Vultures in the Wind

by Peter Rimmer

  “What’s in the chest, Mark?”

  “My business.” It was the only time anyone heard him come close to being rude.

  Lorna Rosenzweig had a real talent which her mother and father refused to realise. She was nineteen, with an oval face and a rich olive skin that turned to dark brown in the sun, sometimes giving her problems in the summer when she boarded a bus in Cape Town where coloureds sat at the back. If they told her to, she sat in the back with the coloureds and often went there on her own if a seat was empty.

  She painted in pastels, rich in colour. Her teacher at secondary school had taught her how to draw, and the pictures in her mind were easily transferred onto canvas. She was a happy child, happiest in the garden of her parents with her paint box and a sheet of white paper for canvas. When she left school, she wanted to go to the Michaelas Art School. Her father and mother disagreed, the rift in the family becoming close to violent.

  Lorna was adamant that she was going to be a fauna artist. Her father was adamant that she was going to Cape Town University to study medicine like a good Jewish girl. One Thursday when her parents returned from work, she had gone, taking a small suitcase and leaving behind everything else she owned in the world. The note said she had gone to Israel to join a kibbutz. The note was untrue. She had gone to Port St Johns to the colony of artists. Her father searched a large part of Israel for his daughter without success, which was not surprising. His daughter had decided she was going to be a famous artist.

  She had arrived at the colony in summer, so her skin was a rich brown all over, her hair bleached from rich brown to light brown, and only her blue eyes told of her Caucasian heritage. When he first saw her on the beach, walking step by gorgeous step, Mark saw the most beautiful girl in his life. She came across the soft white sand to him and dropped a towel down next to him. When her towel was straight, she sat down, stretching her long brown legs centimetres away from Mark’s.

  “Hi, I’m Lorna and I want to join your colony.”

  “I’m Mark.”

  “I know. Isn’t this place just beautiful?” They sat together for some time looking out to sea. “You want to come for a swim?”

  “Just watch the gully near those rocks. Current rips out to sea.”

  When they both dived into the waves at the point where the sea stopped them running any further, they were laughing.

  From the edge of the beach, among the wild banana trees, Martin with the black beard remarked quietly to the lady with whom he shared his life, “Never heard him laugh before.”

  “About time he took a lady into his bed. At first I thought he was queer.”

  “Mark’s not queer.”

  Mark’s stride was twice that of Lorna’s, and she had to hurry to keep up with his leisurely pace. They walked along the cliff-top in the early morning sun on their way to Third Beach. He had found her a room in a hut with a girl who made jewellery, and the first thing the girl had done was to plait Lorna’s hair. To Mark she was his daughter, the one he had never had but always wanted.

  A look at her paintings had stopped him putting her in with another painter. His mother had been a painter, and he recognised the real talent that Lorna’s parents had failed to understand. Artistic jealousy was a vice Mark disliked and he avoided the problem whenever possible. The purpose of his life was to live in harmony and he carefully nurtured the peace and calm of his colony.

  They reached Third Beach two hours after leaving the colony. The tide was out, leaving the rocks exposed for about three hundred metres, the same black colour, wet from the sea, as the mussels. There were myriads of black mussels and below them, just under the surface of the water, were the big slipper oysters that provided Mark with much of his nourishment.

  They made a camp on the deserted beach, then Mark headed for the dry rocks and dropped into a gully. A bag was strapped to his side and, before submerging, he pulled down the goggles and took a long, deep breath. The crayfish scuttled out from under the big rock that he moved with ease, the sea water giving it buoyancy. Swiftly catching two, he came up for air. Lorna was bending over the rocks above his head, and was not wearing the top to her bikini.

  Mark went down again with a new lungful of air and looked for the smiles of the oysters as they sucked in the sea, filtering the plankton with the gentle flow of the waves. He came up again with six big oysters, causing the girl standing watching him a metre away on the rocks to smile. Eight dives filled his bag, and he came ashore.

