Sacrificed Read online

  Josefien’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. Her mouth went slack so the yellowish upper teeth with their overbite were visible.

  “Now, now, Andries. Fieneke didn’t mean anything by it,” Hans tried to intervene.

  “I have something to say to you too, brother-in-law,” Andries cut him short. “Don’t think because you allow your wife to wear the pants in your house she can do it in mine as well. All she has done since arriving here is to look down her nose at everything, and you don’t say a word to stop her. Here at Liefenleed we have respect for the institution of holy matrimony as outlined in the Holy Scriptures. The man is the head of the household and his wife is subservient to his wishes. If you choose to play with dough and allow your wife to walk all over you, it’s your business. But it won’t happen here. That’s why I took it on myself to set her straight.”

  Hans tried to say something, but Andries cut him short. “And just so we understand each other perfectly: your daughter will be well taken care of here. Sandra will want for nothing, as long as she knows her place.”

  He turned his gaze so suddenly to Caz she almost gasped for breath. “You seem a nice girl, Sandra, but let’s get this straight. I don’t want any friction under my roof.”

  He hadn’t wanted outlandish names under his roof either, Caz had learned by then. On her first visit to the farm, Hentie had introduced her as Caz, the nickname her roommate at university had given her and which Caz felt fitted her like a glove. Andries asked what her real name was. Cassandra, she said, and since then she had been Sandra to him. It was as though he had stuck her into a box made to his own specifications, labeled it Sandra, and that was that.

  Caz sighed and tossed the rest of her coffee over the railing into the shrubs below. Enough now. She had better things to do than obsess about the past. She had been Caz for the past thirty years and that was who she would remain. Whether she was a Colijn or not.

  Turning to re-enter the house, she thought she noticed a movement among the poplars. She scrutinized the area. Nothing moved. It must have been her imagination.

  All the ghosts from the past must be playing tricks on her senses. Must be why she was covered in gooseflesh too.

  Erevu

  Antwerp

  The Samsung tablet had only one purpose: Contact with Jela.

  Yesterday there were two messages.

  From: Erevu

  To: Jela

  Ghent connection: Finally phoned SA. After a two-year wait! Use code 4 to decode number: O*#%>
  From: Jela

  To: Erevu

  Excellent news. Dialing code for Overberg (Western Cape). I’ll get on it immediately.

  A few minutes ago another message came through.

  From: Jela

  To: Erevu

  Address now known.

  Dove flew to Cape Town last night. Just heard he found the place.

  Erevu sighed with relief. At least they had finally found the woman. It was the beginning of their success story. He was convinced of it.

  Luc

  Damme, Belgium

  “Luc DeReu, good day.” His thoughts were still on the assignment he was grappling with as he answered his cellphone. The student’s inability to structure his arguments logically exasperated him. And that at postgraduate level. The bloke seemed incapable of figuring out the bare basics of cause and effect. He obviously saw history as a bunch of dates and linear events and didn’t understand that history is not subject to Newton’s Law. For each action there are a myriad reactions—equal and unequal and not always opposite. Or sensible.

  “Bingo! Would you believe it!” An unknown female voice rejoiced in his ear. The accent was Western Flemish.

  “Pardon?”

  “When Miss Ammie asked for you—for the first time in who knows how long, I must add—I guessed KU Leuven would know your present whereabouts. I must say, they weren’t exactly forthcoming. They refused to give me your number. Just said their records showed you had left for the University of Maastricht. There they told me you currently have a post at the University of Ghent. I got your number from their administration. They were much friendlier, thank goodness.”

  “Who am I speaking to?” he asked, trying to stanch the confusing flow of info.

  “You don’t know me, but I’ve heard so much about you, it feels as if I know you. As a child, that is. It’s how Miss Ammie remembers you. The name is Lieve Luykens, Professor. I’ve been taking care of your mother, Ammie Pauwels, for the past five years.”

  Suddenly Lieve Luykens had his undivided attention. Ammie Pauwels. He had been three when his father married Ammie, but she was the closest thing to a mother he had ever known. Yet one day she had just disappeared from their lives. His father was never the same again. Images of the defeated man flashed through his mind, brought back all the guilt feelings in a flash.

  With an effort he brought himself back to the present. “I presume she’s no longer living in Doel?” The tragic history of the polder village on the Scheldt was well known. When the residents were forced out of the town to make way for the expansion of the port of Antwerp, he had wondered what had become of Ammie and her new husband.

  “No, Professor. It’s been years since they lived there. Apparently she tried to hold out, even after 2000, but with her husband gone by then, she finally gave in and moved back to Leuven, where she ran into one of your father’s colleagues and heard you had left the university.”

  Hopefully Ammie didn’t find out why he had left.

  “Is she still in Leuven?”

  “Indeed, Professor, but I’m afraid she’s not very well. Her memory increasingly comes and goes. The past she remembers well at times, but she can’t always remember what she did yesterday or what she has just said. Her health is also unstable.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” What else could one say? Old age spares no one.

  “I wondered ... She’s so lonely, trapped in her own thoughts ... I don’t know why you are estranged, but she has always spoken highly of you. The way I understand it, the discord was between your father and herself. Would you consider paying her a visit? It might cheer her up. Give her some interest in the present.”

