A Rock and a Hard Place

by George Zelt PhD

  “Maaster, I want work.”

  “Would you and your family like water to drink?” James replied immediately, without offering his hand. It was custom to not shake hands with nonwhites; indeed the Khoikhoi would have been embarrassed had James offered.

  “Yes, maaster.”

  James had one of his colored workers fetch plenty of water.

  “Where have you come from?” James asked.

  “Highveld farm, maaster, very far north.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “Maaster sold farm, and new baas brought his own colored boys with him. Maaster say we had to go but gave food. I work for maaster twenty years, maaster. Food now gone, maaster.”

  After some discussion, James said they could stay and work while living from their wagon. In return they would be given food, clothing, and enough money to buy essentials. In due course, if the symbiotic relationship worked, the farm community would build them a white concrete house with a chimney.

  Few considerations are attached to such a deal. For James the transaction was like buying a horse: He needed to feed it and keep it somewhere. The system depended on the laborer not being able or wanting to do much else.

  I assumed the colored people were not educated and asked James about that. He said, “We try with the children, but the adults don’t want to be educated. They burn schoolhouses down.”

  One morning I was in a remote part of James’s land not far from a track. One of James’s colored boys passed by, driving a tractor that pulled a wagon full of the farm’s colored children. It was the daily trip to a one-room concrete-block schoolhouse, just as James had mentioned. In the late afternoon they would be driven back to the farm. Providing this service was one of James’s duties.

  White children from the farms went to school in Springbok. There they boarded during the week and returned for the weekend.

  * * *

  Over a few campfires, I thought about James’s relationship with his colored servants. Basically, it could be called a form of slavery, although they were free to leave. But, if they did, what would they do? I didn’t think any other farmer would take them unless James approved.

  The man and his family seemed very relieved to find a place to work and live in peace. They expected the new maaster would feed and protect them. When they died, they would be buried on the farm they had come to know. It seemed a safe path through life, but was it right?

  How did this system of governance compare with others like it? I’d read about the Bolshevik form of socialism, for example, that began in the 1930s with forced collective farms in Russia. They did not promote learning; they wanted the focus on physical labor to the point that they killed off the well-educated. I knew firsthand about ownership and duties in the Israeli kibbutz, having worked on one in the early 1970s. The work was shared between all members; everyone worked for the basics in life, living and eating together as equals. If some were not happy with the system, they could go elsewhere without a problem.

  At face value, it seemed to me that if people agreed willingly on a lifestyle direction while they had other options to consider (and were able to follow them), then why not? In truth, the deciding factors were far more complicated—and often led to horrific civil wars.

  Near the farmhouse, en route to the deeper portions of the farm where I would camp that night, lay the family’s cemetery. There James’s mother and father were buried among other members of their ancestry. It had a well-kept white wooden picket fence around it and was sheltered by acacia trees. In the near distance and on either side stood two rock domes, providing a magnificent background. Two breasts of the heartland, between which the sand track I followed carefully felt its way. The sand draped off the domes like a long wedding dress and gently touched the carefully placed tombstones. All whites stayed together on an Afrikaner farm, whether dead or alive.

  That peaceful presentation did not apply to wandering Bushmen, however. James had told me without any embarrassment, “The last Bushman in the region was hunted down and shot by my father.”

  That would have been some sixty years earlier, in the early 1900s. Maybe James inherited his supposed violent temper from his father? I mean, who would shoot a Bushman? Still, it was different then; life was polarized into firm viewpoints. The little Bushman, like all Bushmen, believed that every animal on earth belonged to everyone. That was his system of government. The concept of ownership was unknown to them. The Afrikaner owned his land and livestock and loved them passionately. When a Bushman saw one of the farmer’s cows and he was hungry, he killed it.

  The Afrikaner farmers honestly believed that the Bushmen were animals, like the hyena and jackal. Sometimes when captured, Bushmen were put in holes in the ground and told to dig for metals. They passed up baskets full of whatever they were digging. Food was dropped down to them. They never saw the sun again and eventually died underground.

