The World Beneath

by Janice Warman

  He says a prayer for his mother and his family, for Sipho and for Tsumalo, every night when he goes to bed. Now he adds Biko’s name to his list.

  And lying there in the dark, he swears to himself that when he grows up, he too will be a freedom fighter. He knows that there are thousands of men like Biko who have died at the hands of the police, men whose names he may never know. “It’s too much. It’s too much,” he whispers to himself.

  Today Joshua is on his own. Bonny is away training for the day. She doesn’t tell him why or where. It’s a secret, she says. And he recalls how Tsumalo told him it was safer not to know too much.

  Alone, he kicks around the camp with nothing to do. Bonny left him reading, but he is bored with it. He decides to go exploring. It’s not allowed, but he doesn’t care. He knows it’s safer for him to stay in the main part of the camp.

  He takes a quick look around — all the men are down at the range. The camp is almost empty, except for Mama Bongani hanging up the camp commandant’s uniform on the line behind the house. He can see the bright yellow dot of her head scarf.

  Away from the main buildings and the shooting range, right at the edge of the camp, just inside the barbed-wire fence and behind a stand of scrubby trees, there is a building that looks deserted. As he approaches, though, he can hear something. A small sound, a sound that’s almost swallowed before it begins. Joshua is transfixed and stops, frozen, trying to hear it again. “Aaaah.”

  Was that it? It’s almost whispered. He looks around him. It’s quiet.

  He turns his attention back to the building. It’s the sound of someone in pain. He tiptoes closer. “Hello?” he whispers. Silence. Then another groan, louder, quickly stifled, as if whoever it is could not stop it emerging.

  “Hello? Is there someone there? Are you OK?” As he says it, it sounds stupid.

  Now he can hear a scratching noise. There is a vent at the top of the wall, the kind made by a brick with holes in it. That must be where the noise is coming from. As he watches, something drops out of it and lands at his feet. He scoots back in fright. It’s a wad of paper, scrunched up small. Hardly daring, he picks it up gingerly and opens it out. On it there is a word, scratched in rough capitals with what looks like charcoal: “HELP.”

  Breathless, he runs around to the other side of the building. There is a stable door, firmly bolted, with a padlock. Why is there someone imprisoned here? The thought makes him go cold.

  He looks around again. No one. Up to the door and “Hello!” he whispers. “Hello, who is there, please?”

  A thin, dry whisper. “Help me, please. Help me.” The voice fades away on the last syllables, as if the man inside can hardly speak, as if he is hardly there anymore.

  “I can’t — there is a padlock,” Joshua whispers back urgently. “I’m sorry. Why are you locked up?”

  A pause. It goes on so long that Joshua wonders if the man has fallen unconscious.

  “They say I am a traitor.” A creak rather than a whisper. Then another long pause. “But I am not. I am not.”

  Then a noise that is hard to interpret, a terrible noise that is like choking, but that Joshua realizes is the sound of crying.

  Then another sound. But it comes over from the edge of the camp. He turns to run back toward his thorn tree, falling into a stroll as the Jeeps come into view, thrashing the grasses with a stick as if he is bored.

  The knowledge that the man is there sits heavy with him; he watches as a Jeep goes across to the building and, later, back again. He is a spy under his tree on the hillock that overlooks the camp. There is an innocent man locked up in a stable. Is he to do nothing?

  That night he and Bonny talk by the fire outside the tents. She puts an arm around him. “You’re shivering, Josh.” She has taken to calling him Josh, in the way that white people have of shortening everybody’s names, no matter how short they are already.

  He stiffens. “I’m fine.” He does not want to tell her of his discovery. Yet he does. She is his only friend here. Who else can he tell? He can’t do nothing. That would be wrong. He feels the knowledge sitting in his stomach like a weight.

  Bonny swings him around to face her in the flickering light. “What’s wrong? You were fine this morning.”

  “Nothing.”

  Soon they have retreated from the flames, and using the scant light of a penlight that Bonny fetches from her tent, they are approaching the stable.

