What I did ask him very cautiously was: But what if the man at the Drostdy starts asking me questions? What do I say then?
Then you just tell him what you saw with your own two eyes, said Pa. About those two slaves of Izak Marais who
naaied
Philida. That’s where her last baby came from, not so? And her previous ones too, as far as we know.
How can Pa say a thing like that? I asked him. When was it those boys lay with her? They could not have had anything to do with the baby because it was only a few months before little Willempie was born.
That is in your own hands, said Pa. I don’t want to hear anything about it. All I can tell you is that if you want to
drag
the Brinks’ name through the mud you got to take responsibility for it.
I will.
You’ll just mess everything up. Like you always do.
I won’t, Pa, I told him. It just came to me. A year ago, I would have stopped right there. But not after that day in the backyard. And I saw Pa waver, saw him look up at me, measuring me. Up and down. Then up again.
This is for me to handle the way I see fit, I said.
I shall go with you, said Pa.
This is not your shit, I told him. It is mine. So I’m going to the Protector on my own. You stay right here at home.
I am still your Pa, Francois, he said firmly, but very quietly.
I said nothing. Just kept looking at him.
And after what felt like for ever, he spoke again: When will you be going? he asked without looking at me.
Tomorrow morning, I said.
We didn’t talk any more about the summons. But all the way to Stellenbosch on the back of the big black horse I kept remembering what we’d seen that day behind the homestead in our own backyard. Pa’d called everybody on the farm together, the way he used to do when he thought there was something for us to see or to learn. It was like the day he took us all to the Caab to watch the hanging. This time it was to look at Philida and the two young slaves. Though I still keep wishing God would have chosen not to let me be there on the day the two of them were brought on the donkey cart from the farm L’Ormarins. It was Pa’s own idea to send the cart, after he’d discussed it with Oom Izak Marais, the Baas on that farm. The two slave boys had no idea of what was coming and they looked as scared as two chickens lost in the veld when they arrived at our place. None of us at Zandvliet had any idea either.
First Pa goes to call Philida, who sits knitting on the back stoep.
He is waiting in the backyard beside the flogging bench that he has ordered the outdoor slaves to drag out for the occasion, with a long sjambok in his hand while we all stand clustered together in a corner, trying to keep out of his reach.
Take off your clothes, Pa tells Philida. And hurry up, I haven’t got all day.
Baas? asks Philida.
Take them off, says Pa, flicking the sjambok against the legs of his corduroy breeches. Today we need you
kaalgat
.
But Baas?
Philida, you heard what I said.
Once more she tries to protest, but then the tip of that long sjambok swishes across her thin blue-grey dress: I’m not saying another word,
meid
.
You can’t do that, Baas!
Philida, take off that bladdy dress.
That is when I also dare to speak up: But Pa!
You shut up and stay out of this, Francois Gerhard Jacob! He only uses my full name when he is totally furious.
Philida takes her time removing the blue dress, faded from many washes. I don’t want to watch, but something in me makes it impossible not to look. I
see
her. In front of all the others I see what has been meant only for me, ever since that first time I filled the wooden pail in the kitchen with hot water for her to bathe in. Her breasts that fitted so tightly into my cupped hands. Her stomach that was mine, with my child moving inside. Her narrow face with the wide cheekbones. Her big pitch-black eyes. I can see the little flicker beside her mouth. I know that flicker.
Pa motions to her to lie down on the flogging bench.
Flat
on her back. There is nothing about her I do not know. And that is how he has her tied down.
I can feel my hands clenching into fists. If he dares to hit her with that sjambok I know the LordGod himself won’t be able to hold me back. But this time Pa has a very different idea in his head. He motions to the two young slave boys who are still huddling together to one side. They may be as young as two-toothed lambs, but one can immediately see that Pa has had good reason to select these two.
Move your arse! he orders the first one.
Baas?
Get up on her, man!
The youngster clambers on top of her.
Now
naai
her!
Baas?
The first blow slices open his buttocks as if they’ve been cut with a knife.
Moerskont! Naai
her when I say so. That’s all you bladdy randy goats are good for!
For a moment the boy holds back, but spurred on by the sjambok he plunges forward and starts bucking furiously. It is over much sooner than I expected and then Pa steps closer to help him down again. From the thick, dark tip of his thing a drool of slime still comes trickling. Philida doesn’t move and makes no sound. For me her silence is worse than anything else. Previously, when she landed in trouble, all beatings were administered by MaJanna, and it always happened inside the
langhuis
, wherever the suspected misdemeanour was alleged to have taken place – in the kitchen or in the
dispens
, in the
voorhuis
, in the dining room or out on the stoep. Whether it was MaJanna’s decision or his, I don’t know, but Pa generally kept out of the way when any of the slave women had to be corrected. That was the word commonly used at Zandvliet.
On that day I found it impossible to watch any longer. Without losing another moment, I made my getaway into the kitchen and from there through the
voorhuis
to Old Petronella’s room. She was the only person I could think of who might still put an end to what was happening.
Petronella! I shouted. Petronella, come here this minute! We need you!
Without waiting, I pushed open her inside door. But there was no sign of her. While I was still desperately trying to think of something to do, one of the house slaves, Sara, came in from the
voorhuis
behind me.
What is Baas Frans looking for? she asked.
I must find Old Petronella.
She’s not here, everybody is out in the backyard.
Only then did I learn that Old Petronella had been sent out at daybreak to deliver a
karmenaadjie
to Lekkerwijn. It took Sara a while to explain the situation, and even before she could finish I was on my way again, through the kitchen to where the unspeakable was taking place.
