Vultures in the Wind

by Peter Rimmer

  Ben and Clark drove carefully through the potholed streets, avoiding those roads with burning barricades, accepting the occasional rocking of their stationary car and the jeers of black faces staring hatred through the closed windows.

  “Better get out of here, Clark,” said Ben, who was nervous.

  “We’re going to see something. This one’s big, Ben. The world must see this. Think they’ll ever get these guys under control? Just look at them.”

  “Don’t know, Clark, baby. Want to get out. That ‘Kill a Boer’ bit makes me kind of tense.”

  “They won’t hurt us, buddy boy. We’re Americans. These guys like Americans.”

  “Think they’d bother to read my passport?”

  “Accent, buddy boy. We speak American.”

  Luke knew the temper in the townships better than anyone, the conflicting antagonisms coupled with poverty and fifty per cent unemployment rallying to a crisis that could destroy the negotiating process and propel South Africa into an unstoppable civil war. The United Nations peace officials were the first to give him the warning about Ben and Clark, and this was quickly confirmed by the bone weary police captain.

  “Why didn’t you arrest them?” said Luke to the captain. “Stop them? Anything!” Luke’s voice was rising, which was not helped by the contemptuous look in the captain’s eyes that told Luke the problem was his that the ANC had striven for years to make the townships ungovernable by reducing the people to poverty, through sanctions, strikes and mass action.

  “With all due respect, Mister Mbeki, you want me to prevent an American news team from going where they want?” The unspoken sarcasm made Luke’s temper rise again.

  “Which way did they go?”

  “Straight down that road in a white Mazda.”

  “What’s the story for them?”

  “School kids, maybe. The kids are getting ugly down at the secondary school.”

  “Can’t you send men?” suggested Luke strongly.

  “Mister Mbeki, the local ANC youth leader told me personally to get out of his township.”

  Luke turned to his delegation, which was travelling in three cars, all flying the ANC flag. “Who knows the secondary school here?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t, sir,” said the captain, over-emphasising the ‘sir’. “That area’s out of control.”

  Luke gave the man a contemptuous look and returned to the lead car, which he was driving himself.

  After driving ten blocks, he saw clouds of black smoke rising from where the man beside him said the school was situated. Spasmodic gunfire came from the same direction and the streets were full of angry youths who were barely placated by finding black faces in the cars. Cars were wealth and privilege, and spoke of the oppressors. Using the car horn, Luke forced the small convoy deeper into the mass of seething, angry people.

  “No one will hear you, even if you get out and speak,” said his passenger. “Turn left at the next street and get out of here. This crowd has gone berserk.”

  “I can see a stopped car ahead. It’s white. Could be the Americans’ Mazda.” Hooting hard, he pushed on into the crowd.

  “Luke, the two behind have turned.”

  “It’s Ben Munroe and Clark Goss,” said Luke, ignoring the warning. “Those two saved my life.”

  As they watched, Clark was dragged out of the Mazda and willing hands in the screaming crowd thrust knives into his body. His camera fell to the ground as the youths, led by Veli Mokoka, dragged him away, kicking him in the face and body.

  Thirty metres away, Luke scrambled out of his car and, using his great height to the maximum, advanced on the mob, shouting in Xhosa and using his strength to push a way through the youths. He could not see Clark Goss on the ground and, as he came to the centre of the struggle, Veli Mokoka turned to see the tall black man pushing towards him, obviously angry at what they were doing to the Boer. Through the thick power of the dagga, he realised the danger to himself and called his gang’s attention to the shouting, gesticulating giant of a black man.

  “Sell out!” yelled Veli Mokoka in Xhosa. “Kill him! Wants to save the Boer. Worst is the sell out! KILL HIM! KILL THE SELL OUT!”

