by Andre Brink
It is necessary to say something about my convictions so that there can be no misunderstanding whatsoever. I am an Afrikaner. I’m a Nationalist. I’ve never had any reason to be ashamed of it. On the contrary.
My political memory goes back to May, 1948 when I was seventeen years old, and in Matric. I sat up all night with my parents in front of the radio, the upright old-fashioned Atwater Kent with its cut-out curls and leaves covering the speaker. There were several friends and neighbours with us, all listening to the election results and consuming vast quantities of coffee. When the Standerton result was announced and Jan Smuts lost his seat we all jumped up and down shouting and embracing and stumbling over chairs; and the old carpenter, Oom Hennie, got so excited and jumped so high that he fell right through the worm-eaten floorboards and had to be dragged out by the jubilant crowd. A few days later the whole family was piled into Pa’s old blue ’42 Mercury to drive the seventy-odd miles of dusty corrugated road to Kimberley where the train of the new Prime Minister, Dr Malan, was due to stop on its triumphal journey to Pretoria. For four hours we stood waiting in the blazing sun as the crowd grew larger and larger. All streets and open places near the station were filled with vehicles of every description, from the latest American cars to the horse-drawn carriages and donkey carts of farmers who’d driven for innumerable miles, many of them right through the night, in order to be present when the Doctor arrived. The train, when it came, more than an hour late, didn’t stop for long: barely ten minutes. A mayor weighed down by his glittering chain, and a few other dignitaries escorted the Doctor to the small high platform where the station-master usually stood to catch the passing drivers’ messages. Dr Malan said something – God knows what, I don’t think anybody heard or cared. It was enough to see him there. All the men had taken off their hats, pressing them against their chests; and the women stood up from the food-baskets on which they’d been sitting. In my young mind there was only one comparable image: the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. And looking at some of those old patriarchs with their great beards and their faces stained with tears and tobacco juice, one could well imagine them saying: Lord, now lettest thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.
On our way back home, Pa said: “Well, children, from this day we Afrikaners needn’t go about with hanging heads any more. Now we’re boss in our own country.”
Of course, 1948 belongs to a remote past and much of that exuberant energy has been dissipated. We live in a harder and more urgent world. One can’t remain standing for ever bare-headed in a blazing sun on a station platform. But we’re still here, a quarter of a century later: here where we first arrived three hundred years ago. And we’ve come to stay. I’m not pretending that all that happens around us is good or right; there is much need for change. But to surrender everything to Black hands is to exchange the wind for the whirlwind. Look at the rest of Africa. Look at the world, “free” or otherwise.
My convictions are based on the belief that revolutions, although they change political power, make no difference to the basic lot of people. There will always be those who have and others who have not. And the solution doesn’t lie in sharing your cake equally among all. It sounds good in theory, but if you are conditioned by practical experience as I am, a different picture emerges. People want to compete: it is a basic urge. And as they differ in their capabilities and basic equipment they cannot expect the same reward in the end. The only answer is to make your cake bigger so that each contender can get a bigger share, without expecting all shares to be equal.
How can you add to your cake? Through education and encouragement; by offering a higher reward for more effort you can increase production and reap more profits. And once the Black man has learned to handle this economic system I won’t have any objection to his political advancement either.
So much of the greatly overrated “political consciousness” among Blacks these days is no more than the product of manipulation by Whites. (How can the Black man be expected to suddenly master sophisticated concepts if in all the centuries of his evolution in Africa he failed to even discover the wheel on his own?) The real priority is a combination of strong discipline and as much education as the Black is able to absorb in his development from one stage to the next.
