He rubbed his hands together, trying to generate some life in fingers that had been chilled to the bone on his ride into work. It was midwinter in the southern hemisphere and the early-morning air had an edge like a butcher’s knife. He rummaged in his satchel and found a box of matches. Kagiso was not a habitual smoker, but in his line of work, out here in South Africa’s forgotten rural fringe, it was the kind of thing that always came in handy. He carried the stump of a candle for the same reason. There were still plenty of farm labourers’ huts where the electricity that powered escalators and supermarket freezers in the city had yet to reach a single light bulb. He struck a match and squeezed it through the fireguard on the paraffin heater; it sucked up the flame with a satisfying gulp.
Kagiso went over to the sink in the corner of the room and filled the kettle to the brim; the others would be here soon enough. He switched on the electric stove and watched the spiral filament as it glowed into red-hot life. The water dripping off the outside of the kettle fizzed and spat as he put it down.
He was waiting for Lesedi – scion of the Motlantshe family. The approach from Lesedi had been quite a surprise. When his office had called to arrange a meeting, the initial reaction among the staff at Soil of Africa had been one of suspicion. What were the Motlantshes up to now? Why would the son of a man like Josiah Motlantshe want to have a meeting with Soil of Africa, an organisation dedicated to ensuring that farm workers were given the opportunity to buy and work their own slice of land? Soil of Africa championed the notion, embedded in centuries of folklore and cemented by the humiliation of apartheid’s evictions and pass laws, that those who are most secure are those who walk on land they can call their own. He could see why so many of his colleagues thought he was being either duped or naive. Not for the first time that morning Kagiso checked his phone. He was expecting a call. Nothing. No missed calls.
He went outside and stood on the stoep. The white light of a wintry sun shone through the delicate filigree of a spider’s web stretched between the thatched roof and one of the timbers on which it was supported. A single dewdrop clung to the bottom of the web, like a pearl hanging from an intricate necklace. A few metres in front of him, a young boy, wearing a T-shirt that reached halfway down his shins, was herding half a dozen rangy cattle down the main street. Kagiso checked to see if the extra chairs he’d borrowed from the church up the road had been delivered. Word had got round that Lesedi Motlantshe – heir to a billionaire – would be visiting Soil of Africa and he knew there would be quite a crowd. Motlantshe himself had proposed meeting some of the farm workers from around the town.
Kagiso Rapabane’s transition from favoured civil servant to charity worker was as surprising as it was exceptional. A poorly paid job helping South Africa’s rural poor was a far cry from his days at the Ministry of Rural Development and Land Reform in Pretoria, where he was a policy adviser to one Jake Willemse, at the time an up-and-coming minister. Kagiso had been something of a high flyer himself, one of the brightest prospects in the policy department, someone destined to go to the very top. There had been shock and not a little incredulity when it had been announced that he’d accepted a transfer to the rural outpost of Malelane. His industriousness, his renowned discipline, even his lean physique, all of these seemed ill suited to the altogether more laid-back attitude to work in the languid province of Mpumalanga in the eastern reaches of the country.
At the ministry, he’d been something of an enigma: everybody’s friend but no one’s confidant. You’d have been hard pushed to find anyone who had a bad word to say about him, but in the world of office camaraderie people wanted more of a colleague, someone who was clubbable in a way that Kagiso was unable and unwilling to be. While the others had aspired to owning BMWs, he was satisfied with his Yamaha scooter; while they signed up with a personal trainer – a status symbol in the new South Africa – he would disappear on long, lonely runs. No one knew about his love life, whether he even had one. He seemed inured to the charms of even the most attractive women at the ministry. The men couldn’t understand it and the women were intrigued. They wondered what went on behind those bespectacled eyes. His aloofness, his unavailability, was much more alluring than the crude lasciviousness of the other men, brought up in a society hooked on the conventional rituals of men chasing women.
Kagiso’s phone rang. He didn’t recognise the number.
‘Lesedi Motlantshe here. How’s it going?’
Kagiso was taken aback for a moment to hear Lesedi himself, not the assistant he had been dealing with up till then, at the end of the line. And he was surprised by how ‘white’ the accent was. It was reminiscent of the still-white suburbs of Cape Town, certainly not Mitchell’s Plain.
‘Hey! I’m fine. Are you on your way?’
‘Yeah. I think I’m about an hour away, two at the most. I’ve just stopped to get something to eat. It was an early start.’
‘How many of you are coming?’
‘Just me.’
‘Really? I thought you would be …’
‘You sound shocked. I know we Motlantshes are meant to travel with an entourage, just to show how important we are.’ Lesedi was laughing.
‘Well, we’ll be ready and waiting.’
‘You make it sound like I’m about to walk into an ambush!’ Another chuckle.
‘No one’s going to ambush you here. Listen, you’re the biggest thing that’s happened here since some American rapper passed through on his way to the Sabi Sabi game lodge. Most of them probably just want to shake your hand.’
‘I’d better brush up on my rap, man.’ That chuckle again. It was infectious.
‘So how do you want to play things today?’ Kagiso asked.
‘I don’t plan on making any big speeches or anything. I just want to listen. I know there’s a lot of loose talk about what the Motlantshes are up to and I’d like to reassure people.’
Ever since the meeting had been arranged, Kagiso had rehearsed the various ways in which he might broach their disagreements. He was acutely conscious that he was about to change the tone of the conversation. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say it’s all just loose talk. At Soil of Africa we think there are other ways of taking care of the land and the people who live on it.’
‘I know. I’ve been looking at your website. Your achievements are pretty impressive. Maybe there are things we can talk about … You know, reach a compromise.’
This was unexpected, but Kagiso remained wary. ‘I certainly hope so. People here just see all these land deals and feel betrayed. And the new black owners are as bad as the old white ones. And now we’ve got all these foreigners coming in …’
‘Look, I know, there’s a lot to discuss. Maybe it would be good if we – you and I – could get a few minutes to chat on our own, away from the others. I don’t agree with everything that’s going on and I want to find a way to help.’
‘Well, just tell your father and his friends.’
‘You don’t know my father! Anyway, see you just now.’
Their lives couldn’t have been more different: Kagiso, the son of a house worker and the beneficiary of a white family’s generosity; Lesedi, a child born into the aristocracy of struggle, for whom wanting something was merely a question of asking for it. Their paths had crossed once before when they were both students, not that Lesedi would remember the encounter. It was at a varsity rugby match between Stellenbosch, where Kagiso had studied, and the University of Cape Town, where Lesedi had entertained himself, with the occasional foray into the library. It was a home game for Stellenbosch, and Kagiso now remembered how he’d cycled to the sports ground to watch. He’d been padlocking his bike when Lesedi had rolled up in a soft-top BMW with a couple of friends, who tumbled out of the vehicle with bottles of the Cape’s finest fizzy in their hands.