Perceptions of countries, nations, often go awry. You build up impressions until they become a house of cards and, when one card turns up false, the whole house may come tumbling down.

Perceptions of Africa, this most enigmatic of all places, are particularly friable.

Take the case of Lesotho and Botswana which gained independence in the same week way back in 1966. Conventional wisdom (in that awful phrase) had no doubt which of the former British protectorates was most likely to succeed.

Lesotho, formerly Basutoland, had the highest literary rate of all Africa. Tribally, it was monolithic. Thus, freedom and democracy should have sprouted like weeds.

On the other hand Botswana, formerly Bechuanaland, was among the 20 poorest countries in the world. Much animosity existed among its far-flung tribes. There was bound to be conflict.

While Botswana has become one of three African states rated genuinely democratic, the Basotho people had to live through 26 years of oppressive one-party or military domination.

Other failed truisms lie in ruins elsewhere, such as one which said the Zambians would never overthrow their patriarch, Kenneth Kaunda. Another claimed Zaireans were too volatile to tolerate for long a money-grabbing tyrant like Mobutu Sese Seko. Mobutu reigned for 32 years before prostate cancer brought him down.

The other evening, the talk turned to Malawi. Several of our number had been there. They reminisced about “the warm heart of Africa”, as the brochures call it, and spoke about the courtesy of the people, of benign attitudes and eagerness to serve, of – well, just the mood of relaxation and absolute lack of tension.

An expatriate from Central Africa, who lived for a long time in Zambia and could remember Malawi when it was Nyasaland, said it was accepted when he was a civil servant that the Nyasas made the best “houseboys” of all. He didn’t mean that to sound patronising. But they were diligent and, well, just nice  people. Uncomplicated.

Listening, I recalled – but did not recount – an experience some years before.

I had spent some days on Lake Malawi. It is, by any standards, a marvellous place to be. But the next day I was due to catch a flight from Lilongwe, the capital.

Driving out of Monkey Bay, I missed the turnoff to Dedza. I stopped an old fisherman with a basket of carp. He said he knew a road I could take – over the escarpment. It so happened, he said, that his home was on the same route.

When I dropped him off, the fisherman pointed vaguely towards a rough track ahead. “There’s Lilongwe,” he said.

Very soon, I was enveloped in forest. People came fleetingly into view. It was a Saturday afternoon. Many squatted around cases of the local bottled beer the Malawians call “greens”.

The track got worse, and higher; the forest thicker. The atmosphere was like one of those early Ingmar Bergman films shot in the wilds of Finland.

On the brow of a hill, I came upon a crowd, their attention on something up ahead. But they were listening rather than watching.

Several hundred metres further on, the hill became a plateau with a few mud huts. In the foreground were two figures dressed in masks, like the abakweta initiates of the Transkei, and traditional skirts. They seemed to be simulating a spear dance.

One of my cameras, with a long lens, was on the front seat. I stopped, got out and picked it up. Even as I began to focus, the two figures turned in my direction and started to run at me.

Cautiously, I climbed back into the car and drove off. Slowly, then faster, as the two continued their pursuit. One threw a spear.

Many kilometres on, the track joined a trunk road to Lilongwe. I arrived after nightfall and booked into my hotel.

That evening, in the restaurant, I asked the head waiter what the encounter was all about. He couldn’t say because he wasn’t from the mountain area but called one of his staff who was.

The younger waiter said there must have been a recent death in that village. The two men were probably siblings of the deceased and, in tribal tradition, were feigning a spear dance in his honour. Nobody else, by tradition, was supposed to see them – which accounted for the crowd just over the hill, out of sight but not sound.

That was also why they had chased me.

“And if they had caught me?” I asked. “If my car had stalled?”

“Then,” said the young waiter, “they would have been obliged to kill you.”

From One Man’s Africa.

THIRTY-FOUR

 The scene beggared belief. Margaret Buhl didn’t know whether to cry or run away. The cottage was a smouldering ruin and her garden awash in water and people.

