Child of Africa

by T. M. Clark

  * * *

  After dropping the workers at their homes and the tourists back at the lodge, Joss parked his bakkie behind his house. Lwazi climbed out and disappeared into the building. For a long time, Joss sat at the steering wheel.

  ‘What is wrong? Are your legs cramped?’ Bongani asked at the window.

  ‘What? No. I was thinking.’

  ‘Must have been some heavy thinking, because you have been staring out to space for at least thirty minutes. Look – it is getting dark already.’

  Sure enough, the purple cover of night was descending around them.

  ‘Did you ever notice that no matter what you planned in your life, it ends up differently?’

  ‘Always,’ Bongani said.

  ‘When I was Lwazi and Ephraim’s age, all I wanted to do was go and be a British commando. Wear a green beret and save the masses. But I never truly understood that to do that, I wouldn’t be home, I would be away in the world somewhere else, and while I was there, my home would change. And no matter what I do now, it will never be the same.’

  ‘Everything changes. What is important is what you did with that life you planned. Did you achieve that dream?’

  ‘You know I did, but then I paid the price for it, and now ...’

  ‘Now you want more. You want something badly enough to make it happen?’

  ‘Exactly that. Where once I wanted to rip the world apart to bring justice and tolerance, now all I want is to put this world that has been ripped apart back together, only I don’t want what it was, I want it to be better.’

  ‘You can do that, Joss; you have always been able to do anything you put your mind to.’

  ‘Not this time. This time my dream isn’t about me, it’s about our whole community, and it’s not something I can do alone. I think that this community can do so much better than it’s doing, and today I think I found a way to help make that happen.’

  * * *

  Joss looked at the road. He knew that today’s run was going to be more of a mental challenge than a physical one. While he could achieve kilometres on the smoothness of the treadmill, it was an unreal environment; it lacked the stones, the corrugations and the everyday hazards that he would need to get used to on a road run. His body needed the adrenaline, and the sublime feeling of knowing that if something came at him, he could escape on his own legs. The plan with his captain at Headley had been for him to get on the road and run when he could. He knew that today was a huge step to building up to that competition. One step. But taking that step was making his breathing shallow.

  He had chosen to not wear blades but to use his legs because of the unfamiliar and unpredictable surface of the road. Joss bent down and re-tied his laces. Again. His laces were as good as they were going to be. Plastics didn’t care about blisters. He breathed in then blew it out, and took his first step.

  His legs felt good; there was no excessive pressure on his stumps. He took another step and another. He ran.

  It was slow.

  He was almost at the first ikhaya on the road when Lwazi appeared at his side.

  ‘I said I would train with you,’ he said.

  ‘Five houses, then we turn and come back. I need to ease into this,’ Joss said.

  It felt great to run, to feel his legs turning over. The beat of his heart as the blood pumped through his body. He wasn’t ready for a marathon yet, but he was on the right path to participating in that triathlon with his fellow marines.

  A ring-necked dove flew onto the path in front of him and he stopped.

  ‘It’s a bird,’ Lwazi said. ‘Come on, keep running.’

  Joss shook his head. ‘No, it’s more than that. The rains have begun healing the land. There’s food for the birds now.’ He watched the dove, its white underside merging with a darker grey on the top of its body, its distinctive black collar at the back of its neck, and listened while it cooed and scratched in the dirt a little before flying back up into the tree covered in green leaves, above the line where the goats had stripped all vegetation.

  He smiled. He had been so busy fixing the road then clearing the moringa tree grove and the vegetable patch that he hadn’t noticed that the land was once again bursting with life after the rain they had received.

  Joss put one foot in front of the other and ran the small distance to reach the final house. He put his hand in the air to high five Lwazi, and they turned around.

  On the road stood many of the people he was coming to know. They began clapping and dancing. Their smiles of happiness as he ran towards them showed that he was not alone in his journey any more. He slapped Makesh’s hand as he passed, then Timberman’s and Obias’s as he continued on the run past their houses back towards the lodge, through the buffer zone and the stables.

  Bongani waited on the steps. ‘Your new legs might be plastic, but they run as well as your proper ones used to.’

  Joss bent over and put his hands on his artificial knees.

  ‘That is all our training today?’ Lwazi asked.

  ‘That’s it,’ Joss said. ‘Tomorrow we do a bit more, and the day after that, more again.’

  ‘That was too easy,’ Lwazi said. ‘Look, I am barely even sweating. I sweat more when I take the cattle down to the lake to drink.’

  ‘Maybe for you it was easy, but then you were not the one lugging around five and a half kilograms of artificial legs, as well as trying to navigate the smoothest path so you don’t fall over.’

  ‘That is your problem, your new legs? At this rate, when will we be ready for the triathlon? Next year? Maybe the one after that?’

  Joss shook his head. ‘In two months or so we should be able to do a half-marathon, twenty-one kilometres, on this road. The full marathon will probably take about six months of training every day, but we will get there. Now, stretches, so we don’t get stiff tomorrow.’

  * * *

  Joss knew to take the bad days with the good.

