The World Beneath

by Janice Warman

  He remembered what Tsumalo had said to him: “You want me to fix him?” And then: “That’s what they like to think. That we can’t. Do. Anything.”

  He opened the door a crack. Still, he could see nothing. What if he crept out, edged around the dog’s basket, and through the door into the dining room? From there he could — and the box room was just up the stairs —

  The blood-thump of his heart banged in his ears. He could hear nothing else.

  Then he was out, and the dining-room door opened smoothly, and as he squeezed into the hallway, he saw through the crack of the kitchen door that Mrs. Malherbe was bent back over the table. Mr. Malherbe had both hands around her throat. He was leaning his full weight upon her, and one of her hands hung limply over the table’s edge.

  He ran up the stairs two at a time. He hammered with his fists on Tsumalo’s door. “It’s me!” he shouted. “Open the door! It’s Mrs. Malherbe!” One moment too many, and . . .

  The door opened. “Kitchen!” he shouted, and pointed with a trembling hand.

  Without a word, Tsumalo took the stairs, holding the banisters and swinging his good leg down, with Joshua following.

  In the kitchen, Tsumalo pulled Mr. Malherbe off his wife. Holding him by the neck of his shirt with one hand, he punched him hard, once, on the jaw. It was neatly done; Mr. Malherbe, who had not said a word, crumpled to the floor.

  Mrs. Malherbe lay motionless on the table. Tsumalo felt the pulse beneath her jawbone and lowered her carefully to the floor. He put a folded apron under her head. “Get your mother to ring for an ambulance!” he shouted at Joshua.

  Tsumalo was bent over Mrs. Malherbe. He had pulled her up into a kitchen chair. He was trying to wake her. Joshua stood helplessly by the door.

  Beauty was kneeling by the unconscious Mr. Malherbe with a damp cloth in her hand. But she didn’t seem to know what to do with it; or perhaps she was just nervous to touch him.

  “Madam. Wake up, Madam!” Tsumalo felt for her pulse again. “Wake up!” Joshua watched anxiously.

  No one had heard the front door open, but into this melee ran Robert. The call of a siren followed him in. He looked terrified. “Ma!” he shouted. “What are you doing!” he screamed at Tsumalo, who glanced at him briefly, then ignored him. Then Robert saw Mr. Malherbe on the floor and understood.

  Tsumalo slapped Mrs. Malherbe’s face lightly. He shook her, and just as he slapped her face again, two policemen arrived.

  Things began to happen, slowly, as if they were all under water. Tsumalo looked up, frozen. Joshua shouted: “No! It was the Master!”

  Robert turned to the constable, as if in slow motion, his hands out in a placatory gesture. His mouth was open; he was trying to speak.

  The constable drew his revolver from its holster; Tsumalo dropped Mrs. Malherbe’s hand and sprang to the countertop. He smashed the window; the policeman fired. Tsumalo fell into the yard through the shattered window.

  Beauty screamed; Joshua whimpered. Mrs. Malherbe began to stir in her chair.

  Joshua ran out onto the veranda and into the yard. The lights were on. Tsumalo was curled like a fetus around the giant red fist of the wound in his stomach. He was choking; blood streamed from his mouth and arms.

  Beauty ran to Tsumalo; she knelt and cradled his head. Joshua stood with his fists clenched. Beauty wept softly; the shattered glass glittered around them like a fall of frost. Tsumalo, unable ever to say another word, shuddered once — a great, breathy shudder — and was still, while the black constable watched from the back door, and Robert hovered beyond like a ghost.

  Far off, Joshua heard a siren. Then Mr. Malherbe’s voice inside the kitchen: “Thank you, officer. No, she’s just badly shaken up. I think she should be checked over, though. You men arrived just in time.”

  Joshua couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t really breathe. The blanket smelled of Betsy and it was covering him and he was in the footwell of a car. The rest of the car didn’t smell good, either. Someone had left a banana skin under the seat; its floury odor filled his nostrils. He was hungry. The suspension was shot. Every time the car hit a bump, it hurt. “Ow!” he yelled once.

