The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur (бесплатные онлайн книги читаем полные версии txt) 📗
Her nails slashed down his forehead, and had he not jerked away, he would have lost his eye, the bloody parallel wounds ended in his eyebrow, and thick dark blood oozed into his -eye, half-blinding him.
Her strength was out of all proportion to her size, he could not hold her, and the harder he tried, the wilder she became. She sank her teeth into his bare forearm, leaving a crescent-shaped bite-mark deep in his flesh.
He rolled away from her, and instantly she crawled back into the corner, and crouched there, keening and blubbering to herself, staring at him with glittering unseeing eyes. Craig felt his skin crawl and itch with dread and his own horror. Once again he tried to reach her, but at first advance she bared her teeth like a rabid dog and snarled at him.
He rolled out of the cabin and dragged himself into the saloon.
Frantically he searched through the tapes and found Beethoven's "Pastoral." He pressed it into the slot and turned the volume up to the maximum. The magnificent music swamped the yacht.
Slowly the sounds from her cabin dwindled into silence, and then hesitantly Janine came into the companionway of the saloon. She held her arms crossed over her chest, but the madness was gone from her eyes.
"I had a dream," she whispered, and came to sit at the table.
"I'll make some coffee, "he said.
In the galley he bathed his scratches and bites with cold water, and took the coffee through to her.
"The music-" she started, and then she saw his torn face. "Did I do that?" "It doesn't matter," he said.
"I'm sorry, Craig," she whispered. "But you must not try to touch me. You see I am a little bit mad also. You mustn't try to touch me."
Comrade Tungata Zebiwe, Minister for Trade, Tourism and Information in the Cabinet of the newly elected government of Zimbabwe, walked briskly along one of the narrow gravel pathways that meandered through the lush gardens of State House. His four bodyguards followed him at a respectful distance. They were all former members of his old ZIPRA cadre, each of them hardened veterans whose loyalty had been tested a hundred times. Now, however, they had changed the camouflage dungarees of the bush war for dark business suits and sunglasses, the new uniform of the political elete.
The daily pilgrimage on which Tungata. was intent had become a ritual of his household. As one of the senior Cabinet ministers, he was entitled to luxurious quarters in one of the annexes of State House. It was an easy and congenial walk from there, through the gardens, past State House itself, to the indaba tree.
State House was a sprawling edifice with white walls and gables, arched in the tradition of the great homes of the Cape of Good Hope.
It had been built on the instructions of that arch-imperialist Cecil John Rhodes. His taste for the big and barbaric showed in the design, and his sense of history in his choice of the site for State House. It was built on the spot where Lobengula's kraal had once stood before it was destroyed by Rhodes" marauders when they rode in to take possession of this land.
Beyond the great house, not two hundred paces from its wide verandas, stood a tree, a gnarled old wild plum enclosed and protected by a fence of iron palings. This tree was the object of Tungata's pilgrimage. He stopped in front of the iron palings, and his bodyguards hung back so as not to intrude on this private moment.
Tungata stood with his feet apart and his hands clasped lightly behind his. back. He was dressed in a navy blue suit with a light chalk stripe. One of a dozen that Gieves and Hawkes of Savile Row had tailored for him during his last visit to London. It fitted his wide rangy shoulders to perfection and subtly emphasized his narrow waist and the length of his legs. He wore a snowy white shirt under it, his tie was maroon with the tiny buckle and bridle logo of Gucci picked out in blue. His shoes were by the same Italian house, and he wore his expensive Western clothes with the same ilan as his forefathers had worn the blue heron's feathers and royal leopard pelts.
He removed the gold-rimmed aviator-type Polaroid glasses from his face, and as part of his personal ritual, read the inscription on the plaque that was riveted to the palings.
"Beneath this tree Lobengula, the last King of the Matabele, held his court and sat in judgement." Then he looked up into the branches, as though in search of his ancestor's spirit. The tree was dying of old age, some of the central branches were black and dry, but from the rich red soil at its base new shoots were bursting into vibrant life.
Tungata saw the significance of that and he murmured to himself, "They will grow as strong as the great tree once was and I also am a shoot of the old king's stock." There was a light tread on the gravel path behind Tungata. He frowned as he turned, but the frown cleared as he saw who it was.
"Comrade Leila," he greeted the white woman with the pale intense face.
"I am honoured that you call me that, Comrade Minister," Leila came directly to him and held out her hand.
"You and your family have always been true friends of my people," he told her simply, as he took her hand. "Beneath this tree your grandmother, Robyn Ballantyne, met often with Lobengula, my great great-uncle. She came at his invitation to give him advice and counsel." "Now, I come at your invitation, and you must believe that I will always be yours to command." He released her hand and turned back to the tree, his voice had a quiet reflective quality.
"You were with me when the Umlimo, the spirit medium of our people, made her final prediction. I thought it was right that you should be there when that prediction is brought to fruition." "The stone falcons have returned to roost," Leila St. John agreed softly.
"But that is not all the Umlimo's prophecy. She foresaw that the man who brought the falcons back to Zimbabwe would rule the land as once did the Mambos and Monomatopas, as once did your ancestors Lobengula and great Mzilikazi." Tungata turned slowly to face her once more.
