‘Mevrou Hettie fell off the bunk, Meneer,’ I answered in a frightened voice.
‘Why me? Why always me? Why always Pik Botha? Why not somebody else? What have I ever done to anyone?’ He looked directly at me. ‘Does she belong to you?’ he asked in an accusing voice. Before I was able to reply he put a finger and thumb to his furrowed brow and with a wince corrected himself. ‘No, of course not. That is Big Hettie.’ He gasped as the realisation hit him fully. ‘My God! Big Hettie is on my train!’ He sounded as if he were about to cry. ‘What am I going to do, man!’ he wailed.
‘I, I don’t know, Meneer. She was just here when I woke up.’
Pik Botha sniffed, jerking his head back. ‘Well, I’m telling you now, man, she can’t stay like this!’ He looked down in distaste at the slumbering woman, then stuck his hand into the compartment, leaning slightly over Big Hettie. ‘Where’s your ticket? Give it here, boy,’ he said.
‘I have it here, Meneer.’ I hurriedly fumbled with the safety pin where Hoppie had pinned my ticket to the clean shirt I had changed into for the fight.
‘Bring it here, man, I can’t climb over this dead cow to get it.’ I crawled along the bunk and, by stretching out my arm as far as I could, managed to reach his hand.
‘This ticket is not clipped,’ he said accusingly. ‘You got on this train who knows where? I’m not a mind reader, this ticket is not clipped, man!’
‘I didn’t know I had to give it to be clipped, Meneer,’ I said, suddenly fearful.
‘It’s that verdomde Hoppie Groenewald! He did this on purpose to make work for me. Not clipping tickets is an offence. Just because he is going into the army he thinks he can go around not clipping tickets. Who does he think he is, man? What do you think would happen if we all went around not clipping tickets?’
‘Please, Meneer, Hoppie clipped everybody’s ticket. He only forgot mine, that’s the honest truth, honest!’ I pleaded, frantic that Hoppie would get into trouble on my behalf.
‘Humph! It wouldn’t surprise me to find that that one lets dirty Kaffirs ride for nothing and then does bad things to their women. He is not a married man, you know. First I lose one pound ten shilling betting on that big ape from the mines and now that one who calls himself after a nigger boxer goes around not clipping people’s tickets.’ He paused and cleared his throat. ‘I’m afraid it is my duty to report this,’ he said, his lips drawn thinly so that his crayon moustache stretched in a dead straight line across his upper lip.
‘Please, Meneer, he hates Kaffirs just like you. Please don’t report him.’
‘It’s all right for you. You’re his friend, you’ll say anything.’ He paused as though thinking. ‘Orright, I’m a fair man, you can ask anybody about that. But mark my word. Next time that Hoppie Groenewald is going to be in a lot of trouble or my name is not Pik Botha.’ He withdrew a pair of clippers from his waistcoat pocket and clipped my ticket.
‘Thank you, Meneer Botha, you are a very kind man.’
‘Too kind for my own good, boy! If you help others all you get is a kick in the face. But I am a born-again Christian and not a vengeful type. The Bible says, “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord”, but sometimes, I’m telling you,’ he nudged Big Hettie with the toe of his shiny boot, ‘the cross the Lord expects me to carry is very heavy, man.’ He gave Big Hettie several more quick nudges with his boot. ‘Wake up you old cow! This compartment is the property of the South African Railways and it says in the rules, no passenger shall decamp on the floor of the carriages. Wake up! You are officially breaking the rules lying there like a dead cow.’
Snort, sigh, breath in, silence, breath out, whistle, snort, was all he got back.
‘Come, boy, I will take you to breakfast, your ticket says you get breakfast.’
Breakfast was another feast of bacon and eggs with toast, jam and coffee. It was too early for the other passengers, and a waiter called Hennie Venter served us. He was pleased as punch with himself because he had won five pounds on the fight. Forgetting what he had said to me about losing one pound ten, Pik Botha proceeded to give him a long lecture on the sin of fighting and the even greater evil of gambling. He ended by asking Hennie if he was ashamed and ready to repent.
