Cry of the Firebird
Page 8
‘I cannot guarantee that, but know that the likelihood of anything being found in your garage, be it plant or oil medication, is very slim.’
‘Until I find out more about Ian’s research, I do want to continue having the plants, be it to prove or disprove him,’ Lily said.
‘You know my views on those plants,’ Quintin said. ‘I still believe they should be destroyed, but if you think they’re important, and Policeman Piet here says there is little to almost no chance of being raided, then we keep them for as long as you want them here. This is your project.’
She smiled at her husband. It was unlike him to give in so easily.
‘Lily, as the new doctor, you need to learn the ways of the medicine man, and all the secrets of the San. Ian was writing them down in a book. It is not good for my ego to admit, but he was better at putting pictures into the document on his computer than I am. The information is important to pass on and to keep safe because the next generation has so much HIV, I worry that soon there will be no one left to carry on the traditions. Not verbally anyway. Already I have lost two apprentices, both to AIDS. Ian suggested that perhaps if I document our medicines in a book, then it will still be here when I am gone, and when the plague of HIV has been beaten by modern drugs, then if there are any San left who are interested, they can learn to read about their cultural medicine in plants and treat with the old ways once again.’
‘That’s very sad,’ said Lily.
‘Sad is the fact that they stole his computer when they broke in here, and our book along with it,’ Piet said. ‘I did not even have a printed copy as we were still busy compiling it.’
‘Bessie and Lincoln told us about the break-in,’ Quintin said.
‘They didn’t say anything about your book. Perhaps it could still come to light. Did you look on the practice’s computer?’ Lily asked.
‘Nee. Mrs Kilborne, the manager, said that his work computer was only used for work, and she said she checked it. We did not have any reason to push her further and have a look ourselves. There was no break-in at his office, so there was no need at that stage. As far as I know, the book was on his laptop, and here on his home desktop,’ said Piet.
‘I’m not a computer expert, but I’m happy to dig around a little when I get to work. You never know, she could have missed it,’ Lily said.
‘On Mondays, he used to come to his outreach clinic at Platfontein,’ Piet explained.
‘I’ll keep that in mind. I’m taking over his office, so I assume his old computer will still be there and his electronic diary, and I’ll try to fit in everyone as best I can.’
‘That would be great, thank you. It would be sad to have totally lost the whole thing. Ian carried his laptop everywhere. But you know what it is like here—people have so many ways of getting rid of stolen things and not being detected. I would say it has probably been wiped, and is in use again by someone who bought it on the street within a day of it being stolen.’
Bessie walked into the room with a loaded tea tray.
‘Yabonga, Bessie,’ Piet said as he took both the mug and plate that she offered him.
But when Bessie moved out of the way, Lily noted that Piet’s tea was served in an enamel cup, much like the servants had been when she was a child, and instead of just biscuits on his plate, Bessie had made a big sandwich with peanut butter and what looked like syrup dripping out of it. The bread was cut like doorstops, and it brought back so many memories flooding through her head of times gone by, when she had seen the gardener in her childhood home in Johannesburg get sandwiches just like this with a big mug of tea.
It made her depressed that some things had not changed. She made a mental note to ask Bessie to give him a china cup next time. Medicine man or policeman, he deserved to be treated like an equal. Feeding him as if he was considered below the standard and not allowed to use the same china and mugs in the house as them was not acceptable to her. Although she had grown up simply accepting this as normal, she’d learned better in her travels. But to say something to Bessie in front of Piet would be embarrassing and disrespectful to both of them, so she held her tongue. It would be addressed, and the equality readjusted, but not right then.
‘Thank you,’ Lily said, taking her tea and a plate with a homemade biscuit on it. Bessie nodded and walked out of the room. Lily knew she was frowning and had to make a conscious effort to smooth it away when she looked back to Piet. ‘Did you ask Bessie if she knew where the laptop was? After the break-in?’
‘Of course. His laptop, desktop, his camera, all his files were pulled from his shelves and taken. In all my years as a policeman, I have not seen anything like how they methodically packed up his study, then trashed every upholstered surface, as if looking for something else. I am sad that it happened, but personally, I am devastated that our book is gone.’
Lily could see he hadn’t finished speaking, so she remained quiet, waiting for him to feel comfortable enough to continue their conversation.
‘We had photographs of many plants for the book. I have copies of some, but not all of them. Ian had scanned them into his computer. We had a lot of the text to tell people how to grow them, harvest and use the sap and the fibres for medicines. This bush I have brought for you today, for the garden, is one of those that needs to go in the book. It is not commonly found in this area. It grows further north of here, and on the fringe of the desert.’
‘Interesting,’ Lily said.
‘I guess I am hoping that you will consider working with me on the book, even if we have to start again.’
‘I would be honoured, but there are so many loose ends. So much of Ian’s life that I’m still finding out about, to put all the pieces of the puzzle together as to what he was doing here, not only with his HIV research, but also the alternative medicines … and your book …’
‘I know. Sometimes it takes a while for people to settle in,’ Piet said, but his voice petered out as if he had so much more to say but had decided against it.
