The Drifters (86 page)
Lady Wenthorne smiled, breathed deeply once or twice, then said, ‘I suppose that tomorrow Sir Victor will allow himself to be convinced by the delegation from Vwarda. We shall return to help them establish a bench worthy of respect. One or another of the incompetents that my husband discharges will rally his tribe behind him. There will be new anti-white riots, and in the end we shall both be killed … probably with spears.’
On the beach next morning the group met five delightful South Africans, sturdy young men who bought a round of beer and were willing to talk about anything. They were bronzed and had the engaging trait of making jokes against themselves and the foibles of their country. They were obviously impressed by the two girls but were more inclined to talk with Cato, whom they interrogated for several hours about conditions in America.
After the swim they congregated at Cato’s pink rondavel and bought some more beer, throwing the bottle caps at the monkeys, who reviled them. Their comments on life in South Africa were amazingly blunt: ‘It’s a police state, and it’s bound to get worse. What we’re learning is how to keep the blacks under control. Any nation can do it, if you’re willing to pay the price.’ Cato’s responses were equally sharp: ‘In America we’ll surely have to fight in the streets. Probably by 1972.’ But the exchange of ideas was mutually profitable, and when they were gone, Cato said, ‘I’m ashamed to confess, but I really dig those cats,’ and Monica pointed out, ‘Of course, these sensible ones come from the English half of South Africa,’ but Gretchen corrected her: ‘Of the five, three spoke Afrikaans among themselves. They were pure Boer. I asked them.’
That night they caught a harsher glimpse of South Africa. A Johannesburg politician, Dr. Christian Vorlanger, arrived at the Trianon on vacation and gave a press conference to advance his peculiar views, which were becoming increasingly popular in the republic. Printed reports of his ideas had created a stir and he volunteered to meet at the hotel with such of his countrymen as might be
vacationing in the city, and the five South Africans dropped by Cato’s rondavel to invite him and his friends to the meeting.
Dr. Vorlanger was a powerful man, tall, rugged, thick-necked and well tanned from constant life in the sun. He was also attractive, for he spoke persuasively, with no touch of the fanatic. His message was as simple as it was revolutionary:
‘What I have to say will be neither popular nor well received, but I speak with the voice of the future and I predict that within five years the position I take today will be adopted by all thinking South Africans.
‘It is increasingly clear to anyone who bothers to look honestly at our great nation that when the crunch comes, we shall not be able to depend upon those South Africans of English derivation who have been contaminated by one or another of the liberal philosophies. When the crunch comes, we will be able to trust only those citizens of Boer inheritance who have remained true to the sober teachings of the Dutch Reformed Church. They alone can be relied upon.
‘Consequently, my plan is simple. If we know that the English cannot be trusted, and if we know that the Boers can, then in all prudence we must right now—from this moment onward—restrict the ballot to those who can be trusted and deny it to those who cannot. My counselors and I have given much thought as to what criteria would best identify those who can be trusted and those who cannot. Many possibilities were considered. That the person speak Afrikaans as his family tongue rather than English. Or that he have been educated in an Afrikaans rather than an English school. That he have served on an Afrikaans committee in his home community. Or perhaps that he be recognized generally in his home community as a Boer. Serious consideration was given to the proposal that three of his four grandparents had to be Boers. But the deeper we went into the question, the simpler the solution became … the more obvious to all of us. We therefore propose that henceforth the ballot be restricted to dues-paying churchgoing members of the Dutch Reformed religion. By this forthright and easily administered rule, we can identify those who will stand with us when the crunch comes—those we can trust to defend the South Africa we love and keep it the South Africa we love.
‘Now before I entertain questions, I want to assure three groups of people that they have nothing to fear from our proposed program. First, the natives. They will not be persecuted in any way. They will live their own lives separated from ours and they will enjoy a standard of living and justice not found in any black republic in Africa. They will have good homes, good jobs, good education and good law courts. There will be an honored place in South Africa for them. They will be with us but not among us.
