Afrika (13 page)

“Ja,” Oupa said. He fumbled for a pipe cleaner and said in an earnest voice:“You must pass my words onto her. You must tell Lettie I am very sorry for the fire and for all that happened during that time.”

What fire?
thought Kim. She also wondered what Hendrik was hiding from. But before she could ask Oupa these questions, he pointed the end of his pipe cleaner at a photo in a plastic frame. “Do you not recognize your Oom Piet?” he asked. Kim looked closer. There was a photo of a blond youth in an army uniform with a bunch of soldiers on top of an armored tank.

“I think that was taken in Transvaal,” he said twisting the pipe cleaner inside his pipe.

There was a wedding photo of Oom Piet and Tante Reza and then three photos of babies. Kim stopped in her tracks. Who was the third child?

Oupa moved her along, obviously not wanting her to ask about the baby photos. He listened to make sure Riana was still occupied with Rosie and then asked: “How is your ma's life over there in Canada?”

Kim hesitated. It was hard to change gears so quickly and think about home.

“Your mom has her courage,” Oupa said, refilling his pipe. “But it is a life of loneliness, nê? No nation. No roots. No tribe.”

What an odd way to sum up Riana's life. Riana's life in Canada was pretty good, and as far as Kim was
concerned, she was counting the days until they would be back there.

Marjike poked her head into the study and Oupa indicated that Kim should follow her. They said good-bye and made their way to the back porch. Kim surveyed the farm from there, listened for gunshots, and wondered out loud if it was safe to leave the house.

“The wire fence is electric,” explained Marjike. “It protects the house, the barn, and the outbuildings from intruders.”

Kim watched as Elsie and Rosie hauled two large pots of soup for the workers who had come especially to dig a swimming pool.

“Oupa said we could finally have one,” said Marjike excitedly as they watched dozens of blue-overalled men overturn the soil with shovels and picks. “For years and years we fought with Oupa about the pool. He would not allow it.”

“How come?”

“Oupa said we were too young. He did not want any child to have an accident in it.”

Kim remembered the third baby in the photo and wondered when might be a good time to ask Marjike about the child. As they crossed the field to the barn, she saw six of Bliksem's relatives sleeping in a sloppy pile against a brick wall. Kim looked around for her favorite birds. There they were, her
guinea fowl, resting under the rhubarb patch. They came out to greet her.

“Pa doesn't want you to ride yet,” said Marjike as she slid open the barn door. “Why not?” asked Kim.

“He wants to make sure there are no accidents,” explained her cousin.

Why is this family so slaphappy with guns, yet so scared of accidents?
Kim thought, as she entered the barn. Two horses, standing in box stalls, towered over her. She watched Marjike pick up a large thick sponge and step right into the stall with the largest horse.

“It works like this, see,” said Marjike, pulling the horse's face close to her. “To groom the horses I begin at Willem's ears and brush in the direction of the hairs.” Cautiously, Kim moved closer to Willem. He was a large red horse with fast-blinking eyes and a black mane. “Now you try,” Marjike said, holding Willem tightly.

Shooz! The
barn door whirled open just as Kim began brushing Willem. The noise caused the animal to start and almost step on Kim's foot. Great! It was Japie.

Marjike frowned and said,“I thought you were helping Pa.” Japie stood in the doorway with one hand on his hip. In his other hand was a red, ball-shaped fruit – a split-open pomegranate.

“Just ignore him,” instructed Marjike as she turned back to the horse. “Try with Tara. She's gentle.” As Kim approached the fair horse in the next stall, she could feel Japie's eyes burning into her. What was his problem anyway? She got the distinct feeling that Japie hated her guts.

“It's okay,” reassured Marjike. “She can't kick with the front leg.”

Marjike showed her how to run her hand down the back of the leg and grab the foot by holding the front of the hoof. She had a little pick in her hand. “Wiggle the hoof pick in there,” Marjike explained. “Scrape out mud, stones, the works.”

