But Deliver Us from Evil

by Lauri Kubuitsile

‘Name them! Don’t waste our time, girl,’ Kgosidintsi snaps.

  ‘Seapei and Gosalamang.’

  ‘But they’re the strongest women in the church. They’re Reverend Milner’s followers. Are you saying they’re witches?’ Kgosi Sechele asks. He runs his hand over his face.

  ‘I’m saying I saw them with Mmapitse in the night. I’m almost certain Mmapitse is a witch. I saw them moving in the night and speaking of evil things.’

  ‘And anyone else?’ Kgosi Sechele asks.

  ‘I know nothing else.’

  ‘And Mojaboswa. Do you know who sent lightning to kill Taolo?’ the kgosi asks.

  ‘I know nothing more than what I have told you. I only can say what I know, nothing more than that,’ Nthebolang says.

  ‘Yes. I’ve heard you. I’ll think on it. We’ll call the others and I will think on it. You can go,’ says Kgosi Sechele.

  Nthebolang is sure that, with Beatrice’s testimony and Thomas Milner’s, Motsumi will be set free. If the others should take his place, she can’t say. She doesn’t care, even if they know she accused them. Motsumi will be released and they’ll leave. That’s all that matters.

  Chapter Forty

  ‘We’ll leave soon. Are you excited?’ Beatrice asks Nthebolang. ‘You’ll love it where we’re going, my home. We’re going to be happy there.’

  Nthebolang finds Beatrice’s behaviour even more erratic than usual. She’s nearly joyful, as if everything around her were not falling apart. Nthebolang can think of nothing except saving Motsumi. Beatrice’s behaviour does not distract her from that. She fears what she has told Kgosi Sechele is known by other people now. She suspects her life might be even more in danger, so she keeps to the mission compound. But it’s not the best place to be.

  Thomas Milner storms through the house in a constant fury, trying to find a way out of the trap Beatrice has set for him. While the problems swirl around her, Beatrice smiles and sings and tells stories about how their new life will be in the mountains by the ocean as if everything is perfect, all plans on track.

  ‘I want to relearn what I used to know before the missionaries made me forget. How to hunt and fish. I want to learn our songs and stories again. We’ll learn them together, won’t we, Nthebolang? And you’ll meet my dear Kamogelo. I think you’ll love her as much as I do.’

  Nthebolang throws the shirt she’s washing into the bucket of water. ‘What must I say to make you understand? I’m not going with you. Why don’t you teach your daughter your songs and your stories? She’s longing for you to do that. Why don’t you be a mother to your daughter and leave me alone?’

  Nthebolang goes back to washing the shirt. Beatrice sits down on the ground next to the wash bucket even though the ground is wet. She picks up a nearby stick and begins stripping it of its bark in long thin strands that she lays carefully to the side.

  ‘I thought you were my friend. Why are you being so mean to me now?’ she asks.

  ‘I am your friend.’ Nthebolang immediately feels badly about her outburst. ‘I’m sorry. But you don’t listen. You hear only the things that you want to hear. Things are very serious now. Don’t you see how angry Thomas is? He could easily kill you, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I have my own worries too. The man I love, the father of my child, may be executed for something he didn’t do. You need to think seriously now. I need you to think seriously.’

  ‘I am. I’ve been thinking seriously. I know everything that you’re saying. And I know I’m not a good mother to Elizabeth. I never can be. That’s why I need you. She needs you. I’ve told you that. She’ll never have me. I can’t love her because she’s half of him and I hate him with every part of me. I try my best. You must agree to come with us, if not for me then for Elizabeth. Whom will she have if you’re not there?’

  Nthebolang looks up from the washing just then and there’s Elizabeth standing only a few feet away. She’d been sleeping but must have been woken by the loud voices. She’s looking at her mother, trying to understand what she’s heard. She doesn’t cry or scream or shout as another child might. She doesn’t run away in fear of such horrible revelations. She comes to stand next to Nthebolang.

  ‘May I help you with the washing?’ she says.

  Nthebolang wants to take her up in her arms but fears it may be the very thing that will bring all the emotion to the surface, the thing that might break her tiny heart completely.

