An Instant in the Wind

by Andre Brink

  His sleeping face on his bent arm. Grains of sand on his cheek and eyebrows. She leans over to blow them off, and hears him breathe, as incomprehensible as the movement of the sea. His shoulders, his tiny nipples. He moves slightly when she touches him, but his breathing is undisturbed. His smooth belly, the dense seaweed of his love-hair. Miraculous life kindled in his penis under her hand, stirring, growing, stiffening, fierce and tender to her touch.

  “You’re cheating, you’re awake!”

  “No, I’m still asleep. I’m dreaming.”

  “I’ve brought the fruit. I’m hungry.”

  “I’m hungry for you.”

  “You may have me.”

  That is the way it may have been. That is how it probably was. But nothing, she thought, was quite so difficult as the obvious and the natural. To walk about naked when you’d never dared to show an ankle in public. To transcend the thou-shalt-not of a lifetime, to discard an entire education, a way of life, as if it were irrelevant.

  Abandoning oneself in the dark to a man's body, slaking the terrible thirst inside one and allowing it to spend itself: even that was quite different from living from day to day in serene and familiar contact with that same body, giving and taking without shame or hesitation, like a picking of fruit. The body of a man, no longer in frantic, furtive spasms in an orderly room or beneath the canvas of a wagon at night, but innocently and permanently present, visible and tangible and available, beside one's own. See how white I am; and you are brown. You’re brown like a slave. But slaves steal past on the periphery of one's existence, like pets. And now no longer slave. Man. My man, my own. Bearing on your back and buttocks the hideous scars of a slave. My hands are sensitive and scared to touch them. I have to shut my eyes and clench my teeth. I caress you the way one would touch an open wound. Is it possible to learn to love even scars? To follow their contours with one's fingertip: this is you, your map, your landscape, all mine. It makes me shudder, and from my nausea grows lust; from my lust emerges tenderness. I desire it passionately, tracing the pattern with my tongue, like the track of a snail; I bite you like an animal and am devoured by you.

  Was it possible, she wondered, that one could be prepared for it after all, in secret, unknown even to oneself? Remembering: the mulberry tree, her feet wide apart on two branches, the small berries bursting with sweetness in her mouth. She’d thought she was alone. But he had been there too, below her; he must have followed her, stealing into the rustling of the leaves, hidden by them. And then his mulberry hand along her mulberry legs.

  He laughed at her when, at times, involuntarily, she tried to shyly cover herself or turn away; it was he who’d first removed the green dress and put it away, laughing at her desperate pleading and her rage and shame. And slowly she’d acquired confidence, defiant bravado. With the breathless, frightened excitement of a child doing something forbidden, she began to experiment: with him, with herself, with the overwhelming newness of her existence. Expecting still, at any moment, the voice demanding: How dare you? Have you no shame? It was so impossible to accept that everything was really permissible. She thought: Forgive me if I’m stupid or ridiculous. Please be patient with me. I’m trying. I’m making progress, aren’t I? I’m really not ashamed. Will you promise to be patient? You can be so wild. And yet so like a boy, in your own way even more shy, perhaps, than I, more clumsy, so beautifully clumsy. I love you. I have no other explanation to offer. I love you.

  We’re living here, provisionally for ever, protected from the wind, in a cave high above the sea, the inner walls blackened by smoke and soot; not from yesterday's fire, but the fires of centuries, perhaps millennia. Here and there, through the sooty crust, one can make out patches of color—a rusty brown, ochre, off-white, red. And if you look closely in the light of a piece of burning wood, you discover curious little figures of men with bows and pricks, a buffalo hunt, ostriches, elephants with raised trunks, running buck. This is our home: from here we set out on journeys to the edge of the impossible, along moist paths of moss and smooth pebbles, without footprints. Provisionally.

  To emerge from the mouth of the cave before sunrise, stopping on the broad rock-lip to look into the world—vast and pale, with the small precise sounds of waking birds and the grey squawking of the first gulls; a haziness on the sea but everything else clear, translucent—and to realize with a shock: here am I, there is the world. And then, perhaps through the slow motion of the sea, to experience the sensation of moving through that world and that space, yet not to touch it anywhere: to remain myself while the world remains the world.

