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What the...?
Annamari’s heart was hammering so loudly it woke her up.
No wait. It wasn’t her heart. There it was again. Thump. Thump. Thump.
She reached over to wake Thys. He wasn’t there. He must have heard it and gone to investigate.
Thump. Thump.
She remembered. Thys was in Johannesburg.
Sleep vanished. They’d returned. The terrorists had returned. And De Wet was fast asleep in his room. She swung her feet out of bed and sat up, her heart tap dancing in her chest. She had to phone the police, radio Viljoenspruit. No, they’d take too long. The terrorists had probably cut the wires anyway. She had to get out of there. The car. She’d wake De Wet and they’d sneak out the back door and...
‘Kleinmissie. Kleinmissie. Wake up. Quick.’
Rosie. Rosie was the only person who still called her Kleinmissie. Why was she at the front door? She hardly ever came to the house anymore. It was too far to walk all the way from the khaya. And in the dark too.
Thump. Thump. ‘Kleinmissie! Please. Kleinmissie!’
The terrorists must have been watching the farm and knew Thys was away. That was why they’d chosen tonight to come back. Rosie had come to warn her.
She got up and tripped over the pillows on the floor where she always threw them before kissing Thys goodnight and settling down to sleep. At the bedroom door she remembered, turned back and grabbed the shotgun from next to her bed where Thys had left it because she was going to be alone. She padded silently sure-footed through the dark house, past the locked door of her childhood bedroom. Without turning on the light, she opened the front door a crack and whispered: ‘Shh, Rosie. What’s wrong? Where are they?’
‘Quickly. Please. Quickly.’ Rosie was already hobbling down the stairs, waving her arm in the direction of the khaya.
‘Rosie wait. Stay here with De Wet. I can’t leave him alone. If you hear shooting, wake him and tell him to run as fast as he can to... to the ... Just tell him to run and hide. He’ll know where to go.’ She wished Arno was home, he’d take care of De Wet. She offered a short prayer of thanks that Arno was safe in the Driespruitfontein Hoërskool hostel this weekend.
She couldn’t tell Rosie where the hiding place was. Terrorists often tortured loyal farm workers for information, or just for fun. She prayed De Wet would remember where to go. It was more than a year since Thys had drilled the boys – and they hadn’t taken it seriously.
‘Ag, Pa, you’ll donner any stupid terr who dares to set foot on Steynspruit,’ Arno had said.
But Thys wasn’t here tonight. He’d decided that he wanted to go up to Johannesburg to watch some stupid schoolboy rugby tournament. It was such a sudden decision too. He had come home from school on Wednesday in a strangely pensive mood. She’d asked what was wrong but he’d just shaken his head and disappeared into the bedroom. When supper was ready she went to call him. He was paging through their old Driespruitfontein Hoërskool magazines.
She sat next to him and pointed to the photograph of the First Rugby Team, Thys proudly holding the ball in the middle of the front row. ‘You haven’t changed a bit. Still as handsome as ever,’ she’d said.
Thys had stared at the photograph and flipped the page – the First Cricket Team. Then the swimming team. Then the cross country team. Annamari looked away. She couldn’t bear to look at it, not with Alan Silverman there in the front row. Thys slowly turned the page and closed the magazine.
‘I’m going up to Jo’burg this weekend,’ he’d said. ‘There’s a rugby tournament on at St John’s and I want to see if I can persuade them to include Driespruitfontein next year.’
***
Rosie hauled herself back up the stairs and clutched Annamari’s arm. ‘Go quickly, Kleinmissie. Go.’
Annamari hesitated. What if it was a trap? What if the terrorists had sent Rosie to lure her away from the house and while she was gone they would burst in and kill her son? What if...
She shook her head. What was she thinking? Rosie was like a mother to her. She’d never, ever harm her, never. She didn’t care what Stefan Smit or Wynand or anyone else said about them, Rosie and Petrus – all of them – they were like her family. She couldn’t just sit back and let terrorists slaughter her family. Not again.
She stumbled, breathless, along the dark path, ignoring the stones and thorns embedding themselves into her bare feet, wishing she’d remembered to bring a torch; wishing the moon was out; thankful it wasn’t. The terrorists would be less likely to see her approaching. She tripped over something, fell, swore quietly, scrambled back up.
She felt something warm running down her shin. Blood. But this was just a trickle, not the grotesque splashes that had adorned the carpet, the walls, even the ceiling like some horrific modern art fresco in her old room where they’d trapped Pa and Ma and Christo, who must have been waiting, terrified, for the help that never arrived. Annamari had taken one look, turned around and walked out, never to go back into that room again.
She crept forward in the darkness, the shotgun a reassuring weight in her sweating palms. Quiet, quiet. They mustn’t hear her. She must surprise them. She moved more slowly now. Carefully. Watching out for branches and stones that could trip her up again. When had it got so far to the khaya? As a child she’d known the path like the back of her hand. She’d skip along it with Christo, and Rosie would give them some pap and meat. They’d sit on the ground outside Rosie’s room, and she’d squish the stiff porridge in her fingers, making it into a hard little white ball which she’d squelch through the gravy before stuffing it in her mouth, goodness dribbling down her chin. Ma never let her eat pap like that. They had to use a knife and fork, even at a braai. The only exception, Ma said, was for lamb or pork chops. But Rosie used her fingers to eat pap; so did Petrus and James and Dawid and all the others in the khaya, so she and Christo copied them.
