"Don't call me. I'll call you." He begged another tankful from Jock's private stock and took the Volkswagen out on the road to the north-east, towards Mashonaland and Harare and ran into the first road-block ten miles out of town.
"Almost like the old days," he thought, as he climbed down onto the verge. Two black troopers in camouflage battle-smocks searched the Volkswagen for weapons with painstaking deliberation, while a lieutenant with the cap, badge of the Korean-trained Third Brigade examined his passport.
Once again Craig rejoiced in the family tradition whereby all the expectant mothers in his family, on both the Mellow and Ballantyne side, had been sent home to England for the event. That little blue booklet with the gold lion and unicorn" and Honi Soit Qui Nil y Pense printed on the cover still demanded a certain deference even at a Third Brigade road-block.
It was late afternoon when he crested the line of low hills and looked down on the little huddle of skyscrapers that rose so incongruoutfy out of the African veld, like headstones to the belief in the immortality of the British Empire.
The city that had once borne the name of Lord Salisbury, the foreign secretary who had negotiated the Royal Charter of the British South Africa Company, had reverted to the name Harare after the original Shana chieftain whose cluster of mud and thatch huts the white pioneers had found on the site in September 1890 when they finally completed the long trek up from the south.
The streets also had changed their names from those commemorating the white pioneers and Victoria's empire to those of the sons of the black revolution and its allies 4a street by any other name' Craig resigned himself.
Once he entered the city he found there was a boom town atmosphere.
The pavements thronged with noisy black crowds and the foyer of the modern sixteen-storied Monomatapa Hotel resounding to twenty different languages and accents, as tourists jostled visiting bankers and businessmen, foreign dignitaries, civil servants and military advisers.
There was no vacancy for Craig until he spoke to an assistant manager who had seen the T! production and read the book. Then Craig was ushered up to a room on the fifteenth floor with a view over the park. While he was in his bath, a procession of waiters arrived bearing flowers and baskets of fruit and a complimentary bottle of South African champagne. He worked until after midnight on his report to Henry Pickering, and was at the parliament buildings in Causeway by nine-thirty the next morning.
The minister's secretary kept him waiting for forty-five minutes before leading him through into the panelled Office beyond, and Comrade Minister Tungata Zebiwe stood up from his desk.
Craig had forgotten how powerful was this man's presence, or perhaps he had grown in stature since their last meeting. When he remembered that once Tungata had been his servant, his gun boy when Craig was a ranger in the Department of Game Conservation, it seemed that it had been a different existence. In those days he had been Samson Kumalo, for Kumalo was the royal blood line of the Matabele kings, and he was their direct descendant.
Baro, his great-grandfather, had been the leader of the Matabele rebellion of 1896 and had been hanged by the settlers for his part in it. His great-great-grandfather, Gandang, had been half-brother to Lobengula, the last king of the Matabele whom Rhodes" troopers had ridden to an ignoble death and unmarked grave in the northern wilderness after destroying his capital at GuBulawayo, the place of killing.
Royal were his blood-lines, and kingly still his bearing.
Taller than Craig, well over six foot and lean, not yet running to flesh, which was often the Matabele trait, his physique was set off to perfection by the cut of his Italian silk suit, shoulders wide as a gallows tree and a flat greyhound's belly. He had been one of the most successful bush fighters during the war, and he was warrior still, of that there was no doubt. Craig experienced a powerful and totally unexpected pleasure in seeing him once more.
"I see you, Comrade Minister, "Craig greeted him, speaking in Sindabele, avoiding having to choose between the old familiar "Sam" and the norn de guerre that he now used, Tungata Zebiwe, which meant "the Seeker after Justice."
"I sent you away once," Tungata answered in the same language. "I discharged all debts between us and sent you away." There was no return light of pleasure in his smoky dark eyes, the heavily boned jaw was set hard.
"I am grateful for what you did." Craig was unsmiling also, covering his pleasure. It was Tungata who had signed a special ministerial order allowing Craig to export his self built yacht Bawu from the territory in the face of the rigid exchange, control laws which forbade the removal of even a refrigerator or an iron -k;edstead. At that time the yacht had been Craig's only possession and he had been crippled by the mine blast and confined to a wheel-chair.
"I do not want your gratitude," said Tungata, yet there was something behind the burnt, honey-coloured eyes that Craig could not fathom.
"Nor the friendship I still offer you?" Craig asked gently.
"All that died on the battlefield, Tungata said. "It was washed away in blood. You chose to go. Now why have you returned?"
"Because this is my land."
"Your land-" he saw the reddish glaze of anger suffuse the whites of Tungata's eyes. "Your land. You speak likea white settler. Like one of Cecil Rhodes" murdering troopers."
"I did not mean it that way."
"Your people took the land at rifle-point, and at the point of a rifle they surrendered it. Do not speak to me of you r land."
"You hate almost as well as you fought," Craig told him, feeling his own anger begin to prickle at the back of his eyes, "but I did not come back to hate. I came back because my heart drew me back. I came back because I felt I could help to rebuild what was destroyed." Tungata sat down behind his desk and placed his hands upon the white blotter. They were very dark and powerful.