Читать книгу Roots of Outrage - John Davis Gordon - Страница 14

Beyond the poor-white houses of Umtata, beyond the Coloureds’ area, where the grand house of Mr Gandhi stood out like a sore thumb, was the black Anglican Mission school, St John’s College, or St John’s Porridge as it was called, for African porridge is made of ‘kaffir corn’, which is brown. By law the two schools were forbidden to have anything to do with each other; but twice a year they did play a cricket match, illegally, for that had been a tradition pre-dating apartheid.

The St John’s Porridge team was not much good, except for one boy called Justin Nkomo. He had no style whatsoever, but what he could do was hit a ball. Any ball: fast, slow, off-spin, leg-spin, googlies, full tosses. Justin stood there in his tattered khaki shorts, holding his bat like a club, as the best high-school bowlers came thundering up to the wicket, and Justin swiped and the ball went sailing up into the wide blue yonder. He always hit the ball in the meat of the bat; he never edged it or blocked it – he smote it. The only way to get him out was to catch him on the boundary. St John’s Porridge put Justin Nkomo in as opening bat, and he stayed there while the rest of his team were dismissed. ‘Get Nkomo!’ was the message the high school team received from their cricket coach. ‘He’s your kitchen boy, Mahoney, can’t you sabotage him somehow?’

It was in Luke’s final year at school, the year after Patti Gandhi disappeared in the bus bound for Natal, the year Luke became head prefect and was nominated for a Rhodes Scholarship, that Justin Nkomo became the Mahoney’s kitchen boy, in the sense that he exchanged a few hours’ household work every night for free board and lodging in the servants’ quarters. It was a fashionable act of charity to thus sponsor a St John’s College boy, but it was of questionable legality because under apartheid only bona fide full-time servants were allowed to reside on white property. Colonel Visser turned another blind eye, however, ‘as long as there’re no complaints, hey.’

Mrs Mahoney said to her son: ‘But, please, no cricket with this boy behind the garage wall; he’s here to work and study and I won’t have any familiarity.’

But there was cricket behind the garage wall and that was definitely illegal: bona fide kitchen boys don’t play cricket. Luke and Hendrik Visser, the police commandant’s son, and David Downes, the district surgeon’s son, had rigged some nets behind the garage and, when his mother wasn’t home, Luke would call Justin out of the kitchen to bat. They would hurl ball after ball down, but they could never knock those stumps over. Once David brought a real American baseball-bat along, to see what Justin would do with it, and he did the same. They tried to teach him a bit of style, to make him hold his bat straight, step forward to long balls, back for short balls, and though he tried, to be polite, within a minute he was back to his slugging style. They asked him how he did it and he replied it was ‘just easy’.

The other thing Justin Nkomo found easy was studying. His English was stilted when he first came to work for the Mahoneys – ‘Please scrutinise my endeavours, Nkosaan’ – but he soon became idiomatic. In the evenings, after he’d helped the cook, he was allowed to study at the kitchen table, for there was no electric light in the servants’ quarters, and he sometimes sent a message to Luke via the houseboy to come to the kitchen to help him. Luke found it easy to help him because; although they were both in their matriculation year, Justin’s curriculum was inferior. ‘Nkosi, what did Shakespeare mean when Macduff tells Macbeth that he “was from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’d”?’

Luke said, ‘Well, you remember that the three witches have told Macbeth that no man of woman born can kill him? Well, Macbeth and Macduff are now fighting, and Macbeth is confident that Macduff cannot kill him, because of the witches’ prophecy, right?’

‘Correct.’

‘But now Macduff announces that he was not born of a woman in the normal way – so he can kill Macbeth. Because he was born by a Caesarean operation.’

The next night Justin said: ‘Our English teacher says you’re right.’ He added: ‘Shaka once had a hundred pregnant women slit open so he could examine the foetuses.’

‘Shaka did?’ Shaka, the Zulu warrior-king of the century, was one of Luke’s military heroes and he was interested in any new information about him. ‘Why?’

‘Because he was a stupid butcher.’

‘He was also a military genius.’

‘Then why didn’t he get guns? There were traders in those days who would have sold him guns. All Zulus are stupid.’

‘But the Xhosa didn’t get guns either, and they had more opportunity to get them than the Zulus – they fought nine Kaffir Wars against the white man.’

‘And you still didn’t beat us, Nkosi – we committed suicide in the Great Cattle Killing. But only four hundred Boers beat the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River.’

‘And why did the Xhosa commit national suicide – wasn’t that stupid?’

Justin Nkomo looked at the young master. ‘No, Nkosaan, because the girl prophet told them it was the right thing to do.’

‘But it was nonsense.’

‘Yes, because she was a false prophet.’

‘So if she hadn’t been a false prophet all the dead warriors of nine wars would have risen from the grave and the white man’s bullets would have turned to water?’

‘Yes,’ Justin Nkomo said.

‘And the Russians would have come?’

‘Yes.’ He added, ‘And one day the Russians will come. Like they have come to help the Mau Mau in Kenya.’

Mahoney was taken aback by this. He had heard such wisdom from his father, but coming from the kitchen-boy it was bad news. ‘Who says?’

‘My history teacher. Haven’t you heard of communism? The South African Communist Party? And the ANC, the African National Congress?’

‘Of course. But what do you know about them?’ They were talking a mixture of English and Xhosa now.

‘Communism,’ Justin said, ‘is good. Soon the whole world will he communist. Soon there will be a revolution all over the world. Like is happening now in Kenya with the Mau Mau, where your aunt comes from.’

‘Your history teacher says this?’

‘Yes. And then we will all be rich like you. Everybody equal.’

‘How am I rich?’

‘You have a bicycle,’ Justin Nkomo said.

‘And when we have communism will they give you a bicycle?’

‘Yes.’

‘Everybody?’

‘Yes.’

‘And cattle?’