The irony was that Margaret had been to the Catholic Church she rarely attended. She had gone to ask Father Roganmauser to pray for her and for Fritz, in that prisoner-of-war camp where God only knew what he was going through. After the service, the priest had done so.

And now this. It was as though all the bad things that had happened to her in the past four years were reaching a climax in some mad conspiracy that would destroy her, physically and mentally.

Torches were flashing in a kaleidoscope of beams. Having swamped the cottage with water, the firemen were now intent on sponging it all up.

She approached the man who was giving the orders and realised that, under the helmet, it was Jimmy Millard.

‘What happened, Jimmy?’ she asked. ‘What has happened to my cottage?’ And then Margaret Buhl broke down.

Jimmy Millard sat her down on a dry spot on the kitchen steps. ‘Moses is dead,’ he said gently. ‘It looks as if he may have had an accident with the Primus. Knocked it over.’

‘Oh, Moses, Moses!’ said Margaret. She closed her eyes and put her hands to her head. She was silent for a long while and then she said, ‘But Moses was so steady! He didn’t drink! It’s hard to believe he would have been careless like this! ’

She stood up. ‘Something must have happened to him,’ she said.

‘Margaret,’ Jimmy Millard said. ‘Jock Brown is around. He also thinks there could be something odd. He wants to ask you about some papers we found.’

‘Papers?’ Margaret said. ‘Papers found where?’

The sergeant emerged from the shadow of the main house and handed her a cardboard file. In it she could see foolscap pages, typewritten. Some were sodden but most were dry.

‘What on earth are these?’ she asked.

‘Digger O’Brien says they’re confidential documents,’ said Jock Brown. ‘Documents stolen months ago from the NRV office.’

‘The NRV? So what were they doing here?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ said Jock.

‘But this is madness!’ said Margaret Buhl. ‘Why should they be here? Nobody here has anything to do with the NRV! Except Moses worked for Mr O’Brien, of course. Maybe he found the documents in the car, or something.’

‘Did you ever see a file like this in the cottage?’

‘I never went into the cottage after Moses moved in,’ said Margaret Buhl. ‘That was his private place.’ She looked across at the scorched walls, the smoking beams, and began weeping again.

Jock Brown walked across Owen Street to the O’Briens’ house. Digger had taken his sons home, away from the stark drama and the stench that fires always caused and attempts to put them out made worse.

Both boys had been distraught. They were in bed on the side verandah but certainly not asleep. The two men sat in the lounge while Iris went off to make tea.

‘What do you think, Jock?’ asked Digger.

‘I don’t know, but I think it’s a set-up,’ said the sergeant. ‘Or was an attempt at a set-up.’

Digger O’Brien nodded. ‘I think Moses was killed by an intruder,’ he said. ‘I know he wouldn’t have had those documents. And if Margaret had them, if she stole them, why did they land up outside the kitchen door?’

‘Unless Moses found them in the main house,’ said Jock Brown, ‘and was killed because of that. You once asked him to look out for anything suspicious around Mrs Buhl’s house. Remember?’

‘Yes, but killed by whom?’ Digger asked. ‘Margaret Buhl?’

‘No, not Margaret. She says she was at church and she knows we can easily check up on that. But if the intruder killed Moses over the papers, why didn’t he take them away with him? Assuming it’s a him.’

‘It has to be a him,’ said Digger.

‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ he added. ‘I think the intruder was intending to plant those documents in Margaret Buhl’s house and then alert us somehow. Maybe by way of an anonymous letter.

‘I think it was the same person who took Margaret’s truck to Port St Johns. Perhaps not for the first time either. Of course!’ said Digger, as a thought came to him. ‘He wouldn’t have known that we knew it wasn’t Margaret Buhl down in Port St Johns!’

‘Thanks to the youngsters,’ said Jock Brown. ‘So he was looking to complete the frame-up by planting the documents he’d stolen earlier in Margaret’s house!’

