Takura sifts through the sand. Not even the groan in his belly or the dirt lodged under his fingernails will stop him. His faded yellow hat does a poor job of shielding his face from the sun, so he brings his prosthetic arm to his face. It’s only been a month since the local blacksmith attached the auto-appendage, after he lost his right hand to the Grootslang in an abandoned mine.
He doesn’t have time to grieve the loss. Besides, he isn’t the only makorokoza who has an auto-appendage or who has incurred the Grootslang’s wrath. All around him the other makorokoza, there must be a hundred or maybe two hundred of them, are also digging holes in the ground searching for the treasure.
At least we still have lives, Takura thinks.
The sound of their shovels fills the once-quiet savanna grassland. Female traders carry baskets on their heads. They move from makorokoza to makorokoza, selling charms that promise to ward off the Grootslang. They sell other things too—bananas blackened by the sun, red freeze-its, their bodies—anything to attract a purchase by one of the wretched young men who might happen to dig up something worthwhile.
Takura checks his sieve expectantly. More worthless rocks and dirt. Being an artisanal miner is thankless work, but he does it anyway. You never know when the god of luck will sit on your shoulders and you’ll strike it big. Every korokoza knows the tale of one such man who’d dug up one of the biggest diamonds to be discovered in the area. It changed his entire life. He was now a bigwig politician enjoying his riches.
I will find something too.
Takura doubles down on his efforts, putting more earth into the sieve. He whistles to distract himself from the sound that won’t go away. It’s not the ceaseless digging that bothers him. It’s something else, something beneath the soil, as if a million people are trapped down there, weeping. Their weeping sickens him. The others call it the makorokoza’s curse. They say the sound goes away after you pay the Grootslang’s toll. Most makorokozas cannot afford the toll, so drowning the sound with a drink usually does the trick, temporarily anyway. Takura can’t even afford a can of beer to do that.
Takura wants to scream at the voices beneath the ground to shut up, but he doesn’t want to look unhinged in front of the other makorokoza, so he whistles louder. Takura thinks back to the day he lost his hand and counts himself lucky. He narrowly escaped with his life. The Grootslang, the guardian spirit of diamonds, does not take kindly to those who take precious gems from the earth without paying the toll. If he hadn’t been quick on his feet, perhaps he would be one of the unfortunates underground.
Takura is so troubled by the wailing that, at first, he doesn’t notice the sparkle amidst the sand.
A diamond!
He inhales sharply when he picks up the gem, rubbing away the dirt around it.
He drops the sieve as he inspects the find, the euphoria dizzying as he tries to calculate how much he could get for this. Takura is about to put it away when he hears the distant whir of an airship. Everyone stops work to look up as the ship closes in.
The balloon-like craft blocks the sun as it hovers overhead, putting everything beneath it in shadow. Takura notices too late that the airship has the Rhodesveld army’s seal emblazoned on its side. Noticing the seal too, the other makorokoza panic and make a run for it. Takura stuffs the diamond into his pocket and scrambles out of the hole he’s dug. Before he can retrieve his sieve, the airship fires, the bullets ripping into the backs of ten makorokoza near him. Takura’s insides turn to mush as he runs in the same direction as the other survivors, but this is a fatal mistake. The makorokoza and traders ahead of him scream in horror as they are intercepted by a group of soldiers with auto-dogs. The dogs’ mechanical bodies are a polished silver.
Takura flees in the opposite direction, the auto-dogs giving chase. He scampers past a charm vendor, a portly woman who struggles to run with a tray of unsold beaded necklaces. Not long after he passes her, he hears her scream as the auto-dogs tear into her.
Takura reaches an abandoned mine shaft and dives inside. He listens for the approach of military boots, heart hammering. He reminds himself that he has a diamond, that he will be okay. Surely the gods wouldn’t be so cruel as to end his life when all he’s ever wanted is in his pocket?
