Too Late the Phalarope Read online

  He walked briskly back to van Onselen Street with its three rings of light in the mist. There was no one in the streets, and it struck the half-hour from the dark tower of the great Church, which stands like a watchman over the town and the grass country. He turned into one of the short earth roads that run off van Onselen Street, dark with trees, not gums but pines, giving back the sound of the wind. And then he was at the gate of his own house, one of our old-fashioned houses, with a narrow closed-in stoep, and coloured diamond panes at each end of it, set into the wall.

  HIS WIFE, NELLA, WAS TALKING to the boy Dick when he went into the house. He kissed her, and said to Dick, sorry to keep you waiting. But the boy did not answer, he only smiled at the lieutenant out of a pale strained face.

  — Come to my study, Dick. It’s the only place I get any peace. Nella, are you going to make coffee for us?

  — Of course, she said.

  When they were in the study, he closed the door and made the boy sit down, and offered him a cigarette.

  — We can smoke now, he said.

  When his pipe was alight and the boy was smoking, but not easily, with constraint, he said, you’ve lots of friends, boys and girls. Your mother doesn’t keep you tied up, does she?

  — No, lieutenant.

  — Then why do you do it, Dick?

  At last the boy said, do what, lieutenant?

  — What you were doing?

  — It looked suspicious, lieutenant. I thought he might have stolen something.

  — It wasn’t a man, said the lieutenant, it was a girl.

  — I thought it was a man.

  — It was a girl, said the lieutenant, and if I go down to the location, I can find her in half an hour. I can find out what frightened her.

  There was a knock on the door, and Nella came in with the coffee, and some rusks to eat with it.

  — You’ll eat the best rusks in the Transvaal tonight, said the lieutenant.

  — Pieter, I’m going to bed.

  He rose and kissed her.

  — I shan’t be long, he said.

  When she had gone, and the door was shut again, and they had eaten the rusks and drunk the coffee in silence, he addressed the boy gravely.

  — You know the Immorality Act?

  — Yes, lieutenant.

  — The police have had instructions to enforce the Immorality Act without fear or favour. Whether you’re old or young, rich or poor, respected or nobody, whether you’re a Cabinet Minister or a predikant or a headmaster or a tramp, if you touch a black woman and you’re discovered, nothing’ll save you.

  — Yes, lieutenant.

  — Then why did you do it?

  — I know all that, lieutenant. But I didn’t do it.

  — Listen to me, Dick. No, don’t look at me, look where you were looking before. I’m not talking to you as a policeman. I’m talking as your friend, your football captain. Do you understand me?

  — Yes.

  — Then why did you do it?

  The boy struggled with himself. Then the note of authority returned to the lieutenant’s voice.

  — Dick, answer me.

  — Lieutenant, I can’t give any other answer. I tell you I didn’t do it.

  The lieutenant stood up.

  — All right, Dick. You can go home.

  He put on his overcoat, and the boy watched him miserably.

  — What are you going to do, lieutenant?

  — I’m going to the location.

  The boy stood up too.

  — Don’t you see, it will look …

  — It won’t look anything. If I’m wrong, no one will hear a word.

  He went and stood by the switch.

  — You can go home, he said.

  — Just let me explain something, lieutenant.

  So the lieutenant sat down again.

  — Lieutenant, I knew it was a girl. But I honestly thought she’d stolen something. You see, she …

  — Yes, I know, she was running. Then can’t you see that I’ll still have to find her?

  He stood up again.

  — I’ll tell you the truth, lieutenant.

  — All right, Dick.

  The boy stood in front of him, with his tongue playing on his dry lips.

  The lieutenant said to him, sit down. And talk without fear, you understand?

  The boy sat down, and at last he said, I frightened her.

  — How?

  — I spoke to her.

  — What did you say?

  — I asked her her name.

  — Go on.

  — That was all, lieutenant.

  — Why did you ask her name?

  But the boy had no answer for such a question.

  — You mean, if she had been willing, you’d have gone with her.

  — Yes, lieutenant.

  — How often have you done it before? Look down there, and shut your eyes, and give the honest answer to yourself. Then give it to me.

  The boy was silent a long time before he spoke.

  — Three times, he said.

  — How far did it go?

  — Not further than that.

  — Just asking the name?

  — Yes.

  — Were you frightened?

  — Yes.

  The lieutenant was silent for a while, then he said gently, and why, Dick?

  — I don’t know.

  — You know it would finish you for life. And kill your mother perhaps. And do God knows what to your sister.

  — I know. I’ll never do it again, lieutenant.

  — When the police see a white man hanging about the streets, in any village or city, however harmless he thinks he looks, they watch him, often when he doesn’t know. So never hang round the streets, and if you go out somewhere at night, go quickly, do you hear?

  — Yes, lieutenant.

  — It’s a thing that’s never forgiven, never forgotten. The court may give you a year, two years. But outside it’s a sentence for life. Do you know that?

  — Yes.

  — You can go home, Dick.

  At the gate the boy listened, up and down the road.

  — Lieutenant.

  — Yes.

