Philida Read online

  The copse is a very strange kind of place. As the bamboos close up behind me it is as if the whole everyday world around me fades away. Here it is as if I no longer know or recognise anything, and no one else knows about me any more. All that remains is I. Even my shadow has disappeared. In the pitch dark I can no longer see. I can only hear and smell. The heavy smell of the bamboos, a smell of distances and remoteness, of the sea, of darkness and strange animals. Of places where no one has ever been or knows about. When we were small Old Petronella used to tell us that these bamboos came from a place where she herself lived once, Java, and that they were brought here together with slaves and spices and herbs on ships, with stories of jealousy and rivalry and feuds and blood and murder and long knives. In a way all of that now lies soaked into the bamboos of this dark copse. It is a wood filled with life, and full of weird and terrible sounds, specially when the wind comes up, but even when everything is quiet, and in broad daylight. When I was a child those sounds used to scare me out of my wits: it sounded like the groaning and gnashing and whining and wailing of ghosts, people whose hands and feet were being sawn off with blunt knives, throats cut very slowly, a choking and rattling, a terrifying kind of world, very different from our own, and yet awfully close, much too close ever to allow one to breathe in peace. Even today, now that I know the sounds are only made by bamboo stalks and branches, it scares me, and at night it is even worse than in the daytime.

  I strike a small flame from my tinderbox and light the oil lamp, and the wan light starts gnawing at the black trunks and stems, but it remains terrifying. And there is no more than a small yellow spot around me, which makes the surrounding night even more scary.

  Our copse, Philida’s copse and mine, since ever so long ago. For this is where we came to hide when she grew so terrified after the hanging in the Caab, that poor miserable bastard that they had to hang twice, when she started crying so badly and clung to me and we dropped down together on the cold damp black ground, and at first I didn’t even know what was going on, it was the first time this had happened to me, and by the time it struck me I was already inside her and she was crying and talking to me, in my ear and in my face, and everything got wet with her spit and her tears. That first time, and then so many times afterwards. Always here among the bamboos and their groaning sounds and their stories about the sea and faraway lands. This is where our children were made. Willempie and Lena who will go with her to the auction tomorrow where they will be sold like skins and ostrich feathers and cattle. The children that she and I made together. Which makes my thoughts steal back to Little Frans, the one who was to bear my name. But we’re not talking about him. What happened could not be helped, I swear to the LordGod. That was one of the occasions when I promised her: Philida, I swear to God, one day, as soon as I have the money, as soon as I can make a proper life of my own and Pa lies in his grave, I shall buy you your freedom. And the freedom of our children. Do you hear me? This I promise you. And I’m going to write this in Pa’s big black book with our names. I promise and I swear.

  But in the night, every night, it all comes back to me, together with the stories and the groaning and the moaning and the sighs of these bamboos. I am so very sorry, Philida. I never wanted it to get as far as this. But how could I avoid it? What else could I possibly have done?

  Time and time again we came back to this bamboo copse, she and I. I suppose tonight will be the last time I leave my footprints behind in this dark place. A testimony unto the LordGod. For tomorrow you are going away and I must remain behind on my own. If Pa and the LordGod will it, for I no longer have a say. One thing I can tell you: twice during these last few weeks I have walked out of the longhouse with Pa’s hunting rifle in my hands. Once to the mountain, to the waterhole you went to show me long ago when we were still children, where the Water Women live. And once down to this very bamboo copse. I could not think of anything else I could possibly do. Somewhere, sooner or later, a man’s footprints must disappear behind him. But I was too much of a coward. I couldn’t. I’m so sorry, Philida. One day I suppose only this copse will know. This copse knows everything about us. Look at it in the meagre light of this lamp. Listen to it. Here the bamboos never stop rustling and whispering. Sometimes, when it is completely quiet everywhere else, it sounds like a storm wind in here. I’ve never liked wind much. The sun can blaze as madly as it wants to, but I can go with it and enjoy it. In the winter the snow may pile up all around us, but I like it. Every season, I feel, is good the way it is. The only thing I cannot bear is wind. It blows everything out of order in one’s mind. I often argued with Philida, because she likes the wind, she says, specially here among the bamboos. It’s their way of talking, she always says. Even then I tell her: Not in my ears. But she’s got an answer for everything. And one day when I was complaining about the wind again, she said: No, man, Frans. Wind is good. That’s how Ouma Nella taught me. It’s the wind that teach the trees to dance. So how can I get angry with it? From then on I think I understand it better, even though I still wouldn’t choose it myself. And perhaps she is right: nothing can be quite as magical as the wind in this bamboo copse. Listen to it. Lie on your back and listen to it. Feel it. Look at it. Smell it.

