Who Killed Piet Barol? Read online

  The question shocked Luvo profoundly. He said, with great severity, that he did not believe so. Piet arrived with the drinks and Luvo declined his. In English, he said: “Do not be too friendly with the women, or their fathers will compel you to marry them.” This prohibition provoked an abrupt diminution of Piet Barol’s friendliness to Zandi, who ignored it and drank her beer down and said: “Let’s dance.”

  “She wants to dance with you,” said Luvo, wearily.

  So Piet and Zandi danced. He led her in the European dances of his youth, aware that he could have her if he chose. It made him proud that he was not tempted. Stacey had asked only one thing from him on the day, three days after their first meeting, on which they had decided to marry. It was physical constancy, and he had always honoured it. He had an opportunity to extricate himself from Zandi when a cry went up, signaling that the cow was ready. Everyone stopped dancing, and all eyes turned again to the bride—for no one might eat until she had taken her first bite.

  Bela ate daintily, and cleaned her fingers on the hem of her blanket. A line formed, and more roasted cattles appeared, and in the merry throng Piet went about greeting the people he had met at the public meeting. He had gone to great lengths to remember their names and to master the phrase “It gives me pleasure to see you again.” The impact of this, on human beings already primed for friendship by alcohol and dagga and the sentimentality that must touch the hardest hearts on witnessing the bonding of a loving pair, was explosive. As the beer flowed, Piet lost his self-doubt and hurled Luvo’s brain through torturous gymnastics as he talked nineteen to the dozen with everyone he met.

  He was a huge success.

  As tongues loosened and the moon rose in the sky, more than one person told Piet Barol that he was by far the best of any Strange One they had ever come across. They congratulated him on his way with words—for his Xhosa phrases, though full of errors, were comprehensible and charming. His inadequacies were poetic on this night full of poetry, and the pleasure he took from giving pleasure combined with the Gwadanans’ delight in welcoming a guest from the world outside (for one was rare) and soon he was singing their songs and dancing their dances, careful not to favour one lady above any other, but also to dance with Zandi again, for he sensed that her feelings on this evening were complex.

  Kagiso found Noni, and she consented to return to the throne of his broad shoulders. For an hour he danced with his sister, and she felt the sea wind in her face, and smelt the sweat of the dancers, and the good humour of their revelry; and again and again there was the golden red of the Strange One’s voice, until she climbed down from her brother’s back and followed Piet, listening to this man whom everybody made so much of.

  It was because she was following him closely that she heard him say something to Luvo that had a different colour altogether, an aquamarine of avarice; and she listened closely to Luvo’s reply. “You say it in this way,” said Luvo. “ ‘I wish to purchase an Ancestor Tree, and to build new shrines for your ancestors. Handsome ones, closer to home.’ ”

  Spurred by the moonlight and the drinking and the goodwill all around him, Piet looked for the Chief, who had retired from the dancing. He was in a superb mood, the kind of mood he had not known for some time; a mood in which people found it very hard to resist giving him exactly what he wanted.

  But it was Noni who found her father first. The Chief was sitting by a fire, in deep talk with several members of his Council, and she rushed blindly at him, running so fast he feared she might fall into the flames.

  “I know the Strange One’s true purpose here,” she shouted. “He wishes to buy from us an Ancestor Tree.”

  “Nonsense, darling.” The Chief hoisted her onto his lap.

  “It is not nonsense. In a short time he will come to you and ask for it. He will say ‘I wish to purchase an Ancestor Tree, and to build new shrines for your Ancestors. Handsome ones, closer to home.’ ”

  The presence of unimpeachable witnesses to Noni’s prophecy made her father’s blood pound in his ears. Perhaps the dawning of her gift of Farsight was at hand, and thus the sparing of her life. He sent for his wives and bade them wait. And thus it was that when Piet Barol found the Chief, his wives were also present, as well as many of their friends.