Suddenly a teargas canister nosedives down the shaft, and gas clouds rise around him. He crawls towards the surface, chest and eyes burning. Takura reaches into his pocket and clutches the diamond as if it is the only solid thing in this world. When he emerges from the shaft, his vision is too blurry to see the soldier lifting his rifle. Takura is still clutching the gem when he hits the ground, a bullet between his eyes.
When death comes to find you, may it find you alive.
The last thing Takura remembers is being shot, darkness, and then waking up here. The air reeks with the sulphur smell of rotten eggs. He can’t tell where exactly here is, but he knows it’s underground. He brings his hand to his forehead. There is a hole there big enough for a bullet to fit.
“No, no, no,” he screams. A makorokoza should never die before paying off the Grootslang’s toll.
It is unbearably hot, and he is chained to the earth and chained to all the people who have been shot dead in front of him. A whip cracks from somewhere. He doesn’t see it, but he feels it licking his taut back. Around him, everyone is wailing, wildly scratching at the earth for an escape. Takura picks up a fistful of soil, and it turns to diamonds in his hands. It is only then that he fully accepts where he is. Fuck! The makorokoza curse.
He’s been so overwhelmed by the wails of the other makorokoza that he’s failed to pick up on another sound. A low, rumbling noise like something large breathing.
“Who dares enter the Wondergat?” a voice booms, echoing as if a thousand voices were layered on top of each other.
In the dark a pair of red eyes glint. The speaker is a gray-skinned elephant with four tusks and a giant serpent’s body, forty feet long. Takura wants to scream at the sight of the monstrous being before him, but the creature opens her mouth to speak again and reveals a pair of fangs glimmering in the dark. Her open mouth resembles a Venus flytrap.
“You are charged with stealing gems from the earth without paying the toll, korokoza,” the Grootslang says, her hot breath hitting Takura like a furnace.
The creature sits atop a stockpile of gemstones and polishes a large diamond with its trunk. It’s the same trunk that wrapped around his arm and snapped it off that fateful day he went too deep into the abandoned mine shaft. Takura wants to run away, but he is chained to the ground. He remembers that the legends say one can bargain for one’s freedom with the Grootslang by offering her a gem. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the diamond he found just before he died.
“Please, take this as an offering,” Takura says in a shaky voice.
The Grootslang laughs, her laugh something between a vuvuzela, a hiss, and an elephant’s trumpet.
“That would work if you were an ordinary human who’d stumbled into the Wondergat by mistake,” the Grootslang says. “But you aren’t an ordinary human. You are a korokoza. One measly gemstone won’t be enough to repay all that you have stolen from the earth.”
“I had no choice but to become a korokoza,” Takura says. “What options does an orphan—”
“I’m as old as time itself, boy. I’ve heard every sob story you can think of,” the creature says. “None of them move me.”
The Grootslang drops the diamond she was polishing onto her mountain of jewels.
“I sentence you to grow diamonds until you’ve made enough to pay off the unpaid toll you’ve incurred,” she says. “Only then can you have your freedom. Only then can you move on to the afterlife.”
Takura remembers an older makorokoza telling him it is well known that diamonds are grown by dead makorokoza. Takura dismissed it as a superstition meant to scare poor orphan boys like him from becoming makorokoza.
“I would have paid the toll, I swear,” Takura says, desperately. “I just died before I could—”
“Silence!” the Grootslang says. “I care not for the ramblings of thieving humans. Now get to work. The more diamonds you grow, the faster you can pass on. From the looks of it, you’re going to be here a long, long time.”
The Kimberley Process Report to the League of Nations
Summary
Twenty years ago, a group of diamond-producing states, diamond industry executives, and activists against blood diamonds met in Kimberley, South Africa, and vowed to keep the trade in rough diamonds conflict-free. Ever since, only member states of the Kimberley Process can legitimately sell diamonds across the globe.
