The Sins of the Fathers - By Wendy Greeff

Written By: Wendy Greeff

Category: Short story

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

Wendy Greeff's compelling short story, "The Sins of the Fathers," invites readers into the heart of a South African farmhouse in 1985. As part of Hashtag Kalakar's Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, this narrative unfolds with a keen exploration of family dynamics, heritage, and the tensions of a tumultuous era. Set against the rich tapestry of rural life, Greeff's work delves into the intricacies of identity and legacy, offering an evocative glimpse into the lives of her vividly drawn characters.

About the Work

"The Sins of the Fathers" is a richly woven tale that explores themes of familial duty, societal norms, and the harsh realities of apartheid-era South Africa. Greeff's storytelling is marked by vivid imagery, capturing both the beauty and the underlying tensions of the farm setting. The narrative's mood is tense and reflective, with a poignant examination of the burdens of past generations on present lives. Through her characters, Greeff adeptly addresses the complexities of race, identity, and belonging.

The Sins of the Fathers

Original Submission by Wendy Greeff

THE SINS OF THE FATHERS

Lizanne van Heerden stood at the entrance to her pantry and ran her eyes with satisfaction over the neat shelves. To her left were the glass preserving jars filled with the fruits of many hours of labour: lush, copper-hued apricot jam made with the fruit of the tree behind the reservoir; bottles of pickles, with white onions, green sickles of baby cucumber and creamy cloud-puffs of cauliflower steeped in spiced vinegar. Beside them stood five large bottles containing her pride and joy, curvaceous black/green/purple figs wallowing plump and firm in a heavy syrup, laced with nuances of aniseed and ginger. Her fig preserve had twice won an award at the Cradock District Agricultural Show.

To her right, surrounding the window, were other shelves sporting neat rows of enamel storage containers, containing flour, salt, rice, sugar, coffee beans, rooibos tea, mielie-meal and sago, all the dried goods which a family would need to eat well. On the top shelf were spices in small old-fashioned octagonal glass jars, scenting the air with the amber warmth of cinnamon, the earthier tang of coriander, and the exotic tingle of cloves. It was a fine pantry, of which she was justifiably proud, even though it contained unorthodox things which would never have been there in her mother-in-law’s day, such as the plastic bottle of Cremora coffee creamer, the jumbo box of Bokomo Weet-Bix, and the cellophane bag of macaroni noodles. Still, it was 1985 and perhaps even Ma Hermien would have moved with the times.

It was a little past four in the afternoon, but in the kitchen of Genadendal Farm preparations were already underway for supper. Delilah, her domestic worker, was at the kitchen table peeling potatoes and would soon fry the mince and the onions to go in the shepherd’s pie, a family favourite. While Delilah slaved over the Aga, frying the meat, she would get out her big beige earthenware mixing bowl, and would set about making the pastry for the tart she was planning for dessert, which would be filled with her homemade yellow peach preserve. She had made six bottles the previous summer when the peaches were in season, and three remained. Spying them right at the far end of the shelf, she stepped forward and picked one up, proud and yet aware of a little pang that there would now be a gap on the shelf, which could only be filled when peach season rolled around once more.

The dessert was a sop to her eldest son Etienne, who was lying on his bed behind shutters closed against the afternoon sun, engrossed in a Superman comic. The burly nineteen-year-old was on vacation from Potchefstroom University where he was a second-year agriculture student, but he ought not to have been there at all. A keen rugby player since his early teens, he’d made it onto the University’s team which was currently on tour and were due to play a match against Tukkies in Pretoria the next day. Unfortunately, a collapsing scrum during the last week of term had seen him breaking a humerus and dislocating his shoulder, and though Etienne had stubbornly maintained he would be all right to play on the winter tour, the orthopaedic specialist thought otherwise. A further injury could leave the use of his arm permanently impaired, and what would that handicap mean to a man who planned to follow in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, farming sheep on Genadendal Farm? Frustrated, the boy had spent a miserable few weeks at home on the farm, lazing on his bed listening to pop music, reading endlessly, and stewing with resentment about everything he was missing. His favourite dessert, her peach tart, might raise his spirits.

The peaches were bottled in a thick sugar syrup, subtly flavoured with sprigs of boegoekaroo, an aromatic indigenous shrub which grew wild on the farm, and which reputedly contributed to the delicious flavour of the prime Karoo lamb which was Genadendal’s hallmark. As she unscrewed the lid of the jar, she caught a whiff of the herb’s flowery scent and imagined golden crescent-moon peach slices nestling upon her rich short crust pastry. She would need plain flour to create that, and she returned to the pantry for the sturdy white enamel container.

