The Burning Shore (76 page)

I have not yet congratulated you on your discovery, he said as he sat down. Doctor Twenty-man-jones puts a conservative value on your mining property Of S,3,000,000 sterling. It almost surpasses belief, Centaine. She inclined her head slightly and told him in a straight and level voice, As you are working for me and because of the circumstances of our personal relationship, I believe the correct address in future will be Mrs Courtney. The use of my given name suggests a familiarity that no longer exists between us. His smile shrivelled and died. He remained silent.

You wish me to begin at once, not after the birth? At once, sir, she said sharply, and I will personally oversee the clearing of the tunnel that leads into the valley, which is the first step. We will begin tomorrow night.

By dusk they were ready. The pathway leading up the valley to the entrance of the cavern of the bees had been cleared and widened, and Lothar’s labour gangs had carried up the cords of mopani wood and stacked -them at hand.

It was as though the bees of the great hive were aware of the threat, for as the sun set, its rays were shot through with the darting golden motes of the swift little insects, and the heated air trapped between the cliffs vibrated with the hum of their wings as they swirled about the heads of the sweating labourers. If it had not been for the protective mosquito nets, it was certain that all of them would have been stung repeatedly.

As the darkness fell, however, the flights of disturbed insects vanished back into the depths of the cavern. Centaine allowed an hour to pass, for the hive to quieten and settle for the night, then she told Lothar quietly, You can light the smoke-pots. Four men, Lothar’s most reliable, bent over their pots.

These were five-pound bully-beef cans, the sides perforated, the insides packed with charcoal and the herbs which Centaine had pointed out to them for gathering.

The secret of the herbs was a legacy to her from O’wa, and she thought of the old Bushman now as they lit the smoke-pots and the acrid odour of burning herbs prickled her nostrils. Lothar’s men were swinging the smoke-pots on short lengths of wire, to fan the charcoal. They reminded Centaine of the incense-bearers in the Easter procession to the cathedral of Arras on Good Friday.

When all four smoke-pots were burning evenly, Lothar gave a quiet order to his men and they moved towards the entrance of the cavern. In the lantern light, they looked like wraiths. Their lower bodies were protected by heavy calf boots and leather breeches, while over their heads and torsos were draped the ghostly white mosquito nets. One by one they stooped into the entrance of the cavern, thick blue smoke boiling up from the swinging smoke-pots.

Centaine let another hour pass before she and Lothar followed them into the cavern.

The acrid smoke had fogged the interior so that she could only see a few paces ahead, and the eddying blue clouds made her giddy and nauseated. However, the dynamo hum of the great hive had been lulled by the smoke. The multitudes of glittering insects hung in drugged clusters from the ceiling and the honeycombs. There was only a sleepy whisper of sound.

Centaine hurried out of the cavern and lifted the net from her sweating face, drinking down draughts of the cool sweet night air to still her nausea, and when she could speak again, she told Lothar, They can begin stacking the cordwood now, but warn them not to disturb the combs. They hang low from the roof. She did not enter the dark cavern again, but sat aside while Lothar’s men carried in the cords of mopani.

It was after midnight when he came out to report to her.

It is ready. I want you to take your men and go down to the bottom of the valley. Stay there for two hours, and then return.”I don’t understand.”I want to be alone here for a while. She sat alone and listened to their voices receded down into the dark gut of the valley. When it was silent, she looked up and there was O’wa’s star above the valley.

Spirit of great Lion Star, she whispered, will you forgive this thing? She stood up, and moved heavily to the cliff face.

Standing below it she raised the lantern high over her head and stared up at the gallery of Bushman painting that glowed in the yellow light. The shadows wavered so that the giant paintings of Eland and Mantis seemed to pulse with life.

Spirit of Eland and of Mantis, forgive me. All you guardians of the “Place where nothing must die” forgive me for this slaughter. I do it not for myself but to provide good water for the child who was born in your secret place. She went back to the entrance of the cavern, moving heavily with child and remorse and guilt.

Spirits of O’wa and of H’ani, are You watching? Will you withdraw your protection once this is done? Will you still love and protect us, Nam Child and Shasa, after this terrible betrayal?

She sank down on her knees and prayed in silence to all the spirits of all the San gods and she did not realize that two hours had passed until she heard the voices of the men coming back up the valley.

Lothar De La Rey held a can of gasoline in each hand as he stood before her at the entrance to the cavern.

Do it! she said, and he went into the cavern of the bees.

She heard the clank of a knife-blade piercing the thin metal of the cans, and then the gurgle of running liquid.

The pungent stench of raw gasoline flooded from the dark narrow entrance in the rock, and in her ears was the sound of a million bees roused from their smoke-drugged stupor by the reek.

Lothar came out of the cavern, running backwards, spilling the last of the gasoline on the rocky floor, leaving a wet trail behind him, then dropped the empty can and ran back past her.

Quickly! he panted. Before the bees come out! Already bees were darting about in the lantern light, settling on the netting that screened her face, and more and still more boiled from the apertures in the cliff face above her.

Centaine backed away, and then swung the lantern over her head and hurled it into the entrance of the cavern. The lantern bounced off the rock, the glass shattered and it rolled over the uneven floor. The little yellow flame flickered and was almost snuffed from the wick and then suddenly the spilled gasoline caught. in a whooshing implosion that seemed to rock the earth beneath Centaine’s feet and which hurled her backwards, a great breath of flame shot down the mountain’s throat and its gaping mouth filled with fire. The cavern was shaped like a blast furnace, a gale of wind was sucked into it and red flames shot from the openings high up in the cliff-face, burning like fifty torches, illuminating the valley with noon light. The rushing wind swiftly drowned out the agonized din of a million burning bees, and within seconds there remained only the steady roar of the flames.