  ‘Yes, Elizabeth. Here, take this.’

  She hands the girl a sock. Both of them put their hands in the water and rub at the clothes. Elizabeth rubs the sock with her tiny hands, but Beatrice cannot watch. It’s too much even for her. She gets up without a word and walks to the front of the house. The sound of the gate can be heard opening and then closing.

  Chapter Forty-one

  The sun is shining and the sky is clear and beautiful on the day of Motsumi’s trial at the kgotla. Nthebolang feels betrayed by that. Things shouldn’t look so easy when nothing is. She tries to think that maybe it’s a sign that everything is going to work out fine. She tells herself it’s a sign. She convinces herself such signs are important. Today justice will be served and the day is showing its agreement.

  From every corner of the village, people stream towards the main kgotla. Nthebolang and her mother meet people along the way: some greet them cautiously; some pass them without a word. Nthebolang tries not to care. It doesn’t matter, she tells herself. She’ll soon be leaving this place with Motsumi; what they think of her plays no role in her life. She can see it’s troubling her mother, though. Nthebolang takes her hand and squeezes it. What can she say – no words will make things better, or erase what has happened, or what she is going to say in public at the kgotla. People will decide how to judge her no matter what she does now – right or wrong. Nthebolang accepts that it has always been that way in any case.

  She hopes Thomas Milner and Beatrice will be among the first to testify. She knows once they speak, the people will be swayed to see that what she’s saying is the truth. And then Motsumi will be set free. The others, the guilty ones, will stand alone and be punished as they should be.

  They arrive at crowded kgotla. The women fill one half of the cleared area in front of the semi-circular wall of tree trunks; the men fill the other half. At the front, against the backdrop of the wood, sits Kgosi Sechele; Sebele, his son; and Kgosidintsi and the other headmen, including Motsumi’s father. Beatrice and Thomas sit to the left side of dikgosi. The accused sit on the right side. Nthebolang searches the group and finds Motsumi. He looks thin and his clothes are dirty. She has no idea where they’ve been keeping him or how he’s been treated. He looks in her direction and her heart aches. She can’t bear to think of what he’s been going through. Have they beaten him? It looks as if they have. She wishes she could carry some of his burden; she knows she’s stronger than him. She wishes she could go to him and take him in her arms to comfort him. He looks at her, his face rubbed clean of all emotion. He looks like a stranger, but she tells herself the man she knows is in there under the heavy burden he’s carrying. She convinces herself of this, ignoring the doubts that try to sneak in.

  She follows her mother, who leads them to where Thomas Milner and Beatrice are sitting. Beatrice looks at Nthebolang. It’s an odd look, Nthebolang will remember later. At that moment, she thinks it has to do with yet another intrigue regarding her husband, and she’s tired of Beatrice’s games. She doesn’t want to think of them now. She has more important things to attend to.

  The headmen wait until everyone has arrived. From her seat, Nthebolang can see Seabe and Motsumi’s mother sitting behind Motsumi in the group of the accused. She looks at them and doesn’t notice that someone else’s eyes are on her until the heaviness of the gaze can no longer be ignored. Nthebolang moves her eyes to the end of the row and there is Mmapitse.

  Her face is neither set nor worried. She looks at Nthebolang with what appears to be curiosity. Then the curiosity disappears and everything goes blank, as if the
woman has left the body. It’s as if Mmapitse is no longer there; no human is. Nthebolang tries to look away but can’t. Dread fills her body. She feels it as a wet coldness that creeps around inside her, full of sorrow so heavy and hate so sharp that it brings physical pain. She bends over in an attempt to relieve it. It’s like a living thing in her and she can do nothing to stop its progression until it’s over. When it has reached everywhere, Mmapitse looks away and Nthebolang is released. She pulls her shawl tighter, though the kgotla is already warm and getting hotter, but no warmth can reach her. She closes her eyes and tries to wish the dead coldness gone, but it lingers despite her efforts. Mmapitse has entered her. What it is and what that will do to her, she will not interrogate now.

  Kgosi Sechele stands to speak to the people first.