  It’s apparent that there is some activity there. There is a Jeep parked outside it, light floods out from the door, and from inside the stable are coming terrible noises. Bonny turns and claps her hands over Joshua’s ears. He wriggles free. He looks into her eyes in the half-light. And he can see that she knows what’s happening.

  “Come!” she commands. She drags and pushes and punches him away from the building until they are at the far side of the camp, away from everything: the house, the stable, the tents.

  “What is it? What has he done? Why can’t we help him?” The questions pour out of Joshua like lava in a stream she can’t stem.

  “We can’t help him,” she says simply. “I’m so sorry, Josh. There is nothing we can do.”

  And as he starts to protest: “No, I mean it.” She emphasizes the words. “There — is — nothing — we — can — do. I’m so sorry.” She pauses. “He is a spy sent by the police into the camp to find out our plans for the next attacks. He would have passed them back to the police. Then our men — our men, Josh — would have been picked off by the police like so many sitting ducks.”

  “But he says he is innocent,” says Joshua. “Why would a black man spy for the police?”

  “Of course he would say that, Josh. I’m sorry.”

  She gives him a hug, then pulls away, holding him by the arms and looking at him. He can only see her silhouette against the starlit sky. “It is difficult to find out that people are not always what they seem.”

  Josh thinks of the man’s voice. Somehow he knows that he wasn’t lying.

  He looks up at Bonny and forces himself to relax his stiff shoulders. “OK. I understand. Let’s go back before they miss us.”

  Joshua lies all night with his sleeping bag pulled up under his chin, drifting in and out of sleep, shivering. Does the man have a blanket? Is he hungry?

  In the morning, he offers to wash up for Mama Bongani after they eat their mielie-pap at the kitchen table. As soon as she has left the house, he takes two slices off the loaf of rough bread and two thin slices of cheese. He wraps the sandwich in a bit of brown paper and stuffs it in his shorts pocket. It is not much, but it will have to do.

  He wanders off to the thorn tree and lies there for a bit. Bonny, Sindiso, and some of the others are away training, and the camp is quiet. He considers taking the food to the man now, but it is only at the end of the day, when the red sun sinks over the far hill, that he feels safe enough. First, though, he fetches an old Coke bottle, fills it with water, and stuffs a rag in the top.

  The dark is almost complete and wraps him like a secret. He approaches the stables using a zigzag route, almost out to the boundary and back, wandering quietly, head down, through the trees. Then he is below the blank brick wall with its vent.

  “Hello,” he whispers. “Are you there?”

  There is a square gap in the bricks high up by the door of the stable, where one has fallen out. It is just big enough to slide the sandwich and the bottle through.

  “Thank you,” whispers the man inside.

  Joshua sits huddled against the brick wall that has been warmed by the sun and waits, alert for any sound. Then he stands up and puts his mouth to the gap. “Give me back the paper and the bottle,” he murmurs. “I will bring you more food tomorrow.”

  The next morning, he is heading out of the kitchen with a wrapped sandwich in his hand.

  “Where are you going?” It is Mama Bongani, coming around the corner with an armful of laundry. He does not know what to say. She is looking at the sandwich. “What is that?” />
  He gives her an anxious smile. “I am sorry, Mama. I thought I would take something for my lunch.” He has never done it before. It makes no sense. She will be suspicious.

  She smiles at him. “That’s a good idea. See you later.”

  He steps aside and she goes into the kitchen with the washing.

  “Wait!” she calls. “Joshua, wait!”

  He stands frozen. She comes out with a dripping Coke bottle, filled with water and corked.

  “Thank you, Mama. Thank you.” He smiles shyly at her, ducks his head, and runs.

  On the third morning, he makes the sandwich and fills the bottle, but it isn’t until dusk falls that he scrambles down the hill. But as he follows the path through the trees, he sees light filtering through the branches. The Jeep is outside, and there is light coming out of the doorway. He turns and runs: this time he can’t listen. He kneels in the sand under the thorn tree, hands clenched together, and prays, and weeps. Then he stands up. He knows what he has to do.

