Vultures in the Wind

by Peter Rimmer

  He would blame the communist Chinese and the apartheid government. He would sign the American document which guaranteed that he would not allow the computer to be sold to a country on the American list of unfriendly countries. By the time he had changed the certified invoice three times and the back-to-back letters of credit, he would leave three million kronor in his overseas accounts.

  “Must be a head taller than anyone down there… How long will it take?” the Russian continued.

  “Six months.”

  “You think they know anything about all that crap on the placards?”

  “People like telling other people what to do. We Swedes are a nation of busybodies. We like poking our noses into other people’s business.”

  The Russian took a final, careful look at the demonstration he had orchestrated, and wondered at the gullibility of his fellow man. Making the Swedes the conduit for aid to the ANC gave the guerrilla movement international legitimacy. The anti-apartheid lobby in America would not be jibed for aiding a Russian-supplied guerrilla army. And the money raised by the industrious Swedes would return to mother Russia to pay for the AK47s, the RPG7 rockets and the limpet mines that so easily terrorised a civilian population into changing its power structure. Manipulating Anita Hylan had been the easiest part of the exercise. She was twenty-seven, a big strong Swede with an insatiable appetite.

  “His name’s Luke Mbeki,” said Sven. The demonstration was going off down Malmskillnadsgatan. It would be dark in half an hour. Snow was coating the fur hats and shoulders of the demonstrators.

  At fifteen, Anita Hylan had lived with a man of thirty whilst demonstrating against the laws prohibiting juvenile sex. At nineteen, she had a surprisingly satisfying affair with a girl of her own age while demonstrating the rights of men to have anal sex with each other and women to play games with other women. At twenty, she had blown her mind while demonstrating the right to smoke pot and swallow LSD. At twenty-one, she had fallen in love but was unable to convince the man that monogamy had been invented by the establishment to enslave the people into neat little families that could then be told what to do. She had forced him into group sex when she had ground hashish into a cake she had baked for his birthday, and was still unsure why he had walked out on her the following day. They had all enjoyed themselves so much.

  At twenty-two, she started a box card system so she could remind herself with whom she had slept. These records proved valuable the following year when she caught a dose of gonorrhoea and had to phone her lovers of the previous two months to tell them to go and have a jab and tell their friends, or the damn thing would be all over Sweden.

  She had had it off with a Spaniard, doggy fashion behind a bush during a beach party while on holiday in the south of Spain. She had not even removed her shorts, which had demonstrated nicely at the time what a nice, dark Spaniard would do to a tall blonde goddess from the north. She would have phoned him had she known his name: she certainly did not blame him for the pox. By the time she walked down Hamngatan holding the ‘One settler, one bullet’ placard, she had had three legal abortions and had tried everything but a black man. Which was why she had agreed so quickly to the Russian’s suggestion to organise the anti-apartheid demonstration.

  Luke Mbeki was the first African she had met, and the colour of his skin turned her on more than group sex and young boys. She had listened to him with bated breath as he told her of what the likes of Minister Kloss were doing to his people. At forty-eight, Luke knew exactly what was going through the girl’s mind when her eyes kept straying towards his trousers and, with Chelsea again refusing to move out of Lisbon and follow him round the world in his new capacity as head of fund-raising, he was prepared to play along for the sake of the struggle. Hector Fortescue-Smythe’s handler, who was also Sven Hylan’s partner, had warned him and explained the girl’s real interest in the anti-apartheid movement.

  “She’s been in the business a long time. Give her what she wants. She’ll have the Swedish government matching donations krona for krona and I’ll take a bet we get a Nobel Peace Prize out of them.” The Russian had known not to laugh at the lunacy of a guerrilla movement or its surrogates receiving a prize for furthering the cause of peace.

  When he arrived at the Hylan manor house the day following the demonstration, which had been shown on seventeen networks across Europe and America, Luke was not surprised to find the father and the Russian had stayed in Stockholm for the long weekend. He and Anita had taken the train into the chateau country to the old city of Ystad, from where they took a taxi to Knutstorp Manor.

