by Wilbur Smith
'We will leave for the museum in twenty minutes,' he told her.
In the lecture theatre of the Transvaal museum the three of them sat near the back. There were half a dozen other blacks in the crowded audience, but Marcus sat between the two of them. A black man beside a white woman would have excited interest, and certain hostility. Tara found it difficult to concentrate on the eminent pro lessor's address, and though she glanced in his direction only once or twice, it was Moses Gama who occupied all her thoughts.
Back at Puck's Hill they sat late in the cavernous kitchen, while Marcus hovered over the Ago stove, joining in their conversation while he produced a meal that even in her preoccupation Tara realized was as good as anything that had ever come out of the kitchens of Weltevreden.
It was after midnight when Marcus stood up abruptly.
'I will see you in the morning,' he said, and the look he gave Tara was once again spiced with venom. She could not understand how she had offended him, but soon it did not matter for Moses took her hand.
'Come,' he said softly, and she thought her legs might not support her weight.
Long afterwards she lay pressed to him, her body bathed in sweat and her nerves still spasming and twitching uncontrollably.
'Never,' she whispered, when she could speak again. 'I have never known anyone like you. You teach me things about myself that I never suspected. You are a magician, Moses Gama. How do you know so much about a woman?" He chuckled softly. 'You know we are entitled to many wives. If a man cannot keep them all happy at the same time, then his life becomes a torment. He has to learn." 'Do you have many wives?" she asked.
'Not yet,' he answered. 'But one day --' 'I will hate every one of them." 'You disappoint me,' he said. 'Sexual jealousy is a silly European emotion. If I were to detect it in you, I would despise you." 'Please,' she said quietly, 'never despise me." 'Then never give me reason, woman,' he commanded, and she knew she was his to command.
She realized that the first day and night with him, spent alone and uninterrupted, was exceptional. She realized also that he must have set the time aside for her, and it must have been difficult to do so for there were others, hundreds of others, demanding his attention.
He was like one of the ancient African kings holding tribal court on the verandah of the old house. There were always men and women waiting patiently under the bluegum trees in the yard for their turn to speak to him. They were of all types and ages, from simple uneducated folk newly arrived from the reserves in the country to sophisticated lawyers and businessmen in dark suits arriving at Puck's Hill in their own automobiles.
They had one thing in common only - the deference and respec they showed Moses Gama. Some of them clapped their hands in th traditional greeting and called him Babo or Nkosi, father or lord others shook his hand in the European manner, but Moses greeted each of them in their own dialect. 'He must speak twenty languages,' Tara wondered.
Mostly he allowed Tara to sit quietly beside his table and he explained her presence with a quiet word. 'She is a friend - you may speak." However, twice he asked her to leave while he spoke to his more important visitors and once when a great black bull of a man, bald and scarred and gap-toothed, arrived in a shiny new Ford sedan, he excused them.
'This is Hendrick Tabaka, my brother,' he said, and the two of them left the verandah and strolled side by side in the sunlit garden just out of earshot of where Tara sat.
What she saw during those days impressed her immensely and confirmed her feelings of reverence for this man. Everything he did, every word he uttered marked him as different, and the respect and adulation showered upon him by his fellow Africans proved that they also recognized that he was the giant of the future.
Tara felt awed that he had selected her for special attention, and yet already saddened by the certain knowledge that she could never have for herself alone any part of him. He belonged to his people, and she must be grateful for the precious grains of his time which she could glean for herself.
Even the evenings that followed, unlike that first evening, were crowded with people and events. Until long after midnight they sat at the table in the kitchen, sometimes as many as twenty of them at one time, smoking and laughing and eating and talking. Such talk, such ideas that lit the gloomy room and shimmered like angels' wings in the air around their heads. Then later, in the quiet dark hours, they made love and she felt as though her body no longer belonged to her but that he had taken it for his own, and devoured it like some darkly beloved predator.
