The World Beneath (12 page)

T
oday Joshua is on his own. Bonny is away training for the day. She doesn’t tell him why or where. It’s a secret, she says. And he recalls how Tsumalo told him it was safer not to know too much.

Alone, he kicks around the camp with nothing to do. Bonny left him reading, but he is bored with it. He decides to go exploring. It’s not allowed, but he doesn’t care. He knows it’s safer for him to stay in the main part of the camp.

He takes a quick look around — all the men are down at the range. The camp is almost empty, except for Mama Bongani hanging up the camp commandant’s uniform on the line behind the house. He can see the bright yellow dot of her head scarf.

Away from the main buildings and the shooting range, right at the edge of the camp, just inside the barbed-wire fence and behind a stand of scrubby trees, there is a building that looks deserted. As he approaches, though, he can hear something. A small sound, a sound that’s almost swallowed before it begins. Joshua is transfixed and stops, frozen, trying to hear it again. “Aaaah.”

Was that it? It’s almost whispered. He looks around him. It’s quiet.

He turns his attention back to the building. It’s the sound of someone in pain. He tiptoes closer. “Hello?” he whispers. Silence. Then another groan, louder, quickly stifled, as if whoever it is could not stop it emerging.

“Hello? Is there someone there? Are you OK?” As he says it, it sounds stupid.

Now he can hear a scratching noise. There is a vent at the top of the wall, the kind made by a brick with holes in it. That must be where the noise is coming from. As he watches, something drops out of it and lands at his feet. He scoots back in fright. It’s a wad of paper, scrunched up small. Hardly daring, he picks it up gingerly and opens it out. On it there is a word, scratched in rough capitals with what looks like charcoal: “HELP.”

Breathless, he runs around to the other side of the building. There is a stable door, firmly bolted, with a padlock. Why is there someone imprisoned here? The thought makes him go cold.

He looks around again. No one. Up to the door and “Hello!” he whispers. “Hello, who is there, please?”

A thin, dry whisper. “Help me, please. Help me.” The voice fades away on the last syllables, as if the man inside can hardly speak, as if he is hardly there anymore.

“I can’t — there is a padlock,” Joshua whispers back urgently. “I’m sorry. Why are you locked up?”

A pause. It goes on so long that Joshua wonders if the man has fallen unconscious.

“They say I am a traitor.” A creak rather than a whisper. Then another long pause. “But I am not. I am not.”

Then a noise that is hard to interpret, a terrible noise that is like choking, but that Joshua realizes is the sound of crying.

Then another sound. But it comes over from the edge of the camp. He turns to run back toward his thorn tree, falling into a stroll as the Jeeps come into view, thrashing the grasses with a stick as if he is bored.

The knowledge that the man is there sits heavy with him; he watches as a Jeep goes across to the building and, later, back again. He is a spy under his tree on the hillock that overlooks the camp. There is an innocent man locked up in a stable. Is he to do nothing?

That night he and Bonny talk by the fire outside the tents. She puts an arm around him. “You’re shivering, Josh.” She has taken to calling him Josh, in the way that white people have of shortening everybody’s names, no matter how short they are already.

He stiffens. “I’m fine.” He does not want to tell her of his discovery. Yet he does. She is his only friend here. Who else can he tell? He can’t do nothing. That would be wrong. He feels the knowledge sitting in his stomach like a weight.

Bonny swings him around to face her in the flickering light. “What’s wrong? You were fine this morning.”

“Nothing.”

Soon they have retreated from the flames, and using the scant light of a penlight that Bonny fetches from her tent, they are approaching the stable.

It’s apparent that there is some activity there. There is a Jeep parked outside it, light floods out from the door, and from inside the stable are coming terrible noises. Bonny turns and claps her hands over Joshua’s ears. He wriggles free. He looks into her eyes in the half-light. And he can see that she knows what’s happening.

“Come!” she commands. She drags and pushes and punches him away from the building until they are at the far side of the camp, away from everything: the house, the stable, the tents.

“What is it? What has he done? Why can’t we help him?” The questions pour out of Joshua like lava in a stream she can’t stem.

“We can’t help him,” she says simply. “I’m so sorry, Josh. There is nothing we can do.”