  The murmur of voices from the front of the car became a long “Sssssst!” and a hand came down onto his shoulder and pressed firmly. A familiar voice said, “You must not say a word. They will find you.”

  “I need to wee.”

  “Wait until it is dark. Then we will stop.”

  Joshua lay in a miserable ball and tried to distract himself. He thought of the events of the previous evening. He squeezed his eyes shut, but tears leaked out anyway. Tsumalo was dead. And where was his mother?

  Sobs began to shake his body. He was quaking. He rose up out of the back of the car and clutched at the men in the front. “I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” They glanced at each other.

  “We had better stop,” said a voice.

  “Aaai,” said the driver disapprovingly, but he swung the car down a side road without another word, and then it got bumpy and they stopped.

  “Here.”

  The man in the front passenger seat pulled him out of the car, stood him up, and said, not unkindly, “Look — it’s not far now. Be quick and we’ll go on.”

  “Where’s my mother?” he called. “Where is she?”

  The driver leaned across to him. Joshua saw that he was one of the men from the swimming pool, the one with a face like a fox’s. His name was Sindiso, Tsumalo had told him.

  “You are with us to keep you away from the police,” he said gently. In the half-dark he could see that Sindiso was smiling. “You attacked one of them. Robert had to pull you off.”

  Then there were a few mouthfuls of water from a can, and he was back under the hairy blanket. He tried to make himself small, holding his knees, closing his eyes, and fashioning a little loop in its edge for his nose so he could breathe. He had almost stopped shivering.

  Where were they?

  Then suddenly it was morning. He must have slept. He pulled the corner of the blanket back. Sunlight.

  The men in front sounded cheerful. They heard him stirring, and one of them said, “We are safe now.”

  The blanket was flung back, and Sindiso smiled at him. “Joshua, you can get up now. You can get up on the backseat. Look where we are!”

  Joshua saw mountains above him and drew in his breath. He saw grass, cows, huts. Quickly, he wound down the window, kneeled up on the seat, leaned out, and drank in big gulps of air as if it were water.

  Sindiso turned around to him and laughed. “Yes,” he said. “This is the air of freedom. Breathe deep!” And he threw back his head and laughed again.

  There was so much Joshua wanted to ask. He opened his mouth to speak.

  But he wouldn’t find out everything he wanted to know for a long, long time.

  Joshua lies on his stomach in the dust under a thorn tree and throws pebbles at a stump. It is searingly hot. And he has nothing to do. Nothing! He broods, chin on cupped hands. He has not seen Sindiso since arriving a week ago. They hadn’t stayed long in Mozambique, with its cows and its huts and its green mountains. Now they are in Angola, in a training camp for the soldiers, Sindiso has explained.

  This camp is in a scrubby landscape, with thorn trees and dust as far as the eye can see. There is a house on a hill in the center of it: an old farmhouse. Joshua sleeps in a little room at the back, a storeroom with a high window next to the maid’s room, where Mama Bongani lives.

  She gives him mielie-pap in the mornings. As far as he can see, she is as busy as his mother used to be, looking after the men. She has to cook and clean and wash. She looks tired. When he tries to talk to her, she shoos him away gently, as if he were a persistent puppy.

  This morning she asks him to help. “Here, take these, Joshua,” she says. “They are too heavy for me.” It is early in the camp, and she has done the daily wash. Joshua lifts the wet sheets from the tub and twists them to squeeze out the water. He pins them onto the clotheslin
e, struggling not to dip the corners in the dirt.

  She joins him. “Joshua,” she says. “Do you miss your family?”

  “Yes, Mama,” says Joshua.

  “This is no place for a boy like you,” says Mama Bongani. “You should be with your mother. She needs you.”

  Joshua continues to lift and peg the heavy sheets. He hesitates. “Mama,” he asks, “Mama, where are your children?”

  She puts down the big basket in the dirt and looks at him and sighs. She has a doek on her head, like his mother, only hers is bright yellow, not white. “Joshua, my babies are all grown and gone. My sons have gone to fight. One of them is in prison. My daughter is a maid in Johannesburg. That is why I am here. There is no future for any of us until we are all free.

