by Andre Brink
“When?” she asked.
“I’m too tired to remember,” I said. But after a while, pushing myself up on my elbows, I asked: “Elise, haven’t you ever had any regrets?”
“About what?”
“I mean about long ago – that you and I – that Bernard hadn’t —”
“I married you, didn’t I? That’s all there is to it.”
Long after she’d gone to sleep I was still lying wide-awake. There wasn’t the slightest sound anywhere in the house. I could hear her breathing. I thought of Marlene, nestling against me and nearly drifting off to sleep in my arms, mumbling funny, incoherent things when I’d tried to wake her up. The strange panic I feel when a woman holds on to me like that, all her dampness and her warmth imposed on me.
And once again I saw Bernard and Elise as I’d seen them from the door, in their unbearable isolation, surrounded by music. The expression on his face as he’d looked down at her. How would one describe it? – tenderness, gentleness? It was something else. A suggestion that he cared, that it mattered to him, that he was involved. For a moment I almost wished I could feel jealous; I tried to imagine wild, banal scenes, but found it beyond my reach. Not because I was exhausted by Marlene: just because I felt untouched by it, completely unconcerned. Perhaps I even felt relieved. Surely it was the best and the most dignified for all of us in the circumstances.
We’d all of us chosen freely, years ago. That free choice which Bernard regarded so highly. If they had made a mistake, they couldn’t blame me for it. I’d never stopped them. No one could point a finger at me.
The next afternoon Bernard announced that he’d found a place to stay in town, which he felt would be more comfortable for all of us.
6
IN THE DARK, as we drove over the high metal bridge at Aliwal, the river was invisible below us. Or whatever would be left of a river in that drought – probably only a series of muddy pools, green with slime among the sandbanks and stretches of rock and piles of driftwood below the tall eroded banks. But twenty years before, when Bernard and I had set out from there with our rucksacks and our canoes on the three hundred or so miles downstream to the Aughrabies Falls, the river had been swollen and swift, overflowing its banks for miles on end. I suppose it was asking for trouble, in a way it was defying death; but the impact of what we discovered on that trip remains with me to this day, undiminished after all these years. The lean, brown, sinewy back in the canoe ahead of me, speeding into the rapids, the white waves splashing over his blonde head; the canoe going into a slow deadly spin approaching the core of the whirlpool; the sausages we roasted and ate in silence afterwards. The sort of experience no philosophy can grasp or express: one can only live through it and carry the me nory with one, deeper than consciousness or conscience.
In a depressing, seedy café Louis and I sat down and ordered something to eat. Outside, greasy papers were blown about in the dusty wind. A lean dog trying to steal into the café was scared off by the Portuguese behind the counter, interrupting for a moment a raging argument with his wife who bustled about in the kitchen on her slippered feet, warming up our stale pies and chips. In the background, Springbok Radio was belching and bellowing out an interminable series of “hits” accompanied by inane comment, while Louis sat opposite me keeping time with the music by tapping his fork on the side of a ketchup bottle.
“Grandma will have something ready for us when we get to the farm,” I said aimlessly.
“What sort of food do they give one in jail?” he asked without warning.
“How should I know?” I tried to be light-hearted, but it merely sounded fatuous: “I’ve never been inside yet.”
“How long is a life sentence really?” he asked.
“Exactly what it says: for however long you manage to keep alive.”
“Will they send him to Robben Island?”
“I don’t think so. As far as I know that’s only for Blacks.”
“They used to send lunatics there, didn’t they? And lepers.”
“What are you driving at?” I asked, annoyed.
“Nothing.”
The café owner went on shouting what sounded like abuse, without moving his heavy torso propped up on his elbows on the counter; from the kitchen his wife shouted back; and all the time the radio went on playing at full volume on a shelf stacked with dusty chocolate boxes and cigarettes. Opposite the counter was a rickety construction with piles of magazines and newspapers, pockets of oranges, cabbages, cold drink boxes. The top shelf sported an assortment of decorated ashtrays, tiny three-legged copper pots, slabs of wood painted with aloes and huts, lamps made of antelope horns, and toys: cars and plastic balls and a few dolls, of the naked boy and girl variety, strips of plaster covering their “parts” in order not give offence to up-country customers.
