The cluster of buck swam ahead with the ram, and the doe with the calf dropped farther and farther behind. She was tired and her calf was exhausted. They swam on, failing, their heads up but the water was smacking into their nostrils, the little calf was having a hard time keeping up with its mother and it began to drop behind. The mother took a deep snort of air and blew up her lungs and chest like a horse being saddled and trod water and waited. He caught up and they paddled on, but the little buck was very tired and it was still a long way to go and the others were far ahead. Then the little calf did something man had never seen before. His neck was very tired from holding his head aloft and the water was smacking into his nostrils and he could hold it up no longer. The little calf lifted his tired neck once more and he dropped his head down upon his mother’s neck. And they swam on through the water, side by side, with the young leaning on the old.
The ram was glancing back over his shoulder at the two stragglers. Three hundred yards to go, the doe was very tired and her neck ached and the water was smacking into her nostrils too. The old ram was tired also and his neck was aching from keeping his head and his heavy horns aloft. But he kept looking round at his fifth doe, and then he turned round and swam back to her heavily. He got behind her and kicked her with his knees and snorted and chased her and encouraged her and she put her ears back and she blinked her big sloe eyes and kept swimming. But she was very tired and the shore was still a hundred yards away. She swam slower and slower and her head dropped lower and lower. She blew herself up with air to tread water and rest but then her head dropped lower and it was better to try to keep swimming. The ram nudged her from behind, but her nose kept dipping in the water and the nose of the calf resting on her neck was dipping under also. And the big old ram coughed and sneezed and blew his lungs up and lifted his horny head high. He struggled up alongside her, and then a little ahead of her, and she lifted up her head with one last effort and she dropped it on to the big broad wet tired neck of her mate.
So they swam on for the line of trees, side by side from biggest to smallest, on they swam, while the doe and the calf rested their heads. Fifty, forty, thirty yards to go and the big ram blew himself up again and again and went slower and slower. But his neck was aching very badly and he was very tired and his head sank lower. He gave a big snort and he jerked it up again and he paddled on with his nostrils wide open, heaving, but his head sank lower again. He jerked and sank and jerked and sank and he was going very slowly now. He was only twenty yards from the shore and the doe lifted up her head and took it off his neck and she swam beside him with the little calf still puffing and panting and resting on her.
But the ram was going very slowly now and his head was very low in the water. The doe and the calf swam ahead for the land and the big ram floundered after them. He snorted and puffed and blew water out of his nostrils and he shook his head and he kept paddling and he humped his back and he tried to blow himself up with air. His nose dipped under the water and he humped and shook it free and threw his straining neck up and his eyes rolled wide in his furry head, but his nose crashed under the water again.
There were only fifteen yards to go before his hooves touched bottom. He lifted his head and kicked again, but his head splashed back. He bellowed and the water frothed about his head and bubbles came out of his nostrils. Only fifteen yards to go. His horny head crashed back under the water and his hooves splayed the water underneath. They hit branches and for one wild moment the old ram thought he had touched bottom. But it was not the bottom, and his hooves caught in the branches and he kicked and pawed, but they were like a weed clawing him. He shook and he lifted his weary sodden head once more and he humped his big back and he gave out a bellow. He shook his head and snorted in air through his wide wet nostrils and then his head crashed down to the water again.
The old ram gave one last heave. He lifted his face out of the water and shook it weakly. The drops flew off his wet furry face and off his heavy horns. He gave one last try and snorted and he sucked in through his nostrils. His head dropped back with a loud splash and the old ram sucked in water and he sank. He sank like a stone and he did not come up again.
The does and the calves stood on the hot dry ground under the naked trees. They dripped and trembled and the calves fell down and lay panting and shivering. The does heaved and sucked their breath back and stamped their trembling legs and the water dripped off them on to the dry dust. The cocked their ears and they looked around and they sniffed the air. They looked around for their ram and they looked back at the water and they sneezed and coughed and snorted. They looked all around for him but he did not come out of the lake. They huddled and milled around for a long time, then the calves got back to their feet and shook themselves, and the does sniffed the new hinterland. Then one by one and then all together they began to shuffle off, and their calves trotted beside them, sniffing and snorting.
Chapter Sixteen
Now, a braaivleis dance was not an everyday affair at Kariba because you can’t dance very enjoyably without women and there were very few women at or near Kariba. But this braaivleis had been widely advertised for months and every woman within a fifty-mile radius of the Wall was coming, and many from farther afield. Farmers drove a hundred miles to that braaivleis, from as far north as Lusaka and as far south as Karoi and as far east as Chirundu. The three white policemen at the new police post at the jungle township of Kariba had arranged the importation of every female telephone operator and postal clerk from Karoi, all two of them, and every off duty nurse from Sinoia Hospital, and anything else in a skirt they could scare up. They bounced and churned and wound over the rough dirt track that twisted down the side of the escarpment, hooting at elephant and scattering buck and monkeys and the shoreline near the dam wall was sprinkled with tents. And the police organised half-a-dozen convicts to clear a level patch of ground of its stubble grass and a tarpaulin was spread on it for dancing and there were two booze tents, and a fat ox and three sheep were slaughtered and in the late Sunday afternoon the two long trenches began to smoke and then leap in the sunset and the hurricane lamps in the tents were lit and the gramophone began to grind over the African sunset and the people began to roll up, engineers and Eyetie workers, farmers and policemen and the pressmen and tourists, a hundred and fifty men and thirty-three women. There was much jostling round the booze tents, and laughter and noise and every woman was dancing. It was dark and the braaivleis was in full swing by the time Mahoney and his boatload of Noahs arrived from over the black water, very high.
