The Covenant by James A. Michener
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, assuring him that they would send for Louis at the Cape—if 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 glassy, 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 assured 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, stop—please stop!’
But the agony of death was upon him. The vast dreams were vanishing. 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 body—and 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 accumulated 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 Pré blended three years ago are still in our casks. They’ll protect us at the beginning.’
‘But when they’ve been shipped?’ 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 God’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 anticipated, 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 Pré 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 assured 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 pass. 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 God-sent opportunity to halt further importations 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 class 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
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 Pré 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 Pré 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 anticipated, 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 Pré’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 ship 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 Japan, each bearing the august monogram V.O.C. and accompanied by five pieces of massy 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 assure 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 God,’ Annatjie said.
‘I am telling God. “Make me pregnant. Give me the son I need.” ’
‘You are blaspheming, Geertruyd.’
‘I am taking God into my partnership. 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 assure 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 ship 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.
‘I’ve been keeping an eye on the vineyard,’ he reported. ‘Dreadful shape.’
‘The wine seems to be standing up,’ the governor said.
‘But don’t you see, your Excellency? These women are clever. That’s wine that De Pré blended.’
‘What will the three people do if I dispossess them?’ the, commissioner asked, turning to the governor.
‘They own the land. We’d compensate, one way or another. Maybe a little farm that they could handle. Perhaps a gin shop here at the Cape … for sailors.’
‘When we get there,’ Boeksma coached his superiors, ‘you must insist that we meet with Van Doorn alone. The women will protest, but you must order them away. So that you can see for yourselves how defective he is.’
And when the three men finally reached Trianon, Geertruyd awaited them on the stoep, gloriously pregnant, and smiling broadly as she brought Annatjie forward to greet them.
‘I was right,’ Boeksma whispered. ‘They aren’t going to let us see Sarel. I told you they kept him locked up.’
At that moment, from the lovely half-door that marked the entrance to the house, Sarel appeared, a tallish, good-looking, thin young man whose smile showed two rows of very white teeth. ‘Distinguished gentlemen,’ he said, emphasizing each syllable, ‘we welcome you … to Trianon.’ With that he offered the two women his arms and held them back as the visitors entered the hallway.
There they received another surprise when Geertruyd detached herself, smiled at the men, and led them into the room designated for their meeting. It had been decorated with flowers and a small cage of goldfinches, and after arranging the four chairs she
Once removed from the room, she ran into the one adjoining it, pressed her ear against a small hole in the wall, which had been covered at the other end by the flowers, and listened nervously as Sarel started the discussion. ‘Please, God,’ she whispered, ‘forgive me for when I was insolent. Help Sarel to do what we planned.’
In the opening minutes Sarel’s interrogators were quite insulting, treating him as if he were indeed defective, but when Boeksma completed his charges of mismanagement at Trianon, Sarel surprised them by answering slowly and intelligently, ‘Gentlemen, aren’t you referring to the days when we all suffered … from the loss of servants to the plague? We have none of those problems now.’
Boeksma started to refute this claim, and Geertruyd listened anxiously to hear how her husband would handle him, and she was relieved when Sarel said firmly, ‘So I have asked our servants to bring before you a selection of our wines.’
He waited until Boeksma started to protest that these had to be wines that Paul de Pré had been responsible for, then added quietly, ‘I know that you must suspect … that I am offering you wine laid down by De Pré.’ He laughed. ‘That would be a naughty trick. These are my wines, as you shall see … when we visit the cellars.’
Geertruyd, hearing this complicated statement, left her listening post and ran to where Annatjie waited. Taking her mother-in-law by both hands, she exulted: ‘He’s even better than we had hoped!’
The visitor from Java tasted the new wines and was impressed: ‘This is very good, really.’
‘And next year it will be great,’ Sarel said. ‘We intend to make great wines … at Trianon.’
Geertruyd, back at her post, clasped her hands and held her breath. What Sarel was to say next represented an enormous gamble, but also a vindication, and as a fighting woman, she had deemed it a proper risk. ‘Honorable Commissioner, we at Trianon have no desire to force our product on Java. That’s unfair … to Java. So what we did two years ago was make quiet inquiries of European …’ He hesitated, trembling at the bold thing he must say next. Then he smiled and continued: ‘What we did was seek buyers in Europe. And I am pleased to inform you that both France and England will buy our wine … at an excellent price.’