Cry of the Firebird

by T. M. Clark

  Home.

  It was here that she would dance an ancient ritual when she planned to mate for the season and hatch their chick together. Amahle glided down, swirling on the morning’s light breeze as the sun shone on her back. She landed on the water, honking as she joined many of the flock who had flown the same trail, searching the saline lakes of Africa for spirulina algae, forced to move when the waters of one lake receded and the levels of another swelled depending on the season.

  She dipped her beak into the cool water, harvesting the nutritious algae within, then smoothly moved towards a few of the other members she knew. But before she got to them, she heard a distinctive honk—one that she was interested in.

  It was within a large group of birds, all competing loudly with each other for space as they performed their ritualised group display. They began with a head-flag, honking loudly while they extended their heads upwards and waved them back and forth.

  Tightly packed together, the males moved as if synchronised.

  She would’ve recognised Msizi anywhere, with his distinctive dark-red curved beak and impressive pink plumage. His black primary and secondary wing feathers were prominent. Even though from a distance she could only see a black eye, she knew that close up they were a warm golden colour with a purple ring. He moved his body from side to side, his pink legs drumming out a beat of Africa as he danced with a group of males.

  Amahle watched as he swung his head side to side, head-flagging again. She liked that.

  The males then began their wing salutations. They stretched out their necks and spread their wings to display their black flight feathers, before they inverted the move. They dipped their heads downwards and moved gracefully, then they lifted their tails upwards, allowing their black flight feathers to point up to the sky.

  They marched with their heads in a crook-like posture, as if they’d broken their own necks. Still more head-bobbing and head-wagging with many feathers erect as they danced until finally, the ritual display of bickering began. Loud honking sounded, with some of the males becoming quite aggressive towards others.

  A group broke away. Amahle inverted her head and dipped it into the water, feeding. The water flowed through her mouth, through the fine filter in her bill floating on the surface. She sounded out a low murmuring ‘murrrh-murrrh-errh’ and pretended not to watch Msizi in the smaller flamboyance.

  She couldn’t help but notice as he performed the preening movements, wing salutes and finally bows. She stepped out of the water, as did a bunch of females with her, and they joined in the dance. Repeating the males’ moves, marching together, head-bobbing, wagging and honking loudly.

  All the time flamingos jostled positions within the group, some moved away, and prospective mates stepped closer, hoping to be the one chosen.

  Soon they were performing in unison, Msizi next to her, a leg and wing on one side of their bodies extended outwards together, then retracted. Their timing perfect. They repeated it on the other side.

  Slowly Amahle walked away, and she lifted her tail feathers. Msizi followed her.

  Stopping, she lowered her head and spread her wings, inviting Msizi to briefly mount her from behind. Together they continued a courtship and mating dance, as old as the elephant migration trails that cut deeply into the earth.

  Wading together, Msizi and Amahle moved from the shallows of the island. Amahle didn’t want to build her nest there in the clay. Instead, they followed a few other birds and nested on the shoreline.

  Other sociable neighbours were building their nests around theirs. They manipulated the wet mud together, building a turret, getting it ready for when their single egg would be cradled safely inside the cool nest. Here they were not protected from land predators by the water. They would need to keep an eye out to defend their turrets from hawks and eagles, too, as they lacked the sheer number of neighbouring flamingos sharing their area.

  Amahle settled on top of their turret, a foot above the surrounding landscape. Soon she would lay her egg in the mud, and together she and Msizi would begin to incubate their precious offspring. Until then, she had feeding to attend to, and a bond with Msizi to strengthen through dance.

  CHAPTER

  9

  Lily watched as Quintin set up his makeshift studio in one of the spare bedrooms. They had moved out the furniture, brought in a couch, a small table and a kitchen stool for now. They would find a music store and purchase whatever else he needed to get by soon. ‘You know, with the morning sun in this room, I’ll know when the day breaks and when to come and wake you up, to go do your doctor thing,’ Quintin said.

