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Annamari settled back in the old wicker chair on the stoep, blew ripples onto her black coffee and sipped. Still too hot. The sun had just crept over the mountains, dappling the poplars in a pale green haze. She cupped her hands around the warmth of her mug. The rain last night had cooled the air and washed the sky a bright, clear blue. It was going to be a beautiful day.
She listened to the million sounds that made up the silence of the early morning: the chirpings, chirrupings, tweetings, callings... whoo hoo hoo... crick, crickcrickcrick... huuu hu huuu. She blew her coffee again, wishing as always that she’d paid attention when her father had tried to teach her about the hundreds of bird species that made Steynspruit their home. She was pretty sure she could hear a hoopoe, but she wouldn’t bet on it. Even a townie like Thys was better at identifying bird calls than she was. Still, it didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the feathered orchestra. She shut her eyes and relaxed, revelling in her “me” time before having to go in to the kitchen to prepare Sunday lunch.
The jarring jangle of the telephone startled her reverie. She swore softly, bumped her mug down on the table and brushed at the damp stain on the front of her tracksuit pants as she hurried through the French doors, her heart pounding. Arno. Could something have happened to Arno? De Wet? Beauty?
She snatched up the receiver. ‘Hello?’
‘Annamari? Estie Viljoen here. From Viljoenspruit. It’s not too early to call, is it? I wanted to catch you before you left for church.’
Annamari sank down on the couch, relief whistling past her pursed lips. Then she smiled grimly. Tannie Estie knew jolly well that she and Thys wouldn’t be leaving for church any time soon. She knew they hadn’t set foot in the Driespruitfontein Nederduitse Gereformede Kerk for years and even if they had, they wouldn’t be setting off to Driespruitfontein for at least another two hours.
But that was Tannie Estie for you. Thoughtless. And mean. She had never made a secret of the fact that she strongly disapproved of everything Annamari and Thys had done. And that was putting it mildly.
She’d become quite formal and distant after the construction of the new cottages for Steynspruit’s farmworkers. But when she heard about the establishment of the Steynspruit Kibbutz, well, she went ballistic. As the news raged through the district like a hurricane-fanned winter veld fire, the Viljoens had blazed up Steynspruit’s driveway in their white diesel Mercedes Benz. They launched themselves onto the stoep, refused a friendly offer of coffee and rusks, and proceeded to berate Annamari and Thys, insisting, demanding, that they kill the whole kibbutz idea. They warned that it would set off all the kaffirs in the district – and none of them would be safe in their beds. They said that Steynspruit had been in Annamari’s family even longer than Viljoenspruit had been in Oom Johan’s. They sneered at Thys, calling him an outsider, a traitor to the Boer nation, a hendsopper and joiner with no respect for how things had always been done around here and if he wanted to give everything away to the kaffirs just like that traitor F W de Klerk was giving away the whole bloody country, well what could you expect? But they would never understand how Annamari – who had suckled on Steynspruit’s wide open spaces and fresh, clean air and history and tradition – how she could go along with this heresy, this treachery. How, they demanded, could she betray her own dear parents and her only brother by giving away her heritage and her inheritance to the very people who had murdered them?
Thys had tried to pacify them but Annamari told him not to bother. People like Estie and Johan Viljoen would never understand.
Since then, for the last seven or so years, when Tannie Estie and Oom Johan saw Annamari or Thys in Driespruitfontein, they would suddenly become engrossed in the Pep Store’s window display, gaze earnestly into their jumbo Wimpy coffee, or cross the street. Thys, of course, always waved and shouted a friendly greeting. Annamari simply returned the favour and ignored them.
Annamari was convinced they had been the ones who had complained to the new dominee when they took Beauty with them to church that once. They probably shouldn’t have; it had been asking for trouble, even if Apartheid was over and there was a new government and everything. But Arno and De Wet had been home that weekend, and the children had been in the lounge watching TV and when it was time to leave for church, Beauty got up to go back to the khaya.
‘Can’t Bootie come with us? Please?’ Arno asked.
‘Ja, please can she come,’ De Wet echoed.
And Thys had smiled and said it was a good idea and, ja well, what was she supposed to do? Then, after church, when everyone was standing around chatting, the new dominee had called Thys aside and told him not to bring “that Hotnot girl” to church with them again. For a while, Thys had conducted their Sabbath service in the new Steynspruit multipurpose hall. Most of the Steynspruit Kibbutz members attended, along with workers from neighbouring farms. But Thys had handed the reins to a black pastor a few years ago. He said the pastor was better equipped to teach them the word of the Lord. He... well, he was not so sure anymore. After returning from Israel, after what he had seen in Jerusalem and at Yad Vashem, after everything he had seen in South Africa... well, he began to wonder if, maybe, perhaps, the Lord’s word wasn’t quite as clear as he had always thought.
