Storms Over Africa

by Beverley Harper

  ‘Old Didd?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry about this.’

  ‘Yeomans?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Shaddup.’

  Neither of them could think of anything else to say. Richard must have dropped off to sleep when, around midnight, he was woken by a murmuring of voices. There was something expectant in the sound, an excitement or an anticipation, which alerted him. He was suddenly fearful. Something was about to happen. Greg had woken as well and whispered, ‘Samson.’

  Richard’s gut lurched. A sudden movement at the tent flap warned them. A man entered and bent over Samson, untying his feet. Samson was forced to rise. In the gloomy interior of the tent, lit only be the pale flickering light of a fire outside, Richard watched Samson get to his feet smoothly and go with the man easily. He wondered how Samson could shut down his mind yet his body still worked. Another man freed them and then, pointing his automatic weapon at them, said, ‘Out.’

  They followed him into the night. A main camp fire was roaring and several smaller fires burned as well. During the night more men had joined Conradie. There were at least a hundred of them as far as they could see. They were led to a spot at the front of the assembled men and ordered to sit.

  Samson stood in the centre of a clearing made by the semicircle of men. Brigadier Hambalaze stood next to him, a sheet of paper in his hand. Shining a torch onto it, the Brigadier read aloud in Sindebele.

  ‘This man Samson is a traitor to his country. He is the puppet of a white master. He is a dog to whom the white man throws scraps from his table. He is weak like a woman and he would be happy to live like this for the rest of his life. This man Samson is not a man. He is a woman-dog, a bitch with swollen teats. He is a bitch in a man’s body. He is not only a traitor to his country, he is a traitor to his body. This man did not even fight for independence of his country. He stayed and looked after the white man’s farm so that, when we had won independence, the white man could go back to being his master. This man is nothing. We sentence this man, this bitch in a man’s body, to die like a woman.’

  Samson merely stared ahead. Richard felt tears pricking behind his eyelids. If Samson could hear those words he would die before the men could kill him. It was the ultimate disgrace. Hambalaze lowered the paper and the men in the semicircle uttered a single, collective sound of approval. It was a long-drawn-out moaning hum, snapped off after three seconds. Total silence followed it.

  Several men joined Hambalaze in the clearing and placed their hands on Samson’s arms, forcing him to his knees. He went down easily. One of them put his hand behind Samson’s neck and guided him so he lay, face down, in the dirt, arms and legs spread-eagled. Then, both men rolled him onto his back. Samson lay perfectly still, staring upwards.

  Hambalaze spoke to the men gathered there. ‘See how he lies like a woman, on his back with his legs open.’

  The men laughed, roaring their approval. Richard looked at them. Fucking savages. Rot in hell, you bastards.

  Hambalaze was enjoying himself. ‘He cannot hear us. He has gone to his secret meeting place. But he will hear us soon. When the steel cuts his legs and his arms from his body he will hear us and feel us and see us. Then he will know that he is a woman and a dog. Then he will die in shame.’

  The men roared out their approval, slapping their thighs in enjoyment. The horror of what was about to come did not concern them. Samson was Shona. Even the few Shona among them did not care about the fate of one of their tribe who was so clearly the possession of a white man. Samson was about to provide them with entertainment. They all hoped he would shriek and squirm and beg in his agony.

  Richard felt a roaring in his ears. He concentrated hard on stopping his body shaking. He prayed Samson would stay in his trance.

  Four men stood to one side. Wearing animal-skin skirts, with their upper bodies glistening with oil, they looked fiercely warrior-like. The significance of this was not lost on Richard. They would have been chosen for their size and strength to emphasise their masculinity.

  Each man carried a panga, honed to razor sharpness and polished so the blade shone in the firelight. Hambalaze nodded to the two men who had laid Samson down and they pegged his arms and legs so he could not move, even if he had wanted to try. They used rounded iron bars which were hammered so tightly into the ground Richard could see the veins stand out in Samson’s hands. ‘Please don’t wake up,’ he prayed.