  Someone had come in and lit the log fire to supplement the central heating. It was too cold to enjoy the countryside, so they spent hours around the log fire talking about Africa and the rights of man: the right to free medical care, free pensions, free pay for the unemployed, free theatre – always something free from the state. She never once mentioned that the state was the people, and the ones who demanded everything free were freeloading. Luke asked where the money came from, but was told that was a silly question; the state always had money.

  When the weekend was over, he took a hot bath in his cheap hotel in Stockholm, and scrubbed himself all over for half an hour. Doubts were again creeping into his mind, and he began to question the means that justified the end. It was a breath of uncertainty, an uncertainty born from the possibility that he was being used, that the rightness of the struggle had been hijacked by the likes of Anita Hylan. Was the Russian sincere in his concern for the black people of Africa? Why was Hector so dedicated to the cause? The girl’s blatant demand for payment had sown the doubt.

  Could a black government in South Africa fulfil its promises to the people? Where was the money going to come from, year after year, once the first deluge of aid came to an end? How was the black man going to make enough money to provide a welfare state? His friends said they would redistribute the wealth of the white state – or, more simply, take away the assets and jobs of the whites and give them to the blacks. The years of study which led up to his doctorate told him the plan would only work once.

  What did any of his friends know about running Security Lion, about running anything other than the type of liberation movement that shouted the frustration of the illiterate Third World? He was not even sure how long the Swedes could maintain their own benevolent state without going bankrupt, or without the few who made the money saying they had had enough.

  Very few men were altruists, people who gave away the fruit of their labour. The white skills in South Africa would leave a lot quicker than they came. In his search for funds, he met the white South African liberal all over Europe and America, and he had the feeling that very few of them, if any, would return to a new, socialist, just society in the land of their birth. They did a lot of talking but gave little money. To them it was a game to be encouraged from their new positions of security and privilege.

  Where would the ANC find the skills to run a modern industrialised country if the skilled whites took a short journey to the airport, like the whites in Zimbabwe, where the white population had dropped by half in the first year of black government? Twenty per cent of the white population in South Africa had the right of residence in the United Kingdom alone. Sweden and Anita with all her talk and blatant sexuality had brought a new focus to his own struggle for freedom.

  Lying back in the hot bath, he thought of Matt; Matt who had simply withdrawn his labour, hurt to the quick by a journalist who wanted to sell newspapers. The likes of Matthew Gray created wealth. The likes of Ben Munroe were the jackals and hyenas that waited for the lion to kill before they could eat. The need to talk to Matt, to explain, to ask, to question, took his thoughts to a higher plane, away from the animal greed of the grunting, screaming Swede desperate for the climax that never came and never would. He thought of Chelsea and young John.

  Eventually, he fell asleep in the bath and dreamt he was back in Port St Johns, walking the beach close to the gentle waves under a clear blue sk
y. The air was clean and he smelt the tang of the sea; and then he was running, running as fast as his legs would go. When he woke in the lukewarm water, he had still not caught up with Matthew Gray.

  While Luke was turning on the hot water tap, Matthew was furiously adding paint to a picture that came from his mind, and the shape and colours grew with the feeling of understanding. The pain of rejection was evident, along with the weight of a monumental responsibility.

  There were vague shapes of black miners hacking the rock face, distorted lamplight and teeth, eyes protruding, showing the pain and fear of manual labour deep underground. Fists clutched thorns below a brooding, tangled sky. Away from the agonised mine workers, a mass of movement looked like the surge of a turbulent sea. In the centre bottom of the large canvas was a cave leading out of the back of the picture, giving the promise of light and warmth and the feeling of joy.

  Matt had been working for fifteen hours a day without sitting down, eating with hands covered in paint, the food Lorna left on the table, drinking the tea when it was cold and collapsing on the mattress next to the unfinished canvas when the lack of light in the great rondavel stopped him painting the urgency in his mind. Then he slept like the dead until the sun’s rays touched the back of the hut and the frenzy to paint began all over again.

