The Lost History of Stars

  But when I held her now, she felt barely there.

  19

  March 1900, Venter Farm

  Moeder and I must have been a sight, colliding in a scramble from our bedrooms in our nightclothes, her with the rifle in her hands and I with a lantern. A shout came from the darkness: “It’s us.” Vader cut loose a high whistle from between his teeth. It had been a few months since their first visit, and the horses’ ribs stood out in a row of shadows along their flanks.

  “I was ready to shoot,” Moeder said when Vader climbed the stairs. He hugged her, and she winced as his bandoliers dug into her chest.

  “You wouldn’t have hurt us with that thing,” he said, pointing to her small rifle. “How are you?”

  “Later . . . I’ve got some good news for you.”

  Moeder turned for the kitchen and had a fire going under the coffeepot and buttermilk on the table by the time the men got the horses settled.

  Schalk was the first in the kitchen.

  “Did we scare you?”

  “We were ready,” Moeder said, still in her nightdress.

  Oupa Gideon lifted his glass and did not place it back on the table until it was empty. “You would not confuse us with a column of Tommies,” Oupa said.

  He studied Moeder. “Putting on weight?” he asked. “Lazing about?”

  “We are here to witness, not to judge, Gideon,” she said.

  “More likely you’re taking it easy on the girl.”

  “Bina’s a good hand,” she said. “We couldn’t do it without her.”

  “I could help if we were going to be here long enough,” Schalk said.

  “We won’t,” Gideon said. “Gone tomorrow.”

  Schalk had removed his hat, yet his matted hair continued to show its shape. He was different, more a man, just slightly smaller than the others. He lifted his bandolier over his head, cartridges now scant, like the smile of an old man missing teeth.

  Willem awoke and stepped into the kitchen, curious about the commotion, eyes like pinholes.

  “Our sentry,” I said.

  Oupa took his pipe onto the stoep, and Willem followed.

  “Would you like some koekies?” Moeder asked.

  Schalk nodded without interrupting his gulp of buttermilk. She retrieved the pastry and sat between Schalk and Vader.

  When Vader reached for one, a dark mark on his forearm peeked from his sleeve. Moeder pulled back his cuff. The scar was half the length of his forearm and jagged. I could not tell whether the wound had been deep or serious, but the coloring looked a sickly green. The stitches were uneven, the skin was pinched and puckered, and the wound was seeping in spots.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “There.”

  “Where?”

  “There . . . right there. . . . I’m looking right at it.”

  Vader looked down.

  “Oh, got it caught on something. . . . Didn’t really have time to stop and get untangled.”

  Moeder examined his face. He responded by chewing his cake with greater enthusiasm. We looked closer. The fading stitches were made with the green thread she had packed in his kit.

  “Who stitched this?” Moeder asked.

  “He did,” Schalk answered, pointing at Vader and laughing.

  “You did it yourself?” Moeder leaned toward it.

  “Ja, not bad.” Vader pulled his sleeve back down to cover it.

  She touched his arm, then his hand. “I’ll mix a poultice,” she said.

  “He didn’t call me until he needed the knot tied,” Schalk said. “He stitched it with one hand but couldn’t tie the knot by himself.”

  Willem interrupted with shooting noises as he acted out one of Oupa’s stories.

  “Does Gideon ever tire?” Moeder asked.

  “Never.”

  “We’ll be hearing these stories for ages, won’t we?”

  “In some form,” Vader said, heading outside for his pipe. “They’re getting more dramatic already.”

  Moeder brought more milk for Schalk.

  “How are you, Moeder?”

  “Well. Learning about farming. And stock. Doing some things I haven’t done on the farm since I was young, and some things I never did. Everybody is helping.”

  “I mean, how are you?”

  “Well.”

  “You feel well?”

  “Yes . . . well . . . why?”

  Schalk stared at her and then sat back from the table and packed a pipe. It looked strange, as if he were pretending to be an adult. It was a perfect chance to make fun of him, but he’d been gone so long I couldn’t. I hoped Willem didn’t see the pipe; he’d be asking for one next.

  Schalk took another bite of the cake and combed crumbs from his feathery beard, retrieving and eating those that fell onto the table.

  “This is so good,” he said.

  We heard more sounds of mock battles from the porch.

  “Tell us . . . something about it, Schalk,” I said. “Anything.”

  He chewed longer than was necessary, nodding to bide time.

  “Schalk?”

  “Some of the men are going home and not coming back,” he said, shaking his head. “The British promise they’ll be left alone.”

  “Anybody we know?” Moeder asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s it.”

  He closed in on another bite.

  “Schalk,” Moeder said, pressing him. “Your father?”

  “Fine . . . the best. Oupa is brave but thinks he’s still a young man,” Schalk said. “He is not.”

  “Sarel?”

  “Oupa is hard on him. Never lets up. Doesn’t seem to matter what he does.”

  “And you?”

  “Watching and learning . . . staying safe.”

  The war he and Vader presented was not the one I had seen in the reports in the newspapers at Tante Hannah’s.