As she lifted it from the shelf, a flicker of movement caught her attention through the small window which looked out across the dusty farmyard towards the zinc water tank where the household’s water was stored. The water drum stood on a sturdy brick and cement base, and was partially surrounded by spekboom, which grew everywhere around the homestead. Leaning up against the tank was a young man, someone she had never seen before, a tall, rangy fellow with the same high cheekbones which Delilah and her family had. But his complexion was an insipid yellow, not the rich chocolate brown of the Inathi family who lived and worked on the farm, a clear announcement of his mixed ancestry. She stared at him, taking in the sharp planes of his face, and shivered. Evert, her husband, always said that a bad coloured was much more vicious and dangerous than a bad black, and this youngster had the sort of face she knew she couldn’t trust. She wondered who he was, and why he was there in the yard, even though she wasn’t yet afraid, merely on her guard. After all, she wasn’t alone. She was in the kitchen with Delilah, all the children were in the house, Lukas the gardener was out in the front yard, tending to the flowers she grew, courtesy of good boreholes, and even Evert and his two labourers were within shouting distance, being in the process of laying a pipeline from the main reservoir to a new kraal for the lambs. And even as she watched, the youth turned his brooding face away and tramped off out of sight in the direction of the neighbouring farm, Rus en Vrede, which belonged to Evert’s brother-in-law, Lafras Krog. She stared at his back, deciding it had a sullen look to it. Well, with luck he was only passing through on his way to the Krog homestead, almost three kilometres further on, behind two koppies and across a spruit which seldom had any water in it.

Settling down to her tart making, she measured out flour and weighed chilled butter for the short crust pastry which had earned her accolades in local Vrouefederasie circles. She rubbed the diced butter into the flour with her fingertips, noting with pleasure how it changed texture, becoming like breadcrumbs. Next, she fetched the jug of iced water from the refrigerator and poured a little into a cup. This would be added, tablespoonful by painstaking tablespoonful, to the flour mixture, then kneaded in by hand until the crumbly matter became a smooth, pliable dough.

Her thoughts turned to her only daughter, sixteen-year-old Yolandi, also on holiday from her boarding school at Bloemfontein. Yolandi was a good student, more academically inclined than either of her brothers though only mediocre at sports. She had done her parents proud at the previous year’s prize-giving, coming top in most of her subjects, but now she was in Standard Nine, things were starting to change, and not for the better. Lizanne’s thoughts returned to the conversation a week previously which they’d had at the very table where she was now working, when Yolandi had finally admitted the person who kept on phoning her was a boy, and not her friend Marlize as she’d pretended. Lizanne frowned. She didn’t like the idea of her sixteen-year-old daughter flirting with boys, they’d agreed the boyfriends would wait until Yolandi had finished school. And though this Marcel Olivier sounded like a respectable fellow, being a prefect at the school where they were both pupils and the son of a doctor from Reddersburg, Lizanne still had reservations. Yolandi needed to concentrate on her studies if she wanted to fulfil her dream to become a veterinarian. It wouldn’t do if she got muisneste in her head instead of thoughts of her future career.

Rolling out the pastry, she sighed. The only one of her children who wasn’t causing her any worry was the youngest, thirteen-year-old Ryno, a Standard Six pupil at the same co-ed school where Yolandi was. A simple, uncomplicated sort of boy, reasonably intelligent though lacking in application, he was invariably happy-go-lucky, and his interests were his horse Oubaas, and making model aircraft. She wondered if it would be a good idea to ask him to keep an eye on Yolandi and this Marcel chap, who would doubtless be a fellow resident of the boys’ hostel at Dirkie Uys College. There were arguments before and against, she decided. While obviously she wanted to know what was going on, Ryno was inclined to be a practical joker, and might give her false alarms in jest, or else embarrass his sister unnecessarily. No, perhaps it would be better for her to just give Yolandi a few words of motherly advice before school started the following week.

Crossing the kitchen to retrieve her deep pie dish from the cupboard beside the door, she glanced out of the main window which looked across the farmyard towards the fowl run and the barn, and to her alarm saw the young coloured man was now standing beside the hen house. Her heart lurched. No, he was not just a passer-by, on his way to Rus and Vrede or perhaps even somewhere further beyond, he was clearly up to something, she could see it in the way his eyes moved, in his very demeanour. It was time to find out what was going on.

‘Delilah,’ she said to her maidservant, who was standing at the Aga, stirring the browning mince with a wooden spoon as savoury steam rose from the pan towards her weathered face and the blue and white checked doek she wore on her head. ‘There’s a young man outside in the yard. I don’t know who he is, or why he’s here, but I don’t like him lurking around if he has no business here on the farm. Go out and ask him what he wants.’

Delilah sighed and hoisted the heavy iron pan onto the other plate to prevent the contents burning while she carried out this instruction. Lizanne returned to her tart-making, draping a cut circle of rolled-out pastry over the pie dish, and pressing it into place with her fingertips, but once she had accomplished this task she glanced up through the window again, and was surprised and rather bewildered to see Delilah gesticulating wildly at the young man, who was slouched against the door of the fowl run. Confronting the youth and asking him what he wanted was clearly not a task to be easily accomplished with just a few words.