  Luc remained quiet for a long time. Thoughts and memories turned into a tangle of emotions. To see Ammie again would raise so many ghosts from the past.

  “This morning she wanted to know what time Luc would be home from school.” There was a plea behind the sad words.

  “In that case, she won’t recognize me, Mrs. Luykens. What’s the point?”

  “You never know, Professor. But if it doesn’t work, if your visit doesn’t do her any good, I won’t bother you again. It’s just, she’s known such hard times in her life. I gathered there were other children as well, but you’re the only one I know of for sure. An elderly person shouldn’t die alone.”

  “Die?” Could he live with his conscience if the stepmother who raised him had to die in solitude?

  “I don’t suppose she’s literally dying. It’s not that she’s actually ill. The problem is she has nothing to live for, Professor. I’ve been searching for months to find something to interest her. When she mentioned your name again ...” The woman gave a deep sigh. “Oh, well, I tried.”

  Luc had difficulty keeping up. “Mrs. Luykens, what did you mean by ‘other children’?” In all the years Ammie was married to his father, there had never been any mention of it.

  “That’s the only conclusion I could come to. That there were other children too. You see, when she becomes muddled, she starts babbling about things she thinks I know about or she confuses me with other people.”

  “Will the weekend suit you? Sunday morning, perhaps?” Luc knew he was complicating his life and he hated complications. But how could he ignore Lieve Luykens’s kind intentions? And maybe he could find answers to the questions that ha
d been tormenting him for so long.

  “You’ll really come? Sunday would be wonderful. I’ll get something nice for coffee. The baker around the corner ...”

  “Please don’t go to any trouble, Mrs. Luykens. I’ll be there around eleven. Give me the address, please.”

  He wrote down Lieve’s detailed directions, said goodbye, and gave a protracted sigh. What had he let himself in for now?

  Ammie had left when he was twenty-one and no longer living at home. It was 1983, he recalled, just as he could recall the date of almost every major event in his life. It was the curse and blessing of his profession, but also his one extraordinary talent. He suspected he owed his academic achievements to an excellent memory, rather than brilliance.

  That day, thirty-one years ago, his father had phoned him in a terrible state and told him Ammie had moved out. Two years later Luc had seen Ammie for the second-last time. It was just before she got married again.

  They had met by chance in Antwerp. She told him of her intended marriage and apologized for everything but explained nothing. Only mentioned she was living in Doel.

  He wondered why she had chosen Doel. Ever since the sixties there had been rumors that the polder village would have to make way for the expansion of the port.

  The last time he had seen her, or at least thought he had seen her, was at his father’s funeral in 1997, but before he could reach her she had vanished into the crowd of university staff and ex-students attending the service.

  And now this call.

  Why the hell did he agree to go? What hope did a bachelor like him have of bringing any cheer to a senile woman in her eighties? The woman who had destroyed his father’s life, besides.

  For goodness’ sake, he couldn’t even cheer himself up.

  It was in 2011 that he realized just how boring his life was. Exactly how dull he was as a person. It was the year he lectured in South Africa, a country burning at the hand of its own Nero. Just to step through one’s own front door was risky in numerous neighborhoods—but the people carried on with their lives.

  Only once had he come to life. Long ago. Before South Africa.

  He should have known that a woman like Suri would have an agenda of her own. Why else would a gorgeous young student suddenly start flirting with a nerdy professor? Unfortunately, he never thought further than those ripe breasts, the welcoming hips and his fantasies about where those shapely legs ended.

  He might be boring and unremarkable, but he was still a man. Alas, yes, even though he would never see fifty again.

  Caz

  Overberg

  The translation just wouldn’t flow. Her thoughts were all over the place. Tieneke’s call. Its implications. Memories of what had been.

  Of all things, she remembered again the house in Lillian Street, Meyerspark, where she had grown up.

  There had been three terraces and a set of stone steps leading down to the Moreleta Spruit. White stinkwood trees edged the bilharzia-infected stream. Since Hans had spotted a leguan on the bank, nothing could get any of the others there.

  To Caz it was a place to escape Tieneke’s bullying and Mother Fien’s never-ending orders and complaints. She would often climb as high as she could up a tree and sit there, dreaming about the day she would be grown-up.

  Once she had been halfway up when she’d discovered the tree was covered in worms. She let go, skinning her knees and arms. She told Fien she had fallen on the steps. Tieneke had teased her for being clumsy.

  She’d felt betrayed by her trees, but had learned patience had its own rewards. Weeks later the worms were gone and she could once again escape to her dreamworld.

  At Liefenleed, though the farm was vast, there had been no escape. She was bound to a house that wasn’t hers, among people she couldn’t fathom.

  It was in the early eighties. Anti-apartheid saboteurs were regularly crossing the Limpopo. The roads had to be swept for landmines. There was nowhere she could be alone. It was too dangerous.

  She had learned about the danger the hard way that night Andries had so harshly reprimanded Fien and Hans.

