Solitaire

by Masterton, Graham

  They reached a small sandstone outcropping, where Joel eased himself down with his back against the rock, and Barney and Mooi Klip sat beside him.

  ‘You wouldn’t think such a beautiful country could turn out so goddamned hard, would you?’ said Joel.

  ‘It can be licked,’ replied Barney. ‘There’s nothing on earth that can’t be licked, if you tackle it the right way.’

  ‘What have you been doing? Farming!’ Joel retorted. ‘You don’t know what it’s like when you’re scrabbling in the dirt looking for diamonds. It’s hell on earth.’

  ‘I shall soon find out.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Barney ran his hand through his brown curls. ‘Tomorrow, after the trial, we’re going to set up in business together, you and I. Blitz and Blitz, diamond diggers.’

  ‘I shouldn’t count on it.’

  ‘Why not? You’ve got one of the best lawyers in Kimberley.’

  ‘I’m a Jew, Barney, and I’m well known around here. You don’t seriously think they’re going to let me go? You don’t seriously think that Stafford Parker’s going to undermine his own prestige by reversing his decision?’

  Barney nodded. ‘I believe he will. In any case, you’d better hope that he will.’

  ‘This is against my better judgement, you know,’ said Joel. ‘I should have made a run for Wesselstroom as soon as I was able to move one leg in front of the other.’

  ‘You’ll get off,’ said Barney, confidently.

  Joel looked out across the blue misted valley. ‘If I do,’ he said, ‘then Blitz and Blitz it’s going to be. Fifty-fifty, down the middle. Partners. But I don’t believe for one single moment that I will.’

  After half an hour, Barney and Mooi Klip helped Joel back to the tent. Then they went together to the tent of Mooi Klip’s second cousin, who was spending the evening with Jan Bloem, singing hymns and carols and some of the old Hottentot songs from long ago.

  Inside, the tent smelled of incense and cooking. There was a wide straw pallet, wrapped in blankets, and a large wicker hamper in which Mooi Klip’s cousin carried her belongings. On the blue poplar tent support hung a sad framed portrait of Jesus, surrounded by His cherubim.

  Barney stripped off his shirt, and pulled down his trousers. He was already erect with anticipation. Mooi Klip turned her back and unbuttoned her dress with modesty, silhouetted by the small storm lantern which her second cousin had left burning for them.

  She stepped out of her dress, and turned. Her shy nakedness made Barney quiver. She was brown-skinned, heavy-breasted, and her stomach had a sensual roundness which reminded Barney of an old French painting he had once seen, as a boy, on a pushcart in New York.

  He buried his fingers in her hair, and kissed her. He said, ‘You know that I’ll come back for you as soon as I can.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t know that. But tonight I do not want to think about it.’

  They lay down on the straw pallet side by side and stared closely into each other’s eyes, as though each were concealing a cosmic mystery somewhere behind the darkness of their pupils. Barney kissed Mooi Klip’s shoulder and it tasted slightly salty and perfumey, and it was like no other taste he had ever come across before.

  They made love with the slowness and rhythm of a brass clock, and there were moments when Barney seemed to forget where he was, and what was happening, as if he were sleeping and waking and sleeping again. He could not tell how much time passed. But he remembered opening his eyes again and again to see Mooi Klip with her eyes closed, or looking at him intently, or sleeping, and all the while the storm lantern flickered like a signal from a forgotten past.

  Toward midnight, they reached together a peak of almost unbearable sexual intensity, a moment when Barney looked downwards at the curves of their bodies, and saw how deeply he was penetrating her. Then there was a stillness between them, an unquiet peace, that same feeling that all lovers know when their lovemaking is ended. Why did it have to end, and will we ever make love again?

  The music from Jan Bloem’s marquee abruptly ended. Barney raised himself on his elbow and looked down at Mooi Klip with love and pain and a little fear. He touched her face with his hand, and then he said, ‘I guess I’d better go.’

  They assembled in the open air, diggers and gamblers and whiskery dignitaries and whores, and for most of that afternoon the clattering and shovelling and shouting of De Beers New Rush was silenced. This was a serious matter: the re-trial of a convicted diamond thief. And whatever the outcome of it, whatever Stafford Parker finally decided, that decision would affect the diamond diggers for years to come.

