The covenant - James A. Michener [150]
'It will be glorious!' he cried with deep pleasure as the sun began to sink, throwing bold colors on the hills behind the house, and he could visualize travelers from the Cape approaching this haven of white buildings and generous spaces.
Construction started immediately. Ten slaves dug foundations, piled rocks, and mixed mud for the walls. Cadres were sent into the fields to cut the heavy thatch that would form the roofs, and Bezel Muhammad led still others into the forests to find yellow-wood for the rafters. Under the constant urging of De Pre, the two rows of buildings seemed to spring from the soil, and when they were nearing completion, and Muhammad's supervision was no longer needed, Paul took him aside to explain what would later prove to be the most engaging aspect of the buildings.
'What I want,' he told Bezel, 'is for each of the eight compartments to have over the door, in the darkest stinkwood you can find, an oval plaque, carved in high relief, indicating what goes on in that segment of the building.' And he stepped along the two flanks, suggesting by big movements of his hands what he had in mind.
'As we ride in, first door on the left, a pigeon, dark against the white wall. Next a pig, because we'll use this as part of the sty. Next a stack of hay, and over this door near the house, a dog. Now let's go back and look at the right-hand side. First a rooster, then a measure for grain, then a pot of flowers, and on the one nearest the house, a rake and a hoe.' Bezel nodded, already planning in his mind how he would carve certain of the signs, but as he started for the two-room home he had built for Petronella some distance from the main house, Paul called him back: 'On the right-hand side, have the tools over the next-to-last door. Save the flowers for the door nearest the house, so that Mevrouw de Pre can get to them easily.'
In all he did, he consulted the wishes of Mevrouw. He might have been tempted to be unpleasant with Annatjie, for she was both older and plainer than he; fifty-one years of ceaseless work had roughened her face, while he remained a handsome youngish man of only forty-two. Girls from surrounding farms, and sometimes their mothers, too, had looked at him with affection, but he had so desperately yearned for control of Trianon that he was willing to pay the price, and that was faithful attention to Annatjie, through whose hands he had acquired it. He would never belittle her, or mention her advanced age, or in any way fail to pay the debt he owed her.
He gave evidence of this attitude on the day the two outreaching buildings were completed, each door with its splendid identifying oval, for after Annatjie had inspected everything and approved this handsome addition, Paul said, 'And now we attend to your needs.'
'I have none,' she said.
'Oh, yes. Your house is too small for you.' She noticed with approval that whereas he often said 'my farm, my vineyard,' and even 'my fields at Trianon,' he invariably referred to the house as hers. There she was mistress, and he proposed making it worthy of her.
Leading her inside, he showed how the T could be improved by the simple device of adding two large rooms to the stem. 'What we'll do,' he explained, 'is change it from a T to an H.' And he pointed out that if this were done, she would also gain two small gardens in the empty parts of the H. 'In hot summers, the cool wind will come at us from all sides.'
When the H was completed, it worked exactly as he had foreseen, and the De Pres now had the finest house in Stellenbosch, a low gracious set of buildings beautifully associated with meadow and mountain. But still his insatiable urge to build drove him on: 'Bezel, I want you to carve me a monstrous oval, six times bigger than the little ones.'
'Showing what?'
'Wine casks decorated with vines.'