In order for a country to be a member, it must ensure:
i) that any diamond originating in the country does not finance a rebel group or other entity seeking to overthrow a League of Nations–recognized government,
ii) that all diamond companies operating in its territory pay a toll to the Grootslang, and
iii) that the country’s makorokozas are protected. The willful murder of makorokozas to increase the number of diamond growers bonded to the Grootslang is strictly forbidden.
This three-step process has rid the world of blood diamonds.
The politician reaches into his suit pocket, pulls out his whiskey flask, and takes a quick sip. He looks out the window, barely registering the stunning view of the vineyard. He is acutely aware that he is here to represent his country. The president and the minister of defense have given him strict instructions to get results on this trip.
In the elevator down to the conference room, he recites his speech in his head. His palms are sweating when he shakes hands with diamond industry executives, government officials, and even makorokoza rights activists. He takes his place at the conference table to listen to a robot standing by a podium. She is the leader of a task force sent to investigate the alleged human-rights abuses at Marange Diamond Fields.
“The nation of Rhodesveld is accused of engineering mass executions of makorokozas to increase the number of diamond growers indentured to the Grootslang, thus increasing profits,” the robot says. “When I interviewed the survivors of the Marange Massacre, my human colleagues were so appalled by what they heard that they had to leave the room. I present the facts here today.”
She fixes her eyes on the politician as she narrates every detail, every murder, every data point she has collected. She narrates how, after shooting artisanal miners dead, the Rhodesveld army brought in prison labor to dig the mass graves. She talks about how each dead makorokoza means higher diamond output for the big companies. She talks about how Rhodesveld’s army is the owner of one of the biggest diamond companies in the country. The politician’s face does not change, does not betray any emotion.
“The crimes committed by the Rhodesveld army must be acknowledged and must stop,” she says. “Until they do, I recommend that the Nation of Rhodesveld be suspended from the Kimberley Process on the basis that Marange diamonds are blood diamonds.”
The politician curses inside. He wishes he could smash the robot to pieces, maybe sell off its limbs as auto-appendages. He doesn’t betray his rage as he goes to the podium to speak. The politician is a heavyset man, which many people in the room find ironic, because he is one of the leaders of a nation on the brink of starvation. He scratches his mustache before he begins his rebuttal, sweat licking his brow as he remembers the minister of defense’s thinly veiled threat about the consequences if he should fail. He is the minister of mines, a cushy position he isn’t willing to lose just because a few dirty makorokoza have been killed to ensure the business runs smoothly.
“Your data are wrong. Those testimonies are, without exception, lies told by lawbreakers, lies meant to discredit and undermine legitimate authority in Rhodesveld. Two hundred people didn’t die in Marange, only two died, and that’s because they trampled each other during a stampede. The army had nothing to do with that,” he begins. “The makorokoza are illegal miners who trespass on government property. As soon as security caught them, they fled and trampled each other in a stampede. Rhodesveld complies with all the demands of the Kimberley Process. If the Kimberley Process wants to intrude on a sovereign nation’s business, then I must say, without apology, that we don’t need you. We will sell our diamonds, no matter what you say.”
The European and American delegations shift uncomfortably at the threat. They can’t have all those diamonds go to their enemies. Diamonds power airships, robots, and everything else in this goddamn world. If they need to placate a troublesome little African country to get enough diamonds to keep their countries running, then so be it.
“Yes, the mining industry in Rhodesveld is largely controlled by the army,” the politician says. “This robot, which I need not remind you is powered by diamonds mined at Marange, wants to suspend Rhodesveld on the basis that our diamonds are blood diamonds, but the Kimberley Process defines blood diamonds as ‘diamonds sold by a rebel group or other entity seeking to overthrow a League of Nations–recognized government.’ Last time I checked, the Rhodesveld army wasn’t a rebel group. The Rhodesveld army is an organ of a democratically elected government, a League of Nations–recognized government. Marange diamonds, by definition, cannot possibly be conflict diamonds.”
When it is time to vote on whether Rhodesveld should be suspended from the Kimberley Process, the vote is unanimous. Marange diamonds are not blood diamonds.