  “Come,” he says beside her, taking her hand.

  Shivering slightly in the early coolness, they run down the steep slope to warm themselves. Looking back, the cliffs stand burning in the first light, glowing as if lit from the inside. He leads her on, over the rocks marking the end of their beach, and up the narrow twisting gorge they followed on their first day down. He carries the long pistol with its beautifully embossed grip, and a small bag of ammunition; she has the snares she has helped him prepare during their past few evenings beside the fire. Since they lost the gun in the rock-fall they haven’t had much meat, hence the snares. And they will need more animal skins before winter.

  For days on end he has worked on an assegai, first shaping a chunk of quartz found in their cave, patiently and skillfully chipping off flake after flake to form a razor-sharp spearhead, then tying it to a straight light stick with wet tendons, allowing it a week to settle tightly as the tendons dried out. Now it is indispensable for hacking a path through the myriad of thin, tough macchia stems in their way, an almost impenetrable tangle separating them from the real forest. She follows on his heels, struggling with the swaying shoots and the network of intertwined stems remaining behind him, occasionally crying out when a tough young sapling swings back, striking a red weal across her cheek or breast or shoulder. The smaller thorny shrubs leave a network of patches on their legs. Only their feet, protected by the shapeless skins he fashioned for them, remain unharmed. From time to time he stops to pick berries or fruit, showing it to her to test her skill and memory: this is edible, this is deadly poisonous, that is bitter.

  Without warning they break through the final barrier of fynbos, finding themselves in the high forest. The change is abrupt and shocking. Here is no sun, no tangled undergrowth; only the large heavy trunks of ancient trees, the earth covered with a rustling mat of rotten bark, leaves, crackling twigs, patches of ferns or moss. The silence is absolute, and unearthly. Whenever they stop, so that even the dull rustling sounds accompanying their progress die down, the silence becomes still more awesome, defined by the calls of birds, the scurrying of monkeys among the branches, the sudden high-pitched whistle of a bluebuck dashing off, or the flight of a bushbuck after a momentary glimpse of a brown-speckled body and a flashing white tail.

  What amazes her is the clarity of everything. No deep gloom through the absence of the sun, but a luminous reality, as if the leaves themselves are glowing from within, as if earth and trees are manifestations of light.

  Intuitively he finds his way to one of the countless game-paths crisscrossing through the forest, following it to a fern-covered stream in a maple thicket. There, spread over a distance of several hundred yards, he carefully sets up the six or seven snares they’ve brought along, camouflaging them with leaves and splinters of bark.

  “What makes you think the buck would choose this one spot in the whole forest?” she asks, incredulous.

  “Look at all the tracks. It's obvious they’ve chosen this for a drinking place,” he says. “You’ll see when we come back tomorrow.”

  “Are we going home already?” she asks with open disappointment.

  “Why not?”

  A lourie shrieks close by. Among the trees are bright blobs of red and orange and yellow fungus, there are orchids suspended from delicate stems. The earth is redolent with sweet decay, a gentle green stench. Large butterflies flutter among the leaves and flow
ers. Something is rustling in the foliage. Silence speaks to them in its innumerable voices.

  “It is so peaceful here,” she says. “I want to stay longer. Can’t we go farther?”

  He leads her on, along the winding trail, through the green luminosity of the wood. She has lost all consciousness of time.

  Once he stops in his tracks, clutching her hand, whispering: “Elephants”

  “How can you tell?”

  He shows her, with infinite patience: leaves plastered against a thick brown trunk, sap oozing from a broken root, branches torn off and tossed away, a cluster of wet, chewed leaves, a trampled fern—and, soon, fresh dung.

  “But I can’t see anything,” she objects. “They must be far away.”

  With a raised hand he silences her. “No, they’re very close. Step on the tracks.” He points to what she hasn’t even noticed: the flattened round marks on the ground, where one may step without causing a twig to crackle or a leaf to whisper.

