with me, she repeats. I am his woman now. It’s a bad thing the Ouman want to do in this bamboo place today.
What shit is this? I ask in a rage. You are no longer the Philida you used to be before you went to Stellenbosch.
My Ouma Nella tell me long ago what your father do to her, she says.
All I can say under my breath is, Bend over, Philida.
When this young woman bends over, it is different from when I lie with Janna. How shall I put it? The very first time I saw Janna it was clear, even at a distance, that she was a woman of substance. She was still a de Vos at the time, but that poor sod didn’t last long. Janna is a woman straight from the Bible, great and wide. When she comes through the front door, and it is an almighty big door, she fills it from side to side. She can hit you with a fist so you feel like you’ve run into a stone wall. I know what I’m talking about. Janna knows no half measures, she always goes full out. And if the time is right and she is willing, which doesn’t happen often, but when she’s ready it’s like an earthquake. I am small of stature, and with Janna, people say, I’m like a mouse on a sugarloaf, like a rowing boat on mighty waves. Janna is a terrible woman.
And Philida is everything that Janna is not. When she bends over in front of me, I feel my throat go dry. It is as if every word from that scene in Ezekiel suddenly seems to burst into flames before me. I see her and I feel like a horse or an ass again. As if the world has started spinning around me. For God knows how long I stand like this, with my bottom half bare and ridiculous. But nothing happens. I cannot do anything. Not with the thought of Janna which Philida has brought back into my mind. After a very long time she simply straightens up again and keeps her face turned away from me.
And now I want my child, she says.
I hand her the baby still swathed in his blanket. She lifts him up to her and clutches him against her breast. It makes a small whimpering sound, but then turns quiet again. By now I am crying in helpless rage.
After a very long time I stoop down to pull on my skin breeches and painfully slowly stumble away, cowering like a beaten dog.
Philida comes past me, without turning to look at me. I see the bamboos swaying in her wake, then closing behind her. And then she is gone.
Much later, as I stumble out of the copse I see Philida far ahead, on the riverbank, wading back into the shallow water of the river, her whole wet body glistening in the sun.
I hear the child starting to cry on the grassy bank. Philida wades out of the shallow river and goes to sit down beside him, picking him up. She doesn’t even bother to put her clothes on again. From where I stand the child seems bigger and heavier than before, and it seems as if she is trying to smother him in the fullness of her breasts. She never even looks in my direction. Her body glistens. Not because of the sun on her wetness, but as if the light comes radiating from herself in that bright day.
Very slowly, I draw the
riem
of my breeches tightly around my body but without bothering to fasten it again. Keeping it hanging limply in one hand as I hold the breeches up with the other, I walk off back to the longhouse, feeling wilted and empty. Today, I know, today I’m an old man. Now I know what the LordGod must feel like some days when he looks down at his world and knows it’s all been in vain, a bladdy failure. I look up and see the thin, tall palm trees swaying in a row in front of the house, even though I can feel no wind, not even a breeze. Climbing slowly up the rise to where the house stands waiting for me, I turn to look round again. Philida has gone back into the shallow river, splashing and splashing as if there isn’t enough water to wash herself clean. As if she wants to scrub the very skin off her body.
IX
In the Graveyard Cornelis reflects on Wriggling around in the Damp
AT THE SMALL green gate in the ring wall around the
What shit is this? I ask in a rage. You are no longer the Philida you used to be before you went to Stellenbosch.
My Ouma Nella tell me long ago what your father do to her, she says.
All I can say under my breath is, Bend over, Philida.
When this young woman bends over, it is different from when I lie with Janna. How shall I put it? The very first time I saw Janna it was clear, even at a distance, that she was a woman of substance. She was still a de Vos at the time, but that poor sod didn’t last long. Janna is a woman straight from the Bible, great and wide. When she comes through the front door, and it is an almighty big door, she fills it from side to side. She can hit you with a fist so you feel like you’ve run into a stone wall. I know what I’m talking about. Janna knows no half measures, she always goes full out. And if the time is right and she is willing, which doesn’t happen often, but when she’s ready it’s like an earthquake. I am small of stature, and with Janna, people say, I’m like a mouse on a sugarloaf, like a rowing boat on mighty waves. Janna is a terrible woman.
And Philida is everything that Janna is not. When she bends over in front of me, I feel my throat go dry. It is as if every word from that scene in Ezekiel suddenly seems to burst into flames before me. I see her and I feel like a horse or an ass again. As if the world has started spinning around me. For God knows how long I stand like this, with my bottom half bare and ridiculous. But nothing happens. I cannot do anything. Not with the thought of Janna which Philida has brought back into my mind. After a very long time she simply straightens up again and keeps her face turned away from me.
And now I want my child, she says.
I hand her the baby still swathed in his blanket. She lifts him up to her and clutches him against her breast. It makes a small whimpering sound, but then turns quiet again. By now I am crying in helpless rage.
After a very long time I stoop down to pull on my skin breeches and painfully slowly stumble away, cowering like a beaten dog.
Philida comes past me, without turning to look at me. I see the bamboos swaying in her wake, then closing behind her. And then she is gone.
Much later, as I stumble out of the copse I see Philida far ahead, on the riverbank, wading back into the shallow water of the river, her whole wet body glistening in the sun.
I hear the child starting to cry on the grassy bank. Philida wades out of the shallow river and goes to sit down beside him, picking him up. She doesn’t even bother to put her clothes on again. From where I stand the child seems bigger and heavier than before, and it seems as if she is trying to smother him in the fullness of her breasts. She never even looks in my direction. Her body glistens. Not because of the sun on her wetness, but as if the light comes radiating from herself in that bright day.
Very slowly, I draw the
riem
of my breeches tightly around my body but without bothering to fasten it again. Keeping it hanging limply in one hand as I hold the breeches up with the other, I walk off back to the longhouse, feeling wilted and empty. Today, I know, today I’m an old man. Now I know what the LordGod must feel like some days when he looks down at his world and knows it’s all been in vain, a bladdy failure. I look up and see the thin, tall palm trees swaying in a row in front of the house, even though I can feel no wind, not even a breeze. Climbing slowly up the rise to where the house stands waiting for me, I turn to look round again. Philida has gone back into the shallow river, splashing and splashing as if there isn’t enough water to wash herself clean. As if she wants to scrub the very skin off her body.
IX
In the Graveyard Cornelis reflects on Wriggling around in the Damp
AT THE SMALL green gate in the ring wall around the
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