by Wilbur Smith
'Mrs Carmichael, my son Garry has shown me some of your preliminary sketches for the Shasaville township. As you know, Court.
they Mining and Finance are considerable shareholders in the project Although Garry is responsible for the development, I hoped we coulc meet to exchange a few ideas." She had suggested her own office, but Shasa neatly thwarted her attempt to choose the field of battle and sent a chauffeur to bring her out to Weltevreden in the Rolls. She realized that she was being deliberately placed in surroundings which were intended to overpower her, and show her up in the splendour of a world in which there was no place for her. So she went to endless pains with her dress and appearance, and as she was ushered into Shasa Courtney's study she saw him start and knew that first blood was hers. She made the room with all its treasures seem as though it had been designed around her, and Shasa Courtney's cool supercilious smile faded as he came to take her hand.
'What a magnificent Turner,' she said. 'I always think he must have been an early riser. The sunlight only has that golden lustre in the early morning." His expression changed again as he realized there was depth below her striking exterior.
They circled the room, ostensibly admiring the other paintings, fencing elegantly, testing each other for weakness and finding none, until Shasa deliberately broke the pattern with a direct personal compliment to fluster her.
'You have the most remarkable eyes,' he said, and watched her keenly to see how she would react. She counter-attacked instantly.
'Garrycalls !hem amethyst and sapphire." She had wrongfooted him neauy. He naa expected her to avoid that name until he raised it.
'Yes, I understand the two of you have been working closely." He went to the ivory-inlaid table on which glasses and decanters had been set out.
'May I offer you one of our sherries? We are very proud of them." He brought her the glass and looked into those extraordinary eyes.
'The little devil,' he thought ruefully. 'He has done it again. Who would have expected Garry to come up with something like this!" She sipped the wine. 'I like it,' she said. 'It's dry as flint without any astringency." He inclined his head slightly to acknowledge the accuracy of her judgment.
'I can see that it would be fruitless to attempt to obfuscate. I didn't ask you here to discuss the Shasaville project." 'That's good,' shesaid. 'Because I didn't even bother to bring the latest drawings." He laughed delightedly. 'Let's sit down and get comfortable." She chose the Louis Quatorze chair with Aubusson embroidered upholstery because she had seen the twin to it in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and she crossed one ankle over the other and watched him struggle to get his eyes back up again.
'I had fully intended to buy you off,' he said. 'I realize, after having met you, that would have been a mistake." She said nothing, but watched him over the rim of the glass, and her foot swung like a metronome, with the same ominous rhythm.
'I wondered what price to set,' he went on. 'And the figure of one hundred thousand came to mind." The foot kept swinging and despite himself Shasa glanced down at her calf and exquisitely turned ankle.
'Of course, that was ludicrous,' he went on, still watching her foot in the Italian leather court shoe. 'I realize now that I should have considered at least half a million." He was trying to find her price, and he looked back at her face, searching for the first glint of avarice, but it was hard to concentrate.
Sapphire and amethyst, forsooth, Garry's hormones must be boiling out of his ears - and Shasa felt a stab of envy.
'Naturally, I was thinking in pounds sterling. I haven't adjusted to this rand business yet." 'How fortunate, Mr Courtney,' she said, 'that you decided not to insult us both. This way we can be friends. I'd prefer that." All right, that didn't work out the way he had planned. He set down his sherry glass. 'Garry is still a child,' he changed tack.
She shook her head. 'He's a man. It just needed somebody to convince him of that. It wasn't difficult to do." 'He doesn't know his own mind." 'He is one of the most definite and determined men I have ever met. He knows exactly what he wants and he will do anything to ge it." She waited a moment to let the challenge contained in thost words become clearer, then she repeated softly, 'Anything." 'Yes,' he agreed softly. 'That's a Courtney family trait. We will dc anything to get what we want - or to destroy anything that stands ir our way." He paused, just as she had done and then repeated quietly 'Anything." 'You had three sons, Shasa Courthey. You have one left. Are yoL willing to take that chance?" He reared back in his chair and stared at her. She was unprepared for the agony that she saw in his expression and for a moment she thought she had gone too far. Then he subsided slowly. 'You fight hard and dirty,' he acknowledged sadly.
