Up Against the Night Page 3

  Outside the church Jaco greeted me. His suit was too tight and his boep pushed vigorously against the lower buttons of his shirt. He gave me a card so that we could keep in touch. His face was pitted and he had lost his rugged, blond, Voortrekker appearance. The dominee preached in a strange, liturgical sing-song from within a brown suit roughly the colour of dried cow dung. I hadn’t seen Tannie Marie for a long time: I wondered if tannie wasn’t another Huguenot word in origin, from tante.

  ‘I was shallow, very, very shallow behaved,’ Jaco told me, revealing the depth of his new wisdom. ‘A man shall have a close encounter with death so that he must understand what is really important for his children and his wife and such like.’

  I can imagine that if you were convinced you were going to be eaten by a shark you might say more or less anything. In fact, Jaco had left his wife and children for a liaison with a woman he had met in Sun City. She was probably the ‘such like’.

  Jaco went on for five or ten minutes, sometimes exultantly born-again. He felt that he had betrayed the memory of our common ancestor, Piet Retief. I had the feeling that he wanted me to exonerate him. He was, I think, trying to make a complex biblical analogy between his encounter with a huge shark and Piet’s encounter with one thousand Zulus. It was an analogy that, in my opinion, didn’t quite work. Anyway, he proposed to give thanks publicly for his deliverance. It was all very unsettling and slightly mad. Soon after the funeral, Jaco achieved minor celebrity when his video went viral. He gave inspirational talks about staring death in the face. (In this case a very large, inscrutable, face.) He gave interviews about sharks – he was, after all, an expert – and he forgot about his promise to make retribution to the Dutch Reformed Church; he also forgot his wife and two blond children, and even the woman from Sun City, a croupier, whose main job was to draw attention to her breasts rather than the cards, as drunk gamblers placed their bets.

  Before he could don the promised hair shirt and recant publicly, Jaco was invited to go to California to talk about his shark encounter. He was introduced to Scientology and told he could learn about the superpowers that the Scientologists were promising him. They required him to hand over a lot of money, so that he could start his training as a pre-Clear, the first rung on the Scientologist ladder. He signed a contract binding him for a billion years. Jaco thought it was a deal: it seemed that with the help of superpowers he could live for ever or be reincarnated or, if he was diligent in his training, he could become a Thetan. As a Thetan he could float around the universe at will. He could even land on Mars if he felt the urge. ‘At the very least,’ to quote L. Ron Hubbard, ‘this is the means that puts Scientologists into a new realm of ability enabling them to create the new world. It puts world-clearing within reach in the future.’

  I wondered what ‘world-clearing’ means. It has unfortunate associations.

  As a warm-up for acquiring Thetan powers, Cousin Jaco practised turning red traffic lights to green with the power of his mind alone, something which he had been told could be one of his skills if he trained hard enough. If he focused. With new insight, Jaco convinced himself that it was with his mind that he deterred the giant shark from eating him. His inspirational speeches now involved shark pacification, Dianetics, and the power Dianetics confers on the enlightened. But Jaco found the process of assessing his talents, which involved an electric lie-detector apparatus, the electro-psychometer – E-Meter for short – invented by L. Ron Hubbard himself – very disturbing. In the process of this ‘auditing’ he was expected to examine his previous lives and reveal his spiritual distress, as if escaping a huge shark in this life was not distress enough. He remembered an encounter in the sheep shed with a black woman when he was fourteen, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell the auditor.

  He spends some months at his studies and doing the tasks given to him. One day, when he is sent on a mission to deliver printing paper to the headquarters of Sea Org, he catches a glimpse of Tom Cruise. Cruise is playing tennis with his coach. Jaco is under instructions not to speak to anyone, and particularly not to Cruise.

  4

  In 1837, Piet Retief left the Cape Colony as the leader of a thousand ox wagons, heading north towards the Drakensberg Mountains, with a view to creating his new Canaan. Piet had sent out scouts to the Zulu King, Dingane: the lands to the east were reported to be very fertile and Dingane was agreeable to a meeting.