Mahoney and the boys had been drinking since late afternoon, ever since they had finally succeeded in getting the elephant and her calf off the island and across the lake to the mainland. It had been a hell of a job. The female would not take to the water because of her calf, despite the thunderflashes they tormented her with. After nearly being trampled to death a dozen times, they had succeeded in separating the calf from its mother, and fifteen sweating grunting shouting men had tugged and goaded the squealing struggling three-ton infant into the water and then they had towed and shoved it out into the lake. Then big mommy had discovered the abduction and she had charged the water like a tank after her offspring, flapping her great ears and trumpeting, and so they had induced the two beasts over the water.
Mahoney ran the boat aground on a treetop on the lakeshore near the braaivleis, and the boat keeled over and eight drunken white men and Samson Ndhlovu toppled into the water. Great shouts and splashes and thrashing from the discommoded Noahs and roars of laughter and boos and cheers from the braaivleis. The Africans gathered in the darkness whooped with delight, and their white teeth flashed in the firelight and they clapped heir hands. The eight white men waded ashore, slipping and tripping and Samson dragged the boat in. They made their way dripping and laughing up to the booze tent. Mahoney teetered a little as he lifted the cold bomber of beer to his mouth and grinned around at the jollity about him, taking stock. Women! God, he was hungry for women. He hadn’t
slept with one in six months, more. But not only the flesh of woman: the presence of woman, the soft female gentleness of woman, the womanness of woman – that’s what he wanted. Someone to love.
A hand touched his shoulder.
‘Yes, induna?’
‘Nkosi,’ Samson shuffled once ‘I have need of money.’
Mahoney put his hand into his pocket and brought out two wet pound notes.
‘Be back here by dawn.’
‘Yebo, Nkosi! Thank you, Nkosi!’
Samson loped away delighted into the night, towards the native labour compounds.
Someone to love. Mahoney put the beer bottle to his lips and tilted back his head and looked down his cheeks at the dancing space.
Then he saw her. He pulled the bottle down sharply. He saw a tall willowy girl, with long straight golden hair, dancing. She was doing the rock and roll and her hips swung gracefully, and her breasts shook a little.
Those breasts. She had high cheekbones and heavy eyelids and a wide red mouth and her face was composed. Then her partner caught her eye and grinned at her and she smiled back brightly, politely, an unhappy woman trying to be gay. Her partner swung her away from him and her hair swept round her neck and her smile was gone.
Mahoney watched her intently. An unhappy lonely beautiful woman dancing in a crowd, a waif, a lonely lovely woman in need of loving. He could not take his eyes off her, a fascinating woman: Jake Jefferson’s tart.
The music stopped, they moved to the edge of the canvas. The man talked jovially, intimately to her, she smiled and listened. He said something and turned and hurried away to the booze tent. Mahoney’s heart knocked. Now was his chance. He was no good at making passes at strange women. He was drunk enough to try. What do I say? Supposing—but it was now or never. He took a breath and walked resolutely over the canvas to her. She had her head bent studying a fingernail.
‘Excuse me—’
She started. She looked up into his lean bristly face with its eyes very blue against the brown skin and the hair matted from the water and the clothes still sticking to his body. Mahoney was smiling his most charming smile. It belied his nervousness.
‘Will you dance with me?
‘I’m afraid that—’
The music started. Mahoney heard it with relief. He grabbed her hand firmly and led her on to the canvas. Thank God it was a slow foxtrot. If it had been rock and roll he would have been sunk. He put his arm around her waist and pushed her out into the centre. She did not resist. She wanted to be led.
‘Your name is Suzie. Suzanna something.’
She leant back in his arms.
‘Suzanna de Villiers. How do you know? And yours?’
‘Joseph Mahoney.’ She leaned back in his arms and looked up at him.
‘Joseph Mahoney!’ She half-closed her eyes and studied him. ‘The great Joseph Mahoney—’
Mahoney was surprised.
‘You once rescued Jake Jefferson from a tree during the big flood.’
‘Ah—’
‘The story is all over Salisbury and Bulawayo. Everybody has heard of Joseph Mahoney.’
‘Really?’ Mahoney was pleased with his credentials. What a break. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I didn’t rescue him, he jumped into the river and I picked him up. He was really most courageous.’
‘Oh,’ she said. Mahoney detected the flatness.
What to say next?
‘What happened to Jake Jefferson?’
