1972 - A Story Like the Wind (17 page)

This dish was followed by another, not one of his own favourites, but one he knew both his parents loved, a fricassee of fresh calves’ liver and bacon cooked in dry sherry, sent to Ouwa annually at Christmas by his cousins who made wine in the south. Again the face of Ousie-Johanna appeared anxious and hopeful at an angle of the door and again, when François’s father had only nibbled at the dish, there came that little demonstration of despair that drove the grand old lady of the kitchen back into the shadows.

Meanwhile, François was being exhorted by Lammie at one minute not to forget his food, the next by Ouwa to get on with his tale. He was only once interrupted seriously in the telling, however, and that was when he described how he had had to choose between taking his ·2 repeater or the beautiful old muzzle-loader out into the bush. He found himself hesitating then because he realized that he could not be frank about the consideration which finally had determined his choice of the heavy old muzzle-loader; namely that he had decided against going to the armoury in the hall in case the wide wooden floorboards, which creaked so easily and loudly, would wake his father from his much-needed sleep. This aspect had to be omitted. As a result he made his final choice of a weapon sound more impulsive and far less thoughtful than it had been.

His father, quick as always in his appraisals, at once broke in curtly: ‘But surely the ·375 express rifle with its magazine of five would have been a better choice. Did you not think of that?’

‘I did in a sort of way,’ François answered awkwardly.

‘Only in a sort of way?’ his father asked sharply. ‘Surely it needed consideration in every possible way?’

François could only repeat that he had given it thought but decided finally that the muzzle-loader, considering he had had so much practice with it, would do as well.

‘You disappoint me, Coiske. I thought you more mature.’ Ouwa spoke with a mildness that made the rebuke all the more acute. ‘You must forgive me but I don’t think in the circumstances that was either a wise, necessary or useful way of looking at it.’

All this made François smart bitterly within. He would have loved to explain to his father what had really gone on in his mind: above all how he had been thinking of Ouwa’s well-being, knowing clearly the risks to which he was exposing himself in settling for the muzzle-loader. But he knew that all the benefit of his forethought would be cancelled if he made Ouwa aware of how deeply he, François, was concerned about the state of his father’s health. It might even perhaps make his father realize that everyone at Hunter’s Drift was desperately worried about him.

So he went on with his story determined, but sadly philosophical at heart. He had often been in the position of experiencing a feeling of utter helplessness at his inability to make grown-ups understand his real motives in certain situations. He had, in a measure unusual for someone of his age, learned to make his peace with the fact that there were situations in which one just had to remain unfairly suspect by one’s elders and betters. He could think of a dozen occasions when what was obvious to him had remained incomprehensible to Lammie, Ouwa and Ousie-Johanna. But, oddly enough, this had never happened with old Koba; probably because as a Bushman she herself had been exposed to injustice and lack of understanding too long not to recognize it instantly when they affected others.

But this difference between him and Ouwa, entrenched in the marked valedictory atmosphere of the meal, was the most difficult one of the lot to endure. Yet necessity made him accept Ouwa’s reproof without further argument.

‘Perhaps it was not a wise thing to have done,’ he said deliberately appeasing, and hurried on to complete his account, leaving out only the part connected with the rescue of Xhabbo. But the fact that he had been unable to tell the truth about his choice of gun went deep and hurt so much that it became a milestone in his emotional development, as one will have cause to observe later. On the other hand, the fact that he could not reveal his secret about Xhabbo ceased to give him regret from now on. It seemed to him more than ever a matter of dire necessity and his own special responsibility, which could not be fairly imposed even in part upon Ouwa and Lammie, who clearly had so much to worry about just then.

Fortunately, the meal ended with handsome words of praise from Ouwa for the killing of the leopard, before he went off to his afternoon’s rest. François could forget his sense of injury and felt himself free to hurry to the kitchen to have a word with Ousie-Johanna.

