Edge of the Rain

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by Beverley Harper


  ‘Earth. Water. Fire,’ he said slowly, touching the three ‘life things’. ‘Sun. Brown Hyena,’ he added, touching the ‘death things’. A superstitious shudder ran through the onlookers. Different people named their divining tablets different things but there was always a Brown Hyena among them and the position in which it fell was the first thing they looked for.

  !Ka cupped the discs in his hands and blew on them. Then he lowered his hands and shouted, ‘Fire,’ before snatching them away, allowing the tablets to land where destiny took them.

  A stunned silence followed. Brown Hyena had fallen upside down. !Ka studied the tablets impassively. Finally, ‘See that Earth and Water lie far from me,’ he said. ‘See that Fire lies close.’ He looked at the tablets carefully. ‘We will find the home of the little beetle but it will be very far from here.’

  ‘Which way do you have to travel?’ Be asked fearfully. The face down position of Brown Hyena filled her with dread.

  ‘I do not know,’ !Ka answered simply.

  ‘There is trouble ahead,’ Be said, hoping her husband would heed the warning and not go.

  ‘Yes,’ !Ka agreed. ‘But I cannot see who it is for.’

  !Oma stepped forward. ‘We will face the trouble when it comes. This is what the Great God wants us to do. Not to obey would bring more trouble.’

  !Ka picked up the tablets and rose. ‘!Oma speaks well. We leave after this night.’ He walked to his hut and turned at the doorway. ‘Come, wife, I will be gone three moons. You cannot send your man away with nothing more than senseless fears.’

  Be followed him into their hut. He had made his decision. It was her duty to abide by it. It was what the Great God wanted. The ways of the Great God were sometimes hard to understand but she knew he had sent the little boy to them for a reason. Perhaps she had done something wrong. Perhaps she was being punished. It certainly felt like punishment. The child with blue-green eyes and hair like the Moon had already crept into her heart and she knew, with absolute certainty, he would remain there for as long as she lived.

  In the morning Be smeared the boy’s small body with some of her precious collection of tsamma ointment. This greasy substance, made from a tangy wild melon and rubbed briskly into the skin, over which a fine layer of Kalahari sand is allowed to stick, would protect his fair skin from further burning. She paid particular attention to his birthmark, not wanting any harm to come to, what she considered to be, the mark of the child having been touched by the Mantis or the Moon or both. She gave !Ka more of the ointment so he could use it along the way.

  Suitably protected from the sun, which threatened to bring on another very hot day, and hoisted naked on !Ka’s shoulders, Be approached the child to say farewell, her tiny black eyes brimming with tears. The baby felt her rough hand on his bare leg and seemed to understand her pain. ‘Da,’ he said, and traced his finger gently along the tribal scars on her wrinkled and weathered face.

  ‘Da,’ she replied, touched beyond belief.

  ‘We go,’ !Ka said, turning.

  The last view she had of the baby was his plump little bottom bouncing on her husband’s shoulders, his bright and miraculously restored silver curls shining in the early morning sun. ‘Da, little beetle,’ she murmured to herself. ‘Go well, my son.’

  There were shoe prints and car tracks at the place where the boy had been found. His shorts and nappy were gone.

  ‘A man and a woman were here.’ !Ka pointed, reading the signs.

  !Oma agreed. ‘See how they searched for something.’ Two sets of shoe prints were clearly visible, going in all directions.

  !Ka squatted. ‘The woman knelt here. She found !ebili’s clothing.’ He rose and studied the vehicle tracks. One set led straight to where the shorts and nappy had been left; the other weaved erratically, as though whoever made them had suddenly lost their sight. ‘There is great sadness here,’ !Ka said finally.

  ‘Will we follow these marks?’ !Oma asked, indicating the tyre tracks.

  ‘No,’ !Ka said quietly. ‘We will find these people our own way. If we follow these marks we will become as lost as they were when they made them.’

  !Oma nodded. ‘Which way will we go?’ he asked. ‘From where did !ebili come?’

