“This, at least, is what he told me the next day,” aunt said. “In truth, I remember very little of that night.” What she remembers well, though, is the scream. It came from within, like a black beast, and invaded her throat. That’s when she began to throw up furiously. “I was sure I would die in my vomit,” she told me. Instead, at dawn, it was all over and aunt made Xabbo swear never to tell her father, nor any other person, where they had been and what she had done.
Two days later, her father came back to the farm with the whole family and the bulk of the workers; he did not notice anything strange. “At that point, I was sure I had got rid of the curse,” aunt said.
Again, I couldn’t truly believe my aunt had gone through all this just because of some magical, nonexistent black spell. I had kept quiet all the way through her story, but now I could no longer hold my tongue. Aunt Adèle must have read my mind, because she frantically raised her hand to cover my mouth, as if I might swear. She gave me the most sorrowful look as she said: “I’m not done yet.”
She went on, with an urgency I had never seen in her before.
She started by explaining that back in those days in Franschhoek men of marriageable age were rare. The few who courted her hadn’t piqued her interest. Probably because she had always been secretly in love with François du Preez, their neighbouring farmer’s eldest son, a handsome blonde and wild man, ten years senior to her, who had married at the behest of his father the daughter of a wealthy merchant. François often came to their house, to learn from her grandfather the secrets of viticulture and to help in the vineyard when he was needed. Most of the time he ended up staying for dinner. Everyone knew that his wife, a gaunt edgy woman, didn’t make him happy.
Twelve months had passed since Aunt Adèle’s visit to the witch doctor and, this time, she too attended Nagmaal in Stellenbosch.” After the communal prayers and the supper under the stars, dances followed. On the second evening into the Nagmaal, François invited her to dance. “And not just to dance,” aunt confessed. “I had spent sleepless nights desiring him. It just felt so right and natural to follow him into the tall grass, under the moonlight.” I was shocked by aunt’s frankness. I must have showed it on my face, since she hurried to say that she shouldn’t talk like that, especially with me, but that I needed to be aware of the consequences of certain decisions.
I saw Aunt Adèle sigh as she adjusted her bonnet. She had the dreamy gaze of someone lost in blissful memories. “It was an unforgettable night,” she said, “My first night of love. And alas! My last one.” The following day, she then told me, François was found dead, stabbed in the throat by his drunk father-in-law, who claimed to have seen the two of them walk out of the fields together, hand in hand.
That’s how Aunt Adèle ended her story. Since then, she always hopes that any firstborn in our family is a boy. According to her, we females are barren and harmful branches of a cursed lineage.
When I left her, she was still quietly sobbing in her bedchamber. She looked inconsolable.
As she shuts Charlotte’s diary, Zoe is left with a lingering perplexity. Despite what has just happened to her, her scientist’s mind is still struggling to believe that a curse could haunt a family for generations on end. Rather, she is prone to assume that a series of fatal, tragic coincidences made the Du Plessis women particularly sensitive and superstitious. However, she can’t help feeling that her rational mind is slowly slipping away.
10
THE DECISION
“I CANNOT LET you go, Zoe. I need you here, in the lab.”
Right after landing in Johannesburg she headed for Wits’ Paleontological Research Unit to meet with Kuyper. A renowned paleoanthropologist, Kuyper rarely misses a chance to let his interlocutor know the prominent facts of his career. In his youth he was assistant to Raymond Dart, the father of South African paleoanthropology and discoverer of the first Australopithecus skull. Kuyper also brags about being at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania with Louis and Mary Leakey when the legendary couple uncovered the fossilized remains of a creature deemed to be one of the earliest members of the genus Homo. No doubt an extraordinary figure as a scholar, Kuyper is also the most single-minded person Zoe has ever met. She has just asked him to be sent into the field and his blunt refusal doesn’t come as a surprise.
Nonetheless, unexpectedly, he asks: “Where is that you’d want to go, by the way?”
