The boy entered the field of maize stalks like a darting arrow from a bow. The men, chopping the brown stalks in preparation for the planting season, looked at him with startled gazes. On his face was written a look of knowing fear, which he quickly passed to the other men. Mzala Joe, the oldest of the farm workers put his hand on Jonasi‘s shoulder. He always spoke first in such matters. He was sixty-one and he knew a lot of things about life.

   “How many, Jonasi?” he asked calmly, his brow rising slightly.

 Jonasi remained perturbed. Mzala Joe shook him firmly again.

  “How many, mfana?”

Jonasi wiped his wet face with his hands. He looked at Mzala Joe with a severity and when he spoke, he spoke with a clattering voice, like cutlery falling from a high supper table and to a hard, concrete slab.

   “Hundred… or so, Mzala…  ”

 A fire of questions quickly followed his answer. The men clamoured around, all wanting to know what was going on. A woman’s baby, on the far side of the field began crying, increasing the tension.

   “Will someone make that baby stop?” Mzala Joe shouted at the top of his voice, which had an unusual metal grinding rasp. Quietness prevailed at once. He turned to look at the direction from where the baby’s cries had emerged. Then he put his hand on Jonasi again, firing the boy with an unnatural gaze. He almost roughly shook him.

    “Were there…were there any youths with them?”

In the past months, the word ‘youth’ had metamorphosed to mean sheer terror.

 Jonasi remained silent, only studying the ground below his feet. Then he slowly nodded, as his answer came in short gasps.

   “Most… most that I saw were youths…16 to 21years maybe…never in the war themselves. They must be from the training camps. They all were wearing army regalia, and were carrying sjamboks, machetes, rocks, axes, and knives…”

Mzala Joe nibbled at his lower lip as commotion ensured. The men were speaking their minds.

  “Are we to suffer at the hands of these born-free virgins... these children who still have traces of their mother’s breast milk on their lips? Are we to do that?” a man cried out in anger.

  “Today they will meet their match!” one bald man shouted, his fist breaking into the still hot air.

   “Not on this land, never!” another one chanted, stamping the ground vigorously.

 They retreated to pick up their tools. Mzala Joe smiled at the furore.

    “Relax men! Men, relax!” he called out to them, his voice rising amidst the exclamations and his raised hand waving in the afternoon air. “We are they coming from? We must prepare ourselves mfana.” He said.

 Jonasi looked at him as he replied, “They are coming from the east, and two of the youths have guns, AK-47s.”

   “Guns?” Mzala Joe’s voice dithered. The lines on his brow rose in distinguished fashion.

Jonasi continued. “They passed through the Bentley Farm yesterday and I hear they did good damage. McNamara has been trying to contact Bentley but to no avail. For all we know, they could be dead.”

   “Dead?” a man whispered to another. The baby began crying again. And Mzala Joe became quiet, as its cries undulated in the silence.

   “Kondozi is our refuge,” he began, “and strong must be the man who protects his house or land.” A handful of men uttered incoherent answers.

  “We must fight.” Mzala Joe repeated, desperately wanting to capture the men to his favour. Unrelenting, he turned to look at Jonasi, who had become quite calm in the blossoming furore. Then he raised his hands, and a dead silence ensued

   “How many minutes before they reach the gate of Kondozi Farm?” Mzala Joe asked.

   “Does McNamara know?” another man wanted to know.

    “Guns… does McNamara have them?” shot up another question.

    “One question at a time, madoda!” Mzala Joe shouted at the top of his voice. “Jonasi will answer all your questions. Please, Jonasi?”

 Jonasi stared at Mzala Joe, an emptiness gleaming in his eyes. “McNamara sent me here to warn you.They are coming madoda…”

    “McNamara, he has guns doesn’t he?” Mzala Joe asked. Quickly he said. “You work in their house. You should know mfana.”

 Jonasi shook his head. His eyes locked with the other men’s. Their eyes were wavering with lurid fear, and he knew then that they wanted him to say something they wanted to hear. In such situations, a man must be careful not to dampen men’s spirits. Neither must he lead them into obvious oblivion. Jonasi looked at the men again, feeling a surge of strength sweep over his body like a voltage shot. It was a feeling of authority, like he was an action or superhero in a film, or an important chief in a village indaba.  A wave of eloquence took him, and he felt wiser, wiser even than old Mzala Joe himself…

 Joe was the oldest inhabitant of Kondozi Farm, having arrived when he was fifteen years old, and barely free from the chains of youthful adolescence. Then the country had been a country full of landmines, bloody battles and ravished by an insane war between the white and the black man. He had run away from the Call Up when it had come to his village. This would be the same Call Up that would claim his four brothers and leave them buried somewhere under the earth and jungles of Chimoio in Mozambique. He never forgave himself for not running away with them to the Liberation War. He wondered whether they had forgiven him for not joining them on their patriotic quest.

