Edge of the Rain

by Beverley Harper

  Alex assumed he would find others like it, not knowing that the beautiful colours were usually the result of a diamond cutter’s skill. The stone he carried, like the one he found as a baby, had been damaged as it was forced upwards from the earth’s mantle, altered by chemical changes and subsequently flawed as it was released to solidify in the earth’s crust. Not that he would have cared. All he knew was he wanted to find more.

  Alone in the desert Alex lived between two worlds. The one in his head was a white world which had his mind watching in bemusement at how he had adapted. The world in his heart was a San world, filled with new knowledge and capabilities he never expected to acquire. His head and his heart enjoyed these worlds, mixing them together and using the best of both. He was never lonely or afraid, never hungry or thirsty. The solitude and space filled him with peace.

  The boy in Alex was having an adventure. The man moulded by !Ka made him self-sufficient. But the man emerging from his boyhood eventually started him thinking about where his life was going.

  He wanted a farm of his own, he had always known that. He wanted experience—life, girls, parties, fun—he was young and the world awaited him. He wanted what the San had—simple pleasures, contentment, a sense of self-worth. He needed a goal yet he resisted that need at the same time as he accepted it.

  ‘You can’t have it both ways,’ his white head told him. ‘Why not?’ his San heart challenged.

  The conundrum confused him. He was poised between two worlds. The realisation that the next step he took would set him on his life’s path scared him.

  ‘Think,’ his head said. ‘Draw a list of plus and minus factors for each.’

  His heart resisted the idea. ‘Sit,’ it told him. ‘Sit and feel. What makes you smile?’

  ‘Diamonds make me smile,’ he thought.

  ‘Why?’ his head asked.

  ‘So I can buy what I want.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  Round and round it went. Just when he believed he’d solved the riddle, the answer skittered away.

  It took a horse to provide the solution.

  He had been on his own for nine weeks, wandering the desert, looking for something he had no idea how to find, when Nightmare found him, using whatever instinct a horse has for such things. He went to bed one night totally alone and woke in the morning to find he had guests. The stallion, Nightmare and their foal. The young horse, possibly no more than two months old, had his father’s deep black colouring. But when he stood in the sun, russet red glowed. He was like a diamond, his colour depended on the sun’s angle. So Alex christened him Diamond. The horses hung around his camp for several days before disappearing. Nightmare was showing off her baby. He missed their company.

  Loneliness crept up on him slowly. He found himself talking out loud. Young and fit, he thought about sex more and more and his body responded with a yearning he found irresistible. Watching the silver planes fly overhead, on their way to South Africa or Europe, he imagined the people in them and a strange hungry feeling came to him. With a sense of deep sadness, he realised it was time for him to go. His head had won.

  It took him two weeks to find the clan. ‘You are as my father,’ he said to !Ka that night around the cooking fire.

  !Ka nodded and smiled. ‘You are as my son.’

  ‘You have taught me many things. I have come to understand your ways and my heart tells me they are good ways. And yet I have other words in my heart.’ !Ka had told him that the Bushmen thought and felt with their hearts. Their heads were there for only one reason: to give them a headache.

  ‘And what is your heart saying?’

  ‘I must go and be with my own.’

  !Ka sucked on his pipe, saying nothing.

  Alex waited.

  ‘Come.’ !Ka rose. ‘We will talk with the others.’

  He sat with the rest of the men around the fire. !Ka addressed them. ‘!Oma is listening to the voice in his heart. It is telling him it is time to go.’

  Heads nodded. This was nothing new to them. Individuals came and went to and from the clans for various reasons, sometimes simply from a desire to move on.

  ‘!Oma’s heart is like that of the elephant-girl.’

  Alex agreed, delighted with the comparison. It was exactly how he felt.

  The elephant-girl was, according to San beliefs, sometimes married to an elephant. At other times she was married to the older brother of the Great God’s only two sons. Alex had never been able to understand this. If the Great God had only two sons, how could she be married to one who does not exist? And why can’t she make up her mind between a man and an elephant? He had asked !Ka more than once to explain but !Ka could not. The story was one he accepted but did not question.

