The Covenant Part 87

'Yes, as if a plague had struck our land. As if locusts had eaten our little fields and we had to move on.'

When Saltwood argued that Nxumalo must be telling only part of the story, the professor agreed, heartily: 'I am indeed. And the reason I came to see you is that I wondered if you would like to see the other part.'

'I certainly would.' Philip Saltwood operated on the principle that governed many young scientists these days as they worked about the world: whether they were American or Russian, Chinese or Australian, they wanted to know what was happening in the lands which employed them at the moment, and often they moved far from their basic tasks, investigating possibilities that at the moment seemed remote but which, at some future date, might become all-important.

With Nxumalo as guide, Philip drove west to Johannesburg, where they toured inconspicuously up and down the handsome main streets of that thriving American-style city. Since it was four in the afternoon, the business areas were jammed with people, and half of them black. They were laborers, and messengers, clerks and minor officials, shoppers and dawdlers, and they could all have been in Detroit or Houston. 'Look at them,' Nxumalo said with some pride. 'They keep the wheels of this city spinning.'

At quarter to five he directed Philip to the area around the central railway station, and in the ensuing hour Saltwood saw something that was so shocking as to be unbelievable: from all parts of central Johannesburg streams of black men and women converged, more than half a million of them crowding to leave the city before sunset, after which it would be unlawful to be there. Like swarms of gra.s.shoppers leaving a ruined field, the workers of Johannesburg hastened to that endless belt of steel that ran perpetually out of the city at sunset and back in at sunrise. It was a movement of people of such magnitude that he knew nothing with which to compare it.

At the end of the hour he thought: When I look at those streams of black people I see all the occupations of a major city. You have street sweepers and young men with briefcases. Sheep butchers and young women who work as doctor's a.s.sistants. There are draymen and junior executives. And they are all being expelled.

'Are you game to see where they're going?' Nxumalo asked, as if he could read Philip's mind.

'It's forbidden, isn't it?'

'Yes, it's against the law for whites, but it can be done.'

It was the kind of challenge a peripatetic geologist often faced: Strangers are not allowed in that temple, it's sacred to Shiva. Or, You're not permitted in that corner of Afghanistan, too close to the Russian border.

But always the daring ones went, and now Philip Saltwood was on his way to a clandestine visit to Soweto, a nonexistent city of at least one and a half million black people. South Western Townships was its official t.i.tle, the first two letters of each word having been taken to form the acronym.

As they drove the twelve miles to it, with trains rushing past in orderly procession, each laden with workers, some clinging to the doors, Nxumalo said, 'It's the same problem as the little one we saw at Venloo. The Afrikaners honestly believe that no black people live in their all-white cities. They believe that we work there briefly during daylight hours, then vanish. Soweto up ahead does not exist officially. The million and a half people who live there, fifty percent of them illegally, are not really there. They're supposed to sleep there temporarily while they work in the city, but if they lose their jobs, they're obligated to move back to their Bantustans, which most of them have never seen.'

When Philip started to respond to this macabre fairy tale of the city twice as large as Boston that did not exist, Nxumalo grinned and jabbed him in the arm. 'I'll wager you didn't notice the most important fact about that exodus at the railway station.'

'As a matter of fact, I did. I saw that the crush contained all kinds of workers, from street sweepers to college professors.'

Nxumalo laughed. 'You failed your examination. The significant fact was that almost everyone carried a package of some kind. You see, because Soweto doesn't exist, and because it's seen as only temporary, ephemeral . . . Well, what's logical? It has no stores. No real ones, that is. They're not allowed, because they don't fit into the white man's plan. Everything except a few minor commodities must be purchased from white-owned stores in Johannesburg. Soweto is not a city. It's a dormitory.'

Saltwood's first impression was arbitrary and in a sense preposterous: 'Christ! Look at all those churches. I never heard of one of them before.' At frequent spots in areas that contained nothing but row upon row of uniformly dismal blockhouses, a flagstaff would display a torn ensign indicating that this building was the Church of Zion, or the Church of the Holy Will, or the Xangu Church, or simply the home of a holy man who had direct contact with G.o.d.

'After the beer hall,' Nxumalo explained, 'it's the best racket in Soweto. Maybe four thousand different churches preaching G.o.d-knows-what.' But now they were opposite a huge wire-enclosed shed, devoid of any charm whatever, where hundreds of workingmen sat at long bare tables guzzling weak Kaffir beer. That word was officially outlawed now, and if a white man called a black a Kaffir he could be charged with common a.s.sault, but the name for the beer persisted. It was a pernicious drink, strong enough to be expensive, weak enough to prevent a man from becoming dangerously drunk.