Lily didn’t miss the reluctance. ‘You sound like there is more to that statement than just me trying to muddle through Ian’s affairs.’
‘Do not get me started. But my mind was on all the years it took for the South African Government to give us San a home after we served during the border war to fight for it. Like I said, sometimes it takes a while.’
‘How did you come to be living in Kimberley? I thought the San were from further west,’ Lily asked.
‘Once, I was a Crow—thirty-first Battalion. I fought for the apartheid government against the insurgents from Angola and South West Africa. And yet that same government left my family, my tribe, in limbo, homeless for over twenty years before they granted us land on the outskirts of Kimberley. Before that, we were a people displaced. Kept away from our beloved Kalahari by new laws, and kilometres of farmland between us. We have Platfontein now. After many, many years of living in tents and on handouts, we finally have a place to call home.’
‘That’s good, at least now you have a home,’ Quintin said.
‘Yes, and yet, it is different,’ Piet admitted. ‘As a people, we can be together again, but time has changed a lot. I was one of the lucky ones. I was allowed to continue in the government’s employment as a policeman because of my tracking skills, but many were not so fortunate. They had to live off handouts, with no prospects of jobs. We were not trained for anything but living on the land then.’
Lily was shocked but fascinated that Piet was so open about the deplorable situation that the San had found themselves in.
‘We were once hunters and gatherers, now we own our land. It is a big responsibility, and my people have many challenges to face and many lessons to learn. We are now becoming farmers. It is very hard, especially those who remember being able to walk the country freely.’
‘Understandable,’ Quintin said.
Piet sipped his tea and ate his sandwich. When he was done he placed them on the coffee table. ‘I always feel like I am clutte
ring up such a perfect surface when I put the dishes here, but Bessie would skin me alive if I was to take them into the kitchen like I should.’
Lily burst out laughing. ‘I take it you don’t cross into Bessie’s domestic domain often, then?’
‘Would you? If I anger her, she might spit in my tea.’
Lily shook her head, not even trying to mask a smile at the image he’d drawn. ‘Seriously?’
‘Nee, she would not, she is too nice for that,’ Piet said.
‘Come on, I bet you are dying to get that to Lincoln in the garage,’ Lily said, moving Tiger so she could stand up. ‘I’m more worried about leaving marks on the furniture,’ she muttered to herself as she placed her cup on the table. ‘What was he thinking decorating like this? It’s as if all the furniture belongs in a museum, not in a home.’
‘It did not always look like this. Only in the last year or so, he had a decorator come in and make it all fancy. If you were wondering if it was to impress a lady friend, he never had one that I am aware of, and if he did, she did not come to his funeral.’
CHAPTER
10
Quintin opened the outside door of the triple garage and said in a loud voice, ‘Lincoln, I brought a visitor.’
‘Dumelang,’ Lincoln called back.
Lily, Quintin and Piet followed his voice.
Piet gifted Lincoln with a grin. ‘Hello to you, too. It is good to see you again.’ They shook hands in an intricate way, as if they both belonged to a secret fraternity.
‘Piet brought a new plant,’ Quintin said.
Piet pulled it out of his satchel. ‘It does not look like much now, but this is a mongongo nut tree. I have waited a very long time for someone to bring me one of these, and it looks like this one might have survived its long trip here.’
‘What do you treat with it?’ Lily asked.
‘Hunger. This is not a medicine plant totally; this is a San community’s staple diet in the Kalahari. It is referred to as the manketti nut in some places. I have been trying to get my hands on one of these and keep it alive for a few years.’
‘A food source?’ Quintin asked.
‘Ja, very high in fat and protein. It can be used traditionally to clean and moisten the skin, like a body rub. And, importantly, this tree is also what we use for our Nyae Nyae, the soft-wood sticks used for making a fire. Not the case with this next one, the humble suurpruim. While you can eat it, the medicinal value is huge. The roots treat stomach pains, abscesses, colic, coughs, and some have even had success treating malaria and bilharzia. I have not treated either with it, so I cannot say for sure, but the leaves can help eye infections and sore throats. There are two varieties. This one with the hairy leaf is the one that is indigenous to the eastern cape. There is another, but it is different.’
‘In Zulu, your plant is called umThunduluka-obomvu or amatu nduluka,’ Lincoln said.
‘There you go, already we have three names for it,’ Piet said with a smile.
Lincoln potted it in a large bag, and soon both plants were watered and safe on a shelf. ‘Now they will be nice and warm and can settle in their soil,’ Lincoln said. ‘When they are ready I’ll take them outside, but not till after winter is finished and there is no more frost.’
Quintin nodded. ‘You want to tell me more about the other plants in here? I’m particularly interested in the plants that are also food. When we were in Zam Zam, which is a refugee camp in the Sudan, there was an NGO there that was trying to grow the moringa trees with the refugees. Apparently, they are like a superfood, and according to them they could help world hunger if used right.’
‘We have some of those, by the dam,’ Lincoln said.
Slowly, they all walked up and down the lines, Piet and Lincoln explaining which of the orchids weren’t native to the area. Which of the plants were there for medicinal value, and which for food.
