An icy wind swept through Main Street, picking the plane trees bare. The leaves whirled wildly about, scraping drily against the pavements and the shop fronts. Berka turned up the collar of his greatcoat and walked slowly up the hill. His eyes watered from the cold and from the acrid smoke which hung in the air after last night’s veld fire. All night long it had raged through the dry grass and in the morning the veld lay black and devastated under a shroud of frost. Throughout the day it had smouldered fitfully and now, in the purple dusk, isolated pinpoints of fire still glowed in the veld.
The smell of warm bread enveloped Berka as he walked past Hershl’s new bakery. In the old days he would carry a warm bread home with him, but since Yenta had gone into business with Hershl, he rarely went into the bakery.
He pulled his cap over his forehead and increased his pace. He could not bear the muted tones and the grave looks with which his old friends greeted him. He preferred the brutal directness of his barmates.
‘Your dandy son kicked you in the balls, eh?’ someone said soon after Joel left home. ‘Never mind. It could’ve been worse. Mine’s serving a stretch.’
They could say what they liked, Berka thought, as long as they didn’t mention Raizel.
The sound of laughter and singing from the bar could be heard a block away.
Bobbejaan klim die berg,
So hastig en so lastig,
Bobbejaan klim die berg…
Berka pushed open the swinging doors. The bar was full of miners who had just come off shift. Some of them sat in the far corner, singing lustily. The others crowded around the counter. Jan Burger, his young neighbour, was among them. He had a pint glass in his hand and was looking pensively into the distance. Chidrawi waved to Berka from one of the tables.
‘Bernard my friend, come and join us,’ Arthur Campbell called as Berka hung his coat and cap on a buck’s horns. ‘We’re celebrating my retirement. This round’s on me.’
The group of English-speaking officials made room to include Berka in their circle.
‘Thirty years we’ve known one another,’ Campbell said putting his arm around Berka’s shoulders. ‘Remember the first time we met? If Llewelyn hadn’t separated us I’d have given you a bloody nose for calling me an Englishman.’
‘Who knew the difference between a Scotsman and an Englishman in those days? To me everyone who spoke English was an Englishman. Before you met me did you know the difference between a Polak and a Litvak?’
‘I certainly know it now. Polish Jews talk Yiddish like Cockneys talk English and Litvaks can’t distinguish between an ‘s’ and a ‘sh’. Same on you, you shilly boy! Only the Russian Jews speak Yiddish correctly.’
‘Right! Now this round’s on me. Campbell, you’ve got a Yiddishe kop. In fact, you’re half a Yid.’
‘Feldman, so are you!’
‘They laughed heartily and slapped one another on the back. By the time they reached the sixth round the other officials had drifted away, leaving Berka and Campbell to their reminiscences.
‘They call this a bar,’ Campbell said scornfully when John the barman moved out of earshot, ‘and that hulk of flesh a barman. Do you remember the old Mayfontein before it burned down after the ’22 Rebellion?’
‘Do I remember it! Thick blue gum beams on the ceiling, a carved wooden bar…’
‘The huge fireplace with copper pots and pewter mugs…’
‘And Tiny Tim, all six foot four of him, lording it behind the counter…’
‘Aye, that was a man. He didn’t need that rifle he kept under the counter. He could knock two heads together like, like…’
‘Like kids cracking nuts on Pesach,’ Berka added.
‘Just so. The men were men in those days, eh Bernard? Nor were they afraid of dying for their convictions. Remember the Fordsburg Rebellion?’
‘Do I remember! The workers in the trenches, the police on the mine dumps…’
‘The People’s flag, is deepest red…’ Campbell intoned sonorously, above the combined efforts of the singers in the corner.
‘Vat jou goed en trek Ferreira…’ they sang drowning Campbell’s solitary voice.
‘We had them worried for a while.’
‘But what can you do against tanks and planes? Even if their aim wasn’t so good.’ Berka chuckled. ‘They missed the trenches and hit McIntosh’s grocery store, poor devil, and the Wesleyan Church. Like toys those De Havilland DH9’s looked, spluttering in the hot summer sky.’
‘Bernard my friend, the workers weren’t with the Council of Action, that was the trouble. “Workers of the World Unite!” the Council pleaded, but the rank and file wanted the white workers to unite against the black workers. The Council wanted to do away with the colour bar in industry and social life, but the lousy scabs said, “kaffir work for kaffirs, skilled work for the whites”. It couldn’t work.’
‘And their other slogan, “Do you want your sister to marry a kaffir?” They always came up with that one. What did they think the Council of Action was, a marriage bureau?’