“Why didn’t you go down to see him after the sentence?” asked Louis. “I’m sure they would have allowed it.”
“How do you know I was there?”
“I was there too,” he said calmly.
“You?”
“I went every day.”
“I never noticed you.”
“You weren’t looking at anybody.”
“But you never told us.”
“You never asked.”
Automatically I thrust my hand in my pocket for my cigarettes, forgetting for a moment that I’d given up smoking. Doctor’s orders.
“I can’t understand why you went,” I said.
“He’s my godfather.”
I remembered how Bernard had flown up to Johannesburg for the christening. So much trouble for something so unremarkable. But he’d taken his godfatherhood incredibly seriously. To him it had been of the greatest consequence, no mere formality.
“Suppose I never get married,” he’d said, “then this ugly little bastard who looks just like his father may be the only child I’ll ever have some sort of say over. Just you try to mess him up and see what happens!”
“Don’t worry,” I’d said playfully. “We’ll raise him in the fear of the Lord.”
“That’s exactly what I’m scared of.”
The woman appeared from the kitchen carrying our two plates in her hands, and left them on the counter for her sullen husband to serve us. As he moved about rearranging everything on our table, enveloping us in a strong smell of stale perspiration, I tried to break the uncomfortable silence by asking:
“Is the river empty at the moment?”
“Pardon?”
“Is there water in the river at the moment?”
He gave me a blank stare. “Yes, very good,” he said and went off to the kitchen where a new row erupted.
“Why did you ask him about the river?” Louis looked at me in surprise.
“No reason, really.” With a strange feeling of embarrassment I salted my unappetising chips. He seemed to be waiting for an answer. I shrugged. “Years ago,” I said, “before you were born, Uncle Bernard and I” – I stressed the Uncle – “took to the river here at Aliwal in two canoes. All the way down to Upington and beyond.”
There had been something timeless about the voyage along that stretch of water between high banks, through a barren landscape untouched by man. Occasionally we’d passed the patchwork patterns of irrigated lands, but even those had appeared temporary, a coincidence which might be swept away by a mere shrug of nature. As we went on it became still more desolate, a vast bare expanse in which everything was reduced to the mere elements of earth and water and fire and air, and nothing besides – until at last, after Upington, one reached the fertile Old Testament valleys of Keimoes and Kakamas.
It was somewhere in that arid, empty region that, in a moment of folly and recklessness, I managed to get my canoe capsized in the rapids, losing all our provisions in the process. In the deep, swift, muddy water it was out of the question to try and retrieve anything.
“What are we going to do now?” I asked, panting, when I finally dragged my canoe out on the bank. “We’ve lost
all our food.”
“You lost it,” he said smugly. “So you’d better find a solution.”
“We’re bound to reach a farm or a village farther on.”
Suddenly he had one of his enthusiastic, if suspect, brainwaves.
“Perhaps it’s a good thing it happened,” he said, reflecting. “Now we can try to make do without all the easy remedies of civilised life. Let’s see if we can survive on our own.”
“We’re too old for Boy Scout games,” I said.
“It’s no game, I assure you,” he said. It was clear that he’d made up his mind. “It’s self-preservation. We’re getting much too soft, relying on all sorts of extraneous things to survive. This is our chance of finding out whether we can really survive as men.”