‘I was going to marry him.’ She looked at him and then said, to stop him asking questions, ‘But it didn’t work out.’
‘I see.’
He looked into her eyes. Blue and deep and hard. My God, he wanted to say, never mind, I’ll love you, don’t weep inside any more. I’ll love you, I’ll make you safe and whole and you’ll make me safe and whole too. I love you already—
The record was an old Charlie Kunz. Suddenly the foxtrot changed to jive and Mahoney was sunk. He didn’t even try.
‘Look, I can’t do this—’
He was not even momentarily embarrassed. It was a godsend. He took her hand and led her firmly off the canvas through the crowd and down towards the lakeshore.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she said, but she did not resist.
‘Here.’
He pointed to a log at the edge of the water, and she sat down and he sat beside her. The braaivleis was a hundred yards away through the dark trees. She looked out over the silver water and he looked at her profile and he wanted to put his arms around her and kiss her, and tell her he loved her already, that everything would be all right now. He wanted this waif girl girl girl in his bed and beside him in the morning and walking about his bedroom in her nightie brushing her long hair and having breakfast with him. And never being lonely again.
She turned her head to him and rested her chin on her hand and said: ‘Why do you stay here?’
Mahoney took a breath.
‘Look.’ He waved his hand over the water. The moon was up and the great stretch of water was silver black and silent and vast and the islands were bushy black and the trees poking up above the water were sad and bare. She nodded.
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Yes, and sad.’
She waited.
‘Sad because it’s dying. A great chunk of Africa is dying.’ She looked at him.
‘And you want to hold its hand,’ she said.
Mahoney nodded. He looked at her, then he stood up slowly and he reached down and pulled her up to him. He slid his arms round her and pulled her hard against him. She looked at him steadily and then she yielded and she kissed him and she could feel his mouth quiver. And he felt a bubble of joy in his chest because he was no longer lonely.
‘Suzie?’
‘Yes?’
‘I do believe I love you already.’ She leaned back and looked at him, her eyes very serious. She nodded.
‘Isn’t it funny—’ Then she sank back against him and she shook. ‘Oh-oh-oh.’
Somebody trod heavily through the bush towards them.
‘Suzie?’
‘Scram,’ Mahoney said loudly. ‘Suzie, our transport is leaving for the airstrip right now.’
It was the plump young man. He sounded very injured.
At first light Mahoney was still awake. He lay on top of his sleeping bag, under his mosquito net and watched the first tinges of grey above the black line of the escarpment getting greyer. Dying, dying. Joseph Mahoney, twenty-six, nearly twenty-seven, unemployed, sentimentalist, kaffir-lover. Ditherer. Wanting to stop the clock, wasting time wanting. Lonely, hungry for love. Suzanna de Villiers lonely, lovely, hungry for love, sweet sad beautiful Suzanna four hundred miles away now.
You can’t stop the clock. You can’t stop the Batonka ceasing to be Batonka and wearing trousers instead of loin cloths, and listening to the voices of politicians on their saucepan radios, instead of the voices of their ancestral spirits, and drawing their water from steel pumps instead of praying with the Sikatongas.
And Joseph Mahoney knew he was not much longer for the valley.
Part Three
Chapter Seventeen
October is called Suicide Month.
In October the hot bush has not had rain for eight months. The bleak dry winter has gone and the flat bush is brown and the cattle are thin and the dams are dry. Spring has come and gone and the bush is hot again, but there are no new green things. By October the summer has come and the sun rises early into a merciless blue sky and it beats down on the shimmering brown flatland and the farmers’ dams are hard and cracked and the earth is dry dust and the bush crackles and cries out, and the cattle stand with their heads down. Hot, fiercely hot, the sun a great dry merciless fire in a hot blue merciless sky. In Bulawayo the sun glares blinding white on the buildings, hot on the wide black roads so the tar melts and you screw up your eyes when you cross the street and your shirt sticks to your back and when you get home and peel off your socks your feet stink. When you get home you
take off your suit which smells dank and you put on short trousers only, but the floors are warm underfoot and you daren’t stand barefoot on the verandah where the sun has been shining. There is almost nothing to do but to go to the fridge and get out a cold beer and slump on to the couch and drink, or go out to the air-conditioned cocktail bars or to the Club and drink. If you live in the suburbs you can at least look out on to your garden while you drink your beer, but if you live in the flats you look out on to the hot dry streets and on to the hot shimmering red rooftops of the houses and their dusty backyards and on to the hot sanitary lanes where the garbage cans sit and the African servants forgather squatting in the sun and talking and picking their noses, and on the pavements the dust sticks to the dogs’ urine patches. In the offices the men sweat in their suits and the office girls perspire between their legs, and the cars parked in the streets are too hot to touch. In the courts the lawyers and the magistrates and judges sweat under their gowns and sweat trickles down from under their wigs and the courtrooms are filled with the smell of Africans sweating. In October people in Matabeleland are irritable and they drink more and every day everybody looks up at the hot blue sky and says: Wish it would rain.
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