The Burning Shore c-8

by Wilbur Smith

  Good afternoon, honoured madam, I am Mr Moonsarny Naidoo at madam's service. He had a bland face and thick wavy hair dressed with coconut oil until it glowed like coal fresh from the face.

  I would like to look at your wares. Centaine leaned over the glass-topped counter and studied the display of silver -filigree bracelets.

  A gift for a loved one, of course, good madam, these are truly loo percent pure silver hand-manufactured by learned craftsmen of the highest calibre. Centaine did not reply. She knew the risks that she was about to take, and she was trying to form some estimate of the man. He was doing the same to her. He looked at her gloves and shoes, infallible gauges of a lady's quality.

  of course, these trinkets are mere bagatelle. If esteemed madam would care to see something more prince or more princessly?

  Do you deal in, diamonds? Diamonds, most reverend madam? His bland plump face creased into a smile. I can show you a diamond fit for a king, or a queen. And I will do the same for you, Centaine said quietly, and placed the huge white crystal on the glass counter top between them.

  The Hindu jeweller choked with shock, and apped his hands like a penguin. Sweet madam! he gasped. Cover it, I beseech you. Hide it from my gaze! Centaine dropped the crystal back into her purse and turned towards the door, but the jeweller was there before her.

  An instant more of your time, devout madam. He drew down the blinds over the windows and the glass door, then turned the key in the lock, before he came back to her.

  There are extreme penalties, his voice was unsteady, ten years of durance of the vilest sort, and I am not a well man. The goalers are most ugly and unkind, good madam, the risks are infinite-'I will trouble you no further. Unlock the door."Please, dear madam, if you will follow me."He backed towards the bead screen, bowing from the waist and making wide flourishing gestures of invitation.

  His office was tiny, and the glass-topped desk filled it so there was barely room for both of them. There was one small high window. The air was stifling and redolent with the aroma of curry powder.

  May I see the object again, good madam? Centaine place it on the centre of the desk, and the Hindu screwed a jeweller's loupe into his eye before he picked up the stone and held it towards the light from the window.

  Is it permitted to ask where this was obtained, kind madam? No. He turned it slowly under the magnifying lens, and then placed in on the small brass tray of the jeweller's balance that stood on the side of the desk. As he weighed he murmured, IDB, madam, Illicit Diamond Buying oh, the police are most strict and severe. Satisfied with the weight, he opened the drawer of the desk and brought out a cheap glass-cutter, shaped like a pen, but with a sharp chip of boart, the black industrialgrade diamond, set in the tip.

  What are you going to do? Centaine asked suspiciously.

  The only real test, madam, the jeweller explained. A diamond will scratch any other substance on earth except another diamond. To illustrate the point he drew the stylus of boart across the glass top of the desk. it screeched so that Centaine's skin prickled and her teeth were set on edge, but the point left a deep white scratch across the glass surface. He looked up at her for permission and then Centaine nodded, he braced the white stone firmly against the desk-top, and drew the point of the stylus across it.

  It slipped smoothly over one plane of the crystal as though it had been lubricated, and it left no mark on the surface.

  A droplet of sweat fell from the Hindu's chin and splashed loudly on the glass. He ignored it, and made another stroke across the stone, putting more strength behind the stylus. There was no sound, no mark.

  His hand began to tremble, and this time he leaned the full weight of his arm and shoulder as he attempted to make the cut. The wooden shaft of the stylus snapped in half, but the white crystal was unmarked. They both S stared at it, until Centaine said softly, How much? The risks are terrible, good madam, and I am an excessively honest man. How much?

  One thousand pounds, he whispered.

  Five, said Centaine.

  Madam, dear sweet madam, I am a man of impeccably high reputation. If I were apprehended in the act of IDB

  Tive, she repeated.

  Two, he croaked, and Centaine reached for the stone.

  Three, he said hurriedly, and Centaine held back.

  Tour, she said firmly.

  Three and a half dear madam, my very last and most earnest offer. Three'and a half thousand pounds. Done, she said.