  When the sun set that evening, I was several miles into an isolated part of the farm characterized by an especially impressive cluster of rock domes that were millions of years old, which I can visualize to this day. They made me think of the remarkable Bushmen who once likely traveled over them, living their ancient customs. Human beings that ended up basically being buried alive. It was a good place to camp, have a fire, and think about life.

  Mulligan stew simmered in its blackened pot above glowing coals in front of me as I sat on a rock. The air cooled a bit as a thin column of wispy, warm gray smoke rose and slipped away into the sky like a ghost on a mission. Sundown came fast and brought stillness. Under a desert sky—clear, timeless, and appearing very close—I felt I was at one, lifted up and part of the enormity around me. With only the stars, moon, and sand for company, I thought again how far I was from my hometown and the numerous cabins I’d built throughout my youth and slept in during isolated nights. Those were happy, peaceful days.

  Curling up in the sand, I slept and dreamed of the Bushman James’s father had killed. With the arrival of the white man to southern Africa, the Bushmen fled north, leaving only isolated bands behind. Given James’s father’s statement, he must have been the last member of the final fleeing band. Possible he was old and was left behind to die as Bushmen custom dictates. Still, he would have run on his old legs as far as he could rather than give in to the white man, whom he greatly feared.

  In the morning, I had a large bowl of muesli, powdered milk, and honey for breakfast, along with several slices of bread spread with large amounts of jam.

  Later, while slowly driving over the hard ripples of sand that had formed on my track, I saw two small, flat pieces of propped-up rock on the verge, carried from a distant exfoliating dome. I stopped to stare.

  Each foot-high piece stood on its edge a yard apart from the other. They had begun to lean. I saw no particular landmarks around, like a home or building—just sand and the odd aloe tree. They had been placed there, in the manner local natives were often buried, with no particular place to go. The flat rocks were likely the isolated graves of two of the farm’s coloreds, probably husband and wife. I suspected they had worked for James’s mother and father. In time the rocks would fall over and be covered by sand. Nothing else would record their existence except memory. Their lives were over. They probably hadn’t made it past forty years old. I doubted if anyone could recall their names now; the couple had likely worked until they dropped, and then others stepped around them. In my mind it seemed such a system couldn’t stimulate thoughts of the future or promote knowledge. What was life without such mental pursuits?

  Perhaps because I was a young man full of energy, of life, of desire to be all I could be, I found it difficult imagining the constraints I saw. The system I was born under enabled and encouraged me to develop. Apartheid did not.

  That’s part of what was wrong with it. And the solution wasn’t simple at all.

  Chapter 8

  Oven at High Noon

  The night wind decreased to a breath. I kept the Land Rover windows o
pen, as it was still cool and refreshing. That feeling would soon drift away with the swiftness of the African dawn. The summer day would soon quiver with heat.

  I drove into Springbok to spend an evening with the old man who’d told me months ago about the gold nugget he’d found in Rhodesia while hunting elephant. As we drank Castle Lager beer on the veranda of the Springbok Hotel, he pulled the nugget out of his pocket and retold stories. Later, driving off captivated and a little drunk, I stopped a few miles outside of town to sleep. The next morning, I drove west along the sand road toward the coast, looking for a place to begin the day’s work. I wanted to walk inland to a portion of the lengthy Swartlintjies River I hadn’t seen before. A lonely group of wind-tortured acacia trees appeared as I drove, throwing dust and sand behind me. Might as well park there, I decided. Slipping on my empty backpack and hefting the sledgehammer onto my right shoulder, I checked my compass and pointed myself in the direction of the river. It was seven o’clock. I was still wearing clothes from the evening before: cutoff jeans, a loose, white, short-sleeved shirt, broad hat, and ankle-high boots. I began to walk, not considering that I might still be a little drunk. Unfortunately, where I parked on the side of the road, the river turned out to be much farther inland than I thought.