And as he starts to protest: “No, I mean it.” She emphasizes the words. “There — is — nothing — we — can — do. I’m so sorry.” She pauses. “He is a spy sent by the police into the camp to find out our plans for the next attacks. He would have passed them back to the police. Then our men — our men, Josh — would have been picked off by the police like so many sitting ducks.”

“But he says he is innocent,” says Joshua. “Why would a black man spy for the police?”

“Of course he would say that, Josh. I’m sorry.”

She gives him a hug, then pulls away, holding him by the arms and looking at him. He can only see her silhouette against the starlit sky. “It is difficult to find out that people are not always what they seem.”

Josh thinks of the man’s voice. Somehow he knows that he wasn’t lying.

He looks up at Bonny and forces himself to relax his stiff shoulders. “OK. I understand. Let’s go back before they miss us.”

Joshua lies all night with his sleeping bag pulled up under his chin, drifting in and out of sleep, shivering. Does the man have a blanket? Is he hungry?

In the morning, he offers to wash up for Mama Bongani after they eat their
mielie-pap
at the kitchen table. As soon as she has left the house, he takes two slices off the loaf of rough bread and two thin slices of cheese. He wraps the sandwich in a bit of brown paper and stuffs it in his shorts pocket. It is not much, but it will have to do.

He wanders off to the thorn tree and lies there for a bit. Bonny, Sindiso, and some of the others are away training, and the camp is quiet. He considers taking the food to the man now, but it is only at the end of the day, when the red sun sinks over the far hill, that he feels safe enough. First, though, he fetches an old Coke bottle, fills it with water, and stuffs a rag in the top.

The dark is almost complete and wraps him like a secret. He approaches the stables using a zigzag route, almost out to the boundary and back, wandering quietly, head down, through the trees. Then he is below the blank brick wall with its vent.

“Hello,” he whispers. “Are you there?”

There is a square gap in the bricks high up by the door of the stable, where one has fallen out. It is just big enough to slide the sandwich and the bottle through.

“Thank you,” whispers the man inside.

Joshua sits huddled against the brick wall that has been warmed by the sun and waits, alert for any sound. Then he stands up and puts his mouth to the gap. “Give me back the paper and the bottle,” he murmurs. “I will bring you more food tomorrow.”

The next morning, he is heading out of the kitchen with a wrapped sandwich in his hand.

“Where are you going?” It is Mama Bongani, coming around the corner with an armful of laundry. He does not know what to say. She is looking at the sandwich. “What is that?”

He gives her an anxious smile. “I am sorry, Mama. I thought I would take something for my lunch.” He has never done it before. It makes no sense. She will be suspicious.

She smiles at him. “That’s a good idea. See you later.”

He steps aside and she goes into the kitchen with the washing.

“Wait!” she calls. “Joshua, wait!”

He stands frozen. She comes out with a dripping Coke bottle, filled with water and corked.

“Thank you, Mama. Thank you.” He smiles shyly at her, ducks his head, and runs.

On the third morning, he makes the sandwich and fills the bottle, but it isn’t until dusk falls that he scrambles down the hill. But as he follows the path through the trees, he sees light filtering through the branches. The Jeep is outside, and there is light coming out of the doorway. He turns and runs: this time he can’t listen. He kneels in the sand under the thorn tree, hands clenched together, and prays, and weeps. Then he stands up. He knows what he has to do.

He couldn’t help Sipho, murdered hundreds of miles away from him, or Tsumalo, shot down right in front of him. But he can help this man. And he will.

It is the deepest, darkest time of the night. Joshua hasn’t slept. He can’t. He wriggles out of his sleeping bag and opens the door a crack. It creaks. This is the most dangerous part. Mama Bongani might hear him.

Out from under the bundle of clothes he uses as a pillow, he brings the flashlight. Bonny gave it to him the night he took her to the stable. “Have this,” she said. “I have another one in my tent.” She could see he was still upset. As if a flashlight would make him feel better!

He’s never had a flashlight before. He doesn’t plan to use it. He is going to give it to the man. And he has to take the bolt cutters he has seen in the lean-to by his room.

At the stable all is silent. The sliver of moon casts the faintest of lights. Joshua listens at the door. Is it his imagination or can he hear breathing? Is the man asleep?

