by Andre Brink
I didn’t answer.
“You know, those few holidays I spent with Bernard in the Cape,” he said pensively, staring at the coals. “I mean, before it all happened. We often went for long walks together. One weekend he took me to the Cedar Berg. With two old Coloured guides and pack-donkeys.” A pause. Perhaps he didn’t even realise he was talking to me. “Or else we explored the Cape. The Mountain. Along the beaches. All over.”
“I suppose he would have made a better father for you than I,” I said, unable to keep the edge out of my voice.
“Aren’t you going to do anything, Dad?” he asked.
“About what?”
“To try and help him. A man with your influence —”
“He’s already been sentenced.”
“Even so.”
“It’s out of the question.”
“You’ve been friends for so many years.”
“He forfeited that friendship.”
Leisurely picking up a fire-iron he started poking the coals, sending a spray of sparks up into the chimney. He looked up at me again. “Didn’t he ever try to get in touch with you while he was underground?”
I could feel the blood flowing from my face. “Of course not,” I said hastily.
“Strange.”
“What’s so strange about it? Why should he have tried to contact me?”
“I just wondered.”
A terrible suspicion stirred in me.
“Louis, did you see him during that time?”
“I was in the training camp. And then in Angola.”
“But after you came back. He wasn’t arrested before the end of February.”
His back was stiff with silent resistance.
“I know he felt very close to you, Louis. It meant a lot to him to have you as his godson.”
He didn’t move. And in that instant I knew. And in a surge of bitterness and anger I thought: This I won’t forgive you, Bernard. It’s all right that you expected me to risk my life for you. But not that you tried to draw my son into it. Not that. He was mine.
“I got a note from him,” he said, restrained. “It wasn’t signed, but from the things he wrote I had no doubt it was him. He asked me to meet him in town the following Monday morning. He gave me an address. A shop.”
“And you went?”
“Yes. But he wasn’t there. After waiting for nearly an hour I went away. Then an old woman stopped me. She’d been standing there distributing tracts. At first I didn’t want to take one. Then she whispered without even looking at me: ‘Love from Bernard.’ And she pushed a pamphlet into my hand and walked off. There was a message written in the margin. In his handwriting. Giving me a new address for the afternoon.”
“And when you got there the old woman was there again, I presume?”
He looked up quickly. “How do you know?”
Too late I realised I might have given myself away. But I tried to be nonchalant: “It was said in the papers and in court that he’d disguised himself as an old woman.”
For a long time he sat scrutinising me closely but in silence. Then he looked away again. “Of course,” he said. Was there disappointment in his voice?
“And then he spoke to you?” I urged.
“He took me through a narrow passage next to the shop where I’d been asked to meet him. In Diagonal Street.”
(Of course.)
“We went round to the back of the building. There was a car waiting.”
“What did he have to say?” I demanded, conscious of breathing more rapidly.
“He just talked. Asked me about Angola and so on.”
“He must have said more than that! I’ve got to know, Louis.”
“I can’t remember.” His pretence of blunt ignorance was getting on my nerves. “All I could make out was that things were getting rather too hot for him. I tried to persuade him to go overseas, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Then I told him to go to you. I was convinced you’d be able to help him.” After a long pause he looked up at me again: “Are you sure he never contacted you?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“He was arrested before the end of the week.”
It was obvious that I wouldn’t get anything more out of him. And I knew there was more to it. They must have arranged something, planned something. A shiver ran down my spine: suppose they’d picked Louis up too! What a close shave. And what would have happened to me then?
“You’ve got to try something, Dad,” he said again, even more passionately than before. “You know all the Ministers; there must be someone who can help him. To sit there for life – that’s worse than a death sentence. Especially for a man like Bernard. The judge said he wanted to be merciful: but a life sentence was the worst they could have done to him. And they bloody well knew it.”
“Now you want me to intervene,” I said, restrained but angry. “All this time you’ve never even spoken to me. And ever since you started talking about Angola this morning you’ve been attacking me on every possible score. Now you expect me to help you!”
“It’s not you I’m attacking, Dad.” He was having difficulty in restraining his emotion. “Jesus, don’t you understand? I’m trying to – just to reach you, to get through to you. I don’t want to insult you or destroy anything. It’s just that I can’t go on like this any more. I’m looking for something. Can’t you see I’m desperate? I’m looking for a father I can respect.”
It was very quiet in the room. All the lamps were out; only the fire was burning, crouched low over the coals. Light flickered on his face. His eyes were in shadows.
I couldn’t bear to look at him any more. The moment was too naked and too raw.
“All right,” I said with a dry throat. “I’ll try.” Even as I said it I had no idea of how to set about it. All I knew was that I couldn’t reject him again. I couldn’t seal up this exposure, however unbearable it was. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“You promise?”
I was looking down at my hands. They were trembling.
“Yes, I promise. But I don’t know what makes you think I can succeed.”
“As long as you try.” The shadows were jumping on the wall. “Sometimes one can do something, change something. But if you let it go by, you don’t get another chance.”
“What do you know of such things? You’re so young.”
