by Andre Brink
What we found especially reassuring was this: when the sun was right overhead a new group of men came to the shore in an egg from one of the seabirds and dragged an object from the shell. It looked like the tall trunk of a tree, but it had no leaves, only two branches at the top. They all toiled together to drag the thing up the hill, which rises from the rocks to far above the dunes and bushes. We watched in awe, for it had long been a sacred place to us, marked untellable years before by one of our wandering tribes with a cairn: one of the innumerable graves of our savior hero, the hunter Heitsi-Eibib, who had died many times, yet never died. What sacrilege were these intruders about to commit? We were trembling in anger and trepidation as we watched the strange men opening up a deep hole among the rocks of our cairn. Into this pit they lowered their bare tree, then carefully steadied it in place with the rocks they had removed, adding others to it, raising the mound to the height of a man.
Our fear turned to jubilation. With our own eyes we had witnessed that, far from desecrating the grave, these people also respected our Great Hunter; so there was nothing to fear anymore. There was the living proof of blessings to come: their great cross planted in our cairn.
And just after sunrise the following morning, when the seabirds once more began to lay their eggs on the water, we approached the visitors quite openly on the beach. This time it was they who seemed apprehensive. But we made a great show of laying down our arrows on one side and carried calabashes of milk to the edge of the water, which seemed to dispel their doubts.
The problem was that it was impossible to talk to the visitors. I had the distinct impression that they knew nothing resembling a language. They could utter sounds, but these were quite meaningless, like the chattering of birds. So perhaps they were a kind of bird after all. However, we tried to communicate with them through gestures and after a while they began to respond in the same way. What really won us over was when some of them turned back to the eggshells on the beach and brought from them the skins and knives and vessels we’d left among the rocks the day we’d run away in such haste. Moreover, they offered us tawete, the gifts strangers bring in greeting to those they meet on their way. The most beautiful shiny beads in all colors, and lengths of copper, and clothing that made our womenfolk burst into laughter, and stuff to chew and smoke that drew water from the inside of our cheeks. And something else, too, which I find it difficult to talk about, a kind of fiery water that set one’s insides ablaze, a magic liquid incomparably stronger than any fermented milk or honey beer one could imagine.
Difficult to talk about, I say, because at the very first taste of it, noticing how it caused my people to start cavorting, I realized that this spelled danger. And even more so when later in the day I discovered that an unfamiliar madness had taken possession of many among us. No matter what I said to them, all they could do in reply was to grin stupidly at me, quite incapable of speech or movement.
This thing needs watching, I warned them that evening. There’s something behind this. It’s a way of softening us up. Tomorrow, if those men come back with their firewater, we must refuse to drink. Anything else we might accept, but not this.
They dutifully agreed. But the next day I discovered that no one was paying any attention to me. Meek and mild when they knew I was watching, but the moment I turned away they let go. No doubt about the cause either. One could smell it at a distance, and their outbursts of hilarity were an ample giveaway. And when I took my kierie to them, there was a sound of angry bees coming from them, the first sign of insubordination they had ever shown. Why did I want to deny them something as good as that? they asked. You’ll soon find out, I said; except by then it will be too late.
During that long day it became clear that the strangers were interested in more than offering gifts: they wanted something in exchange. And the first thing they wanted was women. One doesn’t need language to explain that; there are signs anyone can understand. All right, I agreed, if the bride price was acceptable. But soon I discovered, to my disgust, that several of my men, once they’d gorged themselves on firewater, were offering their women and daughters for free. I tried to stop a few of the older men, but it was like sheep breaking from a kraal—a few here, a few there, then suddenly a stream tearing past you on all sides.
Something curious I noticed, even through my anger. Those strangers who had bought women first took them to the fresh water. Not to wash them from head to toe as one might expect (and perhaps that was just as well, for water is a precious thing and not to be wasted on washing), but only a few drops spattered on their faces while the men mumbled something and touched their own foreheads and chests and shoulders. Looked as if they were giving names to the women. Which was ridiculous, as they already had names. All of these new names, I now recall in retrospect, were Mary-this or Mary-that. And as soon as a woman was named she was taken away into the bushes. Then came the funniest bit: as the newlyweds returned the men gave back the women. At first we were offended, especially those among us who’d received a good bride price; then we discovered that the strangers did not want a refund. Each time they took a woman to the bushes they paid the price anew. A man could get rich like that.
Only, I remained worried about the firewater. Even more so when the strangers began to intimate that they wanted sheep too. A woman is one thing, but sheep and goats and cattle are something else. The moment we were alone again I spoke to my crowd with great urgency. All right, I said, we can offer a handful of sheep at the highest possible price, but then no more.
