by Fred Khumalo
But his heart thudded with fear when he remembered that his relationship with Matshiliso was no longer secret. As difficult as it would be to leave her behind, maybe it was time for him to depart from the village. Maybe the war was over. He’d already been there for at least six months. There was not much food to go around, anyway.
After Matshiliso had left his hut, he started out on a fairly long walk. His bag slung over his shoulder, his club in one hand and his sharpened stick in the other, he took purposeful strides, his feet and legs cutting a swathe through thick undergrowth.
CHAPTER 7
When De la Rey arrived at the section of the river where women and girls fetched water for drinking and cooking purposes, he went down on his knees. He took a long leisurely drink of the sweet, clear water. Sated, he stood up and belched. He walked downstream. A fish broke the water surface, startling him.
He passed the spot where villagers took their daily baths. The sun was getting oppressively hot by the time he reached the place where boys watered their cattle. The rocks alongside the river were teeming with wild rats feasting on dried pieces of cow dung. Hours later, he found a cool copse where he put down his bag, club and spear. Sitting on the ground, his back against a tree, he started eating his dried fish.
Why, he wondered, didn’t he just call this adventure off now, go back to his own people? Face the consequences of desertion. Confess to temporary insanity. He hoped he would be forgiven – the Boers loved the name De la Rey. Or he could simply surrender to the British – if he could find them. Had the chief heard the rumours about him and Matshiliso? What did he think? Somebody once told De la Rey the chief wouldn’t hesitate to stone a man to death for stealing his granddaughter’s virginity. Maybe he should simply run for it.
‘Dammit, why am I being like this now?’ he muttered to himself. ‘Why am I even thinking about this? Is it cowardice? Haven’t I told Tshili I want to make a wife out of her one day? Come on, don’t be a worm! Be a man!’
He decided he would keep going along the banks of the river, keep thinking about things. He was conscious of the fact that he had walked a long way already, unarmed. No rifle. What if …? He let the thought hang.
When he finished his salty dried fish, he was thirsty. He regretted that he hadn’t brought a gourd of sour milk. He got up and began to wade through the tall grass, towards the water’s edge, then he paused. He had spotted a young steenbok. It was drinking, a mere ten metres from where he had been sitting, hidden from view. He instinctively dived to the ground, reaching for his club and spear. The antelope stopped drinking. It sniffed the air nervously. Suspecting that the breeze was wrong, and that the antelope would smell him, he stayed in a low crouch, coiled like a spring. He clutched his spear in his right hand, his club in his left. The antelope resumed drinking. De la Rey inched his way forward, his spear poised.
He lunged forward. The deer jumped as if shot out of a gun. In its shock and haste it collided with a tree. De la Rey sank his spear into its flank. The animal made a miserable cry as it leaped forward again. De la Rey finished it off with a clean club blow to the head. He knelt beside the steenbok, ensuring it was dead. He had not killed an animal in a long time.
He put his spear and club into his deep bag, which he slung over his shoulder. Then he grabbed his kill by its forequarters and lugged it over his other shoulder. A lesser man would have been forced to drag the dead animal behind him.
He must have been walking for about an hour when he saw vultures circling in the sky above him. Soon enough there would be hyenas and other opportunistic scavengers, he thought. He stopped briefly and looked at the vultures. Let them come, I’ll show them. Then he shouted, ‘Come! You bastards, I am not afraid of you! Come and taste my spear and club! What are you waiting for? Come!’
The vultures continued circling, occasionally swooping down towards him, only to soar back up into the sky.
He resumed his walk. At some point, he dropped his prize on the ground and paused for breath. He took time monitoring the movements of the vultures. It gradually dawned on him that it was not he who was their target. They were interested in something else nearby. He followed their movements with his eyes. Slowly, they spiralled down until they settled on what looked like a small village. Not even a village – just a compound with a cluster of rondavels. Alarmed, he dived to the ground, hiding himself in the grass. He could not afford to be seen. Who lived in this village? What if the Boers had taken it over and were using it as their temporary base? From where he lay on his stomach, he watched the vultures as they settled on the open space in the middle of the compound. They started making a racket – shrieking and charging at each other. He stayed put, his eyes raking the scene from left to right. He expected the inhabitants of the compound to emerge from one of the huts and shoo the huge birds away. But, apart from the birds themselves, nothing else moved. After about half an hour, he decided to edge closer to the compound.
Then he understood what the birds were fighting over: a human corpse. He began to retreat, wanting to get away from the scene as fast as his feet could carry him. But he changed his mind. He stood there, trembling. Then, screaming at the top of his voice, he charged forward, his club clasped firmly in his right hand, ready to strike. Disturbed from their late-afternoon feast, the birds erupted into the air with a furious bang of their wings.
Satisfied he had scared the birds away, De la Rey turned his attention to the compound. ‘Anybody home?’ he shouted. He was beyond caring now, no longer concerned that there might be people watching him from their hiding places. He shouted again, ‘Can you hear me? Somebody? Anybody?’ No response. He was sweating, tears of anger and frustration blinding him. He couldn’t help but take another look at the corpse. It was, by the look of it, the body of an elderly woman. The stomach had been ripped open, the entrails spilling onto the dusty ground. The eyes had been plucked out. The shrivelled breasts had been torn into shreds. There was a broken calabash next to the body. The old woman could have been trying to make her way to the river when she collapsed, possibly hungry, thirsty.