  When Retief reached the Drakensberg Mountains, which bordered Zululand, most of the party stayed behind at a place they named Kerkenberg – Church Mountain – in acknowledgement of the huge standing rocks that suggested to them the nave of a church. This landscape below and the promise of boundless space it appeared to offer inspired his sixteen-year-old daughter, Debora Jacoba Johanna: on his fifty-seventh birthday she painted her father’s name under a huge, overhanging rock. To this day it is visible, protected by a glass-fronted case, fixed there by people who believed that the Afrikaner heritage should be remembered.

  Piet and a few of his men set out a few weeks later and rode east towards Dingane’s kraal, uMgungundlovu, to meet the King. They wanted to ask Dingane to grant them land to settle. Instead of agreeing to the land grant, Dingane asked Piet to recover cattle stolen from him by the chief of the Tlokwa, Sekonyela. It was clearly a test: if Piet, using his miraculous guns and horses, returned his cattle, Dingane would sign the treaty the Boers had drawn up.

  Piet and his men were astonished by the extent of the King’s huts, the isigodlo. It was built according to the traditional layout of a Zulu royal kraal. In the middle of the isigodlo there was a huge empty space, the ikhanda, which was a parade ground. All along the perimeter of the ikhanda were the huts of the regiments, the barracks known as the uhlangoti.

  As tradition specified, the royal complex was on a rise at the southern side of the complex facing the main entrance. The King, his wives and female attendants numbered five hundred, and the warriors at least another thousand. Every year at the ceremony of the first fruits, umkhosi wokweshwama, girls would parade and the king would choose new wives. In this way he was renewing the fertility of the land and the cattle and by choosing new wives the King became the symbol of this fertility.

  The huts were beehive-shaped and each one was beautifully and intricately woven of thatching grass tied into the frame. The entrance of the huts was very low so that everyone had to stoop to enter. On each side of Dingane’s hut, which was much bigger than the others, there were special quarters for his women and girls. The King’s food and milk could only be handled by men, the inzinceku. It was a ritual of great importance, even something of a cult.

  It occurs to me that these cattle played the same sort of totemic role as the Queen’s horses. Years ago I took my daughter, Lucinda, to the Royal Mews behind Buckingham Palace. At that time Lucinda was having riding lessons. There was a distinct sense of cultic practice surrounding these gleaming and well-fed horses in their sumptuous stables, as if by keeping their coats glossy, their hooves oiled and shod, their manes cut evenly, their hay nets and fresh water abundantly available, a god was being propitiated.

  Every morning the inzinceku milked the cows and carried the milk in gourds, their arms outstretched in front of them, to symbolise the avoidance of filth. Every morning these men poured milk straight into the King’s mouth. They were privileged: where all other men had to crawl if they were approaching the King, the inzinceku could walk upright. And it was into this world – utterly alien, highly ritualised and casually brutal – that my ancestor stumbled, an innocent abroad.

  Sekonyela had driven Dingane’s cattle onto an inaccessible mountain; from the heights his men had rolled large rocks down on Dingane’s warriors when they tried to recover the cattle. They were unable to dislodge these stubborn people. Guns were required. Piet agreed to take on the task. He returned to his camp near the Tugela River and soon set out again to find the stolen cattle. He was eager to acquire the fertile land that lay beneath him, a paradise of savannah, low, dense acac
ia woodland and wild rivers. The rivers tumbled down the escarpment in waterfalls which in turn fell into deep, turbulent pools, ringed by maidenhair ferns and shaded by huge yellow-wood trees in which vervet monkeys and baboons exchanged insults and threats. Lower down, the rivers levelled out, and here hippos carried on their noisy, crotchety lives and crocodiles were waiting in their limited but lethal fashion. All around there were antelope, elephants and lions. The lions and hyena often took cattle.

  The Tlokwa were almost suicidal in their brave determination to resist and Retief’s men shot and killed a number of them on the heights before they agreed to give up the stolen cattle, but not before a woman jumped with her children from the heights, shouting, ‘I will not be killed by thunder, but I will kill myself.’ Nobody knows whether she had met other white men and their guns.