‘Yes.’

‘And who will own the land?’

‘The people. Land is not owned, Nkosaan. Land is like the sun. And water. It belongs to the people. Only capitalism says land can belong to rich people who buy it.’

It was the tradition of the Mahoney household that dinner was devoted to intellectual discussions. Any subject was entertained provided it was supported by intelligent argument. If not, it was thrown out (‘Like in the courtroom.’). That night Luke mentioned this conversation at dinner. Aunt Sheila McAdam from Kenya was staying, making her annual visit to South Africa.

His mother said: ‘Typical. Nice boy, goes to a mission school, but believes in witchcraft. And gets his head stuffed full of communist nonsense.’

‘Unfortunately it’s not nonsense,’ George Mahoney said. ‘Apartheid will drive the blacks into the arms of the communists.’

‘Like’s happened in Kenya,’ Jill pronounced gravely.

‘Not quite – ’ Luke began.

‘No, we’ve got no apartheid in Kenya,’ Aunt Sheila said. ‘The Mau Mau rebellion was fostered by Russia, through Jomo Kenyatta who was befriended by the communists when he was in England.’

‘But the whites stole the blacks’ land?’ Jill persisted.

‘No, the Kenyan government bought the land from the Kikuyu, including land which the Kikuyu had never even occupied and to which they had no right. The Kikuyu were left with plenty of land, in guaranteed reserves. The land issue was an excuse dreamed up by Russia and Jomo Kenyatta to make the Kikuyu rebel and start taking those frightful oaths to kill the white settlers, so that the communists can take over – and then spread revolution down the whole of Africa, so Russia can take over.’

‘What was so frightful about the oaths?’ Jill demanded. ‘Drinking blood and all that?’

‘And the rest,’ Aunt Sheila said. She was a weathered, robust English matron, married to Uncle Fred, who managed the East African end of Harker-Mahoney.

‘Please,’ Mrs Mahoney said, ‘not during meals.’ She was the opposite of Aunt Sheila: an English rose.

‘Cutting up people and eating them?’ Jill said hopefully.

‘Please,’ Mrs Mahoney said.

‘Why did they make the oaths horrid?’ Jill demanded.

George Mahoney said to his daughter: ‘I’ve got a book you can read, Jill, called Something of Value by Robert Ruark …’

‘You know how superstitious the blacks are,’ Aunt Sheila said. ‘They utterly believe. The missionaries come and convert them to Christianity, teach ’em readin’, ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic, put ’em in pants and – bingo – they imagine they’ve done the trick of turning the black man into a civilized man.’ She shook her head. ‘No such thing. He may – reluctantly – come to accept the white man’s God – usually because of an uneasy feeling that the white man’s magic is pretty strong medicine – but he still also believes in Ngai, his own god, who lives up there on Mount Kenya, and in his ancestors who walk along behind him giving him a hard time, and in all the evil spirits, and in all the spells and curses a witch or wizard can place on him.’ She spread her hands. ‘Of course you do encounter some real Christian converts who have staunchly refused to take the oaths and suffered terribly for it – had their wives and children butchered in front of their eyes, and so on. But for most of them the whole raft of superstitions are still as real to them as the trees and the rocks and Mount Kenya.’

‘But what’s the oath?’ Jill demanded.

George Mahoney looked at his wife. ‘She’s old enough to learn about the darker side of the Africa she lives in.’

‘Well,’ Sheila said. She got onto her hobby horse. ‘Well, it’s that superstitiousness that the Mau Mau oath plays on. The oaths were dreamed up by Jomo Kenyatta and his Russian friends – our future president. Anyway, the Mau Mau oath has its strength in the fact that it desecrates all the Kikuyu believes in, all his taboos. It’s as if you, a Christian, broke all your principles and taboos by taking an oath to the Forces of Darkness. So the person who takes the oath becomes an outcast from his people, which means that the only brotherhood he belongs to which can protect him is the Mau Mau – the Devil. And they believe that the oath will kill him – and his family – if he breaks it, or disobeys orders. And of course the Mau Mau will kill him. So, we are fighting completely degenerate, desperate blood-soaked savages.’

George said: ‘And the Mau Mau work on a secret-cell system, don’t they?’

‘Yes. Devised by the Russians. The oath-administrators initiate the members of a cell — for example, the labour force on a particular shamba. He charges ninety shillings per person – and if they refuse to take the oath they’re hideously killed, as an example to the rest. The administrator keeps thirty shillings, and the rest goes to Mau Mau funds. The oath administrator gets rich and has every incentive to keep initiating people, so it’s spread across the colony until now over a million Kikuyu have taken the oath. They started with initiating a few bandits in the forests, then it spread to the shambas, the farms, and then into the towns. Now it’s spreading into Tanganyika. The Russians’ plan is that it will spread right the way down through South Africa to Gape Town, right across the continent.’

‘Do they make human sacrifices when they do the oath?’ Jill demanded.

‘Please …’ Mrs Mahoney said.

‘Much worse than that,’ Aunt Sheila murmured.

