A Sparrow Falls
Mark lay in the direct sunlight, and the sweat rose to stain his shirt. A tsetse fly settled behind his ear and bit into the softness of his neck, but he did not make the movement of brushing it away. It was an hour before his chance came.
The lioness rose suddenly to her full height, and swung her tail from side to side. She was too restless to stay here under the thorn tree any longer. The cubs sat up groggily, and looked to her with puzzled furrowed faces.
The lioness was standing broadside to where Mark lay. She held her head low, and her jaws were a little open as she panted softly in the heat. Mark was close enough to see the dark specks of the tsetse fly sitting on her flanks.
She was still in shadow but now she was backlit by the pale yellow grass beyond her. It was a perfect shot – the point of the elbow the hunter’s aiming mark; the span of a hand back from there, and the bullet would rake both lungs, the span of a hand lower would take the heart cleanly.
The lungs were certain, but the heart was swift. Mark chose the heart and lifted the rifle to his shoulder. The safety-catch had long before been set at the firing position.
Mark took up the slack in the trigger and felt the final resistance before the mechanism tripped.
The bullet was 230 grains in weight, and the bronze jacket of the slug was tipped with a grey blob of lead so that it would mushroom on impact and open massive damage through the lioness’s chest cavity.
The lioness called her cubs with a soft moaning grunt, and they scrambled obediently to their feet, still a little unsteady from sleep.
She walked out into the sunlight, with that loose feline gait, her head swinging from side to side at each pace, the long back slightly swayed and the heavy droop of her full dugs thickening the graceful line of her body.
‘No,’ thought Mark. ‘I will take the lungs.’ He lifted his aim a fraction, holding steady and true four inches behind the point of the elbow, swinging the rifle to follow her as she went into a short restless trot.
The cubs tumbled along behind her in disorder.
Mark held his aim until she reached the edge of the bush, and then she was gone with the insubstantial blurred movement of a wisp of brown smoke on the wind.
When she was gone, he lowered the rifle and stared after her.
Pungushe saw the thing break in him at last. The cold stillness of hatred and guilt and horror broke, and Mark began to cry, hacking tearing sobs that scoured and purged.
It is a difficult thing for a man to watch another weep, especially if that man is your friend.
Pungushe stood up quietly and walked back to where they had tethered the mule. He sat alone in the sun and took a little snuff and waited for Mark.
GOVERNMENT MINISTER SPEAKS ON DUTY TO HUMANITY
The newly appointed Deputy Minister of Lands, Mr. Dirk Courtney, expressed concern today at the mauling of a young woman in the proclaimed area of Northern Zululand.
The woman, Mrs. Marion Anders, was the wife of the Government Ranger in the area. She was mauled to death by a lioness last Friday.
This unfortunate incident underlines the grave danger of allowing wild animals to exist in proximity to settled areas of human habitation.
Residents in these areas will be in constant danger of animal attack, of crop depredation and game-borne diseases of domestic animals as long as this position is allowed to continue.
Mr. Dirk Courtney said that the rinderpest epidemic at the turn of the century had accounted for a loss of domestic cattle estimated to exceed two million head. Rinderpest was a game-borne disease. The minister pointed out, ‘We cannot risk a repetition of such a calamity.’
The proclaimed area of Northern Zululand encompasses both highly valuable arable land, and a major watershed vital to proper conservation of our natural resources. If the full potential of our national assets is to be exploited, these areas must be turned over to properly controlled development. The minister went on, ‘Your Government has placed priority on this issue, and we will be placing legislation before Parliament at the next sitting.’
Mark read the article through carefully. It was placed prominently on the leader page of the Natal Witness.
‘There are more,’ General Sean Courtney thumbed open a slim folder with half a dozen other cuttings, ‘take them with you. You’ll see it’s all the same general purport. Dirk Courtney is beating the drum with a very big stick, I’m afraid.’
‘He’s in such a position of power now. I never dreamed he would be a Deputy Minister.’