  She still finds it difficult to believe him. But all of a sudden he grabs her wrist. She stops, gazing ahead, but seeing nothing she shakes her head.

  At that moment a branch breaks like a cracking shot. Startled, she nearly cries out. The brief movement of the animal's trunk has suddenly revealed the entire brownish mass of its body, motionless among the trees.

  “Is there only one?”

  “No. Look over there.”

  An ear twitching; a long tusk gashing white against the green. Now she sees the bull too. And, gradually, one after another, the whole herd feeding among the trees.

  With a long detour he leads her past them, farther into the forest. When she complains of fatigue he finds a pool of reddish-brown water in which to frolic and splash among the ferns. He gathers fruit she has never tasted. And after gorging themselves they lie down to rest a while and sleep.

  When, at last, he wakes her, the light has changed. While they have been asleep something must have happened outside somewhere. The green glow of the forest has a venomous gloomy air; the luminosity has disappeared, leaving the huge trunks of trees like dull shadows within shadow, ominous, dumb, large sulking hulks threatening them in the dusk.

  A few times she looks round in terror, but there is nothing to see; there is always something invisible.

  She has given up all hope of ever extricating themselves from the dark maze when, to her utter surprise, they come upon the first small stream again. In one of the snares a buck has been caught, dangling grotesquely from neck and hindleg—how both got caught in the noose is impossible to tell—strangled, with blue-black tongue and eyes protruding.

  Revolted, she hurriedly turns away while he disengages the buck, slits open the belly to remove the guts, and drapes it round his shoulders. Sticky lines of blood trickle down his chest and belly, coagulating in his pubic hair.

  In silence they go farther through the crepuscular wood, finally breaking back into the vicious path cut through the brushwood. At least it's lighter here, the clouds above placid and unthreatening.

  But she bears the forest with her. Thinking: it's so peaceful there; but the great animals are always lurking somewhere in the gloom.

  And back in the safety of their cave, that night, she refuses to have any of the meat he has prepared.

  The way you have of studying yourself so intently, with an expression of wonder, as if you find it difficult to believe your own body. Standing in the mouth of the cave to feel the wind breathing against you. Closing your eyes to allow the salt spray of the water to wash over your face. Moving close to the fire where the smoke can whirl around you. Wandering among the tidal pools in the rocks, kneeling for hours watching the silvery little fishes darting about, or worrying a sea-anemone with a limp bamboo shoot, looking up with a guilty blush if I come upon you unexpectedly.

  Everything repeats you, in everything I recognize you. In the farthest pool among the rocks, in the curve of a maidenhair fern, the suture of a Hottentot's bean shelled from its pod, the sudden swerve of a gull, a feather's delicate pattern on the sand, small wild calabashes, a swaying tree, the spray of a wave, sea-foam.

  The way you suddenly fall silent in the middle of a conversation, looking out across the sea. Your pensive gathering of shells, the most minute ones which I barely notice, the size of grains of sand, but quite perfect, round and pointed, green and red and brown, sheltered in the hollow of your hand and carried to the cave, there stored with infinite care, then forgotten, discarded. Your complete infatuation with water, with washing and bathing yourself, saturating yourself, as if you can never have enough of it. Your habit of talking in your sleep, muttering senseless or incongruous words with a lazy, languid tongue, laughing, or stifling a sudden sob.

  And this, constantly: to disappear from cave or beach and wander off on your own, over the rocks to more distant, wilder beaches; along the gorges; even into the forest.

  “I want to go with you.”

  “No, you stay here.”

  “But what do you do all by yourself like that?”

  “Nothing really.” Appearing surprised at the question. “Just wandering about. Looking. Listening.”

  “What do you listen to?”

  Embarrassed: “The silence, more often than not.”

  And then you’re off again.

  Why is it so important to you to be alone? Am I not enough for you— or am I too much for you? Are you doubtful, or worried, and trying to hide it from me? Do you think about the Cape when you’re away from me? About your people, about one day? If I ask you about it, you simply shake your head. Do you still think I cannot really understand?

