Who Killed Piet Barol?

by Richard Mason

  Frank Albemarle’s star had often let him down. He had grown so accustomed to disappointment that he could barely credit the sight that met his arrival. Stacey was alone in the clearing, having hysterics. The joy on her face when she saw the truck, and him in it, was unmistakable and greatly gratifying. He leapt down and took her in his arms, muttering soothing words as she clung to him.

  The comfort of another human being after all she had been through was deeply relieving, and Stacey prolonged Albemarle’s hug longer than she should have. So long that Piet, who had begun to run in the direction of the lorry’s engine, entered the clearing in time to see his wife and her foreman locked in a fervent embrace.

  He had expected many sights. Not this one. Jealousy was an emotion he was unaccustomed to, having never been condemned to it. Now it cauterized his wounds, sealed his anguish deep within him.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said. They sprang apart, and in the quickness of that leap Piet read, quite correctly, Stacey’s guilt at clinging a little too tightly to Mr. Albemarle. To be caught at a disadvantage, when it was she who had been abandoned, made Stacey furious.

  “Where on earth have you been?” She wanted to hit him, and also to be hugged by him. These contradictory impulses kept her where she was. She took in Piet’s near nakedness, and the welts all over his body where the ants had bitten him. “What’s happened to you?”

  “I was lost in the dark. There were leopards and hyenas…”

  As he spoke a great weariness came over him, and a desire to see his son. He walked past his wife and Albemarle and went into their little house. Arthur’s delight was so soothing he clung to the little boy, soaking in his love.

  “I did all your sums, Daddy. And the ones on the next page.”

  “Show me.”

  Piet sat at the table, haggard and bitten. Albemarle saw him through the window and knew what he should say. He went to Stacey, careful to keep a respectful distance. “There are insects in this forest whose bite can send a man mad. Think of rabid dogs. He’s clearly not himself.”

  This was true enough.

  “It is most important that you get yourself and your son to a place of safety. Act quickly and do as I say,” said Albemarle.

  To be provided with an explanation focused Stacey’s attention. She went into the hut and packed Arthur’s few clothes while he sat at the table, his attention keeping his father calm. Outside, Albemarle and his crew loaded the last of the wood into the truck—all save three planks. Piet saw them carry the bed. It took seven men to lift it. He did not protest. They loaded it into the truck, and left behind two sofas and a desk. Then Albemarle went to the hut and knocked. He was ready for the trickiest part of his plan.

  “We’ve got the rest of the furniture loaded, Barol.” He tried to keep all exultation from his voice. “We’ll get it off to town, and leave you here to finish the last three pieces.”

  Piet looked up. He nodded.

  “You need to see a doctor, my darling.” Stacey went to him. She could not help herself. She touched his welts, and Piet winced. The ant bites were very painful. He became aware of the suitcase.

  “Why are you packing?”

  “This is not a place for a woman and a child.”

  He had no answer to this. Nor the energy to make his wife believe in the charming fantasy of a forest life. He opened his mouth. If he could just tell her what had happened, what he had done to save them…But words could not do justice to the spectacle of a woman eaten alive. “You belong in town,” he said. “I see that.”

  “Thank you.” And then, in a little voice, a voice which overrode her fear and her anger, Stacey said: “We belong with you. Come with us.”

  Kindness was more than Piet could bear. He teetered on the brink of tears, but Albemarle’s presence kept him in check. “Very well,” he said.

  To his great irritation, Albemarle could see no way of leaving Piet behind.

  —

  THEY LEFT THE CLEARING and set out along the track that Piet had followed so often, and so happily. Zuko, the little boy whose mother watered the Strange One’s horses, had waited all morning for the truck to return. He was fascinated by this outrageous beast—and by the beings who had tamed it. The sight of Arthur made him frantic with curiosity. A baby mlungu! He had not thought to see such a thing. His eyes followed the lorry long after it had disappeared, and traced the dust cloud it left behind.