  And there is one thing I shall never forget, no matter how old I get: I swear I was here one day, very long ago, when we were still small, when there were fireflies among the bamboos. Only that one night. I couldn’t believe it. It was like magic. But I know I saw them. Nobody ever wanted to believe me. Except you. Because you always believed whatever I told you. If I close my eyes tonight, I still see them. The whole bamboo copse teeming with bright fireflies. It was a day when there was a big fight between Pa and me, something that happened almost all the bloody time, I could never do anything to his satisfaction. He always ranted that I was wasting time carving little things from wood when there was better work to do. And on that day he gave me a thrashing, said he’d wasted enough time talking, it was time I listened. He said I was worse than a slave, a damn disgrace to the Brink family, and on and on. My whole back was covered in blood. Even Ma went to talk to him, something she hardly ever dared to do, so he hit her too. I came here to hide away in the bamboo copse. Late in the afternoon I heard him calling in the backyard. He was looking for me now. And then other voices too. Ma, slaves, everybody. But nobody would find me here. I was the only one who knew about this hiding place. And Philida, of course, but no one else. And later, when they stopped searching and the voices fell silent, I stayed here. Swore I’d never go home again, nobody would again set eyes on me. In the end I must have fallen asleep. And when I woke up sometime in the deepest hollow of the night, the whole bamboo copse was twinkling with fireflies. At first I thought they were stars, I was wondering whether I’d come to heaven. Those fireflies. As if the whole wood was aflame with their tiny flickers. Embers, small specks of the firiest fire I’d ever seen. Never again in my life, nor any time before. But that night I saw it. And I still remember. Because I was here and I saw it.

  Around me the leaves are rustling and whispering. The stems are scraping and grinding against each other, the whole night is filled with sound, the ghosts are everywhere, wherever the flickering light does not reach. The night is lukewarm with what is left of the day’s heat, warmth curdled like dirty water in an old encrusted basin in which too many feet have been washed over too many years, but I cannot help a trembling moving into my arms and legs. It must be because the ghosts are running wild.

  In a rush of panic I start hacking down bamboos for what I have to do. Nice thin ones, straight ones. From time to time I stop to make calculations. Until I have everything I need. Now the real work can begin. Even if it takes me all night till the coming of the dawn. Hacking and hacking away, wiping off the sweat, then hacking some more. I want to wear myself out, to get so tired that I can forget where I am and what is going to happen, forget about the ghosts that wander in the dark, hacking and hacking in a wood swarming with errant shapes and shadows, whining spect
res. Ghosts with outstretched arms and long bony fingers that grab at me whenever I turn my head, wherever I’m not looking.

  The light starts wheeling before my eyes, the stems become long thin skeletons, the leaves turn into avid whispering in a thousand voices, everything is infested with danger, the whole night is one endless nightmare. I find myself chopping faster and faster, and must keep ducking and jerking my hands away to avoid ripping off my own fingers.

  And then something terrible happens. Afterwards I come to think that I must have kicked over the lamp, but when I first see it I have no inkling at all of how it happened. All of a sudden everything around me is just turning to fire. I smell the oil, I smell burning, and I see the flames, arms and fingers and shapes of fire, it’s like something that Pa could read from the Bible, all those hissing and dancing tongues of fire, flickering and dancing as they try to grab me, to lick me up, to consume me as if I’m in the middle of hell itself and there’s no chance of getting away, all those trunks of fire, branches of fire, ghosts of fire, devils of fire.

  Who would have thought that a green bamboo copse could go up in flames like that? Almost in a single flash and whoosh of flame everything around me is transformed into fire. Yellow, orange, blood red, grey, pitch black. Bright, blazing, burning, translucent fire. In the first moment of shock I think: Tonight I’m going to be burnt to a cinder, it’s like hell itself, the oven of Nebuchadnezzar. But after some time, which feels like a whole night, I find myself tumbling out of it. From the outside I can only stand staring at the flames. The Dwars River isn’t far from here, but I have nothing to scoop up water with, only my two blackened hands, and the flames are too fierce to do anything. JesusLordGod, what do I do now? I can’t even run back home to fetch Pa, he will kill me on the spot. Once, a long time ago, I saw the mountains in the distance burning, high up against the cliffs, near the shallow cave with the little dancing men and the elephants and the big elands and the praying mantis. It looks like what Pa read so many times about the Day of Judgement, the fire and brimstone, the weeping and gnashing of teeth. And in my madness I think: May the whole bloody Zandvliet burn to soot and ashes, let the Devil himself come down from heaven to take the lot of us away from here.

  And it is only very much later that I come round again. I still cannot piece it together. All I know is that my throat, my chest, my whole body is burning as if I myself have been changed into flame, while in fact I am standing there shivering in a cold fever. All I can think is: I’ve got to get to Old Petronella, she will help me. There’s no one else who can.

  Without really knowing what I’m doing I burst back into the burning wood. And it’s only some time afterwards that I find myself walking in the narrow white moon-road, back to the longhouse, with my heavy load of bamboos on my shoulders, churning up the dust, breathless and quite exhausted. And when at last I can think back, still later, I find I have no idea at all of what has happened or how it could have happened. Some time during the next day, after Pa and the others had already left for Worcester, when at last I could pull my thoughts together and start picking my way very carefully along the dusty path back to the river and the bamboo copse, I could find no more sign at all of the shock and confusion of the night before. Nothing. As if there had never been a fire. All I still knew, and still know today, is that the whole copse had gone up in flames in front of my eyes and that I myself had nearly burned to death.

