Off the Voortrekker Road

by Barbara Bleiman

  ‘Just brought him back to you, before he gets caught up in any of that nonsense going on over there,’ Mr Choudhary said and Ma thanked him brusquely. ‘I’ll be straight off home now, I think. I’ll come back and see you another day, Sam, when things are a bit quieter round here.’

  Pa shook his hand firmly and then returned to his place at the window to watch the scene across the road. There was a sudden swell of noise, chanting of slogans and waving of banners, and a big crowd formed around the group of men. On our side of the street, people started coming into the store, to watch from the safety of our shop window. I swung myself up to sit on the counter, so I could see over everyone’s heads.

  A man with a loudhailer, who I didn’t recognise, started talking, announcing a meeting at the Town Hall in a few days’ time. He was dressed in a grey suit and tie and looked out of place among the men around him, working men in their everyday clothes or farmers in their khaki shorts and short-sleeved cotton shirts.

  ‘Who’s he?’ I asked Mr Edwards, who was standing in front of me.

  ‘The candidate,’ he said. ‘Bertie Barnard. They call him Battling Bertie or Bertie the Bully, depending on what they think of him.’

  ‘What do you think of him?’

  ‘I keep my head down, Jackie – I don’t voice any opinions, not a word. That way you stay out of trouble. You never know who’s going to win and if you’ve been shooting you mouth off in favour of the wrong man, then word may get out and they might start making your life a bit difficult. No planning permission for that building, up at the Town Hall, or not getting that contract you thought was safe, maybe telling their friends in the police to pull you in for a driving ticket or some other rubbish like that. Our Maisie, though, she’s got herself in with that friend of hers, Toinette, whose family’s mad keen on them – hardliners, Afrikaans speaking, crazy about Malan and what he’ll do for our country – and now there’s rows between her and Billy, morning, noon and night, ’cause he says she’s always on about the Nats this and the Nats that and he says he’s sick to death of it. Soon as the election’s over, she’ll lose interest I hope, or find herself a new best friend. Me, I keep out of it all, get on with my own business. That’s the best policy.’

  I looked out over his head. The crowd of men was now beginning to move away, as one big group, with the placards held high in front of them. They were starting to walk slowly down the centre of Main Road, in the direction I had just come from, past the Jewish Community Hall, Mr Weinstock’s, the barber’s, the florist, the bioscope and the garage, handing out leaflets as they went. Some people took the leaflets politely; others threw them straight to the ground.

  The people in the store hurried out into the road now, to watch them go. I ran out with them, and stooped down to pick up one of the leaflets. One side was in Afrikaans, the other in English. I started to read the English words:

  THE KAFFIR IN HIS PLACE

  Vote Bertie Barnard, National Party

  Come to a meeting on Sunday 8th April at Parow Scouts Hall to find out more about what we stand for:

  • APARTHEID – separate development for blacks and whites. No more racial integration.

  • New laws to stop blacks from moving into our cities.

  • Immorality laws, to stop mixing between natives and Europeans – no more interracial intercourse!

  MAKE A STAND AGAINST THE RED PERIL, IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE TAKEN OVER BY BLACKS AND COMMUNISTS!

  I went back into the store to show it to Pa. He took one look at it, then screwed it up tightly into his fist and threw it across the store, aiming for the rubbish bin.

  ‘Be careful, Sam,’ Ma said quietly. ‘There are plenty of our customers who’re supporting the Nats. Some are even members of the party. You don’t want to lose them, do you?’

  ‘You’re right, Sarah,’ Pa said. ‘We should be careful, we should keep shtum. Who knows what it’ll be like if these people get in, but we’ve got a store to run and a living to make. We can’t afford to take sides. Just get on with it and keep our mouths shut.’

  Like Mr Edwards, they both seemed a little nervous, edgy, this noisy gathering across the street having disturbed the normal run of their lives. Pa placed an arm on Ma’s shoulder. ‘We’re together on this,’ he said and she seemed, for once, to agree.

  Chapter 20

  April 1958

  Despite the Passover meal, the unexpectedly late night and the lack of sleep, Jack was in chambers early, planning to read through his papers and make notes on the case before his meeting with van Heerden. Only the caretaker was there, sorting through the early-morning mail.

  ‘Got a few letters here for you, Mr Neuberger.’

  ‘Thanks, Charlie.’

  ‘Oh and there were two men here earlier, come looking for you.’

  ‘Really? What did they look like?’

  ‘A big beefy one with a gap in his teeth and a thinner one – had a bad face, all rough and bumpy, like the surface of the moon. Acne or something.’

  The two Special Branch officers, thought Jack.

  ‘Asked me a few questions. Wanted to know about your friends, that’s what they said. Wanted to know who you ‘associate’ with. Threw out a few names I’d never heard of. Asked if these people came to see you. Asked if I thought you were a communist sympathizer. I just laughed. ‘I’m the doorman, I said, ‘What the hell do I know about these things?’ So they said they’d be back another time. Special Branch, I reckon,’ Charlie said. ‘Looked the types.’