‘Second, the English. We acknowledge in all we do, even in the language that I am using tonight, that our debt to the English is enormous. We will continue to acknowledge that debt, but we will no longer allow our government to be contaminated by sentimental English liberals to its own inevitable destruction. We promise you that we will govern wisely and well and that your liberties will be preserved and protected. But the government of the nation must be kept in the hands of those who wish to preserve it as it is, and the persons we can depend upon are those who have been reared in our great traditions, the Boers who speak Afrikaans and who attend our church.
‘And that brings me to the third group I wish to reassure, those who belong to other churches. I am mindful that tonight I am speaking in a Catholic country. This is the right religion for this Catholic nation. I am also mindful that many of you may belong to the Church of England. This is the right religion for Englishmen who live in England. And if there are Baptists from America here, or Lutherans from Germany, I assure you that we believe that those great religions are right for your nations, and we will grant freedom of worship throughout South Africa. But our government must be in the hands of the only religion that speaks to our historic heritage, the Dutch Reformed. Into its keeping must be given the salvation of our nation.’
He threw the meeting open for questions, and speaker after speaker rose to report: ‘I happen to be from South Africa and I want the people in this audience to know that I and most of my friends support the ideas put forth so ably by Dr. Vorlanger tonight.’ Others assured the audience: ‘We promise that the English-speaking South Africans will be in no way discriminated against. The courts will continue to be scrupulously fair, but when the
crunch comes we must have the reins of government in hands that we know and can trust.’
Later that night, as they sat together in one of the clubs, Gretchen asked her South African companions what this phrase ‘when the crunch comes’ meant, and one of them explained, ‘It hides at the back of every waking moment and determines thought on every problem. “When the crunch comes,” when the blacks finally rise in armed rebellion and we have to shoot them down with machine guns.’
Cato said, ‘It’s an idea which fascinates Americans. “When the crunch comes. When we have to shoot down the niggers.” I must remember it.’
‘Blacks have their own version,’ Monica warned. ‘You meet it in countries like Vwarda and Tanzania. “When the crunch comes.” On the night we slaughter the whites. Which of our neighbors can we trust to do the slashing? It’s what Lady Wenthorne referred to the other evening when she said that she and Sir Victor would be killed … by spears.’
It was on this night, Joe told me later, that Monica and Cato began that alternation of euphoria and depression that would characterize the rest of their stay in Africa. They knew that the course laid out by whites and blacks could end only in collision and escalating bloodshed. ‘From then on,’ Joe told me, ‘they were like two doomed souls. They found consolation in the rondavel, smoking dagga with their South African friends, but you could see that something was gnawing at them. I couldn’t guess what until that day I saw Monica coming out of the Indian store. From there on, it was mostly downhill.’
Monica’s gloom was deepened the next afternoon when the judiciary mission from Vwarda arrived at the Trianon to try to persuade Sir Victor to return to the supreme court, for in the mission, which was completely black, were many old friends from the good days. The president’s brother, dressed in formal clothes with pinstripes and piping down his trousers, had been chauffeur to her family for eighteen years, a good and dignified man who had watched over her when Sir Charles was absent in the jungle. Secretary to the mission was a fine man from one of the interior tribes, illiterate till the age of eighteen, then educated by Monica’s mother until he qualified for school in England. In the group were former storekeepers, bricklayers
and runners for the big estates, some dressed in African costume, but most, like rural undertakers from the south of England.
They did not come begging. As Lady Wenthorne told the Americans later that night, ‘They want Sir Victor to supervise the courts for a three-year period—not the decisions, mind you, only the orderly progress of cases … the distribution of the workload.’
‘Will he accept?’ Monica asked.
‘What can we do? Who wants to go back to England at our age and sit around like dotty old fools?’ She suddenly realized what she had said and seemed to consider apologizing for any unintended insult to Monica’s father, but she had spoken the truth and there it lay. ‘Sir Victor is making only one demand, that the three worst judges be disqualified. Trouble is, one of them happens to be the president’s nephew. So perhaps we’ll be going back to Devon. They’re telephoning Vwarda and we’ll know tomorrow.’
