I stayed awake listening, for as long as I could. By the time I fell asleep Small Boy still hadn’t come back.
The next morning I brought Mr Blue his second cup of coffee. His fingers trembled as he grasped the cup and raised it to his lips. The lump in the front of his throat moved as he swallowed, like a rat under a blanket. He leaned back in his chair and tilted his chin as Small Boy started to cover the bottom half of his face with lather. Sweat drops, glistening like insect eggs hung on his forehead. Small Boy jerked the leather strap tight across his forearm and stroked the blade of the razor against it. Then he stepped forward and drew the flat side of the sharpened blade across Mr Blue’s cheek.
* * *
Mr Blue complained the workers were always breaking things. The excavator in the first pit that scooped up giant mouthfuls of soil and rocks: three days’ work lost, he said. Just like that. Every day it was something. Shovels and hoes turned to chalk. Wooden handles snapped like dried grass stalks. Steel pick heads shattered. A sledgehammer cracked like an egg. The mining had continued through several seasons. At first Mr Blue had seemed pleased. But now he was always complaining. Always complaining. These Africans don’t know how to take care of their tools, refuse to learn how to maintain machinery, he said. This to the director and his wife who came to inspect the mines.
In the clay oven Small Boy’s bread made with palm wine and baking soda swelled and rose. Small Boy fashioned chicken cutlets and sweet potato croquettes and made a salad of cucumber and tomatoes, which he dressed with oil and vinegar from the store. A table was set up in the middle of the camp. The woman draped a cloth over it, and we collected together every cup, spoon, knife and plate in the place. Small Boy showed me the bottle of wine the visitors had brought and I watched as he pulled the cork out of the neck.
That morning the water pump had broken for the second time in a month, in the middle of the rainy season. The pits filled up with water and had to be bailed out by hand. There weren’t enough buckets. Half the men stood around idle, watching the other half work. Overnight the rain would come down and fill the pits again.
The night was cool, but Mr Blue was twitching and sweating. Later, when the evening was through, I would watch him as he slept, hear the words he shouted. Orders. Names. That’s how the words sounded, anyway. I would watch him as he tried to turn in his too-narrow bed, while outside the rain subsided only to accelerate again, revving like the truck engine or a piece of machinery.
The guests had been sitting for a long time, the canvas sagged beneath their buttocks. I had already cleared the empty salad plates. Small Boy was waiting to serve the main dish. Underneath the table Mr Blue’s knee jerked up and down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Above us dark clouds crowded together like a horde of crows under cover of the blackness. The candles on the table dipped in the breeze. Mr Blue shouted for Small Boy. Once. Twice. Small Boy was arranging and rearranging, with endless patience, a dish of cooling potatoes. Every time Mr Blue shouted he replied: ‘Yes, master. Coming, master.’ The third, or maybe it was the fourth time we heard Mr Blue’s voice, he waved at me to begin carrying the plates through.
‘At last.’
‘I could eat a horse.’
‘What is it about these people? Everything takes so long.’
‘Every day. Every damn day. Now you know what it’s like.’
Somebody cleared their throat. That was the last thing I heard before the thunder tore out of the blackness.
For me, I loved the night-time storms at the start of the rainy season. Always at the same time of night. I stood still and let the water soak my clothing until I felt it trickle down the backs of my legs. Mr Blue and the visitors scattered. Small Boy stayed with me and together we set about clearing up the remains of the meal.
I was watching a fly. Smaller than a bluebottle and silent, a sort of tawny-orange colour. It was flying back and forth in a tight square, as though it was trapped, bumping into four invisible walls. Bump. Turn. Bump. Turn. On and on. I flicked it with the end of the cloth and missed. Mr Blue came in to tell me he was leaving. A few matters to sort out with Head Office. I nodded. I thought Head Office was another white man. When I went outside I discovered that all of them were gone, including the one with the woman’s voice.
Life was easy. We did not worry about our chores. Mr Blue had left without giving us any instructions. Small Boy and I slept indoors taking turns on the bed. After a few days it was as though we had lived there for ever. In the corner of the room black and yellow mould grew on the soles of Mr Blue’s work boots and a greyish fur began to climb up the leather. Much later, when I picked them up to clean them, a shadow remained on the concrete floor that refused to wash away.
Mr Blue came back, his chin stubbled with white. Small Boy went to heat water and fetch the razor and brush, but Mr Blue waved him away. Instead he sat in front of the camp wireless with the headset on his ears for many hours into the night. Listening to the voices that floated on hissing, bubbling waves. The voices carried news of the strikes into the camp.
Later I heard people say those strikes were the beginning. First the strikes. Next the rebellion. Finally the end of the rule of chiefs. Maybe that’s the way it was. I don’t know. I only know what I saw.
The voices issued Mr Blue with instructions. Flying pickets. Wildcat strikes. Trade unionists. Troublemakers. Refuse access, they said. Mr Blue was to issue notice of an epidemic if necessary and use the excuse to seal the area.
Early the next morning Mr Blue went down to talk to the workers. Rows of faces, wiped clear of all expression, like sand after wind. The men listened to the lies spilling over Mr Blue’s narrow lips: talk of quarantines and infection rates, instructions on how to avoid the spread of the pretend contagion. He gazed away above their heads at the tops of the trees as he assured them a doctor was on the way from Mile 47.
Too late! Between the wireless and the bush wire, the bush wire was the faster.
A man stepped forward and laid down his pickaxe. Others followed. A few anxious ones hopped from leg to leg, consulting the sky, not knowing what to do. But in the end they followed their brothers. Though some said: ‘Sorry, master,’ as they laid down their tools. I hid behind some fencing and watched as, one by one, the men turned their backs on Mr Blue. Barely a word had been spoken. I had never seen such a thing. Mr Blue stared straight ahead, not moving, not speaking, not blinking even. Refusing to watch them walk away from him. All the time his lips were set in a strange smile. He looked like a rongsho risen from the grave.
They passed me, they did not notice me crouching there. Their leader came first. I recognised him from the pits, he was one of the men sent to work there by the chief that first week. I remember him to this day: a tall man, with a beard like a Muslim. Well, that could have been any number of men. But he had a patch on his lower lip where the brown gave way to pink. Like a stain or a splash.
Later there was talk, scandalous talk. I was even told his name, though I don’t remember it now. And I was too young then really to remember the events of which they spoke, because those things had happened years before and the man had gone away and since returned. Later, when for a short while, this man’s name became known to all, people talked of some past disgrace. It concerned a woman, I know that much. A junior wife.
Morning and the sun rose over silence. The mine machines were stilled, their voices quiet. It seemed there had been no other sound for months. Now it was as if the birds and animals were shocked into a silence of their own. The silence crept outwards, out until it stifled everything, even the humming of the forest.