Peter Fungabera had showered and changed into mess kit. His trousers were black with a burgundy watered-silk side stripe. His short bumfreezer jacket was in the regiment’s same distinctive burgundy-red with black silk lapels. His white shirt was starch-fronted and wing-collared with a black bow-tie and he wore a double row of miniature decorations.
The camp servants had set a table under the spread branches of a mhoba-hoba tree, on the edge of an open vlei of short lush green grass, out of sight and earshot of the main camp. On the table was a bottle of Chivas Regal whisky and another of vodka, a bucket of ice and two crystal glasses.
Colonel Nikolai Bukharin sat opposite Peter. His long loose cotton shirt hung outside his baggy Cossack pants and was belted at the waist. His feet were thrust into boots of soft glove-leather. He leaned forward and filled the glasses, and then passed one to Peter.
This time there was no flamboyant tossing back of liquor. They drank slowly, watching the African sky turn mauve and smouldering gold. The silence was the companionable accord of two men who have risked their lives together and have each found the other worthy, a comrade to die with, or an adversary to fight to the death.
At last Colonel Bukharin placed his glass back on the table with a click.
‘And so, my friend, tell me what you want,’ he invited.
‘I want this land,’ said Peter Fungabera simply.
‘All of it?’ the colonel asked.
‘All of it.’
‘Not just Zimbabwe?’
‘Not just Zimbabwe.’
‘And we are to help you take it?’
‘Yes.’
‘In exchange?’
‘My friendship.’
‘Your friendship unto death?’ the colonel suggested drily. ‘Or until you have what you want and find a new friend?’
Peter smiled. They spoke the same language, they understood each other.
‘What tangible signs of this eternal friendship will you give us?’ the Russian insisted.
‘A poor little country like mine,’ Peter shrugged, ‘a few strategic minerals – nickel, chrome, titanium, beryllium – a few ounces of gold.’
The Russian nodded sagely. ‘They will be useful to us.’
‘Then, once I am the Monomatapa of Zimbabwe, my eyes will become restless, naturally—’
‘Naturally.’ The Russian watched his eyes. He did not like black men, this racist bigotry was a common Russian trait, he did not like their colour nor their smell – but this one!
‘My eyes might turn southwards,’ Peter Fungabera said softly. Ha! Colonel Bukharin hid his glee behind a doleful expression. This one is different!
‘The direction in which your own eyes have been focused all along,’ Peter went on, and the Russian could have chortled.
‘What will you see in the south, Comrade General?’
‘I will see a people enslaved and ripe for emancipation.’
‘And what else?’
‘I will see the gold of the Witwatersrand and the Free State fields, I will see the diamonds of Kimberley, the uranium, the platinum, the silver, the copper – in short, I will see one of the great treasure houses of this earth.’
‘Yes?’ the Russian probed with delight. This one is quick, this one has brains, and this one has the courage that it would take.
‘I will see a base that divides the western world, a base that controls both the south Atlantic and the Indian oceans, that sits upon the oil lines between the Gulf and Europe, between the Gulf and the Americas.’
The Russian held up a hand. ‘Where will these thoughts lead you?’
‘It will be my duty to see this land to the south elevated to its true place in the community of nations, in the tutelage of and under the protection of that greatest of all lovers of freedom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.’
The Russian nodded, still watching his eyes. Yes, this black man had seen the design behind it all. The south was the grand prize, but to win it they needed to take it in the strangler’s grasp. To the east they already had Mozambique, to the west Angola was theirs and Namibia would soon be also. They needed only the north to isolate the prize. The north was Zimbabwe, like the strangler’s thumb on the windpipe, and this man could deliver it to them.
Colonel Bukharin sat forward in his canvas camp-chair and became businesslike and brisk.
‘Opportunity?’
‘Economic chaos, and intertribal warfare, the breakdown of central government.’ Peter Fungabera counted them off on his fingers.
‘The present government is meeting you more than halfway in creating its own economic breakdown,’ the Russian observed, ‘and you are already doing fine work in fanning tribal hatreds.’
‘Thank you, comrade.’
‘However, the peasants must begin to starve a little before they become manageable—’
‘I am pushing in the Cabinet for the nationalization of the white-owned farms and ranches. Without the white farmers I can produce you a goodly measure of starvation,’ Peter Fungabera smiled.
‘I hear you have already made a start. I congratulate you on the recent acquisition of your own estate, King’s Lynn? That is the name is it not?’
‘You are well informed, Colonel.’
‘I take pains to ensure that I am. But when the moment comes to seize the reins of state, what kind of man will the people look to?’
‘A strong man,’ Peter answered without hesitation. ‘One whose ruthlessness has been demonstrated.’
‘As yours was during the chimurenga, and more recently in Matabeleland.’
‘A man of charisma and presence, a man well known to the people.’
‘The women sing your praises in the streets of Harare, not a single day passes without your image on the television screens or your name on the front page of the newspapers.’
‘A man with force behind him.’
‘The Third Brigade,’ the Russian nodded, ‘and the blessing of the people of the USSR. However,’ he paused significantly, ‘two questions need answers, Comrade General.’
‘Yes?’
