Rage

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘The evening flight for London leaves Johannesburg at seven o’clock. As soon as we are in radio contact, I will reserve your seat,’ he told her. ‘We will get there with an hour or so to spare.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered into her oxygen mask. ‘Are you helping me to escape? I don’t understand why.’

  ‘For my mother, firstly. I don’t want her to know that you murdered her husband – it would destroy her.’

  ‘Shasa, I didn’t—’ She was weeping again, but he felt no twinge of compassion.

  ‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to listen to your blubbering. You will never know the depths of my feelings for you. Hatred and contempt are gentle words that do not describe them.’ He drew a breath. Then went on, ‘After my mother, I am doing it for my children. I don’t want them to live their lives with the knowledge of what their mother truly was. That is too much for a young man or woman to be burdened with.’

  Then they were both silent, and Shasa allowed the terrible grief of Blaine’s death, which up until then he had suppressed, to rise up and engulf him. In the seat beside him Tara was mourning her father also, spasms of weeping shook her shoulders. Her face above the mask was chalky and her eyes were like wounds.

  As strong as his grief was Shasa’s hatred. After an hour’s flying, he spoke again.

  ‘If you ever return to this country again, I will see you hanged. That is my solemn promise. I will be divorcing you for desertion as soon as possible. There will be no question of alimony or maintenance or child custody. You will have no rights nor privileges of any kind. As far as we are concerned, it will be as though you have never existed. I expect you will be able to claim political asylum somewhere, even if it is in Mother Russia.’

  Again he was silent, gathering himself, regaining full control.

  ‘You will not even be at your father’s funeral, but every minute of every day his memory will stalk you. That is the only punishment I am able to inflict upon you – God grant it is enough. If He is just, your guilt will slowly drive you mad. I pray for that.’

  She did not reply, but turned her face away. Later, when they were on approach to Johannesburg, descending through ten thousand feet, with the skyscrapers and the white mine dumps glowing in the late sunlight ahead of them, Shasa asked:

  ‘You were sleeping with him, weren’t you?’

  Instinctively, she knew it was the last chance she would ever have to inflict pain upon him, and she turned in the seat to watch his face as she replied.

  ‘Yes, I love him – and we are lovers.’ She saw him wince, but she wanted to hurt him more and she went on. ‘Apart from my father’s death, there is nothing I regret. Nothing I have done of which I am ashamed. On the contrary, I am proud to have known and loved a man like Moses Gama – proud of what I have done for him and for my country.’

  ‘Think of him kicking and choking on the rope, and be proud of that also,’ Shasa said quietly, and landed. He taxied the Mosquito to the terminal buildings and they climbed down onto the tarmac and faced each other. There was a bruise on her face where he had struck her, and the icy highveld wind pulled at their clothing and ruffled their hair. He handed her the little bundle of bank notes and her passport.

  ‘Your seat on the London flight is reserved. There is enough here to pay for it and to take you where you want to go.’ His voice broke as his rage and his sorrow took control of him again. ‘To hell or the gallows, if my wish for you comes true. I hope never to see or hear of you again.’

  He turned away from her, but she called after him.

  ‘We were always enemies, Shasa Courtney, even in the best times. And we will be enemies to the very end. Despite your wish, you will hear of me again. I promise you that much.’

  He climbed into the Mosquito and it was minutes before he had himself sufficiently in hand to start the engines. When he looked out through the windshield again, she was gone.

  Centaine would not let them bury Blaine. She could not bear the thought of him lying in the earth, swelling and putrefying.

  Mathilda Janine, Blaine’s younger daughter, came down from Johannesburg with David Abrahams, her husband, in the company Dove, and they sat with the family in the front row of the memorial chapel at the crematorium. Over a thousand mourners attended the service and both Dr Verwoerd and Sir De Villiers Graaff, the Leader of the Opposition, were amongst them.

  Centaine kept the little urn of Blaine’s ashes on the table beside her bed for almost a month, before she could get up her courage. Then she summoned Shasa, and the two of them climbed the hill to her favourite rock.

