Roeloff got up.
‘I’ll go out and take a look at the kraal. That was good bread, Sanna.’
He fetched Twa from his hut and went to inspect the kraal for evidence to show how long ago the sheep had been there, and how many there had been. They found the kraal derelict, the stones missing in several spots, the gateposts gone.
‘What do you think, Twa? How long ago were they here?’
Twa was happy to be back. Many of the old Koi-na were still on the farm, their differences a thing of the past. He’d been away with the kleinbaas. Sonqua or not, he was privileged. But, however much he smoked and told stories, he never told them about Zokho. Zokho was Kudu’s business. They would not hear from his lips that Harman was mixed. He kneeled down on his good leg and examined the dried-out clumps of manure. There was still a bit of a commotion going on in his head from the previous night’s drinking with the Koi-na, but he felt better just being back.
‘A long time. Look at this,’ he picked up a piece of manure, rubbing the grains between his fingers. ‘Dust.’
‘How many?’
Twa laughed, and immediately held his head.
‘You’re asking hard questions, Kudu. I’m Twa, not a sorcerer.’ He studied the indentations, limping from one end to the other, bending down, shaking his head.
‘It’s hard to tell,’ he finally said. ‘But six moons ago, at least five hundred.’
Roeloff laughed. When he had first met Twa, the hunter had had a strange method of counting, starting from one to ten, then going back to one, and doubling the result. He’d since taught Twa the right way, but occasionally he slipped back into his old method and his calculation was hopelessly out. Five hundred could easily be as low as fifty or a hundred.
‘Five hundred! When we left here, there were four. He couldn’t have increased it by a hundred.’
Twa shook his head at his stupidity.
‘That’s why I said five hundred. The tracks are right up against the fence. They stood crowded.’ He paused for the effect of his next pronouncement. ‘Hennerik said he also bought about fifty of that thick-woolled sheep.’
‘Merino? How did he get them up here? They’re hard to come by, those sheep.’
He returned to the house and found Joubert in the yard saying goodbye to Diena and Lourens who were returning home with Bessie. He looked at the child. He’d not had a good look at her before. She was almost three years old, a quiet little girl with blue eyes big as saucers, and long hair washed in gold.
‘Hello, Bessie. You’re going home today?’ He was struck by her eyes, by their intensity.
She looked at him curiously, but didn’t say anything.
‘She’s not one for talking much, Roff,’ Diena said. ‘She’ll have to get used to you.’
Roeloff reached up and touched her hair. It was soft and silken. He felt a cold wind blow through his heart. Had he come back to Kloot’s Nek for a reckoning of his sins? Was this what Sanna was trying to tell him?
‘See you soon, Diena. Maybe this afternoon. You, too, Lourens.’
The wagon rolled off and he turned to Joubert.
‘I was hoping to catch you out here by yourself. I believe you have our sheep at your farm.’
‘Your father couldn’t manage. It was easier looking after them there.’
‘I’m grateful. I want to ride out this morning with Hennerik and Twa to fetch them back. And the horses. They’re there too, I believe.’
‘It looks like you’ve decided to stay.’
‘Yes. And I’m anxious to get started on the work that needs doing. I understand we also had merino. In all, we should have about five hundred sheep.’
Joubert laughed.
‘Whoever told you that had too much to drink. There are far less. Jackals and disease took most of them. But, seeing as we’re on the subject of what belongs where, perhaps we should talk about Drieka. I have her interests to think of. I’m also her executor. If you hadn’t come back … well, you know what I’m leading up to; Kloot’s Nek would be hers.’
Roeloff smiled. They were finally at the place where there was no pretence.
‘Pa had a regard for you, and you helped him, Oom Jan. I’m grateful, not indebted. You’re your sister’s executor, not his. Tante Drieka will have her share. Tante Drieka and Vinkie and no other.’
Jan Joubert kept his composure.
‘And what would that be?’
‘A place here as long as she wants. If she wants to remarry, well, that be something else. Kloot’s Nek will not change hands.’
Jan Joubert put his hands in his jacket pockets, rocking slightly on his heels.
‘You’ve got a lot of wind for one just returned. A man needs his friends in the Karoo.’
‘I agree—if he has any.’
Roeloff arrived at Joubert’s farm ahead of him that afternoon.
Diena greeted him and invited him into the house. ‘Do you want to see Soela while you wait for Pa?’
