But Deliver Us from Evil Read online

  ‘In this fast-paced, compassionate, dramatic, deeply moving, and unforgettable novel, Lauri Kubuitsile takes readers to certain aspects of Africa and human behaviour which have never found their way into literature before. This is a story of love, hatred, kindness, and cruelty, set in the pre-colonial era of the 19th Century. It presents a clear picture of the village communities and their histories in the southern part of Africa – modern-day Botswana and South Africa. The Batswana, the San, the Koranna, the Griqua traditional way of life is reflected in dresses, songs, dances, beliefs, and secrets. The people generate their livelihoods through a mixture of crops, livestock, and the collection of a range of natural resources. The main threats to this peaceful life are Christianity, constant Boer annexations, and their own witchcraft beliefs.’ – Niq Mhlongo

  ‘But Deliver Us from Evil recreates the world of rural Botswana in 1871 in its first few pages, with loving attention to the joys and cares of everyday life – childhood, cattle, medicine, leopards, beer. Then it becomes more serious and moving, especially in its study of young women with “hearts that are made for freedom” enmeshed in the struggles of the Koranna, the Boers, and the Griqua. Kubuitsile’s handling of the material is deft and the pace of her story is rapid. The novel should be a significant success.’ – Imraan Coovadia

  BY LAURI KUBUITSILE

  WITH PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE

  The Scattering, 2016

  But Deliver Us from Evil

  LAURI KUBUITSILE

  Published in 2019 by Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd

  Company Reg No 1953/000441/07

  The Estuaries No 4, Oxbow Crescent, Century Avenue,

  Century City 7441, South Africa

  PO Box 1144, Cape Town 8000, South Africa

  www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za

  © 2019 Lauri Kubuitsile

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  First edition, first printing 2019

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  ISBN 978-1-4859-0382-6 (print)

  ISBN 978-1-4859-0391-8 (ePub)

  Cover design by Monique Cleghorn

  Enclosure photograph: iStockphoto/Fabian Plock;

  Stormy sky photograph: iStockphoto/mdesigner125.

  Text design by Chérie Collins

  Set in Adobe Garamond Pro

  ‘I shall never give up Jesus. You and I will stand before him together.’

  – Kgosi Sechele I to David Livingstone

  ‘Those people, I would not have killed them based only on the words of the child if they were not generally known as witches.’

  – Kgosi Sechele I, in a letter, 9 September 1883

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  He looks up from his work and notices the dark towering clouds building in the distance. They look menacing and he wonders what they might mean; he tries not to be hopeful, though. Winter in Lephepe means endless blue skies, cold nights and cool days, always dry. The man sniffs the air and smiles, for it smells of rain – pula – always a blessing in a dry country like his, but more so in winter when months can pass without a single drop. The summer rains of 1870, the previous year, were not good, so the man hopes this unexpected rain falls and feeds the thirsty pastures.

  His daughter, Nthebolang, sits at the back of the hut watching her father at work. She’s five years old and, unlike her age mates, she prefers her father’s company to her mother’s; she always has. It isn’t that she doesn’t love her mother, because she does, for she is an only child, doted on against custom – her parents suffer abuse for loving her too much. They are warned that the ancestors will take her for themselves if they persist. In public, they accept that social protocol dictates that they should conform, but in private they continue, mostly because there is nothing else they can do. They love their daughter and she has a sweet, kind temperament which makes it easy to do so.

  ‘What is it you’re doing?’ she asks her father after watching him for some time. He can tell she has attempted to come up with an explanation for her father’s odd behaviour but it has come to nothing.

  There are bottles on the ground and he pours liquid from the outer two into the one in the middle. It seems very confusing to the little girl. For her father it’s straightforward. It’s medicine for the cattle. He was told to dilute it with a certain amount of water. His cattle are not growing well. The rainy season so long ago means the pasture around Lephepe is nearly finished. The rain promised in the scent of the air will be welcome, but the grass it will produce will take time to emerge.

  A man has given him a tonic to help his cattle get through the difficult winter. He has heard of the medicine before; this man is known for it and has become quite wealthy from its sale, they say. Her father has heard from others that it will improve the quality of his cattle within a few days. The man passed through Lephepe and her father made an appointment with him. Where he came from he didn’t say, but he had the tonic and he gave it to her father on credit – to be paid for after it had worked – in the form of one cow. That seemed quite fair.

  Her father signed a paper with his ‘x’, to ensure that he would keep his promise.

  ‘I’m mixing medicine,’ he says, not looking up for fear he will spill some of the tonic. It’s too expensive to waste.

  Nthebolang comes closer to have a better look.

  ‘No, you must stay away,’ her father says. ‘This is medicine for cattle; it’s poisonous for little girls. I don’t want you to get any of it on you.’