Cato asked if he might be allowed to interview the mission, and Lady Wenthorne said, ‘I should think it might be arranged, but what can we tell them is your reason?’ and Monica suggested, ‘He’s a scholar.’ Shortly thereafter a member of the mission came to the Wenthorne’s room to report that Mr. Jackson would be granted half an hour with the chairman and three other members who would like to talk with an American Negro, so Cato went down to their quarters. He told me later what happened.
‘The four men were very proper, three in formal dress, one in African. They asked me questions for fifteen minutes, then I laughed and said, “I’m here to interview you,” and they were very gracious. I launched right in with the best questions I had. “Why do you need help from white judges at all?” and they said, “Our black judges are quite capable in administering tribal law. But they have no sense of overall organization—appeals and such—so for some years we’ll need a practiced hand.” Then I asked if they thought Sir Victor could be effective if he were in an advisory position only, and they said, “With an ordinary man it wouldn’t work, but Sir Victor is no ordinary man.” So then I asked, “But isn’t the time at hand when you’ll want to get rid of all the whites?” and the president’s brother said, “That time will never come. It
would be fatal if Vwarda were to become black racist the way South Africa is white racist. We blacks are going to prove that we can rule without hatreds.” I asked if there hadn’t been a lot of hatred when the white judges were thrown out, and he said, “There was. And our whole society was ashamed. That’s why we’re here.” I asked if Vwarda would accept Sir Victor’s conditions and fire the unsatisfactory judges, and he said, “That’s what I’m talking to my brother about on the phone this evening. We want Sir Victor enough to make certain concessions.” So finally I asked, “Will the nation be able to hold together against the pull of tribalism?” and he said he was sure it would, that every day the breakaway forces grew weaker and the central tendency stronger.
‘And when I left the meeting, I was sick at heart, because every one of the commissioners looked and talked and acted just like my father. To me the whole damned lot were Uncle Toms on the international level, and the people Sir Victor ought to have been talking with were the young hotheads who had been yelling “Death to the white judges,” because I’ll bet they weren’t conciliatory. You know what I did? I went to Monica and told her, “You advise the Wenthornes not to go back to Vwarda, because they’re in a no-win position,” and she asked how I could say that, and I told her, “By looking at the president’s brother,” and she asked how I could tell anything by looking at a man, and I told her, “Because he looks so damned much like my father,” and she knew what I meant.
‘She went to Lady Wenthorne and warned her against going back to Vwarda, but while she was there the telephone call came through from the president, and he accepted all of Sir Victor’s conditions, so the Wenthornes accepted, and Monica said, “Because men look alike, it doesn’t mean that they are alike.”
‘Of course, when Sir Victor got back to Vwarda he found that strong tribal pressures had been brought to bear upon the president, who did not find it possible to fire any of the judges, especially his nephew. So Sir Victor, being a man of character, said to hell with it and prepared to leave, but this was interpreted as an insult to Vwarda, and the black rebels started a rampage under the motto “Death to the white judge!” and in the melee, which the
president’s own tribesmen led, Lady Wenthorne was shot dead, but not her husband.’
At the pink rondavel one evening nine young people—four from the pop-top plus five from South Africa—were in a placid mood from smoking dagga when one of the South Africans suggested, ‘We’ve accepted your hospitality so often, tonight you’re coming with us to the night clubs,’ and they roared off to introduce Monica and the Americans to that garish strip near the waterfront where entertainment flourished: Bar Luso, featuring an exotic Negro stripper; Aquario, with a Negro band; Pinguim, with a bevy of Negro hostesses; and of course Bar Texas, marked by a five-pointed tin badge.
The patrons were mostly South African whites, and the fascinating fact about them, as Cato spotted immediately, was that they preferred black girls as dates, as if their policy of apartheid at home drove them to contrary behavior abroad. When Cato pointed this out to Joe, the two watched more closely, and the theory was confirmed: South African men did constantly approach the colored hostesses, did buy them expensive drinks, and did try to get them to leave the clubs with them.