by Wilbur Smith
In the last minutes of daylight they reached a shelter where others had camped before them, for the hearth was thick with wood ash and the cliff was blackened with soot, and there was a pile of dead wood left beside it, ready for use.
‘Tomorrow we will learn if the spirits are hostile still, or if we will be allowed to proceed,’ H’ani warned Centaine. ‘We will start very early, for we must reach the hidden place before the sun rises, while it is still cool. The guardians become restless and dangerous in the heat.’
‘What is this place?’ Centaine insisted, but once again the old woman became vague and deliberately absent-minded. She repeated the San word which had the various meanings ‘hidden place’ or ‘safe shelter’ or ‘vagina’, and would say no more.
As H’ani had warned, they started out long before sunrise the next morning and the old people were quiet and anxious and, Centaine suspected, fearful.
The sky was barely lighting with the dawn when abruptly the path turned a sharp corner in the cliff and entered a narrow wedge-shaped valley; the floor was thickly covered with such luxuriant growth that Centaine realized there must be good water below the surface. The path was ill-defined, overgrown and clearly had not been trodden for many months or years. They had to duck under the interlocking branches and step over fallen boughs and new growth. In the cliffs high above them Centaine made out the huge shaggy nests of vultures, and the grossly ugly birds with their bare pink heads crouched on the rim of their nests.
‘The Place of All Life.’ H’ani saw her interest in the nesting birds. ‘Any creature born here is special, blessed by the spirits. Even the birds seem to know this.’
The high cliffs closed in upon them as the valley narrowed, and at last the path ended against the rock in the angled corner where the valley finally pinched out, and the sky was hidden from them.
O’wa stood before the wall and sang in his hoarse ghost-chant, ‘We wish to enter your most secret place, Spirits of all Creatures, Spirits of our clan. Open the way for us.’ He spread his arms in entreaty. ‘May the guardians of this passage let us pass through.’
O’wa lowered his arms, and stepped into the black rock of the cliff and disappeared from Centaine’s sight. She gasped with alarm, and started forward, but H’ani touched her arm to restrain her.
‘There is great danger now, Nam Child. If the guardians reject us, we will die. Do not run, do not wave your arms. Walk slowly, but with purpose, and ask the blessing of the spirits as you pass through.’ H’ani released her arm, and stepped into the rock, following her husband.
Centaine hesitated. For a moment she almost turned back, but at last curiosity and fear of loneliness spurred her and she went slowly to the wall where H’ani had disappeared. Now she saw the opening in the rock, a narrow vertical crack, just wide enough for her to pass through if she turned her shoulders.
She drew a deep breath and slipped through.
Beyond the narrow portals she paused to allow her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom, and she found herself in a long dark tunnel. It was a natural opening, she saw at once, for the walls had not been worked by tools, and there were side branches and openings high overhead. She heard the rustle of the old people’s bare feet on the rocky floor ahead of her, and then another sound. A low, murmurous hum, like the sea surf heard from afar.
‘Follow, Nam Child. Stay close,’ H’ani’s voice floated back to her, and Centaine went forward slowly, staring into the shadows, trying to find the source of that deep vibrating murmur.
In the gloom above her she saw strange shapes, platelike projections from the walls, like the leaves of fungus growing on the trunk of a dead tree, or the multiple wings of roosting butterflies. They drooped so low that she had to duck beneath them – and with a sudden chill she realized where she was.
The cavern was an enormous beehive. These deep winglike structures were the honeycombs, so massive that each would contain hundreds of gallons of honey. Now she could see the insects swarming over the combs, glittering dully in the poor light, and she remembered the stories that Michael had told her of the African bees.
‘Bigger and blacker than your bees,’ he had boasted, ‘and so vicious that I have seen them sting a bull buffalo to death.’
Barely allowing herself to breathe, her skin crawling in anticipation of the first burning dart, forcing herself not to run, she followed the diminutive figures ahead of her. The swarming masses of venomous insects were only inches above her, and the humming chorus seemed to rise angrily until it threatened to deafen her.