But the very next day I came upon some of my people, some of the best ones, too, men like Sigeb and Aob and Daghab, surreptitiously driving a whole flock from the kraal to the beach. From the way the herdsmen were high-stepping behind the sheep it was clear that they’d been plied with firewater again; and when I tried to prevent them, Sigeb came stumbling toward me, brandishing his kierie, can you believe it? It was easy enough to fell him, but some of the others I couldn’t stop. I had no choice but to go down to the beach to talk to the strangers myself, if one can call it talking: to ask for my sheep back. Instead of reacting in the friendly manner of the previous days they became quite menacing. One of them grabbed a kind of iron kierie and before I knew what was happening the thing emitted a thunderclap right beside me, which sent me sprawling. From that I knew for sure that, in spite of their first appearances, these people had nothing to do with Heitsi-Eibib, they were an evil lot, a bunch of cheats, undoubtedly followers of Gaunab’s, straight from his Black Heaven.
Once more, that evening, I spoke to my assembled people, to persuade them that there was trouble coming. To my dismay some of them rose up and told me to shut up: they were no longer listening to me. One of them, Khusab of all people, my childhood friend, spoke while openly clutching a karba of firewater in his hand. Where did you get that? I asked him. None of your business, he told me. I jumped at him and grabbed the karba; but when I turned round there was a half-moon of people waiting with their kieries. I was ready to dash that pot to pieces on the nearest rock; but Khusab said: “You break that thing, you get broken too.” And some of the others said: “Give it back.” As I stood glowering at them, angry as a lizard, they took the karba from me and began to pass it from one to the other, each man taking a big gulp while staring straight into my eyes. The audacity. Next morning they were sprawled out all over the place, a disgusting sight, snoring away like animals, while I sat there aching inside, mourning for a thing that was breaking among us.
For the next few days I had to avoid them. A few of the older men were beginning to see things my way, I am happy to say, but the younger ones were troublesome. And who knows what might yet have happened if I hadn’t found the woman just then.
You may well ask me what a woman was doing on those ships. It is a question that has often plagued me in my later lives. Nowhere have I found any evidence that da Gama or Cam or Dias or d’Almeida or any other seafarer of the time took along women on their s
hips or brought them home from elsewhere. On the contrary, such a practice would have run counter to all social, economic, moral, religious, or pragmatic considerations of the time. On the other hand, precisely because such considerations existed, one can expect that had such women been aboard senhor da Gama and his colleagues would have done everything in their considerable power to conceal the fact. Not so? And even if they did set sail from the mouth of the Tagus with no female on board, what would have prevented them from picking up some along the way?—the wives of preachers or tradesmen, castaways, slaves, or whatever? In any case it hardly matters what history records. The simple fact is that on this particular voyage, in the midst of all those outlandish men, there was a woman. And I found her.
On the morning of the sixth day she was hatched from an egg deposited on the waves by one of the great seabirds, which still lay brooding on the waters in the dark blue distance.
1. About four centuries later, in I897, the early Afrikaans poet S. J. du Toit used a similar image in his poem “Hoe die Hollanders die Kaap Ingeneem Het” (“How the Dutch Conquered the Cape”), probably borrowed from stories circulating freely at the Cape. But he talks about geese giving birth to little ones from their sides, which is patently ridiculous. Birds lay eggs. Including those we saw. I know; I was there.
2. See the following chapter.
2
A small chapter about a big misunderstanding
She was alone. High up on the rocky hill where they had planted the cross I sat watching the brown egg coming slowly toward the land until she emerged from it and got out on the hard wet sand. It was still early dawn when I had gone up the hill with my goatskin bag filled with gifts for Heitsi-Eibib: a calabash of honey, an ostrich egg brought all the way from Camdebo, sour milk, goat fat, a small bag of buchu. Let those treacherous strangers do what they wish, I thought, I would rededicate this place to Heitsi-Eibib in the proper way.
It was a bad time for me. One mind in my head told me I was being too hard on my people, the strangers really meant well; but another mind said no, they were acting like a jackal taking over an aardvark’s hole. To and fro in my head these thoughts were going, this way and that, this way and that, night and day. Which was why I had gone up there so early, to where I would be left in peace, staring out across the wide shell of the bay where we came to spend our summers. Behind me was the land, green and dense but angry, with its thorn thickets and its rock beds, vultures and koo birds in the sky, the humps and carbuncles of its mountains, dark secret streams running in the earth below; in front of me the cold sea, streaked with white. Soon after I took up my position I saw the eggs of the great birds coming out to the land. Down below my people were waiting for them. Today they would go hunting. I had warned them not to trust the k’onkwas, the Beard Men, but who still heeded me? I saw the men disappear into the underbrush as our women and children scattered slowly across the curve of the bay to the far side until they were as small as ants. I sat motionless.
