The Covenant Part 22

'I do,' the girl said, and the meeting was so agreeable that Sarel was put at ease. He wondered if he should volunteer to kiss the girl, but the question was resolved for him; she stepped forward and kissed him on the cheek. 'We're to be married soon, I think,' she said.

'Let's not rush things,' Paul said cautiously, but Annatjie said, 'It will be arranged. The banns will be read.'

Paul objected seriously to having Petronella and her husband attend the wedding, but when Annatjie insisted, a compromise was worked out. Petronella and Bezel would sit in the rear of the church but not partic.i.p.ate; Annatjie said that this was a strange way for Paul to act, seeing that he had given the young couple his house, but Paul said, 'What we do at home's one thing. What we do in public is quite another,' and he simply would not listen to Annatjie's further plea that the couple be allowed to sit in the family pew.

When the wedding party returned to Trianon, Paul said graciously, 'Isn't it lucky we built the extra two rooms? The young people can have one of them.' So they were installed, and he began to watch Geertruyd meticulously, to see if she showed any signs of pregnancy, for with the birth of her first child, the Van Doorns would have a potential inheritor of the vineyard, and his own design would fall into confusion.

He knew it was inevitable, yet the possibility made him irritable, and one night at supper he threw down his spoon and cried, 'd.a.m.nit all, it's been four months since I've spoken a word of French. Everybody in this house speaks Dutch, even though I own the place.'

'You don't own the place,' Annatjie reminded him, 'You own part of it.'

'Then we should speak part French.'

'I know not a word,' Geertruyd said, and this simple statement angered him further.

'They're even threatening to halt the sermons in French,' he wailed. 'Every time I attend a funeral, it means one less French voice in the colony. And none to come to replace it.'

'Paul,' his wife said with a certain harshness. 'Stop this. It's long past the time to acknowledge what you already are, a good Dutchman.' The tone of her voice, her easy a.s.sumption infuriated him, and he stomped from the room and slept that night among the wine casks.

There in the darkness the ugly thought leaped forward in his mind: Annatjie can't live forever. She's almost sixty. One of these days she's got to die. He had respected her for all she and her family had done for him, and had honored his obligation to treat her with civil affection, but now the world that he had built was being threatened, and he wished that she were deadand he began to watch her health as closely as he did Geertruyd's.

Annatjie did show signs of rapid aging. Her hands were withered and heavy lines marked her face. She moved more slowly than when he had married her, and her voice cracked now and then. Her deficiencies were the more notable in that he continued as young as evera vital, hard-working man with a smooth face that displayed his enthusiasm: After all, I am nine years younger. If I had this place by myself ... He was thrilled by the prospect of what he could accomplish; and this was not fatuous, for one had only to look at the buildings of Trianon, those handsome, well-proportioned masterpieces, to realize what this man could achieve.

And now the battle for Trianon began. Sometimes at meals De Pre would seem to strive for breath; he felt surrounded by enemies who were trying to wrest his vineyard from him, and all he could see in the kitchen were hostile faces. Annatjie he could dismiss; she was almost sixty and must soon die. Sarel showed no signs of improving because of marriage, and could be ignored. With peasant cunning Paul saw that his real foe was Geertruyd, this deceptively quiet orphan from Amsterdam. Watching her closely, he found to his dismay that she was watching him. No matter what he did to make his good wine, he could feel Geertruyd spying on him, noting how he acted and why.

She never confronted him, for in the orphanage it had been drilled into her that the sovereign quality in any woman was meekness. So when De Pre railed at her, she kept her eyes lowered and made no response. She also refrained from trying to defend Annatjie when Paul shouted at her, for she was determined to avoid diversionary squabbles. But when De Pre, in his strategic a.s.sault, humiliated Sarel, trying to convince the young man that he was incompetent, she felt her anger rise. But still she fought to maintain self-control.

