When the Lion Feeds (55 page)

Kandbla brought another pot of the medicine and they fed it to her. When the pot was empty Kandhla said, Nkosi, let me lay a mattress on the floor beside the Nkosikazi's bed. You must sleep and I will stay here with you and wake you if the Nkosikazi stirs Sean looked at him with haunted eyes. There will be time to sleep later, my friend. He looked down at Katrina and went on softly. Perhaps, very soon there will be time.

Suddenly Katrina's body stiffened and Sean dropped on his knees beside her cot. Kandhla hovered anxiously behind him. It took Sean a while to understand what was happening and then he looked up at Kandbla. Go! go quickly! he said and the suffering in his voice sent Kandhla stumbling blindly from the wagon. Sean's second son was born that morning and while Kandhla watched over Katrina Sean wrapped the child in a blanket, took him into the veld and buried him. Then he went back to Katrina and stayed with her while days and nights blended together into a hopeless muddle of grief. As near as Katrina was to death, that near was Sean to insanity.

He never moved out of the wagon, he squatted on the mattress next to her cot, wiping the perspiration from her face, holding a cup to her lips or just sitting and watching her. He had lost his child and before his eyes Katrina was turning into a wasted yellow skeleton. Dirk saved him.

Mbejane brought the boy to him and he romped on the mattress, crawling into Sean's lap and pulling his beard.

It was the one small glimmer of light in the darkness.

Katrina survived. She came back slowly from the motionless coma that precedes death and with her hesitant return sean's despair changed to hope and then to a wonderful relief.

Her water was no longer black but dark pink and thick with sediment. She was aware of him now and, although she was so weak that she could not lift her head off the pillow, her eyes followed him as he moved about the wagon. It was another week before she learned about the baby. She asked him, her voice a tired whisper, and Sean told her with all the gentleness of which he was capable. She did not have the strength for any great show of emotion; she laid quietly staring up at the canvas above her head and her tears slid down across her yellow cheeks.

The damage that the fever had done to her body was hardly credible. Her limbs were so thin that Sean could completely encircle her thigh with one hand. Her skin hung in loose yellow folds from her face and body and pink blood still stained her water. This was not all. the fever had sucked all the strength from her mind. She had nothing left to resist the sorrow of her baby's death, and the sorrow encased her in a shell through which neither Sean nor Dirk could reach her. Sean struggled to bring her back to life, to repair the terrible damage to her mind and body. Every minute of his time he employed in her service.

He and the servants scoured the veld for thirty miles around the laager to find delicacies to tempt her appetite, wild fruits, honey, giraffe marrows, the flesh of a dozen animals: kabobs of elephant heart and duiker liver, roasted iguana had as white and tender as a plump pullet, golden fillets of the yellow -mouthed bream from the river. Katrina picked at them listlessly then turned away and lay staring at the canvas wall of the cot.

Sean sat beside her and talked about the farm they would buy, trying vainly to draw her into a discussion of the house they would build. He read to her from Duff's books and the only reaction he received was a small quivering of her lips when he read the words death or child.

He talked about the days on the Witwatersrand, searching his mind for stories that might amuse her. He broughtDirk to her and let him play about the wagon. Dirk was walking now, his dark hair had started to curl and his eyes were green. Dirk, however, could not be too long confined in the wagon. There was too much to do, too much to explore.

Before long he would stagger to the entrance and issue the imperial summons: IBejaan!

Bejaan! Almost immediately Mbejane's head would appear in the opening and he would glance at Sean for permission. All right, take him out then . . . but tell Kandhla not to stuff him full of food. Quickly, before Sean changed his mind, Mbejane would lift Dirk down and lead him away. Dirk had nearly two dozen Zulus to spoil him. They competed hotly for his affections, no effort was too much, dignified Mbejane down on his hands and knees being ridden mercilessly in and out among the wagons, Hlubi scratching himself under the arms and gibbering insanely in his celebrated imitation of a baboon while Dirk squealed with delight, fat Kandhla raiding Katrina's store of fruit preserves to make sure Dirk was properly fed and the others keeping in the background, anxious to join the worship but fearful of incurring the jealousy of mbejane and Hlubi. Sean knew what was happening but he was powerless to prevent it. His time was completely devoted to Katrina.

For the first time in his LIFE Sean was giving more than just a superficial part of himself to another human being.

