?By parties unknown??
?Exactly.?
?And you don'?t even have a suspicion??
?I wouldn'?t say that.?
?Enlighten us.?
?Well, frankly, I suspected that you were the fly in the ointment.?
?It?s not us.?
?Maybe. And maybe not.?
?I give you my personal guarantee that it was not my people,? said Janina Mentz.
?Your personal guarantee,? said Powell, smiling through a mouthful of food.
?It?s going to get crowded in Lusaka, Luke,? said the director.
?Yes, it is.?
?I am asking you, as a personal favor, to stay away.?
?Why, Mr. Director, I did not know South Africa had right-of-way in Lusaka.?
There was a chill in the director?s voice. ?You have botched the job already. Now get out of the way.?
?Or what, Mr. Director??
?Or we will take you out.?
?Like you?re taking out the big, bad BMW biker?? asked Powell, and put another piece of steak loaded with cheese and mushroom in his mouth.
The big, bad BMW biker had his plan thrust upon him.
Fate played an odd card beside the mighty Modder.
33.
Had it not been for the singing, Little Joe Moroka might never have stood up from the ring of jokers. Cupido started the whole thing with one of those teasing statements??You whiteys can?t??? and it eventually ended up with a singsong, and that is when the pilot and copilot, white as lilies, burst forth with ?A bicycle built for two? in perfect harmony, a cappella, and filled the night with melody.
?Jissis,? said Cupido when they had finished and the rowdy applause had faded. ?Where the fuck did you learn to sing like that??
?The air force has culture,? said the pilot, acting superior.
?In striking contrast with the other branches of the SANDF,? confirmed his colleague.
?All sophisticated people know this.?
?No, seriously,? said Da Costa. ?Where does it come from??
?If you spend enough time in the mess, you discover strange things.?
?It wasn'?t bad,? said Little Joe. ?For whitey harmony.?
?Ooh, damning with faint praise,? said the pilot.
?But can the darkie sing?? asked the copilot.
?Of course,? said Little Joe. And that is how it began, because the pilot said, ?Prove it,? and Little Joe Moroka smiled at them, white teeth in the darkness. He stretched his throat, tilted his head up as if his vocal cords needed free rein, and then it came, warm and strong, ?Shosholoza,? the four notes in pure bravura baritone.
Thobela Mpayipheli could not hear the conversation from under the bridge, but the first song of the two pilots had reached him, and although he did not consider himself a music fanatic, he found pleasure in it despite his position, despite the circumstances.
And now he heard the first phrase of the African song and his ears pricked up, he knew this was something rare.
He heard Little Joe toss the notes into the night like a challenge. He heard two voices join in without knowing whose they were, the song gained meaning and emotion, longing. And then another voice, Cupido?s tenor, round and high as a flute, it hung for a moment above the melody and then dove in. The final ingredient was Zwelitini?s adding his bass softly and carefully so that the four voices formed a velvet foundation for Moroka?s melody, the voices intertwining, dancing up and down the scales. They sang without haste, carried by the restful rhythms of a whole continent, and the night sounds stopped, the Free State veld was silent to receive the song, Africa opened her arms.
The notes filled Thobela, lifted him up from under that bridge and raised him to the patch of stars in his vision; he saw a vision of black and white and brown in a greater perfect harmony, magical possibilities, and the emotion in him was at first small and controllable, but he allowed it to bloom as the music filled his soul.
And another awareness grew? it had been hiding somewhere, waiting for a receptI've spirit, and now his head cleared and he felt for the first time in more than a decade the umbilical drawing him back to his origin, deeper and further, back through his life and the lives of those before him, till he could see all, till he could see himself and know himself.
As the last note died away over the plains, too soon, there was a breathless quiet as if time stood still for a heartbeat.
He discovered the wetness in his eyes, the moisture running in a long silver thread down his cheek, and he
