‘What are you going to do?’
‘It’s his father. I have to tell him.’
Otto came over and patted him on the arm.
‘You got used to him, I know. He’ll go and he’ll come back. If he doesn’t—well, my friend, that’s how life is. You know the man your daughter married. Neeltje will go with her husband, but her father will never be out of her thoughts.’
Chapter Sixteen
‘It’s strange how life is, Neeltje. Fifty years ago Willem Kloot was born in a wagon somewhere on these mountains. Today, we’re the parents, out here in the dark, and it’s the same struggle and danger.’
Neeltje looked out over the fire into the night. There was a moon and she could make out the hilly top of the rant against the skyline. It was a night for two, but Roeloff was in a questioning mood, silent and brooding since learning of his father’s illness. He’d told her he didn’t know what waited for him at Kloot’s Nek, or how long he might be, and she could stay at home with Harman and Beatrix if she wished, or accompany him. He would understand if she didn’t want to travel with children through wild territory. There was nothing that she needed to consider. Her father’s health had been restored, and he had encouraged her to go. Beatrix nuzzled her face into her mother’s bodice and Neeltje put the infant to her breast.
‘What do you think, Neeltje?’
‘Pa says we come here to learn.’
‘Where is the lesson in this? In being disowned and going back home when he’s dying, after two years without my family? What am I supposed to learn from that?’
It was amazing to her, men’s thinking. They could fix and provide, but when it came to matters of the heart, things they couldn’t physically lay their hands on, of that they knew nothing.
‘God’s not responsible for the things we bring upon ourselves. What’s the good that came from it?’
‘What?’ Roeloff asked.
‘You had a son. You met me.’
He looked at her, surprised.
‘You endured pain,’ she continued. ‘It made you strong. Perhaps it was to prepare you for greater things. Pain sharpens the senses, Pa says. Perhaps you had to leave home to prepare for the task of taking over.’
‘Taking over Kloot’s Nek?’
‘Yes.’
‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’
‘Men think only of physical things.’
A smile softened his eyes.
‘Careful, Neeltje, or I’ll take that baby from your breast and show you physical.’
‘You have a big opinion of yourself, Roeloff Kloot.’
He laughed, a wonderful sound to her ears.
‘You love me, Neeltje? You never tell me.’ He moved close, kissing her neck.
Did she love him? Could she breathe without air? She would follow him over all Africa’s mountains, just to be near him, to see him with his children.
‘Yes.’
‘I know it was hard leaving your father. It was hard for me.’
They sat for a few minutes staring into the fire, a comfortable ease between them.
‘The first few days will be hard, Roff, you’ll feel strange in your old home. You must prepare yourself for the worst.’
‘I’m nervous about seeing him after all this time. I’ve missed him, more than I’ve wanted to admit to myself. I always put him out of my thoughts, but now that we’re so close, I can’t wait. I hope nothing’s happened. But, are you ready, Neeltje? We will be in Leekenberg tomorrow. Once we cross this rant, we’re at Kloot’s Nek.’
‘I’m ready. I want to see the place where you were born. How will you explain Harman?’
‘Harman be who he is. Zokho’s blood runs in him.’
Hearing him say the name gave her a strange feeling. The girl’s presence would linger forever in the slanted eyes of her son and the blue mark on his back, which was present in some Koi-na and Sonqua children. There was no difference between the children in her affections. Beatrix had come from her own flesh, but Harman had come to her first, naked and abandoned, a part of the man she loved.
‘I was only thinking of you, if they asked.’
‘If they ask, they’ll get answers. Where’s Twa? He’s been gone a long time.’
‘Isn’t this where he comes from?’
‘The Sonqua have no settled place, they travel up and down. But his people gathered annually at the big river up north. I haven’t been there myself. When we left Kloot’s Nek he wanted us to go there, but I didn’t want to. Just imagine, Neeltje, if I had, we wouldn’t have met. A lot of things wouldn’t have happened. Even Harman wouldn’t be here.’
‘So, you’re pleased with your own wisdom.’
‘Perhaps. Behind those mountains over there, that’s where Twa’s camp was wiped out. The neighbour, Jan Joubert’s farm is right under it.’
