Thunder over the Grass Read online

  She must get Barbara and the rest away from here first and there was an entire day to be filled before that could be done.

  The chief detective had insisted on providing them with guards. It was clear to her that the discovery of the dead child, and the public awareness of it, had decreased their danger but it was his attempt to atone for his earlier behaviour so she did not argue.

  On the other hand the rioting was not something that could be determined by logical thought. Mobs were like rabid hyenas; they were entirely unpredictable.

  She pushed through the second door and into Barbara’s lounge.

  “Amita—” she started “—oh.”

  Amita and Ray were in a tight embrace. Maliha’s immediate thought was that Amita was squeezing the life out of him, except that their lips were locked together. Amita was considerably taller than Ray and leaning down to him.

  Ray opened his eyes and glanced sideways at Maliha. He tore himself away from Amita, stepping back. “Miss Anderson. I... we...”

  Amita looked angry then followed his gaze and her face fell. “Sahiba, I am sorry.”

  They looked like naughty school children caught with their fingers in the chocolate box. Maliha smiled when she really wanted to laugh, but that would hurt their feelings.

  “It is of no concern to me,” she said, waving her hand as if to dismiss the issue. “But I think perhaps you should be more circumspect.”

  Ray did not seem to know where to put his hands. He finally shoved one in his pocket and used the other to punctuate his speech. “Yeah. You’re right, sorry. Got carried away.”

  Maliha found their embarrassment awkward. “Amita, please go and check on Ulrika. Does the baby need feeding?”

  “Soon, I expect.”

  “Well, take little Baba with you.”

  “That will make her more upset.”

  “Yes, but she needs to snap out of it. She’s no use like this,” said Maliha. “Feeding the baby will help her.” I hope.

  She waited while Amita fetched the baby. Amita was just crossing the room when she turned back. “Mem sahib spoke words today.”

  Maliha’s heart leapt. “Is she awake now?”

  Amita shook her head. “She made herself tired with talking.” She turned back and went out.

  “You’re a hard woman, Maliha Anderson.”

  “I’m barely twenty, Ray. Hardly a woman.”

  “Goin’ on eighty.”

  “Well, thank you for the compliment, so now I’m older than Barbara?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Maliha sighed and sat on the sofa, putting her feet up for the first time in nearly sixteen hours. She closed her eyes.

  “Am I really hard?” she asked, almost in a dream.

  “You drive people.”

  “Sometimes they need driving.”

  “Control them.”

  “Some need control,” she muttered.

  If he said anything further she did not know it.

  ii

  When she opened her eyes it was dark. For a moment she did not know what had woken her but then the sound of shouting, screams and gunshots filtered into her consciousness.

  Hundreds of voices. Indistinct, merged one into the other yelling, screaming in anger, shouting in pain. Men and women. And the guns, cracking again and again.

  Maliha stood up. Her shoes had been removed but nothing else. There was the dark silhouette of someone standing at the French window, leaning forward on the rail.

  She padded across the carpet, on to the floorboards and out to the metal grid of the balcony. She put her arm around Valentine’s waist. He did not jump; he must have heard her.

  “Barbara is asleep. I closed her window so she wouldn’t hear this,” he said.

  Maliha looked down into the street. Immediately below them it was empty but looking west she could see the walls of buildings illuminated by flickering orange lights. In the open air the shouts and screams were louder, and the gunshots more distinct.

  “They’re setting fires,” he said. She shivered.

  “What can they possibly hope to achieve?” she said almost to herself.

  “Their land is stolen from them; they are forced into ghettos and prevented from owning anything; and then their children are murdered,” said Valentine. “How would you feel?”

  “I’ve experienced some of it,” she said. She leaned her head against his shoulder for comfort. “You want to fight back even if you don’t know what you’re fighting against.”

  They watched together for a while. The fires did not seem to be getting any closer; the screams and shouts were less regular. The sound of running feet echoed between the buildings below them. A black man emerged from an alley two hundred yards in the direction of the riot. He pounded up the street. As he drew opposite the hotel he stopped and looked directly up at them. There was a shout of anger below them and he set off again running hard.

  Maliha looked down and saw the night porter holding a shotgun.

  “Let’s go to bed,” said Maliha.

  “Can’t,” said Valentine. “Ray’s in my room. Ulrika and Amita with the baby in yours.”

  Maliha did not respond but stared back at the flickering lights, listening to the noise.

  “I should have just gone home when I realised that Marten Ouderkirk’s family would not take the baby.”

  “And if you’d done that children would continue to die.”

  “People are always dying. Children and adults. It’s what happens in the world. We can’t do anything about it. Look at them,” she said nodding at the fighting.

  “In which case, you have done no harm either.”

  She was silent again for a few minutes. “Do you believe in God, Valentine?”

  “I suppose so,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because otherwise there’s no point,” he said. “Do you?”

