City of Golden Shadow (39 page)

"On their way back they came across a jeep. They had heard of such things but had never seen one before, and at first they were reluctant to go near it. But the men in it-three black men and one white, all tall, all dressed in city-clothes-were clearly in danger. They had the look of people who would die soon if they did not get water, so my father and his nephew went to them and helped them.

"These men were desert scientists from one of the universities-I would guess that they were geologists searching for oil or something else of value to city-people. Their jeep had been struck by lightning, so that both engine and radio were useless. Without help they would doubtless have died. My father and his nephew led them to the outskirts of the desert, to a small trading village. This they would not have dared to do, except that my father remembered he had left the desert once before without harm. My father planned to take them to the edge of the town and send them on their way, but as they all walked-very slowly, since that was as fast as the city-folk could go-another jeep came. This one belonged to government rangers, and although they used their radio to summon help for the men my father had rescued, they also arrested my father and his nephew for having killed a hartebeest. The hartebeest, you see, is protected by the government. The Bushman is not"

The uncharacteristic bitterness in his words made Renie flinch. "They arrested them? After they'd just saved those men? That's horrible!"

!Xabbu nodded. "The scientists argued against it, but the rangers were the kind of men who fear that they will get in trouble if they are seen to let some small thing pass, so they arrested my father and his relative and took them away. Just like that. They even took the hartebeest as evidence. By the time my father and his nephew reached the town, it was a rotting carcass unfit to eat and was thrown away.

"The scientists were so ashamed that they borrowed another vehicle and went to tell my father's people what had happened. They did not find them, but they found another group of Bushmen, and soon my mother and the rest of the family heard what had happened.

"My mother, who if she had not lived in the city-world at least knew something of it, determined that she would go and argue with the government, which she thought of as a wise man with a white beard in a big village, and tell them they must let my father go. Although the rest of the family warned her not to do it, she took me and set out for the town.

"But, of course, my father had already been sent on to the city, far away, and by the time my mother could make her way there, he had already been convicted and sentenced for poaching. Both he and my cousin were put in prison, caged with men who had committed terrible crimes, who had shot their own families dead, had tortured and killed children or old people.

"Every day my mother went to beg for my father's freedom, taking me with her, and every day she was driven away from the court, and later the prison, with harsh words and blows. She found us a shack on the edge of the city, two walls of plywood and a piece of tin for a roof, and she scavenged in the rubbish heaps for food and clothing with the other poor people, determined that she would not leave until my father was free.

"I cannot even imagine what it felt like for her. I was so young that I did not really understand. Even now I have only the faintest memories of that time-a vision of the bright lights of a truck shining through the cracks between the boards, the sound of people arguing and singing loudly in other shacks. But it must have been a terrible time for her, alone and so far from her people. She would not give up. She was certain that if she could only find the right man-'the real Government,' as she thought of it-then eventually the mistake would be made right and my father allowed to go free.

"My father, who had even less knowledge of the city-world than she, grew sick. After a few visits he was not allowed to see my mother any more, although she continued to go to the prison every day. My father did not even know she was still in the city, only a few hundred yards from him. He and his nephew lost their happiness, lost their stories. Their spirits became very weak and they stopped eating. Soon, after only a few months in the prison, my father died. His nephew lasted longer. I am told that he was killed in a fight some months later."

"Oh, !Xabbu, how terrible!"

He raised his hand, as if Renie's cry of sympathy was a gift he could not accept. "My mother could not even take my father's body back to the desert. He was buried instead in a cemetery beside the shantytown. My mother hung his ostrich-shell beads on a wooden stick for a marker. I have gone there, but I could not find his grave.

"My mother took me and started the long trip back. She could not bear to go to the desert again, to the place that meant my father to her, so she stayed with her own family instead, and that is where I was raised. Before too many more years she found another man, a good man. He was Bushman, but his people had left the desert long ago. He did not know the old ways and barely spoke the language. He and my mother had two daughters, my sisters. We were all sent to school. My mother demanded that we learn the city-ways, so that we could protect ourselves as my father could not do.

"My mother did not give up all contact with my father's people. When some of the farther-ranging Bushmen came to the village to trade, my mother sent back messages. One day, when I was perhaps ten years old, my uncle came out of the desert. With my mother's blessing, he took me to meet my relations.

"I will not tell you the story of the years I spent with them. I learned much, both of my father and the world in which he had lived. I grew to love them, and also to fear for them. Even at that young age I could see that their way of life was dwindling away. They knew it themselves. I often think that although they never told me so-that is not my people's way-they hoped that through me they would save something of the wisdom of Grandfather Mantis, of the old ways. Like a man lost on an island who writes a letter and puts it in a bottle, I think they meant to send me back to the city-world with something of our people saved inside me."

!Xabbu hung his head. "And the first of my great shames is that for many years after I returned to my mother's village, I thought no more of it. No, that is not true, for I thought of my time with my father's people often, and always will. But I thought little of the fact that they would be gone someday, that almost nothing would be left of the old world. I was young and saw life as something limitless. I was eager to learn everything and afraid of nothing-the prospect of the city-world and all its wonders seemed far more intriguing than life in the bush. I worked hard in the small school, and a man who was important in the village took interest in me. He told a group called The Circle about me. They are people from all over the world who are interested in what city-folk call 'aboriginal cultures.' With their help I was able to gain a position at a school in the same city where my father died, a good school. My mother feared for me, but in her wisdom she let me go. At least, I think it was wisdom.

