African Dawn (8 page)

Their first time had been four years after that first kiss on the day Winston had run away from home. He'd been confused and excited and ashamed by that kiss, but with Winston gone there had been no excuse to visit Thandi. In the end it was George's mother who had given him the alibi he'd needed to explore a little more every school holidays. No matter what she might have thought of the irascible Patricia Ngwenya, Philippa Bryant had liked Kenneth and had known that his family would struggle while he was in gaol.

George had cycled, heart pounding, to the modest two-room house in Mzilikazi where the Ngwenyas now lived since they'd been evicted from the school principal's quarters. He'd handed the basket of eggs and a note to the surly Patricia then dallied as he pushed his bike up the pathway. When he'd turned a corner he'd been dejected, as Thandi hadn't been home, but a ‘
Psst
’ hissed from around the corner of an abandoned shack led him to her.

It had been a similar routine every couple of months, when term ended. George would return from boarding school and over the long, hot days of his vacation, through the giggles and the tears and the pining, he would learn a little more about this enigmatic, officially untouchable girl, and the female body.

Kenneth had been released from gaol a year after the bus protests and George had thought his world would end. He would have no more need to cycle to the township during his holidays.

It was a confusing time for George. His body was changing and his voice was breaking. He had an interest in all girls, but Thandi was the one he thought about most. At the same time his teachers were warning George and his fellow pupils against the perils of sin and the evils of masturbation. He wasn't exactly sure, still, what constituted a sin, but he'd worked out the second one.

The boys at school made jokes about blacks all the time, and made fun of the cleaning and gardening staff, often playing pranks on them. George joined in, because he didn't want to be different. But he knew he was. He became ashamed of the feelings he had for Thandi, and the things he did when he thought about her.

George had resolved never to see Thandi again when the government went and ruined everything by introducing the Emergency Powers Act. This gave them the power to detain indefinitely anyone they considered acting in a manner contrary to the wellbeing of society. The fledgling African nationalist movements had gained greater popularity after Northern Rhodesia had gained its independence from Britain in 1964 and become the Republic of Zambia. Just across the border to the north was a country run entirely by black people. George could hardly believe it.

After only three years back in the classroom Kenneth Ngwenya was once more arrested and locked up, and George's mother once more ordered him to cycle around to Patricia's place with a basket of food.

It had finally happened when George was sixteen and Thandi fifteen. In the same hidden donga where they had first kissed, by the same stream where Winston had been smoking his fish before his escape, George and Thandi had lain together and become man and woman. And his life had been turned upside down with the wondrous, joyous, terrible pain of forbidden love.

George opened his eyes as Thandi shifted herself on the bed, straddling him. When they'd come in off the beach, their first time in so long had been frantic and they'd clawed greedily at each other. They'd laughed afterwards at how quickly they'd both climaxed. Over the beers and a shared cigarette there'd been small talk, about her studies. He didn't want to talk about the war and she didn't prompt him. They'd lain together for a while, slick bodies entwined. But he wanted more, and so did she. It was one of the things he loved about her. Once was never enough.

He was hard again as she raised herself on her knees, smiling down at him as she lowered herself. Ripe was the word that came to mind when he thought of her like this. Plump lips and breasts, his hands on her arse, she was like some exotic fruit, almost bursting with sweet nectar, ready to be devoured. He could still taste her on his lips, sea salt and her. He closed his eyes again as he felt her take him in, and she slid down on him.

When he opened his eyes he saw she was watching him, gazing intently as she placed her palms on his chest and started to ride him. He matched her thrusts and he knew she wasn't something to be plucked or consumed. She wasn't a holiday treat or a stolen moment of illicit lust. Right here, right now, he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life in her embrace. He started to raise himself and opened his mouth to speak. ‘I –’

She put a finger on his lips. ‘Shush.’

