1998 - Devil's Valley

by Andre Brink

  “But Tant Poppie said…”

  A little wryly she said, “I am still whole. He was too shy.”

  “You loved him though,” I said clumsily.

  No Birds

  Just as directly as before she said, “What does ‘love’ mean? The way I see it now, I only held on to him because he stood between me and them, it made me feel safe. Since he died I’m not sure of anything any more.”

  “What makes you think they’ll turn against you?”

  “They’re already against me. They’ve been against me from the very beginning, because of my mother, and now it’s even worse. Before the time they held back, first on account of Tant Poppie, then on account of Little-Lukas, because he was Lukas Death’s child after all and that counted for something, even if Lukas Death always tried to keep us apart. But now it’s changed. That dirty old Hans Magic has been waiting for a long time to get at me. He says I humiliated him. And there’s Ben Owl too, all the way from my mother’s time. Because she humiliated him. Now the hunt is open. For the moment I can still keep them off while I’m in mourning. But it won’t last long.”

  “When all is said and done, what can they really do?”

  She looked away and said nothing.

  “Tell me,” I demanded. “What can they do to you?”

  “They stoned my mother.”

  I felt the blood throbbing in my temples.

  “She lies under the heap of stones against the churchyard wall.”

  There was no sound around us, not even the wind. A silence louder than a scream. That was when for the first time I realised what was missing in the Devil’s Valley: there were no birds, nowhere, none at all.

  THREE

  Got Pregnant

  “How CAN YOU be sure?” I asked Emma.

  “I just know.” Her eyes did not waver. “Tant Poppie told me, from the time I was little. Everybody knows it.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “The day after my birth. They were just waiting for it. If it wasn’t for Tant Poppie they’d have killed me with my mother.” For the first time she showed signs of bitterness. “When my mother got pregnant outside, I’m sure she could have chosen to get rid of me before she came back. Or even afterwards. No one would ever have known. But she decided to keep me, even when she knew they were going to kill her. It’s hard to live with a thing like that on your conscience.”

  “But it wasn’t your doing, Emma. Blaming yourself won’t get you anywhere.”

  “It’s easy to talk if you’re not the one.”

  “Only a very special woman would have done what your mother did.”

  Once again that ambiguous shrug.

  “I’m going to help you find out exactly what happened to her,” I said.

  In her eyes I could see that she didn’t believe me, and why should she?

  But I insisted: “I’m going to find her for you. I promise.”

  She nodded, but said nothing.

  There wasn’t much time left. In my mind, on the way back to Tant Poppie’s place, I calculated: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Only three more days, because at dawn on Saturday I’d have to set out to keep my appointment with Koot Joubert at the beacon up on the mountain. There was so little I’d achieved so far. For each step ahead, it seemed I was sliding back two.

  Soft Fleece

  Or three, I thought, that night. Because nothing could complicate an already pretty screwed-up situation more than what happened next. Heaven knows, there was enough to keep me awake as it was. But I barely had time to sort through my thoughts. Because for the third time in as many nights a female visitor came to my room. It started with a sound outside, like the hooting of a barn owl, only more eerie. I sat up. There was a shadow at my window. I got up to look. Outside everything was deserted. But as I stood at the window I saw a figure skulking across the backyard on four legs. Its slanting gait and bent tail were unmistakably those of a baboon. But since when did baboons venture abroad at night? Something caused the hair on my body to stand up. But by that time the creature had gone and I returned to my bed. I had barely settled in under the kaross again when I heard the door open. In the dull shimmering of the moon I distinguished a woman. Even if I hadn’t seen her I would have smelled her. And some atavistic signal beyond my control immediately caused my prick to jump to attention.

  Like the others before her she deftly pulled the kaross from me; like them, she was naked. What set her apart was the soft fleece that covered her whole body. Her back and buttocks, her stomach, her arms and legs, even her two breasts: not a thick coir that like mine, but a fine down. Which made me stand like a fucking pick-handle. And yet I tried to fend her off. Don’t ask me why. I mean, Emma had no fucking claim on me, nor I on her. Jesus, I was there for a few days only, any possibility of getting involved was out of the question. If I felt anything for her, it was more like compassion, how shall I put it, a kind of paternal concern to care for her, nothing sensual at all. Or was there? I simply didn’t know. I don’t want to know. All I knew then was that this woman complicated my life no end. But hell, I’m flesh and blood. And she was, like her sisters, a female animal that stopped at nothing.

  Right, so I didn’t want to. But at the same time I tell you I wanted nothing else. And when at last she’d wrestled me to the ground—quite literally, as we’d taken a tumble from the bed and did the rest of our cavorting on the floor—she broke away from me and, with a deep, dark, laugh, scrambled to her feet and fled. And when I tried to light the candle, still panting and trembling, the bloody lighter packed up. By the time I produced a spark from the primitive tinderbox Tant Poppie had provided it was already too late. Or not quite. For in her hurry to get away she’d not had time to grab her clothes.

