Philida (17 page)

Now Pa is going too far, I said.

Says who? Have you ever seen the thing that happened to my Bible?

What thing are you talking about, Pa?

On the very last page, he said, after Revelations and the Scarlet Woman. On the empty page where I wrote down everything about our family. Ever since Oupa Andries stepped ashore here in the Caab. That was when the LordGod created the world as we know it today. Everything
written
down very carefully. Except for the bloody slave women that slipped in from time to time, of course, but they don’t count. You know that. But now when I was in the Caab and I opened that last page one evening where I haven’t looked for a long time, I saw with my own eyes that somebody spilled blue-black ink all over that page. As if he tried to cancel us from LordGod’s own Book. Have you seen that?

That’s not a page I ever look at, Pa.

Well, go and take a look, then you’ll see for yourself. All of us blotted out from the Book. It’s clear that the LordGod had nothing better to do, so he took it out on our family again.

He won’t do a thing like that, Pa, I protested. That sounds like a human person did it.

Whatever, he said. I’m not saying God did it with his own hands. But he’s a sly bastard if he feels like it. Then he gets the Devil or someone else to do his work for him, so nobody knows who to blame for it.

I could not resist the temptation to ask him: And who’s to blame for Pa selling Philida now?

It’s her own bloody fault, he hit back. After all the lies she told that man in Stellenbosch! All her doing. And yours. That is why she’s got to be sold upcountry now. You heard all the things she said about us. Your ma cannot stand it any longer. And how do you think you’ll ever get that Berrangé girl to marry you with Philida always underfoot?

Who says I still want to marry anybody?

He glared at me. What utter shit are you talking now, Frans?

Everything we discussed and talked about tells me I got no chance with her, I said.

You should have thought about all of that long ago. Now
it’s
time to get it arranged. The Berrangés are important people, we can’t play the fool with them. And today we damn well need them, otherwise we’ve had it, jointly and severally.

What makes it different this time? I persisted.

That was when he put his big hand on my shoulder and he said: My son, it was only when I went to the Caab this time that it really hit me how bad it’s going with us. Because of the wine price. Because of this whole slave business. I lie awake at night and behind my closed eyes I can see strangers trampling the house and the farmyard of Zandvliet to dust. Everybody coming here for our bankruptcy auction. That’s a thing I’ll never survive, Frans. It’s just too much.

If that is how bad it is, I said, how can you stop it?

First of all we’ve got to get rid of Philida. She’s making the water murky for all of us. That’s why I’ve got to get on the road well before sunrise tomorrow morning so that we can get to Worcester in time. I hear that the prices in that part of the world are still better than in the Caab, but not for long.

Why can’t we wait a little longer, Pa? I tried to hold him back.

Who is your
we
? he asked.

Pa?

Don’t look at me like that, he said. You’re not going with me. I won’t allow you to bring even more shame on the family. It’s not games we’re playing, Frans, I tell you it’s life or death.

But, Pa!

That’s all I got to say. You have caused us enough trouble. Tomorrow when I take Philida to Worcester you will stay right here. And as soon as we get back, you better see to it that you get married to Maria Berrangé. I hope that is clear?

With this he stalked out.

For a long time I just stood there. Feeling as if he’d thrown a bucket full of cold water in my face. Or kicked me in the balls. This was much worse than the day I had to go to Stellenbosch to see the Protector about Philida. For the first time I now fully realised what was coming. That the two of us would never again go down to the bamboo copse together. That Philida would never set foot on Zandvliet again. Never. Not ever. No matter what I said or did, something was gone for ever. Between us, and for me. It was like a kind of dying.

I no longer even tried to think. All I could do was to get away from where I found myself and go to Old Petronella’s room. I had to get to Philida. We had to talk.

I hurried straight to the inside door of the room and pushed it open without waiting.

Old Petronella was cooking at the hearth in the corner. Philida sat on a small red carpet on the smooth dung floor, the shiniest floor in the whole house, with Willempie on her breast and her Kleinkat on her lap. On the big bed Lena was playing with a little green elephant I’d carved for her long ago from a block of camphor wood.