It is not a matter of clinging to power. What is really at stake is the maintenance of values. The peace and prosperity Southern Africa has been enjoying for so long (in contrast with the chaos on the rest of the continent where White patronage was withdrawn with disgusting promptness) must be ascribed to the fact that the Boer conquered the land with a gun in one hand and the Bible in the other. Both are indispensable. By spreading the Gospel values are preserved (democracy, individual achievement, our whole Western Protestant ethic). And we cannot give up the gun before the other man has accepted our values. I must be very emphatic on this point. It concerns our specific set of values and no other. One need only look at Moçambique where an attempt was made to impose another system, to fully appreciate the difference.
I always tend to get carried away when I start on this topic (I’ve addressed so many Rapportryer and other meetings on the subject), but I do regard it as the crux of the matter. That is why my economic philosophy, in all my mining enterprises, is aimed at directing a flow of capital towards the homelands, where the roots lie. That is the place where any raising of living standards should start. Which, in turn, is the only logical way to influence the birth-rate: the man at the bottom of the ladder has got to multiply rabbit-wise, it’s his only security; as soon as he achieves more economic stability his birth-rate drops.
For these reasons I must reject Bernard’s views out of hand. I know many Liberals: it springs from the nature of my work. I even admire some of them. (I’m not referring to those dwellers of Houghton and similar suburbs who are rich enough to allow themselves the luxury of nice liberal gestures while treating their servants worse than any Afrikaner civil servant would.) But to my mind these people are involved in a wholly futile crusade. They are trying to wage a moral war in a world determined by other, economic, forces. And all their efforts can lead to, is a spate of new victims and martyrs. Utterly irrelevant victims, like Bernard, on the periphery of the realities of today.
So I can’t take seriously the accusation of some of my Liberal friends that I’m living off the fat of the land. Whatever I possess, I’ve earned. It is a just reward I’m entitled to in terms of my economic contract with the land: that I’m allowed to take from it what I can; and that, in return, the capital I’ve earned with my know-how and hard work be used to stimulate the economic development of the underprivileged to the point where they can assume greater responsibility for themselves. In this way the country at large benefits from it.
My people and I have come a long way to where we are – I’ll come back to this in due course – and we shall continue to fight for our right to be here, if it is necessary. We know only too well what it means to be powerless and exploited and oppressed in our own country. It’s time we started reaping the fruit of our labour. And I am prepared to make any reasonable change or concession to ensure that I retain what I’ve acquired with so much effort.
This is no mere abstraction. I experience it daily. Sometimes it gives me an almost voluptuous feeling to take off my shoes and walk barefoot on the incredibly thick pile of the carpet in my hotel room. Or to phone down for a light snack at one or two in the morning. Or to contact an agency to send round a masseuse. For however much, through the years, I’ve grown accustomed to these luxuries, nothing can ever obliterate the memories of being a barefoot boy limping to school on cracked footsoles on the frosted earth in winter, or stepping in chicken shit in summer, or breaking my shins in the erosion ditch among the pepper trees. When I nurse my glass of whisky, I remember Granny’s home-made lemon juice on the farm, or opening my mouth to the warm jet of milk straight from the cow’s udder, or making clay oxen to pull our toy cars fashioned out of sardine cans. I
remember ash-cakes and golden syrup, or collecting eggs, or baking a sheep’s head in an antheap; ghost stories, and wanking off behind the shed to see who could shoot the farthest; and Grandpa’s booming voice reading And have not charity at evening prayers, and swimming bare-arsed in the dam on the farm together with all the other Black and White boys of the neighbourhood.
It was in that very dam I came closer to death than I’d ever been in my life until earlier this year: when, one Sunday afternoon, I went in too far trying to retrieve a boat of tin and planks – the others had warned me not to, but I’d paid no attention – and suddenly began to sink into the soft clay, unable to pull loose. I started shouting for help. The others took fright and ran off. By the time the mud was up to my hips I was getting hysterical. And then one boy came back into the water to help me, a Black piccanin, I believe his name was Mpilo but we used to call him Pieletjie, which means Prick, because at the age of twelve or thirteen he already had a penis which, even in its flaccid state, dangled down halfway to his knees. He grabbed hold of me. We nearly went down together into that slimy mud. But in the end he managed to pull me out and I rewarded him with a shilling (although he really wanted my new pocket knife).
