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  ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘I think we should all do it.’

  ‘It’s not everyday that we get a chance like this.’

  ‘I always knew I had a novel inside me.’

  ‘Me too. Something in the style of Jane Austen, I think.’

  ‘The fees are reasonable, too.’

  ‘What’s her name again?’

  Anna took the newspaper out of her shopping bag. ‘Here it is,’ and she read aloud. ‘Victoria Abbeyfield, the well-known international author, is touring the country offering creative writing classes in various centres. She will be in Corriebush next week, and anyone who has ever longed to write – be it children’s stories, poetry, novels or an autobiography – is welcome to attend. Classes are limited to six, therefore anyone interested should waste no time in enrolling. This can be done at the newspaper office. A small deposit is required.’

  Leaving their coffee half-drunk, their scones barely touched, they rushed.

  ‘It’s poetry for me,’ said Sophia. ‘Comes naturally. Like:

  The sun by day and the moon by night

  They brighten the land with a lovely light.’

  ‘Jolly good Sophia,’ they said kindly, and then, having filled in their forms and paid their deposits, went shopping for pencils and notebooks.

  The following Monday found them sitting excitedly in the council chamber behind the Town Hall, where the classes were to be held. Victoria Abbeyfield sat at a table in the front. A small, thin lady, wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, her hair pulled into a wispy bun in the nape of her neck, a single string of pearls, a beige twin-set, flat chest. They were a little disappointed.

  ‘I thought she’d look very rich,’ Anna whispered to Nellie. ‘You know, just like the photographs you see on the back flaps of books – lots of curly hair, big soulful eyes, faces resting in their hands, fingers full of rings.’

  ‘Never mind, with nine best-sellers, two divorces and a third husband under her belt she’s probably quite worn out, but she must also be very clever, and that’s what counts in this sort of situation.’

  And indeed, Victoria was not only clever, she was experienced and patient, and knew just how to set any shred of imagination in motion.

  ‘I want you ladies,’ she said, ‘to close your eyes and think back to your childhoods. Don’t scramble around in your minds, just remember the first thing that comes up. Hold it, and then I want you to tell it. Because that’s where I like to start – way down in memory lane. Writing from experience is always the purest form of expression. So just sit back for five minutes, and then I’ll ask you what has come to you out of the past. It may be a wonderful surprise, it may be something that frightened you, it may be sad or happy or connected with your parents. Just sit now, and let go.’

  For five minutes there was total silence in the room as they sat, each at a table, eyes tight shut, trying to unravel their years.

  Maria was the first to open her eyes.

  ‘You see something, Maria? Something spring to mind?’

  Maria shuddered. ‘It was horrible.’ Now they were all awake, sitting up and listening. ‘I was ten years old and it was the night before the school bazaar. We had to get there very early to set up the tables, so I put my gym tunic, shirt and tie over the chair in my room, all ready, in order to save time in the morning. It was still half-dark when I jumped out of bed, pulled on my shirt and tunic and then reached for my ‘tie’. Halfway to slinging it round my neck, I knew. It was not a tie. It was a snake.’

  The women gasped and shook their shoulders in little wobbles of horror. ‘I screamed and flung it across the room and my father rushed in and killed it. It’s true.’

  ‘My goodness,’ commented Victoria. ‘I don’t quite see a full story there, but hang onto it, we might be able to develop it into Tales of the South African Veld, or something like that.’

  Sophia was wriggling in her chair, eager for her turn. ‘What came into my head was also about school. When I threw my teacher with a pomegranate.’ ‘We’ll correct the grammar later,’ said Victoria. ‘But please carry on, Sophia.’

  ‘It was the first day of term and we had a new teacher, and so she had to go round the classroom asking for all our full names and surnames, and when it was my turn, she put her hands over her face and laughed and laughed. I knew, because her shoulders were shaking like a jelly and she was making little snorting noises, and tears were running out between her fingers and …’

  ‘But what did you tell her that caused all this? What is your full name then?’

  ‘Sophia.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Sophia Aspidistra.’