Much worse than that, Luke knew: he had read the book. The purpose was to shock, to horrify, to degrade, to defy all taboos. So the oath had to be disgusting. Each oath administrator was instructed to dream up more horrifying oaths with which to terrify the people, to pass on his new ideas to the other administrators. Human sacrifice was always one ingredient. And animal sacrifice. Blood and body-parts mixed in the ground into a kind of soup. Brains of the persons sacrificed mixed in. Woman’s menstrual blood. Urine. Semen. Human shit. Maggots. Putrefied human flesh exhumed from graves. Pus from running sores. Eyeballs gouged out, intestines cut open. Drinking the vile brew while you repeat the oath. Public intercourse with sheep and adolescent girls. And all the time the dancing and the drums and the bloodcurdling mumbo-jumbo, all at dead of night in the spooky forest, all the oath-takers in a trance. All with the purpose of irrevocably committing the oath-taker to killing Europeans, burning their crops, killing their cattle, stealing their firearms, killing to order even if the victim is your own father or brother – and always to mutilate, cut off the heads, extract the eyeballs and drink the liquid. ‘If I am ordered to bring my brother’s head and I disobey, this oath will kill me. If I am ordered to bring the finger or ear of my mother and I disobey, this oath will kill me. If I am ordered to bring the head, hair or fingernail of a European and I disobey, this oath will kill me. If I rise against the Mau Mau, this oath will kill me. If I betray the whereabouts of arms or ammunition or the hiding place of my brothers, this oath will kill me. When the reed-buck horn is blown, if I leave the European farm before killing the owner, may this oath kill me. If I worship any leader but Jomo Kenyatta, may this oath kill me …’

The Mau Mau had completely shattered the average African’s spiritual equilibrium, absolute sin had created a new barbarism, a fanatic who massacred whole villages, decapitating and mutilating, cutting babies in half in front of their mothers, hanging people, slitting pregnant women open, hacking heads off with pangas, cutting the ears off people so they can be easily identified later. And now cannibalism had been introduced. The victim’s head chopped open, the brains dried in the sun, the heart cut out and dried, steaks cut for food when the Mau Mau gang was on the move. In each gang there was an executioner who acted as butcher. The Batuni Oath, by breaking every tribal taboo, ostracised the oath-taker from all hope, in this world and the next. The result was a terrorist organization composed not of humans fighting for a cause, but of primitive beasts.

‘Your cook-boy tried to kill you, didn’t he, Aunt Sheila?’ Jill said proudly.

‘No, darling.’ Aunt Sheila smiled. ‘It was my houseboy. Old Moses, my cook, he’s loyal, and he’s a devout Christian. Not that that’s any guarantee these days,’ she added. ‘The Mau Mau modus operandi is to kill Moses’s family if he refuses to kill me. So, I’m well armed at all times. If this was Kenya, we’d all be sitting with our pistols on the table. And your servants would be locked in the stockade at this hour.’

‘So you have to serve your own dinner?’ Jill demanded, perturbed.

‘No, Moses and the new houseboy sleep in the kitchen, but the rest are locked in the stockade, which has a high fence around it, and a deep wide trench with sharpened bamboo stakes. We muster them at six o’clock, roll call, then shepherd them in.’

‘Don’t they mind?’ Jill demanded.

‘No. The stockade is to protect them from the Mau Mau. They have their huts and families inside. And their own armed guards. And of course our homestead is also surrounded by a security fence now. With two high towers where our Masai guards sit all night with searchlights and machine guns. With rope ladders, so the Masai can pull it up after them. The searchlights can reach the labour stockade and the new cattle pens where we have to lock up our animals at night now, or the Mau Mau cut the udders off, and hamstring them, slash their hind legs. Terrible.’

‘Oh!’ Jill was wide-eyed.

Mrs Mahoney said: ‘Your Masai are reliable?’

‘Oh yes, they’re the traditional enemies of the Kikuyu, they hate the Mau Mau. In one operation, the police and army sent the Masai into the forest to ambush a huge band of Mau Mau they were flushing out. The Masai attacked in full regalia and killed them all, the army just watched. The Masai went home very happy – because, of course, the government had put a stop to tribal warfare long ago.’

‘Divide and rule,’ George Mahoney murmured. ‘Works every time in Africa.’

‘Tell us about when you were attacked, Aunt Sheila.’ Jill pleaded.

Mrs Mahoney raised her eyebrows, but George said, ‘She’s old enough.’

‘Well,’ Sheila said, ‘it was before we’d put up the security fence and the watchtowers. Fred and I were having dinner. The houseboy – our last houseboy – brings in the soup. Fred tells him to taste it, in case it’s poisoned. The houseboy starts trembling and tries to run to the kitchen. Same moment the door to the kitchen opens and in burst three Mau Mau with pangas. The dogs fly at them and Fred opens up with his pistol and kills the first two dead, but the third comes at me with his panga. I shoot him in the chest but he keeps coming and one of the dogs gets him in the … er, groin. Fred shoots him dead, then charges to the kitchen and there’s the cookboy with his skull split open, and there’s the houseboy standing with a panga and he swipes at Fred’s collarbone. I burst into the kitchen and shoot the houseboy in the heart. Lucky shot.’ She closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Oh, what a mess. Blood and brains and bodies everywhere …’

‘Please …’ Mrs Mahoney said. ‘That’s enough.’

‘What happened to Uncle Fred?’ Jill was wide-eyed.

‘Well, I loaded him into the Land-Rover and rushed him to hospital in Nyeri. He was okay. Tough old bugger, Fred. But when he came out a few days later, with his arm stuck out in plaster like a Heil Hitler salute, the swines struck again. We were still erecting our security fence and watchtowers – our labour had just knocked off for the night. Fred and I were sitting having our well-earned sundowners. Suddenly – bang bang bang – windows smashing, and the bastards are attacking with firearms this time, from all sides. And Fred and I dive for cover and grab the rifles and start blasting out the windows, bullets flying everywhere, and there’s poor old Fred firing with one arm, the other stuck out, and these two great brutes come charging through the front door and luckily I mowed them down with the new Sten gun the police had given me.’

‘Wow!’ Jill whispered.

‘Anyway,’ Sheila ended, ‘after that we finished the fence and watchtowers quick-smart. And bought new dogs. The Mau Mau mutilated all our other dogs. Stuck them on spikes. Alive. Now we’ve got four new ones – Dobermans. Trained. Accept food from nobody but me. Only let out at night. And,’ she added, ‘now we’ve got the Masai guards. We’re pretty safe. But the swines still come down out of the forests to maim our cattle.’

‘And how’s Fred now?’ Mr Mahoney said.

