6. NO FORGIVENESS
CHAPTER 1
“You must marry old De Vos’s daughter... That’s a nice joke! I told you the other day that I don’t want you to have anything to do with that girl anymore. And I don’t want to hear any more stories about you two!”
Paul Bakkes looks at his son, Schalk, with flashing eyes. He snaps the knife with which he is busy trimming the grape trellis, shut and puts it in his pocket. Then he pushes his hands deep into his jacket pockets and stands and looks at his son from head to toe for a while.
The handsome, blond young man standing in front of him looks upset, and his lips are pale with the anger that is rising within him. There is defiance and smoldering rebelliousness in his eyes as he looks at the large, bulky figure of his father.
“I don’t know what right Pa has to take such an attitude. I’m telling Pa I love Helena, and we two have decided to get married.”
“Decided to get married! Already decided to get married, you say... Look here, Schalk,” and the old man walks threateningly towards his son. He takes his hands out of his jacket pockets. His fingers clench spasmodically open and closed, as if he intends to crush the young man in front of him with his bare hands.
Schalk Bakkes, a slightly delicate but nevertheless athletically built young man, with a thin moustache over his upper lip and two narrow streaks of side beard, as was customary for the best-dressed men in this year, 1886, takes a step or two back, but his eyes remain defiantly on his father’s hard face.
“Yes, Pa, that’s right. And there’s something else...” He breaks off, as if he wants to say something else, but now hesitates because of the old man’s anger. “At least,” he continues falteringly after a moment, “Helena is coming here soon, and… Pa, I can’t see why I should be satisfied with another woman when Helena and I love each other… in fact, we are...”
“You scum! You cheeky scum… Do you realize who you are talking to! Let me hear one more insolent word from you…! You are spoiled and pampered. That’s what’s wrong with you. It’s because I’ve let you have too much of your own way all these years. I don’t want to hear anything more about this wedding! I’m telling you, it’s just a trick of the De Vos girl… Not another word!”
Schalk Bakkes stares at his father’s furious face. It took the utmost courage for him to start this conversation, and now it had gone this way. Like a raging giant, the old man stands before him with his face red with anger, his shaggy, white eyebrows, his white, short-cropped hair.
Hate and anger shoot out of Schalk’s eyes. He looks at the old man for a while without a word. The realization flashes through his brain that this quarrel will be a final break between him and his father. His throat is hoarse as he protests again with the words.
“Pa, but I’m not a child anymore...”
“That’s all you are! All you are! And you will stay that way your whole life. No longer a child! Imagine…! Now go on then, go your own way, go find your own living. Get out of my house! I never want to see you again.”
“Alright, Pa. I’m even willing to do that…”
“You..!” The old man seems to choke on his words. He makes a rattling throat sound and storms forward. His heavy walking stick is hanging to one side on a wire that holds up the trellis, and he grabs it in passing, swinging it wildly through the air. The attack is so unexpected that Schalk cannot fend off the blow, and it hits him on the side of his head and leaves him staggering half-dazed against the wall. Then the old man storms forward, bellowing and aims another blow at his head.
Schalk Bakkes had a round-topped hat on his head, which is now lying to one side on the
