People of Heaven

by Beverley Harper

  Raj’s thin face split wide with pleasure, revealing stained red teeth from the betel nut he chewed incessantly. ‘I know the very spot, Mr Michael,’ he said. ‘The very spot.’

  Michael laughed. ‘I’ll just bet you do,’ he said fondly. ‘I imagine it was selected the day you arrived.’

  Raj fiddled with one end of his red sash, a gesture which told Michael that the old man had something else on his mind. ‘Something troubles you, Raj. What is it?’

  ‘Let us walk, Mr Michael. There is much to show you.’

  They left the men loading cane and walked down past the Indian barracks towards the cane fields. Michael could see that Raj was searching for the right words. Finally, he burst out, ‘It’s Miss Tessa, Mr Michael.’

  Michael’s heart sank. He nodded curtly. ‘What of Miss Tessa?’

  Raj stopped. He looked acutely miserable. ‘You will be angry.’

  ‘Probably,’ Michael admitted. ‘What has she done this time?’

  Raj hung his head. ‘It is my youngest son, Mr Michael.’

  Oh sweet Jesus! What next?

  Raj continued. ‘He has the hot blood, oh goodness yes. He is only eighteen, Mr Michael. For how much longer can he hold off against her? I am terrible afraid for him, Mr Michael. The young do not listen any more.’

  ‘Well he’d better listen to this.’ Michael had turned steely serious. ‘Tell him if he so much as lays a finger on Tessa he jeopardises his entire family’s future on UBejane.’

  Raj looked shocked.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Michael went on in a gentler tone, ‘that will give your son the strength to resist.’

  Raj’s head went in a figure of eight as he understood that Michael was angry with Tessa, not his son. But he needed to make his point. ‘My son,’ he said quietly, ‘should not have to resist. Life is hard enough as it is.’

  ‘I do not blame your son, Raj. I have met him a few times, he’s a good boy.’

  ‘But what can you do?’ Raj asked. ‘She is . . . she has . . . Miss Tessa does not seem to . . .’ he stopped abruptly. ‘Forgive an old man, Mr Michael.’

  ‘I hear what you say, Raj. My sister has the morals of an alley cat.’

  ‘It is not that she is bad, Mr Michael. I am just thinking she does not understand the things that most of us are born knowing, isn’t it?’

  Michael thought that summed up Tessa better than anything else he had heard. He started walking again. ‘Leave it with me, Raj. I’ll talk to her. If all else fails, she’ll go to boarding school.’

  The expression on Raj’s face was one of profound relief.

  It took Michael and Raj most of the day to examine the sugarcane operations. Towards three in the afternoon, they stood discussing the problem they were experiencing with a plant variety known as 310. While it yielded a much higher sucrose content, 310 was susceptible to a black fungal disease known as smut. Michael noticed his father heading towards them. What the hell does he want?

  Raj saw him as well. Judging by his expression, it was a sight he found very surprising.

  Joe King started shouting while he was still some distance from them. ‘Don’t think you can come back to my farm and just take over.’

  ‘Shit!’ Michael swore softly. He waited until his father reached them. ‘Someone has to help,’ he said.

  ‘I want you off this property,’ Joe ranted.

  Michael could smell the whisky. ‘Have another drink,’ he suggested sarcastically.

  Joe pulled a flask from his pocket. ‘Don’t mind if I do.’ He tilted it to his mouth, staggered slightly, then stared belligerently at Raj. ‘You still take orders from me.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Raj touched his forehead in a gesture of respect.

  Joe nodded, satisfied. ‘Good.’ A long pause followed. ‘Carry on then,’ he said finally. His gaze came back to Michael. ‘You’d better remember it too. This is my farm.’

  Michael simply stared at him.

  Under his son’s unwavering look, Joe ran out of words. He turned and walked unsteadily away.

  ‘How often does he come into the fields?’ Michael asked once his father was out of earshot.

  ‘Never, Mr Michael. Goodness, I do not remember the last time.’

  Michael nodded slowly. ‘Since it’s highly unlikely that he’ll remember, we too will forget that my father was here today.’ He started walking and Raj hurried to catch him. ‘Come, Raj. We must find Balram and tell him that his father is too old to work any more.’

