by Wilbur Smith
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Centaine leaned lightly against him and looked out over the cold green Benguela current, as it swirled, decked in lacy foam, around Africa’s heel, which like a medieval knight was spurred and armoured with black rock. ‘This is one of my favourite places.’
‘Whoever would have guessed it,’ Shasa murmured, and led her to the flat lichen-covered rock that was her seat.
She perched up on it, hugging her knees and he sprawled on the bed of moss below her. They were both silent for a few moments, and Shasa wondered how often they had sat like this at this special place of hers, and how many heavy decisions they had taken here.
‘Do you remember Manfred De La Rey?’ he asked suddenly, but he was unprepared for her reaction. She started and looked down at him, colour draining from her cheeks, with an expression he could not fathom.
‘Is something wrong, Mater?’ He began to rise, but she gestured at him to remain seated.
‘Why do you ask about him?’ she demanded, but he did not reply directly.
‘Isn’t it strange how our paths seem to cross with his family? Ever since his father rescued us, when I was an infant and we were castaways living with the Bushmen in the Kalahari.’
‘We needn’t go over all that again,’ Centaine stopped him, and her tone was brusque. Shasa realized he had been tactless. Manfred’s father had robbed the H’ani Mine of almost a million pounds’ worth of diamonds, an act of vengeance for fancied wrongs that he had convinced himself Centaine had inflicted on him. For that crime he had served almost fifteen years of a life sentence for robbery, and he had been pardoned only when the Nationalist government had come to power in 1948. At the same time the Nationalists had pardoned many other Afrikaners serving sentences for treason and sabotage and armed robbery, convicted by the Smuts’ government when they had attempted to disrupt the country’s war effort against Nazi Germany. However, the stolen diamonds had never been recovered, and their loss had almost destroyed the fortune that Centaine Courtney had built up with so much labour, sacrifice and heartache.
‘Why do you mention Manfred De La Rey?’ she repeated her question.
‘I had an invitation from him to a meeting. A clandestine meeting – all very cloak and dagger.’
‘Did you go?’
He nodded slowly. ‘We met at a farm in the Free State, and there were two other cabinet ministers present.’
‘Did you speak to Manfred alone?’ she asked, and the tone of the question, the fact that she used his Christian name, caught Shasa’s attention. Then he remembered the unexpected question that Manfred De La Rey had put to him.
‘Has your mother ever spoken about me?’ he had asked, and faced by Centaine’s present reaction to his name, the question took on a new significance.
‘Yes, Mater, I spoke to him alone.’
‘Did he mention me?’ Centaine demanded, and Shasa gave a little chuckle of puzzlement.
‘He asked the same question – whether you ever spoke about him. Why are the two of you so interested in each other?’
Centaine’s expression turned bleak, and he saw her close her mind to him. It was a mystery he would not solve by pursuing it openly, he would have to stalk it.
‘They made me a proposition.’ And he saw her interest reawaken.
‘Manfred? A proposition? Tell me.’
‘They want me to cross the floor.’
She nodded slowly, showing little surprise and not immediately rejecting the idea. He knew that if Blaine were here it would have been different. Blaine’s sense of honour, his rigid principles, would have left no room for manoeuvre. Blaine was a Smuts man, heart and blood, and even though the old field-marshal had died of a broken heart soon after the Nationalists unseated him and took over the reins of power, still Blaine was for ever true to the old man’s memory.
‘I can guess why they want you,’ Centaine said slowly. ‘They need a top financial brain, an organizer and a businessman. It’s the one thing they lack in their cabinet.’
He nodded. She had seen it instantly, and his enormous respect for her was confirmed yet again.
‘What price are they willing to pay?’ she demanded.
‘A cabinet appointment – Minister of Mines and Industry.’
He saw her eyes go out of focus, and cross in a myopic stare as she gazed out to sea. He knew what that expression meant. Centaine was calculating, juggling with the future, and he waited patiently until her eyes snapped back into focus.
