Sofie herself, while she, on the other hand, treated uswith aloofness and was usually withdrawn and sullen in our company. Only towards Gert did she show a certain ambivalence, and after her arrival he hung around the kitchen far more often, so that Mother had to chase him away and even Father had to admonish him on occasion. With Jacomyn, a further element of division of which I became increasingly aware during that time was introduced into our already divided little world, for Dulsie reacted to the intruder with immediate animosity, complained endlessly to Mother about her doings, referred to her scornfully as a Slamaaiermeid and maintained she practised magic, while Jacomyn berated her as a Hotnot, and treated her with insolent indifference.
What was the cause of the division in our family, in our home, on our farm – brother against brother, parent against child, master against servant and servants among themselves; whence came the animosity, dissension and spite? We lived together in the same house, shared the same yard, worked together on the same land, met with the same predicaments and faced the same threats and dangers, inescapably dependent upon each other on those barren heights, inextricably connected in our isolation, and nonetheless irrevocably divided, with no hope that the rift would ever be healed. Nine people in the same house and on the same farm, bending over the same task, working together shoulder to shoulder, and yet we never really got to know each other, or made any real effort to get closer, but just brushed past each other in our daily lives, and gradually the abrasions developed into festering wounds. Only in the evenings during family worship did we all come together to unite in the apparent solidarity of a common activity; or at least we gathered in the same room, family members around the large table in the voorhuis and servants to one side in the corner by the kitchen door while Father read aloud from the Bible and led us in prayer. Together – yes, only apparently so, for werewe united even within the walls of that single room? How much did Father understand of that text he followed with his finger, word for word, head inclined towards the candle-flame, those words of admonition or judgement, of love or absolution, trivialised into a mere low-pitched monotone; how much of it did any of us hear, understand, take in? While he was praying I studied the people around me from behind my entwined fingers, my own family around the table in the uncertain light of the candle, Father, Mother, Jakob, Pieter and Sofie, and in the floating, fluid shadows along the wall the vaguer outlines of the servants, Dulsie, Jacomyn and Gert.
Who followed the prayer and submitted to it, except, perhaps, Father himself in his devotion? Wide-eyed I watched them at that moment when they thought they were unobserved, all busy with their own troubles, dreams or ambitions, eyes shut, heads bowed, hands raised, frozen in the routine gestures of supplication and worship, yet with their thoughts far away. From behind the protection of my folded hands I saw the glance wandering absently, the eyes filled with desire, tenderness or malice that for a single unguarded moment rested on another, eyes searching out eyes and for a single unguarded moment finding each other over the bowed heads of the others. What I saw there, I could not name or recognise at the time either, yet I was already aware of something stirring and changing, like the veld when the clouds sweep past swiftly and the landscape of stone and shrub loses its starkness for a moment to drift away in changing patterns of shadow and light. It was just a moment in the uncertain circle of the candlelight, and then the prayer was over, the chairs scraped across the floor, the candles were lit and we withdrew for the night: the family to their rooms, Dulsie and Jacomyn to their beds on the kitchen floor, Pieter to the outside bedroom where he had been sleeping since
What was the cause of the division in our family, in our home, on our farm – brother against brother, parent against child, master against servant and servants among themselves; whence came the animosity, dissension and spite? We lived together in the same house, shared the same yard, worked together on the same land, met with the same predicaments and faced the same threats and dangers, inescapably dependent upon each other on those barren heights, inextricably connected in our isolation, and nonetheless irrevocably divided, with no hope that the rift would ever be healed. Nine people in the same house and on the same farm, bending over the same task, working together shoulder to shoulder, and yet we never really got to know each other, or made any real effort to get closer, but just brushed past each other in our daily lives, and gradually the abrasions developed into festering wounds. Only in the evenings during family worship did we all come together to unite in the apparent solidarity of a common activity; or at least we gathered in the same room, family members around the large table in the voorhuis and servants to one side in the corner by the kitchen door while Father read aloud from the Bible and led us in prayer. Together – yes, only apparently so, for werewe united even within the walls of that single room? How much did Father understand of that text he followed with his finger, word for word, head inclined towards the candle-flame, those words of admonition or judgement, of love or absolution, trivialised into a mere low-pitched monotone; how much of it did any of us hear, understand, take in? While he was praying I studied the people around me from behind my entwined fingers, my own family around the table in the uncertain light of the candle, Father, Mother, Jakob, Pieter and Sofie, and in the floating, fluid shadows along the wall the vaguer outlines of the servants, Dulsie, Jacomyn and Gert.
Who followed the prayer and submitted to it, except, perhaps, Father himself in his devotion? Wide-eyed I watched them at that moment when they thought they were unobserved, all busy with their own troubles, dreams or ambitions, eyes shut, heads bowed, hands raised, frozen in the routine gestures of supplication and worship, yet with their thoughts far away. From behind the protection of my folded hands I saw the glance wandering absently, the eyes filled with desire, tenderness or malice that for a single unguarded moment rested on another, eyes searching out eyes and for a single unguarded moment finding each other over the bowed heads of the others. What I saw there, I could not name or recognise at the time either, yet I was already aware of something stirring and changing, like the veld when the clouds sweep past swiftly and the landscape of stone and shrub loses its starkness for a moment to drift away in changing patterns of shadow and light. It was just a moment in the uncertain circle of the candlelight, and then the prayer was over, the chairs scraped across the floor, the candles were lit and we withdrew for the night: the family to their rooms, Dulsie and Jacomyn to their beds on the kitchen floor, Pieter to the outside bedroom where he had been sleeping since
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