by Norman Rush
“Help me, man. This is Dwight. Help me.”
They worked as one and got Wemberg’s body free and together dragged it back out of the blasting heat. The side of the building came down. Bits of burning stuff fell on them. It was the body of an old man, someone not far from death in his original life, that they had rescued. It was the naked body of an old man. Ray’s face was cooking. He was afraid for his eyes.
“Where have you been, by the way?” Ray asked.
“Man, I was looking for you. I lost track of you. Also I was being sick.”
“So you were off puking somewhere.”
“No I was looking for you.”
“Well so you were doing both things.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Then okay. And have you drawn my bath?”
“Not yet.”
Ray took Wemberg’s body by the ankles and dragged it as far as he could. He was weakening. He collapsed onto the ground. He made himself sit up. He had to get his bundle. It was exposed.
The men who had been feeding bodies to the fire had followed him. They were taking Wemberg’s body by the arms and starting to drag it back toward the fire.
Ray attempted a howl as he threw himself on Wemberg’s body. He had almost no voice. He was in despair.
These men were as strong as devils. He was being carried along. No notice was being taken of him. His right arm was scraping the ground, the arm that was under the body. He needed help.
Morel was helping. He was pushing his way between the devils and pushing one of them to the side.
Ray’s progress toward the fire stopped. He could say that he was ready to go into the fire with Wemberg except that that would be a lie.
The fire was lunging out at them. Everyone needed to be away from where they were or they would all just constitute a disposal problem for some other group yet to appear on the horizon.
Morel had been knocked down. If what Ray had seen was correct, Morel had pushed at the devils and then swung at them with his doctor bag, which he had been keeping close by him, and it was funny, to Ray, Morel using it as a weapon, like that. It was like a woman striking a criminal with her purse. And he was so grateful. His wife’s boyfriend was a physician and he was not supposed to injure anyone and there was all of that.
It was too hot for the devils. They were dropping the project. And they were not devils they were his friends.
He smelled a certain smell. It was meat roasting, and another smell that reminded him of hair burning. He touched his head. It was someone else’s hair, not his, burning.
He got himself to his feet and began dragging Dwight Wemberg’s body back to safety. His arm was dripping blood. Morel was not helping him, he was lying still. He was lying on the ground, back there.
He dropped Wemberg’s body and ran to see about the good doctor. He had a strange feeling as he ran, which was that he was running on a sheet of glass or on some thickness between himself and the ground, a thickness he could run on forever and that he would never tire of running on if he had to. He was probably using up vital forces from his what, his bone marrow or his coccyx or somewhere. It was connected with something, a line I staggered banged with terror through a million billion trillion stars. I can step on anything and not fall, he thought.
What was left of the building was heeling over in their direction. Morel was conscious, but he was stunned. Ray seized him by the belt. Morel felt weightless to Ray, a slight thing he could pull along after him on the glass, a thing that could slide like those things on ice, hockey things.
The building was singing as it came down, or something within it was.
Morel got to his feet.
They kept moving back. Morel was helping him with Wemberg’s body yet again. He was strong.
With a harsh, giant sigh the building came all the way down, thrusting out billows of flame and burning debris.
He stopped. He had to get his bundle. His vision of things was showing perforations, black perforations.
He had his bundle.
The perforations were expanding.
Kerekang was approaching him. He had been sitting with maps open in his lap and he was standing now and the maps had fallen to the ground and he was coming over.
“I have to lie down,” Ray said to Morel.
“Okay,” Morel said.
“You have your bag?”
“I’m okay. Yes, I do.”
We must look strange, Ray thought. He had hold of Wemberg’s left wrist and he was clasping Strange News tightly under his other arm. And Morel had Wemberg by the right wrist and with his other hand had a death grip on his medical bag, which was not completely understandable because it had been rifled, as he recalled, emptied of anything useful except Vaseline and Mercurochrome and witch hazel. It was going to feel peculiar going back to a world where business was conducted by decently groomed and normally dressed people not at their wit’s end every minute. He was confident he would be back in such a world. He didn’t know why.