'The beer hall is the greatest anti-revolutionary instrument in Africa,' Nxumalo said, but even as he spoke, a force of much different character swept past, a gang of tsotsis running to some rendezvous that could involve theft, or rape, or one of the thousand murders each year, fifty percent unsolved because the victims were black.

Out of the vast miasma of this forsaken city, this purgatory that was not h.e.l.l, for the houses were livable, nor heaven, for there was no ease or hope, Nxumalo led Saltwood to the small dark house that was the focus of this visit. Inside the curtained kitchen sat nine men in a kind of ring, into whose center Philip was thrust: 'This is my friend, Philip Saltwood, the American geologist who is highly respected by his workmen at Swartstroom. He is completing his education.' The men acknowledged him briefly, then turned to Nxumalo and started to press him with questions.

'What do you hear from Jonathan?' one asked, and Philip had no way of guessing who Jonathan might be.

'Nothing.'

'Any news at all from Mozambique?'

'From this side we know that the frontier patrols are penetrating into Mocambique every week. They must be doing damage.'

'Is your brother still alive?'

'I hear nothing from Jonathan.'

Philip judged that Nxumalo hedged on his reply, perhaps because he did not want to say anything incriminating in the presence of a white witness.

They discussed the situation on each of the other frontiers, where apparently they had men from Soweto in position among the rebels, and in no segment of the extensive border did their people seem to be accomplishing much. But when Philip a.n.a.lyzed what actually had been said, he realized that verbally at least these men were not plotters against the government; they were simply discussing events along the frontier, exactly as the white people at Vrymeer followed these affairs, but from a much different point of interest.

The talk was broad in scope and free in manner. These men were teachers, a clergyman, businessmen of sorts, and they were concerned about the directions their nation was taking. They were deeply worried about the forthcoming American presidential election and wondered whether Andrew Young would regain his position of power in a new administration. They were particularly interested in one aspect of American life. 'What accounts for your ambivalance?' a teacher asked. 'Your big newspapers are against apartheid, so is President Carter, so is Andy Young, but ninety-eight percent of the Americans who visit our country approve of it. Almost every American who comes here goes home convinced that Afrikaners are doing the right thing.'

'It's simple,' Philip said. 'What Americans come here? It's far away, you know, and very expensive. Businessmen come on company accounts. Rich travelers. Engineers. And they're all wealthy and conservative. They like what they see. They approve of apartheid, really, and would like to see it introduced in America.'

'You're an engineer. You're not a conservative.'

'On many things I am. I'm sure as h.e.l.l no liberal.'

'But on apartheid?'

'I'm against it because I don't think it works.'

'Do you find the world turning conservative? Canada? England? Maybe America?'

'I do.'

Late in the evening they got down to cases, and now Nxumalo moved to the fore: 'I've been pondering what we might do to inspirit our people. To send a signal to the men in Mocambique that we're still with them. And it seems to me that the most effective single thing, under present conditions, is to organize a day of remembrance for our dead children who were gunned down in Soweto in 1976.'

'That has merit.'

'I would propose that on June 16 this year we have a national day of mourning. No disturbances, just some kind of visual remembrance.'

'Would that antagonize government?' a short man asked. 'Anything we do antagonizes government.'

'I mean, to the point of retaliation?'

Nxumalo sat silent. This was a penetrating question, for the tactic of committees like this had to be protest up to the edge of the precipice at which Afrikaner guns began to fire, as they had at Sharpeville, in Soweto and at a score of other sites. Judiciously he said, 'If the white man can make a national holiday of Blood River, where he slaughtered thousands of us Zulu, we can remember Soweto '76. I say let's go ahead.'

It was agreed, and when Saltwood left the meeting, and slipped out of Soweto, he was aware that his new friend Daniel Nxumalo had entered upon dangerous ground, but he had no idea that by this simple gesture of irritating the government the young educator would place himself in mortal jeopardy.

When Philip returned to Vrymeer he found his life much altered, for the Troxel boys were back from border duty and were out of uniform. One sight of them warned Saltwood that he was in trouble, for they were a handsome pair, with the fine looks and open smiles of the true Afrikaner. Frikkie was twenty-five, about six feet three, slim, easy in his movements and with a rather serious mien. When Mr. van Doorn introduced him he said, 'Frik's a rugby halfback and one of the best.'

