‘Why?’
Alex well remembered this dreaded fly which thrives in the southern Okavango. It has a bite as painful as a horse fly and carries the disease known as sleeping sickness in man or rinderpest in animals. Hosted, with little to no adverse effect, by warthog, buffalo, bushbuck, kudu and others, the tsetse is deadly to cattle and can also prove fatal to man. For years attempts to eradicate the fly were made. When it was discovered that it could not live in temperatures over 40°C large areas of bush were cleared, giving the fly nowhere to shelter. The tsetse moved on. Fences were built to contain the host wildlife and huge belts of animals were deliberately wiped out. The fly population decreased significantly. DDT and Dieldrin were sprayed on the large trees favoured as the tsetse fly’s resting places. Total eradication became a real possibility. The cattlemen wanted the fly gone. The Okavango was the only place of permanent surface water in the entire country. Why would Paul recommend a halt to the eradication program?
‘Money, my friend. Or, to be more specific, foreign exchange. Believe it or not, the wildlife has more potential for foreign exchange than the beef industry ever could. If we get rid of the tsetse, cattle will come back. If that happens, farmers will want to fence their properties. The wildlife will either move on or, worse, die of starvation. So, while the government has the know-how to get rid of the tsetse, they’re not doing it.’
Paul cursed as he swerved to avoid a pothole. ‘Oh sure,’ he continued, having shaken the Land Rover to the point where an array of items had fallen off the back seat, ‘the government wants to keep everybody happy. So they spray regularly and keep talking about how tsetse numbers are reducing. But we now have the means to completely eradicate them. Endosulphan. Sprayed every twenty-one days, after six applications the fly density has been reduced by 99.9 per cent. But we sure as hell aren’t telling the farmers.’ He glanced at Alex. ‘The wonderful world of economics,’ he laughed. ‘Wars, disease, politics, you name it. Any man-made or natural disaster you care to mention, and I include politicians deliberately. They’re all controlled by the bottom line.’
‘That’s kind of cynical,’ Alex said.
‘Show me an economist and I’ll show you a cynic.’ Paul raised both hands and the Land Rover headed towards the bush. ‘What’s even more depressing,’ he went on, grabbing the steering wheel, ‘is the hidden agenda. We call it number crunching. More often than not the bottom line is given to us before we start a feasibility study. In other words, we get a brief like, “Do the study, show us the numbers, but get them to say what we want them to say”. To hell with the truth. Profit is truth.’
Alex cocked his head. ‘Enjoy your work, do you?’
Paul grinned and raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s a living.’
They stopped in Shakawe and picked up supplies. Their parents, not knowing they were coming, would need the extra food. Pig Face was still there. He was stacking tins of baked beans on the shelves and nearly jumped out of his skin when Alex came up behind him quietly and said ‘Boo’.
The road to the farm was more rutted than they remembered. ‘Jesus, you’d think they’d grade it once in a while,’ Paul said, as they bottomed again on the high ridge of sand in the centre.
‘For all the traffic you mean?’
Paul laughed. ‘Must be at least one vehicle a week on it.’
The farmhouse brought a lump to his throat. But not as big a lump as when he saw Pa sitting on the verandah in his favourite chair smoking his pipe. Pa rose stiffly and stared at them. ‘Pets,’ he called suddenly, excitement making his voice high. ‘Pets, come and see. The boys are home.’
Alex jumped the garden gate. His mother ran out of the front door and down the steps. He embraced her and his father together, then stood back while Paul did the same. They all had tears in their eyes. ‘Praise the Lord, you’re home.’
His eyes met Paul’s over their parents’ heads. She hadn’t changed.
Pa was grinning like a fool. ‘Welcome home, welcome,’ he kept saying.
‘How long can you stay?’ Mum asked.
Alex looked at her. She had lost some weight and the lines around her eyes and mouth were deeper. ‘Paul’s got a couple of weeks,’ he told her. ‘I thought I’d stay on for a while.’
‘Oh, Ali. Thank God, thank you Lord.’ He folded her into his arms. Over her head he saw Pa brush tears away from his eyes.
‘It’s the right thing to do,’ he thought.