The politician exits the meeting with a small smile, careful not to gloat or laugh out loud until he gets to his room. He can relax now. His position is secure. He is about to get into the elevator when the wailing starts, louder than he has ever heard before. It’s as if underneath the floor there are millions of people pounding with all their might, screaming to be let onto the surface. He curses and takes another swig of whiskey from his flask. The noise ceases.
The politician hasn’t always been minister of mines. Most people don’t know that he was once a makorokoza but, unlike the others, he managed to crawl out of the dirt.
The alchemist opens the door in his kitchen and descends the moldy stairs leading to his basement lab. He changes into a white coat, gloves, and goggles. He can’t do this kind of work at the lab at Harvard, because he doesn’t want his faculty advisor taking credit for his research.
At the center of the lab is a strange cylindrical contraption that, if it were hovering in the sky, people would call a UFO. A lavender glow emanates from it.
Everything’s coming together quite nicely, he thinks. I won’t even need Harvard anymore when I share this with the world.
He calls the device a diamond grower. He can’t think of anything more creative than that. The device mimics the high pressure and high temperatures of the earth’s mantle, where diamonds form naturally over millions of years. That’s what the science says about how diamonds came to be in this world, but everyone in the diamond industry knows the real truth. The best diamonds grow in Africa because some sort of demon overseer called the Grootslang enchants the process. It is dead humans down there who make the diamonds, until they can pay off their toll to the Grootslang.
If the alchemist succeeds, he will be a true alchemist. He can almost taste the Nobel Prize. He will have single-handedly rid the world of blood diamonds. His diamonds will be ethically and morally pure. No makorokoza will have to be indentured to a demon spirit for diamonds to exist in the world.
An alarm sounds, and the alchemist inspects the device closely, picking up what lies at the bottom with tweezers. He grins and marvels at the little gem he has just grown.
A small group of diamond mining executives gather around a conference table. The window has a view of Central Park. They’ve all had a terrible morning, jetting in on their private airships from all corners of the earth for this emergency meeting.
“Airlines across the world are canceling their contracts with us and opting to use these synthetic diamonds for their airships,” a British member of the council says, unable to stand the silence around the table. “That’s half our target market gone. Who would have thought that some nerd tinkering in his basement would disrupt the diamond industry?”
“Have you heard what they are calling him?” an American asks. “The alchemist.”
“There is no need to panic just yet,” the council president says, standing before a hologram of a young couple, a large diamond on the woman’s ring finger. “This is who we should reach,” he says, pointing to the hologram. “Eighteen-to-thirty-year olds. The millennials.”
“Who are we kidding?” the Brit says. “The two things that could destroy us all are synthetic diamonds and marriage-adverse millennials. Both are already here!”
“She’s right,” the French council member says. “When baby boomers were twenty-five to thirty years old, eighty percent of them were already married. Millennials aren’t even interested in love, let alone marriage.”
“Another thing we’re forgetting is that the millennials are broke!” the Brit shouts across the table. “They can’t buy diamonds when they can’t even afford their rent.”
“Indeed, millennials earn less than baby boomers did at their age,” the president of the Council says, trying to restore calm to the room, “but our research shows that millennials buy luxury items like iPhones and pet auto-dogs, and they don’t hesitate to drop thousands of dollars to travel to another country just for good Instagram photos. So money isn’t the problem. We just need to convince them that they should spend on diamonds the money they would have spent on other things. Just as smartphones are status symbols, we should turn a diamond necklace, watch, and ring into status symbols again.”
“And how are we going to do that?” the Brit snorts. “The millennials think diamonds are evil.”
“And this synthetic-diamond-growing alchemist hipster is marketing his diamonds as conflict-free,” another executive whines. “That will surely attract all the millennials. They care about such foolish things, ever since that movie with that blond actor, what’s his name again?”