We survived the rest of that day on no food at all. We even managed to struggle halfway through the following day. But by then it wasn’t funny any more. On a few excruciating expeditions into the thirstland we found some melon-like objects, but we were too scared to try them in case they were poisonous. All we had to eat was some honey, when, armed with smoking branches, we robbed a bees’ nest, collecting scores of stings. To crown it all, we both got sick of the honey. Which wasn’t altogether my idea of a Return to the Good Earth. Hunger and stomach cramps soon got the better of all philosophy. Consequently, when at last we saw a farm in the distance on the afternoon of the second day, we steered to the bank and, without any discussion, headed for the greenery. On our way to the farmhouse we came upon some grazing cows. And, once again inspired by the concept of Harmony and Nature, Bernard approached the nearest animal, a vicious-looking creature with long horns and an udder like that of a pin-up. Quoting Gandhi’s immortal reference to the cow as “a poem of mercy”, and coaxing her with gentle words, he crept right up to the cow. But as he went down on his knees beside her, she made a fierce, sweeping attack with her horns, missing him by inches, and went galloping off. Grimly determined not to be outwitted by a mere animal, Bernard followed in pursuit and managed to grab her by the tail. Whereupon the recently praised poem of mercy started bucking and cavorting, covering his arm, from shoulder to wrist, in shit.
On the far side of a cluster of bluegum trees we noticed something which looked like a dam, and headed for it. I didn’t dare say a word; and Bernard was unusually quiet, too, as he walked on, his arm bent away from his body at an odd angle, as if he’d tried to fly and then changed his mind.
After he’d washed himself, we set out for the farmstead again in a rather more optimistic mood. If it hadn’t been for a watermelon patch between us and the yard, the farmer might have welcomed us with a show of hospitality. But by that time we were so hungry that we stopped to pick a watermelon on the way. And while we were greedily gulping down the sweet red watery chunks, the farmer suddenly bellowed at us from a stone wall near-by, a gun in his hand.
As we reached the fringe of the orchard on the river side of the watermelon patch, we heard the first shot, followed by two more; but by that time we were out of reach among the trees. And long before the farmer could come down to the river – if he’d been interested in pursuing us at all – our canoes had rounded the first bend.
Late that afternoon, ashen with hunger and fatigue, we reached Upington and went to the nearest café for a meal. I was only too grateful that the whole episode had ended without mishap, but Bernard had no intention of leaving the matter at that.
“My God,” he said, halfway through his mixed grill, “one can’t just go about shooting people like that!”
“This is the Wild West, didn’t you know?”
“I’m going to get even with that farmer.”
“The first thing you lawyers can think about is running to court.”
“Who said a word about court?” asked Bernard. And as the meal progressed and he grew more relaxed, he started improvising. By the time he was having his second parfait, in hideous shades of pink and green, he’d already coaxed the attractive but tarty waitress from behind the counter to join us. (There was nobody else in the café at that hour; not even the owner.) She was a farm girl who’d come to town in search of adventure, and had obviously gained too much experience too soon; under her flimsy cotton dress she smelled of Lifebuoy soap and eau-de-Cologne. Bernard chatted her up until she was like clay in his hands, divulging whatever he wanted to know: that the man who’d shot at us was Gawie Groenewald, one of the more prosperous, if also more “difficult”, farmers in the district, secretary of the local branch of the National Party, etc.
When Bernard Franken was on the offensive – whether in a court case or in more secular affairs like the present – he left no stone unturned in his efforts to gather whatever might be relevant to his cause. Once he felt sure he had the situation in hand, he got permission from the girl to use the café telephone, and asked for Uncle Gawie’s number.
“Mr Groenewald?” we heard him say after a while. “This is the Upington Police Station. Yes, good day. Mr Groenewald, I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news for you. Did you by any chance fire shots at somebody on your farm earlier today?” A longish pause. “No, no, Mr Groenewald, that I really don’t know. All I know is that man has just brought a corpse in to us. Pardon? Yes, two gunshot wounds. Yes. That’s right. No, we’ll have to wait for the doctor’s report. But in the meantime there’s a charge of murder against you.” Another pause, even longer than the first. “Yes, Mr Groenewald. Yes, I appreciate that. But you must realise it’s very serious indeed. So if you would be so kind as to come in to the station as soon as you can —” A pause. “Yes, it would be wise to bring some clothes with you. We’ll probably have to keep you here over the weekend. All right then, Mr Groenewald. See you.”
