The Covenant: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  JUDGE BROODRYK: Mr. Nxumalo, this court is not here to debate what happened at Soweto in 1976. We cannot decide whether the students were victims of injustice or not. Confine your answers to Mr. Scheeper’s questions.

  NXUMALO: My Lord, the Afrikaner in his schools, his churches, his celebrations of the Day of the Covenant is reminded by his teachers, his ministers and his political leaders of Slagter’s Nek, of ground glass in the mealies, the execution of Christoffel Steyn. With deepest respect I submit that such constant remembrance of blood that flowed in the past engenders bad feeling between the races.

  BROODRYK: Mr. Nxumalo, the Afrikaner and the Englishman are of the same race, so what you charge could not possibly take place. We are concerned only with the delicate balance between the white and black races in this country and the danger of fostering ill-will between them. By your irresponsible speeches, for example.

  NXUMALO: I do not believe that the black people of this country can be denied the right to remember the Slagter’s Nek of their history. I mean Sharpeville and Soweto ’76. Until we find our own dignity and identity, we can never be free.

  SCHEEPERS: What would have to happen, Mr. Nxumalo, for you to consider yourself a free man?

  NXUMALO: Apartheid would have to end. Blacks would have to have a proper voice in running this country.

  SCHEEPERS: Ah! You mean one-man, one-vote?

  NXUMALO: Yes, I suppose I do.

  SCHEEPERS: Do you think that by encouraging bitterness among your people, by waving Soweto ’76 at them, you’ll get your vote?

  NXUMALO: A man has a right, surely, to remember ugly things that have happened to him. To us the dead children of Soweto were heroes.

  SCHEEPERS: It’s impossible to follow your reasoning. Those young people were undisciplined rioters. They were led by professional agitators.

  NXUMALO: I must beg to contradict. The young black boys of Soweto were rather similar to the young Boer lads who fought the English in 1899. They took up arms against their oppressors, the English.

  SCHEEPERS: Ah-ha! So you do advocate that young blacks take up arms against the Afrikaner? Against the legal government?

  KAPLAN: My lord, my client said nothing of the sort. I must object most strenuously to my learned friend’s attempt to misconstrue the evidence.

  BROODRYK: Sustained. Mr. Nxumalo, I can appreciate some of the points you are making, but it seems to me there is a danger that if your inflammatory remarks are constantly thrust before the public, a revolutionary climate will be fostered throughout this country.

  NXUMALO: Yes, there is such a danger, my Lord.

  BROODRYK: Then should you not pursue your objectives through a more peaceful method? By negotiation rather than violence?

  NXUMALO: Most certainly that would be preferable.

  BROODRYK: Then you agree that by working through established channels, and there are many, mass upheaval could be averted?

  At this point the judge was so reasonable and conciliatory that Saltwood, listening carefully to every nuance, felt certain that if Nxumalo reciprocated, Judge Broodryk would be eager to find him guilty only to a limited degree, and his life would be spared, for everyone in the courtroom knew that Nxumalo had performed no overt act of real revolution. But to Saltwood’s dismay, his friend refused the olive branch the judge had extended. Indeed, his rejection of Broodryk’s invitation was cold and total.

  NXUMALO: Your Honor, we cannot accept the status quo because we had no voice in establishing it. We will never accept it, for this is our land, too, and we of this generation cannot abdicate the rights of our children still to be born. We are opposed to apartheid now and forever.

  BROODRYK: But people may not oppose it, Mr. Nxumalo, with actions that contravene the law of the land. They may not engage in acts of terrorism to upset what the government has patiently and justly ordained.

  NXUMALO: Not justly, my Lord.

  KAPLAN: What he means, my Lord—

  BROODRYK: I know what he means. Let him continue.

  NXUMALO: I stand before this court accused of terroristic activities. Every day in South Africa acts of terrorism are committed against my people through the harsh application of laws not justly ordained. To me it was an act of terror to banish an old woman to a resettlement camp. It is an act of terror to starve a young mind hungry for learning. It is an act of terror to force apart a man and woman who love each other. It is an act of terror to say to a black man born on this land, ‘You cannot live here because white people want the land.’ Or to tell that same man he cannot go to a town where he can earn a decent living for his family.