Kim was sweating. If only they could finish grooming the horses and just ride them.

“Watch out,” shouted Japie, spitting the pomegranate pips to the ground. “She's hurting Tara. Look!”

“Mind your own business,” yelled Marjike to her brother. She turned to Kim.“Careful around the spongy area of her hoof.”

Kim did as she was told and then put Tara's foot down.

“Come. Let's walk them around a bit,” suggested Marjike. “You lead Tara and I'll take Willem.”

Japie tossed down the half-eaten piece of pomegranate. “I hope you both get rabies from a meerkat,” he said.

As Kim guided Tara outside, she heard the roar of an engine. She turned to see Japie jump on his dirt bike, point it into the path of her favorite guinea fowl, and speed off behind a row of aloe trees. The lovely birds were sent scrambling for cover behind the barn.

What was his problem? The only thing to do was ignore the creep. As she glanced in the direction where the birds had taken shelter, she noticed a row of old shacks. She hadn't seen these before. Most of the walls had crumbled in and there was only the framework and roofs in place.

“What are those?” Kim asked.

“Only ants live there now,” said Marjike. “The compound burned down about the time your ma left for Canada. Elsie and her family used to live there. Now they live in new rooms up closer to the house.”

Kim remembered how Oupa had asked her to tell Lettie he was sorry about the fire. She wondered again why Hendrik would have been hiding in Lettie's room.“Did Oupa burn down their rooms?” Kim asked.

Marjike shrugged. “Oupa had an accident and a fire began.” Kim waited for something else, but that was all her cousin would reveal. She watched Marjike pull herself easily up onto Willem's back. “I'm going to let Willem run. You can walk Tara around the yard, but do not ride her. Stay close to
the house. And don't go near the fence that surrounds the
werf
.”

“What's a werf?” asked Kim.

“It's the open area around the yard,” Marjike explained. “Careful. Remember the wire fence is turned on.”

Keeping far away from the fence, Kim led Tara on the path beside the farmhouse. Rosie was fetching some firewood at the side of the house. The workers' picks thumped as they dug out the new pool.

Suddenly, Kim heard angry voices coming from the kitchen. Piet and her mother were arguing.

Kim tied Tara up to a tree and drew closer to the kitchen window. She glanced over her shoulder; Marjike couldn't see her. She was riding Willem in the open field beyond the barn and the electric fence. Kim snuck closer. Rosie wouldn't notice; she was occupied with the firewood.

Kim leaned in to the open window. She couldn't believe her eyes. Her mother had gone through Kim's photos from Canada and had them spread all over the yellowwood table. Flushed, Riana was banging her fists against the heavy table. Whatever point she was making to Uncle Piet and Oupa, Riana was going about it too hard.

Kim strained to hear the conversation. What was going on? How dare her mother go through her stuff!

“Does Pa think it was easy for me?” lashed out
Riana, screaming in English. “Me, alone in a new country with a baby! I showed you these pictures so you could see how hard our life was.”

“What Pa is saying, is …” said Piet reaching for a cigarette,“… you were the one who left for a safer land. The rest of us had to steel ourselves to stay in Africa.”

Oupa shook his head angrily. Riana's face was distorted with fury. Oom Piet stepped back to give her some breathing room.

“Just leave it now, Riana,” he continued. “You too, Pa. Let it go.”

Kim had to get away before someone saw her. But she could not move an inch until Rosie was out of sight.

Now Oupa was shouting. It was a side of her grandfather that Kim hadn't yet seen. “She has been asking questions about her father!” His beard was within an inch of Riana's face.

Rosie disappeared into the house with the firewood. Kim, just in the nick of time, crawled away from the window. Untangling Tara's reins from the tree, Kim led the horse quickly away from the house. But not before she heard her grandfather say: “She has a right to know!”

“H
ave you been to his house in the township?” Marjike asked Kim over her shoulder. “Your friend Themba's?”

