What more is there: as I grew older, more and more freedom came my way, that freedom that I had been anticipating for so long and that I could use so well now. I was often alone on the farm for days or weeks, and there was no one to see or hear, to observe, wonder or disapprove; only the servants in the kitchen, and what did they care about me? Annie led her own quiet life with her daughter and took no notice of me, and the neighbours no longer tried to call when I was alone, for I usually managed to evade them. Gradually during those days and weeks, those months even, I learned how wide the boundaries of my freedom were and how far I could go before encountering any obstacle; I learned that I might come and go as I pleased and wander where I wished, and I rediscovered all the old paths and the favourite haunts of my childhood. That freedom I had once tasted in town, alone in the house filled with the reflected light of the snow, that freedom had always been subject to limitations, and at the graveyard I had to stand and follow with my eyes the route from the outskirts of the town through the greyness of the veld. Now I was free to go where I wished, without even searching for a footpath, and I could stay out all day without anyone wondering where I was.
At first the war did not change our lives on the farm at all — it was something the men discussed where people sat together, and we were unaffected by it until the commandos invaded the Kolonie and the big English camp was pitched at Matjiesfontein. It was during this time that the ramparts and forts were built along the edge of the escarpment and troops guarded the passes leading from the Roggeveld to the Karoo, and on our farm, too, there was an English camp beyond the dams for weeks. Stienie was pleased, for they had considered moving to the town house, but with the protection of the English, at least we were safe, she said. She was especially pleased when a few of the officers came to ask whether they might play the piano, for the piano in the voorhuis was seldom used; and so they came to play, and she served them tea in her best cups and sat talking to them in the voorhuis, for she had learned to speak English in Cape Town. Maans was not very happy about the English on the farm, for although he was a man of peace who tried not to take sides, he knew people in the district did not approve; there was nothing he could do about it, however, and they paid well for the sheep they purchased to slaughter, and for the bread Stienie had the servants bake for them. After a while they departed, however, and we were left to our own devices; the men and the horses and the tents disappeared almost overnight, but the veld beyond the dams remained trampled and overgrazed for a long time to show where their camp had been.
After this there was only a garrison in town and the town itself was barricaded, and commandos came and went on our farm as they pleased. Stienie mentioned again that it might be safer to move to town, but when the town was attacked by the Boers, she decided it would be better to stay with her friends in Cape Town. No one suggested that I should move to the town house, neither did they suggest that I should accompany Stienie for my own safety, and thus Maans and I spent the war alone together on the farm, with Annie and her daughter in the old homestead. There was martial law and the horses were commandeered: we could not ride anywhere, and no one came to visit any more. In the Hantam and the Roggeveld the commandos moved about freely, and from time to time they would suddenly appear in our yard, asking for food or clothing. I do not think Maans was very pleased with these surprise visits, but he could not refuse to give them what they demanded, and many of our sheep were slaughtered for which he never received a penny. One New Year they captured one of Maans’s herdsmen and another man at Bastersfontein because they had supposedly spied for the English and, after thrashing them, shot and killed them. Their wives came to Maans to complain and I remember their cries and wails in the yard; I stood at the kitchen door, just behind Maans, and looked out, my eyes blinded by the glint of the sun on the white dust in the yard, but there was nothing I could do for them, and Maans was equally helpless, for it was war and the invaders did as they pleased.
For a long time we could go nowhere and it was safe nowhere, and Maans suggested a bit hesitantly that it might be better if I did not wander about in the veld on my own as was my habit. More than that he did not say; but afterwards I usually went out when he was not at home to worry about me. To me it was different, however, as if the earth and the veld I had known all my life had suddenly changed, as if the familiar places had suddenly become treacherous and the familiar land could no longer be trusted, glistening and dangerous as a yellow cobra slithering away among bushes and rocks. Some of the young men in our district joined the commandos and some of them were shot dead in skirmishes, or sometimes one of them was caught and executed as a rebel, young men I scarcely knew, though their parents or grandparents were of my own generation. In our isolation our only information came from the herdsmen who brought us news of these battles and executions, and the servants knew more about the movements of the commandos and the troops than they ever told us.
Something had changed and when the war was over, life was not the same. Maans returned to Parliament in Cape Town, but he was past fifty and his hair was quite grey: sometimes, when I noticed how old and tired he looked, I was suddenly reminded of the child I had piggy-backed and raised alone, and the schoolboy who had wanted to become a soldier. Did he remember the water glittering in the sunlight among the reeds, I sometimes wondered; was there a vague memory from his childhood of tears pouring down my cheeks as I knelt in the veld, and did he ever wonder uneasily where this obscure image came from or what it meant? Or had even that been forgotten?
What would have happened if Father had allowed him to leave? Would he have been happier now, or unhappier? Who can tell? Stienie spent even less time at home during these years, for she often complained of her health and said she had to stay in Cape Town to be close to the doctors who could treat her, or else she would be somewhere at the seaside, or at the baths at Goudini or the sanatorium at Caledon. When she was at home, she was restless and unhappy, and the only time she seemed content for a while was when visitors came over or she could find a reason to entertain. Her eyes remained restless and searching and her voice took on a sharp and whining tone. As she grew older, she gained weight and she dressed more and more outrageously in clothes she brought with her from Cape Town: she had always been a little grand for us but dare I say she now became flamboyant, with her gussets and frills and trains, the hats with their flowers and ribbons and veils and large hat pins and the ostrich feathers — Stienie had always loved ostrich feathers. Where people used to smile good-naturedly about her dress style before, their remarks were less charitable now, and especially the women were quite vicious at times. Oh, it was mostly the younger people who did not know her well who were less than kind in their opinions and quicker to appoint blame and pass judgement, and they sometimes made her seem more ludicrous than she really was.