She must have met a hundred new faces in those three short days and nights, and though some of them were hazy and made little lasting impression, it seemed as though she had become a member of a large diffuse new family, and because of the patronage of Moses Gama, she was immediately accepted and accorded complete unquestioning trust by both black and white.
On the last evening before her return to the dream world at Weltevreden, there was a guest beside her at the kitchen table to whom Tara took an instant unqualified liking. She was a young woman, at before. So natural and relaxed and,' sh6 hesitated, 'just like an elder sister or a dear friend." 'A dear friend. Yes, I like that,' Tara agreed. 'And Puck's Hill is probably one of the few places in the whole of this country where we could meet and talk like this." Involuntarily both of them looked up towards the head of the long kitchen table. Moses Gama was watching them intently, and Tara felt her stomach flop over like a stranded fish. For a few moments there, she had been totally engrossed with the Zulu girl, but now her feelings for Moses Gama flooded back at full ebb. She forgot Vicky, until the girl spoke quietly beside her. 'He is a great man - our hope for the future." Tara glanced at her sideways. Vicky Dinizulu's face glowed with hero worship as she smiled shyly at Moses Gama, and jealousy struck Tara such a sickening blow in the pit of her stomach, that for a moment she believed she was going to be physically ill.
The jealousy and terror of imminent separation persisted even after Tara was alone with Moses that night. When he made love to her she wanted to hold him within her for all eternity, knowing that this was the only time that he truly belonged to her. Too soon she felt the great dam burst and flood her and she cried out, pleading for it never to end, but her cry was incoherent and without sense, and then he was gone from within her and she was desolated.
She thought he had fallen asleep, and she lay and listened to his quiet breathing, holding him in the circle of her arms, but he was awake and he spoke suddenly, startling her.
'You were speaking to Victoria Dinizulu,' he said, and it took an effort for her to cast her mind back to the early part of the evening.
'What did you think of her?" he persisted.
'She is a lovely young woman. Intelligent and obviously dedicated.
I like her very much." She tried to be objective, but the sick jealous feeling was there deep in her belly.
'I had her invited,' Moses said. 'It was the first time I have met her." Tara wanted to ask, 'Why? - Why did you invite her?" But she remained silent, dreading the reply, She knew her instincts had been correct.
'She is of the royal house of Zulu,' he said softly.
'Yes. She told me,' Tara whispered.
'She is well favoured, as I was told she was, and her .mother had many sons. They breed many sons in the Dinizulu line. She will make a good wife." 'Wife?" Tara breathed. She had not expected that.
'I need the alliance with the Zulus, they are the largest and most powerful tribe. I will begin the negotiations with her family immediately. I will send Hendrick to Ladyburg to see her father and make the arrangements. It will be difficult, he is one of the old school, dead set against mixed tribal marriages. It must be a wedding that will impress the tribe, and Hendrick will convince the old man of the wisdom of it." 'But, but,' Tara found she was stuttering. 'You hardly know the girl. You spoke barely a dozen words to her all evening." 'What does that have to do with it?" His tone was genuinely puzzled, and he rolled away from her and switched on the bedside light,
dazzling her.
'Look at me!" he commanded, taking her by the chin and lifting her face to the light, studying it for a moment and then removing his fingers as though he had touched something loathsome. 'I have misjudged you,' he said scornfully. 'I believed that you were an exceptional person. A true revolutionary, a dedicated friend of the black people of this land, ready to make any sacrifice. Instead I find a weak, jealous woman, riddled with bourgeois white prejudices." The mattress tipped under her as Moses stood up. He towered over the bed.
'I have been wasting my time,' he said, gathered his clothing, and still naked turned towards the door.
Tara threw herself across the room and clung to him, barring his way to the door.
'I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Forgive me. Please forgive me,' she pleaded with him, and he stood cold and aloof and silent. She began to weep, her tears muffling her voice, until she was no longer making sense.
Slowly she slid down with her arms still encircling him, until she was on her knees hugging his legs.
