I remember standing in the garden, watching the water running in the furrow. What else, what more is there to remember? One spring, it must have been a year or two after Father’s death, when Maans had brought us in for Nagmaal; it must have been that evening that I remember now. There was a vegetable patch alongside the house, and in front of the stoep I had planted a few flowers that I was trying to keep alive, and I remember standing in the garden with the water running in the irrigation furrow. Why do I suddenly remember that evening of which I have not thought for forty years? A spring evening at twilight, the chill air of the Roggeveld briefly tempered, the starkness of the new village and the surrounding ridges softened by the evening light, the greyness fleetingly tinged with colour; the white tents and tented hoods gathered around the church and the market square, where the Nagmaal-goers were outspanned, and the glow of their evening fires in the distance beyond the scattered houses, the smoke hanging over the roofs; voices of people and of youngsters suddenly bringing life to the accustomed silence, the laughter of young people so seldom heard in town. What feelings arose in me as I lingered alone outside in the garden instead of entering the house and closing the door behind me? I no longer know; it is too long ago, and I do not remember in such detail. Perhaps something like restlessness or yearning — but no, I doubt it, for if I had ever been bothered by restless feelings, that time had long passed. Perhaps something like resignation to the peace of the evening and my own solitude; perhaps I already had a vague realisation of my own freedom as I stood there alone in the garden, listening to the laughter of the young people in the distance.
I stood there until Mother came out on the stoep to see where I was, and asked me where Maans was, and I did not know: somewhere among the other young people, I thought, among the voices and shadowy figures in the growing darkness. The chattering young people strolled past the house on their way back to the outspan and they greeted us in passing, Mother on the stoep and me in the garden, and we noticed Maans, who was walking more slowly and had fallen behind, and the dim glow of a girl’s white dress in the dusk; we saw them pause for a moment, their companions forgotten, before the girl broke away and ran after the other young people who had walked on. It was quite late and I began to think of going in, but Mother remained on the stoep, leaning over the handrail to stare after the white dress disappearing into the darkening twilight: Nellie Vlok, a modest, friendly girl, whose father worked a piece of land for the Nels of Elandsvlei and had a handful of sheep grazing there. I remember Maans standing in the street in front of the house, and the brightness of the sky, pomegranate-red beyond the church, the ridges etched in black, and the water still running in the furrow, invisible in the dark. Then Mother called Maans inside, and the next day we returned to the farm, though we had planned to stay in town longer.
And so it became Stienie.
Rumour had it that her father was a rich man, though there was no outward sign of it. He had served on the church council for years, but he was an unattractive little man who never had much to say for himself. His wife had died early, just after the birth of their baby daughter, and he never remarried, but filled his house with unmarried and widowed sisters, aunts and cousins, who raised his child and took care of his household. With the founding of the congregation, many of these old ladies took part in church affairs and fluttered around the minister, and they also called on Mother regularly when we were in town — “old ladies” I say now, though most of them were probably my age; but to me they were always Mother’s guests, no matter how old they were. It was during this time that Stienie suddenly began to accompany her relatives when they came to visit Mother, though I should have thought it quite boring for a girl like her among the older women. She was reserved, however, a plump, dark girl who did not say much and was always most polite to older people, always ready to pass on, pick up, or fetch something. To me it was as if she were trying a bit too hard, and she always made me feel uneasy, for she seemed unnatural to me; but it must have been the way she had been raised in that house full of women. Mother approved of her and remarked complacently that it was evident the girl had had a proper upbringing.
Of course no one asked my opinion, and why should they, for it was of no consequence, and if the thought should ever have occurred to them, what could I have told them except that the girl left me uneasy with her affectionate behaviour and polite manners? That moment in the voorhuis, a sudden glimpse of something I had never suspected — no, how could I ever have expressed it in words or made anyone understand its significance? But I remember, and I believe it is the first clear memory I have of Stienie; I remember how one day I sat in the voorhuis with the women who had come to call on Mother and, glancing up from the sewing with which I was occupying myself after a fashion, I saw Stienie opposite me, unaware of my gaze. What were they discussing? It must have been marriages and deaths and inheritances, as usual, but I do not know, for my attention was focused on my pitiful sewing or on other things, not on the conversation, and for all I know Stienie had not been listening either, and what I saw had nothing to do with the conversation. I remember her pale, round face with the plump cheeks and the darting eyes, and how something suddenly moved across it like lightning, something that I could not describe, but that surprised me in this quiet, agreeable girl. “Yearning” I might call it in the light of my experience over the years, if I have to find a name for it, but nevertheless I would be unable to explain what I mean: “yearning”, “greed”, “avarice”, these are words that automatically come to mind, and I am at a loss how to find more accurate terms. What did she yearn for then, and did she ever find it? Was it what she has now — the money, the possessions, the privileges and status that still leave her unsatisfied, the hunger unsated? But in that single unguarded moment, unnoticed by any of the older women gathered in the voorhuis, in that moment I saw the tenacity and wilfulness hidden behind the easy-going and affectionate behaviour, and I knew she would pursue the fulfilment of her own desires with a passion and ambition that would in their own way be as narrow and unwavering as Mother’s.
So it became Stienie, Stienie who turned up at our house more and more often when we came to town — for the cousins and the aunts were more often in town than on the farm — who came knocking at the kitchen door with a note or a message or a bowl of quinces, and sat down on the bench beside Mother’s chair spontaneously to talk. Usually Maans was also present, for he always brought us in to town and took us out to the farm again, and sometimes he had to wait in town for days while Mother delayed her return, and then Maans was told to walk Stienie back to their town house across the street from the church, to carry the bowl she was taking back or the coffee grinder she had come to borrow, or simply because it was getting late and Mother felt she should not be walking back on her own. When they left, the house was suddenly very quiet: Mother stooped to light the candle and I began to draw the curtains. Outside it was so dark that I could no longer see Stienie and Maans. The child I had raised had been lost to me for a long time.
So it became Stienie, and she and Maans were married in the church in town, and afterwards the wedding guests were received in the town house, not on the farm as might have been expected. It was probably Mother who had arranged it like that, in order to show off the elegance of the town house, but it might also have been Stienie’s own choice, for during the engagement she gradually began expressing wishes and making demands, regardless of how lovingly and meekly they were made. What Maans desired no one asked, and he fetched what was needed from the farm and endured the formalities and festivities, as he endured the uncomfortable tailcoat and white gloves, or the mocking and teasing of the young men against which he had no defense.