  Victoria’s face remained impassive. ‘Well, that certainly is an unusual name, Sophia, but there was no need for her to be so rude.’

  ‘No, no need at all. So I took out my lunchbox. My mother had given me two mutton sandwiches and a pomegranate – we had a long pomegranate hedge in our garden – and I took it out and threw her with it.’

  ‘Threw it at her, Sophia.’

  ‘No, I walked up to her and threw it, hard, on the top of her head. I used both hands, and she went ‘hic’, like that, and the red pips spattered all over the floor, and then she turned pale and fell over.’

  ‘Oh dear, Sophia. What then?’

  ‘Well, Hettie, who sat next to me, went to call the headmistress and she helped the teacher out – took her by the arm and supported her to the staffroom and – do you know what – she never came back!’

  ‘Well now. It would be difficult to turn that into a full-length story, Sophia, but not impossible. One would have to put a moral in it somewhere. Perhaps you could meet her some years later – let’s make it at the seaside. You’re both swimming and she is suddenly knocked over by a wave, you save her from drowning, and then you both forgive each other and become friends. Aspidistra To the Rescue – A Story For Young People. How does that sound to you?’

  ‘Like blerrie nonsense,’ answered Sophia under her breath, while she nodded and smiled sweetly at Victoria.

  Victoria turned to Anna.

  ‘Not ready yet.’

  ‘Nellie?’

  ‘Thinking, thinking …’

  ‘Amelia?’

  ‘Just a few more minutes.’

  ‘Your turn then, Lily.’

  Lily was sitting very, very still.

  ‘Lily, it’s your turn now!’

  Lily seemed not to have heard Victoria, but to have gone somewhere else, into a space deep inside. Her eyes were staring at nothing, unblinking and clouded.

  ‘Lily?’

  And then, in a voice almost as soft as a whisper, Lily started.

  ‘The story is not mine. It was told to me by my mother, who was told it by her mother, who heard it from her mother. It is about a child called Sara Liebenberg, who was one of our family a very long time ago.’ A long pause. ‘I asked my mother to write it all down in a book, and I read it so often I think I know it by heart, word for word as the story was passed down.’

  ‘Go on then, Lily.’

  ‘It’s a very long story, do you mind?’

  ‘Of course not. Carry on.’

  ‘It was a bitterly cold evening. As we all know, summer days here in the Karoo are so hot that the veld trembles with heat; mirages melt the scorched kopjes and the bushes shrivel to spiky scrunches in just a few hours. The birds don’t sing, they are nowhere; even the cicadas are quiet as the world seems to stop, only waking again at sunset. But the winters are different. Especially the nights, when the veld lies stretched out taut, cracked with frost under a frozen white moon. People hesitate to go outside, for it is a dry, aching cold and the air makes them gasp.

  ‘My story starts on such a winter’s night. It was July l835.

  ‘Inside the small, whitewashed farmhouse Sara lay snuggled under a pile of feather blankets in a four-poster bed. Beside her, her sister and small brother, Anna Maria and Christiaan, lay sleeping soundly, but Sara was wide awake, disturbed by
strange noises coming from the voorkamer. Not the usual, homely sounds to which she was accustomed – coffee bubbling in the old brass urn, the servants singing psalms round the fire, her papa tapping his pipe on the hearth – but the frightening rasp of a man’s voice raised in anger.

  ‘Quietly Sara crept out of bed and tip-toed through to the voorkamer, where she stood in the doorway; a fair-haired little girl of nine, in a long white nightdress flecked with shadow and firelight. They were sitting round the dining room table; her father, her mother, and a stranger – a man with a thick black beard hanging down over his knotted neck cloth – and he was shouting, banging his fist on the table until the crockery rattled. ‘I tell you, Barend! I tell you now as surely as I am sitting here and my name is Pieter Kruger, I tell you that there is only one – only one – answer to the problems that we Boer farmers face. WE HAVE TO TREK!’

  ‘Sara’s mother, Estella, looked up sharply. ‘You mean we should leave Olyffontein, Piet? Move again? Haven’t we trekked often enough?’

