Rage - Smith Wilbur - Страница 23
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Even the evenings that followed, unlike that first evening, were crowded with people and events. Until long after midnight they sat at the table in the kitchen, sometimes as many as twenty of them at one time, smoking and laughing and eating and talking. Such talk, such ideas that lit the gloomy room and shimmered like angels' wings in the air around their heads. Then later, in the quiet dark hours, they made love and she felt as though her body no longer belonged to her but that he had taken it for his own, and devoured it like some darkly beloved predator.
She must have met a hundred new faces in those three short days and nights, and though some of them were hazy and made little lasting impression, it seemed as though she had become a member of a large diffuse new family, and because of the patronage of Moses Gama, she was immediately accepted and accorded complete unquestioning trust by both black and white.
On the last evening before her return to the dream world at Weltevreden, there was a guest beside her at the kitchen table to whom Tara took an instant unqualified liking. She was a young woman, at before. So natural and relaxed and,' sh6 hesitated, 'just like an elder sister or a dear friend." 'A dear friend. Yes, I like that,' Tara agreed. 'And Puck's Hill is probably one of the few places in the whole of this country where we could meet and talk like this." Involuntarily both of them looked up towards the head of the long kitchen table. Moses Gama was watching them intently, and Tara felt her stomach flop over like a stranded fish. For a few moments there, she had been totally engrossed with the Zulu girl, but now her feelings for Moses Gama flooded back at full ebb. She forgot Vicky, until the girl spoke quietly beside her. 'He is a great man - our hope for the future." Tara glanced at her sideways. Vicky Dinizulu's face glowed with hero worship as she smiled shyly at Moses Gama, and jealousy struck Tara such a sickening blow in the pit of her stomach, that for a moment she believed she was going to be physically ill.
The jealousy and terror of imminent separation persisted even after Tara was alone with Moses that night. When he made love to her she wanted to hold him within her for all eternity, knowing that this was the only time that he truly belonged to her. Too soon she felt the great dam burst and flood her and she cried out, pleading for it never to end, but her cry was incoherent and without sense, and then he was gone from within her and she was desolated.
She thought he had fallen asleep, and she lay and listened to his quiet breathing, holding him in the circle of her arms, but he was awake and he spoke suddenly, startling her.
'You were speaking to Victoria Dinizulu,' he said, and it took an effort for her to cast her mind back to the early part of the evening.
'What did you think of her?" he persisted.
'She is a lovely young woman. Intelligent and obviously dedicated.
I like her very much." She tried to be objective, but the sick jealous feeling was there deep in her belly.
'I had her invited,' Moses said. 'It was the first time I have met her." Tara wanted to ask, 'Why? - Why did you invite her?" But she remained silent, dreading the reply, She knew her instincts had been correct.
'She is of the royal house of Zulu,' he said softly.
'Yes. She told me,' Tara whispered.
'She is well favoured, as I was told she was, and her .mother had many sons. They breed many sons in the Dinizulu line. She will make a good wife." 'Wife?" Tara breathed. She had not expected that.
'I need the alliance with the Zulus, they are the largest and most powerful tribe. I will begin the negotiations with her family immediately. I will send Hendrick to Ladyburg to see her father and make the arrangements. It will be difficult, he is one of the old school, dead set against mixed tribal marriages. It must be a wedding that will impress the tribe, and Hendrick will convince the old man of the wisdom of it." 'But, but,' Tara found she was stuttering. 'You hardly know the girl. You spoke barely a dozen words to her all evening." 'What does that have to do with it?" His tone was genuinely puzzled, and he rolled away from her and switched on the bedside light, dazzling her.
'Look at me!" he commanded, taking her by the chin and lifting her face to the light, studying it for a moment and then removing his fingers as though he had touched something loathsome. 'I have misjudged you,' he said scornfully. 'I believed that you were an exceptional person. A true revolutionary, a dedicated friend of the black people of this land, ready to make any sacrifice. Instead I find a weak, jealous woman, riddled with bourgeois white prejudices." The mattress tipped under her as Moses stood up. He towered over the bed.
'I have been wasting my time,' he said, gathered his clothing, and still naked turned towards the door.
Tara threw herself across the room and clung to him, barring his way to the door.
'I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Forgive me. Please forgive me,' she pleaded with him, and he stood cold and aloof and silent. She began to weep, her tears muffling her voice, until she was no longer making sense.
Slowly she slid down with her arms still encircling him, until she was on her knees hugging his legs.
'Please,' she sobbed. 'I will do anything. Just don't leave me. I will do anything, everything you tell, me to do - only just don't send me away like this." 'Get up,' he said at last, and when she stood before him like a penitent, he said softly, 'You have one more chance. Just one. Do you understand?" and she nodded wildly, still choking on her sobs, unable to answer him. She reached out hesitantly and when he did not pull away, took his hand and led him back to the bed.
As he mounted her again, he knew that at last she was ready, completely prepared. She would do anything and everything he commanded.
In the dawn she came awake to find him leaning over her staring into her face and immediately she relived the night's terror, the dreadful fear of his scorn and rejection. She felt weak and trembly, her tears very close, but he took her calmly and made love to her with a gentle consideration that reassured her and left her feeling whole and vital again. Then he spoke to her quietly.
'I am going to put my trust in you,' he told her, and her gratitude was so strong it left her breathless. 'I am going to accept you as one of us, one of the inner circle." She nodded, but could not speak, staring into his fierce black eyes.
'You know how we have conducted the struggle thus far,' he said, 'we have played by the white man's rules, but he made those rules, and he designed them so we could never win. Petitions and delegations, commissions of enquiry and representations - but in the end there are always more laws made against us, governing every facet of our lives, how we work, where we live, where we are allowed to travel, or eat or sleep or love --' he broke off with an exclamation of scorn. 'The time is coming when we will rewrite the rule book. First, the defiance campaign when we will deliberately flout the mass of laws which bind us, and after that --' Now his expression was savage.
'And after that the struggle will go on and become a great battle." She was silent beside him, studying his face.
'I believe there comes a time when a man confronted by great evil must take up the spear and become a warrior. He must rise up and strike it down." He was watching her, waiting for a reply. 'Yes,' she nodded. 'You are right." 'These are words, ideas, Tara,' he told her. 'But what of action? Are you ready for action?" She nodded. 'I am ready." 'Blood, Tara, not words. Killing and maiming and burning.
Tearing down and destroying. Can you face that, Tara?" She was appalled, facing the reality at last, not merely the dizzy rhetoric. In her imagination she saw the flames roaring up through the great roof of Weltevreden and blood splashed on the walls shining wetly in the sunlight, while in the courtyard lay the broken bodies of children, of her own children, and she was on the very point of rejecting the images when he spoke again.
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