On a day when the wind was sweeping across the veld, blowing sand and rubbish into the house, Neville came home early.
“The men say it’s today,” he said to the women who were at the kitchen table eating the monkey nuts Katjie had bought at the taxi rank on her way back from town. They had been talking about Titty, and that she was drinking.
“There is nothing we can do,” Esther had been saying. “She must accept that God took Apie because she did wrong. Now she must come to church and make amends with Him. If she carries on drinking the devil won’t leave her alone.”
Katjie tried to get a monkey nut out from under her false teeth with her tongue and, when she had settled them back on to her gums, she nodded.
“What’s today?” Esther said now, looking at her husband.
“The evictions.” Neville’s eyes were wide. “They are going to throw us out in the cold. Today.”
Esther broke a monkey nut in half and a red kernel fell on the floor. They all watched it roll towards the open door and nobody moved to pick it up. Neville stamped on it.
“We are all going to be living on the dump by tonight. What are we going to do?” He started opening and closing the drawers of the kitchen cupboard.
“What are you looking for?” Esther asked, her heart pounding, but her voice steady.
“Metjies.”
He found Esther’s hidden box of matches under the spare dishcloth in the bottom drawer and then he was out the door, running along the track to where a group was rolling old tyres and carrying rocks and dragging branches on to the track that led into the new area.
Esther scooped the nut shells into a bowl and stood up. Katjie dusted off her hands and, without speaking, she went home to fetch her new ID book, the girls’ new birth certificates and the R30 she kept in the toe of her slipper. Esther brought out the small tin box with the family’s papers from under the bed. The key was hanging from a string around her neck and she removed it and opened the box. When Katjie returned they carefully placed the folded notes inside and Esther locked the tin with the small padlock and hung the key back around her neck. Katjie took the box and Esther picked up Neville’s spade behind the door.
Outside, Katjie kept watch while Esther pushed the spade into the earth with her foot. When there was a small hole they both looked around. There was no one to be seen so Katjie handed the box to Esther, who positioned it carefully in the earth and covered it. When it was buried they sprinkled ash over the loose soil and arranged the ring of fire stones on top.
For a while they sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the step watching the barricade being built and listening to the shouting.
“I am scared of this thing, Esther,” Katjie said. “You know, these municipal people don’t care about our lives. Maybe taking these houses wasn’t a good thing. I think it was us who called up the devil.”
“The Liewe Jesus will help us, Katjie. We were cheated. You must remember that.”
“Esther, my feet are very cold. I am going in now.”
Katjie called to Bessie and Criszenda, who were with Neville and Jaco, helping to put rocks and rubbish on the growing pile. When Esther looked for her again, she saw the curtains next door were drawn and the door was bolted.
As workers streamed home, the occupiers stood at their barricade, waiting for the municipality to come. Eventually, out of boredom, the youths set fire to the tyres and a crowd gathered to watch them burn. As the evening wore on they drifted home for suppers of bread and coffee.
“False alarm,” said one.
“They caught a skrik,” said another.
“They mustn’t mess with us.”
In the morning, when those with jobs were at work, Mr Louis and two police vans parked at the skeleton of the burned-out barricade. He was in a suit and his black shoes shone. The policemen, all of them a year out of school and from families in the old section, kicked rocks and blackened corrugated iron off the track.
“These people make work,” one complained.
“Do they think they will stop us with this barricade? Stupid.”
A sudden thud interrupted their talk. They never saw who threw the sand clod that splattered on to the polished bonnet of Mr Louis’ new car.
“Bastards!” he shouted, and the policemen, their hands black from moving the burned rubber, looked up.
Then a rock hit the windscreen and the screaming started.
Women spilled into the streets, beating pots with wooden spoons.
“Kom, kom, kom, they are here, they are here!”
Children picked up stones and one of the young policemen ran back to the van and called over the radio for the station to send backup. A bottle smashed close to where they had been moving the tyres and a ball of fire exploded. As smoke rose into the blue, more boys lit rags stuffed into beer bottles of petrol and flung them at the young policemen.
Mr Louis reversed and turned his car, the wheels skidding. Esther saw him through the shattered windscreen and she knew they had unleashed a fury.
Ja, Mr Louis, you are very angry, but so are we, she said to herself.
People came from the yards to help the occupiers build up a new barricade. Police vans were parked on the main road but the policemen stayed back, watching the barricade grow from a distance. In the crowd Esther saw Jaco laughing as he hurled a bottle in the direction of the police. It crashed on top of the barricade and exploded. Then Liedjie was there, running, shouting and throwing. Engines started and Esther saw the vans were turning and coming towards the black smoke and fire.
“No, no, if the police shoot, they will get you!” She wanted her children to come home now but she was afraid to leave the house as strangers leered through the windows and unknown men ambled through the yard. In the distance she saw Neville throw a chair into the fire and she wondered whose furniture he had taken. There would be trouble from this.