But Deliver Us from Evil Page 6

  ‘I’m just me.’ She picks up the pebble and tosses it from one hand to the other.

  Motsumi sits down next to her. ‘Let me show you a game.’

  He collects pebbles and teaches her a game where pebbles on the ground must be collected quickly during the time another pebble is thrown into the air. The person must try to collect as many pebbles as they can. After a few tries, Nthebolang starts winning. Soon, she is winning every time.

  ‘Girls aren’t supposed to win,’ Motsumi says.

  ‘If I win, I win.’

  He stands up. ‘I’m going hunting.’

  He calls his dog, which is oddly named Tlou, elephant, though it is not very big or even very fat. His dog comes to him.

  ‘Why Tlou?’ Nthebolang asks.

  ‘Like me, one day he’ll be big and powerful; one day he’ll grow into his name just like one day I’ll become a chief.’ He smiles, proud of the notion.

  ‘He’s not that sort of dog.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Motsumi says. ‘And you should learn not to win.’ He runs off.

  Nthebolang thinks he’s a stupid boy. Who would want to learn not to win? Then she thinks how he is the first child from the village who has spoken to her as if she’s a person, not as if she’s a monster or a piece of evil. He didn’t seem afraid of her at all. She likes that.

  Chapter Nine

  The mountains and the valley remind Beatrice of the islands in the Gariep with their wildness and hidden places. She finds spots no one knows and goes there to be alone the way she always liked to, to search for the quiet, to open the window in her mind. Sitting alone she can feel the presence of Tsui-//Goab but he will not connect her to her parents. She wonders why. Their murders must have left them swirling in a lost place where they cannot be found, even by him. The loss of her parents, and the death of everyone in their group, only fuels Beatrice’s resolve to get back one day to the islands to re-establish the Koranna, to make their murderers’ words a lie.

  She often wonders why people think they can force their way of life onto others. The Koranna wanted to live their way, but the colonists moved in and instead of sharing the land as people did, they wanted to own it, to fence it and keep it for themselves. Then they forced their way of living on everyone around them. How was that not wrong, Beatrice wondered. Her people responded by stealing the animals the colonists put on the land that belonged to the Koranna. Why was that not right? Not just?

  It was the same at the orphanage where they stole the Bushmen’s children. The Christians insisted that the Bushmen should raise their children as they did. If they could not, or would not, then the children must be taken from their parents. How was that right? There seemed to be a fluidity to justice that Beatrice could not accept. What was just was just. And what was right was right.

  Beatrice’s gift also helps her to find good and bad. She has grown adept at recognising evil when it walks among them. Her mind window lets her see what others cannot. There are some in their mountain group who are evil, the ones who dance with //Gaunab. Who sacrifice for greed, who court death and wish sickness on others. Beatrice doesn’t feel powerful enough to defeat them. Instead, she keeps Kamogelo away from such people, and warns Nothando, who has become like an elder brother to her and Kamogelo, to keep his distance. In her hidden mountain spots, the evil ones show their faces to her, show her their plans.

  She is not sure what the point of this gift is since bad things still happen to her and the ones she loves. She’ll not squander it, though. She’ll not be caught off guard like her father must have been. The mountains with their hidden spots and their calmness give her space to nurture and strengthen her connection to Tsui-//Goab and the ancestors.

  They’ve already been with the mountain group for two years. Beatrice is nearly grown up, thirteen already, and Kamogelo is fourteen. They have been accepted completely by the other runaways. The group lives with the cycles of the land. They hunt the springbok that roam the mountains. They collect berries and tubers in summer. Some of the people, the ones not being hunted themselves, fish in the sea. Sometimes they catch seals and sea birds. The group moves to new spots when the pasture is finished and return to known places when the rains come and the grass has grown again. It’s a good life, and Beatrice and Kamogelo fit into it perfectly. The Kamogelo who was lost to her spells of fear has gone for good. They’re happy now; they’re safe. Her dream has become the reality.

