Who Killed Piet Barol?

by Richard Mason

  “Then please bear that. For me. I mean this, Zandi.”

  Bela stepped back from her sister. She was present behind her eyes, in a way she rarely was. “To know that you are happy, that our parents’ line will continue. That will give me strength I sorely lack.”

  The waves crashed on the cliffs far below. “Is this the demon speaking? Or is it you, Bela?”

  “It is me, my sister.”

  “Then tell me something only you and I know.”

  Bela hesitated. The sisters’ rivalry meant she had to rummage in the distant past for a shard of intimacy that might persuade Zandi. At last she found one. “When I was little, and Aunt Nonkosi visited, I was afraid of her headdress. You stole it in the night, and burned it, and she never knew what became of it.”

  Despite herself, Zandi smiled. Aunt Nonkosi had been proud of that headdress. “I will do as you say, dear sister. But on one condition.”

  “What is it?”

  “That if you need me you will summon me.”

  “I will surely do that.”

  “And what of him?” They both knew whom she meant.

  “That is a battle I must fight alone.”

  —

  AS ZANDI PACKED to leave, all that Bela had said rang true—and more besides. No man had asked to be Zandi’s husband when she was the eldest daughter of a respectable family with a large grain store. How much less likely that anyone would ask now—when she had lived in a bewitched homestead, with a sister possessed by a demon. Years without being chosen had hardened Zandi to love. A husband, in any case, would take her from her parents—and she had no wish to leave them. What she had not considered until this day was the loneliness of her parents’ spirits without descendants to care for them. She had reached the age at which children see the sacrifices that went into rearing them. That her parents’ spirits should roam the Underworld for all eternity, lonely and forsaken! The prospect was not to be borne. And yet, how could she prevent it?

  She sat down on her blanket and blinked back tears. Tears would not bring them descendants. She made a mental inventory of every man in Gwadana. None was brave enough to risk the Bad Magic that would linger round her name after her departure from the Zinis’. Might one be bought? Her family was rich now, even after returning half of Bela’s bride price.

  But Zandi had pride, and it forbade the purchasing of a husband.

  She had heard that the mother of the Strange Ones’ god had conceived a baby without the aid of any man. Might that be possible in her case? She did not trust Fezile the witch doctor to undertake such a spell. Nosakhe might once have accomplished it, but she was now a shadow of herself. It seemed that an immaculate conception would be difficult to accomplish. This returned her to the mental search for a husband—and again her analysis yielded no candidates.

  It took her an hour to see that the answer to her problem was close at hand, and that with one sacrifice she might achieve many good things. Her heart started to race. She had almost abandoned herself to a life without sex. Deprived of Bela’s outward advantages, she had learned to seek her pleasures alone, but her successes had heightened, not lessened, her yearning for a partner. She stood up and smoothed her hair.

  Then she went to the door of Sukude’s hut and knocked.

  When he opened it, she said: “If I give myself willingly, will you swear on your ancestors to leave my sister alone?”

  —

  THE BAROLS SET OUT early the next morning. Only under protest did Stacey leave her two largest trunks in the care of the Travellers’ Rest.

  “You won’t need gloves and hats where we’re going.” Piet kissed her neck. “You are beautiful to me without all this clutter.”

  “It’s myself I dress for,” said Stacey. Nevertheless, she was the same woman who had followed a charming Frenchman to Paris when she was seventeen. She had courage and a sense of adventure. As the wagon trundled off she felt like one of the wives who conquered the Wild West—a prospecting pioneeress. She was wearing her prettiest day dress and the post office clerk, watching them go, was moved by this image of requited love.

  At the Travellers’ Rest, the proprietress, to whom Stacey had been very disagreeable, sent for the trunks and had them opened. She was far too fat to profit from any of the gowns, but the accessories would do nicely; and she had a married daughter at King William’s Town whom some of the looser things might fit. Before Stacey had reached Idutywa, her remaining possessions had been neatly parceled and sent on their way.

  “If they ever come back, tell them there was a fire,” said the proprietress to the receptionist.