  In Butterworth, Stacey put a fresh shirt on Piet and took him at once to the doctor. This gentleman gave him a stiff brandy and some calamine lotion. The lotion did little to diminish Piet’s pain, but the brandy opened a promising door to oblivion. He bought two bottles at the general store, while Albemarle and his men unloaded the lorry. Albemarle had confided his decision to send the wood to the city, and Stacey found she approved of it wholeheartedly.

  “Will you come with us to Johannesburg? Please, darling.”

  “ ‘Us’? ‘Johannesburg’?”

  “I must place everything correctly in Shabrill’s house.” She looked at him. “You know Arthur can’t stay in that forest.”

  Piet sat down. The weight of these words was crushing. He found he could not bear the absence of his child, nor the removal of Arthur’s innocent faith in his goodness. He tried to think of a reason to keep him. At length he said: “Please don’t take him from me.”

  The meekness in his voice neutralized the last of Stacey’s anger. She took his hand and kissed it. “Come with us. We have all the wood. We can make the last things in Johannesburg. If you walk with a limp, no one will question you.”

  “I can’t tell any more lies,” said Piet.

  —

  NTSINA TOOK VERY HAPPILY to the spending of money. He purchased a suit from the outfitters patronized by the best Strange Ones, and washed well in a rain tub in the native location, whose middle-aged lady owner was happy to lend such an obliging young man her water, and happier still to receive a shilling for her pains. Once dressed, he went to the jeweler’s and bought a gold chain. He was wise enough not to show any white person the pink diamond he intended to give his wife, but Luvo agreed that it looked well on the chain.

  Luvo’s own spirits were muted as he waited for his friend. It seemed, indeed, that violence would be called for if the terms of Piet’s contract with them were to be honoured, and he abhorred violence. He had never imagined a situation in which he might be a party to the breaking of the most important commandment: Thou Shalt Not Kill. It gave the day the aura of a strange dream, and this was heightened by Ntsina’s transformation.

  Luvo had been brought up to value polished shoes and neat ties. Seeing Ntsina in them made the clothes of the Strange Ones, for the first time, seem foolish and constricting. “I preferred you in your eland hide,” he said, when Ntsina stood proudly before him.

  “Yes. But no one in Gwadana has a suit like this.”

  The possession of a gun gave Ntsina total faith in his own destiny. He knew himself prepared to use it. He imagined his return in splendour to Gwadana. For the first time he began to see that he might get away with all he had done. He had invented a gripping account of his battle with the creature that ended, most sadly, in her escape. The idea that a monster roamed their forest would keep enquiring minds away from it. No one need ever see what had happened to the Ancestor Grove.

  He shut his troubled conscience deep inside him. His Ancestors were safe with the Christian God—Luvo had told him so, and Luvo knew such things. They would soon have new shrines, whether or not Piet paid for them. He would see to them himself, if necessary. It was a shame that the trees had died, but in these days it was essential to have money, and he knew that his ancestors did not wish him to earn it by drinking in the evil dust of the Rand and its mines. Besides, the destruction of the trees made his friend’s mission to the English King possible. He was convinced that Luvo would be successful, and saw that he himself might play a role in the liberation of his people—by getting Luvo the money he had earned.r />
  He put a deposit down on a brass bed and a feather mattress. Then he took off his brand-new clothes and put them in a bag—for he did not wish to dirty them. “It is time to find the Strange One,” he said.

  —

  “I HAVE TO FINISH his furniture, or Shabrill won’t pay us. I must go back to the forest—at least for a few days.” Piet’s logic was absolute, but so was his resistance to the company of any human being save his son. Only loneliness and grief and work could soothe him.

  The most tender part of Stacey’s being was wounded by her husband’s refusal to stay with her. But she had not slept, and the terrors of the night before remained, and she would not beg. “The train leaves on Wednesday. We’ll wait for you,” she said.

  “I’ll do my best to finish.”

  “Are you alright, darling?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  But he could not answer. Instead he said, remembering the leopard: “Where is the gun?”

  “Someone’s taken it.”

  “From the box?”

  “From the cabinet by my bed. I kept it there…In case I needed it.”

