by Andre Brink
“Not a bad idea,” commented Jos Joseph. “He’s been much too free in all his saying and doing among us.”
“You let him be.” This time it was Tall-Fransina. “He’s done no harm. Why don’t you look into your own hearts for a change?”
“I agree,” said Gert Brush out of the blue, even if he did sound somewhat apologetic.
And then, to a hubbub of general surprise, Annie-of-Alwyn came forward to join the other women. She didn’t speak, but it was as if a half-extinguished grey coal had miraculously begun to glow with new life.
The unexpected division in their ranks came to me like rain from heaven. But it was much too early to push my luck. The majority could all too easily turn against me. And so I chose, for the moment at least, to keep my own counsel.
Jurg must have felt much the same, but he kept on muttering, “I haven’t finished with him yet.”
“You just keep your knees together,” warned Dalena.
At that moment somebody took my arm from behind. Even without looking I knew it was Emma. And I felt my body go numb. This she shouldn’t have done. Not here, not now, whatever the provocation.
Witch
As I could have predicted it was like a rag to a bull.
“That one,” said Jurg, pointing a heavy arm at Emma, “that’s the one who turned him against us. She’s always been cahoots with the Devil. First she drove Little-Lukas to his death. Now she’s starting again. She’s a witch, I tell you. We should have stoned her long ago.”
“You keep Emma out of this,” I snarled at him. “She’s had nothing to do with any of this.”
“Maybe Peet Flatfoot has something to tell us,” he said with open menace in his voice. “He never misses anything.” He looked round. “Peet, where are you?”
Prickhead came stumbling from the crowd, grinning sheepishly at me before he broke excitedly into an incomprehensible babble, one hand fidgeting furiously in his groin.
“Did you hear that?” shouted Jurg, triumphant. “What did I tell you? In the bluegum wood, he said. At the rock pool, he said. At the Devil’s Hole, he said. Right in Isak Smous’s house, he said. They’ve been lying around all over the valley. He, a stranger from outside. Have you forgotten what happened to her mother then?”
No one dared answer.
“If justice must be done, then let it be done,” he shouted.
“Let us not be too hasty in our judgement, Jurg,” said Lukas Death, darling a quick glance at his wife.
“If the lot of you are too scared,” said the big man, “then leave her to me. We can’t allow this witch of Satan to bring even more shame over us.”
“For a man with blood on his hands you’ve already said too much,” Hanna interrupted him. For another minute she stood before him in eloquent silence, then came to us and put her arm through Emma’s. Her eyes didn’t leave him for a moment.
Even so we were a pretty small island in that sea of hostile faces.
Camel
WITH HER HEAVY body supported on the hams of her upper arms, Tant Poppie sat at the head of her large dining table. There was a pile of sewing in front of her, but she didn’t seem to have been working. She was just sitting there, staring through the dusty panes of the small window in the wall opposite. Large cracks had appeared in the wall, but she didn’t seem to notice. I’d never seen her idle before. Now she looked like a discarded bag from which some of the contents had spilled.
For a moment she tried to put up a front, but it was rather half-hearted. Then she held out her needle and a length of thread to me and said gruffly, “Can you give me a hand? My eyes are not what they used to be. Here I’ve been trying to camel the thread through the needle but I keep missing it.”
I’m all thumbs when it comes to threading a needle, but after several attempts and much licking and aiming I managed to manoeuvre the fucking thread through the fucking eye and handed it back to her. “What are you working on?”
“Just keeping out of mischief.”
“I still want to thank you for standing up for me.”
“That Jurg is asking for trouble,” she grumbled. “He needs to be taught a lesson. But that doesn’t mean you had the right to do what you did.”
“I couldn’t let him get away with murder.”
“Ag, it’s such a mess.” She shook her head; her bun had come undone and her hair looked tatty. “I just don’t know anything any more.”
“What’s the matter then?”