  “You Xhosas understand how to revel,” Piet said. He was too happy, and a little too drunk, to notice that his audience looked warily at him. Noni’s mother closed her eyes and dug her nails deep into the palm of her hands. She prayed with every fibre of her being that her daughter might at last have demonstrated the gift of Farsight. While Piet trotted out all the phrases he had learned, commenting on the beauty of the night, the deliciousness of the food, his own shortcomings in the matter of Xhosa pronunciation, “which is hard for an mlungu with a clumsy tongue,” said Piet, it seemed to her that her Ancestors were standing by to assist, if only she could understand their price. At last, murmuring under her breath, she said: “If you save my child, I will cut off the tip of my little finger.”

  At this moment Piet said, “I wish to purchase an Ancestor Tree, and to build new shrines for your Ancestors. Handsome ones, closer to home.”

  6

  Piet Barol had expected resistance, sincere or as a pretext to financial negotiation. He was taken aback to be greeted with joy. Noni’s mother threw her arms to heaven and burst into tears. Her sister wives began ululating—higher and louder than any lady had ululated so far on this night of celebration. Little Noni was caught by her father and tossed high into the air, and caught again. En masse the group carried her straight to Nosakhe. Piet made to follow, but the Chief barred his path.

  “Say yes,” said Piet.

  “It is out of the question,” said the Chief, in English.

  And he left the white man by the fire and hurried with the others to find Nosakhe.

  Their hostess was standing alone at the edge of the cliff, looking out at the moon and trying to divine meaning in the glow of its light on the waves. She was thinking of the cow that had not cried. What did the omen mean? It was clear that the Ancestors knew, as well as she did, Sukude’s motives in choosing for his son such an appealing bride. She could not be sure whether the silent cattle was an instruction to her, as well as a judgement on him. To bring everything into the open, to enact the punishment the Law demanded, meant bringing death into this ritual of thanksgiving. Had this been another family’s wedding, it would have been easier to discern right from wrong. Since the wedding was her own grandson’s, she found it harder to take a strong line—for she had seen the happiness she would rend asunder if she exposed Sukude, and compelled Ntsina to decide the manner of his father’s death.

  When the Chief and his wives reached her they were almost incoherent with joy. It took her some time to understand that it was another “prophecy” of Noni’s they had come with, and the distraction irritated her. It must be remembered that many of Nosakhe’s tranquil moments in the last seven and a half years had been marred by an over-excited emissary of the Chief’s clan, claiming that Noni had the gift of Farsight because she had said, correctly, that a bitch would have five puppies.

  She listened while many things were said. Kagiso swore that Noni had told him, in the forest, long before they reached the glade of the Ancestor Trees, that they would find Ntsina there with a Strange One. “Why did you not tell me at the time?” she asked, skeptically.

  “I was waiting to tell you till after the feast, mama.”

  “And was there a witness beside you, her own brother?”

  “No, mama. But tonight the Ancestors have blessed us with many witnesses.”

  “Who are they?”

  “We saw it,” said the onlookers.

  And they told her what they had seen, and how precisely Noni had predicted what the Strange One would say—right down to the very words.

  All this while, Noni stood silent, holding her brother’s hand, while words of many colours swirled round her. She had stayed up late, and the passion of the adults
, the muchness they made of what she told them, banished all the shyness she usually felt in Nosakhe’s presence. “I have seen his colours in the way he speaks,” she declared. “He wants to take the homes of our Ancestors.” She paused. The waves crashed. The sounds of feasting and dancing seemed very far away. “You must kill him,” she said.

  It caused a consternation. Nosakhe had never cultivated any sort of intimacy with Noni, in case circumstances should compel her one day to hurl her from the cliffs, to be eaten by vultures. Truth to tell, it was not even the unquestionable corroboration of the witnesses that persuaded her, but the total confidence with which Noni spoke on this strange night, so full of portents. Nosakhe knew that those with the gift of Farsight are given another gift, without which the first is useless: the gift of Courage, to speak difficult truths out loud.

  “You must kill him!” shouted Noni. She began leaping like a wild thing. Again and again she shouted—until her father, seeing the look on Nosakhe’s face, put his hand on her shoulder and stilled her.

