Prose

After all the years it’s still difficult for Maria to talk about that tragic day, which had shattered Angola forever for her.   She swallows at the knob in her throat, before she draws Ryno down on the grass next to the fountain and the Venus statue.
 
“My dad had been a good person,” she says and there is suddenly fire in her eyes.   “Where the other farmers could not wait to leave Angola, with as much of their possessions as they could, he stayed and tried to do something about the situation.”

”We were quite wealthy and he had businesses in various industries.   He was against communism and had supported the FNLA of Roberto and bought some arms for them and was busy finalising plans to hire some mercenaries when the civil war started, when the MPLA send their soldiers to kill him here.”

She shudders suddenly and he draws her tightly against him.  “Come let me go and show you,” she remarks and draws him by the hand to his feet and pulls him into the garden.

”I was here on holiday from the university of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg where I had been busy studying medicine.   Do you see that small bush,” she wants to know as if it’s not right there in front of them.

He nods with his head acknowledging but doesn’t say a word.   “One of their officers did force me down right here, in broad daylight, after my dad had been fusilladed right there on the veranda while I tried to run away.   Three other soldiers were there on the porch busy with my mother.”

She shakes her head as if she wants to clear her thoughts and do not anymore believe in the reality of the events that she is telling.

”It was such a beautiful summer’s day.   Just like today and the bees were then just as busy as they are now.   I could see them entering these flowers, while it felt as if my life was ending.”

It is then that he notices that big tear drops, are flowing down her cheeks.   He draws her right up to him and keeps her tightly against him, while he feels her body jerking against his and now she is really crying.

”Hush.  It has passed,” he tries to comfort her and kisses her tenderly on her head and mouth.   He tastes the salt of her mouth and the dust of their travelling and her smell hangs around them, when he pulls her down to the lawn.

The plant is in full bloom and she smiles when she catches a honey bee and holds it in such a way, that it is not able to sting her.

”I can still smell the stinking breath of that disgusting man and feel how he was pressing me down.   He had pointed a pistol at the side of my head and with his other hand he had torn my blouse, pushed my skirt up and he had torn my panties right off.”

There’s a faraway look in her brown eyes and it’s almost, as if she does not notice him next to her.  Again she smiles when she looks at the wriggling insect in her fingers.

”A small bee like this one, helped me.   I gave no resistance to him and had actually encouraged him and when he put his pistol down and was struggling to get his pants down, I caught the bee where it tried to take some nectar from the plant above me.”

She lets the insect go and it turns a few times angrily above their heads, before again it is drawn by the flowers of the plant and then leaves them in peace.

There is suddenly a sadistic look in her eyes.  “That man was still undressing when I pushed that bee into his left ear and made it stung him right inside of it.   He did not know what had hit him.  It gave me the opportunity to come to my feet, grab his pistol and to flee into the bushes.   For a long period of time he followed me and started cursing and when he could not catch me he stopped following me and that bee sting must have given him all kinds of hell.”

”By sunset they had put the house to fire and for a second time that day it felt as if everything that had made sense to me was falling apart and suddenly I was so alone, as if I was the only person left on this earth.”

”You will never again be alone as long as I am alive.   Even if you are just in my thoughts, you will always be with me,” he assures her and kisses her again on her soft lips.

”They were still searching for me when a FNLA patrol came to the rescue and had killed the lot of them.  My mother had however also been killed and after my parents were buried I went along with those soldiers all the way to Sa da Bandeira.”

They watch a butterfly that goes from flower to flower and the smell of the grass and the flowers hangs sweet in the air around them.

”One of the FNLA officers had organized transport for me by military truck all the way to Mocamedes, where they left me in the care of my uncle.   He was the owner of some fishing boats and it wasn’t long before I could leave this country.”

”I am sorry,” Ryno remarks and notices that her disposition has changed.   Suddenly their bodies’ burn for each other’s and when he draws her to him and reach for the buttons of her blouse her brown eyes glitters naughtily.

He picks an orange wild flower that grows near to them and when he puts it into her hair, it is as if there is a living spark between them.

She smiles at him and he reads happiness in her eyes and he knows that he really loves her and that his life without her is totally aimless.

”I love you with my whole heart,” he says and there’s a strange kind of hurt in her eyes.   “I wonder how you will feel about me, when you know everything about me?  There are things that you have got to know that will make you loathe me.  Let me tell you how wonderful I really am,” she remarks bitterly with a husky voice.  “Rather forget about me and get yourself another girl.”

”God, no!  Do you want me to stop breathing?  How can I live and not love you?  How can I ever forget you and know about our love?   My life only really started at the moment that I saw you at the river.  I love you!  As far as I am concerned there is no yesterdays.”

”Tomorrow is curse.  Then you are away.  Then you will maybe get killed.   For us there is no future,” she says bitterly.  Suddenly she cries again and this time he does not know how to comfort her, as she is right.  So much he wants a tomorrow with her, but at the moment it’s not allotted to them.

The butterfly flutters nearer and lands on her cheek, as if it wants to comfort her and the light breeze blows through her pitch black hair that glitters like silk.

His voice is hoarse when he talks.  “You are right. A tomorrow without you is a curse.  Every day away form you is hell.  However we still have today...”

She stops crying and takes Ryno’s hand.   “How could I want to forget you?  How could I try and wipe these few days from my thoughts, when you are gone so far away?   How will I kill this love, when I hear your voice in my heartbeat?  Still I am wondering:  Is it joy or is it sorrow?  God, how can I forget you?  You are part of the depths of my soul.  How different it would have been, if I could read it tomorrow and every other day in your eyes.”

Suddenly she pulls herself together and smiles bravely.  “Today is our day.  Today we are still together,” she says and pushes him so tightly against her breast, that he can feel her heart beating and it feels as if her fingers are cutting into his neck.

There is fire in their kisses and once more he admires her, when they undress and he enters her there next to the fountain and he realises that the Venus statue is less perfect than she is.

She is soft and hot and wet and pulsing and he smells the dust and the sweet smell of the grass and the smell of her nearness and he feels her soft hot body underneath him and how her hard nipples drill into him and her breasts clings onto him.

Her lips are sweet and soft and hot and wet under his and they are like two eagles that fly higher and higher above the earth and suddenly it’s as if they are together diving down.   

He feels her shuddering in ecstasy deep inside her and sees her mouth opening wide and like Icarus he is burning and the earth shakes under them and the earth shudders under them and there’s an earthquake and it’s as if thousands of stars explodes and explodes in his head...