  ‘Blaine and I used to come here so often,’ she whispered. ‘This will be the place where I shall come when I need to know that he is still close to me.’

  She was nearly sixty years old, and when Shasa studied her with compassion, he saw that for the first time she truly looked that old. She was letting the grey grow out in the thick bush of her hair and he saw that soon there would be more of it than the black. Grief had dulled her gaze and weighed down the corners of her mouth, and that clear youthful skin which she so carefully cherished, seemed overnight to have seamed and puckered.

  ‘Do it for me, please Shasa,’ she said, and handed him the urn.

  Shasa opened it and stepped out of the lee of the rock, into the full force of the south-easter. The wind fluttered his shirt like a trapped bird, and he turned to look back at her.

  Centaine nodded encouragement, and he held the urn high and upended it. The ashes streamed away like dust in the wind, and when the urn was empty, Shasa turned to her once more.

  ‘Break it!’ she commanded, and he hurled the vessel against the rock face. It shattered, and she gasped and swayed on her feet.

  Shasa ran to her and held her in his arms.

  ‘Death is the only adversary I know I shall never overcome. Perhaps that is why I hate it so,’ she whispered.

  He led her to her seat on the rock and they were silent for a long while, staring out over the wind-speckled Atlantic, and then Centaine said, ‘I know you have been protecting me. Now tell me about Tara. What was her part in this?’

  So he told her, and when he finished Centaine said, ‘You have made yourself an accessory to murder. Was it worth it?’

  ‘Yes. I think so,’ he answered without hesitation. ‘Could any of us have survived her trial if I had allowed her to be arrested and charged?’

  ‘Will there be consequences?’

  Shasa shook his head. ‘Manfred – he will protect us again. Just as he did with Sean.’

  Shasa saw her pain at the mention of Sean’s name. Like him she had never recovered from it, but now she said quietly, ‘Sean was one thing, but this is murder and treason and attempting to assassinate a head of state. It is fostering bloody revolution and attempting by force to overthrow a government. Can Manfred protect us from that? And if he can, why should he?’

  ‘I don’t know the answers to that, Mater.’ Shasa looked at her searchingly. ‘I thought that perhaps you did.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, and he thought that he might have taken her unawares, for there was fear and confusion in her eyes for an instant. Blaine’s death had slowed her and weakened her. Before that, she would never have betrayed herself so readily.

  ‘In protecting us, me in particular, Manfred is protecting himself and his political ambitions,’ Shasa reasoned it out carefully. ‘For if I am destroyed, then – I am his protégé – his own career would be blighted. But there is more than that. More than I can fathom.’

  Centaine did not reply, but she turned her head away and looked out to sea.

  ‘It’s as though Manfred De La Rey feels some strange loyalty to us, or a debt that he must repay – or even a sense of deep guilt towards our family. Is that possible, Mater? Is there something that I do not know of that would put him under an obligation to us? Have you withheld something from me all these years?’

  He watched her struggle with herself, and at one mom
ent it seemed she might burst out with some longhidden truth, or with a terrible secret that she had carried too long alone. Then he saw her expression firm and it was almost possible to watch the strength and force which had been drained from her since Blaine’s death flow back into her.

  It was a little miracle. Age seemed to fall away from her. Her eyes brightened and her carriage of head and shoulders was once more erect and perky. Even the lines and creases around her eyes and mouth seemed to smooth away.

  ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ she asked crisply, and stood up. ‘I’ve been moping and pining far too long. Blaine would never have approved of that.’ She took Shasa’s arm. ‘Come along. I’ve still got a life to live and work to do.’

  Halfway down the hill, she asked suddenly, ‘When does the trial of Moses Gama begin?’

  ‘The tenth of next month.’

  ‘Do you know he once worked for us, this Moses Gama?’

  ‘Yes, Mater. I remembered him. That was how I was able to stop him.’

