There were times, particularly in the mornings, when a fit of exultation would pass through him at the thought that he, alone and unknown, was making this deserted farm bloom. But following upon the exultation would sometimes come a sense of pain that was obscurely connected with the future; and then it was only brisk work that could keep him from lapsing into gloominess.
The borehole, pumped dry, yielded only a weak and intermittent stream. It became K's deepest wish for the flow of water from the earth to be restored. He pumped only as much as his garden needed, allowing the level in the dam to drop to a few inches and watching without emotion as the marsh dried up, the mud caked, the grass withered, the frogs turned on their backs and died. He did not know how underground waters replenished themselves but knew it was bad to be prodigal. He could not imagine what lay beneath his feet, a lake or a running stream or a vast inner sea or a pool so deep it had no bottom. Every time he released the brake and the wheel spun and water came, it seemed to him a miracle; he hung over the dam wall, closed his eyes, and held his fingers in the stream.
He lived by the rising and setting of the sun, in a pocket outside time. Cape Town and the war and his passage to the farm slipped further and further into forgetfulness.
Then one day, returning to the house at noontime, he saw the front door wide open; and while he still stood confounded a figure emerged from the interior into the sunlight, a pale plump young man in khaki uniform. 'Do you work here?' were this stranger's first words. He stood at the head of the steps as if he owned the house. There was nothing for K to do but nod. 'I have never seen you before,' said the stranger. 'Are you looking after the farm?' K nodded. 'When did the kitchen fall in like that?' he asked. Trying to bring out words, K stumbled. The stranger did not shift his gaze from K's bad mouth. Then he spoke again. 'You don't know who I am, do you?' he said. 'I am boss Visagie's grandson. '
K removed his sacks from the kitchen to one of the rooms on the hillside and yielded the house to the new Visagie. He felt the old hopeless stupidity invading him, which he tried to beat back. Perhaps he will stay only a day or two, he thought, when he sees that there is nothing good enough for him here; perhaps he will be the one to go and I will be the one to stay.
But the grandson, it emerged, was not able to go. That same evening, when K had made a fire up on the hillside and was broiling a pair of bushdoves for his supper, the grandson appeared out of the dusk and hung around so long that K felt obliged to offer him a share. He ate like a hungry boy. There was not enough for both of them. Then his story came out. 'When you go to Prince Albert, I want you to take care not to mention it to anyone that I am here,' he began. He was, it turned out, a deserter from the army. He had slipped off a troop train at Kruidfontein siding the previous evening and walked across country all night, arriving at last at the farm he remembered from his schoolboy days. 'Our family used to spend every Christmas here,' he said. 'Family would keep coming till the house was bursting at the seams. I've never seen such eating as we used to do. Day after day my grandmother would pile the table with food, good country food, and we would eat every last scrap. Karoo lamb like you never taste any more.' K sat on his heels poking the fire, barely listening, thinking: I let myself believe that this was one of those islands without an owner. Now I am learning the truth. Now I am learning my lesson.
Meanwhile the more he talked the more vehement the grandson became. He was anaemic, he said, he had a weak heart, it was in his papers, no one contested it, yet here they were sending him to the front. They were reassigning clerks and sending them to the front. Did they think they could do without clerks? Did they think they could run the war without a paymaster's office? If they came looking for him, the regular police or the military police, to take him back and make an example of him, K must play dumb. He must play the idiot and reveal nothing. Meanwhile he, the grandson, would make a hiding-place for himself. He knew the farm, he would find a place where they would never dream of looking. It would be better if K did not know the hiding-place. Could K find him a saw? He needed a saw, he wanted to begin work first thing in the morning. K agreed to look. Then followed a long silence. 'Is this all you eat?' asked the grandson. K nodded. 'You should plant potatoes,' said the grandson. 'Potatoes, onions, mealies-anything will grow here if you give it enough water. This is good soil. I'm surprised you don't grow a few things for yourself down by the dam.' A pang of disappointment cut through K: even the dam was known about. 'My grandparents were lucky to find you,' the grandson went on. 'People have a hard time finding good farm servants nowadays. What is your name?' 'Michael,' answered K. It was dark now. The grandson stood up uncertainly. 'You haven't got a torch?' he asked. 'No,' said K; and watched him pick his way down the hillside in the moonlight.
Morning came and there was no longer anything for him to do. He could not go to the dam without betraying his garden. He sat on his heels against the wall of the room, feeling the sun warm his body, feeling time pass, till the grandson came climbing the hill again. He is ten years younger than me, K thought. The climb brought a flush to his skin.
'Michael, there is nothing to eat!' the grandson complained. 'Don't you ever go to the shop?' Without waiting for a reply he pushed open the door of the room and peered inside. He seemed about to pass a comment, but then stopped himself.
'How much do they pay you, Michael?' he said.
He thinks I am truly an idiot, thought K. He thinks I am an idiot who sleeps on the floor like an animal and lives on birds and lizards and does not know there is such a thing as money. He looks at the badge on my beret and asks himself what child gave it to me out of what lucky packet.
'Two rand,' said K. 'Two rand a week.'
'So what news do you have of my grandparents? Don't they ever visit?'
K was silent.
'Where do you come from? You are not from here, are you?'
'I have been all over,' said K. 'I have been in the Cape too.'
'Aren't there sheep on the farm?' said the grandson. 'Aren't there goats? Didn't I see goats yesterday, ten or twelve goats out beyond the dam?' He looked at his watch. 'Come, let's go and find the goats.'
K remembered the goat in the mud. 'Those are goats that have gone wild,' he said. 'You will never catch them.'
'We'll catch them at the dam. The two of us will manage.'
'They come to the dam at night,' said K. 'During the day they are out in the veld.' To himself he thought: A soldier without a gun. A boy on an adventure. To him the farm is just a place of adventure. He said: 'Leave the goats, I'll get you something to eat.'
So while the sound of sawing came from the house, K took his catapult and walked down to the river and in an hour had killed three sparrows and a dove. He brought the dead birds to the front door and knocked. The grandson, stripped to the waist and sweating, came to meet him. 'Very good,' he said. 'Can you clean them quickly? I would appreciate that.'
K held up the four dead birds, their feet together in a tangle of claws. There was a pearl of blood at the beak of one of the sparrows. 'So small you don't taste it as it goes down,' he said. 'You wouldn't get yourself dirty, not even your little finger.'
'What the hell does that mean?' said the Visagie grandson. 'What the fuck do you mean? If you want to say something, say it! Put those things down, I'll take care of them!' So K laid the four birds down on the step at the front door and departed.