  Peace had been left with Melissa and Martin with the black beard when the frenzy began, and everyone in the colony knew better than to walk up the path to the hut that bestrode the cliff overlooking the sea. The frenzy lasted ten days, and when it was over Matt sat down in the wooden chair he had made for himself from driftwood and smiled at the canvas.

  “Lorna,” he called softly. “Come and have a look.”

  She came to the doorway and stood a metre behind her husband, looking at the canvas on the easel, the sun bathing the horror and joy.

  “Not bad for an amateur… What do you think? Where’s Peace?”

  “With Melissa,” she said, without taking her eyes from the picture. Then she began to cry, and tears flowed down the perfect smoothness of her skin. She waited until she could speak, while the dog got up and scratched itself before going back to sleep. “Are you going to sign this one?” she managed.

  “I’m never going to sign a painting. I’m not good enough. Frankly, half the time I don’t know what I’m doing. I just do what my feeling dictates, and there it is. What do you think?’

  “That you’re probably the best painter in Southern Africa.”

  “Don’t talk rubbish. I took it up for something to do.”

  “You can’t believe that,” insisted Lorna, looking up at him intently.

  “Why not? I’m a business man who was thrown on the garbage heap.”

  “What are you going to do with it? Can’t I sell this one? Matt, I can get a thousand rand for that canvas even without a signature, and Peace needs some shoes.”

  “No one would pay a thousand rand for the nightmare of an amateur.”

  “I want to send it to Everard Read,” Lorna told him. “You’ve given away dozens of paintings, but this one we need. Please, Matt, sign that painting. For me. Trust me. You always trust me in everything but your painting.”

  “And who’s going to pay for a frame?”

  “Let me worry about the details. Please, Matt, just sign.”

  “For you, my love, how can I refuse? First I want a kiss, and then you can tell that little girl of mine to come and see her daddy. I’m starving. Have we got any food?”

  “Raleen baked bread this morning and Carel brought in a pig. How that truck of his doesn’t fall apart, I’ll never know.”

  “Have you looked under the bonnet? He’s a crook, darling,” smiled Matt. “A sometime benevolent thief and he will most likely land up in jail. Or he may just become very rich and go to America, but I think that idea’s fading a bit. Either the dagga business is in recession or he likes it here.”

  “He likes Raleen.”

  “I hope you told her he deals in drugs.”

  “I told her,” Lorna assured him. “She seems to think pot is no worse than whisky or cigarettes. Like everything else in life, she says it has to be taken in moderation. A joint or two clears the brain. Something like that. This brush will do. Blue paint. Blue for Gray. Come on, my giant, sign it or I will do something very dangerous with the other end of the brush. Then we can swim on the way to Melissa. You must make the right noises about her tarot cards. She really believes she has the second sight.”

  Very slowly, Matt wrote his name in full in the right-hand corner of the painting, put down the brush and took his wife’s hand. There was no one on the beach within a hundred metres, so Matt dropped his loin-cloth and ran into the sea as naked as on the day that he was born. A big wave curled up and he dived into the centre, coming out at the back and shaking the sea from his hair and beard. He had never felt so good in all his life.

  The minstrel boy watched them from the cover of his hide through the hole where the milkwood tree allowed a narrow view of the beach and the sea. The foliage was thick and the small one-man tent he had put up was invisible to even the closest scrutiny.

  He had been at Second Beach for a week, coming out at night, making sure that the refuge they had told him about in Johannesburg was secure. He had been on the run for five years, ever since the Soweto riots when the black children had revolted against being taught in the language of their oppressors, Afrikaans.

  “Try the Transkei, boy. They’re meant to be independent. There’s a hippie colony outside Port St Johns. Blend into the scenery. Jo’burg’s too hot. P W Botha thinks the total onslaught is directed at his chosen people and any white man deserting the army should be shot. Why don’t you get out of the country and join the ANC? They welcome white recruits.”