  On horseback, Retief and his men herded the errant cattle towards Dingane’s country. At this season the landscape below was lush; Piet saw that livestock and crops would certainly thrive down there. He was sure that God had guided him to this promised land with a purpose. God had, in his omniscience, earmarked it for his favourite son.

  A week later, on their tough, stocky, salted horses – immune to horse sickness – Piet and all his retinue were descending to uMgungundlovu with the richly patterned Nguni cattle stolen from Dingane. They proceeded slowly but remorselessly down the escarpment. The youngest boys – the voorlopers – herded the Nguni cattle and led the trek oxen, still attached to the wagons, and they held the oxen back to keep the wagons from running out of control. These boys were most probably Hottentots who had left the Cape with their parents who were in turn following their Boer masters. Who knows if they had a choice? The orders for the emigrating Boers specified that each family should provide ten Hottentots as well as oxen, foodstuffs, including rusks and dried meat, wagons, salt, kettles, household servants and a certain amount of money. This last demand may have been difficult for my ancestor, as he had recently been imprisoned for debt in the Cape Colony. The demand that each emigrating family should provide ten Hottentots suggests to me that they were still slaves, in Boer eyes anyway.

  For the steep descent, the wheels on the wagons were locked by wooden brake-blocks, which began to smoke with the friction. The wood used was a soft wood, bush willow, for its grip and because it did not become as hot as other, hardwood, species, which quickly overheated, causing the iron rims of the ox-wagon wheels to expand and fall off. Wild peach wood was used to make the wheels. On their journey from the Cape, scores of wagon wheels were repaired and refitted.

  Down below, some miles below, the thin smoke of the Zulu fires rose listlessly into the air. The Zulu indunas who had accompanied Retief to take back the cattle shouted the good news to their people below; their voices seemed to hang in the still air and from below other voices floated up to them. Many ran, overjoyed, to greet the return of the King’s beautiful, sacred cattle and their restoration at the centre of Zulu life.

  Behind the wagons, two huge black eagles – ukhozi – soared over the mountains, high above the promised land. Before he set out for the wilderness, ‘New Eden’ was the name Retief suggested for their enterprise.

  I picture it all: a twelve-year-old boy, William Wood, is holding his grey pony’s bridle as he observes the wagons coming closer. He is trying to count them. His horse is on edge; it has heard, long before William, the whinnies of other, unknown horses. William has an urgent message for the Boers, who are coming slowly but inexorably closer, streaming smoothly towards him. He is reminded of his mother’s treacle cakes, which he misses. From a distance the wagons look like a river, but now individual wagons and oxen and horses are detaching themselves to become distinct entities, and the cracking of the whip, the bellows of the oxen and the shouts of the voorlopers waft down to William in the valley. He can even see the white bonnets of the women riding on the front of the wagons, perhaps a little nervous as they catch a glimpse of their New Eden.

  When they finally reach the ford of the Nzolo River, which marks the way to the gently undulating lands surrounding the King’s kraal, the Boers halt. One man rides towards William and waves his hat in his direction. William guesses that this is Piet Retief and raises his hat in return; he is not sure what else he can do. This man, who is on a sturdy bay horse, approaches William. He is striking, about fifty-five years old, with a black beard and blue eyes. On his head is a leather hat stained with mutton fat and dust. Over his shoulder is a leather pouch.

  At first he speaks to the boy in Dutch:

  ‘What are you doing here? What is your name? Are you the missionary’s son? Do you speak Dutch?’

  William says that he doesn’t understand; he speaks English, but he says in mitigation that he also knows some Zulu.

  The man on the horse asks the questions again in English and young Will tells the man on the horse his name and how he comes to be living here with the Reverend Francis Owen, a missionary. The man on the horse says that he is Piet Retief, and he is the leader of the emigrating Boers from the Cape Colony.

  William asks him, ‘What does “emigrating” mean, sir?’

  ‘It means we have left our own country to live in another.’