‘The first is a mundane and distasteful question to raise between men such as you and I – money. My paymasters become restless. Our expenses have begun to exceed by a considerable amount the shipments of ivory and animal products that you have sent us—’ He held up his hand again to forestall argument. It was an old man’s hand, dappled with withered dark spots and criss-crossed with prominent blue veins. ‘I know that we should do these things merely for the love of freedom, that money is a capitalist obscenity, but nothing is perfect in this world. In short, Comrade General, you are reaching the limits that Moscow has set on your credit.’
‘I understand,’ Peter Fungabera nodded. ‘What is your second question?’
‘The Matabele tribe. They are a warlike and difficult people. I know that you have been forced to stir up enmity, to cause dissension and strife and to bring upon the present government the disapproval of the Western powers by your campaign in Matabeleland. But what happens afterwards? How do you control them once you yourself have seized power?’
‘I answer both questions with a single name,’ Peter Fungabera replied.
‘The name?’
‘Tungata Zebiwe.’
‘Ha! Yes! Tungata Zebiwe. The Matabele leader. You had him put away. I presumed that by now he had been liquidated.’
‘I am holding him in great secrecy and safety at one of my rehabilitation centres near here.’
‘Explain.’
‘Firstly, the money.’
‘From what we know, Tungata Zebiwe is not a rich man,’ the Russian demurred.
‘He has the key to a fortune which might easily exceed two hundred million US dollars.’
The Russian raised a silver eyebrow in the gesture of disbelief that Peter was coming to know well, and which was beginning to irritate him.
‘Diamonds,’ he said.
‘The mother country is one of the world’s largest producers.’
The Russian spread his hands disparagingly.
‘Not industrial rubbish, not black boart, but gem stones of the first water, large stones, huge stones, some of the finest ever mined anywhere.’
The Russian looked thoughtful. ‘If it is true—’
‘It is true! But I will not explain further. Not yet.’
‘Very well. At least I can hold out some sort of promise to the money-sucking leeches in our treasury department? And the second question. The Matabele? You cannot plan to obliterate them, man, woman and child?’
Peter Fungabera shook his head regretfully. ‘No. Though it would be the better way, America and Britain would not allow it. No, my answer is Tungata Zebiwe again. When I take over the country, he will reappear – it will be almost miraculous. He will come back from the dead. The Matabele tribe will go wild with joy and relief. They will follow him, they will dote upon him, and I will make him my vice-president.’
‘He hates you. You destroyed him. If you ever free him, he will seek to revenge that.’
‘No,’ Peter shook his head. ‘I will send him to you. You have special clinics for difficult cases, do you not? Institutes where a mentally sick man can be treated with drugs – and other techniques to make him rational and reasonable once more?’
This time the Russian actually began to chortle, and he poured himself another vodka, shaking with silent laughter. When he looked up at Peter, there was respect in those pale eyes for the first time.
‘I drink to you, Monomatapa of Zimbabwe, may you reign a thousand years!’
He set down his glass and turned to stare down the long open vlei to the distant waterhole. A herd of zebra had come down to drink. They were nervous and skittish, for the lions lie in ambush at the water. At last they waded in, knee-deep and in a single rank, dipped their lips to touch the surface in unison. They formed an overlapping frieze of identical heads like an infinity of mirror images until the old stallion sentinel snorted in nervous alarm and the pattern exploded in foaming water and wildly galloping forms.
‘The treatment of which you speak is drastic.’ Colonel Bukharin watched the zebra herd tear away into the forest. ‘Some patients do not survive it. Those that do are—’ he searched for the word‘– altered.’
‘Their minds are destroyed.’ Peter said it for him.
‘In plain terms – yes,’ the colonel nodded.
‘I need his body, not his brain. I need a puppet, not a human being.’
‘We can arrange that. When will you send him to us?’
‘The diamonds first,’ Peter replied.
‘Of course, the diamonds first. How long will that take?’ Peter shrugged. ‘Not long.’
‘When you are ready I will send a doctor to you, with the appropriate medications. We can bring this Tungata Zebiwe out on the same route as the ivory: Air Zimbabwe to Dar-es-Salaam and one of our freighters from there to Odessa.’
‘Agreed.’
‘You say that he is being held near here? I would like to see him.’
‘Is it wise?’
‘Indulge me, please!’ From Colonel Bukharin it was an order rather than a request.
Tungata Zebiwe stood in the flat white glare of the noonday sun. He stood facing a whitewashed wall that caught the sun’s rays and flung them back like a huge mirror. He had stood there since before the rise of the sun, when the frost had crusted the sparse brown grass at the edge of the parade ground.
Tungata was stark naked, as were the two men that flanked him. All three of them were so thin that every rib showed clearly, and the crests of their spines stood out like the beads of a rosary down the centre of their backs. Tungata had his eyes closed to slits to keep out the glare of sunlight off the wall, but he concentrated on a mark in the plaster to counter the effects of giddy vertigo which had already toppled the men on each side of him more than once. Only heavy lashing by the guards had forced them to their feet again. They were still swaying and reeling as they stood.
