Philida (13 page)

So it go on, and now it look like my turn. There is no way I can get out of this. All I’m good for is to knit, but where does that take me? Everybody always say, You not just a farmyard girl, man, you a knitting girl. That’s
something
. So I ask you: What is
something
? Can it help me when I get big with Frans’s children inside me? Can it help me right in the beginning when I keep on telling Frans: All right, I lie with you, but then you must promise to buy my freedom? Can it help me the other day when the old goat want me to go down on my knees so he can get his snot sjambok into me?

I remember when Ouma Nella first teach me to knit. She just cast on the first row of stitches and show me in-over-through-and-off. That piece of knitting grow longer and longer, like a tongue, while Ouma Nella is busy somewhere else on the farm, so I just go on. The tongue get so long, after a while it push its way right over the doorstep, but still I keep on. Until Ouma Nella come back in the late afternoon and start laughing. I cannot see anything funny about it. Nobody ever show me how to cast off, only the in-over-through-and-off, and once I start on something I don’t give up easily. But Ouma Nella is laughing so much she later start crying.

Why you laughing? I ask her.

Ooohoo! she laughing. My child, I can see you ending up on the gallows one day, I tell you. It looks like a gallows rope you’re knitting there.

I nearly stop knitting right there. But after some time I start again, and after that Ouma Nella show me about casting off. I get fond of knitting. To make something with my own two hands and see it grow and take shape and turn into something that’s different from what it was before. A length of wool that is teased out and spun and wound up into a ball. At first it’s just wool, but then it change between your fingers and turn into something that can keep you warm in winter. It’s like when you talking and you take a lot of words and put them together like loose stitches on a needle, and suddenly you find you saying something that wasn’t there before. It’s some sort of magic that happen in your mouth, just like between your fingers. You can say
cat
, or you can say
dog
, and then you can make the cat sit down or catch a butterfly, or you can make the dog bite, and then to stop biting, whatever. And you can say:
Look, there’s a butterfly
, and suddenly the butterfly is there, even if there is no butterfly you can see anywhere. You just
make
it be there. You can make yourself butterflies in the longhouse, or in Ouma Nella’s bedroom, or in the night, anywhere, any time. Or when the Ounooi is giving you hell, you can say,
There’s a tick
, and then you can make that tick bite her just where and how and when you want to, and she won’t even know why you laughing. She only itch. Or when the old goat thrash you, you can say:
Eina, it’s sore!
But you can also choose to say:
No it don’t hurt at all
. Or you can say:
I won’t cry, even if he kill me
. And today I can say:
That blarry Oldman cannot hurt me and he won’t ever try to lie with me again. And I won’t ever call him Oubaas again
.

To tell the truth, I already forget about the day I knit the long wool tongue. Only remember it again on the day the old goat take us to the Caab to make us see how they hang that poor man Abraham and I pee myself. Not only because it is so terrible to see, although it is bad enough, but because I suddenly remember what Ouma Nella tell me about my knitting myself a rope for the gallows. Something I never-ever forget again. To carry my own death with me all the time and wherever I go. That must be why I keep knitting. Not to make that gallows story come true but to keep it out of the way.

This knitting been with me all the time. It start when Ouma Nella first tell me how to cast on the stitches, all the way to casting them off again. Then measuring to make sure the cardigan or the coat or whatever will fit properly. From the shoulder down to the starting row. Making sure it will fit properly – not too loose, not too tight. Getting to know all the different kinds of stitches. First garter stitch. Then cross stitch and blanket stitch and stem stitch. The whole lot of them. And not just one at a time. You learn to mix them together. Like you do with stocking stitch. Or with ribbing. Or with plain and purl. There’s a time and a place for every kind. And you learn to knit them by turns, which I do most of the time. Until you reach the edge of the ribbing for the neck, to make sure it will fit properly. After some more time you learn about cables. One row of stitches folding over another, it can be up-and-down cables or thisway-and-thatway cables. For that, it’s better to use thinner needles, it give you a tighter fit. You always use bamboo for needles, it work so much better. And there’s lots of bamboo on the farm. I love going down to the bamboo copse to pick them. After a while Ouma Nella show me about binding and facing. Choosing the right
stitches,
usually with thinner wool. And, of course, all the time she teach me about correcting mistakes. In the beginning, when my fingers are still dumb, there are mistakes all the time, all the way, JesusGod! Dropped stitches, crooked or uneven rows, rows knitted too tightly or too loose. Picking up the dropped stitches. Knitting up where it start unravelling. It’s like sleep, Ouma Nella always say. If you get too tired, your head unravel just like knitting. Then you need sleep to pick up the stitches and knit them up properly. After that, you learn about plaiting, and seams, and of course buttonholes. About gathering and ending off. So it go on, you always get new things to learn.

There come a time when I getting bored by knitting the same lot of stitches all the time. I begin to wonder what it will be like to try something totally new. Say a few stitches plain, then a few purl, a stocking stitch or two, a few garter stitches or something even more different, then knitting together a few, followed by crossing over some of the earlier ones, and repeating all of this for a few rows before moving on to something else again. Of course it mean planning very carefully and thinking ahead, otherwise it will all be a mess. You got to know how each row will go with the others around it, so each row got to be planned, then each group of rows, together and separate. In the beginning it make my head ache and my eyes burn, particularly in the evenings in the light of our lard candle. But I slowly find my way. Especially after I tell Ouma Nella about what I trying to do and she give me advice. First the two of us together, she and I, and later all by myself, I work and work to make my own patterns. A lot of trouble in the beginning. Even Ouma Nella keep saying I wasting my time and everybody else’s, but I go on and on. For days, for weeks, even for months. Making plans, lying awake, thinking ahead, and then following my
night-time
thoughts in the daytime. Then my first jersey get done. Just a small one, to see what it can look like. And it look really pretty, if I say so myself. Ouma Nella say the same.