There would be time, he told himself. Her lower lip was trembling now and she bit it to still it. George could feel his own orgasm building. He arched his back, pushing up harder into her, and she met him with equal desire. He was mesmerised by her swaying, bouncing breasts and reached for one, drawing the long nipple in. Thandi groaned.

George heard the breath catch in her throat and when he looked up he saw her eyes were closed at last, her mouth half-open. He knew her ways, but also wanted to learn more. He wanted to spend the rest of his life getting to know her. He smiled to himself, but then he saw the first of the tears squeeze from her tightly closed lids. That had never happened before.

Thandi shuddered and the clench of her muscles overwhelmed his control. George was blind to whatever emotion was going on in Thandi's mind as he surrendered to the blissful release.

*

Afterwards, George lay on his back, still panting slightly. Thandi slid off him and lay on her belly, her face in the pillow. At first he thought she was just exhausted, like him.

He rolled onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow. He trailed a finger down the ridge of her spine. ‘Are you OK?’

Thandi was still for a few moments, then she pushed herself up and swung her legs over the side of the bed so she was seated. She looked back at him, over her shoulder. ‘We need to talk.’

George saw her eyes were red and the pillow was damp. He'd never seen her cry during sex. He was suddenly filled with dread. ‘Can't that wait?’

She shook her head. ‘Not this time.’

George swallowed. He knew what he needed to do, what he needed to say to her. ‘OK, then I've got something to say. Thandi … will you –’

She shook her head quickly. ‘Don't say anything more, George. I have to go away.’ The ceiling fan squeaked above them, filling the silence. ‘For a long time.’

‘You're already
away
, Thandi. You live in bloody LM. How much further can you go?’

‘A lot further. I'm going overseas.’

‘Where to?’

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffed. ‘It doesn't matter. But it's for a long time. I'll be going to university there. They say I can study medicine. I might be a doctor, George. Can you imagine that? Me, a doctor!’

‘Well, you won't be able to practise in Rhodesia. Who'd want to –’ He was angry, and he knew he'd said the wrong thing as soon as he'd opened his mouth. He'd come all this way, and conquered his fears and was about to propose to her, and now she said she was going away.

‘Who'd want to be treated by a
munt
? A coon? A kaffir? Is that what you meant, George?’

‘No. I meant a … a woman.’

Thandi sat up and clutched the sheet to her breast. ‘Oh, right. So you're not a racist, just another misogynist male chauvinist pig? We're OK to …
fuck
and have babies … is that it? But not to treat sick people. I know what you meant. It's all right for a white woman to be a doctor, but not a black woman. You're just like all the rest of them.’

George reached across to the bedside table for his cigarettes. He took one out, lit it and exhaled. ‘No. I'm not. And that's my problem. I'm not one of
them
.’

She stood and wrapped the sheet around her while she picked up her strewn clothes. ‘Yes you are. You wear their uniform. You fly for the oppressors, you drop frantam fire bombs on people. You defend their evil, racist regime, George. You … you of all people.’

Now he was angry.
Oppressor?
Racist regime?
Where the hell had all this come from? ‘For the record, Thandi, I've never dropped a bomb or napalm on anyone or fired a gun in anger. I fly troops into the valley and I fly sick and wounded out. The last mission I flew was to pick up an African child who'd been run over by a car.’

She pulled on her bikini pants and shrugged on her top. ‘This was wrong. I can't see you any more, George, not ever again.’

Christ, he thought, watching her dress was almost as arousing as watching her undress. He realised, with crystal clarity, that he still wanted to be with her. Forever. He ground out the cigarette and stood naked. She kept her back to him, so he moved behind her. Thandi tried to shrug him away, but as his arms closed around her, she let hers fall limp by her side.

‘It doesn't have to be like this, Thandi. Look around, here in Vilanculos, in LM … black and white people live together, even marry. We could –’

‘Don't say it, George. It isn't fair. It couldn't happen.’ She kept staring at the door.

He held her tight, willing the courage to come to him. It was easier flying into ground fire. ‘We could get married, Thandi. We could live here, in Mozambique.’