  He forced his mind away and suddenly saw Samson, splay-legged, wrestling a fence post of thick box gum from the ground, beads of sweat on his forehead as he manhandled the post into the hole he had dug, a grin of determination on his face and an, ‘Ah ha, this post she is not so strong as she thinks,’ as the heavy wooden pole slipped into the hole. The man’s simple sense of humour and his habit of turning the most inanimate thing into a personality were two of his most endearing qualities. Richard had once caught him admonishing a shed door.

  ‘Why are you talking to the door?’

  ‘Because this door is very stupid, Gudo.’

  ‘How can a door be stupid?’

  ‘This door has very bad moods. She will not close when I want her to close and then, when she will close, she will not open again.’

  He had hunted around for the reason and quickly found that the door sagged on its hinges. When he pointed this out Samson replied, ‘This door she is like a woman. Just because some little part stops working she gets troublesome and refuses to work. When this thing happens with a woman we take another wife.’

  ‘Why don’t we just fix the hinges?’

  Samson looked pityingly at him. ‘Gudo, when a wife stops working she will never work properly again.’

  ‘Are you saying I should get another door?’

  Samson beamed at him.

  ‘But there’s nothing wrong with the door. It’s the hinges which are causing the problem.’

  Samson shook his head. The white man, for all his cleverness, could sometimes be very stupid. ‘If a wife cannot give a man children, then the little part which prevents this becomes the whole wife. To replace the little part does not change the whole wife because she thinks she cannot have children.’

  Richard replaced the hinges and Samson developed a hate relationship with the door which he claimed was so used to opening and closing at an angle that it could not work properly now it was not sagging. Measuring the door to prove his point Richard was not surprised to see his head man was right. The door was indeed out of alignment. Try as he might—for he hated to be proved wrong—he never managed to realign the door correctly and, after six months, replaced it without telling Samson. Samson was not fooled but the only reference he made to the new door was to say, ‘A new wife learns bad habits if she is not kept from the other wives,’ which had Richard feverishly checking all the shed doors until he realised that Samson, in his roundabout way, was asking if he could have the old door.

  Oh my father and good friend, how much you have taught me in your gentle way.

  One of the four men stepped forward and raised his panga. There was no further ceremony. He brought the machete down in a sizzling arch, severing Samson’s left arm just above the elbow. The panga went through flesh and bone with a sickening chopping sound. Thick ropes of blood poured from the stump. Samson did not move. The crowd moaned and pressed forward.

  Perspiration ran down Richard’s face and back. His teeth were clenched hard and his fists were bunched.

  The man picked up the severed arm and held it above his head. Blood dripped and ran down his face and chest. Richard turned away and vomited. The crowd roared their approval and the man flung the severed limb to one side and rubbed Samson’s blood over his chest and stomach.

  ‘Steady on, old Didd,’ Greg said out of the side of his mouth.

  The second man stepped up and raised his panga. Richard hunched one shoulder and wiped his mouth against it, tasting the bile, his stomach still heaving. He averted his eyes so he was watching Hambalaze
but, out of the corner of his eye he saw the machete flash downwards and heard the same wet chopping sound as before. Hambalaze grinned.

  He was losing it, he knew. Feverishly, he searched his mind for something to think about. He had to find something, anything. If he thought about it hard enough he could watch the pictures of it behind his eyes, use it to take up the space in his consciousness that was so filled with the barbaric scene he was being forced to watch.

  Samson. There he was, grinning like a fool, sitting astride an old Harley Davidson Richard had picked up at a sale. ‘This garri-moto she is better than a horse.’

  ‘This thing can kill you if you’re not careful.’ He had bought the motorbike for himself but he could see the pleasure the idea of riding it was giving Samson.

  ‘How does she work?’

  Richard took him through the steps. Then, before he could stop him, Samson had taken off on the motorbike. ‘Aaiiiii, Gudo, this thing is running away with me.’ Samson weaved and wobbled around the garden.

