by Wilbur Smith
After Shasa’s second meeting, the local Nationalist organizers were looking worried and scared.
‘We are losing ground,’ one of them told Shasa. ‘The wives are suspicious of a man who campaigns without his own wife. They want to have a look at her.’
‘You see, Meneer Courtney, you are a bit too good-looking. It’s OK for the younger women who think you look like Errol Flynn, but the older women don’t like it, and the men don’t like the way the young women look at you. We have to show them you are a family man.’
‘I’ll bring my wife,’ Shasa promised, but his spirits sank. What kind of impression would Tara create in this dour God-fearing community where many of the women still wore the voortrekker bonnets and the men believed a woman’s place was either in the bed or in the kitchen?
‘Another thing,’ the chief party organizer went on tactfully. ‘We need one of the top men, one of the cabinet ministers, to stand up on the platform with you. You see, Meneer Courtney, the people are having difficulty believing that you are a ware Nationalist. What with the English name and your family history.’
‘We need somebody to make me look respectable, you mean?’ Shasa hid his smile, and they all looked relieved.
‘Ja, man! That’s it!’
‘What if I could get Minister De La Rey to come out for the meeting on Friday – and my wife, of course?’
‘Hell, man!’ they enthused. ‘Minister De La Rey is perfect. The people like the way he handled the trouble. He is a good strong man. If you get him to come to talk to them, we’ll have no more problems.’
Tara accepted the invitation without comment, and by an exercise in self-restraint Shasa refrained from giving her advice on how to dress or to conduct herself, and was delighted and grateful when she came on to the platform in the town hall of the little town of Caledon, dressed in a sober dark blue dress with her thick auburn hair neatly gathered into a bun behind her head.
Though pretty and smiling she was the picture of the good wife. Isabella sat up beside her with knee-length white socks and ribbons in her hair. A born actress, Isabella responded to the occasion by behaving like a candidate for holy orders. Shasa saw the organizers exchanging approving nods and relieved smiles.
Minister De La Rey, supported by his own blonde wife and large family, introduced Shasa with a fiery speech in which he made it very clear that the Nationalist government was not going to allow itself to be dictated to by foreign governments or Communist agitators, especially not if these agitators were black as well as Communist.
Manfred had a finely tuned style of oratory, and he thrust out his jaw and flashed those topaz-coloured eyes, he wagged his finger at them, and stood with arms defiantly akimbo when they stood up to applaud him at the end.
Shasa’s style was different, relaxed and friendly, and when he tried his first joke they responded with genuine amusement. He followed it with assurances that the government would increase the already generous subsidy for farm products, especially wool and wheat, and that they would at the same time foster local industry and explore new overseas markets for the country’s raw materials, particularly wool and wheat. He ended by telling them that many English-speakers were coming to realize that the salvation of the country lay in strong uncompromising government and predicted a substantial increase in the Nationalist majority.
This time there was no reservation in the tumultuous applause that followed his speech, and the votes of confidence in the government, the National Party and the Nationalist candidate for South Boland were all carried unanimously. The entire district, including the United Party supporters, turned up for the free barbecue on the local rugby grounds, to which Shasa invited them. Two whole oxen were roasted on the spit and were washed down with lakes of Castle beer and rivers of mampoer, the local peach brandy.
Tara sat with the women, looking meek and demure and speaking little, allowing the older women to develop pleasantly maternal feelings towards her, while Shasa circulated amongst their husbands, talking knowledgeably about such momentous subjects as scale on wheat and scab on sheep. The whole atmosphere was cosy and reassuring, and for the first time Shasa was able to appreciate the depth of planning by the party organizers, their dedication and commitment to the Nationalist cause, which resulted in this degree of mobilization of all its resources. The United Party could never match it, for the English-speakers were complacent and lethargic when it came to politics. It was the old English fault of wanting never to appear to try too hard. Politics was a kind of sport and every gentleman knew that sport should be played only by amateurs.
