The Burning Land

by George Alagiah

  ‘Christ! Kagiso, I don’t know, I’m just trying to explain that the whole thing feels wrong. They just looked thuggish to me.’

  ‘Lindi, listen to me. Something is wrong. Big-time. You’ve got to be really careful.’

  ‘What’s happened – what’s happened since we met at the funeral?’

  ‘We can’t discuss this on the phone. Who are you waiting for?’

  ‘A local businessman.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘I didn’t like him at first but I think Father Petro trusted him.’

  ‘Don’t trust him. Don’t tell him you’ve spoken to me. Don’t tell him anything you don’t have to.’

  ‘Shit. Shit!’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I think that other call I told you about is coming through. I’ll call you back.’

  Lindi was just too late. The caller had hung up. She checked the number of the incoming call. It was Sanjit Patel’s. She was waiting to see if he’d call back when the phone bleeped to signal a voice message.

  ‘Stay where you are. I’m coming over.’ That was all he’d said.

  She called Kagiso’s number.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘I missed his call but he left a message. Just told me to stay where I am because he’s coming to see me.’

  ‘How long will he be?’

  ‘I don’t know. If he’s coming from town, from his shop, about fifteen, twenty minutes, give or take.’

  ‘You’ve got to get out of there.’

  ‘Why? What are you talking about?’

  ‘If you’re suspicions about Father Petro are right, these people are going to want to talk you next.’

  ‘What people? I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Yes, you have!’ Kagiso was practically screaming. He was silent for a few seconds. ‘Lindi, you knew Father Petro and you know me. In some people’s eyes that is enough to make you a suspect.’

  ‘They’ve had their eyes on me since I got here. What’s changed?’

  ‘There isn’t time for this. You must do as I tell you or we must end this call and not meet again.’

  ‘Jesus! I need to know what’s going on.’

  ‘No time, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Wait, wait. I’m not happy about this – but, okay, how long would it take for me to get to Malelane?’

  ‘I’m not in Malelane.’

  ‘I thought you were going there after the funeral. Are you still in Jo’burg?’

  ‘No, I’m in Nelspruit. I got in on the overnight train.’

  ‘In Nelspruit! But so am I. I’m in a little B&B just outside—’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ he cut her short. ‘Have you got a car?’

  ‘No. I was relying on Father Petro.’

  ‘Is there anyone who can give you a lift?’

  ‘I don’t know if the landlady’s around. There’s a farm shop next door, I chatted to the guys in there a bit yesterday and they seem to be around already. I could ask them for a lift.’

  ‘Do it. Tell them it’s urgent, that you’ve been called back to Johannesburg. Ask to be dropped off in town. Then go to the railway station. Walk down Voortrekker in front of the station till you see Mama K’s. When you get there ask the woman whether there’s a bathroom you can use. I’ll tell her to expect you. Got it?’

  ‘I don’t like this one little bit. What’s the businessman going to think when he gets here? If he isn’t suspicious now, he certainly will be when I do a disappearing act.’

  ‘It’s a risk you’ll – we’ll have to take. The alternative is that he turns up with some of those thugs.’

  ‘God, what is going on, Kagiso?’

  ‘Time’s running out. I promise you one thing. I’m with the good guys.’ Silence. ‘Lindi, if you want to change your mind I’ll understand. This isn’t your fight.’

  ‘I’m already packing. I’m coming.’

  ‘And, Lindi, just turn your phone off. At least till we decide what’s happening.’

  ‘Kagiso, you’re wrong about one thing. This is my fight, too.’

  ‘See you.’

  17

  Anton Chetty hadn’t heard from Lindi since she’d sent a brief email describing a ‘horrendous’ journey to Nelspruit, giving details of her meeting with the Bishop of Mpumalanga and the introduction to a priest who was going to take her to meet some Mozambican farm workers. Rather cryptically, she’d added that the priest – apparently a great champion of the Mozambican community – seemed to have some ‘inside’ knowledge about Lesedi’s murder. Anton had expected a fuller account in the evening, as had been the case on every other night she’d been away. But last night there had been no email.