  “Please, Lorna, put on a vest or something. I’m old enough to be your father.”

  “You can’t be.”

  “Believe me.”

  “How old are you?”

  “We’ve agreed to talk of the present,” Mark insisted with a smile.

  “Then why did you bring me here?”

  “To enjoy the beach. To enjoy the crayfish cooked on a fire. To eat the freshest, bestest oysters in the world. To feel the sun on our bodies, to listen to the oyster catchers, the ones over there with red beaks. To watch the plovers and the gulls on the wind… Now, help me find some dry wood, and we’ll make the fire and eat. I’m starving.”

  “Who are you really?”

  “What you see, Lorna. As I am. There’s nothing else.”

  She gave him a crooked look, one plait hanging. She had put on a T-shirt that had fallen in the sea.

  “It’s not going to work,” she said.

  “What?… You got the matches?”

  “My being your daughter… What do you do all day?”

  “There you go. Leave it alone and take what we have,” insisted Mark, gently.

  “That’s what I want to do, you mug.”

  Mark, reduced to silence, gave his full attention to opening the oysters with his penknife. They were big and luscious, the big flesh of the oyster cradled in mother-of-pearl. From the backpack he had carried up the coast he took a lemon he had picked from the tree by the Vuya, cut it in half and squeezed two drops on to each open oyster where he had set them out on a rock.

  “Bon appétit.”

  “Bon appétit.” The brown nipples stood out through the white cloth of her T-shirt. He controlled the surge of passion. That side of his life was over; the years had seen to that. She was young enough to be his daughter, he told himself for the third time since getting out of the water.

  It was a beautiful day.

  Wherever he went she was there, watching him, smiling at him with a smile that told him he was being a fool. All day long and for most of the night, he thought of her. Everything he did related to Lorna, and in desperation he began to avoid the girl, finally taking his backpack and going down the coast on his own, sleeping in the open or in the sea caves that dotted the coast, trying each day to leave her behind.

  The calm and peace of his life was shattered. It was ridiculous. He knew she was twenty-four years his junior and, if he did not look his age, it was due to the way of life, the diet, the sun, the exercise. Physically he was stronger than he had ever been, but he was forty-four years old and until now he knew he had never been in love.

  He had often wondered what it was really like. Now he knew. All consuming, a total preoccupation, a permanent longing to be in her company. There was no fool like an old fool, and he lengthened his stride and walked on down the coast, his every heartbeat screaming with the pain. He wanted all of her. Mind, body and soul.

  Martin with the black beard stood knee-deep in the lagoon, watching the mullet below the mirrored surface with deep concentration. The fig tree on the bank and white fluffy clouds was reflected far below the fish. Slowly he moved closer to his prey, his toes searching the bed of the lagoon, his throwing net ready for the lunge.

  The weather had been bad for a week, and he was hungry. So were his cats, his woman and their dog. The dog was so quick that, when he walked with him into the village, the villagers said he was in the dirt bag before the local dogs had smelt the garbage. There were forty or more mullet in the shoal, lazily swimming around, unaware of
the hungry eyes above the surface of the lagoon.

  Martin stalked the fish for half an hour, and then he threw his net, sending it out in a perfect ring, the weights poised evenly to plunge into the water, dragging the net down over the fish. Gently, Martin pulled on the cord, drawing the net and pushing his catch to the back, making a long bag of the net with the mullet deep inside. The drawstring pulled the neck shut as he drew his catch out of the water, a writhing, silvery mass in the afternoon sun. From the shore, a pair of hands began to clap. Lorna had been watching from the time Martin had walked into the lagoon with his net.

  “How many?” she called across the still water. She was sitting with her knees up under the fig-tree. As she spoke, a flock of green pigeons burst from above her and flew off swiftly up the river, away from the colony, towards the Xhosa village farther up.

