Diamanttak

PAP, KAIINGS EN DIE POLISIE

Ron Jones

I was 13… 14 years old… somewhere around there sometime in the mid 60’s. My mom worked at the Mint in Pretoria, was it in Andries St …? Anyway, one of her colleagues invited me to come and spend some time on the farm just a few miles away from the Cullinan Diamond Mine. She said that her son was my age and lonely on the farm.

So come school holidays, my dad took me to the farm. At that point in my life, I’d seen big houses but never one as big as I saw there on that farm. It was humongous!

I was introduced to her son, Johan who had the mother’s former surname. She had remarried and Johan’s stepfather’s surname was “Mr M”. (name withheld)
Being boys of that age and in that time, we played mostly outside, doing boy-things. We upset the farm workers by riding their donkeys and cows. We shot birds with our ketties. We used sticks to push and steer our bicycle rims. A couple of times we even ran all the way to the General Dealer, which was about 3 miles away, just to buy some sugar and bread, pushing our bicycle rims.
“Mr. M” farmed mostly with pigs.
One of our chores was to wash the pigpens. Which also means that the house was always stocked with pork.
And the old lady (remember, to a 13-year-old any person over 30 was “old”…) used to make “kaiings”. When she made “stywe mielie-pap” she would put of the kaiings through the mincer and this would be mixed into the pap.
If you’re a mielie-pap lover and you’ve never tasted this, you should.
It’s deeelicious!
So, this one evening’s supper was pap en kaiings, with a huge pork chop.
Naturally…
Okay, what I’d forgot to mention, was that there was no electricity on the farm. The lights were paraffin lamps and one of these lamps stood on the centre of the table as we sat eating.
We’d hardly started eating when there was a soft knock at the kitchen door. “Mr. M” went and opened the door. He spoke to someone outside, and moments later came back to the table with something in his hand which he carefully looked at, in the lamp light. He mumbled something to “Mrs M”, and she carefully unscrewed the top of the lamp. Whatever he’d had in his hand he dropped into the paraffin, then the top was screwed back on. He turned to the kitchen unit – you remember everyone had one of those metal kitchen cupboards, they were mostly cream and green..?
Well he opened the drawer and took something out. Then he went back to the door, opened it saying loudly, something like “Jy dink ek is ‘n blerrie fool?! Dê, vat jou gemors en voetsêk hier!!” and with that he flung whatever he’d taken out of the drawer out into the backyard, and slammed the door!
Jeese, the next moment I just heard car engines and people running outside! Two men, one in a policeman’s uniform and one in plain clothes stormed into the kitchen.
Just then that delicious mielie-pap turned into dry, tasteless mielie-meel in my mouth. The old lady just sat there eating as if nothing was happening.
“Eet julle kos.” was all she said to Johan and myself. But by now I was shaking so much, I almost stuck the fork through my lip! They took “Mr. M” out.
I can’t remember if I ate all my food.
I can’t remember if we bathed and put our pyjamas on.
I can’t remember if I even slept that night.
All I remember is Johan telling me: “Dis diamante..”
I also remember that the following morning there were still police in the yard, they’d even used brooms and they’d swept the backyard.
I don’t know where “Mr. M” was.
Later, when we were sitting on the koppie which was on the farm Johan told me what had happened.
Apparently it was not the first time…
The police would pay an informer to take cut diamonds to “Mr. M” to “sell”.
They did this because it was suspected that he was an illicit diamond dealer and they wanted to trap him.

But they never reckoned that “Mr. M” knew the game. So, what he’d done that evening, was to take the diamonds from the trap, say he was going to check them to see if they were real, and when he saw that they were genuine, he dropped them into the paraffin of the lamp. Then he’d taken some pieces of glass from a shattered motorcar windshield from the drawer and flung it into the backyard.
The police were hiding there waiting to catch him as soon as he paid for the diamonds. But “Mr. M” was waiting for this, so he’d prepared himself.
Of course I never knew this, and the pap turned to meal in my mouth.
About eight years later, one Saturday morning my mom and I were at a florist just off Voortrekker Rd. on Michael Brink St. We heard police-car sirens and then a Jaguar motorcar came racing past, pursued by two police cars. The driver of the Jaguar drove straight across the red traffic light. A short while later we heard the sirens approaching again, this time on Voortrekker, racing through the subways. They were still chasing the Jaguar. There were cars in the intersection, and the driver of the Jaguar turned onto Michael Brink again.
Then the Jaguar rolled.
My mom and I left then.
That Monday when my mom came home she was upset.
The driver of the Jaguar had been killed in the crash… and it had been “Mr. M”, Johan’s stepfather.
Ever since then, every time I see a paraffin lamp, my mind goes back to the evening of pap-en-kaiings en ‘n vark tjop becoming tasteless as I ate… and one very scared boykie.
Thank you for sharing my memories…