  Jack climbed the stairs to his office two at a time. Inside, he sat for a while, thinking, then unlocked the wooden cabinet, pulled out the van Heerden files and began sifting through his notes and papers. Time was moving on, the date of the trial was approaching and he needed to start to put together a plan of action, identify his main witnesses, organise his thoughts into a clear line of defence. But it was proving harder than he expected. Most of the advocates in the chambers wouldn’t have taken it all so seriously, he knew that; they’d have interviewed a few people, read all the papers and then gone home and spent a night or two hammering out an approach that would do a decent enough job for their client. If it didn’t work out in court, so be it. They’d have given it their best shot and been satisfied with that. Putting too much time into a single case wasn’t good business, nor did it necessarily help; the more you got sucked into the detail, the harder it could be to get a sense of the whole, to carve out a clear path through the undergrowth.

  Jack sat with the papers spread out in front of him. Truthfully, if it had been any other case, he would probably have done the same; he would not have allowed himself to become quite so involved. He knew that he’d begun to let it get to him, in a way that risked clouding his judgment, turning him into a moral detective, a seeker of the truth, rather than a straightforward advocate who puts forward the best defence he can, given the inevitably partial facts available to him.

  If only it were all more clear-cut – rock-solid character witnesses, alibis, people whose testimony was patently robust and reliable – but he was beginning to feel that everyone he spoke to couldn’t quite be trusted; each one seemed to have their own motives, their own axe to grind. Even the gentle, decent woman who had come to see him the night before, Laura van Heerden, was not quite what he’d expected, and though he felt persuaded by her story and by her dignity, now, in the cold light of day, he had one or two little worrying doubts. She had given her reasons for coming to see him late at night, wanting to prevent her husband from knowing, but why the hurry? Why not wait and come and see him in his office? And surely her husband would have noticed her absence and her late return in a licensed taxi? What’s more, he felt uneasy about the Clara Joubert aspect of the case – why were Clara and Laura no longer close, when they had been such devoted friends, with Clara being godmother to two of her daughters? Was it likely th
at she would so easily be persuaded to become a prosecution witness? Laura was quick to dismiss her evidence as untrustworthy.

  ‘It doesn’t add up,’ he said out loud. ‘There must be something I’m missing here.’

  There was a knock on the door. Still much too early for the van Heerden interview, or indeed for anything else, as the building had not yet come to life. Vera poked her head round the door. What was she doing in so early?

  ‘Can I fetch you a coffee and slice of strudel from the café?’ she said.

  ‘That’s kind. I’ll take you up on the coffee but Renee tells me I’ve got to watch my waistline, so I’ll say no to the strudel thanks. You’re in very early, aren’t you?’

  ‘Ja, I woke up at six and couldn’t get back to sleep, so thought I might as well come in and tidy up a bit, do some filing. I was thinking about our case, lying in bed, churning it all over.’

  ‘Our case?’

  She laughed. ‘It’s kind of got to me, Mr Neuberger. It’s an interesting one.’

  ‘Certainly is!’

  ‘Thing is, I’ve been sitting in on some of these here interviews of yours, and wondering what really went on with Mr van Heerden and that woman, Agnes Small.’

  ‘You think there’s more to it than meets the eye?’

  ‘Maybe. Depends who you believe.’

  ‘And who do you believe, Vera?’

  ‘I don’t believe Agnes Small,’ she said.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I dunno, Mr Neuberger. I can’t really say. Something about her face when she was telling you things. She seemed uncomfortable, edgy.’

  ‘Perhaps she was just nervous about meeting me – this is a worrying time for her.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And Johannes?’

  ‘Not sure. He seems like a good, decent man to me. But you can’t always tell. The best of men can do the stupidest of things when it comes to women.’

  Yes, thought Jack, she’s right about that.

  ‘How about Clara Joubert?’

  ‘Not so fond of Mr and Mrs van Heerden as she makes out she is. Otherwise what’s she doing, saying all the stuff she’s been saying and talking to all those people behind their backs? If she was worried she should have gone to them first, not stirred things up with nasty gossip with Mr Fourie and Francois de Klerk and all those other men, who she should have known better than to talk to. Whatever she says, she’s put herself on their side now and that’s a fact.’

  ‘So what do you suggest, Vera?’

  Her hesitation indicated a pause for thought but it soon became obvious to Jack that she’d already decided on what she considered to be a good course of action and was keen to let him know.

  ‘Oh my God, Mr Neuberger, I’m no expert in these things you know. But how about talking to Agnes Small again and maybe her neighbours too?’

  Her neighbours. Of course. Why hadn’t he thought about that before? Maybe there would be someone who knew something, a neighbour who had witnessed the comings and goings of Johannes van Heerden. If so, his adversary, du Toit, would undoubtedly have already talked to them and lined them up for the prosecution if they had a story to tell. He could kick himself for missing something so obvious.

  ‘Thank you, Vera. I think I’ll do that, just as soon as I’ve had my meeting with van Heerden this morning.’

  ‘Oh, did I not say? There was a phone call that Charlie took for you just now – he handed me a note as I was coming up. Apparently Mr van Heerden’s had to cancel. He wants to rearrange the interview for tomorrow instead.’

