Broken River Tent

by Mphuthumi Ntabeni

  Phila was stunned to discover she was waiting for him to say something. He did not. He kept a tight rein on his hopes.

  “I told Siva I was going with you,” Matswane said.

  “I suppose he was not very pleased about that,” was Phila’s contribution to the conversation.

  “He threatened to sue me for all the costs he had already run up on our wedding preparations.” They both laughed, Matswane a little harder than Phila.

  “He looks like a practical man.” Phila held his glass out for another stiff one.

  “His reality is in numbers.”

  “Good for him.”

  After two drinks or so Matswane said what was on her mind. “It’s been a long confusing day for me. The only thing I know for sure right now is that I want to be with you.”

  “You could have fooled me back there at the hotel,” replied Phila with irony in her voice.

  “What did you expect?”

  The question felt like a punch in the diaphragm for Phila. “Somebody described expectations as resentments under construction,” he said, feeling a giddy relief coming over him.

  “Do you resent me?”

  “I doubt if I can ever be able to resent you, even if I wanted to.”

  They kissed with more force than passion.

  “I desperately need a shower,” Matswane declared, pulling her body away from Phila’s.

  Phila pointed her to the bathroom. “There should be clean towels and all.” He heard the hiss of the water and snatches of song.

  A few minutes later she came out of the bathroom in his robe with life-threatening beauty. By and by, with the encouragement of Black Jack, they made love on the carpeted floor with the background of Americans killing people in some faraway desert country on the TV news. Phila, butting up against the couch, felt fallen. He needed a cigarette. He switched off the TV to replace its noise with sounds of silence and the monologue of traffic in the distance. Then he went to the balcony to light a cigarette. Behind the fiery setting sun, for a moment it seemed as if the old world was crashing down in flames. He watched the moon path grow faint on the sea. The silence of the falling evening was tangible. Halfway through the cigarette Maqoma broke in.

  ‘Not far from here are the peaceful valleys where the Gaga unites with the Tyumi River.’ Phila made a mental note of the area. ‘I can’t see this place without recalling the boreal wind Somerset, the first Governor of the colony we encountered. Somerset as a person was not bad and had an amiable disposition towards us. He and my father got on very well. In turn I had a good rapport with his son, Henry, who still had an easygoing personality then, before the whole thing of colonial power went to his head. He was none too intelligent but he wanted to please everyone in all things, which made him a poor leader and a liar when things went wrong. Regardless, he had an inflated sense of his capabilities, which his father encouraged by placing him in positions of power he had neither the experience nor intelligence to manage. The major problem in our relations with the Cape Colony mostly came through the blustering puppy dog Harry Smith, but Henry was to blame for that also by worshipping and flattering Smith every chance he got. You could say they tolerated each other’s incompetence and unhealthy ambition. Many wars we fought with the colonial government could have been avoided if the men in power then had better characters than Smith – and D’Urban in particular, who came before him.

  ‘When Smith made us cross the Gaga River into barren land, after all the undertakings he had given me as his friend, I knew then that the issues between us and the white people could only be resolved by war. They took my land on the Kat River banks, gave it to the KhoiKhoi, and ordered me and my people to go plough rocks and graze cattle on stones. I had done everything in my power to placate colonial powers; entertained their missionaries, returned their livestock whenever I saw them around our villages, all at great expense to my reputation among my people, who took to calling me a sheep in lion’s skin. I even sent my wives, children and relatives to white schools in Cape Town, to be educated in the Western ways. But none of that was enough for them.

  ‘Obedience, just as rebellion, is a cause for war in a white man’s mind when that mind is captured by greed.

