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                             THE TERRORIST


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                                SOLITARY

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             The voice that connected him to what he had done faded, but

        before he lost it he heard the news.  The music stopped with

        pips like those that used to interrupt programmes during the

        war.  The announcer's voice sounded controlled, but he was sure

        it was frightened too.  Boom.  His was no distant act of

        sabotage.  They knew that his act meant real danger to them.

        The voice, hiding its fright, said,"The area around the station

        has been cordoned off." Ha]  They were taking notice now.

        Police and ambulances were being rushed in.  Joy made his hands

        tremble.  He gripped the steering wheel more firmly.  Nothing

        was known about the cause of the explosion.  Ha,Ha]  he shouted

        to the voice.  The police suspected a bomb.  I did it.  I did

        it.  The city was trickling away behind him.  The voice gave way

        to crackle and static.  He switched it off.  At last.  He had

        done it.  It had been done.  Boom.  At last the dam of tyranny

        and pent up rage had been blasted.  Water would flow over all

        the land.  When he had phoned The Star, he had said,"This is the
                                      ___ ____

        They would not sleep their fat and insolent sleep.  They would

        know that the misery they poured every day on the suffering and

        the poor was about to be poured on them.  They were being

        brought to justice.  And he was the one who had done it.

             The sunny road sped under him.  He started to sing a

        passage from the Messiah.  "Thou shalt break them.  Thou shalt
                         _______

        break them with a rod of iron." Crash, the cymbals met.  Boom.

        He heard this joyful act.  Boom.  "Thou shalt dash them in

        pieces like a potter's vessel.  In pieces.  In pieces." The deep

                                                                  Page 2


        male voice would sing that promise of justice.  Joan would be

        sitting there in the orchestra, ready to bring her cello to

        voice too, to sing the praise of justice.  "In pieces.  In

        pieces." He had no truck with Joan's God who never got round to

        doing the job,all promises.  He, David, had started it.  Boom.

        He had made the bomb and planted it.  Now it had burst, and now

        the seed was scattered, flashed in terror over the whole land.

             Cumulus clouds were gathering over the green fields of

        mielies,building high baroque structures in the blue sky.  They

        matched the grandeur he felt.  Their majesty calmed him.

             He would reach the border by evening.  He would meet

        Phillip.  He hadn't told Phillip.  There had been no time for

        had Francois and Trevor anyhow, it was right.  There was no more

        time for patience.

             The villages he passed through looked peaceful, as though

        the news hadn't touched them yet.  It would.  A slow dust

        stirred the stoep of the Grand Hotel, the reflection of his car

        in the window of a cafe where there might be a customer drinking

        a cup of coffee at this hour, or blasting a pinball machine.

        Everthing looked as though nothing had happened.  But it had.

        He had started the end.  Boom.

             He passed a single African walking it seemed from nowhere

        to nowhere.  He wore his shoes dangling at his shoulders, the

        laces tied around his neck.  He wanted to stop and confide in

        him.  For your sake ....So that it would not in future be only

        whites who could own and ride cars.  So that there would be some

                                                                  Page 3


        other lot than this barefoot trudging in the heat,the emptiness,

        breathing in the dust of the white man's car that swept past

        him.  Curbing the pity and joy that welled in him, he drove

        without stopping.  He must get to the Basutoland border by

        night.

             It would probably take some time to arrange the security

        measures and the manhunt they would set up after him.  If he

        could make it to the border in good time there would be no

        waiting for him.  Once out of South Africa it would be possible

        to get to England.

             The clouds had piled up, and the east he was driving to

        looked dark.  It would rain before he reached the border.  The

        weather matched his exultation and sense of power.  Mabotoana

        had taught him that in Basutoland the blessing given at farewell

        was Pula hantle, Rain well.  It was beginning to come down now,
            ____ ______

        the first heavy drops, another begining, breaking the curse of

        drought that cursed his country.  He was right.  He had done the

        right thing.  The others would see it.  The rain was blessing.

        He put his arm out of the window to feel it and spread his wet

        fingers His fingers were wet.  He cupped his palm and brought it

        to his face, pressing the water to his forehead and wiped his

        cheeks.  He had forgotten the feel of his skin.  He reached out

        again for more water to pour over his hair until his scalp and

        face were wet.The rain was coming down so quickly he could not

        see the road ahead.  He slowed.  The warm liquid was pouring

        through the window, but he kept it open.  His shirts and pants

                                                                  Page 4


        were clinging to his chest and thighs.  He reached outside for

        more rain and brought it to his lips and tasted it.  Lightning

        flashed ahead.  THe purified air yielded the smell of veld woken

        life.  He breathed it, expanding and relaxing.

             That first year with Joan the spring rains had come late.

        The day of the first storm she stopped practising, and put her

        cello aside.  Tthey went walking.  Rain poured off their hair

        and faces.  When the power of the storm was spent, large globes

        of water dripped from the trees.They came home and made love,

        and slept, and ate supper, and went out again into the moist

        night, and came home again and made love.

             They had had only one year of happiness like that.  Then

        the country's bitterness and rage began to divorce them.  First,

        in the middle of summer, there had been the Coalbrook mine

        disaster.  Then, at the end of March, the street of corpses at

        Sharpeville.  Immediately there had followed the state of

        emergency, and the arrests in the middle of the night.  Michael

        and other friends had been imprisoned, and Pratt had tried to

        assasinate Verwoerd.Then had come the sequence of laws that

        brought everything back to where it had been before.  Only now

        with more suffocating power.

             Nothing in their lives or South Africa remained unmarked by

        Sharpeville.  Its weight had fallen into their lives like a

        rockfall, and crushed them.  But now he had thrown that

        impotence and pity off.  He would write to Joan from England.

        There the misery that had divorced them would lie behind them.


        He would get a job teaching and would not have to be part of the

        system of Christian National Education.  In England, he would

        love Joan again and she would love him.  He would listen to her

        playing the 'cello without feeling that music should not be

        allowed in the world.  They would be among friends.  Michael was

        in England already.  Philip would be there.  Joan would see what

        a friend he had become.  And when Francois and Trevor were

        released from prison, they would also come to England.They would

        be together as they had never been, not even at the beginning

        when he had first loved Joan, and she had been the one who knew

        that South Africa could not exist without its prisons, when he

        knew nothing.

             A white stroke of lightning glared on a fence just ahead of

        him.  He swerved at the clap.  Boom, he answered the thunder.

        Boom.  He closed the window and pressed through the torrent.

        Even if lightning struck the car, he would be safe.  He was

        invulnerable and potent.  He drove through the darkness that the

        storm made.  It would not last long.

             The storm eased.  Bars of afternoon light caught rain still

        falling, and pieces of rainbow appeared.  It was a day of

        extraordinary weather.

