Philida Read online

  The righteous shall surely dwell in bliss. But the wicked shall burn in Hell-fire upon the Judgement Day: they shall not escape.

  Would that you knew what the Day of Judgement is! Oh, would that you knew what the Day of Judgement is! It is the day when every soul will stand alone and Al-lah will reign supreme …

  Often Labyn asks her to listen and pay attention, and then he reads to her about Al-lah and the Prophet who always comforts the weak and the oppressed and cares for them: then it is as if all Labyn’s words are really meant for her. Because Al-lah, he assures her over and over, does not talk only to the Baas and his people like the LordGod, but to all who suffer, with the slaves and the slave women. Because remember, the first thing Muhammad did was to free his slave Zaid, and then he made sure that all the slaves of his friends were also freed. And with each one he sets free, he is really telling us that this is how all people should live. And he calls them by name: first of all, the orphans and the vagrants and the beggars and the slaves and the poor. It means that each single person in his loneliness is really all the people in the whole world.

  That was why we laid it down for the Israelites that whoever killed a human being, should be looked upon as if he killed all mankind; and that whosoever saved a human life should be regarded as though he had saved all mankind.

  Philida doesn’t understand everything Labyn is trying to explain to her. But from what he says she can feel that for her Al-lah is the man she wants to be the Lord of all. He can understand. He can read one’s heart, he made everything and understands why everything is the way it is.

  Hear what the Koran says, Labyn continues: He created the heavens and the earth to manifest the truth and fashioned you into a comely shape. To him you shall all return. He knows what the heavens and the earth contain. He knows all that you hide and all that you reveal. He knows your innermost thoughts. In six days we created the heavens and the earth and all that lies between them; nor were we ever wearied.

  But still she had some problems with him. If he is so powerful and so caring, Philida wants to know, then why does he make it so hard for us? He could have made life easy, finished and klaar.

  Labyn shakes his head and his eyes are full of laughter. Al-lah puts to the proof those he loves, he explains. The Koran says, Do men think that once they say: We are believers, they will not be left alone and not be tried with affliction?

  Then you better tell Al-lah when you see him again, Philida berates him, that it’s a bad thing he is doing there.

  Al-lah knows who speak the truth and those who lie, answers Labyn.

  That’s not good enough for me, Philida tells him. If he really knows everything, he should know better how to deal with us. No wonder there are so few people who are willing to believe in him.

  One cannot speak to Al-lah just when you feel like it, Labyn warns her.

  I’ll wait until I see him, then I’ll tell him myself, Philida says firmly.

  You needn’t tell him anything, Labyn answers. All you need to do is to keep your ears and eyes open. There are signs everywhere. Listen to what he says: Surely in the heavens and on the earth there are signs for the faithful; in your own creation, and in the beasts that are scattered far and near, signs for true believers; in the alternation of night and day, in the sustenance that Al-lah sends down from heaven with which he revives the earth after its death, and in the marshalling of the winds, signs for men of understanding. And then Al-lah speaks to us in the Koran and in our hearts, and that is all we need.

  How can I ever be sure it’s Al-lah or Muhammad that speaks to us? Philida prods him. That’s what the Ouman’s Bible also kept on saying. But how do we know? Who must I believe? They both say the same nice things and the same angry things.

  It’s not a matter of nice or angry, says Labyn. Al-lah himself tells us that the Koran is there to warn us, to warn the living and to judge the unbelievers. He is there to show us the way. For those who believe and do good works, he gives a good reward, it’s all streams of water and green fields. And those who say there is no life after this one, he will punish.

  I don’t believe a man who always just promises or warns or punishes, says Philida. That sounds too much like the Ouman of Zandvliet.

  It’s not for you to believe or not to believe, says Labyn. The Koran doesn’t order you this way or that way. He tells you how it is and from then on you got to decide for yourself. This is what the Koran says: It is for you to believe in it or to deny it.

  Ja, snorts Philida. It’s easy for him to talk, man. But I tell you, if you just put a foot wrong he’ll klap you.

  You first think about it carefully, says Labyn. The Koran says, Do not treat men with scorn, nor walk proudly on the earth. Al-lah does not love the arrogant and the vainglorious. Rather let your gait be modest and your voice low: the harshest voice is the braying of an ass.