“To northern Namibia, with your permission. To the digs in the Nyae Nyae Conservancy.”
“Just around the corner,” he says, grumbling.
“I thought I might carry on Dr. Oldani’s work up there,” Zoe says, looking at the map of Africa behind Kuyper’s desk. “He believed in his project, in his idea of the Kalahari as the real cradle of early humans.”
“Yes, yes,” Kuyper says. “I remember what Dario used to say: ‘We’ve just to look for them.’ Till today, though, all we got from that hell of a place is a raft of baboon bones.”
“These things take time ...” Zoe says.
“Yours is not a rational choice and you know that, Zoe. Presently, there are more promising excavation sites in South Africa if you truly wanted to go into the field.”
She knows that. But she has made up her mind. No other place will do: She has to go there. To do what precisely? Would she be looking for fossils or for Dario’s traces instead, tracking his presence in rocks and salt pans and white-hot horizons? Would she try and bring to light the secrets of humanity at its outset or bury her present under a shroud of hot sand? Either way, she must leave.
Kuyper rises and starts pacing around the office, his hands sternly behind his back.
“A woman, alone, in the desert,” he says, glaring at Zoe lounging seemingly relaxed in the upholstered armchair in front of his desk. “Not to mention that I would be left without my best researcher here at the lab.”
Zoe half-smiles. She is well acquainted with Kuyper’s way of dissuading his collaborators from engaging in projects that are not in line with his priorities by flattering them. This time, though, she won’t be taken in. She won’t budge. She is ready to forgo everything, even her work in the Department.
Meanwhile, Kuyper has resumed his seat.
“What about the upcoming conference in London?” he asks, tapping his fingers. “Weren’t you supposed to present your findings on Lady J there?”
Another tactic of his: Lady J is Zoe’s most important project, two years of hard work. It will bring notoriety, no doubt.
“I could ask Piet to do it. He’s been helping a lot with the project. He’d love the opportunity,” she says feigning carelessness.
Kuyper frowns, rubbing his cheek. Then he starts to nervously shuffle the papers on his desk, as if he could find in there the answer to her request.
There is a long silence.
Zoe glances at the glass skull on the director’s desk. He uses it as a paperweight.
“Dario was a brilliant scientist,” Kuyper finally says, his voice shifting to a softer tone. “He’d have gone a long way. It’s a big loss for all of us.”
It doesn’t bode well. The sympathetic note means he’s about to deny her request. Zoe lowers her head to look down at her runners, as if they could oblige her sudden need to be out of that room, that building, that city, that country.
“You’re right,” Kuyper says. “The excavation in Namibia made as much sense before, when Dario advocated for it, as it does now, despite the latest setback.”
Zoe raises her head and, for the first time since she has entered his room, purposefully looks him in the eye.
“You’re an accomplished researcher, Zoe, although a tad young.” Kuyper twitches a half-smile. “I’d better send you up there, work up a sweat.”
The glass skull now reflects the director’s fingers, steepled on the desk.
“Besides, it wouldn’t be productive to keep you here,” he says, shaking his head. “You know me, Zoe, I can’t stand people who work unwillingly. Let’s thus try to mix business with
the inevitable.”
She keeps quiet, as if afraid he might change his mind.
“There are only two conditions,” Kuyper says, again shuffling the papers on his desk.
She leans forward.
“Firstly, you’ll have to send me reports. They can be short, but at least bi-weekly updates.”
No problem there.
“Secondly, the funds already allocated for Dario’s expedition can barely cover another eighteen months of fieldwork. I need some results within the year. Otherwise, I’ll have to call it off.”
He’s giving her a chance. For real.
“Dankie,” she says quietly. The lump in her throat doesn’t allow more than that.
“Let’s hope you don’t mess up things up there as much as you did with your hair.”
The interview is over. Zoe stands up and stretches her hand across the desk. Kuyper squeezes it firmly.