But it was already too late. Through the throng in the backyard I could see Pa standing with the long sjambok in his hand. Philida still lay spreadeagled on the bench. Between her parted legs I could see the second of the young stallions from L’Ormarins huddled over her, his arse bucking and bobbing as Pa’s sjambok drew stripes of blood from his buttocks. Almost before he’d properly finished Pa was back to shoo him off from the bench.
Pa! I screamed at him. How the bladdy hell dare you? The LordGod himself, I swear, could not have held me back. Then I saw Pa’s arm with the long sjambok jerk back and the blow struck me in the face, just missing my eye. The pain was unbearable and I sank to my knees, covering my face with both hands.
Stop it, you little shit! I heard him growl before I was blinded by tears and blood streaming down my cheeks.
Pure rage took over. In one way or another I managed to stagger to my feet. I came up to him and to my amazement I realised something that had never penetrated my consciousness: how very small he was, half a head shorter than I, strutting about the yard like a little bantam cockerel. Until that day I had always thought of him as just my father, the Baas of Zandvliet, whose word was law, a man just below the LordGod himself. When he said something it was like one of the Commandments in Exodus, proclaimed aloud, straight from God on the Mount Sinai, which you had to obey or find yourself struck down into the fire, sand and brimstone of hell. And now, suddenly and shockingly, he had turned into a small and rather ludicrous person, shorter than me. How could I ever have felt scared of him?
Get away from me! he shouted in a falsetto voice. You have no business in this yard. Why don’t you go and help your mother with her sewing?
Shut up, Pa! I shouted, astounded by my own voice.
Listen to me, Frans!
I won’t ever listen to you again, I told him. What you are doing here today is an abomination in the eyes of the LordGod.
Shut your trap, you little
poephol!
Who is the
poephol
here? I asked him.
Francois Gerhard Jacob, today I swear I am going to kill you!
Let’s see who gets killed, I shouted back, completely beside myself.
That was when he swung up his right hand to strike out again with the long hippopotamus sjambok. But this time I
was
ready for him and I managed to grab the whiplash and jerk it away with such fury that he lost his balance and stumbled forward, landing on all fours next to me.
Francois! he bellowed.
Moerskont!
And then I heard MaJanna saying: Now that’s enough, both of you. And somehow the pandemonium around us subsided and only MaJanna and Pa and I were left behind, everybody else withdrawing to a safe distance. He slowly got back to his feet. I was aware of my hands still clenched into fists. But what had happened, had happened. For months after that I would continue to be haunted by the memory. For months? For the rest of my life. I can still see the small blunt cart rumbling off through the dust towards L’Ormarins. I can still see Philida sitting on the bench in a small tattered bundle, her thin arms clutching her knees, her rough dirty feet drawn in under her. Those thin small feet I used to fondle in my hands.
Come on, Pa snarled at her. There were traces of snot on his moustache. Put on your clothes. And don’t you forget what happened here today. That comes from sleeping around. If you don’t know yet you will find out soon enough.
At last he turned to face me again, glowering. Then without another word he left the yard followed by MaJanna.
VI
Which is as True as it is False
THERE’S NO WAY
any of us can deny it: that day changed the world. Before that day, whatever happened between Philida and me, concerned nobody but the two of us. If anybody else knew about it, that made no difference, it was not their business. To stand there with all the others looking on while those two boys took turns with Philida, the way she lay there exposed like a lamb brought to slaughter, that was unbearable. In the kitchen, when she had her bath in the barrel, or in Ouma Petronella’s room, or down in the bamboo copse, she was always mine only. Now we were a spectacle for all their eyes. And then the stories started, Ma and Pa’s stories about Maria Magdalena Berrangé, about what was acceptable and what wasn’t; it made me sick. There was nothing left that was only ours any more.
And the last straw came the day Philida went off, with the child on her back, to lay her complaint, to make it known to the whole world that I’d promised to set her free. It was like something snatched away from me and dragged through the mud and shit of the pigsty where that old sow wallowed all day. And all the gossip, like that
trassie
of a hen that kept cackling about the eggs laid by other chickens. Now I had to go and explain it so that the man at the Drostdy could write it up in his book for everybody to see. How could they expect that of me?
Nobody here on the farm had the faintest idea that this
was
what she was going to do. How could we? Petronella was the only one she’d told about it, because the old woman had to stay behind to look after little Lena, and Petronella of course told MaJanna, long after Philida was safely out of the way, and MaJanna told Pa. He was all for getting on his horse to go and fetch her back, but MaJanna stopped him. Let the bladdy
hoermeid
go, she said. And I hope she never sets foot here again.
But Ma – I tried to say.
Don’t you come and but Ma me, she snapped. You have nothing to say in this business.
So when the message came I had no chance to protest or to choose or to think about it. When the Drostdy opens its mouth we’ve got to move our arses. I was still seething when I set out for Stellenbosch.
Arriving at the Drostdy I was ready for a fight. And it didn’t make things easier when the tall sweating man in the office above the high stoep made me wait until he’d finished whatever he was doing. But at long last he was ready to see me and he asked a cheeky young clerk to show me in. Philida already stood waiting inside, with the child on her back. I could see his white curls sticking out from the
abbadoek
. Everything was open and exposed before us. It felt like when the slave bell clangs on the farmyard at daybreak every bladdy morning to get us out of bed and start working. That’s the way Pa begins his day. The moment the black rooster crows – everything still pitch dark, it feels like midnight on the farm, with only the smallest, dirtiest little smudge of red in the sky – he leans out over the wide windowsill to bellow: Ring that bell so the work can begin. Ring it!