They all sat on the verandah talking. Pa quietly happy, Mum bubbling with joy. Her conversation was still peppered with praise and prayer but Alex realised after half an hour that she had not actually quoted from the Bible once. She seemed more content somehow.
He noticed some attempt had been made to start a garden and commented.
‘Mum did that, didn’t you, Pets?’
‘We had a lovely garden once,’ Mum said wistfully. ‘We never had enough rain though. Everything died eventually.’
Alex could not remember a garden. A few bougainvillea struggling to grow against the fence and a line of frangipani at the back where the water from the house drained was all.
‘We’ve got a new well,’ Pa said. ‘It gives us all the water we need.’
‘The good Lord provides.’ Mum rose. ‘I’ll go and see to dinner.’
‘Is Mum well?’ Paul asked once she had gone.
Pa tapped his pipe on his shoe. ‘No,’ he said sadly. ‘She’s got something wrong with her heart.’
‘Pa,’ Alex said. ‘Should you be living way out here? Why not move to a town? Then at least you’re close to a doctor.’
Pa stared out at the Tsodilo Hills. ‘Mum won’t hear of it,’ he said finally.
‘She seems . . . better. Know what I mean, Pa?’ Alex wasn’t sure how much his father would say.
‘Better?’ Pa smiled sadly. ‘In a way I suppose she is. She’s made peace with her God. Now she’s just waiting for the call. You boys . . . well, make the most of your stay.’
Sobered by his words, both Alex and Paul went out of their way to listen to her, praise the food and answer her questions. It was too late for either of them to love her unconditionally but they loved her enough to go out of their way for her.
She seemed to be calmed by their interest. But Alex felt something was not quite right. In her calmness there was an eerie emptiness.
After dinner she asked them both to join her in the lounge. Expecting a Bible reading, they joined her with some reluctance. Pa, as usual, had gone onto the verandah to smoke his pipe.
‘I have something to tell you both,’ she said, once they were settled. Her eyes glinted strangely although she was smiling. ‘Your father is trying to kill me.’
In the silence which followed only the clock on the mantelpiece could be heard.
‘Mum . . .’ Paul said uneasily.
She held up her hand. ‘I know you find it hard to believe. He’s an evil, evil man. He’s black you see. Black men are not like us.’
Alex sat stunned. What he’d taken as contentment earlier was insanity. His mother was totally mad. And like many unhinged people, she was able to conceal her affliction until suddenly, wham, she hit you with it right between the eyes.
She was crying. Neither Alex nor Paul knew what to do. They held her until her sobs subsided. When she looked up, her insanity was gone. She smiled as though nothing had taken place. ‘I’m going to sit here and read my Bible for a while. I’ll join you later.’
Shaken, they went outside. Their father, from the darkness, said quietly, ‘Well boys, now you know.’ Then sensed, rather than heard, that Danie Theron was crying like a little kid.
Two days later, as she worked in the kitchen, Peta Theron finally found her peace. They heard a crash and a scream from the servant and had run to investigate.
‘Her heart, her heart.’ Pa rushed to her side. ‘It’s her heart. Pets. Pets, darling.’
Paul picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. He lay her on the bed. Her face had gone grey.
‘I’ll call the doctor,’ Pa said, wringing his hands. ‘You hang on there, Pets, the doctor is coming.’
‘I’ll call him.’ Alex could see it was no use. ‘You stay with Mum.’
The doctor was busy in his bush clinic some ten miles the other side of Shakawe and his wife was unable to reach him.
It took him nearly four hours to arrive. By the time he did, Mum had been dead for three and a half hours.
Paul went back to Gaborone two weeks later. Alex and Pa settled into a comfortable routine, Alex taking on the harder tasks, Pa content to supervise or assist. They didn’t talk much. Pa had long ago got used to sitting by himself on the verandah while Mum read her Bible. Alex had his own thoughts to occupy his mind. The days turned into weeks. The weeks into months.
He and Pa repaired fences, dipped cattle, dug a new dam, fixed the verandah roof, drove some cattle into South West Africa and built new water troughs. Before he knew it, he had been on the farm eighteen months. His body responded to the hard work. He became fit and slim and brown and strong. And after that time, he knew he had to get away.