“I’m not. I know all right.” In the oppressive silence his voice came in a near whisper. “It happened in Angola. The Cubans were falling back. We were following hard on their heels. They tried to stop us by blowing up bridges and mining the road. In those swamps we were forced to stick to the main route. Sometimes we had to drive back sixty kilometres to fell trees for new bridges. At last our company managed to bypass the enemy on a side track, while the rest kept to the main road. It was hell, I can tell you. Days on end with mud up to your arse. Raining non-stop. At night we had to keep going in the pitch dark, because we couldn’t risk being seen with lights. Until we got to where our commander wanted us: a small river ideal for an ambush. The withdrawing Cubans would walk right into it.”
“Did it work out that way?” I asked when he fell silent.
He nodded. “Yes, in the end it did. But just before it happened, it seemed as if we’d had it.”
“What happened?”
“We were lying in our trenches waiting for them. They weren’t more than half an hour off. Then a boy came walking towards us in the road, a little cow-herd or something, all on his own. Whistling. Unaware of anything.”
“And then, Louis?” I had to draw every sentence from him now, it seemed.
“We knew that if he stepped on a mine, it would be all over. All those days trekking in the mud would have been in vain, for the Cubans would be warned.”
“So you had to stop him?”
“Ja. Not only stop him. Silence him altogether.”
I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear more. But after a long silence I asked: “What did you do?”
; His black figure, outlined against the glowing coals, did not stir.
“Two chaps stalked him and jumped on him. And then drowned him in the river.”
My jaws were taut. There was a bitter taste in my mouth.
“They said it was all we could do. It was either him or the lot of us.”
I asked: “And you?”
“I did nothing to stop them. Perhaps it would have been useless even if I’d tried. I had no authority or anything. But perhaps. Perhaps if only one of us had protested they would have tried to think of another way. But no one did. Including myself.”
Later Louis, too, went to bed. I remained behind with the dying coals.
Perhaps, having written it all down, I understand it better now. In me, too, there is an abyss between the man I once was and the man I am. The transition cannot be traced to any single episode in one’s life. Not even to the day I used the confidential information to obtain for myself the options intended for Anglo-American. It is, rather, a very slow process, imperceptible even to oneself. One day you simply look up to discover that the world has changed; that you yourself have changed; and all that remains is for you to acknowledge that change, since the choice has been taken out of your hands.
Perhaps there is a similar transition from a state of innocence to a state of guilt in historical processes. (Would Dad have agreed?) Somewhere in history there comes a day when, for the first time, a territory is annexed, not because land is necessary but because a nation has grown addicted to the idea of expansion as such. There comes a day when, for the first time, violence is used not because it is unavoidable but because it is easier. There comes a day when, for the first time, a leader is allowed to promote his own interests simply because he happens to be the leader. There comes a day when, for the first time, the weak one is exploited, not in ignorance but because he cannot offer resistance. There comes a day when, for the first time, a verdict in a court case is given, not on the basis of what is right but on the basis of what is expedient. And so on.
But this is, essentially, a romantic argument. I shouldn’t allow the memory of my consternation, that afternoon, to impair my judgement. One must be rational and sensible. There is no point in praising innocence. Is innocence, as such, conceivable? Even as a child, on the farm, I was heir to an entire history of violence, revolt, and blood. In the historically extreme situation like ours there is only total complicity.
In physics, one is taught that heat is a positive phenomenon existing in its own right. The opposite, cold, does not exist as such: it implies merely the absence of heat, and cannot be defined except in terms of heat. I should like to propose that the same applies to innocence.
It is not a positive or real phenomenon, but simply the denial of the real phenomenon, guilt. It is part of our social foundation, part of our Christian tradition, that we are guilty by definition. Our dimension is that of guilt. The opposite, i.e. innocence, is an un-condition, an absence, a negative, a denial.
Bernard?
Perhaps that was what blinded me. The discovery that there do seem to be people in this world existing beyond moral considerations, in the way that fire or water is neither guilty nor innocent. My experience in the kloof that afternoon had nothing to do with good or evil, guilt or innocence: it was simply my subjective reaction to it which was different in the end from what it had been in the beginning. I must maintain my perspective at all costs. The world is neutral. And that is reassuring.
The wind came up again, in loose, irregular gusts, causing the chimney hood to grind and screech as it turned. I decided to go to bed. There was, as Ma had said, a long day ahead. And there was a long day behind me too. I had briefly lost my grip. Incomprehensible things had happened to me, and I had acted in ways inexplicable to myself. I was no longer sure of who I was. And so I could not exclude anything of what had happened or of what was still waiting to happen.
MONDAY
1
IT IS BECOMING impossible. Bea. What can I really say about her now that, at last, I’ve come as far as this? Out of reach. Even on paper. But I’ve got to. Sucked into the vortex of myself. All the unnecessary, irrelevant things I’ve written down. Everything I would have preferred to leave unremembered. But what else is there left to do?
Deliberately didn’t write a word all day. Resolved to stop. But I know it’s impossible before I’ve gone back all the way, retracing it to the end. However dangerous it may be; and I now know it is.