  —

  NOSAKHE LAY AWAKE in the dark hour before dawn, beseeching Ma for a sign. She knew that her battle with Atamaraka was near at hand, and she had never felt weaker. Her mind was confused. She had expected to have Ntsina at her side, and perhaps the Strange One too. For what other reason had Ma sent him to her? Many years of unquestioned authority had left Nosakhe without the resources to deal with self-doubt. It was plain that her own conduct had been imperfect, and she bitterly repented her many failings. Chief amongst these was the way she had tossed into the Sea all she needed to summon Ntsina home. She lay awake, fretting and useless. And then she heard the unmistakable bleat of a billy goat.

  She got out of bed. She was cross, and opened the door of her hut to find that the goat she had bartered for honey before Ntsina’s wedding, the goat that had ruined her fence in his desire for her she-goats, had returned and was attempting the same tricks. She ran at him, but he did not flee.

  This billy goat had expended great resources, intellectual and physical, on the problem of how to escape from the goat pen of the Mhaga family, to whom Nosakhe had sold him. This family kept cattles, not goats, and he had been alone. He was not made for solitude, nor for the deprivation of female company at the height of his studly powers. It had taken weeks of surreptitious digging to undermine the Mhagas’ fence, and his journey through the dog-filled village had frightened him. He did not intend to be defeated by one old woman, and instead of running away he put down his head, faced her with his horns and charged.

  To his great satisfaction, the old woman stepped out of the way and made no attempt to follow him into the nanny goat enclosure. He was warmly greeted by his lady friends, who had felt his absence keenly and knew no jealousies. Soon he had forgotten all about the ape woman, and had he turned to look at her he would have been astonished to see joy in her face.

  Ntsina had cared for this billy goat, born in midwinter to a mother who had died before she could suckle him. He had fed him milk from a sheepskin gourd and slept with him until he was old enough to face the cold alone. Nosakhe knew that humans and animals can bond beyond the reach of understanding.

  The Great Goddess had sent her the assistant she needed at last.

  —

  “WHEN I FIRST CAME,” said Piet, “there was no track. We had to walk.”

  “I hope you don’t expect me to do that.”

  “Of course not, darling. Welcome to the road I made.”

  Like a showman, he pulled back the screen of fronds and debris that hid the entrance to the elephant avenue his workmen had enlarged. Arthur, looking at the dark forest, began to cry.

  “Cheer up, Bumble Jug.” Piet got onto the box beside him and cuddled him. “Jog on.” He cracked the whip, and the horses moved forward.

  From ten trees away, an adolescent baboon on his first solitary patrol screeched a woo-woo bark. Every ape within a thousand trees heard him, and the strongest males leapt at once into the trees. The presence of hairless apes in the forest was a development of the greatest interest to its baboon residents. Over generations, they had become accustomed to occasional incursions of the hairless apes, but the sudden residency of a band was a different thing altogether. Five troops of baboons lived in the forest, and a brutal war eight years previously, during which three alpha males had been killed and seventeen babies had their heads bitten off, had left them inclined to st
ick to their own territories. The hairless apes obeyed no such protocol.

  This baboon had had a fortunate upbringing. His mother was a high-ranking female, playful and affectionate with her children. His older brother had taught him to climb, and stamp his feet, and throw rocks: everything he would need for successful dominance displays. Thanks to these advantages, he had begun asserting himself early, and by the age of nine had already dominated each of the fifteen females in the troop.

  Watching the hairless apes pass so close, aware that other males of his own kind would soon be along, he was seized by a strong desire to steal something from the strangers. A trophy, to show he feared nothing and no one. He would not risk an assault on the fully grown male, but there was a baby hairless ape, whose fur was a very strange colour. This baby was holding a bright orange sphere, which became instantly attractive. He jumped through six trees in succession. He was above the wagon now, and the little hairless ape was looking at him. He nerved himself for the most daring act of his life.

  “There’s a monkey in the tree, Daddy! Look! A monkey!”