  Just because he was running again didn’t mean that he could neglect some of his other duties. It had never been his intention to run the lodge. His dream had always been the military. But sometimes dreams needed to be changed, and he needed to be practical. His parents had left him an opportunity and now it was time to embrace it.

  Joss had never meant to totally step away from Yingwe River Lodge, but time in a war zone cut you off from the realities of the world, and you forgot about the outside when you were there. He had been so busy trying to save someone else’s country and people that he’d neglected his own. Dreams of seeing Africa again had kept him alive in the desert, and when he was undergoing his surgeries. Getting better and getting home again was one of the main things that had kept him alive.

  Now that he was on the banks of Kariba, he felt that he had neglected his responsibilities.

  Joss looked at the accounts again. They could afford to renovate the lodge, and then do some advertising to attract a higher calibre clientele. They could be doing much better than what they had been. If he could attract the normal diehard fishing crowd as well as clients with more disposable money, those who wanted the authentic experience of Bongani’s village, that would help even more.

  He took a pad of paper and began making a list of things to buy for a quick-fix facelift inside, then went from room to room, photographing everything.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Bongani asked when he saw Joss on the deck.

  ‘Deciding where to start with the renovations.’

  Bongani nodded. ‘First you need to decide if you are going to stay. Or if you are going back to your life in a far-off land?’

  ‘I’ve taken a while to realise that I’m ready to take this on. I’ve decided I’m staying.’

  ‘What about your triathlon, when you return for that and you see the other side again? What happened to going back to the military, revisiting Afghanistan?’

  ‘The triathlon will only be a holiday. I’ve seen the other side and I know that I’ll still want to come home. Yingwe River Lodge is
home. I need to stop running away from my responsibilities. I’m staying. Fighting to protect people in another country was my dream when I was younger but things’ve changed – I’ve different responsibilities now. I’m needed here.’

  Bongani smiled. ‘You have always been a child of Africa. I am glad to hear that you are home to stay. I think that the people have sensed this too, and many are attached to you already. I have many-many chieftain’s duties I have left aside while running this lodge, and if you are here then I can begin to catch up, but we will have to ease the people into this, or they will think you are kicking me out. Very few of my people are aware of the legal ownership of this lodge. It has remained a secret for a long time. They all still believe it is yours alone. Even my brother has not found out the truth. It is better to have it like that, or when I become chief, they will think that my property is their communal property and move in. I know how my people’s minds work.’

  ‘It’s not anyone’s business but yours and mine. You know that I would never kick you out of the ownership or management of the lodge, and my home is yours, if you ever need a roof over your head.’

  ‘We are old friends, you and I, and many of those in this area are new; they did not know what this place was like before. One day the house of my father in the village will be my house. When he passes, you and I will need to sort out how and what I still do, so those settlers see that I am the chief, but this lodge, it will be hard to live away from. I still do not understand how you stayed away all those years when I know it runs in your blood.’

  ‘I think we could start with putting a powerline through to your village. Even if it is to a solar farm nearby. Or we could build you a new brick house so that when you get married, there is a smart home to attract your wife.’

  Bongani nodded. ‘My father, he ran this area with an iron fist. When he dies, I do not want to be like that. Only now I see I have to put some barriers in place. Take control. Not with the excessive brutality of the ancestors, but I need more discipline and acceptance within my area. Having you here means I can concentrate on that more. I can get your guidance, as sometimes you have a different way of looking at things. Perhaps you can help me solve the problem of my useless half-brother trying to take over the area.’

  ‘Yes, we need to talk about that brother of yours soon.’

  ‘We also need to somehow find out if those alleged youth camps Francis told us about are real.’

  ‘I agree. One step then another,’ Joss said. ‘But know that even if you didn’t ask me, I’d still give you my five cents’ worth. It’s what friends do.’

  Bongani laughed, placed his hand on Joss’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘Come now, we have many plans to make.’

  CHAPTER

  12

  The Camp

  Sweat dripped from his brow and onto his vest. He carried a backpack with four bricks in it as weights. All the recruits did, girls and boys alike. He neared the end of their ten-kilometre run and saw the instructor, Mr Emanuel Zheve, standing with his cane ready. He had threatened any person coming in after him with two stripes from his switch.

  Tichawana eyed him as he got closer.

  As Tichawana was the boss, he wasn’t sure if Mr Zheve would beat him yet again, but if he did not, then the children would question his authority. He was out of time. Mr Zheve switched the child in front of Tichawana, and as he ran past, the instructor quickly gave him two whacks across the back of his legs.

  The skin on Tichawana’s leg burnt as the salty sweat ran over the cut from the thin green switch, but he kept running. During the past week and a half at the camps, he had collected twenty-one stripes. He swore that on the following morning, he would beat the instructor. Tomorrow he would cross the line first. He was already fitter now, the acid that built in his muscles the first few days had at last been reabsorbed into his system and he was running well again. Tomorrow he would not be collecting his twenty-second stripe.

  There was a child who came in some distance after him. Mr Zheve administered his punishment then walked to the tap to get some water.

