Master of the Game (6 page)

Saturday was market day in Cape Town and the streets were crowded with shoppers looking for bargains, meeting friends and lovers. Boers and Frenchmen, soldiers in colorful uniforms and English ladies in flounced skirts and ruffled blouses mingled in front of the bazaars set up in the town squares at Braameonstein and Park Town and Burgersdorp. Everything was for sale: furniture, horses and carriages and fresh fruit. One could purchase dresses and chessboards, or meat or books in a dozen different languages. On Saturdays, Cape Town was a noisy, bustling fair.

Banda walked along slowly through the crowd, careful not to make eye contact with the whites. It was too dangerous. The streets were filled with blacks, Indians and coloreds, but the white minority ruled. Banda hated them. This was his land, and the whites were the
uitlanders
. There were many tribes in southern Africa: the Basutos, Zulus, Bechuanas, the Matabele—all of them Bantu. The very word
bantu
came from
abantu
—
the people
. But the Barolongs—Banda’s tribe—were the aristocracy. Banda remembered the tales his grandmother told him of the great black kingdom that had once ruled South Africa.
Their
kingdom,
their
country. And now they were enslaved by a handful of white jackals. The whites had pushed them into smaller and smaller territories, until their freedom had been eroded. Now, the only way a black could exist was by
slim
, subservient on the surface, but cunning and clever beneath.

Banda did not know how old he was, for natives had no birth certificates. Their ages were measured by tribal lore: wars and battles, and births and deaths of great chiefs, comets and blizzards and earthquakes, Adam Kok’s trek, the death of Chaka and the cattle-killing revolution. But the number of his years made no difference. Banda knew he was the son of a chief, and that he was destined to do something for his people. Once again, the Bantus would rise and rule because of him. The thought of his mission made him walk taller and straighter for a moment, until he felt the eyes of a white man upon him.

Banda hurried east toward the outskirts of town, the district allotted to the blacks. The large homes and attractive shops gradually gave way to tin shacks and lean-tos and huts. He moved down a dirt street, looking over his shoulder to make certain he was not followed. He reached a wooden shack, took one last look around, rapped twice on the door and entered. A thin black woman was seated in a chair in a corner of the room sewing on a dress. Banda nodded to her and then continued on into the bedroom in back.

He looked down at the figure lying on the cot.

Six weeks earlier Jamie McGregor had regained consciousness and found himself on a cot in a strange house. Memory came flooding back. He was in the Karroo again, his body broken, helpless. The vultures…

Then Banda had walked into the tiny bedroom, and Jamie knew he had come to kill him. Van der Merwe had somehow learned Jamie was still alive and had sent his servant to finish him off.

“Why didn’t your master come himself?” Jamie croaked.

“I have no master.”

“Van der Merwe. He didn’t send you?”

“No. He would kill us both if he knew.”

None of this made any sense. “Where am I? I want to know where I am.”

“Cape Town.”

“That’s impossible. How did I get here?”

“I brought you.”

Jamie stared into the black eyes for a long moment before he spoke. “Why?”

“I need you. I want vengeance.”

“What do you—?”

Banda moved closer. “Not for me. I do not care about me. Van der Merwe raped my sister. She died giving birth to his baby. My sister was eleven years old.”

Jamie lay back, stunned. “My God!”

“Since the day she died I have been looking for a white man to help me. I found him that night in the barn where I helped beat you up, Mr. McGregor. We dumped you in the Karroo. I was ordered to kill you. I told the others you were dead, and I returned to get you as soon as I could. I was almost too late.”

Jamie could not repress a shudder. He could feel again the foul-smelling carrion bird digging into his flesh.

“The birds were already starting to feast. I carried you to the wagon and hid you at the house of my people. One of our doctors taped your ribs and set your leg and tended to your wounds.”

“And after that?”

“A wagonful of my relatives was leaving for Cape Town. We took you with us. You were out of your head most of the time. Each time you fell asleep, I was afraid you were not going to wake up again.”

Jamie looked into the eyes of the man who had almost murdered him. He had to think. He did not trust this man—and yet he had saved his life. Banda wanted to get at Van der Merwe through him.
That can work both ways
, Jamie decided. More than anything in the world, Jamie wanted to make Van der Merwe pay for what he had done to him.