  Noni’s dancing introduced to Nosakhe’s mind another possibility—which was that Atamaraka had entered the body of this deformed child, to use her for her own purposes. It is for this reason that deformed children are meant to be destroyed at birth, lest their bodies be used as vessels for dark spirits. She remembered the part she herself had played in commuting Noni’s sentence. She wondered (not for the first time) whether she had betrayed her duties as a sangoma by allowing sentimentality to guide her.

  “Let us kill him tonight,” said Noni’s mother.

  It was never done for the second wife of a Chief to take the lead in a discussion without being called upon, and this development heightened Nosakhe’s sense that strange things were unfolding. She thought of her feud with Atamaraka, of the vigour and money of the white man. If indeed he had been sent to aid her, it would explain why the Dark Goddess had gone to such lengths to have him executed. Her own mind felt cloudy. She was used to clarity of feeling, but there were too many patterns in the omens of the evening to reach any certain conclusion.

  She looked at Noni’s parents, aware that they expected from her, at the least, an acknowledgement that Noni had shown the gift of Farsight. That this gift might be the inspiration of a dark spirit now seemed a strong possibility, and she cursed herself for allowing things to reach this pass.

  “I must consult the Ancestors, and the Great Goddess Ma,” she said at last. “I can make no pronouncement until I have sought their counsel.”

  Watching her, the Chief felt a murderous rage—the rage of a man who has lived his life by another person’s rules, only to find them repudiated at the moment of crisis.

  “She has plainly demonstrated the gift of Farsight,” he said. And this time he did not address Nosakhe as “mama.” “You must absolve her from your sentence. It is you yourself who planted the seed within her, and it has grown. Now she must be let alone.”

  “Poor man,” thought Nosakhe. “He has no profound intelligence. How could he possibly make sense of these complex events, blinded as he is by love?”

  “I do not say that she has not shown this gift,” she replied, choosing her words carefully. “But I must consult Ma before saying anything else.”

  “Kill him! Kill him!” cried Noni. “No good will come of sheltering him.”

  “You have said enough for one evening, my child,” said Nosakhe. “The Strange One is a guest in my house, and tonight is a marriage feast. He cannot be harmed while he enjoys my hospitality.”

  “But—”

  “I have spoken, Chief. I will speak to Ma as soon as the last guest has gone, and fast for three days. Then you shall have my answer.”

  Meanwhile the flames leapt higher and more logs were burned and more beer was poured from its jars and more pipes were filled. Piet was disconcerted to be met by an abrupt refusal, and wondered whether he had been unwise to state his wishes so openly. He could see from the look on Luvo’s face that his companion disapproved of his impetuousness. But after all, the air was fresh and the drinks were good and he was a man who enjoyed a party. “We will resume our business in the morning,” he said. “And now—”

  But he was cut off by a tremendous whooping. For the bride and her groom were retreating into the hut that had been prepared for them.

  —

  IT WAS BELA’S MOTHER who presented Ntsina with the hide of purest white goatskin that was to be his love mat, and he who laid it on the floor as Bela secured the hut’s door behind them. Lanterns had been lit. They were both sweaty from dancing. He went to her, but she raised her hand. She brought the tip of her small finger to her thumb, holding the palm downwards. It was the sign for “virgin,” and she made it with an unblemished conscience. It was not a requirement that her husband should be a virgin also, and yet…In her deepest self, Bela wished that he was. She had guarded her own virginity zealously. Combined with her beauty, it had made her the focus of many a handsome scoundrel. For the first time all day she felt nervous, as she turned her palm upwards and brought the tip of her forefinger to the tip of her thumb, in the sign for “two.”

  It was a question, and Ntsina understood it, and in his heart he felt the deepest shame for what he had done in Johannesburg with the woman whose jolliness was a sham. He decided to lie, but as he began to nod his head he found he could not continue. To begin his married life with a lie—it was impossible. “There was one before you. I was at the mines, and very unhappy. I did not know you were in store for me.”

  Bela heard the shame in his voice, and Ntsina’s sincerity touched her heart. When he said “I am sorry,” and bowed his head, a feeling rose through her that she had never felt before; it softened her—for men did not often apologise in Gwadana.