  The crowd turned from the dead American on the ground as Ben Munroe, speechless but with knee-jerk reaction, leant out of the car, picked up the fallen camera and turned it live on Luke, hoping the ANC executive would calm the crowd and prove to millions of viewers around the world that the ANC was in control of the townships. His mind was clear, objective, sick from the sight of Clark going down under the mob and desperate to film in the last few moments before the mob turned his way. The way out was blocked, the fire in the school was billowing black smoke and there was gunfire behind him as he concentrated, looking through the viewfinder, as Veli Mokoka turned his gang on Luke.

  They pinned the giant’s hands beside his body as an old car tyre was passed over the top of the crowd and rammed over Luke’s head, the open side ready for the can of petrol that was passed quickly to Veli. No one listened to Luke’s shouts. Then came the burst of flame as willing hands lit the petrol. All the time Ben rolled the camera, his mind set in horror and fear, knowing nothing else but to film and film, his voice croaked by burning flesh as Luke Mbeki died, necklaced by his own people.

  3

  The Wild Coast sun dipped below the horizon, leaving a sky ablaze with colour as rich as blood. Soon, from the opposite horizon, the moon would rise, to the right of the Gap. Between them lay the length of the Second Beach at Port St Johns, which was teeming with people.

  The children were rushing to and fro in the near-darkness, splashing in the shallows, running hither and thither among adult legs, shouting for the joy of it. Many of the adults were scarcely less exuberant, some danced impromptu to their own music, others talked loudly and laughed in animated groups, while some supervised the cooking. A pig was roasting slowly, while a large catch of copper steenbras, brought in only an hour before, would likewise play a major part in the diet of the revellers. There was wine and beer for Africa, as they say.

  In the centre of it all, relaxing near the fires was the tall figure of the man responsible for perhaps the greatest feast ever to be held on Second Beach. Matt, still walking with a slight stoop and with his hair long and white now after so much physical and mental suffering, perhaps perfectly fitted the image of a quiet, gracious elder statesman. He spoke less frequently now than perhaps at any time of his life, but his presence was no less evident, no less imposing.

  It was two months since the holding of the South African elections, the elections that finally, after three hundred years, gave all the adults aged eighteen and over the vote and a say in the future of their country. These were the elections that enabled Nelson Mandela to tread the same path followed by so many of his counterparts in countries to the north of them, the direct route from prisoner to president.

  These elections had been anticipated with considerable foreboding by the members of the colony. It was a fear of the unknown, and fear of the violence that seemed inevitable, before, during and after the elections. The colony had hitherto been in the domain of a corrupt, incompetent Transkei government, but one which had nevertheless maintained a state of peace and allowed the members of the colony to pursue their lives unmolested by politics. But the common fear, shared by peace-loving South Africans of all colours and political persuasions, was that the whole country would sink into a bloodbath as the likes of Frikkie Swart on the one hand and Veli Mokoka on the other fought their vicious war to ensure that, if they did lose, the victors would have nothing left over which to rule.

  The colony had looked to Matt for leadership during the fear-filled weeks leading up to the elections. But it seemed to them that Matt, for once, was helpless. Whenever any of them had tried to elicit a response from him to queries, frantic or otherwise, about where the colony could flee or how it should defend itself against possible violence, Matt’s reply would always be the same. He would simply stare past the questioner in
to the distance and say, “They’re not here yet.”

  Perhaps that vicious interrogation in the square named after the late and unlamented John Vorster had finally robbed Matt of his ability to respond decisively to a crisis. Perhaps also the news of Luke Mbeki’s tragic death had been the final blow to destroy all but the shell of the man who had once been one of South Africa’s greatest business geniuses. Or perhaps (and nobody ever found out for certain) he did have some plan up his sleeve which he would have used had there been any genuine deterioration in the situation with regard to those dwelling on the Wild Coast.