‘No wonder we lost control,’ Shasa thought. ‘These chaps are professionals, and we just couldn’t match them’ – and then he checked himself. These were his organizers now, no longer the enemy. He had become a part of this slick, highly tuned political machine, and the knowledge was a little daunting.
At last, with Tara at his side, Shasa made a round of goodnights with a party organizer steering him tactfully to each of the most important local dignitaries, making sure that none of these was slighted, and everybody agreed that the family made a charming group.
They stayed overnight with the most prosperous of the local farmers, and the following morning, which was Sunday, attended the Dutch Reformed Church in the village. Shasa had not been in a church since Isabella was christened. He was not looking forward to it. This was another grand show, for Manfred De La Rey had prevailed upon his uncle, the Most Reverend Tromp Bierman, Moderator of the Church, to deliver the sermon. Uncle Tromp’s sermons were famous throughout the Cape, and families thought nothing of travelling a hundred miles to listen to them.
‘I never thought I would ever speak for a cursed rooinek,’ he told Manfred. ‘It is either advancing senility, or a sign of my great love for you, that I do so now.’ Then he climbed into the pulpit, and with his great silver beard flashing like the surf of a stormy sea, he lashed the congregation with such force and fury that they quivered and squirmed with delicious terror for their souls.
At the end of the sermon, Uncle Tromp reduced the volume to remind them that there was an election coming up, and that a vote for the United Party was a vote for Satan himself. No matter how some of them felt about Englishmen, they weren’t voting for a man here, they were voting for the party upon which the Almighty had bestowed his blessing and into whose hands he had delivered the destiny of the Volk. He stopped just short of closing the gates of Heaven in the face of any of them who did not put their cross opposite the name of Courtney, but when he glared at them threateningly, there were very few who felt inclined to take a chance on his continued forbearance.
‘Well, my dear, I can’t thank you enough for your help,’ Shasa told Tara, as they drove home over the high mountain passes of the Hottentots Holland. ‘From here on it looks like a cakewalk.’
‘It was interesting to watch our political system in action,’ Tara murmured. ‘All the other jockeys got down off their mounts and shooed you in.’
Polling day in South Boland was merely an endorsement of certain victory, and when the votes were counted it appeared that Shasa had wooed across at least five hundred erstwhile United Party voters, and, much to the delight of the Nationalist hierarchy, increased the majority most handsomely. As the results came in from around the rest of the country, it became apparent that the trend was universal. For the first time ever, substantial numbers of English-speakers were deserting Smuts’ party. The Nationalists took 103 seats to the United Party’s 53. The promise of strong, uncompromising government was bearing good fruits.
At Rhodes Hill Centaine gave an elaborate dinner dance for 150 important guests to celebrate Shasa’s appointment to the new cabinet.
As they swirled together around the dance floor to the strains of ‘The Blue Danube’, Centaine told Shasa, ‘Once again we have done the right thing at the right time, chéri. It can still come true – all of it.’ And she sang softly the praise song that the old Bushman had composed at Shasa’s birth:
And when men speak his name
It will be heard as far
And wherever he goes, he will find good water.
The clicking sounds of the Bushman language, like snapping twigs and footsteps in mud, raised nostalgic memories from the distant time when they had been together in the Kalahari.
Shasa enjoyed the Houses of Parliament. They were like an exclusive men’s club. He liked the grandeur of white columns and lofty halls, the exotic tiles on the floors, the panelling and the green leather-covered benches. He often paused in the labyrinth of corridors to admire the paintings and the sculpted busts of famous men, Merriman and Louis Botha, Cecil Rhodes and Leander Starr Jameson, heroes and rogues, statesmen and adventurers. They had made this country’s history – and then he reminded himself.
‘History is a river that never ends. Today is history, and I am here at the fountainhead,’ and he imagined his own portrait hanging there with the others one day. ‘I’ll have it commissioned at once,’ he thought. ‘While I am still in my prime. For the time being I’ll hang it at Weltevreden, but I’ll put a clause in my will.’
