But Deliver Us from Evil

by Lauri Kubuitsile

  ‘What is that you’re doing?’

  Nthebolang jumps at the voice. She turns and there’s Thomas Milner.

  ‘It’s nothing … A small dirty thing I wanted to get rid of,’ Nthebolang says.

  ‘In the night?’

  ‘It was … a problem … a woman problem.’

  Thomas Milner becomes embarrassed. ‘Yes, sorry … sorry to have interrogated you so.’

  Nthebolang waits. She can’t leave that tooth. She doesn’t understand how such medicine works. Maybe the tooth is all that’s needed; maybe it’s the most important part. It needs to be destroyed. She waits, hoping Thomas Milner will go into the house and she can finish.

  ‘You and your mother have been such a help to us, Nthebolang. I don’t know how we would have adjusted to Ntsweng so quickly without you both,’ he says.

  ‘It’s nothing.’ She wishes he would go. What does he want from her? Why is he lingering? ‘My mother left dinner for you inside.’

  ‘Yes …’

  Still he stays where he is.

  ‘I’m sorry about Beatrice. She’s not well. She was an orphan, you know. She never had any real parents. She was not raised properly, doesn’t know about things as she should. I try to teach her, to keep her in line. I know you and your mother must pick up the slack, the work Beatrice by all rights should be doing herself. I really had no choice but to take her … She had no one else. She’s so very helpless, so unlike you and your mother. Both of you are so capable.’

  Nthebolang doesn’t understand what he’s talking about. Beatrice has spoken to her about her father. Why is Thomas lying? Moreover, why does Beatrice’s being an orphan mean she would be helpless? If anything, it would mean the opposite, if it were true. Why is he standing there talking about such things? It’s as if he wants to confide in her. She wishes he would go to the house and leave her to what she needs to do. She fears the charm is already working, doing evil that will manifest later. She needs to destroy it quickly and completely. Why will he not leave and let her get on with it?

  Thomas wants to tell her everything, as if getting it out will solve something. Nthebolang doesn’t want this.

  ‘She’s mad in her way. She was meant to go to an asylum but the archbishop begged me to take her. He said she would be a help to me in my work. She’s not been much help; she’s not even a Christian really. There were many things he conveniently forgot to tell me before we married.’

  Nthebolang can hear Thomas’s ever-ready anger rising to the surface; he cannot keep the bitterness from creeping into his words. But when she looks at him, he pulls it back. It is clear to her that he doesn’t like to show that part of himself to anyone – anyone except Beatrice.

  ‘Yes … dinner. I’ll leave you to it.’ But he doesn’t. He still does not leave her. Instead, he steps forward and rests his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it ever so lightly. ‘Thank you, Nthebolang.’

  Nthebolang takes a step back and his hand falls. She doesn’t like that hand on her shoulder. She’s confused by his behaviour, by his words. She feels she’s somehow being disloyal to Beatrice by listening to him and his criticisms of her. Allowing his hand on her shoulder. What does it mean? Does he think that she’s somehow his ally against Beatrice? She’s not. He should not consider her in that light. What did he mean that Beatrice was an orphan meant for an asylum? Are these the reasons he bullies her so much? She looks down at the dead fire where the fine edge of the tooth shows among the ashes.

  Finally, he turns and walks to the house without saying anything more. When she hears the door close, she grabs the tooth out of the ashes and rushes through gate. Behind the mission she finds a stone and sets the tooth on the top of a large, flat, granite boulder, beginning to pound it as quietly as she can with the stone. Soon it is only powder. She brushes the powder onto a leaf, folds it up, and throws it as far as she can out into the night.

  As she scrubs at her hands with lye soap in a bucket of water, she wonders if she has done enough. Only then does she have the chance to consider what has happened. She wonders who’s doing this to them. Who is trying to bewitch them? Are they the same people causing havoc in the village? Sending lightning and illness to people? Is it Mmapitse? She suspects it is from Beatrice’s description, an old woman with a stick. What does she want with them? Why now, after so much time?