Jopie was different. Well under six feet, he was built like a Roman wall, one ma.s.sive building block set down upon another. He was broad, in all respects. He had a wide face and very wide mouth from which ma.s.sive square teeth showed. His shoulders and hips were enormous, for although he was much shorter than Frikkie, he was also much heavier, but what startled Philip was the fact that Jopie had no neck. As with many of the historic rugby forwards, Fanie Louw and Frik du Preez among them, Jopie Troxel's head was set square upon his shoulders, giving his body a battering-ram quality which he used to powerful effect, but in no way was he a gross or insensitive person, and he had in the middle of his chin a deep dimple which quivered when he laughed. His humor was robust, and it was obvious that Sannie van Doorn appreciated it.

Her father had introduced Frikkie; she took charge of Jopie: This is my dear friend, who wears his hair forward, like Julius Caesar, and that isn't the only thing forward about him.' With a ma.s.sive right hand Jopie grabbed Philip's and said, 'Did Jimmy Carter and Andy Young send you over here to tell us how to run our country?'

Philip stiffened. 'I came to find diamonds.'

'Finding any?'

'No. You d.a.m.ned people keep everything hidden.'

'We'd better,' Jopie said, 'or you and the English would steal it.'

'How was the border?' Marius asked, aware that these three young men were behaving like bulls caught up in the heat of spring. He suspected that daughter Sannie was about to experience a difficult spell.

Frikkie dropped into a chair and accepted the beer that Sannie brought. 'It's rotten work. You patrol fifteen days in the bush and see maybe one terrorist. Ta-ta-ta-ta. He's gone, but you know there's a dozen back there somewhere.'

'But we're holding our own?'

'Definitely. There's this Kaffir from here, this Jonathan Nxumalo. He issues a threat now and then on Radio Maputo, as you know. Going to storm Johannesburg. But he's d.a.m.ned sure to stay clear of our patrols.'

'You mean there was real fighting?' Sannie asked.

'Whenever the black b.a.s.t.a.r.ds gave us a chance,' Jopie said.

'How long were you at the border?' Philip asked, and Jopie looked at his cousin to check whether this was privileged information.

'Six months. It's our obligation.'

'We certainly missed you on the team,' Marius said, hoping to change the conversation, but Philip asked, 'How long can this go on? I mean, with so many young men taken out of productive work?'

'You ask two questions which only an American would ask,' Frikkie said sharply. 'How long? As if everything had to be completed in a hurry. We can guard our borders for the next hundred years. And is it productive? No, it isn't, in the sense of making things at a factory. But what could possibly be more productive than protecting one's country?'

'That subject is closed,' Marius said. 'Now tell me, how soon can you men get back into shape for the big matches facing us?'

'On the border,' Jopie said, 'you're always in shape. I could play Sat.u.r.day.'

'Do you mean that?'

'Me, too,' Frikkie said, and when Philip looked at the young commandos he knew that they were telling the truth.

The game was against a team from Bloemfontein, and when the Troxels ran onto the field the crowd cheered wildly, for newspapers had hinted at their exploits at the frontier. They displayed the poetic abandon for which they had been famous, but they lost, rather badly, as a matter of fact, 23-9. They did have a great time and in the drinking bouts after the game they smashed a few windows.

When they returned to Vrymeer, there was serious talk as to what they might be doing in the future, and as Philip listened he learned to his surprise that they were suited only for farming. Frikkie had been to the university at Potchefstroom but had learned nothing of practical value, nor much of anything else, while Jopie had shown no interest in going beyond high school. Their two families, offshoots of the Troxels whom Detleef van Doorn had rescued from the slums of Vrededorp, had not acquired much land, so that both boys could not look forward to farming their own fields, but they were capable, and Marius suggested, to Philip's dismay, that they think seriously of a.s.suming responsibility for the extensive acres at Vrymeer. Logically, this would imply that one of them should marry the Van Doorn daughter, and this each was eager to do.

Sannie's intentions were not entirely clear. She was more than fond of her American geologist; her excursions with him had been instructive to her, too, and some of the nights in Kruger Park rondavels or country hotels had been rapturous. He was by no means an improbable suitor, for many South African girls of her generation had breathed sighs of salvation when their marriages carried them away from this turbulent cauldron; she had personal friends who proposed to spend the rest of their lives in places like Toronto and the University of Southern California, and those who wrote spoke often of homesickness for the veld, but more often of the freedom they enjoyed in their adopted homes. She could be happy in Texas and at times had a positive longing to see it.