All these memories are intimately mine and I can’t deny them. Without them I would not have been me. Even in my dreams they return to me.
It had been planned as “our” weekend. What we really needed was another week like the one in the red bungalow at Ponta do Ouro, but we were both too busy to break away. (In addition to her work at the University she was helping out, as on some previous occasions, with Afrikaans lessons in a Soweto school.) In the circumstances even a brief weekend suggested paradise. Then it became imperative for me to go to the farm before His Excellency, Minister Calitz, could sabotage the deal; so I had to phone her to cancel our plans.
“Is it because of the riots at Westonaria?” she asked.
“No. I’ve got to go to the farm.”
“Your mother ill?”
“No. It’s – on business.”
There followed a long pause before she said: “I see.”
“I’ll tell you all about it later.”
She didn’t reply.
“I’ll be back by Monday night. So I can see you on Tuesday.”
“All right.”
“Why do you sound so negative?”
“I’m not negative. I’m used to taking second place. That’s my ‘role’, isn’t it?”
“Please, Bea.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to – I suppose if you’ve really got to go there’s nothing else to be said.”
She was in her flat in the dilapidated old block in Berea, sheltered from the narrow uphill street by a row of jacarandas. She would be standing by the window. I could almost visualise her, with her back turned to me. The inclination of her neck, the narrow shoulders and hips, long legs; barefoot, most likely. In those familiar surroundings her eyes would not need the protection of the sunglasses. The “woman of thirty”, with all the experience of winters and summers; all the superfluities of adolescence and spring stripped away; no need for deviation or illusion, unashamed about the sincerity of either desire or disgust. Essentially naked, exposed to light and pain, no longer prepared to betray others or fool herself. Yet it is remarkable how vulnerable a woman like that can also be. Not the vulnerability of youth or virginity, but exposed more uncompromisingly to loss; no longer bending, but prepared to splinter or to break. Every scar bare and hard and clear. (Look: I am prepared to suffer, I am suffering, I don’t mind. What else is there? For I’m alive. I am delivered to life. Yet I’m at no one’s ready disposal.)
“I’m terribly sorry, Bea,” I insisted. “You know how much I’ve been looking forward to this weekend. But we can always do it later. Next week. Any time. We’re not bound to anything.”
“Of course.” Her voice sounded flat and tired. And I could imagine the stubborn line of her shoulders against the window: Why don’t you ring off, for God’s sake? Don’t try to be “kind” or “considerate” to me.
“Please, Bea, you must believe me.”
“I told you it didn’t matter.”
“But I can hear you’re upset.” I moved the telephone to my right hand. “Tell me what’s the matter.”
A short silence, as if she first had to draw her breath. “There’s something I must discuss with you. But not on the telephone.”
“I’ll see you on Tuesday.”
“I know. It’s just – It seemed rather urgent, but I suppose it can wait. Anything can wait.”
“Look after yourself. It’s only a few days.”
Suddenly, abandoning her restraint, she asked: “Martin, is it really quite impossible to postpone this farm business just for one week? I must see you.”
“But I told you.”
“Oh well, if it’s out of the question.” Adding in a smothered tone, as if she didn’t mean me to hear it: “Oh, God.”
“Goodbye, Bea. See you Tuesday.”
She rang off.
One remembers every word of such a conversation. Because it was our last.
There’s this dam with a water-lily in the centre growing all the time. I want to wade in to pick it for Bea who stands waiting on the other side. But the moment I touch the stem, my feet are caught in quicksand. Out of the corner of my eye I can see a black shadow hovering on the edge. It must be Mpilo, but he looks like Charlie. “Help me!” I scream. “Help me, I’m sinking!” But he stands there with his arms crossed, watching me sink into the muddy water until I drown. Of course, it’s only a dream.
