The covenant - James A. Michener [156]
'Have we the time?' Annatjie whispered.
'I hoped last month I was pregnant,' Geertruyd confided. 'I was wrong, but one of these days you'll have a Van Doorn grandson. This vineyard must be protected for him.'
So in the second year of Sarel's marriage the two women intensified their efforts in educating him to be a responsible man and themselves to be masters of viticulture. They studied everything about the process and compared notes at night, but what gave them greatest hope was that Sarel appeared to be learning, too. 'He's not dull,' Geertruyd whispered one night when De Pre had left the table, 'it's just his inability to express his thoughts.' They found that he was developing sound ideas on how to tend vines, make casks, protect the must, and manage slaves effectively, and one afternoon, out in the bright sun, Geertruyd cried joyously, 'Sarel, you'll run this vineyard better than De Pre ever did.' He looked at her as if she had voiced some great truth, and he tried to convey his appreciation, but words did not come easily. Instead he embraced her, and when he felt her peasant body, warm in the sun, he was overcome with love and said haltingly, 'I can . . . make wine.'
That night Paul was unusually obnoxious, for he sensed that Geertruyd, this orphan from nowhere, was on the threshold of transforming Sarel, and it embittered him to think that all the good things he had done at Trianon and he had done manywould ultimately be for the benefit of strangers. 'Sarel!' he lashed out. 'I told you to stay clear of those casks'
'Monsieur de Pre,' Geertruyd interrupted instantly. 'I told Sarel to mind the casks. How else can he run these vineyards when you are dead?'
There was that horrid word again, thrown at him by this twenty-three year-old peasant girl. He beat on the table till the spoons rattled, and cried, 'I want no imbecile meddling with my casks.'
'Monsieur de Pre,' Geertruyd said with an infuriating smile, 'I think Sarel is ready to take complete charge of the casks. You won't have to bother any longer.'
'Sarel couldn't . . .'
Annatjie had heard enough. Sternly she said, 'Paul, must you be reminded that I still have authority in this place? It was I who decided that Sarel must learn how to run it.'
Geertruyd, strengthened by her mother-in-law's support, said firmly, 'Sarel will start tomorrow.'
'That one couldn't line up three staves,' De Pre snarled, and he was about to hurl additional insults, but under the table Geertruyd quietly pressed her hand against her husband's knee, and with courage thus imparted, Sarel spoke slowly: 'I am sure that I . . . can build good casks.'
The battle for the control of Trianon was interrupted by an event so arbitrary that men and women argued about it for decades: it seemed that God had struck the Cape with a fearful and reasonless scourge. One day in 1713 the old trading ship Groote Hoorn docked with an accidental cargo that altered history: a hamper of dirty linen. It belonged to a Compagnie official who had been working in Bombay; upon receiving abrupt orders to sail home, he had been required to depart before he could get his shirts and ruffs washed, so he tossed them into the hamper, proposing to have them laundered while he stopped over at the Cape. Unfortunately, the hamper was stowed in a corner where men urinated and where a constant heat maintained a humidity ideal for breeding germs. This condition was pointed out to the owner, who shrugged and said, 'A good washing ashore and more careful stowage on the rest of the trip will correct things.'
At the Cape the hamper was carried to the Heerengracht, the canal where slaves did the laundry. Six days later these slaves began to show signs of fever and itching skin; three days after that, their faces erupted in tiny papules,