The Covenant: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  ‘I’ve been pondering this question constantly,’ he said slowly. ‘I’ve had to evaluate the things Father did in his long years on the Race Commission. And I’ve come to the conclusion that Afrikaners like Frikkie and Jopie will never change.’

  ‘Hooray for them!’ Sannie cried.

  ‘And at her own request I must place my daughter in their camp.’

  ‘Which is where I want to be.’

  ‘So, Philip, I would be most happy, and so would my wife, if you married this girl and took her away with you.’ He was speaking gravely, almost sorrowfully. ‘I see no happy future for her here. Like the gifted children of so many families we know, she must make her home in Montreal or Melbourne.’

  ‘Leave me out of it,’ Sannie said abruptly. ‘I can fend for myself. What future do you see for the country?’

  ‘With the fall of Moçambique to black forces—Namibia, Zambia, Vwarda and Rhodesia—can we logically suppose that we can hold out indefinitely against …’

  ‘I can,’ Sannie said. ‘So can Frikkie and Jopie and all loyal Afrikaners.’

  ‘For your lifetimes, perhaps. Or for as long as your guns can find bullets. But in the long run, beyond our petty personal interests …’

  He was hesitant about sharing his apocalyptic view with a foreigner who had no vested interest in the country, or even with his daughter, who might be alienated by it. But like all South Africans, he was eager to talk about the future, so he carried on: ‘I think the blacks, like the Nxumalo brothers—Jonathan in Moçambique, Daniel at the university—will be willing in their moment of triumph …’

  ‘You think they’ll triumph?’ Sannie asked contemptuously.

  ‘Or their sons, who will be much like them,’ her father said.

  ‘My sons will shoot them down,’ she said.

  ‘Then their grandsons. History has time … It can wait.’

  ‘For what?’ Saltwood asked eagerly.

  ‘As I was saying, I think the black victors will be generous. They’ll want us to stay. God knows, their brothers haven’t made much of the countries they now control. They’ll realize they need us.’

  ‘You really believe that?’ Sannie asked.

  ‘Without question. The black leadership in this country has been the most patient on earth, the most understanding. It’s been a miracle of compassion and tolerance, and I think it will continue in that vein.’

  ‘Then where’s the trouble?’ Philip asked.

  ‘With us. With Sannie and Frikkie and Jopie. We won’t be able to accept the change. We’ll ride the Götterdämmerung Commando, as you predict, but we’ll grow sickened of it, even if the rest of the world doesn’t intervene. And then …’

  Here he showed himself truly reluctant to spell out his vision, and neither his daughter nor his American guest could possibly have foreseen what he was about to say: ‘At that moment of crisis the Afrikaner and his English supporters, of whom my wife will be one, will go into perpetual laager. With the full connivance and even assistance of the new black rulers, we’ll retreat to the western half of the Orange Free State and Cape Province west of Grahamstown. We’ll keep the diamond mines at Kimberley, but surrender the gold fields at Johannesburg. That city and Pretoria will be turned over to the new black government, and in our compressed little area we will build our Afrikanerstan. The tables will be reversed. When we were in power we tried to concentrate all the blacks into little areas, while we held the vast open spaces and the good cities. In the future they’ll hold the open spaces and the good cities, and we’ll be compressed.’

  ‘What will happen to the Coloureds?’ Philip asked. ‘They’ll all be with you—in Afrikanerstan?’ And Marius van Doorn gave the same answer his people had been giving for the past three hundred years: ‘We’ll deal with that knotty problem later.’

  When Philip and Sannie, much sobered by her father’s predictions, repeated them to the Troxels, the cousins guffawed, and Jopie said, ‘When they try to capture Pretoria, they’ll find us in the trenches at the monument, and they better be prepared to die.’

  ‘Father said the real tests will come with your grandsons. They’ll be smart enough to—’

  ‘If one of my grandsons talks like your father, I’ll beat him to a jelly.’

  Frikkie sought to face the problem more philosophically: ‘There was no one on this land when we arrived. God gave it to us. We found a primitive paradise and converted it into a great nation.’