Now I want to go and show it to the Ounooi, I say. Ask her what she think.

Better not, say Ouma Nella. I don’t trust that old cow.

She was right, of course. But I was too eager to show it to someone, and so instead of listening to Ouma Nella I take the jersey straight to the Ounooi.

She churning the butter when I get there, for that is something she always do herself, won’t let any dirty hands spoil her new butter. If she don’t keep her own fat hands on it, the butter turn out too hard or too runny, too salty or too insipid. Yes, she ask me, what you doing here? What do you want?

I just come to show the Ounooi something.

Well, show and be done, don’t waste my time with your nonsense. What have you messed up this time?

It’s a jersey I make for one of the children. For Alida or someone, I think.

She give it one look and ask, Who the hell told you to knit a jersey this time of the year?

Nobody tell me, Ounooi. I do it on my own and in my own time.

You’re not supposed to have time of your own. Who taught you this?

Nobody, Ounooi.

And you think we got enough time in this house to waste on things like this?

I think it is a pretty jersey, Ounooi.

You listen to me,
meid
. You’re not here to think. You’re here to work and to do what we tell you.

Yes, Ounooi. But –

Don’t talk back to me. And for all the time you’ve been wasting, bring me my
riem
.

But that’s not fair, Ounooi. I just try to –

Just this or just that, it’s all shit. Bring me that
riem
.

And then she beat me until I can no longer stand.

Not the end of it yet. Because after that I got to undo that whole piece of knitting in front of her eyes until there is nothing left of it. Nothing, I tell you. I just cry and cry. And that’s something the Ounooi can’t stand. So she beat me again. And she shout: For being so hard-headed and obstreperous you’re not getting any food tonight. That’ll bloody well teach you.

Luckily Ouma Nella was in her room to give me some bread and a mug of milk. But that night I cry myself to sleep. One of the very few times, for crying is something I do not
sommer
easily do.

But I do not stop knitting. Frans love watching me, and he like me to show him. I even show him to do some stitches himself. He don’t do too badly. But what he like best is to play auction-auction with me. He first teach me, because he often go to the Caab with the Oldman so he learn everything about auctions. And when he come back home to Zandvliet again, he show me. Back to the bamboo copse. For whatever we want to do that is always the best place. Usually he is the auction man or the buyer, or both of them in turn. Then I am the slave that got to be auctioned. I got to take off my clothes and stand on a block, so all the buyers can have a good look at me. And Frans start talking in a high singing voice.
Mijne heeren
. Because there is usually only men at the auction.
Mijne heeren. Here we have a young slave girl. Take a look
. I got to open my mouth to show them my tongue, and my teeth. And my hands, and my feet. Then
back
to the hands to show the gentlemen all my fingers, one by one. That’s when he start telling them about my knitting. All the clever things I can do with these thin fingers, he explain very proudly, all the things I can knit and sew. And how much a girl like me is worth to a farmer’s wife, more than money or corals, he say. Whatever corals may be.

Once he is done with the fingers he can carry on with the auction. The part I don’t like is when he want me to bend over to show my backside to the people so that he can show the men between my buttocks. And then to turn round so he can open me between his fingers.

Until I get fed up with the game and tell him to stop. One day I get off the block and I tell him straight, That’s now enough. Now it’s your turn to be the slave and I’ll be the Baas. That I like. Off with your shirt. Down with your breeches. And move your arse, the Baas don’t have time to waste.

Frans try to protest, so I whack him with the
kierie
.
Mijne heeren
. Take a good look at this fine young boy. His eyes. Those two eyes are so good, they can see a duiker three days away and they shine in the dark. He can see round a corner if there’s any game coming. Now look at his ears. Let me tell you,
mijne heeren
, he can hear from a hundred paces away when a chameleon turn its left eye to you. Now watch closely. Those two arms may be thin, but they tough. Those legs are not exactly tree trunks, but they can run as fast as a
ribbok
, from one sunrise to the next. Look at his front. Look at his backside. Look at this mouthful of teeth. Those teeth can chew stones. I turn Frans round and round, I tell them to look, I show them everything. I pull his fingers apart. I show them his foot soles. I make him bend over. Take a close look,
mijne heeren
.
Then
I show them his front again. By the time I come to his little thing, it already stand up like a stick. I do to him what we always do when we get together in the bamboo copse. Look again. This thing can shoot like an elephant gun. It’s a bargain,
mijne heeren
, and the man that get him, he get more than he can see. For this boy-child is a clever little bastard. He can read and write. He can do anything you can think of. You won’t get a better buy in this Caab of ours. Caab of Storms, Caab of Good Hope, Caab of Anything You Wish For in the wide world. His name is Francois Gerhard Jacob Brink, they call him Frans for short. Who will make me a bid?

All those auction games that go back over the years. But nowadays there is no time for games any more. The world now catch up with us. Today there is a very real thing waiting for us. When everything else is over and done with, this is what we got left: we’re on the wagon on the road to the Caab, it’s time we did something about leaving Zandvliet for good. Today the feet must be spared, so I can look in good form in case there’s people interested in buying a slave girl. Just like Frans and I used to play, except there is no play-play today.

It is I myself who tell the Oldman it’s now time for me to get moving. I must get away from here. Zandvliet got nothing for me any more. And I won’t be sold like an ox or a goat inland and upcountry. The LordGod alone know what will happen to me upcountry, far away from everything, far from family and friends, far from myself. So if that is what it got to be, I rather find myself a new baas in the Caab.

All right then, say the Oldman. Get on the wagon.

XI

In which Philida and Ouma Petronella travel to the Caab where they encounter a Woman who farms with Slaves