             At the border the sentries took him for a missionary and he

        went through without trouble.  Now there was just the last lap

        waiting for him.  He would arrive there after dark, and the road

        was running with mud, but he was safe.  He had done what had to

        be done.  He was past the border.  He would change into dry

                                                                  Page 6


        clothes.  Philip would give him some food to eat.  If there was

        time before the message came from Mabotoana's friend, he would

        sleep.  Driving was slow in the wet mud of the twisting road.

        Until sunset, fragments of rainbow appeared and disappeared

        among the mountains.

             When he arrived and knocked, Philip opened the door but did

        not move to let him in.  He stood in the threshold.  David's

        senses opened to the night.  Philip stepped back.  His eyes held

        David as though to outstare a dangerous animal.

             "What do you want?" David's stomach tightened.

             "You're mad." He stood still.

             "We agreed not to do it." Philip had moved behind the round

        table that filled the room.  "You're a mad dog." A paraffin lamp

        exaggerated the lights and darks of his neck , the cleft in his

        chin, and black grapes of hair.  His eyes locked on David's.

             "Get out, or I'll call the police."

             The police?  Philip?

             Philip's stare bemused him.

             A movement of Philip's hand drew his eyes towards a

             "I'm sorry we ever trusted you." Philip's hatred pulled his

        attention back."I trusted you, Philip repeated with a grin of

        rage,"I trusted you]"

             He found the door and put himself outside the house.

        Leaning over the car, he felt engine still warm.  He put his

        cheek against the metal as though it could offer him a human

        comfort.  He heard Philip lock the door of the house.  It was

                                                                  Page 7


        dark, he was cold, and his clothes were wet.  He climbed into

        the car.

             Whatever had happened to enrage Philip,he must drive away.

        The police were after him, and if they found him here, they

        would find Philip too.

             The British police would let the South African police in,

        past the border into Basutoland.  Philip and Francois had never

        imagined Basutoland could be a haven for long.He would have to

        go back into South Africa.

             There was nowhere else - other roads would be even more

        hopeless than the muddy track that had taken him here.  But he

        must leave.  This place was too dangerous, for both of them.

        Too bad.  He must get himself away from Philip.

             When he reached for the car key, he couldn't find it.He had

        lost hold of everything.  Then he found the key in his left

        Maseru this time,instead of the one at Ladybrand he'd taken this

        afternoon.  It was too soon to go through that one again.

        They'd recognize him immediately.

             In any case, this place was too near Philip.  When they

        arrested him, it should be far away and they must think he was

        going somewhere else.  He should aim for the coast.A memory of

        Sweetwaters came to him - the warm valley and cool hills where

        Joan's family lived, the smooth green lawns and nourishing mists

        of that green place.  He would get out at Maseru, head west for

        a while until he came to a good road, and then turn back towards

        Natal and Sweetwaters.  They'd get him before he reached the

                                                                  Page 8


        coast and Durban, but that's where he could seem to be heading.

             So he would never get to England with Joan after all.

             There were no roadsigns,and where the road forked, he chose

        randomly.

             He didn't know where he was.  In the sleeping villages

        general stores carried the names of owners, missions carried the

        names of saints.  They wouldn't tell him where to go.

             Towards dawn, he blundered into a border post.He waited for

        the Basuto police to question him,but they were not

        suspicious.His years as a schoolteacher must have marked him

        with respectability.

        names and headed west.  Later he would turn south and east

        towards Sweetwaters and the coast.

             In Thaba Nchu he stopped for petrol.  The African attendant

        took no notice of his number plates.  If the manhunt had

        started, it was none of his business to enforce the white man's

        law.  Brown teeth showed as he accepted David's tip with a wide

        smile.

             "Dankie, baas," he bobbed, a touch of clowning in his

        gratitude.

             "I'm not your baas."

             "No, baas.  Baas Heemstra is my baas."

             "Why should any white man be your baas?"

             "Baas?"

             "It doesn't matter." David smiled, winning another vision

        of the rotted teeth.  As he drove away, he waved.  It was an

                                                                  Page 9


        unexpected gesture, and the African stared at the car,

        diminishing in the rearview mirror.  Perhaps he would remember

        David's face when he saw the photograph in the white man's

        newspaper.  Perhaps he would understand that this white man had

        stood with him, ready to suffer from apartheid.  Would he have

        the sense not to talk about the man he'd served?  If he seemed

        to know David he would be punished.  You're a mad dog.  He was

        attention.  I trusted you, you know.  He should turn south soon,

        get away from Basutoland.

             Driving through the spacious veld and wide sky in the

        sunrise, he slipped into eurphoria again.  The veld was still

        wet from yesterday's rain.  Birds flew out of the grass at the

        roadside.  When he came to a shallow bridge he stopped the car

        to wash his face in an eroded spruit.  He drank.  The water

        tasted of mud.

             He climbed back into the car.  The taste of mud in his

        mouth made him gloomy.

             He was going to die.  He was tired.  He had two nights

        without sleep behind him.  They would get him.  His eyes felt

        sore with strain.  When they got him they would hang him.  He

        might as well die.  He was a mad dog.

             He stopped the car and got out.  He took off his jacket and

        rolled it into a pillow.  He picked a stem of grass.  It

        glittered with brown seeds like tiny beetles.  Shrivelled

        filaments and pollen hung on the seeds, relics of an earlier

        stage of life.  He pulled the stem between his teeth.  The juice

                                                                 Page 10


        tasted sweet.  This would be the last time he would touch the

        soil alive.  He lay down on it,looking at the dumb pebbles and

        grasses.  Damp from yesterday's rain rose into him.  The wool of


             An Afrikaans voice shouted at him to get up.  He tried to

        turn away from it.  Something hard prodded him, a foot pushed

        him over.  A brown face loomed in the sky.  David scrambled up.

             "What's the matter with you?  Who are you?"

             "I was too tired to drive."

             The farmer's broad and hard face was cut for anger.He

        carried a rifle.

             "Take him to the house", he ordered a barefoot African

        standing at a respectful distance behind him.  His green eyes

        jabbed at David,"Walk.  Dont't make trouble."

             They came to the house exposed in a barren yard.One rangy

        rose in the front yard stood for a garden.  A woman watched them

        from the door, and as they drew near, she retreated.  The farmer

        commanded David into a parlour.  Standing behind her husband,

        the wife watched him from a face as blank as a skull.

             In the dark and spotless room the floor and furniture

        glistened.  Tight embroidered cushions perched on the sofa's

        tight leather seat.  Two high wooden chairs faced the window.

             "Sit."

             David sat on one of them.

             "Watch him." He heard the phone click.  The farmer's voice,

        now intimate and practical, asked for police.

                                                                 Page 11

        woman was watching him from the door.  The gun in her hands,

        competently held, made her look like one of those stalwart women

        of the Great Trek.  She would see him dead without wincing.  As

        he would her.  He turned back to look into the room.