  McNamara usually joked that he had groomed the boy. And it was true. He would joke and tell others how, late one stormy December night, Mzala Joe had turned at his farmhouse doorstep, begging for a decent meal and for a place to shelter from the pounding rain. For pity, McNamara had given Mzala a menial job of feeding the chickens and Mzala Joe had worked well and had treated every worker like they were part of his family and McNamara had seen all of this. In those days there was a word that the farm workers addressed each other with. To him they said Baas, which he did not like, but between themselves, as a show of equality or respect, the used a certain word. And that word was mzala, which meant ‘good friend’. He called Joe ‘mzala’ the next day.

 And that name stuck for good…

 Jonasi looked at Mzala Joe’s greying head, and at the sun, which had hidden its face amongst the grey clouds. A look of concern was spread on Mzala Joe’s face.

   “McNamara has guns. He is well armed” Jonasi said. 

   “That is good news,” Mzala Joe added, nodding his head. He squinted at the sun, wishing it could become dark. It was still subdued by the rolling clouds. ”We must prepare.” He said.

*** 

Minutes passed. Very long minutes. Mzala Joe raised his hand at the men, but spoke at the women at the far end of the field first. They were always the first casualties of war.

  “You must go now. Take the children with you, find somewhere safe to hide. The battle has begun.  We must now fight!”

The men looked at Jonasi, cowardly fear their only countenance. Mzala Joe spoke again, “

  “White people are known for preparing well…” a man’s voice rose in the tumult.

    “Yes! He will know what to do!” More men uttered in unison and Mzala Joe looked at the sky again, choosing to ignore the chaos. A clever man, whether white or black prepares well, he told himself. War does not discriminate on skin colour. War is war. It does not choose.

Up in the sky, Mzala Joe saw the birds gliding freely. He wished he was one of them.

   “How long have these invasions been going on?” he turned to Jonasi, asking a question that he knew the answer to. They had discussed it, McNamara and him, the day before, about these land invasions. There was disorder in the whole program, with some people making money out of it, He remembered what McNamara had said.

   “They say a man without his land grows like a seedless plant, ready to wither and leave no family line. A man must fight for his land. I am white but I’m of this land also. I know no other land except this farm. Generations of my family have toiled for this farm to be what it is now. Why then must I not fight for what my family has built? For what is mine?”

Jonasi cut short Mzala Joe’s sojourn. “The Bentley’s - they were the sixth to be attacked this week. Kondozi is the next…”

   “In seven days?” Mzala Joe looked startled. He cast a long glance at Jonasi, who nodded at nothing.

  “They could be breaking down the gate by now…” Jonasi said.

 *** 

 “…Mzala Joe, do you think that I am superior?”

 Mzala Joe removed the stem of grass between his teeth. With it, he drew a circle on the dusty ground, before stealing a glance at McNamara’s blue eyes. There was lack of life in them. The light that had always been there had vanished like the rain during the winter.

  “Am I superior, Mzala Joe, because my skin is white?”

Mzala Joe did not answer then. He remained quiet, his mind distant but his answer near.

   “Yes and no.” Mzala Joe said after a while.

   “l do not understand...”  McNamara began, his blue eyes unblinking.

Mzala Joe stared aimlessly at the billowing smoke from the farmhouse.

  “Yes, as my boss on this farm. And no, because you having a white skin does not mean you are superior. I think all men are created equal. That is God’s plan…”

*** 

When it happened, it happened very fast.

There was the first shot, and it splintered the afternoon air, breaking the silence of the men’s hearts into disarray. They scurried away like mice running away from a hungry cat. Some dived for cover, hitting the brown earth with their bare sweated bodies Only Mzala Joe remained upright, like some sort of demi-god, seemingly not dazzled at all. Then suddenly, he dashed to one end of the field waving his arms in the air. He stopped then, to curse rapidly, glaring at the sky. Again, he ran to the other end, and began to spit on the ground. The other men looked on in fear. Something was wrong with Mzala Joe. He would never act like this, not unless if he was angry.

