by Andre Brink
“All right then, for your sake I’ll spare one of them. But one must die as an example to everybody here. This is not a place where a man can afford to be soft.”
The problem was that he left it to Sanna to decide which son was to be spared, and which one killed.
“You can’t ask such a thing of me, Lukas,” she pleaded.
“The choice is yours,” he said curtly. “I’ll give you time until sunrise tomorrow morning.”
And off he went into the night, one shoulder still drooping, like a large bird with a broken wing. Sanna withdrew with her two sons into the house Ruben Tabernacle had built for them; the door was guarded by a number of heavily armed men to prevent any attempt at escaping.
Right through the night Sanna argued and pleaded with her sons; and in between she prostrated herself on the ground to pray.
When the first sun grazed the mountain-tops Lukas Nimrod came back. From the door his shadow fell right through the house.
“Well, have you made up your mind?”
“I have,” said Sanna.
“Which one?”
She looked him in the eye. “Neither. Because it is sinful to expect such a thing from a mother. It is not I who must choose, Lukas Nimrod, but you. Show me if you are a man or an animal.”
“I am a man.” Whatever that might mean.
Then he called his men to take both his stepsons out to the clearing in front of the church. Sanna stood in the doorway. Apart from clutching the doorpost so hard that her knuckles showed white through the skin, she didn’t show any emotion.
Lukas Nimrod ordered his men to blindfold his sons, but the boys refused. They wanted him to look them in the eyes when he pulled the trigger.
One shot. Two. Lukas Nimrod never missed, especially not at a distance of ten yards.
That night, while he slept, Sanna took the iron peg on which he used to hang the carcasses from the hunt for skinning, and drove it right through his head, into the ground. Just like that woman from the Bible, Jael.
“He bloody well deserved it,” I said. “But what I find hard to believe is that she did it to her own husband.”
“Any woman, if she’s pushed far enough, can do it,” said Dalena.
It was quiet for some time before I asked, “And then?”
“Sanna refused to have Lukas Nimrod buried in the valley,” said Dalena. “The body had to be taken into the mountains, out of her sight, to be laid away where no one would ever find the grave.”
Great Consternation
“And then there was Strong-Lukas.” Dalena resumed her long story.
“It’s his name that is carved on the Bushman Krans?”
“Ja. That was Strong-Lukas. Who with a small detachment of five men faced a whole commando sent to establish the authority of the Cape government over the Devil’s Valley. And this Strong-Lukas really was a daunting man, unlike his fat, useless father, Lukas Up-Above. But the official story says nothing about his daughter, Mooi-Janna. Let me tell you.
“It happened when the first commissioner or sheriff or whatever was sent from the distant Cape to find out what was happening in the Devil’s Valley about the registration of inhabitants, grazing rights, taxes and such like. It could well have been Jacob Horizon’s wandering that first brought the place to the attention of the authorities.
“The scout never got out of here alive. Whether he met with an accident, as the official version goes, or was executed, or caught by a predator, or simply vanished, no one ever found out. These mountains lend themselves to many stories. All that matters is that a commando was then sent to investigate. Twenty or thirty heavily armed men on horseback. The horses had to be left up there on the mountains, of course, with a couple of agterryers. The rest of the commando found their way down here. It took them three days, and some of them were looking pretty worn-out by the time they arrived in the Devil’s Valley.
“Their arrival was rather unexpected and they met with no resistance, because at the time there was a shortage of ammunition and the settlers realised they couldn’t take on an armed commando without heavy loss of life. For a few days the men negotiated, and then the commando went off again, taking six of our men with them as hostages. Their leader was Strong-Lukas.
“There was great consternation in the valley on account of our six best men being taken away. Seldom in our history was there so much talking and discussion among the menfolk. Most of them were in favour of going after the enemy and surprising them in the mountains, but that would no doubt have caused a bloodbath.
Daubed With Blood
“It was Mooi-Janna who solved the problem. She was Strong-Lukas’s only daughter; all his other children, praise the Lord, were sons. She didn’t tell anybody about her plan, because she knew that if the men got wind of it that would set them talking for another three days, and in the end they would most likely forbid her to get mixed up in it, and make a hash of it themselves. What presumption of a girl of seventeen to think she could solve a problem which had proved too much for men of forty or fifty or sixty.
“In those days there were still pretty girls around. But none as beautiful as Mooi-Janna. She went down to the rock pool in the riverbed where she used to swim naked ever since she was a little girl, and where you can still see the imprint of her feet on the rocks. There she washed her hair, and dried it in the sun until it fell down from her shoulders like a dark waterfall, and put on a new long shiny black dress her mother had sewn for her confirmation, from a bolt of pure silk one of Isak Smous’s ancestors had brought from a far land; and when she was ready she stole up into the higher kloofs after the commando.
“Mooi-Janna was young and fleet of foot, and she knew the mountains like the inside of her father’s hand. So she had no trouble finding a short cut past the commando without their suspecting anything. When she reached the top of the last rise beyond the twin boulders, she sat down to wait for them. For many hours she waited until she could hear the sounds of their coming up from below.