Was Uncle Gawie Groenewald still alive? Sitting in the dingy little café in Aliwal, I wondered what his reaction would be if he discovered that the man so much in the news lately was the same fellow who’d given him the fright of his life all those years ago. Would he realise that it had arisen from the same source of energy, only channelled in a different direction? How could he ever hope to understand the Bernard who’d made the long statement from the dock?
There has always, since the early days of slavery, been racial discrimination in South Africa. I suppose, at the beginning, when people enjoying a more advanced civilisation came into contact and intermingled with those not so fortunate, this was inevitable. Today we know, from experience in other parts of the world, that it is possible to grow away from such a situation, through a process of “civilisation” and a sharing of privileges, provided those in power are prepared to devote sufficient resources to it and to make sacrifices for it.
But in South Africa the White rulers hesitated for 150 years, before they finally chose a road which led in an entirely opposite direction. To preserve “civilisation” one would think it prudent to spread it as rapidly as possible. Instead, our rulers elected as far as possible to retain it as a White monopoly. Deliberately we chose the path of “segregation” which, whatever changing appellations we may give to it, is a policy intended to keep the Blacks in a state of permanent inferiority and subjection, which is a political strategy based on economic considerations.
Inevitably this has led to a strong and ever-growing movement for the liberation of Blacks, which is obvious to anyone whose vision is not totally obscured by the myopia of the White South African, and which is supported not only by the whole of Africa but by virtually the whole membership of the United Nations, both West and East. However powerful South Africa may be in military or economic terms (and recent events have proved the country to be more vulnerable than had been wishfully thought before), the present minority group cannot maintain its position of absolute power indefinitely in the face of the natural historic development of the country’s own inhabitants. The sole questions for the future of all of us therefore are not whether a Black majority will take over or when it will happen, but only:
(a) whether the change can be brought about peacefully and without bloodshed; a
nd
(b) what the position of the White man is going to be in the new dispensation, after the years of discrimination and oppression and humiliation which he has imposed on the Black peoples of this country.
In both respects the Afrikaner finds himself in a decisive role. It is he who is in power; which means that it is he who is blamed for the evils and the humiliation of apartheid. But it also means that he is in a position to negotiate a peaceful changeover, provided he is really sincere about it; he can eradicate such wrongs as may later give rise to a justified call for vengeance. In this situation it has become imperative for me to act as an Afrikaner.
In the present struggle the Black man in South Africa finds himself in a remarkable position. If it is true that it is essentially a struggle for freedom – not merely freedom from political or economic exploitation, but the freedom to choose for oneself – then it should be seen in the context of those situations in which it becomes possible for some people to discover that their personal choice coincides of necessity with historical inevitability. The slave who, in the USA in the Nineteenth Century, became conscious of his situation, had no option but to make the choice he made: and yet there was no coercion involved, he made his choice freely and proudly, and accepted full responsibility for it. The same applies to the Jew revolting against the Nazis in the Second World War. And this situation obtains in South Africa today where the Black man is concerned. It has become part of his normal human condition to find himself in revolt against his White oppressor: and from this very necessity the freedom of his choice is born. All that remains to be done is to prove publicly that freedom which he has already discovered for himself.
As a White, as an Afrikaner, linked through the colour of my skin, and through my culture and my language, to that group which is in power in this country, my choice is different. I am free to reap the fruit of my White superiority while it lasts. Or I may choose to do nothing at all. But a third course is open to me. And as a thinking and feeling man my only freedom today lies in renouncing, for the freedom of others, everything I might otherwise lay claim to, not through any merit on my part, but through the condition of my birth – which is the epitome of bondage. No man is so completely oppressed by the oppressor as himself.