***
‘Tannie Estie?’ Annamari spluttered. ‘What a surprise. How are you? How’s Oom?’
‘It doesn’t help to complain. Listen Annamari, have you got the Government Gazette?’
‘The Government Gazette? Why on earth would I have the Government Gazette? I wouldn’t even know where to get hold of it. Why?’
‘So you haven’t heard anything?’
‘About what?’
‘Have you got the letter yet?’
‘What letter? Tannie, what are you talking about? What’s happened?’
‘Well, it might be nothing, Annamari. Especially since you’ve already given away your farm to the kaffirs – your poor parents and poor Christo must be turning in their graves. Anyway, I heard ...’ Estie’s voice dropped conspiratorially. ‘One of my kaffir girls told me that there’s a land claim against Steynspruit.’ Her voice soared spitefully: 'You see? We were right. Give the kaffirs a finger and they’ll take your whole bloody arm.’
***
As she and Thys sat side by side listening to the Steynspruit Kibbutz members and workers from Viljoenspruit and the other farms raise their voices in exquisite harmony, praising the Lord, Annamari couldn’t shake the unease that had insinuated itself into her brain the moment she’d heard Estie Viljoen’s spiteful voice. She wondered whether she should tell Thys – she hated keeping secrets from him, she really did, especially secrets that she didn’t have to keep. But this wasn’t really a secret – it was just a rumour and Thys hated rumours. Particularly when they were being spread by nasty old skinnerbekke like that old cow next door.
But for once, the singing didn’t transport her, taking her outside of herself. She never told Thys that that was really the only reason she attended the church service. He always seems to enjoy the singing too – he certainly didn’t understand the Pastor’s impassioned preaching; and sometimes she could see that the exuberance of the service with lots of clapping and ululating made him cringe although she quite enjoyed it. But today, the unease wouldn’t go away.
Annamari always scoured the Die Volksblad for any stories about the laughably labelled “Land Restitution” process. The more she read, the more she came to the conclusion that it was just a fancy way of justifying and legalising land theft. She’d been shocked when the new government, which had barely warmed the seats on the nice green benches in Parliament after the first elections, immediately started to pick on white farmers – always referred to them as boers which seemed to have become synonymous with far right wing racists.
She’d been horrified when the government passed a new law that everyone said would drive white farmers off their legally owned land. Thys hadn’t been too concerned about it, though.
‘The Restitution of Land Rights Act is aimed at restoring land to the rightful black owners who were chased off because of Apartheid and the Land Act of 1913,’ he explained. ‘It’s hard for us farmers, but it’s not unjust. However, your family has been living on Steynspruit since long before 1913. It won’t affect us, you’ll see.’
All through the Sunday church service, Annamari prayed that Thys would be right, as he always was. Surely, if there was a claim against Steynspruit, they would have heard by now?
By the time they sat down to lunch and Thys finished saying a perfunctory grace, Annamari was starting to convince herself that Tannie Estie was obviously just being Tannie Estie. No wonder her ma and pa had never liked her.
‘What’s wrong, liefie?’ Thys asked as she handed him his plate of nicely roasted lamb bout with crispy roast potatoes, fluffy white rice, sweet pumpkin, boereboontjies and lashings of thick, brown gravy, just as he liked it.
Annamari wished he couldn’t read her so well. She knew he’d eventually manage to get the truth out of her, so she told him about the phone call, thankful that Arno and De Wet weren’t home to hear, and Steyn was still too young to understand.
Thys shook his head. ‘Honestly, everyone is getting in a panic over what’s been going on in Zimbabwe lately. The farm invasions only started because Mugabe is losing his grip on power and he needs to blame someone for everything that’s gone wrong up there. The white farmers are an easy target. That’s why he tried to change the constitution to allow for land to be confiscated without compensation. He thought it would win him votes but he lost, so now his thugs are simply taking what he promised them and Tannie Estie and everyone thinks it’s going to happen here too. It won’t. South Africa is not Zimbabwe. President Mbeki is a clever man. He understands how important productive farms are to the economy. And the ANC is very strong; there’s no need for them to turn on the whites.’
‘Ja,’ Annamari said doubtfully, ‘but there’s a lot of farms with claims against them. Thousands of them, it said in Die Volksblad. Maybe Steynspruit is one of them.’
‘The cut-off date for claims was more than a year ago. We would have heard something by now. Really liefie, you don’t have to worry. Anyway, any black people who might have a claim against Steynspruit – like Petrus and Rosie’s families – have been living on Steynspruit for years and years and they already own the farm, with the kibbutz and everything. No one else could possibly have a claim.’