• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

You could have stopped him, you could have opened the window, you could have said Jak, the coffee’s ready in the kitchen, how was the rugby? But you said nothing. You knew that your mother would not betray her presence either. Witness, was what you two wanted to do, witness, and be each other’s witnesses. Again a stirring in the outside room. How many pairs of eyes were there that afternoon?

Jak had his back to you, right in front of the kitchen door. You could hear everything.

You think you can growl at me, you think you can bark me off my own backyard, you think you can crap all over the place here!

Then three kicks. One at Sofie before she could get away, and two into Salomo’s body where he was lying on the ground.

So get away! he hissed at Salomo through his teeth, sag-balls! Should wear underpants, you, he snarled. Powder-prick! No-good, you’ll let them rob us blind here!

The dog struggled up, limped away glancing back nervously. Jak scraped his soles clean with a twig, washed his hands at the tap in the backyard and dried them on his pants, looked at his watch.

Then you pushed open the window of the nursery.

Jak, you said, the coffee is ready in the kitchen, Ma made it.

He looked at you, then darted a glance at the screen door. He walked away quickly, in the direction of the sheds.

You sat down on the chair in the nursery and waited. You unfolded the toy lampshade that you still had to put up. A yellow face with a wide laughing mouth. Open and shut, open and shut you folded it, the sun a fan in your hand.

Your mother came in with a tray and three cups. She put the tray on the washstand, closed the open window, drew the curtains.

She said nothing, waited for you to speak.

Jak is frustrated, you said.

You kept your voice light. It felt as if it was you who’d kicked the dogs. You got up and started fiddling with the baby things on the washstand.

He’s not really a farmer, Ma, you know it yourself.

She said nothing. She waited. You stole a glance at her. She already knew every word that you would say.

He feels worthless, then he takes it out on the dogs.

She made a sound.

He feels I’ve got him under my thumb. And now I’m pregnant, at last after all the years, the centre of attention. I suppose he feels neglected.

Your voice dried up. You were starting to get angry. Old bat preying on me, you thought, first he wasn’t good enough to farm on your land, then he’s the golden boy for twelve years while he’s mistreating me, and you shrug it off as if it’s nothing, and now that I’m pregnant, he’s suddenly a villain if he kicks a few dogs. Keep your nose out of my affairs, you thought. Your cheeks were burning.

You opened the curtains again. The door of the outside room was now wide open. Somewhere in the house you heard a door slam. Something fell onto the floor in the back room. You felt dirty. Your house felt dirty.

Your mother’s voice was like a dipping-rod in your neck, down you had to go, down into the white milky poison.

Milla, look at me, she said, sit down on that chair so that I can talk to you. I’m old, I know more, and I understand more than you think. My life is almost over, I’m free to talk now, I must talk, so that you can’t say one day your mother kept up a front to the day of her death.

Ma, just let it be! You waved your hands around your head.

You will listen, Kamilla. And the walls will listen.

The floorboards in the passage creaked. You signalled with your finger in front of your lips.

But she only talked louder.

Too much understanding of the evil-doer and too little indignation with the evil, she said, that’s how women make a virtue of their own suffering and how men get away with murder. You needn’t keep spinning me pretty tales. Nor he. And don’t try and absolve yourself of all blame in this. Jak de Wet kicks his dogs for two reasons: Because they can’t flatter him in full sentences and because they can’t tell anybody what a two-faced churl he is.

You protested, she held her hands up in the air to stop you.