She was sitting at her wide table, made of plain whitewood, as always scrubbed so clean that its surface shone like satin. She sat with her multiple chin supported by both her hands, and the light of the vivid placid afternoon flaming against the wide white windows showed up every detail of her skin. François could not fail to notice the dark streaks where many tears had dried on her cheek.

‘What’s the matter, little old Ousie?’ he asked, using all the endearments of which his native language was capable.

‘It’s just no be-damned good, Little Feather,’ Ousie-Johanna replied vehemently, using the only swear word François had ever heard her use and one that only came to her when she was in extreme emotional stress. ‘It’s no be-damned good. Did you see, he didn’t touch any of the food I have been thinking out for him all night long and spent the whole morning preparing, better than I have ever prepared food before? And he hardly touched any of it. It’s no be-damned right. The man is blerrie-well (her idea of bloody-much) bewitched, he should go straight to uLangalibalela without any more waste of time. I am going straight to that Lammie of yours and will tell her so.’

Lammie always became ‘François’s Lammie’ when Ousie-Johanna was indignant with her, just as she always became ‘my Lammie’ when Ousie-Johanna was pleased with her.

François tried hard to persuade her not to do so although his dismay was as great as hers, and his own secret inclination to believe that only a witch-doctor might have the cure for Ouwa’s mysterious illness, was rapidly becoming as strong as her own and !#grave;Bamuthi’s. He might not have succeeded, had not a thought come to him that since witch-doctors were such powerful people they could perhaps cure people without the persons concerned actually being taken to them. Accordingly he interrupted Ousie-Johanna’s third reiteration to have a ‘smart, straight word or two’ with ‘his Lammie’ in order to ask her:

‘Tell me, little old Ousie, is it not possible for somebody to be cured by a witch-doctor without going to see the man? Can’t others go on his behalf?’

Ousie-Johanna for a moment looked quite stunned by the thought, not so much because of its originality, but because it was so obvious and yet had not occurred to any of them before.

‘You are a slim little skelm’—a phrase meaning an intelligent little rogue and, when used with the right intonation at the right moment, a term of both admiration and affection.

‘By the living little Lord in Heaven, I think it is perfectly possible, but why don’t you go at once and ask !#grave;Bamuthi? He’ll know for sure, that slim Matabele who throws so fine a shadow!’ This was a great Bantu compliment to the reality of the person to whom it is applied.

François immediately went out to the kraals to consult !#grave;Bamuthi. He was told without hesitation by !#grave;Bamuthi, whom he regarded as the ultimate authority in these matters, that provided someone went armed to the witch-doctor with something of Ouwa’s person like a nail clipping, or best of all a hair of his head, the witch-doctor could most certainly remove the spell cast upon him without Ouwa himself having to be present.

François was exhorted there and then to make certain that he secured a hair of his father’s head. Then, if the doctors in the capital failed them he, !#grave;Bamuthi, could arrange for the great uLangalibalela to deal with the spell which he was still convinced the Government had put upon Ouwa.

Encouraged by this ruling of !#grave;Bamuthi, François hastened back to reassure Ousie-Johanna and continued for the rest of the day to help Lammie with her packing. He was lighter at heart than he had thought at lunch he could ever be, because for the first time now they had an alternative which they could try if the doctors failed.

Close beside this huddled another secret cause of warmth in his spirit. The days between Lammie and Ouwa’s going and their return would not now be so empty as he had feared because he had this great, exciting task which life had so unexpectedly thrust on him that morning: he had to heal, protect and set Xhabbo on the way back to his people in the great desert to the west.

There was only one further sad element in an afternoon which passed quickly with so much to do. It was when he carried out to Ouwa on the stoep a tray of coffee and some of Ousie-Johanna’s best rusks and afternoon buns, brown as gypsies on top and below, and white as milk-foam in between.