  !Ka, by comparing Alex to the elephant-girl, showed he understood the confusion in Alex. He set out to reassure him. ‘Look, !Oma, can you see the backbone of the sky?’ !Ka pointed upwards.

  Alex looked up. The clarity of the Milky Way out in the desert always impressed him. It appeared to sit just over their heads. ‘I see it, Father.’

  ‘Can you see it tomorrow when you wake from your sleep?’

  ‘No, Father.’

  ‘Does that mean it is not there?’

  ‘No, Father. It is always there.’

  !Ka drew on his pipe. ‘It will always be there, my son, even if you cannot see it.’

  N!ou leaned towards Alex. ‘Remember, !ebili, the solitary male buck is easy to kill. He is morose. He has no interest in others. He is very often fat. He forgets that which he saw as soon as he sees it. He does not smell like the rest so he cannot join them. I do not think that you are abnormal like the solitary one.’

  Alex had his answer.

  Be brought him his clothes. He had grown and filled out and he found them uncomfortable after the freedom of wearing nothing more than a duiker skin loin flap. Using pieces of animal skin, it took almost a week to stitch and sew extra space into his clothes. Be helped and was very proud of the result. He knew he must look very strange but did not care.

  When he said goodbye there was a lump in his throat. As he set off into the vastness of the Kalahari, he wondered if he would ever see them again.

  Nine days later he walked into Molepolole, a sprawling traditional village some thirty miles northwest of Gaberones, his heart thumping with excitement. Black children saw him and ran alongside, laughing and pointing. Not with malice but with insatiable curiosity. He was not like any white man they had ever seen. When he entered the general store and saw the face of the white man behind the counter, he realised he was about to speak English to someone else for the first time in almost eighteen months.

  Marvin Moine had seen plenty of strange sights in his twenty-eight years. A South African, he had joined the regular army there when he was twenty. He trained as a mechanic and then, aged twenty-four, had been seconded to the Defence Research Unit which was testing new ways to render army vehicles impervious to the destructive forces of landmines.

  An experiment had gone badly wrong and Marvin had been trapped under a deflector plate which had parted company with the remotely controlled test vehicle during an explosion.

  The outcome of this was a permanent limp, a large compensation payout, an honourable discharge, and a revised approach to life. At twenty-six Marvin—his friends called him Marv—went, to coin his own phrase, ‘walkies’.

  His travels led him eventually into Bechuanaland. For Marvin, it was love at first sight. He worked for a spell up in the Okavango Delta, acting as general dogsbody to one of the safari companies. When the hunting season ended, he tried setting up his own service station in the small town of Palapye but he wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment and he quickly sold it again. Eight months ago his wanderings had taken him to Molepolole where he was employed as a mechanic and store assistant by Jacob van Zyl who owned the general trading store, cum garage, cum bottle shop, cum chemist. Jacob had taken one look at Marv and, correctly, deduced he would have to go
a long way to find another such transparently honest, hard-working and capable employee.

  Before coming to Bechuanaland, Marv’s walkies had taken him to some of southern Africa’s most remote places. He had met and mixed with some of southern Africa’s hardest characters. He took one look at Alex and tried to throw him out.

  Alex’s hair, wild and tangled, had been hacked off occasionally with a sharp knife but it grew to his shoulders in a mess of uncombed, sun-bleached curls. His beard also showed the effects of sporadic attacks with the same instrument. Clothing, lovingly patched by himself and Be, nonetheless looked ragged and makeshift. He had smeared tsamma ointment over his face to protect his skin and !Ka had wiped his own perspiration over his head to protect him. Alex had not seen much water on his trek, apart from enough to drink and, although it was June and not yet searingly hot in the desert, nine days without a wash left a lot to be desired. Not to put too fine a point on it, he stank as bad as he looked and he looked as bad as he stank.

  ‘Please,’ Alex said as Marv propelled him towards the door. ‘I need work.’

  Jacob van Zyl had been packing a delivery of soft drinks into his coolroom. He popped his head around the door, took in Alex’s appearance and drew the same conclusion Marv had.

