The Farm That Winter.

I remember sliding around on the back seat of my grandfather's canary-yellow, diesel Mercedes Benz.
Boredom, thick sadness, and anxiety forcing me to methodically count the passing telephone poles as we drove along the rural highway to my maternal grandparents' farm in the Drakensberg Mountains. It was winter and the mid-year school holidays. In hushed tones and few words, my mother had arranged for us to spend three weeks on the farm in the bitter, crisp cold.
My throat was tight with suspicion, as it had been a few months since my father's death and a short, rumbunctious character with an odd pudding-bowl haircut seemed to arrive unannounced at our house at unusual times of day. My mother's new friend was forceful, loud and most unwelcome.

My grandfather was silent as he nosed the huge car up the mountain passes, and after a few hours, he pulled over at a concrete picnic table under a typical African thorn tree and quietly handed out hard boiled eggs and sandwiches. The wind was biting cold and he handed me a steaming thermos cup of black coffee, whisky fumes burning my nose. I hesitated, and he insisted with a kind, yet impatient gesture. My first swallow of strong coffee and whisky cleared my sinuses and made my eyes sting, but I felt cheered, grown-up and much, much better.
I was eleven.

My pillowy grandmother greeted us with hugs and cinnamon biscuits. Soetkoekies, the crispy molasses and cinnamon flavor of childhood dipped in mugs of hot, milky tea. She spoke of my tall, quiet, reserved father too often, and avoided all talk of my mother and home.
We fled into the mountains and hills. As dawn awoke the doves in the enormous conifer trees that dwarfed the farmhouse, our bare feet hit the frosty, hard earth and we roamed the farm from the frozen streams, woody, bare orchards to the pastures, paddocks, paths, huts, coops, barns and vleis. We ran from dogs unused to white people, shrieking toddlers fascinated by our blond curls, and surly bulls and mules.
We ran in packs with kids from the labourers' smoky compounds, and poked at snakes, giant ants and transparent scorpions. We rubbed huge earthy cow noses, chased sheep for fun and antagonised the fierce domestic goats that chased us vigorously, bleating in indignation.
My grandmother never attempted to keep track of our whereabouts, but scolded the bony, dusty compound children in Zulu, and warned them to keep us safe.

We returned to the concrete veranda for food and tea, my grandfather smoking his pipe in silence as we ate in the weak winter sunlight. He would tap out his pipe, whistle for his dogs and stride out through the winter-desolate rose garden in front of the stoep.

Then we were off again. We would frequently hike to the springs beyond the shallow, reedy vlei where all the ducks and wild birds flocked like clockwork. Water that tasted of brisk, fresh air bubbled through the golden yellow, velvety clay.
My sinewy grandfather would come buzzing along in the early evening on his off-road motorcycle and brusquely load us on the back, hanging like monkeys on a moving branch. We were cold, dirty, clear headed, and felt the fatigue that only comes from a day well lived.

And then we were returned home to a wedding announcement, chatter, drama, tears, and strangers.

I distinctly remember that I never had a conversation with my grandfather in those three weeks. His quiet, reserved manner had been enough and the pure freedom, quiet rhythms of nature, and calm of the farm had comforted my soul a little.