The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 134

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"It is like a soccer match," she said with a bitterness that Samson had never heard in her voice. "Each evening they give us the score. Terrorists 2. security forces 26, we should fill in the coupons for the pools." Samson saw that she was crying, and could think of nothing to say for her comfort.

"They give us the names and ages of the white soldiers, how many children they leave, but the others are only "terrorists", or 4black civilians". Yet they have mothers and fathers and wives and children also." She sniffed up her tears. "They are Matabele as we are, they are our people. Death has become so easy, so commonplace in this land, but the ones that do not die, those will come to us here our people, with their legs torn from their bodies or their brains damaged so that they become drooling idiots." "War is always crueller when the women and children are in it," Gideon said in his dusty old voice. "We kill their women, they kill ours." There was a soft scratching at the door, and Constance stood up and went quickly to it. She switched out the electric light before she opened it. Outside it was night, but Samson saw the silhouettes of two men in the darkened doorway. They slipped into the room, and there was the sound of the door closing. Then Constance switched on the light.

Two men stood against the wall. One glance was enough for Samson to know who they were. They were dressed in jeans and denim shirts, but there was an animal alertness about them, in the way they moved, in their quick bright restless eyes.

The elder of the two nodded at the other, who went quickly into the bedrooms, searched them swiftly and then came back to check the curtains over the windows, to make certain there was no chink between them. Then he nodded at the other man, and slipped out of the door again. The elder man sat down on the bench opposite Gideon Kumalo. He had finely boned features, with an Arab beakiness to his nose, but his skin was almost purple-black and his head was shaven bald.

"My name is Comrade Tebe," he said quietly. "What is your name, old father?" "My name is Gideon Kumalo. "The blind man looked past his shoulder, his head cocked slightly.

"That is not the name your mother gave you, that is not how your father knew you." The old man began to tremble, and he tried three times to speak before the words came out.

"Who are you? "he whispered.

"That is not important," the man said. "We are trying to find who you are. Tell me, old man, have you ever heard the name Tungata Zebiwe? The Seeker after what has been Stolen, the Seeker after Justice?" Now the old man began to shake so that he knocked the bowl from the table and it rang in narrowing circles on the concrete floor at his feet.

"How do you know that name?" he whispered. "How do you know these things?" "I know everything, old father. I even know a song. We will sing it together, you and I. And the visitor began to sing in soft, but thrilling baritone. "Like a mole in the earth's gut, Bazo found the secret way-" It was the ancient battle hymn of the "Moles" impi, and the memories came crashing back upon Gideon Kumalo. In the way of very old men, he could remember in crystal detail the days of his childhood while the events of the previous week were already becoming hazy. He remembered a cave in the Matopos Hills and his father's never-forgotten face in the firelight, and the words of the song came back to him. "The moles are beneath the earth.

"Are they dead?" asked the daughters of Mashobane." Gideon sang in his scratchy old man's voice, and as he sang, the tears welled up out of his milky blind eyes, and ran unheeded down his cheeks.

"Listen pretty maids, do you not hear Something stirring, in the darkness?" When the song was ended, the visitor sat in silence while Gideon wiped away his tears. Then he said softly, "The spirits of your ancestors call you, Comrade Tungata Zebiwe." "I am an old man, blind and feeble, I cannot respond to them." "Then you must send somebody in your place," said the stranger. "Someone in whose veins runs the blood of Bazo the Axe, and Tanase the witch." Then the stranger turned slowly towards Samson Kumalo who sat at the head of the table, and he looked directly into Samson's eyes.

Samson stared back at him flatly. He was angry. He had known instinctively why the stranger had come. There were few Matabele who were university graduates, or who had his other obvious gifts. He had known for a long time now how badly they wanted him, and it had taken all his ingenuity to avoid them. Now at last they had found him and he was angry at them and at Constance. She had led them to him. He had noticed the way she had kept glancing up at the door during the meal.

He knew now that she had told them that he was here.

On top of his anger he felt a weight of weary resignation. He knew that he could no longer resist them. He knew the risks that it would involve, not for himself alone. These were hard men, tempered in blood to a cruelty that was hard to imagine. He understood why the stranger had spoken first to Gideon Kumalo. It was to mark him. If now Samson refused to bend to them, then the old man was in terrible peril.

"You must send someone in your place." It was the age-old bargain, a life for a life. If Samson refused the bargain, he knew the old man's life was forfeit, and that even then that would not end the affair. They wanted him, they would have him.

"My name is Samson Kumalo," he said. "I am a Christian, and I abhor war and cruelty." "We know who you are," said the stranger. "And we know that in these times there is no place for softness." The stranger broke off as the door was pushed open a slit, and the second stranger who had been on watch outside in the night put his head into the room and said urgently, "Kanka!"Just the one word, "Jackals!" and he was gone. Swiftly the elder stranger stood up, drew a 7.62mm. Tokarev pistol from the waistband of his jeans, and at the same time switched out the light. In the darkness he whispered close to Samson's ear." "The Bulawayo bus station. Two days from today at eight o'clock in the morning." Then Samson heard the latch of the door click, and the three of them were alone. They waited in the darkness for five minutes before Constance said, "They have gone." She switched on the light and began collecting the dishes and balling up the newsprint that had served as a table-cloth.

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