1972 - A Story Like the Wind (49 page)

The warm heart of Amelia was immediately inflamed by such munificence. In consequence, she burst into tears and threw both arms round Ousie-Johanna, hugging her tightly, crying and sobbing out words in Portuguese incomprehensible to either François or Ousie-Johanna, but none the less obvious enough in their intent to reduce Ousie-Johanna to crying as well, all the more ardently because it had never occurred to her undemanding, simple, innocent soul that she could ever have mattered to such a great lady of advanced fashion as Amelia was to her.

It took several of Sir James’s most peremptory orders to separate the two of them and to proclaim that he could on no account be kept waiting any longer.

Even then the tumult was not over. Amelia, catching sight of François standing there looking rather more forlorn than he realized, remembered immediately his own bereavement and threw herself at him, submitting him to the same farewell that she had imposed on Ousie-Johanna, tears streaming down her cheeks as she expressed her gratitude and, according to what he understood from Luciana’s interpretation of her impassioned farewell, imploring him ‘not to let himself be massacred’. She said again and again what a terrible country Africa had become. She did not know what any of them were doing there and she feared that if they stayed there much longer they too would all be massacred…and that it would have been far better if they had all stayed in Europe…

No one of course took her tearful protestations at their face value. But just for a moment this reference brought a fitful memory of Francis’s own recent experience with the ‘men of the spear’ that he and !#grave;Bamuthi had observed on their way to uLangalibalela’s kraal. But he said nothing. It was a clear illustration of the suppression and secrecy which had invaded François’s being. During the days and months to come he would review it often in the silent hours of the night. But he was never able to discuss it openly, with anybody else, not even someone he trusted as much as Mopani.

The speed of departure was now all the greater because Amelia’s ‘hysteria’ as Sir James described it, had provoked him into leaving even sooner than he had intended. François instantly found himself giving assistance in the task of restoring Amelia, inert with misery, to her throne in the front of the caboose. By the time they had accomplished Amelia’s coronation, Sir James was already standing ready to get into his own truck and determined to end any further outbreaks of emotion. As a result his ‘goodbye’ was as brief as it was final. He stood there just long enough to thank François and remark perfunctorily that they would all obviously be seeing one another a great deal in the future. Then he climbed into his seat without as much as a handshake.

In this of course he intended no offence. Perhaps even the reverse was true. It could merely have been Sir James’s English way of indicating that by now he knew François so well that shaking hands was no longer a necessity. But to François, to whom greetings either of hail or farewell were much more than mere greetings, this omission was final confirmation of his fears that the great Sir James did not like him at all. But what depressed him even more was that Sir James, in his determination to ‘get under weigh’ without more delay, had already jammed his daughter in the seat between himself and the driver of his truck.

François was already aware that however dutiful a daughter Luciana might be, fear of her father played no part at all in her behaviour. She seemed singularly free with him and judging from the little of what he could see of her now, her face was vivid with anger. Even as he watched, she seemed to be trying to order her father to let her out but the powerful engines of the convoy of trucks had already been started up and were making such a noise as the drivers warmed them up for the journey that it was impossible to hear any human voices.

Yet it was obvious that Sir James, probably feeling that he had had quite enough of feminine emotionalism for this day, was not going to relent and was signalling to his driver to start. The scene, trivial as it was, suddenly made François angry. For a moment he detested Sir James.

As the truck started off, François jumped on the running board to call out goodbye to Luciana. Hintza jumped with him but the side window had already been shut against the dust. François had just a brief glimpse of her sitting beyond Sir James’s distinguished profile. She was about to sink back into her seat but fortunately François appeared at the window just in time for her to see him. Her expression of despair changed into one of brilliant relief. She called out something to François that he could not hear, waved both her hands at him vigorously, tried to smile as well and then suddenly sat back to cover her face, in her hands, her shoulders trembling as if she were trying not to cry.

