FIVE

PÉRSOMI STOOD WITH HER MA AND HANNAPAT IN FRONT OF the rundown outhouse. The hole of the longdrop had collapsed while Pérsomi was in school. The sides just caved in.

“Must be because of all the rain,” said her ma.

“And then a piece of the wall also fell.” Hannapat pointed. “And the door came off its hinges. See how it hangs?”

“We must fix the longdrop,” said Pérsomi, upset. “We can’t keep going behind the bushes!”

“Impossible,” said Hannapat.

“Then we’ll have to build a new one,” said Pérsomi. She sighed. Of course she didn’t know how. Welfare had taken Sissie somewhere that she could work, and although her stepbrother Piet had returned from Joburg, unemployed, he was unwilling to lift a finger.

“And who do you think is going to dig the hole?” asked Hannapat. “You know how hard the soil is. But you’ve probably forgotten, because you live in town now and it’s up to us to plant the pumpkins.”

“Piet must help,” said Pérsomi. “We must—”

“Do I look like an aardvark to you? Or a springhare, huh?” Hannapat objected. “I don’t dig holes, and neither will Piet.”

“But we must—”

“If you’re too hoity-toity to go behind a bush, why don’t you ask Mr. Fourie to send a farmhand?” said Hannapat and began to walk away. “It’s their job to dig holes.”

The last time the roof of the longdrop blew off, Gerbrand fixed it. Mr. Fourie gave them two sheets of metal and some nails, and Gerbrand took off his shirt and stood on top of the walls to fix the roof. He worked for three days, chopping new crossbeams and plastering the walls. She helped him. She carried the axe, mixed cement, passed the nails, and searched for a flat rock to use as a hammer. He didn’t really speak to her, but when the roof was on and they stepped back to look, he said: “You worked hard, too, Pérsomi. Good.”

But now Gerbrand was gone.

“Heavens, Sis, what’s wrong?” her ma asked outside the kitchen door.

“I knew it,” Auntie Sis panted, dabbing at her face with a gray handkerchief. “Sunday afternoon I was walking round the back, to the outhouse . . . Man, what’s wrong with your outhouse?”

“What did you know?” asked Pérsomi’s ma.

“Can I have a sip of coffee? I have heart palpitations from the long walk.”

Pérsomi went inside and shoved a log into the mouth of the stove. Piet sat at the table, scraping dirt from his fingernails. He got up and went outside. The wisps of smoke trickling through the broken oven door made her eyes water and filled the entire room.

She added a little water to the coffee pot. The grounds had been used over and over. They were gray as dishwater, but the coffee tin was empty.

She heard Auntie Sis sigh deeply outside. “I saw a vision . . . oh man alive!”

They waited. She sighed again and said, “I saw coffins piled one on top of the other, piles of coffins. And people with the coffins, but behind bars.”

Breathless silence.

“That’s all,” said Auntie Sis.

“Lewies?” Pérsomi’s ma whispered.

“Man, I couldn’t make out any faces, you know how the visions work. But this morning when I got the news, I knew.”

“Who, Auntie Sis?” Hannapat asked impatiently.

“It’s Boelie,” Auntie Sis gasped, still short of breath, “it’s Boelie and De Wet!”

Alarmed, Pérsomi went to stand in the doorway.

“Oh heavens!” said Pérsomi’s ma. “Has there been a death?”

“Man, what are you saying! Worse, worse, I’m telling you! Piet, bring me a chair. My back won’t last on this bench.”

“Worse than death?” Ma sank down on the old car seat at the back door.

Auntie Sis kept wiping her face with her big hankie. “You’re telling me,” she said. “It’s police business!”

“Police!” Ma and Hannapat said simultaneously.

“Put that chair over there, Piet,” said Auntie Sis. “What happened to your longdrop?”

“What . . . what about the police?” Ma asked.

“Man, don’t ask!” sighed Auntie Sis, lowering herself onto the straight-backed kitchen chair. “The police raided their room in Pretoria—at the university where they’re studying!”

“The police raided their room?” her ma repeated.

“Listen to what I’m saying: The police raided their room, I’m telling you.”

“But . . . why?” her ma asked, dismayed.

“They must have been looking for stolen goods,” said Piet.

“Man, I didn’t want to say it, because I don’t talk behind people’s backs, but that’s what I thought, too, and so did Attie,” sighed Auntie Sis. “And to crown it all, your longdrop is falling to pieces.”

“Stolen goods!” her ma said, shocked.