  It was a hot day, intensely still. The horizons rippled and shifted, and heat flowed off the corrugated-iron rooftops like clear syrup. Up above the gathering of diggers, in the cloudless sky, hawks circled and circled as if they were too idle to swoop down on their natural prey, and the moon hung over the western horizon, pale-faced and friendless, an uninvited reminder of the night to come.

  A leather-topped desk had been dragged out into the dust for Stafford Parker and his magistrates, and two fumbling kaffirs had propped up over it a wonky canvas shade, with fringes. The body of the court was made up of fifty or sixty chairs, of all shapes and sizes – Windsor chairs, wheelbacks, ladderbacks, and riempie-thong chairs – and Joel and Barney and Mr Knight sat at the side of Stafford Parker’s desk on a broken chapel pew. Joel had heavily bandanged his left leg on Mr Knight’s specific instructions (‘make it appear as if you have suffered enough already’) and his stick was propped against the seat.

  At two o’clock, everybody was gathered, and Stafford Parker took his place in a high-backed chair to hear Joel’s appeal. He tucked his thumbs into the pockets of his light grey vest, and raised his chin so that his white beard was lifted like an oriole’s tail, and said, ‘This court of the Digger’s Republic is now in session.’

  There was a murmur throughout the crowd, and Stafford Parker banged a gavel on his desk in protest. ‘Let us have order. The Diggers’ Protection Association and the Diggers’ Republic were founded on the notion of order. Let it prevail today.’

  Stafford Parker’s blue-chinned magistrate stood up, and said, ‘We are considering today an appeal by Mr Joel Havemann, of Claim 172, here at Kimberley Mine, against his sentence last week of staking-out, which was occasioned by his conviction for diamond thieving. Mr Havemann was released from his staking-out by friends – quite illegally – but he is represented here today by Mr Knight – who assures us that Mr Havemann can justify his escape, and also that he can justify his crime.’

  There was another flurry of argument and scuffling, and Stafford Parker beat at his desk as if he were trying to flatten a sheet of gold. ‘I have decided that this case should be heard,’ he cried out, in a strained voice, ‘and heard it will be!’

  Gradually, the assembly came to order. The jury, who were sitting opposite Joel and Barney on two more pews, were as noisy and disorderly as everybody else, and when Barney looked them over, he could see why. Stafford Parker may have been playing at judicial fairness by allowing Joel’s appeal to be heard in public, but he certainly was not taking any chances on the outcome. The twelve good men and true were crimson-faced Anglo-Saxons, all of them – the ill-mannered graduates of some of England’s less honoured public schools – the kind of men who became planters and traders and Crown Agents. If Barney had not actually been depending on a jury that was bigoted at heart and crass in intellect, he would have despaired. They sat on their benches as if they were posing for a school photograph – plump with drink, fat-thighed, and smug, and with as little experience of law or life as the First XI of some redbrick boys’ academy in Leicester.

  ‘Mr Knight,’ said Stafford Parker, donnishly, ‘perhaps you would like to make your representations on behalf of your client?’

  Mr Knight turned to Barney, smiled like an acid-drop, then gathered his notes and stood up. This morning’s briefing had not been particularly succ
essful. Joel had admitted his guilt to Mr Knight straight away, almost aggressively, and when Mr Knight had tried to cajole him into believing that he might have been mistaken, and that the whole affair might have been, well, imaginary, old chap – the inevitable result of too much heat and too much cheap whiskey – Joel had called him a shtunk, which Mr Knight had not understood, not literally, but which had offended him deeply.

  ‘A shtunk,’ he had repeated, in his sharp British accent. ‘A shtunk. So that’s what you think of me.’

  Barney had taken Joel aside and talked to him earnestly for five minutes, trying to convince him that Mr Knight was his only hope for his release, the only man who could help him to get his diamond claim back from the Diggers’ Association, and eventually, grudgingly, Joel had agreed to co-operate. He had made it clear, though, that he did not particularly care for little brother meddling in his life. ‘I’m a grown man, Barney. I can manage my own affairs. I got myself into this mess, I should be able to get myself out.’

