African Dawn

by Tony Park

  What's wrong with me, he asked himself as he dithered in front of the receptionist.

  ‘Senõr?’

  George looked at the woman, then pulled out his wallet and asked for a bungalow. She smiled as she counted his money. He took his key and went to his room. It was neat, if a little tired, but it would do him just fine. He kicked off his shoes and shorts and changed into his swimming costume. He left his rucksack in the room and walked outside. The beach was just on the other side of the gravel road that ran in front of the bungalows. The white sand squeaked under his bare feet.

  The tide was in and the water an inviting azure blue, but he was cool enough for now with the gentle breeze. He lay down on his back and closed his eyes.

  George felt something cold drip on his bare chest beneath his unbuttoned shirt. He lifted his head and opened his eyes. She eclipsed the sun.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I thought you'd never get here.’

  He raised a hand to his eyes to shield them from the glare, and her features came into focus beneath the black halo of her Afro hairdo. She held two bottles of Dois M beer that dripped condensation onto him. He blinked, then smiled. ‘The woman said you hadn't checked in.’

  ‘I hadn't. I've been sitting in the bar down the beach, watching, wondering.’

  ‘If I'd come?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I invited you to come here, didn't I?’ he asked. She wore a red bikini top that was visible under a billowy white cheesecloth top. Around her waist was a wrap patterned with some African motif he couldn't make out. It ended at her knees, above her slender legs. Her brothers used to tease her about being too skinny and her mother had told her she'd never get a husband if she didn't eat up.

  ‘I thought you might have had second thoughts,’ she said.

  He stared up at her and felt the joyous pain seize him. ‘I did.’

  ‘But here you are.’

  ‘Here I am.’

  She held out one of the bottles. ‘Would you like a beer?’

  ‘Afterwards.’

  *

  Thandi lay on one of the beds they'd pushed together, face down, naked, her chin propped in her palm as she rested on one elbow. George trailed the wet beer bottle down the ridge of her spine and she shivered and giggled. He lifted the neck of the bottle to her full lips and she tilted her head and sucked greedily.

  As she rolled over she spilled some down her chin and onto her breasts. George set the bottle down and kissed the droplets all the way back to her soft, full lips. ‘We need some more cold chibulis just now. You're making the beer hot.’

  She took his head in her hands and kissed him again. George let the bottle slip from his fingers, not caring about the beer that frothed and spilled from the neck, pooling on the floor. For some reason an image of blood in the back of the helicopter came unbidden to his mind. He forced it away – she burned it away with the heat of her mouth, and the one hand that snaked down between their bodies, feeling for him. Again.

  Their first time had been four years after that first kiss on the day Winston had run away from home. He'd been confused and excited and ashamed by that kiss, but with Winston gone there had been no excuse to visit Thandi. In the end it was George's mother who had given him the alibi he'd needed to explore a little more every school holidays. No matter what she might have thought of the irascible Patricia Ngwenya, Philippa Bryant had liked Kenneth and had known that his family would struggle while he was in gaol.

  George had cycled, heart pounding, to the modest two-room house in Mzilikazi where the Ngwenyas now lived since they'd been evicted from the school principal's quarters. He'd handed the basket of eggs and a note to the surly Patricia then dallied as he pushed his bike up the pathway. When he'd turned a corner he'd been dejected, as Thandi hadn't been home, but a ‘Psst’ hissed from around the corner of an abandoned shack led him to her.

  It had been a similar routine every couple of months, when term ended. George would return from boarding school and over the long, hot days of his vacation, through the giggles and the tears and the pining, he would learn a little more about this enigmatic, officially untouchable girl, and the female body.

  Kenneth had been released from gaol a year after the bus protests and George had thought his world would end. He would have no more need to cycle to the township during his holidays.

  It was a confusing time for George. His body was changing and his voice was breaking. He had an interest in all girls, but Thandi was the one he thought about most. At the same time his teachers were warning George and his fellow pupils against the perils of sin and the evils of masturbation. He wasn't exactly sure, still, what constituted a sin, but he'd worked out the second one.

  The boys at school made jokes about blacks all the time, and made fun of the cleaning and gardening staff, often playing pranks on them. George joined in, because he didn't want to be different. But he knew he was. He became ashamed of the feelings he had for Thandi, and the things he did when he thought about her.

  George had resolved never to see Thandi again when the government went and ruined everything by introducing the Emergency Powers Act. This gave them the power to detain indefinitely anyone they considered acting in a manner contrary to the wellbeing of society. The fledgling African nationalist movements had gained greater popularity after Northern Rhodesia had gained its independence from Britain in 1964 and become the Republic of Zambia. Just across the border to the north was a country run entirely by black people. George could hardly believe it.

  After only three years back in the classroom Kenneth Ngwenya was once more arrested and locked up, and George's mother once more ordered him to cycle around to Patricia's place with a basket of food.

  It had finally happened when George was sixteen and Thandi fifteen. In the same hidden donga where they had first kissed, by the same stream where Winston had been smoking his fish before his escape, George and Thandi had lain together and become man and woman. And his life had been turned upside down with the wondrous, joyous, terrible pain of forbidden love.