She leaned back; the chair protested. “On a day like this.” She shook her head again with a helplessness out of place in the woman I’d come to know. “Everything we lived for, all our hopes, suddenly it’s just all gone. Something has happened to us and I don’t know where it’s going to end. I feel like a stranger in a strange land. The Devil has been let loose among us, seeking whom he may devour.” She looked up. Light settled on her face like dust. “Does that mean anything to you?”
Ostrich Egg
“Can it really be so bad?” I asked, against my better judgement.
“No,” she said tartly. “It’s worse. It’s the limit.” Another shake of the head. “And that’s what I don’t understand. All one’s life one prepares oneself for the end, but when it comes you’re still caught unprepared. That’s not the way you expected it. So much sickness, so much anger.” A vague gesture towards the stuff on the floor. “For the first time in my life my medicine doesn’t help any more. It’s all been in vain.”
“If only the rains would come…” I said automatically.
“That won’t make any difference any more. We’re too caught up in evil. We closed our eyes to it, we pretended it wasn’t there.” There was no self-pity in her voice. The very matter-of-factness of her tone unnerved me.
I pulled out a chair and sat down opposite her. I didn’t try to make conversation any more. Silence lay spilled across the space between us. There was something superfluous about words, or perhaps a lack. Same difference.
After a long time she spoke again, without looking at me, as if through the small window she could see something I couldn’t. “It used to be different, Neef Flip. Our people have always been quick to pick a fight, true. But we had good times too. Celebrations, like New Year’s Day. We’d start preparing weeks before the time. Here in the middle of the valley, just opposite Ouma Liesbet’s house, there used to be a stone dam. We’d fill that up to the brim with honey-beer, the people called it karie. A beer so strong, you can take my word for it, if you put an ostrich egg in it, it got dissolved overnight. And on New Year’s Eve we’d all meet there, one lot from this side, the rest from the opposite end of the valley, each group with its own musicians. Fiddle, Christmas-worm, guitar. And then we’d dance and drink and have a roaring time. Even the dead would come from their graves to join in. You never saw such merrymaking. It went on until all the beer was done, sometimes it took a week or more. Then we’d just drop in our tracks and sleep it off. By the time we woke up again the dead would also be back where they belonged. And by next September a whole new generation of babies would be born. Make no mistake, Neef Flip: the people could quarrel and give one another hell, but deep down we were always united. When there was danger, or some kind of plague, we all stood together. In the time of the Great Flu, in times of drought or locusts. And in between there was always something to celebrate. Birth, marriage, death. Or when the bean-harvest came in, or the first witblits of the new vintage from Tall-Fransina’s still, or from her father’s before her. Or when Isak Smous brought in a new load from outside. But that was before the young ones started moving out, before our numbers went down, before Little-Lukas died, before the drought. Those days will never come round again. The Devil has come to claim his own.”
Welcome
Slowly, as if she didn’t really want to, she turned her face to me.
“It would have been better if you never came, Neef Flip. Then you wouldn’t have seen what you saw. And perhaps nothing would have gone wrong.”
“You
can’t blame me for it all.”
“I’m not blaming anybody. But you came here and woke up yesterdays that were better left alone.” A pause. “Unless it’s always been in store for us. I mean, the signs were there. We’re all marked with them.”
“It depends on how one reads the signs.” With a touch of provocation I added, “If you hadn’t believed right from the beginning that Emma had the mark of the Devil on her…” Without thinking I placed a hand on my breast.
“Ja, that mole on her left tit,” she said. “Looks mos just like the footprint of a goat. So what else can it mean? It is the mole you’re talking about, isn’t it?” She made a long pause. I couldn’t answer. She sighed. “That’s why I’m saying it’s a pity we can’t get away from our yesterdays, Neef Flip.” Her eyes scurried across my face. “Now tell me honestly: if Emma never knew anything about her mother, don’t you think she’d have been happier for it?”
“It’s not for us to judge.”
She persisted: “If we never knew about Grandpa Lukas and the things he did, wouldn’t our lives have been easier?”
