For two weeks he lay in the hut, his body slowly recovering from the savage beating Jeff had given him. Most of his cuts and bruises healed quickly but his urine was bloody and it hurt to pee. Be knew this should not be so and, after ten days with no improvement, took action. He submitted willingly when Be brought the medicine man from another clan. He never questioned their sometimes strange methods of curing. He uttered no sound as small incisions were made in his back. He did not query the wildebeest horns which the medicine man placed over these cuts or when he sucked the air from the horns and used a sticky substance to seal the small holes made in their points. He sat perfectly still when, after a few minutes the medicine man pierced these seals, gently removed the horns and poured out the clotted blood which had collected from his wounds.
He never discovered whether this treatment worked, or if he was on the point of recovery anyway, but he immediately began to feel better. Months later he was to learn that the tiny arrowhead used to cut his skin had first been smeared with the poison they used to such good effect when hunting. It was considered to be an essential element in the drawing of ‘bad blood’.
Several days after the medicine man’s visit Alex felt strong enough to leave the hut. His legs were still rubbery but he joined a group of men and women sitting outside. They smiled at him and returned to their conversation, leaving him alone with his thoughts. As their rapid-fire clicking language washed over him and he watched their gentle faces, he felt completely at peace.
!Ka was carving and whittling an animal bone and Alex watched with interest. !Ka saw him watching and put one end of the bone to his mouth and sucked in air, then blew outwards in an elaborate display of smoking a pipe. ‘n/i!xu,’ he said.
Alex knew what the word meant. He just couldn’t say it. ‘N. . . tsk. . . i. . . pop. . . pop . . . u.’
The Bushmen rolled on the ground laughing.
‘N,’ !Ka prompted.
‘N.’
!Ka nodded approval. ‘Tsk,’ he said, showing Alex how he withdrew his tongue from just behind his front teeth. ‘N. . . tsk.’
‘N/,’ Alex responded.
Several of the men clapped in encouragement.
‘N. . . tsk. . . i.’
‘N/i.’ Alex was smiling. Getting his tongue from ‘N’, through the ‘tsk’ and rapidly into the ‘i’ was difficult but he managed it.
‘N. . . tsk. . . i. . . pop.’ !Ka put his tongue against the hard palate, just where it rises to the roof of the mouth. When he removed it it created a hard popping sound.
Alex lost it and they had to start again.
Seeing his enthusiasm, !Ka began patiently and gently to teach Alex their language and ways. Alex was only too happy to learn; he was still basically a boy. !Ka and Be represented a safe world, a world without people like Jeff and Kel. In their company, and that of the others in the clan, he could stay a boy. He could never have verbalised this fact but he must have been subconsciously aware of it because when he was recovered enough to leave them he delayed.
As soon as he was well enough he went looking for Nightmare. !Ka had done his best but his knowledge of the needs of a horse was scant. In this hostile environment, Nightmare’s seemingly unlimited capacity for grass and water taxed his meagre resources considerably. Even though he was, as yet, unable to converse in their language, Alex could see that. But he was reluctant to set her free; a bond had developed between him and the horse. Besides, having spent her life in the company of people and the safety of corrals, Nightmare would feed the lions as soon as he let her go.
Nightmare solved the problem for him by coming into oestrus.
In a barren land where only a handful of species had adapted in order to survive, there was no place for the wild horse. Their presence was unheard of. Not in the desert country, not in the flat cattle country, not in the Delta. Bechuanaland had no wild horses.
‘Tell that to him,’ Alex muttered to himself in surprise. The black stallion appeared from nowhere and, judging by the clan’s reaction, they had never seen him before. He stood on a ridge, tossing his aristocratic head, his black mane flowing out like a woman’s hair. His coat shone in the sunlight, so black it almost looked blue. He stamped his powerful legs and sand flew. He looked exactly as he was: proud, beautiful and free. Alex had never seen such a magnificent horse.
Neither had Nightmare. It was love at first sight. She reared and plunged against her tether.
‘Sshhh. Easy now.’ He spoke gently and blew softly on her nose. She quietened and stood still, rippling. With a lump in his throat he took off her halter. Nightmare trotted in a circle, came back to him and nudged his arm with her nose, looked over at the stallion, then, with sand flying from her hooves, kicking and bucking with joy, joined the stallion on the ridge. Both animals stood, side by side, tossing their heads, looking back at him, one a shining russet red, the other a glossy black. Then, with no signal between them, they wheeled and went racing away.
Alex ran to the top of the ridge and watched them go. He told himself it was the right thing to do and swallowed hard against the ache in his throat. ‘She deserves to be free.’ He watched until they were out of sight. They ran side-by-side, turning their heads often to look at each other. Alex realised they were flirting. Something inside him soared. Months later, after he learned a bit of the San language, !Ka would explain it was the spirit of his own freedom, a rare event since men were usually bound by thought.
He saw Nightmare occasionally after that—always in the company of the stallion. She never came closer than a hundred yards. It was as if she was checking to make sure he was still there.
Alex spoke Setswana fluently. It was the common language spoken by most of the Bantu tribes in Bechuanaland. He actually spoke Setswana before he learned to speak English, the result of playing with the farm children at home.
The language of the Bushmen however differed from place to place. Up north, near Shakawe, the Kung Bushmen spoke a different dialect from the desert dwellers. Alex knew a few of the northern Bushmen words—Pa occasionally hired them to work on the farm. They usually only stayed a few months before returning to their clans near the Tsodilo Hills but were always willing to befriend the young white child of the man who paid their wages.
As time went by, what had first seemed to be a jumble of clicks and pops began to make sense. He realised that the San used five different clicks which ranged from something which sounded like a kiss, to one used to spur on a horse. It took longer for him to learn that words having the same sound could actually mean distinctly different things, depending on whether the vowel was stressed in nasal, breathy or normal tones. In addition, a low or high tone could further change a word.