“I suppose you want to leave as soon as possible?”
“In a week, if I manage.”
“Then go ahead, you don’t have much time to crank it up. But don’t forget: The budget is tight.”
She nods and moves quickly to the door. Her hand is already on the handle.
“Do you remember Koma, the shaman at Schmidtsdrift?”
“Ja, waarom?”
“I was thinking of taking him with me. He knows those places, he grew up there.”
“It’s up to you, Zoe, I’m giving you carte blanche. But bring me something worth the effort.”
“I will.”
Is it a promise to Kuyper? To herself? To Dario’s memory? Even she can’t tell.
She is out in the sun again, driving through this city of gold and misery. Here, even the manicured gardens, watered each day by armies of Blacks in rubber boots, are fragile only in appearance. Beneath that veil of touching innocence, hostility lurks. This is the wasteland of sharp aloe plants, razor grass and trees whose trunks are studded with thorns.
She won’t go to the morgue. She won’t bind Dario’s last memory to the penetrating smell of formaldehyde and the cold light of fluorescent fixtures. She won’t go back to the autopsy rooms where in her university years she dissected corpses — real flesh and bones — of young black boys killed in the cross-fire of anti-apartheid demonstrations. Instead, upon leaving the university campus she drives into the CBD and parks the car close to the corner of Rissik and Market Street. Standing there, Zoe inspects the sidewalk where Dario died as if she could still find traces of him, or make one last contact. She is oblivious to the car horns, the cries of street vendors, the beggars’ litanies droning around her like distant background noise.
After a while she starts walking and, without realizing it, reaches Diagonal Street. She sees again Dr. Naidoo’s muti shop, where Blacks and a growing number of Whites go to be treated with herbs and potions. The showcase is packed with baboon skulls, lizard legs and ampoules of lion fat. She observes how this side of the road is being reflected in the glass panels of the skyscraper that De Beers built like the facets of a diamond not less than fifteen years ago, when the city was still the city.
On one side of the street stand financial markets and men in pin-striped suits; on the other, sorcerers and sangomas. Right here, in the open heart of downtown Johannesburg, Africa and the West stare blankly at each other — the symbols of Anglo-Saxon economic power neatly juxtaposed against a parallel realm of African subconscious.
This is what you were looking for when you passed through here, Dario: a place where the remote past, present and future seem to operate in the same time frame. At least you chose where to die.
11
RASTA SAM
THE NEWS OF Zoe’s imminent departure has created a stir at the department. She is aware of the general discontent about her appointment — especially among those who had hoped to replace Dario in the Kalahari. She plans to be in the field for six months straight, with two-to-three-week breaks in between.
“It’s an eternity, up there,” Piet told her.
Almost every male colleague feels compelled to provide his bit of advice on the logistics of fieldwork in remote areas; and yet — as she has soon discovered — behind her back most of them are staking money against her capacity for endurance. One morning, as she nears the coffee-room, she overhears a flurry of comments.
“Two months and she’ll be back to contemplate her fate in Kuyper’s glass skull.”
“Too young for the desert.”
“Too inexperienced.”
“Too spoiled.”
There is some truth in their comments. She has indeed experienced life in tented camps located kilometres away from the nearest village, both in Tanzania and Botswana, and worked in several excavation sites in South Africa, but she has never been in charge of an expedition. She feels awkward, not up to the task. As a result, she keeps doggedly consulting the Department Fieldwork Manual.
“Are you done with your preparations?” Robert Stanford asks her as she walks into the room. Robert is a veteran of field research, a vigorous man in his fifties with a sunburned face. He wears a faded flannel shirt, khaki trousers and dusty boots, as if he’d just come out of the bush. That’s part of his legend, isn’t it? Don’t be envious, she tells herself.
“Not really. Still looking for a driver. Anyone in mind?” she replies sucking up her pride.