  He couldn’t help Sipho, murdered hundreds of miles away from him, or Tsumalo, shot down right in front of him. But he can help this man. And he will.

  It is the deepest, darkest time of the night. Joshua hasn’t slept. He can’t. He wriggles out of his sleeping bag and opens the door a crack. It creaks. This is the most dangerous part. Mama Bongani might hear him.

  Out from under the bundle of clothes he uses as a pillow, he brings the flashlight. Bonny gave it to him the night he took her to the stable. “Have this,” she said. “I have another one in my tent.” She could see he was still upset. As if a flashlight would make him feel better!

  He’s never had a flashlight before. He doesn’t plan to use it. He is going to give it to the man. And he has to take the bolt cutters he has seen in the lean-to by his room.

  At the stable all is silent. The sliver of moon casts the faintest of lights. Joshua listens at the door. Is it his imagination or can he hear breathing? Is the man asleep?

  “Sssst!” Joshua hisses. “Sssst!”

  Nothing.

  “Sssst! Wake up!”

  He doesn’t want to cut the padlock until the man is awake. He rattles the door a bit and immediately hears a gasp from inside. “It’s me!” he says quickly. Some instinct has prevented him from giving his name to the man or asking his. “I will let you out. I am going to cut the lock.”

  Silence. “Thank you,” comes a hoarse whisper. “You are an angel.”

  Outside Joshua hesitates. He picks up the heavy cutters and weighs them in his hand. It isn’t going to be easy.

  “The key.” The man’s voice is still a whisper, but it is stronger now. “Look under the stone. I think they keep it there.”

  And there it is. Under a big stone by the door. It is the work of a moment to unlock it.

  Inside, the man is sitting on the bare floor, slumped against the wall. His face is a mass of bruises; one eye is almost shut. He flinches from the light.

  “Here.” Joshua kneels by him and hands him the water. Half of it runs down his chin. Then he grabs the bottle and sucks at it desperately, half choking, gulping. “Slowly,” commands Joshua. “You will get sick.”

  He leans back and takes a proper look. “Can you walk? Do you think you can make it across the river? If they catch you —”

  “I will go,” says the man, looking with his good eye into Joshua’s face. “I would rather die than stay here.”

  Joshua’s heart is thumping so loudly, he thinks the man will hear it. He helps him to his feet and to the door, grabbing a filthy blanket from the floor and wrapping it around him like a shawl. “Here,” he says. “I have brought you some food. And more water. You will need that especially.” He has put the bottle and the sandwich along with the flashlight in an old shopping bag. It isn’t much, but it is the best he can do.

  The two stand at the door and look into the darkness and listen. They can hear nothing but the high singsong of crickets and the faint rustles of the bush at night. No footsteps. Just the faint high glitter of the stars. It’s good that the moon is not full.

  “Ready?” asks Joshua.

  “Yes,” answers the man.

  They begin their slow journey to the river. It is half a mile away. The man leans his heavy frame on Joshua. Beyond, the land is kinder, with more scrubby trees and paths through it, more cover for the day. It is two days’ walk to the nearest farm. There he can say he is a refugee. If he is lucky, he will meet with kindness before he resumes his journey. The farther away he gets, the more likely it will be that no one will be able to identify him and the more likely it will be that he will survive.

  They are silent as they walk along the sandy path through the scrubby bushes. As they come out in sight of the river, the man sags against him suddenly. He is breathing heavily. “Not far now,” says Joshua.

  The river is not deep at this point. It’s only waist high, but there are strong currents, and Joshua is worried the man won’t have the strength to get across. He helps him to tie the bag around his neck to keep it out of the water. He has no shoes.

  The man takes Joshua’s hands in his big ones and looks hard at him. “What is your name?”

  Joshua hesitates. It is not good to share information, he knows that. Nevertheless . . . “Joshua,” he answers.

  The man takes a sharp breath, as if he has felt a sudden pain in his chest. “A long time ago, I had a son called Joshua,” he says softly. And he turns his face away. Joshua’s heart leaps. Perhaps — “He’s dead now,” says the man, and turns a bleak face to him.