  ‘So it’s your pride that’s bothering you?’ Barney had asked him.

  ‘Maybe,’ Joel had admitted. Then he had spat on the grass. Barney had never seen him spit before.

  Now, Mr Knight stepped forward in front of Stafford Parker’s desk, his hand tucked behind him so that his coat-tails stuck out like the black plumes of a cockerel. He paused for effect, just like he had in the Kimberley churchyard, and Barney could imagine him stepping in front of juries in England and Capetown with the same theatrical strut. In the High Court in London, his pose may not have seemed particularly original, or impressive; but out here, in front of a motley crowd of diamond diggers, it was magnificent.

  ‘There appears before you now a man who was rescued from out of the very maw of death … a man who had looked into the eyes of His Maker and then been snatched away. Joel Havemann, a Jew, admittedly – but a very honest and straightforward member of his race, who was convicted by the Diggers’ Republic of the theft of several diamonds from the Kimberley Mine. It was said that he bribed kaffirs of the British Diamond Mining Company to pass him stones that he might illegally sell to the shadier buyers who have gathered around the fringes of this rush … it was said that his own claim was proving barren of diamonds, and that instead he was attempting to make a fortune out of stolen stones …

  ‘But let me ask you these questions!’ exclaimed Mr Knight, swivelling around on one heel, and raising a rigid finger. ‘Let me ask you if any of you knew Joel Havemann to be rich, to be the kind of man who lavished money on himself and his friends as if it were water! Let me ask you if you knew of any act of dishonesty that Joel Havemann ever committed! Joel Havemann worked a claim, and any of you need only to walk out to that claim to see how deep Joel Havemann has dug, how much strenuous effort he has expended. Does a dishonest man ever bother to work at all? If he intended to make his living by stealing, by dealing with the IDB buyers, then why did he bother to lift a single finger to excavate his claim? Why didn’t he just waylay the kaffirs of the British Diamond Company on their way back to their shelters, and relieve them of their ill-gotten diamonds then?’

  Now Mr Knight let his chins settle in his collar, and he pouted with offended righteousness. ‘Far be it from me to suggest that the British Diamond Mining Company had a covetous eye on Mr Havemann’s claim, which was contiguous with theirs, and which barred their way to the acquisition of a whole block of claims. Far be it! And far be it from me to suggest that those kaffirs who gave evidence against my client at his so-called trial last week were guilty of distorting reality. Yet – if you examine a map of the claims on the Kimberley Mine – it does strike you, doesn’t it, that Mr Havemann’s claim could have been quite an irritation to the British Diamond Mining Company; and it does strike you, doesn’t it, that if those kaffirs who were said to have supplied Mr Havemann with diamonds could be bribed by Mr Havemann, then equally they could have been bribed by the British Diamond Mining Company to perjure themselves in the interests of the company’s financial expansion.

  ‘Money talks,’ said Mr Knight, narrowing his eyes towards the jury. ‘And the more money, the less truth.’

  Barney, sitting back on his pew, could see that the jury were interested but not totally convinced. One or two of them had folded their arms and clenched their jaws as if to show that no amount of clever argument and cajolery could swerve them from their opinion that Jews were dishonest, and that Joel, being a Jew, was therefore a liar and a thief. It was nearly three o’clock now, and the heat was roaring away like a furnace. In the second and third rows of chairs, the ladies began to wave their fans as furiously as a gathering of clipped pigeons. Barney saw Agnes, and caught her eye, and Agnes smiled at him coyly from the shade of her parasol.

  Mr Knight said, ‘I am sure that a representative of the British Diamond Mining Company will shortly get to his feet and tell you that my suggestions are utterly unfounded; that the British Diamond Mining Company looked upon Mr Havemann as nothing more than an industrious neighbour, and that even if his claim were standing in their way, they would have accepted the economic and practical problems with equilibrium and stiff upper lips. This representative may not tell you that the British Diamond Mining Company was the first to enter an offer for claim No. 176 upon Mr Havemann’s conviction last week – but then, we could not possibly expect him to, could we?’

