Save us from wrath . . . yes . . . yes . . . now, please.
Another soldier pushed through and smashed the keys with his rifle butt, startling his fellows, and the organ rendered a death moan until the soldier beat it breathless.
“Stop . . . ,” Moeder screamed. She had promised never to satisfy them by showing emotion. But the organ . . . how could they?
I pulled Cecelia tighter to my hip when the Tommies became more violent. One smashed the glass of the china cabinet and crushed the contents with repeated rifle thrusts. The force of the sound stunned me, as if the glass shards themselves had flown into my flesh.
Pictures of ancestors were ripped down, and the painting of Jesus was knocked to the floor when they tore into the walls with their axes. It took them only a few wild ax chops to discover the silver setting and valuables we’d hidden behind a false wall.
“What did you think you were saving?” one asked. “We’re going to dynamite the place in a few minutes, anyway.”
“Get them out of here,” said the officer, now bored by our presence.
They herded us with the tips of their bayonets. Our native girl, Bina, carried the largest basket of our belongings on her head. We stepped outside into a chorus of death wails. The pig produced a heartbreaking squeal as it was speared; one sheep after another raised pathetic pleas that turned into bloody gurgles when the knives were pulled across their throats. And beheaded chickens spun through their frantic death dance by the dozens.
I ran toward the sheep until a soldier turned and pressed his bayonet hard to my breastbone.
“Don’t you touch that child,” Bina yelled, dropping the basket to come to my side.
“It’s not your war,” he screamed at her, although the rifle pointing at her chest seemed evidence that it was. “We’re not here to fight kaffirs, too.”
Men dragged several freshly killed sheep to the well and threw them down. At the house, nails screamed when boards were pried loose from the walls and floors. The wood was hauled out and orderly stacked on a wagon—treated with more respect than we were.
Appetite for destruction peaking, the officer yelled a command and the Tommies dispersed. The explosion sucked the air from my lungs and sent pieces of the house splintering into the sky. I could feel the heat on my face and was convinced I could see the sound waves roll across the tall veld grasses. The house burned black and loud, the uprights groaning like a wounded thing before it collapsed in upon itself.
THE THINGS OF OUR life rose as smoke and faded into a high, gray haze. Fire consumed in minutes what had taken generations to accumulate. Had it really been just half an hour since the teacups betrayed their approach? Twenty-five minutes since I had shaken a doll at a British officer? Fifteen minutes since the organ cried and Jesus once again held his silence while beaten to the ground? Half an hour by the clock . . . a week’s worth of heartbeats . . . a lifetime’s tears?
The Tommies rejected most of the things we tried to bring and heaped them on a pile burning near the barn. We were left with some bedding, clothing, and a few other small things we could carry. To the open mouth of her satchel, Moeder had tossed whatever food she could that would not spoil—biltong and rusks, mostly. She packed the family Bible and swept some personal things off her bureau before the khaki-clad locusts swarmed in to devour the rest.
Oupa Gideon would have been so disappointed if he’d seen us; we had maintained less order than our headless chickens. I had gathered up my notebook and some bedding and then helped Cecelia with her clothes and her doll. Willem carried his slingshot in one hand and his little riempie stool that Vader had made him in the other. Moeder shouted at him to put on his boots, which he wore only in the coldest months. The Tommies snatched his slingshot and tossed it on the fire. One tried twisting the stool from his hands, but Willem’s kicks made it not worth his bother.
They marshaled us toward an ox wagon. A soldier pushed my mother with a hand low on her hip.
“Don’t . . . push . . . me . . . ” She turned on him with her fists. Our house was burning, our stock being slaughtered as we watched, and that push was a final insult.
He swung his rifle off his shoulder so that the bayonet was at her throat, the tip still wet with sheeps’ blood, dripping a roselike pattern onto the front of her dress.
“Well, you’re not staying here.”
He pulled the bayonet back, but only an inch.
“We’ll find somewhere,” she said after a deep breath.
“Have you heard of the families that tried to stay out . . . women with children who thought they could live off the land? . . . You know what happened to them?” the soldier asked. “Bands of angry kaffirs raped the women and killed the children. You want to be used like that, missus?”
“No . . . no such thing,” Bina shouted.
“Want to risk it?” he asked Moeder. The soldier slung his rifle back over one shoulder and attempted to lift her onto the wagon.
“Don’t you touch her,” Willem yelled.
He ignored Willem and put both arms around Moeder’s waist to lift her so that her thrashing boot heals could not threaten his shins.
Willem glared and closed in.
“Tucker . . . that’s enough,” shouted another soldier, of sufficient rank to cause the Tommy to release her. “Back away, or help her climb up. They’re not animals.”
She made one last shove at the Tommy’s arms, handed her bag to me, and mounted the wagon on her own.
Bina came last, our large basket on her head.
“Go . . . ,” a soldier said, making small stabbing motions with his bayonet. “Go to your people.”
Bina’s eyes showed white and she tried to push around the soldier to get to the wagon, but he caught her across the throat with his rifle stock. She dropped in a pile, our things scattering around her. On her back, bayonet now at her throat, she could only watch as our wagon pulled away. I held both arms toward her, hugging the air between us, and focused on her eyes until they faded with distance.
I recognized the family in the wagon. We did not know the Prinsloos well; they were Doppers who lived near the railway and stayed to themselves. Their kind rarely joined in Sunday sermons or Nachtmaal services and struck me as joyless by choice. They were already backed toward the front of the wagon with their few possessions, eyes fixed on our flaming house. The children squeezed closer to their mother, as if trying to hide beneath her skirts.