She stiffened in his embrace. ‘Don't say such things, George. You know your family would never agree to it. My mother would kill me.’ She tried to laugh, but it came out more as a convulsion.

‘I think my parents would accept it. My father's not Rhodesian and my mother's quite progressive. We could move here. I could transfer to the Portuguese air force. They're doing the same work we are.’

She spun around to face him. ‘They're killing the same people your army is, George. Don't you see what's going on? There's a war, George, and we are in it.’

‘
I'm
in it. Not you. You'd be safe in LM or wherever we'd be based. The Porks won't let the communists take over Mozambique, Thandi. It's too important to the Portuguese government. Look at all the money they make from their farms; from tourism in the game parks; on the beaches.’

She looked up into his eyes and he was confused when he saw her blink a few times. She closed her lids, but a tear squeezed out. ‘George, stop thinking about yourself for a minute. This isn't about you and your family, or even me and my family. I can't marry you. I can't marry a white man who fights for the Rhodesian government or the Mozambique colonial government.’

Thandi placed her palms on his chest and pushed herself out of his arms. She bent to pick up her wrap, tied it around her and walked out the door into the blinding glare of the African sun.

*

While the nurse filled in Winston's temperature on her chart, the Rolling Stones came on Radio LM and the tinny noise of the Mozambican pop station reminded George even more of Thandi. Jagger was singing about time being on his side, but George felt the opposite.

‘I said thanks, brother, for helping us out in the valley last night. I was being sincere,’ Winston said.

‘Oh, sorry. I was just thinking.’

Winston nodded. ‘About last night?’

‘Yes,’ George lied.

The nurse walked past, towards the sedated white officer, her shoes squeaking on the polished floor.

‘It's changing,’ Winston said.

‘What do you mean?’ George rarely socialised with army guys. According to the papers the security forces were winning the fight against the terrorists hands down. He was interested in Winston's view of the war which, unlike his, was from the ground up.

‘Last night they were better organised than usual. They're learning. They know that we watch the likely crossing points, but this time they were ready for us with a counter-ambush. They were too late to save their men in the boats, but the terrs waiting on the Rhodesian side stayed and fought. They attacked us. We,’ he gestured at the unconscious officer in the next bed, ‘think we're much better than them – smarter, better trained – so we get cocky.’

‘They got lucky, that's all,’ George said.

Winston shook his head. ‘Their kit, their uniforms, their weapons, their drills … they're getting better all the time, and more young men from the villages and the townships are leaving to be trained in Zambia, Tanzania, even Russia.’

I have to go away. For a long time … I'm going overseas.

George wasn't stupid. He'd known, in his heart, what Thandi had meant. Patricia didn't have the money to send Thandi overseas to study and there was no way her part-time job as an English teacher in LM would have allowed her to save enough to support herself or travel. He knew she barely made ends meet in Mozambique. She'd spouted communist propaganda at him, calling him an oppressor and mouthing off about firebombs. Despite what Winston had said, it wasn't only young black men who were being spirited away to Russia and the left-leaning African nations, it was women as well. Thandi, he was sure, had joined one or the other of the nationalist organisations and they were sending her away for training.

‘What else is happening with you, George? Have you got a woman?’ Winston asked, changing the subject. Perhaps he thought George didn't believe him about the guerillas' increasing sophistication.

‘You remember Susannah Geary?’

Winston looked up at the ceiling, then grinned. ‘That blonde girl? The tomboy who used to hang around you when you weren't playing with me and Thandi in the township?’

‘That's the one.’

‘Ah, she is too skinny that one, George.’

‘Not any more, China. We're getting married next month. She's pregnant.’

5

T
he war wasn't his affair, but he learned from it. It sharpened his senses and his instincts. He survived, while others around him died.

Sometimes he was surrounded by noise. There were machines in the air and on the ground, and the rattle of gunfire assaulted his sensitive ears. He learned that it was acceptable to run from some fights. But not all.