“She was frightened to death. Because it was a hell of a thing she was planning to do, much worse than diving into the Devil’s Hole which, as anyone can tell you, means courting death and disaster. But her father’s life was at stake and she had always doted on him. As a small girl she’d gone with him wherever he went, far up into the kloofs and ravines where he hunted or went in search of stray goats, perched on his shoulders like a little monkey. Everybody in the valley knew that all this talk about hostages was a cover-up. Those six men would never come back. If they didn’t spend the rest of their days rotting in some dark hole of a prison they would be hanged from a gallows where the birds of heaven would pick the flesh from their bones. There was nothing else she could do. And only she could do it.
“When the commando was close enough for her to see the plumes on their hats appearing above the slope, Mooi-Janna got up from the rock where she was waiting. She stripped off her long silk dress and carefully folded it up into a small bundle which she put on the ground at her feet. Her loose hair was shimmering in the setting sun, and the last rays brushed her shoulders as if they were lightly daubed with blood.
“The soldiers, and their six hostages, stopped dead in their tracks when they saw her. The commanding officer came a few steps towards her, his white plume trembling lightly in the wind. Just as lightly as Mooi-Janna was shivering. Her skin came out in goose-pimples. That girl was a sight to behold, believe you me. It wouldn’t be proper to tell you everything about her. Enough to say that no man who’d ever seen her—and there were a few who’d spied on her in the swimming hole—would forget that body to the day of his death, if he lived to be as old as Methuselah.
As naked as my finger, she came down the slope towards the officer and spoke to him. Her voice was trembling but she stood her ground. If they let her father and his five men go, she said, they could do with her what they desired.
Stood Trembling
“‘Let go the hostages,” the officer ordered, with a frog in his throat
.
“Strong-Lukas uttered a roar when he realised what was going to happen, but one of the soldiers beat him to the ground with the butt of his blunderbuss. There was no further resistance. The six freed hostages ran down the slope as far as their legs could carry them. And the soldiers turned back to attend to Mooi-Janna. By that time it wasn’t only the tip of the officer’s plume that stood trembling in the wind.
“There were many of them, as I said. Which meant that by the time the last one had had his way with her, the first was ready for more.
“The sun was down. Later the moon came up. Mooi-Janna had lots of time to watch the passing of the stars overhead, how the Southern Cross slowly turned its slow somersault, and how the Milky Way swivelled among the peaks. Except that as the night grew old she couldn’t see so clearly any more.
“It was shortly before sunrise that the six freed hostages finally decided to attack. By that time it was child’s play to overcome the soldiers, who were strewn about the grass like well-tanned hides. The avengers weren’t in any hurry to finish off their quarry either. Men have their own way of doing these things, and for the soldiers who still had twitches of life in them after the massacre it must have been a strange experience to find themselves choking on their own testicles.
“Only after it was all over Strong-Lukas kneeled beside his daughter and very gently helped her put on the beautiful long black silk dress again, which she was unable to do on her own.
“They went back at the pace of a tortoise. Mooi-Janna couldn’t walk. Her father carried her on his broad back as he’d used to do when she was a little girl. Until they reached the place called Jacob’s Ladder, just after you’ve passed Hard-Times Hollow and Breakyoke. There he stopped, and turned his back to the precipice, and shook her off. They all bowed their heads in understanding.
“Strong-Lukas’s name was later engraved on the Bushman Krans up there, to commemorate the heroic deed in which, with only five men, he took on a whole commando of fifty soldiers, some reckon a few hundred, and wiped out the lot of them.”
Nanny Goat
“TELL ME MORE,” I said after a long silence, knowing I wouldn’t find another occasion like this one soon.
“I must go home.”
“What can you tell me about Katarina Sweetmeat?” I offered her a piece of bait I hoped she couldn’t refuse. “The one who married Lukas Bigballs and who changed into a white nanny goat when the moon was full?”
She clicked her tongue, half-annoyed, half-amused. “I suppose that is what Isak Smous told you?”
“He said his grandfather or great-grandfather Jacob Horizon brought her in here.”
“That part, I think, is true, yes. But did he tell you that Jacob Horizon stole her from her father’s house and brought her here by force?”
“No, he said his grandfather had to work for her father for three years, besides paying him all his possessions.”
“Isak Smous’s family have always been too lazy to do an honest day’s work. He kidnapped her, that’s what he did. And then the seven brothers stole her from him again; he got his just desserts. As if she was a bag of sugar or a goat or something. Whoever got her could keep her. They say she tried to run away many times, but then they beat her black and blue and locked her up in a little room where she never saw the light of day.”
“And the nanny goat?”
“Who can tell? People make up stories that suit them, to hide away their shame. But in the long run one can’t hide away lightning, it must show itself. The way I heard it from the old women, Katarina gradually lost all will to live, which was why she accepted to marry a turd like Lukas Bigballs. But she never slept with him, that last bit of pride they couldn’t take from her. He never gave her a moment’s peace, until one night when he fell asleep too tired to go on trying, she tied a knot in his ball-bag. After that he never was quite the same again. All he could show for it was his name, but I cannot vouch for that. What I do know is that after some time the youngest of the brothers fell in love with her. Soft-in-the-Head Fransie they called him. But apparently he was a nice boy. And as time went on something started up between the two of them.”