What are you doing here? Old Petronella asked me straight, putting her hands on her wide hips to block my way. There’s nothing here that belongs to you.

I’ve got to speak to Philida.

You got nothing to do with Philida. Let her be.

This is important business, Petronella.

Then Philida spoke up from the floor: You and I got nothing to talk about any more, Frans. I told you long ago.

But you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow, Philida!

I don’t want to know nothing. You just get out of here.

That was when I hear Pa speaking right behind me: What are you doing here, Frans? Get out and move your arse!

I saw him standing there with a long
kierie
in his hand and I chose not to keep him waiting any longer.

Outside in the
voorhuis
I stopped to look around me, for now I really had no idea of what to do next. All I knew was that I
had
to speak to Philida before the sun came out in the morning. And just like a little while ago, it went through my mind over and over: Never again. Never again. Never the two of us together in the bamboo copse again.

That was when the thought formed in my head: No matter what I said, she wouldn’t listen to me. It was over. For her there were only the children left, and the cat. It was useless to try and do anything about the children. But perhaps I could still reach her through Kleinkat. If Philida must leave for Worcester in the morning, she will never see that small cat again. And that was when the thought struck me.

Before I properly knew where I was going I was out of the longhouse. By that time dusk was already falling and I first stopped to clear my head. Then I turned back to the kitchen where I took a lantern from the shelf above the hearth, because I knew that in the copse it would be quite dark by now. In the first outroom in the backyard I found a small hatchet. Far away to the east the moon was already out. A deep orange yellow, and huge. It drifted up in the sky as if it were floating on dark water, so close that I felt I must duck. I made very sure no one could see me walking down from the longhouse. Once I was in the copse, I could light the lantern, nobody would see it from the house. And where I was walking right now I had no need of a lamp
anyway,
the moon was giving light enough, so strong that I could see a deep black shadow keeping pace with me to my left. It was both I and not I.

The copse is a very strange kind of place. As the bamboos close up behind me it is as if the whole everyday world around me fades away. Here it is as if I no longer know or recognise anything, and no one else knows about me any more. All that remains is
I
. Even my shadow has disappeared. In the pitch dark I can no longer see. I can only hear and smell. The heavy smell of the bamboos, a smell of distances and remoteness, of the sea, of darkness and strange animals. Of places where no one has ever been or knows about. When we were small Old Petronella used to tell us that these bamboos came from a place where she herself lived once, Java, and that they were brought here together with slaves and spices and herbs on ships, with stories of jealousy and rivalry and feuds and blood and murder and long knives. In a way all of that now lies soaked into the bamboos of this dark copse. It is a wood filled with life, and full of weird and terrible sounds, specially when the wind comes up, but even when everything is quiet, and in broad daylight. When I was a child those sounds used to scare me out of my wits: it sounded like the groaning and gnashing and whining and wailing of ghosts, people whose hands and feet were being sawn off with blunt knives, throats cut very slowly, a choking and rattling, a terrifying kind of world, very different from our own, and yet awfully close, much too close ever to allow one to breathe in peace. Even today, now that I know the sounds are only made by bamboo stalks and branches, it scares me, and at night it is even worse than in the daytime.

I strike a small flame from my tinderbox and light the oil lamp, and the wan light starts gnawing at the black trunks
and
stems, but it remains terrifying. And there is no more than a small yellow spot around me, which makes the surrounding night even more scary.

Our copse, Philida’s copse and mine, since ever so long ago. For this is where we came to hide when she grew so terrified after the hanging in the Caab, that poor miserable bastard that they had to hang twice, when she started crying so badly and clung to me and we dropped down together on the cold damp black ground, and at first I didn’t even know what was going on, it was the first time this had happened to me, and by the time it struck me I was already inside her and she was crying and talking to me, in my ear and in my face, and everything got wet with her spit and her tears. That first time, and then so many times afterwards. Always here among the bamboos and their groaning sounds and their stories about the sea and faraway lands. This is where our children were made. Willempie and Lena who will go with her to the auction tomorrow where they will be sold like skins and ostrich feathers and cattle. The children that she and I made together. Which makes my thoughts steal back to Little Frans, the one who was to bear my name. But we’re not talking about him. What happened could not be helped, I swear to the LordGod. That was one of the occasions when I promised her: Philida, I swear to God, one day, as soon as I have the money, as soon as I can make a proper life of my own and Pa lies in his grave, I shall buy you your freedom. And the freedom of our children. Do you hear me? This I promise you. And I’m going to write this in Pa’s big black book with our names. I promise and I swear.

