She looked over at the little group of women and children, but if they had noticed anything they must have thought this was the normal behaviour between a man and a woman of the white race. Fabian sat up and brushed the sand from his hair.
'I'm properly awake now and I promise to be good. I shall sit two whole feet away from you and we'll have a sober anthropological discussion about the position of women in Bushman society. Would that satisfy you?'
'I expect you think it's an absolutely ideal set-up,' Perry accused him, still feeling ruffled. Why, oh, why, since she disliked this man so intensely, could his touch arouse feelings she had not experienced for years?
'Well, we haven't had much chance to study it at close quarters, but from what Samgau and Natamu have told me it does seem pretty good. The women gather the food and the men hunt, That seems to be a fair division of labour,'
'Do you think so?' It seems to me that the men get all the excitement and the women get the tedious work as usual in a society where the women have to be housewives.; The men get the thrill of the hunt which lasts only for a few days. Then they can have a rest at home, while the women have to go out almost every day looking for other kinds of food.'
'But the men have to face danger.'
'Knowing how crazy men are, I should think they enjoy that.'
'You may be right. Samgau tells me that Bushmen are not allowed to take a wife until they've shot an animal to prove they can support her. They propose to the girl by placing their bow and quiver inside her hut, meaning, "With these weapons I will obtain food for you," If the girl consents, she lets the bow and arrow remain there all night, but if she wants to refuse she puts them outside the hut.'
'It surprises me that she has any choice,' said Perry rather tartly.
'Yes, the Bushmen are very gentle people in some ways with surprisingly tender feelings. You may have noticed Nusi?'
'Yes, the prettiest of the young girls.'
'Exactly. And like all pretty young girls of any kind her most urgent desire is to marry. You might think she would be happy being a young girl with no responsibilities, her most onerous task being to make beads of ostrich shell and gather flowers if she can find them to adorn her hair. But no, she must be married, and the man of her choice happens to be too young even by Bushman standards.'
'How do you know all this?'
He really was astonishing, she thought, to be able to pick up the local gossip so soon.
'I noticed this young man looking rather forlorn and playing a mournful song to himself and I asked Samgau what ailed him.'
'Why is he too young? I should have thought in this society if they were old enough to be in love they would be old enough to marry.'
'No. Toma, as he's called, although he's very good-looking, has a slight limp caused by an accident with an arrow when he was a child, and it's been more difficult for him to fulfil the conditions that are set before they can be recognized as an adult. They must show that they're capable of keeping a wife. Therefore they must kill a fairly large animal on their own to show they can provide food for the family. Toma has been unlucky. He has gone apart with an instructor, as the young boys do, to learn the rituals of manhood, but he has failed in his attempts to hunt an antelope on his own. His slight handicap tells against him in these harsh conditions.'
'Oh, how sad! Couldn't we help him in some way?'
Fabian shook his head firmly. 'Much better not to interfere in an affair like this. It's a family matter. Besides, isn't it better that they remain single while they're still so young? It's only sensible that Toma should learn to become a good huntsman before he marries and has a family.'
How typical of the man! How astonishing that he should still disapprove so strongly of early marriage even in the case of these young people who lived in these wild conditions. It was his disapproval that had changed her life when she was little more than a girl, so many years ago that it seemed like another lifetime. It was this that had changed her from an eager loving person to one who sheered away from too intimate a friendship with any man.
'You look very serious. Don't worry about Toma and Nusi. It will solve itself with time.'
She was saved from having to answer him because Samgau arrived accompanied by little Kigi.
'He wants to show you the tortoise he has found,' Samgau explained.
It was a prettily marked creature with a greenish shell. When Kigi put it on the ground, it remained still for some seconds and then cautiously put out its head and looked to right and left with tiny black diamond bright eyes.
'What will he do with it?' asked Perry. 'Will he keep it for a pet?'
