Whitethorn (31 page)

But we haven't reached the end of the
Dominee
's sermon yet because now he went back to the book
The Origin of Species
and held it up. From where we were sitting you couldn't see if it was the actual book. But if it was, then later, after he'd told us what was in it, I wouldn't have been surprised if it had burst into flames right there in front of our eyes.

‘In the beginning was the word!' the
Dominee
shouted out again, this time so loud we nearly jumped out of our skins. ‘But this book says in the beginning was nothing but germs that eventually, after millions of years, become people and all the creatures on earth. It's called evolution, and it's blasphemy! This is true evil. The devil's masterpiece! God tells us seven days and everything is finish and
klaar
, but Charles Darwin, the Englishman, tells us millions of years and from germs!' He looked around. ‘Now who you going to believe, hey? God's masterful creation in six days and then Sunday for a good rest, or germs growing up to be people and trees and animals? It's truly laughable that somebody could have the cheek to write such rubbish and expect people to believe it!' The
Dominee
paused. ‘But that's where the devil is clever, you see, because inside he has put a Christian truth, it is called “survival of the fittest”. God has said the white man is superior and must dominate all the inferior dark races, and we know also that the Afrikaner is one of his chosen people because we survived among the savages in the wilderness and we are definitely the fittest. So be careful when you read a book, sometimes there are truths written in evil books, just so you can be fooled. But Hitler wasn't fooled and in Germany there are no more evil books. But in England, the whole place is full of them, you can hardly read a book that isn't. I don't suppose many of you will read books in English, but if you do, beware, the devil is very clever and lurking on pages, and before you know it, you're trapped. God tells us that to think evil is the same as doing it, so I want you all to watch out, you hear? Better still, don't read anything in English, that is my final warning!'

Well, I must say, I didn't think much of the
Dominee
's walking-on-ice and fishing-through-a-hole-in-Russia sermon. But this one, where this Englishman says God definitely didn't create the earth in six days and it was germs all the time, was different. This was sheer blasphemy, as plain as the nose on your face. In all the books Miss Phillips sent I hadn't seen anything like this. Perhaps in the future I'd have to look a bit closer for evil lurking between the pages because the devil was so clever. The fact that the English allowed it to happen and hadn't burned any books to make everyone safe like Hitler had done was a big worry. In life there's always something you've got to watch out for, and I still wasn't sure about recognising Jews and Roman Catholics and now, all of a sudden, there were Bolsheviks and Anarchists as well.

Then, on the following Saturday after the germs-versus-creation sermon we were working in the vegetable garden when I looked up and there was smoke coming from the direction of the library rock. I dropped my paraffin tin bucket, and Tinker and I started to run. Gawie must have seen me, then the smoke, because he did the same. But we arrived too late, and all my Miss Phillips books had been taken out of the old paraffin tins and thrown on a pile that was now just leaping flames. On top was the red book, and maybe because the cover was made of leather it hadn't burnt yet. Without thinking, I stuck my hand into the flames and pulled it out. The red book was very hot and one corner was alight, but I got it out and threw some sand on it to stop the flames. My hand was burning like billyo. Gawie tried to kick some of the books clear on the edge of the flames, and some of the lighted pages separated from the covers and flew up in the draught caused by the disturbance and got into the grass and dry thornbush on the edge of the library rock, and now the grass was alight and the thornbush was crackling and exploding around us. Gawie and me tried to stamp it out but it was burning in too many places, so I picked up the red book and called to Tinker, who was barking like mad, and to Gawie and we scrambled up the side of the library rock to safety and stood on the top watching the fire spread. Soon the surrounding bush was nothing but flames leaping high as a house and dense smoke everywhere.

We could hear people shouting from the direction of the vegetable garden and orchard but there was no way they could get over to us or see us through the smoke. Through a momentary clearing of smoke I saw something too terrible for words. The fire was heading for Mattress's old hut and the pigsty and dairy. Next thing the pigs were squealing in terror and I knew we were in the all-time deepest of deep shit. It was getting hard to breathe because the fire was eating up the air around the library rock. There was a narrow unburnt corridor to the left of us that led to the creek about 300 yards away, and I decided we had to try to get through.

‘Gawie, we've got to run over there!' I shouted, pointing towards the creek. He was beginning to cough so he nodded, and we climbed down the library rock and ran through the smoke towards the safety of the creek. To this day, I'll never know how we made it. The flames were closing in fast and there were even patches of grass and whitethorn alight ahead of us where sparks must have been carried in the wind that had come up with the fire. Tinker was barking like mad and trying to protect me, running ahead and showing us the way around the burning patches. We both ran straight into the creek, panting like mad, and Tinker stayed on the creek bank barking. I realised that I was holding the red book under water and the cold creek water was soothing to my fiercely stinging hand.

From where we were sitting we could now see the fire had reached the dairy and the pigs were still squealing. Later, everyone said you could smell the roast pork for miles. I looked at Gawie and his face was black, and I suppose mine was too.

‘What now?' he said.

‘First, wash your face,' I replied. Why I would say a stupid thing like that I don't know, but he dipped his hands in the water and splashed his face clean.

‘You too,
Voetsek
,' he said.

‘I can't because I'm holding this,' I said, producing the red book from under the water. My other hand was too sore to splash with.

‘
Ag
, throw it away, man! It's all burnt and wet.'

‘No, I can't,' I said, and stood up and walked to the creek bank where we both sat down on the black shiny pebbles. The fire had stopped short of the creek, but was still raging everywhere else, making a sort of roaring sound.

‘We in the deep shit, man!' Gawie said.

‘I know,' I answered.

‘So, what are we going to do? They going to think we started the fire and it's Pretoria for sure.'