Also, she might be tempted to emigrate with Saltwood because she was sometimes painfully reminded of her mixed heritage. Her father had sprung from impeccable Afrikaner roots but had gone whoring after a Rhodes scholarship, and in so doing, had acquired an English wife. This killed his eligibility for membership in the Broederbond, nor had he been selected an elder in the local church. Mrs. van Doorn was openly pro-English, but Sannie felt no attachment whatever to England and had refused two opportunities to spend vacations there.

As she matured, she found herself becoming more and more an Afrikaner. She understood why Frikkie and Jopie were willing to serve on the border, and she shared their love of this land. She had known these young men all her life, had played with them as a child, and felt she could be happy with either of them on this enchanting farm with its tumbling lakes and wild blesbok. Which of the cousins she preferred she could not say, for up to now she had never been required to choose between them.

There was one further complication. She was almost in love with Philip Saltwood. Intuitively she sensed that he was a finer-grained human being than the Troxel boys, a man who was going to take life seriously. Besides, she had enjoyed sharing a bed with him. For the time being she postponed divisions, trusting that things would sort themselves out.

They were in the kitchen drinking beer and telling Van der Merwe stories. Frikkie said, 'Van der Merwe and two rascals from Krugersdorp went to Paris to hold up a bank. But on the way to the job, Van der Merwe dropped the dynamite and the three were arrested. All of them sentenced to the guillotine. But when the knife came thundering down on the first man, it stuck and he was miraculously spared. French law declared him free. So the second man was strapped down, and again the knife came roaring down and again it jammed. He was set free. Now came Van der Merwe's turn, and he was so curious about what had happened that he looked up as they laid him on the plank, and just as the executioner was about to pull the lever that released the knife, Van der Merwe shouts, "Hold everything! I see what's wrong with this crazy machine!" '

Jopie said, 'Van der Merwe, as you know, always had a low opinion of Englishmen, and one day he watched in disgust as three of them spent more than two hours digging a hole for a fence post and setting it in the ground. "Lazy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Two hours for a job like that. I could do that by myself in fifteen minutes, you give me nine Kaffirs." '

'Jopie!' Sannie warned. 'Government says we're not to call them Kaffirs any longer. The legal word now is Plural.'

Frikkie said, 'You know what Van der Merwe calls a Bushman rock painting? Under the new law, that is. "A rural plural mural." '

Jopie said, 'You know what Van der Merwe says to a Kaffir holding a machine gun? "Good morning, Baas." '

Frikkie said, 'Van der Merwe had a flagpole lying on the ground. He propped it in its hole, got a ladder and a tape measure and tried to climb up to measure it, but the flagpole fell down. Twice again he propped it up and tried to climb it. Finally a Kaffir said, "Baas, why don't you measure it when it's on the ground?" and Van der Merwe said, "Stupid Kaffir, I want to know its height, not its width." '

Jopie said, 'Speaking of width. Air France sent out its top pilot to see if Van der Merwe was ready to fly to Paris and London. Van der Merwe made one of the greatest landings in aviation historyhis 747 touched down at the front edge of the tarmac . . . screamed to a braking stop, its front wheels three inches from the other end of the landing surface. "Absolutely magnifique!" magnifique!" the Air France inspector said. "This man is ready for any airport in the world. But tell me, why does South Africa make its runways so short?" "I can't explain it," Van der Merwe said. "And look at the crazy thing. It's almost five miles wide." ' the Air France inspector said. "This man is ready for any airport in the world. But tell me, why does South Africa make its runways so short?" "I can't explain it," Van der Merwe said. "And look at the crazy thing. It's almost five miles wide." '

Koos van der Merwe was the prototypical Afrikaner b.o.o.b on whom all jokes about rural stupidity and childlike simplicity were hung. Everyone had his favorite, so that a session like this could run for hours, with an endless chain of hilarious insights into the stolid Afrikaner mind. It was interesting, Philip thought, that most of the jokes were told by Afrikaners themselves, and not by Englishmen, although he had discovered, from several such affairs, that any really ugly jokes were usually told by the latter.