  ‘It is not anything good that brings us here today. For some time, bad luck, death, and sadness have been plaguing our village. We are here today to discover the cause and to solve our problem once and for all. God does not want such discontent among his people.’

  He asks Thomas Milner to say a prayer, which he does. It seems wrong to pray to Thomas Milner’s god for help with problems he doesn’t recognise, Nthebolang thinks. Thomas Milner seems to find no contradiction with that, though. His beliefs are fluid, ebbing and flowing, so whom he’s praying to no one can ever be certain.

  Kgosi Sechele calls Nthebolang to stand before the people and tell them what she had spoken of the last time she was at the kgotla. She stands on weak legs, still icy cold from what Mmapitse sent to her, and walks to the front, facing dikgosi.

  ‘I am not here to accuse anyone,’ Nthebolang starts. ‘I am only here to say what was seen – what was seen by myself and by the people whom I was with. I must be honest – I’m a Christian, and I must be honest before my God and Jesus Christ. Some of the things that I have seen have no place or description for a Christian; they are not things I have ever known before. It is only what I have seen, nothing more, but nothing less either.’

  There are murmurs in the crowd.

  Someone shouts, ‘Your father was a witch! You know these things!’

  Nthebolang ignores the words. She looks elsewhere, away from the accused people as she speaks. Instead, she looks at her mother and Beatrice; she tries to avoid Elizabeth’s eyes. She hopes what she is about to say will not harm the little girl. She knows the damage of such things even just in the hearing. But, too, she fears she might censor herself if she looks at Elizabeth, and she wants to tell everything clearly and without exception.

  ‘I will say first that I carry the child of Motsumi. You will take that information as you like. Before and after Baatweng’s death we were planning to leave this village and to go north to make a new life together. This you should know. It did not matter that he might become a chief or that he might inherit his father’s property. He doesn’t care about such things. We’re leaving this place with nothing except our child and our love.’

  The crowd becomes noisy and Kgosidintsi insists they keep quiet.

  ‘The second thing I must say before I speak of what I saw, is that I knew of the plan to kill Baatweng. Motsumi’s mother and Seabe approached Motsumi, requesting him to talk with a man who would assist them to bewitch Baatweng so that he would die and Motsumi could inherit everything. Motsumi refused. He told me about the plan. I told him to go to Reverend Milner, which he did. He told Reverend Milner everything. Reverend Milner told him not to worry about any of it, since there is nothing like witchcraft in God’s world. I also believed Jesus would protect him.’

  ‘She is a witch, just like we knew! She and her lover are witches! Kill them both!’

  The dikgosi call for order.

  People look at Thomas Milner. He looks down at his hands. Nthebolang notices Beatrice smiling. Nthebolang’s mother holds Elizabeth in her lap.

  ‘There are three incidents of which I must speak.’

  Nthebolang explains how she and Beatrice went to the cave and how the people arrived.

  ‘Then it all happened. The people … there were three – we could tell at first from their voices, but later from their shadows. There was a man, an older woman, and a younger woman. They lit a candle and we could see their shadows on the opposite wall near the front of the cave.

  ‘The man told the women they must eat the human flesh he had with him. The younger woman was reluctant but the older woman told her that she must eat it if she wanted to be protected, if she wanted power. They ate the flesh. I think now it was flesh from the injured Baatweng. I think Barobi must have taken it when he was there to heal him.’

  The crowd murmurs. There’s a gasp in the corner where Baatweng’s mother is sitting. Kgosi Sechele raises his hands and motions for quiet, then nods to Nthebolang that she should continue.

  ‘Then they spoke in a language I’ve never heard before. They chanted it, a bit like a song. It had clicks and odd sounds, a bit like the language of the Bushmen. Mma Milner said it was like her family’s language, the language of the Koranna people, from whom she comes.’

  That revelation makes the crowd whisper among themselves. This is all news to them. Thomas Milner looks straight ahead, not at the people but above them, at the patterns on the kgotla wall, as if they’re the most important things in his life.