  December 1982

  Caz

  Soutpansberg

  Caz sneaked out through the backdoor after everyone had gone to their rooms. Her emotions were too stirred up to remain inside, her bedroom too stuffy, even though the house was air-conditioned.

  Too much was bottled up, too many warning lights were flickering, she had too many misgivings to even think about sleeping.

  Outside the heat of the day still clung to the earth, but the fresh air was balm for her distress. She went down the veranda steps to escape from the light and kept walking blindly.

  The moon was just a lemon rind in the star-scattered sky, but when her eyes got used to the dark, she could make out the road leading to the gate.

  At last she could release her tears of frustration where no one could hear her.

  She loved Hentie, but could she deal with his father? His mother, even? Magdel sometimes looked at Caz as if she pitied her, at other times as if Caz was an intruder.

  Could she face a life regulated by her parents-in-law? By Hentie? She would have to dance to the tune of three other people. Each with his or her specific expectations. She could never be herself. Or find out who she actually was.

  It wasn’t the train of thought she should be harboring less than two weeks before her wedding, but she couldn’t stop the feeling of dread.

  A rustling in the mopane trees stopped her in her tracks. She hadn’t realized she had walked so far. She was almost at the gate, a kilometer from the house. Was it her imagination or did she hear whispering voices? No, it wasn’t her imagination. She smelled smoke as well. Tobacco of some kind. The workers’ huts were far from there.

  She whirled round, trying to move quietly but as swiftly as possible. As soon as she felt she could, she broke into a run. A few paces further, with her heart pounding in her ears, she looked over her shoulder. The next moment she was skimming over the uneven surface of the gravel road. Stifling a cry, she struggled to her feet. With her knees and elbows burning like hell, she limped on, a nameless fear propelling her forward.

  She had almost reached the back veranda when Hentie came out, the keys to the pick-up in his hand. Seeing her, he hurried to meet her, gripped her arm and hastily led her to a shadowy spot, out of hearing distance.

  “Damn it, Caz! Where the hell have you been? I was scared shitless when I discovered you weren’t in your room. I was just coming to look for you.”

  “I took a walk and went a bit too far.”

  “Why are you so out of breath? So frightened? And why are your jeans torn? And your shirt ripped?”

  “I was just startled. I thought I heard something.” With an effort, she got her breathing under control. “I fell when I was running home.”

  “Darling, you can’t just go for a walk on the farm! Especially not at night. There are snakes and wild creatures in the bushes. Not to mention that there could be terrorists in the area! Promise me you’ll never, ever do it again.”

  Terrorists? She hadn’t even considered the possibility. Everyone spoke about it, but here, on the farm? If Hentie found out how far she had actually gone down the road, he would have a cadenza.

  “Why did you go to my room?” she tried to change the subject.

  “I wanted to talk to you. Tell you I don’t think the way my father does.” He seemed ill at ease. “And I wanted to hold you. Actually, I just missed you.” He laid his hand against her cheek. “And now? Why the tears?” he asked when he felt the dampness.

  “I don’t know whether I’m cut out for this, Hentie. It’s such a harsh place, and your father ...”

  “Please, Caz, don’t even think it. My parents have gone to so much trouble for the wedding ... And what about us? I love you, my darling. Everything will be all right onc
e we’re married.”

  At least she was still Caz to him, and his darling. It soothed her troubled mind. His kiss transported her far away from the farm and her reservations.

  Hentie was right, she thought when she finally got into bed. Everything would be all right. Once they were married.

  Caz

  Overberg

  Caz sighed. She had been so young. So bloody stupid.

  Mother Fien and Father Hans had left early the next morning. Hans promised they would be at the wedding, but added that they could not possibly stay until then when it was so obvious they weren’t welcome.

  Andries and Magdel did not object.

  Hentie dried Caz’s tears with his handkerchief. Said his father’s bark was worse than his bite. A hard landscape produces hard people, but his father was a good and reasonable man. Josefien had just upset him with her attitude.

  Shortly afterwards, the Colijns were forgotten. One of the herdsmen had come across a butchered carcass near the gate. A cow in calf. The footprints in the sandy soil, not even a hundred meters from the two-track road, pointed at saboteurs.

  Hentie took her aside and looked at her with worried eyes: “See the danger you put yourself in last night? For heaven’s sake, Caz, if they had seen you, we would be making funeral arrangements today. You’re never going anywhere on this farm again without me or someone who is armed by your side, understand?” He wiped the sweat from his brow. “You can thank your lucky stars my father is none the wiser and you’d better hope and pray he never finds out.”

  “For crying out loud, Hentie, I went for a walk, I didn’t do anything wrong. I understand what you’re saying, that it’s dangerous, but I didn’t commit a crime. I just didn’t understand the danger. Now I do.”

  Two days after Hans and Josefien’s departure Andries selected a calf for her and branded it with an S.

  “Yours, Sandra, the first of your stud,” he said and she realized she would never be Cassandra to him, let alone Caz. She knew he was trying to make up for the quarrel with her parents. Perhaps also for the fact that she had to make an isolated farm, with all kinds of dangers on it, her home simply because she had fallen in love with his son. She appreciated it, but what she was supposed to do with a calf, never mind her own stud, she didn’t have the foggiest.