  ‘Work, jong? What kind of work would a madman like you want?’ He approached Alex cautiously.

  ‘I’m not mad. I’ve walked here from Khutse. I need money. I’m strong, I’ll do anything you ask.’

  ‘Get off! No-one walks from Khutse. What do you take me for, an imbecile?’

  ‘It’s true. I’ve been living in the desert.’

  ‘Ach man, you stink.’

  ‘I’ll take a bath. It’s only sweat. Please, sir.’

  Jacob stopped and looked into Alex’s eyes. What he saw there startled him. Beneath the tangled hair, in spite of the rank odour and the grime, there was a soul, the essence of which was pure, free and honest. The sum of this boy, he decided, was worth a second look. Deep in the blue-green, a calmness and maturity, a wisdom and compassion, far beyond the youthfulness of those clear eyes. He motioned for Marv to let go of Alex’s arm. ‘How old are you, boy?’

  ‘Eighteen I think.’

  ‘What the plurry hell you doing wandering around like that? How come you don’t know how old you are?’ He looked over at Marv. ‘What are you standing around here grinning like a loon for? There’s work, there’s work. Get your heap of bones outside and don’t come back until my truck’s fixed. Go on. What are you waiting for?’

  Marv left, grinning widely.

  Alex sensed that the store owner’s bark was an act. He took a deep breath. ‘I’ll tell you the whole story if you like. It’s a long one and I’m not mad. Honest.’

  The man shook his head. ‘I must be mad myself, taking on a boy like you. Get yourself out back, there’s a Rhodesian boiler out there with a shower. Get those clothes off, I’ll give you some new ones. You can pay me back out of your wages.’

  Alex tried to take his hand. ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you.’

  The man shook him off. ‘Get off me. Sus, man, you stink worse than one of them bloody bushmen.’ He pointed the way around the back. ‘What’s your name, boy?’

  ‘Alex Theron.’

  ‘Theron. That’s an Afrikaans name.’

  ‘Yes, sir, my father is Afrikaans.’

  ‘Well then boy, speak to me in Afrikaans.’

  ‘I can’t, sir. My mother is from Europe. We never spoke it at home.’

  ‘Where’s home then, jong?’

  ‘Shakawe.’

  The man laughed suddenly. ‘My name’s Jacob van Zyl. If you’re a Theron from Shakawe I guess you must be Danie Theron’s son—am I right?’

  Pa! God how he would love to see him right now. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Jacob looked again. His appearance was enough to frighten the hardiest of souls. Yet the gentle wisdom in his eyes, the stance of the boy, his voice—all pointed to someone who respected himself and thus, deserved respect. Above all if he was Danie Theron’s son he must be all right. ‘You the boy who got lost in the Kalahari when you were a baby?’

  It must be true. Why wasn’t I told? ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Guess you got kind of used to them little yellow men then?’

  Alex swallowed anger. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, jong, I need a handyman. Enough work here for six months. After that you can bugger off—understand. I’m not running a bloody charity home.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You can sleep on the stoep out back. It’s enclosed at one end. There’s a bed, that’s all. Oh, and one more thing. Burn those bloody clothes, jong.’

  Marv had his head under the bonnet of an old Ford truck. ‘He’s right about one thing,’ he said as Alex passed him. ‘You stink.’

  The first free hour Alex got, he sat down and wrote a long letter to his parents. As he wrote, he realised how thoughtless he had been. They would be frantic with worry about him by now.

  His mother’s response, two weeks later, filled him with guilty anguish. Several lines were smeared, as though her tears of relief had fallen on the page. She blessed the Good Lord seven times in three pages. She admonished him and told him she loved him in the one sentence. And she made a point of telling him how much Pa could use his help.

  All he had learned while living with the San, all the respect and assistance he had seen afforded to the elderly, all the deference adult children showed their parents, none of it quelled his rising irritation as he read his mother’s letter.

  She had the knack of stifling, annoying, and laying blame and guilt at his feet, even while she was saying she loved him. His inexperience did not allow him to blame her for it. It had to be his fault.

