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By Root 701 0

teeth that he’d bought, when you’d told him all the time, disks don’t work on shale, the stones get stuck in them and then the disks drag, wear away on one side and then the whole thing’s gone to glory, the rowels that he never remembered to remove from the hoppers after sowing-time, so that they were rusted through from the guano remains when sowing-time came round again. And if only it had stopped there, with neglected machinery, but then there was the mastitis problem with the Jersey cows. Isolate the sick animals, Jak, remember the walk-through foot-bath at the entrance to the stables, strain the first milk from every cow every day, you had to insist time and time again without his ever paying any attention to your words.

Every time his story was that dairy cows were just a nuisance, the slaughter-cattle were far less trouble and maintenance. But with his Simmentals that he acquired time after time things didn’t really go much better. They got eye cancer and every year there were deaths amongst the heifers calving for the first time. The vet’s bills for Grootmoedersdrift were astronomical. Jak’s solution was: Sell all the cattle.

Was that how it began? Jak’s proposal later at table? Sell the cattle herds, before they put us even more out of pocket. The market is good now, we’ll concentrate more on sheep and wheat, it’s lunacy to want this farm to look like a picture in a children’s book.

You made the mistake of protesting.

I’m not the one with the expensive hobbies, I’m not the one who’s forever experimenting with this that and the next thing, Jak. Nor am I the one who walks around with my head in a dream about how easy it is to grow rich from farming. It’s because you don’t inform yourself of all the factors, it’s because you don’t study all sides of a matter before you make an investment. That’s where the trouble starts.

You saw his face set in a grimace, but you couldn’t stop yourself.

If you want to buy Simmentals, then you select them by hand, Jak, and you see to it that each and every one has a decent pair of spectacles. Everybody knows that white faces are prone to growths. They’re spotted cattle and the spots must be on the nose and ears and around the eyes as well otherwise you sure as sure will have problems with growths. Don’t sit there looking at me as if I’m talking Greek, this isn’t Germany, the sun scorches the poor animals to a frazzle, seven, eight months of the year. But no, Jak de Wet of course thinks all he need do is take out the cheque book and phone the importer in South West Africa: Hello Mr Liebknecht, and I’m looking for seventy cows and the biggest champion bull south of the equator to service them, thank you very much, goodbye. And that then is supposed to guarantee success.

Come, Jakkie, Agaat said, I’ll clear later, let’s take a lantern, then we go and see next to the dam if the skunk that’s been eating the ducks’ eggs has stepped into the snare yet.

Jakkie looked at you.

Go ahead, you two, you indicated to him.

Jak clenched his teeth. He wanted to keep the child there to support his arguments. You knew about the promises when one day the cows fetched a good price, of the hang-glider and the microlight with which the two of them would inspect Grootmoedersdrift from the air and float over the kloofs like cranes.

How was a child to resist that? And how must you then present your case so as not to look like a spoilsport?

Sell the bull then if you must sell something, you said while Jakkie was still within earshot. After all we now have excellent offspring from him, younger bulls that would work just as well as him with the cows.

He glared at you. You could feel it was heading for a collision. You couldn’t stop yourself.

Was that perhaps what you wanted, Milla? a collision, after your humiliation two evenings earlier? A collision if a reconciliation wasn’t possible.

You pushed the point.

Year after year, Jak, you put the almighty Hamburg with the young heifers, year after year the calves are too big to be born independently, year after year I ask nicely: Please, get rid of the