‘You’ve heard of the wandering Jew, well you’re the wandering African. Finding ways to go home.’
Isobel was a dreamer. And a bit of a dope. But she loved him. And though there are some who say that Looksmart would have learnt more of the genius of America in her arms than in all his researches into Benjamin Franklin, they forget how far gone he already was when he met her.
Looksmart’s head had been repeatedly knocked against the wall by Captain Arrie Breek, who today imports famous crooners and entire Las Vegas girlie line-ups to perform in his Mountainbowl Auditorium, and arranges pro-am golf tournaments at his Palace in the Veld, with million dollar prizes, and his part in the little matter of Looksmart’s head should not be forgotten. When you twirl a glass of water, the glass moves but the water stays still; unfortunately, when the head is struck and moves violently this rotation means the brain tries to move with it, with calamitous results for concentration, pronunciation, locomotion.
Looksmart crossed Rittenhouse Square in brilliant sunshine and went up to a suite on the tenth floor where he met a certain Mr Carstens and his friend, Estelle. Mr Carstens said he was an American with plenty of available capital. Estelle was a friend of his from Looksmart’s country. Carstens wore a vivid green and orange shirt. Estelle was dark, authoritative, and her features were chiselled, determined and pert.
Now again, there are those who say Looksmart should have known the score. He should have spotted who Carstens was. And anyone who had looked at a newspaper in the months past would have identified Estelle as Trudy Yssel. But Looksmart did not know the score and he did not read newspapers, not when he had the mountainous literature of the American Revolution to consume.
‘Mr Dladla,’ said Estelle, ‘we are here with a revolutionary plan.’
‘Mr Dladla,’ said Mr Carstens, ‘you may or may not know that there is in our country a new dispensation. A New Order. Changes are occurring.’
‘Mr Dladla,’ said Estelle, ‘I have here a letter of introduction from your brother, Gabriel. He is one terrific guy. And a friend.’
Again, there are those who charge that Looksmart should have known Carstens was a phoney, that his accent was ridiculous, and, anyway the shirt he wore with its mango sun floating above some palms should have been a dead give-away. But Looksmart had long passed beyond the petty day-to-day treacheries of the Regime. He was out of all that. He had entered a new world.
And they overlooked the letter from Gabriel.
Dear Looksmart,
This is to introduce you to a couple of friends of mine, useful contacts and deep down, I believe, supporters of the cause. They have proposals to put to you which I genuinely believe can promote our struggle for liberation. I urge you to listen carefully to what they have to say and to act quickly.
Remember me in your prayers.
Your brother in Christ, Gabriel Dladla.
‘We represent a force so radical we cannot reveal ourselves,’ said Carstens, ‘so secret it speaks only through its appointed agents. The Regime wouldn’t tolerate our liberal aspirations or pragmatism. The Americans will not believe them. We have a problem. We wish to invest in several of the communications media in this town to promote our message. A couple of radio stations, a closed-circuit TV station and a news magazine.’
‘What can I do for you?’ asked Looksmart.
‘Scepticism, cynicism, downright suspicion of our intentions is what we have to combat. If we are to buy into these businesses, our enemies would cry foul. But if you were to bid, or to allow us to bid for you –’
‘You want me to buy some radio stations?’
‘We will do the actual buying,’ said Carstens.
‘We will do the actual paying,’ said Estelle. ‘But you’ll be the owner.’
Looksmart stared at them, wonderingly. This they misinterpreted.
‘Of course, we would make it worth your while. I understand you are a student of history here. We believe you wander the streets. Sleep rough.’
‘I’m a student of revolution,’ said Looksmart proudly.
‘Aren’t we all?’ said Carstens politely.
‘Don’t want money,’ said Looksmart.
‘That’s up to you. Maybe you want something else. You just tell us and we’ll see if we can help.’ Estelle smiled sweetly.
‘Do you know anyone in the Regime?’ Looksmart demanded. ‘Do you know President Bubé?’
After some hesitation Carstens said he had met the President, briefly, on one of his foreign tours, he thought.
