Philida by André Brink

that he nearly swallows the crow in his throat, and then it’s time for the bell, loud enough to wake up the dead on the Day of Judgement. The bell has often made me think that if the LordGod woke up on that morning and came to his window in his nightshirt to set us working, I’d just turn away and tell him to shove his work up his arse. I wouldn’t want anything to do with it.
    Philida stood looking away from me as I came into the office on the front stoep of the Drostdy. I also turned my head away. But I did hesitate for a moment to tell her in passing: Good day, Philida. Because I could feel my heart going numb inside me. Look how small she had become in the time she was away. How skinny. Her feet so thin. It wasn’t the child on her back that made me feel like that. It was she herself, Philida.
    The silence sat heavy between us. And when Mijnheer Lindenberg started questioning me, all I could think of saying was: There is nothing I know about this slave woman, Mijnheer. How could I have ever promised to set her free if she would lie with me? She is not my slave. She belongs to my father. It is not for me to say what must happen to her.
    I could feel Philida’s growing resistance in the room, but there was no turning back now.
    The tall man went on and on with his questions. And what about this child? he wanted to know. Are you not the father?
    How can I be the father? Mijnheer Lindenberg, I have never had anything to do with her. My mother would never have allowed anything like that to happen in her house.
    Then where do those children come from?
    I kept staring straight ahead, still avoiding Philida: That I cannot tell you, Mijnheer. All I know is that she lay with two of our neighbour’s slaves. I saw it with my own eyes.
    I couldn’t look the man in the face either, but told him without any hesitation: Philida whored with any man who came along.
    Mijnheer Lindenberg kept on: She told me that you promised her from the beginning that if you lay with her and a child was born you would buy her freedom and her child’s.
    And then I don’t know where those strange words came from, but they were all that made sense at the time: What the
meid
is saying is just as true as it is false.
    What is that supposed to mean? asked the man from the Drostdy.
    It doesn’t mean anything, I replied. It’s a slave’s word, and mine is a white man’s word.
    I want to know what it means if you say that her complaint is just as true as it is false.
    It means exactly what I said, Mijnheer, I persisted. Her word means nothing against mine because I already told you she is a slave and not even mine. She belongs to my father. I have no say over her, my father is the only one who can decide about setting her free or not. So there is no way I could ever have promised her such a thing. There is nothing, good or bad, I can do for her. I have nothing at all, Mijnheer Lindenberg. I’m standing bare-arsed before you. The
meid
has already brought enough shame on me and our family. If I try to do anything more for her, it’ll be finished and
klaar
with me. I’m sorry to have to say this, Mijnheer, but you can see for yourself that she can no longer stay in our family after all her cheekiness and lies and the way she behaved to my mother and the rest of us.
    The man kept writing in his book for a long time. Afterwards he turned to Philida and asked her: If all this is true, how can you still expect your Baas to set you free? After all the lies you told?
    Philida said: I’m not asking to be set free any more, Grootbaas. I been lied to too many times by too many people. All I’m asking you today is not to make them sell me and my children inland. Please, Grootbaas. They’re too small and the inland is too far away.
    There’s nothing I can do about what happens inland, said the tall, bony man. After all the lies you told there’s nothing I can do for you anyway.
    Then the Grootbaas must
maar
do what he want, I heard her say. She leaned