The Burning Shore (44 page)

Xja had not touched the gun, because he knew from legend and bitter experience that thunder lived in this strange magical stick, but gingerly he had examined the contents of the rotting leather saddle-bags and discovered such treasures as Bushmen before him had only dreamed of. Firstly there was a leather pouch of tobacco, a month’s supply of it, and Xja had tucked a pinch under his lip and happily examined the rest of the hoard. Quickly he discarded a book and a roll of cardboard, which contained small balls of heavy grey metal, they were ugly and of no possible use. Then he discovered a beautiful flask of yellow metal on a leather strap. The flask was filled with useless grey powder which he spilled into the sand, but the flask itself was so marvellously shiny that he knew no woman would be able to resist it. Xja, who was not a mighty hunter nor a great dancer or singer, had long pined after the sister of O’wa who had a laugh that sounded like running water. He had despaired of ever catching her attention, had not even dared to shoot a miniature feather-tipped arrow from his ceremonial love bow in her direction, but with his shiny flask in his hand he knew that at last she would be his woman.

Then Xja found the knife, and he knew that with it he would win the respect of the men of his tribe for which he longed almost as much as he longed for the lovely sister of O’wa. It was almost thirty years since O’wa had last seen Xja and his sister. They had disappeared into the lonely wastes of the dry land to the east, driven from the clan by the strange emotions of envy and hatred that the knife had evoked in the other men of the tribe.

Now O’wa stared at a similar knife in this female’s hands as she split open the clam shells and wolfed raw the sweet yellow meat, and drank the running juices.

To this moment he had been merely repelled by the female’s huge ungainly body, bigger than any man of the San, and her enormous hands and feet, by her thick wild bush of hair and her skin which the sun had parboiled, but when he looked at the knife, all the confusing feelings of long ago flooded back and he knew he would lie awake at night thinking about the knife.

O’wa stood up. Enough, he said to H’ani. It is time to go on. A little longer. Whether carrying a child or not, no one can endanger the lives of all. We must go on, and again H’ani knew he was right. They had already waited much longer than was wise. She stood up with him and adjusted the carrying bag on her shoulder.

She saw panic flare in Centaine’s eyes as she realized their intention. Wait for me! Attendez! Centaine scrambled to her feet, terrifed at the taught of being deserted.

Now O’wa shifted the small bow into his left hand, tucked his dangling penis back into the leather loincloth and tightened the waistband. Then, without glancing back at the women, he started off along the edge of the beach.

H’ani fell in behind him. The two of them moved with a swaying jog trot and for the first time Centaine noticed their pronounced buttocks, enormous protuberances that jutted out so sharply behind that Centaine was sure that she could sit astride H’ani’s backside and ride on it as though on a pony’s back, and the idea made her want to giggle. H’ani glanced back at her and flashed an encouraging smile, and then looked ahead. Her backside bobbed and joggled and her ancient breasts flapped against her belly.

Centaine took a step after them and then came up short, stricken by dismay.

Wrong way! she cried. You’re going the wrong way! The two little pygmies we-re heading back into the north, away from Cape Town and Walvis Bay and Uideritzbucht and all of civilization.

You can’t- Centaine was frantic, the loneliness of the desert Jay in wait for her and like a ravening beast it would consume her if she were left alone again. But if she followed the two little people she was turning her back on her own kind and the succour that they might hold out for her.

She took a few uncertain paces after Ram. Please don’t go! The old woman understood the appeal, but she knew there was only one way to get the child moving. She did not look back.

Please! Please! That rhythmic jog trot carried the two little people away disturbingly quickly.

For a few moments longer Centaine hesitated, turning to look away southwards, torn and desperate. H’ani was almost quarter of a mile down the beach and showing no sign of slackening.

Wait for me! Centaine cried and snatched up her driftwood club. She tried to run but after a hundred paces settled down to a short, hampered but determined walk.

By noon the two figures she followed had dwindled to specks and finally disappeared into the sea fret far ahead up the beach. However, their footprints were left upon the brassy sands, tiny childlike footprints, and Centaine fastened her whole attention upon them and never really knew how or where she found the strength to stay on her feet and live out that day.

