Bumi

by Linda Ihle

  17.

  They chose their respective forks as close to the top of the tree as possible and settled in for the night. Again, Devin tied herself in, the AK-47 leaning against one of the rough, upward-sweeping limbs, close at hand. She shivered in the cooling night air and listened to the sounds of the bush gathering volume and cadence as the darkness swept across the veldt. Across from her, Angela sat tense and shivering, her eyes wide. “It’s very scary,” she commented quietly. “Don’t you get frightened?”

  Devin shrugged. “Oh, ja, but, I dunno, I’ve spent so much time in the bush, I tend not to notice things you might. But it would be stupid not to be frightened, hey. Hell, I don’t know how you made it this long! What did you eat?”

  “I took some cookies from my backpack and a small canteen of water when I left the plane, but I finished both of them yesterday afternoon and I just threw the canteen away. It was useless to me without the water in it, and I couldn’t find water.”

  “What are you doing here anyway?” Devin asked. “I reckon you must come from America?”

  “Yes, I come from a town called Bradenton - that’s in Florida. I was attending UCF and I came here to observe the struggle. I....”

  “The struggle?” Devin prodded, provoking as was her wont.

  “Yes, the struggle for freedom from oppression.”

  “I take it you’re a PoliSci major, then?”

  “PoliSci?”

  “Political Science.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then,” Devin said quietly, watching the woman’s eyes, “have you seen enough yet? How do you rate the freedom fighters?”

  Angela bristled. “What I saw next to the plane was an aberration,” she hissed.

  “No, what you saw is an everyday occurrence, on both sides. This is the second time they’ve gone after survivors! That’s what the pilot was trying to tell you. War is hell. Turns most reasonable people into savages.” Devin shrugged and pulled a half-smoked cigarette out of the pack and lit it. “What do you propose to do with or about your observations?”

  “Do?”

  “Ja, what are you going to do with your findings?”

  “I will include the situation in my thesis when I get home.”

  Devin said nothing.

  “You can think whatever you want to,” Angela cried, “I am here for a purpose.” She shifted to turn her side to Devin. “And, anyway, why did you help me if you’re so much against blacks?”

  “I’m the farthest thing from a racist you’ll ever lay eyes on,” Devin retorted. “Have you been to Tanganyika, um, excuse me, Tanzania?”

  “No.”

  “How about Central Africa? Congo? Mozambique? Malawi? Zambia?”

  “No, just here. Why?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t really matter unless you were there for some time before their struggles, and then afterwards. You would see that you have an arsehole president and his flunky Andrew Young who are driven by completely different ideals and who think they’re doing the right thing, or at least tell people that that’s what they’re doing, even though the truth has been thrown in their faces over and over again. If you interfere here, you will be contributing to the development of another dictatorship, another damn President for Life, another begging-bowl, failed African state, then you’ll walk away and say, ‘Oooh, didn’t we do a good thing there?’ and leave the people who have to live here to sort out the mess. If they can. This is no damn Vietnam, you know!” Colour rose in her face as she finished and she could feel her blood pressure starting to go the same way. She took a deep breath and blew it slowly out, calming, calming.

  Angela burst into tears. Devin stared at her. What did I say? “Sorry?” Devin ventured.

  Angela composed herself, wiping her eyes and nose on the sleeve of her blouse. “My husband was killed in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam before the fall of Saigon in 1975.” She stared out at nothing.

  “Husband? Wow, sorry. I didn’t think you were old enough to be married.”

  “I was married right out of high school. My husband was on his third tour of duty and was killed just months before Saigon fell.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “Never mind. That wasn’t the worst of it or maybe it was.” She shrugged. “I was pregnant when I got the news, right at my baby’s due date, but our son was stillborn.”

  “Jeez! Shame, I am sorry. What a shitty, stupid war to get involved in. So much loss of life in the war and then afterwards with so many soldiers going home, addicted or with minds scrambled by the horror of it all, and then being spat on by those they were supposed to be protecting, who knows from what.”

  “I am changing the subject now. I don’t understand you, Devin! You say you’re not racist, but you’re supporting a whites-only government? They won’t even let the black people vote.”

  “I don’t support any government, black or white, fascist or democrat. To do that you’d have to buy into the lies of the politicians. And in no way have I ever or will I ever support Smith. He’s a fool, but very adept at perpetuating the myth of no black majority rule ‘not in a thousand years’ nonsense. And that’s just what his followers want to hear. And then he meets secretly with Joshua Nkomo! It really is beyond belief. I mean have you had the opportunity to see the heavily redacted front pages of the Rhodesia Herald? Unbelievable. Good old P.K. Suitable name for the minister of mis-information. How sad!”

  “P.K.?”

  “P.K. van der Byl - PK is short for a long drop, bog, toilet, what you will. A shithouse as my father would call it, much to my mother’s chagrin.”

  “Well, what’s the solution here?” Angela asked, frustrated.