‘This way, Nam Child. Do not fear, for the little winged people will smell your fear,’ H’ani called softly, and a bee alighted on Centaine’s cheek.
She raised her hand instinctively to strike it off her, and then with an effort checked the movement. The bee tickled across her face on to her upper lip – then another settled on her upraised forearm.
She peered at it in horror. It was enormous, black as coal, with dark golden rings around its abdomen. The filmy wings were closed like scissor-blades and its multiple eyes twinkled in the poor light.
‘Please, little bee, please—’ Centaine whispered, and the insect arched its back, and from its banded abdomen the point of its sting protruded, a dark red needle-point.
‘Please, let me and my baby pass!’
The bee curved its body and the sting touched the soft tanned skin of her inner elbow. Centaine tensed herself; she knew that the stabbing pain would be followed by the sickly sweet odour of the venom that would madden and infuriate the vast swarm above her. She imagined herself smothered under a living carpet of bees, writhing on the floor of the cavern, dying the most hideous of deaths.
‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Let my baby be born in your secret place, and we will honour you all the days of our lives.’
The bee retracted the throbbing sting and performed an intricate weaving dance upon her arm, turning and curtseying and reversing, and then with a quicksilver flicker of its wings darted away.
Centaine walked on slowly, and ahead of her she saw a golden nimbus of reflected light. The insect on her face crawled down over her lips, so she could not speak again, but she prayed silently.
‘“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” please, little bee, let me go for my baby’s sake.’
A sharp buzz and the bee flashed before her eyes, a golden mote as it left her, and though her skin tingled and itched from the memory of its horny feet, she kept her hands at her sides and walked on with a measured step. It seemed for ever, then she reached the tunnel’s end and stooped through it into the early dawn light, and her legs began to fold in reaction to her terror. She might have fallen if O’wa had not steadied her.
‘You are safe now. The guardians have allowed us to enter the sacred place.’
The words roused her, and though she still trembled and her breathing was rough, Centaine looked around her.
They had passed through into a hidden basin in the heart of the mountain, a perfectly round amphitheatre in the rock. The walls were sheer, hundreds of feet high and with a dark satanic sheen to them, as though scorched in the flames of a blast furnace, but above that it was open to the sky.
The deep bowl of rock was perhaps a mile across at its widest point. At this time of day the sunlight had not penetrated down to the floor, and the groves of graceful trees that covered it were cool and dewy. They reminded Centaine of olives, with fine pale leaves and bunches of reddish-yellow fruit on the wide-spread boughs. The floor of the valley was gently dished, and as Centaine followed H’ani down through the trees, the ground beneath them was carpeted with fallen fruit.
H’ani picked up one of them and offered it to Centaine.
‘Mongongo – very good.’
Centaine bit into it and exclaimed as her tooth struck painfully on the large kernel in its centre. There was only a thin layer of flesh around it, but it was tart and tasty as a palm date, though not as sweet.
From the branches above
them a flight of plump green pigeons exploded into noisy flight, and Centaine realized that the valley was alive with birds and small animals come in the dawn to feast on the fruits of the mongongo groves.
‘The Place of All Life,’ she whispered, entranced by the weird beauty, by the stark contrast of bare blasted rock cliffs against this gently wooded bottom land.
O’wa hurried along the rough path that led down into the centre of the bowl, and as Centaine followed she glimpsed a small hillock of black volcanic rock through the trees ahead. Centaine saw that the hill was symmetrical and cone-shaped, and set in the exact centre of the amphitheatre like the boss in the centre of a shield.
Like the valley floor, the hill itself was heavily forested. Tall elephant grass and mongongo trees grew profusely among the black volcanic boulders. A troop of black-faced vervet monkeys chattered at them from the trees and ducked their heads threateningly, grimacing with alarm, as they approached the hillock.