  Raj permitted himself a short laugh. ‘Mr Michael,’ he said, ‘you make too much fun of such an old man.’

  ‘Mr Raj,’ Michael said, only half-joking, ‘you have worked with the English for long enough now to know that we only make fun of those we love.’

  They went in search of Balram and found him supervising the cutting of newly burnt cane. It was hot, heavy and dirty work but, once the fire had gone through, they only had seventy-two hours to get the cane cut, stacked and delivered to the mill, before the sucrose levels dropped and the crop’s value fell dramatically. Balram joined them, casting a worried look at the sky. Rain was threatening. A shower would not be a problem, might even clean things up a bit, but anything prolonged could prove disastrous. ‘Welcome home, Mr Michael.’

  Michael acknowledged the greeting but could see the man was busy. ‘Come to the house when you’ve finished this evening. I have something important to discuss.’

  Balram responded with an enthusiastic side-to-side wagging of his head.

  Michael grinned back at him. ‘I see you are ahead of me, Balram, as a good manager should be.’

  Balram’s smile grew wider but then he looked anxiously at the cane field. ‘If you will excuse me please, Mr Michael.’

  Michael let him go. ‘A good man and a son to make you proud,’ he told Raj.

  ‘Balram will not let you down.’

  Out on the road they could see the school bus stopping at the gate. ‘I’ll speak to Tessa now,’ Michael said to Raj. ‘I suggest you make yourself scarce.’

  The old Sikh looked at him anxiously. ‘This will not make trouble for my son?’

  ‘No,’ Michael assured him. ‘But it’s sure as hell not going to sit well with my sister.’

  Tessa saw her older brother walking towards them. As usual, Gregor and Sally were some way ahead, discussing school, friends or anything else that took their fancy. Tessa could not imagine what Sally found interesting in their eight-year-old brother. He was far too young to be of any consequence. Come to that, Sally’s conversation was also boring. She had only just become aware of boys and the mere mention of one had her stuttering and blushing furiously. Tessa sometimes wondered what Sally’s reaction might be if she told her sister even a fraction of her own experiences. Miss Goody-Two-Shoes would probably die of shock. She frowned at Michael’s approach. There was something purposeful in his walk and Tessa knew, way before he reached them, that he had come to speak with her.

  ‘What does he want?’ she asked herself. Perhaps he’d found the bottle of cane spirit in her room, or the cigarettes she kept hidden in a drawer. Maybe he’d discovered the magazines she’d stuffed under her mattress. Tessa hoped not. They contained the most sexually explicit photographs she had ever seen. Just looking at the graphic illustrations made her wildly excited. She’d come across them years ago while snooping in her father’s room. He had lots in the back of a drawer. It was a laugh at first, the people looked so undignified and silly. She borrowed a couple, intending to show them to Sally. Instead, Tessa took them to her own room. Turning the pages, she was at first scared, then excited, as unfamiliar sensations gripped her. Acting instinctively, Tessa had put her fingers at the centre point of these pulsating feelings, crying out in amazement as they immediately strengthened. Without fully understanding what was happening, she masturbated herself to an orgasm. It was better than anything she’d ever known.

  All her life, Tessa had overdone experiences she enjoyed. Whenever the feelings started up, Tessa cou
ld always find somewhere private to oblige them. Her young mind made some of the connections, that the things she saw in the magazine promised to yield even better sensations. Tessa had understood at an early age that men and women were built to do such things to each other. The magazines merely confirmed it. And Tessa was more than ready to try them.

  She particularly associated these things with her father, and the string of women he never bothered to hide. One steamy Sunday afternoon, when her mother had taken Sally and Gregor to the beach and Michael was away fishing at Cape Vidal, Tessa crept to her father’s window and watched, spellbound. It wasn’t him who fascinated Tessa. It was the ecstatic look on the woman’s face that held her attention. The things Tessa did to herself were terrific but this was obviously better. And her father had it in his power to cause such rapture. Without being aware of it, Tessa began to flirt with him.