Makuti's nostrils flared and he smelled the intruder again. Thorns scored intricate patterns through the dried mud on his flanks but barely marked the skin of his thick hide as he trotted towards the Zambezi River. The intruder had crossed sometime in the night, and to add to the insult he'd deposited a fresh load of twig-studded dung on the path Makuti usually used to get to the water.

Makuti defecated and squirted urine in long, strong jets. This was his country and the women hereabouts were his, and his dung and scent were supposed to advise intruders of this and warn them off.

He lifted his head and sniffed again. It was not only the interloper he had to worry about. The river could be a place of death. He'd swum for his life as a baby and nearly drowned when the waters had flooded. He and his mother had lived in the hills above the new lake until he'd grown old enough to move out on his own. The river had lured him, particularly during the long, dry months, and further downstream he'd found it was narrower and less inhabited by the two-legs than the shores of the lake above the huge wall.

But they still appeared here, every now and then, with their attendant bangs and clatters and crashes. He'd learned already to be very wary of them. Others of his kind had died after the strangers had passed through. A huge explosion one night had sent him running like a scared calf to higher ground, but when he'd returned the next morning he'd found an old bull lying maimed, his right front foot missing. The old man was bleeding to death by the time Makuti got there. All he could do was watch while the other rhino died.

The one he was after, however, was very much alive, judging from the freshness of another urine mark Makuti detected. He stopped and swivelled his ears. From the other side of the thicket he heard the intruder's heavy breathing.

Leaves, dust and branches erupted in front of Makuti as the stranger burst from the thick jessie bush. The other male's horn would have pierced Makuti's flank had he not been quick enough to spin inside his own body length. The wicked weapon glanced off him and Makuti pivoted again to meet the next challenge.

Having lost the advantage of surprise, the foreigner paused, lifted his head and snorted.

Makuti was big for his age, but this bull was a brute. Perhaps five or more years older and a couple of hundred kilograms heavier, he was the largest of his kind that Makuti had ever challenged. Except what was becoming very clear to Makuti was that he was the one being challenged by the stranger, not the other way around. The old male had turned the tables in an instant and Makuti felt fear.

He exhaled through his nostrils and tried to square up and make himself look bigger. The other male lowered his head and charged again.

Makuti panicked. He didn't know whether to turn and flee or to stay and fight. His indecision almost killed him. While Makuti hesitated, the older bull dropped his head a fraction more; the two beasts collided and Makuti squealed as the old male's horn hooked up and under his jaw.

Makuti had been hurt in fights before, but never had he been taken so swiftly and so painfully. The horn had pierced the lower left side of his face and Makuti had to shake himself hard to free himself from the driving point. He yelled, the sound similar to that of an elephant trumpeting, as he turned and started to run.

But the intruder was fast, as well as big and strong. He kept pace with Makuti easily and his next thrust caught Makuti in the rear of his right thigh. Makuti's back leg was lifted off the ground by the move and he slid sideways in the cloud of dust they were both creating.

Makuti screamed again. He stumbled towards the river but the next toss of the stranger's head caught him under his other leg and he fell and rolled. A wave of dirt and debris flew up through the grass.

He twisted and turned, struggling to get back up on his feet, and his frantic movements saved his life. The intruder took his time – no more than a second or two – preparing for his killer blow, but when he thrust up with his horn, Makuti's writhing moved his heart out of the weapon's line and the tip merely scored the surface layers of his hide.

Makuti stood and realised there could be no more running. With both legs and his jaw bleeding he would be easily caught again by the interloper, who would run him down and skewer him from the rear. Makuti curled his tail over his arse at the terrible thought and bravely stood his ground.

The older rhino was breathing hard, but he was far from exhausted. He tossed his head, bellowed, and it was all Makuti could do to stay still and not turn and flee again. Makuti had his back to the river now. He hated the water and he never wanted to swim again as long as he lived. He had long since learned that rhinos were not meant to swim.