When Centaine and H’ani caught up with O’wa, he was standing facing a dark opening in the side of the hill. It looked like the mouth of a mine-shaft, but as she peered into it Centaine realized that the floor of the shaft sloped down at a gentle angle. She pushed past O’wa the better to examine it, but the old man seized her arm.
‘Be not hasty, Nam Child, we must make preparation in the correct manner.’ And he drew her back and led her gently away.
A little further on, there was an ancient San campsite amongst the sheltering rocks. The thatched roofs of the shelters had collapsed with age. O’wa burned them to the ground, for disused huts harbour snakes and vermin, and the two women rebuilt them with saplings and freshly cut grass.
‘I am hungry.’ Centaine realized that she had not eaten since the previous evening.
‘Come.’ H’ani led her into the grove, and they filled their satchels with the fallen fruit of the mongongo trees. Back in the camp, H’ani showed Centaine how to strip off the outer layer of flesh and then to crack the hard central nut between two flat stones. The kernel looked like a dried almond. They ate a few of these, to take the edge off their hunger. They tasted like walnuts.
‘We will eat them in many ways,’ H’ani promised. ‘And each way they taste different, roasted, pounded with leaves, boiled like maize bread – they will be our only food in this place where all killing is forbidden.’
While they prepared the meal, O’wa returned to camp with a bundle of freshly dug roots, and went aside to prepare them in private, scraping and chopping with his beloved clasp knife.
They ate before dark, and Centaine found the meal of nuts unexpectedly satisfying. As soon as her stomach was filled, the effect of the day’s excitements and exertions caught up with her, and she could barely drag herself to her shelter.
She awoke refreshed and with a sense of unexplained excitement. The San were already busy around the camp fire and as soon as she joined them and squatted in the circle, O’wa, puffed up with nervous anticipation and self-importance, told them, ‘We must now prepare to go down into the most secret of places. Do you agree to the purification, old grandmother?’ It was obviously a formal question.
‘I agree, old grandfather.’ H’ani clapped softly in acquiescence.
‘Do you agree to the purification, Nam Child?’
‘I agree, old grandfather.’ Centaine clapped in imitation and O’wa bobbed his head and from the pouch on his belt brought out a buck-horn. The top had been pierced, and O’wa had stuffed the horn with the chopped roots and herbs that he had gathered the previous afternoon.
Now he picked a live coal out of the fire with his fingers, and juggling it to prevent it burning his skin, he dropped it into the trumpet-shaped opening of the buckhorn. He blew upon it and a tendril of blue smoke rose in the still air as the herbs smouldered.
Once the pipe was burning evenly, O’wa rose and stood behind the two squatting women. He placed his mouth over the pierced tip of the horn and sucked on it strongly, then blew the smoke over them. It was acrid and sharply unpleasant, and left a bitter taste in Centaine’s throat. She murmured a protest and began to rise, but H’ani pulled her down again. O’wa kept puffing and exhaling, and after a while Centaine found the smoke less offensive. She relaxed and leaned against H’ani. The old woman placed an arm around her shoulders. Slowly Centaine became aware of a marvellous sense of well-being. Her body felt as light as that of a bird, she felt she could float up with the spirals of blue smoke.
‘Oh, H’ani, I feel so good,’ she whispered.
The air around her seemed sparkling clear, her vision sharp and magnified so she could see every crack and crevice in the surrounding cliffs, and the groves of trees seemed to be made of green crystals. They reflected the sunlight with an ethereal radiance.
She became aware that O’wa was kneeling in front of her, and she smiled at him dreamily. He was offering something, holding it out towards her with both hands.
‘It is for the child,’ he told her, and his voice seemed to come from far away and echo strangely in her ears. ‘It is the birthing mat. His father should have made it for him, but that could not be. Here, Nam Child, take it and bear a brave son upon it.’
O’wa leaned forward and placed the gift upon her lap. It took long seconds before she realized that it was the gemsbok skin over which O’wa had worked so long and so intently. She unfolded it with exaggerated care. The skin had been scraped and tanned to the pliability and softness of the fine cloth. She stroked it and the fur felt like satin.