  ‘Eventually, I saw the only way out was to fight it to the grave. Since war must be, I told myself, let it advance to the bitter end according to the nature of things. You tell me that in their books they talk about me as if I was born loving war. The truth is they made me into a demon in order to hide the facts about why we decided to go to war. I was a loyal friend to the amiable. Ask Henry Somerset, even the Rosses, who established a mission station on my land. Although I didn’t care much for their religion, I used to have tea with them every Sunday. I allowed them to convert my people, teach them how to work the land. And we talked about plans of living and tilling the land together for the good of everyone involved. John and Helen Ross would vouch for that. They were the two white people who knew me best. Yes, I became a fierce enemy to those who took our land by force, combustible when attacked, intrepid when confronted by problems, preserving when tested by harsh circumstances, but above all I operated on principle and was true to my word. I believed there were rules and boundaries even under war conditions. I preserved my principles even when the white people made it clear they did not respect them, like when they killed women and children and burnt our planted fields.

  ‘Just before the 1846 war, I stayed under the mountain of Mqwazi, what the white people called Gaika’s Kop, trying not to be implicated with my brother Thyali’s militant adventures. But the Cape Mounted Rifles visited us anyway, despite Henry’s personal undertakings to me. I’ll never forget that day, the day they came. It was like a mountain landslide, early in the morning while children were still brushing sleep from their eyes. We woke to a mad gallop of cavalry and the murderous rage of gunfire. One could hardly breathe. The air was filled with smoke. They felled unarmed people in pockets and groups, firing, stabbing and slashing with bayonets and sabres as they went. Our people didn’t even get a chance to fetch their weapons. Nineteen of them were killed, defenceless, running back and forth over the courtyards like frightened impala.

  ‘It stays in a man’s mind the sight of his child being crushed and trampled by a horse; the sight of his woman running outside the hut singed and scalded like a mouse from burning sheaves.

  ‘Imagine my surprise when I discovered the person in charge of that raid was Henry, that scaramouching and swaggering fool. Of course, he was too stupid and clumsy to pull that on his own. He did not know those mountains from his arse. He couldn’t keep track of us on plains of short acacia trees even if our tracks led up to his arse and were as conspicuous as the zebra’s coat. No, the mastermind of the Mounted Rifles was a man named Stubbs. The funny thing was that I had allowed Stubbs to barter in my chiefdom with copper, iron, beads, buttons and darning needles. He occasionally smuggled brandy for us. He presented himself as someone who didn’t care about white colonials’ rule. He told me all he wanted was a way of survival during those times of failing crops. I believed him because I saw in him the complex character of Khula. He gave me the idea that he had the same profound resentment for white authority. Like Khula, he had begun his career among us by hunting elephants and selling their ivory. He even had Khula’s surprising streak of tenderness and boyish sense of fun to complement his harsh mannerism. We taught him our ways, bushcraft, tracking spoors even at night, discouraged him from plundering the gentle beast that is sacred to us.

  ‘Stubbs told me that as a youth he had had a hard time, so he wished to form a hunting club for the unruly young men of his people, something to keep them out of trouble. It was with that group that he formed the nucleus of the redoubtable Mounted Rifles. Henry exploited them to tragic use against us, effectively so. In the end they were not just a hunting club but mercenaries devoted to the congenial occupations of arson and rape. In retrospect, I see my trust towards Stubbs was careless. Henry understood the character of men lik
e Stubbs, knew he would be for hire when given an offer he could not refuse.’

  Phila thought it best to chip in because Maqoma was now becoming emotional.

  ‘Stockenström, in his book, says the tragic raid was not premeditated. He says the Boers of the commandos were frustrated for not catching up with the Ndlambes they were fighting, and were threatening mutiny if they were to go back without the cattle booty they had pinned their hopes on in joining the Cape Mounted Rifles.’

  ‘That makes it right?’ Maqoma asked. ‘Only a fool, or someone with vested interests, pretended that the Cape Mounted Rifles were something beyond Cape Colony government-sanctioned mercenaries, a form of legalising theft and a way of elevating chicanery into a principle of governance. They were a reprisal patrol system of the so-called Spoor Law. All of them, the Boers, KhoiKhoi and government officials, were there to steal Xhosa cattle under the official collective banner because they hadn’t courage for individual raids. They collected cattle they lied about having been stolen from the first kraal they came across, regardless of whom they belonged to. As a result, the likes of that whore Stubbs distinguished himself in murder and plunder during the raids.