When the next charge came, Makuti was ready for it. He lowered his head even further than the old bull and when they collided he was as prepared as he could be for the impact. Still, the dust rose from their bodies and the clack of their horns colliding echoed down the length of the lower Zambezi.

Makuti didn't know, couldn't know, that this old
Diceros bicornis
was fighting for his life. He'd been chased from his home across the river in Zambia by men armed with AK-47 assault rifles. These two-legs were not fighting a war among themselves, as they were on Makuti's side of the Zambezi. These men were hunting the black rhinoceros for its horn. The stranger had nowhere else to go, except into Makuti's territory, but the black rhino is not a welcoming, forgiving or sociable creature. He is solitary, aggressive, unpredictable, and, when needs be, a killer.

Makuti thrust back and the intruder parried the blow. The two big males jostled each other through the sands at the river's edge. Makuti felt one of his back feet meet the water and this spurred him back up the beach's incline. He was not going in there.

Both were screaming now, and their high-pitched war cries sent smaller animals around them scurrying back into the grass and bush. None of them wanted to be caught under the feet of these battling titans.

Youth began to tell over experience. Makuti saw a gap and aimed for it. The older bull's reaction had slowed, and Makuti hooked him in the chest, between his two front legs. The thrust was not deep enough to cause fatal damage, but it winded his opponent, who yielded two steps.

Makuti seized the advantage and screamed again as he rammed the bridge of his head under the interloper's chin. He was almost eye to eye with his opponent and he found himself infused with a sense of power and will. This male was big, but Makuti was in his prime. The older bull's footing slipped in the soft sand of the bank, and when Makuti carried on, lifting his knees high, he found he was now perpendicular to his rival.

The old bull was not done yet, however. For Makuti to score another hit he would have to lower his head and disengage from the old bull. When he did, the elder dropped to one front knee and whirled his head around. The viciously fast move drove the point of the intruder's horn into the skin beneath Makuti's eye, almost tearing it out.

Makuti didn't try to pull back. If he had, he would have been blinded. Instead he ignored the pain and let the sharp point continue to score him, right up the side of his head to his shoulder as he lowered his own horn and drove it deep into his opponent's flank, just behind the spot where his left leg met his body.

The old bull yelped, then groaned, and screamed again in pain. Makuti drove on, keeping his horn embedded deep in his enemy's body, even as the blood began to wash over him. It ran into his mouth and misted his eyes. Makuti shook his head, and in doing so shredded his opponent's heart and other vital organs.

Even as the strength and the life flooded from the old bull Makuti turned and started driving him down the slope of the sands. The thrashing grew weaker, and as Makuti graded him into the water the old rhino died, his blood curling and mixing with the waters of the Zambezi.

Bleeding and puffing with exertion, Makuti lowered his head and drank from the river. He was a male. He had learned how to fight. He had won his greatest battle so far. Nothing could take this land from him, or him from it.

*

Hope Bryant stared at the pieces of metal spread out on the living room rug, her face creased with concentration. She knew this was important – to her father – but she would rather be listening to the Lyons Maid Top 20 on the radio that was playing softly in the background.

She looked over at her mother, who was sitting in her ratty armchair reading a book called
Hold My Hand I'm Dying
. Hope loved reading, but her mother had told her this book was not suitable for children. Hope resolved to sneak a look at it as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Her mother looked over the top of the reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. She rolled her eyes and Hope started to giggle.

‘What's so funny?’ her father said, setting down his beer on the side table. Dad had a bottle of Lion every evening – just the one. Her mother didn't drink that often, but when she did she had too many ‘toots’ and started laughing and wanting to dance with her father.

The legs of the side table were made from a pair of impala antlers and the thing gave her the creeps. She'd insisted, a year back, on going on a hunting trip with George and her father. Her mother had tried to stop her, but her father had given in to her, as he usually did. Hope had wished she'd stayed at home. She'd hated the bang of the guns and the sights and smells of the kudu having its skin cut off and its belly slopped out. It was why she wasn't keen on what her dad was making her do now.