  BROODRYK (with great patience): I am waiting for your point, Mr. Nxumalo.

  NXUMALO: I will state it honestly, my Lord. We deny that the laws of apartheid are just or that this is a just society. We see it as a society with only one ambition—to maintain white supremacy.

  BROODRYK: But that is the acknowledged goal of this society. If you have a solution that is better for all, this court would like to hear it.

  NXUMALO: We might start with justice for the majority of people living here.

  BROODRYK: And the minorities, who also deserve protection?

  NXUMALO: A minority with machine guns can always protect itself.

  Judge Broodryk was meticulous in according Daniel every opportunity to defend himself, and although some of the young professor’s answers must have infuriated him, he betrayed nothing, and Saltwood saw that Nxumalo was going out of his way to antagonize the judge. What the young man’s strategy was, Philip could not discern, and the trial proceeded.

  Prosecutor Scheepers now turned his attention to two curious aspects of the case, returning to them again and again during the four days he interrogated the young teacher.

  SCHEEPERS: Where did you first hear the phrases Black Power and Black Consciousness?

  NXUMALO: I can’t say. They were in the air.

  SCHEEPERS: Could I put it to you that you heard them from Communist agitators? Men infiltrated here to agitate the unthinking blacks?

  NXUMALO: Blacks do not need Communists to agitate them. Apartheid does that every day.

  SCHEEPERS: But what does the phrase mean—Black Power? Doesn’t this necessitate blacks opposing whites? Like your older rallying cry ‘Africa for the Africans?’

  NXUMALO: There’s nothing subversive about that. You’re a man of Africa. My counsel is a man of Africa. The learned judge—

  BROODRYK: I will assign myself.

  SCHEEPERS: If we are all Africans, why the emphasis on the power of black Africans?

  NXUMALO: As I explained before, our people must develop pride in themselves—Black Consciousness. And if you force me—Black Power. We cannot negotiate with whites from a position of inferiority.

  SCHEEPERS: I see your Black Power only as an agency with which to confront whites and embarrass this government.

  NXUMALO: In the eyes of the civilized world, this government embarrasses itself.

  BROODRYK (sternly): No flippancy, young man.

  NXUMALO: The protests sounding around the world against this trial are not flippant. They are very real, and one day—

  BROODRYK: No revolutionary threats will be tolerated. Mr. Kaplan, advise your client to mind his tongue.

  KAPLAN: Believe me, my Lord, my client utters his words without any coaching from me.

  BROODRYK: I believe you, Counsel, for this court has always found you to be a prudent, loyal and patriotic man. But you must warn your client that he damages his case by engaging in revolutionary threats. This court is not impressed by what happens ‘around the world,’ as he says. For some decades this nation has been endeavoring to act in accordance with God’s dictates and not the yammerings of the discredited World Council of Churches.

  After this resounding statement Judge Broodryk declared recess, during which Saltwood endeavored to talk with Nxumalo. No outsider was permitted to approach the prisoner lest the latter receive coaching, which was what Philip sought to offer
, for he had seen signs that Broodryk wanted to avoid a severe sentence, if only Nxumalo would admit minor guilt and appeal for clemency. He suspected that for arcane reasons of his own Nxumalo would refuse to act humbly; this became evident when the prosecutor attacked him on language.

  SCHEEPERS: May I put it to you, Mr. Nxumalo, that you borrowed your ideas about language from Laura Saltwood? It was her preaching, wasn’t it, that encouraged you to advise your students not to accept any instruction in Afrikaans?

  NXUMALO: With your permission, respected sir, there are two errors in your question.

  SCHEEPERS: And what are they?

  NXUMALO: I gave my advice long before Mrs. Saltwood was banned. And nothing in my advice was antagonistic to Afrikaans. What I said was ‘Learn English first, for it is the language of international communication.’

  SCHEEPERS: But why should a Bantu … Excuse me, m’Lord. Why should a black child whose life is to be spent in South Africa bother with international communication?

  NXUMALO: Because it will be our international associations—I don’t mean international committees, I mean the contacts we establish with people overseas—that will go far in determining the nature of our future government.

