‘Yes, but not for the reasons you think. What crucified Ferriera when he discovered the links between the Regime, the Ring and the Hand, with the Nuncio Agnelli acting as flyhalf, was that the Church really was powerful after all. Tony had never accepted Lynch’s theories about the structure of power. He rejected the Church as played-out, ineffectual, unimportant. And he was wrong. Everywhere he looked he found a policy of outright deception. There was the Church going around the country issuing statements about embracing its black brethren in Christ. There was Bishop Blashford publicly deploring the shipment of human populations to the transit camps and relegation of entire tribes to desolate “homelands”, and defying the Regime to arrest him. There were the charitable bodies shipping in dried milk and penicillin and designing new churches in the beehive style and attacking the Regime for being in league with the devil and preaching that the programme of separate freedom for ethnic groups was a crime against humanity, an economic nonsense and a sin against the Holy Spirit. While this was going on, here was the Regime whose followers took an oath of loyalty to Calvin before they slept and believed the Pope feasted on baby meat and sucked the marrow from the bones of orphans, meeting with certain Italian Societies, and here were its loyal followers in that most secret of societies, the Ring, those ultra-Calvinists, sitting round a table with a bunch of genuine opera-loving flesh and blood holy Romans, fresh from the Vatican, representing the Manus Virginis and discussing share portfolios. One by one, every belief he held had been destroyed. Lynch had been right. And if Lynch had been right about the deceptions, he was right about all the other things too – including the missing Kruger millions, right about the house on the hill. It was in this despairing state that he phoned me.’
Kipsel was very pale. ‘I didn’t know he phoned you.’
‘Just before he died. I was one of the last people to speak to him.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That I should get out. That he had found the City of God, or Gold. The line was bad. He was slightly hysterical, said he was planning a trip himself. He sent me money. Next thing I knew he was dead.’
‘And here you are?’
‘And here we are.’
Kipsel swore bitterly, then scrambled to his feet and picked up his stick and rucksack. ‘Let’s get on. I don’t want to know any more. Tony “the Pug” Sidelsky! The whole thing’s a horrid cheap little pantomime. Do you think it’s much further?’
‘I hope not, I hope not,’ said Blanchaille fervently. ‘I’ve had about as much as I can take. All my prayers are that God preserve me from any more of my itinerant, wandering, bemused, addle-brained countrymen, from policemen, rugby players, patriots, accountants, priests and presidents.’
‘Amen,’ said Kipsel.
CHAPTER 23
And so I saw in my dream how they hurried on their way, anxious to arrive somewhere, anywhere, elsewhere, the pear and the fish, strange partners.
Fearful imaginings crowded in on Blanchaille and left him weak and uncertain of his true direction, characteristic phobias, indigenous phantoms, familiar demons arose from the catalogues every South African recites before sleep and loves to recall with horror. Black men hunted with huge home-made knives beaten out of oil drums or made from railway steel ripped from the sleepers, flattened by a maniac, hammered, honed to a scalpel’s edge, metal machetes called pangas, slicing the air; he remembered white boys, so huge, so long and lanky they reminded him of giraffes, against whom he had played rugby, boys with strangely dark complexions and moustaches, surely men, and not that white! They raced down the rugby fields towards you with that stiff-legged giraffe gait, their hooves wrenching the turf. These monsters were surely never the babies which loyal white mothers had had for Bubé? No, these boy giants were born with full moustaches – wearing rugby boots. Their call-up papers were delivered to the maternity wing, they leapt from their cradles, kissed their new mothers goodbye and went off to defend their country’s borders against the Total Onslaught. Thus the dreams of misplaced, wandering white Africans, each with his own compendium of horrors, stories of tokoloshes, green and black mambas, murdered nuns. Each has his favourite, but most fearful for Blanchaille was the memory of a crop of graves he had watched growing in the camps. Growing and growing. If there was a symbol that scared him, it was not the gun nor the knife nor the snake – but the spade. In the camps he had learnt to dig. He had stood in the big trench grave and thrown red sand up onto the parapet, mounting higher and higher. He had felt he was digging in for a great war. What he now feared most as he slogged along an obscure Swiss track towards an improbable destination was not ambush or betrayal, but arrival. In the old story, the Regime was regarded by its opponents as utterly evil, by its supporters as divinely good. Everyone dwelt among absolutes and was happy. Now it seemed that the Regime was no better or worse than two dozen other shabby little dictatorships north of the border. He stole a glance at Kipsel, a tousle of curls falling over the shallow brow, the fish lips making their silent, pouting little o’s. Had it occurred to him that if the hell he had left behind wasn’t as bad as they had believed or hoped – then might not the place to which they travelled be no better than anyone might imagine?