  ‘He did not come from behind,’ !Ka said, pointing back the way they had come. ‘We would have seen his tracks when we took him back to camp.’ He turned and squinted into the sun. ‘He did not come from where we killed the warthog,’ he added, ‘and I do not think he came from where the sun sets because there are many lion there. Therefore,’ he decided, ‘this little beetle must have come from the direction of the Mantis,’ and with that, and with no comment from !Oma who agreed with his observations, the two men turned north.

  Thirty miles west lay a small outpost of police who administered the vast Central Kalahari district. Permanently manned, they had a radio which would have made finding the child’s parents easy. But, although the two San men knew the police were there they knew nothing of radios and how they worked. Nor would they have approached the outpost if they had known. It was manned by white men and several Bantu. To the north lay the barren wilderness of central Bechuanaland, 250 miles of flat desert country, practically waterless, unpopulated but for wandering clans of Bushmen and the occasional white hunter. !Ka and !Oma were undaunted by this land which they knew intimately. They knew where to dig for water, unearth succulent tubers and even where to find honey. They knew where the spring hare and the ant bear burrowed and where to collect the mongongo nut and the sour plum. With nothing more in their hearts than to find the family of the little beetle and return him to his rightful place, the two Bushmen headed towards some of the most hostile terrain on earth.

  They met other clans along the way. Both men had distant relatives in many of them and the opportunity to catch up on each other’s news was eagerly taken. !Ka was delighted to be reunited with a younger brother who had left years earlier in search of a wife. !Ka had not seen his brother for twelve seasons. As they sat and talked far into the night he learned of cousins and uncles, nephews and nieces and he carefully memorised the details of each so he could relate them back to his own clan when he returned. Such was the way the San stayed in touch.

  Wherever they went, they were invited to spend the night and !Ka always accepted, glad of a chance to hand the boy over to the care and attention of a woman, unless of course she had her monthly bleeding which might have affected the child’s health. He worried all the way that the boy would become ill and was always relieved to have the responsibility of his well-being taken out of his hands for a night. To protect the child he constantly wiped his hand across his own armpit, collecting up his perspiration which he spread on the young boy’s head. Sweat from the healthy was a powerful medicine and the child endured more than his fair share of it. !Ka and !Oma asked everyone they met if they had heard of a white baby disappearing but news of that nature does not affect the wandering clans and no-one had heard of such an event.

  As they walked further north however, one person told them there was rumour of a white child being lost in the desert, but was unable to say from where the child had come. So !Ka and !Oma kept heading north, convinced they were going the right way.

  Up around Lake Xau, a mainly dry lake south of the Makgadikgadi Pans, they heard more positive news. A young white child had disappeared down south and all attempts to find him had failed. The grieving parents had reluctantly returned to their home, far to the northwest, convinced their child had either fallen prey to the many lions in the area or had perished in a severe sandstorm. All that had been found of the baby had been some of his clothes.

  Encouraged by this, !Ka and !Oma turned more to the west. A few days later they were told the child came from somewhere near ‘the bracelets of the morning’, those mystical hills the Bantu called the Tsodilo Hills. Neither !Ka or !Oma had ventured this far north before but both men knew the legend of how, long ago, when the world was not the same as it is now, the biggest
of the four hills had actually been a man. This man had two wives but he loved only his second wife. There was a terrible quarrel between the man and his first wife and she took a stick and hit him over the head, causing a deep wound which can still be seen to this day. Then she threw down their youngest child and ran away.

  The Great God came to the man and asked him where she had gone. When he learned of their fight the Great God thought that since they had no peace between them as humans, it would be best if he turned them all into stone. And they remain as stone, to this day.

  The Okavango Delta came as a wonderful surprise to !Ka and !Oma. After a lifetime spent in the hot, dry, sandy southern Kalahari, both simply stopped and stared in wonder. ‘This must be the land of the Mantis,’ !Oma whispered, awed. Palms, wild figs, islands of living papyrus, reeds, thick woodlands and great open areas of lush grasslands stretched into the distance as far as they could see.