‘Can you see any reason for refusing?’ she asked.
‘How about my political principles?’
‘How do they differ from theirs?’
‘I am not an Afrikaner.’
‘That might be to your advantage. You will be their token Englishman. That will give you a special status. You will have a freer rein. They will be more reluctant to fire you than if you were one of their own.’
‘I don’t agree with their native policy, this apartheid thing of theirs, it’s just financially unsound.’
‘Good Lord, Shasa. You don’t believe in equal political rights for blacks, do you? Not even Jannie Smuts wanted that. You don’t want another Chaka ruling us, black judges and a black police force working for a black dictator?’ She shuddered. ‘We’d get pretty short shrift from them.’
‘No, Mater, of course not. But this apartheid thing is merely a device for grabbing the whole pie. We have to give them a slice of it, we can’t hog it all. That’s a certain recipe for eventual bloody revolution.’
‘Very well, chéri. If you are in the cabinet, you can see to it that they get a fair crack of the whip.’
He looked dubious, and made a side-show of selecting a cigarette from his gold case and lighting it.
‘You have a special talent, Shasa,’ Centaine went on persuasively. ‘It’s your duty to use it for the good of all.’
Still he hesitated, he wanted her to declare herself fully. He had to know if she wanted this as much as he did.
‘We can be honest with each other, chéri. This is what we have worked towards since you were a child. Take this job and do it well. After that who knows what else may follow?’
They were both silent then, they knew what they hoped would follow. They could not help themselves, it was their nature always to strive towards the highest pinnacle.
‘What about Blaine?’ Shasa said at last. ‘How will he take it? I don’t look forward to telling him.’
‘I’ll do that,’ she promised. ‘But you will have to tell Tara.’
‘Tara,’ he sighed. ‘Now that will be a problem.’
They were silent again, until Centaine asked, ‘How will you do it? If you cross the floor it will expose you to a blaze of hostile publicity.’
So it was agreed without further words, only the means remained to be discussed.
‘At the next general election I will simply campaign in different colours,’ Shasa said. ‘They will give me a safe seat.’
‘So we have a little time to arrange the details, then.’
They discussed them for another hour, planning with all the meticulous attention that had made them such a formidably successful team over the years, until Shasa looked up at her.
‘Thank you,’ he said simply. ‘What would I ever do without you! You are tougher and cleverer than any man I know.’
‘Get away with you,’ she smiled. ‘You know how I hate praise.’ They both laughed at that absurdity.
‘I’ll walk you down, Mater.’ But she shook her head.
‘I’ve still got some thinking to do. Leave me here.’
She watched him go down the hill and her love and pride was so intense as to almost suffocate her.
‘He is everything I ever wanted in a son, and he has fulfilled all my expectations, a thousand times over. Thank you, my son, thank you for the joy you have always given me.’
Then abruptly the words ‘my son’ triggered another reaction, and her mind darted back to the earlier part of their conversation.
‘Do you remember Manfred De La Rey?’ Shasa had asked her, but he could never know what the answer to that must be.
‘Can a woman ever forget the child she bears?’ she whispered the reply aloud, but her words were lost on the wind and on the sound of the green surf breaking on the rocky shore below the hill.
Every pew of the church was filled. The women’s bonnets were colourful as a field of wild Namaqua daisies in the springtime, while the men’s suits were sombre and severe. All their faces were upturned towards the magnificent carved pulpit of polished black stinkwood in which stood the Most Reverend Tromp Bierman, Moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa.
Manfred De La Rey considered once again how much Uncle Tromp had aged in the years since the war. He had never fully recovered from the pneumonia he had contracted in the concentration camp at Koffiefontein, where that English-lover Jannie Smuts had incarcerated him with hundreds of other patriotic Afrikaners for the duration of the English war with Germany.