Four times, five times at supper Paul scorned his stepson, without reb.u.t.tal from Geertruyd or Annatjie, and this convinced him that he could beat down these women. One evening he launched a series of destructive attacks: 'Sarel, wouldn't it be better if you kept away from the slaves? They ignore your orders.'

Sarel said nothing, only fumbled with his spoon, so De Pre stormed on: 'And don't meddle with the wine casks. Certain things around here have to be done right.'

The young man reddened and, still silent, looked down at his plate, but when De Pre dredged up a third humiliating point'Stay clear of the new vines'Geertruyd had had enough. Very quietly, but with frightening determination, she interrupted: 'Monsieur de Pre . . .'

'Haven't I told you to call me Father?'

'Monsieur de Pre,' she repeated menacingly, 'since Sarel will take over the vineyards when you are dead . . .' She delivered the word with such brutal finality that De Pre gasped. He had often contemplated his wife's death, never his own.

'So Sarel and I have decided,' she continued, her face flushed with anger, 'that he must become familiar with all stages of making wine.'

'Sarel decided?' De Pre burst into derisive laughter. 'He couldn't decide anything.'

Everyone turned to look at Sarel, and he realized he ought to respond, both to combat his stepfather and to support his wife, but the pressure was so ugly that he could not form words.

So in her first attempt at defiance, Geertruyd lost, and she noticed that this made De Pre even more arrogant. For the first time he put aside his pledge to treat Annatjie with the respect due a wife and became publicly contemptuous. This grieved Geertruyd, for quite properly she placed the blame on herself; she went to Annatjie and a.s.sured her: 'I shall do whatever I must. Let his wrath fall on me, but you and I together are going to make Sarel strong. You'll see the day, Annatjie, when he runs this vineyard.'

'Have we the time?' Annatjie whispered.

'I hoped last month I was pregnant,' Geertruyd confided. 'I was wrong, but one of these days you'll have a Van Doorn grandson. This vineyard must be protected for him.'

So in the second year of Sarel's marriage the two women intensified their efforts in educating him to be a responsible man and themselves to be masters of viticulture. They studied everything about the process and compared notes at night, but what gave them greatest hope was that Sarel appeared to be learning, too. 'He's not dull,' Geertruyd whispered one night when De Pre had left the table, 'it's just his inability to express his thoughts.' They found that he was developing sound ideas on how to tend vines, make casks, protect the must, and manage slaves effectively, and one afternoon, out in the bright sun, Geertruyd cried joyously, 'Sarel, you'll run this vineyard better than De Pre ever did.' He looked at her as if she had voiced some great truth, and he tried to convey his appreciation, but words did not come easily. Instead he embraced her, and when he felt her peasant body, warm in the sun, he was overcome with love and said haltingly, 'I can . . . make wine.'

That night Paul was unusually obnoxious, for he sensed that Geertruyd, this orphan from nowhere, was on the threshold of transforming Sarel, and it embittered him to think that all the good things he had done at Trianon and he had done manywould ultimately be for the benefit of strangers. 'Sarel!' he lashed out. 'I told you to stay clear of those casks'

'Monsieur de Pre,' Geertruyd interrupted instantly. 'I told Sarel to mind the casks. How else can he run these vineyards when you are dead?'

There was that horrid word again, thrown at him by this twenty-three year-old peasant girl. He beat on the table till the spoons rattled, and cried, 'I want no imbecile meddling with my casks.'

'Monsieur de Pre,' Geertruyd said with an infuriating smile, 'I think Sarel is ready to take complete charge of the casks. You won't have to bother any longer.'

'Sarel couldn't . . .'

Annatjie had heard enough. Sternly she said, 'Paul, must you be reminded that I still have authority in this place? It was I who decided that Sarel must learn how to run it.'

Geertruyd, strengthened by her mother-in-law's support, said firmly, 'Sarel will start tomorrow.'