Both girls were sitting on the grand red horse, Willem. Marjike had on riding breeches, tall boots, and her hair was braided into a plait. Kim wore jeans and a pair of old boots Marjike had lent to her. Out of view of the farmhouse, they were ambling in the field on the other side of the electric fence. Kim watched how Marjike communicated with Willem using her entire body, adjusting his speed with a single word or a pull to the rein.

“Yeah, I've been to his place,” Kim answered. She rested one arm on Marjike's waist, the other hand held the reins for Tara who was following behind them. “He eats the same thing for breakfast as we do, you know,” Kim added, imagining how Themba would laugh when she shared this conversation with him later. Ever since Marjike had helped Kim mail Themba's letter, five days ago, there had been a series of questions about him.

“The only Blacks I ever meet are laborers,” said Marjike as they guided Willem and Tara around a row of old pepper trees.

Slaves is more like it
, thought Kim, recalling the swimming-pool men and poor Elsie and her overworked daughter. But she didn't say it. The truth was, Kim had thoroughly enjoyed her time on the farm and didn't mind one bit having people wait on her hand and foot.

During the five days she had spent at Milky Way Kim had fallen easily into the rhythms of life in the country. People woke very early and smoke drifted in from the workers' houses so it was the first thing you smelled when you stepped on the back porch. Kim would sit for a long time on the stoep listening to the wooing bird noises and watching the sun push up into the wide, empty, African sky. Sometimes Bliksem would join her, sprawling at her feet instead of doing his job of pacing around the farmyard and keeping snakes and other creatures away. Each morning there was a big breakfast, after which Marjike and Kim would take the horses past the fence and into the vast fields beyond the farmhouse.

Even though she had enjoyed the farm, Kim was well aware that since the morning she had overheard the argument with her mom and grandfather, she had found out nothing new to report to Themba. Cornering her mother was impossible. As
luck would have it, a nearby town was a site for one of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings and suddenly, Riana was bombarded with work for her radio station.
What we need is a Truth Commission in this family
, thought Kim.

Kim pulled on Tara's rein urging the mare to keep up. Over the last five days Kim had been mainly with her cousin, learning how to ride. It was kind of Marjike to teach her, but Kim was frustrated that she was not allowed to ride solo on her own horse. That was why Tara had to trail behind them. Tara's big questioning eyes mirrored Kim's:
How long before we have the chance to ride together?

After a while Marjike slowed the horses and let them drop their heads in a tussock of low grass. She pointed to a ruin made out of baked clay and stone. One wall rose a few feet from the ground, the rest had dissolved away. Two small lizards wiggled away from the ruins and into the dust. “That's our great-great-grandparents' homestead,” she told Kim. The use of the word
our
sounded odd to Kim, yet nice. She wondered what it would be like to have Marjike for a sister.

Behind the remains of the homestead were rows of old gravestones surrounded by a low whitewashed wall. On one side, beside a crooked thorn tree, was a newer grave with a small marker.

Kim leaned forward. On the tombstone there
was a small image of a baby chiseled into it. “Who's that?” Kim asked.

“Katie. My little sister,” said Marjike.

“I didn't know you had a sister.”

“Check this out.” Marjike pointed at a beetle moving slowly across the ground. “It is a dung beetle. Do you know what dung is?”

“No,” said Kim. She wanted to ask more about the baby but didn't know how.

“Dung is poo hey,” said Marjike and then added, “Katie died when I was three.”

Kim wasn't sure what to say. In silence they watched as the stout beetle slowly, painstakingly rolled a ball of brown goo three or four sizes bigger than itself. Suddenly Marjike pulled back hard on the reins. “Oh no!” she cried. “The baboons are at our fig trees.”

Off in the distance Kim could see a family of baboons surrounding a patch of trees. They were pulling down the figs and stuffing as many as they could into their mouths. One mother had a baby hanging upside down from her stomach; another had a youngster riding piggyback.

This was great. Kim had never seen a baboon out of a zoo. “They're so cute!”