  “Go,” says Joshua, and pushes him gently toward the river.

  “Aaaah,” says the man as he wades into the cold water. He turns to Joshua. “I will never forget you.” The faint moon gleams on his upturned face; the one good eye glitters. Then he is gone, holding the bag firmly across his chest with folded arms and carefully feeling his way with his feet, swaying as the force of the water hits him.

  Joshua watches him anxiously. In a minute he is across safely. He scrambles up the bank, stands, and turns to wave. Then the bush swallows him, and it is as if he has never been.

  Joshua takes a deep breath where he has been crouching. Then there is a touch on his shoulder, and he whips around in terror.

  “You fool,” says Bonny. He can barely see her face, but he can hear her fury. “You were stupid to believe him,” she says. “He was lying to you.”

  Joshua does not speak of the ridiculous hope that sprang up in his chest when the man said: “Once I had a son called Joshua.”

  She looks closely at him in the moonlight. “Come on,” she says. “No time to lose. If they see us out here, they will know what you’ve done.”

  Wordlessly they run back to the stable and lock it up again, and he shows her where to put the key back under the stone.

  Then they part company, Joshua to put the bolt cutters back where he found them and to jump back into bed, and Bonny, tight-lipped, to her tent. As he lies in the dark, unable to sleep, Joshua recalls how she said: “They will know what you’ve done.”

  It is early morning; the sliver of moon is still visible in the pale sky. There is a flurry of activity as a Jeep speeds back to the house from the stable in a plume of dust. Joshua lies with his book under his thorn tree, watching without appearing to watch, as the commander comes out of the house. He can see the men gesticulating and pointing. They all go back to the stable.

  Then they drive in the direction of the river. Two men get out and wade across. They disappear into the bush. Joshua watches them go with a feeling of dread. Will they catch up with the man, sick and injured as he is? With a cold feeling, he recalls the flashlight that he gave him — Bonny’s flashlight.

  But the men come back on their own.

  He goes to find Bonny. “Why haven’t they questioned everybody? They must realize that someone here let him out.”

  She doesn’t look at him. “He was a secret. That was the point, Joshua. No one was allowed to know he was here
. Now they can’t admit that he ever was.”

  Afternoon; he is lying again under his tree staring at the cerulean sky, praying that the prisoner got away. Could he have gotten far enough away by daylight? Could he have found someone to help him?

  Soon his question is answered. Through the farthest gate comes a cloud of dust that grows bigger and, as it approaches, turns into a Jeep. It skids to a halt outside the house, and two men run inside. They come out with the commander.

  It all happens very quickly. The back door of the Jeep is pulled roughly open, and the men pull someone out. Even from this distance, Joshua can see it is the prisoner. They are hitting him. Joshua cannot look at the stick figures in the distance that are doing these awful things. He lies flat in the dust on his stomach, with his hands over his ears and his eyes shut, as he did when he was younger, as if this would prevent them from seeing him as well as him from seeing them.

  Tears stream down his cheeks into the dust. He is sobbing out loud. And there is a tiny kernel of fear there too. Will the man give him away? Can he lie here and just let this happen?

  Then he jumps to his feet and runs down the hill as fast as he can. He skids to a halt right by the men, and they turn in surprise.

  A silence. Into the middle of it he says: “It was me. I let him go.”

  The shock is palpable. The men look to the commandant. They start toward Joshua. “No,” he says, and stills them with a hand gesture. The prisoner, whose mouth is bleeding, looks away.

  Joshua finds that now he has said this, he can say no more. The commandant turns to the prisoner.

  “I didn’t see who freed me,” he says, his face stony, his eyes fixed on the ground. “Someone just unlocked the door. It was open when I pushed against it.”

  “It was me,” says Joshua again. The silence deepens and widens. Then, somehow, terribly, he has mentioned Bonny. “Bonny found out and she was angry with me.”

  Then there is a voice behind him. A deep voice, a gentle voice, a commanding voice; a voice he knows. “It was me. I let him go.” It is Sindiso.