  Nthebolang feels something closing in on her and she knows she has to fight it. This time she must fight it. She will not let it capture her unawares as it did her father. Everything seems wrong now and she’s frightened by it. Ever since the Milners arrived, the world seems to have tilted.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Beatrice walks towards the main kgotla. Thomas Milner might be there but she doesn’t care. He has banned her from walking about alone. He’ll beat her if he finds her doing it again, he has promised. Beatrice smiles at that. He’s such a fool. She welcomes his beatings; they’re fuel for her – food and, more importantly, a covenant. A promise laid deeper with each slap, each whipping, each wound.

  The kgotla is empty except for two men she doesn’t know, sitting slumped in low wooden chairs in the shade, sound asleep. She continues walking. She doesn’t have a lot of time, only a few hours. If she’s lucky, she can climb up into the hills today and find a special spot to sit quietly.

  She turns around the edge of the main kgotla and then she spots Nthebolang’s friend, the young man Nthebolang meets in the night. She notices him initially because he’s standing in a narrow passage between two tall palisade walls. It seems an odd place for people to be having a talk, closed-in and small, and hidden. Beatrice suspects that’s why the spot was chosen – to keep secrets.

  She steps back so she’s out of their line of sight. The young man, Motsumi, is speaking to an old woman leaning on a stick. Listening on the side is a tall man with a sharp-featured face. Beatrice watches them. Motsumi’s face is serious, nothing like the face he uses to court Nthebolang; that face is silly and foolish. The old woman speaks little, only nodding. The tall man says nothing.

  When Beatrice leans out to look again, the tall man turns her way. By the way he turns, she knows he is expecting to see her. He looks directly at her and a shaft of cold runs through her body. A dead cold. Beatrice recognises this: it is //Gaunab, the evil one.

  She quickly heads back to the mission. Nthebolang sees her rush through the gate and meets her at the door of the house.

  ‘What has happened?’ asks Nthebolang.

  ‘Nothing.’ Beatrice wants to be inside and she pushes past Nthebolang. It makes no sense – if //Gaunab wants her, a house is no protection, but she feels safer inside.

  She sits down at the table. Nthebolang goes to her.

  ‘Should I bring you something?’ Nthebolang’s face is steeped in worry. ‘You look upset.’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ says Beatrice. ‘You must take care in this village, Nthebolang.’

  Nthebolang looks at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m just saying … take care. Something is beginning.’

  Beatrice stands at the window looking out into the dark while Nthebolang gets Elizabeth ready for bed. She listens to them talking and is happy that her daughter has found someone who loves her. Beatrice knows it’s wrong that she feels no love for her daughter, but it’s something for which she blames Thomas Milner. Her hatred for him is too great, and half of him lives in the girl. It’s unfair; the child is innocent. Maybe the situation will change when they’re free, because lately she has decided that when she escapes she must take Elizabeth with her. It would be far too cruel to leave her with Thomas Milner. She may not love her as she should, but she will not do that. Elizabeth is also part her.

  ‘Will you read me a story, Nthebolang?’ Elizabeth asks. ‘The one about the big boat again?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ says Nthebolang.

  Just as Beatrice is about to move away from the window, she spots something. Is there someone out there? And then she sees that it is the old wo
man whom she saw with the evil one and Motsumi the day before. Beatrice watches as the woman bends and digs a hole at the gate. She takes something from a bag tied at her waist and buries it in the hole. Beatrice knows what the old woman is doing, likely sent by the evil one, but she’s not frightened.

  She climbed into the hills to her special place earlier that day. A flat cleared place shaded by a yellow acacia growing between two stones. There, her mind window showed her the truth of what would come. She expected this old woman; she knows why she is there. They are indeed deadly people, but they will not harm her now. She has been made ready for them. She smiles, watching the old woman’s efforts for nought. Let her place her medicine; let it sit at that gate and rot into its evil contents. Beatrice will not be harmed. No one will.

  She waits until the woman has left before turning back to the room.