  “In Hindu gods and goddesses? Not really. In the Christian god? Well, he’s a lot nicer than the Jewish one, and if I had to believe in one I guess he’d be the one I’d prefer.”

  “But you don’t believe in Him.”

  “Most believers have never read their basic text book, or if they have they don’t understand it. All they do is blame him for anything bad and congratulate themselves for everything good. They take the parts that support their own actions and so claim what they are doing is God’s will. He gave them free will, he doesn’t guide their actions. In war both sides claim he’s on their side, but ignore the fact they aren’t supposed to kill at all.”

  “So you despair of humanity?”

  “Yes.”

  “But still try to make things better.”

  She sighed. “Yes.”

  “Because to do nothing is an even worse crime.”

  “And then this happens,” she said waving her hand at the disturbances.

  “They did not have to riot,” he said. “That was their decision. The person who chose to kidnap children and murder them did not have to do it. It was their decision. None of that responsibility is yours. You have revealed the truth and people make their own decisions.”

  She was silent.

  “They would have found another reason to riot eventually,” he said. “As you pointed out they have enough justifications.”

  She turned towards him and put both arms around him. She rested her head against his shoulder and breathed in his hot, musky scent. In his turn he wrapped her in his arms and held her tight.

  They clung to one another for a few minutes then Valentine guided her inside and sat her on the sofa. He went back and shut the window to block the noise.

  “I’m going to have a drink,” he said. “Do you want one?”

  “What’s the time?”

  “One in the morning.”

  “Too late for tea. Just some water.”

  She perched on the edge of the seat and watched him pour a whiskey for himself. He brought over the two drinks and handed the water to her. Then he sat do
wn with his leg touching hers but leaning back.

  “You should try to relax,” he said.

  She took a sip of the water. She felt his hand wander across her back and across the skin of her shoulders. “Don’t you have some kind of ritual that will dispel the worries and the tension?” he asked.

  “If I sat on a mountaintop for a hundred years and rid myself of all worldly concerns,” she said. “Apparently that works.”

  She heard him put his glass down on the side table. Then he pulled himself up on the sofa behind her. Both his hands came down on her shoulders. He began to rub and squeeze them rhythmically. She sighed as he forced the muscles to relax. She let her head droop forwards. His thumbs dug into the muscles on each side of her spine.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” she asked.

  “You probably don’t want to know the answer.”

  There was a time when she would have demanded to know but it probably didn’t matter. You didn’t have to know everything. And knowing as much as she did had not led to a happier life as far as she could tell.

  “A woman?” she asked.

  “I would not let a man do this to me,” he said.

  “What about Amita?” she said with a laugh in her voice, gently reminding him of when he had kissed Amita thinking she was a woman.

  “Perhaps Amita,” he said.

  “Françoise?”

  “I doubt she would even want to touch me.”

  She wriggled. “Can you reach further down?”

  “Not without removing your armour.”

  His fingers stopped moving against her skin, waiting for her decision. Maliha considered what events might occur in the morning. She was not concerned about Ulrika finding them but Ray coming in uninvited would be awkward. Amita was not a problem. If Barbara needed her she would be able to hear from in here.

  “Lock the connecting door to your rooms and pull the curtains,” she said.

  He jumped off the sofa to carry out her instructions. She put down her glass, stood up and unfastened her dress. It slipped down to pool around her feet leaving her in satin bloomers with matching chemise.

  She saw him moving across to switch on the light. “Don’t,” she said.

  “You’re not shy,” he said.

  “How would you know? But right now I’d like to be in the dark.”

  She kicked her dress off to the side and sat down again. She waited while he shucked off his clothes, not quite sure what degree of déshabillé he had reached. His shadowy form climbed behind her on the sofa and manipulated her back again. This time he rubbed all the way down her spine and up again.

  It was very relaxing.

  Then he kissed her neck. It tickled. Then he bit her gently. His arms snaked round and cupped her breasts. “Is this part of the treatment?”

  “I understand it is an excellent way to relax the muscles.”

  “I love you, Valentine,” she said.

  She felt him shift his weight, no longer pressing against her. “But?”

  “Not tonight, we need to sleep.”

  “You, Miss Anderson, are far too sensible for my good.”

  He released her and lay down along the sofa. She lifted her feet on to the cushions and wriggled into position, he with his arms around her.

  He went to sleep before she did.

  iii

  Her modern French-styled dresses were an armour of sorts, thought Maliha as she stepped out of the hotel and into the sun. Wearing a sari made her vulnerable; like this she was the same as all the other Indian women that walked the streets of Johannesburg. Another potential victim to hatred and ignorance.

  It had taken a lot of work to convince Amita that she must not accompany her. For someone who was supposed to be just a servant, who had arrived so timid and uncertain, Amita was growing into a formidable person in her own right.

  Maliha was glad, of course, she just wished Amita would remember who was in charge. And appreciate that she could not ignore the fact she had been shot in the arm.

  They had made her outfit quite modest, but only the pallu hid the lower marks on her back which could be revealed “by accident” for added effect.

