Norman Rush - Mortals

“No,” Ray said, slapping the bundle even more heartily and forcing himself to smile.

Two other fighters, older and rougher and more rustic-looking men, approached, their rifles aimed at him. It was peculiar, because everyone in the encounter was hunched over, stooping to one degree or another, out of prudence. And that reminded him that he needed to get his head down too. He was taller than any of the three people he was dealing with. He doubted that the two new arrivals spoke English. He would tell them he was with them, that he was their friend.

“Ke tsala. Witdoek. Ke tsala.”

The older men wanted him to do something about the bundle. He wasn’t going to. The damned loops around his neck were cutting into his flesh and it would be his pleasure to get the whole thing off him just for ten minutes but there was no way he was going to relinquish it in the circumstances he was in.

He addressed the boy, the student, whose name was coming to him. It was Kevin. And his last name was coming to him and it was Tsele. He had been a member of the Student Representative Council. They had spoken. Kevin had been a firebrand of some kind.

Ray said, “Kevin, listen to me. I am Professor Finch. I am here to help you. Look, this is only a manuscript, here. You can feel it. I will hold my hands all the way up, like this. You feel it. I know what you think. But this is paper in here, a book.”

Cautiously, Kevin approached, saying something to the two other men. He lightly punched the bundle. Then he pried at it.

Kevin said, “It is like a bomb, rra, to my eye. But so why are you carrying it about in this way? And rra, you are naked, I see.”

“Because it is a precious thing of my brother’s. It is a keepsake. It is a very long story, Kevin. He is just dead.” Ray was using locutions from Botswana English. Normally he didn’t. But he wanted to be completely comprehended. Because he wanted to find Quartus and get him and he wanted to shake Kerekang’s hand and help him get out of this and begone, be somewhere else, if he would go, walking around with all his limbs working, somewhere else with snow and lakes.

“Ehe, then come away. You must have to explain why you have come amongst all this. But you may do that in time, rra. Because we are in a spot. But you are naked.”

“I know it,” Ray said forcefully.

Kevin led him away to crouch in the lee of the water-tank foundation. Kevin was uneasy with him, naturally. He reminded Ray to keep his head low. This was the safest area in the whole position, Ray realized. He appreciated being put there.

The two older men were returning to their places. They were taking his rifle along with them. They were staring at him. He wanted them to know that there was only one bullet, that it was chambered, and that he had no more ammunition. He thought the word for bullet was lerumo but he wasn’t certain. He was tired. They could come back to him if they wanted more information.

Kevin sat down next to him. He said, “Rra, you know these men who are killing us, they are killers from Namibia, koevoet. We will send them back to that place. They have killed in Namibia from before. So we have to kill them. We are taking their weapons.”

Ray explained about Wemberg’s rifle and its solitary round.

Kevin said, “I want to know how is that old man. We said to him he must stay back, but he came following behind us and then we saw he was all blood. We sent him down, then. And when I went to look he was gone.”

“Yes, that’s a man I know from Gaborone, a very good man. No, I hope he’s okay. He’s being seen to. There is a doctor. We were held by koevoet, but we got free. The old man is my friend.”

There was a violent fusillade. The tanks were hit. Bits of shattered wood showered on them. The tanks were dry.

“They are hitting high, you see,” Kevin said.

“That’s heavy ammunition.”

“Ehe, and now we see they have their second gun back to use again. For a time they had only one big one to use. We have got to go and kill them. Come and I’ll show you something.”

Kevin crept over to the parapet. Ray crept behind him and joined him there.

“We have done this,” he said. He directed Ray to put his head through one of the embrasures and look down.

Below was the vast courtyard filling the space between the arms of the U. Koevoet had made the mistake of turning the area into a car park and, obviously, not guarding it securely. Ray was looking into a well of destruction. There were ten vehicle carcasses, some still smoking, most of them trucks of different sizes. But at least one armored personnel carrier was among the wrecks. It was a brilliant example of what guerrillas could do with a box of matches, if they got a chance, if the wrong door was left open. It was astonishing that the building hadn’t gone up too. Apparently there had been enough distance between the clustered vehicles and the building walls to keep it from happening before some form of firefighting had taken place. He could see places where the walls were blackened. He didn’t want Ngami Bird Lodge to burn. And he was making a mental inventory of the damage he was observing. It was a reflex.

Kevin brought him back to the place under the tanks. Ray wanted to know where the water had come from to fight the courtyard fire if the rooftop tanks were empty. He asked Kevin about it and was told that there were two deep wells out near the pan that fed directly into another set of tanks under the kitchen.

“I am going to kill these evil things,” Kevin said, aiming his shotgun skyward.

He meant the buzzards. Three of them were circling low over the roof.

He said, “You see what they do, these koevoet. We saw it. If one of their comrades dies they push him off onto the ground to lie there. So as to keep these birds down there.”

“I saw one of them. I took his boots.”

“You should have taken his trousers … I was shooting down these birds, but our chief said I must stop.”

“To save on ammunition, you mean.”

“Ehe.”

“So who is in charge of this group?”

“Nyah, rra. We cannot discuss about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“We are forced to be secret. We can take any name. We are not giving names to be reported. And when you return to Gaborone you must never say you saw Kevin Tsele.”

“So what name are you using, then?”

“Myself, I am Lesheusheu, if you know that word.”

“No idea.”

“It is a scorpion. The big yellow one.”

“Ah, those. So is Rra Kerekang with us here?”

“Rra, you see in ISA we cannot speak about who is leading us. Because that is what koevoet wants to know, where is Setime. They want to take him away.”

“Setime is fire-thrower, am I right, means fire-thrower, or means incendiary, arsonist?”

“Ehe. We are laying fire everywhere. We will chase Domkrag away from here. We will burn this place.”

“This building? You don’t want to do that.”

“We do.”

Ray wanted to argue, but he was too tired for it. He had to husband himself for what he was going to do. He was going to make a contribution. He was going to perform an act. He needed water. He had to get clear about Quartus, where he was. He needed his binoculars. He shifted his position in order to keep himself squarely in the shade of the tanks.

Kevin wanted him to come away to another part of the position. Ray didn’t want to leave the shade. Kevin wanted him to follow him into one of the service sheds. He was explaining why. Someone in the shed needed to see him, their chief. He needed to say what would be done as to him, Ray. He was being summoned.

It was true. Somebody was waving urgently from the shed doorway. Ray couldn’t see him. It was dark in the shed. He wanted it to be Kerekang. He wanted to see Kerekang and convince him to get away from this before he was caught, get the hell out. He wanted to go to the shed but he didn’t know if he could manage. If someone promised he could get iced tea in the shed he would be able to manage.