  SCHEEPERS: You mean, of course, Communist Russia?

  NXUMALO: I mean the civilized world. We cannot speak to them in Afrikaans, because nobody out in the world understands that language.

  BROODRYK: You seem determined to insult this nation, Mr. Nxumalo. First you ridicule our most sacred holiday. Now you ridicule our language.

  NXUMALO: I said merely the truth. That it is not used anywhere outside this small country.

  BROODRYK: You consider South Africa a small nation? In comparison with Belgium, say?

  NXUMALO: In comparison with Brazil and Indonesia. In comparison to the rest of Africa.

  SCHEEPERS: When you advised your students not to study Afrikaans—

  NXUMALO: I never advised that, sir.

  SCHEEPERS: May I read from a transcript of your speech at Bloemfontein:

  ‘Our program must be to insist that basic instruction be given in English, for then our young people will be able to communicate with the entire world and not only with a few bigoted Afrikaners stuck away in their little corner.’

  Are those not inflammable words, Mr. Nxumalo? Are they not an incitement to the blacks to ignore the laws of this land?

  KAPLAN: Your Worship, I wish you would direct learned Counsel to read the next sentences of his police report.

  SCHEEPERS: I’ve read everything I have, and I assure you that it is—

  KAPLAN: Your Worship, I happen to have the full text, and with your permission may I read a few additional sentences? I think you will find them instructive:

  ‘I want every student to learn Afrikaans, for it is an excellent medium for conducting our affairs in this country. I speak Afrikaans, use it all the time, to my great profit, but when I do speak it I can communicate with less than three million. When I speak English, I communicate with the entire world.’

  SCHEEPERS: Why would a black child in Venloo wish to communicate with the entire world?

  NXUMALO: Because we are citizens of the entire world.

  SCHEEPERS: But repeatedly we find evidence that you call yourself African. Is not your claim—

  NXUMALO: I am a citizen of Venloo, which makes me a citizen of eastern Transvaal. That gives me citizenship in South Africa—

  SCHEEPERS: Not South Africa. You’re Zulu, I believe. You belong to kwaZulu, the Bantustan of the Zulu.

  NXUMALO: I was born at the farm Vrymeer. I have taught in the University of Zululand, but Vrymeer is my home.

  SCHEEPERS: Nevertheless, you are a citizen of kwaZulu and must eventually make your residence there. That is the law.

  NXUMALO: So as a citizen of South Africa—

  SCHEEPERS: M’Lord, I protest this insulting behavior.

  BROODRYK: Let him make his point.

  NXUMALO: As a citizen of South Africa, I automatically become a citizen of Africa the continent, and as a citizen of Africa, I am obligated to behave as a citizen of the world.

  SCHEEPERS: With allegiance to Communist Russia.

  NXUMALO: With allegiance to the total human race. It is because I want to share ideas with them that I advocate the learning of English.

  SCHEEPERS: Then our language is not good enough for you?

  NXUMALO: I speak your language, and it is certainly good enough for communication with Pretoria and Cape Town. But, your Honor, it is not understood in Paris or Madrid or Rio de Janeiro, and on certain occasions we require to speak with them, also.

  As the trial droned on, with only such flimsy evidence as might have been appropriate in a public school if some obstreperous scholar had misbehaved, Saltwood began to realize that in this courtroom the real culprit was never mentioned. Daniel Nxumalo was being prosecuted not for what he had done but because his brother Jonathan in Moçambique was a thorn. Since Prosecutor Scheepers never charged ‘You are guilty, Daniel Nxumalo, because your brother is a revolutionary,’ Philip had to assume that the state had no proof of complicity; and because Judge Broodryk did not thunder ‘We are going to imprison you, Daniel Nxumalo, because we can’t get at your brother,’ Philip supposed that the state wished this aspect of their case to be smothered. But that Daniel was being attacked because of Jonathan, there could be no doubt.

