Hannah’s stomach growled, last night’s toast long forgotten. She found a glass canister of muesli which looked homemade, rich with nuts, and topped it with thick Greek yoghurt. Her pantry would no doubt retreat to ordinary once she had finished Tim and Chris’s supplies.
Out of the shower, she rubbed her wet hair with a towel and ran a brush through it, wincing at the snagging long tangles. Todd had insisted it always be ironed into sleek brown waves to the middle of her back. Said it was her best feature. She had slashed it short in defiance and rage when she’d left him. It had grown out a bit, now brushing her shoulders, long enough to pull into a ponytail to keep it out of her face. She didn’t own a hairdryer any longer, and simply pulled a hair elastic onto her wrist for later. A glance in the mirror had her grimacing at the unmade-up face reflected back at her. Maybe jeans and a T-shirt were too casual for a store manager. Maybe she should get some proper shoes.
She took a breath, pulled her shoulders back, and stepped into the passage, unlocking the interleading door. As she drew the door closed behind her, the Yale lock on the shop’s front door clicked back. A Doc Martens boot pushed the door open, and there stood a woman with spiky white hair, balancing a quilted bag and two take-away coffee cups. They stood for a moment, staring at each other, before the woman said, ‘You must be Hannah.’
‘And you would be Barbara?’
‘I would, yes. Take these, will you?’ Hannah grabbed the cups and followed Barbara to the desk, watching her stow the embroidered bag in a drawer. Though Barbara’s mouth did not smile, her eyes crinkled as she said, ‘Tim is a nut, but even I was surprised that he would dump this shop on you and disappear.’
‘I’m not sure who is more of a nut, him or me,’ said Hannah.
‘Indeed,’ said Barbara, humour evident on her face as she looked Hannah up and down. ‘Let’s just say that being… unusual… is an advantage in this town. It’s a small place and people will make it their business to know all of yours. Being on the quirky side means they’ll write you off as eccentric and not delve too deeply into your life. Believe me, I know this.’
Hannah took in Barbara’s dangly guinea-fowl earrings and black waistcoat, embroidered with little mirrors, and believed her.
‘Right, let’s get this show on the road. You stand here,’ said Barbara as she ushered Hannah in behind the desk to the computer. ‘I always say the easiest way to learn a new system is to do it.’
She had Hannah practise all the applications on the computer, learning to record sales, register stock, and find books using the store’s software. She then showed Hannah the cataloguing system, which ordered the shelves, so that she could go directly to the right shelf for any particular book. They spent a good two hours working through every aspect of the shop’s systems.
‘As you have to do things, you’ll figure it out and then get more comfortable with it,’ Barbara said. ‘And people here already know all about you, so they’ll cut you slack if you make mistakes.’
Hannah looked up sharply. ‘What do you mean, they know all about me?’
‘Part of Tim’s charm was his willingness to chat to customers. They will all be in on Monday to see you for themselves.’ Barbara grinned at Hannah’s discomfort. ‘Don’t look so worried. They’re harmless. Mostly.’
‘Great,’ muttered Hannah.
Still grinning, Barbara hauled a large cardboard box from under the desk. ‘We’re not open today – Tim felt you should have a day to adjust. I thought we could go through this box of second-hand stuff. It’s been sitting here for ages, but what with Tim and Chris’s getting ready to go and my manning the shop, we simply haven’t had the time.’
‘What should I look for?’ said Hannah, opening the cardboard flaps. The dry smell of dusty books hit her, half fish moth and half fraying leather. She sneezed.
‘It’s your shop now. You decide. It came from a deceased estate in Bethlehem. Someone thought we might be interested. See if you are.’ She left Hannah dragging the box into the reading room, and disappeared into the apartment to find something to eat.
Hannah heaved the box onto the table and began sifting through the books. Most were written in Afrikaans, in variable condition. Some were held together only by a few binding threads. Looking through their introductory pages, some interspersed with tissue paper leaves, Hannah saw that many were first editions published in the 1950s. When Barbara came back with the two cups of tea and a little plate of biscotti, Hannah took hers to the computer and began to google Africana book values. She eventually happened onto an auction site, where she investigated how to sell rare books.
‘Barbara, was Tim selling any stock online?’ called Hannah.
‘Heavens no. He hates computers, could barely bring himself to ring up a sale.’
‘It might be worth exploring though. From what I can see here, books that would never see the light of day on a shelf can be viewed by anyone internationally. I must explore how to register as a dealer and see if it would be worthwhile for us.’
‘You see?’ Barbara’s face appeared round the door, grinning at Hannah over the rim of her cup. ‘Your first day and you’ve found a market we would never have dreamt of. Good for you.’
Hannah smiled back. ‘We’ll see. Don’t get your hopes up.’
She separated the old books into piles of valuable-looking editions and more generic copies. When she reached the bottom of the box, she saw, lying flat against the base, a hard-covered ledger. The spine was deep maroon, as were the corners, and the cover, a dark royal blue. She lifted it out. The pages were ruled with lines and red ink columns were printed to the right of each page. The pages, however, were filled with writing – tiny writing that spidered from edge to edge, making the ledger printing redundant. It was in Afrikaans. Hannah’s gaze flicked to the top of the first page, which began with the words:
This is the account of Rachel Badenhorst, aged twelve years, of Silwerfontein, Orange Free State, 1899.
Hannah’s mind ran through what she knew of that period in South Africa’s history. It had to have been written at the time of the South African War when Britain wrested control from the Boer republics. She sank into a chair and began reading, carefully turning each delicate, browned page. She had to adjust to the language. A friend who had been with her in the languages department at university had called this deep Afrikaans, rarely seen now outside of universities and older literature.
10 November 1899, Silwerfontein, Orange Free State
Dear Wolf,
Oupa Jakob has given me this ledger, and I will write an account of life on the farm for you. When you return, you can read it and know that everything here has remained just the same.
It has been a month since you and Pa left. A whole month. Time has slowed to a crawl and, although Ma is trying to fill the time with extra tasks, I find myself with too much time to think. I think Ma feels the same as I do because she is working harder than I have ever seen. She calls it spring cleaning, but no spring has seen the house this clean. We have washed every curtain and window. The walls have been scrubbed inside and out, and when it is too hot to work in the sun, she hauls out linen from the chest to mend. You know how determined she can be. Even Oupa Jakob has not been able to stop her. It’s as if she wants to exhaust herself so she can collapse on her bed at night and sleep without dreaming. We all say the right things: that you and Pa will be home for Christmas, that the British are no match for our strong, passionate men, but then there is a silent, low twisting pain that sits in me. What if we’re wrong? So we do what Ma says. Even Kristina is listening, so you know how serious Ma must be!