Sheila smiled wearily. She took a sip of wine and her glass trembled. ‘Tough as nails, my Fred. I haven’t seen him for three weeks. He’s up in Aberdere Forests – in freezing mist, ten thousand feet above sea level. On patrol, looking for Mau Mau hideouts. Comes back after weeks, wild and woolly and reeking and exhausted, gets roaring drunk, then off he goes to join another patrol.’

Jill demanded: ‘What does he do when he finds Mau Mau hideouts in the forest?’

Sheila looked at George Mahoney. He said: ‘This is her Africa.’

Sheila sighed. ‘To cut a long story short, they spend days, weeks, tracking down their hideouts. Then they ambush. And kill them.’

‘How? Machine guns and hand grenades and all that?’

‘Yes.’ Sheila turned to George. ‘And? Do you think the same could happen in South Africa?’

‘Guaranteed,’ George sighed. ‘This government will drive the blacks to bloody revolution. And be ruthless in trying to stamp it out. So it’s going to be a much worse bloodbath than Kenya. But that’ll be some time coming, the government has got an iron grip at the moment.’ He added: ‘The tragedy is that the bloody excesses of the Mau Mau create the impression that the South African government is right. The man on the street looks at Kenya and says, hell, the blacks are savages, so the South Africans are right.’

Sheila said: ‘And who’ll start it? This African National Congress? What do you make of them?’

George nodded pensively. ‘I like them,’ he said. ‘They’ve been around a long time, since 1912 you know, ever since the British gave them a raw deal at the end of the Boer War. They’re reasonable people. Indeed, they even supported the Smuts and Hertzog governments for a while, because they thought the Natives Land Act may give them a fair deal. Then they seemed to give up. Then apartheid seemed to revitalise them. Now they’ve issued their Freedom Charter, but they’re nonviolent. For the moment – this government will probably drive them to violence soon. But right now they’re the very opposite of the Mau Mau. The people to worry about are the PAC, the Pan-Africanist Congress, under Robert Sobukwe, who split away from the ANC over the multi-racialism of the Freedom Charter – they’re the people who want. “Africa for the Africans”. The only problem with the ANC is they’re clearly socialists. The “commanding heights of industry” must be nationalised, they say. That would be disastrous. And that, unfortunately, is the influence of the communists in their ranks. The South African Communist Party has been banned since 1950 and gone underground, and it’s no secret their policy is to ride to power on the back of the ANC. And their orders come direct from Moscow. So the ANC is in danger of becoming a communist organization unless their leadership is careful.’

‘And, how good is that leadership?’

‘Pretty good,’ George nodded. ‘I like this guy Nelson Mandela – he’s head of the ANC Youth League, a potentially powerful branch of the movement. He’s very intelligent, and he’s a lawyer. My firm has had some dealings with his firm in Johannesburg. Sensible chap, he’s a Xhosa, comes from this neck of the woods –’ he waved a finger over his shoulder – ‘I believe he’s of “royal blood” in that he’s heir to the chieftancy of the clan. And he’s recently married a very nice lass from these parts who’s a fully qualified social worker. The leadership impresses me as reasonable, totally unlike the sort of people you’re dealing with in the Mau Mau.’ He added: ‘Nelson Mandela’s law partner is the acting president of the ANC, a chap called Oliver Tambo, also a Xhosa. Or a Pondo, they’re the sort of poor country cousins of the Xhosa –’

Mrs Mahoney said to Sheila, ‘The Pondos are the ones who wear the blue blankets, whereas the Xhosa wear the red blankets –’

‘Except, of course,’ George Mahoney smiled, ‘neither Mandela nor Tambo wear blankets now, they wear pin-striped suits!’

Everybody laughed; then Mrs Mahoney said to Sheila: ‘And is the Mau Mau crisis affecting Harker-Mahoney?’

Sheila sighed. ‘Terrible labour shortage. The Kikuyu who haven’t taken the oath have fled back to the reserves in terror. HM Shipping is still going strong. And most of the stores, because Kenya is swarming with the British Army and Air Force now, fighting the Mau Mau. But our coffee plantations are virtually at a standstill. No labour.’

‘And how’s business in West Africa?’ George said.

‘Well, I’m not au fait with HM’s offices in Ghana and Nigeria. But Fred says things are looking shaky there too, with independence.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Kwame Nkrumah, the Great Redeemer.’

‘Why?’ Mrs Mahoney groaned. ‘Why is the British government hell-bent on giving these people independence, willy-nilly?’

Sheila said: ‘The Tories have lost their nerve … the government’s full of pinkoes.’

‘They must know they’re not ready to govern themselves yet.’

‘I wonder if they do know,’ Sheila said. ‘They meet a few smart ones, like Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah, and think the whole of Africa is composed of charming black Englishmen. They don’t realize that the rest have only recently dropped out of the trees. Independence will be the biggest failure since the Groundnut Scheme.’

Luke glanced at his father and the old man gave him a conspiratorial wink. ‘What’s the Groundnut Scheme?’ Jill demanded.

Sheila began to speak but George Mahoney said, ‘Luke, explain to your sister.’

‘Well,’ Luke said, ‘after the war there was a food shortage. So the British government started a massive project planting peanuts, because they’re very nourishing, and it was called the Groundnut Scheme. They sent out all the seeds and fertilizer and tractors and stuff and hired thousands of blacks. But they made a terrible botch of it because nobody knew about peanuts, and in places they even ploughed cement into the soil instead of fertilizer because they couldn’t read. But the biggest problem was that they couldn’t persuade the blacks to stay on the job because they didn’t understand what money was. They didn’t understand that their wages could buy things, because there were no shops out there in the bush. So the whole scheme collapsed. Cost millions of pounds.’

Jill said, ‘Is that why that book about the Mau Mau is called Something of Value? Things in the shops?’

George Mahoney smiled. ‘Luke? You’ve read the book.’

