The chair is overturned violently or falls over as someone jumps up from the table, and I awake from my dream; the door is slammed thunderously. What has happened, and whose voices are arguing so fiercely in the other room? Only once or more often, I do not know, but it must have been more than once in that divided house in which we lived, for strife and anger were nothing strange during my childhood years. Jakob’s scorn at my sudden quest for learning, Jakob’s increasing animosity towards Pieter, brother against brother, and Pieter’s insidious, relentless badgering, Sofie’s restlessness and her impatient outbursts against her husband, and in the kitchen the continuing feud between Dulsie and Jacomyn, and Dulsie’s squabbling with Gert. Spring arrived too late and too hesitantly that year, and in the renewed winter that followed our return from the Karoo, we were forced together inside the walls of the house too often, together in the voorhuis and kitchen with all our discontent and unrest. I still remember the glittering of snow on Pieter’s hair and on the jackal-skin around his shoulders; but no, that was earlier. What glittering do I remember then, blinding in the sunlight, and where did Pieter stand like that in the drifting snow, across which snowfield did he come walking out of the distance?
It snowed — after our return that spring it was still snowing, I remember now, and in the voorhuis we sat around the fire-pan together. What else? And Pieter then, walking towards me across that glittering expanse, across all the years between? We had been waiting, and in the early morning Pieter came walking towards us across the glittering snowfield with the jackal-skin kaross around his shoulders; but no, not like that. What had we been waiting for in silence, and where did he come from when he returned to us, the time I recall now? Let me try to remember.
Spring was late, and after our return from the Karoo it remained cold for a long time, and it snowed heavily at least once, that is how it was. I see us women around the fire-pan in the voorhuis, and carefully I feel my way, afraid to move too fast or to disturb, by a thoughtless movement, the delicate fretwork of the memory, for there is something here that is important. We are sitting in a small, silent circle, but it is not the customary closeness of cold evenings, for only the women are together, and I am aware of tension and distress, of the coming and going of men in the kitchen and someone stamping his feet on the clay floor of the kitchen to shake the snow from his shoes. On a low stool in our circle sits Jacomyn with the baby on her lap, and the child is crying plaintively, so that she rocks him to and fro to soothe him, but Sofie pays no attention to his whining. Sofie sits very straight in her chair, and where I sit beside her, pressed up against her as is my habit, I can see the white knuckles of the hand clutching the shawl around her shoulders. And that was how it was. And now — where to now? I hesitate for a moment, and then, suddenly, I know.
When the weather came up, Father sent Pieter to help bring a flock of sheep that had been grazing near the edge of the mountain to the kraal, and before he could return, it began to snow, so heavily that it was impossible to go out to help the herdsman and him. Later that night, when the snowfall was over, a big fire was lit on the ridge behind the house to serve as a beacon in the dark, and the following day Father and Jakob and Gert went out to search for them; but though nothing was said, I do not believe anyone expected them to have survived the heavy snowfall on the exposed mountainside. So the morning passed with us waiting for news at home, and later I was standing in the doorway, gazing out over the glittering white world stretching away, so that it was I who saw the man in the distance walking towards the house across the snow, and across the distance and with eyes blinded by the reflected light I recognised Pieter and called out, and the women came running from the house. They had been trapped by the snowstorm on the edge of the escarpment when they had only just begun herding the sheep together, so that they were forced to take shelter in a hollow under an overhanging cliff, where they spent the night: at first light Pieter made his way through the heavy snow on the slopes to let us at home know that they were still alive, while the herdsman stayed behind to search for the scattered sheep. It was a long time before they could herd together the survivors from the crevices and caves into which they had fled before the storm and where they could sometimes be trapped for days before the snow began to melt.
Thus Pieter survived and returned to us, and I remember a rare celebration in which we all took part, even in that divided household, for as I have said, while our jealousy, spite and resentment forced us apart, in our isolation we were always driven together again by the struggle for survival in that harsh world where we were inescapably dependent on each other’s help to face the dangers and hardships of daily life, like the white man and the Bushman, the master’s son and the servant, who survived the long dark of the winter’s night together in their shelter, at last to see daylight again. I remember Father pouring sweet wine at the table that evening of Pieter’s return and even I was allowed a mouthful. However, even here, in this festive moment, with the family gathered around the table, discord and unity were intertwined. What malicious remark did Jakob make about the wine poured for Pieter in such an unaccustomed way? That I do not remember any more, only Father’s answer: “For this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.” Jakob was about to reply, his face dark in the candlelight, but at that moment we heard a rustling sound and Sofie came to us from the shadows of her room, dressed in the rustling black wedding gown that she had put on as if it were truly a celebration we were partaking in here. I still remember that, whatever else I may have forgotten or may have tried to forget, the silence at the table as she took her place among us, Father pushing her glass of wine across the table and Mother, after a moment’s silence, remarking in an undertone, “We do not dress up like that here,” as if it were a reproach. I remember Sofie in her black dress, her eyes glittering, and Jakob’s dark face as he sat reluctantly sipping his wine, and the single candle next to Father’s chair that left most of the large room in darkness. The chair overturns, the chair is knocked over, the candle-flame flares fiercely as if the wind has suddenly blown open the shutters, and the candle topples and falls over the edge of the table, its faint glow extinguished. On our knees in the dark we feel around on the floor, we stumble over the table and chairs now unfamiliar to us, we search in the dark for the tinder-box, and call to Dulsie in the kitchen to bring a glowing ember from the fire to illuminate the sudden and complete darkness — that evening or some other evening, or perhaps never. I can only tell what I remember.
That year spring did not bring the abundant flowers of the previous season, even though the spekbos stood white along the ridges. The sky softened and the light brightened and the landscape fleetingly took on a green radiance, but in hidden places along the escarpment, in crevices and rocky outcrops, patches of snow remained until late.
With the arrival of warmer days Sofie resumed her walks in the veld, and she often took Jacomyn and the baby along; Mother and Dulsie had much to say about these walks, and about the child being taken outdoors like that, but as far as I know no one tried to forbid it. Sometimes she would ask me along too and, if I had no work to do, Mother silently and disapprovingly allowed me to go. I can still see our little group on that grey expanse, Jacomyn with the baby in her arms, and the wind of the escarpment plucking at the women’s frocks and at Sofie’s hair; I see Sofie with hair billowing around her head, laughing and clapping her hands, suddenly appearing as young and as carefree as a child again.