‘There will never be a true white proletariat in this country,’ Campbell said sadly. ‘It’s the blacks that’ll make the revolution and I’m not waiting around for it, Bernard. Next month I’ll be home again.’
They finished their drinks in silence. The miners were now singing in a more nostalgic vein.
My Sarie Marais is so ver van my hart
Maar ek hoop haar om weer te sien…
Berka joined in. Fields of mealies, mud-walled farmhouses, thorn trees, dried up water holes rose to his mind and he felt close to the Boers again. Campbell was right about many things, but he had never understood the real Afrikaners. Berka did. This was his home, these were his people, his songs. Unlike Campbell he did not have home to return to; unlike Dovid he did not pine for der heim. Neither could he share Hershl’s mystic feelings for Palestine. But he felt uneasy about Pirow, Malan, Wiechardt…
…O bring my terug na die ou Transvaal
Daar waar my Sarie woon,
Daaronder in die mielies by die groen
doring boom,
Daar woon my Sarie Marais…
He loved it all, the good with the bad. And in winter when the veld burned down he knew that with the spring rains the green shoots would come up again. It rarely destroyed the grass roots.
Campbell was right. He was only half a Yid and he was glad of it.
‘…brave men,’ Campbell’s voice suddenly intruded on his ears. ‘Spendiff and Fisher shot themselves rather than give up. And all those fine chaps were shipped Home after the Rebellion. They really knew the score. These fellows here,’ he looked around the bar contemptuously, ‘are Union men like I’m Chairman of the Chamber of Mines. All they care about is protection from black competition. White trash, that’s all they are,’ his voice rose aggressively. ‘Landless yokels, ignorant Boers…’
‘Campbell!’ Berka said reproachfully, ‘I’m surprised at you. Such intolerant talk. These men are our brothers, our fellow workers.’
‘They’re certainly not my brothers. They’re the brothers of the Commandos who shot at the workers…’
‘Quieter, Campbell. At our age we can’t get involved in bar room brawls. You can’t generalise like that. Think of Scheepers, think of…’
‘You think of them if you want to. And the hell I can’t generalise. Have you heard their public pronouncements? Strutting little Hitlers, every one of them. For them the battle of Blood River is still raging and the Boer War’s only just begun. Even that man Burger who works on my shaft is absolutely blind to any ideas that didn’t originate in the laager. And he’s quite intelligent. Call him over. Hear for yourself.’
‘Leave him, Campbell. I’ve spoken to him often, he’s my neighbour,’ Berka protested. ‘I’ve met more enlightened Afrikaners in my time and so have you. Remember…’
‘Call him over. He won’t come if I do. He’s typical, I tell you. I work with them all day.’
‘Jan, join us for a drink,’ Berka called reluctantly. Jan was sitting at a table with Chidrawi.
Jan looked suspiciously at Campbell, then back at Berka who smiled reassuringly at him. He drained his glass and with a slight swagger, walked across to the counter.
‘We’re discussing the colour bar, Mr. Campbell and I,’ Berka began. He did not feel like arguments that evening. ‘We, er, were saying…’
‘Mealie-mouth!’ Campbell cuffed Berka affectionately. He turned sternly to Jan. ‘We were saying that the white workers banded together to protect their interests against the black workers and not against the exploiting mine bosses. We believe that the black man must be trained, organised into unions and that if he is, he won’t undercut the white workers. Together they can get a good deal for the working class. There’s work enough for everyone. Don’t you agree?’
Jan flushed deeply and pushed his drink aside. Campbell had baited him before.
‘I say that if we teach the blerry kaffirs skilled work, we’ll be out of jobs. Anyway, those bobbejaans can’t learn skilled work. They’ve just climbed out from the trees and lost their tails. They’re fit only for kaffir work. In the Bible it says about hewers of wood and drawers of water…’
‘What did I tell you?’ Campbell turned triumphantly to Berka. ‘Even their humanity is denied. Bobbejaans in trees. Well, well. I must be off. I’ll drop into the workshop before I leave for home, Bernard my mate.’
He nodded curtly to Jan and walked away.
‘Those blerry Englishmen,’ Jan spat out. ‘I hate them.’
‘He’s Scotch,’ Berka corrected.
‘These blerry Englishmen think they own the world. They come here, make trouble, then go back to England, leaving us with the mess.’
‘He’s right about the black workers, Jan. Black and white must unite against the white bosses…’
‘Ag nee, Oom. They’re savages. It’s every white man for hisself. I’m a Union ou all right but I’m not a commie. We trekked from the Cape because the blerry English tried to make us equal. And we fought the kaffirs for the land and we won. If they’d won, we’d be dead. They’re still alive. This is our home. I haven’t got another home like Campbell.’
