The Sweetest Dream

The bones of the situation – the white farmers – were easy to understand. They were the main targets of the blacks' hate, were heaped with abuse every time the Leader opened his mouth, but they earned the foreign currency which kept the country going, mainly to pay the interest on loans insisted on by... in her mind's eye Sylvia saw Andrew, a smiling debonair fellow holding out a large cheque with lines of noughts on it, while accepting with the other hand another cheque with an equal number of noughts. This was the visual shorthand she had devised to explain the machinery of Global Money to Rebecca, who had giggled, sighed and said 'Okay.'

Because of the Leader's socialism, acquired late in life with all the force of a conversion, various policies he believed essential to Marxism had acquired the force of commandments. One was that no worker could be sacked, and that meant that every employer carried a dead weight of workers who, knowing they were safe, drank, did not work, lay about in the sun and stole everything -just like their betters. This was one item on the litany ofcomplaints that Sylvia had heard so often. Another was that they could not buy spare parts for machines which broke down, and it was impossible to buy new machines. Those that were imported went straight to the Ministers and their families. These complaints, the most frequent, were of less importance than the main one, which like so many main, crucial, basic facts, was seldom mentioned simply because it was too obviously important to need saying. Because the white farmers were continually threatened with being thrown out and their farms taken, they had no security, did not know whether to invest or not, lived from one month to the next in doubt. Now Edna Pyne broke in and said she was fed up, she wanted to leave. ‘Let them get on with it and they'll know then just what they've lost when we go. '

This farm, bought as virgin acres without so much as a cleared field on it, let alone this big house, was now equipped with every kind of farm building – barns, sheds, paddocks, wells, boreholes and, a recent development, a large dam. All their capital was in it. They had had none when they came.

Cedric said to his wife in a sharp rebuke that Sylvia had heard before, 'I'm not giving up. They're going to have to come and throw me off.'

Now Edna's plaint began. Since Liberation it had been hard to buy even basics, like decent coffee or a tin of fish. 'They' could not even keep a decent supply of mealiemeal coming for the workers, she had to keep a storeroom filled to the roof with meal for the next time when the labour force came up to beg for food. She was sick of being reviled. They – the Pynes – were paying school fees for twelve black children now, but none of those government black bastards ever gave the farmers credit for anything. They were all hot air and incompetence, they were inefficient and only cared about how much they could grab for themselves, she was fed up with...

Her husband knew she had to have her say out, just as she knew that he did, whenever a fresh face appeared on that verandah, and he sat in silence, looking out over the tobacco fields – in full green – to where the rainy season's clouds were building for what looked would be an afternoon storm.

‘You' re mad, Cedric,’ said his wife direct to him, an evident continuation of many a private altercation. ‘We should cut our losses and go to Australia like the Freemans and the Butlers. '

‘We aren't as young as we were,’ said Cedric. ‘You always forget that. '

But she was going on. ‘And the nonsense we have to put up with. The cook's wife is sick because she has had the evil eye put on her. She's got malaria because she doesn't like taking her pills. I tell them, I keep telling them, if you don't take the malaria pills then you'll get sick. But I'll tell you something. That n'ganga of theirs has got more to say about what goes on in this district than any government official has.'

Sylvia interposed herself into this gushing stream: ' That's what I want to ask you. I need your advice. '

At once two pairs of blue eyes attended to her: giving advice, that was what they knew they were equipped to do. Sylvia outlined the story. 'And so now I am a thief. And what is this spell that was put on the new hospital?'

Edna allowed herself a weak, angry laugh. 'And there it is again. You see? Just stupidity. When the money ran out for the new hospital...’

‘Why did it? Sometimes I hear it was the Swedes, then it was the Germans, who was it?'

‘Who cares? Swedes, Danes, the Yanks, Uncle Tom Cobbleigh – but the money vanished from the bank account in Senga and they pulled out. The World Bank or Global Money or Caring International or somebody, there are hundreds of these do-gooding idiots, they are trying to find new funding but so far no luck. We don't know what is happening. Meanwhile the cases of equipment are just rotting, so the blacks say.'

‘Yes, I've seen them. But why send the equipment before the hospital was even built?'

' Typical,’ said Edna Pyne, with the satisfaction ofbeing proved right, yet again. ' Don't ask why, if it's bloody incompetence then don't even ask. The hospital was supposed to be up and running within six months, well I ask you, what rubbish, well what do you expect from the idiots in Senga? So the local Big Boss, Mr Mandizi as he calls himself, went to the n'ganga and asked him to put it about that he had put a curse on anyone who stole from the cases or even laid a finger on them.'

Cedric Pyne let out a short barking laugh. ' Pretty good, ' he said. ' Come on, Edna, that's pretty clever. '

' If you say so, dear. Well, it worked. But then it seemed you went over and helped yourself. That broke the spell. '

' Half a dozen bedpans. We didn't have even one at our hospital.'

' Half a dozen too many,’ said Cedric.

‘Why didn't anyone tell me? Six women from our village came with me and Rebecca. They just – helped themselves. They didn't tell me anything. '

‘Well, they wouldn't, would they? You' re the Mission, you' re

God the Father and the Church and Father McGuire is on at them for being superstitious. But with you there, they probably thought God's muti was stronger than the medicine man's.'

'Well, it hasn't turned out to be. Because now people are dying and it is because they stole from the cases. So Rebecca says. But it's AIDS.'

'Oh, AIDS.'

‘Why do you say it like that? It's a fact. '

' It's the last bloody straw,’ said Edna Pyne, ' that's why. They come up from the compound and want muti. I tell them there isn't muti for AIDS, and they seem to think I've got muti but won't give it to them. '

'I know the n'ganga,' said Sylvia. 'Sometimes I ask him to help me.'

‘Well,’ said Cedric, ' that's an innocent walking into the lion's den, if you like. '

'Don't touch it — 'said Edna, sounding peevish, at the end of her tether, and intending to sound it.

‘When I have cases our medicine doesn't reach — such as I've got — I ask him to come when Rebecca tells me they think they've got the evil eye put on them. I ask him to tell them they haven't been — cursed, or whatever... I say to him, I don't want to meddle in his medicine. I just wanted his help. Last time he went to each of the people who were lying there — I thought they were going to die. I don't know what he said, but some of them just got up and walked off — they were cured. '

‘And the others?'

'The n'gangas know about AIDS — about Slim. They know more about it than the government people do. He said he couldn't cure AIDS. He said he could treat some of the symptoms, like coughs. Don't you see — I'm glad to use his medicine, I have so little. Half the time I don't even have antibiotics. When I went into the medicine hut this afternoon — I've been in London — there was hardly anything there, most of what I had was stolen. ' She was sounding shrill, then tearful.

The Pynes glanced at each other, and Edna said, 'It's getting on top of you. It's no good taking things to heart.'