Philida (26 page)

Adriaan of the Caab.

Aleksander of Mozambique.

Adonis of Mozambique.

Moses of Mozambique.

Apollis of Mozambique.

Maart of Mozambique.

Slembang of Batavia.

November of Batavia.

One slave woman named Maria of the Caab and her two children, Regina and September.

Julenda of the Caab with her children, Rachel, Labina, Barend, Willem, Morné, Kaming and Gabriel of the Caab.

Sara of the Caab.

The list can keep one busy for a long time. But sooner or later it comes to an end. And when it is all over, there stands Cornelis Brink, behind the house at the empty wine cellar, thinking: So much, indeed. But when it has all been cleared away? What remains? What remains? Is this all that can be written up and said about my life? A double bed, some empty wine barrels, a plaited sjambok.

How disposable a man remains at the end of it all, once everything has been added up and subtracted and calculated.

Zandvliet, he will think, Zandvliet. What used to be everything, has turned to nothing. Dust unto dust. As if a Bible has been upended and emptied over it all, shaking out all the words over it like salt from a cellar.

Over and over: What remains? How does one make the sum of a human being? Dear LordGod. The old preacher may well repeat it all:

In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened; also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain or the wheel be broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity
.

XXI

Where a sudden Trip undertaken by Cornelis to the Caab results in an entirely new set of Consequences for the Inhabitants of Zandvliet, while a Visit by Francois to Worcester closes down other Prospects

FRANCOIS WAS DEVASTATED
by the auction at Zandvliet. Over the preceding months his father had constantly complained about the deterioration of his financial position, but no one could believe that matters were really so dire. The first arrival of Mijnheer Knoop, the bailiff of the court, on the farm in March that year, to draw up the inventory, caught all of them unawares. And that was only the beginning, for on two more occasions the bailiff returned to complete his task, accompanied by an assistant and a helper. Then in early July, as we know, came the auction itself, with the whole farm trampled to dust by the crowd that came swarming through home and farmyard to gawk at everything, turning over plates and spoons to assess them from close by, and upending chairs to make sure the
riempies
were firmly crossed and tied, and defiling it all with their clumsy calloused hands and leering eyes.

Once everything was over and the homestead was left behind like a ruin that had died before its time and the family remained in the hollow rooms like after a funeral and gazed about them as if they no longer knew one another nor really wanted to, the worst was to come. Everybody was waiting, but they weren’t sure what it was they were
waiting
for. Probably the wagons that had to arrive from somewhere to cart everything away. Where to? Nobody really knew or in fact cared.

It was in those days that Cornelis saddled his black horse and rode from the farm in a cloud of dust. At first no one knew where he was going to, or why.

In the end, as far as we can recover it all today, it was Janna who confided in her oldest daughter, Maria Elisabet, and after that the news was out.

But the why was still unclear. And following whose tracks? Nobody could tell for sure, and they were all too scared to ask. It was Alida, the youngest, who dared to utter what none of the others could or would.

He’s gone for good. Perhaps we’ll never see him again.

But no. Five days later Cornelis was back, his horse exhausted, and lame in one hind leg. On any other occasion Janna would have given him total hell, but this time not even she dared to ask or comment.

Nobody spoke.

Cornelis gazed at all of them in turn where they stood waiting in the
voorhuis
as if all this had been arranged beforehand, and then went to the old Dutch armoire to pour himself a
sopie
of sweet wine in a delicate VOC glass, the wine everybody used to assure him tasted better than Constantia, though changing their verdict once his back was turned. He emptied the glass in one draught and went to pour another. This one he finished at his maddening leisure.

Still nobody spoke.

He poured the third glass and returned very slowly to where they were all still waiting in silence.

Only then he said, I went to the Caab.

Still no sound.

I went to see Berrangé.

Berrangé? asked Janna, her voice quite unsuited to her bulk.

Daniel Fredrik Berrangé, said Cornelis. The man who knows the law better than anyone else in this godforsaken place. He turned to look Francois full in the face. Adding calmly, as if it was a discovery: I’m talking about Maria Magdalena’s father.

Still not a word from the gathered family.

Now I know everything, said Cornelis Brink. Everything that happened at the auction, and why it happened.

They all start talking at the same time. All of them dumbfounded, he can see. The news must be too much to bear. Worst of all for Janna. The shame, she stammers at long last, in a low voice, the shame of it. That I, a de Wet, have to see a day like this. It will be the death of me. My heart cannot stand this. The shame. And I, born a de Wet.

You’ve been a Brink for years, Cornelis lashes out at her. I wouldn’t be so sure about your de Wet father if I were you. He was a man with a reputation as long as his cock.

My poor dead father, she sobs. In case you don’t know it, he was one of the most devout Christians among the pioneers of this Caab.

Of course. And the one thing they all had in common was the sowing of wild oats.

Cornelis!

And even more important, my dear wife, he goes on, is that he himself may have been a wild oat.

I shall not survive this, she gasps.

Oh, you will, you will, he assures her. Wild oats grow in all kinds of soil.

My late husband Wouter de Vos would have skinned you alive to hear you slander me like this! He was not a man
that
would have sold his wife’s earthly possessions to a lot of strangers and heathens.

