Zokho stretched out her hands and inched forward.
‘Warm.’
She took tiny steps towards the folded clothes, and seconds later had the pipe in her hand.
‘How did you find it so quickly? I just put it there.’
‘I can smell.’ She took off the blindfold, laughing. ‘Your turn.’
The blindfold slipped over his eyes and he stood for a moment trying to sniff out the position of the pipe. What he didn’t know was that Zokho had rubbed a few grains of the tobacco on her palm and was waving it in front of him.
He stepped forward.
‘Warm.’
Another step.
‘Very warm.’
He stretched out his arms and bumped into her.
‘Very, very warm.’
He came forward some more and was almost on top of her.
‘You’re in the way, Zokho.’
‘No. You are very, very warm.’
He stopped.
‘Zokho?’
‘Yes?’
‘Is it on you?’
‘Yes.’
His hand encountered a naked shoulder.
‘Where’s your dress?’
‘You want to lose the game, Roff?’
‘What kind of game is this?’
‘It’s a game boys play with girls. Don’t be scared.’
Then they were up against each other and he felt her breast brush his hand.
‘Zokho!’
‘It’s all right to taste them.’
Roeloff felt the blood rush down to his groin. With the blindfold still over his eyes, his hands fumbled with the front of her dress, trying to get it off.
Then the back door opened and Willem Kloot, kicking the mud off his boots, stepped inside with David behind him. A grizzly giant of a man, he shook the rain from his hair, slapping his hat against the side of his leg. With two steps he had Roeloff by the neck and was pulling him off the girl.
‘What’s going on?’
Zokho folded her arms in front of her, trying not to look at the grootbaas and his older son staring open-mouthed at her.
Roeloff waited for his father’s anger to erupt. He was glad he was still in his clothes.
‘You want to stick yourself into a bosjesman?’ Willem Kloot shouted. ‘Your behind’s itching, is it?’
‘No, Pa.’
Willem punched him and Roeloff slammed into the trestle table, his head hitting a ledge in the wall, toppling mugs and tin plates and the bread pans of rising dough down on him as he fell to the floor.
‘This is what you do when I’m away? Act like an animal? And with a servant! Are you one of them? Tell me!’
Roeloff’s head hurt, and he held up his arms to protect it.
‘I’m talking to you! Get up!’
Roeloff got to his knees and Willem booted him in the small of his back, pushing him down again.