Then in the evening when her resolve was almost gone, she lifted her eyes from the footprints and far ahead she saw a drift of pale blue smoke wafting out to sea. It emanated from an outcrop of yellow sandstone boulders above the high-water mark and it took the last of her strength to carry her to the encampment of the San.

She sank down, utterly exhausted, beside the fire of driftwood, and H’ani came to her, chattering and clucking, and like a bird with its chick fed her water from mouth to mouth. The water was warm and slimy with the old woman’s saliva, but Centaine had never tasted anything so delicious. As before, there was not enough of it and the old woman stoppered the ostrich-egg shell before Centaine’s thirst was nearly slaked.

Centaine tore her gaze away from the leather carrying bag full of eggs and looked for the old man.

She saw him at last. Only his head was visible as he ferreted amongst the kelp beds out in the green waters.

He had stripped naked, except for the beads aound his neck and waist, and had armed himself with H’ani’s pointed digging stick. Centaine watched him stiffen to point like a gundog and then launch a cunning thrust with the stick, and the water exploded as O’wa wrestled with some large and active prey. H’ani clapped her hands and ululated encouragement, and finally the old man dragged a kicking struggling creature on to the beach.

Despite her weariness and weakness, Centaine rose up on her knees and exclaimed with amazement. She knew what the quarry was, indeed lobster was one of her favourite dishes, but still she thought that her senses must have at last deserted her for this creature was too big for O’wa to lift. its great armoured tail dragged in the sand, clattering as it flapped, and its long thick whiskers reached above O’wa’s head as he gripped one in each of his little fists. H’ani rushed down to the water’s edge armed with a rock the size of her own head and between them they beat the huge crustacean to death.

Before it was dark O’wa killed two more, each almost as large as the first, and then he and H’ani scraped a shallow hole in the sand and lined it with kelp leaves.

While they prepared the cooking hole, Centaine examined the three huge crustaceans. She saw immediately that they were not armed with claws like a lobster, and so must be the same species as the Mediterranean langouste that she had eaten at her uncle’s table in the chAteau at Lyon. But these were a mammoth variety. Their whiskers were as long as Centaine’s arm and at the root were as thick as her thumb. They were so old that barnacles and seaweed adhered to their spiny carapaces as if they were rocks.

O’wa and H’ani buried them in a kelp-lined pit under a thin layer of sand and then heaped a bonfire of driftwood over them. The flames lit their glowing apricot-coloured bodies as they chatted exuberantly. When their work was finished O’wa sprang up and began a shuffling little dance, singing in a cracked falsetto voice as he circled the fire.

H’ani clapped a rhythm for him and hummed in her throat, swaying where she sat, and O’wa danced on and on while Centaine lay exhausted and marvelled at the little man’s energy, and wondered vaguely at the purpose of the dance and the meaning of the words of the song.

I greet you, Spirit of red spider from the sea, And I dedicate this dance to you, sang O’wa, jerking his legs so that his naked buttocks that protruded from under the leather loincloth bounced like jellies.

I offer you my dance and my respect, for you have died that we may live-And H’ani punctuated the song with shrill piping cries.

O’wa, the skilled and cunning hunter, had never killed without giving thanks to the game that had fallen to his arrows Or his snares, and no creature was too small and mean to be so honoured. For being himself a small creature, he recognized the excellence of many small things, and he knew that the scaly anteater, the pangolin, was to be honoured even more than the lion, and the praying mantis, an insect, was more worthy than the elephant or the gemsbok, for in each of them reposed a special part of the godhead of nature which he worshipped.

He saw himself as no more worthy than any other of these creatures, with no rights over them other than those dictated by the survival of himself and his clan, and so he thanked the spirits of his quarry for giving him life, and when the dance ended he had beaten a pathway in the sand around the fire.

He and H’ani scraped away the ashes and sand and exposed the carcasses of the giant crayfish now turned deep vermilion in colour and steaming on the bed of kelp.