  Alex worked for Jacob for seven months. Despite his gruff manner and his rough words, Jacob van Zyl was a gentle soul who, once Alex had showered, shaved, changed into fresh clothes and allowed Marthe, Jacob’s wife, to cut his hair, took him under his wing and treated him as his own son.

  As for Marv, he and Alex became good friends. Alex liked the way the older man danced to a different beat from most and was happily unconcerned about those who failed to appreciate him. He was certainly an acquired taste. Rough around the edges, he had a lived-in face and a habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Men reacted favourably to his practical nature but women simply didn’t take to him. Alex thought this a pity because Marv had a lot of love and loyalty in him. His heart was in the right place and he was a big softie, it just took time to know him. Anyone who bothered discovered, as had Alex after several weeks, that beneath the Punchinello exterior there was a penetrating intelligence and a resourceful competence. Sadly, most people wrote him off as a buffoon, a fact Marv was aware of but seemingly unmoved by.

  His injured leg gave him a good deal of pain on occasion but all Marv would say was, ‘Must be going to rain, my leg’s twinging.’ Alex grew to like, respect and finally, love like a brother this big, hard, gentle person.

  After seven months, and many imploring letters from his mother, Alex could not put off going home any longer. In any case, Jacob had no more work for him.

  ‘About time you saw your parents, jong.’ He knew Alex received letters from home.

  ‘You’re right, Jacob. It’s time I went home.’

  ‘That boy who robbed you. What are you going to do about him?’

  Alex shrugged. ‘Nothing.’

  Jacob looked into his eyes. There was no malice in them. He wondered again at the maturity of someone so young.

  Marv shook his hand. ‘You’ll be back. You and me are going to find diamonds.’

  Alex had shown Marv the stone !Ka gave him. Marv was getting bored in Molepolole. Prospecting for diamonds in the Kalahari would do nicely for a while. ‘Couple of weeks, Marv. See you then.’

  Old man van Zyl grumbled and complained. ‘Man must be mad. I take on a lunatic and lose the best mechanic in the country. That’s all the thanks I get.’


  Alex grinned and hugged him. Jacob had ridiculed their plan but then told them they could have one of the old Land Rovers rusting in his backyard. ‘If you can get one of them old buggers to work it’s yours. Hell, take two. They’re just cluttering up the yard. I’m telling you true, man, I wouldn’t ride to my own funeral in one. Bloody unreliable British junk. Bloody British. Bloody uncomfortable that’s what they are.’

  Marthe dabbed her eyes when he left. ‘We’ll miss you, Alex.’

  ‘Don’t be so plurry silly, woman. Miss him! Why would we miss a madman? You stop that nonsense now.’ But Jacob’s own eyes were damp when Alex said goodbye. ‘You stay in touch you hear. And don’t go running off to the plurry desert again. This old ticker couldn’t stand another shock like that.’

  He knew from his mother’s letters that Paul was now in high school in Gaberones. He went to see his brother who was overjoyed by the visit.

  ‘Boy are you going to cop an earful from Mum,’ Paul said gleefully. ‘Wish I could be there.’

  ‘How are they?’

  ‘Pa’s fine. He hurt his back last year but he’s okay.’

  ‘And Mum?’

  ‘When she came back from Ghanzi she was worse than ever.’

  ‘She went to Ghanzi?’

  ‘Sure did. Pa tried to talk her out of it but she went anyway. Tore a strip off your boss for taking on a minor. She must have given him a really hard time; he threw her off the property. Didn’t stop her, though—she got the cops onto him.’

  ‘She didn’t!’

  ‘Truly. She didn’t believe it when he said you’d walked off the job. She’s had posters all over Gabs and Francistown. Didn’t she mention it?’

  The guilt was back. ‘No, she said nothing about it in her letters. Just the usual . . .’

  Paul pulled a face. ‘God, grief and guilt.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Alex said quietly. ‘But this time I deserved it.’

  Paul had shot up and was now slightly taller than him. The two of them looked alike, although Paul’s hair was straight and dark like Pa’s. He was still determined to become an economist.

  ‘Bechuanaland is going to get independence. When that happens, I intend to be here,’ he told Alex as they parted.