  Where is the money? I do not keep such vast sums of lucre on my person, good madam. I will return tomorrow at the same time, with the diamond. Have the money ready.

  I don't understand, Garry Courtney wrung his hands miserably. Surely all of us could accompany you No, Papa. It is something I have to do alone. One of us, then, Anna or myself? I just can't let you go off again. Anna must stay and look after Shasa."I will come with you, then. You need a man-'No, Papa. I beg your indulgence and understanding. I have to do this alone. Entirely on my own.

  Centaine, you know how much I have come to love you. Surely I have some rights, the right to know where it is you are going, what you intend doing? Iam desolated, for much as I love you in return, I cannot tell you. To do so would destroy the whole point of my going. Think of it as a pilgrimage which I am obliged to make. That is all I can tell you Garry rose from his desk, crossed to the tall library windows and stood looking out into the sunlight with his hands clasped behind his back.

  How long will you be gone? am not sure, she told him quietly. I do not know how long it will take, some months at least, perhaps much longer, and he lowered his head and sighed.

  When he returned to the desk he was sad but resigned. What can I do to help? he asked. Nothing, Papa, except look after Shasa while I am gone and forgive me for not being able to confide in you fully. money? ou know I have money, my inheritance."Letters of introduction? You will at least let me do that for you? They will be invaluable, thank you With Anna it was not so easy. She suspected part of what Centaine planned and she d stubborn.

  was angry an I cannot let you go. You will bring disaster on yourself and on all of us. Enough of this madness. Get rid of it the way I have arranged, it will be swift and final. No, Anna, I cannot murder my own baby, you can't make me do that-I forbid you to leave. No. Centaine went to her and kissed her. You know you can't do that either. just hold me a while, and look after Shasa once I am gone."At least tell Anna where you are goingNo more questions, dearest Anna. just promise me that you will not try to follow me, and that you will prevent Papa Garry from doing so, for you know what he will find if he does. Oh, you wicked stubborn girl! Anna seized her in a bear-hug. If you don't come back, you will break old Anna's heart."Don't even talk like that, you silly old worrian.

  The smell of the desert was like the smell of flint struck off steel, a burnt dry odour that Centaine could detect underlying the harsher odour of coal smoke from the locomotive. The bogey clattered to the rhythm of the cross-ties and the carriage kept the beat, lurching and swaying in time.

  Centaine sat in the corner of the small coups compartment upon the green leather seat and stared through the window. A flat yellow plain stretched to the long far horizon, while the sky above it was traced the faint promise of blue mountains. There were clusters of springbok grazing on the plain, and when the steam whistle of the locomotive shrilled abruptly, they dissolved into pale cinnamon-coloured smoke and blew away towards the horizon. The animals closest to her carriage pranced high in the air, and painfully Centaine remembered little O'wa miming that arched-back and head-down stotting gait.

  Then the pain. passed and only the joy of his memory remained to her, and she smiled as she stared out into the desert.

  The great spaces, seared by the sun, seemed to draw out her soul, like iron to the magnet, and slowly she became aware of a sense of building anticipation, that peculiar excitement that a traveller feels on the last homeward mile of along journey.

  When later the evening shadows turned the plains soft mauve, they g
ave definition to the land so that the undurations and low hillocks emerged from the glare of the midday and the glassy curtains of heat mirage, and she looked upon this austere and majestic landscape and felt a deep sense of joy.

  At sunset she put a coat around her shoulders and went out on to the open balcony at the rear of the coach. In turning dusty reds and orange the sun went under, and the stars pricked out through the purple night. She looked up and there were two particular stars, Michael's star and hers with only the ghostly Magellanic clouds shining between them.

  I haven't looked up at the sky, not since I left this wild land, she thought, and suddenly the green fields of her native France and the lush rolling hills of Zululand were only an effete and insipid memory. This is where I belong - the desert is my home now.

  Garry Courtney's lawyer met her at the Windhoek railway station. She had telegraphed him before the train left from Cape Town. His name was Abraham Abrahams, and he was a dapper little man with large pricked-up ears and sharp alert eyes, very much like one of the tiny battered desert foxes. He waved away the letter of introduction from Garry that Centaine offered him.