The clan had a great deal of fun at his expense, especially the day he got the tone wrong and implied that !Ka was smoking an elephant rather than a pipe. He persevered, however, and was soon able to make himself understood and follow the general direction of their conversation. But when !Ka mentioned finding Alex when he was a baby, Alex thought he had misunderstood the Bushman’s words.
It took several months for !Ka, who patiently repeated the story over and over, to make Alex understand what it was the Bushman was trying to tell him. Even then, he believed !Ka must be mistaken. Surely his parents would have mentioned it. He had no recollection of the event although sometimes, like in his dreams, snippets of memory surfaced. Alex assumed they were nothing more than dreams.
However, if the story were true, a number of things fell into place: Why he had a strong feeling of belonging to !Ka’s clan. Why, as a child, he often sought the company of the Kung who worked for Pa. Why the sight of their tiny creased faces made him feel happy inside. And why, when others cursed the Bushmen as lazy or primitive or dishonest, Alex always had to swallow anger.
He had been with the clan four months when !Ka told him they were moving on from the Kang area, going further southeast. Alex, with no hesitation, went with them.
He enjoyed their lifestyle, particularly in the evenings when smoke rose from their cooking fires and the softly spoken clicking language could be heard around camp as husband and wife discussed domestic matters, friends spoke of hunting, men argued over someone’s laziness, yelling one moment, helpless with laughter the next, children played. He was a popular guest to their fires and was constantly being called over to sample food, or take a handful back to !Ka and Be. As he learned more and more of their language he developed a deep respect for their ways. They lived as one with nature. By learning their ways, he developed inside himself a profound contentment. The simplicity of their lifestyle left no room for pettiness, greed, envy or hate. At some stage he knew he had turned seventeen but he had no idea when and found it didn’t bother him. Life, time and daily activities were controlled by the five seasons.
!Ka taught him how influential the seasons were and how they related to the necessities of his people. Alex had arrived in January, in the middle of bara, the main summer rains. It was a time of hunting for meat and a time when their major plant food was available. The clan ate enormous meals at this time, storing the excess in their bodies. This season was followed by /=obe, a time for harvesting the nuts. Then !gum, the winter months of June, July and August. Food was still plentiful and the hunting was good. !ga, the time before the rains, was hardest. Water was difficult to find, even though the Bushmen had collected water when it was plentiful and stored it in ostrich eggs, buried in the earth to be dug up during !ga. It was in !huma, the spring rains before the heat of summer, when the clan replenished their depleted stores of water.
Alex was expected to pull his weight, something he did readily. He became a kind of unofficial clan architect, being especially adept at erecting the two types of dwelling they used. If they were not staying long in one place, a flimsy structure was erected so that, when they moved on, the landscape could return to the way nature intended it. This was done using a semi-circle of saplings, bent towards each other and tied together with dried reeds. Grass thatch or reed mats were then placed over the living frame. A fireplace had to be set opposite the open doorway to warm the inside and also keep away unwanted predators. When the clan left this kind of temporary dwelling all they took with them were the reed mats. The sapling ties would rot allowing the young trees to spring up into their original shape. Any thatch on the roof either blew or rotted away.
If a more permanent hut was required, a scaffolding of sorts became the skeleton framework, reinforced by horizontal ribs which were bound to the uprights by bark. Whichever kind of shelter was built, Alex soon realised that !Ka and his clan made certain it was invisible from a distance, inconspicuous from close up and would quickly return to the landscape as though man had never occupied a tiny space in it. It was almost as if they were apologetic for having disturbed the area.
He learned how to make a bow, how to set snares, how to fire arrows with deadly accuracy, how to make the poison to immobilise an animal. Be gave him a kaross, a blanket made from black backed jackal skins, which kept him warm at night. He discarded his western clothes in favour of the modesty pouch, made from animal hide and sewn with sinew worn by the men. And then, after he had been with the clan several months, he received his first gift from someone other than !Ka and Be.
Gift giving, as Alex had observed, was the way the clan networked. No-one kept a gift for more than a couple of months. It was always passed on to a trading partner. At some stage, that trading partner would reciprocate with a similar item. If the clan argued about anything it was either the distribution of food or another’s tardiness in the business of gift giving. So when N!ou gave him a quiver and another man gave him a hunting kit, Alex knew he would have to get busy and make something to give back. By clan standards he was poor, not having a proper gift giving network. He set about to rectify this.
!Ka helped. He showed him how to make a quiver but explained, ‘It is no good finding a tube of root bark unless you have killed a gemsbok.’
Alex asked him why.
‘The scrotum is used to cap the quiver.’
But before he could kill a gemsbok he had to learn to make the poison and before that, where to find the pupa of the flea beetle. It was a long process.
In the end, and with much advice and teaching from !Ka, he proudly gave N!ou a quiver. By then he had received other gifts. His own quiver contained five arrows, some special sticks used to make fire, a sharp stick for holding meat over flames, a hollow sip-stick for sucking up any moisture that may have collected in the hollows of trees or a little below the surface of the sand, and a stick with blobs of gum and vegetable mastic stuck to it for making running repairs to equipment while out hunting. His hunting kit held a digging stick, a knife and a bark saucer so he could mix his own poison. All these items had been given as gifts. Alex in turn, learned how to make them so he could reciprocate.
Time passed. There was always something new to learn, something else which needed doing. Alex was in no hurry. The simple, day-today activities filled him with a great sense of contentment. Then !Ka, returning from one of his hunting trips, showed him a stone. ‘You had one of these when we found you. It made you laugh.’
Alex held the diamond up against the sky. He remembered his excitement when he saw the round light the night of the dance. The same thing was happening to him now, a kind of shivery tingle which he could feel from his scalp down to the base of his spine. He could not understand it then, had no way of knowing why the lights seemed familiar. Now he thought he knew. The lights flashing off the diamond were spectacular. ‘Where did you find this?’
!Ka pointed east. ‘In the throat of an ostrich. The same way you found one.’
‘Will you show me tomorrow?’
!Ka said he would.
