water surrounded by reeds and bulrushes began to dwindle, leaving at first a ring of mud, trampled by the sheep that came to drink there, then drying up, gradually cracking and crumbling. It might have been any other summer, but I remember it because Sofie’s baby was still very young and his whining forms part of my memories:the plaintive wailing of the sickly child, and Jacomyn’s voice in the bedroom, hushing him, and the sound of her bare feet on the dung floor as she paced up and down. That year the lynxes were troublesome in the gorges, and one of the herdsmen brought a dead lamb that had fallen prey to one of them to the house to show Father, and then Father told Jakob and Pieter and Gert to take their rifles and go and shoot the creature, for his health was showing signs of failing, and he began to leave most of the work on the farm up to Jakob. They rode out that morning before daybreak, before I was up, and Father stayed at home. The sewing and the shiny needle in my hand, the wailing of the baby and the shuffling of Jacomyn’s feet, and the white knuckles of Sofie’s hand – but no, that was the winter when Pieter came walking back to the house alone across the snowfield, back from the dead. I am confused, and if my memory can deceive me like this, how can I trust it? Better to remain silent and wait, for the cock to crow, for daybreak. But I must remember.
Thus the three men rode out with their rifles and, as usual, the women stayed at home and that evening towards sunset, as I was playing outside the house on my own, I looked up, and in the haziness of the late afternoon sun I saw distant riders approaching through that drifting golden light, two riders with three horses, and when they came nearer, I saw that it was Pieter and Gert and that they were leading Jakob’s horse, and I went to call Father.
Let me just tell it as it happened; or, in any case, let me repeat the account that was given, and not try to explain or clarify or understand, for sometimes the very least said is already too much. They hobbled the horses that morning at the top end of Kalantskloof, they said, and Jakob said he would go down the kloof himself while they were to search the adjacent kloofs; and then Pieter and Gert went down Baviaanskloof together and shot a reebok there. The two of them stayedtogether, they said, and heard no shots from any other kloof and saw no sign of Jakob, and in the late afternoon, when they returned to the place where they had left the horses, he was not there, neither did he return, though they waited until late. They shouted, they said, and fired their rifles, but heard no answering shot, and so they decided to return home and fetch help before dark. Stuttering slightly, as he sometimes did when he was excited, Pieter told the story to Father where the two of them stood in front of the house with the horses, and at the front door Mother and Sofie were listening. The reebok they had shot lay sideways across Jakob’s horse, its eyes dim and the blood dried around its stiffened jaw.
They all went out to look for Jakob then: messages were sent to the nearest neighbours and, however little contact there may have been, and even though there could be no real question of neighbourliness, not to mention friendship, it went without saying that they would come over to help. The men and the voices and the horses and the flickering light of lanterns or torches in the yard lasted for several days and several nights, I know, for they searched for him in Kalantskloof for days, and they explored all the adjacent kloofs where a man on foot could get lost in the course of a morning, and all the cliffs and ledges from which he might have fallen, the crevices into which he might have disappeared, the hollows where he might have found shelter from the heat of the sun; but every evening they had to return to report that they had found nothing, not even his hat or his rifle. The women came over with their husbands to keep
Thus the three men rode out with their rifles and, as usual, the women stayed at home and that evening towards sunset, as I was playing outside the house on my own, I looked up, and in the haziness of the late afternoon sun I saw distant riders approaching through that drifting golden light, two riders with three horses, and when they came nearer, I saw that it was Pieter and Gert and that they were leading Jakob’s horse, and I went to call Father.
Let me just tell it as it happened; or, in any case, let me repeat the account that was given, and not try to explain or clarify or understand, for sometimes the very least said is already too much. They hobbled the horses that morning at the top end of Kalantskloof, they said, and Jakob said he would go down the kloof himself while they were to search the adjacent kloofs; and then Pieter and Gert went down Baviaanskloof together and shot a reebok there. The two of them stayedtogether, they said, and heard no shots from any other kloof and saw no sign of Jakob, and in the late afternoon, when they returned to the place where they had left the horses, he was not there, neither did he return, though they waited until late. They shouted, they said, and fired their rifles, but heard no answering shot, and so they decided to return home and fetch help before dark. Stuttering slightly, as he sometimes did when he was excited, Pieter told the story to Father where the two of them stood in front of the house with the horses, and at the front door Mother and Sofie were listening. The reebok they had shot lay sideways across Jakob’s horse, its eyes dim and the blood dried around its stiffened jaw.
They all went out to look for Jakob then: messages were sent to the nearest neighbours and, however little contact there may have been, and even though there could be no real question of neighbourliness, not to mention friendship, it went without saying that they would come over to help. The men and the voices and the horses and the flickering light of lanterns or torches in the yard lasted for several days and several nights, I know, for they searched for him in Kalantskloof for days, and they explored all the adjacent kloofs where a man on foot could get lost in the course of a morning, and all the cliffs and ledges from which he might have fallen, the crevices into which he might have disappeared, the hollows where he might have found shelter from the heat of the sun; but every evening they had to return to report that they had found nothing, not even his hat or his rifle. The women came over with their husbands to keep
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