  “That was stupid.”

  He had never been insolent to her before—angry, sometimes, but never rude. He felt he was detonating the bridge by which he might return to his old self. It seemed right, since he could never be that person again.

  He kissed her goodbye and went into the general store, where he purchased a rifle and cartridges for it. Then he went into the bank, and withdrew eight hundred pounds. It was almost all the cash in the branch, and the teller looked at him curiously. Piet’s eyes warned her not to question him.

  Observing the strained parting of husband and wife, Albemarle felt giddy with elation. He could see the sorrow in Stacey’s face, and reminded himself not to act abruptly. He did not have the physical charms to prevail against a lady’s conscience. Only by feeding her sense of grievance, and doing that subtly, might he prevail. He waited until Piet had squeezed his little boy half to death and climbed back into the lorry. Then he went across the street and said: “May I escort you to the hotel?”

  —

  TO HAVE EXCHANGED his wife and child for the company of two bottles of brandy seemed, on reflection, to have been a sensible decision. Piet had never been an enthusiastic drinker. He took another swig, and another, and began to understand why other men drank. The world edged away from him. The noise in his head grew fainter. It was a glorious day. He was reminded of his first sight of the forest, when he and Luvo had angered Ntsina’s ancestors. That scene belonged to another lifetime.

  Ntsina heard Piet’s truck long before it reached them. Ntsina said a prayer to his Ancestors and remembered how they had foiled his earlier attempt to rob this white man. How right they had been! He would have got a few pounds that night, and probably been caught. The situation now was very different.

  “Go into the road and make him stop,” he said.

  Luvo hesitated. He had been an observer of much immorality, but he had never been its prime mover. He heard the words of St. Paul to the Christians at Rome: “Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? By no means!” He turned to his friend. “I cannot.”

  The lorry crested the hill and came into sight. “You stop him,” said Ntsina. “I will search the truck for money. Go.”

  “I will not.”

  “For the sake of our people.”

  “He may not have money with him.”

  “He has the means to get money. If you ever wish to meet the English King, do as I say.”

  The lorry approached. Ntsina’s nerves were at breaking point. He thought of little Arthur, of how much he loved his daddy. He felt an urge to put the gun down, but he banished this weakness. “If you don’t stop him, I’ll shoot him through the windshield.”

  Luvo stepped into the road and waved his hands. Piet was thinking so intently of his Xhosa partners that when he saw Luvo up ahead, he felt no astonishment. He slowed.

  “Go to the other side and keep him talking,” said Ntsina.

  Luvo was not suited by temperament to criminal undertakings. His quick mind turned sluggish when deception was required. He found he could not speak as Piet stopped. He remembered his first sight of Piet on the Shabrills’ terrace, the friendliness in his tone. No white man had ever spoken to him in this way save Herr Ranke, whom he knew would abhor the waylaying of anyone to rob them, on any grounds whatsoever.

  “What’s wrong?” Piet got down.

  “I do not feel well.” This was true enough.

  Piet put the back of his hand to Luvo’s forehead. “You don’t have a fever. Have you had enough water? I have some.” He turned to the cab but Luvo put his hand on his arm.

  “I don’t need water.”

  On the other side of the truck, Ntsina stood on the step and looked over the door. The seat was empty. The strange power of a weapon exerted its heady hold on him. He went round to the front.

  The appearance of Ntsina with a gun, his gun, the gun they had bought together in happier times, seemed somehow fitting. Time slowed. Piet’s eyes travelled from the gun to Ntsina’s face, took in the nose and the chin he knew so well, remembered the many nights of laughter they had shared, their first entry to the Ancestor Grove, his wonder then, the mushrooms they had eaten together. For a moment, he thought Ntsina knew. The Bantu had powerful magic, after all.

  “You have not been true to us,” said Ntsina, gruffly.

  This was so precisely the truth that Piet sat down on the step of the truck. It was the look on Luvo’s face that made him say: “It is dangerous, in these times, to kill a white man.” And he took from his pocket a wad of notes.