What do you do when you find that the world you imagined to be bad, decently evil and have judged this so by observation and report and legend, fact and figure, is none of these, but is instead flat, dull, ordinary and very much like anywhere else? You have believed in its evil, trusted in it, you have been convinced by friend and enemy alike of its horror, have had it whispered to you in the cradle, written on the bodies of men in the cells, the message is one which has reassured the condemned as they are led to the gallows and made for an enemy worth fighting against – but, what if everything turns around suddenly, turns upside down and becomes in truth, banal? When it reveals to you that thing which you can least bear? That it is, in reality, very ordinary? Well, what you do is to keep climbing, and to dream, and to come in your dream, as Kipsel and Blanchaille did now, to the crossroads.
And into my dream there now steps a strange figure, his perfect teeth flashing like a sword. The teeth are noticeable for they are all that can be seen behind the African mask he wears, a wooden mask with black lines incised on the cheek bones and a fuzz of hair made from sacking falling down almost to the eyes and where the ears should be.
The travellers stared at this strange figure. Their road was little more than a track. The tree-line was ending. The pines that had been climbing steadily beside them had grown thin and feeble and were now tottering to a halt. It was from behind one of these ailing trees that there stepped the figure in the mask and unsheathed its smile. The lake below was lost in a distant blue haze and might have been the sky. It might have been that the whole world turned suddenly on its head.
The creature before them was dressed in tribal finery of an African chief, though of which tribe neither of them could say, but certainly he looked very regal, war-like and confident, and most bizarre on that green mountainside. He was planted squarely on the spot where the roads divided. There was, it occurred to Blanchaille, something vaguely familiar about his costume though he couldn’t put his finger on it.
‘We’re looking for the road to Uncle Paul’s place,’ said Kipsel politely. ‘Perhaps you can direct us?’
Blanchaille examined this strange tribal creature. He wore a kind of cap of fur with the arms and tail dangling round his head, a monkey pelt across his shoulders, he carried a short stabbing spear and a cowhide shield. Beneath it all he wore a black morning suit and highly polished shoes.
‘How would you describe the place you’re looking for?’ the stranger asked.
‘A place of rest,’ said Blanchaille.
‘A holiday home,’ said Kipsel.
‘Retirement village, old-age home, hospice,’ said Blanchaille.
‘A home-from-home, hide-out, colony, camp,’ said Kipsel.
The figure nodded. ‘Follow me.’
And he led them along
the road which turned to the right and passed along the shoulder of the mountain. The sun was setting and a small chill wind was blowing. They followed him in silence and so compelling was his presence that they covered considerable ground before they realised the road had levelled out and was beginning to descend.
‘Wait,’ said Blanchaille. ‘This can’t be right.’
‘I’m doing you a favour,’ said their guide. ‘Don’t argue. Keep moving. Don’t look back.’
‘But we’re going down,’ said Blanchaille. ‘We’re not supposed to be going down.’
‘Where does this road lead?’ Blanchaille asked.
The stranger stopped. He turned and confronted them and very slowly removed his tribal mask.
‘Gabriel!’ Kispel said.
‘I tried to help. It’s the least I can do for old friends. I want to help you.’
‘Where does this road lead?’ Blanchaille asked again.
‘To Geneva, the airport and home.’
‘But that’s the way we’ve come,’ Kipsel said.
‘Of course it is. I asked what you wanted and you said home, hotel, hospice, guest house, retirement village. That’s what you’re wanting and this is the road that leads to it. This is the only road that leads to it.’
