The Death of the Mantis (7 page)

Kubu hesitated, obviously uncomfortable. “I’m not sure if it
would be appropriate…”he began, but Cindy interrupted. “Look, just
dinner. You off duty, and me off the record. Promise.”

“Of course,” said Kubu after a brief pause. “Khumanego?”

Khumanego wasn’t happy about it at all, but it would be rude to
refuse. And he might need Cindy’s help again one day. “That would
be nice,” he said.

“Great! See you later then. I’m going for a run now. Meet back
here at around six?” With that Cindy swallowed the soda water,
pulled the sunglasses over her eyes and headed out into the
heat.

♦

Detective Sergeant Lerako met Kubu in his office while Khumanego
waited outside. Lerako had made a point of firmly closing the door
on the Bushman. Yet he was more amenable than Kubu had
expected.

“You’re welcome to talk to the suspects. Use your own translator
if you like. See what you can get out of the bastards.”

“What have you got so far?”

“Nothing. They deny everything. They say they were in the area
and came on this man lying in the
donga
. Tried to help. But
of course that ignores all the other evidence. I suppose you’ve
reviewed it. We checked for a hundred metres in all directions.
There were no footprints, except for the Bushmen’s. Unless the
murderer can fly, nobody else was there. And there’s the ongoing
animosity between Monzo and the Bushmen – they’d had run-ins before
– the murder weapon in the river bed, and the fact that they were
all there when Ndoli arrived. Much too much of a coincidence. I
don’t believe in coincidences.”

“You sound like Director Mabaku. He’s not strong on coincidences
either. Did any of them say they saw the man fall? Or just that
they found him?”

“They found him.”

“And the murder weapon? What was it exactly?”

“Hard chunk of calcrete. It’s limestone and absorbs fluids. So
there was enough blood on it and in it to test. Got the results
back this morning. Human blood all right. I was spot on.” He
hesitated.

“But?”

“No fingerprints.”

So that was it. Lerako’s case had just become much weaker. There
was nothing to connect any of the Bushmen directly to the murder.
“Is it possible it was an accident after all? He slipped and hit
his head so hard on a piece of protruding calcrete that it broke
off and fell too?”

Lerako shook his head. “Too far away from the body. It must’ve
been thrown.” He might be battling for evidence, but he wasn’t
going to give up on his murder.

Kubu didn’t rub it in. “Well, let’s see if I can get anything
more out of the suspects,” he said.

♦

Kubu interviewed the three Bushmen together. Normally he would
have seen them separately, trying to get contradictory stories,
trying to catch them out. But Lerako had tried that to no avail.
Kubu wanted the three men to feel that this was a more sympathetic
meeting, that they were witnesses rather than suspects. Khumanego
had introduced the three, Dcaro, Gai and N!xau, but Kubu wasn’t
sure that he could remember their names, let alone pronounce them.
He addressed them as a group through Khumanego.

“What were you doing when you found the man lying in the
donga?
” he asked.

“They were looking for food!” Khumanego replied at once.

“Please ask
them
, Khumanego.”

Khumanego gave Kubu a quizzical look, but then turned to the
Bushmen and spoke. After a few minutes of discussion he turned to
Kubu and said, “They were hunting.”

“What were they hunting for?”

“Anything they could find. They say they caught two spring
hares. They fished them out of their burrows with hooked
sticks.”

“Did any of them hear anything or see anything before they found
the man?”

Again there was discussion, but when Khumanego reverted to
English he had nothing to add. They had discovered the man lying in
the
donga
unconscious, and that was all they knew.

Kubu sighed and started from the beginning. Where was their
camp? When had they left it? Where had they gone? How long until
they discovered Monzo? What did they do then? How long until Ndoli
had appeared? It took a long time, but the answers seemed natural
and consistent. At last he got up and indicated to Khumanego that
they should leave. But Dcaro had a question. He spoke to Khumanego
for almost a minute. Then Khumanego turned to Kubu.

“Dcaro says that they have done nothing wrong. That they tried
to help the man who was hurt. That they are sorry that he died but
it wasn’t their fault. He wants to know when they can go back to
their people. He is worried that they are starving. There are only
a few men left to hunt.”