'My goodness, no. There's no room for that kind of sentimentality when you live as close to nature as the Bushman,' said Fabian. 'Tortoises are for eating in their lives. It will make a tasty morsel for his supper and his mother will be pleased to have the shell to scoop water.'
He is so hard and practical, Perry thought. I was mistaken when I thought there was a gentle look about his mouth in repose. I must make up my mind there is no room for that kind of sentimentality in my life either.
CHAPTER SEVEN
After a few days of observing and photographing the Bushman community, Perry felt as if she had known them for ever. Their lives were very basic and lacking in all the possessions thought essential for modern living, yet they were a happy, gentle race. She watched wonderingly how they shared the sparse food they gathered and she marvelled at their gaiety and the way they sang and danced so often. Even the small boys were not allowed to fight each other, but if a boy was too aggressive he was given harder tasks to use up his energy. How could they who had so little be so wise?
Every morning, when dawn was just breaking, she would hear the patter of small feet rustling through the dry grass.
'You seem to have made a hit with the children,' Fabian commented, when once more he saw her emerging from her tent followed by Topaz and the little group, Kigi, Little Grasshopper and her baby brother.
'I think it's Topaz who's the attraction,' she admitted. 'Being popular has its penalties, I find.' She ruefully showed him a little collection of goodies that the children had brought for her enjoyment. 'I don't mind nuts, but I can't get used to the idea of eating a roasted caterpillar or a fried grasshopper. I'm afraid they're disappointed in my lack of appetite.'
'Give them to me,' said Fabian.
The children watched him with dark solemn eyes as he gravely sampled the delicacies they offered. He smacked his lips appreciatively and they clapped their hands and wriggled with joy.
'Fabian, how can you?' asked Samantha, who was on her way to the ablution tent, clad in very revealing shortie pyjamas.
'Blame Perry. She's a hard taskmaster. She made me taste them.'
Samantha shuddered.
'You should try them some time. They're crisp and savoury, quite as good as some of the snacks you get handed at cocktail parties.'
'I'll take it on trust,' Samantha said.
'And you, Perry?'
'I did try an ant, a large one, I couldn't avoid it. The children were so pressing. It tasted a bit like an acid drop,' Perry confessed.
'Spare us the details so early in the day,' begged Samantha.
She strolled off lazily, swinging her sponge bag.
'I'm surprised how well Samantha has settled down to life in the desert,' Fabian remarked. 'She's been used to a much more sophisticated life, naturally, and yet she doesn't seem to miss the city. She's making a very good job of recording the Bushman music, a thing I never expected of her.'
Perry was surprised by the pang of emotion that stabbed her as he spoke of the other girl. How ridiculous that she should feel this... was it jealousy? Surely not. She had tried so hard to make a good professional job of the photography and hoped she was succeeding, and yet, after that first time when he had approved of her work, he had been very sparing of his praise. Of course Fabian was attracted to Samantha. Who wouldn't be? She was lovely, young and self-confide
nt. And with Paul for father, she had the world at her feet. Did she really like life in the desert or was she trying to win Fabian's approval? She had confided to Perry once or twice that she would be glad to see the bright lights once more. If Fabian married her would she accompany him on his expeditions, or would she expect him to curtail them?
She had noticed that Ken Davidson had a very great admiration for Samantha too, but for the most part it took the form of silent adoration. Perry had seen the look on his face when Samantha was around and the way he tried to make everything as easy as possible for her, seeing that she was provided with warm water when she wanted to wash and adjusting the rather simple shower when she complained that it was not running properly. He was a very kind man, of course, and not bad-looking, but somehow Perry did not believe that Samantha could ever be interested in this 'Honest Joe' type of man. She would want someone exciting and unpredictable, more Fabian's type.
During the afternoon, Perry sat with Nusi who was making beads from ostrich shells. Baby ostriches must have remarkably strong beaks, she reflected, in order to peck their way out of the shell, because it was quite a labour for Nusi to bore holes in it. She had chopped the eggs into suitably small pieces and was now making a hole first from one side and then the other with a stick to which she had attached a nail. She twirled the stick between her hands as she worked.