‘You’ve got a poyerse kop, Jan. Do you know what that is? A terrible affliction. You just don’t understand.’
‘Ag, I understand all right. If I don’t want the kaffirs in my Union, I’m an onderdrukker. If I want protection from the black bastard’s cheap labour, I’m not tolerant. You’ve told me that before. And if I don’t like Bolshie talk, I’ve got a poy-whachacallit kop. Oom, if I listened to you, the kaffirs would sit in Parliament and I’d be doing the kaffir work. And don’t forget, I know the bastards. My voorvaders were slaughtered by them at Weenen. You can’t trust them.’
‘My voorvaders were slaughtered by God-fearing Christians in the crusades and in pogroms, and I’m still speaking to you. We live in a different world today, Jan. We must be tolerant.’
Berka suddenly wearied of the conversation. It was hot and stuffy in the bar. He felt his own tolerance ebbing.
‘Jan, your friend Chidrawi who seems drunker than usual, is calling you. Perhaps we’ll walk home together later on and talk some more.’
He took his drink and walked to a table near the door. The crowd in the bar was thinning out. Those who remained looked as though they had settled in until closing time. The miners in the corner were still singing. As the evening drew on, their songs had become increasingly nostalgic.
O Boereplaas, geboorte grond,
Jou het ek lief bo alles.
O moedertaal, soetste taal,
Jou het ek lief bo alles.
Al dwaal ek ooit
Die heel wêreld rond…
Berka hummed the tune then stopped, puzzled. He heard it before, that very evening, yet he knew that the miners had not sung it. ‘Boereplaas’ usually came towards the end of their repertoire, by which time they were soaked in nostalgia and booze. Where had he heard it? His head felt muzzy and he could not remember.
Suddenly he thumped on the table and laughed out aloud. Of course. Campbell had sung it. The melody of ‘Boereplaas’ and ‘The Red Flag’ was identical! The conservative Boers and the Revolutionaries had used the same tune for their most sacred hymns.
Another five minutes and he’d go home. Time enough to go out into the cold night. What was there to rush back to? Yenta was at work; Raizel was sad and silent; his friends treated him as though there’d been a death in the family, and in a sense there had been: If he were a religious Jew he would have sat shiva for Joel. Berka’s eyes misted. He had never been so lonely; not when he had lived in that tiny room at the back of the kafferita; not when he had travelled over the empty veld with only his voorloper and his thoughts for company. Never.
Ruthie was his only comfort. In some indefinable way they were linked by loneliness. Yet why should she be lonely? She was doing well at school; she had a friend; she was drawing beautifully. The wall next to his work bench was already half-filled with her pictures of the veld, of the mine dumps, of the blue gum plantation. Her English had improved. These days she spoke English to everyone except to him and to Gittel.
That’s it. Why did it make him so sad that she spoke English to everyone? Even to Dovid. It had something to do with her loneliness. He pondered this strange fact deeply but found no answer. Somewhere there was a link but tonight he was too drunk to find it.
He was so lost in thought that he only became aware of the argument behind him when Jan and Chidrawi stood in the centre of the room, facing one another angrily.
‘But what did I say that was so terrible, Jan? And why are you defending her? I’m not the only one in Mayfontein who says so. Everybody…’
‘Shut up, you lousy Arab. If you open your blerry mouth again, I’ll donner you up.’
‘Mrs. Pinn told me herself. And all I said was that I always knew she was a sexy bit from the way she handled the cucumbers in my old shop…’
Jan’s fist shot out and with a moan Chidrawi sank onto the floor, clutching his stomach.
Berka looked around in bewilderment. Everyone turned away from him in embarrassment. Jan came up to his table and helped him up.
‘Come, Oom,’ he said gently. ‘It’s time for us to go home.’
Jan helped him on with his coat and together they walked out of the bar. The wind had died down and the stars shone brightly in the clear dark sky. The veld was burning quietly in the night and the sky mirrored the sparks with icy stars.
‘What if the grass roots are burned, will the grass never grow again?’ Berka mumbled. ‘Look, Jan, how dark the sky is, how cold the stars are…’
‘Don’t worry, Oom, it’ll be all right.’
Jan grasped him firmly under his elbow. Several times Berka’s knees buckled under him. He looked back sadly at the bar and knew that he would never enter it again. His world was shrinking daily.
Neither he nor Jan spoke on the way home. It was only when they reached his house that Jan patted him awkwardly on the shoulder and said:
‘Please don’t worry about it, Oom. They’ve all got a lot of dirty mouths.’
Berka drew in his breath at the musty smell in the passage of his house. Although Yenta no longer made wine and cucumbers, the smells lingered on in the passage, like memories of old times.