“All right,” Jamie told Banda. “I’ll find a way to pay Van der Merwe back for both of us.”

For the first time, a thin smile appeared on Banda’s face. “Is he going to die?”

“No,” Jamie told him. “He’s going to live.”

Jamie got out of bed that afternoon for the first time, dizzy and weak. His leg still had not completely healed, and he walked with a slight limp. Banda tried to assist him.

“Let go of me. I can make it on my own.”

Banda watched as Jamie carefully moved across the room.

“I’d like a mirror,” Jamie said.
I must look terrible
, he thought.
How long has it been since I’ve had a shave?

Banda returned with a hand mirror, and Jamie held it up to his face. He was looking at a total stranger. His hair had turned snow-white. He had a full, unkempt white beard. His nose had been broken and a ridge of bone pushed it to one side. His face had aged twenty years. There were deep ridges along his sunken cheeks and a livid scar across his chin. But the biggest change was in his eyes. They were eyes that had seen too much pain, felt too much, hated too much. He slowly put down the mirror.

“I’m going out for a walk,” Jamie said.

“Sorry, Mr. McGregor. That’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

“White men do not come to this part of town, just as blacks never go into the white places. My neighbors do not know you are here. We brought you in at night.”

“How do I leave?”

“I will move you out tonight.”

For the first time, Jamie began to realize how much Banda had risked for him. Embarrassed, Jamie said, “I have no money. I need a job.”

“I took a job at the shipyard. They are always looking for men.” He took some money from his pocket. “Here.”

Jamie took the money. “I’ll pay it back.”

“You will pay my sister back,” Banda told him.

It was midnight when Banda led Jamie out of the shack. Jamie looked around. He was in the middle of a shantytown, a jungle of rusty, corrugated iron shacks and lean-tos, made from rotting planks and torn sacking. The ground, muddy from a recent rain, gave off a rank odor. Jamie wondered how people as proud as Banda could bear spending their lives in a place such as this. “Isn’t there some—?”

“Don’t talk, please,” Banda whispered. “My neighbors are inquisitive.” He led Jamie outside the compound and pointed. “The center of town is in that direction. I will see you at the shipyard.”

Jamie checked into the same boardinghouse where he had stayed on his arrival from England. Mrs. Venster was behind the desk.

“I’d like a room,” Jamie said.

“Certainly, sir.” She smiled, revealing her gold tooth. “I’m Mrs. Venster.”

“I know.”

“Now how would you know a thing like that?” she asked coyly. “Have your men friends been tellin’ tales out of school?”

“Mrs. Venster, don’t you remember me? I stayed here last year.”

She took a close look at his scarred face, his broken nose and his white beard, and there was not the slightest sign of recognition. “I never forget a face, dearie. And I’ve never seen yours before. But that don’t mean we’re not going to be good friends, does it? My friends call me ‘Dee-Dee.’ What’s your name, love?”

And Jamie heard himself saying, “Travis. Ian Travis.”

The following morning Jamie went to see about work at the shipyard.

The busy foreman said, “We need strong backs. The problem is you might be a bit old for this kind of work.”

“I’m only nineteen—” Jamie started to say and stopped himself. He remembered that face in the mirror. “Try me,” he said.

He went to work as a stevedore at nine shillings a day, loading
and unloading the ships that came into the harbor. He learned that Banda and the other black stevedores received six shillings a day.

At the first opportunity, Jamie pulled Banda aside and said, “We have to talk.”

“Not here, Mr. McGregor. There’s an abandoned warehouse at the end of the docks. I’ll meet you there when the shift is over.”

Banda was waiting when Jamie arrived at the deserted warehouse.

“Tell me about Salomon van der Merwe,” Jamie said.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

Banda spat. “He came to South Africa from Holland. From stories I heard, his wife was ugly, but wealthy. She died of some sickness and Van der Merwe took her money and went up to Klipdrift and opened his general store. He got rich cheating diggers.”

“The way he cheated me?”

“That’s only one of his ways. Diggers who strike it lucky go to him for money to help them work their claim, and before they know it Van der Merwe owns them.”