“It’s the Seer himself who refused to go to rest.”
“You have an answer for everything. But we’ve come to the end of answers.” And then she said, in the same quiet voice, “It will be better for you to take your things and leave this house, Neef Flip. I’m too old for the kind of thing that happened this morning.”
“Am I no longer welcome here then?” My mouth felt tight.
“It’s not that I want to throw you out,” she said, unmoved. “But it’s just not working out any more.”
Twenty-Four of Them
As I left Tant Poppie’s house with my rucksack on my back, I came past Tall-Fransina, wandering aimlessly about the broken lean-to where bits and pieces of her still lay scattered—part of the coil, the helmet, faggots, stones from the fireplace. Nervous cats were prowling around her, hissing when I approached.
“What are you going to do now?” I asked.
“What can I do?” Her short hair looked more grey and unkempt than usual. “I could ask Isak Smous to bring me a new still. But I’m not sure. It’s been a lifetime.” Followed by a bitter sigh. “Just as well Little-Lukas left when he did, because now there’s nothing left here for him.”
“You were very attached to him.”
“What could you understand about such things?” She kneeled down to stroke one of the cats. The animal stretched its neck back and closed its eyes, purring against her, licking her fingers with its rough, pink, pointed tongue. Fransina’s eyes were closed too. I was fascinated by the scene, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I tried to imagine twenty-four of them.
“Perhaps I understand better than you think.”
Tall-Fransina opened her eyes. “Emma?” she asked.
I said nothing, but allowed her to look into me. She was the only one in this place, I thought, who needed no explanation.
“I noticed,” she said, continuing to stroke the cat. “But there is no future in it.”
“There wasn’t for you either.”
“No. And yet one keeps faith, against all the odds.”
“You and I are getting old,” I said.
“What will become of Emma?” she asked.
“I don’t know. They’re all against her. Especially Hans Magic. For reasons he’ll know better than I do.”
“He’s old too,” said Tall-Fransina. “Perhaps he needs more forgiveness than you or I.” She stood up. The cat kept winding through her legs.
Stuck in the Wheel
Rather unexpectedly I found lodging with Lukas Death. It was Annie-of-Alwyn who suggested it, when I ran into her on my way from Tall-Fransina; she was heading for Tant Poppie’s to get medicine for a sick child. When she heard what had happened she invited me to move in with her, clearly without even thinking of the implications. But I was reluctant. “You’re living on your own, Annie, and the Devil’s Valley is just looking for an excuse to get at me. It’ll be much too risky for you. Especially after the stand you took this morning.” To my surprise she blushed, and I discovered that, haggard as she was and old before her time, she was more attractive than I’d thought. She wanted to protest, but she’d obviously realised herself that she couldn’t afford the risk. That was when she referred me to Lukas Death.
Dalena was quite amenable. The one who objected was Lukas. What would people say? But just as stubborn as she’d been in the morning Dalena nipped his arguments in the bud. “Little-Lukas’s room is empty,” she said. “His bed is still made up. Neef Flip, you’re welcome to move in there.” In an uneasy way it rounded a circle. I wasn’t sure how comfortable I’d feel in the dead boy’s bed, but for the moment I was at least assured of a roof over my head.
But then an unexpected bloody spanner got stuck in the wheel when Emma also turned up on Dalena’s doorstep looking for a place to stay. We were in the voorhuis when she appeared on the stoep, all embarrassed and apologetic. Seen from inside, it was as if the stark white light outside was eating away her silhouette like acid. Her story was brief and to the point: after the events of the morning Isak Smous’s battle-axe wife and her two sisters had unceremoniously thrown her out. A woman accused of witchcraft was no longer welcome in their home, in case the taint was contagious. Isak hadn’t been allowed any say in the matter. What shook me was how small the bundle was she’d brought with her. After she’d unpacked, later, I saw it all: a church dress and a nightdress, a pair of shoes, a shawl and kappie, a small pile of books, a box of toiletries Isak Smous must have smuggled in for her. A whole life in such a paltry bundle. To be so rooted in a place, and yet so disposable, I found hard to grasp.