  ‘I know, I know, Estella,’ Pieter addressed her more soothingly. ‘It’s hard, but it’s the only way. We have to get away from this verdomde British government, and the only way we can do it is to trek away from the Colony. Go north! They say there’s wonderful country beyond these borders – open, empty land, good grazing, and freedom.’

  Then he turned back to Barend and, holding up his hand, ticked off his grievances one by one. ‘Now listen here man. First, there’s the question of security. Bah! What security? We will never have security under this government! There’s no law and order and there’s no protection. There’s no fair judicial system. And there’s tribal theft and plunder. Constantly. They set our houses on fire and drive our cattle away. Then – can you believe it – we are forbidden, forbidden, Barend, to take back the stolen stock!’

  Barend nodded. ‘Yes, it’s happened to me too, lost most of my herd, and my house reduced to ashes.’

  ‘Then take the missionaries, Barend – especially that damned Read and Van der Kemp. They run off tattling to England, putting the blame for all the wars and destruction on us, the farmers, and the government believes them! Calls us criminals!’

  ‘I know Pieter, I had to travel for days to appear in court, even though I knew that the charges were false! They always believe the missionaries, never the Boers. And of course there’s also the slave question, and the financial losses …’

  Kruger did not wait for Barend to finish. He was so angry now that he leapt off his chair and banged both fists on the table. Estella jumped with fright. ‘That’s right! Free The Slaves they say! Set them free and then you – you Boer peasants – you can come to England to fetch your money. And then don’t expect much!’ He slammed the table. ‘NO, NO my friends! We cannot live any longer under the British flag – especially, especially now that Dutch, our language, is slowly but surely being replaced by English.’

  He was becoming tired now, his head beginning to droop. ‘Ag no. They have taken away our labour, our freedom, our language – and worst of all – our dignity. There is no peace here; only turbulence, and ruin. Barend and Estella, WE HAVE TO GO! Let us trek over the mountains where we can be proud and independent, and start again.’

  Nothing more was said. Piet Kruger sat dead still now, staring at the table. Sara’s father clasped his huge hands together and bent over them, as though he were praying. His wife quietly went on embroidering the black satin shawl on her lap. The room was alive with emotion.

  Finally Estella Liebenberg scraped back her chair. ‘Would you like something to drink Pieter?’ she asked, measuring some roasted grain into the brass teapot. ‘I’m afraid we have no more tea leaves, but we still have some sugar candy,’ and she passed a small tin box. ‘If you take a sip of this, and then suck some candy, it is not so bitter, and really quite refreshing.’

  Sara drew back into the shadows. She knew she would be sent away if they saw her, but how could she leave her father when he looked so upset? Why were his fingers shaking as he lit his old clay pipe? Sara caught the fragrant smell of the tobacco with which he stuffed it. The tobacco hung in long thick ropes from the rafters under the thatch, together with the mealie cobs and the carcasses of freshly killed sheep. Glancing up, she could just see the coils hanging there like looped snakes, first black, then copper-red as the flames in the open hearth licked up and down the walls. Between the coils of tobacco hung her father’s hunting equipment and his sjamboks of rhino hide, strings of calabashes, and dried fruit. The floor on which Sara stood was made of antheaps, first pounded into dust and then watered and stamped. It was hard and cool, and her feet were beginning to feel cold. She crept back to the bedroom. She would tell Anna Maria and Christiaan in the morning.

  Piet Kruger did not spend the night. He needed to get home, he said, his wife and children were alone and he felt uneasy about leaving them. After he had left, galloping on his horse into the freezing night, the Liebenbergs did not go to bed. They sat, instead, next to the fire in the kitchen while Barend spoke gently to his wife about his decision.

  ‘Remember when I went to Nagmaal last month?’ Estella nodded. Normally the whole family would have gone, but she was pregnant with their fourth child and the journey to Colesberg – twelve days by ox wagon – would have been too much of a risk. ‘Well, the evening before the church service, we were called to a meeting in the town square. We were addressed by Sarel Cilliers – I remember him so well: a short, stocky man, with long sideburns and a fair beard, wearing knee breeches and a frock coat. He stood on a chair in the middle of us all, and this is what he said:

  “Brethren,” he began, “the time has come for the Afrikaner nation to rise up and go. We are a peace-loving and God-fearing people. And this is our country. We have no ties with any other home. We were born here, and wish to remain here, sons of the soil. We have pioneered the land, paid our taxes and done military service. In return we expect justice and security. And what do we get, brethren? What do we get?”

