The Colour of Gold (10 page)

In the
beginning Isaiah was consigned to the group pounding the rock into
powder. He quickly developed large blisters from gripping the
wooden handle of his hammer. He covered the handle with a cloth and
continued. Each night, after eating his meal of canned beans and
sausages he collapsed onto his blanket, his hands and the muscles
of virtually his whole weary body aching.

"Just stick
with it." Paul told him. "We all went through what you're going
through now. In a week or two calluses will replace the blisters
and your muscles will grow accustomed to the work. Just keep
thinking of the rich vein of gold that we're going to find that
will allow us to stop working."

Once the rock
had been pounded into a sufficiently fine form it was sifted
through a fine steel mesh and the remaining stones crushed into
powder. The powdered rock was then placed in a steel dish, mixed
with mercury and heated over a small fire. Isaiah watched the
process carefully and clearly saw the tiny flakes of gold
collecting in the mercury. Once Paul was satisfied that all the
gold in the powdered rock had been extracted he allowed the mercury
to cool and then poured it into a strong piece if fine cloth. The
mercury was then squeezed through the weave of the cloth and
returned to its container.

Carefully Paul
opened the cloth and Isaiah was disappointed to see the tiny
collection of gold flakes no larger than the head of a large pin.
Paul laughed when he saw the look of disappointment on Isaiah's
face.

"This little
collection of gold flakes is worth about fifty Rand and is about
average for a day's work but sometimes we get nothing. I warned you
though, that this is a hard way to make money but it's still better
than not having any work at all. We all live with the hope that one
day we'll strike a rich vein of gold that will make us all wealthy.
That's what drives us."

Paul also kept
a careful watch over the stocks of food and drink, carefully
rationing it so as to make it last as long as possible. No alcohol
was allowed and no smoking.

The two main
natural dangers that the miners faced were rockfalls and poisonous
gasses both of which were impossible to detect early. The other
danger that the men feared even more was rival gangs who murdered
miners for the gold that they had collected. Paul had contrived a
simple alarm setup that would warn them of unwanted intruders. It
consisted of a number of tripwires connected to empty tins that
would crash down noisily onto the tunnel floor when activated. It
wasn't foolproof but it was all they had.

After Isaiah
had been working in the mine for two months, Paul called a
meeting.

"We are running
out of food and water." he told the men. "It's time for us to
return to the surface for a while. I think that we have enough gold
to buy ourselves supplies for another two months and also give us
each some cash. I have compiled a list of what provisions I believe
we need. Have a look at the list and if you want something else,
tell me. If it's essential we'll by it. We'll sell the gold and
with the money buy our provisions. Whatever's left will be split
equally amongst us. Okay?"

All the men
nodded in agreement and began preparing to return to the
surface.

***

As the miners
walked along the tunnel towards their base, having sold their gold,
bought sufficient provisions for another two months and shared the
remaining cash, Paul spoke to Isaiah.

"Every day I
became more and more convinced that we could find much more gold if
we could use explosives." he said. "We are too limited breaking off
the rock with hammers, picks and crowbars. Would you be prepared to
go and work at Deep Reef Gold Mine and steal explosives for us?
It's a dangerous game but if it's done carefully there isn't a
great deal of risk."

"What would I
have to do?" Isaiah asked.

"You would have
to get an underground job at the mine, probably as a "lasher boy"
who is a worker who loads broken rock onto the hoppers or coco
pans. It's hard work but it's no harder than what you're doing
here." Paul said. "Then you would have to steal explosives."

"How do I do
that?" Isaiah asked.

"The white
miners are very careless with the explosives that they use." Paul
said. "They leave the stuff lying around underground while they
supervise the drilling of the blasting holes in the rock face. As
long as you only take small amounts nobody will notice. There are
quite a few men who steal dynamite but they sell it to the illegal
explosives dealers at prices too high for us to afford."

"Isn't that
very dangerous? Won't the dynamite explode?" Isaiah asked.

"No." Paul
replied with a smile. "For dynamite to explode it needs an electric
current to set it off, so unless you're struck by lightning it's
quite safe. Of course, if you are struck by lightning it won't
matter at all because you'll be dead anyway."

"How do I gat
it out from underground and then out of the mine's premises?"
Isaiah asked.

"Most of the
men who steal explosives use small plastic phials or containers
like the ones that pharmacies dispense tablets in." Paul said. "But
you must be very careful. If you are caught you will go to jail for
a long time. Easily ten years. So, once you've filled your
container with dynamite and sealed it you push it up your anus as
far as you can."

"But the
security guards do searches including body searches." Isaiah
said.

"Yes." Paul
said. "But they don't do the body searches every day. Sometimes
only every tenth day. And if they do body searches the word quickly
gets back to the miners who are waiting to go to the surface so
there's plenty of time to hide the dynamite and then bring it out
the next day. It is very seldom that anyone is caught and those
that are caught usually did something stupid. If you are always
careful and don't take chances you won't get caught."

"And once I've
got the explosives, what do I do with them?" Isaiah asked.

"You must hide
the stolen explosives somewhere off the mine's premises." Paul
said. "And then, on your day off you bring the stuff to me here.
From what I remember your days off will be Saturdays and
Sundays."

"Will you pay
me for the dynamite?" Isaiah asked.

"Yes." Paul
said. "I'll pay you in cash and you'll also still get a share of
the profits that we make. So you'll be getting your mine pay, money
from selling the dynamite to me and a share of the profits that we
make."

Isaiah quickly
realised that this was an opportunity not to be missed.

"Okay." he
said. "I'll do it."