Luke said: ‘What the book says is that if you take away a man’s tribal customs, his values, you must expect trouble unless you give him something of value in return. Your values. But if he cannot accept your values, because he is uneducated, then he is lost. Neither one thing nor the other. And that causes trouble. And that is what is happening in Africa.’ He looked at his father for confirmation.

‘Right,’ George said to his daughter. ‘The white man came along and said to the blacks: “You must not worship your gods, you must worship my God.” Then, “Now that you worship my God you cannot have more than one wife.” And, “Now that you worship my God you must stop selling your daughters into marriage.” And, “Now that you worship my God you must stop fighting, you must turn the other cheek, you must stop carrying your spears and shields, even though these are symbols of your manhood.” And, “Now that you worship my God you must be industrious, you must stop making your wives do all the work, and you must stop drinking so much beer, and of course you must stop following your traditional laws and obey the white man’s laws, and if you do not we will put you in jail.” Et cetera. And, after a while – decades in the case of Kenya, a hundred and fifty years in the case of South Africa – the black man eventually says: “Very well, now that I have given up my values I want all the advantages attached to your values – I want a good job and lots of money.” And the white man says, “I’m afraid you’re uneducated so the only job you can get is as a labourer, working for me.” And so this uprooted man has received nothing of value. His politicians say: “Then we want the power that is attached to your values, we want to be the government.” But the white man says, “Sorry, you’ll ruin the country.” So the black politician says: “We must rise up and drive the white man into the sea and then we’ll get something of value, because we’ll all be rich with a white man’s house and a car and a bicycle and a radio.”’

‘“And the nice Russians,”’ Aunt Sheila said, ‘“will help us get rid of the white man.” And the simple black man believes it all.’

Jill sighed, wagging her golden pigtails. ‘So if we can’t give him something of value it’s better to leave him in his tribe.’

George smiled. ‘That’s the African dilemma, isn’t it, my darling? But we didn’t leave him alone – we’re here, and we can’t undo that fact. The question is what do we do from here, to give him something of value?’

‘Not apartheid,’ Luke said.

‘So you want to give them all the vote?’ Aunt Sheila asked.

‘No,’ Luke said. ‘Because they’re still too uneducated. But we should give the civilized ones the vote. “Equal rights for all civilized men”, like in Rhodesia. Gradualism, that’s the answer.’

‘And what constitutes “civilized”?’ his mother asked.

‘Education,’ Luke said. ‘Maybe, second year of high school: Or a certain amount of money in the bank. If a man’s smart enough to make money, he’s smart enough to vote. That’s what they’ve done in Rhodesia.’

‘And Rhodesia will have plenty of trouble too,’ Sheila promised.

‘But meanwhile,’ Mrs Mahoney asked, ‘what about all the ones who haven’t got education or money but who’re demanding the vote and a white man’s job, house, car and bicycle? They won’t be satisfied with your gradualism, Luke, they’ll want the vote now. If you give the vote to some, they’ll all want it.’

‘Well,’ Luke said, ‘we’ll just have to be strict. Strict but fair. But to be fair we must abolish apartheid.’

George Mahoney nodded judicially. Jill said: ‘I agree. Apartheid,’ she pronounced, quoting her father, ‘stinks.’

Mrs Mahoney said: ‘Choose a more ladylike word, Jill. Why do you say that? Isn’t separateness the natural order of things, dear? We are separate, separated by civilization. The government is only legalizing the status quo.’

‘It’s doing a hell of a lot more than that!’ George said. ‘It’s setting the status quo in stone, to hold them separate and down there for ever. It’s damned unnatural to try to keep people apart – and it’s asking for trouble. Let people find their own level.’

‘Well, I think it’s perfectly natural for a civilized people to want their standards protected by the law. And thereby prevent trouble.’ She turned to Sheila. ‘George and I don’t see eye to eye on this little detail. Not that I’m a National Party lady, mark you – I’d vote for the United Party, if I dared, but George is an Independent and he’d divorce me – I’m never quite convinced those ballots are secret!’ She grinned at her husband. ‘I’d never vote for those horrid Afrikaners – I exaggerate of course – some of them are very nice – but I must say, darling, our Minister of Bantu Affairs, Hendrik Verwoerd, strikes me as a sincere man who believes he’s doing his best for the blacks in the long run.’

‘Hendrik Verwoerd,’ George Mahoney sighed, ‘is not a malicious man. And he’s probably sincere when he talks about apartheid as “a mighty act of creation” and “the will of God” – he believes he’s got the blueprint for successful co-existence between the races. And he has appointed the Tomlinson Commission to look into the viability of the black homelands becoming independent –’

‘Independent?’ Sheila asked, surprised.

‘Yes,’ Mrs Mahoney said. ‘Apartheid is evolving, my dear, to a higher moral plane –’

‘Yes,’ George said wearily to Sheila, ‘apartheid is evolving under Verwoerd, he does now talk in Parliament about giving the black homelands their independence, about dividing South Africa up into a number of black independent states and one white state, which will all live together side by side in a “constellation of southern African states”, bound loosely together in a kind of common market – Verwoerd doubtless does believe his own rhetoric when he says the blacks will be eternally grateful to us. It’s a pretty vision but it won’t work, because the homelands are barely capable of supporting the blacks now, in thirty years’ time they’ll be hopelessly inadequate, because the black population will have trebled. How’re all those people going to earn a living? They’re cattle-men, not factory workers –’

Mrs Mahoney interrupted mildly: ‘But he says industrialists will be encouraged with tax incentives to open up factories on the homelands’ borders to provide employment –’