‘Yes,’ Sean nodded. ‘He has rushed to power, but on the other hand we still have a voice. One of our members in a solid seat has stood down for Jannie Smuts, even I have been offered a seat in a safer constituency.’
‘Will you take it, sir?’
Sean shook his silver beard slowly. ‘I’ve had a long time in public life, my boy — and anything you do too long becomes a bore.’ He nodded as he thought about his words. ‘Of course, that’s not strictly true. I am tired, let the younger ones with more energy pick up the reins now. Jannie Smuts will keep in close touch, he knows he can caii on me, but I feel like an old Zulu chief. I just want to sit in the sun, drink beer, grow fat and count my cattle.’
‘What about Chaka’s Gate, sir?’ Mark pleaded.
‘I have spoken to Jannie Smuts and some of the others, on both sides of the house. We have a lot of support in the new Government as well. I don’t want to make it a party issue, I’d like to see it as an issue of each man’s own conscience.’
They went on talking until Ruth intervened reluctantly. ‘It’s after midnight, dear. You can finish your talk in the morning. When are you leaving, Mark?’
‘I should be back at Chaka’s Gate tomorrow night.’ Mark felt a prick of guilt as he lied. He knew damned well he was not going home just yet a while.
‘But you’ll stay for lunch tomorrow?’
‘Yes, I’d like that. Thank you.’
As Mark rose he picked up the file of newspaper clippings from Sean’s desk. ‘I’ll let you have them back tomorrow, sir.’
However, the moment Mark was alone in his room, he dropped into an easy chair and turned avidly to the reverse side of the newspaper cutting he had brought with him. He had not dared to turn over the cutting and read the words that had caught his eye in the General’s presence, but now he lingered over them, re-reading and savouring. Part of the article was missing, scissored away when the Deputy Minister’s speech had been trimmed, but there was enough.
EXCEPTIONAL EXHIBITION BY YOUNG ARTIST
Presently showing at the sample rooms of the Marine Hotel on the Marine Parade is an exhibition of thirty paintings by a young lady artist.
For Miss Storm Courtney, it is her first public exhibition and even a much older and more established artist could have been justly gratified with such a reception by the art-lovers of our fair city. After the first five days, twenty-one of her paintings had found enthusiastic purchasers at prices as high as fifty guineas each. Miss Courtney has a classical conception of form, combined with both a sure sense of colour and a mature and confident execution rare in an artist of such tender years.
Worthy of special mention is Number 16, ‘Greek athlete at rest’. This painting, property of the artist and not for sale, is a lyrical composition that would perhaps raise the eyebrows of the more old-fashioned. It is an unashamedly sensual ode to —
Here the scissors had cut through, leaving Mark with a disturbing unfinished feeling. He read it once more, inordinately pleased that Storm had reverted to her maiden name with which to sign her work. Then carefully he folded the cutting into his wallet, and he sat in the chair staring at the wall, until he fell asleep, still fully dressed.
A young Zulu lass, no more than sixteen years of age, opened the door of the cottage. She was dressed in the traditional white cotton dustcoat of the nanny and she carried baby John on her hip.
Both nanny and child regarded Mark with huge solemn eyes, but the nanny’s relief was patent when Mark ad
dressed her in fluent Zulu.
At the sound of Mark’s voice John let out an excited squawk that could have been recognition, but was probably merely a friendly greeting. He began to leap up and down on the nanny’s hip with such force that she had to grab to prevent him taking off like a sky rocket.
He reached out both hands towards Mark, burbling and laughing and shouting, and Mark took him, all warm and wriggling and baby-smelling, from the maid. John immediately seized a handful of Mark’s hair and tried to remove it by the roots.
Half an hour later when Mark handed him back to the little moon-faced maid, and went down the steep pathway to the beach, John’s indignant howls of protest followed him, only fading with distance.
Mark kicked off his shoes and left them and his shirt above the high-tide mark, then he turned northwards and followed the white sweep of sand, his bare feet leaving wet prints on the smooth firm edge of the seashore.