After Frikkie, Jopie and Sannie had each reeled off half a dozen stories, some of them very rough on their fellow Afrikaners, they turned to Philip and asked him what his favorite was. 'I rather fancy one I heard at the diggings. "What do the numbers 1066, 1492 and 1812 have in common?" ' When Sannie pointed out that they were dates important in history, Philip replied, 'Wrong. They're adjoining rooms in Van der Merwe's motel.' Then he asked, 'Why do you tell such jokes?' and each of the three had a sensible explanation. Frikkie felt that any people who were essentially rural took refuge in two kinds of comedy: 'Barnyard-s.e.xual, and the Afrikaners have some very funny stories in that style, and country-b.u.mpkin. In the first we're laughing at the dominee and the domination of the church. In the second we're laughing at ourselves. You hear the same jokes in each category, I'm quite sure, in rural Germany ... or Norway.'

Jopie had quite another theory: 'We know that the Englishmen laugh at us. So we beat them to the punch and do it better.'

Sannie thought otherwise: 'We do it out of affection. Every one of us has in his family somewhere a Koos van der Merwe. He never comes exactly into focus. But we love him just the same. How many pieces in Van der Merwe's jigsaw puzzle? Two.'

When Sannie said this, Jopie broke into wild laughter, quite out of proportion to the merits of the joke. Frikkie looked at him and asked, 'Have you gone bonkers?'

'No! I just happened to think of something terribly funny.' When the other three turned to stare at him, he said, 'I was in Pretoria when Andy Young and two of his a.s.sistants from the State Department were there making speeches and giving interviews about the rights of blacks in South Africa. And I burst into laughter.'

'Why?' Saltwood asked defensively. 'Sometimes Young makes sense.'

'Granted. But not that day. Because it suddenly occurred to me, when I had a chance to look at him, to see him . . . You know, he's not black at all. Neither of his two aides were black. I've never seen a black American. Everyone who comes here is Coloured.' Here he broke into convulsive laughter, and after a moment Frikkie joined him. The two athletes punched each other and almost gagged on their merriment.

'I don't get it,' Philip said.

'Don't you see?' Sannie explained as her two suitors tried to control their raucous behavior. 'If Andy Young and your other black leaders in America lived in South Africa, and if they got their wayone-man, one-voteand the blacks took over, the very first people to be done in would be Andy Young and his gang.'

'Now wait!' Philip snapped. As a loyal American, he felt obligated to defend President Carter and former Amba.s.sador Young when they were attacked, which in South Africa was almost daily. 'I don't approve of Andy when he shoots from the hip, but on basic African policy he makes sense.'

'How could he?' Frikkie asked. 'One-man, one-vote?'

'I mean his view of the continent as a whole. There are three million Afrikaners at most. Three hundred million blacks at least. Should we support you few against so many?'

'Of course you should, since our interests are the same as your interests,' Frikkie said.

'But what was your point about Young being in danger?'

'My dear stupid American,' Frikkie said, winking at Jopie. 'Don't you know that Zulu, Xhosa, Fingo, Pondoall of themdislike Coloureds even more than they dislike whites?'

'Why?'

'Because they feel that when decisions are made, Coloureds will side with whites. They're seen as traitors to the black cause.'

Jopie broke in: 'You may have heard. When the blacks rioted at Paarl. Quite a few dead. The Coloureds didn't raise a finger to help. Believe me, Philip, when the crunch comes, Andy Young would be in a lot more danger than me. The blacks know they'll need men like me to help organize their new world. But they'll have no place whatever for Andy Young and his light-skinned Coloureds.'

Frikkie became quite serious: 'We've watched this in many former English colonies. When the natives a.s.sume power, they ostracize the light-skins ... if they don't slaughter them. The reason's simple. "If we must do business with people other than ourselves, let's do it with the best of the lot, the real white people." The Coloureds in this landhow many of them? Three million, perhaps. They have no future except with us. So if your Amba.s.sador Young wishes to help his kind, he better come to Jopie and me and say, "Afrikaners, save me!" because the blacks will do him in.'

Jopie broke the tension by tickling Sannie under the chin as she finished her beer. 'You know, I don't believe I've ever seen an American black. I wonder if anyone in South Africa ever has. We made a big to-do over Arthur Ashe, and the rock musicians, and what not. But when the crunch comes, everyone like them will be dead. Because there'll be no place for those cats in the new South Africa.'

Sannie said, 'Would you like a Van der Merwe c.o.c.ktail? Perrier and water?'

It was language, which tyrannizes us all, that converted Laura Saltwood into a major criminal. It began accidentally during a trip home to England; she had stopped at a store in Salisbury and the shopkeeper had said, 'I can't deliver it today, Mrs. Saltwood. My temp didn't report.'

'Your what?'