  They did not know it but they were seeing the Okavango Delta at its absolute best, before the waters rise, as they do each year, from earlier rains in Angola, 600 miles from where they stood, and flow eastward, spilling out over the flat floodplains of the Okavango Delta into an enormous complex of twisting waterways and islands. But now, in the height of summer, the Okavango River flowed smoothly between well-defined banks, some more than a hundred yards apart. When the waters are high, walking through the Delta is difficult, if not impossible. The waters not having yet arrived, the Bushmen were able to follow ridges and navigate easily, some primitive instinct showing them the way. Naturally shy of contact with other Africans and deeply reluctant to make contact with whites, they avoided speaking with anyone other than those of their own race. Although the northern dialect varied from their own, at least they could be assured of a friendly welcome.

  At Sepopa, on the northwestern edge of the Delta, they learned that the child belonged to white farmers only two days’ walk further. ‘You should give him to the police,’ they were advised. ‘They will take him home.’ But !Ka and !Oma had become deeply attached to the young boy and believed it was their Great God’s wish that they deliver him themselves. Once again they set off.

  This strange little trio, two diminutive Bushmen and a small white child, had barely raised a flicker of excitement in the animals further south. But up in the Delta hunting had made the animals skittish. !Ka and !Oma, used to reading the signs of the wild in an arid desert, found the long grass and swampy marshes of the Delta most confusing.

  A browsing herd of buffalo appeared from nowhere. The Bushmen had never seen such big cattle, for buffalo do not venture into the Kalahari. Not yet alarmed, they carried on walking, chattering to each other, expecting the very large cows would ignore them as the occasional herd of cattle they encountered down south always did. A large bull raised his head and saw them. He snorted at the sudden appearance of the Bush-men. Then !Oma, having a bit of child-like fun, made a rush at him, thinking he would run away as cattle always did at home. The bull snorted again and tossed his massive head.

  ‘Go away and eat your grass,’ !Oma told him gleefully, turning back to join !Ka.

  The bull charged. Still thinking it was a game !Oma went shrieking and leaping towards the river. He could outrun most people and most animals. He could always climb a tree if necessary. He was having a great game.

  But !Ka was having doubts. This bull was not halfheartedly chasing !Oma away with his head lowered and heels kicking. He had his head raised as he thundered after his friend. He looked as though he meant business. And he was gaining on !Oma very fast.

  !Ka looked at the rest of the herd. Suddenly they did not look like the cattle at home. Another bull was trotting forward towards the front of the herd, his giant head swinging from the bull chasing !Oma and then back to stare at !Ka.

  Reacting instinctively, !Ka turned and ran in the opposite direction with all the reserves of strength he had in his small wiry body, the child bouncing on his shoulders. He reached a large tree, threw the boy into the lower branches, clambered up past him and hauled the child to safety in higher branches. From there he had a perfect view of the fate of his friend, hunting companion, kinsman and clansman, !Oma. The divining tablets were never wrong. The little Bushman had not stood a chance.

  It was several hours before he felt safe to leave the haven of the tree. He mourned for his friend. The bull had left little for him to bury. However, he scraped a shallow grave in the soft soil with his hands, and placed !Oma’s remains in it. He could find no stones or rocks to protect his friend from hyaena but he broke branches and stacked them over the grave. The child helped, carrying smaller sticks. He seemed to sense !Ka’s sorrow. He was unusually silent.

  !Ka had done his best. He had not been able to bury !Oma in a squatting position as is Bushman custom but he arranged his remains so that he faced the Great God to the east and he broke all !Oma’s arrows and his bow and scattered them over the grave so that others would know what it was and keep away.

  Worried that !Oma’s premature death would cause his spirit to try and capture his own to keep him company (because those who die young often resent it and resort to such tactics) but satisfied his friend was as suitably buried as he could manage, !Ka hoisted the boy on his shoulders and set off again.

  They reached their destination the next day. A small clan of northern San who were camped close to a well worn vehicle track told !Ka that they had indeed arrived at the place where some white people grieved for the loss of their small son. !Ka took a circuitous route to the farmhouse, avoiding the cattle and the native workers, and set the child gently down at the gate. ‘Go,’ he said, pointing to the house.