'When it is worthwhile." She knew it was dangerous with an opponent of this calibre, but she felt sorry for him. 'And for me this is worthwhile." 'For you, yes, I can see that - but for Garry?" 'I think I owe you complete honesty. At the beginning it was a little bit of daring. I was intrigued by his youth - that in itself can be devastatingly appealing. And by the other obvious attractions which you have hinted at." 'The Courtney empire and his place in it." 'Yes. I would have been less than human if that hadn't interested me. That's the way it started, but almost immediately it began to change." 'In what way?" 'I began to understand his enormous potential, and my own influence in developing it fully. Haven't you noticed any change in him in the three months since we have been together? Can you truly tell me my influence on him has been detrimental?" Despite himself Shasa smiled. 'The pinstripe suits and the hornrimmed glasses. They are a vast improvement, I'll admit." 'Those are only the unimpoœtant outward signs of the important inward changes. In three months Garry has become a mature and confident man, he has discovered many of his own strengths and talents and virtues, not the least of which is a warm and loving disposition. With my help he will discover all the others." 'So you see yourself in the role of architect still, building a marble palace out of clay bricks." 'Don't mock him." She was angry, protective and defensive as a lioness. 'He is probably the best of all the Courtneys and I am probably the best thing that will ever happen to him in his life." He stared at her, and exclaimed with wonder as it dawned upon him. 'You love him - you really love him." 'So you understand at last." She stood up and turned towards the door.
'Holly,' he said, and the unexpected use of her first name arrested her. She wavered, still pale with anger, and he went on softly, 'I didn't understand, forgive me. I think Garry is a fortunate young man to have found you." He held out his hand. 'You said we might be friends - is that still possible?"
Table Bay is wide open to the north-westerly gales that bore in off the wintry grey Atlantic. The ferry took the short steep seas on her bows and lurched over the crests, throwing the spray as high as the stubby masthead.
It was the first time Vicky had ever been at sea and the motion terrified her as nothing on earth had ever done. She clutched the child to her, and stared straight ahead, but it was difficult to maintain her balance on the hard wooden bench, and thick spray dashed against the porthole and poured over the glass in a wavering mirage that distorted her view. The island looked like some dreadful creature swimming to meet them, and she recalled all the legends of her tribe of the monsters that came out of the sea and devoured any human being found upon the shore.
She was glad that Joseph was with her. Her half-brother had grown into a fine young man. He reminded her of the faded photograph of her grandfather, Mbejane Dinizulu, that her mother kept on the wall of her hut. Joseph had the same broad forehead and wide-spread eyes, and although his nose was not flattened but high-bridged, his clean-shaven chin was rounded and full.
He had just completed his law degree at the black University of Fort Hare, but before he underwent his consecration into the hereditary role of Zulu chieftainship, Vicky had prevailed upon him to accompany her upon the long journey down the length of the subcontinent. As soon as he returned to the district of Ladyburg in Zululand, he would begin his training for the chieftainship. Th
is was not the initiation to which the young men of the Xhosa and the other tribes were forced to submit. Joseph would not suffer the brutal mutilation of ritual circumcision. King Chaka had abolished that custom. He had not tolerated the time that his young warriors wasted in recuperation, which could better be spent in military training.
Joseph stood beside Vicky, balancing easily to the ferry's agitated plunges, and he placed his hand upon her shoulder to reassure her.
'Not much longer,' he murmured. 'We will soon be there." Vicky shook her head vehemently, and clutched her son more securely to her bosom. The cold sweat broke out upon her forehea, and waves of nausea assailed her, but she fought them back.
'I am the daughter of a chief,' she told herself. 'And the wife of king. I will not surrender to womanly weakness." The ferry ran out of the gale into the calm waters in the lee of t island, and Vicky drew a long ragged breath and stood up. Her le were unsteady, and Joseph helped her to the rail.