  Moeder tried to stroke his hair into place, but it was stubborn. I expected him to complain, but he allowed it.

  “Is it close to over?” I asked.

  “Moeder,” Schalk interrupted, “will you play something?”

  She questioned him with a look that brought no answers.

  “Come,” she said, moving into the parlor.

  By the time Moeder struck a few notes, the family had gathered.

  Be still, my soul, though dearest friends depart

  And all is darkened in the vale of tears;

  Then shalt thou better know his love, his heart,

  Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.

  The sight of the men, who looked worn but mostly healthy, soothed my fears—at least the worst of them. And as we all sat in the parlor, Moeder playing softly, I wanted to think of it as another of our quiet evenings before the war. But we had all changed. Moeder looked at Vader and asked, “Is there something you’d like to hear?”

  It surprised Vader. He thought about his options. “Sarie Marais,” he said.

  She played it at a lively tempo, and the men sang. “There by the maize, by the green thorn tree, there my Sarie lives.” She held the final note, and as long as she pumped the pedal, it continued to resonate. She leaned close to the keys so that her stomach touched the organ.

  Vader stood behind her and surprised us all by lifting her to her feet with a hug.

  For the first time since they had left months ago, Oupa came in to get me in the night.

  “Very quiet,” he whispered. On the way through the parlor, I could see the slim dash of lamplight under my parents’ door; they were still awake. That was never the case. We walked so slowly that my eyes adjusted and I was surprised that a sliver of light could illuminate so much.

  Oupa and I did not risk even whispers on the stoep but still pointed at the constellations and smiled at each other. And when we returned, my parents’ lamp was doused. I hoped they had not heard us. I didn’t want to give away our secret. br />
  They had time only to load supplies and inhale a standing breakfast before leaving in the morning.

  “God’s grace, Susanna,” Vader said.

  “His grace, Matthys.”

  They used each other’s given names so seldom I had almost forgotten them. We watched the men turn and go, but it felt different this time. We could no longer pretend it was a glorified hunting trip. The visit upset me, bringing the war nearer. When their dust trail faded, Moeder went to the side of the house. I watched her, in case she needed my help with her next work project. She leaned with one arm against the blue gum tree and then slipped around the other side. She returned only after I’d gone inside, looking pale and unwell.

  PART II

  Chosen Vessels

  20

  June 1901, Concentration Camp

  The words floated out in rippling waves, the way old women with trembling voices try to reach difficult notes in hymns. She must have been new to the tent across the row from ours because I’d never heard singing from that space. Since the evening when we had gathered for hymns, I’d tried to sing a bit but had been shouted down each day. Cee-Cee liked it, Moeder just gained distance, but the rest gave off a howling like jackals over a carcass. To hear the neighbor woman singing—poorly, at that—encouraged me. If I sang in her tent, I might be considered gifted.

  A little one ran from the tent and almost struck me as I tried to peek inside.

  “Marthinus, come.”

  I put a hand on the little boy’s shoulder and led him back into the tent.

  “Dankie,” the woman said.

  “I’m Aletta.” I pointed to our tent.

  “Marghretta van Zyl,” she said.

  “I heard you singing.”

  “Trying to calm things as I can. . . . It doesn’t seem to work.”

  The woman, with three children now arranged around her, was too old to be their mother. I guessed ages and tried to decipher their relationship.

  “I’m their ouma,” she explained. “My daughter passed when we were taken.”

  I nodded with the sad, knowing look I assumed after I realized the futility of saying “I’m so sorry” to every person I met. It was easier now to mirror our frowns and share head nods without the burden of details. The children were all younger than Willem. Three at seven and under, I guessed.

  Another child, the middle in size, crawled behind me and ran from the tent.

  “Could you?”

  I chased the child, again leading the little one back inside the tent with a hand on her shoulder.

  “Agile,” I said.

  “Especially compared to me.” Her spine curved forward at the midpoint, leaving her eye to eye with me. I imagined the challenge of her duties, getting water and rations, scraping together meals, laundry . . . all the while trying to keep three little ones from tearing across the camp.

  While the children were occupied in a game they created with a string and two twigs, the woman pulled me toward the tent door.

  “I should explain; she was killed, actually,” the woman said. “My daughter. She didn’t just pass.”

  “British?”

  She nodded. I nodded. And we each pinched our lips tight.

  “We saw smoke from the next farm over and tried to get away,” she said. “We had the wagon packed and were heading out for some caves we knew of. A few of them came after us. . . . My daughter tried to get the wagon down a spruit to hide in the willows and brush.”

  The oldest boy pushed down the youngest, and all three tangled on the ground.

  “Pfffffffffttttt,” I said, pointing a finger at them. They turned and sat in place, perhaps unaccustomed to correction from a stranger.

  The woman looked surprised.

  “Powerful,” I said, looking at the tip of my finger. “Their mother?”

  “They couldn’t even see who we were,” she said. “They just started shooting. . . . Missed the children, praise God. . . . Got Emma through the stomach.”