  And that raised a fascinating point, which Philip contemplated many times as the trial progressed: Daniel did receive Jonathan in his house in Venloo. He did conspire with him, in a manner of speaking. Is he not guilty—if one accepts South African law? And when that rhetorical question had to be answered affirmatively, an even more perplexing one presented itself: I was there that night. I was at the clandestine meeting in Soweto. Am I not also guilty of conspiracy? When he first acknowledged this question, he was looking at Judge Broodryk, and it occurred to him with horror that on the facts, the judge would be justified in sentencing him, Philip, to imprisonment. Thus, at unexpected moments, the visitor to South Africa found the realities being driven home, and it was as a condemned man that Saltwood listened to the final two days of a trial in which he had subtly become a co-defendant.

  This sense of unspecified doom intensified when Mr. and Mrs. Frikkie Troxel, accompanied by their cousin Jopie, entered the courtroom to hear the concluding testimony against their neighbor, the son of Moses Nxumalo. Arrival of these two distinguished athletes caused approving smiles, and Judge Broodryk welcomed them to this court. They sat not with Philip but across from him, indicating that they opposed his alien, socialist views, and this allowed him to see their undisguised satisfaction whenever the state made a telling point against the black man who threatened their comfortable way of life. They loved their freedom, those three Troxels, and were prepared to lay down their lives to preserve it, no doubt about it. What they refused to understand was that Daniel Nxumalo might feel the same way about his freedom.

  It was deplorable, Philip thought, that these three fine white people should know so little about the Nxumalo family with whom they had shared their farms; had they reached out to form a partnership with Daniel and his brother Jonathan, they could have built a powerful force, able to lead their section of the country into better understandings and more logical arrangements, but they had remained enemies. Worse, they had remained strangers. Now they listened intently as Nxumalo was interrogated on his politics:

  SCHEEPERS: Let us return to that provocative phrase ‘Black Power.’ Doesn’t that mean black supremacy and the expulsion of whites?

  NXUMALO: You seem to have a complete file on me, Mr. Scheepers. Nowhere in it will you find a word I have ever said advocating the expulsion at any time in the future of all white men. In the society I visualize, you white men will be needed, most urgently needed. Twenty years from now when—

  KAPLAN: I must warn my client against completing that statement.

  BROODRYK: I am most eager to hear what awaits us twenty years
from now.

  NXUMALO: Twenty years from now, when blacks have the vote, not one-man, one-vote, perhaps, but some reasonable concession for the moment, I would expect Prosecutor Scheepers to be serving exactly as he is serving now, and Defense Counsel Kaplan to be defending some business client—

  BROODRYK: And the judge?

  NXUMALO: I would expect the judge in this court to be black. (Laughter)

  BROODRYK: I thought so.

  NXUMALO: By that time, your Honor, you might well be in the Appeal Court, you and three black judges. (More laughter)

  BROODRYK: You, as dictator, would appoint me?

  NXUMALO: A consortium of the people, white and black, would want the best judges they could get.

  BROODRYK: ‘A consortium of the people?’ That’s Communism, isn’t it?

  NXUMALO: No, your Honor, that’s democracy.

  BROODRYK: Sounds more like dictatorship.

  NXUMALO: No, we have a dictatorship now.

  BROODRYK (in towering rage): I cannot allow you to denigrate this government.

  NXUMALO: I meant no offense, your Honor. I was merely speaking the truth. In the great election of 1948 that threw Jan Christian Smuts out of office and brought your party in, that was against the wishes of white people. You might say you engineered a takeover, like the Communists in Czechoslovakia.

  SCHEEPERS: That’s a lie. We won that election fair and square.

  NXUMALO: No, the record must be kept straight. You won seventy-nine seats in Parliament to seventy-one.

  SCHEEPERS: A majority of eight, as I said.

  NXUMALO: But in the popular vote you lost by a substantial majority. Something like six hundred thousand against you and four hundred thousand for. Many white people did not want your brand of government.

  SCHEEPERS: How could that—

  NXUMALO: You know very well. The white vote in this nation is heavily weighted in favor of the farmer, heavily skewed against urban dwellers. A farmer’s vote may count as much as thirty-five percent more than a city dweller’s.

  SCHEEPERS: And rightly so. The virtue of a nation resides in its farmers. The rot that destroys a nation thrives in the cities.