Attempted to play the tourist. Not even that: just tried to return to whatever I’d known in London before, when I’d lived here. Bus to Lambeth (that, too, was deliberate, in search of a reality I’d known and lost; otherwise I would have gone by taxi). Looking for the house in which I’d met Welcome Nyaluza that night. The party. Couldn’t find it; perhaps it no longer exists. It’s twenty years.
The basement flat in Islington where Elise and I’d lived was still there. Dilapidated then; now chichi. I walked past without knocking. Didn’t even stop to look properly. Feeling foolish, really, for the very act of going back had been unlike me. Just like this writing.
A couple of museums afterwards. The V & A, the British, the Tate. But they bored me. Bought a ticket for a night club tonight, but turned back at the door. Strolled through Soho for an hour, then returned to my hotel, irritable and cold; withdrawing into this now familiar room with blue-grey carpets and old-gold curtains and spreads.
Nothing of interest on TV. I phoned an agency and asked for a masseuse to be sent round, hoping that would help me to relax sufficiently to sleep; waiting for her, I had a bath and put on my gown. Eurasian girl. Arriving breathless, nearly trapped by the security guards. After the formality of the straight massage I asked her to undress for the rest, but when she returned from the bathroom and kneeled naked on the bed beside me, I told her to go. Terribly flustered, poor girl. Thought I was dissatisfied with her. Smiled, though, when she saw the notes I’d thrust into her hand. After she’d gone I regretted it, of course. I simply don’t understand myself any more.
But now I must pull myself together and get on with this. Tomorrow afternoon my plane leaves for Tokyo. I can’t care less, really. But it means my existence in limbo is drawing to an end and I must finish this. I’ve gone too far to stop.
Only, I’ll have to be more careful. In the previous section I became much too emotionally involved a couple of times. Watch out. In the final analysis it’s still up to me to decide what I want to write and how to organise it. “When one loves,” said Bea, “one forgets about oneself. You no longer want to be yourself or know who you are.” But self-destruction is foreign to my nature. What matters is to survive, survive. To survive even the apocalypse.
2
“ALL RIGHT, THEN.” Ma said. “If there’s really no alternative, then go ahead and sell. I won’t stand in your way.”
“You must realise it’s the best for all of us. For you too. And even more so after this murder business.”
“I said it was all right, didn’t I? Who are you trying to convince then?”
“But I can see your heart isn’t in it.”
“I never said it was. All I said was I wouldn’t stand in your way.”
“You’ll enjoy staying with us, Ma. To relax a bit and stop going all-out all day long.”
She sat drinking her morning coffee in silence. The lamp was burning. Outside the dawn was still sluggish and slow.
“It won’t take long for you to make friends. You already know Aunt Rienie, don’t you? – the old lady I stayed with in Stellenbosch. She’s always looking for company. Lovely person.”
“What about my dogs?” she asked, interrupting.
“Oh, we’ll see.” Avoiding her eyes I looked down, watching the light rippling on the surface of my coffee.
The wind was tugging irritably at the windows. A few times in the night it had died down, but now it was blowing again; the light was slow in coming, the weather inclement.
“I want you to know how grateful I am, M
a. I knew I could rely on you.”
“You’ve known all your life you could rely on everyone else to let you have your way.”
“Now you’re being very unfair.”
“I’m not blaming you, sonny. I suppose you can’t help it, really. And perhaps it’s a good thing for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean: perhaps it was necessary for our history to take the course it did to produce a man like you. Otherwise we might have gone under.”
“I wish you would understand.”
“Sometimes I think I understand you better than you understand yourself, sonny.”
“You’re just feeling morbid so early in the morning.”
“Some more coffee?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“Kristina!”
Shuffling on her thick bare soles the old Black woman entered.
“Some more coffee, Kristina.”
“Yes, Madam.”
After she’d gone, Ma sighed: “Poor old Kristina. What’s going to become of her now?”
“They’ll stay on the farm even if it’s sold.”
“Part of the livestock, you mean?”
“They’ll be all right, Ma. And once the Ciskei becomes independent, they’ll all be free in their own country.”
“And we’ll all die of freedom in our own country,” she said morosely.
I decided it was better to leave her alone while she was in that mood.
“Just listen to that wind,” I said deliberately.
“Weather’s changing,” she said. “There’s something brewing.”
Something brewing: that had been the tone of the week in Ponta do Ouro, the most complete escape Bea and I had ever effected. A brief moment of paradise, remote from the world; and yet all the time there’d been a suggestion of ineffable threatening events all around us. Perhaps that was why I have always thought of that week as emblematic of our entire relationship; whenever I think of the two of us, that is the first memory to return.
I’d gone to what was then Lourenço Marques to negotiate a contract with a Moçambique mining concern. Afterwards, I was to accompany a group of Portuguese businessmen to Beira in connection with another deal I’d had lined up. But the leader of the group had fallen ill and the trip had to be cancelled. Instead of returning to South Africa I’d sent a cable to Bea, including money for an air ticket, asking her to join me the following day. Of course, I had taken a risk in sending the cable – but after the few months our relationship had been under way, I felt confident enough to take it. Even if I say so myself, I know I have a way with women; and I know that, deep down, they yearn for the sort of domination suggested by that cable which left her no choice.
