It"s after nine o"clock, he said gloomily.
You should have stayed awake, she whined, and put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself. My Pa will lather me. He said next time he"d kill me. Shasa shrugged off her hand. He wanted to get away from her yet he knew he could not.
It was your fault. She stooped and grabbed her panties at the ankles, hoisted them to her waist and then settled her skirts over them. I"m going to tell Pa. that it was your fault.
He"ll take the sjambok to me this time. Oh! he"ll whop the skin off me. Shasa unhitched the pony and his hands were shaking. He could not think clearly, he was still half asleep and groggy.
I won"t let him. His gallantry was half-hearted and unconvincing. I won"t let him hurt you. It seemed only to infuriate her. What can you do? You"re only a baby. The word triggered something else in her mind.
What will happen if you"ve given me a baby, hey? It will be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d; did you think of that while you were sticking that thing of yours into me? she demanded waspishly.
Shasa was stung by the unfairness of her accusation. You showed me how. I wouldn"t have done it if you hadn"t. A fat lot of good that"s going to do us., She was weeping now. I wish we could just run away., The notion held a definite appeal for Shasa, and he discarded it only reluctantly. Come on, he said, and boosted her up onto Prester John"s back and then swung up behind her.
They saw the torches of the search parties down on the plain below them as they turned the shoulder of the mountain. There were headlights on the road also, moving slowly, obviously searching the verges, and faintly they heard the shouts of the searchers, calling for them as they moved about in the forest far below.
My Pa"s going to kill me this time. He"ll know what we"ve been doing, she snuffled and sobbed and her self-pity irritated him. He had long ago given up trying to comfort her.
How will he know? he snapped. He wasn"t there. You don"t think you were the first one I"ve done it with, she demanded, seeking to injure him. I"ve done it with plenty of others, and Pa has caught me twice. Oh, he"ll know all right., At the thought of her performing those strangely marvelous tricks of hers with others, Shasa felt a hot rush of jealousy which was gradually cooled by reason.
Well! he pointed out. If he knows about all the others, it isn"t going to do you much good to try to put the blame on me. She had trapped herself and she let out another brokenhearted sob, and was still weeping theatrically when they met the search party coming on foot along the pipe track.
Shasa and Annalisa. sat on opposite sides of the bungalow"s drawing-room, instinctively keeping as far from each other as possible.
As they heard the Daimler pull up outside in a flare of headlights and crunch of gravel, Annalisa began to weep again, snuffling and rubbing her eyes to work up a few more tears.
They heard Centaine"s quick light tread across the verandah, followed by Twenty-man-jones more deliberate storklike steps.
Shasa stood up and held his hands in front of him in the att.i.tude of the penitent as Centaine stopped in the doorway.
She was dressed in jodhpurs and riding-boots and a tweed hacking jacket, with a yellow scarf knotted at her throat.
She was flushed, and relieved and furious as an avenging angel.
Annahsa saw her face and let out a howl of anguish, only half acting.
Shut your mouth, girl, Centaine told her quietly. Or I"ll see you get good reason to blubber. She turned to Shasa.
Are either of you hurt? No, Mater. He hung his head.
Prester John? Oh, he"s in good fettle. So, that"s it then. She did not have to elaborate. Dr Twenty-man-Jones, will you take this young lady down to her father? I have no doubt that he will know how to deal with her. Centaine had spoken briefly to the father only an hour before, big and bald and paunchy with tattoos on his muscled arms, belligerent and red-eyed, reeking of cheap brandy and opening and closing his hairy paws as he mouthed his intentions towards his only daughter.
Twenty-man-Jones took the girl by her wrist, pulled her to her feet and led her snivelling towards the door. As he pa.s.sed Centaine, her expression softened and she touched his arm.
What ever would I do without you, Dr Twenty-man-jones? she asked quietly.
I suspect that you would get along very well on your own, Mrs Courtney, but I"m glad I could help. He dragged Annalisa from the room and they heard the whirr of the Daimler"s engine.
Centaine"s expression hardened again and she turned back to Shasa.
He fidgeted under her scrutiny.
You"ve been disobedient, she told him. I warned you away from that little poule. Yes, Mater. She"s been with half the men on the mine. We"ll have to take you to a doctor when we get back to Windhoek. He shuddered and glanced down at himself involuntarily at the thought of a host of disgusting microbes crawling over his most intimate flesh.
Disobedience is bad enough, but what have you done that is truly unforgivable? she demanded.
Shasa could think of at least a dozen trespa.s.ses without really extending himself.
You"ve been stupid, Centaine said. You"ve been stupid enough to get caught out. That is the worst sin. You"ve made a laughing stock of yourself with everybody on the mine.