Alex had a new name. They called him !Oma, after the one whose spirit had flown to save him as a baby. Although he could not possibly have been related, they enforced their traditional laws and told him he could never marry a woman called Be. With only about thirty-five names at their disposal for each sex, names were transmitted from grandparent to grandchild according to strict rules. By prohibiting him from marrying a woman named Be, they were protecting him from the sin of incest. Alex took the advice seriously. It was a serious issue. He doubted, however, if it was one which would ever affect him, although he would not insult them by saying so.
Having killed a gemsbok, Alex officially became a man in the clan’s eyes. This was a significant occasion since a man who has not killed an animal remains a child and is forbidden to marry. !Ka, as Alex’s surrogate father, took the event seriously and performed The Rite of the First Kill. A shallow incision on Alex’s back was rubbed with charred meat and fat. The resultant scar, which Alex would carry for the rest of his life, ensured an inner force which compelled him to hunt and provided magic to bless him with superior hunting skills. No woman was allowed to touch his bow and arrows ever again in case they weakened his hunter’s heart.
Alex, who had grown up believing that on attaining the age of twenty-one the key to the door of life would be his, felt a pride of achievement, a surge of masculinity and adulthood, which far exceeded anything he expected he might feel when he reached twenty-one. In the eyes of the clan he was a man. In the eyes of his own world it would be another four years before he became one. With his newly acquired status providing encouragement, Alex decided it was time to take his life into his own hands.
They were camped in the Jwaneng district, about as far towards the rising sun as they cared to travel. Further east lived the Bantu and the white man, both of whom the Bushmen shunned. From Jwaneng they habitually roamed north. By the time they were ready to move Alex felt confident he had learned enough to survive in the hostile desert environment. The diamond !Ka had given him made him want to find more. As much as he enjoyed being with the clan, as much as he appreciated the serenity of their simple, non-capitalistic lifestyle and envied them for it, his own upbringing told him that finding more stones was the chance of a lifetime. He could not help himself. Diamonds would provide for his future and there was too much white man inside Alex for him to turn his back on that. !Ka had taken him to where he had found the stone. The area beckoned. The clan left without him.
The simplicity with which the Bushmen lived was never more evident as when they moved from one place to another. Each family had packed their permanent belongings into two leather sacks, each sack no larger than an overnight bag. Their farewell was casual, leaving no doubt that they would see each other again. Be placed her hand on his face and said, ‘Go well, my son.’ !Ka advised him where to find buried ostrich eggs in the event he ran out of water. Then the clan left and he was on his own, aware that the hollowness in his stomach was far greater than he’d ever felt before.
But !Ka had taught him well. ‘A man should know two things,’ he had said. ‘He should know how to live with others, and he should know how to live with himself. When a man knows these things there is little else he needs.’ So he headed east knowing he was bound to the clan by some unseen ribbon of love and this gave him comfort.
He carried the stone in his hunting kit and brought it out often, marvelling at the smooth whiteness of it. Holding it up, if he got it just the right way, reds, blues and greens, topaz and yellow and pure white flashed back. At some stage in the diamond’s history it had fractured along a cleavage plane, leaving a perfectly flat surface. It had then split in a different direction inside the stone, creating naturally a reflective angle which absorbed and dissected the sunlight before radiating it back.
Alex assumed he would find others like it, not knowing that the beautiful colours were usually the result of a diamond cutter’s skill. The stone he carried, like the one he found as a baby, had been damaged as it was forced upwards from the earth’s mantle, altered by chemical changes and subsequently flawed as it was released to solidify in the earth’s crust. Not that he would have cared. All he knew was he wanted to find more.
Alone in the desert Alex lived between two worlds. The one in his head was a white world which had his mind watching in bemusement at how he had adapted. The world in his heart was a San world, filled with new knowledge and capabilities he never expected to acquire. His head and his heart enjoyed these worlds, mixing them together and using the best of both. He was never lonely or afraid, never hungry or thirsty. The solitude and space filled him with peace.
The boy in Alex was having an adventure. The man moulded by !Ka made him self-sufficient. But the man emerging from his boyhood eventually started him thinking about where his life was going.
He wanted a farm of his own, he had always known that. He wanted experience—life, girls, parties, fun—he was young and the world awaited him. He wanted what the San had—simple pleasures, contentment, a sense of self-worth. He needed a goal yet he resisted that need at the same time as he accepted it.
‘You can’t have it both ways,’ his white head told him. ‘Why not?’ his San heart challenged.
The conundrum confused him. He was poised between two worlds. The realisation that the next step he took would set him on his life’s path scared him.
‘Think,’ his head said. ‘Draw a list of plus and minus factors for each.’
His heart resisted the idea. ‘Sit,’ it told him. ‘Sit and feel. What makes you smile?’
‘Diamonds make me smile,’ he thought.
‘Why?’ his head asked.
‘So I can buy what I want.’
‘What do you want?’
Round and round it went. Just when he believed he’d solved the riddle, the answer skittered away.
It took a horse to provide the solution.
He had been on his own for nine weeks, wandering the desert, looking for something he had no idea how to find, when Nightmare found him, using whatever instinct a horse has for such things. He went to bed one night totally alone and woke in the morning to find he had guests. The stallion, Nightmare and their foal. The young horse, possibly no more than two months old, had his father’s deep black colouring. But when he stood in the sun, russet red glowed. He was like a diamond, his colour depended on the sun’s angle. So Alex christened him Diamond. The horses hung around his camp for several days before disappearing. Nightmare was showing off her baby. He missed their company.
Loneliness crept up on him slowly. He found himself talking out loud. Young and fit, he thought about sex more and more and his body responded with a yearning he found irresistible. Watching the silver planes fly overhead, on their way to South Africa or Europe, he imagined the people in them and a strange hungry feeling came to him. With a sense of deep sadness, he realised it was time for him to go. His head had won.
It took him two weeks to find the clan. ‘You are as my father,’ he said to !Ka that night around the cooking fire.
!Ka nodded and smiled. ‘You are as my son.’
