A Chain of Voices by Andre Brink

Author:Andre Brink
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2014-10-20T04:00:00+00:00

Pamela

“Take him. Look after him. Don’t let anyone ever do this to him again.”

That was what the woman said. I wasn’t sure I could trust her just like that; one cannot be too careful with these people. In the evenings they read to you from the Bible but the next day it’s something quite different. Much safer to be wary and to keep one’s own counsel. I stood at the stable door watching her as she walked through the yard past Baas Nicolaas who was still standing near the chicken-run; he tried to talk to her but she walked right past him, and that persuaded me that she’d been sincere. Even so I waited until he too had gone inside before I dared to return to Galant.

“Can you get up?” I asked him.

“What makes you think I can’t?”

But it took quite an effort to help him to his feet and on the way to his hut we had to rest several times; just as well that Bet had already gone to the kitchen for I was in no mood to have her around. The others kept their distance when they saw us approaching, as if it embarrassed them to look at us openly. I preferred it that way as I felt even more exposed than Galant, as if it was I dragging myself naked through that yard; in any case he was my responsibility now, not theirs.

“The woman was kind to you,” I said when we stopped outside his hut so he could catch his breath.

“What’s she to me?”

“Come inside. You must lie down.”

“I’m all right.”

Obstinate. But he didn’t even know what he was saying; and when I helped him down on the mattress he passed out again and I had to bring him to with water. After I’d made him comfortable again I sent one of the youngsters, I think it was Rooy, to fetch some medicine from Ma-Rose, for he was clearly in a bad way. Just before sunset she came down to see for herself, with a skin bag filled with ointments and medicine; soon the whole hut was filled with the smell of her camphor brandy, linseed oil and castor oil, Dutch drops, honey and herbs, and the many weird concoctions she’d brewed herself. Even that was not enough to her taste and after a while she went out again.

“Where you going, Ma-Rose?” I asked.

“Got to get some brandy from Nicolaas. I need it for Galant.”

“You not going to ask them anything. I won’t have it.”

But she refused to listen and perhaps it was just as well for the brandy put him to sleep. Only then, with a grunt of relief, did she return to her own hut. Soon afterwards Bet came home from her evening work in the house—Nooi Cecilia wouldn’t go to bed before everything was in its place—but I stopped her at the door:

“You better go to sleep somewhere else. I got to look after Galant.”

She didn’t object. It had been a bad

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