They burned their fingers and squealed with laughter as they broke open the scaly red tails and dug out the rich white meat.

H’ani beckoned to Centaine and she squatted beside them. The legs of the crayfish contained sticks of flesh the size of her finger, the thorax was filled with the yellow livers which had been broken down in the cooking to a custard. The San used this as sauce for the flesh.

Centaine could not remember ever having so much enjoyed eating. She used the knife to slice bite-sized chunks off the tail of the crayfish. H’ani smiled at her in the firelight, her cheeks bulging with food, and she said, Nam! and then again, Nam! Centaine listened carefully, then repeated it, with the same inflexion as the old woman had used. Nam! And H’ani squealed gleefully. Did you hear, O’wa, the child said “Good!”

O’wa grunted and watched the knife in the female’s hand. He found he could not take his eyes off it. The blade sliced through the meat so cleanly that it left a sheen on it. How sharp it must be, thought O’wa, and the sharpness of the blade spoiled his appetite.

With her stomach so full that it was almost painful, Centaine lay down beside the fire, and H’ani came to her and scraped out a hollow for her hip in the sand beneath her. It was immediately more comfortable and she settled down again, but H’ani was trying to show her something else.

You must not lay your head on the ground, Nam Child, she explained. You must keep it up, like this. Ham propped herself on one elbow and then laid her head on her own shoulder. It looked awkward and uncomfortable, and Centaine smiled her thanks but lay flat.

Leave her, grunted O’wa. When a scorpion crawls into her ear during the night, she will understand. She has learned enough for one day, H’ani agreed. Did you hear her say “Nam”? That is her first word and that is the name I will give her, “Nam”, she repeated it, Nam Child. O’wa grunted and went off into the darkness to relieve himself. He understood his wife’s unnatural interest in the stranger and the child she carried in her womb, but there was a fearful journey ahead and the woman would be a dangerous nuisance. Then, of course, there was the knife, thinking about the knife made him angry.

Centaine awoke screaming. It had been a terrible dream, confused but deeply distressing, she had seen Michael again, not in the flaming body of the aeroplane, but riding Nuage. Michael’s body was still blackened by the flames and his hair was burning like a torch, and beneath him Nuage was torn and mutilated by the shells and his blood was bright on the snowy hide and his entrails dangled from the torn belly as he ran.

There is my star, Centaine, Michael pointed ahead with a hand like a black claw. Why don’t you follow it? I cannot, Michael, Centaine cried, oh, I cannot. And Michael galloped away across the dunes into the south without looking back and Centaine screamed after him, Wait, Michel, wait for me! She was still screaming when gentle hands shook her awake.

Peace, Nam Child, H’ani whispered to her. Your head is full of the sleep demons, but see, they are gone now. Centaine was still sobbing and shivering and the old woman lay down beside her and spread her fur cape over them both and held her and stroked her hair. After a while Centaine quietened down. The old woman’s body smelled of woodsmoke and animal fat and wild herbs, but it was not offensive and her warmth comforted Centaine, and after a while she slept again, this time without the nightmares.

H’ani did not sleep. Old people do not need the sleep that the young do. But she felt at peace. The bodily contact with another human being was something she had missed all these long months. She had known from childhood how important it was. The infant San was strapped close to its mother’s body, and lived the rest of its life in intimate physical contact with the rest of the clan. There was a saying of the clan, The zebra on his own falls easy prey to the hunting lion, and the clan was a close-knit entity.

Thinking thus, the old woman became sad again, and the loss of her people became a great stone in her chest too heavy to carry. There had been nineteen of them in the clan of O’wa and H’ani, their three sons and their wives and the eleven children of their sons. The youngest of H’ani’s grandchildren was still unweaned and the eldest, a girl whom she loved most dearly, had just menstruated for the first time when the sickness came on the clan.

It had been a plague beyond anything in the annals of the clan and of the San; something so swift and savage that H’ani still could not comprehend it or come to terms with it. It had started first as a sore throat which changed to raging fever, a skin so hot that it was almost searing to the touch and a thirst beyond anything the Kalahari itself, which the San called the Great Dry, could generate.