  At first, Joe had reacted with amused indifference. Of all his children, Tessa was the only one who ever took notice of him. Her sudden coquettishness was put down to being quite normal in a young girl on the threshold of maturity. He had no idea that his daughter was aching with desire and had no way of controlling it. One Thursday afternoon, however, during the school holidays, when there were only the two of them in the house, she had come to his room and woken him from an alcohol-induced sleep. Joe had, as usual, woken with an erection. Things just got out of hand.

  Joe blamed the whisky. If he’d been sober nothing would have happened. In the back of his mind, however, he was aware that Tessa knew exactly what she was doing that day.

  The memory of that afternoon, or the little of it he could recall, burned him with shame. The old Joe resurfaced long enough to force him to confront the fact that he had sunk as low as he could go. He’d vowed never again and avoided Tessa as much as possible. He’d almost managed to convince himself that he’d imagined the whole thing when she, once again, came into his room at the wrong time. Up until then, he’d been sober enough to be wary but on this second occasion he’d been blind drunk.

  When Michael burst in on them three years ago, nothing had taken place except for the whisky. But Joe knew where they were heading because he had consumed enough alcohol to lower his inhibitions.

  For all his disgust at his actions, Joe still found excuses. She didn’t seem like his daughter; he was not part of the family; she was like a stranger; she certainly didn’t look eleven, sixteen more like. And one abiding certainty. Tessa knew what she was doing.

  Tessa had known and she hadn’t. Wilful, always ready to buck the system, full of aggressive feelings of not fitting in, when puberty and all the confusing emotions that went with it came calling, Tessa was too young to deal with it. She got her wires crossed. To her mind the erratic and antisocial behaviour of her father was synonymous with the freedom of adulthood. Her father’s approval of her was vital. And then there were all those fires sending messages she couldn’t control. She knew what she was doing up to a point, beyond that she was as helpless as a moth drawn to flame.

  The word incest meant little to Tessa. The word fuck did. She would become aroused just by saying it. However, when Michael raised the threat of a convent, she knew he was serious. She never went near her father again. But Tessa saw no reason why her enjoyment should stop. Word soon went around the school. Tessa King was a sure thing.

  Michael reached Gregor and Sally and fell in beside them. Behind them, Tessa’s lip curled when she saw Sally’s hand seek his. Stupid girl! She idolised Michael.

  ‘You two go on ahead,’ Michael prompted Sally and Gregor. ‘I need to have a chat to Tessa.’

  Tessa heard him. ‘I don’t want to talk,’ she shot back. ‘You can’t make me.’

  Michael silenced her with a look over his shoulder. Sally and Gregor, with a glance of smug satisfaction between them, kept walking. Tessa’s steps slowed, then stopped. Michael left the road and sat on the short grassy verge. ‘Here.’ He patted the ground beside him.

  Reluctantly, she joined him. ‘I can leave any time I want.’

  ‘Sure,’ he agreed. ‘But first, listen for a minute.’

  He looked at her face. The twins were beautiful, of that there was no doubt. Dark curly hair which Sally kept up in a ponytail and Tessa allowed to flow around her face and shoulders. Dark eyes. In Sally’s a deep compassion and intelligence, Tessa’s were hard, calculating and distant. Both had flawless complexions, wide and well-formed lips, high cheekbones and their father’s aristocratic high-bridged nose. Michael sighed inwardly. What was it that made them so different?

  ‘Raj is worried that you are flirting with one of his sons.’ There was no point in beating about the bush with Tessa. ‘You will stop it immediately. It’s unfair.’

  Tessa tossed her head. ‘Raj is a stupid old man who should have retired years ago.’

  ‘Raj,’ Michael told her softly, in a voice hard with authority, ‘is not a stupid old man. He’s the man who has been running UBejane for the past three years with no help from anyone. He’s the man who puts food on your table and clothes on your back. He’s a man for whom you will show respect or, by Jesus, you’ll know about it from me. Is that clear, Missy?’

  If Michael had lost his temper and shouted Tessa could have handled it. She had very quickly learned that men were at their most vulnerable when they were emotionally off balance. She glanced at Michael’s face, looking for a weak spot. She saw none. His eyes were steady and calm.

  ‘Right or wrong, it is against the law of this country to have a relationship with a person of a different colour. I’m warning you, Tessa. Leave that boy alone.’