Pérsomi poured the coffee, knowing that wasn’t why. But she didn’t try to explain the police raids on members of the OB.

“And the coffins?” asked Hannapat.

“What coffins?” their ma asked, startled.

“The ones Auntie Sis saw.”

“Oh, that? No, that’s probably still coming.” Auntie Sis gave another deep sigh. “But death is waiting, it’s waiting.”

Pérsomi gave Auntie Sis and her ma their coffee. Then she turned and walked away. She managed to walk away calmly, not to break into a run. But the moment she found herself behind the first hill, the running just happened. It came into her legs like a release and took over her entire body.

She stopped only when the burning in her chest became worse than her fear for Boelie. What if they caught him and put him behind barbed wire in a concentration camp?

She had to speak to Boelie herself, hear from him what was going on.

This bloody, bloody war.

When Mr. Fourie saw the state of their longdrop at the end of the week, he was furious. “When did this happen?” he asked. “Please don’t tell me you’re going in the veld!”

“Oh heavens, it’s the rain, Mr. Fourie,” said her ma, frightened. “I’m sorry.”

“But why haven’t you done anything about it, Jemima?” he scolded as he walked around the longdrop. “My goodness, you could have told me! I can’t smell it if something is wrong down here!” Then he stopped. “I believe Piet is here.”

Silence.

“Where’s Piet?” he asked.

Pérsomi could see the trouble coming.

“He’s feeling a bit out of sorts this morning,” said her ma, crumpling her hankie.

“Where is he?”

Silence.

“He’s . . . inside,” Hannapat said.

“Still asleep at this hour?” roared Mr. Fourie, and he strode toward the house.

“O Lord, help us,” said Ma.

Mr. Fourie entered their home. Moments later Piet came stumbling through the back door, his neck drawn down between his shoulder blades, his arms covering his head. Mr. Fourie was right behind him.

“Start digging!” shouted Mr. Fourie. He picked up the shovel next to the back door. “Take this. Go dig the hole higher up. We’ll have to move the entire outhouse. And you two girls, go sweep that kitchen and clean up the place. It looks like a pigsty. And before the vacation is over you plaster that floor with dung. Do you hear me?”

Red-hot shame flooded Pérsomi’s body.

Mr. Fourie strode away, stiff with anger. “When I come back this afternoon, that hole had better be halfway done and the house spotless, is that clear?” he said over his shoulder.

As soon as Mr. Fourie could no longer be seen, Piet threw down the shovel, fuming. “Who does he think he is, talking to me like that?” He spat on the ground beside him.

“Mr. Fourie treats us well,” Pérsomi said firmly. “What use are we to him? It wouldn’t take much for him to chase us away!”

“O Lord, help us,” groaned her ma.

“No one speaks to Piet Pieterse like that!” Piet panted, his face bright red. “I’m not a laborer who digs holes! I don’t know why I ever came back here. With Pa gone, you women are pathetic. You can’t even keep the house clean. Pigs! Ma, give me back my pound. I’m leaving. I’m going back to Joburg.”

“Oh heavens, Piet,” her ma tried to protest, “I thought you said—”

“Give me back my pound or I’ll beat the living daylights out of the lot of you. You’re asking for it.”

“Give him his pound, Ma,” said Pérsomi. “The sooner he leaves, the better.” She turned to Piet. “Do us all a favor and stay in Joburg forever.”

“Oh heavens above,” groaned her ma.

“You can clean the house,” said Hannapat, plonking herself down in the winter sun with her back against the wall. “I’m always doing it while you live like a lady at school.”

When Mr. Fourie returned that afternoon, he was even angrier. “That lazy lout,” he said when he learned Piet had gone. He ran his hand over his face and shook his head. “I’ll send someone on Monday to fix the outhouse.” He turned and began to walk away.

“Mr. Fourie?” Pérsomi called.

He stopped and turned, his face a thundercloud.

She looked him in the eye. “Thank you, Mr. Fourie,” she said. “You’re good to us, even if we can’t help you on the farm anymore.”

He looked at her steadily.

“Thank you,” she said again.

“It’s okay,” he said and turned to go.

But for a moment, just before he turned his back on her, she thought she saw a strange expression in his eyes.

The vacation was almost at an end before Pérsomi got a chance to speak to Boelie. She happened to see him walk slowly up the mountain. He had his rifle in his hand but didn’t look as if he was planning to hunt.