‘Which is bullshit,’ George Mahoney said. (Jill snickered into her hands.) ‘I’m sorry, my dear, but it is nonsense. Because, sure, some industrialists will take advantage and open factories on the borders, but not nearly enough. The Tomlinson Commission –’ he jabbed his finger – ‘showed that the homelands could only support fifty-one per cent of the black populace as farmers. What happens to the other forty-nine per cent? Find jobs in the new factories? It’ll never happen. It’s a Utopian dream of Verwoerd’s.’ He turned to his wife. ‘And the hard fact remains that the black homelands are only thirteen per cent of South Africa’s surface.’ He shook his head at Sheila. ‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong in giving these so-called black homelands self-government – provided, as Luke says – ’ he touched his son’s head – ‘it’s supervised and done gradually, because the poor old black man has no experience of democracy – but the towering sin of Dr Verwoerd’s new-look apartheid is that it says to the poor black man: Thou shalt live and vote in thy inadequate homeland. Thou shalt only come out of it to work in if I need you and give you a Pass. Thou shalt live in impermanence in locations and squatter shacks. Thou shalt not have thy women and children living with you. Thou shalt have no political or social rights in my nice white South Africa where thou workest. Thou shalt return to your black homeland when I’ve had enough of your cheap labour. Thou shalt, thou shalt thou SHALT …’

George glared around the table, then said wearily to his wife: ‘Oh, Verwoerd’s vision is a fine one, on paper. But the arithmetic proves it’s a recipe for black pain, and poverty, and conflict. Rebellion.’ He sighed. ‘I tell him at every opportunity in Parliament.’

Mrs Mahoney shifted and said: ‘Darling, I’m all for the underdog. But I don’t consider that saying a black can’t be my next-door neighbour and keep his cattle in his backyard is exactly making him an underdog – he’s got his own territory, his own customs, and I have mine. I respect him but I do not want him as my neighbour.’

Luke said: ‘Mother, you’ve got five of them as neighbours already, in your backyard.’

‘Servants are entirely different. And talking about that, I don’t mind in the least you helping Justin with his homework, dear, but I won’t have him starting political discussions in my kitchen about the Russians coming, please?’

Jill said: ‘Well, Miss Rousseau says the Russians are already here.’

‘And she’s right,’ George said.

‘Who’s Miss Rousseau?’ Aunt Sheila asked.

‘Our new history teacher,’ Jill said, ‘and she’s brilliant.’ She added with a giggle: ‘And Luke’s in love with her!’

‘I am not!’ Luke glared. ‘I only said all the guys think … have got a crush on her!’

‘Except you?’ his father grinned.

That was another thing Luke and Justin had in common: their enthusiasm for girls. That year both of them had their first sexual experience. Justin had been through the Abakweta ceremony, living alone in a grass hut for six weeks, daubed in white clay and wearing a grass skirt and mask before emerging on the appointed day to be circumcised in cold blood with a spear: he was now a man, eligible to buy a wife when he could afford the cattle to pay lobola, the bridal price. Justin had lain with women. ‘Is it nice?’ Mahoney asked, agog. ‘Ooooh,’ Justin said.

Luke had been circumcised as an infant but his customs forbade him to lie with a woman yet; Luke’s earliest memories seemed to be of having a persistent erection he was incapable of doing anything about, and he was desperately determined to do something about it in his final year at school. Oooh is what Luke felt climbing the stairs behind the girls in their short gym skirts – if you contrived to be at the bottom of the stairs as they were approaching the top you could see right up to their bloomers. Oooh is what he felt sitting in class waiting for the girls to reveal a bit more thigh (‘beef’ it was called). Oooh is what he felt when he was allowed to grope his girlfriend of the moment but never allowed to take his cock out for a bit of reciprocity. Ooooooh is what he felt as Miss Rousseau unfolded the dramas of history with her creamy smiles, her breasts thrusting against her sporty blouse as she stretched to jot her ‘lampposts’ on the blackboard, her skirt riding a little higher up her lovely legs – for Miss Rousseau was also the girls’ gym mistress and came to school in short athletic skirts.

Luke wasn’t in love with Miss Rousseau as his sister teased – not yet – he was only madly in lust with her. All the boys were, and the girls idolised her: ‘She’s such fun!’ And she didn’t have a boyfriend! Oh, she had all the young men in town after her but there seemed to be none with brains enough to hold Miss Rousseau’s interest. ‘She says she’s very hard to please,’ Jill reported with the breathless smugness of one privy to royal confidences – ‘and she says we must all be when we grow up. None of these men are capable of having an interesting discussion, she says, she expects a real man to hold meaningful conversations, not just play sport, she says. She wants her mind wooed, she says …’

Her mind wooed … Miss Rousseau was very sporty and played a dashing game of hockey (you could often see right up to her bloomers as she dashed) and she loved watching rugby. Luke wasn’t really a rugger-bugger but he played so hard that year to impress Miss Rousseau that he made it to the first team. And on Fridays after school when he and Justin fetched his parents’ horses for the weekend from the country stables he rode the long way round into town in order to pass the girls’ hostel (that veritable cornucopia of beef bums and tits) because Miss Rousseau sat on the verandah marking books in the afternoons – in the desperate hopes of impressing her with a meaningful conversation about horses. But no such luck; she gave him a cheery wave, that’s all. He read in bed late into the night (with a hard-on) surrounded by history books, trying to dredge up obscure points to discuss with the wonderful Miss Rousseau, to have meaningful conversations about with the divine Miss Rousseau. (It wasn’t easy concentrating on all that heavy-duty history with all those hard-ons.) But it didn’t work. When he did manage to put one of his obscure points to her there was no discussion because Miss Rousseau knew all the answers and all he ended up saying was, ‘I see, Miss Rousseau. Thank you, Miss Rousseau.’ And there was no privacy for a meaningful conversation because he could only catch her in the school corridors. And she wasn’t interested in fuckin’ horses. So how the hell could a real man get to discuss anything? And then, one night, he thought of those family journals his great great grandfather Ernest had started, and all the obscure points therein.