  The sun is lowering and Beatrice comes down from the mountains to the flat valley between the two ridges where the group is living at the moment. As she nears the hut they have built for themselves, she hears noises. She’s curious and enters without fear, to find Kamogelo with Nothando. He is lying on top of her and she is holding him to her. They’re naked. For Beatrice it’s wrong, a betrayal. They cannot be doing this. The two notice her only as she turns to leave.

  ‘Beaty!’ Kamogelo calls but Beatrice is already gone.

  She runs. She’s furious that Kamogelo has done this, has chosen Nothando in this way. Has excluded her. She feels betrayed. They promised that there would be no secrets.

  She doesn’t pay attention to where she’s going and soon finds herself on the flat dry land that separates the sea from the mountains. She rarely goes there since the captyn warned her that her colour may get them in trouble. There is a road along the beach and people in a passing ox cart might see her. But today her mind is seething and she is not thinking of dangers such as those; she is overflowing with anger.

  Walking to the end of the land, she sits on the wet sand surrounded by the roar of the ocean. The tide moves in and soon the water rises past waist level. She wishes it would grab her and take her to the place that it comes from.

  She watches the sun set at the meeting place of the sky and sea, and still she stays. She can’t understand clearly what troubles her so much. She loves Kamogelo and has grown to love Nothando too; she knows Kamogelo feels the same. What she hadn’t known was the nature of their love – that it was different from her own. The nature of their love excludes her and this is what hurts her heart the most. This is what she has come to: she doesn’t like to be separated from them, especially from Kamogelo. She feels alone again. Abandoned.

  She gets up and begins walking along the shoreline as night arrives. She won’t go home now because the bush between the sea and their valley has leopards and even the occasional lion. It will be best to go back in the morning. She will talk to Kamogelo then, let her know how she feels. They’ll work things out; they always do. Already Beatrice’s anger has dissipated.

  When she becomes tired, she walks away from the sea and curls up between two large stones still holding the heat of the day, shielded from the stiff ocean wind, and soon falls asleep.

  The gulls’ cries wake her and when she opens her eyes she’s surprised to see two white men looking down at her.

  ‘Hello,’ they say in English.

  Beatrice understands only a little of what they are saying. They speak together and then help her out from between the rocks. She doesn’t fight them. She doesn’t want trouble. They continue speaking in English and she stays quiet and still, looking for her escape. The shorter man takes her hand and leads her to the wagon she has only just noticed. When she realises what they intend to do, she fights them, but they’re much stronger than her. Her opportunity of surprise has passed. She can find no way to escape now. They tie her hands and legs. Put her in the back and take her away. Away from the sea and away from her Kamogelo.

  Chapter Ten

  Beatrice is taken to yet another mission, this time in Cape Town. She fights the people there, biting them when she gets the chance. Because of this, they keep her in a locked room for a long time: days, weeks, she doesn’t know. Women come to comb out her tangled hair. They attempt to wash and dress her in new clothes. She fights them. She cannot let them find Maangees. Surprisingly, she still has her cherished knife. So she washes and dresses herself in the clothes they’ve brought, clothes l
ike theirs. Then there will be no fear of them attempting to undress her again. They’re happy when they see what she’s done. They think they’re finally taming her, forcing her to adopt their ways. They’re not.

  Eventually she is let out of the room, but she’s always carefully watched. Over time they teach her English and she begins to understand what they’re saying.

  But always she’s watching for the chance to escape. She aches for Kamogelo and her home in the mountains. Why had she been so stupid and careless? Why had she not thought of all that could be lost? All that has been lost?

  They believe she ran away from her family, a white Afrikaner family. They suspect she’s mad. Over time she tells them her name is Beatrice, but nothing else. Were these Cape Town whites not among the ones who murdered her father and mother? Would they not murder her too if they knew who she really was?

  Beatrice tells them she doesn’t remember her surname. She’ll never mention the people of the valley and she knows that saying she was a Gemsbok Koranna from the islands in the Gariep would be the end of her. She trusts none of them. Let them think what they want.

