In the Heart of the Country

  191. Unable to sleep, I drift about the house at siesta time. I finger the strange clothes in the locked room. I look at myself in the mirror and try to smile. The face in the mirror smiles a haggard smile. Nothing has changed. I still do not like myself. Anna can wear these clothes but I cannot. From wearing black too long I have grown into a black person.

  192. Hendrik is slaughtering a sheep a week. That is his way of claiming his due.

  193. I get up in the mornings and look for things to clean. But things will not grow dirty fast enough. They are too little used, I must wait for the dust, and the dust falls in its own good time. I sulk; the house glitters.

  194. Hendrik stands at the front door with his wife behind him.

  “Miss, the coffee is finished, the flour is finished, almost everything is finished.”

  “Yes, I know it’s finished.”

  “And miss still owes us.”

  “I have no money. You don’t work anyway, so why should I give you money?”

  “Yes, but miss owes us, isn’t that so?”

  “It won’t help to keep on asking, Hendrik, I am telling you I have no money.”

  “Yes, but then miss can give us something else.”

  195. I cannot carry on with these idiot dialogues. The language that should pass between myself and these people was subverted by my father and cannot be recovered. What passes between us now is a parody. I was born into a language of hierarchy, of distance and perspective. It was my father-tongue. I do not say it is the language my heart wants to speak, I feel too much the pathos of its distances, but it is all we have. I can believe there is a language lovers speak but cannot imagine how it goes. I have no words left to exchange whose value I trust. Hendrik is ducking and grinning secretly all the time he offers me the old locutions. “Miss, miss, miss!” he says to my face; “I know you, you are your father’s daughter,” he says behind his hand; “you are my wife’s half-sister, where your father lay I lie too, I know that man, his mark is in my bed.” “You, you, you,” sings Klein-Anna from behind him where I cannot see her.

  196. Hendrik makes his appearance high above me on the platform outside the loft door dressed in the clothes of my father. It is grotesque! He postures, putting his hands on his hips and thrusting his chest out.

  “Aitsá!” Klein-Anna calls up to him.

  “Take off those clothes at once,” I cannot have this, he is going too far with me, “I said you could take some of the baas’s old clothes, but those clothes are not for you!”

  He leers down at his wife, ignoring me.

  “Hendrik!” I shout.

  “Hê!” says Hendrik, holding out his arms and pirouetting on the platform. “Aitsá!” his wife calls back, dissolving in delighted laughter.

  He has taken a white cotton shirt without collar, the best satin waistcoat, the twill trousers, even the good black boots. More shirts lie draped on the rails.

  What can I do against the two of them? I am so alone, and a woman! I toil up the wooden stairs. This is my fate, I must go through with it.

  The laughter has ceased. My eyes are level with his boots.

  “Miss!” Is that finally hatred I hear in his voice? “Miss, come on, tell old Hendrik: does miss want him to take off the baas’s clothes?”

  “I said you could take old clothes, Hendrik, but those clothes are not for you.” How many more of these cloddish words can I utter when my voice wants to wail and groan?

  “Does miss want me to take the clothes off?”

  I am trapped. I am going to cry. What more must I undergo before they will leave me alone?

  Hendrik begins to unbuckle his trousers. I close my eyes and bow my head. I must be careful, if I try to go down the stairs backwards I will certainly slip and fall.

  “Hey, look! Look, our miss, look!” What I hear in his voice is certainly hatred. Hot tears run down my cheeks though I pinch my eyes shut. Here is my punishment, it has come, it is now for me to bear it. “Come on, don’t be scared, our miss, it’s only a man!”

  So we stand in tableau for a long time.

  “Stop now, you’re hurting her.” Klein-Anna’s voice comes up softly from below, saving me. I open my eyes and see her looking curiously straight into my face. She is a woman, therefore she is merciful. Is that a universal truth? Probing backwards one foot at a time I descend the steps and drag past her into the house. They are making an enemy of me, but why? Simply because I have no money for them?

