People of Heaven

by Beverley Harper

  He might have known better.

  Michael and Dyson were walking together on a back road through the cane fields. The games of ambush they played as boys were a thing of the past. At fourteen and thirteen respectively, each now shouldered a share of additional responsibilities. Dyson helped his father with the cattle, his mother with the other children and still found time to do his homework and study hard. Nandi had produced, in addition to Jackson, another son and then a daughter.

  The dire predictions that if the former clergyman Daniel Malan and his Nationalist Party won the 1948 elections then life would become even more difficult for the Africans, had come true. Malan wasted no time instigating a policy of separate development. It was called apartheid. Life had become so difficult in fact that Michael and Dyson could only show their friendship once they were out of sight of others. The mule-drawn scotch carts had been replaced by school buses and, since it had been decreed that black and white children must not travel in the same vehicle, whoever arrived at UBejane’s gate first would wait for the other to arrive, hiding in a pre-arranged place in the cane fields. To be seen together as friends would have brought unwelcome attention from the Security Police.

  With indecent haste Malan’s Nationalist government had passed the Mixed Marriages and Immorality Acts, prohibiting marriage, or any sexual contact between the races; the Population Registration Act, which classified all people by the colour of their skins; and the Group Areas Act, which dictated where different races could live. To cover up many examples of wanton cruelty or mindless persecution, the Suppression of Communism Act quickly followed. Anyone not toeing the line could be classified as a communist and incarcerated for as long as the government saw fit. Most of the black population were simply too frightened to protest against this rampant racism.

  Friendships formed between blacks and whites were rare enough before Malan took office, cultural differences saw to that. A few, like Michael, who perceived no barriers, were horrified by the new restrictions. He could not understand why the majority of whites seemed to accept the changes, not noticing that every benefit or privilege was at the expense of South Africa’s other races.

  Life for the Mpande family, and indeed, for all the Africans and Indians on UBejane, was one of increasing hardship. Not on the farm itself, since Claire would not tolerate the new laws of South Africa changing the way things were run. But the separate development policies affected everyone as soon as they set foot outside UBejane. Anyone not classified as white was treated as a second-class citizen.

  Nandi’s involvement with the Bantu Purity League went underground because all organised meetings of African groups had been outlawed. The perception of the new regime was that any black organisation, irrespective of whether or not they had political leanings, was a potential threat to law and order. Eventually, the league ran out of steam. Meetings were too difficult and dangerous to organise and anyway, no-one was listening to them.

  By this time, and with Nandi’s persistence, Wilson had come to believe that the Zulus desperately needed a coordinated voice of their own rather than the Xhosa-dominated African National Congress. Despite the fact that the Xhosa and Zulus were all descended from the Nguni tribe and were closely related, time and distance intercepted until the only similarity between the two was their language, and even that grew progressively more remote. Wilson, like most Zulus, while acknowledging historical connections with the Xhosa, regarded them as a different tribe. And, indeed, it did seem to him that his own people were treating an escalating policy of suppression by Malan’s Nationalist Party with alarming lassitude which set them apart from every other major tribe in South Africa. So absorbed were his people with clan infighting that when the ANC organised a defiance campaign supported by all South Africa’s black population groups, to protest against government injustice, the Zulus were conspicuous by their lacklustre response.

  Wilson became convinced that what the Zulus needed was a Zulu-focused organisation, run by Zulus, for Zulus. The fact that the Natal branch of the ANC was headed by a Zulu, Albert John Lutuli, didn’t count. The ANC was simply too fragmented. Wilson held secret meetings with some of the most influential chiefs in Zululand but they were either preoccupied with whatever blood-feud was current or they were content to do nothing.

  His staunchest ally was his son. Dyson was naturally bright and because of his long-term and deep friendship with Michael, he was not overawed by the white man. Inevitably, the boy’s keen intelligence had become known to the Security Police who regarded any educated African, even if he were only thirteen, as a potential troublemaker. Michael felt that in all probability the Security Police resented the fact that Dyson was demonstrably better educated and more clever than most of their number. That, and the fact that he tended to speak to them as equals, an unpardonable aberration and one which had him earmarked as someone to watch out for.