  George opened his eyes as Thandi shifted herself on the bed, straddling him. When they'd come in off the beach, their first time in so long had been frantic and they'd clawed greedily at each other. They'd laughed afterwards at how quickly they'd both climaxed. Over the beers and a shared cigarette there'd been small talk, about her studies. He didn't want to talk about the war and she didn't prompt him. They'd lain together for a while, slick bodies entwined. But he wanted more, and so did she. It was one of the things he loved about her. Once was never enough.

  He was hard again as she raised herself on her knees, smiling down at him as she lowered herself. Ripe was the word that came to mind when he thought of her like this. Plump lips and breasts, his hands on her arse, she was like some exotic fruit, almost bursting with sweet nectar, ready to be devoured. He could still taste her on his lips, sea salt and her. He closed his eyes again as he felt her take him in, and she slid down on him.

  When he opened his eyes he saw she was watching him, gazing intently as she placed her palms on his chest and started to ride him. He matched her thrusts and he knew she wasn't something to be plucked or consumed. She wasn't a holiday treat or a stolen moment of illicit lust. Right here, right now, he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life in her embrace. He started to raise himself and opened his mouth to speak. ‘I –’

  She put a finger on his lips. ‘Shush.’

  There would be time, he told himself. Her lower lip was trembling now and she bit it to still it. George could feel his own orgasm building. He arched his back, pushing up harder into her, and she met him with equal desire. He was mesmerised by her swaying, bouncing breasts and reached for one, drawing the long nipple in. Thandi groaned.

  George heard the breath catch in her throat and when he looked up he saw her eyes were closed at last, her mouth half-open. He knew her ways, but also wanted to learn more. He wanted to spend the rest of his life getting to know her. He smiled to himsel
f, but then he saw the first of the tears squeeze from her tightly closed lids. That had never happened before.

  Thandi shuddered and the clench of her muscles overwhelmed his control. George was blind to whatever emotion was going on in Thandi's mind as he surrendered to the blissful release.

  *

  Afterwards, George lay on his back, still panting slightly. Thandi slid off him and lay on her belly, her face in the pillow. At first he thought she was just exhausted, like him.

  He rolled onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow. He trailed a finger down the ridge of her spine. ‘Are you OK?’

  Thandi was still for a few moments, then she pushed herself up and swung her legs over the side of the bed so she was seated. She looked back at him, over her shoulder. ‘We need to talk.’

  George saw her eyes were red and the pillow was damp. He'd never seen her cry during sex. He was suddenly filled with dread. ‘Can't that wait?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not this time.’

  George swallowed. He knew what he needed to do, what he needed to say to her. ‘OK, then I've got something to say. Thandi … will you –’

  She shook her head quickly. ‘Don't say anything more, George. I have to go away.’ The ceiling fan squeaked above them, filling the silence. ‘For a long time.’

  ‘You're already away, Thandi. You live in bloody LM. How much further can you go?’

  ‘A lot further. I'm going overseas.’

  ‘Where to?’

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffed. ‘It doesn't matter. But it's for a long time. I'll be going to university there. They say I can study medicine. I might be a doctor, George. Can you imagine that? Me, a doctor!’

  ‘Well, you won't be able to practise in Rhodesia. Who'd want to –’ He was angry, and he knew he'd said the wrong thing as soon as he'd opened his mouth. He'd come all this way, and conquered his fears and was about to propose to her, and now she said she was going away.

  ‘Who'd want to be treated by a munt? A coon? A kaffir? Is that what you meant, George?’

  ‘No. I meant a … a woman.’

  Thandi sat up and clutched the sheet to her breast. ‘Oh, right. So you're not a racist, just another misogynist male chauvinist pig? We're OK to … fuck and have babies … is that it? But not to treat sick people. I know what you meant. It's all right for a white woman to be a doctor, but not a black woman. You're just like all the rest of them.’

  George reached across to the bedside table for his cigarettes. He took one out, lit it and exhaled. ‘No. I'm not. And that's my problem. I'm not one of them.’

  She stood and wrapped the sheet around her while she picked up her strewn clothes. ‘Yes you are. You wear their uniform. You fly for the oppressors, you drop frantam fire bombs on people. You defend their evil, racist regime, George. You … you of all people.’

  Now he was angry. Oppressor? Racist regime? Where the hell had all this come from? ‘For the record, Thandi, I've never dropped a bomb or napalm on anyone or fired a gun in anger. I fly troops into the valley and I fly sick and wounded out. The last mission I flew was to pick up an African child who'd been run over by a car.’

  She pulled on her bikini pants and shrugged on her top. ‘This was wrong. I can't see you any more, George, not ever again.’

  Christ, he thought, watching her dress was almost as arousing as watching her undress. He realised, with crystal clarity, that he still wanted to be with her. Forever. He ground out the cigarette and stood naked. She kept her back to him, so he moved behind her. Thandi tried to shrug him away, but as his arms closed around her, she let hers fall limp by her side.

  ‘It doesn't have to be like this, Thandi. Look around, here in Vilanculos, in LM … black and white people live together, even marry. We could –’

  ‘Don't say it, George. It isn't fair. It couldn't happen.’ She kept staring at the door.

