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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 gri
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 ma
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.
Just as important as the Bible. That is blasphemy, Jong. Uncle Tromp tried to look stern, but his gratification softened the line of his mouth and Manfred did not apologize.
Instead he went on eagerly, For the first time ever I know who I am, and why I am here. Then my efforts have not been wasted, Uncle Tromp murmured and they were silent again until the old man sighed. 'Writing a book is a lonely thing, he mused. Like crying with all your heart into the night when there is nobody out there in the darkness, nobody to hear your cry, nobody to answer you. I heard you, Uncle Tromp. Ja, jong, so you did, but only you. However, Uncle Tromp was wrong. There were other listeners out there in the darkness.
The arrival of a stranger in the village was an event; the arrival of three strangers together was without parallel or precedent and raised a storm of gossip and speculation that had the entire population in a fever of curiosity.
The strangers arrived from the south on the weekly mail train. Taciturn and granite-faced, dressed in severe dark broadcloth and carrying their own carpet bags, they crossed the road from the railway siding to the tiny iron-roofed boarding house run by the widow Vorster and were not seen again until Sunday morning when they emerged to stride down the rutted sidewalk, shoulder to shoulder, grim and devout, wearing the white neckties and black suits of deacons of the Dutch Reformed Church and carrying their black leatherbound prayer books under their right arms like sabres, ready to unsheath and wield upon Satan and all his works.
They stalked down the aisle and took the front pew beneath the pulpit as if by right, and the families who had sat on those benches for generations made no demur but quietly found places for themselves at the rear of the nave.
Rumours of the presence of the strangers, they had already been dubbed the three wise men, had permeated to the remotest surrounding districts and even those who had not been inside the church in years, drawn by curiosity, now packed all the pews and even stood against the walls.
It was a better turnout even than last Dingaan's Day, the Day of the Covenant with God in thanksgiving for victory over the Zulu hordes and one of the most sacred occasions in the calendar of the Reformed Church.
The singing was impressive. Manfred stood beside Sarah and was so touched by the crystalline beauty of her sweet contralto that he was inspired to underscore it with his untrained but ringing tenor. Even under the deep hood of her traditional Voortrekker bo
The hymn ended and the congregation settled down through a scraping of feet and muted coughing into a tense expectant silence. Uncle Tromp's sermons were renowned throughout South-West Africa, the best entertainment in the territory after the new moving-picture house in Windhoek which very few of them had dared to enter, and Uncle Tromp was in high fettle this day, provoked by the three sober-faced inscrutable gentlemen in the front row who had not even had the common decency to make a courtesy call at the pastory since arriving. He leaned his great gnarled fists on the rail of the pulpit and hunched over them like a prize fighter taking his guard, then he glanced down on his congregation with outraged contempt and they quailed before him with tremulous delight, knowing exactly what that expression presaged.
Si
Afterwards they streamed out of the church with a sort of nervous relief, garrulous and gay as though they had just survived some deadly natural phenomenon such as earthquake or gale at sea. The three strangers were the last to leave, and at the door where Uncle Tromp waited to greet them they shook his hand and each of them spoke quietly and seriously to him in their turn.