  Certainly Matt took a long time to recover from the shattering news of the death of his ‘twin’; in fact, it was doubtful that he ever did. He seemed almost to retreat into the state in which he had been after his return to the colony from his experience with Frikkie Swart’s thugs. His painting stopped, right in the middle of one of his best. He would sit by the shore for hours on end, with a thousand-metre stare, grunting in monosyllables but rarely even turning his head or moving his eyes to respond to any who tried to communicate with him.

  He would occasionally mutter his friend’s name with a deep, silent sigh, and it was clear his mind was back in the same location but almost sixty years before, recalling those wonderful carefree days of youth when the two of them played joyfully on the beach among the trees. The days before the grasping claws of all those vultures in the wind had reached out and destroyed their happiness. Matt himself had returned to his roots, but even here the outside world would not let him go altogether free. Now his hopes of persuading Luke to leave government to others and join him to share the final golden days of their lives together had been destroyed. Luke Mbeki would never come home. An occasional tear escaped Matt’s eye and trickled down the side of his cheek. It was the only time Lorna had ever seen him cry.

  The death of Archie had saddened Matt, but it bore no comparison to the grief he felt when Luke was killed. Archie had been a good mate, but with Luke there had been a unity of soul. Their lives had seemed bound together, right from the start; their friendship had survived every stress imposed on it by the world of racism and politics, and it had withstood the pressure. Matt had always cherished the belief that their lives would end as they had started; in the harmony of the paradise that was Second Beach, Port St Johns. But the blind hatred in the township of Soweto had put a horrendous end to all that.

  But why had such hatred existed? Why had Soweto itself existed at all? The questions could be answered with one word: apartheid. Apartheid – the result of man’s selfishness and greed. Matt could remember Lorna once quoting him a verse from her Old Testament: ‘the heart of man is corrupt and desperately wicked’. It only strengthened Matt’s conviction that humankind was on a headlong course of self-destruction and, whatever the result of the South African elections, nothing could stop it.

  So for weeks Matt appeared to degenerate into a shrunken giant, in his eyes the gloom of despair. Were it not for the quiet, loving presence of his wife, it could even have been a death-wish. He responded not a whit when those who hoped to stimulate him told of the murder of Ben Munroe along with Luke in Soweto; Munroe, the man who had first driven Matthew Gray from the opulence of the First World and had inadvertently done him the greatest favour of his life by returning him to his roots in the Transkei.

  Neither did he even show he had heard when they told of the fate of Frikkie Swart. Frikkie, with the arrogance of those who had manipulated politics with impunity for years, was a little too late in joining his overseas bank account. One evening, on his way home from work, he was shot by a hidden assassin. The bullet took him in the neck, irreparably damaging his spine. For the rest of his life, Frikkie Swart would be a quadriplegic. There were many who thought it ironic that this should be the fate of one who had contributed to the deaths or maiming of hundreds during his career, most notably Matthew Gray. But Matt responded to the news without pleasure, without vindictiveness, even without comment.

  As the date for the elections drew nearer, the colony had turned to Matt for leadership, only to find he seemed unable or unwilling to give it any longer. Carel van Tonder kept very much to himself, awaiting the time to recover his cache of arms, more convinced than ever that he would need it now, with Matt apparently no longer capable of leadership. The suspense grew, as further reports came through of violence in the Johannesburg townships and in Natal, where Chief Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party declared their intention of boycotting the elections. Civil war, no longer blacks against whites but now blacks against blacks, seemed inevitable. And in that case, there were few who could hope to escape being caught in the crossfire.

  But it never happened. To the amazement and relief of South Africa and the world Buthelezi at the last minute decided to participate in the elections. The tension was by no means over, however, as it was unclear what he and his party would do when they inevitably failed to come out on top of the voting countrywide, although it was likely they would gain control of the province of Natal.

  Yet there was, miraculously, no increase in violence in the townships either during or after the elections; Buthelezi, although still dissatisfied, did not respond with a call to arms; the right-wing Afrikaners did not rise to recapture their homeland by force; and the elections themselves passed off with remarkable good humour and even celebration by all sides.