"So I studied, and learned of other kinds of life besides that led by my people. I became familiar with things that are as ordinary to you as water and air, but to me were at first strange and almost magical-electric light, wallscreens, plumbing. I learned about the science of the folk who had invented these things, and learned some of the history of the black and white peoples as well, but in all the books, all the netflicks, there was almost nothing about my own people.

"Always I returned to my mother's family when school was ended for the season to help with the sheep and set out the nets for fish. Fewer and fewer of those living in the old way came to the village to trade. As the years passed, I began to wonder what had happened to my father's people. Did they still live in the desert? Did my uncle and his brothers still dance the eland dance when they had killed one of the great beasts? Did my aunt and her sisters still sing songs about how the earth is lonely for the rain? I decided that I would go and see them again.

"And here is my second shame. Even though it had been a good year, even though the rains had been plentiful and the desert was friendly and full of life, I almost died while searching for them. I had forgotten much of what they had taught me-I was like a man who grows old and loses his vision, loses his hearing. The desert and the dry hills kept secrets from me.

"I survived, but only barely, after much thirst and hunger. It was a long time until I could feel the rhythm of life the way my father's family had taught me, before I could feel again the ticking in my breast that told me game was near, smell the places where water lay close beneath the sand. I slowly found the old ways, but I did not find my father's family or any other free Bushmen. At last I went to the sacred places, the hills where the people painted on the rocks, but there was no sign of recent habitation. Then I truly feared for my relations. Every year they had gone there to show their respect for the spirits of the First People, but they had not come for a long time. My father's people were gone. Perhaps they are all dead.

"I left the desert, but something in me had changed forever. I made a promise to myself that the life of my people would not simply disappear, that the stories of Mongoose and Porcupine and the Morning Star would not be forgotten, the old ways would not be swept away by the sand as the wind blows away a man's footprints after he has died. Whatever must be done to save something of them, I would do it. To accomplish this I would learn the science of the city-people, which I then believed could do anything.

"Again the people in The Circle were generous, and with their help I came to Durban to study how the city-people make worlds for themselves. For that is what I wish to do, Renie, what I must do-I must make the world of my people again, the world of the Early Race. It will never exist again in our time, on our earth, but it should not be lost forever!"

!Xabbu fell silent, rocking back and forth. His eyes were dry, but his pain was very clear.

"But I think that's a wonderful thing," Renie said at last. If her friend was not crying, she was. "I think that's the best argument for VR I've ever heard. Why are you so unhappy now, when you have learned so much, when you're so much nearer to your goal?"

"Because when I was in that terrible place with you, while you were struggling to save my life, I went away in my thoughts to another world. That is shameful, that I left you behind, but I could not help it, so that is not what makes me sad." He stared at her, and now she saw the fear again. "I went to the place of the First People. I do not know how, or why, but while you were experiencing all the things that you told to me in the emergency room, I was in another place. I saw sweet Grandfather Mantis, riding between the horns of his hartebeest. His wife Kauru was there, and his two sons Kwammanga and Mongoose. But the one who spoke to me was Porcupine, his beloved daughter. She told me that even the place beyond the world, the place of the First People, was in danger. Before the Honey-Guide appeared to lead me back, she told me that soon the place where we were would become a great emptiness, that just as this city-world in which you and I sit had gradually overwhelmed my people in their desert, so the First People were being overwhelmed.

"If that is so, then it will not matter if I build my people's world again, Renie. If the First People are driven from their place beyond this earth, then anything I make will only be an empty shell, a beetle's hollow casing left behind when the beetle has died. I do not want to use your science simply to make a museum, Renie, a place for city-folk to see what was once alive. Do you understand? I want to make a home where something of my people will live forever. If the home of the First People disappears, then the dream that is dreaming us will dream us no more. The whole life of my people, since the very dawn of things, will be nothing but footprints vanishing under the wind.

"And that is why I can no longer hear the sun ringing."

They sat together in silence for a while. Renie poured herself another glass of water and offered some to !Xabbu, but he shook his head. She could not understand what he was saying, and a part of her was uncomfortable, as she was when her Christian colleagues spoke of heaven, or the Moslems spoke of the Prophet's miracles. But there was no ignoring the Bushman's deep unhappiness.

"I do not understand exactly what you mean, but I'm trying." She reached out and lifted his unresisting hand, squeezing his dry fingers in hers. "As you have helped me try to help Stephen, I'll do my best to help you-just tell me what I can do. You're my friend, !Xabbu."

He smiled for the first time since he had arrived. "And you are my good friend, Renie. I do not know what I must do. I have been thinking and thinking." He gently retrieved his hand and rubbed his eyes, his weariness very evident. "But we also have your questions to answer-so many questions the two of us have! What are we to do about the yellow diamond, that dangerous thing?"

Renie yawned, hugely and-to her-embarrassingly. "I think I may know someone who can help us, but I'm too tired to deal with it now. After I get some sleep, I'll call her."

"Then sleep. I will stay until your father returns."

She told him it was not necessary, but it was like arguing with a cat.

"I will give you privacy." !Xabbu stood up smoothly, a single motion. "I will sit in your other room and think." Smiling again, he backed out the door and pulled it closed behind him.

Renie lay for a long time thinking of the strange places they had both visited, places only linked because they had both been conceived in the human mind. Or so she believed. But it was hard to hold firmly to that belief when watching the deep longing and expression of loss on !Xabbu's serious, intelligent face.

She woke up, startled by the tall, dark figure bending over her. Her father took a hurried step back, as though he had been caught doing something bad.

"It's only me, girl. Just checking you all right."

"I'm fine. I took my medicine. Is !Xabbu here?"