An Instant in the Wind

by Andre Brink

  “You’re mad!” she whispers, shocked, but almost with compassion.

  “Then allow me to stay mad and to go on thinking!” He has trouble controlling his voice. “You’re trying to protect yourself. You would prefer to keep me down here, in my “place”, and despise me because I can’t think. But it's useless.”

  All she can say in the silence following his outburst is his name: “Adam. No.”

  He gets up quickly to break more firewood, almost sensuously conscious of his own strength: as if he deliberately wants to be a body, pure body, nothing but brute force. The rest is madness. Why did you force me to speak like this tonight? Let me go, leave me in peace—I’m free!—I want to be free.

  In near despair he looks at her. She is still beside the fire, staring at him.

  Turn your head away! Can’t you see I’m naked?

  If it had been day now, or only a different night, he would have left the enclosure, if only for a couple of hours, just to move about in open space again, to draw reassurance from the world surrounding him. But tonight everything is enclosed by the dark in which the lions are lurking; tonight infinity surrounds them. There stretches the Milky Way; there are the six lights of Khuseti. All that is familiar in this small flickering enclosure. It is impossible to get out; the ubiquitous animals are too dangerous. All they can do is to mill round here, round and round, along the endless spiral inward, in to him and her.

  He has just returned to the oxen to test their thongs after a renewed threatening sound immediately outside when suddenly the growls erupt in roars. The earth seems to tremble under his feet, the oxen rear up, bellowing with fear. He hears her calling, “Adam!” Even before he gets to her he hears the breaking and snapping of branches. Reaching out to take the gun which she is holding out to him—amazingly calm, pale and self-contained—he sees the black-maned male bursting right through the fence.

  Without bothering to take proper aim, Adam fires.

  “Load it again!” he shouts, flinging the gun towards her.

  A large body tramples him to the ground. The lion, he thinks. But it's one of the oxen. They have broken loose, stampeding this way and that, the lion clinging to one's shoulder. Then they break out, trampling the branches of the enclosure to bits, thundering off into the night, the lion still holding on.

  Grabbing the gun from her again, Adam rushes after them. It's only when he reaches the border of the light, among the scattered thorn-tree branches, that he discovers her beside him, tugging at his arm.

  “Don’t be stupid!” she screams. “Stay here!”

  He shakes her off and runs on; but barely ten yards further he realizes that it's useless. Aiming in the general direction of the distant noise, he fires another shot. There is a sudden anguished burst of bellowing somewhere in the dark. Then silence.

  With hunched shoulders he comes back to the broken kraal.

  She looks at him, but neither says anything. In silence, together, they set to work to rebuild the fence before they return to the fire, panting. He adds yet more wood. A spray of sparks is scattered over them. Weird shadows dance over their faces in the brilliant light.

  In spite of the fire her teeth are chattering.

  “What's wrong?” he asks.

  “Nothing.” She begins to sob, struggling against it until it becomes too much for her. But it doesn’t last long. Then, clenching her teeth, she wipes away the tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

  “You didn’t seem afraid at all,” he says clumsily.

  “It was too sudden. It's only now…”

  “Go to sleep. You’re exhausted. I’ll make you some tea.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep.”

  “Try to.”

  “Suppose they come back?”

  “Not tonight,” he assures her. “They’ve got what they wanted.”

  “What are we going to do now? Do you think they got both?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “But how are we going to trek on?”

  “We’ll see tomorrow.”

  It takes her a long time to doze off; and every now and then she twitches or mumbles in her sleep, or utters small moaning noises. He stays awake beside the fire, keeping it going, looking at her, listening to the night. But everything remains peaceful—although he knows that something is being devoured, somewhere. Only when the morning star comes out he pulls his skins over him and lies down.