It was not an isolated sacrifice: it went on throughout the months it took for Katrina to regain sufficient of her strength to enable her to sit up in bed without assistance; it continued through the months that she needed before Sean judged it safe to resume the trek towards the south.

They built a litter for her. Sean would not risk the jarring of the wagon, and the first day's trek lasted two hours.

Four of the servants carried the litter and Katrina lay in it, protected from the sun by a strip of canvas spread above her head. Despite the gentleness with which the Zulus handled her, at the end of the two hours katrina was exhausted. Her back ached and she was sweating in small beads from her yellow skin. The next week they travelled two hours daily and then gradually increased the time until they were making a full day's journey.

They were halfway to the Magahesberg, camped at a muddy waterhole in the thorn flats, when Mbejane came to Sean. There is still one wagon empty of ivory, Nkosi. The others are full Sean pointed out. Four hours, march from this place there is enough ivory buried to fill those wagons.

Sean's mouth twisted with pain. He looked away towards the south-east and he spoke softly. Mbejane, I am still a young man and yet already I have stored UP enough ugly memories to make my old age sad. Would you have me steal from a friend not only his life but his share of ivory also?

Mbejane shook his head. I asked, that is all. And I have answered, Mbejane. It is his . . . let it he.

They crossed the Magaliesberg and turned west along the mountain range.

Then, two months after they had left the Limpopo river, they reached the boer settlement at Louis Trichardt. Sean left MbeJane to outspan the wagons on the open square in front of the church and he went to search for a doctor. There was only one in the district, Sean found him in his surgery above the general dealer's store and took him to the wagons.

Sean carried his bag for him and the doctor, a grey-beard and unused to such hardships, trotted to keep up with Sean. He was panting and pouring sweat by the time they arrived. Sean waited outside while the doctor completed his examination and when he finally made his descent from the wagon Sean fell on him impatiently. What do you think, man? I think, meneer, that you should give hourly thanks to your Maker. The doctor shook his head in amazement. It seems hardly possible that your wife could have survived both the fever and the loss of the childShe is safe then, there's no chance of a relapse? Sean asked.

She is safe now . . . but she is still a very sick woman.

It may take a year before her body is fully mended. There is no medicine I can give you. She must be kept quiet, feed her well and wait for time to cure her. The doctor hesitated. There is other damage - he tapped his forehead with his forefinger. Grief is a terrible destroyer.

She will need love and gentleness and after another six months she will need a baby to fill the emptiness left by the one she lost. Give her those three things, meneer, but most of all give her love. The doctor hauled his watch from his waistcoat and looked at it. Time! there is so little time. I must go, there are others who need me. He held out his hand to Sean. Go with God, meneer. Sean shook his hand. How much do I owe you? The doctor smiled, he had a brown face and his eyes were pale blue; when he smiled he looked like a boy. I make no charge for words. I wish I could have done more. He hurried away across the square and when he walked you could see that his smile lied, he was an old man.

Mbejane! said Sean. Get a big tusk out of the wagon and take it to the doctor's room above the store. Katrina and Sean went to the morning service in the church next day. Katrina could not stand through the hymns. She sat quietly in her pew, watching the altar, her lips forming the words of the hymn and her eyes full of her sorrow.

They stayed on for three more days in Louis Trichardt and they were made welcome. Men came to drink coffee with them and see the ivory and the women brought them eggs and fresh vegetables, but Sean was anxious to move south. So on the third day they started the last stage of their trek.

Katrina regained her strength rapidly now. She took over the management of Dirk from the servants, to their ill-concealed disappointment, and soon she left her litter and rode on the -box seat of the lead wagon again. Heir body filled out and there was colour showing once more through the yellow skin of her cheeks. Despite the improvement to her body the depression of her mind still persisted and there was nothing that Sean could do to lift it.

A month before the Christmas of 1895 Sean's wagon train climbed the low range of hills above the city and they looked down into Pretoria. The jacaranda trees that filled every garden were in bloom, masses of purple and the busy streets spoke well of the prosperity of the Transvaal republic. Sean outspanned on the outskirts of the city, simply pulling the wagons off the road and camping beside it, and once the camp was established and Sean had made certain that Katrina no longer needed his help he put on his one good suit and called for his horse. His suit had been cut to the fashion of four years previously and had been made to encompass the belly he had acquired on the Witwatersrand. Now it hung loosely down his body but bunched tightly around his thickened arms. His face was burnt black by the sun and his beard bushed down onto his chest and concealed the fact that the stiff collar of his shirt could no longer close around his neck. His boots were scuffed almost through the uppers, there was not a suspicion of polish on them and they had completely lost their shape. Sweat had soaked through his hat around the level of the hand and left dark greasy marks; the brim drooped down over his eyes so he had to wear it pushed onto the back of his head.