Hennie put down a plate of fresh toast covered with a linen napkin to keep it warm. ‘No, Meneer Botha, gambling is only a sin if you lose because you didn’t back your own kind, but bet on the other side.’ He lifted the silver coffee pot and commenced to fill the conductor’s cup.
‘Hmmph! He’s only a grade two railway man and look how cheeky he is already, young people don’t know their place any more. Bring more coffee, man, can’t you see this pot is cold?’ Pik Botha cried.
We returned to the compartment to find Big Hettie still whistling and snorting away. Pik Botha, a little mellowed from breakfast, did not prod her with the toe of his shiny boot. ‘She’s not a true Afrikaner, you know. Her father was an Irishman who was too fond of the bottle, drink is a sin that is passed on. The Bible says the sins of the fathers shall be passed unto the third and fourth generation.’ Now he gave Big Hettie a nudge. ‘Here lies a good example of God’s terrible vengeance.’
‘Balls!’ Big Hettie said suddenly, opening one eye and looking backwards up at us. ‘Pig’s arse! You are a miserable Bible-bashing, two-faced bastard, Pik Botha. You probably already had a good look up my dress heh? Get me up, you self-righteous little shit. Get me up at once!’
‘I did not! How could I? A person would have to climb over you to get such a look, and you have also a blanket over you,’ Pik Botha whined.
‘Mother-of-Jesus! My head hurts. I must have water, my mouth tastes like the splashboard of an Indian lavatory in the mango season.’
‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,’ Pik Botha spluttered.
Big Hettie ignored him. ‘I must have a glass of water, Peekay, or I shall die.’
‘I will have to climb over you, Mevrou Hettie. The glass and the wash basin are on the other side.’
‘Climb over, darling. Take also the blanket off me, I am burning up.’ I climbed over Big Hettie, and when I got to the empty bunk I pulled the blanket off her. Crawling to the end of the bunk, I removed a glass from the chrome metal loop where it rested on the wall, and lifting the lid off the wash basin I half filled the glass with water. I had to sit on Hettie’s chest to give it to her and she drank greedily. She had three half-glasses before she’d had enough. ‘Thank you, darling,’ she smiled, ‘you’ve saved my life for sure.’
‘The wages of sin is death!’ Pik Botha spat out.
Half turning her head towards him, Big Hettie said, ‘Oh my God, to think I may die on the floor of a second- class compartment of the South African Railways under the incompetent management of that snivelling arsehole, Pik Botha.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Who, by the way, calls himself a man and then bets against his fellow railway man in boxing matches!’
‘It’s a free world! How was I to know that big ape had a glass jaw?’ he protested in his whining voice.
‘Glass jaw! What do you mean, glass jaw? Glass jaw my arse! Hoppie Groenewald knocked him out fair and square!’ Big Hettie’s face had turned purple with indignation and her head bobbed up and down on the pillow. ‘Oh, oh, my head, get me a wet towel, Peekay, I think it’s going to explode.’
I scrambled over to the basin, and removing the hand towel from where it was hanging at the side of the basin, I rinsed it in cold water.
‘Wring it out well, you hear,’ Pik Botha shouted. ‘I can’t have wet towels. These towels are the property of South African Railways and you are supposed to use them for drying yourself, not for wetting yourself.’
‘Ja, Meneer Botha,’ I replied. I was suddenly grateful for the Judge’s iron-bar torture because I was able to wring the small towel out quite well. I sat on Hettie’s chest, and folding the wet towel to the right size I laid it across her forehead.
‘
‘Please do not talk to me like this, Hettie. I am a grade one conductor with seventeen years’ service in the railways. This whole train is under my command and all the people in it must do as I say. I demand more respect!’ Pik Botha seemed on the verge of tears. ‘I will have to get first inside the compartment and that is impossible without climbing over you.’
‘Well take your boots off first.’
Pik Botha crouched down in the corridor and began to untie the laces of his boots. From where I sat I could see him pull off his boots and line them up against the outside wall of the compartment, toes pointing into the corridor.
He stretched his leg over Big Hettie’s body in an attempt to reach the bunk without having to climb over her. His toes inside a well-darned black sock were wiggling like a pig’s snout, trying to find the edge of the bunk. A