  There was very little traffic, far less than one would normally expect on a Wednesday, and Maliha made her way across the road without difficulty to where Izak and Lilith loitered in the alley. She ignored them and moved down the road and then up a side street before stopping to talk.

  “You found her?”

  “Auntie Flo, yes, we found her,” said Izak. He was serious, and Lilith mimicked him, there was no laugh in her.

  She almost wished they had not found the woman but her course was set.

  “Take me to her.”

  They made the journey across the city on foot. Izak led her north at first before heading west in order to avoid the destruction of the night before.

  Their circuitous route may have avoided the worst of the damaged streets but as they travelled towards the west they came across buildings with shattered windows. Men were busy hammering boards across the broken windows. The ground was littered with rocks and bricks.

  They passed a building with blackened window frames and smoke still drifting from it. The smell of burnt wood and melted metal hung in the air around it.

  They crossed a main road, still with almost no traffic, and the landscape changed abruptly. The buildings here were older and bore the old scars of the war but no new ones. Maliha kept her head down as they walked on until finally they reached a church, or at least the remains of one. It had been constructed of brick but nothing of it above ten feet remained in place. Grasses and moss grew from the mortar joints while bushes were scattered through the untended graveyard and inside the remaining structure.

  The ironwork fence was still intact near the entrance but had been ripped away from everywhere else. The place was not deserted; it had been infested with the dregs of humanity. At a guess from looking at their faces, most were half-breeds with perhaps the colour of the Europeans but the facial structure of the natives, or the other way around.

  There were makeshift tents and fires burning. Old people and young. Some children chased one another among the gravestones.

  Izak and Lilith came to a stop near the gate. The arch that led through to the old entrance was intact.

  “Auntie Flo is in here?”

  “This is her place,” said Izak. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked uncomfortable.

  “You don’t need to come in,” said Maliha. “But if Auntie Flo comes out I need you to follow her, carefully.”

  Izak nodded.

  Maliha walked up to the iron gate, pushed it open and stepped through on to the smooth flagstones. She knew from Ulrika’s description what sort of person to expect. Someone round and smiling, someone who exuded pleasantness, sympathy and concern. Someone who loved children and wanted to see them given the best possible life she could.

  Maliha adjusted the cloth about her neck so that it hid her face. The entrance to the church had no door to go with the lack of a roof. Despite that it seemed to become quieter when she entered and looked around.

  The enclosing walls, such as they were, were scarred and burnt. Towards the far end of the ruin the stones were not overgrown and reflected the sun’s light, like glass. She ran her fingers over what remained of the door frame. Where the hinges would have been were twisted pieces of metal.

  The story of the church became clear to her. It must have been used as a munitions store during the war and been hit. The resulting explosion obliterated the roof, scored the insides of the walls and the heat of the explosion had partially melted the surface of the sandstone floor at one end, turning that part to glass where no plant could get purchase and grow.

  There was no baby farmer here. There was nobody here. The only life was the plants and the buzz of insects.

  But to her right there was a dark hole in the floor where stone steps led down. She took them, counting fifteen steps as she descended.
Despite the light filtering from outside the dark seemed all-enveloping. She gave her eyes a few moments until she could discern the short corridor that ended in a door with a faint light escaping beneath it.

  She knocked.

  There was no response.

  She knocked louder.

  “Wie is dit?” the voice was quite deep in tone, to the point where Maliha was uncertain if the speaker was male or female.

  “Auntie Flo?” Maliha gave her voice as much Indian as she could muster.

  “Who?”

  “I need help.”

  There was a long delay. Maliha could hear someone moving around inside. At one point something was knocked over; it could have been a chair or an empty wooden box.

  A bolt slid back on the other side of the door. It opened a little and then the bottom of it scraped on the ground and it came to a halt. A shadowy figure, shorter than Maliha and much rounder, stood on the other side, a silhouette. The figure coughed deep in its lungs.

  Maliha summoned a sob. “Please, are you Auntie? I need help.”

  The figure yanked harder on the door which scraped across the ground.

  “I am Auntie Flo,” she said. “Come in, jong frau.”

  She moved back and Maliha stepped over the threshold.

  iv

  The crypt in which Auntie Flo made her home stank of her sweat, cigarettes and an underlying odour of beer. The room contained a small table and two chairs, one threadbare armchair of unknown vintage and a child’s cot.

  Maliha went straight over to the cot but it was empty except for dirty sheets.

  “I do not have ladies in my rooms,” said Auntie Flo and coughed again.

  “I am desperate, Auntie Flo,” said Maliha. “My father beat me for bringing shame to the family. I ran away but I cannot live alone. Someone said you can help.”

  Auntie Flo had not moved from the door, and was in darkness. But as Maliha turned towards her she stepped out into the light. Her skin was dark but not black, her features European and her dark hair was streaked with white. She walked with a limp. It seemed one of her legs was a different length to the other.