There was, therefore, some excuse for the curious glances that followed him that afternoon as he rode down Church Street with a great muscular savage trotting at his one stirrup and an overgrown brindle hound at the other. They pushed their way between the wagons that cluttered the wide street; they passed the Raadsaal of the Republican Parliament, passed the houses standing back from the road in their spacious purple and green gardens and came at last to the business area of the city that crowded round the railway station. Sean and Duff had bought their supplies at a certain general dealer's stores and now Sean went back to it. It was hardly changed, the signboard in front had faded a little but still declared that Goldberg, Importer and Exporter, Dealer in mining Machinery, Merchant and Wholesaler, was prepared to consider the purchase of gold, precious stone, hides and skins, ivory and other natural produce. Sean swung down from the saddle and tossed his reins to Mbejane. Unsaddle, Mbejane. This may take time. Sean stepped up onto the sidewalk, lifted his hat to two passing ladies and went through into the building where Mr Goldberg conducted his diverse activities.

one of the assistants hurried to meet him, but Sean shook his head and the man went back behind the counter. He had seen Mr Goldberg with two customers at the far end of the store. He was -- content to wait. He browsed around among the loaded shelves of merchandise, feeling the quality of a shirt, sniffing at a box of cigars, examining an axe, lifting a rifle down off the rack and sighting at a spot on the wall, until Mr Goldberg bowed his customers through the door and turned to sean. Mr Goldberg was short and fat.

His hair was cropped short and his neck bulged over the top of his collar. He looked at Sean and his eyes were expressionless while he riffled through the index cards of his memory for the name. Then he beamed like a brilliant burst of sunlight. Mr Courtney, isn't it? Sean grinned. That's right. How are you, Izzy? They shook hands. How's business?

Mr Goldberg's face fell. Terrible, terrible, Mr Courtney.

I'm a worried man. You look well enough on it, Sean prodded his stomach. You've put on weight! You can joke, Mr Courtney, but I'm telling you it's terrible. Taxes and worry, taxes and worry. Mr goldberg sighed, and now there's talk of war. What's this? Sean frowned. War, Mr Courtney, war between Britain and the Republic. Sean's frown dissolved and he laughed. Nonsense, man, not even Kruger could be such a bloody fool! Get me a cup of coffee and a cigar and we'll go through to your office and talk business. Mr Goldberg's face went blank and his eyelids drooped almost sleepily. Business, Mr Courtney? That's right, Izzy, this time I'm selling and you're buying. What are you selling, Mr Courtney? Ivory. Ivory? ? lTwelve wagon loads of it Mr goldberg sighed sadly. Ivory's no good now, the bottom's fallen out of it. You can hardly give it away. It was very well done; if Sean had not been told the ruling prices two days before he might have been convinced. I'm sorry to hear that, he said. If you're not interested, I'll see if I can find someone else. Come along to my office anyway, said Mr Goldberg. We can talk about it. Talk costs nothing. Two days later they were still talking about it. Sean had fetched his wagons and had off-loaded the ivory in the back yard of the store. Mr Goldberg had personally weighed each tusk and written the weights down on a sheet of paper. He and Sean had added the columns of figures and agreed on the total. Now they were in the last stages of agreeing the price. Come on, Izzy, we've wasted two days already. That's a fair price and you know it . . . let's get it over with, Sean growled. I'll lose money on this, protested Mr Goldberg. I've got to make a living, every man's got to live. Come on, Sean held out his right hand. Let's call it a deal. Mr Goldberg hesitated a second longer, then he put his pudgy hand in Sean's fist and they grinned at each other, both well satisfied. One of Mr Goldberg's assistants counted out the sovereigns, stacking them in piles of fifty along the counter, then Sean and Mr Goldberg checked them and agreed once more. Sean filled two canvas bags with the gold, slapped mr Goldberg's back, helped himself to another cigar and headed heavily laden for the bank. When are you going into the veld again? Mr goldberg called after him.