“Sssst!”
Joshua hisses.
“Sssst!”

Nothing.

“
Sssst!
Wake up!”

He doesn’t want to cut the padlock until the man is awake. He rattles the door a bit and immediately hears a gasp from inside. “It’s me!” he says quickly. Some instinct has prevented him from giving his name to the man or asking his. “I will let you out. I am going to cut the lock.”

Silence. “Thank you,” comes a hoarse whisper. “You are an angel.”

Outside Joshua hesitates. He picks up the heavy cutters and weighs them in his hand. It isn’t going to be easy.

“The key.” The man’s voice is still a whisper, but it is stronger now. “Look under the stone. I think they keep it there.”

And there it is. Under a big stone by the door. It is the work of a moment to unlock it.

Inside, the man is sitting on the bare floor, slumped against the wall. His face is a mass of bruises; one eye is almost shut. He flinches from the light.

“Here.” Joshua kneels by him and hands him the water. Half of it runs down his chin. Then he grabs the bottle and sucks at it desperately, half choking, gulping. “Slowly,” commands Joshua. “You will get sick.”

He leans back and takes a proper look. “Can you walk? Do you think you can make it across the river? If they catch you —”

“I will go,” says the man, looking with his good eye into Joshua’s face. “I would rather die than stay here.”

Joshua’s heart is thumping so loudly, he thinks the man will hear it. He helps him to his feet and to the door, grabbing a filthy blanket from the floor and wrapping it around him like a shawl. “Here,” he says. “I have brought you some food. And more water. You will need that especially.” He has put the bottle and the sandwich along with the flashlight in an old shopping bag. It isn’t much, but it is the best he can do.

The two stand at the door and look into the darkness and listen. They can hear nothing but the high singsong of crickets and the faint rustles of the bush at night. No footsteps. Just the faint high glitter of the stars. It’s good that the moon is not full.

“Ready?” asks Joshua.

“Yes,” answers the man.

They begin their slow journey to the river. It is half a mile away. The man leans his heavy frame on Joshua. Beyond, the land is kinder, with more scrubby trees and paths through it, more cover for the day. It is two days’ walk to the nearest farm. There he can say he is a refugee. If he is lucky, he will meet with kindness before he resumes his journey. The farther away he gets, the more likely it will be that no one will be able to identify him and the more likely it will be that he will survive.

They are silent as they walk along the sandy path through the scrubby bushes. As they come out in sight of the river, the man sags against him suddenly. He is breathing heavily. “Not far now,” says Joshua.

The river is not deep at this point. It’s only waist high, but there are strong currents, and Joshua is worried the man won’t have the strength to get across. He helps him to tie the bag around his neck to keep it out of the water. He has no shoes.

The man takes Joshua’s hands in his big ones and looks hard at him. “What is your name?”

Joshua hesitates. It is not good to share information, he knows that. Nevertheless . . . “Joshua,” he answers.

The man takes a sharp breath, as if he has felt a sudden pain in his chest. “A long time ago, I had a son called Joshua,” he says softly. And he turns his face away. Joshua’s heart leaps. Perhaps — “He’s dead now,” says the man, and turns a bleak face to him.

“Go,” says Joshua, and pushes him gently toward the river.

“Aaaah,”
says the man as he wades into the cold water. He turns to Joshua. “I will never forget you.” The faint moon gleams on his upturned face; the one good eye glitters. Then he is gone, holding the bag firmly across his chest with folded arms and carefully feeling his way with his feet, swaying as the force of the water hits him.

Joshua watches him anxiously. In a minute he is across safely. He scrambles up the bank, stands, and turns to wave. Then the bush swallows him, and it is as if he has never been.

Joshua takes a deep breath where he has been crouching. Then there is a touch on his shoulder, and he whips around in terror.

“You fool,” says Bonny. He can barely see her face, but he can hear her fury. “You were stupid to believe him,” she says. “He was lying to you.”

Joshua does not speak of the ridiculous hope that sprang up in his chest when the man said: “Once I had a son called Joshua.”

She looks closely at him in the moonlight. “Come on,” she says. “No time to lose. If they see us out here, they will know what you’ve done.”