  ‘Tell that to father,’ Tessa shot back. Then wished she hadn’t.

  ‘You, of all people, should know that our father has no scruples or common decency,’ he reminded her quietly. ‘I will not speak of this again but you’re on very thin ice, young lady. One more complaint about your behaviour and it’s off to a convent. No more warnings. Do you understand?’

  ‘Mother would never agree.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on that, little sister. I believe I could convince her.’

  The threat was made with no inflection. He was stating a fact and she knew he would follow through.

  Michael rose and stood looking down at her. ‘Believe me, Tessa, I’ve had enough of your nonsense. I will not allow you to bring disgrace to this family. Keep your bloody hormones under control. There’ll be plenty of time for that later.’

  ‘And just who do you think you are?’ she spat back. ‘You don’t control this family. Stop acting like you’re my father.’

  Something dark stirred in Michael’s eyes. ‘That,’ he said with deadly seriousness, ‘is the last thing I would do.’

  Tessa scrambled up and stood, hands on hips, eyes blazing. ‘What do you know?’ she cried out, losing control. ‘I can’t help the way I am.’ She turned and ran up the road, leaving her school bag lying in the dust.

  Michael picked it up and stared thoughtfully after her, his heart full of sadness. What she had said was true. She probably couldn’t help herself. ‘What should I do?’ he asked himself. But no answer came.

  EIGHT

  Dyson could see that his father was anxious to speak with him and he thought he knew why. Word of his involvement with a new wing of the African National Congress, Umkhonto we Sizwe, a division that proposed violence as a means to end apartheid, would have reached his father’s ears. The tried and trusted word-of-mouth network, used for centuries as a means of spreading information, would have seen to it. Wilson Mpande was opposed to violence and tended towards the same views Michael had recently expressed, that apartheid would fall under the weight of economic sanctions. Dyson disagreed. He did, however, draw the line at some of the more revolutionary organisations, like the armed wing of the Pan African Congress, POGO, which promoted uncoordinated attacks on whites with its catchcry ‘One settler, one bullet’. Dyson believed, as did the Umkhonto we Sizwe, that the way to bring apartheid down was to render parts of South A
frica ungovernable. These were the meetings he attended twice a month, secret gatherings to discuss how best to bring about unrest in the townships. These were the meetings he could not discuss with Michael. Nor did he wish to speak of them with his father.

  When they finally sat down to talk, his father’s opening words came as something of a shock. ‘The king is dying.’

  ‘I have heard nothing of this.’

  ‘It is not generally known.’

  ‘What ails the king?’

  Wilson clucked his tongue with disapproval. ‘That which comes in a bottle.’

  King Cyprian’s addiction to alcohol was well known among his subjects and it had become increasingly clear to the Zulu nation that unless he stopped drinking, the king would soon go the way of his father, Solomon, who had died of drink-related illness in 1933 at the age of forty. If Cyprian died, the heir apparent was too young to assume his royal responsibilities. This meant that a regent would be appointed. While this in itself was not a problem, the most obvious man for the position, Prince Israel Mcwayizeni, was no friend of Cyprian’s main adviser, Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi. With anarchy and chaos high on the ANC agenda, a rift in the royal house was the last thing the Zulus needed.

  ‘How bad is he?’

  ‘He is sick here.’ Wilson touched just under his right ribcage. ‘It is his liver. The doctors call it cirrhosis. He may live for a few years but our king is already too ill to rule.’

  ‘And no-one can take over until he dies.’

  ‘Which means our people are virtually leaderless and likely to face even greater hardships,’ Wilson said bitterly. ‘This could not have come at a worse time.’ He leaned back against the trunk of an avocado pear tree under which they were sitting. The slight movement caused an overripe fruit to drop near them. The outer skin split on impact and soft flesh, almost black with age, exploded from it.

  Dyson gazed at it, waiting for his father to speak again, his mind busy with the implications of what he had just learned. The president of the ANC, Albert Lutuli, although a Zulu, had been born and raised in Rhodesia. Nelson Mandela, commander-in-chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe, was Xhosa. It seemed to Dyson that within the larger framework of a fight for equality in South Africa there was one glaring omission – the Zulus had no champion.