‘You’ve had a baby?’
She looked at him with watery eyes, realising she had made a mistake.
‘Yes.’
‘You never told me. When?’
‘After Toma fetched me.’
‘It was Toma’s?’
She was unsure how to answer. She’d thought he would be upset that she was having a baby, not that she’d already had one.
‘No.’
‘Whose?’
‘Your brother’s.’
It was as if she had hit him in the face.
‘My brother’s? What are you talking about?’
‘I should lie to you, Eyes of the Sky? Remember the time in the stable? When you found me crying, with my dress torn?’
‘You never told me. Why didn’t you tell me you had a baby by him?’
‘Look what it’s doing. And when should I have told you? When you came to our camp? When we met each other out there?’
‘When we talked about Toma. When I told you what happened between me and my brother, why I left. Before now, Zokho. Before this.’
She looked down at her feet. He’d never been angry with her before.
‘Where’s the child?’
‘He didn’t live.’
Roeloff turned away.
‘Don’t walk away from me,’ she pulled at his arm.
He jerked himself free.
‘That was then, this is now!’ she shouted after him.
Roeloff paid no attention and walked on.
Darkness came with a thickness of breath, a moonless night on the mountain. Zokho waited patiently for the crunch of his boots on the path and, when it looked like he wouldn’t be back, she pinched out the flame of the lamp and went to bed. She hadn’t heeded the words of the old people. Never tell the one that feeds you everything. She had thought she knew all about a woman’s fears. She didn’t. A woman could also lose a man to the past.
When she heard Roeloff come in, towards morning, she closed her eyes.
‘Zokho, are you awake?’
She stirred, as if in a deep sleep.
‘Zokho, Zokho,’ he pulled her towards him, his hand exploring the smoothness of her skin. ‘I’m sorry. We’ll have this baby and forget the other. It wasn’t your fault.’
Zokho curled herself up in his arms and cried quietly into the sheepskin.
In the morning he got up to light the fire to make coffee. He was warming his hands over the kettle when Zokho came rushing out, her hand covering her mouth. He listened to the retching behind the dwelling. It hadn’t taken hold of him yet, the reality of becoming a father, of what he had done. He’d rinsed his blood with hers and there would be a child. A baster. One who would carry his name.
‘I feel bad,’ she said, coming round the corner.
He handed her a mug of coffee.
‘Drink this, it will make you strong.’
‘It was the smell that did it. I don’t want any.’
He took the mug back for himself and followed her inside.
‘I’ll talk to Wynand Roos about staying on another six months, or a year. We’re not ready. Especially now, with the baby coming.’
‘You like it here?’
‘We have somewhere to lay our heads. And he keeps his thoughts to himself. It might be different elsewhere.’
‘And his daughter?’
