Across the tent, Rachel Huiseveldt began singing a repetitive song to the doll to mask the sounds of our dispute. I boiled at the disrespect and snatched the doll from her arms. I marched to Moeder and held it in her face, just inches away, and shook her into a crazed dance.
“How could you give this to her without asking me? She’s not family. This was my doll. It was made for me. I gave it to Cee-Cee. . . . It was MY present to Cee-Cee. My doll . . . my decision who should have it . . . not yours. It should have come back to me. Don’t you think I would have liked it? A reminder of her? A reminder of me? Something to keep in the family.”
“I thought you were too big . . .”
“You could have asked. . . . You should have asked. . . . But you always think being silent means being strong. Well . . . sometimes we need more from you.”
Rachel froze.
“What else do I have of Cee-Cee? Nothing. What else do I have of me when I was little?” I pulled the doll from Moeder’s face and hugged it to my chest. It had been months since I had said so many words at once. “What else do I have?”
“Go lie down.” Moeder said it calmly. “Take your doll and lie down. We’ll talk later. Go . . . it’s all right for now. Lie down with Lollie. You’re right; she was your doll. She is your doll. I should have asked.”
Mevrou Huiseveldt grasped the sobbing Rachel by the shoulders, and they turned together toward the tent wall.
I took the doll and crawled under my blanket. I turned away and held the doll close. I told the doll a story that she’d heard before.
MOEDER’S BROOCH WAS IN my hand when I left the tent. I suppose I lifted it from her private things, but I could not recall thinking through the decision to take it or completing the act. I did not pin it at my throat, as Moeder wore it, because the collar of my dress was so slack. I pinned it to my pinafore, at my left chest, like a war medal.
I wanted Maples to see it and compliment me. But he did not notice. The magic it worked on Vader did not translate to an English guard.
“Betty,” he said, his voice a whisper. He stared at me.
“It’s Lettie . . .”
“Lettie . . . that’s what I said.”
“Are you all right?”
“News . . . don’t know if you should tell your mother. You can if you think you should.”
“Tell her what?”
“About your uncle . . .”
“Tell me. . . . I’ll decide.”
“Some guard . . . talked with prisoners. . . . Your uncle wasn’t wounded. . . . Broke his shoulder when he was thrown from his horse . . .”
“I know . . .”
“Came in under a white flag.”
We suspected.
“Had bones sticking through the skin. . . . Out of his mind with pain. They wouldn’t treat him unless he gave information.”
“And he did?”
“He did. . . . They already knew the commando was nearby since he could not have ridden far. But he pointed in the direction. . . . They found the commando the next day.”
“The commando unit with our men in it?”
“Don’t know who, but that makes sense.”
“Boers, though?”
“That’s the story we got.”
“Does that mean he gave up the location of our men, his own brother and father?”
“Maybe, but it’s possible he sent our men into an ambush. . . . The Boers were behind rocks and came out firing when they got there. Could have been either, I suppose.”
“Don’t tell my mother,” I said. “Not yet. She doesn’t need to know this. . . . It would do none of us any good. Maybe he was trying to help.”
“I want to tell her.”
“No, she’ll go try to kill Oom Sarel.”
“She wants to, anyway, and I’m going to help.”
“How?”
“Can’t tell. . . . Working on it.”
“No, nothing good can—”
“Has to be soon,” he interrupted, voice lower still. “I’m leaving.”
“A transfer?”
“Leaving.”
“Where?”
“Home . . . to Betty.”
“But Betty said . . .”
“I know, but she’ll want me when I show up. She’ll see. She’ll feel different when she sees I would quit the army and come all the way home to see her. Even her father will be impressed.”
“Not if you quit like this.”
“Can’t wait.”
“Not yet . . . not now. . . . Maybe it will end soon.”
“I’ll escape.”
“You’ll escape? That’s not an escape. You’re a guard.”
“A prisoner . . . too,” he said.
He repeated himself and rocked quickly, shifting his weight.
“I’ll just leave my rifle and go . . .”
“You’ll need your rifle.”
“Better not to have it. . . . I wouldn’t know who to shoot. And your men wouldn’t think they had to shoot me if I don’t have it.”
“You don’t know where to go.”
“Doesn’t matter. . . . Away from the savages.”
“Savages?”
“All of them . . . out there . . . in here.”
“No . . . they’ll see you and shoot you. I know they will. One side or the other.”
He stepped closer.
“Come with me.”
“I can’t . . . Moeder . . . Willem . . .”
“Bring them.”
“No . . .”
“We’ll all escape. We’ll go to England.”
He pulled at my arm.
“Not like this.”
“You’ll come.”
“Not like this.”
He pulled at my arm until it felt he was pressing into my bones. He leaned in harder, kissing me, pressing so that my teeth pinched my lips.
“Stop.”
“Betty . . . Lettie . . . ,” he mumbled, and he was gone.
WE BURNED THE DICTIONARY that night to heat water, stopping at M to save the rest for the next night. I did not look at the words before they turned to ash. The ones I needed I already knew, the rest were more valuable as fuel. We no longer bothered waiting until dark to try to sleep but just curled up and slipped off whenever we could. We almost never talked, certainly not bothering with full sentences when a few words would do, and never invested even those few words when gestures sufficed. There was no energy for courtesy. We simply retreated to the portions of the tent that were ours and pulled ourselves in tight. Except for Willem and Rachel, who started sitting together. Somehow they came to feel important to each other.
I slipped Moeder’s brooch back into her bag when she had gone to the latrine, and if she noticed it had been gone, she never bothered to discipline me. It didn’t work, anyway. I thought through the things Maples had said, as I did every time we talked, reading meaning into every word. But he was so confused. He had asked me to go with him. At least I thought he had. But there were currents of his own that he needed to fight, and they had caused him to come adrift. I warmed at the thought of his kiss and wanted another. But gentler.
Was it possible for him to leave, or for me to go along? I stacked up thoughts on either side to measure them, but they no longer stayed where I put them; they appeared and faded and took different shapes. I thought of my family and home and surrendering anything that reminded me of reality.