She took a shortcut around the back of the baboon cliffs and reached the wild fig before him. She sank down onto the flat rocks and stretched out her legs. From up here she could see the road leading to the town, to the world where Irene lived in a room that looked the same as hers and ate the same food that Pérsomi did.

She watched as Boelie approached slowly, raising his hand in a kind of greeting. He sank down beside her. Carefully he laid his rifle on the rocky ledge between them.

“Hello, Boelie.”

They sat quietly, gazing into the distance. His rifle lay next to her.

“You can see almost all the way to town from up here,” she said.

“Hmm,” said Boelie. He sounded tired. Or maybe he just didn’t feel like talking.

Maybe she should go, it was no good trying to talk to him if he didn’t want to. And she didn’t want him to think her a nuisance. But it was her last chance to speak to him before she must go back to school.

“Are you looking forward to going back?” he asked, as if she had spoken aloud.

“Yes. I like school, but I do miss the farm sometimes, and the mountain.”

“Yes,” he said.

Silence.

“And you?” she asked. “Are you looking forward to going back to Pretoria?”

“I don’t know, Pérsomi,” he said. Then he shook his head slowly. “No, I’m not.”

“I hear the OB is more active nowadays, especially around Pretoria,” she began.

“Hmm,” he said.

She licked her lips. “I hear they’re blowing up stuff. And sometimes they get caught.”

“You shouldn’t listen to stories.”

“Almost four thousand have been arrested and sent to camps, Boelie,” she continued. “They’re not just stories.”

He made no reply.

“Almost every day I read about more people being arrested. Two students from the university just before the vacation, and an Afrikaans school principal from Helderberg, and a composer or something. I read it in the newspaper, Boelie.”

“Heidelberg. The principal is from Heidelberg,” he said, gazing into the distance. “Yes, Pérsomi, you’re right.”

“I know,” she said. “There’s a group, they call themselves the Stormjaers. They work with the OB. Tell me about them, Boelie.”

He frowned.

“I . . . just want to know more,” she said, “so that I can understand.”

He was still not looking at her. “I can tell you, yes. But remember, Pers, I’m not saying I belong to them, I’m just telling you about them. And it’s better not to mention these things to anyone. It’s . . . safer to say nothing.”

“I can keep a secret,” she said.

“Okay. The Stormjaers are an ultraconservative militant group inside the Nazi party in Germany.”

“Oh.”

“The Stormjaers have a lot of members. In the Transvaal alone there are thought to be about eight thousand, fully trained and armed. These include members of the police force. They say some of the most senior police officers are Stormjaers.”

“Who are they?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Who are the people who say so?”

“Just . . . you know . . . the people who know,” Boelie replied. “The Stormjaers are very serious about the cause. You know, Pers”—for the first time he looked at her, his dark eyes burning and intense—“a Stormjaer has to be willing to lay down his life for the freedom of his people. And if he betrays the ideals of the Stormjaers, they’ll target him.”

She frowned. “Is it worth it, Boelie? Laying down your life for the freedom of your people?”

“It’s what soldiers of many countries in Europe and North Africa are doing at this moment . . . thousands, millions of them,” he said.

“So the Stormjaers are also fighting in a kind of war. They’re also soldiers.”

“I suppose so,” he admitted. “They stand up and fight for what they believe is right. They have their own convictions.”

“It’s important to have your own convictions, isn’t it?”

“Yes, or you’re nothing but a piece of clay,” he said.

“And . . . you agree with them?” she made certain. “With the Stormjaers, I mean?”

“Let me put it this way: I completely understand how they feel. Something must be done! South Africa won’t solve its problems by talking.”

“Oh,” she said. “So you do support them?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I hear what I hear, Boelie. I know your room was raided, your room and De Wet’s.”

“So?”

“I worry about you,” she said. “I don’t want them to put you in a concentration camp.”

“Internment camp.”

“Same thing.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Why not what?”

“Why don’t you want me to be put in a camp?”

“Because . . . you’re my friend,” she said.

He gave her a strange look. “You saw me walk up here, so you waited for me, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.”

He nodded slowly and smiled. It was the first time she had seen him smile since she’d come home for the vacation, and his face looked a little less tired. “You’re a remarkable girl,” he said. Then he got to his feet. “I’m going back now. Don’t worry about me, I know what I’m doing.”

She watched him walk downhill until his strong figure became one with the veld in the distance.

She felt even more afraid.

“Go buy what you need at Ismail’s,” her ma had said just before she went back to school. “There’s money there.”

Pérsomi thought Gerbrand must be sending money directly to Mr. Ismail’s store.