  My dear Mrs Courtney, everybody in the territory knows who you are. The story of your incredible adventure has captured all our imaginations. I can truthfully say that you are a living legend, and that I am honoured to be in a position to render you assistance. He drove her to the Kaiserhof Hotel and after he had made sure she was settled and well cared for, he left her for a few hours to bath and rest.

  The coal dust gets into everything, even the pores of the skin, he sympathized.

  Whet- he returned and they were seated in the lounge with a tray of tea between them, he asked, Now, Mrs Courtney, what can I do for you? I have a list, a long list. She handed it to him. And as you see, the first thing I want you to do is to find a man for me. That won't be too difficult. He studied the list. The man is well known, almost as well known as you are.

  The road was rough, the surface freshly blasted rock, sharp as knife-blades. Long ranks of black labourers, stripped to the waist and glistening with sweat, were pounding the rock with sledgehammers, breaking up the lumps and levelling the roadway. They stood aside, resting on their hammers, as Centaine drove up the pass in Abraham Abrahams dusty Ford, bumping slowly over the jagged stone, a nd when she shouted a question, they grinned and pointed on upwards.

  The road became steeper as it wound into the mountains and the gradients became so severe that at one place Centaine had to turn the Ford and reverse up the slope.

  At last she could go no further. A Hottentot foreman ran down the rough track to meet her, waving a red flag over his head.

  Paso PI missus! Look out, madam! They are going to fire the charges. Centaine parked on the verge of the half-built road under a sign-board that read: De La Rey Construction Company Road-building and Civil-Engineering And she climbed down, and stretched her long legs. She was wearing breeches and boots and a man's shirt, The Hottentot foreman stared at her legs until she told him sharply, That will be all. Go about your duties, man, or your boss will know of it. She unwound the scarf from around her head and fluffed out her hair. Then she dampened a cloth from the canvas water-cooler that hung on the side of the Ford and wiped the dust from her face. It was fifty miles from Windhoek, and she had been driving since before dawn. She lifted the wicker basket off the back seat and set it beside her as she settled on the running-board of the Ford. The hotel chef had provided ham and egg sandwiches and a bottle of cold sweetened tea, and she was suddenly hungry.

  As she ate she gazed out across the open plains far below her. She had forgotten how the grass shone in the sunlight like woven silver cloth, then suddenly she thought of long blond hair that shone the same way, and against her will she felt a rising heat in the pit of her belly and her nipples tightened and started out.

  instantly she was ashamed of that momentary weakness, and she told herself fiercely, I hate him, and I hate this thing he has placed inside me. Almost as though the thought might have triggered it, it squirmed with her, a deep and secret movement, and her hatred wavered like a candle flame in the draught.

  I must be strong, she told herself. I must be constant, for Shasa's sake. From behind her, up at the head of the pass, there came the distant shrilling of a warning whistle, followed by a brittle waiting silence. Centaine stood up and shaded her eyes, involuntarily tensing in expectation.

  Then the earth leaped beneath her and the shock wave of the explosion beat upon her eardrums. A dust column shot high into the blue desert air, and the mountai in was cleaved as though by a garantuan axe-stroke. Sheets of grey-blue shale peeled away from the slope and slid in a liquid avalanche down into the valley below. The echoes of the explosion leapt from kloof to kloof, dwindling gradually, and the dust column blew softly away.

  Centaine remained standing, staring up the slope, and after a while the figure of a horseman was outlined on the high crest. Slowly he rode down the raw track, the horse picking its way gingerly over the broken treacherous footing, and he was tall in the saddle, graceful and limber as a sapling in the wind.

  If only he were not so beautiful, she whispered.

  He lifted the wide-brimmed hat with its ostrich feathers from his head and slapped the dust from his breeches. His golden hair burned like a beacon fire, and she swayed slightly on her feet. At the foot of the slope, a hundred paces from Centaine, he threw his leg over the horse's neck, slipped to the ground, and threw the reins to the Hottentot foreman.

  The foreman spoke urgently and pointed to where Centaine waited.

