Doctor Johannes Theodorus van der Kemp. The title was gained in the study of medicine, but I am here to gain souls, he laughs.
I don’t laugh. He gradually unbends himself from his ludicrous obeisance:
I assume you are Mijnheer Buys and I hope you understand that the Lord has sent me to proclaim the gospel to these people, as soon as I have mastered their language.
I speak to Ngqika and Ngqika talks to me and I tell this Van der Kemp that the gospel must indeed be proclaimed to each and every one of God’s creatures, but that they have arrived at a sorely inconvenient time. That the whole country is on fire, but that Ngqika, the true king of all the Xhosas, who desires nothing but peace and calm, is not in any way embroiled in the hostilities between the British and some of the Caffres.
Ngqika says the missionaries can’t settle with him. He says he can’t protect them, just as he can’t protect his own people against his enemies. Kemp says there are only two of them and under the aegis of no flag; they will look after themselves. He says that there is nothing to be done about the disasters of war, other than to endure them in patience. That they are not asking for any other protection than what the king provides the least of his subjects, like, the blighter adds, the protection enjoyed by Mijnheer de Buys himself.
The king grants permission for them to outspan and pitch their tent. Van der Kemp hands out the rest of the trinkets he brought along to the king, his mother – Yese, oh Yese, you lusty witch, my splendid bride with the big belly and the softest behind and besmeared all over with clay – and his uncle Ndlambe, who nowadays under coercion bows his head to Ngqika. Old Ndlambe is leaner, the muscles are showing again. The royal family inspect the presents minutely. Yese drops a length of dress fabric. She summons me, she talks urgently. I grab hold of her hand and drag her away before Christian blood gets spilt. Behind me I hear Kemp and Edmonds – the smaller, younger and quieter missionary – scurry to distribute more buttons and knives and other things left in the wagon, until Ngqika and his uncle vouchsafe a smile. When Yese, somewhat mollified, walks back to her hut, I shoulder my way back through the curious onlookers and speak in Ngqika’s ear.
Kemp gives me a letter of introduction from the babbling Reverend Ballot. In the two crumpled pages the minister asks why I didn’t reply to his letter, in which apparently he jubilantly proclaimed that he’d arranged a pardon for me. Which god-forgotten letter? My self-professed friend Ballot laments the fact that I had trumpeted my distrust of the authorities so loudly that even Dundas in the Cape had heard of it and had rescinded the reprieve. But not to fret, the preacher writes, he has procured a second pardon for me. The only condition is that I should deliver up the other fugitives. Here, too, the dear Ballot assumes that he knows what I think: Since I would surely not sell out these friends of mine – friends, he says – he is sure that all – all – that is necessary for their reprieve is that they should write in humility to Dundas and confess their guilt. Go forth, evildoer, miscreant and robber! He concludes his letter by singing the praises of the anointed bearers thereof and asking that I should provide them with all assistance within my power – ‘since that I deduced from your converse at Graaffe Rijnet that you hold the service of God in high regard’. Goddammit. This world is run by letter writers, and all their fancy calligraphy will in the end never suffice to clean up the heaps of ordure it causes. I grasp Kemp by the shoulder:
Understand me well, churchman. I’m not Graaffe Rijnet’s tame Hotnot who’s going to interpret your preachings and empty your slops in the morning.
He frowns and steps back.
Late that night the old misbegot will write about me most diplomatically in his report to the focking London Missionary Society:
He said, that he found himself obliged to declare that he could by no means meddle with our affairs, nor give us any assistance.
The last peg of the tent, like some great white wild bird in the veldt, has hardly been hammered home or the brethren Kemp and Edmonds receive their first guests. The missionary had better learn Xhosa quickly; I’d rather be digging bulbs with the women than translate Ngqika’s profundities day after day. My king stands with a warrior on each side in the small tent and fingers and fiddles with everything. The cots, the crates, the spectacles and tobacco and tin wares, the plumes and ink. The king notices a little mirror by Edmonds’ bedside. He whispers in my ear.
The king says that glass is bigger than the one you gave him, I say.
That is Brother Edmonds’ mirror, says Kemp.
I advise you to forfeit the mirror, Brother Kemp.
Kemp signals to Edmonds, who hands the mirror to Ngqika. The king takes the mirror and hands it to a warrior. Kemp’s forehead reddens.
Tell him he must promise to deliver the smaller mirror to Brother Edmonds.
For a moment I stare at him.
As you wish, I say.
I say something to Ngqika in Xhosa. The king mumbles something in reply, takes a plug of missionary tobacco from the bag on the table.
The king promises, I say. But I wouldn’t remind him if I were you.
Note welclass="underline" This world doesn’t grind to a halt when a missionary turns up. In the fields little groups of women labour, between the huts they stack wood for the cooking fires, children run around, and if you look well, you may catch sight of a few men sitting fast asleep in the shade against the walls of huts. The missionaries unpack, you don’t miss much here. Rather go and find a kopje with a view and watch the sun travelling past. At dusk you’ll see the women returning from the fields, others carrying water from the stream, children driving cattle to the kraals and fires being lit under the cooking pots.
The next morning Ngqika and I are once again in the tent of the missionaries. We have coffee with the Sunday suits. At my insistence Ngqika tries their rusks and immediately demands a recipe. I myself stuff two into my pocket.
Later that afternoon I’m sitting with a chunk of rusk in my cheek curing a blesbok hide when Yese turns up at my house. With her is the Bengali runaway slave who swivels his buttocks like a woman. He was already installed here in the kraal when my comrades and I arrived. How he ended up here, heaven only knows. Yese keeps the slave around, because apart from yours truly he is the only soul here who speaks Dutch. I don’t like the way the greased prick ogles me. I make him sit down under the tree. I take Yese by the hand and go into the murky little house.
Are your people still not back, Buys?
She alone among the Caffres calls me by my name. To her son and his people I am Khula – The Big One. But not to her.
I had to charge back to come and hold your son’s hand while he’s talking to the crows of God, I say. I left my people with the Tambookies.
It’s good that you are here, she says.
I press her to me and smell the sweat in the folds around her neck. When I’d just arrived here among the Caffres, she’d dragged me into her hut and felled me and I’d thought it was a gigantic fat bonanza. The next evening there was a feast with a plenitude of dancing and gorging and guzzling and bigger, ever bigger, fires. Believe me, the crystals of her eyes mirrored the devastation of the flames, their inspired labours and the paradise in the ash. When I woke up the next morning, I was informed that I was married. It remains a sporadic felling and little more.