  “I don’t want to shoot whites any more than I wanted to shoot black kids who wanted a better education,” protested the boy.

  “Try the Transkei. If the MPs find you, you’re dead meat. They don’t treat political deserters kindly in the defence force. When you crossed the line five years ago, the rule of law went out of the window. Better still, get out of Africa.”

  “I don’t have any money and I don’t have a passport.”

  “Can’t help you there. Best of luck, boy, but you can’t stay here any longer and, as you say, you don’t have money.”

  Back at the start of his odyssey, he had changed his name and grown an apology for a beard, and after six months had relaxed, taking jobs in bars and working in restaurants. Then he had begun to sing, which was fine until he made a name for himself and they printed posters of John Marais. Someone told the newspapers his real name was Wilhelm Pretorius Marais, that his great-grandfather was old Oom Paul Marais, the Boer general who had run the Brits a dance for two years, the last of the Bittereinders; that Wilhelm Marais was a deserter from the South African defence force whilst doing his national service and that the police could pick him up at the Tulbach Hotel where he was singing on Tuesdays and Fridays.

  Luckily, there were three entrances to the hotel and the minstrel boy was having a break, taking a pee. When he emerged from the toilet, he knew that the red-capped men in uniform could only have been after him. He went through the coffee bar and to his friend in Hillbrow. That had been a month ago, and he was still scared. They had retrieved his eight string guitar, given him the tent and told him to hitch a ride to Umtata and then to Port St Johns. All the time he was terrified, his vision of the detention prison worse with each day of the panic. His only hope was the big man swimming in the nude in the giant breakers, the Wild Coast living up to its name. Above all, the minstrel boy needed food and a friend.

  He watched them come out of the sea, the great rollers coming in from a kilometre from the shore. He longed to catch the waves on his board, the way he had lived before the army reached out and plucked him from the beach at Geoffrey’s Bay. When they were fifty metres from his hide deep in the milkwood and the tall wild fig trees, he began to play one of his own compositions. He s
ang, and the notes were pure, the words were sweet and the sound was the magic that heaven was meant to be.

  Matt stopped in his giant stride, his loin-cloth in place. He listened to the music and looked from whence it came. Lorna took his hand and they waited in the hot sun.

  When it was over, they walked towards the bushes. They were almost there when a ragged man with unkempt hair and the smile of an angel stepped out of the thick bush, the guitar on his back but no shoes on his feet.

  “You are Matthew Gray.” said the boy as a statement.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m the minstrel boy and I need your help.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “I’m on the run.”

  “Criminals are not welcome in the colony.”

  “From the military police,” the boy added.

  “That’s different. You’d better come with us and meet Black Martin. Then we’ll find some food.”

  Martin with the black beard, Black Martin, gave them food. The afternoon became evening, and the colony came one by one to the new sweet sound of the minstrel boy’s guitar. He sang till the dusk brought the people closer to the fire for the light of company; then the stars came out and a joint was passed. The crash of the waves on the shore, the rolling stones as the sea withdrew, the call of the gulls and a dove, a brave dove, heard softly between the bolder sounds, became one with a soft warm wind and the scent of night-blown flowers.

  Raleen watched the minstrel boy, thin, gaunt and innocent; Carel van Tonder watched them both and knew she was gone. He sighed, listening to the words and the poetry he could never write and he looked up at the stars from where he sat on his haunches, away from the light of the fire: two layers of crystal, perfect stars studding the black sky with diamonds. Maybe it did not matter; maybe he would not go to Fort Lauderdale; and maybe the soft night, the powerful sea, the music of the man and the people around him of gentle persuasion would go on forever. Matt and Lorna, holding hands as they so often did, seemed spellbound by the music, and young Peace was curled up and fast asleep on a rug at their feet, like a puppy-dog exhausted by a day of joy well spent, and happy in her dreams, her mother stroking her sleeping brow as gently as a butterfly.