  “You tell me. The Americans and the British come here with a preconceived understanding of what’s really going on. They think they can fix it with their conventional political processes. You can’t. This is Africa. Can you fix it?”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “I don’t know how either,” Devin admitted. “I was born here, I was born white, third-generation African. The colour of my skin was not of my choosing; neither was my birth. Can you help the colour of your skin?” Angela shook her head. “My parents support Ian Smith, his racist intransigence, and everything else he stands for. I have tried to be different from them, less condescending, more accepting of all the people I deal with, but it’s almost like it’s ingrained, you know, in nearly everyone else?”

  Angela nodded.

  “I mean, when you’re ten years old or whatever, how do you tell your father that the way he talks to the mu…blacks just doesn’t seem right; that it makes you unhappy, and nervous?” Devin stared down at her filthy, tattered feet. “And then you get older and you start to understand things more and you become even more uncomfortable with the way things are and you start to voice your feelings. Hell, in South Africa they arrest you for that – impure political thoughts.” She laughed bitterly. “Here they just call you a Commie or a kaffir-lover and pretend you never really existed.” Angela recoiled at that word, but said nothing.

  “My philosophy and politics are simple:” Devin said, “first, you have to be delusional to expect a good outcome when you treat people like they do here, and especially in South Africa; and, second: if you do expect largesse and forgiveness and kow-towing after you have denied people the right to vote because of their skin colour, denied them a proper education, running water and proper sewerage systems, and separated them from the ruling class, because of their skin colour, because of their religion or lack thereof, then you’re a bloody fool and you will reap the whirlwind.” She sighed. “But look, you’re well aware of Bloody Sunday, right?” Angela nodded. Do you remember when that happened?”

  “March 1965.”

  “I am sure you’re well aware of the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa then?”

  Angela nodded.

  “That occurred 5 years before Selma. So what we have is what appears to be an extraordinary double standard, hypocrisy in fact,
in respect to America attempting to export its version of democracy into Southern Africa when American blacks have to march and die to be accorded the same civil and human rights as whites.”

  Devin shook her head and fell silent, listening to the chatter of hyenas and the booming roar of lions. She had finished her half cigarette, smoked all the way to the orange filter, and dropped it into the dying fire. Now she leaned back into the trunk and closed her eyes.

  Angela flinched as her uterus cramped, pushing out more hot blood, then raised her thighs against her chest and pulled her shirt over her legs and put her forehead on her knees. She was thoroughly confused. She refused to admit out loud that what she had seen at the crash site had undermined her perception of the freedom fighters, but the scene lurked there in her memory and she knew then that she would never forget it, nor the effect it had had on her belief system. And what about this strange white woman? Here she was, running about the bush in her underwear, barefoot, and espousing political beliefs that made her sound like a liberal socialist; but this woman was her lifeline and she had to hold on, no matter what their differences.

  A scraping sound at the bottom of the tree drew her attention and she looked up quickly to find Devin holding with one hand to the limb where she had tied herself, the AK-47 resting in her lap, as she leaned over to peer downward. Devin caught her eye and raised her finger to her lips. Angela nodded, her eyes as wide as saucers, her bowels now cramping as fear assailed her. Devin stared downward, trying to focus on what had made its way under or over the thorns and now seemed to be trying to climb the tree. She had heard its approach through the grass, but it had come from the south, behind the fat trunk of the old fig and she had been unable to get into a position where she might be able to see and identify it. Its progress, furthermore, had been far from stealthy, which was a relief. As she stared downward, her eyes watering from the strain, a small round shape approached the fire, which briefly illuminated it. Devin smiled. A stupid old warthog! She wished, again, that she had a knife, but nevertheless, determined there and then that she would kill it anyway and dump it into the fire to burn off its tough hide. Then she thought, no, that would require more kindling. What the hell! She raised the AK-47, aimed downward at the back of the hog’s neck, and squeezed the trigger.

  Angela screamed as the rifle clattered, joined by the warthog which emitted a high-pitched squeal, grunted, tried to run, and fell face-first into the dwindling flames. Devin quickly reattached the strap to the rifle, slung it over her shoulder and climbed down going via the back of the tree where the geologic bowl was beginning its rise, giving her less of a fall area. She took some of the thorny branches and stacked them over the fire then tried to lift the animal onto the pyre. It was too heavy. “Come down here and help me,” she hissed.

  Angela picked her way down carefully, the soles of her sneakers slipping on the slick bark. She swung down next to Devin and stared down at the warthog. “You want me to touch that thing?” she asked.

  “Uh huh. Just lift it by its back legs and I’ll take the front, and hoist it on top of the branches here.”

  Angela stared at her, gauged that she was serious, remembered her promise to do as she was told and leaned over, gingerly taking the spindly hind legs of the warthog in her hands. Devin leaned over and grabbed the front legs and they lifted it, twisted it like a sheet, and placed it gently belly down atop the now smoking branches. “Good, thanks,” Devin said, wiping her hands on the back of her underwear. “Now, let’s just hope the fire doesn’t go out.” She climbed back up to her perch, followed closely by Angela.

