but he can’t.
“Outa must carry it.”
They stop a second time and Piet sucks in his breath.
Outa holds the hose for a while allowing the water to run into the ditch, then he switches it off and dries his hands. Silently, he picks up the tray and the flies lift briefly before settling down as he carries the tray up the hill.
Angrily, Piet lifts the broom. “Scoot!”
Isak chooses to walk home through the orchards, past the office and pack shed. The office door is open. Inside is Oupa’s glass-topped desk and leather couch. Under the glass are photos. Photos of his father at the borehole. Photos taken of Ouma and Oupa in the north on sand dunes. Photos of Oom Sakkie in Egypt in front of the pyramids. Photos of fruit trees with leaves and without. He wipes at the glass, smearing it with the fattiness still on his hands.
Then he senses that he is not alone in the room. Silver hair shows above the upright back of his father’s chair. Against the light he can see dust hanging in the air like a halo. He steps forward, reaching out to catch the floating pieces.
“Boeta.” His father swivels the chair around.
“Pappa.”
“It’s your birthday tomorrow.”
“Ja, Pappa.”
His father gets up from the chair and walks to the safe. “Come here.”
Dutifully, Isak walks over to the safe as his father unlocks it.
His father lifts it off the green felt, a pellet gun with a barrel of polished wood. “This was uncle Sakkie’s gun.”
Isak looks down at his warped face.
“Sakkie said I must give it to my eldest. Tomorrow you’re ten and I guess that’s a good time for a boy to have his own gun.”
His father holds out the gun to him and he steps forward, reaching up to kiss his father’s cheek, but his father pulls back.
“You’re a big boy, Sakkie. Kissing is for babies and moffies. From now on we greet like men.”
The fingers of his father’s hand grip his firmly and they shake hands like men do, then he takes his gun and it is light to hold.* * *
It is his birthday and it is raining. He can tell by the drumming on the roof and the light in the room. The birthday gun is in the safe behind his father’s suits and the house is empty but for him and Danie.
He rolls onto his back, feeling the strawberry mark on his neck. Raatjie calls it the mark of the devil, for something he did wrong before he was born. There are no sounds from the kitchen, just the twitting of the canary as Raatjie is stacking, drying trays, covered with halved fruit, for the rain.
He gets up and dresses quietly so as not to waken his brother. In front of the mirror he strikes a pose. The muscles in his arms scurry like mice. Then he inspects his armpits for hairs but there are none.
In the empty kitchen the canary sits forlornly on its swing. He whistles and the bird claws the side of the cage, pecking at the metal bars. The pig’s head of Outa lies on the kitchen table. He lifts the net to look, poking the flesh with his finger. Carefully he pulls back the lids, revealing the staring eyes, then covers the head quickly.
Kalbas waits at the door. He sits down and runs his hand hard over the sheepdog’s back and the dog smiles with pleasure. The mountain is covered in cloud.
All around the garden are cypresses planted by Ouma to keep the veld out.
Farming is in your blood, you are baptised into it from the day you are born. That is what Oupa will say to him today.
He calls the dog and they walk through the orchards. Pickers, flushed out by the rain, jest and shout at him from the tractor. Most of the men are strangers, moving from farm to farm, tumbleweeds scarcely touching the ground. They are difficult to discipline. Their ways are different to the farm people’s ways. He turns his head away as they eat of the fruit.
In the office, Oupa sits heavily on his father’s chair behind the desk while Dominee sits stiffly on the couch with ankles that snap like dogs at each other.
“Congratulations, Isak.” Dominee shakes his hand. “Rain on one’s birthday means many blessings.”
“Summer rain is a bloody curse, Dominee.” Oupa corrects him before turning his attention to Isak. “Farming is in your blood my boy, from the day you are born till the day you die.”
“Ja, Oupa.”
Oupa opens one of the desk’s drawers. “Want to play with the medals?”
“Please, Oupa.”
Dominee pages through the Bible on his lap, his suede shoes ruined by the rain while his Oupa sucks on the unlighted pipe. Isak opens the cigar box with the medals. A number are in the shape of a star, while others are wreathed, one has a springbuck head on it.
Behind Dominee is a photo of an old man with a goatee wearing lots of medals and behind the door is a calendar with a woman in a bikini, but Dominee can’t see the calendar because the door is open. The two men sit in silence. The humming noise of the grader can be heard behind the office wall and his mother’s strident voice in the pack shed. Isak unpacks the medals in rows. A row for Oupa and a row for Oom Sakkie.
Oupa thumbs tobacco that comes out of his mother’s farm shop. His oupa still has a set of keys even though he doesn’t live there any more. “In nineteen- eighteen, Ma and me returned from Bechuanaland after I lost the entire herd to the rinderpest.”
Dominee gives up on huisbesoek. He puts the Bible back into its leather bag.
Isak lifts two of the medals and makes noises like an aeroplane. He knows Oupa’s stories well. The old man lights up with a lot of sucking and coughing, while Dominee coughs politely from the smoke that Oupa blows in his direction.
“What was Oom doing there?”
“Followed the rush to the north,” he explains. “Thought I’d sell provisions to the mines and the diggers.” He leans back, settling into the swivel chair. “Fruit did badly after the Great War and I saw this as a chance to make money, lots of it. Ja ja, seduced by Mammon, Dominee.”
Danie stands at the door with a tear-stained face.
“Ja, ja, your boeta is here.” Oupa wags the pipe at him. “Has no one taught you to bloody well greet properly?”
Danie puts his head down and runs past Dominee to Isak.
“Why are you blubbing so much?” Isak asks crossly.
“The head.” Danie picks up one of the medals, his lashes wet. “The head looked at me.”
“It’s vrek, man, the pig can’t do anything to you.”
Isak dives the medal out of Danie’s hand. The smaller boy bursts into tears.
“Stop it!” Oupa reprimands him through the tobacco smoke. “Boys don’t cry.”
“Sissie,” Isak adds.
“Won’t play any more!” Danie drops the medal and runs out.
“Suit yourself, blubber boy.” Isak drops his voice.
The rain comes down on the tin roof and for a while Oupa’s story is drowned out. He takes out a penknife and begins to clean his nails.
Dominee concentrates on the leak in the ceiling. “So what did Oom do?”
“I took the Union Castle to England.” He pauses. “So wan with care, we find time for frightened peace to pant and breathe short-winded accents of new broils to be commenced in strands afar remote.”
His oupa likes to speak in a grand way. It comes from having to speak English at school long ago. It helps him win arguments at the farmers’ meetings because no one is