The Complete Oom Schalk Lourens Stories. Herman Charles Bosman
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“The Lord will make all things right,” I said.
“Yes, God knows what is best,” Hendrik Oberholzer answered. “I heard about ––––. They told me yesterday.”
Hendrik could not bring himself to say that which we both knew about his son.
For, on my way back along the Bechuanaland border, I had come across Paulus. It was in some Mtosa huts outside Ramoutsa. There were about a dozen huts of red clay standing in a circle amongst the bushes. In front of each hut a kaffir lay stretched out in the sun with a blanket over him. All day long these kaffirs lie there in the sun, smoking dagga and drinking beer. Their wives and children sow the kaffir-corn and the mealies and look after the cattle. And with no clothes on, but just a blanket over him, Paulus also lay amongst those kaffirs. I looked at him only once and turned away, without knowing whether he had seen me.
Next to him a kaffir woman sat stringing white beads on to a piece of copper wire.
That was what I told Hendrik Oberholzer.
“It would be much better if he was dead,” Hendrik said to me. “To think that a son of mine should turn kaffir.”
That was very terrible. Hendrik Oberholzer was right when he said it would be better if Paulus was dead.
I had known before of low-class Uitlanders going to live in a kraal and marrying kaffir women and spending the rest of their lives sleeping in the sun and drinking bujali. But that was the first time I had heard of that being done by a decent Boer son.
Shortly afterwards Hendrik left. He said no more about Paulus, except to let me know that he no longer had a son. After that I didn’t speak about Paulus either.
In a little while all the farmers in the Groot Marico knew what had happened, and they talked much of the shame that had come to Hendrik Oberholzer’s family. But Hendrik went on just the same as always, except that he looked a great deal older.
Things continued in that way for about six months. Or perhaps it was a little longer. I am not sure of the date, although I know that it was shortly after the second time that I had to pay ten pounds for cattle-smuggling.
One morning I was in the lands talking to Hendrik about putting some more wires on the fence, so that we wouldn’t need herds for our sheep, when a young kaffir on a donkey came up to us with a note. He said that Baas Paulus had given him that note the night before, and had told him to bring it over in the morning. He also told us that Baas Paulus was dead.
Hendrik read the note. Then he tore it up. I never got to learn what Paulus had written to him.
“Will you come with me, Lourens?” he asked.
I went with him. He got the kaffirs to inspan the mule-cart, and also to put in a shovel and a pick-axe. All the way to the Mtosa huts Hendrik did not speak. It was a fresh, pleasant morning in spring. The grass everywhere was long and green, and when we got to the higher ground, where the road twists round the krantz, there was still a light mist hanging over the trees. The mules trotted steadily, so that it was a good while before midday when we reached the clump of withaaks that, with their tall, white trunks, stood high above the other thorn-trees. Hendrik stopped the cart. He jumped off and threw the reins to the kaffir in the back seat.
We left the road and followed one of the cow-paths through the bush. After we had gone a few yards we could see the red of the clay huts. But we also saw, on a branch overhanging the footpath, a length of ox-riem, the end of which had been cut. The ox-riem swayed in the wind, and at once, when I saw Hendrik Oberholzer’s face, I knew what had happened. After writing the letter to his father Paulus had hanged himself on that branch and the kaffirs had afterwards found him there and had cut him down.
We walked into the circle of huts. The kaffirs lay on the ground under their blankets. But nobody lay in front of that hut where, on that last occasion, I had seen Paulus. Only in front of the door that same kaffir woman was sitting, still stringing white beads on to copper wires. She did not speak when we came up. She just shifted away from the door to let us pass in, and as she moved aside I saw that she was with child.
Inside there was something under a blanket. We knew that it was Paulus. So he lay the day I saw him for the first time with the Mtosas, with the exception that now the blanket was over his head as well. Only his bare toes stuck out underneath the blanket, and on them was red clay that seemed to be freshly dried. Apparently the kaffirs had not found him hanging from the tree until the morning.
Between us we carried the body to the mule-cart.
Then for the first time Hendrik spoke.
“I will not have him back on my farm,” he said. “Let him stay out here with the kaffirs. Then he will be near later on, for his child by the kaffir woman to come to him.”
But, although Hendrik’s voice sounded bitter, there was also sadness in it.
So, by the side of the road to Ramoutsa, amongst the withaaks, we made a grave for Paulus Oberholzer. But the ground was hard. Therefore it was not until late in the afternoon that we had dug a grave deep enough to bury him.
“I knew the Lord would make it right,” Hendrik said when we got into the mule-cart.
The Gramophone
That was a terrible thing that happened with Krisjan Lemmer, Oom Schalk Lourens said. It was pretty bad for me, of course, but it was much worse for Krisjan.
I remember well when it happened, for that was the time when the first gramophone came into the Marico Bushveld. Krisjan bought the machine off a Jew trader from Pretoria. It’s funny when you come to think of it. When there is anything that we Boers don’t want you can be quite sure that the Jew traders will bring it to us, and that we’ll buy it, too.
I remember how I laughed when a Jew came to my house once with a hollow piece of glass that had a lot of silver stuff in it. The Jew told me that the silver in the glass moved up and down to show you if it was hot or cold. Of course, I said that was all nonsense. I know when it is cold enough for me to put on my woollen shirt and jacket, without having first to go and look at that piece of glass. And I also know when it is too hot to work – which it is almost all the year round in this part of the Marico Bushveld. In the end I bought the thing. But it has never been the same since little Annie stirred her coffee with it.
Anyway, if the Jew traders could bring us the miltsiek, we would buy that off them as well, and pay them so much down, and the rest when all our cattle are dead.
Therefore, when a trader brought Krisjan Lemmer a second-hand gramophone, Krisjan sold some sheep and bought the thing. For many miles round the people came to hear the machine talk. Krisjan was very proud of his gramophone, and when he turned the handle and put in the little sharp pins, it was just like a child that has found something new to play with. The people who came to hear the gramophone said it was very wonderful what things man would think of making when once the devil had taken a hold on him properly. They said that, if nothing else, the devil has got good brains. I also thought it was wonderful, not that the gramophone could talk, but that people wanted to listen to it doing something that a child of seven could do as well. Most of the songs the gramophone played were in English. But there was one song in Afrikaans. It was “O Brandewyn laat my staan.” Krisjan played that often; the man on the round plate sang it rather well. Only the way he pronounced the words made it seem as though he was a German trying to make “O Brandewyn laat my staan” sound English. It was just like the rooineks, I thought. First they took our country and governed it for us in a better way than we could do ourselves; now they wanted to make improvements in our language for us.
But if people spoke much about Krisjan Lemmer’s gramophone, they spoke a great deal more about the unhappy way in which he and his wife lived together. Krisjan Lemmer was then about thirty-five. He was a big, strongly built man, and when he moved about you could see the muscles of his shoulders stand out under his shirt. He was also