  But my first feelings of triumph soon evaporated, because all I was left with was a dress like any other in the Devil’s Valley: black chintz, with a row of buttons down the front. No frill or fold to set it apart, everything severe and sober, fit for church. And there was nothing else, nothing personal to suggest a private identity, no bra or panties. With my face buried in the dark cloth I drew her smell deep into my lungs. But I could put no name to it. It might even have been Emma’s. Except that it wasn’t; and that weighed me down with all kinds of feelings that kept me wide awake for the rest of the night.

  Heap of Stones

  So I was feeling rather the worse for wear when I got to the heap of stones beside the churchyard wall in the early dawn on Wednesday morning. Following my meeting with Emma the day before, this was the obvious place to start. And in a way the events of the night had made it even more urgent, driven as I was by the Calvinistic urge to atone for my sins through some kind of punishment.

  I’d meant to come early so that I could work as undisturbed as possible. But I’d misjudged the settlers. Already there was life everywhere. Any number of simpletons wobbling about. Smith-the-Smith in his shed, going at it hammer and tongs since well before dawn to melt down his unused horseshoes. Ouma Liesbet on her rooftop, waiting and ready for the Lord who seemed to have forgotten all about her. Jurg Water glowering through the fork of his divining rod. Bettie Teat lolling against the stained church door, abandoned to a caress by the early rays of the sun. Men and women at work in the parched fields. The old people among the graves, and Brother Holy observing me from his shrivelled vegetable patch. As if they all knew exactly what I was going to do.

  Surrounded by so much life, visible and invisible, I felt paralysed before I’d even started. But I had no choice, after those frightening words Emma had spoken so calmly: They stoned my mother. She lies under the heap of stones against the churchyard wall. I was supposed to remain disinterested, an objective observer, non-judgmental, concerned only by what could be proved, by the truth. Facts, facts with which to feed the gnawing rat. But where is the boundary between observation and engagement?

  Even these thoughts were irrelevant. All that mattered was that I’d made a promise and had to keep it.

  So fuck th
em all, I thought. Let them look if they want to. This was the least I could do, this insignificant little archaeological dig. To see what lay buried here. If there was anything.

  I bent over to pick up the first stone from the heap, and threw it aside. Then the second. Then the third. Somewhere in the Bible there’s the bit about the one without sin having the right to cast the first stone. Perhaps, I thought with a touch of whimsy, the one who’s sinned most may cast away the first.

  Under These Stones

  My own little heap was just beginning to take shape when a shadow fell across me. I suppose I should have expected it, but Brother Holy’s booming voice still caught me unawares:

  “And what might you be doing so early?”

  “Good morning, Brother Holy.” I feigned innocence. “Are you well?”

  “No, I am in a bad shape.”

  “On such a beautiful day?”

  “It’s on account of so many beautiful days that we’re now smitten with drought.”

  “I want to find out what is under these stones.” I picked up another heavy rock from the larger heap and transferred it to mine. Only a very strong man, or a madman, could have handled this one.

  “And what do you expect to find?” enquired Brother Holy.

  “I have no idea. Perhaps you can make a suggestion?”

  “Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity.”

  I shifted another heavy stone followed by a few smaller ones.

  “Could it be bones?” he suddenly asked.

  I straightened my back. “Maybe. Do you think there are bones here?”

  “And suppose you find bones, what would they tell you?”

  “We’ll just have to see when we find them, won’t we?”

  “I shouldn’t like to be the one who disturbs the sleeping in their rest.” There was a shrill tone breaking through his voice.

  “It depends on how they came here.” I moved a few more stones.

  His voice climbed the steps of an arpeggio. “As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.”

  “But what if it was not the work of God but of the Devil, Brother Holy? Then it would be better to find out, don’t you agree?”

  His colour deepened to a royal purple. His long fingers moved up and down along the buttons of his long black coat, fastening and unfastening them. I pretended not to notice as I went on heaving stones from one heap to the other; but from the corner of my eye I was watching him closely. And I wasn’t nearly as calm as it might have looked on the surface.

  The explosion I’d expected did not come. Brother Holy managed to control his heaving breath, and buttoned up for the last time. As if pronouncing a final blessing, he said, “On your head be it, Flip Lochner. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  And off he strode, all knees and elbows.

  Original Sin

  What possessed me, I still don’t know, but from sheer contrariness I called out after him, “I have reason to believe the woman Maria lies under these stones.”

  He stopped. And turned slowly.

  “What do you know about Maria?”

  “Just keeping my ears open.”

  He reflected. I could see his large Adam’s apple moving up and down a few times. “If there are bodies down there,” he said after a while, “they will belong to people who died a just death ordained by the God of our fathers. Because they were an abomination in His eyes. And it does not behove us to question the will of God.”

  “So it’s true that Maria lies here?”

  “I’m not saying yes and I’m not saying no. If there are bones here they go back to the earliest times of the Devil’s Valley, generation upon generation, all those who were impure.”

  “How, impure?”

  “Our God brought us into this valley to set us apart from the iniquities of the world outside. He is the Great Divider, the one who in the Scriptures is called Hammabdil. He divided light and darkness, heaven and earth, dry land and sea. He also divided us from the race of sinners. And from time to time when someone is born among us who bears the mark of original sin, he has to be removed from the congregation of the Lord. It is their bones you may find here.”

