— Oh I’ve had mealies there. They did exceptionally well. -
— Mealies! Yes man… but now the mealies are all reaped. If you had lucerne, now. You’ll get a good price for lucerne if you’ve got it in winter. — He speaks to the city business man, he even smiles under the sweep of moustache that hides his lip: — That’s the law of supply and demand, hey? —
Mehring gives a hostly laugh, and the son backs it up. The young woman is whispering fiercely all the time in asides to the children, who are occupied sharing out a Coke that, despite the traffic in his kitchen, has been lying in the refrigerator untouched for weeks. -Just a minute, maybe I can find another bottle. -
— No, no, it’s plenty for them. —
The child will sink, she will drown if she lets go of her mother, yet her clinging is flirtatious, she tries to make him look at her so that she may at once hide her head against the mother’s thigh. She’s a beautiful child as their children often are — where do they get them from? — and she’ll grow up — what do they do to them? — the same sort of vacant turnip as the mother. - Sorry, I’ve run out, I’ve been away. - To go into one of those women must be like using the fleshy succulent plants men in the Foreign Legion have to resort to.
— Not so bad. The only thing, the bales didn’t weigh fifty pounds… isn’t that so… — (Now addressing, calling in Hansie when he needs him.)
— No, it’s true, it was a bit less than you… it doesn’t matter… —
They bought lucerne from him — before Japan; Six weeks ago? — before that, or later?
— We lost about ten per cent on it- Hansie is forced by a look to nod confirmation of this.
— It must have dried out. Because it wasn’t the boys who weighed, I know I did it myself. -
It was the week before that business with the police. He hadn’t come out to the farm at all. Perhaps they knew; the old man with his intelligent brown eyes might know. They expected it of a city man like himself to leave things to the boys.
— You can’t trust a kaffir about the scale, I can tell you that. You can teach them as much as you like. It doesn’t matter to them, you see, if it’s so much or so much. To them it seems the same. They’ll know better just by picking it up on their backs. I’ve had some boys who can tell how much you’ll get, just picking the bales up. -
They are all laughing quite admiringly, even old De Beer himself, even young Mrs De Beer, tossing her head piled with Grecian curls behind a nylon scarf, her chin pressed back against her pink neck with exactly her child’s bashful gesture — It’s true, you know, that’s quite true what my father-in-law say —
Putting out a hand to stop the angle of the bottle over his glass in indication that the second tot should rise no farther, old De Beer is in full command, now, not even Mehring will break in on him unless he chooses to make way. — But what I wanted to ask — you can p’raps do me a favour, you know. I’ve got a lot of building material and stuff that I’ve got to pick up. A mass of stuff. And there’s only that small van, except for the milk truck, and I can’t take that, you see, the milk’s got to go into town every morning —
They want to borrow the little pick-up, of course. It’s not necessary to wait for them to ask, not neighbourly. He is used to the conventions of open-handedness, sauna baths and trips to the Kruger Park. — But take my Toyota, why not? I’ll tell my boy. What day d’you want it? —
— Two days or so — Hansie ventures to put in.
— You see it’s out in Rustenberg, my late uncle’s place-Young Mrs De Beer cannot resist being expansive about something that must be recognized as within her province of interest. — He just passed away. Mmm, it was terrible, for a long time now he couldn’t — you know — couldn’t hold down his food. Not even water. —
The old man does not so much as acknowledge her as the source of prattle. He is looking sideways under his lids as if the interruption were something that has just walked through the room, his hand is raised and his lips are open, taking breath between sentences. - Monday will do. Monday will be all right. -
— My auntie wants to give up the place, yes, shame. —
— With pleasure. You just tell my boy, whenever it suits you. I don’t think we’ll be needing it for anything this week. -
— Oh that boy of yours — Two palms convivially flat on spread thighs, old De Beer alows another smile under the moustache. — He uses the tractor when he wants to go around to his friends, he doesn’t need the truck. —
He takes the joke against himself appreciatively; it is anyway at the same time a gesture of solidarity, from them, one employer telling another what he ought to know.
The old man refuses a third brandy. It looks as if they are going to go; but they don’t. The children have tripped out into the yard and returned with a captured kitten bunched up against the little one’s chest along with her skirt.
— You’re a man who travels all over. You must know about these things — there’s a family bible and other old stuff. Very old. Antique. Antique, hey? I think people pay a lot of money for old things these days. For investment, hey? You must come over to our place. I’ll let you have a look at it, when we bring it here. -
— Interesting, yes. —
— I collect myself. I have signed photographs of all our prime ministers. Since General Botha. My father fought with General Botha — you know that? And his father (a pause for attention) my grandfather — he fought in the Kaffir Wars. I have a coloured portrait of the late Dr Verwoerd, personally signed for me. I met him in Pretoria in July, nineteen-sixty. Yes. And I’ve got one signed by John Vorster, too. -
The terrified kitten escapes, skittering across the linoleum and under the sideboard. The mother is sucking the first joint of the child’s finger to take away the sting of a scratch. The child’s reddened face threatens them all with tears.
— Five chairs that belonged to my mother’s mother. They say they came from the Cape. Originally. But I’m interested in history — you understand. That’s my hobby. The history — of — the — Afrikaner. That’s what I like. Not furniture and so on. General Botha gave the photograph to my father himself, my father’s name is written on its — Henrik Barend De Beer, in General Botha’s handwriting —
The elder girl, motherly towards smaller ones as only black or Afrikaans children are, waggles the distraction of something she has picked up from the fireplace, and the threat dies down, but Hansie says in Afrikaans — No, she’ll break it, put it back. —
What is it anyway? There is nothing in the room, the house, that he values. What the elder girl is holding, uncertain whether to replace it or not, is one of those crude carvings of a black warrior with a spear and miniature hide shield that people buy in souvenir shops or airports all over Africa. He doesn’t know how it got into the house; the spear’s missing from the hole in the hand where these things are usually stuck.
— Let her take it. It’s nothing. -
— But don’t you want to keep it? — the mother says, knowing he’s a travelled man.
— I don’t know how it got here. You can buy them anywhere. -
— My grandfather — old De Beer is saying, risen from his chair without difficulty, considering his weight — My father’s father, had a kaffir doll they took from the chief’s place, there when they burned it in the war. Did you ever hear of Mod-jadji’s Kraal? Just near there. —