As Joseth handed Rutherford the Stetson, Rutherford had to stop himself from saying, ‘Took you bloody long enough.’ Rutherford had long seen the Stetson, but had decided to give Joseth an impromptu test, which he had almost failed. Rutherford decided not to say anything because he knew his voice would betray the anger he felt, and Joseth, not knowing the true source of the anger, would attribute it either to his having found the hat first, or to his having left the word ‘sir’ out of the sentence ‘I think I have found something.’ What was the point of anger if the person it was directed at did not understand where it was coming from?

A few months, a few weeks ago even, such considerations would not have crossed Rutherford’s mind. He would have vented his anger without giving a damn as to how comprehensible it was, as long as it made his subordinate know and feel how subordinate he was. However, a few days ago, there had been a ceasefire, and, in preparation for the ceasefire and eventual independence, the government had, some months earlier, started putting together meetings, seminars and conferences, all designed to teach government officials and civil servants a new language and ethos that would ensure that the different races got along well together and would be able to build and realise a peaceable future country. In these meetings, seminars and conferences, Rutherford was informed that things were changing and that his attitudes to, his relations with, and his expectations of Africans would have to change as well.

An expert – who over the years, like Emil Coetzee, had garnered a reputation as a man who ‘knows the African’ – had been a guest-speaker at one such conference a few weeks prior, and he had stressed that words such as ‘kaffir’, ‘boy’, ‘madala’ and ‘bafana’ no longer had a place in the lexicon of the workplace. That conference had been what … two, three weeks ago, and Emil Coetzee had definitely been very much alive then. And now here was Rutherford, holding his Stetson in his hands. Under the severe savannah sun, it did not take long for a man divested of his hat to start singing songs his mother had taught him.

Without warning, Rutherford doubled over and emptied the contents of his stomach in one far-spraying spew. Damn it all, he had just contaminated the scene, and spectacularly so, in front of a subordinate, Joseth Maraire, the man who wanted to take his place. When Rutherford stood upright, the air suddenly felt cooler and the sun actually felt like a salve on the skin.