'What patience,' said Samantha, who was wandering rather restlessly around the settlement.
'Women will go to endless trouble to adorn themselves,' said Fabian, joining Samantha. 'If you think of it, it requires a great deal of patience to sit in a hairdresser's or beauty parlour, or have fittings at a dressmaker's.'
'Yes, but in that case, someone else is doing the beautifying and the hard work for you. All you have to do is sit,' said Samantha.
Perry took little part in the conversation because she was keen to photograph Nusi at her task and was adjusting her lens. Nusi was so pretty. No wonder Toma wanted to marry 'her. Perry admired her long slender hands as they skilfully manipulated the primitive tool she was using. Usually she had a gay, vivid smile, but today Perry was finding it hard to get a change from her rather sad expression. She called Samgau to ask him if he could request a smile from her subject. They had a little conversation in the queer clicking language that sounded so very odd. Finally he turned to Perry.
'Nusi say her heart is sad today because her family say if Toma not become man soon by killing beast she must marry other man who has offered for her. Is old man from other settlement who wants second wife because other wife is growing old.'
Perry determined that she would speak to Fabian again. She was sure that if they could help Toma by transporting him by truck, being with him without doing the actual shooting, he could succeed. She usually retired to her tent early, leaving Samantha talking to Fabian, Paul and Ken, but this evening she decided to wait and see if she could get a word with Fabian alone. Luck seemed to be with her when Samantha, after playing her guitar for a while, yawned noisily and declared that she was tired out after all the hard work she had been doing making records of Bushman tunes. Ken and Paul soon followed, leaving her alone with Fabian beside the fire.
'And you, Perry? Are you not tired?'
'Not particularly. Just look at all those stars!'
The air was warm and in the dazzling heavens the bigger stars hung like silver lamps, with beyond them million upon trillion of pinpoints of light receding into space.
'There's no moon tonight. The Bushmen say that on a night like this a lion has put his paw over it so that his fellows can have better hunting,' said Fabian.
The camp fire had died down a little and looked like a spent firework. The vast depth of the heavens and the myriad stars made Perry feel giddy. She lowered her head and looked at Fabian. Against the dying glow of the firelight, his rugged good looks seemed mysterious and not of the present day, as if he too belonged to some primitive time when man lived by hunting for his food and his mate. She shivered a little and to divert her thoughts recalled why she had waited to talk to him.
'Fabian, I was photographing Nusi today and she looked rather downcast. I asked Samgau to inquire why this was so and she told him that they want her to marry an old man from another family unless Toma can prove himself as a hunter very soon. She would be second wife to this old man.'
'That wouldn't worry her. They're allowed by their tradition to take two wives. Often the men like to marry two sisters because they say they'll get on well together.'
He was smiling at her. By the glow of the fire his grin was distinctly wicked.
'Don't treat it so lightly. I'm concerned about Nusi, she's so young and sweet. I don't like her to have to take second best.'
'My dear Perry, what on earth do you think we can do about it?'
'I wondered if we could help Toma by organizing a hunt. I think the reason why he hasn't succeeded in killing an animal is that in the winter season they're a bit widely distributed and there's too much ground for him to cover with that slightly injured leg of his. If we could go with him, we could take him further.'
Fabian frowned. 'I don't want to interfere at all with their way of life. And this would definitely be interference.'
'But we could tell them that we want to photograph a hunt and that Toma is the best-looking male for the purpose of our pictures.'
Fabian grinned ruefully.
'You're a very persistent woman when you've made up your mind.'
'You mean you think I'm being obstinate?'
'Yes, if you like to put it that way.'
But he was smiling and she thought she must have made some impression with her emphasis on the usefulness of this expedition in obtaining some more pictures.
'Purely theoretically, if I consent to your plan, Perry, what happens if he does succeed and later, when he hasn't got any other transport but his own two feet, he proves a poor huntsman?'