‘That wasn’t the home we had in mind.’ Blanchaille objected.
‘It’s the only home you have. There is nothing where you are going. Believe me, trust me.’
Despite himself Blanchaille laughed.
Gabriel became angry. ‘Yes, laugh! Maybe you won’t get another chance. The joke’s over. Come home with me. Face up to reality – or go on and fall off the edge of the world.’
‘If you want to help someone, what about your brother? He’s still wandering about here. He’s got a piece of paper in his hand that he believes will give him the title to some fabulous strip of land where he’ll be king and everyone will be equal and live happily ever after. Why not take him home?’ Blanchaille asked.
‘My brother is in a real sense quite unreachable,’ said Gabriel. ‘My brother’s on another plane. He imagines himself as a great explorer. He thinks he can reverse history. He believes he can set out with his piece of paper and imagines he will discover the New World. Like he’s Columbus in reverse. Or Van Riebeeck going the other way to rediscover the Cape of Good Hope. He plans to reopen the Garden of Eden, which he thinks has just been closed for repairs.’
‘We saw the guarantor of his dream of Eden being led down the mountain in chains,’ said Blanchaille.
Gabriel shrugged. ‘Correction. You’ve seen Bubé in chains. What Looksmart sees is another matter.’
‘You sent Looksmart to Philadelphia.’
‘Another correction. I didn’t send him to Philadelphia. He took up with some girl and landed there. All I did was to get him on the plane to America, one step ahead of the police.’
‘So you warned him the police were coming?’
‘Of course.’
‘And who warned you?’
Gabriel shrugged.
‘You don’t deny it then?’
‘Why should I?’
Kipsel who had been listening to this exchange in bewilderment now broke in. ‘What are you saying, Gabriel? That it was you who talked to the police?’
‘How else do you think I got him out? Sometimes, it’s necessary to talk, to deal.’
‘But the police hurt your brother,’ said Kipsel. ‘They nearly killed him.’
For the first time Gabriel showed signs of impatience. ‘Jesus you guys are so tiresome. I’ve tried to help you before, Blanchie. I got you into Pennyheaven. To do that I talked to Blashford. But then I’ve talked to the Afrika Straf Kaffir Brigade and to the Liberation Front, in my time. But you guys won’t have it, will you? I’m the only one who understood it wasn’t enough to hear what Lynch taught us. We have to act on it! I am brave enough, desperate enough to do what’s necessary, because we plan to win.’
‘So do the other side.’
‘Naturally this gives us something in common. So we talk to each other. It’s a complex balance.’
‘Gabriel. What are you saying?’ Kipsel was aghast. ‘People are dead. Mickey, Ferreira, Van Vuuren – friends!’
‘Van Vuuren was no friend. Besides he brought it on himself. If you want to blame somebody, blame the Regime. You can’t send policemen snooping around the Azanian Front. If the Regime wants to talk they know the way of getting through to us.’
‘But he wasn’t with the Regime. He was one of you!’ Blanchaille cried. ‘Kaiser Zulu sent for him. Van Vuuren came because the ALF called him in.’
‘That’s his story,’ said Gabriel. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if you guys have understood a damn thing.’
He left them then, striding away rapidly into the gathering dark.
Then Blanchaille remembered where he’d seen the tribal dress before. ‘In Balthazar Buildings there was a portrait of Bubé hanging on the wall. He wore ceremonial tribal finery, the skins, the spear, the shield. He wore it to visit the tribes of which he was honorary chief. Gabriel was wearing the same get-up.’
‘As a kind of disguise,’ Kipsel suggested, ever naïve.
‘No. Not a disguise. It shows Gabriel is presidential material.’
Kipsel said he wished he could identify the tribe from which it came.
Blanchaille said it didn’t matter. ‘They probably have a big box of fancy dress tribal finery, or a props cupboard and drag out some vaguely appropriate costume when a ceremonial visit crops up. Something that makes you look vaguely chieftain-like and impressive.’