Tart-making forgotten, she took up her place in the kitchen window and stared out to where her maidservant was apparently engaged in an argument with the intruder. She watched him through narrowed eyes, deciding he had a bad face, usually a sign of a similarly unsatisfactory character. For the first time she wished Evert were there, but of course he wasn’t far away. She wondered if she should disturb Ryno, currently watching cartoons on the television in the voorkamer, and ask him to run down to the lamb-pen where Evert and his labourers Abel and Mandla were busy to tell his father there was a problem up at the house. But Evert would be annoyed if called away from his work for something unimportant. Before she could make up her mind, she was relieved to see the youth turning tail and walking off in the direction of a gate which opened onto a rough track leading behind the nearest koppie towards the labourers’ cottages. Delilah stared after him, then, satisfied he was going, turned, and scurried back to the kitchen door. Not wanting to be seen eavesdropping, Lizanne hurriedly began cutting pastry strips for the latticed top of the tart.

‘Well, who is he, and what does he want?’ she demanded as Delilah stepped back into the kitchen, slamming the fly-gauze door shut behind her.

‘Ag, he’s sommer here to see us,’ said Delilah, avoiding her employer’s eye in a way which immediately made suspicion and unease prickle through Lizanne’s nerve-endings. ‘He’s come to Cradock for the funeral tomorrow.’

Lizanne frowned, disliking the intruder more with every passing moment. ‘The funeral’ of course referred to the impending burial of the communist thugs the press was calling ‘The Cradock Four,’ local rabblerousers who had stirred up the black and coloured residents of Cradock to protest against the rental system employed by the East Cape Administration Board. They had called for mass meetings to take on the apartheid government and had formed various civic associations with strong socialist leanings, and the disobedience of one of them who was a teacher in respect of a transfer to a school in another town had led to a massive schools’ boycott among the non-white schools in the area and beyond. Later there had even been a boycott of white-owned businesses in the town, along with trouble which the leftist press had downplayed as being mere “unrest”. As Evert had said, the ringleaders were nothing but troublemakers, and when at last news had broken a few weeks earlier that they had gone missing whilst travelling back from a so-called “meeting” in Port Elizabeth, Evert had opined with satisfaction they had probably got their come-uppance at last at the hands of the security forces, a fact which was confirmed soon thereafter when their charred bodies had been discovered. A heroes’ funeral for the four would take place in Cradock the next day, and Evert had already said only a lunatic would be foolhardy enough to go to Cradock that day if he had a white skin. Trouble was expected, rumour had it the Cradock police station was martialling resources to be ready to deal with it, and on the off chance that it might spread to the outlying areas, he had already loaded up his shot gun and his pistol.

‘Ja, man, Delilah, I don’t need to know why he’s come to the area from wherever he usually stays,’ she snapped, running a knife around the top of the pie dish to trim off the excess pastry. ‘That doesn’t answer my question. This isn’t Cradock, we’re closer to Hofmeyr, and no one coming to a funeral in Cradock needs to be hanging around on a farm so many miles out of town. Who is he, and what does he want here?’

Delilah was back at the Aga, returning the pan to the heat. She hesitated a moment, weighing her words, then quietly said ‘I told you, miesies. He’s here to see me and my family.’

‘I hope he hasn’t come here to talk that rubbishy communist propaganda to you!’ said Lizanne, who wouldn’t have dared join in a conversation about politics between her husband and his friends, but who felt no similar restraint when it came to laying down the law to her servant. ‘If he has, you’re not to listen to him, and you must let the baas know what he’s saying so he can take the right steps to report it to the authorities. We don’t want these terrorists spreading their poison among decent, hard-working folks like you.’

‘No, miesies, he hasn’t come to do that. He’s just here for a visit.’

‘But why? Do you know him? Is he a relative? How comes I’ve never seen him when I’ve met all your other family from Cookhouse and Somerset East?’

‘Because he stays far away in Alice.’

‘That still doesn’t explain who he is,’ snapped Lizanne. ‘Are you hiding something, Delilah?’

‘No, miesies.’

‘Then who the devil is he?’

There was a moment’s silence. Then Delilah turned towards her, her face still except for her eyelids, which were trembling. ‘He’s my firstborn,’ she whispered.

‘What?’ cried Lizanne. ‘Ag, no man, Delilah, I was already married to the baas and living here at Genadendal when Lukas paid lobola for you, and when you got pregnant with Wiseman. You didn’t have a child!’

‘No miesies, I did, except he never stayed here or came here.’

Lizanne thought of her late mother-in-law, who had still been living on the farm at the time when she had arrived as Evert’s bride. She could have put her hand on the Bible and sworn Ma Hermien had told her Wiseman was Delilah’s first child, and that Delilah had grown up on the farm and had started working for her as a wash-girl at the age of fifteen. On the other hand, who was she to argue with Delilah about such a matter? And what would Delilah gain by lying about such a thing?

‘The Ou Miesies never told me you had another son,’ said Lizanne.

‘Ja, because I kept it a secret, miesies. I.. I’m sure you can see why. Only me and my ma knew, and the midwife who came to help me. Fortunately, when my time came, Abel and Mandla and the other men were all away doing shearing over at Baas Krog’s farm. The midwife knew Mr and Mrs Goliath, a barren couple in Cradock who wanted a child very much, so she took him away with her and left him with them, but I was allowed to go and see him, and every time I went to Cradock I did.’

