Out of Africa
Out of Africa
‘Verdamt buitenlanders. They’re as bad as kaffirs.’ He folded the newspaper, allowing his grand-daughter space to set his lunch down. She seated herself opposite him.
‘Pampa! That is a terrible thing to say. Stop it.’
‘Well it’s true. We don’t need them here.’ He inspected his plate, ‘I hate English asparagus, so green and bitter, why don’t we have proper Dutch asparagus - nice thick white stalks.’
He bowed his head and said grace. It was good of his grand-daughter and her husband to take him in. He tried not to forget. ‘You know, I think I’ll go for a walk this afternoon. Get out of your hair for a while, with Jasper being home earlier today.’
‘Okay Pampa. But please don’t upset the villagers.’
‘Pah! They shouldn’t provoke so.’ He bit an asparagus stalk, talking as he chewed. ‘You know I still hear them speaking English, and young ones as well, your age. It’s been nearly forty years.’
‘It doesn’t hurt anyone. Anyway, I’m sure if our capital was destroyed, queen killed and nationality removed, we’d cling to the past. Especially if our conquerors lived among us like we do with them.’
‘That will never have happen to The Netherlands. We are a strong people, not like these scum.’
‘Pampa, you hate the English, black people, Canada and all the Papal States. Is there anyone outside the Greater Dutch Empire that you do approve of?’
‘Yes,' he replied, 'The Confederate States of America. Fought with some when we took Cape Town. They hated the English too, and they knew how to deal with kaffirs. Plus, they need all the support they can get, what with the Communists to the north and Papists to the south. These journalists know.’ He tapped at the newspaper, the pages rustling as his finger prodded.
His grand-daughter shook her head and they finished lunch in silence.
Standing in the vestibule he checked his pockets for handkerchief and change purse, straightened his jacket and opened the door. Bright sunshine and a cooling breeze flooded the hall, along with gentle summer sounds. ‘I’m going out now. I’ll see you later.’ He called, not waiting for a response.
He walked through the village, the ground rising. His pace was slower than usual, the old wound in his knee ached. That damned sniper in Maritzburg. A bus ground up the incline, its thick exhaust fumes making him cough. He wished he had thought to ride up the hill. With his veteran status it would have only cost a stuiver.
The side of the bus advertised a new art exhibition showing in Ashford. Mostly watercolours, an art form he hated. So insipid, not like the Dutch masters with their use of rich oils that made a painting live. He really couldn’t understand why this Austrian fellow, Hitler, was getting so much attention for splashing coloured water on paper. He thumped his chest where the fumes from the bus caught. His breathing was shallower than usual and the coughing made it worse.
From half way up he could almost taste a cold schooner of lager, and little nip of jenever. A drink at the inn would be welcome. Funny how the old bones were struggling with the feeble Kent heat this year. He used to revel in the egg frying temperatures out on the veldt. Andre and Bram would be mocking him, if they had survived. He paused, remembering. If he had not been dragooned into General Wiet’s staff and away rousing the Cape colonists to action, he too would have been slaughtered when the English burnt the farm to the ground. Or starved to death in the concentration camp with his mother.
At the inn he sat outside, looking over the rolling countryside. Some of the fields were turning pale gold as the wheat finally ripened. He could see a tractor as it inched along a narrow lane, from this distance it looked the size of his grandson's tin toys. Such a good boy. The empire would be just fine with little ones like him growing up, so long as his Mother didn't pamper him too much.
A shire-horse, pulling a worn threshing machine, went past. The old farmer with it called a greeting. In English.
An ugly language from an ugly country. There was neither the flat, orderly neatness of his boyhood home in Friesland; nor the wild, untamed, ruggedness of the Transvaal, with its mountains soaring into the clouds. If he closed his eyes he could see them both. But when he dreamt, it was always Africa. Even when he dreamt of his brothers, the three of them were in Africa together, not Friesland. Never, ever, did he dream of England.
No, he hated this country. It was like its people; a veneer of civility overlaid on a poor quality substrate. Stop tending these fields and in less than a generation you wouldn’t know man had been here. There was no depth to them. No wonder they lost the war.
He sipped his beer and wiped the handkerchief across his brow. Sweat poured off him as if he was back on the escarpment at Popplepiek, with the sun hot enough to melt the rubber soles on his boots. They would have killed a million Englishmen for a cold beer then. He chuckled to himself, recalling how they scrambled up the scree. Searjent Linders cursing their slowness.
His arm spasmed, a deep dull ache that spread across his chest. Now he understood the shortness of breath, the difficulty walking up the hill. Not here. Not in this elephants fart of a country. Greater Dutch Empire or not, it was still England. He didn’t want his good Dutch bones corrupted by its foetid soil. He tried to rise. The table wobbled as he braced against it. The fragments in his knee felt like ground glass. He was determined to stand proud one last time.
A challenge his heart could not meet.
An original story and photograph by Stuart C Turnbull.