But in the night, every night, it all comes back to me, together with the stories and the groaning and the moaning and the sighs of these bamboos. I am so very sorry, Philida.
I
never wanted it to get as far as this. But how could I avoid it? What else could I possibly have done?

Time and time again we came back to this bamboo copse, she and I. I suppose tonight will be the last time I leave my footprints behind in this dark place. A testimony unto the LordGod. For tomorrow you are going away and I must remain behind on my own. If Pa and the LordGod will it, for I no longer have a say. One thing I can tell you: twice during these last few weeks I have walked out of the longhouse with Pa’s hunting rifle in my hands. Once to the mountain, to the waterhole you went to show me long ago when we were still children, where the Water Women live. And once down to this very bamboo copse. I could not think of anything else I could possibly do. Somewhere, sooner or later, a man’s footprints must disappear behind him. But I was too much of a coward. I couldn’t. I’m so sorry, Philida. One day I suppose only this copse will know. This copse knows everything about us. Look at it in the meagre light of this lamp. Listen to it. Here the bamboos never stop rustling and whispering. Sometimes, when it is completely quiet everywhere else, it sounds like a storm wind in here. I’ve never liked wind much. The sun can blaze as madly as it wants to, but I can go with it and enjoy it. In the winter the snow may pile up all around us, but I like it. Every season, I feel, is good the way it is. The only thing I cannot bear is wind. It blows everything out of order in one’s mind. I often argued with Philida, because she likes the wind, she says, specially here among the bamboos. It’s their way of talking, she always says. Even then I tell her: Not in my ears. But she’s got an answer for everything. And one day when I was complaining about the wind again, she said: No, man, Frans. Wind is good. That’s how Ouma Nella taught me. It’s the wind that teach the trees to dance. So
how
can I get angry with it? From then on I think I understand it better, even though I still wouldn’t choose it myself. And perhaps she is right: nothing can be quite as magical as the wind in this bamboo copse. Listen to it. Lie on your back and listen to it. Feel it. Look at it. Smell it.

And there is one thing I shall never forget, no matter how old I get: I swear I was here one day, very long ago, when we were still small, when there were fireflies among the bamboos. Only that one night. I couldn’t believe it. It was like magic. But I know I saw them. Nobody ever wanted to believe me. Except you. Because you always believed whatever I told you. If I close my eyes tonight, I still see them. The whole bamboo copse teeming with bright fireflies. It was a day when there was a big fight between Pa and me, something that happened almost all the bloody time, I could never do anything to his satisfaction. He always ranted that I was wasting time carving little things from wood when there was better work to do. And on that day he gave me a thrashing, said he’d wasted enough time talking, it was time I listened. He said I was worse than a slave, a damn disgrace to the Brink family, and on and on. My whole back was covered in blood. Even Ma went to talk to him, something she hardly ever dared to do, so he hit her too. I came here to hide away in the bamboo copse. Late in the afternoon I heard him calling in the backyard. He was looking for me now. And then other voices too. Ma, slaves, everybody. But nobody would find me here. I was the only one who knew about this hiding place. And Philida, of course, but no one else. And later, when they stopped searching and the voices fell silent, I stayed here. Swore I’d never go home again, nobody would again set eyes on me. In the end I must have fallen asleep. And when I woke up sometime in the deepest hollow of the night, the
whole
bamboo copse was twinkling with fireflies. At first I thought they were stars, I was wondering whether I’d come to heaven. Those fireflies. As if the whole wood was aflame with their tiny flickers. Embers, small specks of the firiest fire I’d ever seen. Never again in my life, nor any time before. But that night I saw it. And I still remember. Because I was here and I saw it.