‘You have taught me many things. I have come to understand your ways and my heart tells me they are good ways. And yet I have other words in my heart.’ !Ka had told him that the Bushmen thought and felt with their hearts. Their heads were there for only one reason: to give them a headache.
‘And what is your heart saying?’
‘I must go and be with my own.’
!Ka sucked on his pipe, saying nothing.
Alex waited.
‘Come.’ !Ka rose. ‘We will talk with the others.’
He sat with the rest of the men around the fire. !Ka addressed them. ‘!Oma is listening to the voice in his heart. It is telling him it is time to go.’
Heads nodded. This was nothing new to them. Individuals came and went to and from the clans for various reasons, sometimes simply from a desire to move on.
‘!Oma’s heart is like that of the elephant-girl.’
Alex agreed, delighted with the comparison. It was exactly how he felt.
The elephant-girl was, according to San beliefs, sometimes married to an elephant. At other times she was married to the older brother of the Great God’s only two sons. Alex had never been able to understand this. If the Great God had only two sons, how could she be married to one who does not exist? And why can’t she make up her mind between a man and an elephant? He had asked !Ka more than once to explain but !Ka could not. The story was one he accepted but did not question.
!Ka, by comparing Alex to the elephant-girl, showed he understood the confusion in Alex. He set out to reassure him. ‘Look, !Oma, can you see the backbone of the sky?’ !Ka pointed upwards.
Alex looked up. The clarity of the Milky Way out in the desert always impressed him. It appeared to sit just over their heads. ‘I see it, Father.’
‘Can you see it tomorrow when you wake from your sleep?’
‘No, Father.’
‘Does that mean it is not there?’
‘No, Father. It is always there.’
!Ka drew on his pipe. ‘It will always be there, my son, even if you cannot see it.’
N!ou leaned towards Alex. ‘Remember, !ebili, the solitary male buck is easy to kill. He is morose. He has no interest in others. He is very often fat. He forgets that which he saw as soon as he sees it. He does not smell like the rest so he cannot join them. I do not think that you are abnormal like the solitary one.’
Alex had his answer.
Be brought him his clothes. He had grown and filled out and he found them uncomfortable after the freedom of wearing nothing more than a duiker skin loin flap. Using pieces of animal skin, it took almost a week to stitch and sew extra space into his clothes. Be helped and was very proud of the result. He knew he must look very strange but did not care.
When he said goodbye there was a lump in his throat. As he set off into the vastness of the Kalahari, he wondered if he would ever see them again.
Nine days later he walked into Molepolole, a sprawling traditional village some thirty miles northwest of Gaberones, his heart thumping with excitement. Black children saw him and ran alongside, laughing and pointing. Not with malice but with insatiable curiosity. He was not like any white man they had ever seen. When he entered the general store and saw the face of the white man behind the counter, he realised he was about to speak English to someone else for the first time in almost eighteen months.
Marvin Moine had seen plenty of strange sights in his twenty-eight years. A South African, he had joined the regular army there when he was twenty. He trained as a mechanic and then, aged twenty-four, had been seconded to the Defence Research Unit which was testing new ways to render army vehicles impervious to the destructive forces of landmines.
An experiment had gone badly wrong and Marvin had been trapped under a deflector plate which had parted company with the remotely controlled test vehicle during an explosion.
The outcome of this was a permanent limp, a large compensation payout, an honourable discharge, and a revised approach to life. At twenty-six Marvin—his friends called him Marv—went, to coin his own phrase, ‘walkies’.
His travels led him eventually into Bechuanaland. For Marvin, it was love at first sight. He worked for a spell up in the Okavango Delta, acting as general dogsbody to one of the safari companies. When the hunting season ended, he tried setting up his own service station in the small town of Palapye but he wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment and he quickly sold it again. Eight months ago his wanderings had taken him to Molepolole where he was employed as a mechanic and store assistant by Jacob van Zyl who owned the general trading store, cum garage, cum bottle shop, cum chemist. Jacob had taken one look at Marv and, correctly, deduced he would have to go a long way to find another such transparently honest, hard-working and capable employee.
Before coming to Bechuanaland, Marv’s walkies had taken him to some of southern Africa’s most remote places. He had met and mixed with some of southern Africa’s hardest characters. He took one look at Alex and tried to throw him out.
Alex’s hair, wild and tangled, had been hacked off occasionally with a sharp knife but it grew to his shoulders in a mess of uncombed, sun-bleached curls. His beard also showed the effects of sporadic attacks with the same instrument. Clothing, lovingly patched by himself and Be, nonetheless looked ragged and makeshift. He had smeared tsamma ointment over his face to protect his skin and !Ka had wiped his own perspiration over his head to protect him. Alex had not seen much water on his trek, apart from enough to drink and, although it was June and not yet searingly hot in the desert, nine days without a wash left a lot to be desired. Not to put too fine a point on it, he stank as bad as he looked and he looked as bad as he stank.
‘Please,’ Alex said as Marv propelled him towards the door. ‘I need work.’
Jacob van Zyl had been packing a delivery of soft drinks into his coolroom. He popped his head around the door, took in Alex’s appearance and drew the same conclusion Marv had.
‘Work, jong? What kind of work would a madman like you want?’ He approached Alex cautiously.
‘I’m not mad. I’ve walked here from Khutse. I need money. I’m strong, I’ll do anything you ask.’
‘Get off! No-one walks from Khutse. What do you take me for, an imbecile?’
‘It’s true. I’ve been living in the desert.’
‘Ach man, you stink.’
‘I’ll take a bath. It’s only sweat. Please, sir.’
Jacob stopped and looked into Alex’s eyes. What he saw there startled him. Beneath the tangled hair, in spite of the rank odour and the grime, there was a soul, the essence of which was pure, free and honest. The sum of this boy, he decided, was worth a second look. Deep in the blue-green, a calmness and maturity, a wisdom and compassion, far beyond the youthfulness of those clear eyes. He motioned for Marv to let go of Alex’s arm. ‘How old are you, boy?’
‘Eighteen I think.’