  It’s a moonlike expanse of bleary sand and skeletal shrub, I thought, finally reaching the riverbed. Peering downward and turning my head like a rooting chicken, I concentrated on locating black metabasite and rarer metapelite rocks. Finding them as sequentially as possible along the entire length of the river continued to be my objective. Comparing them would then reveal if changing conditions of temperature and pressure had occurred successively when they formed.

  After searching the river’s width and length for three hours or so, I stopped, lethargic and light-headed. I sat under an acacia tree, leaning back on my pack, peering vacantly around. I’d sampled a few light-colored granite rocks but no dark rocks so far. The simmering haze undulated like the waves of the sea in front of me. The glare made me squint even with sunglasses on. Perhaps I had missed some rocks? It was easy to do here, as there wasn’t much to differentiate one patch of sandy earth from the next. I felt a bit dizzy, which was unusual. Had last night’s alcohol dehydrated me, inhibiting my body’s ability to cool itself?

  Hell, it’s past eleven o’clock and has gotten very hot. From one of my two canteens I took my first drink since leaving the Land Rover. I tried a field trick of rotating my eyes like a strobe light in slow motion, and then focusing on whatever I looked at to see if I could recognize it. I saw scanty succulents lying flat in the sand not far away. Such things always amazed me, as all water had evaporated months ago yet the plants were vivid green. Widely spaced ones called vygies had grown next to rocks. Their waxy leaves crawled across the sands like witches’ fingers and seemed to thrive on the sun. A gemsbok cucumber lay twisting in the sands, feeling in all directions. Frail shrubs, resembling barren twigs, were close by. No problem with basic recognition, it seemed. However, when I stood up, I was shaking.

  I groped for the thermometer in my pack. Good God, it is 105 degrees Fahrenheit! I tapped it. Was it broken? If the human body rose to that level, heatstroke and death were approaching. Eventually you dried up and fell over, as your bodily fluids evaporated. Worse news for me was that as the sun rose higher, cruel and without remorse, it would get hotter! I’d walked too long in the heat.

  The Land Rover was too far away to return to it. I would be caught in the trembling midday heat. Like an oven, it blazed down from above and radiated off the ground below, roasting everything between like meat. Hell, the sand temperature would be much higher than ambient air, probably easily in excess of 140 degrees Fahrenheit!

  I told myself I would be okay. It was just a question of resting in what shade I could find and not panicking. To hell with finding rocks. I looked up; the sun was now near its zenith, high noon. All animal life stands still then or seeks shade, waiting for coolness to return to the air. Even the insects disappear and a strange silence occurs.

  I was thirsty. I’d already begun to dry up. I had to pace myself.

  As the sun moved overhead in the sky, any shade from the thin leaves of the umbrella trees that I might sit under would disappear—leaving me exposed, grilling like meat on the sand if I fell asleep. Closer to the tree’s trunk there was a more continuous shade, but disease-bearing ticks were more likely to fall on me.

  My throat thickened. Or was it my mouth? There was no saliva. The heat had completely penetrated my body. It was a dry heat too, which meant even sweating would not help cool it down. I would have to last hours out here before it got cooler. Again I tried to assure myself: I can do it.

  Could I have heatstroke now? Oftentimes a person didn’t know. You could tell if you couldn’t walk in a straight line. I stood up and checked my tracks in the sand. Shit, they made a lazy “S” pattern. At least I wouldn’t circle, I chuckled, as I had the river to follow. Death in a desert is often preceded by the graveyard spiral.

  Getting sleepy, I wandered over to the shaded perimeter of another larger acacia tree, which had taken root in the cracks of a rock. Its stems had twisted as if in agony from the drought and heat. I sat down and stared blankly as the sun sliced through the spindly, meager leaves above. I took another drink and looked around. I didn’t feel well. Just relax, ask yourself questions, keep your mind off the heat, and don’t sleep.

  Where do the plants get their water?

  The desert vegetation absorbs the humidity of the cooler night, and for this reason many wild animals do their feeding in the dark. Some plants are miraculously slippery with moisture when stepped on, even in the middle of the day.