  ‘Just a minute!’ Philip protested. ‘I’m sure I read that natives greeted your ships when they arrived at the Cape.’

  ‘There was no one here,’ Jopie insisted. ‘I heard Sannie’s grandfather state this in a public meeting.’

  This evidence so startled Philip that he asked Marius to join them to clarify the facts. ‘Jopie says he heard your father …’

  ‘On several occasions,’ Frikkie added.

  ‘… state that when the Dutch arrived at the Cape, they found the place completely empty.’

  Marius laughed. ‘My father was fond of claiming this in his orations. It was a basic tenet of his religion—still is for the average Afrikaner.’

  ‘See, there were no people here!’ Jopie cried triumphantly.

  ‘Detleef was right, according to his definitions. There were no Englishmen, no Spaniards, no Portuguese. And certainly no blacks.’

  ‘We took over a virgin land,’ Frikkie said quietly.

  ‘Not exactly. There were many little brown people. Bushmen, Hottentots.’

  ‘They don’t count,’ Jopie protested. ‘They weren’t human.’

  ‘They did die out,’ Frikkie said. ‘Diseases took them. And a few returned to the desert, and pretty soon they’ll die, too.’

  ‘Like we said,’ Jopie concluded, looking fiercely at Philip, ‘the place was empty. God called us here to perform a task on His behalf.’

  The Troxel arrogance was somewhat shaken by two events which occurred not in South Africa but abroad, and when Philip saw how the cousins reacted, and the young men working for him, he thought: Maybe the outside world is beginning to penetrate, after all.

  The first jolt came from a most unlikely source. Reverend Paulus van den Berghe, moderator of a group of French and Dutch Calvinists, came to South Africa to ascertain whether the rupture which had separated the mother church in Holland and the Afrikaners’ church in South Africa could be repaired, and in the course of his investigations he asked permission to meet with the son of one of its principal architects. Marius, always eager for foreign contacts, agreed to have the distinguished theologian spend some days at Vrymeer, where in the gentlest manner Van den Berghe interrogated not only Marius, but also Frikkie and Jopie and then Daniel Nxumalo, home on vacation.

  At the end of four days Van den Berghe knew something of conditions at Venloo from both the white and black points of view, and at the final session, to which Philip was invited and Nxumalo, too, he voiced a few of his tentative conclusions:

  ‘What do you suppose the two biggest surprises were for me? Meeting two rugby players of international status and seeing for myself what sterling young men they are. I wish you good luck, Troxels, with your forthcoming games in Australia and New Zealand. The second big surprise was to find that I was on the farm once occupied, or shared, by Paulus de Groot, who was my hero when I was a lad. I was born the year he died, and how often I heard my parents talk about the heroic Dutchman—to us, Boers were always Dutchmen—who held at bay four hundred thousand Englishmen. It was a moment of deep affection when I was allowed to place flowers on his grave.

  ‘As to the purposes of my visit, it must be obvious that clergymen like me in The Netherlands and France are disturbed by the course your Dutch Reformed Church has been taking since you Afrikaners assumed control of the nation in 1948. It has become a handmaiden not of a religion, nor of the republic, but of a particular political party, and that’s always regrettable. A church should be the handmaiden of Jesus Christ first, the entire society second, and to align
it on the side of faction is dangerous.

  ‘Concerning its preachments regarding apartheid, it would be improper for me to voice my personal judgments before the whole commission has had a chance to evaluate and temper them. But I must confess that I leave your country with a heavy heart. I had not realized you had grown so far apart from us. It will now be the duty of all to conciliate our differences.’

  When he was gone, Frikkie said with ill-masked fury, ‘This land had always been cursed by missionaries. That man’s an agent of the World Council of Churches and I should have shot him for a spy.’

  ‘Oh, Frik!’ Mrs. van Doorn protested.

  ‘I mean it. What did the foreign churches do in Rhodesia? They gave money to terrorists. And how did they spend it? Killing women and children and missionaries. Is that Christianity?’