  ‘Nthebolang, please can you help me with my hair?’

  She must warn Nthebolang about the boy, though. Beatrice knows she must do it gently or it will push her to him, which might be very dangerous. She suspects that they are already lovers and that binds them in a strong way. Bodies once joined are hard to pull apart if love is involved, or even the perception of love. Beatrice must keep careful watch over Nthebolang so that she does not get caught up in what is coming.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Beatrice sits on the bank of the river in the shade of a wild fig tree, her feet dangling in the coolness. Her sketch book lies forgotten next to her. Nthebolang splashes in the water with Elizabeth. The air quivers with heat; the river is a gift.

  ‘The fishes are biting my feet,’ says Elizabeth.

  ‘You better watch out, they’ll soon eat you all up,’ says Nthebolang.

  ‘Will they?’ asks Elizabeth, alarmed.

  Nthebolang grabs her out of the water and hugs her tightly. ‘No, I’m only teasing – they’re far too small and you’re far too big. They’d be eating for weeks, and by then you would have long gone back home.’

  ‘It’s nice here,’ Beatrice says. ‘It reminds me of my last home.’

  ‘Really?’ Nthebolang thinks other places are better than Ntsweng. The places she reads about in the books at the mission house seem nicer, especially now when everything has become so uncertain.

  ‘Yes, really. Why? Do you think this is a terrible place?’ Beatrice asks.

  ‘No, well … maybe … sometimes. I didn’t like it when we first arrived. For a while it was fine, but I don’t know any more. Things are changing.’

  ‘I hated Cape Town – it was horrible. People everywhere, people with all sorts of ideas and words. Everything caging me in. Bossing me around, telling me all sorts of things. I lived in dirty places, places you would hate, Nthebolang. Concrete everywhere, places where you can’t see the sky. But here, here the air is clean. I’m free … to think clearly.’ She smiles as she speaks, but after a moment’s thought the smile disappears and she adds, ‘I’m free, except for Thomas, but he doesn’t matter.’

  Nthebolang is surprised to hear a woman say her husband doesn’t matter. She knows husbands define women. They matter even more than a woman’s children. If a woman has a stupid husband, people will think she is stupid too. If she gets a husband always looking for other women, then the wife will be considered useless, unable to keep her husband satisfied.

  In Beatrice’s world everything is different. For her, it is as if nothing of what exists matters except what is in her mind and the world she creates there – that is the one that she lives in. Not the one other people live in. Nthebolang suspects that must cause problems; at least it causes problems with Thomas Milner. But, too, Beatrice’s thinking excites Nthebolang. She wishes she could think like that, ignore everyone else and think about everything her own way, and then live her life accordingly. Beatrice is not affected by anyone’s rules – she’s lawless, or at least operates according to her own laws only. How freeing that would be, Nthebolang thinks.

  ‘Help me float, Nthebolang,’ says Elizabeth.

  She steps further into the water, her dress billowing out around her, and carries Elizabeth with her. The little girl lies back and Nthebolang holds her up with her hands placed under her back. Slowly, she lets her hands hold Elizabeth less and less until she’s no longer holding her at all, and Elizabeth is floating on her own.

  ‘You’re doing it,’ says Nthebolang.

  ‘Look, Mother! I’m floating,’ Elizabeth calls to Beatrice.

  ‘Yes,’ says Beatrice, looking back towards the village, away from her daughter. ‘Nthebolang, are there hyenas around here?’

  ‘Yes, but away from the village though. Sometimes they kill goats, even cattle.’

  ‘I think I saw some teeth that looked too big for a dog’s teeth.’

  Nthebolang freezes in the water. Had she not destroyed the tooth properly? She was sure she had. Or had someone come again without her knowing?

  ‘Where?’ Nthebolang asks, keeping her voice steady. ‘Where did you see these teeth?’

  ‘Wrapped in a cloth, hidden by the cooking house.’