  ‘As if that was not enough, when I complained in anger to the government Henry told me I was the one stirring up trouble in the Kat River vicinity. He said we were too close to white farms, which might give us ideas for mischief. Meantime it was the white farmers who had expanded into our areas. We had to move further away from my homeland to settle near Mankazana, which was my brother Thyali’s stronghold. Because there was a drought in our land then, the white farmers wanted my land because it was irrigated by two rivers, which meandered through the valleys. I was, at the time, busy in a skirmish with a Thembu chief whose foolishness of raiding white farms I knew would be blamed on us. I told the Rosses about it, and promised to take care of it. In the ensuing skirmish, Sigcawu, the Thembu chief, was killed by my people. More importantly, calm was restored among the farmers of the area. But those who wanted my land pressed Henry and the white government to banish me from the land.

  ‘Thyali was a tough customer for Henry, just as manipulative and distrustful. When I quarrelled with Henry he used shrewdness to divide the amaNgqika royal house. Suthu, the great wife of my late father, Ngqika, had designs of becoming regent until their son Sandile came of age. I had by then learnt to be very tactful in dealing with Sandile. Henry, and the colonial government, sponsored Suthu to build sub-divided huts of great magnitude with ornamented interiors of double-rowed pillars of wood, plastered in strange clay that had the advantage of making her huts waterproof. Herself ever prone to decadent luxury, she appreciated these things. They also brought awe to the eyes of those with materialistic ambitions in our villages. They made it appear as though, were it not for my stubbornness, and Thyali’s warring spirit, this was how the Xhosas would live under the British.

  ‘During my exile from Kat River, Thyali got the chance for his I-told-you-so. Thenceforth, Thyali and I acted in unison in opposing Suthu and the colonial government. Though a lot of bad blood existed between us and Suthu, I advised Thyali to join me in forming a triumvirate to face up to the encroaching colonialism through Henry, whose mission I now saw was to divide the strength of amaNgqika. I didn’t care about Suthu but decided to fight one enemy at a time. We divided the governance of our chiefdom according to our circumscriptions. I was to be a regent for external affairs. Suthu and Thyali would share the responsibilities of internal governing. This compromise suited me well. I knew I could always back my claim as a paramount by force. Khula had taught me well in the behaviour of the Caesars. Buy time with meaningless compromises while you concentrate your energies on more pressing issues, like dealing with colonial encroachment on our land. I knew whoever controlled the warriors ruled. I had no problems with people reigning while I ruled. I made it clear in no time that it would be foolish of them, Thyali and Suthu, as virtual rulers, to command what they couldn’t enforce.

  ‘They had enough sense to understand my drift. I censored all decisions they made without consulting me first until they learnt to ask my permission about everything.

  ‘We were told preparations were being made for us to meet the Governor, in order for us to voice our grievances. Missionaries like the Rosses told me the Governor was an amiable man, a shrewd observer of character, so we should not to be afraid to speak our minds before him. I was assured that he was a fair and moralistic man. I put all my eggs in that basket for peace, but nothing came out of those dishonest preparations. Instead we were given the usual insulting rhetoric. Men of the calibre of Colonel Stretch rescued the meeting.

  ‘Stretch was among the few white men who were sympathetic to our cause and understood our plight. He urged us not to give up but to tell the Governor that the Mounted Rifles’ raids were ravaging our villages. They told us those raids were not ordered by Her Majesty’s government, and so were illegal. They told us we were to contain the spread of violence and promote peace between our people and to curtail stock theft; as an incentive, we’d be given back the cattle that had been confiscated from us by the Mounted Rifles. That was done with the loss of only two hundred head. With that I thought things would take a better turn. I came from that meeting deluding myself, thinking perhaps there was a way of living as good neighbours with white people, even though they kept driving us from whatever land they needed for their own use. I told myself this was no different to our ways. When you live next to a tribe more powerful than yours you must be prepared now and then to be shoved, pushed and bullied.