  ‘Very funny, you know that until we find you a proper studio that album you promised the record company won’t happen. You can’t record in here.’

  ‘I know. But one thing at a time,’ Quintin said, taking out La Angelique from her packaging and Fred, his bow that Lily had named for him. ‘But, I can play, and I can compose in this room. A recording studio isn’t our priority, right now. You are. And getting this Ian thing sorted, and your apology from World Health, that’s where the energy will go for now. Getting the album down will happen, as and when it is supposed to. The important part is that we’re here together. Like always, we’ll work things out.’ He leaned over to where she sat on the couch and kissed her.

  ‘Listen to this, my new piece I’ve been working through in my head. Tell me what you think?’ Putting his beautiful old violin under his chin, he played the first few lines of a new composition. He closed his eyes and was lost to the music.

  Lily smiled as she looked at his face. His nose still bore the small bump of once being broken, but her eyes were drawn to his hands, which were so beautiful as they stroked the violin and gave the music life. She could see the fine white scars, now so much a part of him. And she thought how once it might have been so different.

  * * *

  It was 1983. Lily was probably the only student who did not scream when Quintin Cornelius Winters stepped on the stage of the sports stadium at Natal University. This was a man who had made violins fashionable again. The protégé who crossed over from the classical into the modern and encouraged a whole new generation to pick up a string instrument and feel its vibrations.

  Dressed in black leather pants and jacket with a white T-shirt, his long blond hair tied at the back, his blue eyes sparkled under the spotlight as he waved to the crowd and bowed, first to the conductor and then to the audience, before he removed his jacket.

  The roar of the crowd intensified.

  Lily studied him. He wasn’t half bad; she had expected someone a lot older.

  Eventually, after he’d gestured multiple times for people to sit, they quietened down and settled back into their seats. The spotlight widened to show the full orchestra behind. The conductor tapped his baton on his music stand, and a hush descended over the crowd. Quintin raised his famous La Angelique Stradivari violin, lifted his bow, and the sweet sound of music erupted from the stage.

  Lily was lost.

  The sound of the classical weavings washed over her, and the stress from her studies and fatigue from her medical residency soon were forgotten as the long, descending tones of the piece he played blanketed her. He played some of his solo works, and the orchestra backed him on several of the pieces.

  An hour and a quarter flew past. All too soon the crowd was on its feet again, standing and hooting for an encore. This time Lily cheered.

  Quintin spoke to the conductors and turned to address the crowd. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, the accent to his native Austria pronounced—and for the first time, Lily knew what a sexy voice sounded like.

  ‘This is a new piece I’ve been working on while touring the awesome universities in South Africa. As you all are aware, I’m forbidden from playing on a stage outside of an educational institution, as there are sanctions against South Africa. However, in cooperation between scholars from one university to another, I’d like you to welcome to the stage University of Westville musi
c students and their amazing professor, Mark Weeks.’

  The hair on the back of Lily’s neck stood up. The man had a voice that could tame a rogue lion, it was so deep and smooth, and images of melted chocolate entered her mind.

  A group of Indian and black students walked onto the stage and stood near the centre, their instruments ready. The spotlight highlighted two men with drums sitting to one side with a young black singer.

  ‘Please put your hands together for Taahir Pillay, Victor Mvubu, Nomonde Dlamini and the amazing Slidile Magantolo,’ Quintin announced.

  The crowd gave a polite but muted round of applause. Many people were moving uneasily in their chairs.

  A tall man with a beard and round glasses like John Lennon walked onto the stage and bowed to the audience. The conductor once again signalled on his music stand that they were ready to start and entered into a version of Survivor’s ‘Eye of the Tiger’. While the tune was recognisable, there was an ethnic beat throughout, one that Quintin followed easily on his violin. Slidile Magantolo was a superb singer, her voice powerful and clear, and one that Lily wouldn’t mind listening to again. She delivered the performance with conviction, as if she was fighting for survival and recognition up on the stage. Lily cheered along with the crowd.