‘O.K.’ said Looksmart. ‘Now this is what I want.’
In the darkness on the mountainside Blanchaille and Kipsel heard him waving what he had got, his slip of paper, his dream. ‘Here it is! Here it is! Pennsylvania here I come!’ The little torch was switched on, the light pale on the paper.
‘You fool,’ said Blanchaille. ‘You idiot!’ Blanchaille yelled. ‘You’ll never do it. Our country is already torn into independent kingdoms, homelands, reserves, group areas, Bantustans, casinostans, tribal trust lands and all you’re proposing to do is to fucking well found another!’
‘Mine will be different!’ Looksmart’s voice cracked and trembled. At Blanchaille’s raised voice he could feel the tears beginning to start. ‘We’ll have no racial separation, no servants, no gold mines, no Calvinists, no faction fights. In my country the Boer will lie down with the Bantu.’
‘Numbskull!’ Blanchaille shrieked. ‘They’re all different. All these places. That’s why there are so many of them. Everybody who is different has got to have one. The one thing we have got in abundance is difference. Difference is hate. Difference is death. I spit on your difference.’ And he did, spitting noisily into the night. ‘You’ve been gypped, by your brother, by the Regime, by yourself.’
They heard the scrabble of paper as Looksmart returned the precious document to his pocket. ‘You can’t scare me,’ he replied through his sobs, ‘I will continue. Oah yes, right on to the end of the road, as the song says. I will enter Uncle Paul’s place and lay my case for a new republic before the lost souls. And they will hear Looksmart, and return with me to our homelands leaving you behind, Blanchie, like the last bit of porridge clinging to the pot.’
Here I truly believe Blanchaille would have leapt at Looksmart and killed him if Kipsel hadn’t pulled him off. The two friends turned to their path again and by starlight continued on up the mountain, soon leaving the sobbing, crippled, cracked visionary far behind.
CHAPTER 25
So I saw in my dream how they arrived by night at the high stone wall and the big iron gates and read by moonlight the name of the place:
BAD KRUGER
On each of the gateposts crouched enormous stone lions, much weathered; rain, snow and wind having smoothed away their eyes and blunted their paws; their crumbling manes were full of shadows. And I saw in my dream how priest and acolyte, or detective and aide, dish and spoon, fisherman and fish, call them what you will, pushed at a big iron gate which opened easily on well-oiled hinges and closed behind them soundlessly. Without any idea of the sort of place they had entered but too tired to stand any longer, they lay down on the grass and slept.
They awoke to a morning full of bird-song to find themselves in an extensive garden thick with flowers, ornamental ponds, gravelled walks, fountains and orchards and beyond, a small, thick wood. Kipsel identified several familiar blooms: blazing Red-hot Pokers, magnificent specimens standing five feet high, their full, tubular heads of red and yellow swinging like flaming bells; the rare Red Disa, Pride of Table Mountain, as it was called, with its little trinity of reddish-purple petals framing a third which turned the opposite way showing a cup veined in purplish ink. Blanchaille knew nothing of flowers but this identification of plants and blooms recognisably African excited him as the first definite sign that they had truly arrived. The water in the ponds was a cold green. The ponds were fringed with reeds and carpeted with blue water-lilies and these in particular made Kipsel exclaim: ‘Am
azing! You see them? Blue! Nymphaea those are, blue-ridged leaves! Blanchie, they barely exist any longer. You used to find them in the Cape Peninsula many years ago. But not any longer. To find them here . . . they’re virtually extinct! And look – masses of Red Afrikanders. It’s far, far too late for them, surely?’
‘Virtually extinct,’ Blanchaille repeated, wondering at Kipsel’s floral knowledge and thinking that sociologists, like cold green pools, sometimes possessed hidden depths.
Small turtles swam across the lily ponds pushing a film of water before them. They watched a brilliantly coloured bird, its plumage a dancing gloss of green and purple, its bill and forehead in matching orange, its throat bright blue, hunting elegantly among the reeds and when it caught something it would pause to feed itself with its foot with the aplomb of a fastidious diner.