That was when the single eggshell set out toward the beach, an afterthought; I’d never even seen it being laid, it just happened. Even with the wind behind it, the shell was making difficult progress, swaying and bobbing awkwardly, not moving as swiftly as the others usually did. It took a long time before it scraped over the sand and the person inside was hatched. His clothes seemed longer than those of the other men who had come from the sea before, more brightly colored too, but apart from that I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. On bare feet, bare white feet, the person crossed the sandy beach toward the broad shallow mouth of the stream directly below my perch. He clambered unsteadily over the outcrops of rocks: I was still thinking of the person as “he.” From time to time he squatted down beside a rock pool to poke around in it with a stick, prodding, it seemed, at sea urchins and purple anemones; then went a few yards further, squatted down; went on again. At length he reached the furthest edge, tall and erect, neck stretched to peer in all directions as if to make sure there was nothing and no one in sight, like a meerkat inspecting its surroundings. Satisfied that the place was deserted, he began to undo and peel off layer upon layer upon layer of clothing, down to the white core, like a wild baru bulb dug up in the veld. I remained where I was, unmoving. The bare creature down below moved cautiously along the rocks toward the long, narrow pool at the far side of the outcrop, stopping again from time to time to look about. There were only the gulls. And I; but the stranger could not see me, not where I was hunched up among the rocks. I waited until after he had lowered himself into the pool before I came down the hill. Still not suspecting anything.
It was only when I reached the very edge of the rock pool that I discovered it was not a man at all but a woman. Those round calabashes, that small thatched mound, no man could mistake them. In the same instant she caught sight of me and uttered a scream. I quickly reached down to pick up her clothing, meaning to offer them to her, but that really worked her up. Like a crab she scuttled awkwardly to the far side of the pool, stumbling with every step, stopping from time to time to splash jets of white water in my direction. I couldn’t understand her fright at all. Hadn’t I made it obvious that I meant her no harm?
“Mutsi atse,” I greeted her politely, the way I was brought up to do. “I see you.”
She kept on screaming and splashing.
To prove to her my peaceful intentions, to show her I was not hiding anything which might harm her, I undid the thongs of the ghai apron of soft musk-cat skin I was wearing to cover my honorable parts. The yell she uttered then was ear-splitting, something terrifying. Jumped right out of the water, slipping along the smooth rock surfaces, falling down, scuttling on all fours, getting up again, down and up, down and up, in a wide half-moon across the beach, following the line of the high tide where the sand was firm, away from me, back to where she had been hatched, squawking all the time like a gull gone mad.
“Hebba ha!” I shouted after her. “Come back!”
But her long white legs kept on swinging out as she ran, the way a woman runs, her long dark hair streaming after her, until at last, head over heels, she tumbled back into the egg that had brought her to the shore.
It was like one of those dreams the night walkers bring on to trouble a man in his sleep: when you wake up your member stands rearing up and trembling like a mamba ready to strike. And immediately I realized what had scared her, the way others had been scared before her, ever since the girl-and-boy games of our youth when it was becoming obvious what I, T’kama Big Bird, had inherited from my unruly father. If only she would give me time: with patience everything could be, as it were, surmounted. But patience was the one thing I, too, lacked just then. Because I knew only too well, as I stood there staring at her and trembling, that I had been struck to the quick by an arrow daubed with bitter-berry magic. This rearing mamba in my loins—erect like the tall cross now planted in Heitsi-Eibib’s sacred cairn—would not know any peace again before it had come to rest deep in the kloof made for it. Dejected and sad as I was, I did not even try to follow her. Just stood there watching her grow small in the distance as she ran across the copper beach back to her egg and started striking into the low surf, further and further away from me, right out of my life, forever, into the dark green sea.
3
In which flows the first blood of this story
Not quite, though, and not entirely into the dark green sea, for what would have remained then for me to tell? So for the sake of my story, for the sake of the whole history still ahead of us at this point, I shall bring her back to the land. It may have been the wind that was too strong; or perhaps she simply lacked the strength to keep rowing against the swell of the incoming tide. But even if she had been capable, I would have written her back to the beach today.
As I stood there watching from the rocks (almost washed away myself by the new tide, to which I paid scant attention), as I sit here hauling in that dancing boat from wave to wave, from line to li
ne, tugging, scribbling, she was brought back, back to the copper beach, where the sea spat her out a second time. But she made no move to leave the dark shell that held her. Bunched into a small heap inside she lay, a naked chicken in its broken egg. Until it struck me that perhaps what she had against me was that I had picked up her clothes; perhaps she’d thought I wanted to steal them. So I decided to prove to her my good intentions. The huts were too far away for me to fetch from there what I needed: who knows what might happen to her if I turned my back? This is the only excuse I can advance today for the sacrilege I felt driven to commit that morning—in the ardent hope, though, that Heitsi-Eibib, who had himself been a man of many women, his innumerable children scattered across the continent before he started dying and rising again, would understand my desperation and would look on my solution with understanding, if not with open approval.
I tied on my brief ghai apron again and then, still clutching the woman’s clothes, hurried up the rocky ridge. When I stopped for breath halfway up the incline, I noticed that she was watching my every move; but she quickly ducked away behind the rim of the shell when she saw me looking back. That reassured me somewhat. She was human after all, and curious like the rest of us. No doubt about her womanness. At the top of the hill, below the cross, I picked up the offerings I’d left there earlier—there were ants crawling in the honey, but the rest was fine, the ostrich egg from Camdebo, the buchu in the small bag, the goat fat and curdled milk—asking Heitsi-Eibib’s pardon for robbing him like that, but promising solemnly that I would replace my sacrifice the very next morning. Then down the hill again toward the ever more turbulent foam churning about the brown hull of the shell on the beach.
