Clare Houston - An Unquiet Place

Scowling, Hannah returned her attention to the computer while a still-grinning Barbara handed the parcel to the bemused customer.

The following morning, Alistair pulled up outside Hannah’s gate as she stepped out onto the deck. She’d chosen a soft skirt that came to her knees, and a light cardigan over a strappy vest top. Wearing just the barest of make-up, she had left her hair loose to fall to her shoulders. She hoped he wouldn’t notice her efforts. He held the door for her and, as he walked around the front of the truck to the driver’s door, she saw him smile and lightly tap the bonnet of the car. Dammit, he had noticed. She tucked her skirt under her legs and pulled the cardigan closed over her chest, not meeting his eye.

It was only when they had left Leliehoek behind that she turned to him. ‘Why did you want to come with me?’

He glanced across at her, perhaps trying to read her mood. ‘I have some things to look up at the archives too, so I thought we might as well travel together.’

‘Oh.’

‘I want to find out where the blockhouses were built in our area. The anecdotal information I’ve found so far is more to do with Boer farms and the camps than the British army’s positions.’

‘I suppose that would make sense if Leliehoek farmers are mostly Boer descendants. Aren’t there still blockhouses which remain?’

‘Not in our area, it would seem. Maybe the Boers demolished them when they returned to their farms.’

‘I certainly would,’ said Hannah, thinking of the families returning to devastated farms and burnt-out homesteads. ‘I wouldn’t want any reminder of what the war had done to my home.’

‘And building materials would also have been in short supply,’ said Alistair. ‘Corrugated-iron sheets and bricks would’ve been very useful in rebuilding. If we can establish where the blockhouse line ran, then it might explain why a camp was built on Goshen, so far from the railway.’ He glanced at Hannah, who had relaxed as the conversation had shifted away from themselves. ‘What is your agenda for today?’ he asked.

‘I need to find out what happened to the Badenhorst family. I know it doesn’t have particular bearing on the Goshen camp, because they were sent to another one, but not knowing is gnawing at me.’ Hannah propped her forehead into the cup of her hand, her elbow leaning on the window frame. ‘Imagine being separated from your family and having to spend at least two years in a camp, not knowing where they were or if they were still alive. Rachel’s despair is driving me crazy. I can’t bear it. What if she never found out?’

Alistair smiled at her, his eyes gentle. ‘It’s rather lovely actually. You care deeply for her and want to help. That it’s over a hundred years down the line is inconsequential.’

As they approached Bethlehem, Hannah watched the mountains of the eastern Free State fall away and the land begin to flatten out, stretching to the horizon.

‘Did you know,’ said Alistair, raising a smile from Hannah, ‘Bethlehem got its name from the Hebrew?’

Hannah laughed. ‘No! I’d never have guessed.’

Alistair persisted, now grinning. ‘It means, “House of Bread”,’ he gestured out the window, ‘and, as you can see, it makes a lot sense.’

In every direction stretched vast fields of wheat, and Hannah smiled at him. ‘I actually did not know that.’

It was nine o’clock when they reached Bloemfontein, the Free State’s bustling capital. The archives were housed in an unprepossessing house on the university campus. It sat on Badenhorst Street which struck Hannah as a promising coincidence. Alistair parked outside and pressed the gate intercom. They were buzzed through and followed signs to the reading room. An impeccably dressed lady worked behind the desk and looked up as they approached. Her hair was braided in intricate patterns over her scalp. She stood to explain the reading-room procedure, handing them request forms.

Hannah and Alistair sat at adjacent tables and began to fill in the forms from the notes they had made from their online searches. When they handed them to the lady, she disappeared through a door behind the counter. Twenty minutes later, she returned, pushing a wooden trolley, the shelves loaded with brown cardboard box files. She left the trolley between their tables and returned to her desk.

Hannah opened one box at a time, sifting through the documents in each. When she came to the boxes of death notices from Winburg Refugee Camp, she reached for her notebook and settled in to read them at length. With a mix of horror and fascination, she ran her finger down each page, eyes scanning the columns. Too many of the dead were small children.

She found Rachel’s youngest sister, little Lizzie, first. Elizabeth Badenhorst, dead in June 1901 from diphtheria. Rachel’s ma, Aletta, died a month later, from typhoid. Beautiful, wild Kristina at the end of 1901 from measles. And Oupa Jakob in the winter of 1902. Hannah’s throat caught as she took in the implications of this loss. Rachel’s sisters, her mother, her grandfather – all gone while she sat on Goshen, longing for them, fearing for their lives and wishing for the day when they would be reunited on the farm. She looked again at the dates she’d scrawled, and her heart twisted at the thought of gentle, wise Oupa Jakob, nursing the last of his girls alone, until Kristina too was dead. Those last six months of his life must’ve been desolate.

Hannah sat back in her chair, her heart sore in her chest. She had expected to find that one or two of the family had been lost at Winburg. But all? She thought of the photographs in the album at Silwerfontein, of the little girls in their best dresses. Their faces without the formality of the adults’ capturred, their eyes alive, and bodies just before they were cast into motion once again. And Ma. Firm, capable, fiery Ma, who couldn’t save her children in the end.

She thought of Wolf’s wedding portrait from after the war, his solemn face and distant gaze. No wonder he couldn’t summon any lightness on his wedding day. He had returned from commando to find the house destroyed and empty, the women of his family gone.

Alistair looked up from the piles of papers on his table, seeing Hannah’s face.

‘You found them.’

She nodded. ‘All dead.’ She looked back down at the papers. ‘I can’t actually believe it. All of them? That leaves only the two sons and their father.’

‘And Rachel,’ said Alistair.

‘And Rachel,’ she repeated. ‘Although, who knows for how much longer. I mean, I only found Wolf’s grave. What if he was the sole survivor? How terribly tragic.’

Hannah felt Alistair’s sympathy and took comfort in his gentle, ‘Sorry, Hannah.’ He paused for a bit, watching her. ‘Do you want to go?’

She nodded and gathered up the files, replacing them on the trolley.

Outside, the midday heat was heavy on her skin, the seats in the baking-hot Toyota burning the backs of her legs. Rolling down the window only marginally helped. She could feel Alistair’s eyes on her.

‘Are you hungry?’ he said. ‘I’m going to need some food before we head home.’

‘Can we get a take-away?’ she said, not feeling like being in Bloem any longer. ‘I’d like to be back before the end of the day.’

They were quiet while Alistair negotiated his way around the campus. Hannah rolled her discovery around in her mind. Fumbling with her sense of loss. They found a cafeteria, which in term-time would have been packed with students, but now was largely empty except for a few staff members. Alistair insisted on paying and they carried their salad wraps and icy cold Cokes back to the car. Alistair unwrapped the wax paper and demolished his in five big bites, then started the engine, his cooldrink sitting between his thighs where he could reach it. Hannah felt slightly nauseous, and tried to force a few mouthfuls down before rewrapping the paper and putting it in her bag.