‘So who is this person?’ Digger asked. ‘Ossie McComb? The dean says he saw him driving the truck. You think Ossie would be able to do that?’

‘Well, that’s the question. But we’re judging him on our perception of him,’ said Jock Brown. ‘Drunk by seven o’clock and unreliable in general. What if all of that’s a front?’

‘All right,’ Digger O’Brien said. ‘Then we must do two things. Ossie says he arrived from the Cape four years or so ago, and took the job at Buhl’s garage some time later. Let’s check that out. I can probably do it through the military. Find out exactly where he came from and when.

‘Also, we still have to put him face to face with Dean Stewart who says he saw him in Libode yesterday morning. Driving the Buhls’ truck. But, as I told you this afternoon, the dean’s going off to Butterworth early tomorrow and won’t be back until, probably, Tuesday. So that’s as much as we can do right now, as far as Ossie’s concerned.’

‘We’ll just have to watch to see he doesn’t scarper,’ said Jock Brown. ‘I’ll put one of my blokes on to that. Unless you want to give the job to Danny and his pals.’

Brown laughed but O’Brien looked grave.

Digger was thinking about his sons, particularly Danny, thinking that Danny wouldn’t be up to spying on anyone for a while. Earlier, when he told the boys about Moses, they had said nothing. But Danny’s frame was racked as though struck by a small earthquake, when he had turned them away, managed to coax them back to their home.

Digger O’Brien had experienced grief and seen it often in others. Death in the trenches of France had been constant. Every day, you almost expected to lose another friend; eventually, you became reluctant to make new ones.

However, how to deal with grief in two young boys was something else entirely.

Danny was sick that night as Iris had predicted. So his parents decided the boys should stay home from school that Monday and their father took the morning off. Patrick picked at his breakfast but Danny refused to eat. He stayed in his bed on the verandah, staring up at the corrugated iron roof.

Eventually, Digger walked Patrick through and sat him down on the other bed, opposite Danny. ‘I want to talk about Moses,’ he told his sons.

‘Moses was our friend,’ he said. ‘In many ways, he became part of the family. But now he’s gone, and we have to accept that. It will be hard, because we’ll miss him, but we have to get over it.’

Danny spoke, almost for the first time in some hours. ‘But Moses was so special, Dad,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t like other – ’

‘Like other what, Danny?’ asked Digger. ‘Like other blacks?’ Danny nodded.

‘No, Danny,’ his father said. ‘You’re wrong. Moses was special. But all people are special. We’re all born equally. The only thing that makes us different is our background, the opportunities we’ve had or haven’t had. Moses was lucky. He had a fair amount of education. He had good friends like you and Patrick.

‘He often told me how lucky he felt, how happy he was here among us. And he was happy right up to the end. What a good day he had yesterday! He scored two goals and was cheered like a hero. He must have felt on top of the world.

‘That’s what he’ll be thinking of now,’ Digger added. ‘Up there, looking down. But do you know what would make him sad? Seeing you two sad. And you, Danny, you must ask. Are you grieving for Moses, or for yourself? Because Moses certainly doesn’t want you to grieve for him.’

He could see his younger son thinking about it all but Patrick said, ‘Dad, we’re not only sad because Moses is dead. We’re sad because we might have been able to prevent it.’

‘How?’

‘On the way back from the soccer game, Moses said he’d finished with the latest Argosy and did we want to go to the cottage to fetch it. We told him we couldn’t. But if we had gone, maybe he’d be alive now. Maybe somehow the accident wouldn’t have happened.’

‘No, Patrick,’ Digger O’Brien said. ‘That was two hours earlier. It wouldn’t have mattered.’

But then he thought: My God, what if? What if the timing had been different? What if the boys had gone to the cottage, had encountered the intruder and been trapped in the same furnace?