  Long before her, in the first warmth of the sun, he is awake again. He rekindles the dull, half-ashen coals, puts on the kettle, takes the gun, and goes off. Down at the river he takes off his clothes—the frilly shirt, by now discolored and torn, and the frayed blue trousers—and dives in. The water is icy cold, reviving him from his gloom. With new energy he pulls the clothes on his wet body and walks in among the trees—redwood, white elms, wild cherry—in the direction the oxen took last night. Cautiously, since the lions, however well fed, are bound to be in the neighborhood, he begins the search. Not far from the camp he notices the first vultures and climbs a tree from where he can look out. In a patch of grass among the sparse trees he spots the carcass of the ox, two legs jutting stiffly, ridiculously upward. Two lionesses are still feeding lazily with deep contented throaty growls; some distance away the male is dozing in the grass, occasionally flicking his huge mane to scare off the flies. Of the other ox there is no sign.

  With rather more hope than before he starts exploring the vicinity in search of traces: dung, broken branches, flattened grass, hoof-marks. Even when, at last, he finds what he is looking for, he represses his excitement. The ox may have run too far to be found again. But patiently he follows the track, grunting with satisfaction when, from time to time, he finds new hopeful signs. He eats as he goes along—berries or juicy leaves, roots and bulbs, tubers, fruit, all available in abundance at this time of the year. Whenever he does stop for a moment he remembers, almost furtively, almost ashamed, last night's conversation. In the strong naked light of day he finds his words disconcerting; hers too. Whatever possessed him to reveal so much? He can only ascribe it to the night and the nearness of the lions; to remorse, perhaps, for having deliberately humbled her so many times; even to a protective urge towards her white vulnerability. But it was wrong, it was dangerous. It dare not happen again.

  Quite unexpectedly he comes upon the ox grazing on the far side of a clearing among the hills in a small thicket of kiepersol. It still has a length of leather thong round its neck, half-choked by it. The moment Adam appears, the animal jerks up its head.

  He begins to talk to it in low, caressing tones, inching closer. The ox gives a warning snort.

  “It's all right,” Adam says soothingly. “Don’t worry. I’ve come to fetch you.”

  Suddenly the ox swings round and begins to canter off. But a hundred yards further it stops again, looking back over its tall hump. There is dried blood on its flanks.

  “Come!” Adam calls softly. “Come on, now. Come.”

  The ox replies with a plaintive sound. This time it allows Adam to come right up to it and pat its shoulder. The loose red skin twitches nervously. Fortunately there's nothing serious wrong with it: the marks on the flanks, caused by claws or thorns, are superficial scratches only.

  “Come on,” he orders again, picking up the end of the thong and loosening the tight noose.

  In the early afternoon they reach the camp again. Elisabeth jumps up, dropping her journals to run to the opening in the kraal where she waits until he brings in the ox.

  “Did you have to go very far?” she asks.

  “It wasn’t too bad.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  “A few scratches, that's all.”

  “You must be tired,” she says, with concern in her voice. “I’ve made you some food.”

  “Thank you.” He glances at her. There is a touch of color in her cheeks today. He averts his eyes again. “We must move on soon,” he says brusquely.

  “Why?”

  “It's better to ge
t away while the lions are still feeding on the other carcass.”

  “We’ll be slowed down a lot from now on,” she remarks quietly.

  “No. You can ride on this one. We’ll throw out some of the unnecessary stuff.”

  “There's nothing unnecessary!” she protests. “We have little enough as it is.”

  “What else can we do?” he asks, resentful.

  “You can load everything on the ox as before. I’ll walk.”

  “You’re still too weak.”

  “I’m strong enough.”

  He studies her, hostility brooding in his eyes, but not without a hint of approval.

  “Surely it can’t be so far now?” she asks.

  “Not if we went straight to the coast.” He looks straight at her. “But my sea is much farther on.”

  “Why can’t we take the shortest way and follow the beach from there?”

  “It will take months to cross all the river mouths and overgrown dunes and stretches of rock.”

  “Time isn’t important, is it? As long as we reach the sea.”

  “No. We’re going to my place.”