‘The only thing that worries me is that Bubé, of course, wore it when he made these visits to some wretched tribe who were about to be dumped in the middle of nowhere.’
‘God, how he must have terrified them!’ said Kipsel. ‘Imagine Bubé stepping out of the presidential limousine in that get-up. Imagine what the God-forsaken tribe felt when they saw him. It must have been like getting a sign, the arrival of the messenger of doom,’ said Kipsel.
‘Remember the shepherds warned us about Gabriel,’ Blanchaille pointed out. ‘They said he was no angel.’
‘I still say they weren’t shepherds,’ Kipsel insisted.
‘Please Ronnie, is this the time to argue about shepherds?’
Kipsel agreed it was not perhaps the time.
And I saw in my dream how the two friends began the long haul, retracing their steps back to the crossroads as darkness fell.
CHAPTER 24
Blanchaille and Kipsel heard, rather than saw, Looksmart, for it was quite dark by the time they had regained their position at the crossroads, deeply regretting the distance travelled and the time lost in the vain detour into which Gabriel had tricked them.
They heard the scrape and scrabble of his dragging walk while he was still some distance behind them and they heard him muttering to himself. They heard the name ‘Isobel’. They heard how he addressed himself in a language composed of grunts and clicks, in a dialogue between the foreigner and the lunatic.
‘Here comes Looksmart,’ whispered Kipsel. ‘Poor bastard. If he saw Bubé it will have finished him. Let’s wait.’
‘Perhaps he really does imagine himself to be another Columbus. Listen how he argues with himself. Do you think he could be talking about Isabel of Spain? Didn’t she send Columbus off to discover the New World?’
‘Isabella,’ said Kipsel. ‘It was Queen Isabella and Ferdinand who sent Columbus off.’
Looksmart approached. ‘Isobel,’ he said firmly, ‘who sent me to find America.’ Here he took out a tiny, weak torch and examined their faces. What a strange couple, the big round one with a face like kneaded dough and the other, thin, big-lipped, with hands that sliced the air like fins. Though it was many years ago they still retained the familiar shapes of the boys he remembered toiling in Father Lynch’s parish garden. In his curious click language he muttered their names.
‘He really knows us now,’ said Blanchaille.
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br /> Of course he knew them now. They were the altar servers whose heads Lynch had filled with stories of vanished millions, of Uncle Paul’s promised land across the sea, of gold and secret colonies and lost souls, of the illusions of politics and the sole reality of power. Above all he remembered the pleasure he felt at seeing how hard those white boys were made to work in a garden which would never be got right, by an Irish priest leaning on an elbow on a tartan rug on a hot day drinking something from a thermos flask. But these memories returned in bits and pieces, now bright, now fading, like light glimpsed through a smashed windscreen. The work done by the policeman Breek on Looksmart’s head had been thorough, the damage to the brain irreversible, but these glimpses remained of the old days. ‘Blanchie, and Kipsel . . .’
‘Odd that he should know us by night and not by day,’ Blanchaille reflected.
The weak, yellow flickering torch-light searched their faces, assembling sections for process and developing in the dark room of Looksmart’s brain.
‘Did you meet with the President?’ Kipsel asked.
The torch went out. ‘Looksmart saw him, oah yes. What a traveller! He must be on another diplomatic tour. He had been given a special police escort. I approached the car with my treaty and asked for ratification that this land belongs to me and my descendants, in perpetuity.’ Looksmart had trouble getting the word out. ‘The President looked at me. He pushed my pen away. “No need for me to sign. You have it anyway. You and your descendants, forever”. Then he went away, the President and the police. Perhaps they planned to show him to the people of all the towns he passed through.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Kipsel drily.
Blanchaille felt his pity mounting. This shambling wreck in the darkness with his weak little torch and his insane ideas. This shadow of Looksmart. The real Looksmart had been a holy terror. This was a mumbling ghost. ‘Who is this Isobel you’re talking about? Tell us, please.’
On went the little torch again, probing their faces as if verifying the authenticity of this request. ‘It’s a good story,’ said Looksmart. ‘Oah yes.’ And switching off his torch he began.
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