So do I, Moses agreed, but they were looking at different young white faces in the long rows of individual pictures.
Of course, Manfred knew that Uncle Tromp kept the most extraordinary hours. Whenever Manfred's bladder woke him in the small dark hours and he dragged himself out of the tool-shed and stumbled down the path to the outhouse against the moroto hedge he would look up and through sleep-blurred eyes see the larnplight burning in the window of Uncle Tromp's study.
Once, more wide awake than usual, Manfred left the path and crept through Aunt Trudi's cabbages to peer in over the sill. Uncle Tromp sat like a shaggy bear at his desk, his beard rumpled from constant tugging and combing with his thick fingers, wire-framed spectacles perched upon his great beak of a nose, muttering furiously to himself as he scribbled on the loose sheets of paper that were tumbled over the desktop like debris after a hurricane. Manfred had assumed he was working on one of his sermons, but had not thought it strange that his labours; had continued night after night for almost two years.
Then one morning the coloured postman wheeled his bicycle up the dusty road, burdened by an enormous package wrapped in brown paper and blazoned with stamps and stickers and red sealing-wax. Aunt Trudi placed the mysterious package on the small hall table, and all the children found excuses to creep into the hall and stare at it in awe, until at five o'clock Uncle Tromp drove up in his pony trap and the girls, led by Sarah, ran shrilling to meet him before he could dismount.
There is a parcel for you, Papa. They crowded up behind him while Uncle Tromp made a show of examining the package and reading the label aloud.
Then he took the pearl-handled penknife from the pocket of his waistcoat, deliberately tested the edge of the blade with his thumb, cut the strings binding the packet and carefully unwrapped the brown paper.
Books! sighed Sarah, and the girls all drooped with palpable disappointment and drifted away. Only Manfred fingered.
There were six thick copies of the same book, all identical, bound in red boards, the titles printed in fake gold leaf but still crisp and shining from the presses. And something in Uncle Tromp's manner and in the intent expression with which he watched Manfred as he waited for his reaction, alerted him to the unusual significance of this pile of books.
Manfred read the title of the top copy and found it long and awkward: The Afrikaner: His Place in History and Africa.
It was written in Afrikaans, the infant language still striving for recognition. Manfred found that unusual, all important scholarly works, even when written by Afrikaners, were in Dutch. He was about to remark upon this when his eyes moved down to the name of the author, and he started and gasped.
Uncle Tromp! The old man chuckled with modest gratification.
You wrote it! Manfred's face lit with pride. You wrote a book. Ja, Jong, even an old dog can learn new tricks. Uncle Tromp swept up the pile in his arms and strode into his study. He placed the books in the centre of his desk and then looked around with astonishment to see that Manfred had followed him into the room.
I'm sorry, Uncle Tromp. Manfred realized his trespass.
He had been in this room only once before in his life, and then only by special invitation. I didn't ask. May I come in, Dlease, Oom? Looks like you are in already. Uncle Tromp tried to look stern. You might as well stay then. Manfred sidled up to the desk with his hands behind his back. In this house he had learned immense respect for the written word. He had been taught that books were the most precious of all men's treasures, the receptacles of his God-given genius.
May I touch one of them? he asked, and when Uncle Tromp nodded, he gingerly reached out and traced the author's name with his fingertip: The Reverend Tromp Bierman'.
Then he picked up the top copy, expecting at any moment the old man to bellow angrily at him. When it did not happen, he opened the book and stared at the small murky print on cheap spongy yellow paper.
May I read it, please, Uncle Tromp? he found himself begging, again expecting denial. But Uncle Tromp's expression turned softly bemused.
You want to read it? He blinked with mild surprise, and then chuckled. Well, I suppose that's why I wrote it, for people to read. Suddenly he grinned like a mischievous small boy and snatched the book from Manfred's hand. He sat down at his desk, placed his spectacles on his nose, dipped his pen and scribbled on the fly-leaf of the open book, re-read what he had written and then handed it to Manfred with a flourish: To Manfred De La Rey, A young Afrikaner who will help make our people's place in history and Africa secure for all time.
Your affectionate Uncle Tromp Bierman. Clutching the book to his chest, Manfred backed away to the door as though he feared it would be snatched from him again. Is it mine, is it truly for me? he whispered.
And when Uncle Tromp nodded, Yes, Jong, it's yours, he turned and fled from the room, forgetting in his haste to voice his thanks.
Manfred read the book in three successive nights, sitting UP until long after midnight with a blanket over his shoulders, squinting in the flickering candlelight. It was five hundred pages of close print, larded with quotation from holy scripture, but it was written in strong simple language, not weighed down with adjectives or excessive description and it sang directly to Manfred's heart. He finished it bursting with pride for the courage and fortitude and piety of his people, and burning with anger for the cruel manner in which they had been persecuted and dispossessed by their enemies. He sat with the closed book in his lap, staring into the wavering shadows, living in full detail the wanderings and suffering of his young nation, sharing the agony at the barricades when the black heathen hordes poured down upon them with war plumes tossing and the silver steel of the assegais drumming on rawhide shields like the surf of a gale-driven sea, sharing the wonder of voyaging out over the grassy ocean of the high continent into a beautiful wilderness unspoiled and unpeopled to take it as their own, finally sharing the bitter torment as the free land was wrested from them again by arrogant foreigners in their warlike legions and the final outrage of slavery, political and economic, was thrust upon them in their own land, the land that their fathers had won and in which they had been born.
As though the lad's rage had reached out and summoned him, Uncle Tromp came down the pathway, his footsteps crunching on the gravel, and stooped into the shed. He paused in the doorway, his eyes adjusting to the candle-light, and then he crossed to where Manfred crouched on the bed.
The mattress sagged and squeaked as he lowered his bulk upon it.
They sat in silence for a full five minutes before Uncle Tromp asked, So, you managed to finish it then? Manfred had to shake himself back to the present. I think it is the most important book ever written, he whispered.