It could not have been more than a few months later that Maans came in to town on his own one day, something that did not happen often, and as he sat in the kitchen watching me prepare padkos for his return journey, he asked timidly and in a roundabout way whether I would consider coming to live on the farm with them again. He was so tentative and long-winded that I knew what he wanted to say long before he came out with the request, and I was able to prepare myself while slicing the meat and bread, without having to listen to any more. Why had he been the one sent to ask me then, I wondered, while it must have been Stienie’s decision that I should return, and it was clear that he was reluctant to follow her orders? Yes, of course I would come, I assured him when he had finished, and I could see how relieved he was, just like that day when I had told Stienie, no, I do not mind living in town, after she had already decided how it would be. If it had all happened just a few weeks or months earlier, I might still have shied away and tried to find a way out, or I might have tried to delay the matter, but now I simply accepted the new arrangement and prepared to vacate the house, emptying the chest of drawers in my room and packing my things; that must have been when I burned the folded notes in the kitchen stove before allowing the fire to go out. Of course there would have been no point in resisting or delaying the matter, for I was a single woman without any possessions or income, after all, living in Maans and Stienie’s house, and just as dependent on their charity as old Betta; but the thought did not even enter my mind. That period of absolute freedom had not lasted long, dispersed over scattered months, weeks and days, and spanning a few years; it was a matter of a single uncertain spring, a single noiseless day when the empty house had been filled with the reflected light of a snowfall; but it had been enough, and I knew it was time to return.
Maans sent Pieter in to town with one of the farm-hands and the cart to fetch me and my possessions, and he slept over in town that evening. It was the first time since his return that I was completely alone with him, and I am at a loss how to describe that evening we spent together, for over the years he had become a stranger to me, so that his presence was as impersonal as that of any unknown visitor that I had to entertain; yet at the same time I knew that this strange, silent man sitting with me in the candle-light was my brother, my very own brother, my beloved brother, and it was because of that distressful knowledge that I was unable to eat that night, and not because I had to take leave of the house where I had lived for so long. He ate his food, head bowed over his plate in the candlelight, and he did not speak except to say yes, please, and no, thank you, in reply to my own words, peacefully retreated into his own distant world, just as we had known him since his return twenty years before, a thin man with grey hair, who handled his knife and cup with stiff, wooden movements and never looked at me. Never again would the two of us be alone together like this, I realised, never again would we be as certain that we would not be disturbed, never would such an opportunity for frankness and openness present itself to me again. I wanted to reach out and touch his hand, I wanted to stretch out and reach for him, I wanted to pave the way for the questions I had kept bottled up for almost a lifetime; but it was impossible for me, still impossible, and I sat across the table from him and did not say a word.
I did not have many things, a few items of clothing, a brush and comb, my Bible and hymn book and a case of books: they were soon packed and loaded. With my hat already pinned on, I walked around the house that morning to make the final arrangements, to draw the curtains and lock the doors of the rooms. Behind the house the cart stood ready, and on a bench by the kitchen door Pieter sat waiting in the morning sunshine, his back against the wall. I went outside, and when I saw him there, I knew this was my last chance, for even if another unexpected opportunity should arise at a later time, it would be too late then, and I would not be able to make use of it any more.
I sat down beside him on the bench and we sat together like that for a while, with the horses snorting and trampling restlessly. It was spring, it was spring again, and Maans and the others had not been back from the Karoo for long; the air was still sharp and cold, but the sunlight was bright and silvery and there were blossoms on the trees. “Pieter,” I said at last, softly, so that no one else would hear, even though there was no one near us; “Pieter, what happened to Sofie?”
After his return, Pieter gradually learned to perform certain tasks and to follow simple instructions; he understood that he had to come in to town to fetch me, though someone had been sent along for safety’s sake, and that the cart had to be inspanned and the things loaded. As far as we knew, however, he had no idea of the reasons behind the instructions or the connection between the specific actions he performed: how much he remembered, how much he understood, what he thought and felt, if, indeed, any thoughts and feelings were left, remained a mystery to us after all the years, just like Pieter himself, withdrawn from us in his silent world. Perhaps, I sometimes thought, perhaps he knew more than we suspected and he was just unable to express it, like the old people or the bywoners in the district who had never learned to write; or perhaps he had simply reached a point where he felt no further need to speak of what he had experienced and where he understood the meaninglessness of all efforts to communicate. Here, too, as we sat together on the bench at the kitchen door in the spring sunshine his reaction was ambiguous: to me, waiting anxiously and nervously for his answer, it seemed that the name I had mentioned was not unfamiliar to him and that he recognised it, but that the memories it evoked caused him to withdraw into himself, rather than reply to my question. He made no reply, and when at last I turned to look at his face, his expression was gentle and friendly: it was the open, vacant look of a child, waiting for me to give the order to get up and leave. I would get no reply: I would never know.
We got up, we climbed in; there was no reason to delay. We rode away, around the corner, past the church, along the front street, past the last houses and the trees with their sparse, glittering blossoms in the spring sunshine; past the graveyard and out, following the white road through the veld, past Groenfontein and up the rise to Driefontein and Vloksberg Pass at the edge of the world. I was going back.
6
That is all, there is nothing more to tell. I want to sleep; I want to rest. Or if that is not possible, not yet, I want to hear the cocks crow in the distance and see the shutters outlined against the first grey light of dawn. No sound reaches me in the dark, however, and the window remains invisible to me. Thus I am still not relieved of the burden to remember, still forced to continue with my long monologue as I lie here waiting to be set free. Why? There is really nothing more to tell.
When it became known in town that I was returning to the farm, the neighbours might have sympathised if I had allowed it. They dearly wanted to gossip about Stienie but, discouraged by my silence, they could finally do no more than shake their heads ruefully and steer the conversation back to poor Betta — what a shame, it is just not right. They were probably expecting the worst where I was concerned too but, as before, I had no trouble with Stienie. She was more difficult now, impatient and irritable and short-tempered, but everything in her house was exactly the way she wanted it and there was never any reason for conflict between the two of us.