“I don’t need Gerbrand’s money, Ma,” she tried to protest. “Why don’t you buy food instead—coffee and sugar and flour and stuff? And soap?”

“Oh heavens, Pérsomi, the money is for you and that’s the end of it!”

Pérsomi pondered this as she walked to the store alone. How had her ma known about the money? If Gerbrand had explained it in a letter, Pérsomi would have seen it.

As always, the store was dimly lit after the bright sunlight outside. And it smelled exactly the same. Good.

“Well, hello!” Yusuf’s cheery voice greeted her. “I thought the war had swallowed you.”

“Hello, Yusuf.” She smiled. “The vacation swallowed me.”

“Now it’s back to jail, isn’t it? What can we do for you today?”

“My brother sent some money, I want to buy soap and toothpaste,” she said.

“Wait, I’ll ask my grandpa,” he said. “Look at the nightgowns while you’re here. There aren’t many left and with the war and everything, we won’t be getting any new ones.”

She went to the drawer and opened it. For a moment she stood looking at the soft pink fabric.

“Take it out,” he said behind her. “There’s enough money for soap and toothpaste and that nightgown.”

She gave a puzzled frown. “How much money is there?” she asked.

He gave her a mischievous smile. “Pockets full,” he said.

“Yusuf!” she threatened.

He laughed, his teeth white against his dark skin. “A pound!” he said.

Gerbrand couldn’t have sent that much. What about their ma? And Hannapat?

“It’s all yours, girl,” said Yusuf. “Spend it.”

“I could never spend that much money.”

“Well, buy what you need and leave the rest on the book,” he suggested. “I’ll get the soap and things, you pick a nightgown. The day after tomorrow they might all be gone.”

The drawer represented a new world—the world of real people. She took the nightgowns out one by one and spread them on the counter. Each one was more beautiful than the last. They were all around ten shillings.

“What’s your favorite color?” Yusuf asked.

“I could never spend this much on a nightgown,” she said.

“I can show you day dresses for the same price,” he said.

She shook her head. “We wear a uniform all day. And I’ve got a dress for church.”

“Come on, Pérsomi, spoil yourself,” he said. “The soap and toothpaste come to less than a shilling. If you buy the nightgown, you’ll still have almost ten bob on the book.”

She put her hand out and touched the pink nightgown. Her hand on the soft fabric was red and chapped, like her ma’s hands. “You’re a shrewd salesman, Yusuf Ismail,” she said.

“You have to sleep in something,” he smiled, carefully folding it. “What do you hear from your brother?”

“He doesn’t write very often,” she said.

“My brother is in Egypt now. He went there in June. To think he has actually seen the pyramids, and the Red Sea and the River Nile! I feel like joining up myself. ‘Join the army and see the world,’ you know? Anything else for you?”

She hesitated a moment. “Do you have . . . cream? For . . . the skin?”

“Oh yes, all kinds,” he said and took her to another counter. “Different colors, scents, everything. They say soap and cream and stuff will soon be in short supply, but at the moment we still have lots.”

“I think I’ll buy some cream too,” she said.

“I can give you an expensive cream,” he said, “but the best cream is the kind my granny mixes herself, and it’s better value for the money.”

“Maybe you’re not such a great salesman after all, Yusuf. I would have bought the more expensive cream!”

Monday morning during math Reinier passed her a page from a newspaper. She looked at the date at the top of the page: Friday 18 July 1941. “Daring Theft of Dynamite—Nocturnal Incident in Stone Quarry.”

Relief flooded her. The story was about South Africa, not Gerbrand’s Abyssinia.

Wednesday morning a large supply of dynamite and explosives was stolen from a quarry belonging to Iscor seven miles outside Pretoria. The quarry is protected by armed guards.

During the night nine men arrived in three cars. They overpowered the guards and locked them up. Dynamite was removed from a storeroom and detonators from another. The stolen items were loaded into the cars and the perpetrators drove off.

She looked up, shrugging. “Read on,” whispered Reinier.

Soon after they left, one of the cars left the road and landed in a ditch. The occupants stopped a passing truck and asked the driver to assist them. The three cars disappeared without a trace.

The police are looking for the truck driver to help them identify the offenders. The guards were relieved of their firearms and one of them was slightly injured.

She gave the paper back. “And?” she asked softly.

“They were OB members, Pérsomi, Stormjaers,” he whispered.

She understood. “They stole dynamite to blow things up?” she said, shocked.

