‘She’s crying, I can’t help that.’
‘Put her down and get my food.’
Soela carried the baby into the kitchen where Sanna was cutting up pumpkin. ‘Sanna, hold her for me, please.’
Sanna took the screaming infant to her bosom. Despite her earlier dislike of Soela, Sanna had come to feel sorry for her, and found some goodness in the girl whose actions, she knew, were responsible for the trouble between the brothers. She was privy to the exchanges, had seen the blows and the bruises as they came off the back of his fist. Soela was paying threefold for her sin. Sanna held Bessie up against her breast, and patted her. The baby let out wind, then settled against the fleshy bosom.
‘Take that child and put her down inside!’
Soela recognised the cruelty in his voice and quickly took the baby from Sanna.
‘We’ll never know, will we, Soela?’ he followed her into the room.
‘What?’ She put the baby on the bed.
‘If it’s his or mine. Will we?’
He’d never said it out loud, yet, here it was, flung in her face, the unspoken devil between them.
‘Will we?’
There was no one in the house to protect her, and she braced herself for the fight.
‘How can you say that? She’s yours.’
The flat of his hand caught her across the face and she fell back on the bed.
‘She looks like him! Like him!’
Soela curled herself up in a ball.
‘Get up!’
She sat up slowly, holding the side of her face.
‘That’s what’s wrong! What’s always going to be wrong. What you did. How you disgraced me!’
‘Why did you marry me, then? You should have left me alone.’
He laughed.
‘Left you alone? You’re going to pay, Soela Joubert. You’ll have my children and wash my clothes and serve my food, and do it with a good heart or your father will hear what you did with that horse killer. Now, lift up your dress.’
‘I’m bleeding.’
‘Lift it up!’ he pressed his groin in her face. ‘And take off my pants!’
Her hands fumbled with the buttons and he pushed her back on the bed. He threw her skirt back over her head, and reached for her bloomers.
‘Take away this thing!’
She lay, her face smothered under the calico, and reached nervously for the sling between her legs.
He was heavy, his hands rough, and she closed her eyes to the humiliation. She would not give him the satisfaction of tears. She was dried up, dead inside. He could do it until she lost consciousness, it wouldn’t matter. A few minutes later he was done. He lifted himself off her and left the room.
Outside the door, Sanna listened to the distressed cries of the infant and wondered whether she should interfere. She knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again, then slowly opened the door. Bessie lay, red faced and screaming, on the blanket that was stained where Soela crouched on the edge of the bed. A blood-soaked cloth, the kind white women wore, lay ugly and exposed on the floor.
Soela burst into tears.
‘You have to tell his father, Kleinnooi. You cannot go on like this. Look at your face. He will kill you one of these days.’
‘I did a bad thing, Sanna, I can’t tell his father.’
‘No, Kleinnooi, you didn’t do a bad thing. I know what you did.’
Soela looked up.
‘Sanna knows everything. You went into the barn with his brother. You forgot yourself.’
‘Yes.’
‘Everyone forgets themselves with Roff, even that bosjesman girl that was here. He does that to people.’
‘I thought he cared for me.’
‘I know. And you didn’t do anything wrong. You had feelings for him, you couldn’t help it. But you must forget him, Kleinnooi, he’s gone. You must do something now about this.’
‘He’ll tell my father.’