‘What the plurry hell you doing wandering around like that? How come you don’t know how old you are?’ He looked over at Marv. ‘What are you standing around here grinning like a loon for? There’s work, there’s work. Get your heap of bones outside and don’t come back until my truck’s fixed. Go on. What are you waiting for?’
Marv left, grinning widely.
Alex sensed that the store owner’s bark was an act. He took a deep breath. ‘I’ll tell you the whole story if you like. It’s a long one and I’m not mad. Honest.’
The man shook his head. ‘I must be mad myself, taking on a boy like you. Get yourself out back, there’s a Rhodesian boiler out there with a shower. Get those clothes off, I’ll give you some new ones. You can pay me back out of your wages.’
Alex tried to take his hand. ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you.’
The man shook him off. ‘Get off me. Sus, man, you stink worse than one of them bloody bushmen.’ He pointed the way around the back. ‘What’s your name, boy?’
‘Alex Theron.’
‘Theron. That’s an Afrikaans name.’
‘Yes, sir, my father is Afrikaans.’
‘Well then boy, speak to me in Afrikaans.’
‘I can’t, sir. My mother is from Europe. We never spoke it at home.’
‘Where’s home then, jong?’
‘Shakawe.’
The man laughed suddenly. ‘My name’s Jacob van Zyl. If you’re a Theron from Shakawe I guess you must be Danie Theron’s son—am I right?’
Pa! God how he would love to see him right now. ‘Yes, sir.’
Jacob looked again. His appearance was enough to frighten the hardiest of souls. Yet the gentle wisdom in his eyes, the stance of the boy, his voice—all pointed to someone who respected himself and thus, deserved respect. Above all if he was Danie Theron’s son he must be all right. ‘You the boy who got lost in the Kalahari when you were a baby?’
It must be true. Why wasn’t I told? ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Guess you got kind of used to them little yellow men then?’
Alex swallowed anger. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, jong, I need a handyman. Enough work here for six months. After that you can bugger off—understand. I’m not running a bloody charity home.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘You can sleep on the stoep out back. It’s enclosed at one end. There’s a bed, that’s all. Oh, and one more thing. Burn those bloody clothes, jong.’
Marv had his head under the bonnet of an old Ford truck. ‘He’s right about one thing,’ he said as Alex passed him. ‘You stink.’
The first free hour Alex got, he sat down and wrote a long letter to his parents. As he wrote, he realised how thoughtless he had been. They would be frantic with worry about him by now.
His mother’s response, two weeks later, filled him with guilty anguish. Several lines were smeared, as though her tears of relief had fallen on the page. She blessed the Good Lord seven times in three pages. She admonished him and told him she loved him in the one sentence. And she made a point of telling him how much Pa could use his help.
All he had learned while living with the San, all the respect and assistance he had seen afforded to the elderly, all the deference adult children showed their parents, none of it quelled his rising irritation as he read his mother’s letter.
She had the knack of stifling, annoying, and laying blame and guilt at his feet, even while she was saying she loved him. His inexperience did not allow him to blame her for it. It had to be his fault.
Alex worked for Jacob for seven months. Despite his gruff manner and his rough words, Jacob van Zyl was a gentle soul who, once Alex had showered, shaved, changed into fresh clothes and allowed Marthe, Jacob’s wife, to cut his hair, took him under his wing and treated him as his own son.
As for Marv, he and Alex became good friends. Alex liked the way the older man danced to a different beat from most and was happily unconcerned about those who failed to appreciate him. He was certainly an acquired taste. Rough around the edges, he had a lived-in face and a habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Men reacted favourably to his practical nature but women simply didn’t take to him. Alex thought this a pity because Marv had a lot of love and loyalty in him. His heart was in the right place and he was a big softie, it just took time to know him. Anyone who bothered discovered, as had Alex after several weeks, that beneath the Punchinello exterior there was a penetrating intelligence and a resourceful competence. Sadly, most people wrote him off as a buffoon, a fact Marv was aware of but seemingly unmoved by.
His injured leg gave him a good deal of pain on occasion but all Marv would say was, ‘Must be going to rain, my leg’s twinging.’ Alex grew to like, respect and finally, love like a brother this big, hard, gentle person.
After seven months, and many imploring letters from his mother, Alex could not put off going home any longer. In any case, Jacob had no more work for him.
‘About time you saw your parents, jong.’ He knew Alex received letters from home.
‘You’re right, Jacob. It’s time I went home.’
‘That boy who robbed you. What are you going to do about him?’
Alex shrugged. ‘Nothing.’
Jacob looked into his eyes. There was no malice in them. He wondered again at the maturity of someone so young.
Marv shook his hand. ‘You’ll be back. You and me are going to find diamonds.’
Alex had shown Marv the stone !Ka gave him. Marv was getting bored in Molepolole. Prospecting for diamonds in the Kalahari would do nicely for a while. ‘Couple of weeks, Marv. See you then.’
Old man van Zyl grumbled and complained. ‘Man must be mad. I take on a lunatic and lose the best mechanic in the country. That’s all the thanks I get.’
Alex grinned and hugged him. Jacob had ridiculed their plan but then told them they could have one of the old Land Rovers rusting in his backyard. ‘If you can get one of them old buggers to work it’s yours. Hell, take two. They’re just cluttering up the yard. I’m telling you true, man, I wouldn’t ride to my own funeral in one. Bloody unreliable British junk. Bloody British. Bloody uncomfortable that’s what they are.’
Marthe dabbed her eyes when he left. ‘We’ll miss you, Alex.’
‘Don’t be so plurry silly, woman. Miss him! Why would we miss a madman? You stop that nonsense now.’ But Jacob’s own eyes were damp when Alex said goodbye. ‘You stay in touch you hear. And don’t go running off to the plurry desert again. This old ticker couldn’t stand another shock like that.’
He knew from his mother’s letters that Paul was now in high school in Gaberones. He went to see his brother who was overjoyed by the visit.
