Johannes Smit had been at the Andrew Marquard Hall when the Administrator of the Orange Free State had crowned the Cherry Queen the previous night. He had been one of the boisterous whistlers rooting for her amid stiff competition from the beautiful Afrikaner girls of the region. The mayors had a good eye for beauty, choosing her from a bevy of twenty. He had been one of those who applauded loudly and wolf-whistled when the girl was handed her prize of vouchers for a two-week holiday trip to Durban and fifty rands pocket-money. Occasionally he had taken a swig from his flask of Klipdrift brandy. By the time Esme Euv-rard and her Spanish Troupe were entertaining the guests, he was already sloshed. He saw dimly that on the stage, radio personality Frans Jooste was compering. His head was spinning as people all around him laughed at Jooste’s jokes.
Of course, Niki was seeing the Cherry Queen for the first time. She would not have been allowed into the Andrew Marquard Hall even if she had wanted to attend the pageant. The hall — named after the first principal of the volkskool — belonged only to the volk. And to those visitors whose bodies were blessed enough to have melanin levels that were as low as those of the volk.
Niki had no desire to attend the events at the Andrew Marquard Hall. She was happy with the street parades. With the local high school band and smartly-uniformed drum majorettes that passed a few steps ahead of the donkey. With the Afrikaner school children in fancy dress and comic outfits. With the whole festive atmosphere. With the Gape Coon Carnival on the very first day of the festival on Thursday. That had been funny!
She heard that it was the first time these banjo-strumming minstrels from Cape Town had performed in the Orange Free State. The satin-clad minstrels carried with pride the derogatory name they had inherited from American performers — Negroes, as they called them then — who had visited the Cape in the 1800s. The Cape Coons revelled in the coon image and cherished it. Their faces were painted black with exaggerated white lips. Or white with exaggerated black lips. They wore white panama hats and suits of shimmering red and white. Yellow and white. Purple and white. Matching umbrellas. They were strumming Daar Kom die Alibama—singing about the ship that their slave ancestors thought was coming to save them, only to witness it sink in the stormy seas.
The antics of the Cape Coons had made her laugh so much that she had forgotten her concern for Viliki. She had left him with her friend, Mmampe, for the duration of the festival. She knew he would be safe, even though she had never before left him with neighbours for so many days. The entertainment had even enabled her to shelve her constant thoughts about Pule. Her deep longing for him. The emptiness that his long absence caused. The fact that even on those rare occasions when he came home, he was drifting more and more into the murky moods of her dead father. The control. The drinking. The jealousy. Niki should not be seen walking on the same side of the street as a man. But Pule had his beauty as well. He never stopped supporting his family.
After the procession of floats had left the park for the streets, Johannes Smit — his head pounding from last night’s drums — turned to Niki. For the first time in the three days of the festival. “Give me a stick of biltong,” he said without looking at her. “How much is it?”
Niki told him. He bought a stick.
Silence again.
Then out of the blue he asked, “Where are you going to sleep tonight?”
“Where I always sleep.”
“And where is that?”
“What is it to you?”
“I want to visit you.”
“Don’t you ever give up? I don’t want you! I don’t want to have anything to do with you!” said Niki vehemently.
“You seem to forget that you are my sleeping partner,” said Johannes Smit with a dirty smirk on his face. “Me and you, we go a long way back. To our days in the sunflower fields. Surely you cannot forget that you ate my money. I gave you enough chance to get rid of your wildness. Tonight is the night.”
Niki did not respond. She feared that Hairy Buttocks would find out that she was sleeping in a primary school classroom in the black township of Marallaneng where all the out-of-town servants slept, and he would go there and carry out his threat.
When Stephanus Cronje finally showed up late that afternoon, Niki told him that she wanted to get on a bus and go back to Excelsior. After all, tomorrow was the last day of the festival. Everybody would be packing up.
“And who will pack up when you are gone?” asked Stephanus Cronje.
“Ask her what she is running away from,” said Johannes Smit.
“He has threatened to come and get me at night,” cried Niki.
Stephanus Cronje turned red.
“What for?” he asked. “Why?”
“She is my padkos — my provision for the road,” said Johannes Smit boastfully.
“Is that true, Niki? Is it true?” asked Stephanus Cronje. He was highly agitated.
Once more, Niki took refuge in silence. She busied herself by packing the biltong into a box. Then she took it to her boss’s bakkie, which was parked a few metres away. Stephanus Cronje folded up the umbrella and the table and loaded them into the bakkie. Then he barked at Niki to get into the bakkie.
“I am going to get her when we return to Excelsior,” said Johannes Smit as Stephanus Cronje drove away with his prize. Then he packed his cherry liqueur into boxes and loaded them into his bakkie. He walked to the far end of the Hennie de Wet Park to while away time watching the dogs from the Kroonstad prison warders’ training school as their brown-uniformed handlers put them through their paces. They were demonstrating how they tracked down and attacked criminals. He found no pleasure in their sniffing around, following the trails of hidden objects. Even the music of the tartans of the Bloemfontein Caledonian Pipe Band, which accompanied the Highland and country dances, did not soothe his troubled soul.
Meanwhile Stephanus Cronje was driving around the streets of Ficksburg aimlessly, with Niki by his side. His brow and nose were glistening with tiny drops of sweat. He was hyperventilating. All the while he was asking, “Is it true, Niki? Did you do things with that Johannes Smit?”
Niki had no intention of answering this question.
“Dammit, Niki,” he said frantically, “it is me you should be doing things with, not that Johannes Smit.”
Niki just smiled. Stephanus Cronje knew that she was ready and willing. He became brave.
Night had fallen when he drove to a fallow field on the outskirts of town. And on the grass that grew at its borders, she peeled off her pink overall. The same overall she had peeled off on that afternoon of shame. While Johannes Smit was seething at the Cherry Ball, sickened by the aura of excitement and romance that permeated the Town Hall, all dressed-up in a tuxedo without a dance partner, Stephanus Cronje was relieving Niki of her undergarments. While Johannes Smit watched enviously as Adam de Vries and Lizette executed a clinical waltz, followed by the two Lombards, each partnered by the young blood of Ficksburg, Stephanus Cronje and Niki were rolling on the grass.
He was deep inside her. Under the stars. She looked into his eyes in the light of the moon. She did not see Stephanus Cronje, owner of Excelsior Slaghuis. She did not see a boss or a lover. She saw Madam Cornelia’s husband. And he was inside her. She was gobbling up Madam Cornelia’s husband, with the emphasis on Madam. And she had him entirely in her power. Chewing him to pieces. She felt him inside her, pumping in and out. Raising a sweat. Squealing like a pig being slaughtered. Heaving like a dying pig.