How will you ever be able to lead and command when you cheapen yourself like this? I didn"t think of that, Mater. I didn"t think of anything much. It just all sort of happened. Well, think of it now, she told him. While you are taking a long hot bath with half a bottle of Lysol in it, think hard about it. Goodnight. Goodnight, Mater. He came to her and after a moment she offered her cheek. I"m sorry, Mater. He kissed her cheek. I"m sorry I made you ashamed of me. She wanted to throw her arms around him and pull his beautiful beloved head to her and hold him hard and tell him that she would never be ashamed of him.
Goodnight, Shasa, she said, standing cool and erect until he left the room and she heard his footsteps drag disconsolately down the pa.s.sage. Then her shoulders slumped.
Oh, my darling, oh my baby, she whispered. Suddenly, for the first time in many years, she felt the need for an opiate. She crossed quickly to the ma.s.sive stinkwood cabinet and poured cognac from one of the heavy decanters and took a mouthful. The spirit was peppery on her tongue and the fumes brought tears to her eyes. She swallowed it down and set the gla.s.s aside.
That isn"t going to help much, she decided, and crossed to her desk. She sat down in the wingbacked b.u.t.toned leather chair and she felt small and frail and vulnerable. For Centaine, it was an alien emotion and it frightened her.
It"s happened, she whispered. He is becoming a man. Suddenly she hated the girl. The dirty little harlot. He isn"t ready for that yet. Too early she has let the demon out, the demon of his de Thiry blood. She was intimate with that same demon, for it had plagued her all her life. That wild A pa.s.sionate de Thiry blood.
Oh my darling. She was going to lose some part of him now, had already lost it, she realized. Loneliness came to her like a ravening beast that had lain in ambush for her all these years.
There had only been two men who might have a.s.suaged that loneliness. Shasa"s father had died in his frail machine of canvas and wood while she had stood by helplessly and watched him blacken and burn. The other man had placed himself beyond her reach for ever with one brutal senseless act. Michael Courtney and Lothar De La Rey, both dead to her now.
Since then there had been lovers, many lovers, brief transient affairs experienced only at the level of the flesh, a mere antidote for the boil of her blood. None of them had been allowed to pa.s.s into that deep place of her soul. But now the beast of loneliness burst through those guarded portals and laid waste her secret places. 1A If only there was someone, she lamented as she had done only once before in her life, when she lay upon the child-bed on which she have given birth to Lothar De La Rey"s goldheaded b.a.s.t.a.r.d. if only there was somebody I could love and who would love me in return. She leaned forward in the big leather chair and picked up the silver-framed photograph, the photograph that she carried with her wherever she travelled, and studied the face of the young man in the centre of the group of fliers.
For the first time she realized that over the years the picture had faded and yellowed and the features of Michael Courtney, Shasa"s father, had blurred. She stared at the handsome young face and tried desperately to make the picture clearer and crisper in her own memory, but it seemed to smear and recede even further from her.
Oh Michael! she whispered. It was all so long ago. Forgive me. Please forgive me. I have tried to be strong and brave.
I"ve tried for your sake and the sake of your son, but She set the frame back upon the desk and crossed to the window. She stared out into the darkness. I"m going to lose my baby, she thought. And then one day I will be alone and old and ugly, and I"m afraid. She found she was shivering, hugging her own arms, but then her reaction was swift and unequivocal.
There is no time for weakness and self-pity on the journey that you have chosen. She steeled herself, standing small and erect and alone in the silent darkened house. You have to go on. There is no turning back, no faltering, you have to go on to the end. Where is Stoffel Botha? Shasa demanded of the mill house supervisor when the mine hooter blew to signal the beginning of the lunch hour. Why isn"t he here? Who knows? The supervisor shrugged. I had a note from the main office saying he wasn"t coming. They didn"t tell me why. Perhaps he has been fired. I don"t know. I don"t care, he was a c.o.c.ky little b.a.s.t.a.r.d, anyway. And for the rest of the shift Shasa tried to suppress his feeling of guilt by concentrating on the run of ore through the thundering rollers.
When the final hooter blew, and the cry of Shahile! It has struck! was shouted from one gang of black labourers to the next, Shasa mounted Prester John and turned his head towards the avenue of cottages in which Annalisa"s family lived. He knew he was risking his mother"s wrath, but a defiant sense of chivalry urged him on. He had to find out how much damage and unhappiness he had caused.
However, at the gates of the mill house he was distracted.
Moses, the boss-boy from the weathering grounds, stepped in front of Prester John and took his head.
I see you, Good Water, he greeted Shasa in his soft deep voice.
Oh Moses. Shasa smiled with pleasure, his other troubles forgotten for the moment. I was going to visit you. I have brought your book. The Ovambo handed the thick copy of History of England up to him.
You couldn"t possibly have read it, Shasa protested. Not so soon. it took even me months. I will never read it, Good Water. I am leaving the H"ani Mine. I go with the trucks to Windhoek tomorrow morning. Oh no! Shasa swung down out of the saddle and gripped his arm. Why do you want to go, Moses? Shasa feigned ignorance out of a sense of his guilt and complicity.