  “But…”

  “I told you,” he says calmly, and with finality.

  This is the real reason, he thinks. Not those river mouths and dunes and rocks which may impede their progress. But the need, the necessity, to remain in control. To subject her to his decisions. To keep her in her place.

  She knows it too. She can see it in his eyes. But instead of bursting out as he expected, she says nothing: not acquiescence—that is evident from the unyielding posture of her head and shoulders—but the more formidable, equivocal opposition of silence.

  I won, he thinks wryly. My decision will prevail. We’ll follow my route, to my sea. But it's only provisional, a mere postponement. For last night has indeed changed something. And now it is merely a matter of time.

  The episode at the river. She is sitting on a boulder at the edge of the water. The new footskins he made for her after her Cape shoes had worn right through, lie beside her as she bathes her feet. A few yards downstream he is watching the unloaded ox drinking. These last few days they’ve had to cross countless small streams, sometimes struggling for hours on end to find a shallow drift or simply to extricate themselves from thickets of tangled wood on the banks. This river is wider than most of the others, with a swift current down the middle, and clusters of rocks forming long deep pools connected by small foaming waterfalls. The ripples caused by the drinking of the ox disturb the clear reflections of the opposite trees; without this movement it would have been impossible to distinguish between things and their reflections. Lower down a flock of wild geese is drifting serenely on a pool; there are ibises among the driftwood of the far bank, and storks strutting stiff-legged on the marshy grass. The birds barely look up when they arrive with the ox.

  “Strange to think,” she says impulsively, “that I’m probably the first person ever to come here.” With a small laugh of surprise: “I’m making history!”

  “I’m here too,” he says with brooding rage. “And many Hottentots come this way.”

  “I only meant…”

  “I know damn well what you meant.” In fierce, rough strokes he starts drying the ox with handfuls of dried grass. Once again the peaceful moment is disturbed. Exasperated, she presses her forehead against her fists on her drawn-up knees. Why must this happen every time? Why must she always say the one thing she shouldn’t? Or is it his fault, deliberately finding provocation in her most innocuous words or gestures? It is exhausting, much more exhausting than their endless plodding through the days.

  “You think you’re taking history with you wherever you go,” he says with a sneer. “I suppose history, to you, is what happens to the people of the Cape.”

  “Well, it's from the Cape that this whole land is being civilized,” she retorts.

  “And civilization is history? The Cape with its churches and schools and gallows, is that all that matters to you? How do you civilize a land? And how do you know when you’ve gone too far?”

  “I wasn’t referring to that at all.”

  “No? Why else should you imagine you’re the first person to come here? History is what you’re doing! It's everything that makes the Cape more prosperous and powerful. Isn’t that civilization? But don’t you think history can happen here too, without you?—with every weak old Hottentot bundled into a porcupine hole, with every nameless wanderer crossing this river?”

  Elisabeth gets up quickly. “I don’t know what's got into you,” she says. “There's something twisted in you. No matter what I say, you always find a reason to attack me.”

  “Because everything you say has been made in the Cape. Because you can never get away from your Cape way of thinking. And because I’m sick and tired of all your shit.”

  “Why don’t you go on alone then?” she asks, heated. “You were the one who said you’d take me to the sea: I didn’t ask you to.”

  “What will happen to you if I leave you here?”

  “It has absolutely nothing to do with you. I can look after myself. Even if I died, it would be no concern of yours. I’m not forcing you to stay with me. If I’m a burden to you, then for God's sake leave me alone. But if you do decide to stay, then at least have the decency to respect me.”

  “Yes, Madam,” he taunts her.

  Rising, she restrains the impulse to explode, and walks back to where the ox was unloaded.

  Can’t you see? I don’t want to fight or argue with you. I only want to talk to someone, I don’t want to be so lonely. Why must you always try to venge your life on me? I didn’t ask for it. I don’t want to be responsible for it.