             Facing the window, he could see out into the dry yard and

        the blank road.  Impervious to anything he had done, the barren

        sight assured him that nothing had changed, nothing had

        happened.  The scraggly rose bush offered two blooms, one blown

        and fading.  The sun stared harshly at them.  This was no

        country for European luxuries.  Let the English have their

        gardens,cool and leafy and consoling, like the one Joan's mother

        tended.  Joan's family pretended that they still lived in

        England.  They played polo and rode out to hunt fox - if they

        rode far enough, they'd find baboon and hyena instead.  How

        unreal their world had seemed to him, green and easy.Like the

        world he had been dreaming of yesterday, when he longed to go to

        England with Joan and love her again and be happy with her.

        England could not be like the place they imagined in Sweetwaters

        or the place he'd imagined, able to heal the dusty ferocity that

        burned and dried him, and divorced him from Joan.

             A stream he had seen somewhere was calling him with

        flickering water.  As he tried to reach it, stones grew round

        him and he could not cross the caked and jagged earth.

        pickup van.  They didn't ask his name.  They didn't speak to

        him.  They slammed the door and locked it.  They went back into

                                                                 Page 12


        the house.

             The African constables who guarded the van were standing in

        the dry yard talking solemnly.  The darker, a man of about

        forty-five, had large earlobes pierced and distended where had

        once worn earplugs.  David was thirsty but he didn't want to ask

        for water in the language of the oppressor.  He didn't know

        whether the kitchen kaffir word his mother had used for water

        when she spoke to servants came from Zulu or Sesuto.  It was an

        old bitterness that he had never learned to talk with Africans

        in their language.  But a few weeks ago Mabotoana had started to

        teach him a few words.

             "Dumela, Ntate." Greetings, father.  Mabotoana had taught
              _______ _____

        him the salutation of respect.  The constable came to the van,

        staring.

             "Manze,Ntate." The African stared as if he didn't
              ___________

        understand.  "I'm thirsty." He mimed drinking, to show what he

        needed.  The African shook his head, smiling, but turned away.

             A bench was fixed to one side of his cage.  He lay down on

        day grew hotter.

             Emptiness closed round him.  When he was a boy they had

        lived in the southern suburbs near the gold mines.  The dumps

        lolled under the sun.  He wasn't allowed to play on their dry

        white sand, so loose and slippery anyone could slide to death

        there.  Even the older dumps where the mine sand was less

        poisoned and straggly clumps of grass held the recovering earth

        gave no sure foothold.  The dumps were hollow, people said, and

                                                                 Page 13


        could crack.  Anyone could fall in.

             They had him now.  They would hang him.


             An electric light burned all the time.  There was no day.

        There was no night.  He knew what was up and what was down.  Up

        was the ceiling painted black, where a naked electric filament

        danced a red illusion in his eyes after he looked at it.  Down

        was the floor, the coir mattress, the grey blanket, the corner

        where the bucket stood stinking quietly.  Around were the four

        walls painted green.  In one, a door and a judas for them to

        look through.  Above the door, a ventilation brick.


             Sometimes a warder came with stew and then another with tea

        and bread and jam.  They would not answer when he asked the time

        or date.  Sometimes he saw the hands on a warder's watch, but

        his sense of duration wandered and he could not tell how long it

        eight he had seen.  A day?  Half a day?  Which half?  Sometimes

        he felt cold, but it was summer outside.  Was it?

             He knew where he was.  In police headquarters, Marshall

        Square.  He had recognized the area as they drove into

        Johannesburg through heavy evening traffic.  They had passed

        near the Stock Exchange.

             Perhaps shares had fallen yesterday after his act.

        Tomorrow they would rise again because he had been caught.  and

        would soon be hanged.  Everything would go back to what it had

        been before.  As though he had never existed.  And South Africa

                                                                 Page 14


        would be safe again.

             He didn't care about the shares on the Stock Exchange and

        whether they had risen or fallen.  Apartheid was not maintained

        or broken by South Africa's prosperity.  That was one of the

        ways he hadn't agreed with Michael's Communist

        friends.Disagreeing with them, he had found himself agreeing

        with Philip.  Who called him a mad dog.

             He was caged now.

             As the van came in to the city where the streets were full

        of secretaries and businessmen going home, he saw picannins

        selling newspapers.  He couldn't read the paper banners they

        tied to light poles, but as the van turned in to Marshall Square

        the station bomber, arrested.

             They took him to an office high above the street.  The

        heavy man with the red face questioned him.  He told them that

        he had been trying to get to the coast and they wrote down what

        he said.  Silly flowered curtains too small for the window,

        allowed him to see the sky becoming deeper until it became

        black.  Van Der Merwe, the man with the red face, drank coffee.

        David knew that he should be hungry and thirsty but he felt

        nothing, only that he must concentrate on their questions.  He

        was finding it hard to lie and remember the lies he told, to

        tell them what they asked without telling them about the others.

        He tried to lean against the filing cabinet behing him.  One of

        the three warders in the room pushed David away, and other drew

        chalk circle on the ground.

                                                                 Page 15


             "Stand here, hey," the tall warder with pinched eyes and

        black hairs in his ears pushed David into the circle.  David

        stood, and the world grew smaller.It shrank into the room and to

        the circle where he was standing.  It shrank to his head and his

        head filled everything.  Throbbing.  The floor was soft and

        would let him sleep.

             So if they had not taken him anywhere else while he was

        unconscious, he was still in Marshall Square, police

        and the library there were secretaries wearing flowered dresses,

        and picannins selling newspapers with his name in them.

             His father had said,"One day the whole world will know your

        name,David.  You'll be a great man, like General Smuts.  I never

        had a chance myself, but you'll do it,David.  You'll go down in

        history." David was going to be a leader and a discoverer, a new

        Cecil Rhodes opening up the belly of the dark continent to take

        out gold and diamonds and empire.  That was what a man needed.

        That was what life was for.  Those millions who lived unknown by

        history lived, in a way, but not like men.Their lives had a

        dubious, shadowy quality.  Who knew them?  Who could believe in

        them?  A man wanted something solid.  Immortality.  David was

        going to win that and give it to his father.

             The night the Nationalists had come into power in the l948

        elections,his father sat up till sunrise listening to the

        returns come in.  He had spread newspapers and charts all over

        the round dining-room table.  Whenever pips interrupted the

        music his father stopped the game of patience he had been

                                                                 Page 16


        playing, and listened intently to the figures,wrote them down,

        and exclaimed at them.When the figures surprised him, and there

        were many surprises that night of the Nationalist victory, he

        exclaimed aloud, "Aha]" or "My God]" or "The bastards]" David

        and there was no one with his father but the sound of the

        wireless, the election charts, the pack of cards for games of

        patience, the calculations , the smoke filled air, David still

        heard his father exclaim aloud at the portentous figures.