This was almost a sacred ritual at Hunter’s Drift. Ever since François could remember he, Ouwa and Lammie had always met on the stoep on the west side of the house, to watch the sun go down over cups of coffee, buns and rusks. They would sit there, happily exchanging the news of the day until the moment came when the sun was about to touch the horizon. At that point it was remarkable how they would always stop talking, and watch the sun vanish in a silence which seemed to François full of wonder and awe. No two sunsets were ever alike and François could not remember a single one which did not have an immense drama and splendour of its own. He himself would become so involved with these aspects of it that a sunset became not just an external event but something happening deep within himself. The time was to come when he would feel as if his imagination faced some profound mythological pronouncement in this daily event, for which no amount of familiarity could breed contempt, but only an increasing sense of wonder and, in some strange way, a kind of dependence of his peace of mind emerge from it. But for years he just read all sorts of stories into it and saw its final phase as the conclusion of some great epic, illustrated in the most wonderful of colours and accompanied by a feeling as of great music drifting up towards him from the other side of the world.

It was extraordinary how all three of them felt frustrated and jangled if something happened to interfere with this evening ritual, perhaps because, as Lammie put it once after a particularly moving sunset which had made her take his hand in her left and Ouwa’s in her right: ‘It makes one feel so belonging, we, the bush, the birds, all at Hunter’s Drift, the animals, even the bats [she loathed them normally] all part of one another and all at one.’

The return from this mythological moment to reality always came when the evening was established, and they saw the bats emerge from the direction of the cliffs by the river and start their zigzag lightning darts through the brown air, staining the scarlet light dying in the west with streaks of Indian ink. Then an altogether new sort of conversation would start up and some of the best of François’s childhood moments occurred, because the colourful fall of night seemed to compel the return of the imagination of all grown-ups to a resplendent past, which François to his regret had missed.

This afternoon was no exception. When he appeared Ouwa had tried to look up as if all were normal, thanked him with a brief, sardonic, ‘You are indeed a scout’, and then showed that his powers of observation were still keen by noticing that Hintza was not with François and observing with mock surprise: ‘What, no faithful hound at your heel?’

François explained that Hintza, ever since his return from the lion trap, had been sleeping in the shade of the big flowering acacia tree in the centre of the courtyard at the back. He said this with some heat to justify Hintza’s behaviour, in case Ouwa might think his resting was a sign of weakness. He was stressing at length the extraordinary exertions to which Hintza had been put that day, in particular the long sparring match with the mob of vultures, when Ouwa silenced him.

With a smile of ironic affection on his ascetic face, he observed with gentle amusement: ‘You protest too much, sir! He who excuses, accuses. I was not casting aspersions on the capacities of your hound; merely registering surprise. It had just occurred to me that since I presented him to you on just such an evening as this, some eighteen months ago, this is the first time I have seen you without him.’

At that moment Lammie joined them, poured out the coffee in the traditional manner and together they prepared to watch the sun go down. It was a clear evening without a cloud, whisp of moisture, or veil of dust in the sky. François could follow the sun until its last segment was poised in a sliver of gentle orange on the dark blue line of the horizon. So clear was it then that there was a silhouette as of black lace above the far ocean swell of land, drawn Japanese-wise on a screen of silk light by the tops of the tall trees in the bush between Hunter’s Drift and the western desert.

At that moment, for the first time that François could remember, his father broke the ritual of silence and exclaimed, not in English but in Sindabele. ‘
Langa, valela
.’

This ‘Goodbye, sun’ was uttered in such a final manner that it aroused all François’s worst fears.

He turned from the words as if from the lash of a whip and pleaded, ‘Please Ouwa, don’t say it like that.’

Ouwa, of course, made light of it, because it was obvious that both the going of the sun and François’s reaction, revealing such a depth of natural feeling for his father, had upset him more than he cared to admit.

‘Why not, oh hunter,’ he answered in as gay a tone as he could summon. ‘What better way of saying farewell to the day? These moments are moments of long and ancient standing in nature and need ancient words to acknowledge them. What could be more ancient than the
valela
of the Matabele? For have you considered with the knowledge of Latin which I have tried too hard to instil in your teeming brain, that
valela
could well have come from the ancient Romans themselves, since it is just an orchestration of the Latin farewell, the
vale
of Rome?’