But of course! What historian wouldn’t be interested in those rare journals? Their obscure detail was a goldmine for meaningful conversations. Burning the midnight oil, he feverishly dredged up a stockpile of obscure points before he made his move to grab the divine Miss Rousseau’s interest. And it worked.

‘What an interesting detail, Luke – I’ll have to look it up in Theal.’

‘I’ve checked Theal, Miss Rousseau, and he doesn’t say anything about it. Nor does Walker, Miss Rousseau.’

‘Where did you get your hands on Theal? He’s not in this town’s library.’

‘My father’s got the whole set of Theal histories, Miss Rousseau.’

‘I see. How lucky you are, even I don’t have the whole set. But where exactly did you get this detail, Luke – your great grandfather’s diary, you say?’

‘My great great grandfather’s journals, Miss Rousseau.’ (Stop saying Miss Rousseau every sentence!) ‘He was on the Great Trek and fought at Blood River. His son, and his grandson, fought in the Boer War, and they kept the journals going. My father kept them up, starting with World War I.’ He shrugged airily. ‘And, of course, I’ll keep them up, Miss Rousseau.’

‘Fascinating …’ Miss Rousseau said.

He blurted: ‘You can look at them any time you like, Miss Rousseau,’(Oh you tit …)

‘Oh wow – will you ask your father’s permission?’

It had worked! With or without his father’s permission she would see them!

‘Well, all right, seeing she’s a teacher,’ his father said, ‘but don’t encourage it, son, they’re very personal records.’

‘My father says he’s delighted you’re interested, Miss Rousseau,’ he said the next day when he delivered the first volume.

And was Miss Rousseau interested? ‘Fascinated’s the word, Luke! I sat up in bed all night!’ (Ooh, Miss Rousseau sitting up in bed – while he sat up in his bed with a hard-on dredging up more obscure detail to woo her mind with meaningful conversation – ) ‘What priceless glimpses of living history you’ve given me!’ (He’d given her!) ‘These belong in the archives. You must keep them up yourself, Luke.’

‘I will, when I’ve done something to write about, Miss Rousseau.’ (Cut out the Miss Rousseau!)

‘Start now! You’ve seen the introduction of apartheid, which is the culmination of the Kaffir Wars and the Great Trek and the Boer War! Seen it through the eyes of a very intelligent young man of the times – your youthful evaluations will make fascinating historical material one day. I can’t wait to read the next volume.’

A very intelligent young man of the times! Young man … ? And she couldn’t wait? He couldn’t wait. He hurried home from school, on air, locked himself in his bedroom and jerked off over the heavenly Miss Rousseau. The next day he delivered the next volume, reeking of aftershave and toothpaste. ‘This one’s written in an old cash ledger that Ernest Mahoney’s grandfather gave him for accounts, Miss Rousseau. It starts when Ernest accompanies Retief to visit Dingaan.’

‘Does Sarie wait faithfully for Ernest?’ Miss Rousseau demanded.

‘Not only that, she … They have to … well, they get married, Miss Rousseau.’

‘Oh, what fun,’ Miss Rousseau sparkled. (Fun?! That’s pure sex talk!) She put her heavenly hand on his arm impulsively. ‘Luke, I’ve been thinking – these journals, I really think your family should make a copy, in case they get destroyed in a fire or something. And I would love a copy for myself. Now, I’ve got a very good typewriter. Would you ask your father if he minds if I type them up? It’s quiet in the hostel while the girls are doing their prep, and in the holidays I’ll have the whole place to myself.’

Luke said casually to his father, trying not to blush: ‘Miss Rousseau thinks those journals are so valuable we should have them typed up in case they’re ever lost, and she’s offered to do so but she hasn’t got a decent typewriter and that girls’ hostel is so noisy, she says, and I thought maybe she could come here and use Mother’s typewriter –’

‘Well, that’s kind of her. But I’m not sure, son – she may make a copy and I don’t like the idea of that, I want to publish them one day –’

‘Oh, she wouldn’t make a copy, Father!’

It was his mother who swung it. ‘Well, I think it’s a very good idea, darling. It’s an opportunity to get her evaluation of them. Tell her to come around whenever she has time, Luke. I won’t disturb her.’

That afternoon Luke and Justin fetched the horses and as they casually cantered past the hostel Luke just happened to spy Miss Rousseau sitting on the verandah, marking books. He dismounted.

‘Miss Rousseau, my father is very grateful for your offer to type up the journals, and of course you may make a copy for yourself, but could you possibly come to our house to do it because he doesn’t want copies lying around because they’re so personal?’

‘But of course,’ Miss Rousseau said earnestly.

Oh joy! ‘And,’ he blurted on, ‘my mother suggests you come on the afternoons she plays golf so she doesn’t disturb you. That’s Mondays and Wednesdays, Miss Rousseau.’ (The days his sister had hockey practice). ‘And,’ he blurted on, ‘if you’d like to have a swim, bring your costume …’

‘Well, I’ll be there!’

He galloped all the way home. He’d done it! He’d contrived to get Miss Rousseau alone! He just had to lock himself in his bedroom again and get rid of his hard-on.

Oooh, the agony of waiting for Monday … That Saturday he played a suicidal rugby match, to roars of applause from the grandstand, where Miss Rousseau sat. ‘Brilliant game, Luke.’ Brilliant … ? In his sound senses he tried to hammer it into himself that nothing would happen on Monday, but with all these erections it was possible to imagine anything. The sheer eroticism of having Miss Rousseau alone in the house! Would she have a swim? Would they have tea together? Damn right they would! Would she sometimes ask him to help her decipher his great great grandfather’s handwriting? Would she … walk around the garden with him? Would she bring her swimming costume? Would it be a bikini? Please let it be a bikini …!