***

Bogdan quickly
settled into his job as a buyer at the Deep Reef Gold Mine.
Although the products he dealt with were very different from those
of the shipping industry the buying system was similar. His fellow
workers in the buying department helped him a great deal by
explaining what the various items that he ordered were used for and
even took him underground so that he could see the items in
operation.

As Bogdan
became more confident and got to know the suppliers of mining
products better, he subtly let it be known that there were certain
benefits available to suppliers in exchange for small favours. He
opened a small savings account at a different bank to the one that
he and Julia used and soon small amounts of money from various
sources surreptitiously found their way into it. Items such as
small electrical kitchen appliances and the odd bottle of expensive
liquor appeared in the Vodnik home.

Bogdan was very
careful when accepting these “gifts”, making sure that there was
never any written reference or receipt that might incriminate him
or his suppliers. He also made it quite clear that it made no
difference to him whether or not a supplier contributed to his
well-being in any small way but such contributions were most
welcome and would not be forgotten. From past experiences Bogdan
also knew that it was fatal to be greedy and that a lot of small
“contributions” were far better and safer than a few large ones.
The generous salary that the mine paid him covered all his living
expenses and allowed him to save a nice sum each month. As far as
he was concerned the little gifts that he received were harmless
and simply part of the system.

Because many of
the items used on the Deep Reef Gold Mine premises were very
valuable a large security force developed over the years and by the
time Bogdan arrived at the mine security had become a major
ingredient of the company’s make-up. Nothing that had any value was
safe and many ingenious systems to relieve the mine of its
possessions were constantly being discovered.

Bogdan heard
about one enterprising thief who purchased a large pile of old used
bricks from the mine and arranged to take some of them out each
evening using a wheelbarrow. The afternoon shift security personnel
inspected the contents of the wheelbarrow each evening and assumed
that the man brought the wheelbarrow back to the mine the following
morning. It was only several weeks after the pile of old bricks had
finally been removed that a mine stock-take found that twenty five
wheelbarrows were missing. The man taking out the bricks each
evening knew that the morning security shift personnel were unaware
that he was taking home a wheelbarrow of bricks each evening and
therefore didn’t know that he should have returned the wheelbarrow
each morning. He wasn’t doing this though. Each evening the
resourceful thief took out his bricks in a new wheelbarrow and sold
it to eager buyers as soon as he had offloaded the bricks at his
house.

One of the
biggest and most dangerous theft problems facing the mining
industry as a whole was the theft of explosives. Large quantities
of commercial explosives were used by the mines every day and this
had attracted the attention of illegal gold miners, criminals and
the African National Congress military wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, that
realised that the gold mines could be an abundant source of
explosives for subversive activities rather than the dangerous and
unreliable overseas supplies that had to be smuggled across
hundreds of miles of hostile countryside before they could be
utilised.

CHAPTER 5

Mister
Finklestein, the attorney handling Bala’s uncle’s estate, unlocked
the door of the shop. Bala stared at the shop front in wonder while
Fatima stood next to him holding onto his arm with trepidation and
holding Salona's hand with the other. The shop was in the business
area of Pageview along Fourteenth Street, only a short distance
from the house and faced onto a busy road running through the
suburb. The shop had a central wooden door painted a bright blue
with a window of four small clear glass panes in the upper half and
two narrow display windows on each side. Above the door was a sign,
also in blue which stated: DINAT TAYLORS. On the one side of the
shop was a shop selling men’s shoes and on the other, a small shop
selling herbal and traditional medicines.

The door swung
inwards and the lawyer reached in and switched on the interior
light. He turned to his clients.

"Please go in."
he said. "As the shop is to be yours from now on please be the
first people to enter."

Bala and Fatima
stepped forward hesitantly and entered the dimly-lit shop. The
familiar clean smell of new fabric filled the air. The shop was
divided into two halves by a glass-topped wooden counter on the
left as one entered, and on the right, a rack of new clothing
consisting mainly of men's shirts and jackets. A large antique
silver cash register with ornate decorations inscribed on its front
and large keys like an old typewriter stood at the far end of the
counter. Underneath the glass counter top was a selection of
different coloured zips and cards of buttons. The back half of the
shop contained a number of rolls of fabric, a wooden cutting table
with a large pair of black scissors and several tape measures on it
and two black motor-driven industrial sewing machines and chairs. A
large wall calendar with a photograph of the Taj Mahal at sunset
hung on the back wall. Two fluorescent strip lights were fastened
to the white ceiling. There was also a rack filled with clothing
either waiting to be repaired or already repaired.

"The cash that
was in the till at the time of your uncle's death has been
deposited into his savings account and the name of the account has
been changed to your name." Mister Finklestein explained to Bala.
"The utility account with the municipality has also been changed
into your name and the arrears paid. As the shop was rented by your
uncle the lease has also been changed to your name and your
landlord will be coming to visit you tomorrow. The clothing that
was in the shop when your uncle passed away and was urgently needed
was sent to another tailor so what's left here needs to be repaired
as soon as possible. I have informed your customers that they can
begin collecting their clothing as from next week. Do you think
that you can manage that?"

"I'm sure that
I can." Bala replied, nodding eagerly.

"Before I leave
you I must reiterate what I told you earlier in my office." Mister
Finklestein said. "The suburb of Pageview has been declared a
"white" area by the government and your shop and your house are
amongst the few still standing here. The government has moved all
the other businesses to the new Oriental Plaza in Fordsburg.
Although it's not far from here the centre is still very new, the
rents are very high and not many people come to shop there.
Hopefully that will change soon."

Bala
nodded.

"It's very
worrying." he said. "At this stage though, we must focus on keeping
my uncle's customers happy."

"In that case
I'll leave you and Misses Desai to get yourselves settled." Mister
Finklestein said. "If there's anything that I can help with please
let me know."