He sank to his knees, to rest. So did Morel. It was companionable of Morel to do that. He was worse off than Morel, closer to being unable to contribute, a drug on the market, someone to be attended to. He was sorry. And he was sorry that his knee was not allowing him to rest, his bad knee. He hauled it up. He was unsteady. Morel steadied him.
Kerekang was walking toward them and dropping things on the way without realizing it, like the maps and something else, a watch or a compass, more likely. It was fatigue. People were picking the dropped items up for him.
Kerekang said, “Rra, we have to clear out. We have little time. Look behind you, you’ll see why. The fire is revealing where we are.”
Ray made himself look fully at it. He hated the sight. It was undoubtedly all the exotic wood used in putting the place together that accounted for the fury of the blaze. There had been objections at the time to timbering operations near Kazengula, but by the time that had been stopped the people behind Ngami Bird Lodge had gotten all the wood they would need.
“I understand …”
“You see, once they have us marked, koevoet can come over by helicopter from SouthWest or from Caprivi where they still have a camp, Omega.”
“I understand, but … we must cover that old man.”
Ray saw that the dressing on Wemberg’s chest and side had been lost in the last phase of dragging his body back and forth. There were his wounds. How he had been able to walk around wounded as he was Ray would never be able to understand. He had bled to death and there was no way, with those injuries, that anything could have been done. Your pubic hair is going to be white someday too, if you’re lucky, he said to himself. It was going to happen. He hoped he would be with someone who wouldn’t mind. He would never see his wife’s thatch go white. Someone would.
A disordered negotiation ensued. Ray could barely contribute. Someone had given him a cup of water, but he wanted more. Morel’s Land Rover had been destroyed. He wanted to reclaim Ray’s Land Cruiser. He wanted to drive the Land Cruiser back to Gaborone, taking Ray, and Wemberg’s body. But Kerekang wanted the use of the Land Cruiser. There were wounded to transport. He wanted to get away to a place of safety in the bush. Morel and Ray would have to accompany him, at least for a day or two. They could safely bury Wemberg in the bush and mark the place. Then they could separate from the group and depart for Gaborone, taking the Cruiser.
Morel wanted to know why his Rover had been destroyed, while the Land Cruiser had been spared.
Kevin had an explanation. “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what I think is that Quartus wanted to keep the blue Cruiser to himself. You know how it is, we like these Toyotas.”
Ray was feeling heavily proprietary toward his vehicle. It had served him well. It was still nicely provisioned, unless the villains had raped it. He could get into it. He could drive it. He could drive it in rough country. The idea that Quartus might have wanted to drive his Cruiser away forever into Namibia for his own use was enraging. Ther
e was also the question of who was going to be liable for the vehicle that had been assigned to him if he went home without it. But that was sordid, or was it. He was going to have to sign papers unless he could bring it back alive. He wasn’t prepared for this. He had assumed his good vehicle had been destroyed in the general destruction. But it was there in front of him, the engine running.
The witdoeke were swarming over the Cruiser. They were delighted with it. The petrol drums were full. They had topped everything up in Gumare. There was plenty of water.
“How did you get it started? I have no idea what they did with the key,” Ray said.
Kevin answered, “Rra, it was in the pocket of their captain, the ugly man. He had keys of all kinds. We had taken his vehicles and burned them, but he had put your vehicle aside, it was not with the others.”
Morel was almost rebellious. Ray understood it. Before the appearance of the Cruiser there had been only the difficult choice of going deeper into the bush to some unknown fate or striking out down the road toward the main route, where there might be nothing happening once they got there. This part of the country had been sealed off. There were a thousand ways to die hoping for something that was no longer available. And the Cruiser was there, humming and promising a way out for the two of them.