‘Boy are you going to cop an earful from Mum,’ Paul said gleefully. ‘Wish I could be there.’
‘How are they?’
‘Pa’s fine. He hurt his back last year but he’s okay.’
‘And Mum?’
‘When she came back from Ghanzi she was worse than ever.’
‘She went to Ghanzi?’
‘Sure did. Pa tried to talk her out of it but she went anyway. Tore a strip off your boss for taking on a minor. She must have given him a really hard time; he threw her off the property. Didn’t stop her, though—she got the cops onto him.’
‘She didn’t!’
‘Truly. She didn’t believe it when he said you’d walked off the job. She’s had posters all over Gabs and Francistown. Didn’t she mention it?’
The guilt was back. ‘No, she said nothing about it in her letters. Just the usual . . .’
Paul pulled a face. ‘God, grief and guilt.’
‘Yeah,’ Alex said quietly. ‘But this time I deserved it.’
Paul had shot up and was now slightly taller than him. The two of them looked alike, although Paul’s hair was straight and dark like Pa’s. He was still determined to become an economist.
‘Bechuanaland is going to get independence. When that happens, I intend to be here,’ he told Alex as they parted.
‘Doing what?’ Alex wished his own future was as clear.
‘Shuffling numbers,’ Paul told him seriously. ‘Getting numbers to speak to me. It’s all the rage.’
Alex laughed. ‘What do these numbers say to you?’
‘Any damned thing I want them to.’
‘That’s scary.’
‘Nah,’ Paul said with all the wisdom and experience of a schoolboy. ‘It’s the way the world’s going.’
Alex stayed at the only hotel, down near the railway station, before catching the train to Francis-town. When he walked into the bar he heard a voice saying, ‘I’m telling you, boyo, you can stick that bloody drive. It’s the last one I’m doing.’
He looked over. Pat had his back to him and was thumping the bar with his fist. Willie was half turned to him, grinning at Pat. Bob, facing him, raised his glass to drink and his eyes met with Alex. ‘Jesus Christ!’
Willie looked up, Pat looked around. ‘Jesus Christ, mother of Mary.’
Alex was grinning. He walked over to them. ‘Meant to tell you this before, Pat, that doesn’t make sense.’
Pat grabbed him and pawed his arms and shoulders. ‘Where did you spring from? Why did you leave like that? You never even said goodbye.’
‘I didn’t have much choice.’
‘Whaddya mean? Kel said you’d just up and left. Jeff was so angry he refused to talk about it.’
‘Is Kel here?’ He looked around.
‘Kel? Nah! Jeff got rid of him. Bugger had been climbing a tree outside Madison’s room. Jeff caught him at it. Bastard was wearing Willie’s American boots so he’d get the blame.’
‘What’d Jeff do to him?’
‘Kicked him off.’
‘That’s all, just kicked him off?’
‘Yeah, why?’
Alex told them what had happened outside Kang.
Pat had violence in his eyes. ‘The bastards. They never said. Christ, boyo, you might have died. To think I wasted sympathy on that little shit Kel for what happened to his face.’
‘Why? What happened to his face?’
‘Fell of his horse. Got a bit banged up,’ Pat said vaguely. ‘It happened just after you disappeared. Little turd said nothing about Jeff laying into you.’
‘Always knew Jeff had a mean streak.’ Bob looked troubled. ‘He should have said something.’
‘Is he with you?’ Alex did not want to run into the man. Ever.
‘No. He’s in Ghanzi. Madison’s here, though.’
‘What! On the drive!’
Pat laughed at that. ‘Madam Madison? Oh dear me no, darling. Much too dirty. She’s working here temporary until she leaves for Europe.’
‘Where’s she working?’
‘Now there you’re at it again, boyo. Haven’t the past few years taught you anything?’
Alex grinned. ‘Yeah. They’ve taught me that Madam Madison and her bloody father can fall off the edge of the world.’
‘Well, that’s a relief.’ Pat stopped and looked at Willie. Willie looked back.
‘What? What?’ They were looking over his shoulder.
‘Actually, boyo, she’s just walked in.’
He spun around. At nineteen, Madison Carter was more beautiful that his wildest imagination could conjure. She had seen the men, smiled and waved. Then she was walking towards them. He watched her. Dark hair falling like silk to her jawline. Smooth skin, tanned lightly. Dark grey eyes. Those breasts, hidden under a snowy white blouse. Tiny waist. Slim hips. Legs that went on forever.
‘Hi there.’ She smiled from Pat to Bob to Willie.
‘Hello, Madison. What brings you here?’
‘Dad phoned. He said you’d be in town.’ She looked pointedly at Alex.
He stared at her. Did she know what her father had done?
She stared back, a small frown marring the smooth perfection of her brow, as though she was trying to remember something.
God, she’s beautiful.
‘Like a drink, Madison? Beer’s very cold here. Best in Bechuanaland.’ Pat was babbling to cover the awkward silence.
He wanted to hate her. She tried to bridge the gulf growing between them. ‘Dad would like to see you again. He owes you an apology.’
Anger at Jeff burned in his gut. With an effort he pushed it away. He had learned much from !Ka. He accepted that anger led to violence and violence led to sorrow and the way to avoid sorrow was to have no anger in the first place. But, while this belief was etched in !Ka’s soul, it only sat in Alex’s heart and he had to work at it. ‘Your father can go to hell, Miss Carter.’
She flushed, angry and embarrassed. ‘It was a mistake.’
‘No. Half killing me was the mistake. He should have finished the job.’
‘He didn’t . . . Dad wouldn’t . . . he said he fired you.’
Alex laughed cynically. ‘Your father beat a sixteen-year-old kid half to death and left him in the desert. Like I said, Miss Carter, your father can go to hell.’
She was still staring at him. ‘You’re lying,’ she said coldly.
He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’ Slowly and deliberately he raked his eyes down her body and then, with a small smile, turned his back on her. He knew it was madness. What had happened had not been her fault. And God she was beautiful. He turned back, ready to apologise.
