style="font-size:15px;"> ‘I know.’
‘Now how would you know a thing like that?’ she asked coyly. ‘Have your men friends been tellin’ tales out of school?’
‘Mrs Venster, don’t you remember me? I stayed here last year.’
She took a close look at his scarred face, his broken nose and his white beard, and there was not the slightest sign of recognition. ‘I never forget a face, dearie. And I’ve never seen yours before. But that don’t mean we’re not going to be good friends, does it? My friends call me “Dee-Dee”. What’s your name, love?’
And Jamie heard himself saying, ‘Travis. Ian Travis.’
The following morning Jamie went to see about work at the shipyard.
The busy foreman said, ‘We need strong backs. The problem is you might be a bit old for this kind of work.’
‘I’m only nineteen –’ Jamie started to say and stopped himself. He remembered that face in the mirror. ‘Try me,’ he said.
He went to work as a stevedore at nine shillings a day, loading and unloading the ships that came into the harbour. He learned that Banda and the other black stevedores received six shillings a day.
At the first opportunity, Jamie pulled Banda aside and said, ‘We have to talk.’
‘Not here, Mr McGregor. There’s an abandoned warehouse at the end of the docks. I’ll meet you there when the shift is over.’
Banda was waiting when Jamie arrived at the deserted warehouse.
‘Tell me about Salomon van der Merwe,’ Jamie said.
‘What to you want to know?’
‘Everything.’
Banda spat. ‘He came to South Africa from Holland. From stories I heard, his wife was ugly, but wealthy. She died of some sickness and Van der Merwe took her money and went up to Klipdrift and opened his general store. He got rich cheating diggers.’
‘The way he cheated me?’
‘That’s only one of his ways. Diggers who strike it lucky go to him for money to help them work their claim, and before they know it Van der Merwe owns them.’
‘Hasn’t anyone ever tried to fight back?’
‘How can they? The town clerk’s on his payroll. The law says that if forty-five days go by without working a claim, it’s open. The town clerk tips off Van der Merwe and he grabs it. There’s another trick he uses. Claims have to be staked out at each boundary line with pegs pointing straight up in the air. If the pegs fall down, a jumper can claim the property. Well, when Van der Merwe sees a claim he likes, he sends someone around at night, and in the morning the stakes are on the ground.’
‘Jesus!’
‘He’s made a deal with the bartender, Smit. Smit sends likely-looking prospectors to Van der Merwe, and they sign partnership contracts and if they find diamonds, Van der Merwe takes everything for himself. If they become troublesome, he’s got a lot of men on his payroll who follow his orders.’
‘I know about that,’ Jamie said grimly. ‘What else?’
‘He’s a religious fanatic. He’s always praying for the souls of sinners.’
‘What about his daughter?’ She had to be involved in this.
‘Miss Margaret? She’s frightened to death of her father. If she even looked at a man, Van der Merwe would kill them both.’
Jamie turned his back and walked over to the door, where he stood looking out at the harbour. He had a lot to think about. ‘We’ll talk again tomorrow.’
It was in Cape Town that Jamie became aware of the enormous schism between the blacks and whites. The blacks had no rights except the few they were given by those in power. They were herded into conclaves that were ghettos and were allowed to leave only to work for the white man.
‘How do you stand it?’ Jamie asked Banda one day.
‘The hungry lion hides its claws. We will change all this someday. The white man accepts the black man because his muscles are needed, but he must also learn to accept his brain. The more he drives us into a corner, the more he fears us because he knows that one day there may be discrimination and humiliation in reverse. He cannot bear the thought of that. But we will survive because of isiko.’
‘Who is isiko?’
Banda shook his head. ‘Not a who. A what. It is difficult to explain, Mr McGregor. Isiko is our roots. It is the feeling of belonging to a nation that has given its name to the Great Zambezi River. Generations ago my ancestors entered the waters of the Zambezi naked, driving their herds before them. Their weakest members were lost, the prey of the swirling waters or hungry crocodiles, but the survivors emerged from the waters stronger and more virile. When a Bantu dies, isiko demands that the members of his family retire to the forest so that the rest of the community will not have to share their distress. Isiko is the scorn felt for a slave who cringes, the belief that a man can look anyone in the face, that he is worth no more and no less than any other man. Have you heard of John Tengo Jabavu?’ He pronounced the name with reverence.
‘No.’
‘You will, Mr McGregor,’ Banda promised. ‘You will.’ And Banda changed the subject.
Jamie began to feel a growing admiration for Banda. In the beginning there was a wariness between the two men. Jamie had to learn to trust a man who had almost killed him. And Banda had to learn to trust an age-old enemy – a white man. Unlike most of the blacks Jamie had met, Banda was educated.
‘Where did you go to school?’ Jamie asked.
‘Nowhere. I’ve worked since I was a small boy. My grandmother educated me. She worked for a Boer school-teacher. She learned to read and write so she could teach me to read and write. I owe her everything.’
It was on a late Saturday afternoon after work that Jamie first heard of the Namib Desert in Great Namaqualand. He and Banda were in the deserted warehouse on the docks, sharing an impala stew Banda’s mother had cooked. It was good – a little gamey for Jamie’s taste, but his bowl was soon empty, and he lay back on some old sacks to question Banda.
‘When did you first meet Van der Merwe?’
‘When I was working at the diamond beach on the Namib Desert. He owns the beach with two partners. He had just stolen his share from some poor prospector, and he was down there visiting it.’
‘If Van der Merwe is so rich, why does he still work at his store?’
‘The store is his bait. That’s how he gets new prospectors to come to him. And he grows richer.’
Jamie thought of how easily he himself had been