‘Courage, my brothers,’ Tungata whispered in Sindebele. ‘Do not let the Shona dogs see you beaten.’
He was determined not to collapse, and he stared at the dimple in the wall. It was the mark of a bullet strike, painted over with limewash. They limewashed the wall after every execution – they were meticulous about it.
‘Amanzi,’ husked the man on his right, ‘water!’
‘Do not think of it,’ Tungata ordered him. ‘Do not speak of it, or it will drive you mad.’
The heat came off the wall in waves that struck with physical weight.
‘I am blind,’ whispered the second man. ‘I cannot see.’ The white glare had seared his eyeballs like snow-blindness.
‘There is nothing to see but the hideous faces of Shona apes,’ Tungata told him. ‘Be thankful for your blindness, friend.’
Suddenly from behind them brusque orders were shouted in Shona and then came the tramp of feet from across the parade ground.
‘They are coming,’ whispered the blinded Matabele, and Tungata Zebiwe felt a vast regret arising within him.
Yes, they were coming at last. This time for him.
During every day of the long weeks of his imprisonment, he had heard the tramp of the firing-squad crossing the parade ground at noon. This time it was for him. He did not fear death, but he was saddened by it. He was sad that he had not been able to help his people in their terrible distress, he was saddened that he would never see again his woman, and that she would never bear him the son for whom he longed. He was sad that his life which had promised so much would end before it had delivered up its fruits, and he thought suddenly of a day long ago when he had stood at his grandfather’s side and looked out over the maize fields that had been scythed by a brief and furious hail-storm.
‘All that work for nothing, what a waste!’ his grandfather had murmured, and Tungata repeated his words softly to himself as rude hands turned him and hustled him to the wooden stake set in the ground before the wall.
They tied his wrists to the stake and he opened his eyes fully. His relief from the glare of the wall was soured by the sight of the rank of armed men who faced him.
They brought the two other naked Matabele from the wall. The blind one fell to his knees, weak with exposure and terror, and his bowels voided involuntarily. The guards laughed and exclaimed with disgust.
‘Stand up!’ Tungata ordered him harshly. ‘Die on your feet like a true son of Mashobane!’
The man struggled back to his feet.
‘Walk to the stake,’ Tungata ordered. ‘It is a little to your left.’
The man went, groping blindly, and found the stake. They bound him to it.
There were eight men in the firing-squad and the commander was a captain in the Third Brigade. He went slowly down the rank of executioners, taking each rifle and checking the load. He made little jokes in Shona that Tungata could not follow, and his men laughed. Their laughter had an unrestrained quality, like men who had taken alcohol or drugs. They had done this work before, and enjoyed it. Tungata had known many men like them during the war; violence and blood had become their addictions.
The captain came back to the head of the rank, and from his breast-pocket took a sheet of typescript which was grubby and dog-eared from much handling. He read from it, stumbling over the words and mispronouncing them like a schoolboy, his English only barely intelligible.
‘You have been condemned as enemies of the state and the people,’ he read. ‘You have been declared incorrigible. Your death warrant has been approved by the vice-president of the Republic of Zimbabwe—’
Tungata Zebiwe lifted his chin and began to sing. His voice soared, deep and beautiful, drowning out the thin tones of the Shona captain:
‘The Moles are beneath the earth,
“Are they dead?” asked the daughters of Mashobane.’
He sang the ancient fighting song of the Matabele, and at the end of the first verse he snarled at the two condemned men who flanked him.
‘Sing! Let the
Shona jackals hear the Matabele lion growl.’
And they sang with him:
‘Like the black mamba from under a stone
We milked death with a fang of silver steel—’
Facing them, the captain gave an order, and as one man the squad advanced a right foot and lifted their rifles. Tungata sang on, staring into their eyes, defying them, and the men beside him fed on his courage and their voices firmed. A second order and the rifles were levelled. The eyes of the executioners peered over the sights, and the three naked Matabele sang on in the sunlight.
Now, marvellously, there was the sound of other voices, distant voices, lifted in the war song. They came from the prison huts beyond the parade ground. Hundreds of imprisoned Matabele were singing with them, sharing the moment of their deaths, giving them strength and comfort.
The Shona captain lifted his right hand, and in the last instants of his life Tungata’s sadness fell away to be replaced by a soaring pride. These are men, he thought, with or without me they will resist the tyrant.
The captain brought his hand down sharply, as he bellowed the command. ‘Fire!’
The volley was simultaneous. The line of executioners swayed to the sharp recoil of rifles – and the blast dinned in on Tungata’s eardrums so that he flinched involuntarily.
He heard the vicious slap of bullets into living flesh, and from the corners of his vision saw the men beside him jerk as though from the blows of invisible sledgehammers, and then fall forward against their bonds. The song was cut off abruptly on their lips. Yet the song still poured from Tungata’s throat and he stood erect.
The riflemen lowered their weapons, laughing and nudging each other as though at some grand joke. From the prison huts the war song had changed to the dismal ululation of mourning, and now at last Tungata’s voice dried and he faltered into silence.
He turned his head and looked at the men beside him. They had shared the volley between them, and their torsos were riddled with shot. Already the flies were swarming to the wounds.