Morel wanted to be with Iris at the earliest possible opportunity and to warn her, this was burning in Ray’s mind, warn her that the cock was out of the bag, get to her so they could together figure something out because the cat was out of the bag and it was over, everything was, which she was going to feel was what, was something burning down and singeing her hair … It would be so much like this castle burning down behind them. However anything came out, it was going to be a race to get to Iris first and it was a race he was going to win.
His enemy Morel was very strong, and would try to get there first before Ray could look into the face of hell himself, first, his wife’s beautiful woman’s face, his wife’s face saying it was true what she had done, admitting it. He had to be there for it, and without Morel. He had to be there before Morel could confuse things.
“We should go and get into the Cruiser, be on the Cruiser. We have a right to be there, through me,” Ray said.
He was trying to convey something important. The Cruiser was going to be a luxury vehicle, compared to the two battered bakkies they might be trying to find a place in or to the two huge lumberous Bedfords that apparently constituted the rest of the witdoeke fleet. He was trying to convey that there was a tide in the affairs of men and that they had no choice but to swim along with it.
And there was the question of what would happen to Kerekang if koevoet caught him. He would be dead, and this fight was going to end in defeat for Kerekang and his cause. Because this … revolt, this effort to tear up the status quo, had been doomed from the start. But maybe Kerekang could be preserved to fight another day, and to achieve that would take special skills, extracting him, getting him out, getting him away from what he had been caught in, a subject his wife’s boyfriend would know nothing about.
“Everybody is going to want to be on the Cruiser,” he said to Morel.
“Come on,” Ray said to Kerekang. He was trying to push, to create a moment, a feeling they should all get aboard.
“Kevin, my man, help me with Comrade Wemberg, please rra,” Ray said.
Kevin looked to Kerekang for instruction. Kerekang nodded. That was good. He was approving what Ray wanted.
There was another thing. Ray wanted Kerekang to be on board, on the Cruiser. If he could arrange that he could relax. He could sleep. He could lie back someway and wait, asleep, for the next place they were going to, but he could sleep knowing that when they came to a halt Setime, his friend Kerekang, would be there. There would be a campfire and they would be able to sit down and talk.
Kevin had summoned help and Wemberg was being stowed less tenderly than Ray would have liked in the back of the Cruiser, along with three wounded men, walking wounded, they would have to be called, who were joining Wemberg there.
He was going to volunteer to ride in the back, out in the truck bed. He thought that they might not allow that because they would want him inside in comfort to show their appreciation. But either way would be all right, either in the cab in the rear seat or in the sun and jolting around. The sun was not at its worst in any case and there would be twilight soon, and then blackness and stars.
He was yawning too much, thinking of rest. And it was catching. Kerekang was yawning.
Ray said, “Rra, let’s go together in my Cruiser. And the doctor, of course.”
There was a frenzy going on. Canned goods were being tossed into the bed of the truck. The wounded men were shielding their heads with their arms. Labels on the canned goods were charred and falling off or absent altogether. People were being profligate with the water drum. They were crowding around to drink from the spigot projecting over the side and they were wasting water. It would be a lottery with the blank cans. Some would get pilchards and some would get lichee nuts.
“I want to talk to you,” Morel said to Ray.
“We can’t, man. We have to go,” Ray said.
The cab was occupied or almost. There were two witdoeke in the back seat of the cab already, and there was the driver. Ray wanted Kerekang to be in the Cruiser. He said so to Kevin. He said it urgently. He knew what he himself was going to do. He was going to climb into the bed of the truck and wedge himself in, lying down as best he could among the wounded and his dead friend. And Morel had to come because he might be needed especially to help Kerekang, who was in frightening shape and who might be helped to recuperate by a medical doctor, the only one in this part of the wilderness.
He took Morel by the hand and pulled him toward the Cruiser.
“We’re going with you,” he said to Kevin.
Ray pulled hard on Morel’s arm. He knew what he was doing. Morel wanted to go back to peace and also to getting ahead of him in speaking to Iris and warning her and letting a screen go up. It was a problem, and it was too much of one, but there he was.
