Fiela's Child (Fiela se Kind)

“Why the good God had to leave the hens so grey and dull and give all the beauty to the males, no one could tell” 

The women in the novel work harder, physically, than their husbands. Barta shoulders the load because Elias becomes trapped inside from his fear of the elephants. Fiela works because Selling is physically exhausted, unhealthy, and limited. What the women have is physical beauty, except in the curious inversion of the ostriches. Even in the case of Kicker and the breeding, Fiela is forced to rely on the attributes of males in order to prosper. 

“How can a man think out his plans with a woman breathing down on his neck all the time?” 

In the van Rooyen household, sexism runs rampant through Elias, the father. He blames the women in his life for most of his troubles. It is worth noting that his daughter, Nina, defies his authority at every chance, and his wife, Barta, manages to keep a secret from him for most of their lives. Ultimately, the most sexist character is shown little respect. 

“Children pay no heed when you warn them. They have to get hurt before they will listen”

Throughout the novel, this theme is reinforced many times: the most significant lessons are always accompanied by pain. 

“When you find yourself up against an adder it does not mean you’re afraid just because you get stones ready to kill him.” 

Fiela wants Benjamin to know that fear does not rule her, and just because she is always prepared to fight for her rights—and she wants him to be—does not mean that she lives in fear. 

“He’s softer than us because he’s white” 

The people of the forest are hearty survivors. They also happen to have brown skin. There is a suggestion through the novel that white people are more vulnerable and naïve, even though they are in positions of authority. They are fancier, fussier, more privileged, and their prejudice occasionally blinds them. However, even though the quote above speaks of a more benign strain of racism, one rooted in circumstantial reality, it is still judgment being passed on a person’s race.

“Dawid had told him not to cry. Not in front of white people” 

Fiela has done a good job imparting her philosophies to all of her children. Dawid also knows that it is important, when among whites, to show strength. Fear and tears give the white a reason to dismiss them as weak.

“The magistrate had said that from now on he was white again” 

Whiteness is not simply a skin tone in the novel. It is also a state of mind, a moral value, and it determines, to some degree, what a person’s mind is capable of aspiring to. The magistrate speaks as if Benjamin’s whiteness is a function of him once again living with white people, not the fact that he has white skin.

“The little brat would realize that it would not pay him to play tricks, that he would be made white again and learn to be obedient” 

Elias also sees Benjamin’s problems as insufficient whiteness. It does not matter that his skin is white. For Elias, running away, playing tricks, and disobedience are all the actions of Black people. 

“Petrus Zondagh meant new hope because they would not dare shut the door in his face as they had done to her” 

Fiela does not like having to rely on Petrus to help her, but he has more leverage than she does simply because he is white. 

“How could you pray when your mother was no longer there to tell you what to say?” 

Benjamin’s attachment to Fiela is never shown more poignantly than in this passage. During his childhood, and before becoming an independent man, he needed her guidance even when approaching God, who is there to listen to everyone equally.

“The morning he cut the forty-first notch in the pole, Benjamin knew his mother was not coming for him. No matter how hard he tried, he no longer believed she would come”

As a child, Benjamin deals in absolutes. There is a finality in his thinking that will not be present in the uncertainties of his adult mind. Once he can no longer believe that Fiela is coming, he starts becoming Lukas at an accelerated pace. Belief is typically painted as being a matter of choice, but his belief in Fiela’s eventual arrival evaporates as if it is independent of him. 

“He knew he was Lukas van Rooyen but somehow he did not want them to know it

During one of his most uncertain periods regarding his identity, Benjamin has come to identify almost completely as Lukas. His memories of home and Fiela are largely vestigial, but part of him wants this to be his truth alone. He wants other people to believe that he still has something of the wild, free forest in him. 

“Willem says you’re white now, you won’t bolt again” 

This is another facet of how the whites see themselves. Benjamin’s new brother Willem feels confident that Benjamin will never run away again—not because he is settling into his new situation, but because he has finally become white again. The identity of whiteness has finally accumulated to the point where others see it in him, causing Benjamin internal conflict. 

“Bloody Nina. A man should have twelve sons before he had a daughter” 

Elias is not an affectionate man, but Nina is the only one of his children whom he treats with outright hostility. Not only is she not a laborer like his sons, she refuses to obey him. He sees boys as more malleable and more profitable. Nina disrupts his patriarchal authority, refusing to submit to him. 

“The fact that you have fallen in love with her, is proof, once again, that I was right and they were wrong”

Fiela is so certain that Benjamin has no blood relation to Nina that she sees even this as evidence of her claim as his mother. This would look like a naïve assertion, except that she is ultimately proven right that the Van Rooyens have no right to him. 

“Tell the Van Rooyens, the Komoeties know poverty, but we have never been in tatters”

Fiela has never pretended that she is rich and powerful, but she has always been proud of herself, her family, and how hard they have worked. She tells Benjamin to deliver the message so she can show the Van Rooyens that she may be a Black woman, but she has peace.

“Life with her as his sister would be more bearable than life without her”

Once Barta convinces him that he is her child, Benjamin still loves Nina enough to remain in a situation for which he is unsuitable and unfulfilled, just to be near her. It is poignant that he loves Nina enough that he will give up the possibilities of other romantic relationships just to choose to be in her presence as a brother and nothing more. 

“Aren’t you a bit grown up for playing now, Nina?” 

Most of the characters in the novel are preoccupied, if not outright crushed, by their responsibilities and burdens. Nina is a refreshing exception. Even as an adult, she maintains a sense of play, because she follows her instincts and feelings, not simply the orders of others. 

“Lukas van Rooyen stayed between them” 

After the sailor dies, Benjamin collapses in Nina’s arms. With their bodies pressed together, the vestige of Lukas’s identity is the only thing that keeps him from going further with their physical relationship. It is the final barrier to the happiness of love. 

“Did anybody know who he was? Did anybody know something he did not know?” 

Benjamin’s torment is rooted in the fact that he cannot trust his feelings. Until he hears the truth from Barta, he is not confident enough to believe in what he knows is his own identity. The need to let the information of others dictate his desires and path is an excruciating existential challenge. 

“One man’s will. One man’s power. He would kill him with his bare hands”

Benjamin learns the truth and his first thoughts are of vengeance. The government man changed his life with a few careless, lazy words, based on inaccurate information. All of the years of the life he might have had were washed away by someone else’s decision. Benjamin thinks that killing the man may finally give him peace. 

“For all his loathing, he could not find a single word to revenge himself on the man” 

When Benjamin finally confronts the man, he is suddenly drained of anger. The man is old, in poor health, and there is no way to change what has happened. Benjamin does not exactly forgive him, but realizes that what is done is done, and he can now live his own life, knowing who he is. 

“If you knew the details, you could turn it to your advantage. It costs money to bring up a child” 

Rather than consider the anguish Barta is feeling in the aftermath of her revelation, Elias still feels sorry for himself. He blames Barta for all of their misfortunes, and believes that her deception cheated him of a chance to profit from the tragedy of their lost child.