 

 

 

 

 

THIRTY-FOUR

 

The scene beggared belief. Margaret Buhl didn’t know whether to cry or run away. The cottage was a smouldering ruin and her garden awash in water and people.

The irony was that Margaret had been to the Catholic Church she rarely attended. She had gone to ask Father Roganmauser to pray for her and for Fritz, in that prisoner-of-war camp where God only knew what he was going through. After the service, the priest had done so.

And now this. It was as though all the bad things that had happened to her in the past four years were reaching a climax in some mad conspiracy that would destroy her, physically and mentally.

Torches were flashing in a kaleidoscope of beams. Having swamped the cottage with water, the firemen were now intent on sponging it all up.

She approached the man who was giving the orders and realised that, under the helmet, it was Jimmy Millard.

‘What happened, Jimmy?’ she asked. ‘What has happened to my cottage?’ And then Margaret Buhl broke down.

Jimmy Millard sat her down on a dry spot on the kitchen steps. ‘Moses is dead,’ he said gently. ‘It looks as if he may have had an accident with the Primus. Knocked it over.’

‘Oh, Moses, Moses!’ said Margaret. She closed her eyes and put her hands to her head. She was silent for a long while and then she said, ‘But Moses was so steady! He didn’t drink! It’s hard to believe he would have been careless like this! ’

She stood up. ‘Something must have happened to him,’ she said.

‘Margaret,’ Jimmy Millard said. ‘Jock Brown is around. He also thinks there could be something odd. He wants to ask you about some papers we found.’

‘Papers?’ Margaret said. ‘Papers found where?’

The sergeant emerged from the shadow of the main house and handed her a cardboard file. In it she could see foolscap pages, typewritten. Some were sodden but most were dry.

‘What on earth are these?’ she asked.

‘Digger O’Brien says they’re confidential documents,’ said Jock Brown. ‘Documents stolen months ago from the NRV office.’

‘The NRV? So what were they doing here?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ said Jock.

‘But this is madness!’ said Margaret Buhl. ‘Why should they be here? Nobody here has anything to do with the NRV! Except Moses worked for Mr O’Brien, of course. Maybe he found the documents in the car, or something.’

‘Did you ever see a file like this in the cottage?’

‘I never went into the cottage after Moses moved in,’ said Margaret Buhl. ‘That was his private place.’ She looked across at the scorched walls, the smoking beams, and began weeping again.

Jock Brown walked across Owen Street to the O’Briens’ house. Digger had taken his sons home, away from the stark drama and the stench that fires always caused and attempts to put them out made worse.

Both boys had been distraught. They were in bed on the side verandah but certainly not asleep. The two men sat in the lounge while Iris went off to make tea.

‘What do you think, Jock?’ asked Digger.

‘I don’t know, but I think it’s a set-up,’ said the sergeant. ‘Or was an attempt at a set-up.’

Digger O’Brien nodded. ‘I think Moses was killed by an intruder,’ he said. ‘I know he wouldn’t have had those documents. And if Margaret had them, if she stole them, why did they land up outside the kitchen door?’

‘Unless Moses found them in the main house,’ said Jock Brown, ‘and was killed because of that. You once asked him to look out for anything suspicious around Mrs Buhl’s house. Remember?’

‘Yes, but killed by whom?’ Digger asked. ‘Margaret Buhl?’

‘No, not Margaret. She says she was at church and she knows we can easily check up on that. But if the intruder killed Moses over the papers, why didn’t he take them away with him? Assuming it’s a him.’

‘It has to be a him,’ said Digger.

‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ he added. ‘I think the intruder was intending to plant those documents in Margaret Buhl’s house and then alert us somehow. Maybe by way of an anonymous letter.

‘I think it was the same person who took Margaret’s truck to Port St Johns. Perhaps not for the first time either. Of course!’ said Digger, as a thought came to him. ‘He wouldn’t have known that we knew it wasn’t Margaret Buhl down in Port St Johns!’