“We need to take back the narrative about mined diamonds,” the president says. “My team of researchers have learned that synthetic diamonds take a lot of energy to make, which translates to production of a lot of greenhouse gases. If we release this information, people will be up in arms. They care more about the environment than some poor makorokoza in Africa. The issue of the makorokoza will soon be forgotten.”
All the executives around the table nod. Even the Brit doesn’t have any snide remarks.
“We need to market mined diamonds as natural, from the earth,” the president says. “People will buy a tomato for a hundred bucks if you slap the label ‘organic’ on it. Why not do that with diamonds? Where synthetic diamonds ruin the environment, natural diamonds are from the very earth we need to conserve. That’s why we pay the hefty toll to the Grootslang, the spirit caretaker of the gems, to preserve the earth. That’s our message.”
“And what about all this Marange Massacre nonsense?” the Brit asks, skeptical.
“Again, we flip the narrative,” the president says. “By buying natural earth diamonds, you are helping a poor miner in Rhodesveld. Diamonds uplift communities.”
The executives, putting their billions where their mouths are, greenlight the new marketing campaign.
Hailey walks into Tiffany & Co., the blue of the building’s awnings transforming her bad mood instantly. One of her sorority sisters shot down her suggestion this morning that everyone in the house switch to cruelty-free makeup brands. What a bitch, Hailey thinks, what kind of a monster is against cruelty-free products? But Hailey knows just the right thing to make her feel better. A Marange diamond necklace. They’re all the rage these days, plus buying one supports a whole African village or whatever. She got rid of all her synthetic diamond jewelry as soon as the awful news came out that synthetic diamonds kill the environment. Marange diamonds are natural, earth diamonds, given freely by the Grootslang, a benevolent creature that looks after the diamonds underground. Lily-Grace, the influencer she follows, did an informative YouTube video about the history of the Grootslang while unboxing her Marange diamond necklace. Hailey fell in love instantly.
“From our newest collection,” the shop assistant says when she notices Hailey eyeing a seven-strand necklace. “Natural, earth diamonds from Marange.”
“That name is so cute,” Hailey says. “It kinda sounds like ‘meringue.’ ”
When Hailey leaves the store, she has new earrings as well as the necklace.
There are two things Takura knows to be true. One: Life is unfair. Two: Death is even more unfair.
“When death comes to find you, may it find you alive,” Takura says to the korokoza who works next to him, an old man called Sekuru Bob, who was killed at Marange too.
“Reciting old proverbs, are we?” The korokoza chuckles. “Anything to make the work go faster so we can pass on.”
“What makes you so eager?” Takura says.
“What do you mean?” Sekuru Bob asks.
“What makes you so sure that what comes after this will be any better?” Takura says. “Our lives were shit. Our deaths are shit. You think our afterlife will be any better?” Takura snorts. “Just listen to the words. ‘When death comes to find you, may it find you alive.’ I never understood what that means until now. We’ve never lived, Sekuru. When death came for us, we’d never lived. Do you know who gets to live? Rich people. Those diamond executives, those politicians. The afterlife will probably be nice and cushy for them. We will probably be their servants in the afterlife, polishing their fucking shoes for eternity.”
“Come on now, don’t talk like that,” Sekuru Bob says, patting Takura on the shoulder. “There is hope for a better—”
“The makorokoza are punished for being poor!” Takura says, unable to contain his rage. “We are punished because we are unable to pay the toll to mine the Grootslang’s diamonds while we are alive. Big diamond companies can pay the toll without blinking an eye. When an exec dies, they won’t be stuck in this stinking hole. Even the afterlife is made for the rich.”
The other makorokoza perk up to listen as Takura speaks. Takura recognizes every makorokoza down here. Some are older men who died years ago. They sing a work song in a call-and-response style as they grow diamonds in time with the rhythm. Takura’s outburst is drowned out by their repetition of “Shosholoza.”
To pass the time, sometimes the makorokoza argue about the origins of the work song. Some say it’s South Africa’s second national anthem, but the older makorokoza point out that the song was sung by Ndebele miners from Rhodesveld, who worked in South African mines and travelled back and forth between Rhodesveld and South Africa.