  He was, as usual, in Saleh’s café, sitting at his favoured spot by the window. He pulled at his silver goatee, the uncharacteristically groomed beard that sprouted from his ebony skin, as he flicked through the British newspapers on his iPad. He checked his phone yet again. No missed calls. No reply to the email he’d fired off early that morning either.

  Anton browsed his ‘favourites’ list and found the Land Collective web page. There hadn’t been a new entry since the day after Lesedi’s murder when he, she, whoever, had defended the Mozambicans. Still nothing. Why would they fall silent at the very point when their words might galvanise supporters into action? But what supporters and what action? Anton realised he’d taken quite a lot for granted. He’d infused the Land Collective with motives and ideals that were his own inventions. He’d taken a vicarious interest in whoever wrote the statements, finding in this nameless, faceless individual someone who might actually complete the mission he had so conspicuously failed to finish.

  But what if this person was a charlatan whose only purpose was to cause chaos for its own sake? He’d met a few of those in his time. Not for them the heavy weight of responsibility, the obligation to create something better. It’s enough to destroy. He now imagined whoever it was sitting back, watching the beloved country devour itself. Anton had been pinning his hopes on finding whoever was behind the Land Collective’s statements, assuming he, or she, would hold the key to ending the violence, and realised he’d put his faith in an apparition, a product of his own imagination.

  He’d been flicking through several other South African news websites and one line, five words, caught his attention. It was a headline in a bold font: ‘Priest Dies In Car Crash’. Mentally, he lined up the sequence of events he feared: he hadn’t heard from Lindi; Lindi was due to meet a priest; a priest had died in a car crash; Lindi had been in the car with him; she, too, was either dead or injured. He read on, scanning whole lines at a time, dreading some mention of a passenger. But there was nothing. Police said their work had been hampered by the fact that the car had caught fire.

  That did it. He pulled out his phone and dialled Lindi’s number. The line was dead.

  18

  Kagiso imagined the café filling up. He could hear the morning commuters, mostly men, giving their orders, flirting with Mama Khethiwe, and her typically robust but endearing replies. It wasn’t her slab-like jam sandwiches or milky teas that drew the same people to Mama K’s day after working day. It wasn’t the hot lunchtime pies or steaming pap with mutton curry either. There were plenty of other places that offered all that. They came because Mama Khethiwe had a way of fortifying their souls, too, preparing them for a day of labour. Her café was like an outpost of their homes, a last chance to feel cared for and respected before they steeled themselves for hours of being told where to go, what to do and how to do it.

  He began to worry that Lindi would look conspicuous when she arrived and tried to see her through the eyes of the people on the other side of the door. One of the many unexpected consequences of political freedom was the inclusion of South Africa on the backpacker trail. In the early days, these young, almost exclusively white, travellers had been something of a talking point. Their interest in ‘black culture’ had been a refreshing contrast to the fearful disdain that had been drilled into m
ost of the local white population. But now the dishevelled tourists, who seemed to carry their life’s belongings on their backs, were barely remarked on, except for the numerous complaints about how little money they had to spend. He guessed Lindi would be counted among their number and felt reassured.

  He waited.

  Any minute now, Lindi would walk through that door and be drawn, irrevocably, into his life, a part of it that even his mother did not know about. There’d been so many decisions he’d had to make since the sabotage had begun – he’d agonised about all of them. Countless times he’d found himself still awake at dawn, fighting a private battle between what his activism propelled him towards and what his conscience warned him against. And yet this latest decision – to confide in Lindi and break the cardinal rule of the cell – he had taken on the run.

  Lindi could feel the clammy dampness of her shirt under the rucksack.

  She’d been surprised by how readily the farm-shop owner had let her have a lift with the delivery van. ‘Don’t you worry, ma’am,’ he’d said. ‘We’ll make a plan, get you on your bus now-now.’