  “That is why I know that your mother is missing you. Just because your babies are grown does not mean you do not miss them.”

  Joshua looks up at her; she is framed against the sunlight, and he cannot see her face. “I am sure my mother would be happy that I am here, helping you.” He feels a sudden impulse to hug her. “I’ll get the other sheets,” he says.

  In the distance, beyond a stand of trees, he can hear someone shouting and the men shouting back as they march. He is not allowed to come too close. It could be dangerous if they are shooting. They are also learning to use bombs, Sindiso has explained.

  “When they are trained, they will be going back to South Africa to plant bombs in military places,” he said. “When you leave here, Joshua, you are never to talk of what you have seen here. It would place us all in great danger.”

  “When can I learn to shoot?” he asked Sindiso, leaning back against a tree. He lined up an imaginary sight with his right hand holding the trigger close to his eye, and his left arm held out as straight as a gun.

  Sindiso laughed. “No, you are too young, Joshua. We do not make child soldiers here. Your job is to do your schoolwork.”

  Now Joshua broods, alone under the tree. Trying to do his schoolwork on his own is hard.

  He still thinks of it, the terrifying journey north, the searing air of Mozambique, the long, hot drive to this camp. He is assailed by a cramping grief whenever he has any time to himself. He wishes he could get a big rusty old key and turn back the clock. To see his mother and his little sister and brother. And to make Tsumalo and Sipho alive again.

  He is so angry.

  But for now he is helpless. And bored. He is the only boy in the camp. He rolls over onto his back and looks up through the thorn tree’s scraggy, spiky branches at the relentless blue of the sky; it is almost too bright to look at. His eyes are watering, and he squeezes them shut. His clothes are covered in dust. Mama Bongani will be angry. It will make more work for her.

  He opens his eyes, and a face swims into view between him and the sky. It is smiling. It is white. It’s a girl’s face. He sits up in surprise. He has not seen any white people here.

  “Are you bored?” asks the face. It has sea-green eyes and long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. “Come with me.” He jumps up and follows obediently. Her name is Bonny. She is from Jo’burg, she says. She is holding his hand like his mother used to do. Suddenly his eyes fill with tears. She glances down at him but says nothing.

  “Listen,” she says. Joshua sees a big man leaning forward. He is sitting on a tree trunk. The men gathered around him fall silent.

  Joshua stands at the edge of the circle with Bonny. The big man has a big smile. He looks open and friendly. His audience is rapt; he holds them in the palm of his hand. He is telling a story about a herder boy. Then he looks up and sees Joshua. His broad face creases again into a smile, the eyes almost disappearing. “Come!” he commands.

  “Go!” whispers Bonny, releasing him.

  Joshua is nervous. But he is drawn and pushed forward by many hands until he stands by the man, in the crook of his arm.

  “Now, do you see this boy? This boy is why we are fighting. And we are going to win. Are we going to win?”

  “Amandla,” comes the reply. “Amandla.” Power.

  Joshua feels uneasy. He can feel the heat coming off the man. And something else: it is the absolute, keen ambition of him, the intensity of his concentration on drawing those around him into his orbit. He wriggles free and pushes back into the crowd.

  Bonny is waiting. She gives him a grin and holds out her hand.

  “Who is he?” he asks.

  “His name is Jacob,” she says. “He used to be a herder boy himself. When the change comes, he will be in the government.”

  With Bonny, he works an hour a day on his reading. She helps him to write a letter to his mother, carefully couched in vague terms. He is “enjoying his holiday,” and he is “keeping up with his lessons.” It won’t be posted from here, Bonny says. It will be passed from hand to hand until it can be sent from Johannesburg.

  “What about Tsumalo?” he asks. “What did he do? He wouldn’t tell me.”

  “He was involved in the labor union movement,” Bonny explains. “He was working to get workers the right to strike. They were making banners for a march when the police came. They can keep you in prison for a long time without putting you on trial. And on the night he escaped, he killed a guard.”