'That one couldn't line up three staves,' De Pre snarled, and he was about to hurl additional insults, but under the table Geertruyd quietly pressed her hand against her husband's knee, and with courage thus imparted, Sarel spoke slowly: 'I am sure that I . . . can build good casks.'

The battle for the control of Trianon was interrupted by an event so arbitrary that men and women argued about it for decades: it seemed that G.o.d had struck the Cape with a fearful and reasonless scourge. One day in 1713 the old trading s.h.i.+p Groote Hoorn Groote Hoorn docked with an accidental cargo that altered history: a hamper of dirty linen. It belonged to a Compagnie official who had been working in Bombay; upon receiving abrupt orders to sail home, he had been required to depart before he could get his s.h.i.+rts and ruffs washed, so he tossed them into the hamper, proposing to have them laundered while he stopped over at the Cape. Unfortunately, the hamper was stowed in a corner where men urinated and where a constant heat maintained a humidity ideal for breeding germs. This condition was pointed out to the owner, who shrugged and said, 'A good was.h.i.+ng ash.o.r.e and more careful stowage on the rest of the trip will correct things.' docked with an accidental cargo that altered history: a hamper of dirty linen. It belonged to a Compagnie official who had been working in Bombay; upon receiving abrupt orders to sail home, he had been required to depart before he could get his s.h.i.+rts and ruffs washed, so he tossed them into the hamper, proposing to have them laundered while he stopped over at the Cape. Unfortunately, the hamper was stowed in a corner where men urinated and where a constant heat maintained a humidity ideal for breeding germs. This condition was pointed out to the owner, who shrugged and said, 'A good was.h.i.+ng ash.o.r.e and more careful stowage on the rest of the trip will correct things.'

At the Cape the hamper was carried to the Heerengracht, the ca.n.a.l where slaves did the laundry. Six days later these slaves began to show signs of fever and itching skin; three days after that, their faces erupted in tiny papules, which soon enlarged to vesicles and then to pustules. The lucky slaves watched these festering sores change to scabs and then lifetime scars; the unlucky ones died of shattering fevers. Smallpox, that incurable disease, was on the rampage, and whether an afflicted person lived or died was not related to the care he was given.

Forty out of every hundred slaves died that year. Sixty out of every hundred Hottentots at the Cape perished, making their survivors totally dependent on the Dutch. The turbulent disease traveled inland at the rate of eight miles a day, ravaging everyone who fell within its path. One strain leapfrogged the flats to strike at Stellenbosch, and on some farms half the slaves died. The Hottentots of this region were especially susceptible, and many white farmers perished also.

It struck with peculiar fury at Trianon, killing Petronella in the first days and annihilating more than half the slaves. No one in the area tried more diligently to stem the awful advance than Paul de Pre; he went to every afflicted house, ordering the people to burn all clothes related to the dead, and in certain instances, when an entire family had died, he burned the house itself. He quarantined the sick and dug a clean well, and in time the tide abated.

But on the sixteenth day he fell ill, and began to tremble so furiously that Annatjie and Geertruyd put him to bed in the little white outbuilding marked with rake and hoe. There these good women cared for him, a.s.suring him that they would send for Louis at the Capeif that young man had survived the plague. Wrapping their faces in protective linen, they moved like ghosts about the improvised hospital, comforting him and promising to protect his vineyards.

They were heartsick when the pustules on his face proliferated until they covered all parts of his skin; and when his fever rose so that he shook the bed, and his eyes grew gla.s.sy, they knew he could not survive. Still wrapped in cloth to protect themselves from infection, they stayed with him through the night, their candle throwing shadows on the white interior, their forms moving like phantasms come to haunt him for the ill will he had borne them.

He did not become delirious. Like the fighter he was, he followed each step of his decline, and asked, when morning broke, 'Am I dying?'

'You still have a chance,' Annatjie a.s.sured him.

When he began to laugh wildly, she tried to ease him, but he would not cease cackling. Then, looking at the ghosts, he pointed at Annatjie and said in a hollow voice, 'You should be dying, not me. It was intended that you should die, you're so much older.'