  Michael worried for him. Dyson, like his father, was outspoken about apartheid. All it would take was one word by someone with a grievance and the two of them could disappear forever. This was obviously a situation about which Dyson was aware. He grew less open with Michael, less willing to criticise the white regime, even to his oldest friend. It was this they now spoke of.

  ‘I do trust you,’ Dyson said hotly. ‘It’s just that . . . Well, it’s better if you do not know certain things.’

  ‘Why? Who do you think I would tell?’

  ‘No-one. I know you would say nothing.’

  ‘Then what is happening? I talk to you about secret things.’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘No it isn’t. I could get into trouble too.’

  Dyson stopped and faced Michael. ‘It’s not just me. I am forbidden to speak to you by others. They are scared.’

  Michael knew what he meant. Speaking Zulu, he pledged his loyalty to Dyson, the Mpande family and the entire Zulu nation, ending by saying, ‘I am a friend. If that is not good enough for you then I am sorry.’

  Dyson began walking again, his head bowed. ‘You are a friend, we know that. But, Nkawu, for how much longer will this thing be allowed? It is better that you know nothing.’ He scuffed his bare foot on the sandy road. ‘And you must stay away from the compound. If the police come and you are there . . .’ He shrugged.

  Michael could not blame his friend but it hurt. They parted at the fork in the road and Michael went on up to the main house, his mind busy not only with homework and jobs that needed doing on the farm but also with things he did not completely understand and which seemed to be coming between Dyson and himself. He was nearly there when Peter Dawson’s Land Rover rushed past him, heading away from the house. Michael had to jump to the side of the road to get out of the way and stood, staring after the vehicle, wondering what had caused Peter to drive like that.

  He found five-year-old Sally crying silently on the verandah and picked her up. ‘What is it, monkey face? No, don’t tell me, let me guess. Tessa’s teddy bear came to life and ate all your ice-cream.’

  Normally his sister would have laughed but not this time. Through her clothes, Michael could feel the slight body shaking with fear. Holding her close, he went inside and stopped dead. The lounge looked as though a tornado had hit it. Chairs overturned, vases and lamps broken, the glass-fronted display cabinet smashed. Bessie and another servant were trying to clear up the chaos.

  ‘What happened?’ Michael asked.

  Bessie shook her head and answered in Zulu. ‘Big trouble, Mr Michael.’

  Tessa came into the lounge, her face smeared with jam. ‘Mummy’s going to have a baby and Daddy is very angry,’ she informed Michael importantly. Tessa had a knack of knowing everything.

  ‘How do you know that?’ Michael was dumbfounded. To the best of his knowledge, Joe hadn’t been anywhere near his mother’s room in years. The mysteries of how babies were made had been solved for him years ago by a friend at school. It wasn’t possible that his mother was pregnant.

  ‘I heard him yelling at
her,’ Tessa said, licking jam from her fingers. ‘Mummy’s crying. Uncle Peter was crying too and he and Daddy had a fight but he’s gone now.’ She looked smugly up at him. ‘Daddy broke everything with a poker.’

  Peter! What did Peter Dawson have to do with this? ‘Where is your father now?’ he asked Tessa. Michael still could not refer to Joe as his own father.

  ‘In his room.’ She looked almost excited, as if it were some kind of secret game. ‘He’s drunk.’

  Michael gently put Sally down and went to go outside.

  ‘No, Mr Michael. Do not go there.’ Bessie heaved herself up from where she was sweeping broken glass from the floor. ‘There is someone with him.’

  Michael nodded curtly. Now that he lived outside the house, Joe King made no bones about his mistresses, often installing them in his room for days on end. So Michael went to his mother’s room and knocked tentatively on the closed door. He found her sobbing into the pillow. ‘Mum! What’s wrong? What’s this about a baby?’