“Shh! Yes, I think so. My dad says with the Nazis achieving one victory after another, the antiwar faction in South Africa is gaining ground.”

“If they steal,” she whispered earnestly, “they’ll go to jail.” She feared for Boelie. The incident was so close to Pretoria.

“And if they blow up things.”

“Reinier and Pérsomi, stand!” the teacher said.

Guiltily they got to their feet.

“Didn’t I tell you to carry on with your work?”

“Sir, we’ve finished our work, sir,” Reinier said.

“Well, do some more,” the teacher said.

“Yes, of course. Right, sir.” said Reinier.

“Yes, sir,” said Pérsomi.

All day long worry gnawed at her belly.

When they were walking back to the dormitory after school that afternoon, Pérsomi heard Irene say to her friends: “Imagine! Sitting at the back, chatting away with Reinier. Mr. Van Wyk had to tell them off. With Reinier, of all people! I wonder if she really thinks she has a chance. With those grasshopper legs?”

Pérsomi slowed down. But Irene’s voice still came to her on the wind. “She crawls out of a hole, man, believe me, I know. Why my dad didn’t chase the whole lot off the farm years ago none of us can understand.”

That evening she wrote Gerbrand a long letter. She wrote as small as she could because she didn’t want to tear more than one page from her exercise book.

Gerbrand,

Thank you very, very much for the pound you sent Mr. Ismail. I bought soap and toothpaste, and a pink nightie. Maybe you think I should have bought a day dress, but see, we wear our uniform all day and I already have a dress for church. And a girl likes to feel good when she goes to bed. And I bought cream to make my hands soft.

She told him about the farm and their ma and Hannapat, and about Sissie who was working now and living in a kind of hostel. She made no mention of Piet and the longdrop.

She wished she could tell him about Boelie and how worried she was, but she couldn’t, because she had promised not to say anything. And Gerbrand had said their letters were censored.

At the end she wrote:

Gerbrand, will you please write to me? Please tell me what you are doing and please tell me why you joined the army and if you are happy.

Look after yourself. Because I really miss talking to you.

Best wishes.

Your sister,

Pérsomi

She folded the letter neatly, wrote the address on the envelope, and put a stamp on it. She would mail it on Friday.

Then she took her Bible and read from the gospel of Luke.

But when she finally fell asleep she didn’t dream of Gerbrand behind the rolls of barbed wire with his rifle and round tin hat. Her mind turned to Boelie, sitting in a barbed-wire cage, his face like a mask, his eyes staring straight ahead without any expression.

Just after the short recess Tuesday morning the school secretary came to their history class and spoke to their teacher. The teacher frowned slightly. Her hand went to her mouth, and she shook her head.

“Irene, please go to the office with Mrs. Olivier,” the teacher said. “Take your books along.”

Pérsomi felt her entire being sink to the pit of her stomach.

“It’s Boelie,” she whispered to Reinier.

“Boelie?” Reinier asked, puzzled.

OB, Pérsomi penciled in her history book.

Stormjaers? Reinier wrote.

Pérsomi nodded and took care to erase the words.

She was right. Rumors soon spread throughout the school.

That evening she said to Beth, “Now I know that prayer doesn’t help. I prayed so often for Boelie not to get into trouble, especially during the past few weeks. Now look what has happened.”

“We don’t understand the ways of God,” said Beth, “but He knows what He’s doing.”

“I won’t pray anymore,” said Pérsomi firmly.

“Whether you pray or not, He is in control,” Beth said. “He will always be there for you.”

There was a long silence. Then Pérsomi asked: “Beth, will you please pray for Boelie to get through this thing? And . . . for Gerbrand, too, for his safety, and happiness. I really miss him.”

On the last day of school she received an award for being the top achiever in Form II. She beat Reinier by a whopping 2 percent. She’d worked hard for it, so she walked proudly to the stage, stood tall among the other achievers, and looked out over the sea of black-and-white uniforms and upturned faces in the school hall. She shook the headmaster’s hand before returning to her place among the other Form IIs. Afterward, Beth put her arm around Pérsomi, and Reinier came over from the boys’ side to congratulate her.

But when she walked into the dormitory, she overheard Irene say: “Not bad for the daughter of a jailbird.”

“Jailbird?” one of her friends asked. “Who’s in jail?”

“Her father, more than a year already,” said Irene.

“And you’re only telling us now?”

No one spoke of Boelie’s arrest.

“Oh, you know.” Irene replied sweetly, “one doesn’t like to speak about that kind of thing. They are our bywoners, after all.”