  I put a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

  “Took two days for her to die,” she said. “The British kept giving her water, which was the worst thing, but it didn’t matter. The main Tommy kept saying he was sorry, that he had no way of knowing we weren’t commandos.”

  “They didn’t know who it was, so they decided the best thing to do was just shoot into the trees?”

  “That’s what he said . . . and then he blamed it on us,” she said.

  “On you?”

  “He said, ‘You Hollanders are to blame for us being here,’ and, ‘We wouldn’t have to shoot you if you didn’t run.’ As if they would convince us her death was our fault.”

  “The children?”

  “Well, they had a chance to say good-bye to her . . . but I hope they will lose the memory of those days.”

  “At least you were there for them.”

  “I wish it had been me.”

  She was so sincere, her sigh an apology for having lived instead of her daughter.

  I asked Moeder later if she knew the woman across the way.

  “I see her doing laundry sometimes . . . trying to keep three little ones from falling in.”

  “Did you know what happened to the mother . . . to the children’s mother?”

  “Just talk, nothing from her.”

  “The British shot her,” I said. “They were trying to get away and the soldiers shot . . . just fired wildly at their wagon.”

  “They didn’t see who it was?”

  “Didn’t care . . . two women and three children.”

  “I’m sure she wished they’d shot her instead,” Moeder said, echoing the instinct expressed by Ouma van Zyl. It made me think: What if it had been we who ran? What if it had been Moeder who had been shot by the British? How different one bullet fired into the brush could have made life for all of us. We would be here by ourselves, just the three children. I would have to be the mother of our little family, for now and forever, every one of us changed by one pull of the trigger. It seemed so real I felt a weight of responsibility.

  “That woman needs help, Ma,” I said.

  “Ja,” she said. “You should, Lettie.”

  “Water . . . rations . . .”

  “Ja . . . however you can help . . . poor woman.”

  The next afternoon I introduced Willem to the Van Zyl children, and he and Klaas ran with the oldest boy while I took the two younger children for a walk to give the woman a rest. She asked that I call her Ouma. When it was too cold or rainy, I sat with them in the tent and told them the stories I had made up for Cecelia back on the farm, the ones about pirates and travel and adventure and the big sister who was always there to come to the rescue whenever danger lurked. I thought they could use some fairy tales.

  I TRIED TO SPOT Maples from a distance, peering up from my book every paragraph. If another guard was nearby, I turned and walked down a different row and worked my way back a while later when he might be alone. It was natural to look aimless.

  Sometimes it seemed as if Maples was watching for me, or maybe it was just his job to look in all directions. If Maples had given me the Dickens book so that he could later say that I stole it from him, it had been several weeks and he surely would have sprung his trap before now. It had been a gift, not a trick. Yet I had to be careful if others were watching. I might approach him, but I never spoke first. If watchers took note, it would always be a matter of my speaking only when spoken to by a uniformed representative of the Crown.

  His head was down. He was reading a letter. I needed to just walk past this time. He might be luring me into a trap that could put our whole family in danger. I veered away and noticed his rifle propped against the fence as he read. The war would have been over by now if all Tommies were this lax. He probably thought no woman would rush up and take his rifle. I stored that thought in case we ever needed a weapon to break out or protect ourselves.

  Walk past without a word, Lettie. If he doesn’t speak first, he’s not even her
e, just keep reading.

  “Wait . . . Aletta.”

  I looked up, surprised to see him. I looked at his unattended rifle. He saw me notice it. Maybe this was his trap.

  “Oh, please, you could nick it right now . . . and shoot me in the foot or the leg, too, please. I could say I was hit by a sniper from outside the camp, and they might send me home . . . with a medal, even. Or maybe you could take this thing and trade it for one of the Mausers your men use . . . much better.”

  I looked into his eyes, the way Mother did when she searched for reflections of falsehood.

  “I hate the thing. . . . It’s so heavy,” he said. “Never shot one until I joined.”

  It was easier to see him as something other than a soldier when his rifle was not in hand. He was just a young man in a uniform and did not seem comfortable in it at that.

  “At least I don’t have to do anything with it except carry it around in here,” he said.

  He hadn’t mentioned being in actual battle, in the line of fire, shooting at our men. But that’s what he now implied.

  “You were out there?”

  “For a while, fighting the ‘wily’ Boers—that’s what the officers called them,” he said. “Always something up their sleeves.”

  “Oh?”

  “We followed some up to a farmhouse, but they disappeared. We asked the old man there where the Boers were hiding. In the queen’s English, he said he was from a British family and would be happy to help us find the bleedin’ Boers. He wanted us to do away with the lot of ’em. He told us to go one way and follow some dingus or dongus or some nonsense, and we’d find their camp.”

  “And?”

  “We rode down a little stream channel and they jumped us. . . . The old man sent us into an ambush. . . . We were all lined up in a row nice and neat for them to pick us off.”

  “Ah . . . uitoorlê,” I said. “That’s our word for ‘outfoxed.’ ”

  “Rude, don’t you think?”

  “What, someone being ungentlemanly in war?”