Acacia - Secrets of an African Painting

EPILOGUE - THE PRESENT

  I stared at the watercolour on the wall of Acacia where it had hung as long as I could remember, the events of early 1991 coming back to me, some clear and some still hazy and confused. Now, nearly two decades later, I sometimes wondered if I had dreamed it all as it seemed unreal in so many ways.

  The diamonds? No, they weren’t found and they may never be, if they ever existed at all. I wondered if the death of so many people would be enough to call a halt to the search by future generations of Braughtons, intrigued at the mystery of the family fortune. It may for a time I thought, but I doubted if it would forever.

  I read the newspapers constantly these days, looking for updates on the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe, where the mainly Shona leadership seemed to have systematically destroyed everything that had been built up over decades. They had cheated their way back into power several times by openly rigging elections and had managed to stop food production to the point at which the people starved.

  It was rumoured that Mugabe had funnelled millions of dollars out of the country into private bank accounts, lining his own pockets while the country’s infrastructure crumbled around him. He had taken control of the mines around the country, including a huge new discovery of diamonds in the east, and was now reaping the bloody rewards.

  The infamous “War Veterans”, made up of young thugs who had not even been born when the war ended, marched around the countryside, evicting white farmers and black workers alike, trashing the crops where they grew in the fields despite the hunger already being suffered by thousands across the country. So far, I was glad to see, Leopard’s Leap had been left alone, although Katie and Albert’s other farms were lost. I feared for them that they may one day soon lose their home and livelihoods to a gang of vicious thugs.

  Amongst many horror stories, one told of school teachers being forced into “reorientation camps” where they were “re-educated”, learning things like racist doctrine and how to kill and avoid detection.

  I thought back to the words of the old man out by the Lupane. I considered that his words had been prophetic and perhaps what was happening now in this extraordinary country had been foretold many years ago.

  I wondered if this was the time for which the treasure was meant, to stop the atrocities and the sheer waste of a beautiful and productive land. Could it be used to finance political opposition so they could stand a chance against the brutal regime that was bent on destruction? I didn’t have the answer and I had decided that I would have nothing to do with it any more.

  I had read too, during later research, of the native uprising in 1896, when the Matabele under instruction of Mlimo, had slaughtered hundreds of white men, women, and children across the land in an attempt to retrieve what they felt was rightfully theirs. They had had guns, and lots of them, but when Selous and men like him set out to avenge the deaths of their women and children, the Matabele were outgunned and died in their thousands. It is said that a lack of planning, too much reliance on the powers of Mlimo, who they believed would turn white bullets into water and a severe lack of ammunition led to their downfall.

  I considered that they might have fared better with the fortune in diamonds to buy arms, rather than whatever was left after Lotshe’s hoard went missing. What might the history of southern Africa been like then?

  Although still present, I had overcome my shock now; it was all so long ago that the mists of time shrouded any memories of what was buried out there in the bush near the Lupane.

  I looked at the old man in the picture, wondering at the loss of two other old men and their younger companion that day. The street seller had died from his wound as his head struck the rock, so I never found out what his story was or even who he was. At the time, I had wondered whether to report their deaths or not, knowing that the authorities would question the spear attack on Tara, wanting to know who had committed the crime.

  I decided in the end to tell of a lone attacker who had run off afterwards, as the truth was too complicated for anyone to believe. I still lay awake at night, worrying about that decision, but it was one I had to make and I would not go back on it. The codes of conduct in Africa, I had learnt, were indeed different to those at home. I had left the bodies there where they fell to be reclaimed by the land, as the old man’s son had been twenty years previously; knowing that within days there would be nothing left but bones, which would then slowly crumble away to dust.

  Then I looked at the young girl in the picture timelessly holding her load aloft, hand on her hip and thought about the vision of Tara that day that had allowed me to see the village as Frederick had painted it.

  I smiled and she looked up from her book.

  ‘What is it?’ She asked, lowering the book to her knees and smiling back at me.

  ‘I was just remembering Tara, that’s all.’ I replied affectionately.