As a minister, he now had his own office in the House, the same suite of rooms that had been used by Cecil Rhodes when he was Prime Minister of the old Cape parliament before the House had been enlarged and extended. Shasa redecorated and furnished it at his own expense. Thesens, the timber firm from Knysna, installed the panelling. It was indigenous wild olive, marvellously grained and with a satiny lustre. He hung four of his finest Pierneef landscapes on the panelling, with a Van Wouw bronze of a Bushman hunter standing on the table beneath them. Although he was determined to keep the artwork authentically African, the carpet was the choicest green Wilton and his desk Louis XIV.
It felt strange to enter the chamber for the first time to take his place on the government front bench, a mirror image of his usual view. He ignored the hostile glances of his erstwhile colleagues, smiling only at Blaine’s expressionless wink and while the Speaker of the House read the prayer, he measured the men to whom he had transferred his allegiance.
His reflections were interrupted as the Speaker of the House ended the prayer, and across the floor De Villiers Graaff, the tall, handsome Leader of the Opposition, rose to propose the traditional vote of no confidence, while the government members, smug and cocksure, still revelling in their heady election triumph, mocked him noisily with cries of ‘Skande! Scandal!’ and ‘Siestog, man! Shame on you, man!’
Two days later Shasa rose to deliver his first speech from the government front benches and pandemonium seized the House: His former comrades howled their contempt and waved their order papers at him, stamping their feet and whistling with outrage, while his newly adopted party roared encouragement and support.
Tall and elegant, smiling with scorn, switching easily from English to Afrikaans, Shasa gradually quietened the benches opposite him with his low-key but riveting oratorial style, and once he had their attention he made them squirm uneasily as he dissected their party with an insider’s surgical skill then held up their weaknesses and blemishes for them to contemplate.
When he sat down he left them severely discomforted, and the Prime Minister leaned forward in his seat to nod at him, an unprecedented public accolade, while most of the other ministers, even those northerners most hostile to his appointment, passed him notes of congratulation. Manfred De La Rey’s note invited him to join a party of senior ministers for lunch in the members’ dining-room. It was an auspicious beginning.
Blaine Malcomess and Centaine came out to Weltevreden for the weekend. As usual the family spent all of Saturday afternoon at the polo field. Blaine had recently resigned as captain of the South African team.
‘It’s obscene for a man over sixty to still be playing,’ he had explained his decision to Shasa.
‘You are better than most of us youngsters of forty, Blaine, and you know it.’
‘Wouldn’t it be pleasant to keep the captaincy in the family?’ Blaine suggested.
‘I’ve only got one eye.’
‘Oh, tush, a man. You hit the ball as sweetly as you ever did. It’s simply a matter of practice and more practice.’
‘I don’t have the time for that,’ Shasa protested.
‘There is time for everything in life that you really want.’ So Blaine forced him to practise, but deep down he knew that Shasa had lost interest in ball games and would never captain the national team. Oh, certainly he still rode like a centaur, his arm was strong and true and he had the courage of a lion when he was roused, but these days it needed stronger medicine to get his blood racing.
‘It’s a strange paradox that a man gifted with too many talents can fritter them all away without developing a single one to its full.’ At that thought Blaine looked from Shasa to his sons.
As always Sean and Garrick had joined in the practice uninvited, and though they could not come close to matching the furious pace and skill of their elders, they were acting as pick-up men and passers for them.
Sean rode as his father had at that age and it gave Blaine a nostalgic pang to watch him. The horse was a part of him, the accord between rider and mount was total, his stick work was natural and unforced, but he lost interest quickly and made sloppy little errors, was more interested in teasing his brother and showing off and making eyes at the young girls in the stand than in perfecting his style.
