The covenant - James A. Michener [199]
'And we discovered,' Lodevicus continued, 'how we trekboers are the new Israelites. That we have reached the point where Abram was when he changed his name to Abraham and settled in Canaan while Lot chose the cities of the plain, to be destroyed. And I learned that the time of our traveling is ended. That we must settle and build our houses of stone.'
'Did you and the dominee,' Adriaan asked, 'ever discuss the fact that you new Abrahams would be building your houses of stone on land that can be worn out? That we have to move on from time to time to find ourselves better land?'
'They're not moving at Swellendam,' Lodevicus replied, whereupon his mother said, 'We are. This verdomde farm is worn out.'
And while the old couple planned their next leap eastward, the young couple journeyed to the southern farms, there to advise the people how they ought to live.
It was on their return journey that Lodevicus first shared with another human being the mysterious fact that at the stream God had told him that he was to be the hammer, the trekboer who brought order into shapeless lives, and as soon as he said the words, Rebecca understood. With great excitement she said, 'It was why Father and I prayed that you would return from the Cape. And take me with you. That we could perform the tasks that lie ahead.'
'God spoke to you, also?'
'I think He did. I think I always knew.'
It was with this common understanding of their salvation and their mutual reinforcement that the younger Van Doorns came back to the farm, secure in their knowledge of what was required, and the first person their wrath fell upon was Dikkop, now fifty-seven years old and as inoffensive as always. Because of the many years they had shared, and the adventures, Adriaan gave the little fellow unusual prerogatives, and Lodevicus decided that this must stop: 'He is of the tribe of Ham, and he must no longer live with us or feed with us, or in any way associate with us, except as our Hottentot servant.'
When Adriaan protested such a harsh decree, Lodevicus and Rebecca explained things carefully, step by step, so that even Seena would understand: 'When the world started the second time, after the flood, Noah had three sons, and two of them were clean and white like us. But the third son, Ham, was dark and evil.'
'Now, Ham,' Rebecca continued, 'was the father of Canaan and all black people. And God, acting through Noah, placed a terrible curse on Canaan: "Cursed be Canaan! A servant of servants shall he be to his brethren." And it was ordained that the sons of Ham shall be hewers of wood and drawers of water, for as long as the world exists. Dikkop is a Canaanite. He is a son of Ham, and is condemned to be a slave and nothing more.'
It really didn't matter to Adriaan and Seena what the Hottentot was called; he was necessary to their lives, and as such, he was well treated. Seena especially liked to have him in the hut when food was being prepared or eaten, and it was this that caused the first open rupture with her daughter-in-law, for one day Rebecca said in some exasperation, 'Seena, you must not allow Dikkop in the hut ever again.' Then she added, in a voice of honest conciliation, 'Except, of course, when he cleans up.'
'But he's always been with me when I cook.'
'That must stop.'
'Who says so?' Seena asked belligerently.
'God.'
With the snap of a cloth and a sharpness of tongue that invited trouble, Seena said, 'I doubt that God troubles Himself over a woman's kitchen.'
'Lodevicus!' Rebecca called. 'Your mother refuses to believe.' And when Vicus came into the hut to hear the complaints, he, of course, sided totally with his wife, taking down the Bible and turning to those short, inconsequential books that end the Old Testament, and there in Zechariah he found the concluding passage which had loomed so large in the teaching of Predikant Specx at Swellendam:' "And in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Hosts." ' He added that from this time on, the hut was the house of the Lord, and since Dikkop was clearly a Canaanite,