I could see Gawie was on the edge of tears. I felt the same way myself but I knew he was expecting me to do something, though what I didn't know.

‘We have to escape,' I said.

‘Escape?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Where?'

All of a sudden it was the youngest having to come up with all the answers. ‘Town,' I replied.

‘Town?'

It was getting annoying, him just saying one word in a question like that. ‘We've got to turn ourselves in.'

‘Where?'

Another one word. ‘The police station. To Sergeant Van Niekerk.'

‘How come we always have to go to him?'

More than one word at last. ‘If we go back to The Boys Farm, that is probably burned down by now, can you imagine the trouble we in, man? We'll get a
sjambokking
from Meneer Prinsloo with the long cane, and him running flat out at us and that's even
before
we go to Pretoria.' I paused, suddenly remembering. ‘Oh my God! Adolf Hitler is probably roast chicken by now!'

‘You're right, man!' Gawie said, quickly realising that if we went back and Adolf Hitler was just a smouldering roast chicken carcass, then we were also as good as dead meat.

The road to town was about 400 yards from the other side of the creek, so we waded over again with Gawie carrying the red book, and me carrying Tinker. They must have made books very strong in the olden days because except for the burnt corner and it being a bit swelled up from being wet, the stitching still held together perfectly, and the gold on the edges of the pages was still there to be seen.

When we got to the road we discovered we had problems. Not at first, but starting to come down the road were
bakkies
from the surrounding farms who must have seen the smoke from the big fire and were coming to help to put it out. So we had to hide in ditches and behind trees so they wouldn't see us, and I had to tell Tinker not to bark. When we were in one ditch we could hear someone driving towards us with a siren going and we saw it was Sergeant Van Niekerk in the police van.

‘What now?' Gawie asked.

I had to think fast. ‘Mevrou Booysens at the Impala Café,' I said, only because I couldn't think of anybody else except Meneer Van Niekerk, the school headmaster, but it was Saturday and no school.

‘Who?'

We were back to one word. ‘You don't know her, but she'll be good,' I reassured him. From time to time I'd pop in after school to say hello to Mevrou Booysens. But not too often because she'd always give me a big welcome, and when I had to run to catch up with the crocodile going back to The Boys Farm, she'd give me a red sucker. I didn't want her to think I was only coming for the sucker. Which was a bit true in any case, but I
really
liked her and Marie, her daughter, who was not yet completely a nurse, but nearly, and she would sometimes be home from the hospital in Tzaneen. Marie would make a big fuss of Tinker and give me a kiss. I was collecting quite a lot of kisses, ten of them, but only from her, because she said she was now my
nooi
.

We made it safely to the Impala Café and Mevrou Booysens was there and also Marie. I told Mevrou Booysens what had happened, then I started to cry, but not because I was scared, which was also true, but because my books had been burned. My precious library that was now only the red book that I'd stolen from under Doctor Van Heerden's house. Gawie also started to cry, but I think because he was scared about what was going to happen to us.

Marie put her arm around me and Mevrou Booysens put hers around Gawie. I'd had Marie's arm around me before, but Gawie probably couldn't remember if it had ever happened to him, and now he really started to blub. After a while Mevrou Booysens said, ‘I've got just the recipe to stop crying in boys and it's ice-cream with ten toppings!'

It did the job, alright. Soon Gawie was right as rain, scoffing ice-cream out of his bowl with one leg and guessing what topping he was tasting next. I was eating mine a bit slow because I held the spoon in my left hand, not wanting to show my burnt hand. Marie went and got a wet dishcloth to wipe my dirty face, which she said was as black as a
kaffir
's, and then she said, ‘Now your hands,' and grabbed my right wrist and lifted it from my lap.

‘
Eina
!' I cried.

‘Oh my God,' she exclaimed. ‘Tom, what have you done to your hand?'

‘I burned it when I put it in the fire to get my red book.'

‘That's silly! Now look what you've done! Why didn't you just let it burn?'

That was the first time I understood that women don't think like men. ‘Because I couldn't,' I said, not knowing what else to say or how to explain.

‘This is a bad burn, Tom, I'm afraid you'll have to go to Doctor Van Heerden. I don't have the right dressings, only a bandage,' she explained. She must have seen the concern on my face. ‘What's the matter?' she asked.

‘I can't say,' I whispered.

‘Look, Tom, you can't move your fingers, that's because the skin on you hand is burned, if it gets infected you could be in all sorts of trouble.'

‘We already in all sorts of trouble,' I sniffed.

Marie smiled. ‘This could be a lot worse,
skattebol
.' She took the spoon and dug into my ice-cream that was hardly touched, making sure there was some topping on it. ‘Open your mouth or all the ice-cream is going to melt,' she said.

How could a burnt hand that hurt a lot be as bad as the trouble we were already in? Going to Pretoria was the worst thing that could happen to a person. This was another thing perhaps a woman wouldn't understand that men would. ‘Only if you don't tell him about the red book,' I said.

‘What's so special about that book, Tom? Why mustn't the doctor know?'

We were outside The Boys Farm so you couldn't tell a lie. ‘I stole it,' I said softly, not looking at her.

‘From Doctor Van Heerden?'

‘From a box under his house where Tinker and me slept the night I cut my finger.'

‘They should be ashamed!' she exclaimed. I wasn't sure who she meant, but then she said, ‘It's okay, you've already been punished enough, God just burned your hand for stealing that book, now it's yours for keeps.'

That sounded all right, but I knew the world didn't work like that. ‘You won't tell him, will you?'

‘I swear it on a stack of Bibles,' she said, raising her hand to her shoulder. ‘But what are you going to say when he asks how you burnt your hand?'