They stood side by side and stared at the bleak and infamous si houette of Robben Island. The name derived from the Dutch war for seal, and the colonies of these animals that the first explorers ha discovered upon its barren rocks.
When the fishing and sealing industries based upon the islan failed, it was used as a leper colony and a place of banishment fc political prisoners, most of them black. Even Makana, the prophe and warrior, who had led the first Xhosa onslaughts against th white settlers cross the great Fish river had been sent here after hi capture, and here he had died in 1820, drowned in the roaring sea that beat upon the island as he tried to escape. For fifty years hi people had refused to believe he was dead, and to this day his nam was a rallying cry for the tribe.
One hundred and forty-three years later, there was another prophe and warrior imprisoned upon the island, and Vicky stared out acros the narrowing strip of water at the low square unlovely structure the new high-security prison for dangerous political prisoners when Moses Gama was now incarcerated. After his stay of execution Moses had remained on death row at Pretoria Central Prison lo almost two years, until finally mitigation of the death sentence to life imprisonment at hard labour had been officially granted by the stat president and he had been transferred to the island. Moses wa, allowed one visit every six months, and Vicky was bringing his son to see him.
The journey had not been easy, for Vicky herself was the subject of a banning order. She had shown herself an enemy of the state by her appearances at Moses' trial, dressed in the colours of the African National Congress, and her inflammatory utterances which were widely reported by the news media.
Even to leave the township of Drake's Farm to which the banning order confined her, she had to obtain a travel permit from the local magistrate. This document set out precisely the terms upon which she was allowed to travel, the exact time which she was required to leave her cottage, the route and means of transport she must take, the duration of her visit to her husband and the route she must take upon her return journey.
The ferry manoeuvred in towards the jetty and there were uniformed warders to seize the mooring ropes as they were thrown across. Joseph took the boy's hand from her and with his free hand helped Vicky across the narrow gap. They stood together on the wooden boards of the jetty and looked around uncertainly. The warders ignored them as they went on with the business of docking and unloading the ferry.
It was ten minutes before one of them called across to them, 'All right, come this way,' and they followed him up the paved road towards the security block.
The first glimpse that Vicky had of her husband after six months appalled her.
'You are so thin,' she cried.
'I have not been eating very well." He sat down on the stool facing her through the mesh of the screen. They had developed a cryptic code during the four visits she had been allowed at Pretoria Central, and not eating well meant that he was on another hunger strike.
He smiled at her and his face was skull-like so that his lips had retracted and his teeth were too big for his face. When he placed his hands on the shelf in front of him his wrists protruded from the cuffs of his khaki prison uniform and they were bone covered with a thin layer of skin.
'Let me see my son,' he said, and she drew Matthew to her.
'Greet your father,' she told the boy, and he stared solemnly at Moses through the grille. The gaunt stranger on the other side of the wire had never picked him up or held him on his lap, had never kissed or fondled him, had never even touched him. The mesh was always between them.
A warder sat beside Moses to see that the visiting rules were strictly observed. The time allowed was one hour, sixty minutes exactly, and only family matters could be discussed - no news of the day, no discussion of prison conditions and especially nothing with a political flavour to it.
One hour of family matters, but they used their code. 'I am sure that my appetite will return once I have news of the family,' Moses to1d her, 'on paper." So she knew that he was hunger-striking to be allowed to read the newspapers. Therefore he would not have heard the news about Nelson Mandela.
'The elders have asked Gundwane to visit them,' she told him.
Gundwane was their code name for Mandela. It meant 'cane rat' and the elders were the authorities. He nodded to show that he understood that Mandela had at last been arrested, and he smiled tautly.
The information he had given to Manfred De La Rey had been used effectively.
'How are the family members on the farm?" he asked.
'All is well, and they are planting their crops,' Vicky told him, and he understood that the Umkhonto we Sizwe teams working out of Puck's Hill had begun their campaign of terror bombings. 'Perhaps you will all be reunited sooner than we think,' she suggested.
