Ancestral Voices, by Etienne van Heerden

Ancestral Voices, by Etienne van Heerden. Viking Penguin New York, USA 1992. ISBN 0670828319 / ISBN 0-670-82831-9

Originally published in Afrikaans as Toorberg by Tafelberg Publishers (Cape Town) in 1986, Etienne van Heerden's famous novel has been translated into English (Ancestral Voices) and German (Geisterberg).

Etienne van Heerden  

The evidence of great sadness, said Katie Danster, who had been on her way from the Stiefveld to the Halt that morning to collect her pension envelope, was something she saw with her own eyes. She'd set out at first light, just as the mist was curling down past the heels of the Toorberg and the wild geese were starting to cry out to one another. The drought was at its height and every morning started with this mournful crying of the geese for water and wet nesting places. Before setting out she had hung the iron pot over the embers of the previous evening's fire and gone outside to break twigs into kindling. Coming back inside, she had stepped gingerly over the sleeping children bundled up in their karosses in the front room, and then pushed the kindling into the hot ashes, holding it firmly with her hands and gently blowing the fire into life. Once the kindling had caught, she arranged split sticks and logs over the flame so that the water would boil and the porridge would be ready for the rest of the household when they woke. Getting up stiffly from blowing the fire, she was suddenly aware of her son Shala standing in the doorway behind her. What a fright you gave me, she thought, but said nothing for fear of waking her grandchildren. Shala always moved like a shadow and never wore a shirt. The birthmark across his left ear identified him as a Moolman. So did the boundless rage in his eyes and his habit of never looking directly at the road ahead. Distant, his eyes were, always scanning the horizon or the nipple-shaped hilltops. 'Morning, Shala Riet,' she said, stooping through the front door and glancing at him as she passed. He was still angry. He had been present the night before when, with her grandchildren all round her, she had spoken her heart out about Toorberg and the Moolmans. She felt they had to know, yet later she was astonished that she should have chosen that particular moment to explain to the children the history of their clan. 'Morning, Ma Katie,' he said in the voice that always reminded her of her father-in-law, Floris Moolman - not that she had ever seen Floris Moolman, but when Shala was hardly more than an infant GranmaKitty had said: he's got Floris's tongue. All she'd ever seen of Floris Moolman was the much fingered photograph which they still kept safe, along with her pension papers and the letter in which Abel Moolman had granted them and their descendants the right to live on the Stiefveld for one hundred years. 'There was something trying to get at the goats last night,' said Shala. T chased it away.' 'Was it a jackal, Shala Riet?' she asked as they sat down together on the wooden bench beside the front door. Far below in the valley the roof of the big house was visible, shining through the mist - the sheets of English iron which Founder-Abel Moolman had ordered by ship from over the water. That was after the Bushmen had fired the thatch of the first clay house up in the Valley, on the night when Founder Abel and Grandmother Magtilt had taken refuge under the floorboards. [...]

This is an excerpt from the novel Ancestral Voices, by Etienne van Heerden.

Title: Ancestral Voices
Author: Etienne van Heerden
Genre: South Africa Novel
Publisher: Viking Penguin
New York, USA 1992
ISBN 0670828319 / ISBN 0-670-82831-9
Original hardcover, original dustjacket, 14 x 22 cm, 260 pages