  He held her tight, willing the courage to come to him. It was easier flying into ground fire. ‘We could get married, Thandi. We could live here, in Mozambique.’

  She stiffened in his embrace. ‘Don't say such things, George. You know your family would never agree to it. My mother would kill me.’ She tried to laugh, but it came out more as a convulsion.

  ‘I think my parents would accept it. My father's not Rhodesian and my mother's quite progressive. We could move here. I could transfer to the Portuguese air force. They're doing the same work we are.’

  She spun around to face him. ‘They're killing the same people your army is, George. Don't you see what's going on? There's a war, George, and we are in it.’

  ‘I'm in it. Not you. You'd be safe in LM or wherever we'd be based. The Porks won't let the communists take over Mozambique, Thandi. It's too important to the Portuguese government. Look at all the money they make from their farms; from tourism in the game parks; on the beaches.’

  She looked up into his eyes and he was confused when he saw her blink a few times. She closed her lids, but a tear squeezed out. ‘George, stop thinking about yourself for a minute. This isn't about you and your family, or even me and my family. I can't marry you. I can't marry a white man who fights for the Rhodesian government or the Mozambique colonial government.’

  Thandi placed her palms on his chest and pushed herself out of his arms. She bent to pick up her wrap, tied it around her and walked out the door into the blinding glare of the African sun.

  *

  While the nurse filled in Winston's temperature on her chart, the Rolling Stones came on Radio LM and the tinny noise of the Mozambican pop station reminded George even more of Thandi. Jagger was singing about time being on his side, but George felt the opposite.

  ‘I said thanks, brother, for helping us out in the valley last night. I was being sincere,’ Winston said.

  ‘Oh, sorry. I was just thinking.’

  Winston nodded. ‘About last night?’

  ‘Yes,’ George lied.

  The nurse walked past, towards the sedated white officer, her shoes squeaking on the polished floor.

  ‘It's changing,’ Winston said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ George rarely socialised with army guys. According to the papers the security forces were winning the fight against the terrorists hands down. He was interested in Winston's view of the war which, unlike his, was from the ground up.

  ‘Last night they were better organised than usual. They're learning. They know that we watch the likely crossing points, but this time they were ready for us with a counter-ambush. They were too late to save their men in the boats, but the terrs waiting on the Rhodesian side stayed and fought. They attacked us. We,’ he gestured at the unconscious officer in the next bed, ‘think we're much better than them – smarter, better trained – so we get cocky.’

  ‘They got lucky, that's all,’ George said.

  Winston shook his head. ‘Their kit, their uniforms, their weapons, their drills … they're getting better all the time, and more young men from the villages and the townships are leaving to be trained in Zambia, Tanzania, even Russia.’

  I have to go away. For a long time … I'm going overseas.

  George wasn't stupid. He'd known, in his heart, what Thandi had meant. Patricia didn't have the money to send Thandi overseas to study and there was no way her part-time job as an English teacher in LM would have allowed her to save enough to support herself or travel. He knew she barely made ends meet in Mozambique. She'd spouted communist propaganda at him, calling him an oppressor and mouthing off about firebombs. Despite what Winston had said, it wasn't only young black men who were being spirited away to Russia and the left-leaning African nations, it was women as well. Thandi, he was sure, had joined one or the other of the nationalist organisations and they were sending her away for training.

  ‘What else is happening with you, George? Have you got a woman?’ Winston asked, changing the subject. Perhaps he thought George didn't believe him about the guerillas' increasing sophistication.

  ‘
You remember Susannah Geary?’

  Winston looked up at the ceiling, then grinned. ‘That blonde girl? The tomboy who used to hang around you when you weren't playing with me and Thandi in the township?’

  ‘That's the one.’

  ‘Ah, she is too skinny that one, George.’

  ‘Not any more, China. We're getting married next month. She's pregnant.’

  5

  The war wasn't his affair, but he learned from it. It sharpened his senses and his instincts. He survived, while others around him died.

  Sometimes he was surrounded by noise. There were machines in the air and on the ground, and the rattle of gunfire assaulted his sensitive ears. He learned that it was acceptable to run from some fights. But not all.

  Makuti's nostrils flared and he smelled the intruder again. Thorns scored intricate patterns through the dried mud on his flanks but barely marked the skin of his thick hide as he trotted towards the Zambezi River. The intruder had crossed sometime in the night, and to add to the insult he'd deposited a fresh load of twig-studded dung on the path Makuti usually used to get to the water.

  Makuti defecated and squirted urine in long, strong jets. This was his country and the women hereabouts were his, and his dung and scent were supposed to advise intruders of this and warn them off.

  He lifted his head and sniffed again. It was not only the interloper he had to worry about. The river could be a place of death. He'd swum for his life as a baby and nearly drowned when the waters had flooded. He and his mother had lived in the hills above the new lake until he'd grown old enough to move out on his own. The river had lured him, particularly during the long, dry months, and further downstream he'd found it was narrower and less inhabited by the two-legs than the shores of the lake above the huge wall.