  Once settled in again, Angela asked, “What if someone heard the shots?”

  “That’s a chance we have to take. We have to eat,” Devin muttered. She stared down at the fire, hearing the crackling of the flames licking at the tough, sharp hairs on the warthog’s hide. “All I hope is that it cooks enough for us to be able to peel the hide away. Otherwise I just wasted a life and three rounds.” As the aroma of the cooking pig drifted upward borne on thick plumes of smoke, Devin closed her eyes and began to doze. Angela watched her for a while, her ears pricked to catch the sound of approaching soldiers, while she tried as hard as she could not to liken the odor of roasting pig flesh to that of the little girl carelessly, casually tossed into the fire. Soon, though, her eyes began to close and her head lolled and she too was asleep.

  They both woke with a start when the pyre collapsed into the coals carrying the warthog with it, then slept again. The fire burned on through the night, fed by the fat dripping now through holes burned in the animal’s hide. As dawn approached and the air grew even cooler, Devin woke just in time to hear the cough of a leopard, very close by. She sat perfectly still listening and watching. The coals below flared occasionally as fat dripped onto them, but no other light was available. She reached out slowly and gripped the rifle, bringing it back to rest in her lap, then one by one stretched her legs and arms to eliminate the waking stiffness. She leaned over and tapped Angela gently on the shoulder.

  Angela lifted her head slowly to find Devin staring at her. Devin signaled her to be quiet, and pointed downward. Angela looked down, saw nothing, and looked back at Devin, frowning quizzically. Devin pointed to her ears, signaling, “Listen!” Angela nodded and continued to peer downward. As she did, the coughing grunt came again, this time right below the tree. Devin stiffened. A large, young male leopard approached the fire. Devin stifled a gasp. He was beautiful! He crouched close to the edge of the fire, then peered around. Not once did he look up, which surprised her, but the aroma emanating from the fire was probably so enticing, he had thrown caution to the winds.

  As they watched, the leopard tentatively extended a paw and swiped at the remains of the head of the warthog. Retracting his paw, he licked it, grunted, then rose leisurely and leaned down to sniff at the cooking hog. The women watched him as he seemed to ponder the dilemma -- leave it or eat and burn himself. He took the latter course, growling as he snatched at the head again, trying to haul the cooking carcass from the coals. He dropped it quickly butt-end in the coals, then lay back and watched it.

  He’s waiting for it to cool! Devin thought. What a clever kitty! She gazed in awe at the magnificent beast as it lay there, front paws outstretched, licking and soothing its singed chops, tail flipping, thumping on the ground behind it.

  After several minutes, the leopard tried again, taking the hog’s head in its jaws and tugging. A wet tearing sound floated up to the women as the hog’s head separated from its upper thoracic area. This caused more fat to drizzle onto the coals and they flared again. The big cat backed away, lay down again, eyes on its prize. Impatient, as most cats are, it flipped out a paw, hooked an eye socket, and began dragging the carcass from the fire. Devin glanced at Angela. The woman’s face was yellow-grey, her eyes wide and glossy with tears.

  She returned her attention to the leopard. The carcass seemed to be hung up on an impediment of some kind, possibly a green branch in the periphery of the coals. The cat rose, his haunches taut, his front legs bent, and pulled. The head tore away carrying with it a sizzling cape of hide and bone. The cat dropped it and sat looking down at it, then grunted, picked it up and carried it off into the grass and scrub north of the tree. They watched as the leopard, trailing the grisly cape, made his way up the side of the valley, his muscles rippling under the coat glistening in the yellow light of the early dawn, watched him as he vanished in a sea of gold and black.

  Devin rose quickly and climbed down the tree. She scanned the area for a tough stick, found one and used it to push the remainder of the hog back into the coals. Her mouth watered as she did. Damn, it smells delicious! That done, she glanced about, checking the perimeter, before making her way to the edge of the bowl where she squatted and urinated. That done, she hurried back to the tree and peered up. Angela remained where she had left her, shivering with cold and fright.

  “It’s OK for now,” Devin assured her. “Come down. I’ll keep watch.”r />
  Angela rose reluctantly and slipped and slid down to the lowest branch, almost losing her footing, then squatted, grasped the branch and swung down, dropping to the ground. Devin noted that a fine trail of blood had begun to creep down the inside of the woman’s thighs. “Better go change,” she said, indicating the leak. Angela said nothing, merely nodded, and headed for the lip of the bowl. “Don’t go too far, hey,” Devin cautioned her. “He’s still around.”

  Angela, her mouth agape, twisted quickly looking back at Devin. She stopped right where she was and removed her shorts, bra/sanitary belt, and underwear, and squatted and peed. As she did, she emptied the blood-sodden, claylike soil from the sock, then filled it again. With that in place and her shorts back on, she made her way back to the fire. She squatted there, stretching her hands out to the warmth. “Is it coming back?” she asked finally, her voice quivering.