When De la Rey turned, he realised that a new group of vultures had settled on his steenbok, attacking it viciously. He ran towards them, shouting, his club making angry circles in the air. The vultures took their time to rise from the carcass. One of them – a monster with a wingspan of almost two metres – stood defiantly on top of the antelope, its sharp eyes daring him. De la Rey hesitated, but his anger triumphed over his fear. He charged forward, his club cutting a lethal swathe through the air. The bird banged its wings noisily and hurtled towards him, its sharp, blood-drenched talons aiming for his head. He ducked out of the way and hit the bird on the wing. It shrieked as it rose into the air. Then it lost its equilibrium and plopped to the ground.
De la Rey had no time for it. He dragged his kill to the door of one of the huts. Then he started running from hut to hut, shouting, ‘Is there anybody home? Hello!’ Still no response. He ran towards the next hut. Two corpses in there. Both elderly people – a man and a woman. Huge rats, almost the size of small rabbits, were gorging themselves on the corpses. He kicked with fury at a rat, sending it flying into the air. No time to listen with satisfaction as the rat’s body splattered against a wall, exploding. Charging blindly forward, he came to the entrance of a hut. This was where the householders would have kept their grain. He poked his head around. Grain baskets lying in disarray on the floor, communities of rats having a market day on the floor. A bat blindly smashed itself against his face. He cried out in terror. Collapsing onto his knees, he vomited violently, repeatedly.
He ran from hut to hut. No life whatsoever. He had to get out of there. Fast, before dark. In the centre of the compound, the vultures were back, in even bigger numbers. He couldn’t trust himself to fight them. He grabbed his steenbok and started moving as fast as he could. His head was aching badly, the noise in his ears growing in volume, drowning out the ear-splitting screech of cicadas and the calls of wild animals as they
prepared themselves for the night.
The sun had long set by the time he arrived back at the village. He was drenched in sweat. He stank. Of fear. Of rage. Of death.
News soon spread that Morena Rey had caught an antelope. The older women supervised the cooking of the animal once the boys, working under the supervision of older men, had skinned and quartered the carcass so the pieces could fit into the pots.
While the meat cooked, De la Rey walked to the river, where he took a long, thorough bath, scrubbing himself with a pumice stone until his body almost bled. He drank so much water his stomach nearly burst. Panting, he walked towards some thick undergrowth a few metres away from the river. There he knelt and drove two fingers to the back of his throat, inducing himself to vomit. When he had heaved almost every drop of water, every morsel of food, from his stomach, he walked back to the river. He drank some more water before trudging back home.
He was heading back to his hut when a figure emerged from the shadows, blocking his path.
‘Morena Rey,’ said Matshiliso. ‘There’s a fight brewing in the family.’
‘What is it all about?’
‘You’re the cause. Rather, we are the cause. They want me to stop seeing you.’
He paused for a while. ‘If it’s unsafe to stay here, then I’ll leave.’
‘Yes, you must. But I am coming with you.’
‘No, you can’t do that. It’s not safe out there. The war is not yet over. Travelling on my own, I should be safe. I can defend myself. But with you at my side …’ His voice trailed off.
‘You don’t understand. I think there’s something wrong with my tummy …’ She paused. ‘After what we did together, that last time.’
‘You don’t mean …’
‘I told my grandmother about what I was feeling, and she confirmed my suspicions and immediately called a quick meeting with the female elders. Now, they are going to tell the Fathers of the village.’
De la Rey nodded, accepting the situation. ‘I understand where this is leading. But I am sure they like me, and I am prepared to negotiate, make you a proper wife.’
‘It will be too complicated and risky. We need to go,’ urged Matshiliso.
‘But how?’
‘I’ve got a horse all saddled up. Your big gun is ready. We can go right away. We need to go.’
‘Shouldn’t we think about this a little more first?’ De la Rey was flustered.
‘If you can’t make up your mind, I’ll leave you behind with your beloved Elders. I am not prepared to enter into any negotiation with them.’
She made her way into the night, where De la Rey could make out the shape of a horse. He shrugged and followed her, ready to leave the village life behind.
CHAPTER 8
At daybreak the following day, De la Rey decided they should duck into a clump of trees and rest. When they dismounted, he was thrilled to find that Matshiliso had not forgotten his bag, which contained his drawings. She also had a bag of her own, made of goatskin. She dug into it and produced an ankle-length, off-white dress. As she unfurled it, she explained, ‘This was made for me by a woman at a church. I’m not going to wear it now. I’ll save it for when we get to your home. So they can see I am civilised. I even have a pair of shoes!’ Glowing with pride, she showed him the shoes. They were old and weathered, but the soles looked good.
‘So, you are well prepared for the journey,’ he said, smiling.
They found a clearing in the middle of a clump of trees and laid down a blanket to sleep. When they finally woke up, night was just falling.
