Vultures in the Wind

by Peter Rimmer

  But they were wrong. Mark had followed his tracks and found the hut and the old man, and identified the contents of the black bags stored in the huts. Mark had shrugged. Everyone had something to hide. Who was he to care? But he did watch Carel van Tonder with new respect. Then Lorna had come into his life, and everything else had flown out of the window.

  The two of them would have remained ignorant of each other if the Transkei, an independent country so far as Pretoria was concerned, had not allowed gambling under their laws, which were different from those of the Republic of South Africa, where anti-gambling laws were strictly enforced. People in the colony came and went, drifters most of them, attracted to a lazy life and cheap ‘pot’. Mark and Carel were different. They intended to stay, Carel at least until his cut of the export crop, laundered for him into property in Florida – specifically Fort Lauderdale where there was a number of South Africans in the yachting industry – was sufficient for him to attain a new identity and live the life of a rich man for the rest of his life. Wealth and happiness were synonymous to Carel.

  Watching Mark look so happy in a loincloth, a tall staff in hand and a catch bag for oysters and crayfish, Carel decided it was a facade. The man was running away. It was not possible for such an individual to be happy living like a hippie. A man needed a smart house, swimming pool, a big car, air conditioning and, above all, the great sophistication of civilisation. Mark and the rest of the colony were only one step up from the blacks, better organised but still living a hand-to-mouth existence that often left them cold and hungry. And if any of them became sick, they did not have a cent to pay the doctor. When they were too old for manual work, they had better get themselves washed out to sea for the sharks. No, a man only had one life, and the good life was in Fort Lauderdale among the rich, not in Port St Johns among a bunch of drifters who smoked grass. The irony of his dislike was totally lost on Carel van Tonder.

  At the end of August, two men arrived in a car that put Carel’s bakkie to shame and, when they stepped out and walked down to the beach, they were very excited, pointing to the features of natural beauty: the Gap with its great chunk of cliff half-fallen into the sea, the long white beach, palm-fringed, with sand so soft that it squeaked when walked upon by bare feet, the blue-green, turquoise-white roller perfection of the sea, and the rolling hills that gave everyone a view of heaven on earth in a climate that was only cold at night during the winter. It was the perfect spot for a luxury gambling resort, with the port of St Johns reopened so that the river estuary could be made into a vast yacht basin for the rich. The tarred road from Umtata had to be completed and the sand bar removed from the estuary of the river, but the ultimate paradise was there to be taken.

  Mark, happier than at any time in his life, was on the beach with Lorna when the dark-suited men came down, intent on changing everything.

  “Hi! You guys live there? Isn’t this place something? Can you imagine what it would be like with a luxury hotel, cabanas, a casino, yacht marina, golf course and an airport? This place would come alive. And if those people in Umtata take what we offer, it’ll all happen.”

  Mark and Lorna looked up at the men in horror, Mark thinking faster than he had done for years. One of the men was concentrating his attention on Lorna, who was sunbathing topless. It was a perfect day in August without a wind and the Wild Coast sea was as gentle as a lamb, making a lapping sound as it licked the shore among the sea-snails looking for their food and the sand-pipers scuttling backwards and forwards with the ebb and flow of the Indian Ocean.

  “Wouldn’t work, I’m afraid,” said Mark to the other man, who was only slightly less interested in Lorna. “No fresh water.”

  “We’ll build a dam.”

  “No catchment area for a hundred and sixty kilometres. The big holiday resort idea has been tried here more than once, and fails every time for lack of water.”

  “Where do you get yours?” The man did not like being put off by a long- haired hippie with a red headband who had no idea of business or how to make real money. “There’ll be good jobs for all of you.”

  “We don’t want jobs,” said Lorna.

  Mark answered the question. “There’s a river pool that fills up slowly in the hills that gives us what we need, but water can never be wasted. Enough for twenty families.”

  “What do you know about developments?” asked the second man rudely. Lorna had turned on her stomach. “If you throw enough money at anything, the problem goes away.”

  Mark shrugged his shoulders. “Who’s the developer?”

  “We put a project together and sell it to the institutions. Create an investment opportunity. The insurance companies have millions to invest every day, and they can’t invest outside South Africa Exchange control. The yields on the stock exchange are less than two per cent.”

  “Water, my friend. Don’t forget to tell the investors about water. Because if you don’t, someone else will. The huts behind you are an example of a development that went wrong. Those two houses at the end of the beach with the green roofs have fallen down. You had better look somewhere else.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  Mark opened his mouth, shut it and smiled. “Long enough to know about the water problem.”

  Carel had come up, seen Mark’s hesitation and wondered for the first time what the man looked like without the beard. Mark had not been overawed by the city men with a big car, and had tried to chase them off. A small crowd from the colony had gathered, and now they watched the men walk back to their car.

  “You think they will?” asked someone. No one answered, and slowly everyone but Carel drifted back to his or her business.

  “You and I may need to talk.” said Mark.

  “What about?” asked Carel.

