There is no daybreak any more, only the dark; first darkness, then sleep. The dark has obliterated the moonlight, the dark has snuffed out the candle-flame; Pieter falls wordlessly from the window-sill, back into the darkness whence he had come, and only Sofie’s black dress still glistens for a moment as she dances alone to the rhythm of the soundless music until she too disappears, a shadow in the shadows. They have found peace, and now this life can end too, the report delivered, the account given and the balance determined. The water has dried up and the soil did not retain the footprint. The darkness obscures it all.
I wished to get up and move through the sleeping house, I wished to go out in search of something, but that desire has also passed, as did the anxiety and the memories, and everything has been engulfed by the vast darkness, and surrendered. What could I still search for now? Let others come, other people one day long after us. Amongst the burgeoning undergrowth where the porcupines have dug their burrows they may find stones for which there is no apparent explanation and the weathered remains of inscriptions that can no longer be deciphered or understood: they may make out a single name or year, but who could determine its authenticity or say what it had once meant? Where the stacked stones of an old wall have fallen apart, among shrubs and stones and grass, no one will ever search for the remains of wood or metal that was once hidden there, and even if splinters or fragments should be found, who would still recognise them for what they had once been, a cross or a ring? The stones once stacked there, have broken up and fallen apart, and there is no sign of them among the rocky ledges, outcrops and ridges in the flat, faded landscape of stone.
GLOSSARY
BASTER: person of mixed race; half-breed (sometimes derogatory)
BASTERSFONTEIN: a place name, fountain where the Basters live
“BLINK JAKOB”: Shiny (Sleek) Jakob
BOERS: inhabitants of the Transvaal and the Free State in the time of the Anglo-Boer War
BOTTERBLOM: African daisy, Gazania krebsiana
BRANDSOLDER: fireproof loft
BROEDERBOND: fraternal society for Afrikaner men
BOEGOE: buchu, Agathosma species
BYWONER: share-cropper, person with no land of his own, farming on the land of others
DASSIE: rock-rabbit, Cape hyrax
DOMINEE: reverend, clergyman, also used as title
GEELBOS: yellow bush (lit.); Leucadendron salignum
GOUSBLOM: marigold; Namaqualand daisy; Arctotis species
HARPUISBOS: resin bush, Euryops species
HARTBEESHUISIE: mud-and-daub house, also known as wattle-and-daub hut
KAREE: Karoo tree, or bastard willow; Rhus lancea
KAROSS: blanket or mantle made of skins with the hair left on
KATSTERT: cat’s tail, Bulbinella species
KIST: box, chest
KLIPSPRINGERTJIE: small antelope, African chamois
KNEG (pl. KNEGTE): farm labourer with slightly higher status; overseer, foreman
KOLONIE: the Cape Colony
KRAAITULP: Homeria species
MEESTER: Master (title given to schoolmaster)
PADKOS: provisions for a journey
PERDEUINTJIE: Babiana curviscapa
PLAKKIE: Cotyledon orbiculata
REEBOK: a small South African antelope with sharp horns
RENOSTERBOS: rhinoceros-bush, Elytropappus rhinocerotis
RIEMPIE: leather thong (used for making riempie-seat chairs)
SETIES: dance, also known as schottische, or Scottish polka
SJAMBOK: short, heavy whip, originally of rhinoceros-hide
SLAMAAIERMEID: Malay woman (derogatory)
SPEKBOS: shrub of the genus Zygophyllum
STUIPDRUPPELS: anticonvulsive drops
TESSIE: container with handles for hot colas, placed inside a foot-stove
TREK: long, arduous journey, especially on foot; can also refer to travelling by ox-wagon
VELDKOS: veld foods, edible wild plants and fruit
VOORHUIS: front room, living-room, parlour
WILDE ANYS: wild aniseed, Pharnaceum lanatum
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