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Overview
Persomi is young, white, and poor, born the middle child of illiterate sharecroppers on the prosperous Fourie farm in the South African Bushveld. Persomi’s world is extraordinarily small. She has never been to the local village and spends her days absorbed in the rhythms of the natural world around her, escaping the brutality and squalor of her family home through the newspapers and books passed down to her from the main house and through her walks in the nearby mountains.
Persomi’s close relationship with her older brother Gerbrand and her fragile friendship with Boelie Fourie—heir to the Fourie farm and fortune—are her lifeline and her only connection to the outside world. When Gerbrand leaves the farm to fight on the side of the Anglos in WWII and Boelie joins an underground network of Boer nationalists, Persomi’s isolated world is blown wide open. But as her very small world falls apart, bigger dreams open to her—dreams of an education, a profession, a native country that values justice and equality, and of love. As Persomi navigates the changing landscape around her—the tragedies of war and the devastating racial strife of her homeland—she finally discovers who she truly is, where she belongs, and why her life—and every life—matters.
The English language publication of Child of the River solidifies Irma Joubert as a unique and powerful voice in historical fiction.
“Filled with lessons of grace and love, Child of the River is a story that reminds us all to hold steady through life’s most fragile hours.” —Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of Perennials
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780718083106 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nelson, Thomas, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 10/18/2016 |
| Pages: | 416 |
| Sales rank: | 422,392 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.30(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Child of the River
By Irma Joubert
Thomas Nelson
Copyright © 2016 Irma JoubertAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7180-8310-6
CHAPTER 1
July 1938
One winter's morning when Pérsomi was eleven, her brother Gerbrand said out of the blue: "Ma, I'm going to Joburg. To find a job in the mines."
Pérsomi stood in the feeble winter sun just outside the back door, her back pressed to the wall, her bare toes burrowing into the gray sand. Gerbrand stood in the doorway. If she reached out her hand, she could touch him. But she didn't. Gerbrand didn't like being touched. She knew, because he and Piet shared a mattress, and if Piet happened to come too close, Gerbrand let fly with his fists. Piet was older, but Gerbrand was stronger.
"Heavens, Gerbrand, fetch some water and stop making up stories," said her ma. Baby was fussing and Gertjie had been coughing all night. Ma was exhausted and her patience was wearing thin.
Gerbrand turned without taking the bucket. In his hand was a bag, the kind Mr. Fourie used for the oranges. Through the mesh Pérsomi could see his flannel trousers, white shirt, and battered school shoes. She didn't see his sweater and feared he would get cold. But she didn't say anything, just followed Gerbrand on the rocky footpath down to the river.
Piet came walking up from the river. He stared at Gerbrand, challenging him with his gaze. Who would step aside first? Piet was eating a tangerine, dropping the bright orange peel on the gray stones and the sparse grass as he walked.
They never went hungry in winter. There were plenty of oranges and tangerines in the groves. Not that they were allowed to pick any, but if you reached deep into the prickly inside of the tree, Mr. Fourie would never know.
Gerbrand went right up to Piet and looked him in the eye. "If you so much as lay a finger on Pérsomi while I'm away, I'll kill you when I get back," he said. Then he pushed past Piet and continued. Pérsomi gave Piet a wide berth.
Near the river, Gerbrand turned and looked at her. "If Pa wants to hit you, or touch you in any way at all, run for it. Even at night — just run. You can run fast, you'll have no problem getting away."
Pérsomi nodded. She wasn't afraid. "Ma can't run fast," she said.
Gerbrand shrugged. "I can't stay here any longer, please understand. But one day I'll come back to fetch you."
"When?" she asked.
"As soon as I've saved enough money. Go home now."
"When will you be back?"
But he didn't answer, just slung the bag over his shoulder and crossed the river, jumping from one stone to the next to keep his feet dry. She watched until his copper-colored head disappeared among the orange trees.
Pérsomi sat down on a flat rock and stretched out her legs. The sun struck bright sparks from the water at her feet. The rough body of the mountain, her mountain, came slowly to life in the early morning sun.
In Joburg men are swallowed by the mines, her uncle said. She hoped the mines wouldn't swallow Gerbrand.