  But she would not look at him. She just shook her head and cried harder.

  ‘Mum, please.’

  When his mother finally turned to him, he saw that the lounge was not the only thing Joe King had trashed. Claire’s nose looked broken, her lip split, one eye closed and black. ‘I’ll tell you about it some day,’ she whispered. ‘Just not now, okay?’

  A few weeks later, on one of his rare appearances out on the farm and only slightly drunk, Joe King shed some light on the situation by telling Michael and everybody else within earshot, ‘If she thinks I’m paying for her little bastard then she’s got another thought coming.’

  Michael, from long years of practice, ignored him.

  ‘That’s right,’ Joe yelled. ‘Say nothing as usual. Act as though your shit doesn’t stink. Well, what do you think of your precious mother now? She’s nothing but a whore.’ He stepped up to Michael and cuffed him. Michael’s fists curled but he did nothing, just stood waiting for his father’s rage to subside. ‘Say it,’ Joe demanded, cuffing him again. ‘Say it. Say, my mother is a whore. Go on, say it.’

  Michael would be damned before he would. Instead, he looked squarely at his father, hatred radiating from his eyes and said clearly, slowly and distinctly, ‘Your mother is a whore.’ He stepped back smartly, turned and ran as fast as he could to the sanctuary of the African compound. If Joe King tried to hurt him there the Africans would probably kill him.

  Gregor King arrived in the spring of 1952. He was a sickly baby and Claire spent a lot of her time taking care of him. Michael, now nearly fifteen, looked carefully at Gregor and decided, with a degree of satisfaction, that he could not possibly be Joe King’s. The twins, now six, were less concerned with the baby’s appearance. Sally couldn’t wait to cuddle him and treat him like a doll. Tessa gave the new arrival a quick glance and said, ‘Erk! He’s all squirmy.’

  Claire’s eyes met Michael’s over the baby’s head and she smiled. ‘He’s very much loved and wanted. That’s the main thing.’

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ Michael replied softly. ‘And what about you?’

  It was a question for which Claire had no answer.

  PART TWO

  1960

  SIX

  She was five years old and this was her territory. Her history was one of disruption and fear. At two, just after parting company with her mother, she had been darted, placed in a crate on the back of a vehicle and transported to Umfolozi Game Reserve where she was kept in a high security enclosure with other black rhinos. She hadn’t liked that. To make her displeasure abundantly clear, she didn’t wait for the men to let her out of the crate. She wrecked it. She then went on to put a half-metre tear along the side of one of their brand new vehicles, opening it up like a tin of sardines. She remained unpredictably temperamental until, two months ago, she had been taken from the enclosure and given the freedom of the reserve.

  All of 164 centimetres at the shoulder and weighing close on 1000 kilograms, as lady black rhinos went, she was in her prime. Coming on heat for the first time, the hormone in her urine led the big bull into her territory. She allowed him to stay for two days before the familiar need to be alone over-rode her need to mate and she kicked him out.

  Placid and plodding when left alone, she would, at the drop of a hat, charge anything that startled, frightened, annoyed or confused her, running full tilt at trees, rocks, elephants, vehicles and men. Her policy was kill first, ask questions later. Not even fellow rhinos escaped this treatment since, like all of her species, she had terrible eyesight and was guided largely by smell and sound. Besides, she didn’t like other black rhinos any more than she liked anybody else. She was solitary, happily bad-tempered, abruptly aggressive and concerned more about filling her bulk with food than winning friends.

  Her territory was clearly marked by her toilet, a flattened mound of droppings, to which she returned for several months before starting another elsewhere. This midden was a sign to any would-be intruder: enter here at your own risk.

  The man had walked eight kilometres from his village, carrying a rifle and a battered suitcase containing the tools of his trade. He saw the sign and trod warily. Big as the cow was, he knew she could hide within five metres of the well-worn track. She could charge with the speed of a galloping horse, toss him to the tops of the trees, catching him expertly on the point of her upturned horn before throwing him high in the air again. It was an experience he’d prefer to live without.

