mask, Ammie noticed immediately, resembled her own face, but with scarification on the cheeks. The figurine looked like Tabia, highly pregnant and with the same scarification patterns she had on her body. But the proportions were wrong. The head was unusually big, though smaller than the swollen belly. The chief focus was the pregnancy. The breasts were distended, the legs oddly short. In all, the figure was about thirty centimeters tall. The craftsmanship was exceptional.
“Who made it?”
“My brother’s child.”
A boy of about eighteen, who had stuttered on the few occasions he had spoken to her. Whom she often caught gazing at her with soulful eyes until she grew uncomfortable. His name was Aron.
Ammie tried to stop Tabia when she put the two objects in the backpack. “What will I do with them?”
“Carry it in bag. The mask makes you strong. Tabia’s baby keep your baby safe. It is the work of the nkísi. They also look after almasi.”
“But the almasi ... You need them too. For your child.”
She smiled. “I keep some for my child. There is enough.” She grew serious again. “You will walk far. You must give them one by one. Never show more than one. Keep one in cheek. Always one with you. Suck on it. It takes thirst away too.”
“I’ll need my passport at the border,” Ammie suddenly remembered.
Tabia shook her head. “My brother’s child searched. He did not find it. People will help you. For the almasi. Keep nkísi with you. Always. Even if they are heavy. Nkísi keep you safe.”
Ammie nodded, but she knew the kind of fear she felt could never be driven away by a talisman or two.
Caz
Ghent
“Mother has calmed down. She’s asleep now.”
Caz looked up when Tieneke entered the living room. The roughest edges of her anger and humiliation had been smoothed over. Only the feeling of powerlessness remained. She was looking for answers and she wanted them as soon as possible. Even if the woman who knew the answers was the one person Caz would prefer never to see again.
“I see Mother upset you as well. Tea?” Tieneke’s expression was surprisingly sympathetic. As sympathetic, anyway, as Tieneke was capable of.
“Thanks, that would be nice.” Caz followed her to the kitchen.
Tieneke switched on the kettle. With her back to Caz, she leaned against the counter and lowered her head.
“Your life must be hell.” Caz involuntarily lifted her hand to place it on Tieneke’s rounded shoulder, then dropped it again.
“She wears me out.” Tieneke’s blue eyes were watery when she turned. “I wish she would die and be done with it. I wish she had died ten years ago and got it over with. No, twenty years.”
Caz stared at her, astounded.
“There. I’ve said it.” Tieneke pulled a paper towel from the roll, dried her tears and blew her nose.
“No one can blame you for feeling that way, Tieneke. Least of all me. I would have lost my mind.”
Tieneke’s lower lip trembled. “Don’t be nice to me. I hate you and that’s not going to change.”
“Hate is a strong word.”
“Not nearly strong enough for what I feel towards you.”
That bad? She hadn’t realized. “Why do you hate me? Get it off your chest.” Caz folded her arms.
Tieneke nodded. “Very well. It’s come a long way, I must warn you.”
“I have enough time.”
“I was eleven when that woman came,” she began. Her eyes were shut, as if the events were being re-enacted behind her closed eyelids. “She was highly pregnant. Worn out from suffering. Yet she was beautiful, despite everything. The gash on her forehead. The cuts and bruises covering her arms.”
“Where did she come from? How did she end up with you?” The person Tieneke was talking about was her birth mother, yet to Caz she sounded more like a storybook character.
Tieneke opened her eyes. “She fled from the Congo. Through Angola and Rhodesia. In Nylstroom she stayed with people who helped refugees, but they could only take her in for a while. The man was a Dutchman and a baker, like Father. He knew Father from somewhere, contacted him and asked whether they could take the woman in, just until after the baby was born and she was able to travel. They were already putting up another refugee family, relatives of theirs, and couldn’t keep her any longer. He told Father she could pay for her stay. She had means.