  ‘Why did you do that, sir?’

  ‘Because, young William, we was discontented with the situation there.’

  ‘Why were you discontented?’

  ‘Our land, William, was taken over by the English.’

  ‘I am English, sir.’

  Retief laughs. He has a high, girlish laugh, all the more unexpected for rising out of a pitch-black beard.

  ‘I won’t hold you personally responsible, young William. Now tell me, where will I find the great King Dingane?’

  William tells him that the King’s kraal is just over the next hill, less than a mile away. Piet Retief asks him where he should make camp.

  ‘Sir, if you make camp under the milk trees, beneath the Reverend Owen’s hut, where I live, you will find water and grazing. Do not cross the river near his kraal before you have permission from the King.’

  ‘First we must outspan the oxen so that they can drink and graze, and then we will go and see the great King. We have a present for him.’

  ‘You have the King’s cattle.’

  ‘Yes, these cattle. We are bringing seven hundred head back to the King.’

  Retief looks back to the wagons and gestures towards the cattle mottling the rich veld. They have spread out for hundreds of yards. Each animal’s colouring is different; the Zulus recognise these patterns and have names for them; they call their markings speckled eggs or pebbles or stones on a dry riverbed; another is called the shrike, because its black-and-white marking reminds them of this bird, the fiscal shrike. Their descriptions are thousands of years old. The Zulus love their cattle. They also depend on them for meat and milk and hides; one hand, they say, washes the other. The kraal, the sibaya, is the centre of their lives. There are four cattle enclosures within the sibaya. The King and his people live in close proximity to their beloved cattle. The ceremonial royal cattle are black. No other cattle may mate with the royal cattle.

  Retief has the gaze of a prophet; in the tradition of prophets his eyes see only what he wants to see, even things that are not visible. He appears to be looking at the horizon through his blue eyes. In his mind he perhaps sees his birthplace, the town of Wagenmakersvallei – Wagon Makers’ Valley – resurrected here in this paradise. The English had renamed his home town Wellington, to honour the great hero.

  ‘William.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘You are a fine boy. You will meet my own son, Cornelis, who has thirteen years. He is here with me. You will be his friend.’

  Retief points back towards the wagons, as if William needs to understand that his son is there, driving the cattle.

  ‘Please call me Oom Piet – in the English language, Uncle Piet.’

  King Dingane has also offered some young boys as companions for William. Oom Piet, his adoptive
uncle, goes back to the wagons, his horse at a fast and comfortable triple, the favoured gait of the Boers.

  William watches Retief riding off. He wishes he had been able to tell Retief what he had heard, that Dingane intended to murder him and all his men, women, children and servants. He has no opportunity to tell Mr Retief that Dingane sent a message, which said that he, the Reverend Francis Owen and his wife, and the other white woman, Jane Williams, a servant, would be safe. Despite this guarantee, William is frightened. In fact the guarantee of safety makes him particularly uneasy because it confirms that the Boers will not be spared. He wants to ride away on his horse, Snowy, to the coast and to his mother and father, but Dingane is mercurial and unpredictable and any show of weakness will almost certainly get him killed. If he tried to escape, the impis would follow him all the way to the coast if necessary. He must never give the impression to Dingane that he is frightened, because that will lead to certain death, as if by fearing death you are encouraging it.

  He vaults onto Snowy, who is highly nervous and sweating heavily; they canter off in the direction of the mission. The mission is really no more than a large hut, although the Reverend Owen and his wife have made a garden and have given the place a kind of English cottage appearance. They have grown beans up a tepee-shaped arbour of sticks. They have tried to entice African honey-bees into a hive woven out of grass. For all that, there is an aura of neglect, as though their hearts have gone out of it. They have a cat, which intrigues the Zulus, who wonder what sort of medicine it is used for. The cat, Melbourne, travelled all the way from England with the Owens. It has learned how to kill snakes and so far has never been bitten. But it can only be a matter of time before a puff adder or a mamba gets him. Horses and cattle are often bitten when grazing and most of them die. This is an unforgiving land.