As the stacked mopani timbers caught and burned, she could feel the heat leap out at her like a savage thing, and Centaine backed away from it and gazed with a horrid fascination at the destruction. From the fiery cavern she heard a new sound that puzzled her, the sound of soft heavy weights thudding to the stone floor, almost as though many living bodies were dropping from the roof of the cavern. She did not understand what it was until she saw a snake of dark liquid, slow and viscous as oil, creep out of the cavern’s entrance.

Honey! she whispered. The honeycombs are melting! Those huge combs, the product of a century of labour by a myriad bees, were softening in the heat and falling, a hundredweight at a time, from the high roof into the flames below. The trickle of molten honey and wax turned into a running rivulet, then into a flood of boiling

steaming liquid that seethed in the ruddy furnace glow.

The hot sweet stench of boiling honey seemed to thicken the air, and the flood of molten gold drove Centaine back before it.

Oh God, she whispered, oh God, forgive me for what I have done.

Centaine stood by as the flames burned through the rest of that night, and in the dawn light the cliffs were blackened with soot, the cavern was a ruined black maw and the floor of the valley was coated thickly with a caramelized layer of black sticky sugar.

When Centaine staggered wearily into the stockade of Lion Tree Camp, Sister Amehana was waiting to help her to her cot, and to bathe the sugar-reeking soot from her face and body.

An hour after noon, Centaine went into labour.

It was more like mortal combat than giving birth.

Centaine and the child fought each other through the rest of that burning afternoon and on into the night.

I will not cry out, Centaine muttered through clenched teeth, you will not make me cry, damn you And the pain came in waves that made her think of the high surf of the Atlantic breaking on the barren beaches of the Skeleton Coast. She rode them, from their crests into the depths of each sickening trough.

Each time, at the pinnacle of pain, she tried to struggle up into the squatting birthing stance that H’ani had taught her, but Sister Ameliana pushed her down on to her back, and the child was locked within her.

I hate you, she snarled at the nun, and the sweat burned her eyes and blinded her. I hate you, and I hate this thing inside me. And the child felt her hatred and ripped at her, twisting its limbs to block her.

Out! she hissed. Get out of me! and she longed to feel H’ani’s thin strong arms around her, sharing the strain as she bore down.

Once Lothar asked at the tent, How does it go, Sister?

It’s a terrible thing, she fights like The nun replied, a warrior, not a mother. Two hours before dawn in one last spasm that seemed to cleave through her spine and separate the joints of her thighs from her pelvis, Centaine forced out the child’s head, big and round as a cannon-ball, and a minute later the birth cry rang out into the night.

You cried, she whispered triumphantly, not me! As she subsided on to the strength and resolve and r, so she was left an empty, aching husk.

hatred flowed out of he When Centaine awoke, Lothar was standing at the foot of her cot. The dawn was lighting the canvas of the tent behind him, so he was in dark silhouette only. It’s a boy, he told her.

You have a son.”No, she croaked. Not mine. He’s yours. A son, she thought, a boy, part of me, part of my body, blood of my blood. His hair will be gold, Lothar said. I didn’t want to know, that was our bargain. So his hair will burn in the sunlight, she thought, and will he be as beautiful as his father? His name is Manfred, after my firstborn.”Call him what you will, she whispered, and take him far away from me. Manfred, my son, and she felt her heart breaking, tearing like silk in her chest.

He is at the nurse’s breast now, she can bring him to you if you wish to see him. Never. I never want to see him. That was our bargain.

Take him away. And her swollen untapped breasts ached to give suck to her golden-headed son.

Very welP He waited for a minute for her to speak again, but she turned her face away from him. Sister Ameliana will take him with her. They are ready to leave for Windhoek immediately. Tell her to go, and let her take your bastard with her. The light was behind him, so she could not see his face.

He turned and left the tent and minutes later she heard the motor of the truck, as it started and then dwindled away a cross the plain.

She lay in the quiet tent watching the sunrise through the green canvas of the wall. She breathed the flinty desert air that she loved, but it was tainted by the sweet odour of blood, the birth blood of her son, or was it the blood of a little old San woman clotting and congealing in the hot Kalahari sun? The image of H’ani’s blood on the rocks changed in her mind’s eye, and became dark seething puddles of boiling honey running like water from the sacred places of the San, and the choking sugary smoke blotted out the smell of blood.

Through the smoke she thought she saw H’ani’s little heart-shaped face peering sadly out at her.

Shasa, my baby, may you always find good water. But his image smudged also and his dark hair turned to gold. You, too, my little one, I wish you good water also. But it was Lothar’s face now, or was it Michael’s face - she was no longer certain. f her I’m so alone! she cried into the silent spaces o soul. And I don’t want to be alone Then she remembered the words: At this moment, Mrs Courtney, you are probably one of the wealthiest women in the world. She thought, I would give it all, every single diamond in the H’ani Mine, for the right to love a man, and have him love me, for the chance to have both my babies, both my sons, for ever at my side.

She crushed down the thought angrily. Those are the woolly sentimental notions of a weak and cowardly woman. You are sick and weary. You will sleep now, she told herself harshly. And tomorrow- she closed her eyes -you will be brave again, tomorrow.