  “Black bags under cabbages for one thing. You had better have your people keep watch on those men. Get the registration of the car.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Have it your own way.” shrugged Mark casually.

  There was no moon that night and, when the old black man went out of the hut twenty-seven kilometres down the coast from Third Beach to have a pee, he looked up from his ablution to see a ship anchored out to sea, the silhouettes visible to his trained eyes. He took his time and went back into the hut for his torch. The Baas had only brought twenty black bags, but the ship had come a month early, sitting where it was on the sea in exactly the right position.

  He walked slowly down the goat path where the boats and the dassies kept the short, wind-lashed grass even shorter, to the cliff-top where a gentle slope enabled the men from the small boat that would come ashore to load the black bags and take them out to the ship. On the beach, in the lee of the tall cliff, the small beach was pitch black, and if the sea had been anything else but dead calm he would not have heard the voices down below.

  Quickly, he walked back without shining his torch. The police were waiting, but the boat would not come ashore unless he shone his light. Taking the few possessions that he treasured on his old back, he moved off down the cliff path in the direction leading away from his hut, which he was sure the police were going to burn to the ground.

  After five minutes and a few hundred metres, he was forced to stop and put down his load. He was a very old man; his wife had died and his children gone to work on the gold mines, forgetting their elderly father. All he had in the world were the few things that he put on the ground, the old thatched hut and the little food the Baas brought him to shine his torch out to sea and make sure the black bags were kept dry. Now they were going to burn his hut, and the tears ran down the old, craggy face and splashed unseen on the ground, the ground where his ancestors had ruled so long ago, when the cattle were fat and the people had not gone away to the city of gold, Johannesburg.

  He sat down next to his cooking pot, his fighting stick and the two old blankets. Where was he going? For an old black man without a tribe and without his children, there was nowhe
re to go. He was very lonely. Why had life given him so little? He pulled the blankets over his old, skinny legs and his old, skinny shoulders, and turned his eyes back towards the small beach and the men who would come up and burn his hut and let him die all alone on the cliff. Maybe the wind would blow his bones into the howling sea.

  First, the light out to sea caught his eye. It was flashing. Then he saw the flashing light from the beach below his old hut and he knew it was not the police. All night with the blankets keeping him warm, he heard the men unloading the boats that came in from the sea to the beach. In the darkest part of the night, the ship’s engines got under way and the boats stopped coming in to the shore. Half an hour later, the voices stopped, but the old man stayed in the comfort of his blankets and waited for the dawn.

  Then he walked back to his hut and, when he looked down on the beach, the tide was in, washing the sand clean of the footprints. He lit his cooking fire and let the new sun warm the chill from his bones. The gods had been good to him. The evil had gone away, and an old man could sit in the sun for another day and remember the days of his youth when the body was strong, his wife was alive and beautiful, and the sound of his children came up from the shore.

  Three days before the wedding in Lusaka, Luke was called back into the bush to arbitrate between the ZIPRA and ZANLA commanders in the field, to stop them from fighting each other. Chelsea was left alone to have the baby.

  She had persuaded Luke to buy her a gold chain as a wedding gift. She returned it to the jeweller and said that comrade Mbeki wanted his money back and would choose another present when he returned from the bush. With the money, she took a bus to Lubumbashi in Zaire. The papers she showed the border guard were covered in official ANC and ZIPRA stamps. It was enough, as the border guards were unable to read. Then she walked into the Portuguese consulate and told them her story.

  When Luke came back from his successful meetings in the bush, his woman had gone. There was no note. No one knew. Nothing. Luke sat in the one big chair in the flat and for the first time questioned the worth of it all. He was sick of people squabbling for petty power. He was sick of the Russians dictating his every move. He began to question in his mind the sincerity of some of the leaders in the liberation movements. And now Chelsea had run away with his child.

  He sat for a long time with his memories and his fears and, when the child in him found its way back to the peace and gentleness of Port St Johns, there was a great yearning in his soul to run away, to leave them all to fight the battles that were growing progressively further from the ideals of liberating the people and progressively nearer to the grandiosity of individuals who wanted to be kings. Luke Mbeki had the terrible feeling that once again he was being exploited.

  “I want to go and look for my woman,” he said to the commissar that afternoon.

  “Women who run away are never worth finding. You work for the struggle, comrade Mbeki. Don’t forget. Without the struggle you have nothing. Anyway, she was not one of us.”

  They stared at each other for a few moments, and then Luke looked down and left the office. He took a car from the pool and drove out into the bush. He had to think. He had to renew his faith.

  The black car returned to Second Beach the following week. Mark was walking back to his hut with a small orange tree he had been given by a tourist.

  “You want a beer?” the man in the suit called from the stoep of the thatched Vuya restaurant that overlooked the beach.

  “Thanks why not? You back again… I’ll have a Castle. My name’s Mark.”

  “We know. We believe you are the unofficial head of the colony. We want you to give us some help.”

  “Not me. I’ll drink your beer but that’s as far as it goes.”

  “People seem to think you were born here.”

  “That’s very nice.”

  “Otherwise you wouldn’t have been given a hut site.”