Garrick was the opposite of his elder brother. He rode with enough sunlight shining between the saddle-leather and his bum to dazzle a blind man. However, his concentration was absolute, and he scowled murderously at the ball through his spectacles, using his stick with all the grace of a labourer digging a trench, but it was surprising how often he got a solid strike and how the bamboo-root ball flew when he did. Then Blaine was amazed by the sudden change in his physique. From the skinny little runt he had been not long before, he was almost grotesquely overdeveloped in shoulder and chest and upper arms for a child of his age. Yet when they went in for tea and dismounted, his still skinny legs gave him an unfortunate anthropoid appearance. When he removed his riding cap, his hair stuck up in unruly dark spikes, and while Sean sauntered across to make the girls giggle and blush, Garrick stayed close to his father. Again Blaine was surprised at how often Shasa spoke directly to the child, even demonstrating a fine point of grip by rearranging his fingers on the handle of the stick, and when he perfected it, Shasa punched his arm lightly and told him:
‘That’s it, champ. We’ll get you into a green and gold jersey one day.’
Garrick’s glow of gratification was touching to watch, and Blaine exchanged a glance with Centaine. Not long before, they had discussed Shasa’s total lack of interest in the child, and the detrimental effect that it might have on him. Their fears for Garrick seemed to have been unfounded, Blaine conceded, it was the other two they should have been worrying about.
Michael was not riding today. He had hurt his wrist, a mysterious injury which although excruciatingly painful showed no bruising nor swelling. It was astonishing how often that wrist, or his ankle or his knee, plagued him whenever there was the prospect of hard physical exercise in the offing. Blaine frowned as he glanced at him now, sitting beside Tara at the tea table under the oaks, both their heads bowed over a book of poetry. Neither of them had looked up once during all the shouting and galloping and ribald exchanges on the field. Blaine was a firm believer in the old adage that a young man should have a disciplined mind in a healthy body, and should be able to join robustly in the rough and tumble of life. He had spoken to Tara about him, but though she had promised to encourage Michael’s participation in sport and games, Blaine had not noticed any evidence that she had done so.
There was a chorus of muted shrieks and giggles behind him, and Blaine glanced over his shoulder. Wherever Sean was these days there seemed always to be a flock of females. He attracted them the way a tree full of fruit brings a swarm of noisy mousebirds to it. Blaine had no ide
a who all these girls belonged to, some of them were the daughters of the estate managers and of Shasa’s German wine-maker, the pretty blonde child was the American Consul’s daughter and the two little dark ones were the French Ambassador’s, but the others were unknown – probably the offspring of the half-dozen politicians and other members of the diplomatic corps who made up the usual guest-list for Saturday high tea at Weltevreden.
‘Shouldn’t really interfere,’ Blaine grumbled to himself. ‘But I think I’ll have a word with Shasa. No good speaking to Tara. She’s too soft by a long chalk.’ Blaine glanced around and saw that Shasa had left the group at the tea table under the oaks and had moved down the pony lines. He was squatting with one of the grooms to examine the fore hock of his favourite pony, a powerful stallion he had named Kenyatta, because he was black and dangerous.
‘Good opportunity,’ Blaine grunted and went to join Shasa. They discussed taping the pony’s leg, his only weak point, and then stood up.
‘How’s Sean making out at Bishops?’ Blaine asked casually, and Shasa looked surprised.
‘Tara been talking to your he asked. Sean had gone up to the senior school at the beginning of the year, after ending as head boy and captain of sport at his preparatory school.
‘Having trouble?’ Blaine asked.
‘Going through a phase,’ Shasa shrugged. ‘He’ll be all right. He has too much talent not to make good in the end.’
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing to worry about. He’s become a bit of a rebel, and his grades have gone to hell. I gave him the sweet end of the riding-crop. Only language he speaks fluently. He’ll be all right, Blaine, don’t worry.’
‘For some people it’s all too easy,’ Blaine remarked. ‘They get into the habit of free-wheeling through life.’ He saw Shasa bridle slightly, and realized he was taking the remark personally. Good, he thought, let him – and he went on deliberately, ‘You should know, Shasa. You have the same weakness.’