The man leaves with a sympathetic look and the nurse shifts the screen aside so that he can see out of the window. The highway runs past the window and behind the stream of cars are fields with sheep, weak-legged and woolly. He would cull them all if they were his. He searches for the abrupted story in his jumbled mind, not sure what is real. This room or the space in his head.
* * *
The Ford stops in the garage and his mother is at the wheel. His father gets out quietly and the new maid closes the door for him, the skin slack around his jaw. He smells of Tannie Lettie’s room as he rests his hand on Isak’s shoulder.
* * *
The windmill in the Karoo is broken and there is no one to go. Oom Kalla has gone back to Rhodesia because of the party and Raatjie’s dancing, so Outa Floors must go instead.
This time his father stands on the stoep and his mother waves goodbye to him behind the wheel and Danie next to him. Outa sits on the back with a blanket pulled over his shoulders and his hat tipped forward for the wind.
His father looks past them to the hills. This time there will be no fires along the road or stories of men and sheep. This time Isak drives slowly. He sees his parents in the mirror, a stooped man and a woman hugging herself.
Valley opens up to valley, then vast plains to vast plains and finally mountain upon mountain gathered together on the skirt of the horizon. The Holden knows the road to Bloedrivier as the sheep do that trek next to the road. Men are named by this road. Between the wars, Oom Abes walked this gravel highway up and down for months and years, plucking each and every fluff of wool caught in the barbs, baling and selling it, to buy his first farm in the valley.
At the gate, Outa climbs off, unravelling the twisted chain that keeps the gate locked, then he picks bitou for his hatband as Isak impatiently revs the engine. Danie climbs out and the dogs jump off the back, running ahead of Outa to the windmill and the dry trough.
There are other men in the valley, men who have built their wealth on convict labour and their loyalty to those who govern.
Bleating sheep mill around the pump.
In the beginning the flock is just a flock to Isak, animals that all look the same. Only later will they get names, when each ewe’s unique manner and way are known to them.
They set up camp, near the pump with the broken rod. Outa plaits a shelter of vye and renosterbos while the boys erect the old bell tent.
The old man’s hands and the roots of the plaited bushes move in and out of each other as he speaks to himself. “Ja, ja, Outa remembers this shelter outside, where Outa’s mammie used to cook.”
Isak and Danie move closer to where the old man starts kindling a fire on the floor of the shelter.
“The house was piepklein and built of reeds, not the soft palmiet reed that grows in the river on the grootbaas’s farm, but a reed as thick as a man’s forearm,” he explains. “As kleingoed, we took goats’ dung and clay and kneaded it with our bare feet until it was smooth like bread dough, then we plastered the house inside and out with our hands, smearing it all over the reeds.”
“Didn’t Outa get cold?”
“Not a bit, Basie, not even in winter or the rain. Later, Outa’s mammie made use of cardboard and pieces of canvas after Outa’s dêdda’s death.”
From the shelter you can see the whole world in all directions. Isak spins around and around, stretching out his arms and the dogs turn with him until he feels drunk and falls. He gets up and the world is still turning. There are stars in the sky. Stars the colour of stone.
Outa skewers pieces of sausage and the boys hold them over the flames. The meat tastes of herbs and ash and the stars shoot and spark like a tractor’s exhaust.
“Tell some more.” Danie’s sausage drips fat and the dogs lick the sand.
“Outa was one of sixteen, from one women, Outa’s mammie. Only the kleingoed born after Outa went to school. Outa and Outa’s brother, Arrie and Outa’s sisters had no schooling.”
“Wish it was me,” Isak grumbles. He huddles next to the coals as the sun drops away and the night wind picks up.
“Our tent has holes.” Danie joins him at the fire, unconvinced by Outa’s enthusiasm for the protection offered by the wall.
“Tonight is the night the Basies sleep, doeksag, like the volk, without a bed.” In the dark his cheekbones stand out and his sunken eyes disappear.
“I want to go home.”
“Sissie.” Isak spits sausage skin into the fire where it sizzles and burns.
The ewes call for their young in the dark. A moving mass of bodies searching for each other as jackals call. The dogs prick their ears in response.
“Did the volk have their own farms in Outa’s time?” Isak blows over the coals.
“Ag, just a sliver of land, Basie, for our goats and to keep our animals away from that of the baas.”
“Was Outa’s father a farmer?” Danie lifts his head off his knees with interest.
“Dêdda was the goat herd for the baas.” The old man spits into the fire. “On the sly, Dêdda smoused Dêdda’s own goats where Dêdda could, for an extra lappie, Basie.”
Isak shakes his head disagreeably, “Pappa will never allow that.”
Something moves rapidly through the hot sand. It is a toktokkie duped by the fire to think it is the sun. Danie picks it up and the beetle plays dead, stiffening at his touch. “He’s mine.” He taps the shell. “Jaffie, Jaffie wake up.”
Isak prods it with the stick.
“Boetie, don’t!” Danie knocks the stick from Isak’s hand.
They tumble and roll around the fire. Outa begins to sing in a high voice, clicking each word softly to himself.
“What song was that?” Isak shoves Danie to one side.
“A lullaby that Outa’s mammie used to sing to Outa as a baby.” The old man sings louder and louder.
“Was Outa never ever in school?” Danie waits for the song that goes round and round to end.
“Outa worked like a grootman, Basie … only ten years old was Outa.” He looks at Isak, then he carries on and his voice is different. “Given away to the white folk to care for the boer goats … so Outa travelled up and down, this way and that way as the goat herd. Where the goats went, Outa went.”
“Given away as in taken away?” Isak eyes the beetle in Danie’s hand.
Outa nods. He sits on a half-drum, rhythmically kneading a piece of animal skin with his thumbs. “Booked in with the baas for ten years, Basie. Slept under the kitchen table until Outa became too big for that.” Sighing, he kicks his heels into the sand. “A sixpence a day and shilling in the month was Outa’s pay. The baas mistreated Outa well, Basie. Boere of that time were another breed.”
“How different, Outa?” Isak frowns. “Better or worse?”
“Gall bitter, said with all respect … neeked every day Outa was by the boere.” As an afterthought he adds. “Today’s white folk are tame.” Then he gets up from the fire, taking a spade with him to the tent. The boys follow. Inside the tent he digs three equal-sized trenches in a row, then with the spade he scoops up the glowing coals, dropping them into the hollows, levelling them off with sand.
“Bedtime, kinnertjies.”
They undress, hanging their trousers on wire hooks from the tent pole. Isak notices Outa’s limbs, sinewed and strong, and the old scars that shine white.
Each lies in a warmed hole. The old