The door was flung open.
"Out, you Matabele dog! Out of your stinking kennelP They marched him back to the wall. There were three other naked Matabele facing it already. Irrelevantly he noticed that they had lime washed the wall. They were very conscientious about that. He stood with his face two feet from the pristine white surface and steeled himself for the day ahead.
They shot the three other prisoners at noon. This time Tungata could not lead them in the singing. He tried, but his throat closed up on him. By the middle of the afternoon, his vision was breaking up into patches of darkness and stabbing white light. However, every time his legs collapsed and he fell forward against his bound wrists, the. pain in his shoulder sockets as his am-Ls twisted upwards revived him.
The thirst was unspeakable.
The patches of darkness in his head became deeper and lasted longer, the pain could no longer revive him completely. Out of one of the dark areas a voice spoke.
"My dear fellow," said the voice. "This is all terribly distasteful to me." The voice of Peter Fungabera drove away the darkness and gave Tungata new strength. He struggled upright, lifted his head and forced his vision to clear.
He looked at Peter Fungabera's face and his hatred came to arm him. He cherished his hatred as a life-giving force.
Peter Fungabera was in fatigues and beret. He carried his swagger-stick in his right hand. At his side was a white man whom Tungata had never seen before. He was tall and slim and old. His head was freshly shaven, his skin ruined with cicatrices and his eyes were a strange pale shade of blue that Tungata found as repulsive and chilling as the stare of a cobra. He was watching Tungata with clinical interest, devoid of pity or other human sentiment.
"I regret that you are not seeing Comrade Minister Zebiwe at his best," Peter told the white man. "He has lost a great deal of weight, but not here-, With the UP of the swagger stick Peter Fungabera lifted the heavy black bunch of Tungata's naked genitalia.
"Have you ever seen anything like that?" he asked, using the swagger-stick with the same dexterity as a chopstick.
Bound to the stake, Tungata could not pull away. it was the ultimate degradation, this arrogant mauling and examination of his private parts.
"Enough for three ordinary men," Peter estimated with mock admiration, and Tungata glared at him wordlessly.
The Russian made an impatient gesture and Peter nodded.
"You are right. We are wasting time." He Rlanced at his wrist-watch and then turned to the captain who was close by, waiting with his squad.
"Bring the prisoner up to the fort." They had to carry Tungata.
eter Fungabera's quarters in the blockhouse on the central rock kopje were spartanly furnished, but the dirt floor had been freshly swept and sprinkled with water. He and the Russian sat on one side of the trestle, table that served as a desk. There was a wooden bench on the opposite side, facing them.
The guards helped Tungata to the bench. He pushed their hands away and sat upright, glaring silently at the two men opposite him. Peter said something to the captain in Shana, and they brought a cheap grey blanket and draped it over Tungata's shoulders. Another order, and the captain carried in a trot' on which stood a bottle of vodka and another of whisky, two glasses, an ice-bucket and a pitcher of water.
Tungata did not look at the water. It took all his selfcontrol, but he kept his eyes on Peter Fungabera's face.
"Now, this is much more civilized," Peter said. "The Comrade Minister Zebiwe speaks no Shana, only the primitive Sindebele dialect, so we will use the language common to all of us English." He poured vodka and whisky and as the ice clinked into the glasses Tungata winced, but kept his gaze fixed on Peter Fungabera.
"This is a briefing," Peter explained. "Our guest," he indicated the old white man, "is a student of African history. He has read, and remembered, everything ever written about this country. While you, my dear Tungata, are a sprig of the house of Kurnalo, the old robber chiefs of the Matabele, who for a hundred years raided and terrorized the legitimate owners of this land, the Mashona people.
Therefore both of you might already know something of what I am about to relate. If that is so, I beg your indulgence." He sipped his whisky, and neither of the other two moved or spoke.
"We must go back a hundred and fifty years," said Peter, to when a young field commander of the Zulu King Chaka, a man who was the king's favourite, failed to render up to Chaka the spoils of war. This man's name was Mzilikazi, son of Mashobane of the Kumalo sub tribe of Zulu, and he was to become the first Matabele. In passing, it is interesting to note that he set a precedent for the tribe which he was to found. Firstly, he was a master of rapine and plunder, a famous killer. Then he was a thief. He stole from his own sovereign. He failed to render to Chaka the king's share of the spoils. Then Mzilikazi was a coward, for when Chaka sent for him to face retribution, he fled." Peter smiled at Tungata. "Killer, thief and coward that was Mzilikazi, father of the Matabele, and that description fits every member of the tribe from then until the present day.
Killer! Thief! Coward!" He repeated the insults with relish, and Tungata watched his face with eyes that glowed.
"So this paragon of manly virtues, taking with him his regiment of renegade Zulu warriors, fled northwards. He fell upon the weaker tribes in his path, and took their herds and their young women. This was the Umfecane, the great killing. It is said that one million defenceless souls perished under the Matabele assegais. Certainly Mzilikazi left behind him an empty land, a land of bleached skulls and burned-out villages.
"He blazed this path of destruction across the continent until he met, coming from the south-west, a foe more bloodthirsty, more avaricious even than he, the white men, the Boers. They shot down Mzilikazi's vaunted killers like rabid dogs. So Mzilikazi, the coward, ran again. Northwards again." Peter gently agitated the ice cubes in his glass, a soft tinkling that made Tungata. blink, but he did not look down at the glass.