Through the small thick wood they pushed and came at its edge to a wide and well-kept lawn and across it saw a great building presenting a broad and sturdy front to the world. Here Kipsel and Blanchaille drew back into the trees, for walking on the lawn were groups of people. Some were in wheelchairs attended by nurses, some walked with sticks, others seemed fit and well and played a game of touch-rugby. The scene reminded Blanchaille of a convalescent home, of pictures seen of veterans home from a war, recuperating. Though the strains of music coming from the big loudspeaker mounted high on the pediment of the house gave to the scene something of the convivial quality of a village fête. Only the bunting was missing. They withdrew more deeply into the wood. At their waists were Kaffir-lilies, three-foot high at least with great trumpeting mouths of deep crimson; hip-high Chincherinchees, big white flowers with chocolate hearts; spotted velvet Monkey-flowers; and golden banks of the misleadingly named Snow-on-the-Mountain; all of which caused Kipsel further perplexity as such flowers were found only in African gardens. The music the loudspeakers relayed was a medley of light classics: Strauss marches mingled with traditional boere-musiek, or farmers’ music, of which the old favourite ‘Take your things and trek Ferreira’ seemed very popular, with its wicked thudding refrain:
My mat-tress and your blan-ket
And there lies the thing!
If the music seemed appropriate to the establishment they’d expected, the house did not. It was a solid, assertive building: a strange mixture of grand hotel, railway station and museum, built on two storeys, squat, bulky and prodigiously solid, perhaps eighty feet high and crowned by a great dome of coloured tiles, pierced by oval windows. A flight of stairs in two graceful stages climbed majestically to the bronze doors. The windows on the ground floor were arched and comparatively simple while those on the second storey were flanked by columns and surmounted with medallions and above it all, and for the whole of its length, the pediment was crowded with statuary: Greek gods, perhaps; venerable old men with philosophers’ beards; horsemen; griffins; wrestling cherubs and other fancies intended to give an aura of substance and dignity, but this was undermined by the big loudspeakers mounted on poles which framed the statuary.
They drew even deeper into the wood, aware of how strange they must look, two ragged fugitives, eyes pink from lack of sleep, bodies smelling of sweat, chocolate, cheese and brandy.
‘We should go forward. Introduce ourselves. We should see if this is the right place after all,’ Blanchaille spoke without conviction.
‘Or we could wait until we felt a bit stronger,’ Kipsel suggested.
Blanchaille appreciated his trepidation but knew it wouldn’t do. ‘We’ll never feel as strong again.’
‘Excuse me, but I need a swaz,’ said Kipsel and disappeared hurriedly.
A swaz! How many years was it since he heard that expression? One had to admit it was precisely onomatopoeic, echoing perfectly the zip and gush against the rock in the dusty veld, or the business of drilling muddily into a garden bed, but it pained and discomfited here in its buzzing directness. Accuracy of observation, whether of the names of flowers or of the sonic effect of urination did nothing to help; what was needed was not description but meaning!
When Kipsel returned he challenged him accordingly.
Kipsel shrugged. ‘Fall into a small pool of words early on and you’ll spend the rest of your life splashing around in it. For example, I had a girlfriend once, by name Karina. She had five brothers, all cricketers. I think her father played, too. Her life was taken up with starching shirts, whitening boots and keeping score. As a result she was a child of the pavilion. There was no other world. Her bag of words came straight out of the changing room. She had no other terms of reference. Everything was described in cricketing language. Even sex. She was forever making jokes about maidens. When we were in bed she would cheer me on if I looked like flagging with cries of “only another sixty to go or you have to follow on”! And when she was coming she’d cry “how’s that?” and stick a finger in the wind like an umpire giving his man out.’ Kipsel banged his fist against his forehead to still the extravagant memories of these exhausting matches. ‘Going to bed with her was like going into bat without a box. She took that as a compliment when I told her. See what I mean? It wasn’t so much that she was really interested in cricket itself but it provided her with a life she could get hold of. And beat. Cricket was her way of living, her get up and go, her entry into the life of action settlers must have, because doing gives an illusion of winning. Her way of grappling with life.’