And it surpassed his wildest dreams. Not only did they have tea together, not only did she want to see the garden, not only did she call him to decipher his great great grandfather’s handwriting sometimes … but she did bring her swimming costume! And it was a bikini! Oh, the bliss of having tea with Miss Rousseau, just the two of them, like two adults – he had dredged up a stockpile of tricky historical points to talk about. Oh, the bliss of bending over the journals beside her (the sweet scent of her) deciphering his great grandfather’s handwriting. And Oooooh Miss Rousseau in her bikini… those lovely long legs, those ooooh-so-rounded hips and oh those tits … But how was he going to hide this hard-on?! And after she packed up the typing at five o’clock and drove off back to the hostel in her old Chevrolet he stood in the toilet thinking, This is where she pulled her panties down. This is where she placed her beautiful bare bum … And he just wanted to smother the seat in kisses.

It surpassed his wildest dreams when, after her fourth visit, his mother announced: ‘That nice Miss Rousseau telephoned today and asked if she could possibly hire one of the horses during the school holidays – she’s a keen horsewoman. Of course I said she could ride them any time free, but she asked if you would go with her the first time, until she’s familiar with her mount.’

Would he go with her… ? ‘Okay, Mother.’

‘Please don’t use those dreadful Americanisms, son. And, she had the highest praise for you. “Quite a remarkable historian”, she said. And that you’ll go a long way in life.’

Quite a remarkable historian?! Well she ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Go a long way? He would go all the way to the ends of the earth on his hands and knees over broken glass for Miss Rousseau …

It seemed an eternity waiting for the mid-year school holidays. And then Miss Rousseau surpassed his wildest wild dreams again. When they dismounted at the reservoir outside town and sat down under the trees, she gave him her creamy smile and said: ‘I think that you can stop calling me Miss Rousseau, Luke. Lisa will do fine when we’re alone. After all, we are partners in crime.’

Lisa! When we’re alone! Partners in crime?

‘What crime, Miss Rousseau?’

‘Lisa.’

Oh … ‘Lisa.’ It was the most wonderful name in the world.

She smiled. ‘Fraud? Copyright contravention? Your father did not give me permission to make a copy of those journals, did he?’

Luke was mortified. Blushing. ‘How do you know?’

‘When I phoned your mother about riding she thanked me for the typing and apologised that your father wouldn’t allow a copy to be made because he wants to publish them one day.’ She smiled. ‘Why did you lie to me, Luke?’

He swallowed. ‘Because … you’re a historian, and … and you deserve it.’

She grinned. ‘Why do I deserve it, Luke?’

‘Because you’re –’ (he wanted to blurt ‘the most beautiful’) ‘– the best teacher I’ve ever had.’

‘An apple for the teacher?’

‘No, Miss Rousseau.’ He wished the earth would open.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘And Lisa, please.’

‘No, not an apple for the teacher. Lisa.’

She smiled. ‘The teacher? I’m only twenty-one, you know, Luke. Only four years older than you.’

‘Yes, I know …’ Luke croaked. ‘Lisa,’ he added.

‘And I’m not really a teacher, you know. I only got my B.A. last year, I haven’t done my teaching diploma yet.’ She paused. ‘And d’you know what?’

‘What?’ he croaked. ‘Lisa,’ he added.

‘I’ve decided I don’t want to teach kids, Luke. Next year I’m going back to university to do my M.A. And then a doctorate. I want to teach at university level – teaching minds like yours.’

Minds like his?! Not kids … !

‘You’ve no idea how bored I’ve been in this town, Luke.’

Goddesses get bored? ‘Really?’

‘Really. In fact …’ She paused, then grinned at him. ‘Can you keep a secret, Luke?’

A secret from Miss Rousseau?!

‘Promise,’ he said. ‘Lisa.’

‘In fact –’ she smiled her mischievous creamy smile – ‘the only stimulating thing that’s happened to me this year has been you and those journals.’ Miss Rousseau looked at him with a twinkle in her eye: ‘You and your riding past the hostel every Friday. To impress me? And undressing me with your eyes in the classroom. And – ’ her smile widened – ‘your monstrous erections in the swimming pool.’

Luke didn’t know whether he wanted to lunge at her or the earth to swallow him up. Monstrous erections? His heart was pounding and he was blushing furiously and he couldn’t think of anything to say except: ‘I’m sorry.’

She grinned widely. ‘Oh don’t be sorry – it’s very pleasing.’

Pleasing?! That could only mean one thing! Oh God he didn’t know what he dare do!

Miss Rousseau smiled. ‘Are you a virgin, Luke?’

He couldn’t believe this was happening. All beyond imagination. He blushed. ‘Yes …

She smiled. ‘Well, Luke? I seem to have taught you all the history you need. What shall we do about what you don’t know?’

Luke’s heart was hammering, his ears were ringing, his face on fire, his stomach was faint, his legs trembled. ‘I – I don’t know, Miss Rousseau.’

‘Lisa.’ Miss Rousseau smiled. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘let’s think … Now, if I were seventeen, and not your so-called teacher, what would you do now, Luke?’

Luke looked at her with utter, confused adoration. He swallowed and whispered hoarsely: ‘I’d kiss you.’

‘Very good, Luke. So, you may kiss me, you know how to do that, I’m sure.’

He stared, then he lunged at her. He seized her and plunged his gasping mouth onto hers so their teeth clashed, and she laughed in her throat and toppled over, and he scrambled frantically on top of her, and he ejaculated. In one frantic surging the world buzzed into a blurry flame that promptly crescendoed into the most marvellous feeling in the world, that exploded into a frenetic thrusting towards the source of all joy through jodhpurs and all. Luke Mahoney pounded on top of Lisa Rousseau, exploding, and she held him tignt, grinning up to the sky.

When he finally went limp, gasping, on top of her, his mind in a whirl, she smiled. ‘There … Now we can really talk about this like adults.’ She took a handful of his hair and lifted his suffused face. ‘Tonight, instead of going to the cinema, or wherever, why don’t you come to see me? The hostel’s empty.’