  — I don’t know what to say to you, lieutenant.

  — Yes.

  — I’m glad you caught me, the boy whispered. I’m glad it was you, I mean.

  Then when the lieutenant made no answer, he said, still in the whisper, I mean both things, I mean I’m glad I was caught, and glad it was you that caught me.

  — I’m glad too, said the lieutenant. Tell your mother you were with me. Rugby. Goodnight, Dick.

  He stood at the gate and watched the boy disappear into the darkness, walking lightly and swiftly, towards van Onselen Street.

  The whole town was dark and silent, except for the barking of some dog, and the sound of ten o’clock striking from the tower of the church. The mist had gone and the stars shone down on the grass country, on the farms of his nation and people, Buitenverwagting and Nooitgedacht, Weltevreden and Dankbaarheid, on the whole countryside that they had bought with years of blood and sacrifice; for they had trekked from the British Government with its officials and its missionaries and its laws that made a black man as good as his master, and had trekked into a continent, dangerous and trackless, where wild beasts and savage men, and grim and waterless plains, had given way before their fierce will to be separate and survive. Then out of the harsh world of rock and stone they had come to the grass country, all green and smiling, and had given to it the names of peace and thankfulness. They had built their houses and their churches; and as God had chosen them for a people, so did they choose him for their God, cherishing their separateness that was now His Will. They set their conquered enemies apart, ruling them with unsmiling justice, declaring “no equality in Church or State”, and making the iron law that no white man might touch a black woman, nor might any white woman be touched by a black man.

  And to go against this la
w, of a people of rock and stone in a land of rock and stone, was to be broken and destroyed.

  He turned slowly and walked into the house, and shut the door behind him. He put out the lights, and went quietly into the bedroom.

  Nella had left the small light burning, and he stood and looked down at his children, at the six-year-old boy and the three-year-old girl. The boy slept with his fist against his cheek, after the manner of some wise man. The man was filled with tender feeling, and thrust his giant finger into the shut hand, and the small fingers closed over it, with trust and physical warmth. He bent down, himself forgotten, his face lit up with love and pride. He removed his finger, and kissed the boy and the girl. Then he undressed quietly, and having put out the small light, knelt at his bed. He was tired and said very little, except to make his petition, as he had done almost every night of his life, for his wife and his children, his father and mother and brothers and sisters, his aunt that lived single in his father’s house, his wife’s father and mother and brothers and sisters. Then he thought of the boy Dick, and prayed, O God wees hom genadig, Here Jesus wees hom genadig, which is God have mercy upon him, Lord Jesus have mercy upon him; then he was whispering, O God wees my genadig, Here Jesus wees my genadig, which is, God have mercy upon me, Lord Jesus have mercy upon me, so that the woman stirred in her sleep and called his name, and he was on his feet in an instant.

  — What is it, Nella?

  She said to him, why are you talking?

  — You’re dreaming, he said.

  He bent down and kissed her and she made a little sound, of content and acknowledgment.

  — Mevrou Vorster was here, before you came in.

  — So you had a good chat, he said teasingly.

  — Her son says you’re the most wonderful officer in the whole police, except perhaps the captain. He’s not sure which.

  He laughed quietly.

  — Out of his great experience, that’s something, he said.

  — And he says that down in the location you’re a kind of god.

  — Did he?

  Then she turned over, awake.

  — What’s the matter with Dick?

  — Why?

  — It’s not football, she said. It’s some trouble.

  And when he did not answer, she said, isn’t it trouble? Or don’t you want to tell me?

  — It’s trouble, he said. I don’t mind telling you, but you wouldn’t like to hear it.

  — If you don’t mind telling me, I don’t mind hearing it.

  — It would be in confidence, he said.

  — Of course.

  — I caught him.

  She was now thoroughly awake, and half raised herself, leaning on her elbow.

  — You caught him? Doing what?

  — Chasing a girl.

  — Dick! What girl?

  And he looked at her in the darkness, and said with deliberation, a black girl.

  And he could see in the darkness her shock and her revulsion. And she was silent until she said, to think he was in this house. And when she had thought of that, she said, will he be tried? It’ll kill his mother. So he said to her gravely, I tried him. Then she considered that for a long time before she said, you forgave him.

  — Yes.

  — I’ll not forgive him.

  — You don’t know about it, he said gently.

  — You can’t help but know about that, Pieter.

  — Would you have killed his mother?

  And that question she could not answer, for her gentleness was as great as her revulsion.

  — Will you have him here again, she said.

  He looked at her and said, not if I don’t have to. But if I have to, I must, seeing I can’t tell him that you know.

  — All right, she said.

  She stayed for some moments leaning on her elbow. Then she said, Goodnight, Pieter, and lay down. He bent over her and kissed her again, and got into his own bed. He had lain there some time, awake and thinking, and sure she was asleep, when suddenly she turned over and said to him, in the study, Pieter, not in our other rooms.

