The Burning Land

by George Alagiah

  There it was, the seed of his discombobulation. Till the Hillbrow meeting, Kagiso had been able to make a distinction between his two lives. It was the only way he could make it work. How could the man from Soil of Africa ask a farmer to walk the road of reconciliation and shared endeavour if that other man, the one who plotted and planned, was also at the table? He now understood the conflict. In his heart Kagiso liked being the former and hated having to be the latter.

  He remembered the time when he had helped to organise an end of harvest braai, South Africa’s version of a barbecue, on a farm right on the border with Mozambique. It was the first year of a profit-sharing scheme that Kagiso had helped put together. The area had been blessed with good rains and a bountiful crop. That evening, as a blood-orange sky had turned purple, as shadows grew longer and fainter till they just seeped away into the soil, one of the migrant workers had brought out his mbira, a traditional hand-held musical instrument, a finger piano, as some called it.

  Kagiso had sat on the edge of the group, entranced by this vision of a different future. The farmer and his wife, Afrikaners both, sat near the fire. On the other side of the circle their children huddled next to the housemaid and some of the workers’ children. An old man, rheumy eyes staring into the embers, pulled at a zol, a home-made cigarette spiced with the comforting fragrance of dagga. Women spread polyester blankets over their bare legs and young men shared the last few bottles of beer. Calloused thumbs plucked at the metal tines of the mbira, shaped like the flat handles of tablespoons, and picked out a tune that had been written in another century in the great language of the coast, Swahili. Nobody understood the words but all were moved by the ballad, the lament of a young suitor who knows he will not wed his angel, his malaika, for want of good fortune. Kagiso had looked across at the farmer and was sure he’d seen the man’s eyes well up with a tenderness so far removed from the caricature of his people. The morning, he knew, would expose again the starkness of his country’s struggle to find a middle ground between great wealth and great poverty but, for that evening, under that deep and star-studded African sky, Kagiso let himself dream, yes, dream, of another country, one in which hope triumphed over despair and idealism scored a victory over cynicism.

  Now the man who believed in idealism and persuasion was about to be eclipsed by the saboteur, who resorted to the insidious power to destroy. It was the unsettling effect of being defined by your least attractive feature.

  And what about the others? Kagiso remembered how often they had talked about what to do if there was a danger of discovery, about how they would continue to be able to get messages to each other, how they could carry on their work. They’d discussed the mechanics of clandestine activity but, he realised now, it had never occurred to them to ask each other how they might feel. None of them had any idea of how the others might react.

  What if one of them was pulled in? The trust that comes with friendship, the certainty of a shared enterprise, they had taken for granted. But now, separated and alone, each of them had to find his or her own reason for staying true. Stripped of the borrowed purpose of the Collective, each would be left to discover whether what drove them was conviction or something less, just a good idea at the time.

  François, still the white boy eager to prove he deserved to be a part of this new South Africa. He wasn’t really fighting for the future, he was fighting against his past. Kagiso tried to envisage François again, but now imagining him without the balm of friendship, which soothes out the blemishes and deficiencies of character. What was he, really? What did he represent? Maybe he was just another of those privileged liberals who fight other people’s battles comfortable in the knowledge that their own position is secure, the ones who are unable, or unwilling, to understand that the favoured status bestowed on them at birth might be part of the problem.

  Two-Boy, restless, bored, looking for something that might replace the tedium of a career and the stupor of his battle with the bottle. He hadn’t been searching for the Land Collective, he’d needed a diversion, something to replace the previous thing that had excited his interest. He’d found Sharmi. He’d followed her.

  So it all came back to Sharmi again. Two-Boy wasn’t the only one who’d been drawn to her, enticed by the sheer, gravitational force of her personality. It had happened to Kagiso, though he’d resented it at the time. Her conviction had seemed like a rebuke, a judgement. Even then, before the Land Collective, Sharmi had known you had to take sides. She understood that theirs was a country still divided between rich and poor, white and black, and that she was not going to stand in the middle. She wanted victory; compromise was like coming second. He’d been close to her, and it had left him feeling exposed.