‘No time for sleeping, man,’ she said in a commanding voice. ‘We need to move on. The horse is getting impatient.’
‘Okay, let me just do something quickly. Sit on that rock over there.’
‘We have no time for games.’
‘I won’t be long, love of my life. I have to capture this moment. Just sit on that tree stump over there.’
He sat on the ground, his back against the rock. Then, armed with a piece of charcoal and a pencil, he started working on his improvised sketchpad.
He saw the oval face framed by flowing braids. The heavy, expressive brows stood sentinel above piercing brown eyes. At first glance the eyes looked fiery and confrontational, but they soon softened and took on a flirtatious aspect.
His hand worked feverishly, transferring the vision onto the blank pages. He saw her high cheekbones, and then, in his mind’s eye, her entire face suffused with the light of the many fires she had made to cook for her grandparents, for the entire compound; the fires she had sat around to listen to the village’s folktales; the fires she would make in the future to cook for him, for their children, for his own dear mother.
He saw the bridge of her nose, vulnerable, a nose that was neither sharp nor too flat. The nostrils were flared just so, not angrily but somewhat petulantly. And then the lips. Thick, without being meaty. Slightly parted to reveal white teeth. A tiny gap between the front teeth. Below the lips, a sharp chin. Anchoring the head was a long, fragile neck. Collarbones you couldn’t miss. A necklace of snail shells.
Just below the necklace the eye plunged into a valley. On either side of the valley were firm, tiny breasts, light brown in colour, with dark nipples.
He was breathless. Blushing, sweating, hands atremble. He had to pause, lest he spoil the entire drawing. He closed his eyes and shook his head.
His Calvinistic sensibility took over: he decided to dress the rest of the body in the flowing robes that some of the older black women wore, the ones who had converted to Christianity. But unlike the robes of the older women, which rendered their bodies shapeless, the picture that he imagined was that of a robe that clung to the contours of Matshiliso’s body, making her breasts stand out and her hips more pronounced. And when the robe reached her thighs, it fanned out to the sides like a school bell.
What to do with her arms, her hands? He closed his eyes. He tried to recall the last conversation they’d had. Yes, her voice came back to him: ‘When this war is over, I am going to leave this godforsaken place. Go to Bloemfontein itself. Or even Johannesburg. Before the war started, I was learning how to read the Bible and also to write. The church where they used to teach us to write and read is two villages away, but it was shut down when the fighting started. The white man who used to run it left. He did not belong to the Boers, nor did he belong to the British. He was from somewhere over the seas, but he has lived here and can speak our own language. I hope that when the fighting is over, I will resume my lessons in dressmaking so I can produce clothes that townspeople can be proud of …’ She showed him what she was holding.
Yes! He started squiggling again. A long graceful left arm, which culminated in a hand holding a Bible. And then a right arm, bent at the elbow, ending in a hand holding an exquisite spear. He paused and smiled. Then the feet? The feet standing on a raised rock and covered with a garland of flowers.
He sat back, and admired the shape of her. ‘Ah, my angel.’ Then his hand moved quickly to add a halo just above her neat braids. He smiled. Done.
He folded the paper carefully, tucked it into his bag. They rode off.
CHAPTER 9
As they crossed the vast grassland, which was floodlit by a generous moon, De la Rey was floating on the wings of ecstasy. He had no care in the world. He knew the war was not yet over, but the British were way up north already, fighting their way towards the gold mines in the Transvaal. The only people he might bump into were folk like him, Boers on the run. Or black people who had escaped from British concentration camps.
He would fight to the last drop to protect himself and his woman. He couldn’t believe the emotion coursing through him – the exultation of returning home with someone he loved. This was new to him, the sense of pride and complete trust in another. To be sure, it did scare him a bit that he had made someone pregnant, that he was capable of bringing to this earth a life. Was he capable of taking up the next logical challenge – raising and guiding
the little human being through this increasingly complicated world? He would have to work hard on the family farm to provide for the family – his mother and now his wife and child. He was hoping for a son. After a devastating war, every family needed hard-working sons who would roll up their sleeves, plough the farms, rebuild the communities torn asunder by the conflagration.
He had left his home a young man, unwise in the ways of the world; he was going back there a man who had seen a world many of his friends and relatives could not even dream of. He had left his home a nervous young man being marched off to fight in a war he did not understand, and was now going back home a survivor who had a woman at his side, a woman he would lay down his life for. He came from a community where men never spoke about love. But with Matshiliso, he felt differently. He felt he could defy the unwritten rules of the community and parade his love for this woman.
On the border of his home village of Kareefontein, just forty kilometres south-west of Bloemfontein, they found a bush where De la Rey hid Matshiliso. Then he stealthily walked towards his parents’ farm. It was a mystery how the tiny De la Rey farm had been left intact. Everybody knew that Lord Kitchener, the head of the British army – or Public Enemy Number One, to the average Afrikaner – had declared that every farm was an intelligence agency and a supply depot for the Boer rebels. The farms, therefore, had to be destroyed. The women and the elderly white men who’d remained on the farms while the younger men joined the rebels would be taken to concentration camps, which had mushroomed around the country.