He had walked a mile, and there was no sign of any other person. The beach sand was rippled by static windblown wavelets, and dappled with the webbed prints of seabirds.
On his right hand, the surf rose in long glassy lines, curling green and then dropping over in a crash of white water that shook the sand beneath his feet. On his left hand, the dense, dark green bush rose above the white beach, and again beyond that, the far blue hills and taller bluer sky.
He was alone – until he saw, perhaps a mile ahead, another solitary figure, also following the edge of the sea, a far small and lonely figure, coming towards him, still too distant to tell whether it was man or woman, friend or stranger.
Mark lengthened his stride, and the figure drew nearer, clearer.
Mark began to run, and the figure ahead of him stopped suddenly, and stood with that stillness poised on the edge of flight.
Then suddenly the stillness exploded, and the figure was racing to him.
It was a woman, a woman with dark silky hair streaming in the wind, a woman with outstretched arms and flying bare brown feet, and white teeth and blue, very blue eyes.
They were alone in the bedroom. Baby John’s cot had been removed to the small dining-room next door, since he had begun to show an interest in everything that looked like a good romp, hanging on the edge of his cot with shouts of applause and approbation, and then trying his utmost to scale the wooden railings and join the play.
Now they were enjoying those contented minutes between love and sleep, talking softly in the candlelight under a single sheet, lying on their sides facing each other, holding close, with their lips almost touching as they murmured together.
‘But darling Mark, it is still a thatched hut, and it is still wild bush.’
‘It’s a big thatched hut,’ he pointed out.
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know if I have changed that much.’
‘There is only one way to find out. Come with me.’
‘But what will people say?’
‘The same as they’d say if they could see us now.’
She chuckled easily, and snuggled a little closer. ‘That was a silly question. The old Storm speaking. People have said all there is to say about me, and none of it really mattered a damn.’
‘There aren’t a lot of people out there to sit in judgment. Only Pungushe, and he’s a very broad-minded gentleman.’
She laughed again sleepily. ‘Only one person I care about – Daddy mustn’t know. I’ve hurt him enough already.’
So Storm came at last to Chaka’s Gate. She came in the beaten and neglected Cadillac, with John on the seat beside her, her worldly possessions crammed into the cab or strapped on the roof and Mark riding his motorcycle escort ahead of her over the rude and bumpy track.
Where the track ended above the Bubezi River, she climbed out and looked around her.
‘Well,’ she decided after a long thoughtful survey of the towering cliffs, and the river in its bed of green water and white banks, framed by the tall nodding strands of fluffy-headed reeds and great spreading sycamore figs, ‘at least it’s picturesque.’
Mark put John on his shoulder. ‘Pungushe and I will come back with the mules for the rest of your gear.’ And he led her down the footpath to the river.
Pungushe was waiting for them under the trees on the far bank, tall and black and imposing in his beaded loin cloth.
‘Pungushe, this is my lady and her name is Vungu Vungu - the Storm.’
‘I see you, Vungu Vungu, I see also that you are misnamed,’ said Pungushe quietly, ‘for a storm is an ugly thing which kills and destroys. And you are a lady of beauty.’
‘Thank you, Pungushe.’ Storm smiled at him. ‘But you are also misnamed, for a jackal is a small mean creature.’
‘But clever,’ said Mark solemnly, and John let out a shout of greeting and bounced on Mark’s shoulder, reaching out with both hands for Pungushe.
‘And this is my son.’
Pungushe looked at John. There are two things a Zulu loves dearly, cattle and children. Of the two, he prefers children, preferably boy-children. Of all boy-children, he likes best those that are robust, and bold and aggressive.
‘Jamela, I should like to hold your son,’ he said, and Mark gave John to him.
‘I see you Phimbo,’ Pungushe greeted the child. ‘I see you little man with a great voice.’ And then Pungushe smiled that great beaming radiant smile, and John shouted again with joy and thrust his hand in Pungushe’s mouth to grab those white shining teeth, but Pungushe swung him up on to his shoulder and laughed with a great hippo-snort and carried him up the hill.