  Lothar nodded and came striding down towards her. Halfway, he stopped abruptly and stared at her. Even at that distance she saw his eyes turn bright as yellow sapphires and he launched into a run.

  Centaine did not move. She stood stiffly, staring up at him, and ten paces from her he saw her expression and halted again.

  Centaine. I never thought to see you again, my darling. He started forward.

  Don't touch me, she said coldly, fighting down the panic rising within her. I warned you once, don't ever touch me again.

  Why do you come here then? he asked harshly. Isn't it enough that your memory has plagued me these long lonely months since I last saw you? Must you come in the flesh to torment me? I have come to make a bargain with you. Her voice was icy, for she had control over herself now. I come to offer you a trade. What is your bargain? If you are a part of it, then I accept before you state your terms. No, she shook her head. I would kill myself first. His chin came up angrily, though his eyes were wretched and hurting. You are without mercy."That I must have learned from you! State your terms. You will take me back to the place in the desert where you found me. You will provide transport and servants and all that is necessary for me to reach the mountain, and to exist there for a year. Why do you want to go there? That does not concern you. That is not true, it does concern me. Why do you need me? I could search for years, and die without finding it. He nodded.

  You are right, of course, but what you are asking will cost a great deal. Everything I have is in this company, I don't have a shilling in my pocket. I want your services only, she told him. I will pay for the vehicles, the equipment and the wages of the servants. Then it is possible, but what about my side of the bargain? In exchange, she placed her right hand over her stomach, I will give you the bastard you left in me. He gaped at her.

  Centaine- Slow, deep joy spread over his face. A child! You are to have our child! Instinctively, he came towards her again, Stay back, she warned him, not our child. It's yours alone. I want nothing to do with it after it is born. I don't even want to see it. You will take it from the childbed, and do whatever you want with it. I don't want it. I hate it, and I hate the man who put it in me.

  With Lothar's wagons the journey from the Place of All Life to their rendezvous with Garry Courtney at the Finger of God had taken weeks. Their return to the mountain range took only eight days, and would have been quicker, except that they had to bui
ld the road for the all, motor vehicles through several rocky valleys and numerous dry river beds. Twice Lothar had to resort to dynamite to break a way through obdurate rock.

  The convoy consisted of the Ford and two lorries, which Centaine had purchased in Windhoek. Lothar had chosen six camp servants, two black drivers for the lorries, and as a bodyguard for Centaine and camp overseer, he selected i Swart Hendrick, his Ovambo henchman.

  I cannot trust him, Centaine had protested. He's like a man-eating lion. You can trust him, Lothar assured her, because he knows that if he fails you in even the smallest degree, I will kill him very, very slowly. He said it in front of Swart Hendric, who grinned, c It is true, missus, he has done it to others. Lothar travelled in the lead truck with Swart Hendrick and the construction gang. In forest country the black gang r an ahead of the slow-moving convoy, hacking out the road, and when the forest opened, they swarmed on to the back of the truck and the convoy bowled forward at a good speed. The second lorry, heavily laden with stores and equipment, followed the first, and Centaine brought up the rear at the wheel of the Ford.

  Each night she ordered her tent to be set up well separated from the rest of the camp. She ate her meals there and slept with a loaded shotgun beside the bed. Lothar seemed to have accepted her terms of contract; his bearing was proud, but he became increasingly silent and he spoke to her only when the conduct of the expedition demanded it.

  Once in the middle of the morning when they halted unexpectedly, Centaine climbed down from the Ford and impatiently hurried up to the head of the convoy. The lead truck had hit a spring-hare burrow and broken a half-shaft. Lothar and the driver were working on it, and Lothar had stripped off his shirt. He had his back to her and did not hear her come up.

  She stopped abruptly when she saw the pale muscles of his back bulging as he pumped on the jack-handle, and she stared fascinated at the ugly purple scar where the Luger bullet had torn out of his back. How close it must have come to his lung! She felt quick sharp remorse and turned away, the angry words that had been on her lips left unspoken, and she went softly back to her place at the end of the column.