And he was angry.

The second shot took them all by surprise. It thundered like a dismissed monster from hell. There was an abrupt silence. Smoke billowed from the McNamara’s farmhouse. The sky rumbled with pregnant clouds. The men cowered and crawled and shouted and shrieked like trapped mice in a gutter.

There was another shot, and another, and another...

                                                                               *** 

McNamara looked at the dead log that he and Mzala Joe were sitting on. “Quite funny,” he began, “to think that this log we’re sitting on once thrived with potent life and was green and had succulent leaves. To think it used to produce fruit every year…“

   “Funny?” Mzala Joe cut his sentence. He shook his aged head. “I do not understand.”

   “Look at it this way, my old friend.” McNamara explained. “This tree here, it has grown on this ground for decades. It is good that it died here - on the land it was born.”

Mzala Joe nodded in approval. He still did not understand fully.

McNamara continued. “Jonasi, the family cook-”

Mzala Joe nodded. Confusion was all over his face. “Why do you mention him? Is anything wrong?”

 “He’s fine. I sent him on an errand, over to Maywood farm yesterday. They were not there. They just disappeared, even the farm workers. He found new people living on the farm.”

Mzala Joe picked some grains of soil on the ground, and began to rub them into his hands. “Could it have been the invasions?” he asked the question that he did not want to hear being answered.  McNamara did not answer back.

   “It has begun, Mzala Joe.”  He said. Mzala Joe looked away, and McNamara saw that the old man was in deep thought. He knew that if there was a man in the farm who would fight with his life for Kondozi, that man would have to be Mzala Joe. But right now, McNamara could see that Mzala Joe was troubled. Never had he seen him like this. He had grown to love and trust this old man to such an extent that he knew him more than everyone else on the farm. Beneath those lines of Mzala Joe’s face lay an engraved wiseness.

Mzala Joe picked a stem of grass, unaware of the colossal respect McNamara had for him. He chewed almost impetuously.

  “Is it going to end?”  McNamara asked, his eyes fixed on Mzala Joe’s face. Mzala Joe did not reply.  McNamara looked at his land, his farm that was on a verge of destruction. Secretly, he wished he could say a prayer, with Mzala. He looked at him and asked.

  “Mzala Joe, do you think that I’m superior…?”

*** 

Another shot thundered in the sky…

Five clear shots. And an angry arm of black thick smoke choked and twirled in the sky, orange flames leaping and licking around where the farmhouse was situated. Mzala Joe’s face quickly became painted with crude bewilderment and stark terror.

And just then, they heard them coming…

At first it was the sound of their voices, a surmounting angry mob of voices, screaming, bellowing, chanting and getting closer…

 “They are coming madoda!” Jonasi’s terrified voice rose in the furore of incoming danger. He suddenly made a run for it, and then stopped. “What do we do Mzala Joe?” He cried.

There was tangible adrenalin in the tone of his words.  His eyes danced with fear.

  “Be calm young man.” Mzala voice reassured. He looked at the curling hand of smoke.

  “I cannot…cannot die for something useless as land…” Jonasi stuttered, his gesturing hands shaking in the air. He finally dropped to the ground, overcome by lurid fear.

Mzala Joe approached the cowering boy, unchallenged by the nearing chanting. He picked up an axe with his other hand and glared angrily in the direction where the noise was coming from. Above, a great rumbling shook the sky. Rain would be coming soon.

Quickly, Mzala Joe whistled sharply, calling all the men to gather around him.

*** 

  “I think all men are created equal. That is God’s plan.” Mzala Joe said.

McNamara also picked a blade of grass. “So, like this log, you prefer to live your life in the land where you were born?”

Mzala Joe hesitated. His reply, when it finally came, came sharply, like it was a snapped string of a new guitar.

  “Yes.”

McNamara looked at him, smiling, “Now tell me, to what extent would you go to defend what you believe in?”

  “To the very death of me, if it needs be.” Mzala Joe answered.

*** 

The toyi-toying* group appeared like a myriad of killer bees on their virgin hunt. They were chanting, and singing in powerful unison. And at each second they inched closer to their prey, their assortment of protruding tools, axes, huge culling knives, knobkerries, sticks, and stones shining in their hands. They had come with one intention. It was clearly on their faces, on their minds.