  There was an expostulation of protest from a gentleman in muttonchop sidewhiskers and a tall beige hat who was sitting on the opposite side of the court, but Stafford Parker rapped his gavel again, and the gentleman subsided, and contented himself with industriously wiping his hatband.

  ‘I wish to say one thing more,’ said Mr Knight, in a quiet but distinct voice. ‘The evidence that was brought against my client was the evidence of kaffirs alone. Ignorant, uneducated, and bewildered servants of the British Diamond Mining Company. Now, when this court first made its decision to convict Mr Havemann, it may understandably have been incensed with what it heard. It may have been in a mood of righteousness and vengeance, which – when you consider how vital the discovery of diamonds is to all of our livelihoods – can be seen to have been fully justified.

  ‘However, because of his ignorance, because of his want of enlightenment, because he was born to be a servant and a subordinate, the kaffir cannot justifiably be held to be a human being … not in the same Biblical sense as a white man. Does it not say in Psalm 49 that regardless of a man’s honour, if he understandeth not, then he shall perish like the beasts. Well, the kaffir understandeth not, and therefore, sad for him, he can only be regarded as a beast. A good, obedient beast, maybe, but a beast all the same.

  ‘And there is no court of law in the world, Mr Parker, and gentlemen – there is no court of law in the whole world which can rightly convict a man on the evidence of beasts.’

  Mr Knight, with solemn windbaggery, quoted the precedent of the Polo Pony; and Barney could see that Stafford Parker was suitably impressed. Then Mr Knight sat down, and invited anyone in the court to cross-question his client ‘to their heart’s, and their curiosity’s, contentment.’

  But Stafford Parker stood up, and banged his gavel, and looked around the assembly with a stare that silenced everyone, and certainly forestalled any questioning.

  ‘Mr Knight,’ he said, ‘has spoken most eloquently on his client’s behalf. He has raised doubts about his client’s guilt which, in my opinion, have made the imposition of a sentence of staking-out questionable, to say the least. He is right: your unconverted kaffir is not an intelligent being in the accepted sense of the words. And, therefore, although I am reversing my own decision, and publicly accepting that my earlier judgement may have been incorrect, I direct that this jury find the Jew Joel Havemann to be not guilty of diamond trafficking, and that his claim should be returned to him.’

  There was a babbling uproar for a moment, but then Stafford Parker banged everybody into silence again.

  ‘I must set one condition on Joel Havemann’s release, however;
and that is that he remains under the supervision of his lawyer, or of some other responsible person. Obviously, he strayed from the accepted code of behaviour. How seriously, I am not now prepared to say; or to condemn him for it. He has been sufficiently punished already. But I must require that he is supervised.’

  Mr Knight bobbed up from his seat, and said, ‘I regret that Mr Havemann is no more than a client of mine, Mr Parker. I don’t really think that I can accept responsibility for his future behaviour.’

  ‘Is there anyone who can?’ asked Stafford Parker.

  Barney hesitated. He had been trying to avoid Stafford Parker’s eye since the trial had begun, since Stafford Parker knew him for a Jew. Now, if he stood up and accepted responsibility for his brother, Mr Knight would know him for a Jew, too. And if Mr Knight knew him for a Jew, that would mean the finish of his courtship of Agnes, and the finish of his chances at the Kimberley Club.

  ‘If nobody will vouch for Mr Havemann’s future, I can always change my mind,’ said Stafford Parker. ‘I can always have him flogged, and his claim confiscated.’

  Barney raised his eyes. Stafford Parker was smiling straight at him, and now Barney realised what the price of Joel’s freedom was going to be. Stafford Parker had not become president of the Diggers’ Republic through pomposity or blindness. He had known who Joel was, and why Barney had released him, and now he was demanding that Barney should stand up in front of everybody in Kimberley and declare that he was a Jew.

  In the fifth or sixth row, Barney could see Harold Feinberg, in his sun-helmet, and Harold was deliberately looking elsewhere. Maybe Harold had always been right. Maybe he should never have renounced his faith, and his heritage. Maybe the essence of being Jewish was that your destiny was inescapable.