again. It’s all very well being a member of somebody else’s family. But I have a duty to my own family. I want to get back to them alive.”
Johnny Coen remarked that next time Gysbert van Tonder had an American tourist on his hands, he need not take him to the Limpopo, but could just show him around the Marico farms.
It was then that Gysbert van Tonder asked Org Losper straight out what his business was. And, to our surprise, the stranger was very frank about it.
“It is a new job that has been made for me by the Department of Defence,” Org Losper said. “There wasn’t that post before. You see, I worked very hard at the last elections, getting people’s names taken off the electoral roll. You have no idea how many names I got taken off. I even got some of our candidate’s supporters crossed off. But you know how it is, we all make mistakes. It is a very secret post. It is a top Defence secret. I am under oath not to disclose anything about it. But I am free to tell you that I am making certain investigations on behalf of the Department of Defence. I am trying to find out whether something has been seen here. But, of course, the post has been made for me, if you understand what I mean.”
We said we understood, all right. And we also knew that, since he was under oath about it, the nature of Org Losper’s investigations in the Groot Marico would leak out sooner or later.
As it happened, we found out within the next couple of days. A Mahalapi who worked for Adriaan Geel told us. And then we realised how difficult Org Losper’s work was. And we no longer envied him his Government job – even though it had been especially created for him.
If you know the Mtosas, you’ll understand why Org Losper’s job was so hard. For instance, there was only one member of the whole Mtosa tribe who had ever had any close contact with white men. And he had unfortunately grown up among Trekboers, whose last piece of crockery that they had brought with them from the Cape had got broken almost a generation earlier.
We felt that the Department of Defence could have made an easier job for Org Losper than to send him round asking those questions of the Mtosas, they who did not even know what ordinary kitchen saucers were, leave alone flying ones.
Bull-calf
The Government lorry from Bekkersdal was late. Jurie Steyn had several times come from behind his post office counter and had stood at the front door, gazing in the direction of the poort.
“How am I going to get through the milking?” he asked in an aggrieved tone, cupping a hand over his eyes some more and staring across the kameeldorings. “I’ve had these mailbags ready and everything since early this morning – before the cattle went out of the kraal, even.”
Johnny Coen looked at the untidy bundles on the counter and his lip curled.
“Next time you make up the mailbags in the kraal, you should perhaps wait until the cattle have gone out,” Johnny Coen said. “Then they wouldn’t walk over the mailbags … Or was it pigs?”
To our surprise, Jurie Steyn did not take offence.
“I really do believe, sometimes,” he replied, thoughtfully, “that it would be better if I did go and do my post office work in the stable. I get no peace here, in the voorkamer. It is that Duusman. He’s been chewing the mailbags again. It’s a habit I despise in him. But that’s the worst of rearing a bull-calf by hand. I’ve sometimes thought I’ll just give Duusman the voorkamer and I’ll move into the stable. That’s at least one place that Duusman never goes into, anyway. He won’t be seen in a stable – not him. He’s much too stuck-up.”
Gysbert van Tonder said that that showed you how intelligent a handraised bull-calf like Duusman could be. To be able to tell the difference between Jurie Steyn’s voorkamer and a stable. Many a human being would hardly know the difference, even. Not at first glance, that was, Gysbert explained.
Now, although he was always saying things to Duusman’s detriment, Jurie Steyn was secretly very proud of his hansbul, and he really thought that Duusman was different from any other bull-calf in the Marico that had been brought up by hand. And so Jurie Steyn felt not a little flattered at Gysbert van Tonder’s remark.
“I won’t say Duusman hasn’t got brains,” Jurie Steyn acknowledged, modestly, “if only he’ll use them in the right way.”
We could not help feeling that, with those words, Jurie Steyn would like us to think that he himself had brains – just because he had brought Duusman up by hand.
In the meantime, Oupa Bekker had been nodding his head up and down.
“It’s all very well rearing a calf or a goat or a sheep by hand,” he announced, “but you mustn’t also educate him. The moment a bull-calf gets educated above his station in life, he’s got no more respect for you. He doesn’t seem to understand that, just because you’re older than he is, you must know more.”
“I wouldn’t say that’s always the case, Oupa,” Johnny Coen said. “I mean, it’s not just only age. There are also other things that broaden the mind – like travel, say.”
We knew, of course, that Johnny Coen was referring to the time he was working on the railways at Ottoshoop.
“Well, I wouldn’t object if Duusman took it into his head to travel a bit,” Jurie Steyn asserted. “It would do him good. He’ll soon find out that it’s not every hand-raised bull-calf that has got as good a home as he has. And he’s so inconsiderate. After he’s been loafing about the vlei all morning, Duusman will never think of wiping the clay from between his hooves before he comes walking into the voorkamer for his dish of kaboe-mealies. That’s a hand-raised bull-calf all over. But it’s my wife that spoilt him, of course. I knew right from the start that no good could come from her feeding him in the voorkamer. ‘Give Duusman his lunch in the kitchen, Truitjie,’ I used to say to my wife from the very beginning. ‘Then, later on, when he’s more grown up, he’ll be used to coming round to the back door for his meals. If Duusman gets into the habit of walking in at the front door he’ll start having ideas about himself before he’s much older. You watch if I’m not right.’ But she wouldn’t listen to me. Now you see what’s happening. I’m only looking forward to the day when Duusman will have grown so wide and fat that he won’t be able to come in through the door of the voorkamer anymore.”
That was the moment when Oupa Bekker giggled. It was a disturbing sort of sound. Oupa Bekker was, after all, somebody aged and respected. Except when he said silly things – such as when he said that he could make quite a good living even if mealies were only ten shillings a bag, never mind the new price of twenty-four shillings. Then we knew that he was just aged.
And the way Oupa Bekker giggled now was not pleasant. Even At Naudé looked unhappy. And At Naudé had a wireless set and had heard some queer noises coming over it in his time – and not merely as a result of his not having been properly tuned in, by any means. there was the time, for instance, when he invited several of us to come and listen in to what he informed us was an opera being broadcast, and right through, at intervals, At Naudé said, “Yes, I know what you kêrels think. You think it’s the atmospherics.”
“What I want to say is,” Oupa Bekker remarked, after his laughter had set over into coughing and Chris Welman had slapped – some of us thought punched – the old man vigorously on the back, “if you think that will be the end of your trouble with a bull-calf that you’ve reared by hand –”
Oupa Bekker gave signs of wanting to laugh again. But he stopped himself in time. That was when he saw Chris Welman,