“Hasn’t anyone ever tried to fight back?”

“How can they? The town clerk’s on his payroll. The law says that if forty-five days go by without working a claim, it’s open. The town clerk tips off Van der Merwe and he grabs it. There’s another trick he uses. Claims have to be staked out at each boundary line with pegs pointing straight up in the air. If the pegs fall down, a jumper can claim the property. Well, when Van der Merwe sees a claim he likes, he sends someone around at night, and in the morning the stakes are on the ground.”

“Jesus!”

“He’s made a deal with the bartender, Smit. Smit sends likely-looking prospectors to Van der Merwe, and they sign partnership contracts and if they find diamonds, Van der Merwe takes everything for himself. If they become troublesome, he’s got a lot of men on his payroll who follow his orders.”

“I know about that,” Jamie said grimly. “What else?”

“He’s a religious fanatic. He’s always praying for the souls of sinners.”

“What about his daughter?” She had to be involved in this.

“Miss Margaret? She’s frightened to death of her father. If she even looked at a man, Van der Merwe would kill them both.”

Jamie turned his back and walked over to the door, where he stood looking out at the harbor. He had a lot to think about. “We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

It was in Cape Town that Jamie became aware of the enormous schism between the blacks and whites. The blacks had no rights except the few they were given by those in power. They were herded into conclaves that were ghettos and were allowed to leave only to work for the white man.

“How do you stand it?” Jamie asked Banda one day.

“The hungry lion hides its claws. We will change all this someday. The white man accepts the black man because his muscles are needed, but he must also learn to accept his brain. The more he drives us into a corner, the more he fears us because he knows that one day there may be discrimination and humiliation in reverse. He cannot bear the thought of that. But we will survive because of
isiko.”

“Who is
isiko?”

Banda shook his head. “Not a
who
. A
what
. It is difficult to explain, Mr. McGregor.
Isiko
is our roots. It is the feeling of belonging to a nation that has given its name to the great Zambezi River. Generations ago my ancestors entered the waters of the Zambezi naked, driving their herds before them. Their weakest members were lost, the prey of the swirling waters or hungry crocodiles, but the survivors emerged from the waters stronger and more virile. When a Bantu dies,
isiko
demands that the members of his family retire to the forest so that the rest of the community will not have to share their distress.
Isiko
is the scorn felt for a slave who cringes, the belief that a man can look anyone in the face, that he is worth no more and no less than any other man. Have you heard of John Tengo Jabavu?” He pronounced the name with reverence.

“No.”

“You will, Mr. McGregor,” Banda promised. “You will.” And Banda changed the subject.

Jamie began to feel a growing admiration for Banda. In the beginning there was a wariness between the two men. Jamie had to learn to trust a man who had almost killed him. And Banda had to learn to trust an age-old enemy—a white man. Unlike most of the blacks Jamie had met, Banda was educated.

“Where did you go to school?” Jamie asked.

“Nowhere. I’ve worked since I was a small boy. My grandmother educated me. She worked for a Boer schoolteacher. She learned to read and write so she could teach me to read and write. I owe her everything.”

It was on a late Saturday afternoon after work that Jamie first heard of the Namib Desert in Great Namaqualand. He and Banda were in the deserted warehouse on the docks, sharing an impala stew Banda’s mother had cooked. It was good—a little gamey for Jamie’s taste, but his bowl was soon empty, and he lay back on some old sacks to question Banda.

“When did you first meet Van der Merwe?”

“When I was working at the diamond beach on the Namib Desert. He owns the beach with two partners. He had just stolen his share from some poor prospector, and he was down there visiting it.”

“If Van der Merwe is so rich, why does he still work at his store?”

“The store is his bait. That’s how he gets new prospectors to come to him. And he grows richer.”

Jamie thought of how easily he himself had been cheated. How trusting that naive young boy had been! He could see Margaret’s oval-shaped face as she said,
My father might be the one to help you
. He had thought she was a child until he had noticed her breasts and—Jamie suddenly jumped to his feet, a smile on his face, and the up-turning of his lips made the livid scar across his chin ripple.