  The concert was finished, the after-party was pumping. The multiracial gathering was not legal, but no one seemed to care as the students from both Westville and Durban campuses partied together. The beat of the music from the speakers could be felt outside the door when Lily walked along the path.

  ‘Come on, it’s in the sports centre, in case you couldn’t hear. So glad you decided to join us tonight. It’s so exciting,’ her sister, Rose, said, as Andries, her boyfriend, guided them towards the door and into the gym. Almost instantaneously they were pulled right onto the dance floor, and Lily found herself dancing beside Andries, who gyrated next to the man of the evening himself.

  Maestro Quintin.

  The music flowed through her blood, and she moved with it. Someone passed her a beer in a tall brown bottle, and she passed it on. There was no way she could drink anything when she would be on duty at the emergency room inside of six hours.

  One song led into another, and Lily kept on dancing as the group moved together.

  Suddenly, people started to scream. The sound louder than the music, and the crowd began pushing Lily towards the back.

  Abruptly, the music stopped.

  ‘Raid! Raid! Get out!’ someone shouted. ‘Raid! Raid! Gaan uit! Phuma! Phuma!’

  Lily’s eyes began to burn. Policemen with guns and rubber truncheons flooded out of the mist and clashed with the crowd. Students were screaming, trying to push towards the exit at the back, but there were more police swarming from there; the crowd were effectively sardined between the two groups of armed police.

  Slidile clung to Quintin, begging, ‘Help me, they will hurt us.’

  Lily couldn’t see her sister. ‘Rose? Rose?’ she shouted. But she only heard others yelling and more tears filled her eyes. Through them, she noticed a policeman look around, and then as if seeing only Quintin and Slidile, he pushed through the other people who were near him and raised his truncheon.

  ‘You black bitch!’ he yelled. ‘Get your filthy hands off that white man.’

  Lily saw the blow coming, and Quintin put his arm up to shield Slidile. She had escaped the bludgeon, but the policeman grabbed her by her braided hair.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Quintin protested, trying to pull her from the big man. ‘She hasn’t done anything wrong.’

  The policeman brought his stick down on Quintin’s hands in quick successive blows, hard on the knuckles.

  ‘Stop! Please stop!’ Lily ran towards the policeman, begging. She could see that Quintin couldn’t hold onto Slidile, although he kept trying to, because the flesh had been split on his hands and white bone showed through, before blood began pumping out.

  ‘Oh my God, my hands. My hands!’ Quintin cried, trying to hold them to him.

  ‘No,’ Lily tried again to get the policeman to listen to her. ‘Enough, please, he’s international!’ But the policeman hit him again across his face with the weapon. Blood dripped from Quintin’s nose as he bent over and vomited.

  ‘I’m Austrian!’ Quintin said. ‘I’m Austrian!’

  ‘You can be fucking Arnold Schwarzenegger for all I care; you’re attending a multiracial party. Consorting with blacks. You’re breaking the law here in South Africa.’

  Lily watched as the policeman lifted the baton again to hit Slidile. Quintin ran at the policeman, attempting to unbalance him and push him away from her. But the law-enforcement officer was battle-hardy. He turned the baton on Quintin and smacked him across the temple.

  Quintin crashed to the floor and didn’t move.

  All hell broke loose around Lily as two men piled on top of the policeman.

  ‘Rose!’ she called desperately again, then dropped to her knees in front of the unconscious musician to assess his medical situation.

  Things were a blur until three in the morning, when Lily strode into the back area of the emergency waiting room after driving her car behind the ambulance transporting Rose and Andries. She could feel her heart thumping inside her chest.

  ‘Morning, Dr Church,’ the receptionist, said as the security guard opened the interior door for her when she flashed her identity pass.

  ‘Hi, Robyn. Do you know if they have put my sister in a cubical yet? She was in that ambulance that pulled in about five minutes before me.’