Your Reasons
I immediately offered to move elsewhere myself. Gert Brush was a possibility, he’d always seemed approachable, even more so after the stand-off at the church. If push came to shove I could even camp in the open air, in the dry riverbed or somewhere. But behind her jaded looks, as I’d already discovered, Dalena had a will of flint.
“The schoolroom is empty,” she said. “With all the upheaval nowadays I’m sure it won’t be needed again soon. So we have room enough.”
“But there’s no bed, Dalena,” Lukas Death pointed out. I got the impression that he’d grasp at any pretext to be rid of his house guests—not necessarily because he resented our presence, but because as Judge he found it risky to be compromised in the eyes of his flock.
“Flip can stay, he was here first,” said Emma. “I can find a place to sleep in Annie’s house.”
“My yes is my yes,” Dalena cut her short.
Lukas Death tried another approach: “Actually, it will be easier for her with Annie, Dalena. And she’ll be a help for Annie too.”
With embarrassing directness Dalena asked, “Do you have anything against Emma then?”
“It’s not that I have anything against Emma, Dalena. But there are good reasons why she shouldn’t stay with us.”
She looked him straight in the face. “You may have your reasons, Lukas, and I know you’ve had them for a long time. But Klein-Lukas is dead and all I have to say is that if Isak threw Emma out then it’s only right and proper for us to take her in.”
“She can have Little-Lukas’s room,” I proposed. “I’ll sleep on the floor in the schoolroom.”
But there was no need for that, Dalena quickly pointed out. The outcome was that the unused coffin of Lukas Up-Above was prepared for me. The bloody thing had been stored in the back room for over a century after its owner had flown away to heaven or hell.
I’d have preferred the fucking floor any time, but Dalena wouldn’t hear of it. And in a community where even bride and groom spent their first night in a coffin I suppose there was nothing offbeat about the proposal. Moreover, it turned out to be the biggest coffin I’d ever seen, almost the size of a double bed, and surprisingly soft inside. A bit dusty, if truth be told, but that was only to be expected after a hundred years.
Goddamn Crime
> AND SO IT came that like two newly-weds in the Devil’s Valley Emma and I spent the night in a coffin. Deep in the night she came to me, like one of my nightwalkers. I heard the door open, and sat up, startled. Although I knew it could only be her, it was unexpected all the same. It had been different in her room in Isak Smous’s house; even in my room at Tant Poppie’s it would not have been a problem. But here in the house of the Judge, it felt like a goddamn crime. A capital offence for all I knew.
She got into the coffin next to me. In a way I suppose it was funny. But more like macabre. And dangerous above all, for her more than for me.
“If Lukas Death finds out about this all hell will be loose, Emma.”
“He needn’t find out.”
“He’s already upset about your staying here.”
“That’s his worry.”
“What has he got against you?”
“He never liked me. He tried everything he could to keep Little-Lukas and me apart.”
“But why?”
“I suppose I just wasn’t good enough for his son. I’m rubbish, remember.”
“But Lukas Death is such a gormless soul, I’m sure he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Have you ever tried to have it out with him? I’m sure he’ll understand reason.”
“Don’t underestimate the man, Flip. He’s possessed by the same devil as all the Lermiets.”
“If that’s so, then how on earth can you come here to sleep with me under his own roof?”
She held her breath. “I just can’t sleep in Little-Lukas’s room.”
“What is there to be scared of?”
“You don’t understand, Flip,” she said. “Little-Lukas is in there. He wanted to get into bed with me all the time. He never pestered me like that when he was still alive, but he isn’t shy any longer.”
I swallowed the sudden spurt of jealousy. In this fucked-up place nothing was too bloody outrageous to believe. And perhaps it was this very weird discovery of having a ghost for a rival that made it happen. In spite of all my good intentions, and after having struggled for so long to control my feelings, that night I fell for it. Hook, line and sinker.