  AND THAT WAS TRUE, that to the black people in the location he was like a god. He was like a god to the black children on the farm where he was born, his father’s farm, Buitenverwagting, which means Beyond Expectation. It lies on the edge of the grass country, and slopes down through a dozen kloofs into the country of Maduna, the reserve our forefathers gave to the black people when they subjugated them a hundred years gone by. There was for the black children nothing that he could not do. He could write and read, not one book, not a dozen books, but any book that he lifted up, which was a wonder to them all. He could read even the books they had in their own language, and the Bible translated by the English missionaries, and it was a wonder to hear their own tongue coming out of these black marks on white paper. It was our custom to allow our boys to play with the black boys, but not our girls with their girls. But after a certain age it stopped, not by law but by custom, and the growing white boy became the master.

  It was not only this reading and writing, but the riding and the shooting, and his grave self-confidence, that gave him his command over them. And his great height too, for at sixteen he was as tall as his father, who was six foot three. Both were just in their dealings with the black people, but the one’s justice was stern and strict, and the other’s gentle, though with a gentleness that allowed no disobedience or insolence. The black boys would take their disputes to him, and he would settle them this way or that, and they were at once all pleased and laughing, the winners laughing at the losers, and the losers at themselves.

  His father would have punished sternly any familiarity between black and white, but the truth was that his son gave no excuse for such a thing. Sometimes I thought his father saw that too, that where he ruled by a strict and iron law, his son ruled by no law at all.

  As he was to the black people of the farm, so he was to the location people in Venterspan. For now he was a man of authority in the police, second only to the captain, who was an austere man that never laughed or smiled that one could see. There was reason for that too, for though the captain never spoke of it, it was well known what had made him so. His only son had been crawling through a fence with a gun, as others had done before and do now and will do again, and had blown his head off; and his wife had died soon after, of a broken heart, they said. Now he lived with his mother in Venterspan, and never laughed or smiled. The captain was an Englishman, Massingham by name, but he spoke Afrikaans as we do ourselves, and of all the men of Venterspan he was the only one who spoke to my brother as man to man, for my brother had a great respect for austerity and silence, though he was no lover of Englishmen. And the girl Nella had a great respect for him also, and he an affection for her, which I never saw him show to any other person.

  It was not long after this first event which I have written down, of the boy Dick, that my nephew went down to the location; and the klonkies there, the small black boys, having learned it from the soldiers who camped in Venterspan during the war of 1939, saluted him. They threw their bodies into a great stiffness, and some closed their eyes as though that gave them greater power to salute, so that a push would have sent them over. With the knowledge of children, they knew that he observed all these things, so that they put more vigour into them, relaxing when he had gone, and returning to their games.

  He made his way to one of the poorest of the houses, built with sods from the veld, and covered with iron that had long since rusted and was full of holes. At the door sat the old woman Esther in the sun, the woman reputed to be a hundred, perhaps a hundred and twenty years old, and the only soul alive who had seen the first white trekkers to the grass country, though I think it only a woman’s vanity.

  The lieutenant greeted her, and she raised her shrunken arm in greeting.

  — Where is Stephanie, he said.

  She made no answer to him, but looked out of her smoke-reddened eyes, as though he had not spoken at all. He w
as patient with her, not only because he was by nature gentle, but because all men have respect for such an age, even when it is black.

  — Esther, where is Stephanie, he said.

  — I heard you, she said.

  He laughed at that, and stood there enjoying the sun and the air. When he thought she had had time enough, he said to her, although it was as yet only the middle of the morning, the sun will soon go down.

  She approved of his jest and chuckled at it.

  — She is gone, my baas.

  — In two days she must be in the court, he said.

  She stared into vacancy, whether occupied with this thought or with others, he could not say.

  — In two days she must be in the court.

  — I heard you, she said.

  — If she is not there, she will not get two weeks this time, but three months maybe.

  A flicker of interest showed in her eyes.

  — And who will look after you?

  She took her time over it.

  — Who will look after you, Esther?

  — Find the child, she said, then you will find Stephanie.

  She closed her eyes, and for all he knew she was asleep. He left her, knowing that the girl was said to keep a child in the reserves, out beyond Bremerspan, in Maduna’s country.

  On his way back to the police-station, he called in to see Matthew Kaplan, the little Jew who owned the Southern Transvaal Trading, and who was the brother of Abraham Kaplan of the Royal Hotel. He and the Jew were friends, and the storekeeper came forward to the counter with smiles of pleasure.

  — How are you, lieutenant?

  — I’m well, Kappie. Anything new?

  Kappie held up his hands.

  — You must have known, he said.

  He went into his little office at the far end of the counter. It was the untidiest office I ever saw, and I often reproached him with it, but he laughed at me. For we Afrikaners of Venterspan were not against the Jews, as they were in some other places, nor do we think that all shops should be in Afrikaners’ hands. We never had any boycotts or secret plans against the Jews, and for that the credit must go to my brother, and to Dominee Stander of the great Church, for neither would countenance any hatred of the Jews. The dominee often reminded us that our great Book came from the Jews, and that we too were a people of Israel, who suffered and died to win the Holy Land; and this was the only book that my brother ever read.