  Kagiso realised he’d never confided in any of them, or they in him. What had looked like intimacy was nothing of the sort. In fact, all the arguing and debating was a substitute for intimacy. Like a loveless couple, who fear the hidden threat of silence and inactivity, they had kept themselves busy. So long as there was another target to identify there was no time to tell François that he would respect him whether he was a co-conspirator or not. So long as there was another message to intercept, there was no need to help find something else to excite Two-Boy’s brilliant but delinquent mind. And so long as they had the next mission to consider, there was no time to tell Sharmi he’d like to revisit their past, to make sense of it.

  His phone rang. With some relief he saw it wasn’t one of the others on the back-up number. Kagiso looked at his watch. Still only five thirty in the morning. He answered the call. It was a colleague from Soil of Africa.

  ‘Howzit, Stride? What’s up, man?’

  ‘Ah, no, I was just wondering if you’re back today.’

  ‘Come on, Stride! It’s five thirty and you calling me for that?’

  ‘Sorry. I couldn’t sleep. So you still in Jozie?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll probably stick around for the day and get back tomorrow.’

  ‘Okay. Call when you get here. Sorry to wake you up, man.’

  ‘That’s okay. See you.’

  The lie was instinctive. In the time he’d worked in Malelane he couldn’t remember a single occasion when anyone at Soil of Africa had called him to check on his whereabouts.

  The sound of morning talk radio coming alive through the speaker hanging on a nail in the wall behind him startled Kagiso.

  Mama Khethiwe called to him: ‘Is it too loud for you? The news is coming.’

  ‘No, it’s fine. I was just thinking of something,’ he said.

  ‘I been watching you, child. Since you came in you been thinking. What you got to be thinking so hard for?’

  ‘Ah, no, it’s nothing important.’

  ‘You got woman trouble? That or money, they the only two things get men worrying.’

  ‘No woman, no trouble,’ Kagiso said. ‘Just like Bob Marley.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘The singer Bob Marley, he actually said … It’s nothing …’

  ‘Then it’s the money. You lose your job or what?’

  ‘I’ve still got my job. I’m just tired.’

  Kagiso looked at his watch. Nearly six o’clock. RiseFM’s signature tune came through the loudspeaker.

  ‘Good morning, sawubona, goeie more! Wherever you are, whatever you speak, welcome to RiseFM, the rhythm of Mpumalanga! I’m Jonny … and I’m Patricia. Hey! We’re cooking up a great breakfast show for you … But first let’s get the latest news from Celi Dube. What have you got, Celi?’

  ‘Hi, guys. Well, there’s really only one story – and it’s the one that’s been dominating the airwaves since last week. Mpumalanga’s police chief says they are getting closer all the time to finding the man who killed Lesedi Motlantshe. Lieutenant General Jackson Sibande told a packed news conference at his Nelspruit headquarters last night that it’s only a matter of time before they find their man. Sibande told journalists that detectives believe an underground network of terrorists was responsible for what he
called the cold-blooded and cowardly killing. He said they’re just a step away from catching the ring-leader.’

  ‘Did the police chief say where they are looking?’

  ‘No, Jonny. All he would say is that their man is somewhere between Jo’burg and Mpumalanga. He’s on the run and dangerous. Those are the words he used.’

  ‘Hey, Celi. Does this ring-leader have a name? Are we going to see an e-fit?’

  ‘That’s just the question we asked the big boss, Patricia. Lieutenant General Sibande says they know their man and they’ll release more details soon, probably in the next couple of days. One other thing, guys. The police chief said they’re working on the theory that this gang might be getting some outside help.’