  That I know damn well, says Philida. Nobody on Zandvliet could make such a bladdy noise as those two donkeys of the Ouman.

  All I can say to you again, says Labyn, is that Al-lah gave us his book of wisdom and that he taught us what we didn’t know before. And he is with us wherever we are. We are closer to him than the vein of his neck.

  I’ll knit you a jersey for the winter, Philida says with a small smile. Then you’ll find out what is closest to you.

  She stands with a frown between those black eyes. Labyn keeps looking at her without speaking, but for some time she remains silent. Until he decides to prod her again.

  What’s the matter with you? he asks. I can see there’s something like muddy water dammed up in you.

  It’s not so bad, says Philida. It’s just that it feels to me as if this Al-lah of yours speaks too much like the LordGod of the white people. They talk to people of far places and other countries. But we are from this place, Labyn. How can we know that it’s meant for us too?

  Don’t you know about Sheik Yusuf then? he asks.

  Who and what is Sheik Yusuf? she asks suspiciously.

  That is when he tells her about the man who came to the Caab more than a hundred years ago, a rich and important man from Java, who started preaching to the slaves and the poor people over here. The Baas people in Java became scared that he was going to cause trouble there, that’s why they sent him on a ship to the Caab with his wives and his children and some other people too. Because just like our Muhammad he also had a house full of wives. Here at the Caab he died and they put him to rest in a kramat. If we ever go there I shall show you. So you see, Sheik Yusuf belongs to this land too, not just to far places, and he left his words for all of us.

  Hm, Philida says. That does sound a bit better, I must say. You can tell Al-lah from me that I shall think about it.

  I think Muhammad would have liked you, says Labyn with a click of his tongue. For all you know he might have taken you for a wife.

  I’m not there just for the taking, says Philida. I make one mistake with that and it won’t happen again.

  XX

  In which the Story moves back to Zandvliet and the constant Tension between Francois and Old Cornelis until an unforeseen yet unavoidable Event interrupts the Course of all the Lives drawn into it

  WEEKS AFTER PHILIDA left, Kleinkat unexpectedly came back to Zandvliet, her little feet in a sorry state, her fur knotted, and missing in patches. She’d always been smaller than other cats, but now she was barely the shadow of a cat. The curious thing was to see how her return disturbed Frans. Considering how he used to react to cats, how he drowned the rest of Langkat’s litter, it is difficult to understand how he could have been thrown so completely off balance by this new event. Janna was on the warpath immediately.

  This cat, she rants, this cat is going to infect all of us with diseases. What can you expect of something that meid brought here to the farm?

  Philida didn’t bring her here, Ma, Francois protests, much angrier than he usually speaks to his mother. I gave her to Philida and she’s going to stay right here. You should be sorry for the poor thi
ng.

  If she puts her feet in this house I shall personally get rid of her.

  Just you try and we shall see.

  What shall we see?

  You get rid of her, you get rid of me. And then who will marry that Berrangé girl?

  That draws Cornelis into the argument very quickly: You will marry, he says.

  Who says I’ll even like her if I get to know her? I heard she’s a real vixen.

  That’s just hearsay, Frans. You don’t really know her yourself. I tell you, she’s our salvation.

  It’s unfair, the way you and Ma are trying to force me. It’s the rest of my life that is at stake and all you care for is the money.

  Cornelis explodes. For God’s sake, man, don’t you understand anything? If you and Maria Berrangé don’t get married, we’ll be bankrupt.

  And whose fault will that be, Pa? Not mine.

  Don’t talk to your father like that, Frans, Janna scolds him. She forces the almighty joint of flesh that is her body in between them. You got to show respect before the LordGod.

  Don’t try to force me, Ma. Look, I really want to help you if it comes to the worst. But then you mustn’t make it impossible for me. He turns back to his mother to warn her: And don’t you dare to lay a finger on this cat. She is mine.

  She belongs to Philida, not to you. Used to belong. And that is bad enough.

  What is Philida’s is mine.

  Why do you keep on about Philida all the time? storms Cornelis. She’s a slave, can’t you get that into your blockhead? She’s a slave and she’s long gone. For us she does not exist any more.