  197. They loiter about the yard in my parents’ finery with no one to show it off to. These idle days tell on them as on me. We are all falling apart. Bored with each other, they have turned on me for sport. I pick up the rifle from its old place in the umbrella rack. Hendrik’s back drifts into view above the front sight. What is Hendrik at this moment, a man plagued by ennui sucking a grass-halm or a patch of white against green? Who can say? Gun and target slip into equilibrium and I pull the trigger. I am stunned and deafened, but I have been through this before, down to the ringing in my ears, I am an old hand. Anna is running like a child, flailing the air, stumbling in the heavy white dress. Hendrik is on hands and knees trying to crawl after her. I retreat to the dark of my room to wait for the noises to cease.

  198. Gun in hand I emerge on to the bare stoep. I raise it and aim at the patch of white shirt. The barrel wavers crazily, there is nowhere to rest it. Anna screams and points at me. They spring into motion, running like hares across the yard towards the vegetable garden. I cannot make the gun follow them fast enough. I am not bad, I am not even dangerous. I close my eyes and pull the trigger. I am stunned and deafened, there is a ringing in my ears. Hendrik and Klein-Anna have vanished behind the row of fig-trees. I put the gun back in its place.

  199. Dressed in the finery of dead people they sit on the old bench in the shade of the sering-tree. Hendrik crosses his legs and stretches out his arms along the back rail. Klein-Anna snuggles against his shoulder.

  He sees me watching them from the window. He rises and approaches. “Miss doesn’t perhaps have a little tobacco for me?”

  200. I lie on my bed with the pillow over my eyes. The door of my room is shut but I know that Hendrik is in the house rummaging through drawers. I would know it if a fly licked its feet in this house.

  The door opens. I turn to the wall. He stands over me.

  “Look, miss, I found some tobacco.”

  For the last time I inhale the sweet odour of pipe-tobacco. Who will ever bring it into my house again?

  He sits down heavily beside me on the bed. My nostrils fill with his smell. He lays a hand on my hip and I scream at the blank wall, holding my body rigid and bellowing out my terror from the depths of my lungs. The hand leaves me, the smell vanishes, but the screams go on ringing.

  201. Hendrik and Klein-Anna sit on the old bench in the shade of the sering-tree. Hendrik crosses his legs and puffs on his pipe. Anna nestles against his shoulder. From the window I watch. They are unscathed.

  202. I beckon to Hendrik with the white envelope. “Take this letter to the post office. Give it to the baas at the post office. He will give you money. If you leave early tomorrow morning, you can be back on Tuesday evening.”

  “Yes, miss – the post office.”

  “If they ask, say I sent you. Say the baas is sick and can’t come. Remember: the baas is sick – don’t say anything more.”

  “No, miss. The baas is sick.”

  “Yes. And tell Anna that if she feels anxious she is welcome to sleep in the kitchen tomorrow night.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “And put the letter in a safe place, otherwise you won’t get anything.”

  “No, miss, I’ll keep it safe.”

  203. Anna begins to make up her bed. I do not leave the kitchen, but sit against the table watching her. Her movements have grown clumsy. She is out of her depth now that her husband is ab
sent.

  “Do you like sleeping in the kitchen, Anna?”

  “Yes, miss.” She averts her face, she whispers, she does not know what to do with her hands.

  “Don’t you want to sleep in a proper bed?”

  She is bewildered.

  “Don’t you want to sleep in the bed in the guest-room?”

  “No, miss.”

  “What! Do you prefer to sleep here on the floor?”

  “Yes, miss, on the floor.”

  She endures a long silence. I fill the kettle.

  “Get into bed. I am just going to make a cup of tea.”

  She covers herself and turns away from the light.

  “Tell me, don’t you undress, Anna? Don’t you undress when you go to sleep? Do you keep your kerchief on when you sleep?”

  She pushes the kerchief off.