‘Thank you, old grandfather,’ her voice came from far away, and reverberated strangely in her own ears.
‘It is for the child,’ he repeated, and sucked on the buckhorn pipe.
‘For the child, yes,’ Centaine nodded and her head seemed to float free of her body. O’wa gently exhaled a stream of blue smoke into her face and she made no effort to avoid it, rather she leaned forward to stare into his eyes. O’wa’s pupils had shrunk to glittering black pinpricks, the irises were the colour of dark amber with a fanlike pattern of black lines surrounding the pupils. They mesmerized her.
‘For the child’s sake, let the peace of this place enter your soul.’ O’wa spoke through the smoke, and Centaine felt it happen.
‘Peace,’ she murmured, and at the centre of her being was a wondrous stillness, a monumental calm.
Time and space and white sunlight mingled and became one. She sat at the centre of the universe and smiled serenely. She heard O’wa singing far away, and she swayed gently to the rhythm and felt each beat of her heart and the slow pump of her blood through her veins. She felt the child lying deep within her, curled in an attitude of prayer, then, unbelievably, she felt the tiny heart beating like that of a trapped bird, and the wonder of it engulfed her whole being.
‘We have come to be cleansed,’ O’wa sang. ‘We have come to wash away all offence, we have come to make atonement—’
Centaine felt H’ani’s hand creep into hers like a fragile-boned animal, and she turned her head slowly and smiled into the beloved old face.
‘It is time, Nam Child.’
Centaine drew the gemsbok skin over her shoulder. It required no effort to rise. She floated above the earth, with H’ani’s little hand clutched in hers.
They came to the opening in the hillside, and though it was dark and steep, Centaine went forward smiling, and she did not feel the coarse volcanic rock beneath her feet. The passageway descended for a short distance, and then levelled out and opened into a natural cavern. They followed O’wa down.
Light filtered from the stairway behind them and from a number of small openings in the domed roof. The air was warm and moist and steamy. The clouds of steam rose gently from the surface of a circular pool that filled the cavern from side to side. The surface of the pool seethed and bubbled softly, and the steam smelled strongly of sulphur. The waters were cloudy green.
O’wa let his loincloth fall to the rocky floor and stepped into the pool. It reached to his knees but as he waded forward it
deepened, until only his head was above the surface. H’ani followed him naked into the pool, and Centaine laid the gemsbok skin aside, and let her skirt fall.
The water was hot, almost scalding, a thermal spring welling up out of the matrix, but Centaine felt no discomfort. She moved deeper and then sank down slowly on to her knees until the water came to her chin. The floor of the pool was coarse pebble and gravel. The fierce heat of the waters soaked into her body. It swirled and eddied about her, kneading her flesh, as it bubbled up out of the depths of the earth.
She heard O’wa singing softly, but the steam clouds closed in around her and blinded her.
‘We wish to make atonement,’ O’wa sang. ‘We wish to be forgiven our offences to the Spirits—’
Centaine saw a shape forming in the steam, clouds, a dark, insubstantial phantom.
‘Who are you?’ she murmured, and the shape firmed, and she recognized the eyes – the other features were obscure – as those of the old seaman she had sacrificed to the shark.
‘Please,’ she whispered, ‘forgive me. It was for my baby. Please forgive my offence.’ It seemed that for a moment there was understanding in those sad old eyes, and then the image faded and vanished in the steam banks, to be replaced by others, a host of memories and dream creatures, and she spoke to them.
‘Oh, Papa, if I had only been strong enough, if only I could have filled Mama’s place—’
She heard the voices of the San in the steam, crying out in greeting to their own ghosts and memories. O’wa hunted again with his sons, and H’ani saw her babies and her grandchildren and crooned her love and mourning.
‘Oh, Michel,’ his eyes were a marvellous blue, ‘I will love you for ever. Yes, oh yes, I will name your son for you. I promise you that, my love, he will carry your name.’