             Some time during the night David woke and went to the

        bathroom.  His father heard him and, coming out of the

        disheveled room, took David by the shoulders and said, "One day,

        David, when you're a great man like Smuts, people will sit up

        all night to hear what happened to you." He released David with

        a slight shove, and went back to the harsh light of the dining

        room.  David couldn't fall asleep again.He heard the trains, he

        heard the milk boys, and later it seemed to him that he had

        heard lions roaring in the zoo.

             He stopped pacing up and down the closed cell.He put his

        hurt cheek to the wall.  Its indifferent surface did not take up

        his anger.  It asked nothing of him.  It was itself.  It was

        hard.  Denfinite and supporting.It would be, and let him be.

             Waiting for David to make him real by entering history, his

        father had accomodated.Although he did not make history himself,

        he participated in the manner of a Greek chorus, reading the

        newspapers, fighting in the war,and feeling that he knew what

        was going on.  When anything specially important happened, an

                                                                 Page 17

        street to ask the results, and felt united to all those who

        participated as he did.At such moments, David felt, his father's

        life was borne on a great surge of meaning, as happy as in the

        best moments of the war.

             After the war, and the elections that handed the country

        over to the Nationalists who had stayed home and supported

        Hitler, his father had joined the Torch Commando to protest the

        Nationalist's policies.  He marched in Torch Commando

        processions and talked with other men who had fought up north

        with him, and now felt angry like him.

             Later, he had seen how, in the meaningless interstices

        between elections and important events, his father grew shifty

        about his own hopelessness, disappointed, not despairing,

        comfortable, accomodated.  Curbed rages showed in his face, and

        in the unexpected outbursts that alternated with his impotent

        silences, themselves full of rage.

             He pushed the wall away.

             "Well,fuck you]" he cursed his father.

             In the solitary cell his voice sounded strange to him,

        echoing in a nimbus of resonances in his own head.  He would go

        mad here.  He needed some other person's voice, separate from

        himself.

             He must keep control, or he would become a mad dog.Like his


             Pinchface came in and found David lying on the mattress.He

                                                                 Page 18


        loomed over David, but David would not move and give him the

        victory of noticing his presence.  Pinchface stooped to set an

        enamel plate of food on the floor.  David noticed the material

        of his khaki uniform stretched tight and pulling a fold to the

        corner of the armpit.  They shouldn't allow that, he thought.  I

        could get him in a moment like that and overpower him.  But then

        there would be getting out of Marshall Square.  Out of

        Johannesburg.  Another trip to Basutoland?

             He did not show that he noticed when Pinchface stood

        straight again, a threat in his eyes, dry as stone.  He waited

        for the sound of the key in the lock before he turned, stood,

        went to the judas to see whether an eye looked into his, picked

        up the plate, and started to eat.

             The next day (or the same?) a new warder brought food.

        This man was young, no older than David himself,slender, his

        brown face lumpy, like a walnut, his eyes curious and

        disingenuous.  He spoke," Hullo."

             David stared, as though he had forgotten that he could hear

        another person speak and could use his own voice to answer.

             Then he remembered."Hullo."

             "Here's your lunch."

        warder's observing him with inquisitive candor.  A human being.

        Another person.  Sanity and relief flooded back.  And caution.

             "Are you new on this section?"

             "I'm not allowed to talk to you."

             "Thanks for saying hullo, then."

                                                                 Page 19


             "That's O.K.  man."

             "Thanks for lunch."

             The youth went out and locked the door.


             He couldn't tell any more when he was dreaming, when awake.

        He often found himself rehearsing conversations, half

        remembered, half dream.  He asked Mabotoana what he thought of

        the bomb.  Had it been a success?  Would it encourage the

        Africans?  Their conversation turned with the relevance of

        dreams to a pool in the mountains near Rustenberg where a vein

        of malachite showed under the clear water.  But Mabotoana knew

        nothing of that pool.  It was Michael who had known of the

        place, and they'd all gone swimming there, Michael, Aviva,

        Edward, Ann.  They camped the weekend in the mountains and

        climbed and swam, and at night, sitting round the fire, they

        talked until the stars and the night silenced them.  Joan had

        leaned her head on his shoulder, and space without limit had

        become part of his mind and memory of her.

        even tighter than the wall they had built for the whole country,

        to make everyone inside it mad with their own madness.  Once

        Joan and her friends had brought him to the point where he read

        newspapers as they did, and saw what happened in South Africa,

        he craved for a voice from outside.  He needed to know that

        there was someone who recognized that this world in South

        Africa, was mad.

                                                                 Page 20


             In Pretoria his craving for a newspaper from England had

        become, at times, like physical hunger, and as soon as he got to

        Johannesburg he would go to a bookshop in Hillbrow that would

        have the London Times, or Observer, or New Statesman.

        Bookstores in Pretoria wouldn't keep these papers.

             But the government knew about his craving and that they

        must silence the voice from outside that could keep people sane.

        At first David had laughed at the new censorship laws as though

        they were only ridiculous.  He laughed at the funny articles

        Michael wrote for the English newspapers when Black Beauty was
                                                      _____ ______

        banned (pornographic), and The Red and the Black (political),
                                   ___ ___ ___ ___ _____

        and Dostievsky's Notes from Underground.But what was the use of
                         _____ ____ ___________

        recently, when he had bought English newspapers, there had been

        pages missing or blocks of print cut out.  They had locked him

        in a prison as big as the whole country.  They made the world.

        It obeyed their laws, and it was impossible to tell whether it

        was they who were crazy, or himself.  No one laughed when they

        put Muller on trial, saying that he taught heresy about the

        Father and the Son.No one seemed to notice what they did in the

        prison at Bitterspruit.  No one said that the country where

        these things happened was mad.

             No one thought it monstrous that apartheid should always

        exist, in every act of every life.  Only he balked that men

        should always be called European, and with their own names, and

        native, without names.

             Perhaps there was neither cruelty nor madness.  Perhaps

                                                                 Page 21


        white South Africans were really kind.  In spite of group areas

        removals and pass arrests, they pleaded for donations of

        blankets in winter, and collected money to buy milk for

        children.  They pleaded for exceptions when the law would

        separate a child from its parents, and a husband from his wife -

        when these looked like exceptional cases.  To the laws as a

        whole they resigned themselves.They accepted them and voted for

        them.

             But he had not been able to resign himself.  He was mad,

        and found it monstrous.  He could not resign himself to the

        prison at Bitterspruit, or the children in that mission hospital

        at St Therese's, where he had gone with Joan and talked with

        Edward.  She had played the cello for them.

             He must not think of Joan.  That way madness lies.  Other

        faces.  A gnomish man with pointed nose - he'd seen him on a

        bus;and a woman wearing a green dress suffering a big goitre in

        her neck.  The dress pulled tight over her back.  Like

        Pinchface's uniform.  He couldn't keep his memories coherent.