  Cape Town is a confusing place. The sun is blocked by tall buildings so she doesn’t know where she is or how to move around. She dreams of Kamogelo and cries for her in the night. She wants to get back to her, back to the people in the valley. She realises now she was angry for nothing. She should never have run away. Beatrice attempts to escape, but that only gets her locked back in the small room for days, until she promises not to try again.

  The city depresses her. She can’t breathe properly. She dislikes the feel of the hard pavement under her feet, feet that are now trapped in leather shoes. The crowds of people leave no room to think, no silence for her mind to work properly. She needs to get free; somehow she needs to get free of this horrible place and get back to Kamogelo. She feels herself shrinking and shrinking, becoming weaker, and she’s sure that if she does not get free she’ll die in that awful city.

  One day the missionaries take her to the port. They explain to her that out at sea, if you look with the binoculars, is the prison she’d thought for so long her father was kept captive in – Robben Island. Her plan to save him seems silly when she sees how far away it is. In any case, there was no one to save.

  The bleakness of her new life is too much. One day Beatrice refuses to leave her room. She thinks if she lies still enough her body might give up and die. She’d rather be dead than live like this.

  The two maids come in to force her to leave her room. They’ve been sent by Reverend Williamson, the one who runs the mission.

  Yolanda, the daughter of a Cape Malay slave, urges her to get up. ‘No white woman spends her day lying in bed.’

  Without thinking Beatrice’s snaps, ‘I’m not what you think, stupid woman! I’m Koranna!’

  And then she curses Yolanda in her language, which she’s not spoken to anyone since arriving at the mission. The maids rush out, locking the door. Beatrice is afraid they’ll repeat what she has told them. Then she thinks that she doesn’t care any more. Let them take her to Robben Island; it’s better than this place. Anything is better than this life.

  One evening not long afterwards, Reverend Williamson comes to her in her locked room.

  ‘I know that you’re unhappy here. I think I might have a solution.’

  Beatrice listens.

  ‘There’s a missionary arriving from London, a man called Thomas Milner. He’s a young man, unmarried. He’ll be heading north to wild places that may be more suited to your … personality,’ he says. ‘It’s not ideal for a man to go to those places without a wife; unsuitable unions can happen in such circumstances. You could be this man’s wife. We could solve two problems with one stone, as it were.’

  Beatrice does not care about being anyone’s wife; what she cares about is getting free. Free to escape and to return home. This might be a solution. She suspects it will be easy to escape from a single man, unlike escaping the mission and this horrible city.

  ‘When he arrives, you must stop all the bad behaviour, the wild talk. You must behave like a young, white girl, a properly brought-up girl. He must accept that you could be a useful, suitable wife. It will be your one and only chance to leave this place. I suggest you take it.’

  He leaves, slamming the door and locking it behind him. Beatrice considers what the missionary has said. She wonders why he has stressed ‘white’ – that she must behave like a white girl. She suspects Yolanda and the other maid, Hannah, have told him what she said. His best answer is to get rid of her as quickly as possible before this secret is more widely known.

  After thinking about it, Beatrice decides that she will marry this Englishman. She will do as Reverend Williamson says: this man, this Thomas Milner, will know nothing of her past. For him, everything that she’s made of will have grown from the streets of Cape Town, nothing more.

  She pats Maangees where it lies hidden under her clothes. Even in this place, it has been invisible to her captors’ eyes. She doesn’t know how; perhaps Maangees is magic too, she thinks. For a prescribed time, she can play the game the missionaries want, the game of good missionary wife – just another sort of prison, no different from the one that she’s in. She’ll do anything if it means being free again.

  Chapter Eleven

  Beatrice sits at the table, quietly watching the young man at the far end, Thomas Milner, who will be her husband. His large eyes bulge when he’s excited, usually by his own speech, which is often, since he speaks nearly continuously. He looks like a frog at those times.

  ‘I feel as if the Lord has sent me here, that I have a divine mission. I can’t wait to be among the heathens, to show them the path to righteousness,’ Thomas Milner says.