‘Oh, I thought you said he’s living in Alice?’

‘He is, miesies. He’s at the university there. But he grew up in Cradock.’

‘University!’ Lizanne spat the word out. She stared at Delilah in frank disbelief. Surely this backward farm girl who had never even worn shoes couldn’t have a son at university. Clearly Delilah was giving herself airs and graces, just because she’d once had an affair with some low-life white and had picked up a half-breed child from him. As if that was anything to be proud of!

‘Ja, miesies. Bastiaan wants to be a teacher.’

Bastiaan indeed! More like Baster, thought Lizanne, though she didn’t say it. ‘So, the communists are also there at the university, stirring up the youth!’

‘No, miesies. Bastiaan always wanted to be a teacher. You see, when he was at school in Cradock, Matthew Goniwe was one of his teachers. Bastiaan admired him very much.’

Lizanne struggled to remember who Matthew Goniwe was as she opened the oven and pushed the tart inside. Then she remembered. Of course, one of the blasted Cradock Four. There was a sudden taste of bile at the back of her throat. She hung the oven gloves on the hook behind the door. ‘Well, you tell your Bastiaan he can sleep here tonight, but that we don’t want him back again unless he changes his ideas,’ she said sourly. ‘There’s no place for communists on this farm!’

‘Ja, miesies,’ said Delilah, so softly that Lizanne almost didn’t hear her.

Nothing more was said. Delilah finished cooking the mince and onion mixture for the shepherd’s pie and transferred it to a serving dish, awaiting its mash topping. Lizanne, who knew her tart wouldn’t be ready for twenty more minutes, went to the pantry and picked out three eggs from the basket on the floor to prepare her homemade custard to go with it.

‘So how old is your son?’ she finally asked in a strained voice as she stirred the yellow eggy mixture on the Aga, not out of genuine interest, but because she wasn’t sure she could accept Delilah’s story about him having been a pupil of Goniwe’s.

‘I don’t know, miesies, I never learned to count. But people said he was born in 1964.’

‘About twenty-one, then,’ said Lizanne. She had married Evert and had moved to the farm in early sixty-five, so she hadn’t been around at the time when Delilah’s shame had come upon her. ‘Well Delilah, you certainly are a dark horse. Now lay the table for our dinner, and I’ll see to the mashed potatoes.’

‘Ag, miesies, I don’t know anything about horses,’ said Delilah. ‘And I’m scared of Oubaas, he stamps his feet and snorts when I walk past his stable.’

She set about collecting cutlery from the kitchen drawers, and went through to the dining room, which was in the rear section of the old Karoo cottage which formed the centre of the remodelled homestead, to which the two gabled side-wings had been added soon after Yolandi was born. Lizanne listened to her bumping around as she clattered cutlery and laid down plates on the large yellowwood table. She sensed Delilah was peeved, no doubt because she had spoken plainly about not wanting the boy back at the farm until he mended his ways, but, she reckoned, it was better to be upfront about such matters. And she had put it far more politely than Evert would have done. She drained the boiled potatoes through the colander, and began thumping them with the potato masher, working swiftly and thoroughly, as Evert hated the lumps Delilah so often missed.

Her thoughts turned to the following day. The family planned to stay put at Genadendal, and as a precaution Evert intended padlocking the farm gate which was close to the main road running towards Cradock in one direction and Hofmeyr in the other. He was a naturally cautious man, but Lizanne wasn’t seriously worried. Lafras Krog, their brother-in-law and neighbour, was friendly with the Deputy Station Commissioner of the Cradock Police Station, and Colonel Booyens had told him the police were expecting nonsense, but were well prepared to deal with it, and he anticipated no problems for people out on the farms, though ordinary civilians in Cradock had been advised to stay off the streets. That, she reckoned, was not a problem, and although most Saturday mornings she drove herself through to Cradock to do some grocery shopping, it could easily wait a few days, as her pantry was filled with the bounty provided by honest hard work.

The screeching of the gauze screen door made her glance up, and she saw Evert on the threshold. He wore a blue flannel tartan shirt which brought out the colour of his eyes. She sometimes thought they were the bluest eyes she had ever seen and was grateful both of their sons had inherited the same shade, though Yolandi’s eyes were greener, like her own. They greeted each other, and she went on mashing the potatoes while Evert helped himself to a can of Castle Lager from the fridge. She heard the ring popping as one of the chairs at the kitchen table grated backwards over the tiled floor.

‘So have you finished with the pipeline?’ she asked.

‘Almost,’ he said. ‘I just need to get a few more clamps. I’ll have to drive to the co-op tomorrow.’

‘No, you can’t do that,’ she said. ‘Don’t forget, it’s that funeral tomorrow. The police suggest we all stay away from Cradock.’

‘Oh, ja,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten. Well then, it can wait till Monday.’