  Arthur had spent many hours at the Cape Town zoo, staring through the bars of the monkey enclosure and weeping. His mother had stopped taking him, because the imprisoned creatures’ plight distressed him so. In vain Stacey had assured him that baboons had no feelings. They wouldn’t mind being shut in cages.

  “How would you like it if someone locked you in a cage?” was Arthur’s irrefutable reply. The prospect of monkeys made him see the forest in a very different light. “Stop, Daddy! Do stop!”

  “Not now, darling. We’ve a long way to go.” Piet was aware of the look on his wife’s face and laid a comforting hand on her knee. “We’re quite safe. They give us humans a wide berth.” The wagon jolted forward, and the baboon’s opportunity for daredevilry slipped past him. He stamped his foot in a paroxysm of regret. To his astonishment, the baby hairless ape turned its strange head and uttered several cries in its own tongue. The baboon watched, perplexed, then leapt down to the ground to catch what the baby had thrown.

  It was the bright orange sphere he had intended to steal. He watched the hairless apes disappear. The thing in his hand smelled delicious. He sank his teeth into it and knew earthly bliss. He had eaten half of it when the male members of his troop arrived. He refused to acknowledge the other males, but handed the alpha half the orange. In a complex succession of leaps and barks, he conveyed a glorious tale of how he had dominated a hairless ape and taken this prey from him.

  The troop’s leader looked at him quizzically. Here was an alpha in the making. Perhaps he should kill him. He took a taste of the strange fruit, but it made him too happy for violence against his own kind. Instead, he let the young baboon groom him as he considered the future.

  —

  THE CASTING OF a spell of Reincarnation is a mighty undertaking, not to be lightly attempted, for the only way to rescue a soul from the Underworld is to seek him in the realm of Death. Nosakhe had attempted the spell once before, at the age of twenty-two, in the weeks after her grandfather’s journey to the spirit realm.

  The Great Founder had greatly enjoyed life as the undisputed Chief of a grateful village. Though he had left a stable settlement in case his granddaughter should fail, he had asked her to come for him. Nosakhe had nearly died in the attempt, which can only be made once. Today, as she lit the mphepho, she went over the reasons for her earlier failure: Pride and Inexperience. The greatest of these was Pride, and she vowed not to fail her grandson similarly.

  At twenty-two, full of the certainty of youth, she had gone after her grandfather’s soul alone and unaided. True, she had been the only sangoma in the village, and circumstances were not conducive to seeking aid from beyond the forest. This was no longer the case, and she gave thanks to Ma for sending another wizard to assist her. She was aware that securing the cooperation of this wizard would require humility, a quality of which her share was not abundant, but her purpose shone so brightly she was able to contemplate the self-abasement required.

  She washed methodically and put on her headdress. The hut was full of sweet mphepho smoke, and her trance came easily. She emerged from it calmer than she had been since the morning of Ntsina’s wedding feast, and ate a hearty breakfast before descending the escarpment, Ata at her heels.

  —

  FEZILE THE WITCH DOCTOR had wisely declined the hospitality of the Chief’s family. He did not relish intimate observation, and had asked if perhaps there was an empty hut he might use. There was not, and Lundi had offered to take him in while one was prepared. Long weeks in close proximity had not endeared them to each other, and Fezile had started threatening Dark Magic on the men who were building him his own hut—for builders at Gwadana are not more punctual than builders in any other place.

  When Nosakhe knocked at his door, he was in a particularly bad mood. He had not had a stiff drink in weeks, and the quantities of homemade beer he had drunk made him gassy.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “I have come to seek the aid of a great wizard,” said Nosakhe.

  Lundi, sitting on the floor of the pigpen with his ear clamped to a crack in the mud wall, felt a twitching of fear. He had every respect for Nosakhe’s powers. The possibility of Ntsina returning from the dead to wreak vengeance on his wife’s defiler, and those who had aided her defilement, was alarming. Which said…The dangers of the spell of Reincarnation were proverbial. The prospect of Nosakhe Zini securely shut away in the Underworld was very appealing.

