I was used to rules; from as early as I could remember I’d followed the guideposts planted by Oupa Gideon and my parents and by the Bible we studied every night. I saw them all as commandments, and I respected them, mostly, because I respected those who made them. But those were our rules.
The British neglected to provide rules regarding the ways in which many thousands in this camp were to live in an area roughly equivalent to the space we had used for planting oats on the farm. Oupa Gideon always said that no one should live within sight of his neighbor’s hearth smoke. But I would see the faces of more people on my first day in camp than I had in my entire life. More frightening to me was the idea that they were looking back at me, judging.
The camp rules became meaningful to me in only one way. I discovered that these British guidelines were printed on one side of a sheet of paper. I had brought along my notebook for a journal, but those pages were limited and dear. The sheets of rules provided an almost inexhaustible supply of paper for anyone brazen enough to rip them off the posts at night, when no one could see.
The British army may have created a vast empire, but my reading of the news led me to know that its leaders showed poor understanding of conducting a war in our vast country. So it should not have surprised me that camp organizers had not recognized the need to make a rule prohibiting the stealing of the rules.
THE GALL OF THE British to call this a refugee camp, portraying themselves as humanitarians providing food and shelter to thousands of homeless, when they were responsible for our being homeless in the first place. I would not hide my contempt. Whenever I saw a guard, I twisted my face tight and shot him through with looks of scorn.
They treated us like stock from the first moment, herding us into separate fenced kraals. Among those now imprisoned, we were called the Undesirables because our men were still on commando and refused to surrender. Some of the British called us Irreconcilables, which I preferred, as it sounded more defiant. I did not appreciate being considered undesirable, but I would proudly admit that I would never be reconciled to the British presence on our land.
A fence inside the fences kept us from the Boers who were there under British protection. They went by different names, too. The Tame Boers were those who would not fight. The Hands-Uppers were those who had surrendered to the British. And the Joiners were the worst, being traitors who not only surrendered but agreed to help the British, in actual combat, or with scouting and spying. We considered them all traitors and decided that they were fortunate to be protected from us. If they did not fight against the British, they might as well be British, we believed. In exchange for selling their country to the devils, they received more and better rations in camp, and soap and candles and small things to make their lives easier.
We heard talk of the British putting ground glass in the flour, or fishhooks in the bully beef. The meat was such gnarled gristle that we might not have noticed hidden glass or metal if it were in there. Meals were an unchanging series of mealie pap, canned beef, meal or samp, condensed milk. No vegetables. No fruit.
The maggots were not large, but they glowed starry white against the leathery meat. My throat seized shut the first time I saw them. But as proved true with so many of the worst things, familiarity eased disgust. Bina used to talk of eating bugs and beetles, and she certainly did not appear to be underfed. It taught me how spoiled I had been at home, where the smell of Moeder’s cooking pulled at me like gravity. At first I surrendered myself to memories of the flavors and textures—the loins, the chops, the ham, the crunch of bacon, the saltiness of biltong—and each memory caused a different part of my mouth and mind and stomach to react. Every day felt like the brink of starvation until I realized how much I was punishing myself with the memories. Better not to think of those things. Eventually I relinquished the words for them.
Our flour was flecked with black weevils, but they were not as obvious or bothersome as the maggots. I still did not enjoy coffee, since the smell reminded me of Oupa Gideon, which caused my chest to ache. Moeder sometimes made a sour look when tasting her coffee. But when she sipped from a rusty tin that previously held the processed meat, she gripped it in the same delicate fashion she did her china teacups at home, her grace undiminished.
She coped without complaint, and seeing her strength, the rest of our family adapted. It was not the case with the family already occupying the tent. Having had the space to themselves for a month before we were billeted among them, the Huiseveldts treated us like intruders. We four cautious Venters joined the begrudging Huiseveldts in a space the size of a small bedroom at home. It was not as if we had chosen the tent of our own accord so that we could siphon off their luxuries.
A quick friendship among the children added to the civility but contributed to the clamor. In so many ways, Klaas Huiseveldt and Willem were the same little boy, their slightly different bodies covering common internal devices. Every stick became a rifle, every stone was hurled, and every incidental contact an invitation to do battle as if to the death.
They played fivestones and knucklebone and chased each other and hid between tent rows with no regard to the weather or the well-being of bystanders. Communication was limited in form: either a shout, a whisper behind a shielding hand, or a fistfight. Klaas was thicker and Willem taller, but they were equally committed to their apprenticeship for manhood. It was harmless in open spaces, but dangerous in a crowded tent. And when one boy took a scolding from his mother, the other looked on in knowing sympathy or slipped out of the tent for fear of getting winged in the crossfire of blame.
The two mothers, trying to appear respectful of the other’s domain, would often target their own son for punishment just to send a message to the other boy. But we often sensed the tone that said: I wouldn’t have to correct my son if you corrected yours.
On some days, Klaas and little Rachel Huiseveldt sat in when I schooled Cee-Cee and Willem. Their mother, Mevrou Huiseveldt, listened and offered sour criticisms or faulty corrections. While I was bothered by her ignorance, I most deeply resented her ignorance of her ignorance. The woman believed the world was flat. I could not even go into it with her.
She had been so dramatic in her claims of being on the brink of perishing that I did not expect her to survive our first day in the tent. But she lived to complain anew the next morning. Rheumatism one day, indigestion the next, painful “blockages” on the third. She rendered foul winds that filled the tent and disgusted even the two young boys, who took pride in such matters.