What about the children you brought with you? he asks. If I hadn’t saved them they would all have gone straight to hell. And look how well I’ve married them off. You can thank the Lord that I gave you an honourable name and a roof over your head and a broad couch for your backside. When I married you, you were like a precious piece of porcelain on a high shelf. But look at you now!

Janna gasps for breath and starts crying like a biblical deluge in the wintertime.

It is not about Johannes or Francois or KleinCornelis or Daniel or Maria Elisabet or Lodewyk Johannes or Alida, or any of slaves who stand listening at every door and window of the
voorhuis
, but everything gathered inside the large woman over years and years of long dry summers and long wet winters, and now at last needs space to explode, like the bloated belly of a cow that has eaten too much green lucerne.

Among all the others it is Francois on whom Janna’s eyes suddenly alight. And what about you? she screams. It’s all your fault. It’s you who started consorting with that
naaimandjie
Philida. If it hadn’t been for you, we would all have been living together happily and like good Christians. Aren’t you ashamed, Frans? Do you have no respect left in your sinful body?
Godverdomme
, don’t you have any shame?

Her weeping starts whirling upwards out of her chest like a huge bird – like a crow or a hadeda or a duckostrichpheasant that no human eye has seen or heard before, and it flaps higher, through the ceiling of rushes and the thatched roof, through everything built by human hands, to come tumbling and flapping back only much, much later, to collapse on the floor in a flutter of blood and gastric juices
and
feathers. In a shuddering wail all her pent-up breath escapes from her convulsing body: Francooooooooooois!

For a long time it is deathly quiet in the
voorhuis
. From outside, far in the distance, one can still hear a few guinea-fowl clicking in the dark, and a pigeon flying up, and an owl announcing untimely death.

Can I make Ma some coffee? Alida asks in a weepy voice. Or some sugar water?

Nothing for me, thank you, Janna whispers.

Anybody else? pleads Alida. Perhaps Pa?

Everybody has suddenly become unbearably polite.

Boetie Francois?

Yes, thank you. Black. And strong.

Alida scuttles past on dirty bare feet.

From there we must imagine the rest:

Now where were we? asks Cornelis, avoiding their eyes.

With the decent man, Wouter de Vos, suggests Frans.

No, says Cornelis. Before that.

With the auction, says Frans.

Hmm. Cornelis clears his throat. Well, does anybody else want to say something about the auction?

All I’d like to know, says Frans, is: what happens now?

They all look at Cornelis, father of a multitude.

Nothing happens now, says Cornelis.

How can Pa say that? Weren’t you at the auction?

I wish I wasn’t, says Cornelis very calmly. It was like a Day of Judgement for us all. But nothing needs to happen now.

How can you – Once again, they all start speaking together.

I told you I went to see Berrangé, says Cornelis. From him I heard what I myself was too upset to see. Didn’t you notice who bought all our stuff at the auction?

What are you trying to say? We were all here, were we not?

But didn’t you notice that all our stuff, everything here at Zandvliet, everything in our house at the Caab, everything we possess on God’s earth, was bought by our own family, or family-in-law, or neighbours and close friends? We have lost nothing. They are taking care of our possessions until such time as we can buy everything back again. Through the infinite mercy of God, our Father, Son and Holy Ghost. And of Daniel Fredrik Berrangé who has arranged it all.

For the time being not one of the children can manage to utter a word. It sounds too much like some made-up story told by someone who is trying to dish out comfort.

There are conditions, of course, Cornelis resumes. He looks at Francois: And these depend on Francois Gerhard Jacob. He allows time for the words to sink in, like when they are irrigating the vineyard. Then he continues: With the Berrangés to protect us, we can pay off our debt and buy ourselves out when the time is right. We can start again and go on as before. It will mean a lot of hard work, but I have never been scared of hard work. And for this farm I’m prepared to put in whatever is expected of us. With the help of my family, every one of you.

He turns back to Francois: As soon as the debt has been paid, you will bed and marry Maria Magdalena Berrangé. Not a day earlier, nor – God help me – a day later. So be it. Frans, bring the Bible.

What he reads, once they are settled round the massive dining table – with all the slaves squeezed in with their backs against the inside wall – is no doubt predictable: Cornelis’s favourite chapter from Genesis about Jacob and Isaac and the ram on the mountain.

This is how God is putting us to the test today, Father Cornelis expresses his considered opinion. Let it never be said of us that we haven’t done our share.

The very next morning, we now know, Cornelis set to work – urging on everybody else to do the same – and got going as if he had a devil clawing to his back. He spoke about new plantings, particularly of red grapes, as soon as the season arrived, and clearing and preparing the vineyards in anticipation. From almost everybody he knew in the area, he started negotiating new loans for vats and barrels of all descriptions. And old loans that had been taken up years ago, were renewed and extended with promises enough to bring music to the very ears of Satan. Only Ouma Petronella, from whom he’d borrowed money as far back as ’24, when he first bought Zandvliet, refused to extend his debt of three hundred and fifty rix-dollars.

It’s because of Philida, she told him to his face. You treated her badly and I won’t let you shake it off like a burr in your clothes. It’s your own grandchildren you sold with her. God will come back to ask you for them one day. One way or another, it doesn’t matter. I know him, and he will.

It was between her and Frans, Cornelis answered. I can’t interfere in their affairs.

But I can interfere in yours, she told him. And I promise you, I’ll follow you all the way to the gallows if I have to, and you’ll pay for it.