  ‘Number twelve. She said to make sure that I told you.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She passed through the door and walked towards the curtained-off area. The smell so familiar, only this time she knew what it felt like for every single one of her patient’s relatives. This was her worst nightmare: having to confront the ER, knowing that once she’d assessed the situation she would need to call her parents and explain how Rose, her little sister, had got hurt while attending a party with her. Rose might be on the cusp of adulthood, but to her parents, she would always be their baby.

  She opened the curtain.

  Rose was sitting on the chair, wrapped in a blanket. From what Lily could see, she was still relatively unharmed, a few cuts and bruises but mostly in shock. Andries was lying in bed. Monitors beeped next to him, and he had on an oxygen mask and an IV line running into his arm. The paramedics had put bandages across his chest, a clear sign that he’d taken a severe beating. There was a plaster above his swollen, shut eye, obviously covering an awful injury, as dried blood had crusted beneath it. He was lying raised in the bed, normal for a head wound, to help stop the pooling of blood in the eye area. Lily doubted it was going to make a difference; she could see a shiner already.

  Bandages were covering his hands, and another looked like strapping to keep a shoulder in place.

  ‘Oh, thank God, you took forever.’ Rose jumped up and fell into Lily’s arms, sobbing.

  ‘I was right behind you. We couldn’t all fit in the ambulance. I told you I was coming.’

  ‘I was so scared. I’m fine. Really. They said I need to keep calm, but Andries’s not doing so well. Did you see him when he took on one of the policemen after he knocked out Maestro Quintin?’

  ‘I did. I have to admit, I never knew he had it in him,’ Lily said.

  ‘He thought the policeman was going to hit you next, that’s why he went in like he did. We both did.’

  ‘I’m okay. He didn’t do anything to me. I told you already. You need to sit and calm down, or I’ll have you put in a bed. You’re in shock,’ Lily said, trying to soothe her sister.

  ‘No, don’t take me away from Andries.’

  ‘It’s okay; it’s all going to be okay.’ Lily took a deep breath. ‘You frightened me. I’m just glad you’re alright.’

  ‘Andries is hurt bad,’ Rose said. ‘The ambulance attempted to fix him up before we got here, but since they wheeled him into this room, nothing.’

  Li
ly squeezed her sister’s shoulder. ‘It’s only been a few minutes, let me look at his chart.’

  She read the medical details and then looked up at Rose. ‘He’s going to be fine. He’s marked as non-critical. They’ll keep him stable and administer painkillers until the rush of the critical patients is over, then they’ll return and ensure that he has nothing else wrong. They will do a CT scan as is common practice with a head wound like his. This is a good outcome; it could have been so much worse.’

  ‘Did you see what happened with Maestro Quintin? I think he’s dead. I think they killed him. We could see that cop beating him, and you trying to stop him. Andries pushed me under a table at the back and then rushed in to help, so did Nomonde Dlamini. I never saw an Indian fight like that. He was mad as a snake and just hitting that cop over and over and over. He took a few hits from this other boer who initially thought he could bring the two of them down, but Nomonde’s a big guy for an Indian, and the boer backed away, with both him and Andries standing their ground in front of Maestro and you and Slidile. They kept telling those cops they were just protecting them because Maestro was knocked out, and that Maestro was an international varsity visitor.’

  ‘I know, everything’s going to be okay,’ Lily said as she wiped the tears from Rose’s cheeks.

  ‘Did you tell the ambulance who Maestro was? When they came and took him from you?’

  Lily nodded. ‘I did. He was seen quickly. They knew he was an important dignitary, but I turned back to find you and Andries.’

  ‘And Slidile?’

  ‘Nomonde was still waiting with her for an ambulance when they took you away and brought you here.’

  ‘I told them you were a doctor at this hospital, and that you were with other people hurt during the raid. They said that we could come here instead of Addington, where they were taking other people.’

  Lily nodded. ‘Did you see what happened to the policeman that Andries attacked?’