  ‘He was a terrible troublemaker even in those days. We must do all we can to ensure that he pays the extreme penalty. That is the least we can do for Blaine’s memory.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you are saddling me with this little scrubber,’ Desmond Blake protested acidly. He had been twenty-two years on the newspaper and before the gin bottle had taken over he had been the best courtroom and political journalist on the staff of the Golden City Mail. The quantities of gin which he absorbed had not only placed a ceiling on his career but had greyed and prematurely lined his face, ruined his liver and soured his disposition without, however, clouding his insight into the criminal mind nor spoiling his political acumen.

  ‘Well, he is a bright lad,’ his editor explained reasonably.

  ‘This is the biggest, most sensational trial of our century,’ Desmond Blake said, ‘and you want me to drag a cub reporter with me, a puking infant who couldn’t even cover a local flower show or a mayoral tea party.’

  ‘I think he has a lot of potential – I just want you to take him in hand and show him the ropes.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ said Desmond Blake. ‘Now tell me the real reason.’

  ‘All right.’ The editor showed his exasperation. ‘The real reason is that his grandmother is Centaine Courtney and his father is Shasa Courtney, and Courtney Mining and Finance have acquired thirty-five per cent of the shareholding of our parent company over the past months, and if you know nothing else you should know that nobody bucks Centaine Courtney, not if they want to remain in business. Now take the kid with you and stop bitching. I haven’t got time to argue any more – I’ve got a paper to get out.’

  Desmond Blake threw up both hands in despair, and as he rose to leave the office his editor added one last unsubtle threat.

  ‘Just look at it this way. Des. It will be good job insurance, especially for an ageing newshound who needs the price of a bottle of gin a day. Just think of the kid as the boss’s son.’

  Desmond wandered lugubriously down the length of the city room. He knew the boy by sight. Somebody had pointed him out as a sprig of the Courtney empire and wondered aloud what the hell he was doing here instead of on the polo field.

  Desmond stopped beside the corner desk which Michael was sharing with two other juniors.

  ‘Your name is Michael Courtney?’ he asked, and the boy leapt to his feet.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Michael was overcome at being directly addressed by somebody who had his own column and byline.

  ‘Shit!’ said Desmond bitterly. ‘Nothing is more depressing than the shining face of youth and enthusiasm. Come along, boy.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Michael snatched up his jacket eagerly.

  ‘To the George, boy. I need a double to give me the strength to go through with this little lark.’

  At the bar of the George, he studied Michael over the rim of his glass.

  ‘Your first lesson, boy—’ He took a swallow of gin and tonic. ‘Nothing is ever what it seems to be. Nobody is ever what he says he is. Engrave that on your heart. Your second lesson. Stick to your orange juice. They don’t call this stuff mother’s ruin for nothing. Your third lesson. Always pay for the drinks with a smile.’ He took another swig. ‘So you are from Cape Town, are you? Well that’s just fine, because that is where we are going, you and me. We are going to see a man condemned to die.’

  Vicky Gama took the bus from Baragwanath Hospital to Drake’s Farm. It went only as far as the administration building and the new government school. She had to walk the last mile through the narrow dusty lanes between the rows of raw brick cottages. She walked slowly, for although her pregnancy was only four months advanced she was beginning to tire easily.

  Hendrick Tabaka was in the crowded general dealer’s shop, watching the tills, but he came to Vicky immediately and she greeted him with the respect due to her husband’s eldest brother. He led her through to his office, and called for one of his sons to bring her a comfortable chair.

  Vicky recognized Raleigh Tabaka, and smiled at him as he placed her chair. ‘You have grown into a fine young man, Raleigh. Have you finished your schooling now?’

  ‘Yebo, sissie.’ Raleigh returned her greeting with polite reserve, for even though she was the wife of his uncle, she was a Zulu. His father had taught him to distrust all Zulus. ‘I help my father now, sissie. I learn the business from him and soon I will manage one of the shops on my own.’

  Hendrick Tabaka smiled proudly at his favourite son. ‘He learns fast, and I have great faith in the boy.’ He endorsed what Raleigh had said. ‘I am sending him soon to our shop at Sharpeville near Vereeniging to learn the bakery business.’