She swallowed her memories and focused on the task at hand. Thys might not be there, but she’d show the terrorists that this white woman had the blood of the voortrekkers in her veins. She was a Steyn, after all, and this time... this time the bastards were not going to have it all their own way... this time, this boervrou was armed. And this time, she would kill them.
She stopped. She squinted through the blackness. There. A movement. There was someone there, coming towards her. A man. Just one. She raised the shotgun. He didn’t stop. He moved closer. Her finger tightened on the trigger.
‘Missy Annamari, quickly.’
Petrus. She exhaled and stumbled to him. He turned and she followed him. Silent.
Then she heard it. A cry, quickly muffled.
‘In there,’ Petrus whispered. ‘The door’s locked.’
Another scream; then what sounded like a blow – flesh on flesh. She tiptoed to the window. Damn, she couldn’t see through the thick old lounge curtains she’d given to Pretty. She couldn’t see anything. She listened, straining to hear voices, anything that would give her a clue how many were inside. She hesitated. She didn’t know what to do. Another cry sent her flying to the door. Beauty. Beauty was in there...
She lifted the shotgun, slammed the butt against the lock. The door burst open and she tumbled into the room, raising the shotgun, ready to fire. And froze.
Then she put the shotgun to her shoulder and aimed at the man.
His yellow teeth were bared in a snarl which twisted into a simpering smile as he scrambled to his feet, his shrivelling penis dangling pathetically between his pinky-white legs.
‘You fucking pig,’ she growled.
‘It’s not what it looks like. She asked for it. She’s a fucking whore. She wanted to do it. She begged me to come here tonight. I warned you about her. She’s always been a troublemaker...’
‘Shut up. Now.’
She pointed the shotgun at him, her finger hovering over the trigger. If Beauty wasn’t so close, she’d fire, she’d kill the bastard.
‘Cover her,’ she said.
No one moved. Pretty cowered in the corner, the front of her torn T-shirt a mess of red, one eye swollen shut, blood dripping from her nose and mouth. Beauty lay motionless on the bed.
Annamari reached out and pulled the girl’s faded yellow dress down, hiding her budding breasts and sparsely covered pubis from Stefan Smit’s salacious, snivelling gaze.
‘Don’t move,’ she said, pointing the shotgun directly at his shrunken testes. ‘Don’t move. Don’t you fucking move unless I tell you to. Now. Pick up your filthy pants and get moving. Out of here. No – don’t say a word. Not a fucking word.’
Petrus followed as she prodded Stefan Smit back toward the farm manager’s cottage, the shotgun planted firmly between his skinny shoulder blades. She made him open the door and then shoved him down the passage to the bedroom. She sent Petrus to find something strong to tie him up.
‘And get Magnus,’ she said.
She stood in the doorway and kept the shotgun trained on him.
‘Put your trousers on, you disgusting little man.’
He sat on the edge of the rumpled bed, pulling his dirty khaki pants up over his skinny legs, a half smirk on his face as he eyed her too-short, too-tight pale pink Pep Stores nightie that pulled over her pendulous breasts. She glared back at him and kept the shotgun steady, directed at his genitals.
‘Listen here, Mrs van Zyl. Those kaffirs are lying. I’m a white man, I wouldn’t...’
‘You’re a poor excuse for a white man.’
‘I wasn’t doing anything wrong.’
‘That’s not what it looked like to me.’
‘She wanted it.’
‘Don’t lie to me!’
“Look, I was going to pay her...’
‘Are you crazy? She’s only a child, for heaven’s sake.’
‘No she’s not. What do you take me for? Kaffir girls like her, they start young. She’s a whore. They all are. And she wanted a white man, just like her halfwit mother...’
‘Shut up.’
‘You think she’s so damn innocent, but she’s not. I’ve seen her with your boy. And your husband, he’s fucked her too. I bet he’s fucked her in your bed, and the mother too. I bet they’ve had a threesome in your lovely soft bed.’
‘Shut up. Just shut the fuck up.’ She raised the shotgun to his face, her finger white on the trigger.
‘No missy – no. Don’t.’
She turned her head towards Petrus who was holding out some green electrical wire. Magnus was standing in the passage, looking at her expectantly.
‘Tie his wrists together, and his legs. Then tie him to the bed,’ she said.
After Petrus had trussed Stefan up like a chicken under the sad gaze of his late wife and daughter in the photograph stuck on the wall with yellowing tape, Annamari hoisted the shotgun over her shoulder and sauntered to the bedroom door, resisting the urge to tug down her nightie.
‘Guard him, Magnus. On guard,’ she said. The boerbul looked through the door at the snivelling man and snarled.
As she walked through the kitchen, she heard Stefan Smit’s reedy voice wafting down the passage. ‘Mrs van Zyl, please. I need the toilet.’
‘Pee in your pants, you fucking pervert,’ she said, and stumbled through the door before her shaking legs collapsed under her.