  Joshua feels a cold hand close around his throat. He looks at Bonny.

  “He had to do it,” she says. “They were torturing him.”

  “Yes,” says Joshua. “But how did he get out?”

  “One of the black prison guards helped him. He lent him an old guard’s uniform, and one afternoon when they were working in the grounds of the prison, he managed to slip away.

  “Tsumalo hid in a tree, and when the guard walked under it, he jumped him and got the gun off him. When the others heard the shot, they thought it was Tsumalo who had been killed.”

  Joshua is silent. He doesn’t like to think of Tsumalo killing someone. But he doesn’t like to think of him being tortured either.

  He picks up a stick and begins to scratch it in the sand. They are under the thorn tree, looking down on the camp.

  No child is allowed to become a soldier; in this, the struggle is different to those in other countries, Bonny says. It is important for children to get an education — something they are denied under apartheid.

  “When you are grown up, you can decide. Only then. Then you can join Umkhonto we Sizwe,” says Bonny. It means “Spear of the Nation.” He likes the words. They make him feel safe. These are the soldiers who are being trained in the camp and will go back to South Africa on bombing missions. They are the military wing of the African National Congress, which is fighting to overturn the apartheid government.

  “What are you doing here, Bonny?” Joshua asks. He does not say “because you are a white girl,” but that’s what he means.

  “Joshua, there are a lot of young people like me who believe in the struggle,” she says. “Some of them stay in South Africa, and some come out of the country to train,” she explains.

  She is twenty-one; she left as soon as she finished her degree at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape. There were terrible forced removals to the area, she had told him. “People were dumped in the veld with nothing but a standpipe for water. They starved. Two out of three children died before they reached two years old, Joshua. Two out of every three!

  “I knew then that I would have to leave,” says Bonny. And she looks away. “How could I live in a country that could do that to its own people?

  “If I stayed, I would be supporting the system just by being there. Now I have left, I can help bring it down.” She is in the camp to train; she will go back soon and live underground until she is needed.

  Joshua is astonished that white people are training too. “There is the world that everyone sees,” explains Bonny. “That is the world of white privilege. Many white people think, Why would we want to change that world? But then there is also the world beneath that one, the secret place where we operate. And because we are white, there are places we can go an
d things we can do that are easier for us — much easier.”

  She gives Joshua a hug. “Things will change,” she says. “It will take a long time, but it will happen.”

  And she tucks her shiny brown hair behind her ear and smiles at him — sadly, he thinks.

  The next morning Bonny shakes him awake. It is early and still dark, and he is deep in a dream about home: he has his little sister and brother, one in each arm, and they are sitting outside his grandparents’ house in the evening sunshine. “Come! Come now!” Bonny commands. He jumps out of bed, grabs his sweater, and runs.

  They sit under a tree as the red sun rises slowly behind the black thorn trees and its cold beams find their shivering bodies. Bonny is crying.

  “What is it? What is it?” he repeats.

  “They’ve killed him,” she says simply. “He’s dead.”

  “Who’s dead?” he asks.

  “Steve Biko. He was the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement. He was a great man. He was arrested last month. He was tortured, Joshua. And they drove him a thousand kilometers to Pretoria with a terrible head wound — naked — chained in the back of a truck. And now he has died.”

  And she takes his hands in hers. “Murdered, Joshua.”

  “Like Sipho,” he says.

  “Yes,” she answers gently. “Like Sipho.”

  Joshua can’t get the thought out of his head. Chained like an animal in the back of a van, driven all those miles in terrible pain.

  Bonny shows him a small picture torn from a newspaper. “Bantu Stephen Biko,” says the caption. He has wide-set eyes and a level gaze. It’s a handsome face.

  The news has given Joshua a cold feeling in his stomach, a spreading feeling of dread that he wakes with every day and that reminds him of how he would wake every morning after the news of Sipho; with a nameless fear, but without remembering why. Only once he is fully awake does grief hit him with renewed force.