  ‘And they told him. Emotionally, passionately they told him; standing there in the light of the fire, holding their hats in their hands. Stories of hardship and loss, poverty and war. And after the last man had spoken, Cilliers stood again on his chair. “We do not know what lies ahead, brethren, but we do know that here, in the Colony, we farmers stand alone and unsupported. Every nation has its faults, and the British government does have many good intentions and many noble and honourable men in its service, but they will never understand us and our problems, because they’re too far away. To the north of this country we hope to find our freedom; no laws, no wars, we can build other farms, new lives … Brethren, we must rise up and go.” Then he held up his hand. “But remember! We go in peace. We wish to harm no man.”’

  ‘We must leave Olyffontein, Estella.’ His wife bent her head and nodded. She was used to moving. This would be the fifth time.

  Preparations started early next morning, as bit by bit their home was taken apart and packed away into three canvas-covered wagons which could be dismantled for floating across rivers or descending steep slopes. Their clothes were packed into chests – parasols and muffs in one, everyday wear in the others – bonnets, chintz dresses, flap-trousers, velskoene and linen shirts. Onto the main wagon went a large wooden katel strung together with riempies, while the others carried the four-poster beds, the stinkwood settee, the copper moulds and pewter tureens. The three-legged iron cooking pots were hooked on the outside, with space for crates of fowls in between.

  ‘Can I take my dolls, Papa?’ asked Sara, looking for a chest into which she could stuff them. ‘We’ll take as much as we can, Saratjie,’ he replied, putting his arm round her shoulders, ‘so that we can start our new life in comfort, surrounded by our beloved old possessions. We’re going to have a fine home again, my treasure. A big farm, somewhere in the north, with running streams and waving grass, soft blue mountains and every kind of animal you can imagine.’

  Estella worked from before dawn u
ntil late at night, baking beskuit, preparing biltong with salt and coriander, filling bins with meal for bread, making candles and soap with sheeptail fat and woodash and soda. She and the children filled bags with seeds so that they could plant again, as soon as they were settled – mealies and oats and fertile plum pips, apricots and peaches. And then they sewed twelve spare bonnets, kappies, for the sun.

  The family left on the 2nd of January, l836. The three wagons with Estella and the children and their faithful servants Gawie and Antjie, with their sons to act as voorloopers. Barend rode ahead on his horse, threading a path between the large bushes and watching for anthills.

  Sara looked back. The house seemed very small, very lonely, and even as she looked, the heatwaves shimmered over the walls, stifling the house and trees in a pale, blistering haze. Sadly, she turned and looked ahead. To the right, to the left, all around there lay nothing but the endless, rippling, copper-hot Karoo.

  Their trekkie was but one of many. In the New Year of l836, there were sixty wagons, white-canopied and gaily painted, threading their way across the plains to Colesberg. Day after day the oxen plodded on in the swirling dust, and day after day the sun rose triumphantly, splashing the east with volcanic colour. Anxiously they scanned the skies for signs of rain, while the cicadas laughed and thrummed out their brittle chorus and the heat hung, thick and turgid, over the aching countryside. They could not travel at the height of day. By five o’clock in the morning they had inspanned and moved off. At eleven, they stopped again, and then at four, when the cool west wind, the droogtewindjie sprang up, they moved on until sunset, when they outspanned for the night.

  Like several other families, the Liebenbergs had to spend a few days at Colesberg, waiting for the last members of the party to arrive – Botha, Kruger, Steyn, Brits … And then, with unquestioning faith and the singular determination of the Boer, they gathered their families together and set off north under the leadership of Sarel Cilliers. A band of refugees, so proud, so courageous – and quite desperately naïve and unaware.