‘Dad was right about you.’ Her voice was clipped and hard, hatred blazing in her eyes. ‘You’re nothing but a lout.’
‘He’s not a lout, Madison,’ Pat said quietly. ‘He took a terrible beating from your father for nothing. He was a kid. If anyone’s a lout . . .’
‘It’s us,’ Willie said quickly, before Pat could jeopardise his job.
She tossed her head. ‘Well, I can see I’m not wanted here. Good night.’ She turned and quickly crossed the floor, not looking back.
‘What are you up to now?’ Pat asked, grabbing his jaw and forcing his head away from Madison’s exit.
‘Between jobs. I thought I’d go home for a bit. It’s been a long time.’ It was hard to talk with his jaw being squeezed. ‘Let go, Pat, before my teeth pop out.’
Pat let go. ‘You’re not going anywhere, boyo. Not yet. We’re in town for two more days. You’re with us.’
It seemed that Carter’s Crazy Crowd knew every damned person in Gaberones. They lurched from one party to another, from one bar to another. Pat seemed determined to drink every house dry and bed every woman he met. On the second night Alex found himself at the home of yet another acquaintance of Pat’s. He had been drinking most of the afternoon and was well on his way to being drunk when Madison walked in with a man. She came directly to him and, just as directly, got straight to the point.
‘I’ve been talking to Dad. He said to tell you he’s sorry. I’m sorry too. I didn’t think he would do anything like that.’
He looked at her blearily, respecting her courage for coming to him. ‘Forget it.’ He wished he didn’t feel so out of control.
‘I can’t. What he did was shocking. I can’t stop thinking about it.’
‘Do me a favour.’ Why did she have to keep moving?
‘What?’
‘Please get me some coffee.’
He never did discover who she arrived with. He drank black coffee for several hours and sobered up. Madison seemed content to sit and talk with him.
His time with !Ka and the clan had taught him many things. Among them, not to put off something which causes you to quake with fear. As !Ka had reasonably pointed out, there is no use in worrying about that which may never happen or, if it is going to happen, that which you cannot prevent from happening. It is always best to face extreme fear with action. So he did. ‘Can I take you home?’
Hesitation. ‘All right.’
That hadn’t hurt a bit. ‘What about . . .’
‘Forget him.’
!Ka had taught him something else: ‘I shall eat’ is not ‘I have eaten’; ‘I have eaten’ is that which is in the stomach. But he forgot those wise words in his excitement at finally, finally getting close to Madison without her hating him.
He said goodbye to Pat and the others. ‘Stay in touch, boyo.’
‘I will.’
‘Watch her. She’s still her father’s daughter.’
‘She’s over eighteen. Daddy can go to hell.’
‘That’s not what I mean.’ Pat looked troubled. ‘She’s not a one-nighter. You tangle with her you’re likely to find it’s permanent.’
‘Jesus, mother of Mary, Pat. I’m only taking her home.’
Pat raised his eyebrow knowingly. But all he said mildly was ‘That doesn’t make sense, boyo.’
She offered him coffee at her place but he had sobered up and, after the black coffee at the party, felt thirsty. ‘Rather have a beer.’
She got two.
‘How long have you been living in Gabs?’ He and Marv travelled the thirty miles of dirt road between Molepolole and Gaberones most weekends. While they enjoyed the quieter aspects of the rural village, the action in the capital beckoned between Friday and Sunday. He wondered why he hadn’t bumped into her.
‘I’ve only just arrived.’ She took a swig from her bottle. Her hair swung back as she tilted her head. It was the action of a tomboy, not the Madam Madison he remembered.
‘Are you planning to stay here?’
‘No.’ Her hair swung forward, framing her face. ‘I’m leaving for Maun next month.’
‘What to do?’
‘Working for Game Department. It’s only temporary, just till I go to Europe, but I like it.’
‘Is that what you do here in Gabs?’
She was looking at him with curiosity. ‘You seem different from how I remember.’
‘I’m older.’
‘No, that’s not it.’ She swigged her beer and he watched her hair. ‘I thought you were nothing more than a thug.’
‘The fight you mean?’
‘Yes.’
He asked for that. ‘I’m not proud of it, I lost my temper, but he really did have it coming. I don’t like fighting, Madison, but sometimes, like then, well there are principles involved.’ He told her about Nightmare and the stick and then he found himself telling her about Nightmare and the stallion and all the time he spoke he was aware she was watching him and listening with interest, not dislike.
‘You actually lived with the Bushmen?’
‘Yes.’
‘What are they like?’
So he told her that too. He talked about their gentleness, their respect for nature and each other, their love of children, their sense of loyalty and their understanding of how the world and their bodies work, despite having no education. She watched his face, smiling sometimes, nodding at others. ‘You can’t help but be influenced by them,’ he said finally. ‘Their way of life makes more sense than anything else I’ve seen.’
She put down her beer. ‘Alex, you talk too much.’
He put down his. ‘You make me nervous.’
She rose. ‘Why?’
He rose and moved towards her. ‘You’re so damned beautiful.’
She laughed up at him. Her body leaned into his. Her breasts brushed his chest. Her face was turned up to his. He lowered his head. Electric currents threatened to stop his heart. It started gently, but her soft lips and the tip of her tongue weakened his legs and had blood pounding in his head. He tightened his arms around her and crushed her into him, and the kiss deepened and his heart was thumping wildly, so wildly he could hear it.
She pulled away. ‘Alex, wait. This is too fast.’ The intensity of his kiss disturbed her. ‘That was no ordinary kiss.’
He pulled her back. ‘No. This is right. It’s been coming a long time.’ He kissed her again, a long, lingering kiss, and felt her reluctance dissolve as desire flooded both their bodies and she kissed him back with a growing urgency that left him drowning in liquid warmth.
When at last they pulled apart he looked deeply into her eyes and saw the need in her, but he also saw apprehension. He realised that while he had woken the woman, the lingering child was unsure. He was not very experienced but instinct told him to take her gently from where she was poised or he would frighten her. His hand brushed her hair softly back from her face. ‘Are you sure, Madison?’ he whispered.