She frowned. Monday was the last day of Yolandi and Ryno’s school holidays, and she’d hoped he would drive them back to Bloemfontein in the afternoon. Though an experienced driver, she didn’t enjoy the return trip on her own, especially after dark.

‘Don’t forget, the kids are going back to school on Monday,’ she said. ‘Tuesday is the start of the new term.’

‘You’ll have to take them then. Sleep over if you don’t want to drive in the dark.’

Lizanne frowned. Although she always stayed in a luxurious guest house in upmarket Waverley when she slept over in Bloemfontein, she still preferred her own bed with no sounds but the Karoo’s nighttime whispers surrounding her. Even a car driving past the Klaradyn Gastehuis tended to disturb her sleep. ‘Okay, I’ll phone Mrs Els and see if she can put me up on Monday evening,’ she sighed.

‘How’s Etienne getting back to Potch?’

‘André, his friend from Steynsburg, has offered to give him a lift. We’ll have to take him there on Sunday morning, and I suppose we’d better offer this André something towards the petrol.’

‘Ja, fine, I’ll make a plan. Let’s just hope there isn’t any trouble on the roads because of this stupid bladdie Cradock Four nonsense.’

‘That reminds me.’ Lizanne raised her eyes from the pot and looked out of the window, but there was nobody in the yard. ‘There’s a stranger here on the farm tonight. A coloured outjie. He’s staying over with the Inathis. Believe it or not, he’s supposed to be Delilah’s son! I didn’t even know she had any children apart from Wiseman and the two girls. Anyway, I thought you ought to know, as I don’t like the look of him. And it sounds like he’s a little rotter, at the University of Fort Hare, if you don’t mind, and involved in this Cradock Four business. He’s come for the funeral, and for some reason decided he’ll spend the night here.’

‘Oh, no, he won’t!’ bellowed Evert with such vehemence Lizanne almost dropped the masher. ‘I’m not having any bladdie terrorist or communist sleeping on my land! He’ll pack his things and get out right now!’

The sound of the shouting brought Delilah back into the kitchen, where she stood in the interleading doorway, wringing her apron in her hands. ‘Hey, you!’ roared Evert. ‘What the hell are you doing, bringing fokken terrorists here? Hey? You go tell that bastard of yours I want him off my farm in as long as it takes for him to run to the gate, unless he wants a bladdie good hiding!’

‘Ag, baas…’ began Delilah, but Evert brought a meaty fist down on the kitchen table with such force she flinched. The beer can jumped, overturned, and lager began trickling down in little golden cascades from the pine tabletop onto the tiled floor below. ‘Don’t “ag baas” me!’ he thundered. ‘If you won’t go and chuck him out, I’ll do it myself!’ He leapt to his feet, overturning his chair which clattered to the floor, and blundered out into the dusk, bellowing obscenities.

Delilah picked up an old cloth draped over the side of the bucket in the corner and tried to wipe up the spilled beer. Lizanne glanced at her and saw tears trickling down her face. For some reason, the sight irritated her intensely. ‘Ag, leave it, man!’ she snapped. ‘Go on, bugger off to your house, and make sure your son goes before the baas donders him good and proper.’

She watched the snivelling woman hobbling out into the long shadows which filled the farmyard. The sun was already behind the big koppie on the western side, and the chill of a July winter’s evening was becoming apparent. She went over to the door and looked out, across to the farm gate which led up to the labourers’ cottages, where Evert was striding along, kicking up dust in his fury.

‘Jirre, Ma, what’s all that about?’

She whirled around and saw that Etienne had come into the kitchen, barefoot and with his arm in the hated sling. ‘You watch your language, young man!’ she barked. ‘I don’t know what they’re teaching you at that university that you’ve now started taking the name of the Lord in vain!’

‘Ja, Ma, jammer Ma.’ Etienne didn’t look sorry at all and seemed half-amused.

‘If you must know, our Delilah is quite the dark horse!’ she said. ‘It turns out she has a child nobody even knew about, and not even a black one, a bladdie coloured one. And he’s not just any goffel, no, he’s a future teacher, studying at the University of Fort Hare.’

‘Oh, wow, okay.’

‘He came here this afternoon, looking for her, I think, I never did get to the bottom of what he wanted by skulking around outside by the water tank and the fowl run. She told me some garbled story that he’s just here to visit the family, but it appears he’s come to the area to go to that bladdie funeral in Cradock tomorrow. And when I told your father, as I thought he ought to know, he lost his temper and has gone to throw the boy off the farm. So that’s what all the noise is about.’

‘Ha, it sounds like it could be fun!’ Etienne grinned, showing the gap between his upper front teeth which all three children had inherited from Evert. He wrenched open the gauze door and stepped outside expectantly, hopeful of hearing the ruckus going on at the workers’ cottages. Reluctant but equally fascinated, Lizanne went out to join him.