  ‘Where is your twin brother, Wellington?’ Vicky asked, and immediately Hendrick Tabaka frowned heavily and waved at Raleigh to leave the office. As soon as they were alone, he answered her question angrily. ‘The white priests have captured Wellington’s heart. They have seduced him from the gods of his tribe and his ancestors and taken him to the service of the white man’s God. This strange Jesus God with three heads. It grieves me deeply, for I had hoped that Wellington, like Raleigh, would be the son of my old age. Now he studies to be a priest, and I have lost him.’

  He sat down at the tiny cluttered table that served him as a desk and studied his own hands for a moment. Then he raised that bald cannonball head, the scalp criss-crossed with ridged scars from old battles.

  ‘So, wife of my brother, we live in a time of great sorrow. Moses Gama has been taken by the white men’s police, and we cannot doubt what they will do with him. Even in my sorrow, I must recall that I warned him that this would happen. A wise man does not throw stones at the sleeping lion.’

  ‘Moses Gama did what he knew was his duty. He lived out the deed for which he was born,’ Vicky said quietly. ‘He struck a blow for all of us – you and me and our children.’ She touched her belly where beneath the white nurse’s uniform the first bulge of her pregnancy showed. ‘And now he needs our help.’

  ‘Tell me how I can help.’ Hendrick inclined his head. ‘For he was not only my brother, but my chief as well.’

  ‘We need money to hire a lawyer to defend him in the white man’s court. I have been to see Marcus Archer and the others of the ANC at the house in Rivonia. They will not help us. They say that Moses acted without their agreement or approval. They say that it was agreed not to endanger human life. They say that if they give us money to help in the defence, the police will trace it to them. They say many other things – everything but the truth.’

  ‘What is the truth, my sister?’ Hendrick asked.

  And suddenly Vicky’s voice was quivering with fury. ‘The truth is that they hate him. The truth is that they are afraid of him. The truth is that they are jealous of him. Moses has done what none of them would have dared. He has aimed a spear at the heart of the white tyrant, and though the blow failed, now all the world knows that it was struck. Not only in this land, but beyond the sea, all the world knows now who i
s the leader of our people.’

  ‘That is true,’ Hendrick nodded. ‘His name is on every man’s lips.’

  ‘We must save him, Hendrick my brother. We must do everything we can to save him.’

  Hendrick rose and went to the small cupboard in the corner. He dragged it aside to reveal the door of an ancient Chatwood safe built into the wall behind it.

  When he opened the green steel door, the safe was packed with wads of banknotes.

  ‘This belongs to Moses. It is his share. Take what you need,’ said Hendrick Tabaka.

  The Supreme Court of the Cape Province of South Africa stands on one side of the gardens that Jan van Riebeeck, the first Governor of the Cape, laid out in the 1650s to provision the ships of the Dutch East India Company. On the opposite side of the beautiful gardens stand the Houses of Parliament that Moses Gama had attempted to destroy. So he was to be tried within a quarter of a mile of the scene of the crime of which he stood accused.

  The case aroused the most intense international interest and the film crews and journalists began flying into Cape Town a week before it was set down to commence.

  Vicky Gama arrived by train after the thousand-mile journey down the continent from the Witwatersrand. She travelled with the white lawyer who would defend Moses and more than fifty of the more radical members of the African National Congress, most of them, like herself, under thirty years of age, and many of them secret members of Moses Gama’s Umkhonto we Sizwe military wing of the party. Amongst these was Vicky’s half-brother, Joseph Dinizulu, now a young man of almost twenty-one studying to be a lawyer at the black university of Fort Hare. The money given to Vicky by Hendrick Tabaka paid for all of them.

  . Molly Broadhurst met them at the Cape Town station. Vicky, Joseph and the defence lawyer would be staying at her home in Pinelands during the trial, and she had arranged accommodation for all the others in the black townships of Langa and Guguletu.