Mzala Joe and his farm workers did not flinch. But hearts were waning. No men can run away from the clutches of terror. Terror is sticky, and it glues man to his weakness, bones and flesh.

Mzala Joe stood in front, steadfast, and defiant with bloodshot eyes. The machete gleamed on his right hand. The axe shone on the other.

  “We will not move an inch!” he shouted at the top of his voice, and looked at the sky and wondered why the sun had disappeared. Cold clouds rolled above, as if they were waiting for the drama to unfold. The sun had decided not to watch this fight.

  “I said we will not be provoked to move!” Mzala Joe screamed at the top of his bracing lungs. He felt a strange energy of passion wrap itself over him. It was like a huge blanket. It gave him some strength. He hoped it would not abandon him when he needed it most.

The breaths of men behind him stung his neck. Breaths full of fear, he could tell. He felt abandoned, alone amongst the men who were rallying behind him. Droplets of cold sweat inundated his face, and his muscles stung his nerves. He tightened his grip on his two weapons.

By now, the invading men were quite near, with some haphazardly crashing through the maize field. One of them set the heaps of stalks on fire. Black smoke danced in the air. Still, Mzala Joe and the field of men behind him remained adamant. The strange energy was still with him. It only began to waver as he saw one of them waving in the air, on a long stick, the orange shirt he knew so much.

*** 

“You are serious, Mzala?” pressed McNamara.

 “I have fought all my life. Fought abject poverty, fought for my dead brothers’ blood, fought to where I am today. I can still fight for what I believe in.”  A raw, palatable passion was in Mzala Joe’s voice as he said this.

McNamara nodded, and then he stood up and tucked in his favourite orange shirt. He put his hand on Mzala Joe’s shoulder. The red sky was beginning to darken.

  “I can still fight also.”  He said. “I will be honoured to fight with you, my brother.”

*** 

The orange shirt was soiled in fresh blood. It flapped freely in the air, as if it was a peace flag. And the mass of people encroached even dangerously closer. They were clearly audible now, and their confused chanting flooding the atmosphere to the brim. They stopped about twenty metres from Mzala Joe’s group.  For a while they remained there, a strange countenance written all over their sweating faces.

Then they suddenly bolted towards the farm workers…

Mzala Joe and the men behind him remained where they were, their hearts pounding like iron gongs. The furious group stopped midway. They stood there, fierce and furious.

 “Pamberi with Land Reform!!” the leader, a man who was very dark and bald bellowed powerfully at his followers, to which they took up his chant immediately, and with effortless enthusiasm.

  “Down with Boer!!” he shouted again, raising his arms up and down and stamping on the ground idyllically. He was one of those carrying the AK-47 and was exuberantly defiant, and his fist pierced the sky with countenance and as he did so, dropped the shirt on the ground in the middle of the two groups. Jonasi broke out wailing.

   “They’ve killed him…all of them!”

The leader of the group laughed, “Traitors!” he shouted, before spitting on the ground with obvious distaste. The women behind him cheered, and one moved in front of the leader, gyrating in the dust with youthful enthusiasm.

Suddenly from then, things happened all too quickly…

It was Mzala Joe who started it first.

He suddenly darted forward, like a poisoned arrow chasing an enraged buffalo towards the man in front of him. Two obliterating shots pierced the air. Mzala Joe felt the strange energy leaving him at once. Like a rag doll, he jerked insanely backwards, as the unseen force of the bullets gored his soft flesh. For a while he stood as if nothing had happened, with his mouth agape, dazzled. He suddenly felt an exhilarating lightness cover him. Like a heavy sack, he slowly slumped, his cheek hitting the dry ground with a painful thud. From the blurred vision, he last saw the shadows still chanting and chanting, and then his eyes rolled carelessly as an acute darkness overwhelmed him.

*** 

Jonasi covered the body with the orange shirt.

Master and servant, some workers said. But some said they wanted to think of the two as good friends. Good friends who had been loyal to each other. Good friends who had dared overcome the colour of their skins, and the tone of their languages. And above all, good friends who had fought for their land. And died for it…

Above, as they two groups stood silently, demarcated by the fallen body of Mzala Joe, their weapons and tools cast demurely on the silent ground, was a deafening roar of thunder that rumbled menacingly. Thick falling torrents suddenly pelted the dry ground. Another farming season had begun.

 And the rain would wash away all the blood...