‘Many of these saplings that Lincoln has grown here from seeds or cuttings we will take and plant out at Platfontein when they are big enough. The property needs trees, and if you give a household a tree next to their ikhaya, they are charged with looking after it. That way, there will always be the food and the medicine plants available to my people,’ Piet explained. ‘We all brought many seeds with them when they left their home in the north, many grew in Platfontein but many also failed. We even have a few baobab trees being nurtured in backyards.’
‘I had no idea,’ Lily said.
The overhead lights were on, as was the humidifier, and despite the cold outside, Quintin had stripped off his jumper. Turning around, Lily noticed that he was assessing the room critically.
‘What’s up?’ she asked.
‘Ian had insulated the walls and put in shelving, but they are all movable. The lighting is all on cables, attached to the shelving, not all overhead, not part of the structure.’
‘So?’ Lily asked.
‘It looks like he did it himself rather than getting an electrician in to do it—an interesting choice for a DIY job. One that can easily be moved. I still think that this triple garage would make an amazing studio for six months, or perhaps longer if it takes more time for you to find what’s causing the meningitis cases. I’d still like to be able to work right here at home. It’d be safer for us if I wasn’t leaving you alone in the middle of the night to go to some studio.’
She grinned. She knew that her husband loved her unconditionally, and although he didn’t understand most of her work—and had often expressed that he didn’t know how she did what she did—he knew that she was really good at it. They’d discussed it many times, and it always came back to the same answer: she needed to make a difference by helping people in need.
He got that.
She didn’t mind that Quintin earned more than her by millions. It was never about the money with him, for her, it was always about the consideration he had shown for others, and she loved him for that.
Quintin’s babbling drew her back to the present. The pace of his words always sped up when he got excited about a project. ‘This space is just perfect, Lily, but while I want to convert it, we can’t just have all these plants out in the cold. We’ll need to move them. Let’s get a purpose-built hothouse for them on the property.’
Lincoln and Piet were both nodding vigorously.
‘If we build them a greenhouse outside and move all the plants, we could convert the garages into my studio, and we can all be happy. Doctors, musicians, medicine men and gardeners,’ Quintin said.
‘Yebo,’ said Lincoln.
‘Ja,’ Piet said at the same time.
Lily smiled. Sometimes having the money to just do what you wanted to do had its advantages.
‘That’s settled, then,’ Quintin said.
‘When are you going to get it?’ Piet asked.
‘As soon as I can find out where to order one,’ Quintin said.
‘Is it alright with you if I stay here for a while? Ian used to let me stay in the barn with the horses. I have a few days off, and Lincoln and I need to do some work on the winter garden.’
Lily looked at Lincoln, a frown on her face.
He nodded. ‘Truly, Klein-Piet comes and goes. He helps keep the plants in top shape. He is here whenever he has time, like a guest but not. A member of the family.’
‘A member of the family who sleeps with the horses? I will not accept!’ Lily objected. ‘What was Ian thinking?’
‘Please do not misread this, Lily. The stables are my choice. I do not get to spend enough time in the open spaces anymore. After we moved from the Kalahari to South Africa, things took a different turn and everything in my life changed. For me, it is a way to be who I am inside. To ground myself with nature, without being in the bush. Ian was a lot of things that many people did not approve of, but being inhospitable to me was not one of his faults. He accepted that I needed my own space, a place to breathe, and he respected that. He enabled me to have it without judgement. He was like family, the type that do not try to change who
you are.’
‘I’m confused. You rang the bell today. Bessie let you in with the intercom,’ Lily said. ‘Surely a member of his family would have been given an access code?’
‘Ja. Except that the alarm system is still very new, added after Ian’s death. I could have just crawled through the gap in the fence and used the manual override to open them to let my bakkie through.’
‘Mmm,’ Quintin said. He glanced at Lily, who shrugged her shoulders. ‘You can stay, but when the security-fence contractors arrive on Monday, you had best show them that hole. I want it fixed,’ Quintin said sternly. ‘I need to make this property safer for Lily. I don’t want her killed like her predecessor.’
‘And not in the stables,’ Lily added. ‘If you won’t stay in the main house as a guest, then there’s a perfectly good second cottage I would prefer you use. It even has a verandah, and we can move a bed there so you can sleep outside, if it’s that important to you. I’m sure that between us all we can move furniture into it and get that habitable in no time. Ian might have been okay with you sleeping with the horses, but I’m not. I’m so not.’
Piet smiled. ‘I already have a key for the cottage, not that it was ever locked before, but just because I chose to sleep in the stables, does not mean that I smelled like a horse all day. There is good hot-water pressure in that cottage.’
Lily shook her head. The man was a puzzle to her.
CHAPTER
11
A week later on the first Monday in August, Lily walked towards the entrance into the Amity Health Clinic, at six forty-five, dressed in her favourite jeans, her lucky shirt and a warm jumper. Her feet were snug in socks and her Ugg boots.
The armed security guard opened the door for her. As she strode into the building that would become her office for the next six months, he said, ‘Good morning, Dr Winters.’
‘Good morning, and thank you, Michael,’ she said, reading his name tag. And was saddened when she realised how fast she’d readjusted to the idea of having a full-time armed security man outside her office.