‘And going forward,’ said Blanchaille. ‘No illusion is more precious.’
It is interesting to note that they themselves did not go forward at this point but walked away from the house until the music from the loudspeaker faded. They found themselves in an apple orchard. The fruit beckoned them, the crispness of the huge pale green apples tempted them. They must have eaten half a dozen each, tearing at the tight sweet flesh as if their systems needed it, as if it was some sort of antidote to the poison of too much travel, a diet of brandy, chocolate, cheese and a constant series of shocks to the system.
I saw also that there was a vineyard nearby and this, too, they invaded, gorging on the plump white grapes until they could eat no more. I watched Kipsel who lay on the ground with his fingers over his eyes to keep out the sun and let the juice run down his throat, spitting the pips into the air, even though Blanchaille had asked him politely to stop. And then with full bellies and pleasantly overcome by the walk they slept, restlessly muttering of home, heaven and angels and policemen, no doubt believing themselves safe in the privacy of their dreams.
Then I saw that they weren’t alone.
He stood up among the vines. A big broad man in a floppy straw hat, waring faded and patched brown dungarees, with his thumbs hooked into his belt. He stood watching the sleepers from a little distance away, listening to them; a big man with freckled arms and a considerable tan, attending closely, taking notes in a small book with great rapidity. And when he saw me watching him, he looked up and smiled and said: ‘What’s so puzzling? They come here, they’re tired and hungry, they eat, they relax, they sleep. In their sleep they talk. It’s a habit of people like this, terrified of speaking aloud what they think, they confine their comments to this sort of dream talk. Dreams are the only underground left.’
‘And you? Is your note-taking also a habit?’
He didn’t answer me, but I had my suspicions.
So I saw when the sleepers woke they found the man watching them, though he no longer carried his pencil and notebook.
‘Who are you?’ Blanchaille asked.
The big man smiled, he rubbed his neck, he cracked his knuckles, he flexed the muscles in his freckled arms and he said: ‘I’m a gardener. At least I help to keep the place up. Of course I’ve got under-gardeners with me. This place is too big for one man.’
‘I hope you didn’t mind us helping ourselves to your fruit,’ said Kipsel.
The gardener smiled. ‘That’s why it’s there. Only I wouldn’t stay here very much longer, it’s getting on towards evening. You’ll be wanting dinner soon. The others hav
e already gone in, the music has stopped.’
‘Are they expecting us – up there?’ Blanchaille nodded his head towards the big house beyond the wood.
The gardener nodded. ‘Anybody who gets this far is expected. They’ll be looking out for you all right. The worry always is that people who make it this far might get lost again.’
‘We weren’t lost,’ said Kipsel. ‘A few detours, perhaps. A few hedges and ditches to jump. But not lost.’
The gardener smiled. ‘If you hadn’t been lost, buster, you wouldn’t be here.’
‘What’s your name?’ said Kipsel.
‘Happy.’
‘Happy!’ Kipsel laughed, genuinely rolled about. Blanchaille was embarrassed.
In fact it wasn’t too difficult to understand Kipsel’s amusement or his friend’s sheepishness, since, after all, the term ‘Happy’ was used in their own country as one of the many derogatory terms in the rich vocabulary of racial invective the ethnic groups enjoyed directing against each other. Mutual abuse was a mainstay of political life. The pleasure of calling supporters of the Regime, Happies, with all the ironical strength the insult carried was matched only by the enjoyment with which the Regime declared its opponents to be Kaffir-loving Jewish Commies who should go and live in Ghana. . . Hence Kipsel’s laughter and the embarrassed silence which followed.
The big man stood by impassively watching. ‘There’ve always been Happies here,’ he said. ‘Ever since the old man started up the place.’
‘I think I see what he means.’ Blanchaille cleared his throat with the air of a man anxious to prevent misunderstanding. ‘This word “Happy” I think is a corruption, or at least a mutation, of the name of Kruger’s valet, a certain Happé. You remember? He was the one who was with Uncle Paul when they found whatever it was they found.’
‘Came at last to the place in question,’ said Kipsel.
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