Why must I remember, why must I be forced to remember here at the end of my life? In the end it was good, the way my life continued all those years, the unmarried daughter, the spinster aunt, on the farm and in our town house, between Roggeveld and Karoo, always present in the background and always prepared to help and serve where necessary. It was good the way it was and good the way it ended after all those years; if a service should be held at the graveside, the minister would readily find appropriate words and texts to sum up my life, and if a headstone should be erected for me, the dates of birth and death would suffice to review the course of more than seventy years. I have forgotten the treachery and the loss, I have forgotten how Pieter left and came back. Why must I remember now?
In the shade under the hood a figure rose hesitantly and, blinded by the sun’s glare, we shielded our eyes with our hands and saw the passenger who had been sitting next to Father climb down slowly and step into the light, and we did not realise at once that it was Pieter who had returned to us.
Pieter, yes. Mother might have been expecting him, but I had not known. Pieter, I say now, but at the same time I do not know why I should have thought that. A stranger stood next to the cart, a man with shabby, oversized clothing and worn shoes, head bowed and eyes fixed on the ground as though waiting for further instructions: it was only because Father had spoken that familiar name after all the years that I knew it had to be him and that he had returned, that he had returned at last. “This is your mother,” Father told him in that same gentle voice, and Mother went to him and embraced him. He endured the embrace passively, showing no sign of recognition, but because Father was looking at me expectantly, I went up to the man too and put my arms around him briefly and kissed my brother, kissed Pieter. He was back. It is enough, more than this I need not remember.
What did they tell people? Some explanation must have been given, convincing or not, credible or not, true or not, but not in my presence; Father and Mother never mentioned Pieter’s return to me, neither was the subject ever broached by others. Of course people talked, however, and the pretexts, the lies, the rumours and the speculation gave rise to a kind of legend which in time reached even my ears. Much later, when Father and Mother were both dead, the conversation once turned to the diamond diggings, and Herklaas Vlok mentioned something to Maans in passing about “your Uncle Pieter there at Barkly West”. Later still, Stienie once mentioned poor Uncle Pieter who had suffered so much on the Diamond Fields. Perhaps that was what she had been told, and she had believed it to be the truth; only it was not true, and could not have been true, for diamonds were discovered at the Vaal River only after Pieter’s return, around the time of Father’s death, when Coenraad left for the diggings and Maans also spoke of going. When Pieter came back, there was no question of diamonds, and Coenraad was still with us and Maans was at school in Worcester. At the time of Stienie’s remark, it had all happened so long ago that the legend must have gained credibility, but Herklaas Vlok was my age and should have known the sequence of events; why would he tell such a muddled tale? I often pondered on these matters and wondered how much was fact and how much fiction and on how much truth the legend was based, how far they had wandered into Bushmanland or Namaqualand in the direction of Groot River, before a stranger near Hopetown dispatched his servant to fetch Father; but long before Pieter’s death I stopped puzzling about these things, for I realised there was no sense in it. What was important was that Pieter had come back; and he had come alone, and he had come like that.
After his return he moved into the outside room again where he used to sleep after Jakob’s marriage. He took his meals with us and was present at family prayers, but he never entered the house otherwise, neither was he summoned when guests arrived; he was bashful when strangers joined us at mealtimes, and very soon we got into the habit of sending his food to his room on such occasions. When we went to town, he attended church services with us, but there he slept in the outside room as well and avoided the house when there were visitors. The children sometimes shouted after him in the street, teasing him, but eventually people accepted him the way he was, for he bothered no one. When he was asked a question, an ordinary, everyday question about the things he knew, he answered readily, but for the rest it was often as if he did not quite understand what was being said, and he never initiated any conversation himself. Sometimes, however, it was as if he had completely forgotten where he was and he would just sit, staring dully into the distance, and then Father would touch him and speak to him gently. After Father’s death Maans continued to do this, for Maans also had a great deal of patience with him, but by that time it no longer happened so often, for in time he became accustomed to us again and our routines were not so strange to him any more. He knew the members of our family and called us by our names, but there was never any recognition, nor did he ever show any awareness of the past he had left behind years ago; every day he seemed anew like a stranger, or a visitor arriving with us for the first time.
Maans was not faring well, for the boy was not happy at school. During the winters he spent with us in the Karoo he sometimes complained to me, and I tried to console him a little or encourage him, and help with his lessons, but he did not find it easy to talk and I never did find out exactly what the problem was. Father might still have given in, for I think he missed the child, but Mother was adamant, and so Maans was sent back to Worcester every time. Later he stopped complaining and I hoped things had improved, but it was only because he was growing up and began keeping things to himself, a grown young boy who had started to shave and was preparing to be confirmed — on that occasion he was given Jakob’s gold watch that Father had kept for him all those years. And then one day there was a letter from Maans that I had to read to Father and Mother as usual, in which he told them he found it too hard to learn and did not want to continue at school, but wished to go to Cape Town to become a soldier; and then Coenraad was dispatched to Worcester in the cart to fetch him, and he returned to the farm.
It meant a lot to Father to have Maans home again, for he was the only grandchild, the namesake and heir, after all, while Coenraad after all the years was no more than a stranger and hireling, and Pieter was incapable of more than a few small, menial tasks. In his unassuming way Maans was a hard worker, however, perhaps a bit slow, but precise and dependable. Jakob and Sofie had both been as bright as mirrors reflecting the light, as sharp as shards of mirror glass on which you could cut your fingers, but Maans showed none of their brightness, the quicksilver surface dull, casting hardly any reflection; actually he mostly took after Father, and Father loved him dearly. He obeyed the instructions he was given and discharged his duties; when we travelled to town, he drove the cart or wagon and in winter he helped Coenraad arrange the trek to the Karoo, and what he really thought or felt, no one ever knew.