             Long before St Therese's there had been another night when

        Joan had played and he and Edward had listened.  That had been

        the night of the Treason Trial arrests, when he hardly knew Joan

        and he had been astonished when she had spoken of "those in

        prison for our sake." Did she think him now in prison for her

        sake?  It wasn't true.  He was in prison for the sake of the

        Africans.  But for the whites too, so that they could say the

        country belonged to them too, at least one white man had given

                                                                 Page 22


        his life for justice.  How did it work?  He was forgetting that

        too.  Children starving.  They had been in the hospital at St

        Therese's.  He had had to do something.  The bomb.  The bomb

        seemed incoherent.  Boom.  He couldn't get the connection.  The

        and metallic.


             Van der Merwe came to his cell.  David stood facing him,

        feeling the ache that made his right cheek stiff, and stubble

        pushing through the bruises, ashamed of the untidy mattress on

        the floor that showed he nearly grovelled when he slept.  Van

        der Merwe's red face looked like the thick faces of people in

        Pretoria, and blond fur grew between the knuckles of his

        fingers.  Pinchface behind him slouched slightly.  It would be a

        long session.

             "How are you,Miller?"

             "Bored."

             "You'll soon find things more interesting."

             Fright jumped at David's chest like a large dog."Are you

        letting me out?"

             Van der Merwe grinned.  "Not yet,Miller.  We need more

        information"

             "I've made a statement."

             "Yes." Van der Merwe paused.  David knew that game.  He

        waited too.

             "Where did you get the dynamite?"

             "I stole it."

                                                                 Page 23


             "Where?"

             "There's no quarry belonging to a de Bruyn in Rustenberg."

             "It was there last year."

             "Did you keep it a year?"

             "No."

             "How long to you think you've been here, Miller?"

             So they knew.  They were trying to drive him mad.  He must

        mislead them.  He still knew the time.  His body ached and his

        beard itched.  His body told time.  He still had his body.  He

        still had his mind.

             "Only a few days."

             Van der Merwe smiled.  Without turning, he ordered

        Pinchface to bring a chair.  When he sat, David noticed how his

        thick thighs spread.

             "Who was in this with you?"

             "I worked alone."

             "Where did you get the dynamite?"

             "I stole it in Rustenberg."


        The session felt as if it had taken hours.  The game couldn't

        last.  They could do anything they liked.  They could smash him

        in pieces.  In pieces.  They could torture him.

             The day they learnt how to handle dynamite, all four of

        them had worked together, closer than brothers.  Philip,

        Francois, Trevor, himself.  Trevor's sure painter's hands had

                                                                 Page 24


        was less obedient.  That night, the police in his dreams banged

        on his door, swearing.  Francois woke him.

             "It's all right, Trevor.  It's only a dream." Afterwards

        they all lay awake and could hear each other breathing.  They

        were all alone.

             Nothing had worked.They did not follow their own plans, and

        now Trevor and Francois were in prison.  Perhaps in this very

        building.


             The young warder came again, and again seemed willing to

        give him a few words.  So he hadn't dreamed the human warmth of

        that ingenuous and lively face.  Philip had warned them that

        friendly warders could be a trap.  Madness was another trap.

        David thanked the warder for the soup he brought.

             "You needn't thank me.  It's just my job." The boy looked

        more fit for a farm than a prison.

             "Do you like it?" He didn't answer.

             "I bet you used to think you'd do something better with

        your life." Brown eyes went away without another word, and David

        felt, what's the matter with me?  He is what he is - it's too

        late for me to do anything about the way people live in this

        country.  And anyhow, I'm a mad dog.

             But the next time brown eyes came, he still seemed

        asked,"What's your name?"

             "Petrus Hugo." Their eyes met.

             "I'm David Miller."

                                                                 Page 25


             "Ja." The smile that went between them had a strangely

        rueful feeling, as though they might have wanted to be friends,

        in some other time, in some other country.


             Van der Merwe came again with two warders following him.

        One was Petrus Hugo.  But David looked only at the handcuffed

        figure between them.

             They had shaved off Trevor's beard, and the whiter chin

        accented his sick cast of face.  His cheeks seemed eaten away,

        and the veins on his forehead protruded.  His eyes, looking out

        of slits between heavy curtains of flesh did not meet David's.

        David had become a thing, an obstruction one must not walk into.

             Neither David nor Trevor spoke, but van der Merwe seemed

        satisfied.  He pushed Trevor round and shoved him toward the

        door.  Trevor's hands dangled behind his back, hanging from

        metal wrists.

             Before he went out, van der Merwe looked at David.

             "I'll see you later," he promised jovially.


             For a long time after that visit David found himself

        rubbing his hands strenuously against his thighs and upper arms,

             Suddenly exhausted, he lay down and pulled the blanket over

        his head like a shroud.It hid him from the electric light, it

        itched and smelt of rot and past prisoners, but the smell and

        thin warmth comforted him as though the cheap material held him

        close to something alive.

                                                                 Page 26


             When Sina died his father didn't want David to know what

        was going on.  He wanted David to go on swotting for the matric

        prelims so that he could do well enough to win a Rhodes

        scholarship and immortality.

             After supper his mother went out to Sina's room at the end

        of the yard.  At the dining-room table, with Latin books in

        front of him, David could hear Samuel still washing up in the

        kitchen.  His father was sitting at the table smoking, watching

        David work.  His fingers were stained with nicotine.

             Not limp, like Trevor's hands.  What had van der Merwe

        learned?  Trevor's hands had done everything with such command

        and pleasure, that day near Hartebeestpoort dam.  They had

        exchanged exultant glances - yes, they were going to so

        something at last, something that had to be done.  But now the

        police had Trevor before he had been able to do anything, and it

        looked as though they had done whatever it was Trevor had

        dreamed of in that nightmare.

        the fort built by more than two hundred years of white obstinacy

        and madness.  They had hoped for too much, and now Trevor was

        smashed, and soon he would be smashed.  In pieces.

             Wiry strands of coir from the rough prison mattress pricked

        his face.

             Perhaps they had tortured Francois too, one of their own,

        an Afrikaner of the Afrikaners, and therefore the worse traitor.

        It was hard to breathe, taking in the smell of fear and

        hopelessness that clung to his coarse blanket like sweat.

                                                                 Page 27


             Sina's room had a complicated smell.  He knew it from the

        times he'd been there to give her a message on her day off.The

        smell seemed to come from everything in her room - her starched

        embroidered pillow cases and big Bible, candles, parafin lamp,

        the red polish on the concrete floor, the soap in a saucer on

        the box next to her bed, her clothes.  Perhaps there were

        witchdoctor medicines too adding their note.  The night she was

        dying, smells of white medicines overcame everything else.

             Samuel, finished with the dishes, had come with a message

        that his mother wanted him in Sina's room.