By that time the vehicle had gathered speed so fast that even François, holding on to the handle of the door, had to let go and jump down. He was left there watching the truck go, its dust coming down like smoke of burning sulphur over him and Hintza. Dismayed as he was to see Luciana so upset, he had to admit that he was also oddly comforted. Hintza, however, had no access to such sources of comfort for François suddenly heard a whimper. It was such an oddly young and helpless sound, that it made François look away from the receding convoy and down at Hintza. Hintza was not watching the trucks at all. He was looking up at François, with eyes wide open for an explanation. François immediately knelt down, fondled him, and tried to explain the incident in his best and most affectionate Bushman.

That done, he started back to the house. Ousie-Johanna was still on the steps, wiping her eyes with one of their best dining napkins, as if she were still mourning the departure of her guests. François knew that this was not the entire explanation. Her grief would be real enough but there are among the suppressed and rejected peoples of life those who find not only relief but a certain feeling of importance in affliction. Ousie-Johanna was one of those. The reaction on this occasion however was even more complex than he had expected. As François joined her, he found she was mixing a certain healthy anger with her emotions.

Her first remark to him was: ‘If that ‘red-neck’ does not learn to go slowly over the stones, he will soon shatter his blerrie wagon.’ The stones, of course, were symbols for her of all the innumerable difficulties that beset the Africans on their way through life and which have taught them that the highest form of wisdom, indeed, the safest way of going through life, is always ‘to make haste slowly’.

Something of this reservation too was apparent from Fran-fois’s conversations with !#grave;Bamuthi immediately after. As he had not been present at !#grave;Bamuthi’s conference with Sir James, he wanted a detailed account of what had happened. The account began with !#grave;Bamuthi’s explanation of how Sir James had acquired the name of isi-Vuba, the Great Kingfisher. !#grave;Bamuthi said that whereas in the past most of the ‘red strangers’ had come into the interior to shoot game, Sir James, as a young man, seemed to spend all his spare time on his official tours by the Amanzim-tetse, fishing. He was after one of the greatest fighting fish in Africa, the Tiger-fish. As François knew, he said, no Matabele had much interest in fish because it was an accepted fact that eating fish turned a man’s heart to water. Yet Sir James seemed to have no greater delight than spending all his leisure fishing. Soon he was known all over the territory as the Great Kingfisher. This bird was an even more ardent and expert fisher than the fish eagle, for it lived right by the edge of the waters in which it fished, making its nests in tunnels dug deep with its long beak into the sides of the river banks. Like it, Sir James camped always close by the water. Like it, he too had powerful medicine to keep his heart from turning to water, for no one could ever have accused him of lack of courage. Yet Sir James had another name too. Of course he, !#grave;Bamuthi, had not mentioned it, out of politeness, because he was not certain that Sir James knew of it. He was known more intimately as
uMetal-Disku
.

Franjois had never encountered this word in Sindabele before and was compelled to exclaim: ‘
uMetal-Disku!
What sort of a word is that, Old Father?’

!#grave;Bamuthi explained that up to the time of Sir James’s coming, a great deal of injustice had been caused by the official system of tax collection, entrusted in those days to the police who, as !#grave;Bamuthi recollected with scorn, were so stupid that they could not tell one Matabele face from another. Since the Matabele could not write or sign their names the police made the same man pay his tax not only twice but even three times over.

When Sir James heard of this, and as a newcomer knowing himself incapable of telling the Matabele apart, yet anxious to abolish injustice, he had introduced a system whereby every male person of tax-paying age was provided with a metal disc with a number stamped on it and a chain for him to wear around his neck, so that no mistake of identity could be made in future. As a result, he became known far and wide as
uMetal-Disku
, that is, Metal-Disc Esquire.

‘But surely, Old Father, there could have been no offence in reminding Sir James of that matter?’ François exclaimed.

!#grave;Bamuthi gave him a look of pity before he remarked, ‘But surely, Little Feather, you must know that isi-Vuba’s system failed. As fast as he persuaded the Government to give the people metal discs and chains they were used for barter with the ignorant tribes across the river where metal was scarce. Then if not used for barter, since they were so beautiful they were beaten into ornaments for women. So another system of collecting taxes had to be invented. How could I have reminded isi-Vuba of such a failure when all the time he was trying to help?’