  ‘I wonder why? He’s usually pretty reliable. Well, that gives me a spare morning anyway.’ Working through the papers again wasn’t going to get him any further though, and time was moving on, the date of the trial fast approaching. ‘Forget the coffee and grab your coat, Vera. I’m going to follow your advice. We’re going back to Elsie’s River to see what more we can find out.’

  He picked up the Ford from the car park round the back of the chambers and collected Vera from the front, beeping the horn to let her know he was there. In the car driving out to Elsie’s River, both of them were silent, absorbed in their own thoughts. Jack was thinking about Agnes Small. He realised that, during that first interview, he hadn’t really asked her all that much; he’d been so strongly affected by her discomfort, so wary of probing too deeply, that perhaps he’d failed to get the full story. He’d seen her at an early stage, before he really knew what he was looking for. He wondered how her own defence was progressing and remembered his promise to her to make sure that he would co-ordinate his efforts with that of her defence counsel. Soon after seeing her he’d done just that. He’d had one or two brief conversations with the advocate – a hardened, middle-aged man in a small lower-ranking chambers the other side of the city. He had not been impressed with him; he had found him both uncommunicative and dismissive – he hadn’t really got going on the case yet, he’d said, but would be happy to chat when the date of the trial was announced and he’d got properly stuck in to reading all the papers and planning his defence. A third conversation after the date was finally set hadn’t got him much further.

  Jack found himself thinking again about all three of the women he had met: Agnes, Clara and Laura. Of the three, Clara had been the most vocal and articulate, telling him her story in great detail, anticipating the possible questions he might have and filling in all the gaps. She had been entirely plausible, though her motivation had seemed unclear and her switching of sides was worrying. She had appeared level-headed and yet both Johannes and Laura had accused her of fickleness and instability. If Johannes was to be believed, she was easily swayed and subject to flights of the imagination. Yet that was not how she had appeared to him. But nevertheless he could well imagine the pressure that she might be coming under from some of the church elders, Fourie, van Zyl and even her own parents.

  What of Agnes? He had been impressed by her quiet calm. She did not seem like a woman who would be swayed by passion. He had liked her and felt sympathy for her plight. Her clean, well-kept, simple home, her well-behaved, well-looked-after children, the treasured photograph of her dead husband all spoke of a woman managing to cope in difficult circumstances, whose behaviour was entirely consistent with an honest struggle to keep her life on track. She may have been nervous, as Vera suggested, but there were perfectly justifiable reasons for that; the woman was facing legal action and the most dire of consequences if found guilty. He felt that he could trust her.

  With Laura van Heerden, he had been surprised by her strength and determination, in circumstances that could have both shaken her faith in her husband and sent her spiralling into deep despair; though all around her described her as frail, that was not the view he had taken away of this woman. He was puzzled by the discrepancy between people’s accounts of her and the woman as he saw her. Her life had been turned upside down, her husband was facing disgrace and possible imprisonment and yet she seemed utterly certain that good would prevail. Perhaps it was her faith in God that gave her this courage? For a woman in such difficulties, her strength of character and her willingness to stand by her husband were impressive.

  Would his own mother have stood by his father in similar circumstances? Ma and Pa’s problems had been different ones – financial worries, the ups and downs of the store and what he now saw as some deep incompatibilities – Pa’s practicality and pride in his work, Ma’s scorn for her life as a shopkeeper’s wife when she thought she could be doing so much more. As a boy, he’d taken her side more often than his father’s but, looking back, he could see that his mother had also played her part in their difficulties; she had not been blameless.

  Jack had picked up from hints, over the years, Ma’s suspicions about a woman but he’d never found out whether they were well founded or not. Pa was adamant that it was all a fig
ment of her imagination but, for Ma, there was always that uncertainty. When Sam went out to Stellenbosch or Paarl and came back late, was he really meeting wholesalers and buying corn, chicken feed or flour, or was there something else going on? Jack liked to think that, for all of Pa’s flaws, womanising was not one of them. He desperately hoped so, though Vera’s words were ones he couldn’t deny: the most decent of men could stumble where women were concerned.

  But then women could stumble too. May Mostert had betrayed her husband hadn’t she? She’d allowed him to languish in a hospital, while behind his back, she conducted an affair with the mechanic who worked on the cars. Jack had often thought of her over the years. He saw her, standing in the garage talking to customers, a thick stub of a pencil in her hand, noting down their details and the number plate of their car, always good-humoured and ready to share a story or enjoy a joke, at ease with the men in their conversation. Or cooking babotie in the kitchen, surrounded by steaming pots on the stove and the rich smells of spice and meat and warm egg, her hair swept up in a neat knot, her face pink and moist, humming a traditional Afrikaans song. He saw her sitting at the kitchen table, with him and Terence and Walter, playing a raucously competitive game of rummy, or standing next to Walter by the sink, washing up the dishes together, their bodies close up against each other. He remembered that time on the beach, the drive back in the car, with Mrs Mostert asking him whether he’d rather go back home to Ma and his fiercely loyal decision to stay the night with Terence and Walter and her, not to abandon them, despite the upset of what had happened. He remembered his attempt to keep what had happened secret from Ma.