'Paul, lie still.'

'And you!' he shouted at Geertruyd. 'I hope your womb is dry.'

'Paul, stopplease stop!'

But the agony of death was upon him. The vast dreams were vanis.h.i.+ng. His sons were alienated; the slaves were dead; the vineyards would be withering. 'It's you who were supposed to die!' he screamed, and the sores on his face showed fiery red as he dragged his fingernails across them. 'It wasn't planned for me to die. You infected me, you witches.'

He tried to leap from the bed to chastise his tormentors, but fell back exhausted. He began to weep, and soon pitiful sobs racked his body as mortal grief attacked him. 'I was not meant to die,' he mumbled. 'I am of the elect.' He stared accusingly at the shrouded figures waiting to collect his fever-wasted bodyand then he died.

Geertruyd, shattered by his hideousness, tried to throw a sheet over him, then broke into convulsive sobs, whereupon Annatjie took hold of her, shook her vigorously, and whispered, 'These are things that are not to be remembered.' And they prepared his body for quick burial.

As soon as Paul was buried, and trenches were dug for the acc.u.mulated corpses of the slaves, Annatjie and Geertruyd made a sober calculation of their position, and it was the younger woman who perceived most clearly the danger threatening Trianon and the strategy by which it might be averted.

'At the Cape, in Java, and in the offices of the Lords XVII men will argue, "No women should be allowed to operate a treasure like Trianon," and steps will be taken to deprive us of it.'

'They will not remove me from these fields,' Annatjie said.

'They will try. But we have two very strong points in our favor. The wines that De Pre blended three years ago are still in our casks. They'll protect us at the beginning.'

'But when they've been s.h.i.+pped?' Annatjie asked.

'By that time we'll have our second protection.'

'What?'

'Sarel. Yes, Annatjie, by the time Amsterdam orders you and me off the place, because a man must run a vineyard, we will put Sarel forth, and convince the authorities that he can run this place better than any other man they might propose.'

'Could he do that?'

'We shall help him do it,' Geertruyd said. And then, looking away, she added, almost in a whisper, 'Each night of my life I shall seek G.o.d's help to become pregnant. When Sarel realizes that he is to be a father . . .' Suddenly she whipped about and caught Annatjie's hands. 'He is a good man, Annatjie. We shall prove to him that he can run this vineyard.'

Geertruyd was right in expecting that the men of the system would resent leaving two women in charge of a property upon which the Compagnie depended for revenue, but she was quite wrong as to where that animosity would originate. Their good neighbor, Andries Boeksma, who could not resist sticking his nose into everything, including his maids' sleeping quarters, began raising doubts both at Stellenbosch and at the Cape.

'The young wife knows nothing, an Amsterdam castaway, and as you know, the boy's an imbecile. The old lady was capable, but she's dying, and I ask you, what's to happen with this valuable property?'

Carrying his concern to the officials at the Castle, he encouraged them to ask the very questions that Geertruyd had antic.i.p.ated, and one night after drinks when the governor asked Boeksma, 'Who could we get to run the vineyards,' Andries said boldly, 'Me. I know the wine business better than De Pre ever did. We don't need Huguenots to teach us how to make wine.'

'That's a sensible idea,' the governor said, and next morning he dispatched letters of inquiry to both Java and Amsterdam.

No one warned Geertruyd that her good neighbor Andries Boeksma was plotting to steal Trianon, but one day as she came from the fields where she had been inspecting grapes, she saw him with his wagon stopped beside their fields, inspecting them, and when she walked over to speak with him, she saw that he was smiling and nodding his head as if engaged in pleasing calculations.