!#grave;Bamuthi’s story was important to François because, still smarting as he was over the events of the morning, it brought him back to a realization that however much he and Sir James may have failed to understand each other, he must be a person of considerable qualities if people like !#grave;Bamuthi judged that he had redeemed all his mistakes through the concern for decency and fairness which had inspired them. He would return when Lammie was home again so that he could have her permission to enlist !#grave;Bamuthi’s cooperation. But already he had told !#grave;Bamuthi enough of his plans to make François realize that although the new establishment basically would be the same as Hunter’s Drift, its system of employment would vary. At Hunter’s Drift all were partners. At Sir James’s place, for which they had as yet heard no name (and this troubled !#grave;Bamuthi because there was magic in a name), they would be workers and paid regular wages. The wages, !#grave;Bamuthi had gathered, would be good but determined entirely by how well the individual persons worked for him.

‘D’you think then, Old Father,’ François asked, ‘that it will be difficult to get people from Osebeni to work for Sir James in this way?’

!#grave;Bamuthi’s answer was that life was changing so fast that many of the younger people now would prefer to work directly for money and feel themselves free to come and go as they liked and not as at Hunter’s Drift, feel themselves to be members of the family.

François asked, ‘D’you think that isi-Vuba is wrong, then?’

!#grave;Bamuthi hastened to declare that he thought nothing of the sort. He merely took it as a sign of the times in which things were beginning to change faster than he liked. He could tell François such things about the new young men, even among his own sons by his first wife, at Osebeni, that would make François weep. But as far as Sir James was concerned he said firmly: ‘Have no doubt, Little Feather, isi-Vuba will be a good master. But will he be a father to his people as the Great White Bird was a father to us?’

Now that the old routine had to be resumed at Hunter’s Drift, François made a determined effort to resume the daily round of two hours of study prescribed by Ouwa. He found it difficult if not impossible, because he could not switch his imagination from all the things that had crowded in on him so fast and so deeply in recent days. He was not disappointed, therefore, when within half an hour of trying to study, he was interrupted with the news that the rest of Sir James’s convoy had arrived.

François hurried out to meet the Cape-coloured wagoners, their wives and children. The sight of the ample homestead, the atmosphere of civilization and security which seemed to surround it, had done a great deal to restore their natural optimism, but it was obvious to François that they had had some trying hours behind them.

This immediately became clear when the leader of the train approached François with the utmost goodwill to thank him for choosing so good a camping site for them for the night. He was certain that if they had not camped there, they would not have come through the night alive. In the vivid, melodramatic way of Cape-coloured people, who are born story-tellers, he described how all the lions and ‘tigers’ (their word for leopards) appeared to have been mobilized for war on them during the night. They had spent a sleepless night keeping large fires alight, as one lion or ‘tiger’ after the other appeared with eyes as large as ‘soup-tureens’ and green with ‘cannibal light’ on the fringes of the bush round their camp. Big as the fires were, he was certain that if it had not been for the rifle François had lent him they would have all been devoured, for he had had to shoot at those ‘terrible eyes’ so often that, even though François had left some fifty rounds of ammunition with him he did not have a single round left! The wagon master had hardly finished his general account when the rest of the party crowded round, each person with a lion or ‘tiger’ story of his own.

Finally François had to break off the clamour by telling them that they would have to outspan immediately if they were to give their oxen a proper rest, because they still had a long journey to safety in Sir James’s camp before nightfall. Another night in the bush clearly was the last thing they wanted and they hastened to outspan, water and feed their oxen.

Meanwhile, François got the gardeners to deliver to the wagon master the fruits from the garden intended for Sir James. That done, he sent them back to gather a similar supply for each of the wagons in the train. The tired, desperate and rather emaciated look on the faces of the women, children and men (so unlike those of the people at Hunter’s Drift) upset him a great deal. He got Ousie-Johanna and her staff to make hot coffee by the bucket and sent it down to the convoy with ample supplies of rusks. One of his Matabele men was told to cut up half an ox that had been slaughtered for their own supplies a few days before and was now hanging up in the coolest of their outhouses. This meat he distributed equally among the wagons.