Uncle Tromp’s beard was snow-white now, even more spectacular than the curly black bush it once had been. The hair on his head, also white, had been close-cropped to conceal its sparsity and it glittered like powdered glass on the high-domed pate, but his eyes were full of fire as he glowered at his congregation, and his voice that had earned him the sobriquet ‘The Trumpet of God’ had lost none of its power and rolled like a cannonade against the high-arched ceiling of the nave.
Uncle Tromp could still pack the pews, and Manfred nodded soberly but proudly as the thunderous outpouring burst over his head. He was not really listening to the words, merely enjoying the sense of continuity that filled him; the world was a safe good place when Uncle Tromp was in his pulpit. Then a man could trust in the God of the Volk which he evoked with so much certainty, and believe in the divine intervention which directed his life.
Manfred De La Rey sat in the front pew at the right side of the nave nearest the aisle. It was the most prestigious position in the congregation, and rightly so for Manfred was the most powerful and important man in the church. The pew was reserved for him and his family, and their names were gold-leafed on the hymn books that lay beside each seat.
Heidi, his wife, was a magnificent woman, tall and strong; her bare forearms below the puff sleeves were smooth and firm, her bosom large and shapely, her neck long and her thick golden hair plaited into ropes that were twisted up under the wide-brimmed black hat. Manfred had met her in Berlin when he had been the gold medallist light heavyweight boxer at the Olympic Games in 1936, and Adolf Hitler himself had attended their wedding. They had been separated during the war years, but afterwards Manfred had brought her out to Africa with their son, little Lothar.
Lothar was almost twelve years old now, a fine strong boy, blond as his mother, and upright as his father. He sat very straight in the family pew, his hair neatly slicked down with Brylcreem and the stiff white collar biting into his neck. Like his father, he would be an athlete, but he had chosen the game of rugby at which to excel. His three younger sisters, blonde and pretty in a fresh-faced healthy way, sat beyond him, their faces framed by the hoods of their traditional voortrekker bonnets and full-length skirts reaching to their ankles. Manfred liked them to wear national dress on Sundays.
Uncle Tromp ended with a salvo that thrilled his flock with the threat of hell-fire, and they rose to sing the final hymn. Sharing the hymn book with Heidi, Manfred examined her handsome Germanic features. She was a wife to be proud of, a good housekeeper and mother, a fine companion whom he could trust and confide in, and a glittering ornament to his political career. A woman like this could stand beside any man, even the Prime Minister of a powerful and prosperous nation. He let himself dwell on that secret thought. Yet everything was possible, he was a young man, the youngest by far in the cabinet, and he had never made a political mistake. Even his wartime activities gave him credit and prestige with his peers, although few people outside the inner circle knew of the full role he had played in the militant anti-British pro-Nazi secret army of the Ossewa Brandwag.
Already they were whispering that he was the coming man, and it was evident in the huge respect that was shown him as the service ended and the congregation left the church. Manfred stood, with Heidi beside him, on the lawns outside the church while one after another important and influential men came up to deliver social invitations, to ask a favour, to congratulate him on his speech introducing the new Criminal Law Amendment Bill in the House, or simply to pay their respects. It was almost twenty minutes before he was able to leave the church grounds.
The family walked home. It was only two blocks under the green oaks that lined the streets of Stellenbosch, the small university town which was the citadel of Afrikaner intellectualism and culture. The three girls walked ahead, Lothar followed them and Manfred with Heidi on his arm brought up the rear, stopping every few paces to acknowledge a greeting or exchange a few words with a neighbour or a friend or one of Manfred’s constituents.
Manfred had purchased the house when they had arrived back from Germany after the war. Although it stood in a small garden, almost facing on to the street, it was a large house with spacious high-ceilinged rooms that suited the family well. Manfred had never seen any reason to change it, and he felt comfortable with Heidi’s formal Teutonic furnishings. Now Heidi and the girls rushed through to help the servants in the kitchen, and Manfred went around the side of the house to the garage. He never used his official chauffeur-driven limousine at weekends, and he brought out his personal Chevrolet sedan and drove to fetch his father for the family Sunday luncheon.