FRIDAY
1
A WHOLE SWARM of gnats plastered on the windscreen. I’m starting there again, because for some reason or other it remains important to me. In itself there was nothing unusual about it: it often happens on a long trip, especially before the rains. Suddenly that cloud of whirring wings and their greasy, greenish, yellowish smudge on the windscreen, speckled with blood. And when I switched on the wipers and pressed the button for the windscreen washer nothing happened. That was the real reason for my dismay. One simply does not expect it of a 350-SE. I know some people have questionable motives for acquiring a Mercedes, but I chose it because I was prepared to pay a lot of money for this form of security, this promise of technical perfection, this aesthetic satisfaction. Now, unexpectedly, a minor mechanism like the wipers refused to function, casting doubt on everything I normally took for granted on a journey. If the wipers wouldn’t work, anything else might fail me. (Even the pistol in the cubby-hole, which accompanied me on all my trips. Suppose one day I needed it?) That wasn’t what I’d paid for. Moreover, it reminded me all too ominously of the afternoon, three months before, with Bea: the day we’d met at the hole and gone to my apartment; the day the body, another of those mechanisms one relies on without questioning, had proved its fallibility. And now those gnats, on the dreary stretch of road after Theunissen. Who’d predicted that if man were to disappear from the earth the insects would take over?
It was very likely that the defect had been caused by the garage who’d replaced the windscreen shattered at Westonaria, a memory I would have preferred not to recall. Like others. But having started I must now go on.
To forget and get away from it all: in the confusion of the preceding days that had become the overriding motivation of the weekend, for which I yearned like a farmer for rain in a time of drought. (And it was a time of drought. All the way we travelled the land was reduced to dust and bareness and dry winter grass.) I’d sent a telegram to Ma, announcing my arrival on Friday night, but without giving any details, the matter being much too delicate to discuss on the telephone, especially a party line like hers. I had to see her personally to persuade her of the necessity of the sale. That was the essential reason for the whole excursion, and without it nothing else could have happened. Still, whenever during that last week I’d thought about it my main consideration had not been the sale but simply the opportunity to escape from the tens
ions accumulating around me: Louis, Bea, the unrest at the mines, Bernard’s trial. He is the first I must deal with so that I can finally be free from him.
I’d hoped to escape from the courtroom, but I took it with me all the way. The panelling behind the bench under the high canopy, the red leather upholstery of the seats, the long tables protected by ornamental rails, the threadbare brown carpet and the grey curtains on the side walls, the two yellow sky-lights in the ceiling, the three-bladed fan suspended from a rod which swayed precariously when it was operated, the large chandelier with floral shades covering the dusty bulbs. (There had been an identical lampshade in my room when I’d been a child. I can remember the sound it made when I knocked against it, the night I struggled upright in a daze to grope for water; and the doctor ran into the room, then stopped to turn back to my parents and announced: “You can relax now, he’s pulled through.”) And Bernard in the dock, taking a full day to recite his prepared statement: I took away a copy in my briefcase. For some reason I’ve never got round to re-reading it or destroying it and I still have it with me as I’m writing this. It lies on the fake Queen Anne table beside me.
When a man is on trial for his political beliefs and actions, two courses are open to him. He can either confess to his transgressions and plead for mercy or he can justify his beliefs and explain why he acted as he did. Were I to ask forgiveness today I would betray my cause and my convictions, for I believe that what I did was right.
I accept the general rule that for the protection of a society laws should be obeyed. But when laws themselves become immoral and require the citizen to take part in an organised system of oppression – if only by his silence or his apathy – then I believe a higher duty arises. This compels one to refuse to recognise such laws. My conscience does not permit me to afford them even such recognition as a plea of guilty would imply. Hence, though I shall be convicted by this Court, I cannot plead guilty. Neither will I offer mitigatingcircumstances or ask for clemency when the moment arrives. This I do in the firm belief that the future, and history itself, will vindicate me.