  “Come and help me get them to the bank”

  She came towards him, wading through the shallow water of the lagoon, disturbing the perfect reflection of the trees and the sky. She slipped in her excitement and, when she rose, reaching towards the net full of fish to help, Martin’s loins surged with his own excitement, making him turn his body away. If Mark did not want the girl, every man in the colony, black, white and brown, lusted after her. She had no idea what effect she had on the men and, unless Mark did what she so obviously wanted him to do, there would be trouble. The men were hungry and the women jealous, and the girl had only been with them a month.

  “Hold the net closed while I shorten the bag in the net… There we go. Keep it shut as I drag. Must be thirty big ones. We’ll all eat tonight.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “So am I,” replied Martin, and not only for the fish. She would be less provocative if she wore no clothes at all.

  By the time they had lugged the fish to the bank of the lagoon, the pigeons were back in the fig tree and Martin’s body was under control. Together they carried the fish to his hut and the daggered eyes of his woman. Only Lorna had no idea of the problem she was causing. Lorna was in love, and nothing else came into focus. She saw nothing but Mark.

  “May I take one up to Mark?”

  “You do that,” said the woman unkindly. ‘And you can take it now.”

  “Thanks, Melissa. Isn’t it a lovely day? Martin, you’re so clever.” The girl stretched and rose. Martin tried not to watch her walking away, but his eyes would not move from the cheeks of her buttocks pushing out of the kidskin leather of her bikini.

  “You touch that girl and I’ll chop it off” said his woman. The thought was better than a cold shower.

  Sven was a tall, blonde man who carved driftwood and had not been sure whether he preferred men or women until he saw Lorna. For the moment, as he covetously watched her walking across the beach to the Gap and Mark’s rondavel, he was strongly heterosexual. If it were not for Mark’s height and strength, he would have gone for the girl, whether she liked him or not. He had raped a boy once and nothing had come of it, the boy turning gay and doing what Sven wanted once he had broken him in. He watched her till she climbed between the rocks and started up the winding path through the wild banana trees to the big hut on its perch overlooking the cove.

  “And I’ll bet she’s a virgin,” he said to himself. “That kind of innocence has to be virgin.”

  Mark had seen her coming and gone out of the back of the house, running away from his problem. From the bushes above, he saw her put the fish in the box next to his door and leave. Then he came out of hiding and walked down to the cove for a swim. There were two closed oysters washed up on the small patch of sand. He picked them up, trying not to think of the girl, and walked back to his house. It had been the longest month of his life.

  Sven watched her again, his desire mounting, only his fear of the giant in the hut above the cove stopping him from going out and bringing her back to his hut. It was dusk and no one would see.

  Barbara, Baba the jewellery lady, was plump and rather pretty, and welcomed Lorna back to their hut with a proprietary smile, putting her arm round the girl, her hand hanging over the shoulder, her small plump fingers softly touching the brown skin in the V made by the girl’s shirt.

  “Baba, we’ve got a fish. Martin’s so clever,” she had called, and Baba had taken the fish and used the excuse to give the girl a hug, feeling the firm, big breasts against her own. It had been a long month for Baba the jewellery lady.

  “Have a joint.”

  “You know I don’t smoke, Baba.”

  “You can have a puff of mine.”

  “If it makes you happy. What do I do?”

  “Just suck in, baby. Suck it in.”

  Lorna, all thumbs with the wet joint, did what she was told. “Hey. It’s gone to my head.”

  “That’s what it’s meant to do.”

  “My brain feels so clear… Shall we grill or fry the fish over the fire? There’s still some rice and I took some herbs from Mark’s herb garden. He really has green fingers.”

  “Can we talk about anything but Mark?” asked Barbara. “He’s told you he’s too old. I think he’s gay. Never goes for the women.”

  “He can’t be gay the way he looks at me,” said Lorna confidently. “We’ll do the fish on the braai and boil the rice and herbs… Baba, why do you look at me like that? Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing, baby. Have another drag. Why don’t you and I get high?” Lorna took a deep puff right down into her lungs, held it there as Baba had shown her, and let it out slowly.