The old man seldom attended church, especially when the Reverend Tromp Bierman was preaching. Lothar De La Rey lived alone on the small-holding that Manfred had bought for him on the outskirts of the town at the foot of the Helshoogte Pass. He was out in the peach orchard pottering with his beehives and Manfred paused by the gate to watch him with a mixture of pity and deep affection.
Lothar De La Rey had once been tall and straight as the grandson who now bore his name, but the arthritis he had contracted during the years in Pretoria Central Prison had bowed and twisted his body and turned his single remaining hand to a grotesque claw. His left arm was amputated above the elbow, too high to fit an artificial limb. He had lost it during the robbery that led to his imprisonment. He was dressed in dirty blue dungarees, with a stained brown hat on his head, the brim drooped over his eyes. One sleeve of the dungaree was pinned back.
Manfred opened the gate and went down into the peach orchard where the old man was stooping over one of the wooden hives.
‘Good morning, Pa,’ Manfred said softly. ‘You aren’t ready yet.’
His father straightened up and stared at him vaguely, and then started with surprise.
‘Manie! Is it Sunday again already?’
‘Come along, Pa. Let’s get you tidied up. Heidi is cooking a roast of pork – you know how you love pork.’
He took the old man’s hand, and led him unprotestingly up to the cottage.
‘It’s a mess, Pa.’ Manfred looked around the tiny bedroom with distaste. The bed had obviously been slept in repeatedly without being remade, soiled clothing was strewn on the floor and used plates and mugs stood on the bedside table. ‘What happened to the new maid Heidi found for you?’
‘I didn’t like her, cheeky brown devil,’ Lothar muttered.
‘Stealing the sugar, drinking my brandy. I fired her.’
Manfred went to the cupboard and found a clean white shirt. He helped the old man undress.
‘When did you last bath, Pa?’ he asked gently.
‘Hey?’ Lothar peered at him.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Manfred buttoned his father’s shirt. ‘Heidi will find another maid for you. You must try and keep her longer than a week this time.’
It wasn’t the old man’s fault, Manfred reminded himself. It was the prison that had affected his mind. He had been a proud free man, a soldier and a huntsman, a creatu
re of the wild Kalahari Desert. You cannot cage a wild animal. Heidi had wanted to have the old man to live with them, and Manfred felt guilty that he had refused. It would have meant buying a larger home, but that was the least of it. Manfred could not afford to have Lothar dressed like a coloured labourer wandering vaguely around the house, coming into his study uninvited when he had important visitors with him, slobbering his food and making inane statements at the dinner table when he was entertaining. No, it was better for all of them, the old man especially, that he lived apart. Heidi would find another maid to take care of him, but he felt corrosive guilt as he took Lothar’s arm and led him out to the Chevrolet.
He drove slowly, almost at a walking pace, steeling himself to do what he had been unable to do during the years since Lothar had been pardoned and freed from prison at Manfred’s instigation.
‘Do you remember how it was in the old days, Pa? When we fished together at Walvis Bay?’ he asked, and the old man’s eyes shone. The distant past was more real to him than the present, and he reminisced happily, without hesitation recalling incidents and the names of people and places from long ago.
‘Tell me about my mother, Pa,’ Manfred invited at last, and he hated himself for leading the old man into such a carefully prepared trap.
‘Your mother was a beautiful woman,’ Lothar nodded happily, repeating what he had told Manfred so many times since childhood. ‘She had hair the colour of the desert dunes, with the early sun shining on them. A fine woman of noble German birth.’
‘Pa,’ Manfred said softly. ‘You aren’t telling me the truth, are you?’ He spoke as though to a naughty child. ‘The woman you call my mother, the woman who was your wife, died years before I was born. I have a copy of the death certificate signed by the English doctor in the concentration camp. She died of diphtheria, the white sore throat.’