After a while she picked two tangerines and walked up the mountain. Just below the baboon cliffs she sat down and peeled the first one. Her mouth filled with saliva as she anticipated the first sweet bite into the juicy, sun-ripe fruit.
Mr. Fourie's farm lay below her, between the toes of her mountain. To the left the mountain split open and she could see the river, the Pontenilo, winding like a thin ribbon through the trees, occasionally forming shallow pools between its sandy banks.
On the side where the sun went down lay the brakrant, a stony ridge, cleared and plowed years ago in an attempt to grow some kind of crop. But the soil was poor and rocky and faced west, and salty patches rose to the surface from deep below. "This soil is good for nothing, and everything burns to a crisp in the bloody afternoon sun," her pa always complained. "I work like a slave to try and make a living here."
Her ma would try to calm him. "Mr. Fourie treats us well. Where would we go if he told us to leave?"
But her ma had better watch out, or she'd get her face slapped. Or worse, she'd get the strap. Her pa took no nonsense from woman or child.
Against the brakrant was their home. It stood in the open veld with no trees to provide shelter, its two small windows staring blindly into the sun. The surrounding land was bare and stony, with not a sprig of grass in sight. To the right, the soil had been dug over, and the scorched earth lay with its insides exposed to the sun.
Pérsomi knew exactly how hard that soil was. At the end of winter the small field had to be tilled to plant mealies. Because he was the strongest, Gerbrand would stand on the plowshare, forcing it down into the earth. Pérsomi would walk ahead, tugging at Jeremiah's halter to coax him up and down the rows. Old Jeremiah was lazy and stubborn, as only a donkey can be.
Now that Gerbrand was gone, Sissie, who was fatter than anyone else, would have to stand on the plowshare.
To the right of a rocky outcrop she could see the winding road. In the distance, where the sun came up and the earth stopped, the road drowned itself in a big dam. Far beyond the shimmering expanse of water lay the town. Pérsomi had never been there.
When the sun moved in behind the mountain and an icy wind began to bite through her thin dress, she got up and went home.
Their house consisted of two rooms. In the middle of the front room stood a wooden table and four chairs. Against the back wall, next to the door, was a stove, and beside it a wagon chest. An upside-down tea chest in the corner held the Primus stove and an enamel basin for the dishes.
The children's mattresses were stacked under the table. Six of them slept in the front room: Piet and Gerbrand, Sissie and Gertjie, with Pérsomi and Hannapat on the third mattress.
"Why do I have to sleep with Gertjie? He coughs all night and he pees," Sissie would complain nearly every morning. Then their pa would slap the side of her head to shut her up.
Pérsomi's ma and pa slept on a proper bed with a mattress in the bedroom. Baby slept in a box next to the bed. A threadbare length of fabric separated the rooms.
The house was in permanent semidarkness. And the enamel basin was permanently stacked with unwashed dishes.
The one whose turn it was to do the dishes had to carry the basin to the river and wash the plates and mugs in a pool. The pots were the hardest. They had to be scrubbed with sand to get them clean.
"Sissie, go wash the dishes," her ma would say.
"Ma-a! Why must I always ..."
When this happened, Pérsomi ran away before she could be given the job.
* * *
Pérsomi knew exactly who she was: the child of a bywoner, a sharecropper on Mr. Fourie's farm, the fourth and middle child of Lewies and Jemima Pieterse. She was tall and thin, with dark eyes and straight dark hair. She bore no resemblance to Sissie and Piet, who had inherited their pa's short, stout figure and small, watery eyes. Or to Gertjie and Baby, who had their ma's frizzy red hair. Hannapat was a good mixture of their parents, with her bulging tummy, thin legs, and curly ginger hair. Even Gerbrand's hair was red, like their ma's. Pérsomi looked different from the rest, presumably taking after her maternal grandma, who died a long time ago.
She attended the farm school on the boundary between Mr. Fourie's and Freddie le Roux's farms. Pérsomi, her cousin Faansie Els, and Irene Fourie were the only pupils in standard four. If there was one person in the world Pérsomi simply couldn't stand, it was Irene Fourie. She had no defense against Irene's sharp tongue.