  ‘They chanted in that language and then danced in circles around the fire that they had made. With each circle, the energy of the dance increased and so did the speed of the chanting. And then it happened. A wind grew up from the hole, the one at the back of the cave, the one with no end to it. We felt the coldness pass by us, still flat against the wall. It was only when we looked again at the shadows that we realised the coldness was the passing of people, people who danced with the three. Danced their wild dance. I think they were the dead. The three were dancing with the dead.’

  People start to cry and someone screams. Women cover their faces with their shawls and children cling to their mothers.

  Kgosi Sechele stands up. ‘If you cannot hear these things without causing a disturbance, please leave.’

  A group of women at the back stands up to go. They try to encourage Mma Baatweng to join them but she refuses. She shakes them off, and sits still and straight where she is.

  Nthebolang continues. ‘That was the first time we saw the three. But after Baatweng’s death, we had to go to the cave to fetch the things we had hidden there. Again, I was with Mma Milner. We had not yet reached the cave. We were on the narrow path just before it. We heard people coming. We hid in the bushes and they passed us speaking freely, thinking they were alone. They spoke about how they had killed Baatweng with witchcraft. And they spoke about the next person they wanted to kill – that person was me. The three people were Barobi, Mmapitse, and … Seabe.’

  A disturbance begins at the back. A man stands up and tries to push his way to the front, but others hold him back.

  ‘Liar! You’re a liar! My daughter is not a witch. You’re the witch! You steal my daughter’s husband and lie with him like a whore and then you accuse her of being a witch? You! You’re the witch! Everyone knows this! Kgosi Sechele should never have allowed you and your mother into our village! You’re the ones who brought all this to us!’

  Nthebolang looks down at her hands. She will not look at Seabe’s father. She knows what she saw. She’ll not be swayed by his emotion. She will tell them the truth.

  ‘When I told these things to Kgosi Sechele, he asked me about anything else, and I told him about a late evening when I was walking in the village, after everyone was asleep, and I saw Mmapitse out walking. She was with Seapei and Gosalamang. That’s all I know, nothing more.’

  Kgosi Sechele again calls for quiet. ‘So there is nothing else you want to say?’

  ‘No, I can think of nothing now.’

  ‘But the cave, what was it you were hiding there?’ asks Kgosi Sechele.

  Nthebolang looks at Beatrice. She will need to say it. Beatrice makes no attempt to keep her quiet, makes no sign that she
should not answer the kgosi’s question.

  ‘We hid two guns there and a piece of crate with a label on it.’

  The crowd erupts again.

  ‘Guns?’ Kgosi Sechele says. ‘Why would you hide guns? Where did they come from?’

  ‘Mma Milner took them from the crates at the mission house. She wanted evidence to show the Boers.’

  ‘Evidence?’

  ‘Yes, so that they would know that Thomas Milner bought guns for you.’

  Kgosi Sechele looks anxiously at Thomas Milner. He can’t allow the testifying to continue. ‘You’re finished. Sit. We will let the other witnesses speak.’

  Kgosidintsi calls Beatrice to the front. Thomas Milner is called to translate.

  ‘So you have heard the girl. Tell us what you saw in the cave and on the path to the cave,’ Kgosi Sechele says. It’s obvious he’s still shaken by what he heard about the guns and the passing of information to the Boers. It might put him in a compromising situation. He’s an elderly man and this case is not helping matters.

  ‘There is nothing I can say,’ says Beatrice.

  ‘What do you mean? Have you not gone to this cave the girl speaks of?’ Kgosi Sechele asks.

  ‘Yes, yes, we went, Mary’s daughter and I. I wanted to see the bats. We went one afternoon. It was a lovely walk.’

  ‘And the other times of which she speaks? Did you hide something there, in the cave?’ he asks.

  Beatrice looks at Nthebolang as she speaks. ‘No, I did not. We went only once. Mary’s daughter is a big storyteller, not a liar exactly, but she does tell my daughter lovely stories. She has a good imagination. That’s all it is, nothing more than a girl with a big imagination. A girl in love, attempting to use her skills to save the boy she’s in love with.’

  Kgosi Sechele asks her no more questions. As she returns to her seat, she pauses in front of Nthebolang, who’s holding Elizabeth on her lap. Beatrice reaches down to pick up her daughter and says, ‘Let’s go home now, darling.’