  She goes back to where she was sitting.

  ‘Are you going to the cattlepost to give the cows the medicine?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes, as soon as I’m done.’

  ‘Can I come? I want to see Lala.’

  She’s been given a calf that she’s named Lala. Her mother is not happy with the idea. Cows are sold to the shopkeepers in return for goods or slaughtered for meat at important ceremonies. She predicts tears in the future, but Rra Nthebolang insisted. It will all be fine, he said. Nthebolang is a bright child who understands most
things. So the mottled white-and-brown calf was given to Nthebolang and it became Lala.

  ‘Not today. I’ll be too busy with the medicine. I’ll have to sleep there to keep an eye on the cattle and you can’t leave your mother all alone here overnight. She’ll be lonely.’

  ‘She can come too.’

  Nthebolang hasn’t seen Lala since the week before. Calves grow quickly; she’s told her father before that she fears she might not recognise her when the calf sees her again. A week is a long time in a calf’s life – in a little girl’s too.

  Her father closes the three bottles of mixed tonic, dumps them over to check that the lids are secure, and then puts them in his satchel. He washes his hands in the remaining water he’s been using for mixing. He shakes the water off and walks to his daughter, picking her up and kissing her on the cheek.

  ‘I’ll come back tomorrow. Two days later I will need to go back to the cattle-post and I promise you will come with me then. You will see your Lala. Now you stay here and help your mother. Agreed?’

  Nthebolang smiles. ‘Ee, Rra.’

  Her father carries her into the cooking hut where her mother is busy. He hands the girl to his wife, who hugs her tightly before setting her down.

  ‘So you’re off?’ Mma Nthebolang asks.

  ‘Yes. Back tomorrow. You should not get into any trouble while I’m gone,’ he teases.

  Her mother reaches for a metal bucket with a tight-fitting lid that she’s prepared for him. Inside are both cooked and dried meat, and some hard sorghum porridge. Enough food for three days, not two. Rather waste food than for her husband to be hungry when he is away from her.

  She hands him the bucket, looking into his eyes, and he knows she is trying to locate again the love that lives there, to remind herself of it. She finds it and smiles. He smiles too.

  ‘I’ll be home soon, before you have the chance to miss me.’

  Nthebolang and her mother watch him walk away from them. When he’s disappeared behind the slight rise in the road, they turn back to the cooking hut. They already start missing him, despite what he has promised.

  The next day Nthebolang does other things, though mostly she waits for her father. Checking the gate every few minutes, looking up hopefully with each sound, searching the still empty road. There is breakfast and then lunch, and then the sun goes down and dinner is eaten, and still no father has come home.

  ‘He must have decided to stay another day,’ her mother says, hiding her concern. She knows her husband always does as he has said unless some urgent matter prevents him. Perhaps he found his elder brothers, the ones who live at the cattlepost, with a problem that required his assistance. It’s likely; they’re full of problems, usually of their own making.

  Though her husband, Diteko, is the youngest, the elder brothers, Retsogile and Oaitse, insist they should manage the cattlepost even though time and again Diteko has shown he is better with cattle – better with everything, in fact. That was why he needed the tonic. His brothers are not good with cattle like he is; they don’t thrive under their care. But Retsogile is the eldest and he decides how things are to proceed, even if his decisions are obviously wrong.

  She hopes the problem that kept Diteko away from them is not too big. Knowing the two brothers, she imagines everything. Her nature often pushes her to the worst scenarios. The brothers brew traditional beer at the cattlepost and spend a lot of time selling it to the neighbours and drinking a fair amount themselves. Letting cattle and goats wander off to be taken by leopards and lions is not an unusual occurrence.

  Her husband always keeps his tongue and his temper even if she cannot. His brothers are not as wise as he is. They speak freely and recklessly. Both had wives in the past, but no woman can respect men who behave like them, and the wives wandered off to other places.

  She often tries to bring it up with Diteko, this problem of his brothers, but he stops her mid-sentence. He does not want such talk. Truth or not, he will not have it. They are his elder brothers and if they say things should be as they are, then they will remain just like that.

  Night falls and she puts their girl to bed.

  ‘Will my father come while I’m sleeping?’ Nthebolang asks.

  ‘Perhaps. I suspect now he’ll wait for morning, though. It’s not safe to move through the bush at night. Maybe early morning. When you wake up, I think he’ll be here.’

  She sits on the sleeping mat with the girl in the dark hut, gently rubbing Nthebolang’s back and thinking about her husband. She delays leaving her. The night feels uncertain and dangerous and she wants to stay with her daughter and protect her from its fangs. Is something out there? Or is what she fears only a picture that she’s created in her mind?