  For me she does, says Frans, so quietly that Cornelis cannot help falling silent to stare intently at him. When he speaks again, it is in a changed, strained voice. What’s the matter with you, Frans? What did you really want from Philida?

  What I wanted from Philida was what I want from a woman who is my wife, says Frans in a steely, faraway voice.

  You can’t mean what you’re saying.

  I just wanted her to be with me, says Frans. Not because of the children or because of the law or because of needing her to help out on the farm or because of anything else. But because of her. To me, Philida is not like just any other woman. I know her ever since she looked after me when I was a baby. I know her and she knows me. Can’t you understand that? I need her. And now it may be too late. Because I betrayed her.

  I’m afraid it is indeed too late, says Cornelis without looking at him. You’ll just have to believe that. It is too late, for you and for all of us.

  That is something I cannot accept, Pa. Now Frans is pleading from deep inside his guts: I got to try again. Please, Pa. I just got to. And you must give me that chance.

  Cornelis shakes his head very slowly. I’m sorry, he says. That is something we cannot undo.

  I won’t accept that, Pa.

  Very suddenly Cornelis cannot take it any more: I said what I got to say and that is now the end of it. Do you understand me? That is that. Finished and klaar.

  For me it isn’t, Pa, and it never will be.

  Frans, you’re not too old to get properly thrashed, Cornelis warns him.

  Just you try!

  Cornelis pulls back his shoulders and stares at him. He smothers a half-formed growl deep in his throat and turns away. Let me get out of this place before I strangle somebody, he mutters.

  This is only the first of several quarrels. The words spoken or shouted at Zandvliet in these days are not what one would expect of good Christians. And it gets worse. But Kleinkat stays. Soon she starts catching mice again, and puts on some weight, and her brindled coat becomes smoother and glossier. But Francois continues to sulk. One can see plainly that there is thunder brooding in his head, but he refuses to speak to them.

  The stories that have been doing the rounds become darker and gloomier. Strangers make their appearance on the farm, from Stellenbosch, and even from the Caab. With each visit Cornelis Brink’s smouldering temper gets closer to the surface. And then, one day, it breaks loose. Everybody starts talking openly about it. Among the neighbours, in the district, among the slaves, wherever you turn: Cornelis Brink is bankrupt. He has to sell out. There will be an auction and he will be stripped as bare as the day he was born.

  On 5 and 6 March of that Year of Our Lord 1834 Mijnheer Johannes Marcus Knoop makes his appearance at Zandvliet to draw up an inventory of every man and mouse and turd and slave and sickle, every wagon and wine barrel, every table and drawer, every chamber pot and bottle of muscadel, every cupboard and coffin, every featherbed and fishbone, every spoon and knife and fork, every shirt and hairpin, every cotton-reel and calabash in the longhouse and in the yard and in every distant corner of the farm, signed at the bottom, ready for the death blow.

  And four months later, on 7 and 8 and 9 July, the inventory is followed by the auction itself, the whole farmyard churned to dust under the feet of buyers and would-be buyers, the curious and the know-alls and the know-nothings and the bastards and the moerneukers who have turned up to relish the downfall of someone else.

  The one person who is not prepared to face the shame and tries to stay out of sight of the snoopers, is Janna Brink. She would have preferred to withdraw to her bed with a blinding headache, but nowhere is there any hiding place to be found: everything has to remain accessible to the public which moves in a solemn procession from voorhuis to passage, from stoep to kitchen, from room to room on the heels of the chubby auctioneer. The only meagre refuge she can find in the throng is in Ouma Petronella’s room, in her bed, under the bulsak. For Ouma Petronella is mos a free woman, not a member of the family, most certainly not a slave, and consequently not involved in the auction. And here Ounooi Janna herself, as she will repeat afterwards, over and over, to whoever is prepared to listen, or not to listen, as the case may be, is able to withdraw into a sanctuary out of sight and hearing of the vultures. A disgrace to God and man. This is what comes from marrying a Brink. This she will never be able to wash from her hands, this taste of gall and vinegar she will never get rinsed from her mouth. For her, the worst is not the inventory and the selling and the bidding and the carting away of every possession. No, the worst by far is the exposing of everything that has been hers and her family’s, the denuding and baring and stripping away of all protection, leaving one naked in front of the full congregation so that they can stare through you like looking through a windowpane covered in dust and dead flies, or right into you as into a cracked mirror, unwrapping and laying bare every hole and gap and hollow. And the slaves gazing and staring with just as much glee. The slaves who are to be sold later in the day with the rest of the household belongings, the cows and sheep and pigs and beds and spittoons and chamber pots, but who are now free to stare as if they don’t care a damn. As if, to tell the truth, they are thoroughly relishing what they are gawking at so fearlessly and blatantly.

