Preparations for Petrus's festivities begin at noon on Saturday with the arrival of a band of women half a dozen strong, wearing what looks to him like churchgoing finery. Behind the stable they get a fire going. Soon there comes on the wind the stench of boiling offal, from which he infers that the deed has been done, the double deed, that it is all over.
Should he mourn? Is it proper to mourn the death of beings who do not practise mourning among themselves? Looking into his heart, he can find only a vague sadness.
Too close, he thinks: we live too close to Petrus. It is like sharing a house with strangers, sharing noises, sharing smells.
He knocks at Lucy's door. 'Do you want to go for a walk?' he asks.
'Thanks, but no. Take Katy.'
He takes the bulldog, but she is so slow and sulky that he grows irritated, chases her back to the farm, and sets off alone on an eight-kilometre loop, walking fast, trying to tire himself out. At five o'clock the guests start arriving, by car, by taxi, on foot. He watches from behind the kitchen curtain. Most are of their host's generation, staid, solid. There is one old woman over whom a particular fuss is made: wearing his blue suit and a garish pink shirt, Petrus comes all the way down the path to welcome her.
It is dark before the younger folk make an appearance. On the breeze comes a murmur of talk, laughter and music, music that he associates with the Johannesburg of his own youth. Quite tolerable, he thinks to himself-quite jolly, even.
'It's time,' says Lucy. 'Are you coming?'
Unusually, she is wearing a knee-length dress and high heels, with a necklace of painted wooden beads and matching earrings. He is not sure he likes the effect.
‘All right, I'll come. I'm ready.'
'Haven't you got a suit here?'
'No.'
'Then at least put on a tie.'
'I thought we were in the country.'
'All the more reason to dress up. This is a big day in Petrus's life.'
She carries a tiny flashlight. They walk up the track to Petrus's house, father and daughter arm in arm, she lighting the way, he bearing their offering.
At the open door they pause, smiling. Petrus is nowhere to be seen, but a little girl in a party dress comes up and leads them in.
The old stable has no ceiling and no proper floor, but at least it is spacious and at least it has electricity. Shaded lamps and pictures on the walls (Van Gogh's sunflowers, a Tretchikoff lady in blue, Jane Fonda in her Barbarella outfit, Doctor Khumalo scoring a goal) soften the bleakness. They are the only whites. There is dancing going on, to the old-fashioned African jazz he had heard. Curious glances are cast at the two of them, or perhaps only at his skullcap. Lucy knows some of the women. She commences introductions. Then Petrus appears at their side. He does not play the eager host, does not offer them a drink, but does say, 'No more dogs. I am not any more the dog-man,' which Lucy chooses to accept as a joke; so all, it appears, is well.
'We have brought you something,' says Lucy; 'but perhaps we should give it to your wife. It is for the house.'
From the kitchen area, if that is what they are to call it, Petrus summons his wife. It is the first time he has seen her from close by. She is young - younger than Lucy - pleasant-faced rather than pretty, shy, clearly pregnant. She takes Lucy's hand but does not take his, nor does she meet his eyes. Lucy speaks a few words in Xhosa and presents her with the package. There are by now half a dozen onlookers around them. 'She must unwrap it,' says Petrus.
'Yes, you must unwrap it,' says Lucy.
Carefully, at pains not to tear the festive paper with its mandolins and sprigs of laurel, the young wife opens the package. It is a cloth in a rather attractive Ashanti design. 'Thank you,' she whispers in English.
'It's a bedspread,' Lucy explains to Petrus.
`Lucy is our benefactor,' says Petrus; and then, to Lucy: 'You are our benefactor.'
A distasteful word, it seems to him, double-edged, souring the moment. Yet can Petrus be blamed? The language he draws on with such aplomb is, if he only knew it, tired, friable, eaten from the inside as if by termites. Only the monosyllables can still be relied on, and not even all of them. What is to be done? Nothing that he, the one-time teacher of communications, can see. Nothing short of starting all over again with the ABC. By the time the big words come back reconstructed, purified, fit to be trusted once more, he will be long dead.
He shivers, as if a goose has trodden on his grave.
'The baby - when are you expecting the baby?' he asks Petrus's wife.
She looks at him uncomprehendingly.
'In October,' Petrus intervenes. 'The baby is coming in October. We hope he will be a boy.'
‘Oh. What have you got against girls?'
'We are praying for a boy,' says Petrus. 'Always it is best if the first one is a boy. Then he can show his sisters - show them how to behave. Yes.' He pauses. 'A girl is very expensive.' He rubs thumb and forefinger together. 'Always money, money, money.'
A long time since he last saw that gesture. Used of Jews, in the old days: money-money-money, with the same meaningful cock of the head. But presumably Petrus is innocent of that snippet of European tradition.
'Boys can be expensive too,' he remarks, doing his bit for the conversation.