  “Tell me, do you sleep with your clothes on when your husband is with you? That I can’t believe.” I pull a chair over to the bedside. “Do you have a nice time with your husband, Anna? Come on, you don’t have to be shy, no one will hear us. Come, tell me, do you have a nice time? Is it nice to be married?” She snuffles miserably, trapped in the dark house with the witchwoman. This is not going to be a dialogue, thank God, I can stretch my wings and fly where I will. “I too would like a man, but it has not been possible, I have never pleased anyone enough, I have never been pretty.” I crane over her from the stiff kitchen chair and hector; she hears only waves of rage crashing in my voice, and sobs drearily. “But that is not the worst. Energy is eternal delight, I could have been a quite different person, I could have burned my way out of this prison, my tongue is forked with fire, do you understand; but it has all been turned uselessly inward, what sounds to you like rage is only the crackling of the fire within, I have never been really cross with you, I only wanted to talk, I have never learned to talk with another person. It has always been that the word has come down to me and I have passed it on. I have never known words of true exchange, Anna. The words I give you you cannot give back. They are words without value. Do you understand? No value. What was it like with my father when the two of you spoke? Were you at last simply man and woman? Come, tell me, I want to know. Did he give you good words? Don’t cry, child, I told you I am not cross.” I lie down beside her and cradle her head on my arm. She puts out a long tongue and licks the snot from her upper lip. “Come, stop all this crying. You must believe me, I am not in the least cross about what you and the baas did together. It is good that he found a little happiness with you, he had a terribly lonely life. And I am sure it was nice for both of you, wasn’t it? I could never make him happy, I was never more than the dull dutiful daughter, I only bored him.

  “Tell me, Anna, if the two of you were together, if he had lived, do you think that it would have been possible that you and I would have been friends? What do you think? I think we would have. I think we would have been something like sisters or cousins.

  “Listen, don’t move, I am going to blow out the light, then I’ll come and lie next to you till you fall asleep.”

  I lie trembling beside her in the dark.

  “Tell me, Anna, what do you call me? What is my name?” I breathe as softly as I can. “What do you call me in your thoughts?”

  “Miss?”

  “Yes; but to you am I only the miss? Have I no name of my own?”

  “Miss Magda?”

  “Yes; or just plain Magda. After all, Magda is the name I was baptized with, not Miss Magda. Wouldn’t it sound strange if the minister baptized the children like that – Miss Magda, Baas Johannes, and so forth?”

  I hear a little pop of saliva as she smiles. I am gaining ground.

  “Or Klein-Anna, Little Anna, instead of Anna. We are all little to begin with, aren’t we. I was once also Little Magda. But now I am just Magda, and you are just Anna. Can you say Magda? Come, say Magda for me.”

  “No, miss, I can’t.”

  “Magda. It’s easy. Never mind, tomorrow night we’ll try again, then we’ll see whether you can say Magda. Now we must sleep. I’ll lie with you for a while, then I’ll go to my own bed. Goodnight, Anna.”

  “Goodnight, miss.”

  I find her head and press my lips against her forehead. For a moment she struggles, then stiffens and endures me. We lie together, at odds, I waiting for her to fall asleep, she waiting for me to go.

  I grope my way out of the kitchen to my own bed. I am doing my best in this unfamiliar world of touch.

  204. I wait for Hendrik. The day passes uneasily. Then far across the veld I see what can only be he toiling towards the house, first a tiny white dustcloud on the horizon, then a dark speck moving against the stillness of other dark specks, then visibly a man on a bicycle pumping himself toward me through the heat of the afternoon. I fold my hands.

  Now he has dismounted and is pushing his bicycle through the soft sand where the road crosses the river. He seems to be bringing a parcel. But as he gets nearer the parcel becomes more and more clearly his jacket tied on to the back of the bicycle.

  He rests the bicycle against the bottom step and marches up to me. He holds out a letter folded in four.

  “Good afternoon, Hendrik, I’m sure you’re exhausted. I put some food aside for you.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  He is waiting for me to read. I unfold the letter. It is nothing but a printed form headed ONTTREKKINGS–WITHDRAWALS. In the margin there is a pencilled cross against the line Handtekening van belêer—Signature of depositor.

  “Wouldn’t they give you anything?”

  “No, miss. Miss said I would get my money. Where is my money now?” He stands so close over me that I am trapped in my chair.

  “I am sorry, Hendrik, I am truly sorry. But I’ll think of something, don’t worry. I’ll go to the station myself tomorrow and fix it up. We’ll have to catch the donkeys before sunset. I have no idea where they are grazing.” Words, words: I am talking simply to hold back the wall of his anger that towers over me.

  I push my chair back and rise unsteadily. He does not retreat an inch. As I turn I brush against the patched shirt, the gleaming skin, the smell of sun and sweat. He follows me in.