  Luvo’s joy at this moment was so overpowering that he could not stop himself from executing a little dance in the road. The Strange One had proved himself worthy of their trust! He knocked the gun from Ntsina’s hand and instantly regretted it—what if the thing went off? But it did not go off. It lay on the road between them, like an abandoned grievance.

  Piet counted the notes. Four hundred for Luvo. Four hundred for Ntsina. It was more than he had promised them, and Luvo pointed this out. “You have earned it,” said Piet. “And there will be more for new shrines.”

  Ntsina felt humbled and regretful. “You are a good man. You are not like the others.”

  Piet would have chosen a bullet over Ntsina’s gratitude. To Luvo he said: “I wish you luck in your mission. Do not be discouraged by what I have said.” He smiled. “ ‘In a great undertaking, one must leave no anthill unopened.’ Is that not correct?”

  They parted, with mutual expressions of esteem. Both Piet and Ntsina had weights on their conscience, but only Ntsina shared his. As he shook Piet’s hand he said: “I have stolen something to give my wife, but that was wrong. I am sorry.” He took from his pocket a pink diamond on a gold chain.

  To the astonishment of the two Xhosas, the white man began to cry. Soon he was sobbing so violently he could not stand.

  “Forgive me, Piet,” said Ntsina. “Take it back.”

  But Piet would not. He bade them farewell and climbed into the truck. As its engine came to life, Ntsina turned to Luvo. “The Strange Ones are very strange after all,” he said.

  —

  TO ZUKO’S DELIGHT, the beast stopped outside his own homestead. The lorry’s radiator needed water. Zuko watched, fascinated, as the Strange One got down from the cab. Up close, he looked stranger even than usual. There were bites all over his face. Zuko recognized those bites, and knew how painful they are. He ran to his mother.

  Zuko’s mother was Lindiwe. She gave the Strange One the water he asked for, and dawdled awhile at the gate. He was a handsome Strange One, and he looked sad. Lindiwe’s own husband was a violent man, who had left few happy memories behind him after his departure for the mines. For a year she had neither heard from him, nor seen any money. She was a woman of strong appetites, but village gossip had deterred her from seeking her pleasures. The sor
row in the Strange One’s face was beguiling.

  “Were you sleeping in the path of the Matabele ants?” she asked. “That is a very strange thing to do.” There was something insolent and sexy in the challenge of her eyes.

  “I was tired. I did not wake.”

  “You should not leave their bites unattended. If you do not draw the poison out, they will fester.”

  “They are already itchy. I went to the doctor.”

  She flicked her head, indicating her opinion of Strange One medicine men. “Has he made you feel better?”

  “No.”

  She smiled. “The forest offers cures for all its injuries, if only you know where to look.”

  “I most definitely do not know where to look.”

  The presence of a woman who had no idea who he was, who he had once been, what he had just done, began to awaken a part of Piet’s nature that the events of the last day had suppressed.

  “I know,” she said.

  To Zuko’s great satisfaction, his mother invited the Strange One into the hut. He saw her go to the garden where she grew her medicine, and cut several leaves. He liked watching his mother make her potions, as a rule, but today a more glorious adventure beckoned. He had seen mechanized beasts in Butterworth, but never had the opportunity to look into one. He sat on the wall, looking very innocent, until his mother went inside.

  “They bit me all over my body,” said Piet.

  “Then take off your shirt,” said Lindiwe.

  “What about your son?”

  “He knows not to enter when the door is closed.” She closed it.

  Piet took off his shirt. Lindiwe had milked several leaves of the aloe plant and ground into the foul-tasting juice a secret recipe of seeds and flowers. She took a silvery-green leaf and began applying her ointment to the ants’ bites. “First this will heighten your pain. Then it will ease it. Sometimes the only way to fight poison is with poison.”

  She was standing very close to him. He did not look at her as she touched his chest. The ointment stung. He winced.

  “Be a man, Strange One.” But she smiled. He smiled back. She was as unlike Stacey as any woman could be. His body now remembered his last friendly encounter with his wife.