  There were a couple of other news items. The local energy company was threatening to cut off supply to a township where half the residents had failed to pay their bills, and Mpumalanga’s recently crowned beauty queen had left her husband for the businessman who had sponsored the pageant.

  ‘Tch, tch. She is a foolish woman,’ Mama Khethiwe said, turning the volume down again. ‘That man is going to get tired of her and throw her out. Then she will be begging her man to come back. So these killers are underground, eh?’

  Kagiso marvelled at the way she switched seamlessly from the mundane to the momentous. ‘That’s what they say. Do you believe them?’

  ‘Ah, I don’t know, child, but it is like the old days, before you were born. The police they were always saying underground this and underground that.’

  ‘But they were the good guys. Mandela, Slovo and Maharaj, they were the freedom-fighters.’

  ‘So you know your history, eh, Kagiso? But these people who did this thing to the Motlantshe boy, they are just thugs.’

  ‘You are right but …’ Kagiso’s phone rang again.

  ‘Eh! You big man now! Getting calls this time of the day.’

  Kagiso looked at the screen. ‘It’s only my mother,’ he said. ‘Mama, you calling early-early.’

  ‘Leave the mama. What are you doing?’

  Kagiso could tell his mother was either concerned or angry, probably both. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Everything is not okay,’ Maude said. ‘Some men were here just now. They say they from the police.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘They just gone now-now. I just closed the door. Are you in trouble?’

  ‘No, no, I’m not in trouble.’ Kagiso saw Mama Khethiwe glance at him. He turned away from the counter and tried to speak more quietly. ‘What did they want? Did they say?’

  ‘This line is very bad.’

  Kagiso had to raise his voice again. ‘I said what did they want, the police?’

  ‘They said they want to talk to you. Mfana, please tell your mother what is happening.’

  ‘Nothing is happening, Mama. Lesedi Motlantshe was at our office the day he died. So the police are just checking. I’ve spoken to them already …’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell your mother about this?’

  ‘Because there is nothing to tell. It’s just routine.’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘Routine. They have to check everything. Look, I’m going to call them. I’m sorry they have worried you. Let me sort this thing out. Okay. Bye.’

  Kagiso turned around and caught Mama Khethiwe’s eye. He could see there would be questions. But he needed to think first. He started walking towards the door. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said, looking towards the counter. ‘I’m just going to make some calls.’

  ‘Why you want to stand in the road for? Go to my room in the back here.’

  Khethiwe Shabangu pointed to a door at the side of the café. Kagiso hesitated.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Khethiwe said, conveying with an almost imperceptible nod a sense of complicity.

  For Kagiso, a man habitually inclined to the solitary and for so long forced to be secretive, this invitation to trust from someone with whom he had an amicable, but hardly intimate, relationship seemed more like a test than a decision. He stood in the doorway. What had been a deserted street just a couple of hours previously, when he’d left the station, was now beginning its daily transformation into what it was designed for: a place to buy and sell. Across the road, a delivery van branded with the unmistakable and ubiquitous red and white colours of Coca-Cola, came into view, its cargo of bottles tinkling against each other, like a glass symphony. The first office workers were appearing, the ones who turned on the air-con and loaded the photocopier paper trays, so that others could get straight down to the business of making someone else rich. Kagiso turned back into Mama K’s and headed for the side door.

  ‘It’s quiet there,’ Mama Khethiwe said.

  His eyes had barely adjusted to the windowless room when his phone rang again. He checked the number. It was Elizabeth ‘Sissy’ Masango, Mama Khethiwe’s niece, with whom he shared the bungalow in Malelane.

  ‘Sissy, what’s up? It’s so early.’

  ‘I wanted to call you before but I couldn’t.’

  ‘What do you mean? Is anything wrong?’

  ‘Kagiso, I’m frightened. Some men came to the house. They went everywhere – they’re looking for you.’

  ‘Are you there now?’

