Then, after that I did not know: perhaps that was why I hesitated and lost my nerve at the last moment, no matter how often I considered the possibilities and rehearsed the details of my flight in my imagination. What explanation would I give when they inevitably found me there, relentlessly demanding reasons and explanations, and what would finally come of my brief escape except that I would be brought back to town, held faster than ever by their watchfulness and concern, guarded with relentless love in a way that would leave me without even the semblance of freedom? That is why I never attempted that long journey. But had I pulled open the creaking shutters to lower myself over the window-sill in the dark, what would I have seen and heard? I turned my face away — it was only later, only now at the end of my life, that I learned to stare wide-eyed into the dark, unafraid of the voices in the silence. It remained a dream; I woke up with the tingling of snowflakes still on my lips and, seated on the edge of the bed, I reached for my clothes beside me to feel whether my shawl and the hem of my dress were still wet, my shoes still muddy from the journey.
When Maans and Stienie returned from the Karoo that year, they came in to town immediately to sympathise and to learn the details of Mother’s deathbed. I believe my answers to their questions were vague and confused, for I realised I could no longer remember the details of that distant death, neither did I know how to react to their sympathy. In a sudden upsurge of emotion Stienie advanced on me and I drew back instinctively to avoid her embrace. We rode out to visit the grave and Maans undertook to order a stone from the Boland, and we divided Mother’s personal belongings amongst ourselves, though there was not much of value except the gold chain; Maans took her Bible and hymn book, and then Stienie said she would not mind having the chain as a memento of Oumatjie, and declared that she wished for nothing else.
They spent a few days with me in town, and though Stienie chattered and fidgeted nervously and there was a steady stream of visitors to greet and to entertain, the three of us were constantly aware of the question that they were unwilling to ask and I was afraid to hear. Only when they were about to depart, their luggage already loaded on the cart that stood ready at the kitchen door and Stienie’s hat already pinned on, only then did she ask innocently and almost in passing if Tantetjie would not be lonely here in town on her own, and quite airily and casually I answered, oh no, not at all, it is so much more convenient to be here in town now that I am growing older, with the minister and the doctor close by and the neighbours always willing to help. At first I did not really know what I was saying, but it was clear as they were bidding me farewell that they were relieved, Maans because he did not have to worry about me, and Stienie because she would not be obliged to take me in. After all, she already had Betta, who was her blood relative and completely dependent on her; why should she have to be stuck with me as well? I stood at the gate, waving goodbye; I watched them ride away, my eyes following the dust from the cart all the way out of town and along the long, straight road that led to the farm. The dark, deserted farm of those winter months belonged to me, I realised, as did the house of my dreams and my unfeasible plans, and I no longer had any interest in the house to which they were returning, the house where Stienie reigned, with Betta carrying out her instructions, and where they would have provided me with a room if I had demanded it of them. It was better to remain here and endure the silent compassion or pity, to attend the prayer meetings and Sunday services alone and, once a week, to gaze out from the graveyard at the edge of town across the grey, rolling veld to where the roads climbed invisibly over the ridges.
The house was filled with a delicate spring light as bright as the reflected glitter of the snow. Sometimes I still found myself waiting or getting ready for something, sometimes I would start up suddenly because I thought someone was calling me, but that did not last long, and I soon became accustomed to my freedom. Sheltered by the garden wall or the stoep, the flowers emerged hesitantly in the cold spring, painstakingly grown, sheltered and kept alive, and in the bare, cultivated gardens of the town the trees, swaying in the eastwind, put forth buds; until October or November every night still held the possibility of frost, every day might bring a sudden whirl of snow across the rocky ridges. Against a stoep pillar of the parsonage the climbing rose Mrs Reyneke planted when she and her husband moved in the year before bloomed, but that same spring she died, and she lay buried in front of the church without ever having seen the first blooms on the young plant, their bright, translucent white petals unfurling in the bleak chill of the Roggeveld spring.
For a while people called on me on their return from the Karoo to convey their sympathy, and each time I heard the sound of horses’ hoofs in the street or a vehicle in front of the house, the squeak of the gate or the sound of footsteps across the boards of the stoep, I cringed. Gradually the danger passed, however, and the threat diminished, and it was as if people mercifully forgot about my existence, perhaps because I led such a retired life and took so little part in their activities, a silent spectator on the fringe of their meetings, a timid tantetjie in the background at their social events. Or perhaps they lost patience with my timidity and my silence, and limited themselves to the most basic tokens of politeness and goodwill. Only Maans and Stienie still came in to Nagmaal with Pieter and Betta and spent a few days with me, but it was their house too, though I saw them as intruders each time and their arrival as an invasion. For a few days the house would be filled with the sound of Stienie’s high heels on the floorboards and her chattering and her questions, her cross-examination and instructions and rummaging through cupboards — “Why don’t you rather do it this way, Tantetjie?” Fortunately Betta kept her company most of the time, for that was her task in life, and after a few days they left again and I saw the cart making its way past the thinly-scattered houses of the town and following the white road back to the farm, and I was delivered once more to my own freedom.