Roeloff looked down at his book. It had happened to Gerhard Marais. The rotten smell coming up from his lungs, the wasted flesh. The family didn’t want to believe it, even when Nico van Wyk, who knew about these things, told them to start thinking of getting the coffin owed to them by the Schmidts for the one they’d borrowed for a visiting uncle. A few weeks later they were eating pumpkin fritters at Gerhard Marais’s funeral. And he could tell by Sanna’s manner that she had waited to tell him. She had a fondness for Oupa Harman, because his grandfather was always in the same mood and never shouted at the Koi-na. When she was concerned about something, her eyes seemed narrower, her lips more protruding. And she was never wrong about these things. The thought frightened him. What if Oupa Harman never got better? What if he died? Roeloff couldn’t imagine life without him. His grandfather was the only Kloot he could talk to and who shielded him from his father’s anger. Roeloff loved him dearly.
‘What does it mean?’
‘There’s poison in his chest. It will get worse if he doesn’t take something.’
‘What? Do you have a remedy? Those potato skins worked when you wrapped up my foot. In four days it was better.’
‘Potato skins won’t work for this. There’s a plant. I haven’t seen it around here, but Hennerik can get it.’
Roeloff thought about Sanna’s husband Hennerik, a funny little man half Sanna’s size who, most afternoons, when Willem Kloot wasn’t around, slept under a tree instead of doing his work. Sanna complained about his laziness and Roeloff had once seen her slam a bread pan against Hennerik’s head, after which he showed diligence for a few days, then returned to his old ways.
‘What plant?’
‘I don’t know the name, but it has strong powers. It cured the bite of a pofadder once.’
A pofadder? Impossible. You would be dead in minutes. The thought of the snake stirred up ugly memories, and he pushed it aside.
‘You must send Hennerik for this plant, Sanna, tomorrow. I know my grandfather’s sick.’
‘I will. Come, Zokho,’ she opened the door. ‘We’re done. We’ll let Roeloff read his book. Aren’t your eyes tired, yet?’
‘No.’
‘Can I stay a little longer?’ Zokho asked, holding up a shirt to show she was still folding clothes.
Sanna looked crossly at the girl, but there was softness around the corners of her mouth.
‘Not long. He must go to bed.’
Then Roeloff and Zokho were alone and a new silence filled the room. Roeloff tried to return to his book. The yellow light from the lamp was sufficient for him to read, but no words registered themselves on his mind. He was thinking of what Sanna had said, aware of Zokho folding the clothes behind him. He heard the crackle in the fire, the thwoop as the coals dropped onto the tray, the rhythmic patter of the rain, like the feet of little children, on the barrels outside. Zokho had on one of his mother’s old pinafores, and even though Sanna had drawn it in at the waist, it hung like a tent on her narrow frame. He was very aware of her presence.
‘What are you reading?’
‘One of my grandfather’s books. He has a few of them in a box under his bed. When I’m finished with one, he gives me another.’
She looked over his shoulder, her arm almost touching his cheek. She was standing uncomfortably close.
‘Is it hard to read?’
‘Not when you know the letters.’
‘Who taught you?’
‘My mother. And the German teacher.’
‘Sanna says she was beautiful. Her hair was the colour of a lazy sun. You look like her, Sanna says.’
Roeloff looked up. He was aware of his grandfather’s sleeping figure behind the straw partition where everyone slept. He kept his voice low.
‘And are you beautiful like your mother, Zokho?’
The colour rushed to her face.
‘I am beautiful?’
‘You are very beautiful. I have not seen anyone like you.’
‘Do you want to play a game?’
He tried not to look at the hard little nipples erect under the thin dress. Strange things were happening to him.
‘Do you know one?’
‘I know many, but we play them outside. It is dark now, and raining. But we can make one up.’
‘What?’
‘Show me something which you will hide in this room, then fold this rag over my eyes, and I try to find what you’ve hidden in the dark. If I move away from it, you say cold. If I get close to it, you say warm.’
‘All right, you first.’
‘Show me what you’re going to hide, then cover my eyes.’
Roeloff selected his grandfather’s pipe, then blindfolded Zokho.
‘Ready?’
He tiptoed to where she had stacked the folded clothes and hid the pipe under the pile.