  She’d done exactly as Kagiso had suggested, telling the man she’d had some bad news and had to return to Johannesburg. She’d left enough money to cover her overnight stay at the Mirabel and said she’d call Mrs Venter later in the day.

  She was dropped off at the bus terminus, and as soon as the van was out of sight she walked, in fact it was more like a run, to the railway station. Her phone started ringing. She recognised the number, Sanjit Patel’s, and remembered to turn her phone off.

  The perspiration was only partly down to the physical effort of rushing around with her luggage. In the space of that short phone call with Kagiso she’d stepped into utterly uncharted territory. She’d acted on impulse and now fought against the inclination to reprimand herself for not being more wary.

  Lindi walked for a few minutes on what she thought was Voortrekker and had to turn back. A pedestrian pointed to what looked like an alley – which South Africans call a service road – and told her that if she cut through it she would come out on Voortrekker.

  She hadn’t checked out of the Mirabel properly; she hadn’t given any sort of explanation to Mr Patel; she hadn’t discussed any of this with Anton. Every omission amounted to a risk, the kind of impetuosity that she’d never understood when she’d seen it in others.

  And now she was walking down a back alley to meet … to meet who? She barely knew Kagiso – Kagiso the boy, perhaps, but not Kagiso the man. She had fashioned a person, a fully fledged character, out of no more than the threadbare fabric of a memory.

  She emerged onto Voortrekker Street and almost immediately saw Mama K’s a little further down on the opposite side of the road. Lindi stood still.

  Commuters walked around and past her. She hardly noticed them. She’d reached a point of no return.

  Kagiso heard footsteps. Then a crack of light fanned out across the room as Mama Khethiwe held open the door. ‘Your friend is here,’ she said. ‘Why you sitting in the dark?’

  She reached in and pressed a switch by the doorframe. A dim, naked light came on. They were in a storeroom. There were sacks of mealie-meal and rice on the floor, and one wall was lined with the café’s other raw materials – bags of sugar, tubs of jam and a drum of cooking oil.

  ‘I’m coming to talk to you when the customers have gone,’ she said.

  Lindi walked in and waited for the door to close behind her. The rucksack sat high on her shoulders, making her seem smaller than she was, as if a gentle push might topple her.

  ‘Let me help you with that.’

  ‘I can manage it.’ Lindi swung the bag into the corner of the room, by the door.

  ‘You’re angry.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I’m absolutely thrilled. It’s not every day you get to abandon all your plans and traipse all over town without knowing why you’re doing it.’

  Kagiso looked bemused. The British proclivity to deploy sarcasm like an attack dog in a verbal skirmish was largely lost on African ears.

  ‘I’ve left a trail of people with questions about where I’ve gone and suspicions about what I’m up to. That, Kagiso, is not why I came to South Africa and you’d better have a really good reason for why I’m standing here now.’

  ‘You didn’t have to come.’

  ‘You didn’t give me a bloody choice!’

  ‘It’s not too late. You could leave now.’

  ‘Oh! Please!’

  ‘You’re the one who said you wanted to meet again.’

  ‘That’s cheap, Kagiso. That’s beneath you.’

  Lindi turned her back on him and went to where she had dumped her luggage. She pulled out her water bottle and took a big swig. When she turned, he was slumped against the far wall, where the sacks of mealie-meal and rice were stacked. He looked up at her. He’d taken his spectacles off and his eyes glistened, catching the light.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, just a whisper. ‘I’m in trouble, Lindi. I’m exhausted and now I have dragged you into this mess.’

  ‘You need to tell me what’s going on,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not sure where to start.’

  ‘Like they say, you could start at the beginning. But before that I really do need to use the loo.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The loo, the toilet. I’ll be back in a jiffy. Then you’d better tell me how much trouble I’m getting myself into.’

  ‘That’s what I’m worried about. You may not like what you hear.’