  Jopie joined in: ‘You watch what he writes when he gets back to Holland!’ And the Troxels were right, for when the commission’s report appeared, it was a devastating attack on the South African church:

  With mounting sorrow your committee must report that our Afrikaner brothers in the white Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa have strayed so far and so willfully from the path of Christian morality as evidenced in the preachings of Jesus Christ and St. Paul that reunion now between our church and theirs would be inadvisable and unproductive. Your committee therefore recommends unanimously that the present severance of affiliations be maintained until such time as the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa manifests a Christian concern in ending its support of the system of repression known as apartheid.

  Saltwood was surprised at the fury with which the Troxels reacted to this censure: ‘We’re the polecats of the world, and damnit, if they come at us, we’ll squirt in their eyes.’ Sannie agreed, and even though Saltwood cautioned the young people that they could not indefinitely ignore world opinion, Frikkie responded, ‘We can if it’s wrong.’ Philip then asked if young men like him and Jopie ever admitted that anything was wrong with South Africa, and they replied together, ‘No.’ And Jopie added, ‘We’ve worked out a decent, fair system of handling the races in our society. The laws have been passed, and they must be obeyed.’

  ‘But in most countries,’ Philip said, thinking of the drastic readjustments in America in recent years, ‘provision is made for reassessment. A law tends to be applicable for only about ten or twenty years. The laws your grandfather passed, Sannie—’

  ‘He didn’t pass them. He proposed them.’

  ‘Haven’t they served their day? Shouldn’t they be repealed?’

  ‘Repealed?’ the Troxel boys echoed. ‘They should be strengthened!’

  ‘You see, Saltwood,’ Frikkie explained, ‘we know the blacks. They’re wild veld creatures like the antelope, and we won’t allow them to be spoiled by modern ideas, no matter what the Dutch churchmen advise.’

  Jopie was more blunt: ‘To hell with the Dutch churchmen. They’re today’s missionaries.’ And at this, Sannie grasped the hands of her young men and started a dance, chanting an improvised song:

  ‘To hell with the missionaries!

  To hell with the men of Holland!

  To hell with all who interfere!’

  Marius, hearing the clamor, came from his study, and Sannie danced up to him: ‘We’re consigning the missionaries to hell.’

  ‘That was done long ago,’ Marius said, and when he joined the young people in a beer, Saltwood asked, ‘How do you see the church problem?’ and after some reflection he replied, ‘When I accepted my Rhodes scholarship instead of playing rugby for the Springboks against New Zealand, I knew I was sacrificing a lot.’ He smiled at the Troxels. ‘These lads go against New Zealand next month. It’ll be the great adventure of your lives.’

  ‘Apparently you have regrets.’

  ‘One you’d never expect. When I returned home with an English wife, I couldn’t be a member of the Broederbond, but who cared? What did hurt was that I was denied the right to be a full member of the Dutch Reformed Church. I’ve never been an elder, you know.’

  ‘Does that matter?’ Saltwood asked.

  ‘Grievously. I truly believe that our church is the most effective on earth today. It has spirit, meaning, force. It obeys the word of God and endeavors prayerfully to implement it. A real church.’

  ‘But its support of apartheid? Surely …’

  Marius rose and went to the refrigerator for another beer. ‘Churches go through cycles. In America, if I understand correctly, your Catholic church is riding rampant on birth control and abortion. That’s temporary, a fashion of the moment. It has very little to do with the ongoing operation of the church. Same with our church and apartheid. It’s a problem for the 1980s. Fifty years from now it will all be settled.’

  ‘So you support your church in all it does?’ Philip asked.

  ‘I do, because it’s the moral force of South Africa. It’s forever.’

  ‘And in the meantime,’ Jopie cried, ‘to hell with the visitors from Holland.’

  ‘And the World Council of Churches!’ Sannie cried, resuming their dance.

  A few days later Saltwood observed his arrogant young Afrikaners knocked flat by a much different kind of foreign intervention. He was alone in the Van Doorn kitchen, waiting for Sannie, when her father and Jopie burst into the room, looking ghastly. Without speaking, they fiddled with the radio, located a Pretoria station, and listened as the awful news was reported: ‘There is an unconfirmed report out of Auckland that the governments of Australia and New Zealand will be forced to cancel the scheduled tour of those countries by a rugby team from South Africa.’