  Tara’s wound had been serious and nothing could have saved her, but I managed to get her into the car and drove non-stop to Bulawayo where doctors had tried their best in the hospital’s emergency department. It had taken a long time for her life to finally slip away, a time that stretched into eternity for me and during which I prayed incessantly to a god I’d never believed in and who left my prayers unanswered.

  It had taken a long time for my mental injuries to heal though. For many months afterward I was beset by torrid nightmares from which I would wake screaming and thrashing in my bed. The guilt I felt at Tara’s death lasted longer still and there were times even now when I would beg forgiveness from her ghost, but these times were getting less frequent and I had hopes that they would eventually cease altogether.

  I had found no evidence of any other deaths out there and so all talk of what had happened to Tara’s parents and Nellie was forgotten. I decided that the old street seller’s version of events suggested that his son had attacked first and had died in the ensuing fight.

  It occurred to me that the madness caused by the diamonds could do strange things to a person and it didn’t pay to dwell too deeply on them for fear of bringing things to a surface where those who didn’t understand, may criticise.

  Of course, I returned a changed person and discovered that any excuses I’d had for avoiding Eden before had disappeared. She let me recover in my own time, giving love and support when I needed it and giving me space when I needed that. I learned to trust her totally and as time wore on, love and support became more important to me. We eventually became inseparable; I found the gem she knew was there, deep inside me and at last told her I loved her. I considered I had released that gem just as Frederick had hidden it, so it was a closure of sorts for him perhaps.

  We were married a year to the day of my return from Africa and our first baby girl was born a year after that. Eden insisted we name her Tara, and I loved her even more for it.

  I sometimes dwelt on what I knew of Em and Frederick, realising that in my story, theirs echoed down through the years. Perhaps that was the real treasure after all.

  However, more research had revealed that many other people had lost their lives because of the treasure. I read that the induna named Lotshe, mentioned in Frederick’s diary, had been executed along with three hundred members of his family by Lobengula and it didn’t take too much of a stretch to make the connection between the loss of the diamonds and Lobengula’s executioners, who beat the clan to death in 1889.

  Old Mr. Tempole who had done some digging as promised, solved the mystery of Acacia. The house had never actually been owned by Nellie it seemed; instead, the name on the deeds was that of a Mr. Porter. Harry’s parents had known about her troubled life with their son and had bought the home for her when they learned of her imminent return to the country. However, they also knew that Nellie would find it hard to accept anything from them and had made the house available as a temporary place of accommodation until she found her feet. They had then conspired to block her every enquiry into alternative accommodation until at last she gave up trying and stayed put,
presumably thinking that she had earned it after all she had suffered. So, she hadn’t left the house in her will because it still wasn’t hers to leave.

  When Mr. Tempole contacted the current Porter family, they had no immediate knowledge of the property, but then generously decided to sell it to a member of Nellie’s family at a very attractive rate. I had some savings, plus the remainder of Nellie’s bequest and so bought it from them. Eden had moved in not long after deciding that the busy city life was not for her anymore.

  And what about the wealth that Nellie brought home? Well, that remains a mystery to some extent, although perhaps she had come closer to the treasure than we had thought. It was something we were never likely to find out for sure and so we hadn’t bothered to investigate further. The family gossip mill still turned however, and rumours of the treasure had grown for a while after our return. However Tara’s death was too much for the family to bear and now it was collectively agreed to forget the myth, for which I was glad. I brought home a clue though in the rock I had picked up near the cave and popped into my pocket without thinking. It had turned out to contain a large, and once polished, beautiful diamond, a future fund for my new family.

  One more thing happened after I moved into Acacia. I was hanging the painting back on the wall and noticed that the frame looked as if it had got some water damage. I remembered the soaking it had received whilst out of our possession for that short while, so removed the frame to check for any further damage. I pulled out the piece of thick paper, on which the picture had been painted which too was stained, but strangely only on the back where also one corner had started to peel away, as if it was delaminating. Curious as to why the stain didn’t show on the front of the painting and that there seemed to be two pieces of paper stuck together, I carefully peeled one from the other.

  On the inside of the backing paper behind where the acacia was painted, were some faint marks: a map depicting a village and a tree with a path leading away to the north, at the end of which was the unmistakeable image of a diamond.

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