  ‘We’ll see. Is it through the café?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s round the back. Just ask Khethiwe. She’ll give you a key.’

  Kagiso stood up and rubbed his face, hard, as if to wake himself from a dream. For the first time in months, perhaps even years, he’d let his guard down. He felt like a prisoner who’d just been released, pleased to be out but unsure how to navigate his way through his new-found freedom. He heard the door knob turn.

  ‘That was quick … Oh, sorry, I thought it was my friend.’ Even in the dim light he could see that Khethiwe Shabangu had a face like thunder. She shut the door with purpose and stood there with her hands on her hips, like a bully about to do violence. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Funny, that’s just what my friend wanted to know before she left the room.’

  ‘Funny? You think I’m smiling? Eh? No. Because I can smell trouble and it is right here in this room. Who is that woman? What does she want?’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with her.’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘I owe you an explanation …’

  ‘Don’t be explaining anything. I want the truth, child. You mixed up in something bad? This Lesedi business?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I’m a woman. You not the first man to try to hide something from me. I see your face when the radio start talking just now.’

  The door behind Mama Khethiwe opened. It was Lindi.

  Khethiwe stretched out an arm and held the door. ‘Wait.’

  ‘No, let her come in. She needs to hear this. She’s a good friend.’

  Lindi walked in and stood next to Khethiwe.

  ‘Okay, let me do this properly. Ma Khethiwe, this is Lindi Seaton. She’s from UK but her family are from South Africa and they were very good to me and my mother. Lindi, this is Khethiwe Shabangu. She owns my digs in Malelane and she’s been like my aunty ever since I moved east.’

  Khethiwe looked unconvinced. Lindi held out her hand, which the other woman took as if she were handling stolen goods.

  ‘This may take a while. Do you want to sit down?’ He was looking at Ma Khethiwe and gesturing towards the large drum of cooking oil. She shook her head.

  ‘Who’s looking after the shop?’

  ‘The boy has come. He’s there.’

  ‘Lindi, you going to sit down?’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’

  ‘Look, I’m taking a risk telling you and you
’re taking a risk listening so now’s the time for you to … to be sure you want to go through with this.’

  Nothing. They remained silent.

  ‘Okay, I’ll give it to you straight. The police are right. There is an underground group and I am part of it.’

  Ma Khethiwe covered her mouth with a hand. Lindi moved to the corner of the room where she’d left her rucksack.

  ‘But they are absolutely wrong about Lesedi’s murder. I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Underground. Like they were telling on the radio just now,’ Khethiwe said.

  ‘Yes, we have been working to stop this selling of the land to foreigners.’

  ‘Christ!’ said Lindi. ‘Don’t you think you should have told me earlier, back in Jo’burg? No wonder I’m a bloody suspect. I’m not here officially, I’m meant to be into conflict resolution, and here I am, wandering about with an underground activist.’

  ‘I tried to tell you, Lindi. I told you we should not be seen together. There’s still time. You could get out now.’

  ‘Thanks for the offer but I think it’s just a little late to bail out. How many of you are there?’

  ‘I can’t tell you, Lindi. I shouldn’t be telling you anything. I’d be putting other people at risk.’

  ‘So how the police find out about this underground thing?’ Khethiwe was getting back into her stride. ‘They catch some of them?’

  ‘I don’t think they have caught anybody. It’s too risky for me to try to contact any of them.’ He turned to Khethiwe. ‘I think that stuff on the radio about being one step away from an arrest could be a bluff. They’re close but I don’t think they’re that close. We’ve been careful.’

  ‘Hang on, Kagiso. If they don’t have any proof, why are we standing here talking like this, like thieves?’

  ‘Look, they are after me. That much is clear. But which “me” are they after? Kagiso, the Soil of Africa man who is a thorn in their side, or Kagiso, who is a member of Land Collective and co-conspirator in a campaign of violence? I think it is the former. It’s part of their propaganda, shift the blame onto anybody but themselves, like they started off blaming it on the poor Mozambicans.’