So they came to Chaka’s Gate, and there was never any doubt, right from that first day.
Within an hour, there was a polite tap on the screen-door of the kitchen and when Mark opened it there stood in a row on the covered stoep all of Pungushe’s daughters, from the eldest who was fourteen to the youngest of four.
‘We have come,’ announced the eldest, ‘to greet Phimbo.’
Mark looked at Storm inquiringly, and she nodded. The eldest daughter swung John up on to her back with a practised action, and strapped him there with a strip of cotton limbo. She had played nurse-maid to all her brothers and sisters, probably knew more about small children than both Storm and Mark combined, and John took to the froglike position on her back as though he had been born Zulu. Then the little girl bobbed a curtsey to Storm and trotted away, with all her sisters in procession, bearing John off to a wonderland peopled entirely with playmates of endless variety and fascination.
On the third day, Storm began sketching, and by the end of the first week she had taken over the household management on a system that Mark referred to as comfortable chaos, alternating with brief periods of pandemonium.
Comfortable chaos was when everybody ate what they wanted, perhaps chocolate biscuits and coffee for dinner one night and a feast of barbecued meat the next. They ate it where they felt like it, perhaps sitting up in bed or lying on a rug on the sand-bank of the river. They ate when they wanted, breakfast at noon or dinner at midnight, if talking and laughing delayed it that long.
Comfortable chaos was when the dusting of furniture or polishing of floors were forgotten in the excitement of living, when clothes that needed mending were tossed into the bottom of the cupboard, when Mark’s hair was allowed to grow in points over the back of his collar. Comfortable chaos ended unpredictably and abruptly to be replaced by pandemonium.
Pandemonium began when Storm suddenly got a steely look in her eye and announced, ‘This place is a pig sty!’ followed by the snipping of scissors, buckets of steaming water, clouds of flying dust, banging pots, and flashing needles. Mark was shorn and clad in refurbished clothing, the cottage gleamed and sparkled, and Storm’s housekeeping instincts were exhausted for another indefinite period. And the next day she would be up on Spartan’s back, John strapped Zulu-fashion behind her, following Mark on patrol up the valley.
The first time John had been taken on patrol, Mark had asked anxiously, ‘Do you think it’s wise to ta
ke him, he’s still very small?’
And Storm had replied, ‘I am older and more important than Master John. He fits into my life, not me into his.’
So John rode patrol on muleback, slept in his apple basket under the stars at night, and took his daily bath in the cool green pools of the Bubezi River, quickly developed an immunity to the occasional tsetse bite, and flourished.
They climbed the steep pathway to the summit of Chaka’s Gate, sat with their feet dangling over that fearful drop, and they looked across the whole valley, the far blue hills and the plains and swamps and the wide winding rivers.
‘When I first met you, you were poor,’ Storm said quietly, leaning against Mark’s shoulder with her eyes filled with the peace and wonder of it, ‘but now you are the richest man in the world, for you are the owner of paradise.’
He took her up the river to the lonely grave below the escarpment. Storm helped him to build a pile of rocks, and to set the cross that Mark had made over it. He told her Pungushe’s story of how the old man had been killed, and she cried openly and unashamedly, holding John on her lap, sitting on the gravestone, listening and living every word.
‘I have looked – but never truly seen before,’ she said, as he showed her the nest of a sunbird, cunningly woven of lichen and spider web, turning it carefully so she could peer into the funnel entrance and see the tiny speckled eggs.
‘I never knew what true peace was until I came to this place,’ she said, as they sat on the bank of the Bubezi in the yellow light of fading day, and watched a kudu bull with long spiral corkscrew horns and chalk-striped shoulders lead his big-eared cows down to the water.
‘I did not know what happiness was before,’ she whispered, when they had woken together a little after midnight for no reason and reached for each other in the darkness.