  “Very observant.”

  “And you know the local paramount chief, which is why you are left to your own devices. My name is Jake, and these are some of the people who wish to invest their money.”

  “What do you want for the price of a beer?”

  “To know why you have warned the paramount chief against our development.”

  “I’ve told you. No water.”

  “One way or the other, water can be supplied if the casino can make enough money. We think it can. Why don’t you join us as a consultant to make sure the local environment is looked after? That’s what you want. We’ll pay you well.”

  Mark began to laugh, a good, strong belly laugh. “Money. We don’t need money. Cheers. The beer’s nice and cold.”

  Another man leant across the wrought-iron white table. “Hi, I’m Bernard Strover from Security Lion. We’re putting up the money. You must have heard of Security Lion. We’re second only to the Old Mutual.”

  “Never heard of you, I’m afraid.”

  “You lived in the bush a long time?”

  “All my life. Which is why I like it here as it is.”

  “A bit primitive.”

  “We’re very happy, Mister Strover. That’s what counts. The new world has a habit of taking away happiness. We find a life without television and newspapers more to our taste.”

  “You not heard of the Soweto riots?”

  “No. No, we haven’t.”

  “You really are bush-happy. Have another beer. The company pays.”

  “I’d like that… Lorna,” he called. “Come and join these nice men. They’re buying free drinks and they don’t even have to pay for them. You see, I want our kid to grow up in harmony, not strife. You keep your riots and your casino.”

  “But not our beers,” said Bernard Strover,

  “Especially not when you can put it on your expense account. How long have you been with the company?”

  “Three years. We’re about the fastest-growing major company in South Africa.”

  “How nice for you. Just be sure to tell them there’s no water, or they might find growth a little slower.”

  “Why not join us for lunch and a bottle of wine?”

  “My pleasure. Lorna told me only this morning she is going to have a baby.” Under the table he squeezed her hand. He was so happy that at this moment anybody could be his friend.

  Luke had taken food and water for a week. He had driven far, to the banks of the Kafue River where he camped under a tall acacia tree, hanging his mosquito net from a branch of the tree. His genes as a black man may have helped him from contracting malaria, but he was allergic to the bites. The clouds were building up daily, the prelude to the start of the rains, and it was hot and humid. The rains would come within weeks.

  For a while he had cried silently, remembering the girl who had made the harsh reality of his life a little softer. The hugs and smiles. The gentle talk. Sanity away from all the killing and hate. He was getting old and tired, and the permanent fighting, bickering, arguing and making of points had worn him down. And it all had to end. Smith was still in power and South Africa was still the ruler of grand apartheid.

  He was not even sure about Zambia. The government had naively flooded the world market with copper, having nationalised the great copper mines that had been the financial strength of the old federation of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland. Instead of bringing the great wealth Kenneth Kaunda had expected for his people, the price of copper had crashed; the Japanese were miniaturising everything and the need for copper continued to drop sharply. Kaunda had driven the whites off their farms and given the land back to the people, but there were so many more people, and the men who went back to the land had forgotten how to farm and they grew enough only for themselves. Food for the first time had had to be imported into Zambia where the rains were good and the soil so fertile.

  The white civil service had been told to go back to England and patronage, favours for political support, had replaced the competent whites with incompetent blacks who treated their jobs as a sinecure, doing li
ttle work and earning their salaries by supporting the one-party Marxist state. The funds left in the national bank by the British had gone, and UNIP, the people’s party was borrowing money to feed the people. The Russians were giving them guns and money to fight Smith, and the army of Nkomo was the big source of revenue for Zambia, but the crops were small and the copper mines bankrupt. There was no single place in Africa to which he could point that was doing better.

  The standard of living in post-colonial Africa was dropping and the Boers were laughing at them; even the killings in Soweto had made not one of them change his ways. And Smith under mandatory world sanctions was doing better economically than any country to his north. The commissars told the bush soldiers a very different story, but Luke knew these stories were lies. He read the papers in England. He saw the flourishing white farms in Rhodesia. He even understood how the money was made in South Africa. And it all came down to the need for good management.

  Luke swam in the river, keeping a lookout for crocodiles and watching the weaver birds building furiously in the reeds, hanging their nests above the floodwater line. Kudu came down to drink in the evening, and lions roared. The tension subsided but the sadness stayed, the pain of loss, the hopelessness of knowing that he had lost his own child and wandering who was going to look after his boy.

  He thought of his alternatives one by one, discarding them all. He was part of the struggle, for better or for worse, and the struggle was dangerous for those who tried to swim against the current. He had made his choice many years ago when the police had almost beaten him to death for visiting his friend. Thinking back, making himself think back, the hatred boiled; hatred generated by frustration and the need for revenge. At least, when the struggle was won, those pigs would pay the price. That he would see to; that he would see to with pleasure.

  On the second day, he packed the mosquito net in the car and drove back to Lusaka. There was work to be done. First they would win the struggle, then they would kill the pigs, and then they would find a way of running the country. ‘One settler, one bullet.’ It was the only way.