  ‘Good God!’ Marius said, looking at Jopie as if the latter’s arms had been amputated. ‘That would mean you wouldn’t get your Springbok blazer.’

  ‘Wait, wait! This can’t be serious.’

  But it was. A different newscaster announced in tremulous Afrikaans, his voice near breaking: ‘We have nothing definite yet, but governments of Australia and New Zealand have explained that rioting in the streets protesting the tours have made cancellation advisable.’

  ‘Have you heard?’ Frikkie bellowed as he rushed into the kitchen. ‘Tour’s been canceled.’

  ‘Not officially,’ Jopie said, his hands sweating.

  Then came the appalling bulletin: ‘It is now confirmed that the Springbok tour of Australia and New Zealand has been canceled.’

  Marius fell into a chair, staring pitifully at the brothers. ‘It’s like you said, Jopie. The world thinks we’re skunks.’

  The three rugby players huddled at the radio, shaken by the urgent bulletins that flooded the air, and when the ugly story was fully verified, Saltwood was amazed by the violence of the men’s reactions.

  ‘It’s criminal!’ Marius shouted. ‘Using sport as a weapon of confrontation. A game’s a game, and politics should have nothing to do with it.’

  ‘I’ll teach them politics,’ Jopie thundered. ‘I’ll fly to New Zealand and break those protestors in half, one by one.’

  ‘It’s not the ordinary citizens,’ Marius said. ‘It’s the damned press.’

  ‘The press in all countries should be muzzled,’ Frikkie stormed, but at this moment the minister of sports came on the radio to console the nation, and he was bidding them be of good spirit despite the shattering blow, when Sannie burst into the kitchen, weeping. ‘Oh, Jopie! Oh, dear Frikkie! They’ve stolen your glorious tour from you!’ She ran to the cousins and kissed them; Jopie gulped so deeply that Philip feared he might burst into tears, but instead he went about the room, knocking his fist against doorjambs.

  Then came more shocking news: ‘In New Zealand the agitation against our Springboks was led by a South African citizen, one Fred Stabler, who himself used to play rugby for Rhodes University in Grahamstown. This agitator has moved through both North Island and South, spreading the poison about what he calls apartheid, and he raised such a virulent storm that the New Zealand government had to intervene and order the tour to be canceled. In Austr
alia, at least, it was native-borns who led the agitation. In New Zealand it was one of our own.’

  Gloom settled over the Van Doorn kitchen as the Afrikaners realized the full impact of this decision. A generation of fine young athletes would never know whether they could match courage with the ferocious All-Blacks. The great good feelings that welled up when a touring side ran onto the field against New Zealand would be lost. It was important when a South African tennis player was barred from competing in world tennis, a thing to be deplored, but when a whole rugby team was denied an opportunity to win the green blazer, it was a national scandal, and men of all stripe were finally driven to wonder if perchance their nation was on the wrong track.

  This self-exploration was intensified next day when newspapers carried full reports from New Zealand, and one Auckland paper, long a defender of South African teams, editorialized:

  Through the years this newspaper had prided itself on being a champion of restraint in dealing with the thorny problem of South African rugby. In 1960, when our Maoris were threatened with expulsion because their skins were not white, we apologized for the backward attitudes of a nation grappling with a serious problem. In 1965, when in the heat of one of our grandest victories Prime Minister Verwoerd announced that henceforth no New Zealand team containing Maoris would ever again be welcomed in South Africa, we discounted his threat as one given in despair over the unexpectedly poor showing of his Springboks. And in 1976, when all the world condemned us for sending the All-Blacks to perform in a country so ridden with racial hatred, we supported the tour. And even when the refereeing proved disgracefully one-sided, we argued that any All-Black–Springbok championship series was worth the effort, and we urged our boys and our nation to enjoy it.

  But we can no longer see anything to be gained by allowing sport, however noble its intentions, to be used to shore up a racist regime. Belatedly, and with the saddest possible regret, we support Government’s decision that this tour must not be allowed to proceed. There are some things in this world bigger than an All-Black–Springbok match, and humanity among brothers is one of them.