“Perhaps, the more of them, the less your pappa has to spray.” Ouma finds another and Danie opens his palm expectantly but she places it with the other and the two goggas navigate their way along Isak’s arm. “But don’t we know that all men are masters and who would listen to an old woman anyway?”
Isak is fascinated with the way they struggle over his arm hairs. “Raatjie listens to Ouma.”
His ouma laughs, and her laugh belongs in a younger body. “Only the kitchen volk, child.” She picks thorns off a blown rose.
The boys do the same.
“Ouma, we found a box in Ouma’s bedroom.” Isak stops talking and blows the goggas off his arm. “There, where Ouma and Oupa sleep.”
Danie drops on his knees looking for the krokkedilletjies.
The thorns fall onto the paving as she listens intently. “What sort of box?”
“ ‘A shoe box, Ouma, with Tannie Lettie’s name on it.” Danie jumps up excitedly with the predators.
“Tannie Lettie left a long time ago. Are you sure it’s not your mamma’s box?”
Isak shakes his head firmly. “It’s under the loose plank under Oupa’s bed, Danie found it when we were playing wegkruipertjie from Raatjie, Ouma.”
She puts the blown rose to her nose. “Did Ouma’s children look inside?”
“Mmm … just stupid stuff of girls, Ouma, cards and letters with hearts on.” Isak’s attention is on the goggas on the tip of Danie’s finger. “Nothing nice, Ouma, just a lot of dried flowers the colour of … a scab.”
His ouma pinches off the petals of the dark red rose until the orange heart is exposed.
“Ouma, why did Tannie Lettie go away?” Danie places the goggas onto his rose. “I like Tannie Lettie, she always gave me pink sweeties.”
“Ouma didn’t need her help any more.” She kisses them each on the forehead. “Come, let’s go back, I’m sure your oupa is looking for us.”
The old man stands on the stoep coughing in the shadows, resting on his cane, brooding. He is unaware of them, looking over their heads towards the mountain.
* * *
All month long men cut down pear trees with chainsaws that complain like dogs do when his father played the piano. The trees are dying but no one speaks of it, for his father has gone north to get away from it all.
Scattered along the riverbank are heaps of trees and fruit in the dead grass.
Isak and Petrus smoke in the eucalyptus grove near the farm gate, sprawled out on a bed of bark and the trees are tall and straight-limbed, like long-legged giants. Both hear the tractor at the farm barracks, off-loading sawn wood. The women’s voices rise up with delight. It saves them searching the ridge daily, for there is enough wood to see them through the coming winter. Above, summer swallows dash in between the eucalyptus trees, gathering to leave. Ahead in the road, Oupa’s Chevrolet growls and moans as it brakes at the gate and goes over the cattle grid.
Isak clicks his tongue. “Oupa, does just what he likes.”
“It’s still the farm of the oubaas,” Petrus reminds him.
“Isn’t!” Isak sits up.
“Is! The oubaas’s name still hangs at the gate.”
“Pa hasn’t had a chance to change it, that’s all.”
“Your pa is like the volk, he works for the oubaas.”
“Nonsense man, my pa is the baas.”
Petrus smiles gloatingly. “You’re just like volk.”
“I’m going to inherit it all.” Isak drops the rolled cigarette and picks up the gun lying next to him, checking the trigger. “Pa has shown me the will and my name is on it. One day this is all mine.” He gets up and stalks the swallows, asking impatiently, “Where’s Danie?”
“Helping my ma rub the vrot feet of the oubaas,” Petrus shrugs.
Isak takes out the folded diagram in his pocket, studying the drawing. The dominee says it is blasphemous, man playing God, but his oupa says farmers play God all the time, so it’s nothing new. The newspaper cutting shows lines and arrows that mark the insertions made into the man’s chest. The heart is a pump, he rereads the doctor’s words.
Danie comes running down the hill with the shopping bag. “Here’s everything,” he shouts excitedly, tipping the contents onto the ground. There is a bottle of chloroform, cotton wool, gauze, their mother’s nail set and needle and thread.
Isak aims and shoots randomly into the trees. The first two birds fall to the ground unusable, the pellet penetrating their chests and killing them.
Petrus kicks at them with disgust. “Ga, man, this isn’t going to work.” He hunches down and lights another cigarette.
Danie fishes out the birds, stroking their lifeless wings, then buries them in a shallow grave under the bark. Once again Isak swings his gun wildly, shooting into the khaki-coloured foliage. A bird drops at his feet still fluttering, its eyes shining.
“We’ve got him, we’ve got him!” Petrus dances jubilantly around the small bird, his smoking cigarette trampled underfoot while Isak feels the bird’s heartbeat.
“Chloroform,” Isak commands, passing the gun to Petrus as Danie comes running with the bottle. “And the other one.”
Danie hesitates, looking uncertainly at Petrus. “Can’t we shoot another one instead?”
“We don’t have time for that.” Isak screws the lid off the bottle.
“I don’t want to.” Danie passes on the cotton wool.
“Give here.” Isak dips the cotton wool in the liquid, pressing it against the bird’s beak.
“Leave him alone.” Petrus steps forward, the gun slung over his shoulder.
“Shurrup, I’m the baas.” Isak feels how the bird relaxes in his hand, seeing how the eyes turn to glass. “And hurry up.”
Danie turns away tearfully.
“It is his.” Petrus kneels next to Isak, taking out a blunt pocket knife.
There is no answer.
“I said … the stupid thing … is his.”
Isak lays the bird on its back, taking the knife. “Do you or don’t you?”
Petrus nods in agreement, scratching out the cigarette and lighting it again, the smoke a screen before his face.
“Hold tight then.”
At a distance Danie stands with the cage. Inside it the canary swings back and forth.
Delicately, Isak draws a line over the bird’s chest that peels open, to reveal a beating heart. “Bring,” he gestures impatiently.
Danie opens the cage door. His hand closes around the swinging bird and it trills agitatedly, pecking viciously. “Can’t.” The small boy clutches the bird against his shirt.
“Take it,” Isak instructs Petrus.
Petrus sighs, gets up and walks over to Danie. “You did say it’s OK.”
“I didn’t know it would be like this …” He points to the bird. “It’s different.”
“Your word is your word,” Petrus reminds him, reaching out for the bird.
“Moffie.” Isak taunts them both.
Danie clutches even tighter and the bird squawks louder. Petrus squeezes the small boy’s wrist until his fingers release the bird into his