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The little Mazda 323 bumped over a pothole and, from the corner of her eye, Annamari saw Thys wince. She slowed down to 40 and steered the car almost onto the verge where the road was smoother. Perhaps they shouldn’t have come. Not yet. But she needed to get away from the cramped, crowded hustle and bustle of Bloemfontein. It had been months and months since they’d made the trip to Steynspruit. Since before the accident. She needed Steynspruit’s wide blue skies that blurred into the bleached wheat fields that seemed to stretch on forever to the dark horizon framed by the mountains. She craved the farm like an alcoholic craved his first dop of the day.
Not too much farther now. She glanced in the rearview mirror. De Wet was fast asleep, snug in his carry cot. He was nearly five months old now. It was time he was introduced to his roots. Arno was gazing out at the pale fields that would soon be rolled up into huge bales of fodder.
‘Are we there yet?’ Arno asked again.
‘Nearly,’ Thys said.
‘You said that hours ago.’
Thys fiddled with the radio as the crackle drowned the fading music. He switched it off and shifted in his too-small seat. Annamari looked at Arno in the rearview mirror and smiled at him.
The road carried them into Driespruitfontein, along Kerk Street and past the church where Dominee van Zyl had presided for so many years. Thys’ ma said she was much happier in Kroonstad now – the house was much larger and smarter, the congregation so much bigger and her roses were absolutely assured of winning first prize at the agricultural show. A couple of kaffirs lazed on the stoep outside Silverman’s General Dealer. Annamari looked away. She drove past Potgieter Street – one day she’d take a left there and show Arno and De Wet their parents’ old school.
Then Driespruitfontein was behind them, the dam glistening bravely in cracked, black banks. She glanced at Thys, wondering if he still remembered. He winked at her, reached out and touched her leg briefly, then glanced back at Arno and his smile broadened. She averted her eyes and stared ahead, blinking hard.
She wound down her window and drank in the fresh, crisp Free State air.
‘Mama, it’s cold,’ Arno whined.
She closed the window and focused on the road, determined to get Thys to Steynspruit as painlessly as possible. There. The sign to Steynspruit. She stopped the car.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said as Thys started to undo his seatbelt.
She clambered out and opened the gate, then waited as a white bakkie roared up and a tall figure in army browns jumped out and strode over to them, R1 rifle slung casually over his shoulder.
‘Annamari...didn’t realise it was you.’
‘Hello Wynand. Long time, huh? What’s up?’ she said.
‘No. Ja. We had reports of some strange kaffirs in the area and last night there was a disturbance reported on Viljoenspruit. Nothing serious. But we’re just being extra careful. I was on patrol – I’m a captain now, in the Driespruitfontein Commando. I didn’t recognise your car so I just came to investigate.’
‘You guys are doing a great job. Thanks. I’m grateful.’
He blushed. She suppressed her smile as he strode over to the car and shook hands with Thys through the window. He’d always had a bit of a crush on her at school but everyone knew she was Thys’ girl. Everyone except him. He’d known, but that hadn’t stopped him, them...
She jerked her attention back to Wynand who was peering through the back window.
‘Those your laaities? Jeez, didn’t know you’d had another one. Also a boy? Look at him – pa se klein bulletjie that one. And you,’ he said to Arno, who had fixed his blue eyes on him curiously. Annamari held her breath. ‘You are just like your ma,’ Wynand said. She exhaled.
‘And my papa,’ Arno said. ‘My papa is Thys van Zyl, the rugby player.’
Annamari swallowed the lump in her throat.
‘I know. I went to school with your pa – and your ma. Your pa nearly killed me once. Remember that tackle, Thys? I couldn’t walk for days,’ Wynand said.
They all laughed and Arno beamed.
‘Hey, did you hear?’ Wynand said. ‘The Jewboy skipped the country, the fokking coward. I was with the MPs when they went to his parents’ house looking for him but he’d gone. Old man Silverman said they hadn’t seen or heard from him in months. Apparently he stole money from them – even from the old kaffir girl that worked for them. He just disappeared. Good fokking riddance. Cowards, the lot of them. Fokking commies.’
She collapsed back into the driver’s seat, pain and relief washing over her. He was gone. Dankie Vader. Thank God.
From a distance she heard Thys’ voice, soft, measured, as it always was when he was really angry. ‘David Silverman wasn’t a coward – he was killed on the border, remember? And whatever Alan’s reasons for leaving, it wasn’t because he was a coward. How he survived in Driespruitfontein for so long I have no idea. If I was him, I’d have left too. Now, if you will excuse us, we’d better get going. Annamari’s ma will be furious if we’re late and the boud dries out.’
Wynand stepped back and she drove though the gate, knowing he would close it behind them.
‘I’d have hit him if I wasn’t such a bloody cripple,’ Thys muttered.
‘You’d never hit anyone. And you’re not a cripple!’
But he nearly was. It had been close. So close. Another fraction of an inch, the doctor had said.
She’d never forget the sound, the “oooooh” that swamped the Free State Stadium as two light blue tanks hammered into Thys, one from the left, the other from the right. She didn’t see the ball fly forward into touch. She didn’t hear the referee’s whistle. She heard the crack as his massive neck jerked first to the left, then to the right. She saw the three players collapse into a tangle of oak-like limbs and jerseys. She saw her husband’s foot right at the bottom of the heap. She knew it was his foot because of the white sock. It didn’t move. Not even after the pale blue jerseys had peeled themselves off him. He just lay there, a crumpled giant in a blur of orange, white and black. The stadium was eerily silent as they parted for her to waddle carefully down, down, down the stairs to the tunnel. There she waited, a kindly cop watching her anxiously while the medics finished with him and stretchered him off the field. They helped her up into the ambulance. Pa and Christo followed with a weeping Arno.
At the National Hospital, they waited. And waited. Christo took Arno to Thys’ ouma. They waited again. She heaved herself out the chair as the doctor came through the swing doors and averted his eyes from her bulging belly.
‘He’s holding on, Mrs van Zyl,’ he said. ‘We’ll know more in a few days.’
Slowly, slowly the news improved. He’d live. He could move his hands. He had feeling in his toes. He could sit up and feed himself. He’d walk. He’d never play rugby again.
It was so unfair. His first game after working so hard to come back after injury too. She’d been so excited, so proud when he’d received his call-up to the team. Pa and Christo travelled through to Bloemfontein especially – not that they needed any persuasion. Arno was beside himself with pride and anticipation. When Thys ran out on to the field in his Orange Free State jersey, Arno shouted at the top of his little lungs: ‘That’s my Papa’ and the burly men all around them smiled and told him that Free State would win the Currie Cup for sure this year, now that Thys van Zyl was back in the scrum.
Thys took his first, faltering, unaided steps up the path to their new cottage in the grounds at Bloemfontein Hoërskool, the day before Western Province beat the Blue Bulls in the Currie Cup Final again. BHS was proud to have a man of Thys’ stature as a teacher at his school, the headmaster said.