  ‘Da.’ The child looked up at him and smiled.

  ‘Go, little beetle, this is your home.’

  The boy looked over to the house. A sudden shudder ran through him and he started to run on his plump little legs. ‘Mama, mama.’

  A woman came tearing out of the house, skirts flying, at the sound of her son. ‘Ali,’ she screamed. ‘Ali, my darling.’ She scooped him up in her arms, kissing him, rubbing his head, stroking him, hugging him. ‘Alexander, my darling baby, where have you been, where on earth did you come from?’ She burst into a storm of weeping and held him to her as though she were afraid he would disappear again.

  A man hurried from the house and saw them. ‘Jesus Christ, I don’t believe it.’

  All this was double talk to the little San but he saw the child was safe and he saw the love on the faces of the white couple and he knew he had done the right thing and he knew his friend !Oma had not died in vain. He turned away and left, unhurried and alone. He had over 400 miles to make on the return journey so he might as well get started.

  The man lifted his tear-stained face from his son’s head and saw !Ka turn and leave. ‘Wait,’ he shouted. But the little San did not wait and the man was too distracted by his son’s sudden reappearance to go after him.

  ‘Da,’ Alexander said, reaching for the pouch to show his father the stone which sparked with hundreds of beautiful lights.

  But the pouch was no longer there. It had snagged on a twig when they climbed the tree in their flight from the buffalo. And the little boy who had borne sunburn, separation from his parents, strange food and even stranger people, a gruelling six-week trek from the Kalahari way down south, to Shakawe right up near the Angolan border, not to mention a fatal buffalo charge, burst into heartbroken tears.

  THREE

  When he was six, Alexander Theron had the worrying thought that his mother was not normal. He remembered the incident quite clearly. She had stood alone, defiantly facing the wind. The approaching storm boiled, slate grey, like a swirling whirlpool, from the ground to the sky and as far as he could see in each direction. Ragged remnants of earlier white cloud were caught up and churned, like cream in a coffee cup, in the violent vortex as nature vented her fury on the landscape. The distant Tsodilo Hills had disappeared, their rugged sandy boulders and craggy faces hidden as the full force of the win
d from Angola hurtled over and around and pelted them with rain before boring down onto the flat white country.

  ‘We’ll get it this time,’ she called to Alex’s father. Sand blew against her but she ignored its sting. Dropping to her knees she raised her hands imploringly. ‘Please, God,’ she prayed out loud. ‘Please send us that rain.’ But the only moisture around were the tears pouring down her face.

  Alex looked up from the game of jacks he was playing with Paulie. His brother was a bit young and the jacks usually fell off the back of his small hand but he gamely tried to copy his older brother. Alex saw his mother’s tears and felt afraid. She had been crying a lot lately. It was then he thought that maybe his mother was not normal.

  ‘Come inside, Mum,’ he called to her. He looked over to his father. ‘Tell her to come in, Pa.’

  But his father was watching her with a strange and sad expression on his face and appeared not to have heard him.

  Alex saw several drops of rain hit the sandy soil. They were so big and heavy they formed a crater the size of a penny. ‘Please let it rain,’ he prayed. Not to God, as his mother had done, just to anyone who might be listening. ‘Please make Mum happy again.’

  ‘Your turn.’ Paulie thrust the jacks at him impatiently.

  Alex threw them into the air and caught four on the back of his hand.

  ‘Wow!’ Paulie was impressed.

  Lightning flashed, jagged and dangerous in the midst of the swirling grey rain which seemed close enough to touch. Alex counted slowly as Pa had taught him. ‘One hundred and one . . . one hundred and two . . . one hundred and three . . . one hundred and four . . . one hundred and five . . . one hundred and six.’ Thunder rolled. ‘Six miles, it’s six miles away, Pa.’ Panic was rising in him for his mother.

  ‘Come on,’ Paulie urged. ‘Finish your turn.’

  Alex threw the four jacks in the air, whipped his hand down, picked up the fifth and caught the other four.

 

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