All the Bushmen looked at Kubu expectantly. He thought for a few
moments. There was really no case against them. They should, in
fact, never have been arrested. His instinct was that they should
be released immediately, but he remembered Mabaku’s warning. He
should at least go tomorrow to where the body had been found, and
check the suspects’ story with the other members of their band. He
sighed. “Soon,” he said. He saw the hope fade from their faces.

♦

Khumanego said little on the way back to the hotel. Kubu
explained that he wanted to visit the band, and Khumanego nodded.
“I understand,” he said. “They’re guilty until they prove
themselves innocent.” But he said it as a matter of fact, without
rancour.

It was six when they got back, and Cindy was already in the bar.
Kubu excused himself to have a shower before dinner, leaving Cindy
and Khumanego alone. When he returned almost half an hour later, he
found Khumanego with an orange juice and the reporter drinking a
beer. Khumanego looked uncomfortable. Serves him right, Kubu
thought. Teach him to try to use reporters. “Let’s get some wine,”
he said. “And some dinner. I’m starving. I’ve had nothing all day
except some cereal – with awful skimmed milk – and a few sandwiches
on the way here.”

They settled at a table in the hotel restaurant and studied the
menu. Kubu struggled to choose between the restaurant’s famous (so
the menu trumpeted) Hunger-Buster rump steak and the Ranch House
oxtail stew. Bulk versus taste. Eventually he settled for the
oxtail with a side order of chips. Cindy ordered the Mongolian beef
and vegetable stir fry, and Khumanego the lamb stew. Kubu then
ordered a ginger beer – a steelworks seemed highly unlikely – and
the wine list. The waiter shook his head. There was no wine list.
They did have wine, but he didn’t know what it was. Kubu sighed
and, thinking of the red meats, asked for a red. The waiter said he
would try to find one. When the drinks came, the wine was a generic
Cabernet from a big South African producer. Kubu consoled himself
with the ginger beer while the wine breathed. Gasped would be a
better word, he thought, given how warm the bottle was.

“So, Ms Robinson,” he said, turning to the reporter, “what
brings you to Botswana?” As if I didn’t know, he thought
sourly.

“Please call me Cindy. May I call you David?”

Faced with that, Kubu was forced to relax. “Call me Kubu.
Everyone else does. It means hippopotamus in Setswana.”

Cindy smiled. “Hippopotamus! Don’t you mind?”

Kubu chuckled. “I don’t actually respond to anything else. The
nickname goes back to my school days. It just stuck right
away.”

She laughed. “Well, Cindy isn’t my real name either, but I’m not
going to tell you what is. Not now. Let’s try the wine.”

Kubu poured. Khumanego wanted only a taste, but Cindy was happy
with a full glass. “Let’s toast new friends,” she said, holding up
her glass. Kubu thought she was laying it on a bit thick, but was
happy to clink, and swirl, and sip the wine. It actually wasn’t
bad. He took a mouthful.

“You asked what I’m doing here, Kubu. I’m a freelancer, writing
articles for a variety of US newspapers. I studied anthropology and
journalism at college, but journalism won out. I was more
interested in current issues than in how things were in the past.
My interest in anthropology today is social – looking at how
cultures are evolving now rather than historically.”

“So you think cultures should change? Move with the times?”
Khumanego interjected.

“Not that they should. I just think they do. But sometimes they
are forced to change in unnatural ways by people or governments
with ulterior motives.”

“And you think that’s the case with the Bushmen in Botswana?”
Kubu asked.

Cindy shrugged. “That’s what I came to find out. And to write
about.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Two months. Of course, when the issue of the three Bushmen
being arrested came up, it stopped being article stuff and became
news. So I came down here and filed a piece on the wire service. I
think you’ll have someone from Survival International down here
soon also. That should make for an interesting dinner
discussion!”

Kubu was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the way the
reporter was steering the conversation. But he was saved by the
arrival of the food. They settled down to eat. At some point Cindy
asked the waiter for another bottle of the wine. Since he now knew
where to find it, he returned with alacrity. But Kubu was drinking
slowly. He felt the need to be on his guard with this confident
young lady.