Hurrying home, she sought Annatjie, and found her in bed, too weak from illness to rise, and for a moment the perilous position in which Geertruyd found herself overwhelmed her, and she fell into a chair beside the bed and wept. When Annatjie asked what had happened, she whimpered, 'Now I lose your help, my dear, lovely mother, when I need it most. I just saw Andries Boeksma spying out our land. Annatjie, he intends stealing it from us, just as I warned.' She wept for some moments, then broke into sardonic laughter: 'Stupid me! I thought the enemy would be in Java or Amsterdam. And he was waiting in the next village.'

'My fever will subside,' Annatjie a.s.sured her. 'If we can hold off the Lords XVII, we can hold off Andries Boeksma.' And from her bed, which held her prisoner far longer than she had expected, she took charge of everything, dispatching slaves to perform specific tasks and explaining to Sarel her reasons for each act.

She was especially eager to have the Compagnie import large numbers of new slaves to replenish the work force, but in this she was disappointed; a young official from Amsterdam had landed at the Cape during the last stages of the epidemic and had seen it not as a vast destruction but as a heaven-sent opportunity for reform. In his report to the Lords XVII he wrote: The pox, which did have grievous consequences, offers an opportunity to set Africa on the right path. Our Dutch farmers living there have accustomed themselves to a life of ease. Their daily routine carries them away from their lands to partake of wine, smoke sundry pipes of tobacco, gossip like women, complain about the weather, and pray constantly that their afflictions might pa.s.s. It is ironical that they call themselves Boers, for farmers they are not. They regard all such work as our farmers perform at home as labor fit only for slaves.

I recommend that you use this plague as a G.o.d-sent opportunity to halt further importation of slaves, and to curtail the use of Hottentot and half-caste labor. Let us comb from Holland honest men and women who know how to work, Boers who will create in Africa a peasant cla.s.s of true Dutch character, unspoiled by sloth and privilege.

For a brief moment in history there was a chance that this advice might be followed, converting South Africa into a settlement much like the northern American colonies and Canada, where in good climates free men built strong democracies, but before the proposed Dutch farmers could be imported, the problem was resolved in an unusual way.

Hottentots from independent captaincies east of Stellenbosch had been cruelly ravaged by the pox. Their cattle dead, their traditional hunting lands depleted, they wandered in pathetic groups to farmhouse doors, begging for any kind of work so long as it provided food. This was their only chance of survival, and before long, Geertruyd had accepted so many that Trianon was back to its full complement of workers, proof that if the white man succeeded in his economic enterprises, the brown and the black man would find a way to partic.i.p.ate in his prosperity. The only requirement was that the black do his sharing not for free wages but in some form of servitude.

When the fortunes of the plantation were at their lowest ebb, and rumors circulated that it might be taken from the women, Annatjie in her sickbed conceived a strategy which had to be acted upon quickly. Summoning Sarel and his wife, she told them, 'Now's the time to buy back any claims the De Pre boys might have on their father's share of Trianon. They'll think it's worthless. We know it's going to be invaluable.' To her delight, it was not Geertruyd who responded, but Sarel, who said very slowly, 'They will know our troubles . . . and they will sell ... at a lower price.'

'Oh, Sarel!' his mother cried. 'You do understand, don't you?'

'And this year ... the three of us ... we will make even better wine.'

That night Annatjie composed a letter to Henri de Pre in Amsterdam, offering him a shockingly few rix-dollars for his share, and she wanted to carry the letter herself to the Cape, where she would bargain with Louis, but her health would not permit, so she coached her daughter-in-law: 'Sarel's not quite able yet to conduct such a negotiation. And when you've paid Louis his money, you must go to the Castle and meet with the governor and sound him out.'

'I would feel ill-at-ease,' Geertruyd said, looking at her work-stained hands.

'We do what we must,' Annatjie said, and when the cart was ready, she left her bed to bid the girl farewell.

The meeting with Louis went much better than she had antic.i.p.ated, but it contained one very painful moment. After the deal was concluded, and the papers signed, Geertruyd was led into another part of the house, where coffee and rusks had been prepared, and there she saw De Pre's four sons, and gasped, 'You have four and I have none,' and her barrenness lay heavy upon her.