Morel had jerked himself away from Ray. He was entertaining hopes of a different outcome, still, Ray thought. The man wanted to go to Iris, embrace her, warn her, embrace her and get together with her to figure out how to deal with the man she was married to, the spy. It was a paranoid notion and he knew it, except that it might be true, and didn’t the agency act on ideas of things that might happen, that might come true, all the time, and stop them from happening?
Ray led Kerekang to the Cruiser. No one objected. He helped him into the front seat. Mokopa was the driver, which seemed wrong. It was wrong to have a one-eyed driver if there was an alternative. Ray’s legs were shaking at the prospect of being able to lie down flat in whatever conditions for long enough to sleep, with nothing being asked of him.
He got Kerekang seated.
He turned to Morel with the idea that he would ask him to volunteer to drive. But Morel was looking disaffected and adamant in some way, and he was marginal, gray in the face, strong as he was, and he was a strong specimen, but he was drooping and fighting not to show it. It would be better to have a one-eyed driver than someone who could fall sleep at the wheel.
“Come get in the back with me,” he said to Morel.
Morel was still trying to think of his own alternative, Ray could tell. But there was none.
“This is the best idea, come on,” Ray said.
The truck bed was filling up with fighters. Others would want to lie down too. Ray got to the tailgate of the Cruiser but was too weak to pull himself up into the madding crowd who had gotten there first. He didn’t want to reveal that. He tried to look pensive. A problem was that he had his bundle to protect. He couldn’t bear to let go of it.
Morel was helping him up. And he was mounting the tailgate himself, so the decision had been made.
It was good Morel was there. He was clearing a space next to the wall of the truck bed. He was being rough about it. He w
as pushing wounded men over. No one was objecting. It was because he was a doctor.
There was shouting and ululating as the fighters packed up. Some were filing off on foot, not many. Presumably there would be a rendezvous with the people in the vehicles, later. He hoped they would be all right, the ones going on foot. The Basarwa at least would be all right. They could live on nothing, they knew how.
They were a convoy of five vehicles, two big Bedford trucks, two pickups, and the beautiful blue Cruiser. They were actually moving, all of them. A whining sound came from the burning hotel. The fire was stupendous.
He had a space to lie down in. He would be all right. Next to him was the dead body of Dwight Wemberg, wrapped in a blanket, his face not showing. Morel was not lying down. He was nearby, sitting on a crate. He was being watchful.
“Rest if you can,” Morel said, taking his bundle from him and placing it under his head. It was not the greatest pillow in the world but it was better than having his head bouncing on the metal. Morel was doing everything he could.
Ray wanted food. It was ridiculous but he believed that if he asked Morel to get him some he would do it.
No one knew how hungry he was. Iris could look at him and tell if he was hungry whether he said anything or not. That was because she was attuned to him. He wanted a meat loaf sandwich, her meat loaf. She had once put raisins in a meat loaf, in the spirit of experiment, early in their marriage, when she had been cooking more than she did now, because now they had help in the kitchen. And the raisins had been a terrible idea, but he hadn’t said anything, and then the next day she had caught him prising them out of the slab of meat loaf in his sandwich. And she had made him promise that he would always tell her the truth about food she prepared. And after that, he always had. He should tell Morel that story. He didn’t know why, unless it was to remind Morel to tell her the truth. She enjoyed the truth.
I’m learning to sleep anywhere, he thought, and fell asleep.
35. A Different Sea
His first thought, when he awakened, was that he must be in a cave, which was not possible, or rather not compatible with the geography of that part of the Kalahari, as he understood it, which was poorly. Only the Tsodilo Hills, where the Bushman paintings were, were substantial enough to have caves in them, and they were too far away, impossible to reach in anything like the time he had been traveling asleep, which was the best way to travel, in a berth on a train or in first class on a plane where you had leg-room and seatbacks went further back than the seats in coach.