             "I wish your mother wouldn't interrupt when you've got to

        study," his father complained."You've got a Latin exam

        tomorrow." He lit another cigarette.

        had pulled on a jersey before crossing the windy yard.  When he

        opened the door, his mother pulled him in quickly.  The sombre

        room was swathed in the light of the parafin lamp, and it

        smelled of Dettol and Friar's Balsam.  He saw the sheet Sina had

        embroidered to cover the soap box under the lamp.  He saw the

        light high as a vault, over the bed.  There was a structure made

        of blankets and sheets and bones.  There was a pair of eyes

        shining, alive, not seeing.  An arm hung down the sheet,

        straight, dark on white.  His mother held its hand.

             "David,close the door quickly." He hid the windy night

        behind the door.

             "Phone Dr Leighton, David.  I want him to come

        immediatel;y.  I think it's serious."

                                                                 Page 28


             Dr Leighton advised Friar's Balsam and warmth.

             "No, my mother wants you to come to the house.  She says

        its serious."

             "Tell your mother I don't attend to natives.  If she's not

        satisfied with Friar's Balsam, I'll give her a prescription for

        something stronger, but she'll have to come here to fetch it and

        then she'll have to go to the all night pharmacy."

             When he gave the message to his mother, she was furious.

        "Is that so?  He's breaking his Hippocratic oath.  I can have

        to come.  Then you can phone Dr Leighton and tell him I'm going

        to complain to the Medical Association."

             Dr Green didn't make calls at night to new patients.

             "Phone Dr Harvey." Dr Harvey couldn't promise to come at

        once.  He had several other urgent cases.  He promised to come

        in the morning if he was still wanted.

             "Go through the Medical section in the phone book.  Try

        nearby doctors first."

             He phoned until he came to a Dr Getz who turned out to be

        newly qualified.  David hadn't seen at the time that he seemed

        aggressive because he was nervous.  He was too surprised and

        preoccupied because Dr Getz had not sent them out of the room

        when he bared Sina's chest.  He lifted a breast and put the

        stethoscope to the ribs.  He held the wrist to take the pulse.

        He pushed her abdomen.  He lifted her legs one by one.

             The prickling mattress had its own smell.  He turned over

        again, away from it, and stared at the electric light.

                                                                 Page 29


             He had helped to wrap Sina in blankets and carried her

        through the lane at the side of the house, to the doctor's

        Studebaker.  He felt clumsy in the dark, bumping against the

        gate with Sina's docile body on his arm.  Dr Getz put her on the

        back seat.  When he drove away the street looked dark and empty.

             There was no time left for swotting.  It was the first time

        he had been close to extreme suffering and the first time he had

        seen a woman's breasts naked.  He couldn't make anything of

        these facts.They seemed closed and dull.  The acute sensual

        impressions told him nothing.  There was the windy ferocious

        night, the naked light on the kitchen steps, the smell of

        Dettol, the black arm on the white sheet, the answers to Dr

        Getz's questions that came as distorted breaths, not voice.

        There were the lolling breasts hanging on each side of the ribs,

        the warm weight on his arm, the blanket flapping at his ankles.

        His sexual fantasies had never been pressed by such insistent

        detail, or so barren.  And suffering had never seemed so

        mechanical.

             He could not make anything of the hopeless things that

        happened, Sina's death and Trevor's hands.  That night before

        his Latin exam he had tried to understand.  At school they had

        read Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar," and he had learned it off by

        heart as a sure question in the exams - but it seemed to be

        about an experience of death he was too shallow to understand.

        He listened to the wind outside dragging leaves and papers along

        the street with a thin scraping sound.

                                                                 Page 30


             In the morning , waking with a headache, he felt annoyed

        Everything was out of order.  He didn't have a clean shirt

        ironed;  breakfast was late;  and his mother had to give him

        money to buy something at the tuck shop because there were no

        sandwiches.

             "Phone me when you come out and tell me how it goes," his

        mother said."Good luck."

             "Good luck,David.  You just show them," his father echoed.

             After the exam and its immediate autopsy ("Wasn't the

        Virgil a stinker]" "Did you get the unseen?") some of David's

        friends decided to see a film at a cafe bioscope, but David,

        suddenly flourishing a mysterious importance, said he couldn't

        come.  "I've got to see someone in hospital," he announced.

        "Someone who's dying." He refused to explain more and enjoyed

        his special status riding the bus with his friends as far as

        Hospital Hill, where he climbed off.  He bought a large slab of

        chocolate with the money his mother had given him.  He walked

        down Kotze Street to the Non-European Hospital.  Once there, he

        wasn't quite sure what to do.  He didn't even know Sina's

        surname.  He tried the Outpatient door.  The wooden benches wrre

        crowded, but an old native man near the door saw David standing

        confused.  He stood for him.  He was wearing a blue jacket so

        old it bulged where the old man hunched and flopped where he

        shrank.  "Sit, baasie, sit."

        do, a European nurse with the air of a Girl Guide came to them

                                                                 Page 31


        and said, "Yes.  What do you want?" She must have taken David

        for a very light Coloured.

             "Er,I want to visit someone."

             "A relative?"

             "Er,no.  Our servant girl."

             The nurse's tone changed to a new voice, because now she

        was speaking to a European."When was she admitted?"

             After a few more questions she directed David to an

        information desk in another room.  The old native man had

        retreated unobtrusively and was sitting again.

             In the appropriate wing, another European nurse talked to

        David.

             "Visiting hours aren't until one thirty,but I think we can

        make an exception,"she smiled.  "Miss Ismail," she called to a

        nurse in a small office behind her, "Take this man to Ward

        Eighteen.  Sina Buthelezi."

             As they walked through the hospital and Ward Eighteen,David

        felt an aura of silence and wonder move with him like an

        enclosing radiance that made him conspicuous.  He hardly dared

        look at the patients in beds and on mattresses on the floor

        between beds, or the nurses giving injections and helping the

        impression in Sina's room had stripped him of blindness.  Now

        every time he thought hospital it was that hospital.Even the

        hospital at St Therese's, where the children died,had been

        filled in his mind with these crowded sick.  As though he was

        guilty of them all.

                                                                 Page 32


             The Indian nurse pointed to Sina sitting on a stoep

        outside, and left.  Several patients were sitting in the sun

        like dry chrysanthemums abandoned in a winter garden.  Some sat

        in partial shade on the concrete floor against the parapet

        wall,some, like Sina, in the full sun She had pulled her knees

        up, and her thin grey blanket pulled away from her naked feet.


             He saw white cracks on her soles, callouses, chapped

        ankles.  Her breathing was quick and shallow;she was panting

        like a tired dog.

             "How are you,Sina?"

             She nodded, looking at him.

             "Are you comfortable?"

             She nodded.

             "Is there anything I can bring you?"

             She shook her head and looked down at her hands.

             He stood.He didn't know what to do.  He looked at his

        shadow on the grey concrete.  He took the chocolate out of his

        and he put it back.

             "I hope you'll be feeling better soon."