Her eyes were searching his, looking for reassurance. Doubt and confusion were being replaced by a myriad of surging emotions which she had, up till now, suppressed. ‘Yes,’ she whispered back finally.
He put out his hand and she took it, like a trusting child. He felt tremors of desire and nervousness in her fingers. He tugged gently on her hand and she came to him, her eyes never leaving his. He wrapped her in his arms and held her against him, allowing her to feel his intent, giving her one last chance to change her mind, but she stayed in his arms and her ragged breath told him she was as committed as he. ‘Come,’ he said, leading her towards the bedroom.
They stood facing each other at the foot of her bed. Gazing into her clear grey eyes which were rimmed with a blue so deep that the outer edges looked violet, Alex saw her trust in him and it touched him more deeply than anything he had ever felt before. Slowly, gently, he unbuttoned her blouse and she shrugged out of it so it fell to the floor in a whisper of silk. Her lacy brassiere joined it seconds later and he bent his head and sucked first one, then the other nipple so they hardened and she moaned with the unfamiliar sensations which burned at the very core of her sensuality.
Holding back his own need, Alex undressed her completely, his hands gentle on her burning skin, his tongue finding soft corners until he knew, by her trembling and tiny sounds of pleasure, that she was ready for him, that she wanted him as urgently as he wanted her.
In his eyes, Madison was perfect and he wanted to make this perfect for her and so he took her far beyond a state of readiness. He took her soaring in a sky filled with wonderful new feelings until the woman emerging in her reached a pulsating pinnacle of pleasure and she went spiralling down into a warm sea filled with wonder and contentment and, above all, a need as old as time itself to have his body joined to hers. When he entered her she cried out, a throaty deep cry of longing fulfilled, an animal growl of the sweetest of delight and she moved with him as though she were a part of him and they reached the pinnacle together, and together they plunged into the warm contented sea, and together they lay as one with their hearts and minds as joined as their bodies.
‘Madison,’ he whispered when he could. ‘That was beautiful.’
‘I had no idea,’ she said softly, her breath still fluttering in her throat. ‘I feel so alive, so free.’ Her fingernails traced gentle patterns on his back, giving him goose bumps. ‘It’s like I’ve been flung off a roller coaster and suddenly find I can fly.’
He rolled off her and lay on his back, staring upwards. His limited experience with girls had not prepared him for the way he was feeling. For the first time he did not want to get up and go. The conversation girls seemed to need after lovemaking, something he shied from because it always seemed that they were seeking commitment, was now what he wanted. ‘That was your first time,’ he said. ‘I didn’t hurt you did I?’
‘No.’ He heard puzzlement in her voice. ‘Everyone says it hurts but it didn’t.’
‘I’m glad.’
He gathered her up in his arms, a need in him to hold her close, to feel the softness of her against his body. She snuggled into him and they lay together in silent wonder, the magic of their shared intimacy around them like a cloak of fulfilment. Alex wanted to hold her like this forever.
Finally she stirred. ‘Alex,’ she said softly, hesitantly, ‘can we talk about Dad?’
He was too full of new feelings to understand that she needed his forgiveness for her father’s actions so that she could forgive her father herself. Her question should have alerted him that, in this regard, she was vulnerable; that for someone as proud as Madison, this vulnerability was intolerable and that her question was another form of trust. But Alex didn’t want to talk about her father. The beating he received, the callous indifference to whether he lived or died, always made him angry. Besides, lying naked next to her, the only thing he wanted was to touch her again and again, hold her close to him, feel her heart beating against his.
‘Forget it,’ he said, harder than intended in the usual rush of anger. ‘It’s done. It’s over. Nothing can change it. Just forget it.’
She sat up. ‘Don’t tell me to forget it.’ She got off the bed and pulled on a robe. ‘I’m trying to understand it.’ She moved to the dressing table and attacked her hair with a brush so stiff that Alex could hear the crackle of electricity. ‘He’s my father,’ she said between strokes of the brush. ‘He did something terrible, something I would never have expected of him. Surely you can see why I want to talk about it.’
Alex rose and pulled on his clothes, cursing her father for having spoiled the mood. He spoke without thinking. ‘Your father is pathological about keeping you pure. The thought that I had been spying on you through your bedroom window was too much for him. He lost control. That’s all there was to it.’
She stopped brushing her hair and stared at him. ‘What do you mean, pathological?’ Her tone should have warned him.
‘He told all the men to keep away from you. You are his princess. Most fathers want to protect their daughters but yours went overboard.’ Anger triumphed over his attempt to stay calm and he took it out on her. ‘If your father had his way you’d still be a virgin when you were fifty.’
A look of pure hate crossed her face. ‘Is that why you seduced me?’ She stood up, breathing hard. ‘I trusted you and all the time it was to get even with my father.’ A tear of rage slid down her cheek. ‘You used me, you bastard. Get out. Go back to the gutter where you belong.’
He was shattered she believed that. ‘Madison, that’s not true.’ He took a step towards her. ‘I didn’t use you.’ He only just ducked in time to avoid the hairbrush she flung at him. ‘Madison, for God’s sake calm down.’
‘Dad was right about you.’ Her eyes blazed. ‘You’re not good enough for me.’
For Alex, whose emotions had run the gauntlet from elation to anger, that was the final straw. ‘You’re not so special, Miss Carter, and I was good enough for you ten minutes ago. I didn’t hear you yelling rape.’ He turned to go. ‘To hell with you,’ he grated over his shoulder. ‘You’re nothing but a spoilt brat. Who needs it.’
Slamming her front door he strode angrily into the night. It was a long walk back to the hotel. Her words, ‘you’re not good enough for me’ burned in him. He’d covered a quarter of the distance before it struck him that someone like Madison would hardly give herself to someone she felt was beneath her, that her angry words were a cover for hurt. He considered going back to apologise then discarded the idea. He’d blown it. He called himself a fool for the rest of the way back to the hotel.