  ‘No, one of them is still there. I told him I must go to the shop. Kagiso, you must come back and tell them to stop all this. I don’t know what is happening. What have you—’

  ‘Stop! Just wait.’ Kagiso was as firm as he could be without shouting. ‘Look, Sissy, you know me, I have not done anything wrong. You have to trust me. I’m going to sort this mess out and I’m going to come back, but first you have to do something for me.’

  ‘You have to tell them to go, I want them out of the—’

  ‘Listen – listen to me. First, do they know you are calling me?’

  ‘No. That’s why I came out of the house.’

  ‘So where are you?’

  ‘I’m at the church.’ Sissy Misango was a fervent and regular member of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church. It was where she’d got the extra chairs on the day Lesedi had visited Soil of Africa. You could see the church from the Soil of Africa office.

  ‘I want you to go over to my office and ask Tobias – you know Tobias, the night watchman – ask him if anything has happened there.’

  ‘I’m not going there. The police are there.’

  ‘What? Now?’

  ‘Yes, many of them, and their cars.’

  ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘They are talking to people from your office.’

  ‘Do you recognise any of them?’

  ‘You mean the police?’

  ‘No, I mean my friends from work.’

  ‘Tobias is there and that other one, the one who is coming to the house sometimes.’

  ‘Stride?’

  ‘I think so. I don’t remember his name.’

  ‘And he’s talking to the police.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, Sissy. There’s just one more thing. What time did the police come to the house?’

  ‘In the night. I don’t know what time.’

  ‘What? One hour ago, two, what?’

  ‘In the middle of the night.’

  Kagiso took a deep breath, a moment just to compose himself. ‘Now, look, Sissy, I know this is very frightening but I want you to know that nothing bad can happen to you. Just tell anybody who asks that I am in Jo’burg. And don’t tell anybody that you have spoken with me.’

  ‘But I want to speak to my auntie. Is she there?’

  ‘Yes, but I will speak to her. You’re not to speak to anyone. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. And, Sissy, maybe you should just leave your phone somewhere safe in the church.’

  ‘In the church, why?’

  ‘Well, in case the police start asking you if I have called you or something and they ask to see your phone.’

  ‘Kagiso, this is something bad. All this lying and s
tories and what-what.’

  ‘I will explain everything to you. You’d better go back. One more thing, turn off your—’

  She’d gone. Yet another person he was going to have to trust. One by one they were working through the people he knew. He had to warn Lindi.

  Lindi was sitting upright in her bed, her knees tucked under her chin and her arms folded tight around them. She’d been in that position since Sanjit Patel’s call. That was over two hours ago. Now the first light of the day was peeping through the curtains. She still couldn’t believe that Father Petro, the avuncular soul she’d met less than twenty-four hours previously, was dead. The tears were gone now. All that was left was the thought of him praying, laughing and coughing his way through life.

  Patel had said he would call back once he’d found out exactly what had happened.

  Her phone rang. It was an unknown number. She was on to it before the ringtone began its second cycle.

  ‘Mr Patel!’

  ‘No, this is Kagiso.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, I was expecting another call.’ And quickly added, ‘I’m so glad you called.’

  ‘Who’s calling you this early?’

  ‘Long story. Something terrible has happened. If it’s what I think it is.’

  ‘Lindi, what are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. There was this guy, a priest, who was helping me – you know, helping me to meet people and so on – and, anyway, he’s dead now.’

  ‘Dead? What’s his name?’

  ‘He told me he knew you. Father Petro de Freitas.’

  ‘Jesus! I knew him pretty well. He used to be there at the meetings I organised between farm labourers and owners. They trusted him, especially the Mozambicans. How did he die?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. That’s what I’m waiting to hear. Apparently he crashed in his car. I don’t feel good about it at all. I was with him yesterday when he sort of got a warning from these dodgy-looking blokes …’

  ‘Dodgy? What do you mean?’

  ‘Dodgy, suspicious …’

  ‘Why do you think they were suspicious?’