The covenant - James A. Michener [321]
'Please, Tjaart, the years slip by and I am not yet ordained. Will you speak with the predikant?'
'Have you a Bible?' Tjaart asked. Theunis nodded eagerly, so they went to his wagon, and there in Leviticus, Tjaart found the citation he needed; it was terrifyingly explicit:
And the Lord spake unto Moses saying ... Whosoever... that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God ... Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or hath his stones broken ... he shall not come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries.
Leaving the book open so that Theunis could see for himself, if he so wished, Tjaart said, 'There it is. You have a blemished eye. You give the impression of being crookbackt. It's impossible for you to be a predikant.'
'It's just a cold,' the little man said, daubing at his offending eye. And then the pretense ended and he scratched at his eye, crying, 'I would to God I could pluck it out.'
'Then you'd be blind,' Tjaart said, 'and the blemish would be even greater.'
'What can I do?' Nel pleaded, and all Tjaart could say was 'You're a teacher. You are God's sick-comforter. That's the way you must serve.'
'But I could do so much more. Tjaart, did you hear those dreadful sermons the fat Scotsman gave? No fire. No touch of God. It's a disgrace.'
'For reasons of His own, God has forbidden you to preach. Be content.'
And he shoved the difficult little man away, watching him as he returned to the wagon that would carry him to the four farms where he conducted his school, and when those children were grown, to four other farms, and then four others, until some younger sick-comforter should in due course come to him to ease his dying. He was the man of God whom God rejected.
On the way back to De Kraal in the new wagon, Tjaart thought several times that he would burst into tears before his entire family, something he had never done. But his anguish over the despair of little Minna was almost more than he could bear, and even as he tried to console her he felt himself coming apart, and he would leave before he made a fool of himself. Walking beside the lead oxen, he would try not to think of her sorrow, and his mind would fix on Aletta as she worked in the store, stretching to find a box, or as she appeared on the day of her wedding like a spirit risen from the veld, all gold and smiles and enchantment. He was entertaining such visions one afternoon when he heard a sudden cry from the wagon, and when he rushed back he found that Minna had undone the cloth in which her new dress was being carried and was tearing the garment apart, throwing the bits upon the veld.
'Daughter!' he cried in rage. 'What are you doing?' 'It's no use! I am lost!'
Climbing into the wagon beside her, he took her in his arms and told the slave women to recover the bits of cloth and take the dress away; it could be mended. He was not so sure about his daughter's heart, for in the days that followed she fell into a fever and lay in the wagon shivering and not caring whether she lived or died. The women had several remedies for such afflictions, but none sufficed, and on the third night Tjaart crept into bed with her, and kept her warm and comforted her, and when the dawn broke he said a strange thing: 'We must both forget Nachtmaal.'
Ironically, it was Van Doorn's oldest slave who announced the long-awaited decision on slavery. 'Baas, Baas!' he cried. 'Die big baas Cuyler, he here.' And that remarkable man from Albany, New York, Colonel Jacob Glen Cuyler, strode heavily into the De Kraal farmhouse. The two men with him did not presume to enter, but remained respectfully outside: Saul, the Xhosa deacon at Golan, and Pieter, son of Dikkop. The first was old and gray, the second hastening in that direction.
They were at the first stage of an incredible venture: Cuyler had fetched them from the mission village and was