"My ouma says Hannapat must knock on the back door when she comes begging for flour," Irene said loudly as she took her seat next to Pérsomi. "And my pa says if he catches any of you lot among the orange trees again, he'll chase you from the farm without blinking an eye. You and your miserable donkey."
Only three children in the school, including Irene, were real children. The rest of them were the children of bywoners.
* * *
Sissie had the falling sickness. They all had to look out for her, Pérsomi's ma said, because you could see when Sissie was about to get a fit. Then you had to make her lie down. The most important thing to remember, their ma said, was to put something between her teeth, or she would bite right through her tongue, which would be a very bad thing.
Sometimes Sissie got the falling sickness at school. The first time it happened Pérsomi was in grade two. When Sissie began to jerk and kick like a rabid jackal, everyone ran away. Pérsomi noticed that her teachers were so flustered that they forgot to put something between Sissie's teeth. Pérsomi told them to roll Sissie onto her back and hold her down. She took Meester Lampbrecht's pointing stick and struggled to insert it between Sissie's locked jaws. All the while Sissie looked at her with froth bubbling from her lips and wild eyes, as if she didn't know Pérsomi at all.
"You're a very brave girl," Meester told Pérsomi the next day. After that she was never afraid again when Sissie got the falling sickness.
And Meester never ever raised his voice at her.
* * *
Gerbrand had been gone for more than six months when Piet also left for Joburg, and Sissie began to cry at night. But not because she missed her brother.
There was no one Pérsomi could talk to about it. "Heavens above, Pérsomi, sweep the front room and stop making up stories," her ma said, tucking her red hair behind her ears.
cinderella slept on the floor in front of
the cold stove with the broken
oven door she took care to sleep close
to the back door so that she
could run away
at night when the wolf was on the prowl
the sister cried
and cinderella ran away
she came back at dawn the wolf was gone
she slept on the mattress with
hannapat as if she had never
been away
The next day when she had finished her sums and was waiting for Meester to give the standard fives their next task, she remembered that there was no wolf in Cinderella's story.
Persomi made sure she slept close to the back door every night.
* * *
During the 1939 April school vacation, Gerbrand came home after an absence of nine long months. One evening after dark he appeared in the doorway. "I came with De Wet and Boelie," he said, "from Pretoria." That was where the Fourie boys were studying at the university.
Pérsomi stood against the wall next to the back door. She stood quite still. She couldn't stop looking at Gerbrand. She couldn't believe he was really there.
"You should have let us know," their pa said. "We would have kept you some supper."
She wished she could touch her brother. But she knew she couldn't.
Gerbrand lifted the lid of the cast-iron pot on the cold stove. Pérsomi knew there was just a little cold porridge inside. She wished there was some meat for Gerbrand.
"Nothing has changed, I see," said Gerbrand, annoyed. He took a spoon and scraped out the burnt remains. "What happens to the money I send every month?"
Pa takes it all, Pérsomi wanted to say. But she kept silent.
"I said you should have let us know you were coming," their pa said, frowning. "We're careful with the money, it doesn't grow on my back!"
Gerbrand turned to Pérsomi. "What did you have tonight?" he asked.
"Porridge," she answered.
"Thought so," he said. "Get off that chair, Hannapat, I want to sit. And that's my mattress, Sissie. Lift your fat behind."
"Ma-a," Sissie complained shrilly, "listen to Gerbrand! He says it's his mattress. When he left —"
"Shut up, Sissie," said their pa, pointing a finger at her. "Gerbrand sleeps on his mattress and that's the end of it. Stop moaning."
Tonight Pérsomi wouldn't have to sleep close to the door, because Gerbrand was there. Tonight she was going to put her mattress next to Gerbrand's and lie close to him all night.
* * *
Friday morning Pérsomi heard Gerbrand get up at the crack of dawn. He left his mattress and blankets on the kitchen floor, stepped over her and the sleeping Hannapat, and went out through the rickety back door.
Pérsomi slipped out from under the rough blanket, taking care not to wake Hannapat, and followed him outside.
The sun wasn't up yet, but it was light enough. Gerbrand walked some way ahead of her on the footpath leading down to the river.
Maybe Gerbrand would take her along, she thought as she followed him. Maybe he would turn and say: "Pérsomi, would you like to come with me? You can look for honeycomb and I'll hunt a mountain tortoise."