  It was her smile that told him he was forgiven, and he embraced her. They fitted perfectly—her head beneath his chin, his hand on her neck. He had never held a woman in this way. Neither had she been so held. It opened infinite possibilities to them. He ran his fingers down her neck till they met the scratchy blanket, and with a shrug she loosed it. The sensations unleashed by the scratch of Ntsina’s fingers as they made their way down her spine billowed through Bela’s whole body. They were the hard hands of a labourer, and their contrast with the gentleness of his touch was exquisite. He kissed her neck and she gasped. His cock was hard and hot through his blanket. When she pressed herself against it she saw his eyes half close in pleasure.

  “Let me wash you, my husband,” she said.

  —

  BY THE FIRE OUTSIDE, Sukude accepted his guests’ congratulations on his son’s marriage with as good a grace as he could muster, but the brandy he had drunk had put his mood on a knife edge. In one direction lay frenzied hilarity; in the other, rage. The two states are closer than many think, and at their foundation was a powerful spur towards oblivion: fear.

  As he ate the cow that had not cried, Sukude could hear her timid bleating as he kicked her. He began to feel cold, though he sat by a hot fire. Nosakhe, after all, was a mortal. The Ancestors had far-greater powers at their command, and could unleash punishments that pursued him into the afterlife. He was not at all as stupid as Nosakhe thought. Rather, years of playing prince consort had taught him to disguise his intelligence and to keep his thoughts to himself—a necessary precaution in a village full of gossips. He set his mind to the contemplation of the omen. Its seriousness was beyond all question; the severity of its judgement quite clear. But what, precisely, had the Ancestors judged?

  He inched closer to the fire, for strong heat concentrates the mind. His deductive powers darted round the edges of the puzzle, looking for ways into its maze. At length he found one. Perhaps the Ancestors did not condemn the part he had played in bringing this wedding about, but the fact of the wedding itself. The manner in which Bela had been brought into the clan of the Zinis. He took a sip of brandy. The Ancestors, after all, had smiled on his negotiations for Bela and on the preparations he had made for the wedding. It was Nosakhe who had
intervened by casting the spell for Ntsina’s return. Maybe it was this to which the Ancestors objected: a woman interfering in a man’s plans. This was a much more satisfactory avenue of exploration than any he had yet found, and as he pursued it his rage dwindled and became purposeful. His desire to seek oblivion in frenzied merriment diminished. He barely noticed as Noni’s mother stormed past him and through the gate.

  He was staring into the flames, deep in his own thoughts, when Lundi stepped out of the crowd of dancers and sat by his side. Lundi knew that Sukude had a whole bottle of brandy. His desire for the fire spirit overcame the usual caution he felt about being seen near Sukude in public, and he sat down beside him. Tonight, after all, anyone might be seen with anyone. “What have you got for me, my friend?” he said, staring pointedly at the brandy bottle between Sukude’s feet.

  Sukude looked at him. Lundi knew many sangomas in the taverns of King William’s Town. He poured him a drink and said: “Do you agree that the Ancestors disapprove of meddling women?”

  The question was phrased to elicit only one answer, and Lundi agreed enthusiastically that the Ancestors did, indeed, disapprove of women who sought to overturn the true order of things by sliding their tails where they did not belong.

  They sat together for some time, pursuing this line of thought. In the course of their discussion the moon began to fade and dawn crept over the sea. The sky turned pink as a benediction. Across the Zinis’ compound lay the bodies of sleeping guests, lulled by beer and dagga into taking their rest where they could. Coffee was brought out to greet the dawn, and it fuelled the raspy voices that still sang, and several of the sleepers woke, and took some, and refilled their pipes. By no means was everyone in the village of Gwadana as rich as the Zinis, and there were those among their guests who knew they would not have such treats for many moons. They stumbled to their feet. Practical jokes began to be played. The old lady who lay by the vegetable patch, snoring loud enough to summon Nomikhonto from the Underworld, was doused in icy water, to much merriment—which woke other slumberers, on whom coffee, and fresh pipes, and more beer were pressed.