  I worked right through the night and only finished in the early dawn. It wasn’t easy. I got so sleepy I could barely stay on my feet. What kept me awake was knowing that Philida would be leaving at first light. And God alone knew what would happen to her afterwards. Or to me, to all of us.

  It was another of those mornings when the rooster was late with its crowing and Pa had to throw his alarm clock at the bird to wake him up and get the farmyard back to life. On such days, I knew, everybody had to pay for it. And I was still tying the last few slender bamboo stems into place when I heard the thunder and lightning breaking loose in Pa’s bedroom. I began to work faster and faster. Should I finish too early, I might run into Pa, or Petronella could start shouting at me; if I took too long, everything would be lost. But in the end it just worked out. From the bridle room in the backyard I could follow the outside wall of the homestead to wait under Petronella’s bedroom window.

  As I knocked on her door I could see straight away that there was shit ahead.

  Old Petronella opened the door and asked immediately: Well? What good-for-nothing business brings you here?

  I brought something to give Philida for the road, Petronella.

  What road? she flew at me. You want to tell me that you knew it all along?

  I came to tell you last night but then we were interrupted by Pa.

  And now you’re here to enjoy our suffering, you little shit?

  I’m sorry, Petronella. Honest to God, I did try to warn you, but it wasn’t possible.

  I cautiously moved out of the way so that I could see past her and get a glimpse of Philida. She was sitting on the bed with Willempie at her breast. Next to her I could see Lena, quiet and scared, staring as if she’d seen a ghost. On Philida’s knees Kleinkat lay stretched out, purring as if there was nothing at all wrong in the world.

  That gave me a chance to speak very quickly to Philida: I brought you something I made for you. It’s for Kleinkat. So you can take her with you on the wagon if you want to.

  There’s nothing I want from you.

  It seemed as if she was going to cry. But I couldn’t be sure. And just then Willempie started screaming.

  I worked right through the night, Philida.

  I stepped quickly past old Petronella to put the cage on the floor, as close to her as I could risk it, and then very quickly stood back again.

  What she said then I couldn’t quite make out. Perhaps it was better not to hear it. But at that moment I heard something behind me and glanced up to see Ma in the passage behind me.

  And what are you doing here, Frans? she asked.

  I started saying: I just wanted – I. But then I decided rather to get out of her way. Still, there was something I wanted to tell her before she crushed me: I just brought Philida something, Ma. It’s a long road.

  You have a bloody cheek, Frans!

  Just leave us alone, Ma. It’s bad enough as it is.

  Then I noticed Pa also coming down the passage and I had to run. But I did manage to get a last word in to Philida: I think I burnt down our bamboo wood, Philida.

  There was no chance to say anything more. If only there was. But everything was over so suddenly. Nothing could be said or done, and that really was the worst of all. Perhaps we never stood a chance.

  XV

  The Day MaJanna is beached

  WHERE ARE WE going? When I ask, all I hear is: Upcountry. Upcountry. What the hell of a place is that? How far? How many days’ travelling? How do one get there? I know we on our way to an auction, but will that be anything like the games Frans and I used to play? And what will become of me after that?

  At daybreak, when the Ouman come to tell us, he must think that Ouma Nella will stay behind, that only the children and I are going. But she tell him very firmly, I’m going too, otherwise Philida stays right here.

  The Ouman is furious, and soon the Ounooi come to join the talking, in that voice that sound like the cackling of a goose, but once Ouma Nella say No in that way she has, the no stay no. And so we get ready to go, before anybody say anything to me yet.

  I keep on nagging her: I want to know how we going to get there, Ouma.

  But all she say is: Man, if you don’t know where you going, any road will bring you there.

  But will I ever come back, Ouma Nella?

  She just shrug her two shoulders. And she say: It don’t matter how far a river run. It never forget where it come from. That is all that is important.

  I say: I heard it’s a dry place, Ouma, this Upcountry.

  No matter if it’s wet or dry, she grunt.
As long as you keep a green branch in your heart, there will always be a bird that come to sing in it.

  Just before we go off, while I’m still shivery with sadness and anger and the cool air of the morning, I get a thought in my head, and instead of climbing on the mule cart I first take my two children, Lena, who is two years old, and Willempie, the baby, and go to find Ounooi Janna in the longhouse. I am wearing the cast-off chintz dress I was given for New Year. We find her in the voorhuis drinking tea and eating rusks with crunching teeth, her big body folded into the couch like a bulsak. As I come in, with the baby on my hip and holding the girl by the hand, she half lift her huge body from the couch as if to have a go at me or to make room for a fart, but before she can speak I say very quietly: Ounooi, I just brought the children so they can say goodbye to their grandma. Because I don’t suppose we’ll see each other again very soon.

  She open her mouth like a fish on dry ground, but for the moment she cannot get a sound out. Then she start trembling and drop her bowl and put her big soft hand on her chest where it keep hanging like a huge white spider. It take quite a while before she manage to say: Huh – And then once again: Huh …