Instead of going up the mountain, he crossed the Pontenilo and followed the rutted track through the orange grove to Mr. Fourie's house, the Big House. He would fetch Mr. Fourie's sons, Boelie and De Wet, if he was going to hunt a tortoise. Pérsomi followed at a safe distance and sat down on a rocky ledge under a wild plum tree. This time of year the tree had none of its delicious sour fruit, which ripened around Christmas time.
From her seat she had a good view, but she could no longer see Gerbrand. Eventually a shiny black car stopped at the Big House. Christine, the daughter of Freddie and Anne le Roux of the neighboring farm, got out with a friend.
Oom Freddie was the nicest of all the real people, but his wife, Old Anne, was the unkindest. No bywoner's child was welcome on her property, ever. She wouldn't think twice about putting the dogs on you if you dared go there. But Christine was kind and really pretty. Sometimes she would give them some of her old clothes.
After a while the girls came back out of the Big House, along with Mr. Fourie's daughters, Klara and Irene, and they set off along the footpath in the direction of the kloof.
When she could no longer see them, Pérsomi got up. She knew every trail on her mountain, so she chose a roundabout route to follow the group. She knew where they were heading.
In a ravine higher up, the river formed a small waterfall. Under the waterfall was a pool — not very big, but so deep that you couldn't see the bottom. It was full to the brim this time of year.
She hurried around the back of the mountain and clambered down until she reached a spot where she had a good view of the pool below. She sat down, resting her back against a stone.
She could see Gerbrand playing in the water with the other young people. A large dead tortoise lay in the shade, waiting for Gerbrand to take it home.
Pérsomi leaned forward to get a better view. The girls were all in bathing suits. They were all pretty, especially the friend Christine had brought along. She had long dark hair and long legs and she wore big sunglasses.
Pérsomi heard Gerbrand laugh. The girls shrieked and splashed as they tried to get away from him and the other boys, Boelie and De Wet.
Gerbrand was playing with them as if he were a real person.
What if Gerbrand looked up and saw her? What if he laughed, the way he was laughing with the girls? What if he called out, "Pérsomi! Come and play with us!"
Klara looked up. Pérsomi sat quite still, but she was sure Klara had seen her. "Come and join us, Pérsomi!" Klara called out.
Pérsomi felt Irene's eyes on her. Slowly she slid backward. When she could no longer see the pool, she got to her feet and retraced her footsteps home.
That evening Gerbrand said, "Don't slink after me like a sly jackal. If you want to come along, come. If you want to stay, stay. You're a human being with a head on your shoulders, Pérsomi. It's not there just to keep your ears apart."
* * *
On Monday afternoon she found Gerbrand down at the river.
Gerbrand was holding a reed with a line attached to it. A cork bobbed in front of him in the wavelets churned up by the wind. She sat down quietly, a short distance away, so that she wouldn't touch him by accident.
"I ran away," she said after a while. "Many nights."
He nodded. "Good," he said, his eyes on the cork in the water. Then he turned to her. "Pérsomi, I'm going to tell you something. But you must never, ever repeat it to anyone."
"Okay." He had never told her a secret before.
"Swear."
She spat on her fingertips, crossed them, folded her hands over her heart and said, "Cross my heart and don't say."
He was quiet for so long that she thought he had changed his mind. Then he blurted out the words: "Pa isn't your real pa."
She turned her head and looked at him. His eyes remained fixed on the cork in the water.
She didn't understand, so she waited for an explanation.
He looked at her and said, "Lewies Pieterse is a pig. It's important for you to know he's not your pa."
The words stayed in her ears for a while, then slowly began to take on meaning.
That man in the house, that man who was her pa, was not her pa.
She wasn't sorry, neither was she glad. She felt kind of confused and almost ... pleased.
"Is he your pa then?" she asked.
"No," he said, "my pa is dead. Piet and Sissie are Pa's children. Their ma died. You and I are Ma's children. Hannapat and Gertjie and Baby are Ma and Pa's children."
She thought for a while. "Do you and I have the same pa?" she asked.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Child of the River by Irma Joubert. Copyright © 2016 Irma Joubert. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
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