Maans and Stienie went down to Cape Town every year now, where they rented a house, and as Stienie began to feel at home in the city and got to know people there, she began to go out regularly and took part in the social life. Now and then she sent me a note or a report she had cut from the newspaper when Maans had spoken in Parliament, so that I could show it to people, but the reports were few, and later she stopped sending them, for the people in our district tended to make fun of their silent Member of Parliament. On the few occasions when he did speak, however, it was about agricultural matters or farming, and he always voted correctly, and as people are fond of him and have nothing to complain of, he has remained their representative to this day, almost twenty years later, without saying much, without ever creating a stir or drawing attention to himself.
At the beginning Maans sometimes suggested that I should pay them a visit in Cape Town and Stienie always agreed, but too quickly for my liking, and in such a way that it was clear she did not expect us to start making the arrangements immediately. Once he even remarked that it would be good if I could accompany them to manage the housekeeping, for Stienie had many appointments and, moreover, she often felt unwell; he had spoken without thinking and had probably meant it in jest, but Stienie made no reply and he never repeated the invitation. The initial anxiety that they might expect a visit or want my company, gradually disappeared: for Maans as well as Stienie it was more practical that I should stay behind on the farm while they were away, and furthermore I realised that Stienie wanted to get away, not take her life with her to Cape Town as a constant reminder of everything she wished to forget. During this time some of the wealthier people began sending their children to school in the Boland, and there was always someone with a daughter at school or a son at college in Cape Town; but I heard complaints that Stienie did not look out for the children, and people from our parts who went to Cape Town themselves were sometimes rather scathing about the way they had been received by her. As for me, I knew I was safe.
So we continued, with me on my own in the big house for part of the year, and Pieter, Annie and her little girl in the old homestead behind, and in winter we all went down to the Karoo. As a child I had accompanied my parents to Nagmaal at Worcester but that was the farthest I had ever travelled, and for many years now we had had our own church in the Roggeveld, so that journey was no longer necessary. For years my life’s journey had been along the same route, between the farm and the town, and in winter down Verlatekloof to the Karoo. I had never been to Matjiesfontein; I had never seen a train or even a railway track. There was nothing I desired.
Pieter had been married to Annie for five or six years, perhaps, when he died, as quietly and inconspicuously as he had lived: Maans and Stienie were in Cape Town when Annie came running over to the house one morning to say that he had died. He had been unwell for a while, and that morning he had been sitting on the bed when he just toppled over against the pillows and was gone. He was not even seventy years old. I helped lay him out, and he was buried on the farm with only the two of us and the closest neighbours at the graveside. Hendrik Esterhuizen led the service: we sent a message to town for a telegram to be sent to Maans, but of course he could not come all the way from Cape Town just for the funeral. An old man who had lived with us on the farm for many years had died, that was all, a familiar dependent, a respected bywoner, and while I was handling the worn-out old body of the stranger, I felt nothing more than a distant, dull ache that I could not really explain.
After Pieter’s death Annie and her daughter remained in the old homestead, for she was a reserved woman who bothered no one and it was handy for Stienie to be able to call on her for help when she entertained. She received firewood and meat, and Maans must have given her a small sum of money to survive, for Pieter had had nothing to leave her. Maans was quite fond of the little girl, but Stienie did not approve and the child was never encouraged to come to our house. There was a time that Maans spoke of sending her to school in Cape Town but Stienie objected quite vehemently. She might have been able to teach, or start up a school in town, but Stienie shook her head and pursed her lips as her shiny needle passed through her embroidery, flashing in the lamplight, and so nothing came of the proposal. The girl walked over to Driefontein for a while to attend the farm school there and I helped her a little with reading and writing, but she was not very clever, or perhaps she simply did not try very hard. I knew Maans once suggested that she should get piano lessons from someone in town, seeing that the piano in the voorhuis was never used, but Stienie simply laughed at the idea, and thus nothing came of that either.
After Pieter’s death Maans said he would have a stone erected for his uncle, but he had other things on his mind and the years rolled by without anything being done about it. I hardly felt like reminding him, and at last I used my own money and had a stone made by old Oom Appie, chiselled with uneven letters and adorned with floating branches and wreaths: I had only his name and dates engraved on it, and the words Luke 15 verse 32. Maans was in Cape Town when the stone was erected and neither he nor Stienie had any reason to visit the graveyard, so they probably never even knew about it. Thus everyone was dead, Father and Mother, Jakob and Pieter; yes, and I suppose Sofie too — how could Sofie, who was older than I, still be alive and I myself past seventy? Only I have remained, waiting for the dawn, dying in the dark, with somewhere at my feet the regular breathing of the girl in her sound sleep from which nothing can awaken her. Is she still asleep? The silence around me has intensified and I can no longer hear anything, the darkness as heavy as a curtain before my eyes. I have been left behind alone.
Maans always tried to return from Cape Town as soon as possible, for he did not like the city or life there, but Stienie often tried to extend their visit, so that their absence from the farm usually lasted quite long in the end. Furthermore, when they were back on the farm Maans had to travel a great deal to visit the various parts of his constituency and talk to the people, and Stienie almost always accompanied him, her suitcases tied to the back of the cart, for she said she was bored at home. Thus I was left on my own more than ever and often it was I who had to supervise, give the orders or make the decisions. And why not? I had grown up here, after all, and for the greatest part of my life I had watched what the men were doing, Father and my brothers and Maans, and listened to their conversations. For a while Maans tried to work with a foreman, but sooner or later he or his wife would have trouble with Stienie and they would leave, and gradually he realized that we could carry on, as long as I was at home; he appreciated being able to rely on me, I believe, and Stienie once remarked with a certain smugness that it was a good thing they were able to manage without a foreman, though I myself never heard or received a word of appreciation from her.
But wait, that is not the whole truth, for once I did overhear something I suppose could be considered a compliment, even though it had not been meant for my ears. I was coming down the passage behind the maid who was carrying a tray to the voorhuis when I heard Maans remark to the guests in his quiet way: “Tantetjie looks after the farm better than any foreman”, and Stienie joined in, “Yes, she is truly a precious old thing.” That big new house did have its advantages, for on many occasions I heard or saw something incidentally, on the other side of the door, in the passage, around a corner, or behind the net curtains that veiled the windows. For a moment I remained in the passage instead of entering behind the maid and helping to serve the coffee, as usual. So that was what I was, I thought to myself, a precious old thing; and after almost seventy years an abyss suddenly opened underneath me and I no longer recognised myself where I stood on the opposite bank looking across. I never really had any reason to think highly of myself, but Stienie’s unforeseen words — affectionate yet at the same time snide, as was often the case — shook me, and I still recall how I stood there in the passage, teetering over the abyss, watching myself across the distance.