‘Name the pieces, from left to right. Come on, Hope. You can do it,’ her father said.

‘Don't badger her, Paul,’ Hope's mother said. ‘She's not an air force recruit, you know.’

Hope's eyes flicked from parent to parent. She hoped her mother would tell her it didn't matter what the bits of the rifle were called, and that she could listen to the radio for a bit before going to bed. But that didn't happen. Her mother curled her legs up under her and went back to her book. Hope didn't think she could put her legs under her, like her mother did, because her legs were too long. People said she had her mother's hair and eyes, and her father's height and nose. She was only ten, but she was almost as tall as her mother. Her mother said that was nothing to boast about, as she knew pygmies who were taller than her.

‘Come on, mate,’ her father said. Hope's father was Australian and he still said odd things like that – calling a girl ‘mate’. Hope really wanted to visit Australia, as she was fairly sure that they didn't have a war going on there, and that girls didn't need to know how to strip and assemble an FN rifle.

Hope sighed. She knew she needed to get this done. She pointed to the bits, starting from the left. ‘Gas plug, gas piston, gas spring, breech cover, breech thingy, and breech thingy slide.’

Her father smiled. ‘Very good. Breech block, though, not breech thingy. Now put it back together.’

Just picking up the long steel rod and the spring made her think of the noise of the rifle and the way the kudu had crumpled. She really didn't want to touch this weapon, let alone learn how to fire it, which was going to be the next lesson.

Her father lit a cigarette. ‘Did you see Susannah today?’ he asked her mother.

Hope slid the piston into the spring.

Her mother looked up again from her book. ‘Hmmm. She was in town trying on her dress. They've had to let it out … again.’

Hope's father looked down at her, and Hope didn't know whether he was keeping an eye on her as she reassembled the FN rifle, or if he wondered how much he should say about Susannah being pregnant. Hope was sure that her parents were unaware that she knew all about Susannah and babies, but she did, because Susannah's younger sister, Georgina, had been telling everyone in school that she was going to be an aunty soon.

‘Well,’ her father said, ‘what with George having his leave cancelled, it was bound to happen. Did you see Susannah the older?’

Hope's mother frowned. ‘Yes. Still the same dour old so-and-so as ever.’

Hope's father cocked his head. ‘Still not too pleased, then?’

Hope's mother nodded, but said nothing more.

‘Dad,’ Hope said, looking up at her father, ‘what's a shotgun wedding?’

Her father stared into her eyes and Hope felt her bravado start to waver. She knew very well what a shotgun wedding was – her brother was about to take part in one – and her father could sense that she knew it as well.

Hope's mother put down her book. ‘Where did you hear that expression, Hope?’

She shrugged. ‘School.’

‘Well, it means that two people have to get married because … because of circumstances.’

‘Don't George and Susannah love each other, Mom?’

Hope's mother looked at her father. ‘Of course they do, Hope,’ she said.

Hope managed to get the gas piston and spring back into the hole – chamber, it was called – but she knew from her past attempts that getting the gas plug into the end would be difficult. As she fiddled with the plug, depressing the stiff plunger and then trying to turn it at the same time, she wondered if George was in love with someone else.

Like, maybe, Thandi Ngwenya.

*

It had happened last year, when George had been driving Hope to a friend's birthday party one Sunday.

George'd had to drop some eggs off to cranky old Mrs Ngwenya and he'd told Hope to wait in the car as they pulled up outside the poor little house where the Ngwenyas lived. George had got out and taken the eggs. It was late October, just before the rains came, and it was hellishly hot in the Morris. George hadn't even bothered to park under a tree – not that there were many in the township in any case. It was all red dirt and dust. Hope watched a mangy kaffir dog nuzzling in a pile of rubbish while it scratched itself. A couple of older kids walked past and one of them banged on the side of the car, which made Hope jump. She wasn't scared, but George was taking an awfully long time.