  I began to feel sick to my stomach, a sure sign I was burning up. I lay back and swallowed it down, not wanting to retch and lose precious fluid. It is one o’clock. The sky was endless, strong and massive. It wrapped around everything, overpowered all, its strength ruthlessly magnified from the sun. I had to hold on for another three or four hours at least. I was tired and the earth was baking. My tongue seemed thicker, like a sausage. I turned my head to the side and looked forward; I couldn’t see so well. In the near distance grew a weird looking quiver tree—Aloe dichotoma—about three feet thick and fifteen feet tall. I saw its thick, succulent, wax-coated leaves high in the air, allowing them to escape radiated heat from the sands below. Clever plant; I wish I could escape the radiated heat.

  I continued to feel sick, just able to hold myself. It was stretching my nerves. What could take my mind off that? I rolled onto my stomach. My forehead is cool? Air, smelling of dust, caked in my nose and coated my tongue. I was eating it. I couldn’t spit it out, my mouth was so dry. I felt my cracked lips. Fuck, it is so barren, so dry. The sand was too hot to touch, the rocks shivered in the heat. I needed to concentrate on something, to think.

  What are quiver trees used for?

  Bushmen, who have survived more than four thousand years, use the lightweight branches to make quivers for their arrows. The insides of the branches are fibrous and once removed, a strong, hollow tube remains.

  Raising my head slowly, I drank several mouthfuls of calming water. I will be fine. Was I breathing quicker; was my heart beating faster? Things seemed out of order, as if I had lost balance. The brightness was dazzling. I looked up through sunglasses to see two suns. I blinked one of them away. My eyelids drooped, heavy. Maybe I am worse off than I thought?

  Time is related to where the sun is in the sky. When will it get cooler? My lethargy seemed almost hypnotic, calling me to sleep . . . sleep . . . sleep.

  I lay face down again. My head began to pound from the exertion of thinking, as though a blunt nail was being driven with hammer blows into my temple—its dull iron point pressed into my eyes. Yes, I wanted to sleep; the heat of the sand penetrated my drained body. It is just after two o’clock. A long way to go. I groggily looked up in another direction and noticed something about ten feet away, on the ground, level with my eyes.


  I blinked repeatedly. It was thick . . . what . . . a snake! It was a fucking big snake. Shit! It had a repugnant flattened head, sculptured like the ace of spades—a puff adder. I jumped up and stumbled backward, falling over myself. It must live here somewhere, probably under a river rock, probably coming home. I stared.

  My heart was pumping fast now—not good. I had a theory about snakes. You saw them, but unless they were literally on top of you or you were used to seeing them, there was a delay in recognizing them. The mind just couldn’t identify a snake that fast. I figured it was because they had no recognizable limbs like humans and animals. The transmitted image didn’t know where to go at first. It gave a snake the advantage of surprise every time.

  He wasn’t moving. Puff adders are unhurried and lazy; he wouldn’t attack. It was too hot for him to be out in the heat. The sand alone was blistering, so he had to move. Like me, he had to move. I looked at him again as I blinked. There was a smell, a faint kind of sweetness tinged with decomposition. Shit! He is dead?

  A snake dead from the heat? Fried on the sand? I had to get out of here. Staggering forward on unsure legs I mistakenly went up the flat-looking river instead of down toward the Land Rover. I was stumbling more, the sand felt heavy to walk through. I needed to find another tree and forget the dehydrated snake. The sun burned through my clothes. Swishing the canteen, I drank two mouthfuls. It was almost empty. Was that a tree in the haze? How did the Bushmen find food? They knew which bulbs, tubers, and other nutritious roots hidden under the sand were edible and how to find them.

  I stopped to pee on a desiccated plant, leaving only a token of water. That was a good sign, as the body protectively held on to water under such conditions. Is it a camel that pees a huge stream backward on its own long leg to help cool itself? Does he rotate his legs? I giggled. My urine was quite yellow, which meant heatstroke. But then, everything was yellow in the glare.