  Richard watched in increasing horror as Samson roared up to the fence and went, full speed, into it. He flew upwards in a lazy arc, turned two complete somersaults and landed, flat on his back, on the other side of the fence. Richard raced up to his fallen head man, expecting at the very least a broken bone or two. Samson was still grinning. ‘Gudo, will you tell the garri-moto to stop growling.’ Richard turned the bike off.

  Samson had sat up slowly, rubbing his head. ‘I am thinking the garri-moto not liking me.’

  ‘It’s not that it doesn’t like you, my friend, you have to learn to use it properly.’

  But Samson could not be tempted ever again to go near the motorbike.

  Thunk!

  He tried, but the sound of Samson’s left leg being severed was too savage and too loud for his memories to disguise. He tried not to look but his eyes were drawn. Tried to think of something else but his mind would not function. The sight of Samson’s poor mutilated body, the volume of blood and the approval of the crowd caused him to be sick again. When he got control of himself he realised he at least owed it to Samson to witness his bravery. He looked fearfully at the old man’s face, praying he would still see the blank expression. But intelligence was returning to Samson’s eyes. The pain had cut through his trance and he was starting to come back. God, do it quickly.

  The fourth man walked over and raised his panga. Samson’s eyes flicked towards the man, then he stared upwards. The panga swept downwards and chopped through his right leg below the knee. Richard watched him quiver and saw his neck muscles strain. Then a thin, wavering scream was forced through his lips. It came out like the outraged cry of a newborn baby, gathered strength and force and became a cry of such suffering and agony that it stilled the voices around him. It cut off abruptly and Richard thought, ‘Thank God it’s over,’ but Samson was not dead. With a tremendous effort which had the cords in his neck straining, he raised his head from the ground. His body was jerking and pumping blood but he stared at Hambalaze and gasped in Shona, ‘I am a man and I die like a man. You are the spawn of a goat. I curse you and your family. Your sons and grandsons and their grandsons will bear the stigma of my curse.’ He groaned aloud. ‘Your sons and grandsons and their grandsons will be as women.’

  He lowered his head to the ground, chest heaving. Then he called to Richard in Shona. ‘Farewell, my son. You are as my blood and I honour you.’ One last shudder shook the mutilated torso and he was still.

  Richard had tears streaming down his cheeks. As if in a dream he struggled to his feet and, standing tall and proud, he shouted, ‘Hear me, father. You are as my blood and I honour you.’ Then he looked at Hambalaze and bellowed, ‘I add my curse to that of my father. Your sons and grandsons and their grandsons will be as women. They will be the object of scorn by all men. They will bring dishonour to your house. Other men will use their bodies as they would a woman. I curse you and I curse your offspring.’ Hambalaze understood enough Shona to understand what Richard was saying and his obvious terror was spreading through the others, most of whom did not speak Shona. ‘I curse you in the name of my father here and I curse you in my own name.’ Richard spat contemptuously and Hambalaze, who had backed away, flinched and trembled, then turned and ran.

  ‘Cool it, man,’ Greg whispered urgently.

  But Richard was beyond caring. ‘I curse all of you here,’ he shouted, flinging his head back and throwing out his chest.

  There was a lot of uneasy muttering among the men. Some of them shifted their feet, others melted into the darkness. Those who spoke Shona were translating to the others. Curses are not taken lightly and a curse, at the scene of such a slaying, held more power than most. Richard had shaken them, particularly so because he spoke in fluent Shona and because the man who had died so well had called him ‘son’. Perhaps this man could truly make a curse work. Superstition is strong in Africa and these men, most of them rural people, believed in the power of a curse.

  Conradie strode up, furious. ‘Be quiet, you fool. Do you want to start a riot?’

  Richard stared at him. ‘Fuck you, man,’ he ground out. ‘That man lying there is worth a thousand of you. You didn’t dishonour him. He showed you how a man dies. He is more of a man than any of you. Fuck you to hell and back, you bastard.’

  Turning, he threaded his way through the remaining men who, stunned, stood back and let him pass. Blinded by tears of impotent rage and deep sorrow, he guessed his way back to the tent. Once there he flung himself down where Samson had lain in his trance and bawled like a little kid.