Takura loses track of time. This place is outside of time. He doesn’t remember how long he has been here or how much longer he has to grow diamonds until he is allowed to rest.
Shosholoza!
Shosholoza!
Sometimes Takura passes time by talking to the Grootslang. The Grootslang is surprisingly chatty as long as the work is being done.
“How did you come to be?” Takura asks her.
“I am as old as the world itself,” the Grootslang says, proudly. “I was created when the gods were young, immature, and inexperienced in the art of creation. After creating my kind, the young gods realized they had made something monstrous. My kind was too much, they said. Too smart, too cunning, too strong.”
The Grootslang snatches a diamond in her trunk and squeezes until it shatters into a million pieces.
“The gods liked some parts of their design; they didn’t want to completely get rid of us. So they decided to split my kind into two separate creatures. That’s how the first elephants and snakes were born.”
“I thought you were the only Grootslang,” Takura says. “There are more out there?”
“The gods killed my sisters off in a rain of fire. You know that asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs? That was meant for us. The gods said we were too monstrous to roam the earth,” the Grootslang says, two tears pouring out of her red eyes that look so much like rubies. “I am the only one that survived, because I hid in the Wondergat. I’ve been here ever since.”
“You are not a mistake,” Takura says. “My parents dumped me in a trash can. My whole life I thought I was a mistake, but I am not. I was just abandoned. Now both you and I are trapped here in this dark place. We are more alike than you think.”
The other makorokoza continue to sing “Shosholoza.”
“It is this world that makes monsters of us all,” Takura says.
“Ever since the gods killed off my sisters because they thought we were monstrous, I’ve made it my purpose to show them how monstrous I really can be,” the Grootslang says.
“Why should we be the ones to live in the darkness?” The words tumble out of Takura’s mouth before he even realizes what he is suggesting.
The Grootslang flings her massive tail, wrapping it around him like thick vines, and lifts him off the ground, eyes narrowed.
“There . . . there is . . . a saying that abandoned street kids like me used to say whenever . . . whenever people would pass us on the street without offering any help,” Takura says, gasping for air as the Grootslang’s hold tightens around him. “We would say, ‘When a needle falls into a deep well, many people will look into the well, but few will be ready to go down after it.’ I’ve been waiting my whole life for my parents to love me, to finally give a damn about me and come find me. When I realized they were never coming, I waited for some kind stranger to help me, adopt me, anything to lift me out of my misery. Nobody came. Then I waited for the government to do something to help the street kids, to give a damn about us. I’ve been the little needle stuck at the bottom of the well waiting for someone to give a damn, waiting for someone to stop watching my pain and actually do something to ease it. But I know now that no one is going to do that, so today I choose to get out of the fucking well myself.”
The other makorokoza chime in, and a revolutionary fervor sweeps across the Wondergat.
“There is an entire world on the surface,” Takura says. “Why should you be down here and everyone and everything else up there? You are the first creation, so smart and so strong that the gods feared you. The gods called you a monster, but what of the army, the diamond companies, and the politicians who murder to fill their pockets? The real monsters are up there.”
Suddenly the Grootslang drops Takura and breaks his chains. She breaks every indentured makorokoza’s chains. Everyone in the Wondergat falls silent, staring at the Grootslang.
“Is this a trick?” one of the makorokoza asks.
“No trick,” the Grootslang says. “You can pass on to the afterlife. Or you can come to the surface with me.”
Every makorokoza stays put, nobody passes on. The Grootslang picks up Takura and carries him on her back.
“To the surface, monsters!” the Grootslang bellows.
“To the surface!” the makorokoza yell, their fists in the air.
The Grootslang charges towards the opening of an abandoned mine shaft. She sees sunlight for the first time since her sisters were exterminated, the light almost blinding her ruby eyes. One by one an army of ghosts breaks the surface.
When death comes to find you, may it find you alive.