  Nthebolang is long asleep, and still Mma Nthebolang sits. What is wrong with her tonight? Why is she so fearful? She tells herself it’s nothing. She tells herself that she’s making herself sick with bad thoughts of accidents and dangerous animals, of blood and broken bones, of sadness. None of it is real. She’s silly and Rra Nthebolang would chastise her for it if he were here.

  She goes outside and continues her waiting. The air is unnaturally still, the clouds hide both moon and stars, making the darkness complete and impenetrable. She tries to look into it and see her husband on his way to her, but she sees nothing but the night.

  She hears a movement at the gate to the compound. She gets up and rushes out. She sees him coming through the gate and immediately relaxes. It has all been her imagination just as she had thought – he is here now and everything is fine. What a silly woman she has become.

  But her eyes have lied. Is it the night that has tricked her? Has it been that she is too hopeful? Later, she’s sure she saw her husband standing there; she’s sure it was him. Maybe it was only his image to comfort her through the next few moments, sent by the ancestors to calm her already unsteady heart. For it is not him in the end. A vicious trick. Instead it is Kgosi Lebogang and his son.

  ‘Dumelang, Kgosi,’ she greets them, pushing past her fear.

  She pulls up a wooden bench near the fire for them to sit on. This is serious business, the only business that the kgosi can have with her especially at this time of the night, and first they must sit and prepare themselves to speak it, to prepare herself to hear.

  She sits on the ground and waits. Nothing good is coming. The words not yet spoken frighten her; the waiting, even that handful of minutes, drives her close to madness. It is evil that she is waiting for, evil that will split her in two.

  ‘Mma Nthebolang, something has happened,’ Kgosi Lebogang starts. ‘There is a problem at the cattlepost.’

  ‘What has happened? Tell me please.’ She holds back her tears.

  ‘Your brothers-in-law are dead.’

  She speaks without thinking. Later this will cause problems. At that moment she knows nothing and speaks what comes from her heart.

  ‘And RragoNthebolang? What has become of Rra Nthebolang?’

  The kgosi’s son speaks up, an edge of annoyance in his voice. ‘Two men have died and you ask only of your husband?’

  She doesn’t understand why that is considered wrong. Is it one of the many ways of their small family that doesn’t fit in with Bakwena culture? Were you meant to care more for your husband’s brothers than for your husband himself? She says nothing and waits.

  ‘Your husband is with us at the kgotla,’ the kgosi says. ‘He is alive. But there are many problems.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  The kgosi hesitates and his son, an overly emotional young man, pushes in over his father’s kinder reticence.

  ‘Your husband, your Rra Nthebolang, is a witch,’ he says with a sneer. ‘He has killed his brothers. He has bewitched them and now they are dead.’

  Mma Nthebolang holds herself steady. The world spins but she keeps her composure. It all makes no sense. Word, words, words.

  How can they mean what he is insinuating they do? It can’t be. Diteko could never kill his bro
thers – how can these people say such things? Think such things. And witchcraft? Such evil can find no place in Diteko’s kind heart. It’s only that they don’t know him well; they will see that their words make no sense, that their accusations are a mistake.

  ‘Who said this about my husband?’ she asks, her voice still level despite her raging emotions.

  ‘The people there at the cattlepost. There is evidence. I’m very sorry.’ The kgosi speaks with kindness. ‘There will be a trial tomorrow.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘You will see him tomorrow.’

  The two men stand up. Mma Nthebolang accompanies them to the gate. They walk into the solidness of the night, and when they are gone she falls to the ground, the weight of their words finally too much for her to carry. As she lies on the ground, the rain, against all logic of the seasons, begins to fall.

  Chapter Two

  Maangees seems like a giant to her. The white stallion, the moon-spirit her father adores, towers above her, his powerful legs taller and wider than Beatrice herself. He prances with pent-up energy, always moving, as if energy is all the stallion is made of. Even when he is still, his muscles ripple under his skin, wanting only action. The small girl dreams of one day riding such a powerful horse. A horse like Maangees would take her to places no one else could go, to the places where she is sure her destiny lies. Beatrice knows her life will be bigger than what these bush islands contain and she will need her own Maangees when the time comes for her to leave.

  She watches as her father slips onto the horse’s wide back without effort; the wind off the Gariep blows the long white mane and it shimmers in the sunlight. Maangees lifts his heavy head and whinnies into the air, heralding his readiness to be off.

  Her father is tall and strong; he’s taken the features of his grandfather, Jan Bloem, a Dutchman who fled from the Colony after being accused of killing his wife. He sits atop Maangees in his European suit, his leather hat. Most of the men in their group have lived in the Colony, most have been soldiers or tradesmen. They attended the colonial schools; they know the colonists’ ways. That knowledge is what sent them here to the islands, away from the laws they could not and would not follow.