Kathryn giggled in delight. ‘Wrecking people’s diets is my goal in life. Why would you live a life of denial when there is lemon meringue in the world?’
Hannah picked up her coffees and the cardboard box, laughing. ‘You are so right. Thanks for these, Kathryn.’
‘See you soon, Hannah,’ she said, waving cheerfully. ‘So glad you’re here. There’s something in the air, and it’s all to do with you. Exciting times, I think.’
Hannah turned and left the shop, her brows drawn. What was it about that woman? So strange, but not bad strange. Just a light unsettling that stirred something in Hannah, like a warm breath on her skin. She shook off the feeling as she crossed the square back to the shop.
Barbara had opened a foil-covered quiche and warmed it in the microwave while she tossed some salad onto plates.
‘I met Kathryn,’ said Hannah, sitting down at the table and picking the cherry tomatoes off her plate. She popped them into her mouth one by one as Barbara lifted two large slices of quiche onto their plates. ‘She sent your red velvet cupcakes.’
‘She’s a honey,’ said Barbara. ‘Bakes like a dream. I think she keeps the Women’s Guild afloat single-handedly. People come just for the tea afterwards.’
‘At the church?’ said Hannah.
‘St Luke’s, the Anglican church. She’s very involved there. It amazes me how someone who has had as much trouble in her life as she has had, can be so warm and open. She’s a special girl.’
‘She’s had a hard life?’ Hannah put a forkful of buttery pastry and asparagus into her mouth.
‘It’s a rough story, but I’ll leave her to tell you. All I’ll say is that she’s triumphed.’ There was silence between them for a while as they ate their meal, sipping their coffees.
‘I’m going to spend the afternoon on the computer,’ said Hannah. ‘I’ll be in the shop for the rest of the day. If you want to go home, it’s fine with me.’
‘I think I might just do that, thanks. I need to get to the bank in Bethlehem. And tomorrow is book club here.’
Hannah looked up. ‘Book club?’
Barbara smiled at what Hannah knew was a slightly panicked look on her face. ‘On a Tuesday afternoon. We have about fifteen women who come regularly. They buy a book and, when they’re done, they review it for the group. It’s great for sales.’
Hannah sat back in her chair. ‘Do we have to get anything ready?’
‘Not really,’ said Barbara, looking over her orange reading glasses. ‘They take turns bringing eats and we provide tea and coffee. There are some women who have never done a review, and I doubt they read a book at all, but they’re here every week. It’s fun – you’ll enjoy it.’
‘Hmm,’ was all Hannah could manage.
After Barbara had left, Hannah searched the history section of the shop, pulling out books on the South African War. There were a number with chapters on the camps. Sitting at the table in the reading room, she began to jot down relevant information in a notebook next to her.
When the British army had occupied the Boer capital, Pretoria, in June 1900, they had thought the war was largely over. In fact, it was only the beginning of a new, brutal phase. The style of battle shifted to guerrilla warfare. Mobile groups of Boers, commandos, were difficult to pin down, and the war looked set to drag out indefinitely. In response, Lord Kitchener embarked on his scorched earth policy with the intention of cutting all supply lines and support for the Boer commandos. Farms were burnt, crops destroyed, and stock killed. Floods of refugees began to pour into the camps, which had been set up initially to manage the crisis. But poor administration, inadequate rations, and the subsequent waves of disease set in motion a misery which saw the deaths of more than twenty-six thousand people. Most of these were women and children.
The photographs brought the history painfully to life. Hannah pored over the pages. A homestead with a pall of smoke hanging above it, and bundles of linen and furniture piled outside, three British soldiers posing formally in the foreground. A line of soldiers on a stone wall with guns raised shooting cattle. A field of horse carcasses, a man standing with his foot propped up on one, like a hunter. Women in deep-brimmed white kappies sitting exposed in a row of open cattle trucks about to leave for the camps. And then the children. Naked, skeletal bodies arranged before the camera. A little corpse held tightly by her blank-faced mother. Hannah felt nauseated. How could she not have known the scale of what happened?
She began searching for a reference to the camp called Goshen. She found lists and tables and graphs all detailing official records of the camps. She found maps with black dots marking the camps across South Africa’s landscape. There was no camp called Goshen.
When the shop doorbell tinkled and a customer came in to browse, she packed up the pile of books and moved across to the computer. On Google, she found herself sidetracked by other journals from the war. There was one account of a mother who had hidden her children in caves to escape the British camps. They had managed to evade capture until the end of the war, though the memory was punctuated with the pain of desperate times. By late afternoon, Hannah had found nothing about Goshen Camp, but her head was whirling with pictures and stories from the war. It occurred to her that perhaps the journal had been written as a piece of fiction. It lacked the blunt voice of other women’s real testimonies and was altogether more personal. It was as if the other accounts were protest pieces, full of bitterness against the British for wreaking such destruction on their people. Perhaps Rachel’s story was no more than a writer expressing her own pain through the horror genre of the camps. Perhaps it would be better just to leave the story alone.
Hannah cashed up and retreated to her apartment. The house was quiet and still warm from the afternoon. Patchy stretched and yawned on the kitchen table. Hannah picked up the journal. The covers of the book were worn, but there was no indication of when or where the ledger had been printed. It certainly looked authentic, but then you would never know whether the account inside was written during the war, or ten or twenty years later. With no facts to back up the writing, it could be a work of fiction. Or perhaps this person had been in a camp and changed all names to avoid trouble. But that didn’t fit with what she had seen this afternoon. There was nothing careful about the virulent writings of other Boer women from that time.
Hannah opened the ledger to where she had left off reading. The cramped writing crept on and on across the pages. The words jumped at her, and she couldn’t help picking up the story again.
I make myself useful. I make friends by being helpful and hope that an extra ounce of rations will come my way. I carry buckets of water. I collect fuel for the neighbours so I can sit by their fire. I watch the children when their mothers are too tired to get up. I show them games that we played on the farm, and tell them stories. I show them how to write their names.
The medical officer visited last week and found I could write. It is useful to him that he can leave me here and visit less, not worry about keeping records himself. Now I make lists. Endless counts of sick people and dead people. Why do names on paper mean more to the British than the people who belong to those names? The lists can’t save them, but somehow they have saved me. I get paid for my lists, and now I can buy a tin of meat every now and then. I will help anyone with any chore, but the food I keep secret and eat quickly, hidden under my blanket. I know these secret tins are my only chance to survive this camp.
It shames me to see children getting thinner and thinner until their knees and feet are enormous lumps on their stick legs, but I won’t share. I won’t sacrifice myself for nothing. One tin between so many would go nowhere, and then we’d all be dead. Surviving is no reason to boast – it’s not heroic or brave, just selfish. Would Oupa Jakob be proud of me?