"Between Two Rivers" by Tina Beattie, Review by Pat Brickhill

Completing this review in the rural Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe it struck me that the abyss between a country at war and at peace is immense. Likewise, the gap between the rural and urban environment, and the lives of the black and white population in Rhodesia which are worlds apart even in the same country. This recognition tempered my initially ambivalent response to the author’s portrayal of several characters: which I found drawn unnecessarily stereotypically: some being without any redeeming qualities, others almost saintly, and others again having a fluctuating moral compass. Perhaps the author exploited this technique to add depth to the forces women have to negotiate in ‘a man’s world’.

Between Two Rivers, published in 2022, is a novel about the last days of Rhodesia, a country that once lay between the Zambezi and the Limpopo. A civil war was gradually engulfing the deeply divided country where a small white elite controlled every aspect of the lives of the oppressed majority black population. Today we know the country as Zimbabwe.

Tina Beattie’s book spans just over two decades, describing a time that would strip away the veneer of the hedonistic life of pleasure and plenty enjoyed by a small minority, manifesting the dark side of human nature, and laying bare the open wound of subjugation and discrimination inflicted on the majority.

The author digs deep into the bitter conflict, by examining the lives of three women Jenny, Beatrice and Morag. I would like to have learned more about the characters introduced in the beginning of the book destined to play a devastating role in the story. For example, the character David who has a sexual relationship with Jenny’s mother, with Morag and with Jenny. He is presented without any judgement, perhaps to illuminate the human frailties that are present in us all. Likewise, Jenny’s father who struggles with single parenting and came across to me as a kindly but ineffectual parent.

Jenny is a gentle gifted pianist who arrives in Rhodesia from Britain with her ill-matched unhappy parents. We learn very little about Jenny’s mother who abandons her marriage and her teenage daughter and leaves the country. Jenny marries young to a totally unsuitable man. Bruce is a testosterone-filled macho man, a violent white Afrikaner hunter with few redeeming features. Jenny struggles with her determination not to emulate her mother and her own mismatched and abusive marriage. Her relationship with her children is overshadowed by her struggle with her own calamitous situation.

The third woman is Scottish liberal doctor Morag who travels to Rhodesia to escape an unhappy love affair. I found the Morag character strangely worldly in some areas and very naïve when it came to living in Rhodesia remaining fairly ignorant of ‘Rhodesian culture and the country’s challenging history’ even after decades in the country.

Beatrice struggles between two cultures – her Christianity assumed while attending the mission school and her traditional beliefs. It’s unclear whether it is this conflict of cultures or her miserable life which sends her mad; or if the passages about her grandmother (who appears to Beatrice as a fly, a vulture and a monkey) are intended to symbolise her transition in her journey to liberation.

In Rhodesia laws were enacted to categorise black women as perpetual minors. They battled both the repressive white state and a patriarchal traditional culture – and were often caught in the crossfire of the vicious civil war. Chiedza Musengezi’s insightful review celebrates Beatrice interpreting her actions as leaving “her poorly paid employment in defence of her own independence and freedom”.

The back story is told in flashback to the 1950s. The novel opens in the 70s with Jenny’s son Sean ironically telling the women in his life that he is going to ‘fight the terrorists so that Rhodesia will be a safe place’ not only for his mother and sister but also for their domestic worker Beatrice, her children and his own future children.

Beatrice came into Jenny’s life as a domestic and nanny when Jenny was expecting her second child. We do not meet Beatrice’s husband who works on the mines in South Africa ostensibly to support his family but who abandons his family. Beatrice is also pregnant with her second child and gives birth to her son Maxwell shortly after Jenny has her baby, also a son. Beatrice is devoted to her charges but at the expense of her own children forced to live in the village. The two sons once childhood friends are separated as they grow older by racist attitudes.

The voices of the three women are successfully employed to drive Between Two Rivers forward through twenty years as the novel heads for its dramatic, though not totally unexpected conclusion. As the story unfolds each woman’s experience of her particular life sheds more light, each story coming from a different perspective. It is not only soldiers that are affected by conflict. Everybody loses in war and Beattie portrays this vividly and effectively.

Despite my occasional reservations there is no doubt Beattie has captured and revealed a disturbing and shocking window into the crumbling disintegration of the life white Rhodesians had once taken for granted, believing they and it to be indestructible. Tina Beattie’s writing is expressive though necessarily uncomfortable and brutal. Her use of the language of the time is shocking but crucial to represent the tempestuous times the book is describing. Tina Beattie is a gifted writer with the ability to paint a vivid and lasting picture with her words. She has made a significant and important contribution to the recreation of the story of the last days of Rhodesia. It is an excellent and gripping read.

Between Two Rivers by Tina Beattie, published in Zimbabwe by Weaver Press https://weaverpresszimbabwe.com/store/literature/novels/between-two-rivers-detail

Published in the UK by Troubador https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/contemporary/between-two-rivers/