been prickling on my tongue ever since Lukas Death had spoken the name: “Does anybody here know a girl called Emma?”
An urgent whisper did the rounds, but they gave no answer.
“I believe she used to swim down there in the river, when there was still water in the rock-pool.”
This time one of them ventured, “Ma told us to tell you nothing.” And ten others took up the refrain. “Tell you nothing…tell you nothing…tell you nothing.”
“I’ve heard that she and Little-Lukas were close friends.” This provoked some giggling, followed by, “nothing…nothing…nothing.”
End of conversation. Outside, my little private pest was waiting again, at a safe distance, the usual green patina on his upper lip. I said something, but he pretended not to hear. Pissed off, I moved on to try my luck elsewhere. Petrus Tatters, large and angular, with flapping jacket, the shoemaker who wouldn’t stay home at night. Job Raisin like a dried fruit among his trays. Tall-Fransina in a man’s shirt and trousers beside her still, her hair chopped short. But nowhere could I find an opening. And my supply of smokes was dwindling fast.
Bloody Glass Darkly
Gert Brush, too, was happy to accept a cigarette. With his sloping head, hair over his eyes, a loner by nature, and blessed with a perpetual grin, his appearance seemed to have been fixed by a clock striking six at the wrong moment. In his long tunic which looked more like an outsized shift, one could find him sweeping the street with a broom of branches every morning. But in the afternoons he withdrew into his voorhuis to work on the paintings which I was told were his real passion. His paints and brushes and oil, I’d heard from Lukas Death, were brought in by Isak Smous when he came back from his bartering trips; and like all the other men in the settlement he’d taken over the job from his father. On the floor, with their faces to the wall, stood a dozen or so canvases on which, Lukas Death had told me, Gert Brush had painted, over the years, the portraits of all the inhabitants of the Devil’s Valley. As soon as he’d completed a round of canvases he would start again at the beginning, overpainting the previous portraits. It was his habit, as it had been his father’s and grandfather’s, to dilute his paint quite excessively with linseed oil, for reasons of parsimony rather than aesthetics, as a result of which all the earlier faces remained vaguely and disconcertingly visible, staring up at one as if through a bloody glass darkly. The first time I met Gert Brush, Lukas Death had brought me round, if somewhat reluctantly and only at the price of an extra cigarette. The potential historical importance of the collection excited me, but I soon discovered that in spite of his chronic grin Gert Brush was as pigheaded as the rest.
“Who’s this one, Gert?” I asked in front of a man with an unusually ruddy face.
“It’s Little-Lukas’s grandfather, Lukas Devil. He was mos born with two goat feet.”
“And the face looking over his left shoulder?”
“Our first predikant, Doep Dropsy.”
“Tell me more about the Lermiet family.”
“The people wouldn’t like it.”
“They needn’t know about it.”
“They’ll know.”
“Another cigarette?”
He had no qualms about accepting, but he stuck to his guns. And the mere thought of all those images with their faces to the wall, beyond my reach, stuck in my gullet.
No Shortage
The only person I found more or less approachable was Lukas Death, yet by no stretch of the bloody imagination could even he be called forthcoming; and like Tant Poppie Fullmoon he gave the impression of tolerating my presence only because for some reason he had to. I could, however, exploit his weakness for cigarettes. There were few questions he gave straight answers to, but at least he was prepared to give me an idea of how the settlement functioned. How occupations were handed down from father to son, or mother to daughter; how
An urgent whisper did the rounds, but they gave no answer.
“I believe she used to swim down there in the river, when there was still water in the rock-pool.”
This time one of them ventured, “Ma told us to tell you nothing.” And ten others took up the refrain. “Tell you nothing…tell you nothing…tell you nothing.”
“I’ve heard that she and Little-Lukas were close friends.” This provoked some giggling, followed by, “nothing…nothing…nothing.”
End of conversation. Outside, my little private pest was waiting again, at a safe distance, the usual green patina on his upper lip. I said something, but he pretended not to hear. Pissed off, I moved on to try my luck elsewhere. Petrus Tatters, large and angular, with flapping jacket, the shoemaker who wouldn’t stay home at night. Job Raisin like a dried fruit among his trays. Tall-Fransina in a man’s shirt and trousers beside her still, her hair chopped short. But nowhere could I find an opening. And my supply of smokes was dwindling fast.
Bloody Glass Darkly
Gert Brush, too, was happy to accept a cigarette. With his sloping head, hair over his eyes, a loner by nature, and blessed with a perpetual grin, his appearance seemed to have been fixed by a clock striking six at the wrong moment. In his long tunic which looked more like an outsized shift, one could find him sweeping the street with a broom of branches every morning. But in the afternoons he withdrew into his voorhuis to work on the paintings which I was told were his real passion. His paints and brushes and oil, I’d heard from Lukas Death, were brought in by Isak Smous when he came back from his bartering trips; and like all the other men in the settlement he’d taken over the job from his father. On the floor, with their faces to the wall, stood a dozen or so canvases on which, Lukas Death had told me, Gert Brush had painted, over the years, the portraits of all the inhabitants of the Devil’s Valley. As soon as he’d completed a round of canvases he would start again at the beginning, overpainting the previous portraits. It was his habit, as it had been his father’s and grandfather’s, to dilute his paint quite excessively with linseed oil, for reasons of parsimony rather than aesthetics, as a result of which all the earlier faces remained vaguely and disconcertingly visible, staring up at one as if through a bloody glass darkly. The first time I met Gert Brush, Lukas Death had brought me round, if somewhat reluctantly and only at the price of an extra cigarette. The potential historical importance of the collection excited me, but I soon discovered that in spite of his chronic grin Gert Brush was as pigheaded as the rest.
“Who’s this one, Gert?” I asked in front of a man with an unusually ruddy face.
“It’s Little-Lukas’s grandfather, Lukas Devil. He was mos born with two goat feet.”
“And the face looking over his left shoulder?”
“Our first predikant, Doep Dropsy.”
“Tell me more about the Lermiet family.”
“The people wouldn’t like it.”
“They needn’t know about it.”
“They’ll know.”
“Another cigarette?”
He had no qualms about accepting, but he stuck to his guns. And the mere thought of all those images with their faces to the wall, beyond my reach, stuck in my gullet.
No Shortage
The only person I found more or less approachable was Lukas Death, yet by no stretch of the bloody imagination could even he be called forthcoming; and like Tant Poppie Fullmoon he gave the impression of tolerating my presence only because for some reason he had to. I could, however, exploit his weakness for cigarettes. There were few questions he gave straight answers to, but at least he was prepared to give me an idea of how the settlement functioned. How occupations were handed down from father to son, or mother to daughter; how
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