‘Thanks to the youngsters,’ said Jock Brown. ‘So he was looking to complete the frame-up by planting the documents he’d stolen earlier in Margaret’s house!’

‘So who is this person?’ Digger asked. ‘Ossie McComb? The dean says he saw him driving the truck. You think Ossie would be able to do that?’

‘Well, that’s the question. But we’re judging him on our perception of him,’ said Jock Brown. ‘Drunk by seven o’clock and unreliable in general. What if all of that’s a front?’

‘All right,’ Digger O’Brien said. ‘Then we must do two things. Ossie says he arrived from the Cape four years or so ago, and took the job at Buhl’s garage some time later. Let’s check that out. I can probably do it through the military. Find out exactly where he came from and when.

‘Also, we still have to put him face to face with Dean Stewart who says he saw him in Libode yesterday morning. Driving the Buhls’ truck. But, as I told you this afternoon, the dean’s going off to Butterworth early tomorrow and won’t be back until, probably, Tuesday. So that’s as much as we can do right now, as far as Ossie’s concerned.’

‘We’ll just have to watch to see he doesn’t scarper,’ said Jock Brown. ‘I’ll put one of my blokes on to that. Unless you want to give the job to Danny and his pals.’

Brown laughed but O’Brien looked grave.

Digger was thinking about his sons, particularly Danny, thinking that Danny wouldn’t be up to spying on anyone for a while. Earlier, when he told the boys about Moses, they had said nothing. But Danny’s frame was racked as though struck by a small earthquake, when he had turned them away, managed to coax them back to their home.

Digger O’Brien had experienced grief and seen it often in others. Death in the trenches of France had been constant. Every day, you almost expected to lose another friend; eventually, you became reluctant to make new ones.

However, how to deal with grief in two young boys was something else entirely.

Danny was sick that night as Iris had predicted. So his parents decided the boys should stay home from school that Monday and their father took the morning off. Patrick picked at his breakfast but Danny refused to eat. He stayed in his bed on the verandah, staring up at the corrugated iron roof.

Eventually, Digger walked Patrick through and sat him down on the other bed, opposite Danny. ‘I want to talk about Moses,’ he told his sons.

‘Moses was our friend,’ he said. ‘In many ways, he became part of the family. But now he’s gone, and we have to accept that. It will be hard, because we’ll miss him, but we have to get over it.’

Danny spoke, almost for the first time in some hours. ‘But Moses was so special, Dad,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t like other – ’

‘Like other what, Danny?’ asked Digger. ‘Like other blacks?’ Danny nodded.

‘No, Danny,’ his father said. ‘You’re wrong. Moses was special. But all people are special. We’re all born equally. The only thing that makes us different is our background, the opportunities we’ve had or haven’t had. Moses was lucky. He had a fair amount of education. He had good friends like you and Patrick.

‘He often told me how lucky he felt, how happy he was here among us. And he was happy right up to the end. What a good day he had yesterday! He scored two goals and was cheered like a hero. He must have felt on top of the world.

‘That’s what he’ll be thinking of now,’ Digger added. ‘Up there, looking down. But do you know what would make him sad? Seeing you two sad. And you, Danny, you must ask. Are you grieving for Moses, or for yourself? Because Moses certainly doesn’t want you to grieve for him.’

He could see his younger son thinking about it all but Patrick said, ‘Dad, we’re not only sad because Moses is dead. We’re sad because we might have been able to prevent it.’

‘How?’

‘On the way back from the soccer game, Moses said he’d finished with the latest Argosy and did we want to go to the cottage to fetch it. We told him we couldn’t. But if we had gone, maybe he’d be alive now. Maybe somehow the accident wouldn’t have happened.’

‘No, Patrick,’ Digger O’Brien said. ‘That was two hours earlier. It wouldn’t have mattered.’

But then he thought: My God, what if? What if the timing had been different? What if the boys had gone to the cottage, had encountered the intruder and been trapped in the same furnace?