  Almost majestically, before I could respond, he turned to lope back to his cabbages. What intrigued me was that his legs appeared to bend backwards like a heron’s, but it could have been an optical illusion.

  Shattered

  I stood looking after him, then returned to my work. But it was heavy going in the sun. After a while I took off my shirt and threw it to one side. Brother Holy’s words were still throbbing in my mind. Generation upon generation. All those who were impure. The mark of original sin. I felt as if I’d come to the edge of a precipice; but below me was only fog, one couldn’t see down to the bottom. And I wasn’t sure that I wanted to see that far.

  But for Emma’s sake I had to go on.

  After another half an hour I decided to take a break and go home for some refreshment, even if it was only a mouthful of the valley’s hellishly bitter coffee. It was when I picked up the last big stone I could still manage that I discovered the white bone below. And as I kneeled down to scratch more cautiously, several more. Odd bits and pieces. And then a skull. I felt cold in the full blaze of the sun. I looked up. From far away, among the cabbages, Brother Holy was watching.

  I picked up the delicate skull. One side was shattered. But it was impossible to draw any quick conclusions. All I could tell for sure was that it was not the skull of a grown-up. Much too small for that, too frail, too flimsy. It looked like a mere baby’s.

  To Rub Up

  Without any conscious decision, I put on my shirt again and set out for Lukas Death’s house, the nearest one to the church, in the lower row. Minutes later I was in his voorhuis, a long gloomy room with a dark peach-stone floor, the centre of which appeared blacker than the rest. I had the little skull in my hand.

  From the open kitchen a woman wearing a starched white apron approached. Presumably she was Lukas’s wife; I hadn’t met her before. There were lines of suffering on her face, but she seemed quite calm and composed, and her eyes looked straight at me.

  “You must be looking for Lukas,” she said. “He’s in the back room. Because of this afternoon’s prayer-meeting there’s no school today.” For a moment I thought she was going to say more, so I stopped to wait for it. But all she said was, “If you don’t mind, go round the outside. I don’t like that thing in the house.” Clearly not a woman to rub up the wrong way.

  The back room was where I’d found Lukas Death on previous occasions. A euphemism for the mortuary. In some spots the whitewash was peeling from the walls and I wondered absently whether those might be the patches where Katarina Sweetmeat’s mirrors had been removed. Lukas Death was standing beside a coffin, working on a corpse, a very old man. I’ve seen enough corpses in my line of duty, but they still make me feel creepy. It clearly didn’t bother Lukas, as he stood with a mug of coffee in his hand looking down at his handiwork. I got the impression that I was interrupting a conversation.

  “You’re busy,” I said unnecessarily.

  Lukas looked up, confirming my worst suspicions. “I was just having a chat to old Oom Bart Biltong. He was very upset about having to lie still for so long, he’s had back trouble for years, you see, but I think he’s coming round to the idea.”

  “I don’t want to interrupt. But your wife said I’d find you here.”

  “Dalena always says too much.” With a sigh. “But have a seat.” He pointed at the foot of the coffin, but I preferred to stay just where I was.

  “Death is keeping you busy,” I remarked, just to say something.

  “It’s in our nature to die,” he said pointedly, then added with some resignation, “I suppose we must be grateful, for everyone who passes away in this drought saves another pail of water a day. That’s how I explained it to old Ba
rt.”

  “Sounds heartless,” I protested.

  “It’s life and death,” he said laconically. “You might say it’s because of the drought that old Bart is lying here today. Not so, Oom Bart?”

  To my relief, old Bart didn’t respond.

  “How did it happen?” I asked.

  “It’s his own fault,” said Lukas Death. “He went to clean out his well and he’s much too old for that kind of work. He used to ask a neighbour to help him, and give the man a pail of water for his trouble. But then Oom Bart decided water was too scarce to share, so he tried to do it on his own and fell in.” He resumed his esoteric ministrations. “But I’m sure it’s not because of Oom Bart that you came to see me.” He’d been studiously ignoring the skull in my hand. “So what brings you here?”

  Iniquity of the Fathers

  “I found this skull under the stones behind the graveyard.”

  Lukas Death went on bustling about the coffin for another minute, mumbling either to himself or to the dead man. Then he asked, “And?”

  “Aren’t you surprised?”

  “Why should I be? If you go on digging you may find more. That’s what the heap is there for.”

  “Lukas, I must know what is going on here.”

  “Why ‘must’?” he asked gently. He leaned over to mumble something to the body again, straightened old Bart’s shroud and moved the lid into position, but without screwing it down just yet. “Have a good rest,” he said to the old man.

  “Who is buried under those stones?” I demanded.

  Lukas looked even more shat-upon than usual, but he remained endlessly patient. “We are strictly just in our ways, Neef Flip.”

  “That remains to be seen. What about that poor man you locked up in the tower?”

  “Alwyn Knees? Brother Holy will let him out tomorrow. There is a time and a place for everything under the sun.”

  “Not for the ones buried under the stones.” I pointed at the crushed side of the skull. “How did this happen?” When he remained silent for too long I insisted, “Did he get stoned too?”