  205. I point to the covered dish on the table. “Why don’t you eat here in the kitchen?”

  He lifts the cover and looks at the cold sausage and cold potatoes.

  “I will make tea. You must be thirsty.”

  He skims the dish across the table. It shatters on the tiles, the food spilling lumpily everywhere.

  “You—!” I scream. He watches to see what I will do. “In God’s name what is wrong? Why can’t you tell me straight out why you are so cross? Pick up that food, clean up, I’m not having you make a mess in my house!”

  He leans on the table breathing heavily. A fine chest, strong lungs. A man.

  “Miss lied!” I hear the words reverberate in the space between us. My heart sinks, I do not want to be shouted at, it only leaves me helpless. “Miss said the post office would give me money! Two days I rode – two days! And where is my money? How must I live? The storeroom is empty. Where must we get food? From heaven? While the baas was here we got our food every week, our money every month; but where is the baas lying now?”

  Does he not see that this achieves nothing? What can I do? I have no money to give him. “You may as well leave,” I mumble, but he does not hear me, he is ranting, throwing heavy black words which I no longer bother to catch.

  I turn to go. He springs at me and grabs my arm. “Let go!” I shout. He grips me tightly and pulls me back into the kitchen. “No, wait a bit!” he hisses in my ear. I pick up the first thing I see, a fork, and lunge at him. The tines scrape his shoulder, probably not even piercing the skin; but he exclaims in surprise and hurls me to the floor. I stumble up into a deluge of blows. I have no breath left, everything has been gasped out, I cover
my head and fall slowly and awkwardly back to the floor. “Yes! . . . Yes! . . . Yes! . . .” says Hendrik, beating me. I raise myself on hands and knees and begin to crawl to the door. He kicks me in the buttocks, heavily, twice, a man’s kicks, catching bone. I flinch and weep with shame. “Please, please!” I roll over on my back and lift my knees. This is how a bitch must look; but as for what happens next, I do not even know how it is done. He goes on kicking at my thighs.

  206. Hendrik still rants behind me, throwing his heavy black words, but I cannot listen to more of this grudge from a man ridden by a sense of being wronged. I turn and walk out. At my second step he is upon me, catching my arm and yanking me round. I struggle against him. I pick up the first thing I see, a fork, and lunge with it, scraping his shoulder. The skin is not even pierced, but he sucks in his breath with surprise and hurls me against the wall, his whole weight upon me. The fork falls. His pelvis grinds hard into me. “No!” I say. “Yes!” he grunts an inch from my ear, “Yes! . . . Yes! . . .” I weep, the situation is shameful, I do not see how to get out of it, something is going limp inside me, something is dying. He bends and fumbles for the bottom of my dress. I scuffle, but he finds it and his fingers come up between my legs. I grip as tightly as I can to keep them still. “No, please not, please, not that, only not that, I beg you, Hendrik, I will give you anything, only please not that!” I am light-headed with panting, I push and push at his face without effect. He slides down my body, dragging at the elastic of my pants, scratching me. “No! . . . No! . . . No! . . .” I am faint with fright, there is no pleasure in this. “Ah Hendrik, please let me go, I don’t even know how!” I am falling, perhaps even fainting, held up only by his arms around my thighs. Then I am lying on the floor smelling the beeswax, the dust. I am nauseous with fear, my limbs have turned to water. If this is my fate it sickens me.

  Things are happening to me, things are being done to me, I feel them far away, terrible incisions, dull surgery. Sounds come clearly: suckings, breathings, lappings. “Not here, not on the floor, please, please!” His ear is at my lips, I need only whisper to be heard. He rocks me back and forth, back and forth on the floorboards, my skull giving a little bump on the skirting every time. Smells come clearly too, hair, ash. “You are hurting me . . . please . . . please stop . . .” Is this finally how people do it? He heaves on and on, he groans against my ear, tears run down the back of my throat. Let it stop, let it stop! He begins to pant. He shudders lengthily and lies still on me. Then he draws himself out and away. Now I know for sure he was inside me, now that he is out and all the ache and clamminess sets in. I press my fingers into my groin while beside me he fastens his trousers. It is beginning to seep out of me, this acrid flow that must be his seed, down my thighs, on to my clothes, on to the floor. How can I ever wash it all out? I sob and sob in despair.