At the Castle the governor said it was most fortunate that she had come to the Cape, for an Honorable Commissioner had arrived from Java and was awaiting a s.h.i.+p from Amsterdam which would bring him instructions from the Lords XVII. 'We're particularly interested in Trianon,' the governor said as he led her in to dinner.

When she entered the Compagnie mess she was startled by two things: the richness of the huge teakwood table set with gold-and-blue plates kilned in j.a.pan, each bearing the august monogram V.O.C. and accompanied by five pieces of ma.s.sy silver from China; and the presence of her neighbor Andries Boeksma, who had obviously been instructing the Honorable Commissioner from Java about what he considered the troubles at Trianon.

It was a chilly dinner. The three men, each so much older, wiser and more capable than she, stared down their noses at this girl who presumed to manage a great vineyard. 'What are your plans for restoring Trianon?' the man from Java asked.

Taking a deep breath, she said, 'My husband Sarel already has the fields in good order.'

'Sarel?' Boeksma echoed.

'Yes,' she replied, looking straight at him. She hesitated, wondering if she dared say what was in her mind, but then she found her courage. Turning to the governor, she said with the tenderness of a young wife, 'I'm sure you've been told that Sarel's not capable. I a.s.sure you that he is. It's just that he expresses himself slowly.'

'Why isn't he on this mission?'

'Because he is very shy. And I am doing all I can to cure him of that affliction.'

'Many call him slow-witted' Boeksma said.

'Sir!' the man from Java interrupted. 'This lady . . .'

'It was a most rude remark,' the governor said, 'but I would like to know . . .'

'Three years from now, your Excellency, you will bring important visitors to Trianon ... to show them with pride what my husband has accomplished.'

During the journey back to Trianon, Geertruyd van Doorn sat very erect, staring straight ahead as if she were a wooden doll, and when she reached the welcoming arms of her little buildings she did not even glance at them. At the big house she ignored the waiting servants and ran directly to Annatjie's room, where she threw herself on the bed beside the sick woman and broke into convulsive sobs.

After her mother-in-law had comforted her, she controlled herself enough to report on her disastrous visit to the Castle: 'They humiliated me. Three great men staring at me, making fun of you and me. Forcing me to say whether or not Sarel was an imbecile. Oh, Annatjie, it was so shameful. And they mean to take Trianon from us.'

Leaping away from the bed, she stormed about the room, uttering curses she had learned in whispered sessions as a child. 'I will not let them do it. Sarel van Doorn will stand before them and face them down. He will run this vineyard to perfection, and within one month I will be pregnant with the son who will inherit Trianon.'

'That's up to G.o.d,' Annatjie said.

'I am telling G.o.d. "Make me pregnant. Give me the son I need."'

'You are blaspheming, Geertruyd.'

'I am taking G.o.d into my partners.h.i.+p. Annatjie, we have two months at most. They're waiting for instructions from the Lords.'

Annatjie, against her children's advice, rose to supervise fields while Geertruyd worked with Sarel: 'It all depends upon you, my dearest friend. When the men come here to inspect us, you must meet with them, and a.s.sure them that all is well.'

'Men?'

'Yes, three tall men, old, powerful.' She acted out their roles: 'The Honorable Commissioner is a gentleman, but he can be very stern. He'll ask the difficult questions. The governor... well, he knows everything. Andries Boeksma . . .' She studied how to characterize this evil, unpleasant man: 'He's a worm. But if you try to step on him, Sarel, the others will rise to protect him. Let him insult you.'

Since the s.h.i.+p bringing instructions from Amsterdam was tardy in arriving, the committee of inspection had to postpone its visit for more than half a year, which gave the Van Doorns added time to organize their efforts; but Andries Boeksma also had time to establish his attack, and when the long-awaited letters arrived, with instructions that their commissioner from Java must settle everything, Boeksma convened a planning session at the Castle.