graveyard, halfway up the hill, I go inside. My generation has not really taken root here yet.
I have been a stranger in a strange land
. Oupa Andries died at seventy-one in the Caab and that was where we buried him. I can remember how we used to visit his grave every Sunday afternoon to leave some flowers before we moved here to the farm. And Pa Johannes will also be buried there, I suppose; he is already eighty. Those of my own children who didn’t make it were left in the Caab. Pietertjie and Stefaansie and the little one without a name. Here at Zandvliet little Woudrien is the only one from my family to be buried in our graveyard. So far.
As I stand there among the graves of strangers – Du Toit, Van Niekerk, Joubert, Hugo, several de Villiers, some people who don’t even have a name, leaving only the small mounds of their graves behind – a shadow moves in between the afternoon sun and me, and when I look up I see it is Petronella. My mother. And she asks, Cornelis, what are you doing here?
Nothing. Just standing.
Where you been?
That’s not your business.
It is precisely my business, Cornelis. What were you looking for down there among the bamboos?
I wasn’t looking for anything.
Perhaps you weren’t looking, but maybe you found something, she says, staring at me with that look I knew so well. The look that blames me for everything. What are you doing here among the graves? she asks.
I’m just looking at the place where I will come to rest one day. I and my children and my children’s children.
I don’t think you’ll come to rest here. You got too many ants up your arse. And you don’t even know the people who lie here.
There will be enough time later to get to know them. I’m slowly getting acclimatised. Look at the names on the stones.
There are many names here you don’t know anything about and will never know. And here’s lots of stones that are not even marked and still they’re graves.
Like which ones?
There are people buried here – in this corner, in that one over there, everywhere – that go back hundreds and thousands of years.
What sorts of people?
My kind of people, says Old Petronella. Khoe people, Bushman people. Lots of them. More than you can even count.
Your people perhaps, I say. Certainly not mine.
People is people, and when they die they belong to everybody, she says. They’re part of our blood, mine and Philida’s.
That doesn’t count and you know it.
It counts, Cornelis, and I know that too. And one day they’ll stand up and come to ask from us what belongs to them.
There’s nothing here that belongs to them.
What you think is theirs and what they know is theirs are two different things.
You talk too much, Petronella. You always come when I need you least.
No, Cornelis. I come when you most need me. Only you don’t want to hear it. And what I say is what you
got
to hear.
There’s nothing I got to hear, I grumble. But my eyes keep on wandering into the distance and of course she notices. Can there be anything anywhere she does not know about?
What have you done with Philida among the bamboos? she asks.
Nothing, I grunt, and try to move away, but she stops me.
I know what you wanted to do, Cornelis.
I didn’t do anything, and that’s the truth, I tell you. Now leave me alone, Ma.
I know about everything. She takes a knife from her pocket, a little peeling knife I gave her years ago. Very small but very sharp. Like a razor. She can probably see that I am trying to steal away again, but she blocks the way.
What’s the matter with you today? I ask grumpily. I tell you I didn’t do anything to that slave girl.
If you didn’t do anything, it can only be because you cannot do anything any more and it won’t be for lack of trying. She quietly starts sharpening the blade of the small knife on the palm of her hand: You seen how your workers press out the stone of an apricot if they want to dry it? Now you listen to me: You try to touch Philida
I have been a stranger in a strange land
. Oupa Andries died at seventy-one in the Caab and that was where we buried him. I can remember how we used to visit his grave every Sunday afternoon to leave some flowers before we moved here to the farm. And Pa Johannes will also be buried there, I suppose; he is already eighty. Those of my own children who didn’t make it were left in the Caab. Pietertjie and Stefaansie and the little one without a name. Here at Zandvliet little Woudrien is the only one from my family to be buried in our graveyard. So far.
As I stand there among the graves of strangers – Du Toit, Van Niekerk, Joubert, Hugo, several de Villiers, some people who don’t even have a name, leaving only the small mounds of their graves behind – a shadow moves in between the afternoon sun and me, and when I look up I see it is Petronella. My mother. And she asks, Cornelis, what are you doing here?
Nothing. Just standing.
Where you been?
That’s not your business.
It is precisely my business, Cornelis. What were you looking for down there among the bamboos?
I wasn’t looking for anything.
Perhaps you weren’t looking, but maybe you found something, she says, staring at me with that look I knew so well. The look that blames me for everything. What are you doing here among the graves? she asks.
I’m just looking at the place where I will come to rest one day. I and my children and my children’s children.
I don’t think you’ll come to rest here. You got too many ants up your arse. And you don’t even know the people who lie here.
There will be enough time later to get to know them. I’m slowly getting acclimatised. Look at the names on the stones.
There are many names here you don’t know anything about and will never know. And here’s lots of stones that are not even marked and still they’re graves.
Like which ones?
There are people buried here – in this corner, in that one over there, everywhere – that go back hundreds and thousands of years.
What sorts of people?
My kind of people, says Old Petronella. Khoe people, Bushman people. Lots of them. More than you can even count.
Your people perhaps, I say. Certainly not mine.
People is people, and when they die they belong to everybody, she says. They’re part of our blood, mine and Philida’s.
That doesn’t count and you know it.
It counts, Cornelis, and I know that too. And one day they’ll stand up and come to ask from us what belongs to them.
There’s nothing here that belongs to them.
What you think is theirs and what they know is theirs are two different things.
You talk too much, Petronella. You always come when I need you least.
No, Cornelis. I come when you most need me. Only you don’t want to hear it. And what I say is what you
got
to hear.
There’s nothing I got to hear, I grumble. But my eyes keep on wandering into the distance and of course she notices. Can there be anything anywhere she does not know about?
What have you done with Philida among the bamboos? she asks.
Nothing, I grunt, and try to move away, but she stops me.
I know what you wanted to do, Cornelis.
I didn’t do anything, and that’s the truth, I tell you. Now leave me alone, Ma.
I know about everything. She takes a knife from her pocket, a little peeling knife I gave her years ago. Very small but very sharp. Like a razor. She can probably see that I am trying to steal away again, but she blocks the way.
What’s the matter with you today? I ask grumpily. I tell you I didn’t do anything to that slave girl.
If you didn’t do anything, it can only be because you cannot do anything any more and it won’t be for lack of trying. She quietly starts sharpening the blade of the small knife on the palm of her hand: You seen how your workers press out the stone of an apricot if they want to dry it? Now you listen to me: You try to touch Philida
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