'Please,' she sobbed. 'I will do anything. Just don't leave me. I will do anything, everything you tell, me to do - only just don't send me away like this." 'Get up,' he said at last, and when she stood before him like a penitent, he said softly, 'You have one more chance. Just one. Do you understand?" and she nodded wildly, still choking on her sobs, unable to answer him. She reached out hesitantly and when he did not pull away, took his hand and led him back to the bed.
As he mounted her again, he knew that at last she was ready, completely prepared. She would do anything and everything he commanded.
In the dawn she came awake to find him leaning over her staring into her face and immediately she relived the night's terror, the dreadful fear of his scorn and rejection. She felt weak and trembly, her tears very close, but he took her calmly and made love to her with a gentle consideration that reassured her and left her feeling whole and vital again. Then he spoke to her quietly.
'I am going to put my trust in you,' he told her, and her gratitude was so strong it left her breathless. 'I am going to accept you as one of us, one of the inner circle." She nodded, but could not speak, staring into his fierce black eyes.
'You know how we have conducted the struggle thus far,' he said, 'we have played by the white man's rules, but he made those rules, and he designed them so we could never win. Petitions and delegations, commissions of enquiry and representations - but in the end there are always more laws made against us, governing every facet of our lives, how we work, where we live, where we are allowed to travel, or eat or sleep or love --' he broke off with an exclamation of scorn. 'The time is coming when we will rewrite the rule book. First, the defiance campaign when we will deliberately flout the mass of laws which bind us, and after that --' Now his expression was savage.
'And after that the struggle will go on and become a great battle." She was silent beside him, studying his face.
'I believe there comes a time when a man confronted by great evil must take up the spear and become a warrior. He must rise up and strike it down." He was watching her, waiting for a reply. 'Yes,' she nodded. 'You are right." 'These are words, ideas, Tara,' he told her. 'But what of action? Are you ready for action?" She nodded. 'I am ready." 'Blood, Tara, not words. Killing and maiming and burning.
Tearing down and destroying. Can you face that, Tara?" She was appalled, facing the reality at last, not merely the dizzy rhetoric. In her imagination she saw the flames roaring up through the great roof of Weltevreden and blood splashed on the walls shining wetly in the sunlight, while in the courtyard lay the broken bodies of children, of her own children, and she was on the very point of rejecting the images when he spoke again.
'Destroying what is evil, Tara, so that we may rebuild a good and just society." His voice was low and compelling, it thrilled like a drug through her veins and the cruel images faded, she looked beyond them to the paradise, the earthly paradise they would build together.
'I am ready,' she said, and there was not a trace of a quaver in her voice.
There was an hour before Marcus would take her to the airport to catch the Viscount flight back to Cape Town. They sat at his table on the verandah, just the two of them, and Moses explained to her in detail what must be done.
'Umkhonto we Sizwe,' he told her. 'The Spear of the Nation." The name shimmered and rang like polished steel in her brain.
'Firstly, you must withdraw from all overt liberal activities. You must abandon your clinic --' 'My clinic!" she exclaimed. 'Oh Moses, my poor little ones, what will they do --' she broke off as she saw his expression.
'You care for the physical needs of a hundred,' he said. 'I'm concerned for the welfare of twenty million. Tell me which is more important." 'You are right,' she whispered. 'Forgive me." 'You will use the excuse of the defiance campaign to make a statement of your disillusion with the freedom movement and to announce your resignation from the Black Sash." 'Oh dear, what will Molly say?" 'Molly knows,' he assured her. 'Molly knows why you are doing it. She will help you in every way. Of course, the police special branch will continue to keep you under observation for a while, but when you give them nothing more for their files, they will lose interest and drop you." She nodded. 'I understand." 'You must take more interest in your husband's political activities, cultivate his parliamentary associates. Your own father is the deputy leader of the opposition, with access to the government ministers.