  Even when I’m with you, inside you, when you close your eyes: is it because you’re happy, or because you wish to exclude me?

  Returning to the pool beyond the rocks one morning, they find the snake still there: its green changed into a muddiness, the thin body soggy and teeming with maggots and bluebottles. And who would have expected a snake to smell like that?—has it got flesh, then, like man or beast, is there no difference at all?

  “You must show me everything you know.”

  Patiently, at night or in the daytime. How to dig a hole into a sneezewood log and rub a twig in it to make fire. Where to find the gliroots you mix with honey to make your heady beer; and how to make a skin bag, with the hairy side turned inside, for carrying liquids. Which berries are edible and how to distinguish them from the others. What herbs to use for fever, and how to stop blood with spiderwebs. How to stand dead still when you see a mantis, so as not to disturb its prayers to the god Tsui-goab. What roots are best to chew for thirst, and how to blend your hash for smoking if you wish to dream with open eyes or feel at peace. How to learn from birds when to watch out for snakes, where to look for honey, when to expect rain. How to read direction in the stars.

  How does one cure and prepare a hide to get it soft, and how do you make a kaross?—for the days are still mild but the nights are growing cool, and soon we’ll need more covering.

  Show me what a woman should do when she loves a man and wants to please him; I have so much to learn.

  Show me how to catch a crab without getting nipped. How do you tie your nets, where does one look for ollycrocks and oysters, how does one catch crayfish?

  “And tell me about the sea.”

  “I can’t tell you. You must feel the sea to know him.”

  “How does one feel it?”

  He studies her for a long time, reflecting. Then, with a slow smile: “If you want to, I’ll show you. Come.”

  He pulls her up by the hands and leads her over the beach. The tide has turned an hour or two ago and the water is rising steadily, but he wades in against the waves, holding her hand. Foam splashes against their shiny light and dark brown legs.

  “Where are we going?”

  He gestures to the small island of rocks deeper into the bay where he usually spreads his nets.

  “But the tide is coming in, we won’t be able to get out again.”

 
“That's the only way to feel the sea. When it's all round you.”

  They climb up the slippery black rocks. From the top, layers of stone lead down to the inner oval like broad uneven steps littered with pools. Below them lies the patch of sand, finer and whiter than that on the beach, some two yards wide and three or four in length. On the far side it is sealed off by another, higher formation of black rocks.

  She has only been here at low tide before, and she looks towards the beach without much confidence. “How will we get back again?”

  “We’ll wait for the tide to go out.”

  “But that's a long time!”

  “Yes”

  From time to time a delicate spray washes over them when the larger waves break against the back rows of rocks.

  “I’m not so sure…” She hesitates.

  “You said you wanted to feel the sea.” He squats down beside a small rock-pool.

  “What are we going to do all the time?”

  “Nothing.”

  Uncertainly she looks at his calm, inscrutable face; then back to the churning water separating them from the beach. The waves are growing visibly.

  “If you really want to go back, you can still swim out,” he says. “In a little while it’ll be too dangerous.”

  Anxiously she looks at the beach a hundred yards away, and the great red cliffs towering behind, fringed by the forest; the crescent of white sand between rocks and rocks; and their cave, higher up, a black hole in the precipice. A fishing eagle screams its eerie call.

  “I’ll stay with you,” she says, almost grimly, and comes to sit beside him on a ledge.

  The smooth surface of the rocks is covered with a mosaic of barnacles and limpets, some of them ancient, the shells broken and jagged; nothing can loosen their grip. On the bed of the pool periwinkles and pointed snails are crawling, drawing intricate patterns on the sand. Tiny fishes dart from their hiding places, flitting across the sunlit patches, returning to the shadows. There are a few brilliant red starfishes on the bottom, and purple anemones lazily fanning their fringes. Crabs, bright patches of seaweed and, to one side, in the darkest deepest corner, the slowly moving red and white tentacles of an octopus.