kingdom, their country. And now they were enslaved by a handful of white jackals. The whites had pushed them into smaller and smaller territories, until their freedom had been eroded. Now, the only way a black could exist was by slim, subservient on the surface, but cunning and clever beneath.
Banda did not know how old he was, for natives had no birth certificates. Their ages were measured by tribal lore: wars and battles, and births and deaths of great chiefs, comets and blizzards and earthquakes, Adam Kok’s trek, the death of Chaka and the cattle-killing revolution. But the number of his years made no difference. Banda knew he was the son of a chief, and that he was destined to do something for his people. Once again, the Bantus would rise and rule because of him. The thought of his mission made him walk taller and straighter for a moment, until he felt the eyes of a white man upon him.
Banda hurried east towards the outskirts of town, the district allotted to the blacks. The large homes and attractive shops gradually gave way to tin shacks and lean-tos and huts. He moved down a dirt street, looking over his shoulder to make certain he was not followed. He reached a wooden shack, took one last look around, rapped twice on the door and entered. A thin black woman was seated in a chair in a corner of the room sewing on a dress. Banda nodded to her and then continued on into the bedroom in back.
He looked down at the figure lying on the cot.
Six weeks earlier Jamie McGregor had regained consciousness and found himself on a cot in a strange house. Memory came flooding back. He was in the Karroo again, his body broken, helpless. The vultures …
Then Banda had walked into the tiny bedroom, and Jamie knew he had come to kill him. Van der Merwe had somehow learned Jamie was still alive and had sent his servant to finish him off.
‘Why didn’t your master come himself?’ Jamie croaked.
‘I have no master.’
‘Van der Merwe. He didn’t send you?’
‘No. He would kill us both if he knew.’
None of this made any sense. ‘Where am I? I want to know where I am.’
‘Cape Town.’
‘That’s impossible. How did I get here?’
‘I brought you.’
Jamie stared into the black eyes for a long moment before he spoke. ‘Why?’
‘I need you. I want vengeance.’
‘What do you –?’
Banda moved closer. ‘Not for me. I do not care about me. Van der Merwe raped my sister. She died giving birth to his baby. My sister was eleven years old.’
Jamie lay back, stunned. ‘My God!’
‘Since the day she died I have been looking for a white man to help me. I found him that night in the barn where I helped beat you up, Mr McGregor. We dumped you in the Karroo. I was ordered to kill you. I told the others you were dead, and I returned to get you as soon as I could. I was almost too late.’
Jamie could not repress a shudder. He could feel again the foul-smelling carrion birds digging into his flesh.
‘The birds were already starting to feast. I carried you to the wagon and hid you at the house of my people. One of our doctors taped your ribs and set your leg and tended to your wounds.’
‘And after that?’
‘A wagonful of my relatives was leaving for Cape Town. We took you with us. You were out of your head most of the time. Each time you fell asleep, I was afraid you were not going to wake up again.’
Jamie looked into the eyes of the man who had almost murdered him. He had to think. He did not trust this man – and yet he had saved his life. Banda wanted to get at Van der Merwe through him. That can work both ways, Jamie decided. More than anything in the world, Jamie wanted to make Van der Merwe pay for what he had done to him.
‘All right,’ Jamie told Banda. ‘I’ll find a way to pay Van der Merwe back for both of us.’
For the first time, a thin smile appeared on Banda’s face. ‘Is he going to die?’
‘No,’ Jamie told him. ‘He’s going to live.’
Jamie got out of bed that afternoon for the first time, dizzy and weak. His leg still had not completely healed, and he walked with a slight limp. Banda tried to assist him.
‘Let go of me. I can make it on my own.’
Banda watched as Jamie carefully moved across the room.
‘I’d like a mirror,’ Jamie said. I must look terrible, he thought. How long has it been since I’ve had a shave?
Banda returned with a hand mirror, and Jamie held it up to his face. He was looking at a total stranger. His hair had turned snow-white. He had a full, unkempt white beard. His nose had been broken and a ridge of bone pushed it to one side. His face had aged twenty years. There were deep ridges along his sunken cheeks and a livid scar across his chin. But the biggest change was in his eyes. They were eyes that had seen too much pain, felt too much, hated too much. He slowly put down the mirror.
‘I’m going out for a walk,’ Jamie said.
‘Sorry, Mr McGregor. That’s not possible.’
‘Why not?’
‘White men do not come to this part of town, just as blacks never go into the white places. My neighbours do not know you are here. We brought you in at night.’
‘How do I leave?’
‘I will move you out tonight.’
For the first time, Jamie realized how much Banda had risked for him. Embarrassed, Jamie said, ‘I have no money, I need a job.’
‘I took a job at the shipyard. They are always looking for men.’ He took some money from his pocket. ‘Here.’
Jamie took the money. ‘I’ll pay it back.’
‘You will pay my sister back,’ Banda told him.
It was midnight when Banda led Jamie out of the shack. Jamie looked around. He was in the middle of a shantytown, a jungle of rusty, corrugated iron shacks and lean-tos, made from rotting planks and torn sacking. The ground, muddy from a recent rain, gave off a rank odour. Jamie wondered how people as proud as Banda could bear spending their lives in a place such as this. ‘Isn’t there some –?’
‘Don’t talk, please,’ Banda whispered. ‘My neighbours are inquisitive.’ He led Jamie outside the compound and pointed. ‘The centre of town is in that direction. I will see you at the shipyard.’
Jamie checked into the same boardinghouse where he had stayed on his arrival from England. Mrs Venster was behind the desk.
‘I’d
