siblings hired to provide entertainment (UD: 97 “Oom Piet’s Party”).
Beukes, Gerhard J(ohannes) Academic, playwright and joint recipient of the Hertzog Prize; his works often consist of reworked biblical themes (VS: 170 “Die Duistere Vers”).
“Beyond the Beyond” (YB: 37) A man uses a medium to question his deceased grandfather. A rough-around-the-edges story that shows early signs of HCB’s ability to create a brooding atmosphere out of everyday events.
Bezuidenhout, Jan Young Cape Boer on commando with OSL whose exploits in battle were in the tradition of his great-uncle (S&H: 123 “Great-uncle Joris”).
bhang See dagga.
“Bible as Literature, The” (WS: 160) HCB remarks that the widespread circulation of the Bible (especially as a result of its dissemination among men of the armed forces during World War II) is a good thing, for “[a]part from its importance as a religious work, the Bible contains, in the Old and New Testaments, the world’s greatest literary and poetic treasures.” The Old Testament has retained its currency, he remarks, because much of it deals with city life, while, in the New Testament, “the figure of Christ has occupied [a unique place] in the imagination of the poet and artist of all races and of all creeds.”
Bible verse about sparks flying upwards The source is Job 5: 6-7: “For affliction cometh not forth of the dust, / Neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; / But man is born unto trouble / As the sparks fly upward.” Jan Bezuidenhout makes this remark to Frikkie van Blerk in a slight altercation about the risks of leaving one’s wife alone at home while one is on commando. Bezuidenhout hints that humankind alone is the source of problems (they don’t simply emerge from the earth): in this case, the lust of men who take advantage of the women left on their own, and, perhaps, the weakness of the women who accept male company in these circumstances (S&H: 124 “Great-uncle Joris”).
Bierce, Ambrose (1842 – c. 1914) American journalist and humorist; born in Ohio, he fought in the Civil War (1861– 65) and reached the rank of major. Moved to California after the war and worked with Bret Harte and Mark Twain. Continued to work as a journalist and writer in England and in various parts of America; published a collection of ironic definitions entitled The Cynic’s Word Book (1906), later known as The Devil’s Dictionary. Disappeared during the Mexican Civil War and was never seen again. Best known for his dark Civil War short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (L&O: 159 “Round my Library Shelves”).
Big Dolly A notorious Johannesburg prostitute (CSJ: 155).
Big Mavis Fordsburg prostitute whom Bernard is accused of pimping for and about whom the police wonder: “[W]hat did they call her ‘Big Mavis’ for? What part of her was big?” (YB: 160 “Street-woman: A Play in One Act”).
Big Polly A notorious Johannesburg prostitute (CSJ: 66).
Bijou Cinema Constructed in 1910 as a state-of-the-art cinema, it had an orchestra pit (for silent movies); demolished in 1958 to make way for an office block (L&O: 83 “Daisy de Melker”).
Biljon, Flippus A coloured man who was reclassified as white after the discovery of his birth certificate; whereupon he thanked the magistrate: “Thank you, baas,” Flippus Biljon said. “Thank you very much, my basie” (IT: 87 “Birth Certificate”).
Billikins Spirited prankster and employee of the Daisy Steel Corporation (YB: 25 “The Needle Test”).
Billy the Bastard Unsympathetic warder who insists on searching a prisoner who has fainted after his hand has been cut off by a power saw, before allowing fellow prisoners to carry him away for medical attention (CSJ: 107; L&O: 71 “Prison Warders”).
biltong Delicious dried, salted and cured meat (MR: 110 “Mampoer”; S&H: 112 “Cometh Comet”).
bioscope (archaic) Cinema; before cinema theatres existed, films were shown at fairgrounds as part of a travelling attraction; in SA, uniquely, the name stuck and came to mean either the film or the cinema theatre (MR: 39 “Ox-wagons on Trek”; UD: 33 “The Picture of Gysbert Jonker”; H: 106 “Mental Trouble”).
“Birth Certificate” (IT: 87) The voorkamer crowd talk about changelings raised in strange and unfortunate circumstances. One of HCB’s most perceptive and penetrating stories; hilarious yet poignantly and painfully sad in its criticism of racial ideologies. “And while the shadows under the thorn-trees grew longer, the stories we told in Jurie Steyn’s voorkamer grew, if not longer, then, at least, taller.”
birthplace Born 3 February 1905. “I was born in Kuils River – a Cape peninsular village within sight of Table Mountain – but I have lived most of my life in Johannesburg. My links with my birthplace are of the slenderest” (L&O: 31). Returning to his birthplace in June 1947, he observed that “there was nobody in the place that I knew or that knew me. Still, Kuils River is only a small town, and after I had signed my name in the hotel register and it had got around who I was, I had quite a lot of notice taken of me. For people all thought I was related to Bosman, the rugby forward. I didn’t feel called on to tell them I wasn’t. I did not want my home town to get disillusioned with me” (L&O: 31). His musings upon his return: “How shall I describe my feelings on alighting at the shabby little railway station and gazing about me at my unfamiliar birthplace, which I saw again, now, for the first time, since the age of four? I felt very lonely. There was nothing about the place I recognised. And if it wasn’t for the fact that Table Mountain looked quite near – through its proximity at least giving me some sort of clue as to whereabouts I was – I felt sure that I would have caught the next train back again. I felt so lost, both emotionally and geographically” (L&O: 33). “I had only one conscious memory of Kuils River. That was when I was about two. I was seated on the grass, wrapped around in a blanket, and there was a soft wind blowing, because it was getting on towards sunset, and the two young girl cousins, a few years older than I, were dancing about me on the grass. And I suddenly burst into tears, just like that, without reason. And the sadness of that memory has, at intervals, haunted me throughout the rest of my life” (L&O: 33).
The Malan grandchildren: Herman (seated), Pierre (bottom left), Zita Grové (standing left) (NELM)
bitterbessie (Afr.) Lit. ‘bitter berry’; while there are many bitter berries there is no specific plant named a bitterbessie (IT: 102 “Stars in their Courses”).
bittereinder(s) (Afr.) Lit. ‘bitter-ender(s)’; a soldier in the Second Anglo–Boer War (and by extension his family) who refused to surrender after the capture of Pretoria and other major centres in 1900, but who fought on into the protracted guerilla phase of the war, until the ‘bitter end’ in May 1902. See, in particular, the OSL-narrated stories “The Question”, “Peaches Ripening in the Sun”, “The Traitor’s Wife” and “The Rooinek” for vivid depictions of this phase of the war, and of the attitude and conduct of the ‘bittereinders’. The term is used in opposition to the so-called ‘hensoppers’ (‘hands-uppers’), who surrendered meekly at earlier stages in the war. See “Mafeking Road” for a depiction of this unheroic tendency among some Afrikaners, and “The Rooinek” (MR: 130), where HCB misspells it ‘hendsopper’.
Black Hole of Calcutta A dungeon in Fort William, Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, where British prisoners of war were held in 1756. Conditions were so cramped that many soldiers suffocated; some accounts say as many as 123 of the 146 prisoners died, others say only 23 died. In context, Dap van Zyl’s fear leads him to believe that he too is suffocating in the holding cell, and he offers a needless confession merely to get out of