“But if the brothers were such savages, how did Fransie ever get a chance with her?”
“He kept bringing her presents. Nothing special, you understand: a bunch of carrots, perhaps, or a mug filled with dew, or a tanned dassie skin, or a fresh honeycomb, things like that. And also a little white nanny goat. She doted on this little creature. And because the brothers knew it, they cared for the nanny goat as if she was the moon itself. Because as long as the nanny was around, they knew, Katarina would stay with them. So she arranged with Fransie that from time to time, when she felt like it, he would let the nanny out. All the brothers would roar off in pursuit, except Soft-in-the-Head Fransie. And by the time they brought the nanny back, he and Katarina would have done their thing.”
“And they lived happily ever after?”
“No. After a long time Lukas Bigballs became suspicious. And one day when the little nanny escaped again he hid in the house. When he saw Soft-in-the-Head Fransie tiptoeing to the back room where Katarina was locked up, he killed his brother with a single blow of a fire-iron, and then went to her in Fransie’s place. In the dark she didn’t notice the difference before it was too late. When her baby was born it had two goat’s feet. It was Lukas Death, my husband’s father. Katarina died in childbirth.”
Arm Through His
Dalena pushed her chair back and stood up.
“Please stay,” I begged her. “That can’t be all.”
“You haven’t heard the half of it.” She picked up the box of ashes and pressed it to her. “There were many remarkable women among us,” she said. “But by listening to the men you’ll never hear of them.” She went to the door. “But thank you for bringing me Little-Lukas. It was about time he came home.”
I checked my watch. It was just after three.
“Let me walk you home,” I offered. “It is pitch-dark outside.”
“I know my way.”
“Just as far as the church then.”
She relented. Her stories told, she closed up again. When we came outside she started walking very fast, so that I had difficulty keeping up with her. There were no signs of clouds at all, the stars were shining with uninhibited brightness.
Less than half-way to the church Dalena stopped.
“This is far enough. Thank you.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“I have Little-Lukas with me now.” In the dark she was more forthcoming again. “I hope you don’t mind that I came to talk to you. But I just had to. Otherwise no one will ever know.” She touched my elbow. “Look, Lukas needn’t know about this. I told him I had to see Tant Poppie about medicine. I’ll tell him she was out and I had to wait, and then left without seeing her. You were in bed already.”
Strange, strange woman. All those hidden worlds within her I’d never suspected. But what a loss that they had to be sealed up, and for so long. I looked after her as she disappeared into the night. When she was some distance away something weird happened: I could see Little-Lukas walking beside her, somewhat unsteadily on his feet. She put her arm through his. For a while I could still hear their footsteps, then they fell silent.
It was only a short distance away from Ouma Liesbet’s house. Out of curiosity I went nearer. If there was a light on, I could at least check on how she had weathered the storm. But everything was dark. And then, when I looked up, there she was, fucking honest to God, perched on her rooftop as always, leaning back against the chimney. The pale light of the night reflected dully from her little trunk. The roof itself looked badly damaged, tufts of straw hanging from the edges; it seemed as if part of the chimney had also fallen down. But there she was, as sure as a tombstone.
“Ouma Liesbet?” I called out softly.
She didn’t answer, only made an irritable little gesture, clutching her trunk more tightly. It was incredibl
e. All I could think was that she’d gone inside just before the storm and returned to the roof after it had blown over. There was no other way she could have survived that gale.
I realised just how exhausted I was. The day had been too long. I had to get back to my room, and barricade the door, and have an undisturbed sleep for a change.
Up To Heaven
THE NEXT MORNING I first had to work my way through a heavy breakfast while Tant Poppie filled me in on the events of the night. She’d gone to attend to the prisoner, Alwyn Knees, after his release from the tower. Right through the storm she had battled to revive him, trying at the same time to cope with the wife and three small children. It transpired that it was because the woman had fallen pregnant again that Alwyn Knees wanted to surprise her with a pail of stolen water, but then he got caught red-handed; and now the woman was blaming herself for it, and passed out every few minutes. In the last gusts of the storm Alwyn expired and his wife went into convulsions, which ended in a miscarriage. The outcome was that Tant Poppie only came home in the early hours; yet before seven she was already bustling in the kitchen, baking bread.
I was shaken by her news. God, I thought, if only I’d known, I could have offered them the pail of water Isak Smous had sent me with his boy on Sunday afternoon. “Why didn’t the bloody Council of Justice consider the facts?” I stormed. “Surely there were extenuating circumstances?”
She shook her massive shoulders. “I know it’s hard, Neef Flip. But what will become of us if the law starts making exceptions?”
No way of getting through to her. But what else had I expected?
After breakfast we spent a while over a last mug of coffee. I was dying for a cigarette, but I’d smoked the last one as I got up; what was now to become of me, I preferred not to think about just yet. Depressed about my last Camel, and by Tant Poppie’s account of the night’s events, I was still staring into the evil brew in my mug when little Piet Snot appeared in the doorway in an even sorrier state than usual.