It is not for me to want or not to want. The tall boss-boy shrugged. Many men are leaving on the trucks tomorrow.
Doctela has chosen them, and the lady your mother has explained the reason and given us a month"s wages. A man like me does not ask questions, Good Water. He smiled, a sad bitter grimace. Here is your book. Keep it. Shasa pushed it back. It is my gift to you. Very well, Good Water. I will keep it to remind me of you. Stay in peace. He turned away.
Moses Shasa called him back and then could find 1, nothing to say. He thrust out his hand impulsively and the Ovambo stepped back from it. A white man and a black man did not shake hands.
Go in peace, Shasa insisted, and Moses glanced around almost furtively before he accepted the grip. His skin was strangely cool. Shasa wondered if all black skin was like that.
We are friends, Shasa said, prolonging the contact. We are, aren"t we? I do not know.
What do you mean? I do not know if it is possible for us to be friends. Gently he freed his hand and turned away. He did not look back at Shasa as he skirted the security fence and went down to the compound.
The convoy of heavy trucks ground across the plains, keeping open intervals to avoid the dust thrown up by the receding vehicle. The dust rose in a feathery spray, high in p the still heated air like the yellow smoke from a bush fire burning on a wide front.
Gerhard Fourie, in the lead truck, slumped at the wheel with his belly hanging into his lap; it had forced open the b.u.t.tons of his shirt, exposing the hairy pit of his navel. Every few seconds he glanced up from the road to the rearview mirror above his head.
The back of the truck was piled with the baggage and furniture of the families, both black and white, that had been laid off from the mine. On top of this load were perched the unfortunate owners. The women had knotted scarves over their hair for the dust; they clutched their young children as the trucks bounced and swayed over the uneven tracks. The elder children had made nests for themselves amongst the baggage.
Fourie reached up and readjusted the mirror slightly, centring the image of the girl behind him. She was wedged between an old tea chest and a shabby suitcase of imitation leather. She had propped a blanket roll behind her back and she was dozing, her streaky blond head nodding and lolling to the truck"s motion. One knee was slightly raised, her short skirt rucked up and as she fell asleep so her knee dropped to one side and Fourie caught a glimpse of her underpants, patterned with pink roses, wedged between those smooth young thighs. Then the girl jerked awake and closed her legs and rolled on her side.
Fourie was sweating, not merely from the heat; drops of it glinted in the dark unshaven stubble that covered his jowls. He took the stub of cigarette from between his lips with shaky fingers and inspected it.
Saliva had soaked through the rice-paper and stained it with yellow tobacco juice. He flicked it out of the side window and lit another, driving with one hand and watching the mirror, waiting for the girl to move again. He had sampled that young flesh, he knew how sweet and warm and available it was, and he wanted it again with a sickness of desire. He was prepared to take any risk for just another taste of it.
Ahead of him the clump of grey camel-thorn trees swam out of the heat mirage. He had travelled this road so often that the journey had its landmarks and rituals. He checked his pocket watch and grunted. They were twenty minutes late on this stage. But then the trucks were all overloaded with this throng of newly unemployed and their pathetic possessions.
He pulled the truck off the track beside the trees and climbed stiffly out onto the running-board and shouted: All right, everybody. Pinkie pause. Women on the left, men on the right. Anybody who isn"t back in ten minutes gets left behind. He was the first back to the truck, and he busied himself at the left-hand rear wheel, making a show of checking the valve but watching for the girl.
She came out from amongst the trees, smoothing her skirts. She looked petulant and hot and grubby with floury dust. But when she saw Fourie watching her, she tossed her head arid swung her tight little b.u.t.tocks and ostentatiously ignored him.
Annalisa, he whispered, as she raised one bare foot to climb over the tailboard of the truck beside him.
Your mother"s, Gerhard Fourie! she hissed back at him.
You just leave me alone, or I"ll tell my Pa! At any other time she might have responded more amiably, but her thighs and b.u.t.tocks and the small of her back were still crisscrossed with purple weals from where her father had lambasted her. Temporarily she had lost interest in the male s.e.x.
,I want to talk to you, Fourie insisted.
Talk, ha! I know what you want. Meet me outside the camp tonight, he pleaded.
Your b.o.l.l.o.c.ks in a barrel. She jumped up into the truck and his stomach turned over as he saw the full length of those slim brown legs.
Annalisa, I"ll give you money. He was desperate; the sickness was burning him up.
Armalisa paused and looked down at him thoughtfully.
His offer was a revelation that opened a c.h.i.n.k into a new world of fascinating possibilities. Up to that moment it had never occurred to her that a man might give her money to do something which she enjoyed more than eating or sleeping.