  ‘Last again, Thomas,’ one child taunted the student.

  Thomas looked at him, waiting his turn for the water.

  ‘Loser,’ the kid said and threw sand over his head.

  Tichawana smiled. Thomas was much like his father: stubborn and proud. The camp had not broken him yet, but he knew that it would. Break him down to nothing, then build him into a fighter, a soldier. He just had to listen, do everything the instructors said, and learn to be strong. So did his father.

  A girl stood between Thomas and his tormentor. ‘Leave him alone, you moron.’

  ‘Is that the best you got, Nesta?’ the boy said. ‘Wait till tonight; I am going to come into your dormitory and fuck you while the others watch.’

  ‘You will be a dead boy if you come anywhere near me,’ Nesta said, her voice dropping low. ‘I am no boy’s free ride.’

  The boy grinned like a juvenile baboon, and hitched his balls at her.

  Nesta finished drinking and Thomas took his turn at the tap.

  ‘You run like a girl,’ the boy continued to taunt him. ‘Even the fat man beat you.’

  Tichawana swung his backpack at the boy’s head. The bricks connected and he fell on the same ground he had so recently been throwing over Thomas. ‘You need to learn respect, you snot-snivelling little pig. No one calls me fat,’ he said as he stepped over the corpse. He walked away from the tap. It wasn’t the first kid he had killed, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. They had an annoying habit of pissing him off, just like this one had. The school would sort out the story of how he died in a tragic accident, fell and hit his head. The girl and the boy who witnessed it would never talk. They knew what would happen if they did – their own bodies would be thrown in a deep hole, just like this disrespectful little shit’s would, and left to rot, their souls forever damned as no one would perform their burial rituals.

  * * *

  Today Tichawana stood at the front of the bunch of children waiting to start their run. He was not getting any more switch lines.

  ‘Ready, steady, go,’ Mr Zheve shouted. The mass launched forward.

  Tichawana ran hard.

  He stayed with the front group of boys for a while, then dropped back a little, but remained with the next group. The kids gave him a wide berth, not surprising after the incident with the insulting pig the day before. He was tired. After his run today he was calling it quits, but not until he beat that instructor.

  He pushed faster. His chest burnt. He could feel each breath as he drew air desperately into his lungs and blew it back out.

  He came around the corner and saw the place where Mr Zheve should have been standing, but he wasn’t there.

  Tichawana let out his breath. Today he was a winner. No punishment.

  He crossed over the end line and walked away.

  He had done it.

  It was time to go hunting instead of this running around like a youngster. Time to face the world of responsibilities again, and get back to his business.

  It had been interesting training with the recruits first in his camp in Nkayi and now outside Gwanda, the latest addition to his portfolio. They were making him good money. The soldiers he produced were being used in the conflicts in the Ivory Coast and the Sudan. He was being paid well for their training. He’d got a commission for every soldier he trained and sent north to fight. Those he kept were his disposable army, ready to bear arms for him against his half-brother, and the time was coming closer to call them up.

  It reminded him of when he was put on an aeroplane the first time and taken to Korea to be trained there, only this was much simpler; everyone spoke the same language. In his camps, he got to control the training, and he got to keep the trainees’ services if he wanted to. The excess were unloaded and sent north. Unemployment was at an all-time high in his country, and he was creating an avenue for jobs that many would not normally consider. He was helping them. />
  He cleared his room of his bag and called his tracker, who had been waiting in the kitchen all week for him.

  It was time to go hunting.

  * * *

  Tichawana clenched his stomach; it was flatter than it had been in a long time from the sit-ups and crunches he had recently done. He was not quite as fit as he had been as a young man, and not as fit as when he had got out of prison on amnesty, but much better than he had been of late. He doubted that his brother would be in such good shape. His reports on Bongani said that he was too busy running the Yingwe River Lodge and looking after his father’s affairs to bother getting any exercise.

  He swished a fly from his face, grateful that today he had worn long pants for the hunt, keeping the flies off his shredded legs.

  The buffalo bull stood under a tree, hiding from the heat. It chewed its cud, secure in the knowledge that it was the king of the bush in this area. Lions were few and leopards wouldn’t bother a fully grown male.

  Tichawana took a deep breath and swallowed the excitement that bubbled up from his chest. He held it. He placed the crosshairs of his rifle firmly on the target, directly behind the ear. He squeezed the trigger.

  The shot exploded from his Ruger.

  The buffalo’s legs collapsed underneath it as it fell in slow motion. Half a ton of mammal hit the ground.

  Tichawana let out his breath.

  * * *

  Tichawana drove slowly back through the bush to the training college and parked under a tree where a block and tackle were set up, the ground stained dark from previous butcherings.

  ‘Meat for the students,’ he said, ‘protein after all their running this week.’

  The tracker smiled as he cut the skin of the buffalo’s back fetlocks and pushed the hooks of the Y-frame through. Then, using the block and tackle, he began to lift the carcass. Slowly the beast rose into the tree and Tichawana moved the bakkie. The buffalo swung on the chains, its head about twenty centimetres off the ground.