You must become our eyes and our ears." 'Yes, I can do all that." 'Later, there will be other tasks for you. Many difficult and some even dangerous. Would you risk your life for the struggle, Tara?" 'For you, Moses Gama, I would do more. I would willingly lay down that life for you,' she replied, and when he saw that she meant it, he nodded with deep satisfaction.
'We will meet whenever we can,' he promised her. 'Whenever it is safe to do so." And then he gave her the salute which would become the rallying cry of the defiance campaign, 'Mayibuye! Afrika!" And she replied, 'Mayibuye! Afrika! Africa, let it persist!" 'I am an adulteress,' Tara thought, as she had each morning as she sat at the breakfast table during all the weeks that had passed since she had arrived back from Johannesburg. 'I am an adulteress." And she thought it must show, like a brand upon her forehead for all the world to see. Yet Shasa had greeted her cheerfully on her return, apologizing for sending a driver to meet her at the airport and not coming in person, asking her if she had enjoyed her illicit interlude with Australopithecus. 'Thought you might have gone for someone a little younger. I mean a million years old is just a little long in the tooth, isn't it?" And since then their relationship had continued unaltered.
The children, with the exception of Michael, seemed not to have missed her at all. Centaine had run the household in her absence with her usual iron fist in a candy-flavoured glove and after they had greeted Tara with dutiful but offhand kisses, the children were full of what Nana had done and said, and Tara was painfully aware that she had neglected to bring any presents for them.
Only Michael was different. For the first few days he would not let her out of his sight, but traipsed around behind her, even insisting on spending his precious Saturday afternoon with her at the clinic while his two brothers went off to Newlands Rugby Ground with Shasa to watch Western Province playing the visiting All Blacks team from New Zealand.
Michael's company helped alleviate a little of the pain of making the first arrangements to close down the clinic. She had to ask her three black nursing sisters to start looking for other jobs. 'Of course, you'll be paid your salaries until you find other positions, and I will help you all I can --' But still she had to suffer the reproach in their eyes.
Now, almost a month later, she sat at Weltevreden's laden breakfast table on a Sunday morning in the dappled shade beneath the trellised vines of the terrace, while the servants in crisp white uniform fussed about them. Shasa read aloud extracts from the Sunday Times to which none of them listened, Sean and Garrick wrangled acrimoniously over who was the best full-back in
the world, and Isabella clamoured for her daddy's attention. Michael was giving her a detailed account of the plot of the book he was reading, and she felt like an impostor, an actress playing a role for which she had not rehearsed her lines.
Shasa finally crumpled his newspaper and dropped it beside his chair, acceding to Isabella's request to 'Take me on your lap, Daddy!', ignoring Tara's ritual protest and demanded: 'All right, everybody, this meeting will come to order and address the serious question of what we are all going to do with this Sunday." This precipitated a near riot which Isabella punctuated with shrill cries of 'Picnic! Picnic!" and finally picnic it was, after Shasa had used his casting vote in his daughter's favour.
Tara tried to excuse herself, but Michael was so close to tears that she relented and they all rode out together, with the servants and the picnic baskets following them in the little two-wheeled dog cart. Of course they could have gone by car, but the ride was half the fun.
Shasa had had the pool below the waterfall bricked out to make a natural swimming-pool and had built a thatched summer house on the bank. The great attraction was the long slide down the glassy smooth rock of the waterfall on a red rubber inner tube, and the plunge over the final sheer drop into the green pool below, the entire journey accompanied by howls and shrieks of glee. It was sport that never palled and it kept the children busy all morning.
Shasa and Tara, in their bathing-suits, lolled on the grassy bank, basking in the hot bright sunlight. They used to come here often in the first days of their marriage, even before the pool was bricked and the summer house built. In fact Tara was certain that more than one of the children had been conceived on this grassy bank. Some of the warm feelings from those days persisted. Shasa opened a bottle of Riesling, and they were both more relaxed and friendly towards each other than they had been for years.