'I don't think that will happen,' said Perry. 'Once he's gained confidence, his future will be assured and Nusi will see to it that he does well.'
'If we do this, it will be against my better judgment. Toma should be allowed to work out his own future. But you're like all women, eager to see a man tied as soon as possible. I wouldn't have thought it of you, Perry. I thought you were a career girl.'
'Not in this instance. I would like to see Nusi married to the man she loves.'
'That's child's talk, Perry. This is a wild, primitive world. Whoever she marries, in a few years' time Nusi will be worn out and ugly through the conditions of living here. You can't apply your sophisticated standards to her.'
'I don't believe that,' Perry maintained firmly. 'Wherever you live, here in the desert or in the heart of a city, it must help if you marry the one you love and don't have to accept a second best.'
'You speak very vehemently, as if you've experienced something of the kind. Is that why you've never married, Perry? Did someone prevent you from marrying the man you loved? Does that account for your coldness towards men?'
Perry stood up and he rose too. In the starlight he was a dark shadow towering over her.
'Yes, if you must know, that is the reason. But I have no intention of telling you or anyone else the story of my life. It's late. I must go to bed.'
The calm silence of the starry night was suddenly shattered by a tremendous grating roar, sounding very close at hand. The sudden unexpected shock of the noise made Perry grasp the nearest object, which happened to be Fabian's arm. He laughed and, putting his other arm around her, held her close. She could not deny that she was glad of the feeling of reassurance that flowed from his strong grasp.
'What... what is it?' she gasped.
'Another lion. But unlike the first one we met this one has finished hunting. They usually keep quiet until they've made their kill, then roar in order to guard it.'
She laughed shakily. 'You were right, then. The lion has put his paw over the moon tonight.'
There was another mighty roar and its d
escending cadence seemed to silence all other life in the desert. There was no cry of a night bird, nor even the yelping 'yip yip' of a jackal. But beyond the silence there seemed to come faintly a far sea sound like the noise you hear when you put your ear to a shell.
'How odd. There's a sound now like very faint music as if the stars were singing.'
She was still held in his arms and now she made a movement to get away from his close proximity. He tightened his grasp.
'What a perceptive creature you are, Perry. I've often heard that sound myself, but usually when I've been alone. The desert holds strange mysteries for those who can penetrate them. The stars seem to come down closer to the earth here and as you say one seems to hear a ghostly music of the spheres. And of course in some parts of the desert, the winds blow in a way that produces singing sands.'
The silver lamps of the stars and the impenetrable indigo blue of the desert sky made Perry feel as if she was in another world, another age. And this man who held her in his arms was not the enemy she had imagined. She felt herself yielding to the magic of the warm night and to feelings that she had forgotten she could experience.
There was a sudden beam of light and a clatter of footsteps as Ken descended from the truck. He must have seen them held in a close embrace silhouetted against the light of the dying fire, for in spite of the fact that Fabian had dropped his arms to his sides, Ken made things worse by a mumbled apology.
'Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt, didn't realize anyone was still up. I came to put some more branches on the fire because I heard the lion.'
'Don't bother, Ken, I'll do it.'
Perry slipped away to the tent. She felt shaken and yet glad that the scene had been interrupted. How strange that she should have been carried away by the romance of the desert atmosphere. She must take care that it did not happen again. She was most determined that she would not add herself to the number of Fabian's conquests.
She had not thought she had persuaded Fabian to help Toma, but a few days later to her surprise he told her that he had spoken to the older men about the possibility of a hunt. They were doubtful whether Toma could succeed but anxious that he should be given another chance to prove himself. One or two of the older men, the experienced ones, would go too so that if Toma failed they might go after the beast in his stead. After staying in the camp for some days, all the party were eager to join the expedition. Perry felt a little nervous for Toma's sake that so many people were coming, but it could not be helped. Samantha, slim as a reed in tight tobacco brown jeans and a pale green shirt that matched her eyes exactly, declared that she was in need of a little excitement and she hoped they met another lion.
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