  Reverend Williamson fiddles with the last piece of meat on his plate. ‘Yes …’ he says. It’s almost a sigh, since for the last hour Thomas Milner has elaborated on his own godliness. ‘Well, it may take a bit of time to get a mission station sorted for you.’

  ‘I hope not too long. I so want to get into Africa and spread God’s word.’

  ‘Yes,’ Reverend Williamson says while looking around for Hannah in the hope that she will bring in the pudding.

  ‘And the wedding?’ Mrs Williamson asks. ‘Will you want a party? We’ll need to start to prepare things.’

  It is no concern of Beatrice’s. Thomas Milner has been at the mission for three days and they spoke once, no more than a greeting. Despite his constant promotion of himself and his piety, and his distracting bulging eyes, Beatrice senses a weakness in him. She suspects all his busy words hide things Thomas Milner hopes he has left behind in England but has forgotten are inside him.

  ‘No, no party will be required,’ Thomas Milner says. He spits out the words as if they taste bitter. ‘A simple church ceremony. Nothing more. The quicker it can be over, the better. Best the girl is already my wife when we are called to leave.’

  ‘But at least a luncheon,’ Mrs Williamson tries.

  ‘That will not be required,’ Thomas Milner says, ending the discussion.

  Beatrice wears her best dress, not white, but with a bit of lace one of the missionary wives added for the occasion. Reverend Williamson marries them while a handful of people from the mission look on. Afterwards, the crowd stands around awkwardly, not sure what to do.

  Thomas Milner takes Beatrice’s hand. ‘Come!’ he says and leads her away from the group to his small house at the edge of the property. Beatrice looks back and the group has already gone, off to their day’s work.

  In the house, Thomas leads her into the bedroom and orders her to sit on the bed. She is just fifteen, but she knows what will come now; she’s not foolish.

  ‘I did not want this,’ he says.

  Is he speaking to her? She can’t tell. He paces the floor in an agitated way and she watches him. He pushes his long blond hair to the back each time it falls into his face.

  ‘A wife? A girl like this one? No. No! I cannot … bu
t I must. God sanctions these carnal lusts under the cloak of marriage. I must accept it as another burden of my calling.’

  Beatrice looks at this madman speaking to himself, and becomes even more curious about his secrets.

  He leaves the bedroom suddenly. She can hear him mumbling in the main room but she stays where she is. After some minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour, he comes back. He has removed his jacket and waistcoat.

  ‘Lift your dress up, girl!’

  Beatrice is not sure what he wants her to do, so she lifts the dress over her head and places it on the nearby chair. She stands there in her underclothes. Thomas Milner produces an odd whine and rubs his eyes. He pushes his hair back. He licks his lips. He turns away and then turns back again.

  Later, she’s glad she removed her one good dress. He rushes at her, pushing her slip up, ripping at her pants. He pushes her onto the bed, her face forced into the mattress. He enters her from behind, like an animal. Beatrice learns then that will be the only way that Thomas Milner is able to perform the sex act. He’s wild and forceful. He grabs her long hair and pulls it tightly in his fist. Beatrice’s main concern is not to be smothered by the mattress. The pain he’s causing her she will attend to later. She makes no sound. He finishes, throws her to the bed, and leaves.

  He calls out as he goes, ‘Girl, clean this house!’

  The mission assignment is delayed and with each day, week, month that passes, Thomas Milner’s mood darkens. He doesn’t like being under Reverend Williamson. He’s given community work to do which he despises. He wants only to be at the front, in the pulpit, preaching. Reverend Williamson knows this, but he has come to dislike Thomas Milner and his arrogant, demanding ways. He’s spoiled, so Reverend Williamson believes the humbling job of community work is the better place for him. Thomas Milner thinks otherwise.

  ‘He’s a jealous old man. He sees my dynamism and wants to stop me from excelling. Well, he can try, but he will fail.’ Thomas Milner speaks, but never to Beatrice unless it’s an order. He talks his thoughts out loud, often with no censorship. She’s nothing to him, so if she hears what she should not, what does it matter?