             Again she nodded, not looking at him.

             "Well then, I'll be saying goodbye now."

             She waited, saying nothing.  He turned to leave, feeling

        foolish as he found his way through the wards and hospital

        passages.

                                                                 Page 33


             Sina had made him a thing.

             He still had the afternoon all empty and could easily have

        gone to a film with his friends.  Instead he went to see Sunset

        Boulevard by himself.

             Everything said no to him.

             He turned to face the wall and touch its still, indifferent

        surface.  So that was why seeing Trevor had brought Sina to his

        mind.  With averted eyes.

             The night after his visit to the hospital, a policeman had

        come to the house, and his parents, fearful, signed papers that

        said that Sina had worked as their servant, and had resided at

        their address for nine years.  His parents did not know where

        her husband lived, or who would pay for the funeral, but Samuel

        knew all about it;  he knew where her children lived - there

        were two - living with their grandmother near Bethel, and that

        guaranteed a good funeral and a coffin with brass handles.

             He dropped his hand from the still wall and pulled the

        blanket tight over his back.  Did they still bind the dead in

        grave cloths, or was it only a loose shroud?


             When he woke, his eyes were so caked with dried tears that

        at first he could not open them.  He had been dreaming about

        Joan.  His grief about Trevor and Sina had put out a bulbous,

        swollen pressure, like old potatoes and onions that sprout in

        sacks.  His dreams had been raw and tender.  He pulled the

        blanket away, and went to the bucket.  Hot piss poured out of

                                                                 Page 34


        him.


             Van der Merwe had promised to come back.  The dark walls of

        the cell had, ominously, been newly painted and showed no record

        of the other prisoners who must have been in this room before

        him, no name or mark on the floor.  Their censorship was total.

        No one could know what they wanted to hide.

             If they tortured him it would be better to break quickly,

        the way Philip had advised.  That way you might not tell

        everything.

             He must stop thinking about torture.  That business when he

        had fainted in van der Merwe's office had been nothing to what

        they could do.  They had shocks.  They had water.  That's how

        about Joan.  He would die soon, and should allow himself to

        remember her, especially when it had still seemed so awesome and

        endless and full of light - like that first day, that enormous

        day, when he first come to know her.

             Door, wall, wall, wall, door, wall.

             In the library that distant afternoon she had seemed to be

        a source of light.They had been sitting at the same table,and

        she had been copying a picture from an art book.  He could see

        her thighs rounding under her cotton dress and her bare arm with

        the golden hairs on it, the hollow where her thumb curved into

        her wrist .  He could hear the hssh,hssh of her pencil on the

        sketchpad.When he looked at her hand she saw his glance and

        said, "Isn't it wonderful?" She pushed over the glossy art book

                                                                 Page 35


        and he saw the picture she was copying, a Pieta.  In the centre

        of the composition Christ's dead arm hung straight and angular

        from the severe and naked body, small in its bed of voluminous

        folds, Mary's robes.  Like Sina's arm.

             "Yes."The memory clouded his voice with a sadness he had

        not recognized the day itself, when he had stood so awkwardly in

        front of Sina, and she refused his chocolate, or the night in

        her room where everything had all seemed so strange to him, Joan

        looked at him with a question in her eyes, and he added,"That's

        had been dying, not dead yet, that night in the room where he

        had seen her arm hanging among voluminous folds.  "Everyone else

        looks so...clothed.

             "I love this Pieta.  It's in the Louvre.  One day I'm going

        to go to Europe to see it."

             "Of course."

             After that he couldn't concentrate on Plato.  He listened

        to the sounds made by the starched cotton of her dress when she

        moved and the sound her hand made when she pulled it across the

        sheet of paper where she'd started to write notes.  Whenever she

        turned the pages of the art book he heard a firm, muted, glazed

        crackle.  He imagined that he could her breathing, under the

        masking sounds of steps to the catalogues, chairs scrapiong,

        whispers, pages, and the librarians behind the desk talking

        softly as they stamped books and challenged overdues.  He had

        never heard so many sounds in stillness.

             When Joan shifted in her chair as though she'd studied

                                                                 Page 36


        enough, he invited her to coffee.

             "Wonderful idea I'm getting so stale.  You walk up the

        hill, don't you?"

             It had seemed astonishing to him that she had noticed who

        he was and what he did.  "Yes, I take the bus there."

             So she knew her way around Hillbrow, the area of

        Johannesburg that seemed to show a world like Europe, a

        heightened life.  Vivid people walked among the small shops and

        cafes,florists,fruit shops and boutiques in Kotze Street.He

        heard people passing by speaking Greek and Spanish.  Bookshops

        kept newspapers from England, and copies of Match and du.

        Hillbrow seemed like the world where history happened.


             In Hillbrow there were women who looked like those who come

        to places where gold lies underfoot.  Perhaps Hillbrow was more

        brilliant than Europe itself because Europe and Africa met

        there.  Among its shops, and Europeans really from Europe,

        dandified natives paraded in purple suits and smart felt hats,

        and Indian women walked with subtle insinuation in their flowing

        saris, servants shouted conversations to boys on delivery

        bicycles, and Indian shopkeepers set tins of flowers on the

        pavement.

             The glamour of Hillbrow clung to Joan.  She would go to

        Europe and see her Pieta in the Louvre.

                                                                 Page 37


             More and more as the day showed her to him, he felt that

        she belonged in the luminous living world of art and music and

        history leading a life higher than his own.

             They stood together at the desk to have their books

        to leave her books at Women's Residence, so they walked past the

        bay trees near the swimming pool, and through a rocky short cut

        where everything was golden, the rocks, the grass, and Joan's

        hair twining the afternoon sun into its fine wires.

             He waited in the formidable lobby until she came back and

        they went out into the sun again.

             As they crossed the street towards the bus stop outside the

        Lion's Brewery, Joan pointed to the neon sign,"Do you know the

        story they used to tell about that?"

             "No."

             "People round Women's Residence used to say that if the

        lion ever stopped waving his tail, someone as Res would fall

        pregnant.  Last year when they took the sign down, there were

        wild rumours, and when they put up a new sign, it was this, cub

        and all." They both laughed.

             As they passed a thin cluster of students waiting for the

        bus to town, they both fell silent.The brewery smelled of yeast.

        Grass and weeds sprouted through cracks in the pavement.  The

        sun twisted into Joan's hair.Everything was clear,everything was

        important,everything was itself and part of a whole.

             "I like to look into the houses," he told her, "Don't you?

        Sometimes I stay late at varsity, and when I walk back the

                                                                 Page 38

        sitting round the table."

             "Yes," she answered,"It always feels so strange to do that.

        I feel it when I look into houses, especially from the train.

        Sometimes the houses I can see that the family's poor, but it

        looks so warm and close in the light, and outside it's all

        dark."

             "Do you travel often by train?"