  “That’s my baby. Come and sit next to me.”

  An hour and a half later, Lorna was as high as a kite, and the fish tasted better and the rice tasted better than any food she had ever eaten. Baba was just about to make her final ploy when Sven came to visit.

  “I’ve got some moonshine. Want to share?”

  “Sure,” said Baba, thinking quickly. Maybe a threesome was what was wanted as the girl still kept moving away. “Have some grass. Let’s have a party. I like your new shirt, Sven. Come and sit between us.”

  Mark heard the girl scream. He had not been able to sleep and was sitting in a wooden chair he had made himself, enjoying the moon’s gentle light, so colourless on the still Indian Ocean.

  It had been three and a half years since he had been unable to sleep at night. The girl now invaded his dreams making him wake with a fierce hunger. He heard the scream again and turned his head into the soft wind of the hot summer night. He was naked, his long body stretched out in the moonlight. Twice he had been down to bathe in the sea, careful not to splash and attract the sharks. Sharks were more dangerous in the dark of the night. The wind puffed drying the last of the water on his body.

  “Get your hands off me! Please! Please, Baba… Sven, I said no!” Then came another scream, this time of pain, and Mark ran down the path and on to the beach, fighting the sand in his frenzy of speed.

  Baba the jewellery girl fled when she saw what was coming, but Sven was on top of Lorna, trying to penetrate her vagina, the membrane holding back on his lurching thrusts. She had twisted her hips and had bitten through his cheek, the blood sending Mark insane. He picked Sven off the girl with one hand and hit him with the other, breaking his jaw. The crack of bone was distinct in the night. Sven fell back across the hot ashes of the fire, spinning onto his face and pushing his stiff erection into the coals. He screamed and ran off over the beach for the sea, while Mark picked up the bloodied girl and carried her back across the sands. Lorna clung to him. Over to their right, Sven plunged his scorched genitals into the sea, still screaming.

  “Are you hurt? Did he?… The blood! You’re covered in blood… You’ll have to stay with me.” He walked up the path and down to his cove, taking her with him in his arms into the water, deeper and deeper, washing her clean, gently dunking her in the ocean. Then he walked back to his rondavel and lowered her on to the big wooden bed he had built of driftwood, lighting a candle to look at her wounds. She was smiling at him, her face clean and innocent again.


  “Make love to me, Mark. Please, it’s the only way I’ll be clean inside, if you love me.” Very gently, using all the years of his experience, Mark consented.

  Lying back with his girl in his arms, he could still see the moon washing the ocean, stars higher in the sky, the Southern Cross clean in the pattern of heaven. Then they slept, until the dawn woke the birds and they went back to the sea, naked happy and fulfilled. The great peace of arrival had finally come to the man.

  Chelsea de La Cruz was lonely, frightened and pregnant. She loathed Lusaka. She had grown to hate the grasping people, both men and women, in the liberation movement, who warred with each other as often as they warred with the soldiers of Ian Smith.

  She had never been accepted in all those years except in Luke’s company. When he was away they left her alone fighting their own political battles that Chelsea found petty and personal. On the ground in Rhodesia, ZIPRA guerrillas of Joshua Nkomo, the father of the nation were fighting guerrillas of Robert Mugabe’s ZANLA, killing more of each other than whites. The Patriotic Front was in disarray as the two liberation movements fought for the right to run Rhodesia without the other. Patronage was to be in the hands of one party.

  Chelsea had gone off the pill six months earlier, desperate to cement her relationship with Luke. Her parents had been forced to flee Mozambique, not even taking the furniture. They wrote sad pathetic letters from Portugal, refugees too old to start again. Chelsea was sure that most of her parents’ letters were being deliberately lost and all of them read before they reached the small, two-roomed flat that was home to her and Luke – when Luke was not fighting in the war that propaganda failed to convince her was going so well. There were too many new faces too few of the old.