To hell with Cronjé. Ingrid Winterbach
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and Abraham stay in camp. Reitz and Ben accompany Gert Smal, who leads the way energetically. He appears to be much more resistant to the excessive intake of intoxicating fluid than the two of them.
Heading away from camp, they follow a narrow footpath, picking their way among loose boulders until they emerge near the river. There is no bank on the opposite side – a cliff face reaches up to the sky. With the river on their left, they proceed downhill for a while, past the poplar grove, to a place where the opposite bank plunges sharply downward. At a shallow drift they cross the river, leaping from stone to stone. At the base of a narrow kloof they swing left.
Reitz and Ben battle to keep up with Gert Smal, muttering from time to time under their breath. Gert Smal is out to kill us, Ben, Reitz says. He’ll think of crueller ways if that’s what he’s really up to, Ben replies.
After a while the rocky, uneven terrain gradually gives way to grassland dotted with aloe and thorn tree. The sudden transition in the landscape is beautiful – the unexpected greenness in this predominantly arid, stony environment. Up ahead they hear the rushing of water. Must be a waterfall further up the kloof, Ben remarks.
He points out a variety of things. A grasshopper with long, slender body and folded wings, uniformly green and motionless on a blade of grass. The quill of a porcupine, the droppings of a red rhebok, the lair of the small-spotted genet and the red mongoose. They hear the cry of a hamerkop and see a tawny eagle circle overhead.
Everything has to be pointed out at the double, for Gert Smal brooks no loitering.
Despite his energy, Gert Smal is sullen this morning. Their cautious inquiry as to where they will find the honey is met with silence. They soon discover Gert Smal dislikes questions – unless he is asking them himself.
When they have covered a considerable distance, Gert Smal says out of the blue: “Oompie knows a lot of tricks. And he can see into the future.”
Oompie? Reitz glances at Ben, who shrugs in mid-stride.
“What kind of tricks?” he asks circumspectly.
“You’ll see soon enough,” is Gert Smal’s curt reply.
“And what does he see?” Reitz asks later, also warily.
“Anything,” says Gert Smal, “he sees anything.”
“Be prepared, Ben,” Reitz says softly.
“Is one allowed to ask him things?” Ben inquires.
“There’s no need to ask him anything,” Gert Smal answers brusquely.
“What do you want to know, Reitz?” Ben asks as they walk along, having made certain they are not being overheard.
“Ah,” Reitz wipes his hand across his face, flushed and damp by now. “That is the question – what do I want to know!”
Some distance into the kloof they are suddenly pelted with stones from higher up. They fall to the ground.
Gert Smal, flat on his stomach, cups his hands to his mouth and shouts up the mountain: “Dammit, Oompie, stop your nonsense! We come in bloody peace!”
Bloody peace, it echoes through the kloof.
Dead quiet from above. But there are no more stones.
“Goodness, Reitz,” Ben says softly, “what are we to expect now?”
Shortly afterwards, about midway up the kloof, a hut becomes visible on a level grassy plain.
“This is where the old bugger lives,” says Gert Smal.
An old man comes to meet them. He approaches with arms outstretched, wearing a crumpled raincoat – like the one (Reitz imagines) the defeated Piet Cronjé wore when he emerged from the bunker after twelve days, having just about lost his bearings after the English had subjected them to twenty-four hours of non-stop shelling.
On Oompie’s feet are home-made sandals, artfully woven of grass and leather, with thick leather soles.
When he reaches them, he greets them warmly. He gazes into their eyes long and searchingly, as if he recognises something in their unfamiliar faces. His pupils are small and black, Reitz notices, scarcely visible specks.
“My friends,” he says, “I’ve been expecting you!”
First pelted with stones, now heartily welcomed.
Oompie is of indeterminate age with a short, stocky frame. His eyes are small and pale. His skin is oily and his complexion somewhat swarthy. His beard is sparse; the hair long, sleek and greasy. There is something Oriental about him, Reitz thinks. He emits a smell like rancid butter.
Oompie escorts them to his hut and bids them sit on a bench in the sun.
He himself takes a seat on a large loose boulder.
Today is a special day, he says. It’s the birthday of his old father, who departed this life some years ago.
Reitz notices the small fleshy hands: hairless, with sharply pointed fingers and a bluish tinge under the nails. Oompie is like someone from a different era; from another, an older realm.
While at first he peered eagerly into their eyes, he now stares steadfastly over their shoulders and seems to be directing his words at a spot somewhere behind them – so that neither Reitz nor Ben can resist the temptation to steal a backward glance once or twice at what Oompie observes in the distance while he is talking.
He speaks of his late father. He speaks of the bounty of creation and the mysteries of nature. He speaks musingly and at times he seems deeply moved. For long moments he is silent.
Reitz is struck by the fervour in Oompie’s expression – while holding forth, his face draws Reitz like a magnet.
Gert Smal, chewing on a piece of wood all the while, abruptly interrupts. “What can you tell us, Oompie?” he asks. “Seen anything lately?” His voice holds a mixture of deference and scorn. Reitz takes note of this near-respectful tone, which, as far as he can tell, is unusual for Gert Smal.
“Do you have any tobacco?” the old man asks suddenly – his emotional reverie suddenly at an end. “Did you bring the old man something nice?” he asks plaintively, insidiously.
Gert Smal reaches into his jacket pocket and hands something over. Oompie unwraps it: a roll of chewing tobacco. He chews, his eyes shut in pleasure.
Reitz wonders whether Oompie remembers Gert Smal’s question or has in fact even heard it.
Gert Smal restlessly picks his teeth with the piece of wood.
Oompie scratches his head. He spits out a piece of tobacco and looks at the ground in front of him.
“These are dry times, brother,” he says. “Even the bees know it.” He makes a dramatic gesture with his right hand, without looking up. Reitz had not noticed the beehives on the right earlier; beyond them two cows are grazing and higher up a few sheep.
The meat and milk supply of the camp, Reitz realises.
Oompie gets up. Suddenly old and haggard – an old man in a shabby, greasy raincoat. He beckons them into the hut.
After the brightness outside it takes Reitz’s eyes a while to adjust to the gloom. It is the smell that he notices first, a mixture of animal pelts, rancid butter and something else, something he cannot place immediately. A cool smell, of fungi, or silt: something medicinal. He notices that Ben is also sniffing, unobtrusively trying to identify the smell.
The hut is warm inside. There is a bed on one side, a rough wooden table and chairs, and a stove on the other side – facing the door. On a wooden shelf against the back wall are a variety of glass jars and milk cans. On the stone floor buck and jackal skins lie scattered, also karosses of dassie skin. A snakeskin is stretched on one wall. A door leads to what is apparently a second room.
Oompie motions for them to sit at the table.
“Formalin,”