  ‘Governor Somerset had always had a weak spot for the amaNgqika tribe. I knew I could always appeal to him. I thought him chivalrous towards his foes also. Unfortunately, the Governor was soon retired and another person, D’Urban, came instead. The new Governor had no desire to form lasting peace with us. The only native people he recognised as part of the British colony were the Mfengus, the refugees from Shaka’s wars, and the KhoiKhoi. He turned a blind eye to every illegal raid white farmers made in our area. He was the one who established what they called a reprisal system by which the commandos were permitted to follow the spoor of their stolen cattle to the homesteads they were hidden on. This gave rise to rampant abuse by white people of just following any spoor and confiscating the first cattle they encountered, whatever number they happened to be. The commandos marched at night and attacked at dawn, shooting indiscriminately. Whether you were innocent or guilty of stealing cattle you were not given much opportunity to prove yourself.’

  “Thinking about your history as usual?” Matswane wrapped her arms around Phila who was seated on a wire chair on the balcony and looking at the ocean in the distance.

  “Something like that.” Phila craned his neck to kiss her.

  “Sorry I bombed out. It’s been a salmon upstream day.”

  “Tell me about it.” He grabbed the bottle to pour himself a stiffy. Darkness had settled in, ushering the twinkling stars. Phila strained to make sense of the milky cluster of stars he assumed to be the Southern Cross – he could never be sure, even when he looked through a telescope.

  “So what’s happening in the historical cinema up here today?” asked Matswane as she sat on the chair beside him. “What’s Maqoma telling us this time?” She was joking, of course, not knowing how close to the truth she was.

  The reveal of her nubile thigh from the split in the towel she had around her gave Phila a boner but he made to ignore it by lighting a cigarette.

  “He’s telling us about the time when one of the chiefs, Nqeno, lost his son, shot dead outside his homestead by the commandos as he came out of his hut to try and find out what was happening. This created a state of perpetual alarm and desire for war among amaXhosa. When they sent complaints to the colonial government they were either ignored or evicted from the land they occupied to make way for the Mfengus to settle there.

  “Round about then, Maqoma’s half brother Thyali came to see Maqoma. He was in a very alarmed state and he
was also a very ill man – I suspect it was cancer he was dying from. According to Maqoma, he was looking harassed and sickly. Maqoma narrates it this way:

  “‘He looked at me with gleaming eyes before doffing his bright blue head-dress. He sat next to my mat, refusing to take any refreshments. After a while, he said, ‘We shall never know peace in this land, whether we’re willing to fight or not. Rather than living on our knees, it is better we die, with honour, on our feet like men. We’re teased to war no matter what we do. They insult our chiefs, kill our princes, rape our women, starve our children and hunt us like impala everywhere we go. This is not a decent way for grown men to live.’

  “Maqoma, who had come to a similar resolve, gave his brother assurance that from then onwards he was with him. ‘Let’s fight it to the end,’ he declared in anger.

  “The last straw for Maqoma came when his half-brother Xhonxo’s head was grazed by a bullet from a shotgun blast. A certain white farmer, living around the region of Nqeno’s people, lost three horses and a foal. The farmers concluded that Nqeno’s people must have stolen them. A patrol was sent to look for the horses. When the culprit was caught the patrol took a herd of sixty cattle for compensation, on top of the three horses and the foal. This was their ‘system of reprisal’. Armed warriors took on the heels of the patrol when they heard what had happened but were dissuaded from attacking by Stokwe, another of Nqeno’s sons. The remnants of those warriors were not completely pacified and they followed the patrol and, just outside Fort Willshire, they attacked. The patrol reached the safety of the fort but tensions were heightened as a result of that incident.

  “Such insolence and lack of regard for royalty was what enraged most of Maqoma’s people. It opened up a chasm of chaos in the region. Thyali’s warriors followed, surrounded and attacked all white parties after that, whether they had confiscated their cattle or not. Several fignts ensued, ending when reinforcements for the white patrol arrived from Fort Beaufort and Thyali’s people fled the land. When news reached Maqoma he went in jaundiced anger about his brother Xhonxo, whom he had been close to growing up. Every warrior who saw or heard about the incident went back to his hut and took out his assegai and spears, preferring to die than to live with such humiliation of their royalty shot at in broad daylight.