  Lundi had not slept well since summoning Fezile, partly because intimate experience of Fezile’s habits had made him doubt that he would long sustain his reputation as a man of magic. Partly, also, because he feared Nosakhe. Her withdrawal to her homestead had unnerved him. He had often looked at her smoking fire, wondering what charms she was casting and whether any of them were aimed in his direction.

  Fezile had a good poker face, and was compelled to use every trick he had learned at the gaming tables of King William’s Town to disguise his astonishment at Nosakhe’s request. He furrowed his brow in sympathy, raised his head, then inclined it, like a puppeteer manipulating himself with invisible strings while his mind went elsewhere.

  On no account did he wish to be drawn into an encounter with the Goddess of Evil. Nor still did he wish to be exposed as a coward. His builders had assured him that his own homestead would be ready before the next moon, and he was enjoying life in this peaceful village, whose inhabitants were so eager to extend him credit. He had refused to cast any spells on the grounds that he was saving his energies to battle the creature in the forest, and this meant that public opinion of his powers remained undimmed.

  “Please,” said Nosakhe, concluding the speech she had prepared.

  “Which part of the operation would be my responsibility?” asked Fezile, and swallowed.

  “I would like you to control the Sea.”

  —

  IEREPHAAN AND MOHAMMED, sitting in the back of the wagon with their tools, hoped that they had done right in accepting this eccentric offer of employment. They were the two finest furniture makers in the Cape Colony, and in other circumstances would have had many opportunities. The Empire’s call for every able-bodied man to lay down his life for the honour of squabbling sovereigns, all related to each other, had given them a strong reason to venture beyond the reach of the recruiting sergeant.

  They had plenty of experience of the feuds that can ravage an extended family, and knew that the wisest keep clear. Their great-grandparents had come to the Cape as indentured labourers, and they had known each other since they could crawl. Their parents lived on the same cobbled street in the colourful neighbourhood of Cape Town known as the Bo-Kaap where Indians lived in houses with roofs and windows and, in some cases, indoor lavatories—palaces compared to the quarters of the Colony’s blacks. They had been to the same highly competitive school, and for years had disputed the class medal between them.

  Ierephaan was t
he jollier of the two. Mohammed was tall and thin and had little time for human beings. He lived for wood and stone, and the miracles he could achieve with them. They treated one another with an excessive politeness that masked a fundamental wariness—for each wished to be the best cabinetmaker, and knew that the other was his strongest rival.

  “By the grace of Allah, may we have done the right thing,” said Ierephaan, breaking the silence that had lasted since their departure from Butterworth. He was a social fellow, and found Mohammed’s long silences trying.

  “Only Allah knows,” said Mohammed. And then, reaching the conclusion of a long interior argument, he unconsciously voiced its conclusion: “It is better than dying in a field of mud.”

  Ierephaan made a comfortable resting place for himself between the packing cases, trunks and crates of fruit and vegetables that Piet had bought. He lay down, closed his eyes and thought of his wife and seven children. He had left them with enough money for three months, but that was the totality of their savings. He swore by Allah and all that is holy that he would work harder, and better, than he had ever worked before. He opened his eyes. “We should be…allies, you and me,” he said. “We are the only True Believers and the only civilized people in a hundred miles.” It was a delicate way of suggesting that they bury the enmities of the past.

  “I have no need of allies,” said Mohammed, “when Allah is my guardian.”

  —

  WHEN THEY WERE three hundred yards from the Ancestor Grove, Piet got down from the box and went on ahead. He had not finished his preparations for his wife’s arrival and knew the slovenliness of men.

  He had never been more grateful for Luvo.

  In Piet’s absence, Luvo had taken it upon himself to conduct a spring cleaning of the camp. The vast corpse of the Ancestor Tree still lay where it had fallen, but the ground around it had been swept and cleared. A fire pit had been dug, and logs for the evening bonfires neatly stacked. Luvo had supervised the completion of the cooking shed and personally washed every one of the tin plates and cups. He had seen to the roofing of Piet’s new rooms, and washed the glass in their windows. He was laying the evening bonfire, taking great pleasure in the symmetrical criss-cross of the logs, when he turned to see Piet Barol behind him.