  Nthebolang tries not to appear too eager. ‘Will you show me when we go back?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Once back at the mission house, Nthebolang puts Elizabeth down for her nap and then goes looking for Beatrice. She finds her at the back of the house feeding dried bread to the big black-and-white pied crows. Nthebolang stops some distance away and watches her. The crows crowd around Beatrice and she seems to be singing softly to them, or mumbling some sort of words. She holds out her hand with the bread and a crow flies to sit on her arm. It picks pieces of bread from her hand and, instead of eating them, drops them to the ground at her feet. The other crows fight for the bread on the ground. It’s as if he’s feeding the others. Beatrice runs her hand gently down the back of the crow on her arm – over and over, speaking all the time.

  Nthebolang is spellbound. She has never seen a crow so unafraid of a person, never seen one behave in that manner. The one on Beatrice’s arm, in particular, seems to be listening to what she’s saying. It tilts its head towards her as she speaks. Nthebolang steps closer to try to hear what Beatrice is saying and the crows see her, squawk, and fly off.

  Beatrice turns to look at her. ‘You’ve scared my friends.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Nthebolang comes closer and sits down on a nearby pile of wood. She’s curious about the crows but other issues must be attended to first.

  ‘I hoped you could show me the teeth you spoke about.’

  Beatrice walks to the side of the cooking house. Towards the front, she moves a stone and there is a cloth. Inside are various kinds of teeth, five in all. Nthebolang isn’t sure what animals they come from. Some she thinks might be cows’ teeth; others are longer and could be dog or even hyena, as Beatrice suspected.

  ‘Did you find them here?’ Nthebolang asks.

  ‘No. I just hid them here.’ Beatrice is purposefully confusing things and Nthebolang wonders why. That’s not what she’d said by the river.

  ‘Where did you find them?’ Nthebolang asks.

  Beatrice takes the cloth from Nthebolang and hides it back under the stone. ‘Can you teach me the game you taught Elizabeth?’

  ‘Yes, but … where did all those teeth come from?’

  Beatrice walks away to the back of the servant’s hut where the shade is cooler at that time of day. Nthebolang follows her. Beatrice sits down on the ground and marks out the square board for mmele. Nthebolang remains standing, watching her.

  ‘Why don’t you want to tell me, Beaty?’

  ‘Tell you what?’ Beatrice says.

  ‘About the teeth … where you found them.’

  ‘I just don’t. Oh, Nthebolang, I want everything to be nice for us. Are you my friend?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Good, I’m your friend too. I know what happened the other night. That old woman. I saw you go out and destroy the medicine she put there. Thank you for that. I understand t
hese things – my people believe in them too. My real people. Things are not safe for you here, that’s why you don’t like it here any more. I can see that. I can feel it around you. You’re like me. I saw it the first day we met. We’re the same. People, people like Thomas and even your mother, they don’t understand us. But, for a while – a bit longer – we must stay here … to finish a few things. I’ll keep you safe, don’t worry. You’re my friend and no one will harm you. Not even that old woman. I always protect my friends.’

  Nthebolang is confused. What is Beatrice talking about? Who are her real people? What does she understand? Witchcraft? Why did she have those teeth? Where could they have come from? Could Thomas Milner be right? Is Beatrice mad in some way? Does she belong in some sort of asylum, as he said? Nthebolang doesn’t want to believe any of that. She’s very fond of Beatrice and has learned not to trust much of what Thomas Milner says, but he has placed doubts in her mind and this talk is making her rethink everything.

  Beatrice pats the ground next to her. ‘Come. Sit. Teach me the game. We have a long time, our whole lives to understand all of these small things about each other. That’s what’s nice about being friends, don’t you think? Learning about all of those little things. Kamogelo and I were like that … are like that.’

  Nthebolang sits down next to her. She guesses Beatrice is right – they are friends. But Beatrice is so complicated, so confusing, so different. Nthebolang thinks it would take forever to learn all the little things about Beatrice, especially because Nthebolang can see she hides what she wants to and reveals in the same way. She thinks about the teeth hidden in the cloth and she wonders if she even wants to know everything.