  Greg found him there five minutes later. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘That wasn’t very bright.’

  ‘Fuck ’em. I meant every word.’

  ‘Pretty powerful stuff,’ Greg agreed. ‘Spot of trouble brewing now, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re going to shoot us in the morning.’

  Richard, tears still streaming down his face, looked up at Greg. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘I don’t give a shit.’

  Greg looked angry. ‘I’m really pleased about that, you arsehole. I’m really pleased it doesn’t bother you. That’s really nice for you.’

  ‘Oh shut up.’ He turned away, sick and sorry.

  Somehow he slept for a few fitful hours. His dreams were scattered back through his life. He dreamed of Kathy mainly, and of their time together in the early days in the white man’s haven called Rhodesia. He dreamed of Samson and his infinite patience and wisdom with a young man, fresh out from Scotland and full of ambition. He dreamed of Penny and David as children, of the hills at Pentland Park and, strangely, of Winston his dog. He did not dream of Steve.

  He had no idea what time it was when he awoke. It was pitch dark outside. Somewhere nearby a man snored loudly. He heard the rustle of clothing as one of the men guarding their tent moved. With a dream about Kathy still lingering in his tired mind, he stared into the darkness and thought, ‘So this is what it’s like.’ He wondered if Kathy had felt the same when she had been told her cancer was too widespread to treat. For the first time he realised how much courage she had shown.

  He examined his feelings honestly. He was scared, but he faced and fought his fear so that sometimes it went away and sometimes it reared up and churned in his gut and burned in his throat. The most compelling emotion was regret. He regretted many things. His thoughtlessness with Kathy, his failure to reach his son, the wildness he had passed on to his daughter, his poaching. ‘Kath,’ he thought in the darkness, ‘I loved you with all my heart. Forgive me for the hurt I caused you, darling. I honestly didn’t mean it.’

  ‘David,’ he thought to his son, ‘you are so like your mother it hurt me to watch you.’ Then honesty tapped him on the shoulder and he added, ‘Okay, at first I didn’t want you and then I thought you were a sissy. Your sensitivity shamed me. I wanted a rugger-bugger and I got a concert pianist. But, son, in my own way, I always loved you. I
just wanted you to be different.

  ‘What will happen to you, Penny-farthing?’ he sent his thoughts to his daughter. ‘Are you so hell-bent on destroying your life? If I could give you anything in the world it would be this honesty and wisdom which has come to me so late in my life. Go well, my darling. Learn from your mistakes and go well.’

  Then he thought of Steve. ‘You could never replace Kathy in my heart, Steve, but you were another facet of my life, an addition, a gift to an older man. I probably would have broken your heart a thousand times in my selfishness. You were the shining light I didn’t deserve but I loved you as honestly as I loved Kathy.’

  He shook his head. Christ, he was a selfish bastard. He had never taken the time to give to these people the one thing they wanted above all others. Himself. ‘Oh, God,’ he thought, not so much in a way of prayer, just in despair, ‘if I could have my life over I’d be different.’

  Bullshit, Dunn. If you had your life over you’d be the same selfish son of a bitch you were in this life.

  Greg stirred in his sleep and called out the name of his first wife. Richard nodded, understanding that his friend was having the same kind of dreams he had.

  ‘There’s nothing like impending death to get a man to focus,’ he thought grimly.

  ‘Mother, Father, I never did come up to your expectations, did I?’ He knew his death would make little sense to them. They had never shared his love of this continent and, on rare visits to see their son, often voiced puzzlement at his attachment to it. They would regard his death as a senseless waste of life and would not understand that Africa, hard mistress that she was, had dealt their son the hand of fate he had half expected.

  I think I’d rather die of cancer.

  Fear rose again. ‘Will it hurt? Will I die well, with dignity, or will I shit and piss in my pants with fear? Is there something on the other side? Are you there, Kath? Will you help me?’

  He heard Greg sit up. ‘God,’ he groaned, ‘the things a man dreams on a night like this.’

  ‘Me too.’