They were not disappointed. The cottages were behind the rocky outcrop at the foot of the koppie, but within shouting distance of the homestead. They heard Evert roaring at someone, swearing at him and calling him a communist, a terrorist, and labelling him as ‘goffel scum.’ He began taunting his adversary, heaping racial slur upon racial slur, and then, when the youngster apparently refused to leave, there were the sounds of an escalating physical fight. Lizanne found herself nibbling the cuticle of her thumb. What if the boy had a knife on him? Though Evert clearly had size, weight, and aggression on his side, it never did to cross these tsotsis, they invariably carried weapons, and she’d spent most of her married life dreading Evert’s temper would someday get him into a treacherous situation which might have tragic consequences.

The fracas had now gone from verbal abuse to action. In the still evening air, Etienne and Lizanne heard things overturning, and the sound of a window breaking, and then it was over, and a slender figure came running towards the homestead in the dusk. It did not enter the farmyard, however, and continued fleeing down the farm road past the hen house. They watched as it vanished from sight, streaking away behind the screen of spekboom which separated the front garden from the gravel farm road. And presently Evert’s bulky figure rounded the rocky outcrop, and he came striding back towards the house. In his hand he brandished a sjambok which he had found in one of the cottages.

'What the hell are you two gawking at?’ he snarled. ‘Go back inside, I’ve sorted the problem out. That piece of shit has left the farm, and if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll never set foot here again!’ He strode past them into the house, propping the sjambok up in the corner between the door and the crockery cupboard, and went down the passage towards the front bedroom he shared with Lizanne. The sounds of running water suggested he was washing his hands literally as well as figuratively.

*

Despite the fact the meal consisted of many favourite dishes, the Van Heerdens ate supper in silence that evening. The children and Lizanne knew Evert’s moods, and that night the signs of his ill-humour were obvious. After saying grace, as they always did, they dined on the shepherd’s pie, green beans and sugared pumpkin, their eyes focused on their plates, and they were already tucking into the peach tart and custard when Ryno finally broke the silence, revealing his ambition to be chosen for the school’s junior athletics team in the coming term.

The meal over, Evert tramped off to his office, an untidy room with a desk and a filing cabinet which formed part of the stable block across the farmyard. He had paperwork to do, ordering dip for the sheep, and checking bills which he’d collected from their post box in Cradock during the week. Lizanne and her children settled down in the voorkamer to watch an episode of a re-run of the Afrikaans drama series Sien Jy Nou! on television.

When the programme finished it was eight-thirty, and the family began turning in for the night. Lizanne took a shower in the en-suite bathroom then retired to bed with the latest edition of Sarie magazine. In the main bathroom, Yolandi relaxed in the bathtub in a cloud of rose-scented bubbles, dreamily imagining her impending reunion with Marcel Olivier. Ryno sat on his bed, drawing a picture of Oubaas, and Etienne, who had recently started smoking but didn’t want his parents to know, slipped out for a sneaky Chesterfield behind the spekboom hedge, before returning to his room, lying down and instantly falling asleep.

At about ten to ten Evert came tramping back across the yard from the office. He didn’t bother to close or lock the kitchen door: nobody on farms in the area secured their doors as it was far more likely a rinkhals would slither under a door than that a criminal would walk through one. He paused only to help himself to another slice of the peach tart, now chilling in the big Kelvinator beside the pantry door. He didn’t bother with the niceties of a plate or a spoon, and instead tramped through to the bedroom, munching on the sticky wedge clasped in his fist.

*

By ten thirty the Genadendal farmhouse was in darkness, apart from a single globe burning on the wall outside the kitchen door, installed as a safety measure when the farm had gone onto the national electricity grid about thirteen years previously. It was intended as a deterrent, not to human intruders but to the jackals which sometimes attacked the hen house. But there were no jackals around that night, only a sky ablaze with diamond dust, occasionally crossed by swooping owls or shudder-winged bats. The waxing moon, a little more than half illuminated, was starting to sink in the west, bathing the stillness of the eastern Karoo landscape in a ghostly silver light.

It was around midnight when the five dark figures on the farm road first made out the gables of the homestead’s roof in the valley below. One of them whispered to the others that their target was in sight but kept his voice low, as he knew how far sound could travel in the stillness of a clear night.

Presently they reached the entrance to the farmyard, where they paused, lurking in the shadows of the spekboom hedge as they inspected their target at close range. The interior of the house was in darkness, with the curtains drawn in every window except the kitchen. Suddenly up at the stable block the Rottweiler stirred in his kennel, threw back his massive head, and began baying. Moments later he blundered out into the yard illuminated by the bulb burning on the wall by the kitchen window, and from the hedge one of the figures pointed a pistol, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger. There was little sound because the weapon had a silencer, but the dog gave a single loud whimper as he crumpled into the dust. The dark silhouettes in the hedge froze, waiting to see if any lights came on in the house, but the few moments of sound had been insufficient to attract much attention, though it had been enough to disturb Lizanne, a light sleeper at the best of times. She had raised herself up on one elbow, listening half-bewildered but hearing nothing except the onset of Evert’s next snore, and had then snuggled down beneath the eiderdown once more, drifting back to sleep almost immediately.