‘Yes,’ he said, a little unsure of himself. He was anxious to see her, but also a little apprehensive.
Diena took him into the voorkamer to wait. It was years since he’d been there, and he looked around with interest. Jan Joubert had improved his life. There were mats and tables, and an oak-trimmed mirror above a handsome cabinet with delicate carving on the drawers. On its polished surface stood six glasses like soldiers next to a matching bowl, an ostrich egg decorated with animals painted in brown, and a jar of dried flowers. The riempie chairs at the window were a better quality than the ones at Kloot’s Nek. He wondered at the handiwork of the painter of the ostrich egg, and the one who’d put the room together.
His eye was caught by a box under the table. He looked at it, the splintered wood and the lid. … a wooden box with a green lid … the dockets of the first settlers. It had to be the box his grandfather had talked about. What was it doing at the Joubert house? Had his father given it to Joubert for safekeeping, or had the farmer taken it?
He strained his ears to try to determine Diena’s whereabouts in the house. He was in two minds whether to take her into his confidence and ask about the box. People changed after marriage. He heard movement at the back of the house, and fell quickly to his knees. What he was doing was wrong, and it was bad manners to pry in other people’s things, but he had to know. Taking a small knife from his pocket, he picked at the lock on the box. It was rusty, but opened with a dull click. It was obvious it hadn’t been opened; a thick mat of dust sat on top of the little bundle underneath. He moved the spiderwebbed dirt carefully aside, and lifted out the dusty treasure. It was a handful of papers, thin and brittle with age, wrapped first in duiker hide, then in coarse, green cloth, bound with string. The handwriting was faint with age, the paper so yellowed he could hardly make out the words. Snaking on top, denting the page and blotting out some of the handwriting underneath, was a small leather necklace with markings on it. He picked it up, measuring its length with his hand. A baby’s. He glanced quickly at the top entry on the first page.
D … Y OF ANNA KLOOT
December 1651—Cold and wet aboard the Drommedaris. Wind blowing strongly … ship so cranky we can carry no sail … topsails taken in—heavy swells—ship almost flung on its side—grave fears of capsizing.
The next few entries were blanked out, either by dampness or age, he could make out the words only here and there.
… unbearably hot … up on deck, trying not to think of the fatherland, the preciousness of water. When Sven asked for me … the appointment of junior surgeon … chance to go with the able Commander great opportunity … father approved of marriage, not of the journey to an unknown land … completely dependent on the vagaries of the wind … water supply no more than 28 leaguers.
April 5, 1652—heaven-high tops of Cabo da boa Esperance sighted … very high mountains, one of which is as flat as a table.
… 25th … number of men down with bloody diarrhoea and fevers from the cold and discomfort. Not yet told Sven the news … other women have children, but we are more curious about the women of the Goringhaikonas and Goringhaiquas with their long, narrow breasts which hang down half an ell long like leather bags, and these they throw to the back to give suck to the child hanging there … sallow complexion and slanted eyes from squinting all day into the sun, and when they speak they make clucking sounds … clothing the undressed hide of goat or sheep which they drape over their shoulders like a cloak. In winter they turn the hair inwards to keep warm, in the hot weather, outwards—over their privities, a scrap of fur. When we kill sheep or cattle, they take the guts between their fingers and press out some of the dung, and lay this on a fire until slightly shrivelled, and gobble it down. Everything eaten in great haste with blood dripping from their mouths. What they cannot eat they wind round their arms and legs to keep warm and as ornament. This rattles in tune with their voices when they dance … religion addressed to the moon. They believe there’s a great captain above and a great captain below. The captain above is sometimes good when he gives good weather, and sometimes evil when he gives storms and cold. The captain below is always good since he gives them cattle for their food and sustenance. They find it strange that we Christians work, and say that we gain nothing from our toil, and at the end are thrown underground so that all we have done is in vain …
He wanted to go on reading, but was too conscious of his unlawful search of the box. He flattened the papers, fingered the faded leather necklace between his fingers, and put it back, wrapping everything up carefully. He would have liked to put something in the box to replace the bundle he’d taken, but there was nothing he could think of and there was too little time, as he heard footsteps coming towards the voorkamer. He moved the webbed dust back in place, clicked the lock shut, and slid the duiker-skin parcel gently down the front of his shirt. He hoped that what he had taken belonged to the Kloots and not to someone else. When Diena appeared at the door, the box was in its place under the table, and he was back in his chair.