  He’d found the cow about four months ago, quite by accident, and had been greatly impressed by the size of her ‘horn’. This hard, fused mass of hair was at least sixty centimetres long and probably the same around its base. He knew it would fetch a good price. He considered it a great pity that she was protected by a high and electrified fence. However, six weeks ago he saw her in the main part of the park and so he’d begun to make plans.

  In his right hand was what had once been a military issue .303 rifle. Now, cut back for easy concealment, the weapon was so loose it was held together by braided copper wire and the wet thigh skin of an impala had been stretched over a cracked stock, drying hard and leather-strong to prevent it breaking further. In his suitcase were eight homemade nooses. Constructed from high tensile steel cable which he’d heated in a fire to reduce springiness, these rusty old snares were deadly efficient, strong enough to stop an elephant, easily concealed and one of the cruellest poaching aids known to man. In addition to the snares his suitcase contained an axe, some short lengths of fencing wire, a small hand shovel and a skinning knife. The only other thing was an over-ripe and bruised orange. His lunch.

  Over the last weeks he’d learned a lot about this cow. He knew where the path ran from her feeding ground to where she drank. He knew she’d be resting under a tree at this time of day. He knew that, as the day cooled, she’d start to browse again, pulling with her pointed upper lip at twigs, leaves, the bark of trees and bushes until she’d had enough. Only then would she make her way along the well-trodden path to drink at the stagnant waterhole. It would be sundown or later by then, which gave him six hours to lay snares. Plenty of time.

  Even so, he kept a sharp lookout. Aware that she had just mated he didn’t want to run into her lover. Nor did he wish to encounter the cow herself. She could easily have decided to cut her rest period short in favour of a mudbath, or a wallow in the dust. Having so recently been in oestrus, chances were she would still be in a highly volatile frame of mind. He kept close to trees in case of a charge, his ears alert for the distinctive puffing snort which always preceded an attack.

  He was making for a place just above the waterhole where she regularly drank. The intention was to set his snares where the path dipped sharply to the water, knowing that the cow, once she reached this point, would be concentrating more on the scent of water and less on any lingering smell of man that he would unavoidably have left behind. Four neck nooses and four foot snares, set at strategic points, should be more than enough. The chance of snaring the wrong anim
al was minimal since the rhinoceros’s bad temper while she was on heat had driven most others away.

  The dry and thorny scrub country was quiescent in the intense heat. He listened carefully for the shrill warning cry of tick-birds, the constant companions of rhinoceros. Feeding on parasites which infested their host’s hide, in return they warned of approaching danger. All he heard was the far off whip . . . whip . . . wheeoo of a Piet-my-vrou, and then, much closer, the sharp warning waa-hoo bark of a baboon sentinel, which set the troop off for five minutes of hysterical shrieking, barking and grunting. Savage as the sound was, the poacher was less concerned about the baboons than he was about their reasons for such alarm. Such displays generally meant the presence of leopard.

  The man was also listening for the sound of a vehicle. He knew he was breaking the law. If the park rangers found him, he’d go to prison. That was the penalty for poaching in a game reserve. But he’d been helping himself for years in this so-called protective haven for animals. He was good at it and his family ate well as a result. He had never, however, attempted anything quite so daring as this.

  Reaching the game path he turned east, towards the waterhole. The track seemed to run at random, not fitted to contours of the land but rising and descending sharply in places. The trail smelled of animal dung, dust and leaves as well as an indefinable quality which was manifestly African bush. Nothing stirred in the energy-sapping temperature. Sweat ran freely down the man’s face and bare back, the odour of it clashing with bush smells. The poacher ignored his discomfort. He was too busy listening for any sounds that might indicate danger.

  He walked nearly two kilometres along the game path until he reached the spot he’d chosen. Then he set to work, doing what he knew best, toiling for the reward the white Baas would pay him when he delivered the rhinoceros horn. The money would keep him and his family in food for the next two months.