She did not hear as the five figures crept out of the spekboom hedge and approached the house, for they trod lightly on the dusty ground with feet clad in tekkies. They rounded the side of the house, passing right by the window of the room where she lay beside the unconscious bulk of her husband. They made for the kitchen door, uncaring now that the burning lightbulb illuminated them, because all wore either balaclavas or caps pulled down to hide their upper faces. There was no need for them to speak, they had already discussed their plan of action, and each knew the role he was to play. When the first one reached the kitchen door, he stretched out his yellow-skinned hand and pulled aside the unlocked outer door with its gauze panels designed to let in fresh air and keep out insects. Behind it, the wooden door stood open. The kitchen was light on account of the fact the floral café-style curtains couldn’t exclude the yellow glow of the globe on the wall outside. He checked an impulse to spit on the kitchen table. That kind of symbolic abuse could happen later. There were more important things to do first.

In the master bedroom at the front of the house, Evert and Lizanne awoke to a pair of armed men tearing the eiderdown from their prostrate bodies and shoving the barrels of guns into their faces. Rough hands seized them and dragged them from the bed before Evert could reach for the loaded semi-automatic pistol he kept under his pillow. The need for silence gone, they were sworn at and told to get into the kitchen, pistol-whipped as they stumbled along the short corridor which led there. They were ordered to sit at the table, and when Evert launched into a tirade of racial abuse, one of the men smashed him in the mouth with the grip of his gun, making him spit out two broken teeth and bloodied saliva. Someone had turned on the kitchen light, and as Lizanne blinked against the sudden, violent fluorescent flare, her heart dropped into the churning pit of her bowels when she recognized the man who was preparing to strike Evert again, even though his face was partially hidden by a balaclava.

She began to silently pray that the men wouldn’t go to the wing on the other side of the house and find the children. Dear God, spare the children! But a moment later the internal door opened, and Etienne was violently shoved through it. Because his right arm was out of action, all but useless in its plaster cast, he was unable to break his fall or use his arms to regain his balance, and he fell to the tiles, landing heavily on his injured arm as he cried out in pain. A moment later another man appeared, prodding a pistol at the back of Yolandi’s head, subjecting her to a torrent of vulgar verbal abuse. She sank down onto a chair beside her father, a fragile waif in a gauzy yellow nylon nightdress, her long deep brown hair tumbling across her tear-streaked cheeks. Lizanne was all too aware that the globes of her firm little breasts were faintly visible beneath the translucent fabric and shuddered at the thoughts which she didn’t dare allow her mind to explore any further. Please, Heavenly Father, please! But her only answer was the appearance of a fifth man, this one dragging a weeping Ryno.

‘Ja, you fucking boere!’ shouted the yellow-skinned man. Lizanne could just make out between the lowered front of the balaclava that the eye closest to her now appeared swollen shut, embedded in puffed, bruised flesh, and she flinched at the memory of the fracas she and Etienne had overheard earlier. ‘You think you are fucking gods, you think you are little kings in this kingdom of yours which your ancestors stole from ours! You mock our heroes; you call the glorious revolution “nonsense” and “rubbish” and “kak.” Well, tonight you are going to learn your lesson, boere. And let your lesson be a lesson to all others of your kind. Their blood will flow when the people rise and take back what is theirs!’

‘Viva, viva Azania!’ shouted one of the others, who proceeded to aim a gob of spittle onto the centre of the table.

‘Viva Comrade Mandela! Viva Comrade Goniwe!’

‘Viva! Viva!’

‘Please!’ cried Lizanne. ‘I know you’re upset about what happened here earlier, but that has nothing to do with me and the children! Please don’t harm us! I beg you!’

‘You shut up, you bitch!’ screamed the yellow-skinned man. ‘This has everything to do with you, you were watching from that window over there, you were the one who started it all! And we will do what we like with your fucking children, starting with that little whore over there!’ He shoved his finger towards the terrified Yolandi.

‘Let’s play Russian roulette with these white bastards!’ shouted the shortest and stockiest of the men. In his hand he had a revolver, and Lizanne watched in agony as he took out three of the six bullets, then slipped the revolving mechanism back into place. ‘Here, laaitie, you wanna play?’ He waved the revolver in Ryno’s direction. ‘Hierso!’ He spun the cylinder and pulled the trigger. The sound of the explosion in the confines of the room was the thunder of the Apocalypse. The child screamed hysterically as the bullet passed an inch from his head and slammed into the heavy metal body of the Aga stove six feet behind him. The intruders guffawed and urged the gunman to try again. He began taunting every member of the Van Heerden family, asking who wanted to be next.