  He follows with the ox. Why do you defy me every time and force me to lose my temper? Is that your way of humiliating me? All these years I’ve been self-sufficient; I thought I was. Now you force me, every day, to discover that I’ve never freed myself from the Cape after all; that, in everything, I’m still controlled by my revolt and my hate. I thought I’d got rid of it. It is agony to discover that it's all been an illusion. But what do you know about it? You think I left it of my own free will. And that makes all the difference.

  They carry on with their wordless conversation while he ties up the ox in a grazing spot and she arranges her things for the night. Afterwards, while he has gone off to collect wood, she goes for a swim; and by the time he returns she is once more engrossed in her journals.

  For a few minutes he stands watching her. She must be aware of him, but she doesn’t look up. After a while he turns away to make their shelter for the night. When he has finished he walks off in the direction of the river.

  She looks up to see him disappear among the trees and tries to resume her writing, but she cannot think of anything to say. Irritable, she shuts the book and puts it away with the others. For a while she tries to do some mending; abandoning that too, she begins to walk aimlessly to and fro until it occurs to her to make a fire. Sitting beside it, she listlessly pokes the wood with a stick, abandoning herself to weariness and anxiety.

  Why doesn’t he come back? Has he taken her at her word and gone off? Well, let him; she’ll manage. She’ll just follow the river down to the sea. For the time being that is all that's important.

  But after a while she drops her stick and gets up. She has already reached the opening in the shelter before she thinks: How smug he’ll be if he finds I’ve come to look for him! She turns back and begins to rearrange their baggage. But after a few more minutes she finally, grimly, makes up her mind and resolutely walks out of the camp, down to the river. Let him think what he will. It's getting late. It's time he started his evening duties.

  Emerging from the bushes, she immediately notices his clothes on the flat rock where she sat before—his dirty, tattered clown's suit. For what is he but a miserable clown? Her first impulse is to turn back. But she suppresses it. Determined, she goes nearer and climbs on the rock.

  Far away from her, at the downstream
end of the long pool, she sees him splashing in the water.

  “Adam!”

  He looks up, shaking the water from his head. “What's the matter?”

  “You’ve been away so long, I…” She stops.

  “I’m coming.”

  With long even strokes he comes swimming towards her, the water sparkling on his shoulders. The storks and ibises are still grazing on the opposite bank. In the late yellow sunlight birds are calling in the darkening trees.

  Where the water gets shallower he stands up and begins to wade out until it is down to his waist. He stops for a moment, hesitating, looking at her. Once again she wants to turn round and escape. But suddenly she cannot: she does not want to. Defiant, she remains standing, looking straight at him, her head erect, her superiority assured.

  With narrowed eyes and a strange, implacable smile he comes nearer. The water glides from his hips. He is lean, angular, but lithe, with a sort of cat-like grace, his body rippling with thin, tight, fierce muscles, the youthful body of a boy. Now she must go. But she stays. The small dark crinkly patch of his lower belly appears above the water. She starts breathing with more obvious effort, stubborn, staring. Today I’ll see you as you are. You who always humiliates and insults me. I want to see you in your vulnerable, miserable, shameful nakedness, mercilessly exposed to me: see if you dare. He is coming nearer still. The water eddies round his knees, his muscled calves. Bobbing on his full, contracted balls, shrunken from the cold, ludicrous, innocent, his penis. He jumps on the boulder where she's waiting, still making no effort to turn away or to shield his genitals with a hand.

  Bending over, he picks up his clothes, and walks on. For the first time she sees, from behind, across the muscles of his back, across his buttocks and his thighs, the terrible black-purple network of scars and swollen, knotted stripes.

  She is aware of panting through half-open lips.

  “Savage!” she hisses.

  He turns round. Dare he answer? She avoids his eyes, suddenly ashamed of his sex, looking down to his feet. Without a word he walks on, still carrying the clothes over his arm, making no effort to put them on, disappearing among the trees towards the camp.