  Few of the colony went to vote. What difference would it make to their situation, their lives at Second Beach, who won the elections? If there was peace, which looked highly unlikely, they could live on just as happily, whether the president’s name was Mandela or de Klerk or Buthelezi. If there was violence and civil war, as seemed unavoidable, no government would be strong enough to quell it.

  Matt himself never considered voting. Vote for the National Party, even with an enlightened leader at the helm, after all the suffering they had brought to the peoples of South Africa? Matt could not forget that party’s track record, and the evil little men like Frikkie Swart who had kept it in power for forty years at all costs. Or for the ANC, whose policy of disruption and confrontation had also hurt millions of people, and destroyed the life of the greatest friend he ever had? Or Inkatha, who had so nearly destroyed South Africa’s only hope for peace? Matt didn’t care who won. To him, they were all vultures, vultures in the wind, greedily seeking the pickings of the richest country in Africa.

  Matt was probably as amazed as anybody else, probably more so, that the elections themselves and the aftermath passed off so peacefully, when all the indications were that mayhem would break loose, with Inkatha fighting the ANC and the diehard Boers fighting both, and the ordinary South African who wished for little more than to sit by his cooking fire and eat the labour of his hands caught in the middle. Typically, he didn’t show it. Whenever anybody asked him his opinion, he would simply reply, “Wait and see.” The euphoria of the colony at the prospect of being permitted to continue their lives of peace without restraint was not for him. He had suffered too much. For Matt, it was merely a respite.

  And yet, in the end, Matt responded. For the first time since his arrival at Second Beach under the pseudonym of Mark, he actually invited visitors to the colony. He would not call it a feast of celebration, yet that in effect was what it was. Of course, he sought the approval of the other inhabitants of Second Beach and naturally received their unanimous approval.

  And here they were, that glorious autumn evening on Second Beach in 1994, just weeks after the inauguration of President Mandela at the former capital of the Boers, Pretoria. All Matt’s friends over the years who were still alive were invited.

  Of course, it could never be the same without Luke. But Luke’s family was here. Mrs Chelsea Mbeki, the widow of the lamented ANC Martyr, was present with Luke’s two sons – and they intended to stay. Chelsea had had enough of politics, politics which had caused her years of estrangement from her husband and, after a brief but joyous reunion, an early widowhood. She thought of returning to Portugal, but foun
d no joy at the thought. Her son, and Luke’s son Sipho, were South African and this man who had been Luke’s best friend had been right all along. She wanted nothing more now than to throw in her lot with him and live out her life away from the glamour, the politics, the greed, the self-interest that had caused so much destruction in her life. And to Matt, Chelsea and the boys were all he had left of his ‘twin’. Their presence helped to assuage his pain, and gave him purpose as he made it his duty and his pleasure to look after them as his own kin in memory of Luke.

  Aldo Calucci and Lucky Kuchinski were there, at the colony for the first time. It was unlikely they would stay, although they had no definite plans for the future. Aldo had had a little too much to drink and his English, which seemed to have improved not a whit over the past thirty years and more, was less intelligible than ever as a result. Lucky was quieter now than Matt had known him, and his once-black hair was almost entirely a snowy white. But one thing hadn’t changed, Matt gave a wry smile as he watched Lucky chatting up an attractive female painter from the colony who was just young enough to be his granddaughter. She was humouring him marvellously.

  Jonathan and Raleen Holland were present, and even Jonathan’s mother, now a gracious elderly lady, had responded to the invitation to visit the place where her son had spent his lost years. She was thrilled with delight at the beauty of the place and, very wisely, did not ask too many questions about how her son had spent his time there.

  There were even visitors from England. Sunny Tupper, now permitted back in the country with the new government, was there, having waited until after the elections before finally agreeing to take up Matt’s offer of running their little school. The glamour of the big city still held its attractions for her, but even she realised it was clear that the feeling was unlikely to be mutual.