‘Look what I have here!’ crowed another man, who wore a cap pulled low to shade his eyes. He reached behind the door and pulled out the sjambok which Evert had found earlier that evening. ‘Let’s use this thing as it has been used against our people! And let this be a lesson for all white Afrikaner boys who expect to inherit our land!’ He viciously lashed out with the heavy hide whip, catching Etienne across the top of his good arm with such force droplets of blood flew, speckling the bodice of Lizanne’s pink flannel nightgown. The boy screamed in agony, but his assailant merely laughed and threw the sjambok to the tallest man in the group. Lizanne tried to get to her feet to go over to comfort her injured son, but the tall man lashed her savagely across the back, knocking her to the floor. ‘That’s for all boer bitches who make slaves of our mothers and teach their bastard children to despise us!’ Drawing his arm back a second time, he swung the sjambok at Ryno, striking him across the shoulder. ‘And this is for little white boer boys who ride their fancy horses over the graves of our ancestors!’

‘And this is for fat boere with big mouths who are enemies of the revolution!’ bellowed the short man with the revolver, slamming the grip down on Evert’s head. He grunted and momentarily sagged in his chair, before gripping the edge of the table to pull himself upwards. But it was obvious his strength was ebbing. A trickle of blood appeared on his forehead, sluggish for the first few moments until it started to run freely. Vivid red coin-sized splashes spattered the table, the tiled floor, and the striped pyjama jacket covering the broad barrel chest.

Lizanne, struggling to get up from the floor, realized Evert was stunned, and he was not going to be able to afford his family any protection. For the first time a cloak of absolute despair dropped over her head, giving her a momentary burst of energy sufficient to help her get to her feet, though she immediately sagged back into her vacated chair. Dry-mouthed, she stared at her family. Etienne was sitting with his head bowed, trying to weather the pain of the injuries which had been inflicted upon him. His two younger siblings were both sobbing, hands over their terrified faces. She realised she was the only one who was in control of her faculties and was able to see what was happening.

And she was the one who saw the yellow-skinned thug reaching inside his heavy jacket and pulling out a glass bottle containing an unidentified liquid. A rag was stuffed into the neck of the bottle, and she realized the other four attackers were now scuttling in the direction of the screen door, bumping against each other in their haste to get outside as quickly as possible. Oh God, she thought, not this! Please God, not this!

The youth held the bottle up for her inspection, and for the first time, she looked into his uninjured eye, startled when she realized it wasn’t the deep brown she would have expected, but instead blue: an intensely vivid, horrifying shade of blue.

‘And this is for the bastard who raped my mother one night in December 1963,’ he spat, and she realized the balaclava had slipped down, uncovering his mouth, showing his teeth, revealing the dark, terrifying gap between his front top incisors.

And she wanted to scream, she wanted to feel the rage and the betrayal exploding inside her, but she couldn’t, she couldn’t, because things were all happening too fast. There was the ice-blue gleam of utter malice in the narrowed eye of the young man across the table; there was the flare of a cigarette lighter as it touched the rag in the bottle neck; there was the wide, exquisitely graceful arc of the arm which flung the bottle onto the tabletop. It burst in a holocaust of heat and light, and then the world was raining fire, raining hatred, raining vengeance, raining blood.

GLOSSARY

AFRIKAANS WORDS

Ag – an expression with no precise English equivalent, similar to “oh”

Baas – boss, also used as a respectful form of address to an employer

Boegoekaroo- a shrub indigenous to the Karoo

Boer (singular)/boere(plural) – literally “farmer”, but commonly used as a derogatory term for a white Afrikaner

Doek – cloth worn as a headscarf

Donder – literally “thunder”, but used as a term for assaulting or beating someone up

Fokken – fucking

Goffel – an offensive derogatory term for a person of mixed race

Hierso – here you go

Ja – yes

Jammer - sorry

Jirre – a corruption of “Here”, meaning “Lord”

Kak - shit

Koppie – small hill

Laaitie – child or kid

Mielie-meal – maize-meal

Miesies – “Mrs” or “Madam”, a term by which a servant would address the lady of the house

Muisneste – literally “mouse nests”. To have muisneste in die kop means to have romantic daydreams in one’s head

Ou – old

Outjie – young fellow

Rinkhals – a venomous snake in the cobra family

Sien Jy Nou – Do You See Now

Sjambok – heavy whip of ox hide

Sommer – an Afrikaans word with no precise English translation, similar to “only” or “merely”

Spruit – stream or small river

Tekkie – canvas lace up shoe, plimsoll

Voorkamer – sitting room

Vrouefederasie – Women’s Institute

WORDS DERIVED FROM AFRICAN LANGUAGES

Lobola – bride price

Tsotsi – slang term for a young hoodlum. Possibly Sotho in origin

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 by Hashtag Kalakar is a prestigious platform celebrating diverse voices and storytelling from around the world. This competition invites participants to share their unique perspectives through poetry and creative writing, fostering a global community of literary talent. While the competition does not announce winners or rankings, it is a celebration of creativity and expression, showcasing the power of words to transcend cultural and geographical boundaries.

We extend our gratitude to Wendy Greeff for her thought-provoking contribution, "The Sins of the Fathers," to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Her exploration of complex themes within a historical context enriches our understanding of identity and legacy. Thank you, Wendy, for sharing this powerful narrative with us.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.