'Let us hope so,' Moses agreed. A reunion would mean that the Puck's Hill team would join him here on the island, or take the shorter road to the gallows.
The hour passed too swiftly, and the warder was standing up.
'Time up. Say your goodbyes." 'I leave my heart with you, my husband,' Vicky told him, and watched the warder lead him away. He did not look back at her, and his gait dragged like that of an exhausted old man.
'It is only the starvation,' she told Joseph as they walked back to the ferry. 'He is still courageous as a lion, but weak from lack of food." 'He is finished,' Joseph contradicted her quietly. 'The Boers have beaten him. He will never breathe the air of freedom again. He will never see the outside of his prison again." 'For all of us, born black, this whole country is a prison,' Vicky said fiercely, and Joseph did not reply until they were once more aboard the ferry and running back before the gale, towards the flattopped mountain whose lower slopes were flecked with white walls and shining glass.
'Moses Gama chose the wrong road,' Joseph said. 'He tried to assault the walls of the white fortress. He tried to burn it down, not realizing that even if he had succeeded all he would have inherited would have been ashes." 'And you, Joseph Dinizulu,' Vicky flashed at him scornfully, 'you are wiser?" 'Perhaps not, but at least I will learn from the mistakes of Moses Gama and Nelson Mandela. I will not spend my life rotting in a white man's prison." 'How will you assault the white man's fortress, my clever little brother?" 'I will cross the lowered drawbridge,' he said. 'I will go in through the open gates, and one day the castle and its treasures will be mine, even if I have to share a little of them with the white man. No, my angry little sister, I will not destroy those treasures with bombs and flames. I will inherit them." 'You are mad, Joseph Dinizulu." She stared at him, and he smiled complacently at her.
'We shall see who is mad and who is sane,' he said. 'But remember this, little sister, that without the white man we would still be living in grass huts. Look to the north and see the misery of those countries :whites. No, my sister, I will keep the w. bite ae will work for me, not I for him." son." Hendrick Tabaka leaned forward and P .... Raleigh's shoulder. 'Your anger will destroy you. Your enemy oo strong. See what has happened to Moses Gama, my own brother. See what
is the fate of Nelson Mandela.
They went out to fight the lion with bare hands." 'Others are still fighting,' Raleigh pointed out. 'The warriors of Umkhonto we Sizwe are still fighting. Every day we hear of their brave deeds. Every day their bombs explode." 'They are throwing pebbles at a mountain,' Hendrick said sadly.
'Every time they explode a little bomb against the pylon of a power line, Vorster and De La Rey arm another thousand police and write another hundred banning orders." Hendrick shook his head. 'Forget your anger, my son, there is a fine life for you at my side. If you follow Moses Gama and Mandela, you will end the way they have ended - but I can offer you wealth and power. Take a wife, Raleigh, a good fat wife and give her many sons, forget the madness and take your place at my side." 'I had a wife, my father, and I left her at Sharpeville,' Raleigh said. 'But before I left her, I made a vow. With my fingers deep in her bloody wounds, I made a vow." 'Vows are easy to make,' Hendrick whispered, and Raleigh saw how age had played like a blowtorch across his features, withering and searing and melting the bold lines of his cheekbones and jaw.
'But vows are difficult to live with. Your brother Wellington has also made a vow to the white man's god. He will live like a eunuch for the rest of his life, without ever knowing the comfort of a woman's body. I fear for you, Raleigh, fruit of my loins. I fear that your own vow will be a heavy burden for all your life." He sighed again. 'But since I cannot persuade you, what can I do to ease the rocky pathway for you?" 'You know that many of the young people are leaving this country?" Raleigh asked.
'Not only the young ones,' Hendrick nodded. 'Some of the high command have gone also. Oliver Tambo has fled and Mbeki and Joe Modise with many others." 'They have gone to set the first phase of the revolution afoot." Raleigh's eyes began to shine with excitement. 'Lenin himself taught us that we cannot move immediately to the communist revolution.