She turned her attention to Khumanego. “So where does it go from
here? The future of your people, I mean, not the future of the
three suspects in jail. We agreed not to talk about that.”

“You’re the anthropologist. Why don’t you tell me? What happens
to cultures – old indigenous cultures – when another culture
becomes dominant? Especially if the new culture despises the older
one?”

“Well, they can be preserved. Sometimes outside pressure is
needed for that. And a change of attitude.”

“You have to preserve a base. A position you don’t give up. That
you defend. That’s the only hope. If there is any at all.”
Khumanego got up. “I’m tired. It was a long trip. And this isn’t an
academic discussion for me. I’m going to bed.” He turned to Kubu.
“I’ll see you in the morning. Good night, Kubu.”

Cindy pouted. “I guess I said the wrong thing.”

“He’s sensitive. That’s understandable, isn’t it? The way things
are.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry. Let’s have dessert. I’m going to have
the fruit salad and ice cream. What about you?”

Kubu would have liked to escape, but that would be rude. He
forced himself to have a stack of cinnamon pancakes with ice cream.
They ate the desserts and then finished the wine. Cindy talked
about herself and living in Atlanta. Kubu started to relax.

Cindy smiled. “Kubu. It really fits you, you know. Personality
as well, I think. I’ll tell you my given name now if you like. But
you must promise not to laugh.” Kubu nodded. “It’s Cinderella. Can
you beat that? How can parents do things like that to their
children? Have you ever heard of
anyone
called that before?”
Kubu shook his head, keeping a straight face. Cindy watched him for
a moment. “You’re pretty good,” she said. “You didn’t even check
your watch to see how close it was to midnight.” This time Kubu did
laugh. Had circumstances been different, he would have enjoyed her
company a great deal. Smart and attractive, with a good sense of
humour. The thought made him worry guiltily if it was too late to
phone Joy. Now he did check his watch.

“I need to call my wife. We have a baby, and it’s been a bit of
a struggle recently. And I am tired after the drive. Will you
excuse me?” He climbed to his feet.

Cindy stood with him and touched his arm. “I hope they’re okay.
Thanks for having dinner with me. I hope we can do it again while
we’re here. I think you’re quite a special man, Kubu. Good night.”
And it was she who turned away and headed for her room, leaving
Kubu to look after her.

♦

Khumanego didn’t go straight back to his small room. Instead, he
walked down the road that led to the border post at McCarthy’s
Rest. After several hundred metres he turned into the barren land
that lay beside it. There was just enough light from the
quarter-moon to pick his way between the scattered thorn bushes,
past a few stone
kraals
, until he was far enough from town
that he wouldn’t be disturbed.

He gazed up. The sky was filled with the gods and his ancestors.
Watching him, bright-eyed. They were so close, he could hear them
whisper. He flung his arms upward to embrace them and started to
dance, slowly at first, then picking up speed. Feet stamping, body
spinning. Dancing faster and faster. Eyes closed. Spinning.
Spinning. His ancestors clapped in time to the music, urging him
on. Round and round he went. Round and round. Until he fell on to
the red sand, exhausted. And his mind left his body and joined the
spirit world.

When it returned, he was lying on the ground, shaking.
Eventually he stood and dusted the sand from his clothes. Then he
headed back towards the lights of the town.

∨
The Death of the Mantis
∧

“T
he Bushmen see
things very differently from other peoples.”

Khumanego was sitting in the back seat of the police Land Rover.
Lerako was driving, furious that he had to make the long trip yet
again, and Kubu was in the passenger seat. Lerako had said it would
take about two hours of hard driving to get to where the Bushmen
had found the body. He commented that the road had improved a great
deal in the past year. Before that it would have taken all day, if
they got there at all. Kubu was thankful that the murder had
happened this year – the Land Rover was unbearably hot, and the
bumping and fishtailing down the sandy road made him very
uncomfortable.

“Your people see themselves as separate from everything,”
Khumanego continued. “We see ourselves as part of everything. We
are part of the sky and of the earth. And the sky is part of the
earth, and the earth part of the sky. Just as the day is part of
the night. And night part of day. And you and me are part of each
other. When you dream, you change my world, just as my dreams
change yours.”