  And Cornelis Brink stands gawping with them. He will not miss anything. It is, he keeps thinking, like a rotten tooth you are worrying with a sharpened needle, worrying and worrying, and the more it hurts the more you feel compelled to persist. The children who have turned up with mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, keep to one side and pretend to be playing. But Cornelis himself keeps up with the auctioneer every goddamn step of the way, his cold pipe clenched between his blunted teeth, his eyes glaring ahead as if he is seeing nothing and nobody. But God knows, he sees everything. He wants to see it all. What is curious is that it feels as if he is both there and not there at all. As if every minute thing that happens, even the most fleeting and insignificant, he sees double. With his eyes he sees everything that takes place within his field of vision – every plate and cup and feather-duster and broom that is carried off – and with another, secret eye deep inside him he sees something like a vision, as if he is staring into the most distant future, and this eye sees not only his own possessions that are carried off, but a whole country with all the people inside it. He sees the vast plains stretching ou
t from horizon to horizon, and the unbreakable chains of mountains stretched across them, and people trying to find under an empty sky some hiding place which they cannot reach. He stands staring at the slaves who are also standing and staring, and he can almost hear what they are thinking: Our turn will come. Duusmanne, our turn is coming. All that is yours will be carried away, to hell and gone, into the farthest distance, into nothingness, until no speck or smudge of you remains, not even a cloud as big as a man’s hand. Nobody will ever know that you have been here once. This is our Day of Judgement. You never wanted to admit it. You tried to hide it behind your vineyards and fields and manors and town houses and village squares. Your Drostdys and cellars and Company gardens and cobbled streets, your Constantias and Meerlusts and Zandvliets. But today all of this is turning transparent like an autumn leaf through which you stare to see the fine network of veins between yourself and the world out there, and now you can discover how all of it is teetering into nothingness, how all of it is already beginning to fall apart like an old wine vat crumbling to dust, while the heathens and savages are closing in from all sides, the living and the dead, all those already exterminated from this land, all those we thought exterminated, and who are now returning like dust-devils across a dusty plain.

  In the footsteps of the auctioneer. The man with the wad of papers in his blunt hands with the tufts of reddish and pale hairs on the backs of the fingers. From room to room. Without skipping or omitting or avoiding anything. Until there is nothing left to skip any more.

  In the voorhuis where the grandfather clock stands ticking and ticking, and where the four tables and the fourteen riempie chairs are displayed, and the barometer on the far wall, and the mirror in its heavy frame, and the tea table against the wall loaded with cups and plates, and the two spittoons, one white, one blue delft. In the bedroom on the right, another long mirror, and a large brass bedstead with a bulsak and drapes of glazed chintz and a bolster, and a narrow bed for when another child is born, and yet another table, this one with six chairs with horsehair cushions, and six spittoons and six footstools with fire-pans for the winter months. Then the bedroom on the left: a stinkwood bed again with drapes of glazed chintz, a bolster and four pillows and a blanket, another mirror and a small bed and a table and an enormous brass teapot. Followed by another bedroom, with a huge wardrobe in which a grown-up person can easily hide away, and an escritoire and a chest with six drawers, and six pictures on the walls. The Broad and Narrow Ways. Jesus with his curly beard, a row of blue Dutch windmills. And much, much more, too much to register. And all the chamber pots, enough for pissing through nights and days until the second coming of the Lord. And things and things and more things. All of it written down on Mijnheer Knoop’s list, for better or for worse, everything called by its own inevitable name, from Bible to commode.