‘A promise?’
‘They’ve agreed to stay off our land.’
‘And you believe them.’
‘I believe him.’
Joubert leaned back in his chair. Not every trekboer set much store by promises. Maybe David was right. He would talk to him about it again.
In the kitchen the women were huddled around Drieka, admiring six green-tinted drinking glasses on the table. Despite Willem’s indifference, Drieka had transformed the sparse little dwelling into a cosy homestead, and the Kloot house was quite the grandest in the Karoo, with mats, a bench, and two riempie chairs in the front part of the house that served as the voorkamer.
‘They’re delicate, Tante Drieka,’ Diena said. ‘Where did you get them?’
Drieka waved her hand in front of her face like a fan.
‘Tell us,’ Elsie coaxed.
Drieka lowered her voice.
‘Frederik Jantzen. He’s with a group of men working together for the benefit of the farmer. He said the Karoo being such a hard place for women, it is wise to protect a son or husband, just in case. A small payment every six months would ensure that there was money for burial, and a little left over to help for a few months.’
‘I’ve never heard of such a thing.’
‘I told him that money was just as scarce as water—as if he didn’t know that—and that bodies went free into the ground. If a woman couldn’t manage a few Hottentots after her husband was gone, she might as well dig a hole for herself and join him. No amount of money would fix that.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That’s when he took out the glasses. He wanted me to speak to my husband. A husband would know what he meant, he said. He would come back in a month, and if I could get Willem to listen, the glasses were mine.’
‘What did Willem say?’
‘I haven’t told him. You know how he is. To get him to sit down long enough to listen to anything—well, it’s almost impossible. I thought I’d use the glasses tonight, and give them back when Jantzen comes.’
‘I’d be afraid to use them, Drieka,’ Elsie said. ‘What if one of them breaks? You’d be forced to make a payment then. And Willem will ask about them tonight, in any case.’
‘If he notices. What does he notice except sheep? And now that he’s heard of merino, he talks of nothing else.’ She remembered that she hadn’t told Elsie about Krisjan Kloot’s visit, so she returned quickly to the subject of the glasses. ‘He won’t notice anything.’
‘Glasses like this? Of course he will. We don’t have any. Neither do the Steenkamps or Retiefs.’
‘Well, I’ll see how far that brandy has mellowed him. Maybe I can talk to him, with all of you here tonight.’
Out in the yard, Soela pulled the shawl about her shoulders and went briskly in search of Vinkie. The sun had gone down, taking with it the heat of the day, and there was a nip in the air. The dark clouds meant rain. Tante Drieka had asked her to call Vinkie in for supper, and she saw her playing with the Koi-na children at the far end of the kraal.
‘Vinkie!’
Vinkie was too far away and didn’t hear, or heard but paid no attention. Soela had already noticed the girl’s wilfulness. Vinkie listened to no one except Roeloff. Wherever he was, there she lingered, with Kleintje, fetching and carrying for him, pestering him.
Soela walked quickly down the hill, past the barn. A noise from inside made her stop. She had seen Roeloff take the kettle from the hearth and walk to the barn with it. Had she come to look for Vinkie in the hope of seeing him? There was no need to lie to herself, her engagement was a lie. She’d done it to get Roeloff’s attention, and hadn’t thought it through. It was Roeloff who stirred her feelings, but Roeloff didn’t know she existed. She’d heard talk of his fondness for the runaway Bushman girl, a stinking little creature with woolly hair. She didn’t believe it. He would never be interested in something like that. And who else was there in this wilderness for him but herself? Not Johanna Steenkamp. Johanna had a hole in the roof of her mouth and lived with her hand in front of her face. Diena? Soela didn’t really think so.
She remembered the incident in the foaling barn, how Roeloff had touched her, then pushed her away. It had been the most humiliating experience of her life. She’d hated him, but she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She kept telling herself that if he hadn’t liked her at all, he wouldn’t have done what he did. He liked her and wanted her, but he had denied himself out of respect for her. That she understood. It was the cold, indifferent way in which he acted that had hurt. And when she saw him that afternoon on the stoep—half-naked and browned from the sun, his long hair soft and white, unlike the grizzly thatch of his brother and father, the eyes that sent tiny darts of pleasure throughout her body—the thrill of his closeness was too much. She turned to see if anyone was watching. There was no one in the yard, so she walked quietly to the back of the barn.
She stood at the half-open door and watched him step out of the tub, naked and dripping, with a fearsome erection.
‘Come in, Soela,’ he said.
There were no words, no preliminaries, only the hurried lifting of skirts, and a gasp as he stood her up against the door. She cried out once, then clung to him as he rammed her back and forth.
The sight of his brother and his betrothed jerking at each other like dogs struck David like a thunderbolt as he peered through a hole in the barn wall. From the kitchen window, he’d seen her enter the barn and followed to tell her to come inside for the meal. Nothing had prepared him for what he saw. He felt sick. She’d pledged her love and asked him to wait for the wedding night. Those words, uttered under the pomegranate tree, putting the seeds of the fruit, one by one, into her mouth, letting the scarlet juice stain her lips—they were lies. She was no different from any animal. He prepared himself to confront them, but all feeling drained from him, and he walked slowly back to the house.
David wasn’t the only person in the yard. Willem Kloot, remembering, as he sat talking with Joubert on the stoep, that he’d seen Twa’s horse limping, had left his guests briefly to check on the mare. He too, saw Soela enter the barn. He paid no attention, until a few minutes later when he saw David looking through a hole in the wall. He still wouldn’t have given it any further thought if he hadn’t seen David leaning, his forehead in his hands, against the barn wall. He waited for David to leave, then went to the same peephole in the barn door. What he saw made him choke: his younger son and Soela Joubert committing a sin. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Soela was David’s, their engagement was being celebrated that night. How could Roeloff do such a thing? To his own brother? And Soela? What was going on in her head? Wasn’t it David she wanted?
*
They came separately into the kitchen; Soela first, with Vinkie, and Roeloff a few minutes later.
‘Roff?’ Vinkie asked as he passed them in the kitchen. ‘Did you see what I left on your pillow?’
‘No.’ He remembered vaguely that she’d been trying to speak to him all afternoon.
‘Go and look.’
Both families were seated at the table.
‘We’re just waiting for you,’ Diena said.
‘Yes,’ Drieka added. ‘Hurry up.’
‘I’m too tired to eat, I’m turning in.’