“Father discussed it with Mother. Initially she wouldn’t hear of it, but the bakery wasn’t doing well, even then, before there were shopping centres in the suburbs. There was a good bus service and people went to the city for their weekly or monthly shopping. And the well-known Hatfield Bakery was still the favorite, even though it was further away.
“Anyway, Father persuaded Mother. It was only for a few months and the extra income would be handy. Besides, the woman was Belgian and she was in trouble. Those were Father’s arguments.
“Mother didn’t care about Ammie Pauwels’s Belgian roots, but the extra money would make life easier. At the time they didn’t realize that ‘means’ and money weren’t necessarily the same thing.”
Caz frowned. Means? After fleeing through Africa?
“Ammie moved in,” Tieneke continued. “Mother wanted to know when and how much she would pay, but Father said it had been sorted out. Father still had a say then. It was before Mother turned into the harridan she later became.
“Ammie kept to herself, but our privacy was affected, the household was disrupted. Mother began to change. I think the turning point was a conversation she had with Ammie. I overheard them talking in Ammie’s room. Ammie was crying bitterly. When Mother came out, she was different. After that she was aloof toward Ammie and Ammie kept to herself even more.
“When her time came, Father took her to hospital. You were born. In those days women stayed in hospital much longer, and there were complications as well. You were born by Caesarean section and Ammie underwent a hysterectomy.”
Caz felt reluctant sympathy for the woman. She must have been a wreck by then. The woman. It was her birth mother Tieneke was talking about, but she was still struggling to get used to the idea.
“The baby—you—were discharged a good while before Ammie. Mother had to take care of you. In the meantime Ammie fell into a deep depression—probably what’s known today as postpartum depression. One day the hospital phoned. Ammie had disappeared.”
Tieneke paused but Caz sensed there was more to come. And it wouldn’t be good, just as nothing about this story was good.
“A day or so later she came home. Mother thought she looked feverish. Ammie denied it. She said she had to go back to Belgium but she couldn’t take the baby along. From the canvas bag she had with her when she arrived and had left behind when she went to hospital, she took five diamonds. Uncut. Each about as big as a man’s thumbnail.”
Caz closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was coming, but she steeled herself and looked at Tieneke.
“Mother could have the diamonds if she helped Ammie get to Belgium and undertook to raise you. Mother refused. What was she to do with rough diamonds, she wanted to know. Ammie laughed. ‘Ask your husband, Mrs. Colijn,’ she said. ‘He has already sold two smaller ones quite profitably.’”
Caz didn’t want to hear the rest, but she didn’t stop Tieneke from describing in detail how she had been bartered as a baby. She just wanted it to be over.
“Mother phoned Father at the bakery. He dropped everything and came home. Well, you know how it ended. You stayed. As did Ammie’s canvas bag, containing two appalling wooden objects and a few more diamonds. Father drove away with Ammie. How he succeeded in getting her to Belgium without documents, only he and she would know. I guess somewhere a diamond came into play. Back then the laws weren’t nearly as stringent as today.”
Caz wasn’t sure whether Tieneke was referring to diamond dealing or procedures to leave the country. It didn’t matter. Both, presumably.
“Of course the neighbors knew Mother was never pregnant and they must have seen Ammie around. There was a lot of gossip. One rumour was that you were Father’s love child. But shortly after Ammie left we moved to Meyerspark, where no one knew us and everyone assumed you were the late-born child of the Colijns. We could buy our own house. Father opened the bakery at Silverton. The rest is history.”
“And this is why you hate me? Because this Ammie woman made it possible for us to live more comfortably?” Caz asked when Tieneke stopped talking.
“No, because everything was different after you came,” Tieneke said, ignoring the sarcasm. “Father and Mother were never the same again. They didn’t trust each other, and they argued a lot. Father withdrew from us more and more. I used to get all the attention, but now you were there. Our family life changed completely and it wasn’t for the better.”
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