How much? she asked with interest.
A pound, he offered.
It was a great deal of money, more than she had ever had in her hand at any one time, but her mercenary instinct was aroused, she wanted to see how far this could be taken. So she tossed her head and flounced, watching him out of the corner of her eye.
Two pounds, Fourie whispered urgently, and Annalisa"s spirits soared. Two whole pounds! She felt bold and pretty and borne along by good fortune. The stripes across her back and legs were fading. She slanted her eyes in that sly knowing expression that maddened him and she saw the sweat start on his chin and his lower lip trembled.
It emboldened her even further, and she drew breath and held it, and then whispered daringly: Five pounds! She ran the tip of her tongue around her lips, shocked by her own courage in naming such an enormous sum. It was almost as much as her father earned in a week.
Fourie blanched and wavered. Three, he blurted, but she sensed how close he was to agreement and she drew back affronted.
You are a smelly old man. She filled her voice with scorn and turned away.
All right! All right! he capitulated. Five pounds. She grinned at him victoriously. She had discovered and entered a new world of endless riches and pleasure.
She put the tip of her finger in her mouth. And if you want that too, it will cost you another pound. There were no limits to her daring now.
The moon was only days from full and it washed the desert with molten platinum, while the shadows along the ravine walls were leaden blue smudges. The camp sounds carried faintly along the ravine, somebody was chopping firewood, a bucket clanged and the women"s voices at the cooking fires were like bird sounds heard from afar. Closer at hand a pair of prowling jackal cried, the odours from the cooking pots exciting them into their wild, wailing, almost agonized chorus.
Fourie squatted against the wall of the ravine and lit a cigarette, watching the ravine along which the girl must come. The flare of the match illuminated his fleshy unshaven features and he was so intent that he was totally unaware of the predatory eyes that watched him out of the blue moon shadows close by. His whole existence centred on the arrival of the girl and already he was breathing with eager little grunts of antic.i.p.ation.
She was like a wraith in the moonlight, silvery and ethereal, and he heaved himself to his feet and crushed out the cigarette.
Annalisa! he called, his voice low and quivering with the need of her.
She stopped just out of reach before him, and when he lunged for her she danced away lightly and laughed with a mocking tinkle.
Five pounds, Meneer, she reminded him, and drew nearer as he fumbled the crumpled bank notes out of his back pocket. She took them and held them up to the moon. Then, satisfied, tucked them away in her clothing and stepped boldly up to him.
He seized her around the waist and covered her mouth with his wet lips. She broke away at last, laughing breathlessly, and held his wrist as he reached under her skirt.
Do you want the other pound"s worther It"s too much, he panted. "I haven"t got that much. Ten shillings, then, she offered, and touched the front of his body with a small cunning hand.
Half a crown, he gasped. That"s all I have got. And she stared at him, still touching him, and saw she could get no MOre out of him.
All right, give it to me, she agreed, and hid the coin before she went down on her knees in front of him as though for his blessing. He placed both hands on her curly sun-streaked head and drew her towards him, bowing his head over her and then closing his eyes.
Something hard was thrust into his ribs from behind with such force that the wind was driven from his lungs and a voice grated in his ear.
Tell the little b.i.t.c.h to disappear. The voice was low and dangerous and dreadfully familiar.
The girl leaped to her feet, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. She stared for an instant over Fourie"s shoulder with wide terrified eyes, then whirled and raced up the ravine towards the camp on long flying legs.
Fourie fumbled clumsily with his clothing and turned to face the man who stood behind him with the Mauser rifle pointed at his belly.
De La Rey! he blurted.
Were you expecting somebody else? No! No! Fourie shook his head wildly. It"s just, so soon. Since last they had met Fourie had had time to repent of their bargain. Cowardice had won the long battle over avarice, and because he wanted it so he had convinced himself that Lothar De La Rey"s scheme was like so many others that he had dreamed about, merely one of those fantasies with which those for ever doomed to poverty and futile labour consoled themselves.
He had expected, and hoped, never to hear of Lothar De La Rey again. But now he stood before him, tall and deadly with his head shining like a beacon in the moonlight and topaz lights glinting in those leopard eyes.
Soon? Lothar asked. So soon? It"s been weeks, my old and dear friend. It all took longer to arrange than I expected. Then Lothar"s voice hardened as he asked, Have you taken the diamond shipment into Windhoek yet? No, not yet, Fourie broke off, and silently reviled himself. That would have been his escape. He should have said Yes! I took it in myself last week. But it was done, and miserably he hung his head and concentrated on fastening the last b.u.t.tons of his breeches. Those few words spoken too hastily might yet cost him a lifetime in prison and he was afraid.
When will the shipment go in? Lothar placed the muzzle of the Mauser under Fourie"s chin and lifted his face to the moon. He wanted to watch the man"s eyes. He did not trust him.