‘Farm’s looking good, son. I couldn’t have done it alone.’ Pa knew. Pa always knew.
‘I’ve enjoyed working with you, Pa.’
‘I’ve enjoyed having you here, Alex. But Shakawe is not for you, I know that. When are you leaving?’
‘You don’t mind?’
Pa smiled, a slow, sad kind of smile. ‘Of course I mind. A man likes to have his sons around him. But I’d mind even more if I felt you were staying on just to please me.’
Good old Pa. Poor old Pa. All alone now, with his pipe. At least Mum had been company of sorts. ‘I’ll stay until the new calves are born, help you with that.’
‘Thanks, son.’
‘Pa?’
‘No, son, I won’t sell.’
‘Okay. Just a thought.’
Pa, standing at the gate wearing his old clothes and his old hat, puffing on his old pipe, waving his old arm goodbye, his Pa who had once been fit and strong, his Pa who the young Alex wanted to be like, his old Pa. Now he was old and alone. It was the saddest thing he’d ever seen.
SEVENTEEN
When he left Shakawe Alex had no real plan of action. He was twenty-eight years old, his bank balance was far from healthy and he had no formal training, no qualifications and no idea what to do next. Another man might have been worried but Alex possessed the wisdom of !Ka. ‘In the desert it is foolish to plan ahead for the desert has a heart which beats differently to ours and the desert is always the master.’
Alex’s future was like the desert. He could not predict what would happen next, had no interest in controlling it and would roll with whatever punches it threw at him. He knew he was drifting aimlessly but, like !Ka, preferred to let fate take control.
There were only two things he was sure of. At some time in the future, he would have his own land. Not in Shakawe, he was sure of that now. But he knew that his own land, his own cattle, his own home, promised a deep contentment, and that this contentment was the future he wanted. But not yet. He had no money.
Marv had been blunt. ‘You pissed it all against the walls of Europe.’
He knew he had. Yet he did not regret one drop of it. Each to his own. It had been Alex’s way to recover and he did not question it.
The other thing he knew for sure was that he was over the hurt of Chrissy. He had planned to make her a part of his future but it didn’t happen and he had recovered. When she died, his future became a black hole. Perhaps that was why he reacted as he had. A man with no future is a man without hope. At least, that is how he looked at it now. But he was healed. Perhaps his money wasn’t all he had pissed against the wall. The pain, guilt and despair were gone. He no longer missed her, simply remembered her. His future was no longer a black hole, it had become a grey area, a blank page, waiting for him to lift his pen.
Fate, or perhaps !Ka’s desert heart beating a different rhythm, intervened.
He was staying with Paul in Gaborone. The capital was growing so fast he could not find the Ministry of Local Government and Lands which had moved from its original cramped offices in The Village and was temporarily situated somewhere in the new shopping mall waiting for the completion of the government’s administration complex, where it would finally reside. Alex wanted to find out how the Bushman project was progressing but while wandering The Mall looking for their offices, he saw a familiar figure coming towards him.
‘N!ou.’
The little Bushman was barely recognisable in his western-style clothes. ‘!ebili.’ His face creased into a smile of welcome. ‘It has been too long.’
Alex was overjoyed to see him. ‘From where do these fine clothes come?’
N!ou looked none too pleased at the compliment. ‘Ntsa,’ he said in disgust. ‘I am not allowed here in my own clothes.’
‘Why are you here at all? Where are the others?’
‘They wait for me in the bush. I come here to do business with the man who replaced you.’ N!ou shook his head. ‘He is not like you, !ebili. He will not go into the desert. He makes us come to him.’
‘But he must know you have to walk here.’ Alex was stunned that such an inconsiderate person was running his curio scheme.
N!ou shrugged. ‘He knows. It makes no difference to him. I must come when bara is hottest and then I must come when !gum is coldest. We all have to do that, all the elders. If we do not make the trip he will not send us the cow hide.’
‘That’s terrible. Who is this person?’
But N!ou did not know his name. ‘It does not matter, !ebili. I am finished my business now. We will go home again.’
‘Where do the others wait? Can I take you?’ Alex was grateful that Paul had kept his Land Rover. Scratched and dented as it was, Marv had done a good job on the engine and it remained a sturdy and reliable machine.