Robert furrows his thick brows, taking a sip at his coffee. His eyes suddenly light up.
“Here you go, Sam Kaleni! Should’ve thought of him straight away,” he cries as he takes his pipe out of the shirt pocket and starts scratching its insides with the tip of a pocket knife.
“A brilliant mechanic,” he adds after a pause, almost muttering to himself. “A great travel companion too.”
“Can he also work as a digger?”
“I guess so, although I can’t vouch for that bit,” he says, giggling in a self-amused tone. “I’ll call him up. Let’s see how he feels about going back to Bushmanland.”
“Was he there, already?”
“Oh, he’ll tell you himself,” he replies, putting the pipe in his mouth without lighting it. “If he deems so.”
Zoe notices her colleague’s reluctance to provide more information on the man.
“A Zulu, I guess from his surname.”
“You bet.”
“Goed,” Zoe replies. Then she pauses, abashed by her spontaneous reaction. She is meant to travel over three thousand kilometres with a black man she doesn’t know. Why, then, should this detail about his ethnicity reassure her? Why should she prefer certain Blacks over others? Dario was quick to detect this ethnic bias among her people: He called it the “Boers’ Zulu mystique.” He also attempted an explanation: “It seems the fierce battles your people and the Zulus fought against each other paved the way to a form of mutual respect and consideration.”
He was right. In the days of apartheid, the Boers exploited tribal favouritism to grant the Zulus a slightly better status than that of other black tribes. On their part, the Zulus reciprocated by showing a slightly less antagonistic attitude towards the Afrikaners. Apartheid may now be gone, but the ethnic mystique hasn’t faded yet, and Zoe has just realized how much she, too, is under its spell.
“Are you with us?” her colleague asks, noticing she seems no longer listening to him.
“I’m sorry, just lost in thought. Thanks for this, Robert.”
“You owe me one,” he says as he makes for the exit raising the pipe over his head in a gesture of salutation.
Dario’s camp up north in the Kalahari is currently manned by five workers. Their foreman has been informed of Dr. Oldani’s death and is now waiting for a replacement. Zoe doubts the workers expect to have a woman as their new boss. To be on the safe side and avoid disrupting an established pattern, she is going to stick to Dario’s way of running the camp.
She has arranged for a bush plane to land every three months in Tsumkwe, bring fresh supplies and fly her crew in and out. Tsumkwe is the closest vill
age to the base camp and is only an hour flight to Windhoek international airport, which connects to all major South African cities with regular flights. If she wished, she could fly. Instead, she’ll drive back to the camp the Land Rover Dario brought to Johannesburg, on what would be his last trip. Showing up at the camp with that car and a bunch of fresh supplies — she hopes — might boost her chances to be made welcome by the workers. In any case, she needs to bring a new bakkie up there, thus sharing the long ride with the pick-up driver makes sense.
Early in the morning, Zoe called her friend Shaida, a social worker at Schmidtsdrift, and asked her to see whether Koma and his wife Namkwa would be willing to return to the Kalahari with her. The base camp has been set up in the northeast corner of Namibia, not far from one of the few remaining !Kung settlements. For the two of them it would mean going home after years of exile. Now, Shaida has called her back in a flurry of excitement: “You should’ve seen them, Zoe. They’ve even improvised a little dance in my office to thank you for this unexpected offer.”
Her friend agrees to put the old couple on a train to Vryburg; Zoe will pick them up there, on her way to the North. That same evening, Robert calls her to confirm Sam is free and can be part of the expedition. She now feels relieved: All the pieces seem to be falling into place.
The morning after, however, when she meets the new driver, she silently curses her colleague.
A man in his late thirties with long braided hair tucked into a large colourful wool knit beanie stands grinning in front of her. A deep scar runs vertically through his left jaw; his bloodshot, dreamy eyes reveal he’s not insensitive to the lure of dagga. Bugger, he sent me a Rasta!
The Afrikaner Page 7