He was not there to drive the cows to pasture with Phineas and Witbooi in the morning. Jacobus thought he must have slept at his brother’s in the shanty town past De Beer’s farm and would be late. Jacobus was neither concerned nor annoyed: Solomon was not a drunkard and if his brother had been caught without a pass he would have to find out in which police station he was being held and go there to bail him out. It could take a day.
At twelve o’clock Jacobus went to investigate a blockage in the irrigation pipes and himself discovered Solomon lying naked except for a vest, in the veld. His hands and feet were cold and scaly as a reptile. He had lost a lot of blood from a wound in the head; the spilt blood was frozen, a thin pink ice diluted with frost on the dead grass, where his body had kept off what warmth there was in the morning sun blown glassy by the wind. He was deeply unconscious and did not rouse to cries, voices, or the journey to the location hospital, wrapped in blankets from his bed, in the back of the pick-up. Jacobus and Solomon’s woman and Izak went to the shanty town from the hospital but Solomon’s brother was not there and had not been seen for three days. They had started their inquiries at the most likely source for news, the drinking-place, and then been sent on the route of rumour from one person to another. Izak could not describe the men because he had not seen their faces. He repeated again and again, for each group or individual, exactly what had been said. Some asked, as if it were Izak’s fault, But why did he go with those people? And others pressed, But did he know those men? Izak could only say again exactly what had happened. As the account and the response it brought became ritualized, Jacobus began to add, at the point where Izak’s silence began, a remark. — If he had called me, it would have been different. -
They looked at Izak; only a boy.
Solomon’s woman wept; he hadn’t spoken to her when he came back to fetch the pullover. She was not his wife, he did not tell her things. Back at the farm, Izak showed where he had stood and where the men had appeared, and people testified whether they had heard anything or not. The fowls picked where the men had stood and the dogs who had whined and barked but not prevented their approach lay twitching their bony haunches in daytime sleep. The children lingered around in the place where something had happened as people who have missed a train continue to stand about. The water was still not coming through the irrigation pipes; but about half-past three it began to run again — Jacobus and the other men got up from the pot of hardened mealie porridge where they had shared some sort of late meal, and went off to set the jets going. The women and children could hear the men’s voices, still in discussion, as they went slowly up the fields.
Later Jacobus took the house key from the nail among the hanging onions and telephoned to town. But the office was closed, and there was no reply from the flat. The next afternoon, he tried again.
— I see why it is no water. Is getting too much cold down there by the river. Is coming ice in the pipe; again this morning. Yesterday the same, and again this morning. -
— What do you mean ‘again’? Did it flow at all, yesterday? —
— When it’s coming little bit warm, in the afternoon, yes —
The voice has no time for this. — Oh all right, I suppose I can get some packing for the pipe — which pipe is it? — directly from the pump-house or where? — never mind — I’ll see on Sunday. I just hope it doesn’t burst before then. Jacobus, don’t use any irrigation in the meantime, that’s the safest, just leave it, eh? But let the pipe empty while the sun’s on it, be sure there’s no water there, then disconnect it. Do you understand? Don’t irrigate. —
— Yes, yes, much better. And Solomon is very sick in the hospital. -
— Oh my God, what now. And what’s wrong with Solomon? —
— In the night he’s go over there to the other farm, the Dutchman’s farm, to look for his brother. Somebody come fetch him late in the night; I think more than eleven. Now in the morning he’s not here for the cows and later on I myself I see Solomon’s all the time in the veld, there, down there, where — you know.? —
— The third pasture, you mean? —
—. Yes. Someone’s take his clothes, everything, cut his head, he’s blood there in the veld. He doesn’t hear me when I’m take him in the pick-up — I fetch the pick-up and carry him to the location. -
There is no reaction to the mention of the pick-up, although when Jacobus says the word he leaves a fractional pause before he continues; a white man will never refuse you if he has proof that someone is ill or dying; the pause is just to remind him of what he said about using the tractor.
— And what happened at the hospital, Jacobus? Is he all right? —
— He was sleeping, sleeping. They say he’s very bad but perhaps he can come all right. —
— Well, that’s terrible, Jacobus. He’s lucky he didn’t die, in this weather, out all night. —
— But I think he’s all the time sleeping, don’t know nothing, yes. —
— Heavy frost, eh? What are the radishes like? Gone black? —
— They still coming nice. and I find another boy, then, from another place, he can hold Solomon’s job for him. Good boy, he know cows well. —
Again a pause. And the response falls into the place that has been made ready for it, just as, at the telephone exchange that connects the two voices, certain metal levers have had to drop into their slots in order to establish the communication. — All right. I suppose so. If it’s necessary. I’ll try and come tomorrow, If not, Sunday. Don’t forget — no irrigation, ay, Jacobus. —
Jacobus looked round before he left the house; nothing there that would be cause for complaint: the pair of boots cleaned and standing beside the refrigerator, the windows closed and curtains drawn. The glass bowl Alina had put in the middle of the table with three shrivelled oranges left over from last time. Nobody had touched anything. He sniffed: no smell, not that he could detect, anyway. He locked up and from the kitchen door, recognizing the head of the man beside Witbooi, hailed the tractor as it was passing the barn. Witbooi called back; their cries rose and died away across each other, nocturnal calls beginning with the cold shadow of sunset. The house behind him was dark; on each window a sun, rouged with smoke and dust, slipped down the blind glass.
The tractor propelled itself over the contours of the darkening earth like a cripple. Witbooi and the other sat a moment when it came to a halt, Witbooi leaning slightly towards Jacobus. Jacobus’s one hand was feeling at the missing fastenings at the neck of his overalls; perhaps he was cold. They saw he was not going to approach them and they swung slowly to the ground. They were tired by a day that had not been like other days. Their eyes were caught by the key of the house, lit by the dead sun, hanging from Jacobus’s long first finger.
— I’ve told him. You’re going to work here, now. I told him I’m taking you on. -
The other man had been squatting on the farm for many weeks, now. His family fed from everybody’s cooking pots; Jacobus could not increase the amount of mealie-meal distributed without accounting for it when the supply did not last the allotted period of time.
The man was frowning. — And he said yes? —
— You didn’t believe me, people always want everything to be done now. I told you, I know when it is the right time. —
— You’ll give us a room? I want that end room, if —
— You’ve been living all right, haven’t you? Your wife, your children — everybody. Just leave it a little while, I’ll get you bricks from him. I’ll get everything from him. -
The man moved his head in admiring disbelief. He suddenly came to himself: — Thank you, brother, yes, thank you. — That’s all right, brother. — Thank you, brother. — It’s all right. - The comforting exchange wove back and forth between them. The man seemed to have forgotten Witbooi, forgotten the tractor, went off with head down concentratedly in the direction of the kraal.