N!ou’s face split wide open at the thought of travelling in a vehicle.
The clan waited for him along the Molepolole road. They were gathered in a deep, dry river bed and hid at the sound of the Land Rover approaching. ‘Come out and see who is here,’ N!ou called to them. One by one, heads popped out from behind bushes. !Ka and Be were not among them.
They had made a temporary camp on the river bank. They were all anxious to get back into the desert for although the nearest village was some ten miles away, cattle grazed nearby and, where there were cattle, there were people. The Bantu often accused the San of stealing their cattle and the clan would rather move on than stay and face a possible confrontation. They were not, however, in such a rush that they couldn’t stop and talk to !ebili.
N!ou was now the leader. He told Alex that Be and !Ka had been left behind many seasons earlier. By now, they would be dead. Swallowed up by the animals, covered by the sand, their bodies would be in death as they had been in life: part of the harsh landscape. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t see them again,’ Alex said softly. Their death was no surprise to him. By San standards they had lived a full life.
N!ou rummaged in his gemsbok skin travelling sack. ‘They wanted you to have these,’ he said, handing Alex several items.
Alex stared at them. A finely hand carved pipe, stained at the bowl and with teeth marks on the stem. A necklace made from ostrich egg shells. He was fairly certain he had never seen either item before. He turned them over in his hands, head bent, fighting tears.
In their gift-giving tradition, he knew these possessions had probably changed hands a number of times before finding their way to Be and !Ka. They would have been of no sentimental value and, if they had lived long enough, Be and !Ka would have passed them to someone else. What touched him so deeply was the gesture itself. !Ka and Be did not collect things. If an item had no use it was discarded. But here, in his hands, these crudely made little artifacts represented love. !Ka and Be loved him enough to think of giving him something that belonged to them, however briefly. They loved him enough to step outside their own ingrained
traditions and make a sentimental gesture. They would never have understood why it meant so much to him, they just loved him enough to know it would.
For as long as he lived, Alex knew he would never receive a more valuable gift. ‘Thank you, N!ou, for taking such good care of these,’ he said huskily. ‘You have fulfilled your promise.’
N!ou, pleased to have finally got rid of two items of excess baggage, simply nodded.
Knowing N!ou did not comprehend either the gesture or his feelings at receiving the pipe and necklace, Alex changed the subject. ‘Have you seen the horses?’ He had thought of Nightmare often over the past few years. Against all the odds she had survived to live free and wild. He had never once regretted letting her go.
‘There is a bad spirit at work,’ N!ou said. ‘We have never seen his mischief before.’
‘What kind of mischief?’
‘A small rock which travels very fast. It breaks the bones of animals and men.’
‘What have you seen?’
‘The horses were all killed by this rock. This many.’ He held up six fingers. ‘Some of them were killed here,’ he touched his head. ‘And some here,’ he touched his heart. ‘What could do such mischief yet be so small?’
Alex thought he knew. ‘The stick that sounds like thunder,’ he told N!ou.
N!ou nodded. He had heard the thunder once or twice. It was always in the company of white men and, whenever they heard it, the clan sought deep cover. They had no understanding of rifles but instinct told them it was an evil thing that brought death.
‘The thunder sends the rock to kill?’ he asked Alex, struggling with the concept.
‘Always,’ Alex said. ‘It is best to run from such things.’
‘It seems to me, !ebili, that it is best for us to run from all white men, as we have always done.’
‘Do not run from me, N!ou.’
N!ou smiled. ‘Ah, little beetle, but you are not wholly a white man.’
Alex was profoundly touched.
The clan were heading for Kang to pick up more cow hide. They told Alex that the curios scheme had made some improvements to their lives. Boreholes were being sunk which helped in their constant search for water. A small bush clinic had saved the life of one of their children. Impressed as they were by this miracle, N!ou made it clear that they had more faith in their own remedies and would not go out of their way to seek help from the white man’s magic. They still wandered. They still lived as hunter-gatherers. Alex was relieved. As much as he knew the San had to change, it saddened him to think that, by adapting to the modern world, their way of life would ultimately have to go.
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