             "Yes, when I come to varsity and go home.  My family lives

        in Natal, in a place called Sweetwaters.  Do you know Natal at

        all?  Sweetwaters is near Pietermaritzburg."

             " We used to go to Durban for the winter holidays, and the

        train stopped at Pietermaritzburg in the early morning." It had

        always seemed misty and loud with the clatter of milk cans being

        loaded on the morning platform, tribute from the rolling and

        soft countryside.  Natal had never seemed like the rest of South

        Africa to him, and he had understood how it was possible for

        homesick Englishmen to make green Natal another England,

        ridiculous, royalist more English than the English now could be.

        In Natal, framed photographs of the Royal Family looked down

        from the walls in tea rooms, and the Union Jack flew from the

        flagpoles of private clubs.  People talked of "home" meaning

        England, even if they had not been born there.

             He wondered whether Ann's family was like that.

        we were only two hours from Durban and the sea," he told Joan.

             "Sweetwaters is in the hills round 'Maritzburg.  It's

                                                                 Page 39


        really beautiful."

             "Have you always lived there?"

             "My family came to Natal nearly two hundred years ago,

        almost with the first settlers."

             "Why did they come?"

             "You're a history major, aren't you?"

             "How do you know?"

             "Michael Henderson told me."

             Pleasure swept him with giddy force.  She had been talking

        about him.

             "Why do you ask?"

             "Some of the stories in my family would amuse you.  The

        Prince Imperial was in love with my great grandmother, and

        perhaps they'd've married, but he was killed in the Zulu wars.

        The way my family talks about it, we might as well have really

        had a Napoleonic marriage."

             Immediately he felt how vain his happiness had been.  Joan

        came from a family deep rooted in history, and in a part of

        South Africa he hardly knew at all.  Compared to hers, his own

        family was as shallow as a reflection, almost invisible, not

        who they had loved.  His father had come from London thirty-five

        years ago, a young man dreaming of gold.  He had not found it in

        the city, and for eight years he had tried to farm in the Orange

        Free State.  The Afrikaners had always called him a rooineck and
                                                            ________

        an uitlander, and after four years of drought and losses he had
           _________

        known he was beaten, and moved back to Johannesburg.  Ever since

                                                                 Page 40


        then it had been clerical jobs, in a bank, in an importing

        business, and in a factory producing plastic raincoats.  David

        felt no tradition in his family, and no stories of tragic or

        passionate love except the novels his mother read.  How could

        Joan could come to know him,a thin phantasmagoric creature with

        no real past?

             That was when he knew that what he wanted more than

        anything in the world was her love .

             There had been nothing to fear then.  Joan had not

        forgotten him.  Misery for her.  He had married her and left

        her, and come back to her and left her again.  He was a mad dog.

        He hurt everybody.  The green wall said nothing.  It examined

        him.  Thinking of Joan only brought him back to himself in this

        frightful trap, where there was nothing but himself.  Sina,

             Guarded by Petrus Hugo.

             He felt for Petrus Hugo some of the tenderness he had felt

        that afternoon for the children they passed, playing in the

        small and dusty yards.The children ran and called to each

        other.Sun had browned their faces and legs,faded their shirts

        and bleached their blond hair.  Their lives seemed pitiful and

        innocent.  Their fathers must have been farmers driven ,like his

        own , from the harsh land.  But his father knew how to live in a

        city.  These had been swept into Johannesburg like waste before

        a broom, leaves before a wind.

             On that day with Joan,walking up the hill from Braamfontein

        to Hillbrow, Afrikaners were not those who caged him.  Not those

                                                                 Page 41


        who would come to hold him and the whole land in a mean grip of

        angry power.


             To the judas,from the judas.  They could watch him and

        exterminate him.  Van der Merwe could torture him and he would

        talk.  If they put electrodes on his ears, his penis...

             They would send someone to clean up the shit and blood.

        Perhaps Petrus Hugo.

             "Does your family still call itself English?"

             She laughed."Well, actually, yes.  I don't think we know

        any Afrikaners."

        they wouldn't fight in the war."

             "Well, of course, they didn't think it was their war.  They

        thought it was ours - to defend the British Empire.  Why should

        they defend that?  They want to get out and make this country a

        republic as soon as they can.  "

             "What will your family do, if they succeed?"

             "Oh, we'll just go on pretending that Natal's England, I

        suppose."

             "My father's only bitter when he thinks about Afrikaners in

        general, really.  Nationalists.  When it comes to people he

        knows, he's different.  He used to have a farm in the Free

        State, and then there was a terrible drought so he came back to

        Jo'burg.  Some of his neighbours came too.  The Barends couldn't

        manage after the vultures started to settle on cows that hadn't

        even died yet.  Dad was sorry for the Barends.  When they came

                                                                 Page 42


        to Jo'burg he tried to help them out.  They couldn't read and

        didn't know how to catch buses or anything.  Dad said they lived

        a kaffir's life.  So he lent them money, even though we didn't

        have much ourselves, and showed them round a bit."

             "Do you still see them?"

             "No.  We stopped after Mrs Barend died.  We went to their

        house after the funeral.  I must've been about twelve then, and

        corrugated iron shack - and there were children and relatives,

        mostly sitting around, and men going out for a nip of brandy."

        He didn't tell Joan about the way they went out to piss against

        the trunk of a stunted peach tree in the yard.

             "Was the coffin there?  Did you see the body?"

             Perhaps she recognized that her questions surprised him.

        "I mean, how did you know when you looked at the Pieta?"

             "I haven't really seen anyone dead, but when our native

        girl was dying I went to see her in hospital."

             "You did?  I've never known anyone who'd do that kind of

        thing.  Was she your nanny?"

             "No...but she'd worked for us for years.  I suppose it was

        funny.  The nurse at the hospital seemed surprised."

             "When did your maid die?"

             "Last year.  The seventeenth of June."

             "You remember the date."

             "Yes."

             Joan's term had startled him.  Your maid.  It didn't sound

        the same as girl.  He'd thought maid was a word used only in old

                                                                 Page 43


        fashioned poems or the detective stories his mother liked, set

        in big country houses where there would be a butler and a maid.

        Not Sina.

        something in him that no one else knew about, and showed it to

        him in her light until he saw too much, until it became

        unendurable.

             Their walk up the hill had brought them to a fenced yard

        where a large pepper tree grew in a corner..  Joan stooped to

        pick up a twig of berries that had fallen onto the pavement, and

        was rubbing their pink, papery skins off absent mindedly, as she

        asked, "Is this the hospital you came to?"

             Perhaps because he had never spoken to anyone about Sina,

        perhaps because the entrance he had used had been from another

        street, he had never connected that visit to this daily walk to

        and from the university, or to the natives he always saw sitting

        there on the pavement, leaning their backs against the wall -

        that afternoon, an old man whose crushed and angular face looked

        like a ball of crumpled newspaper, two fat women wearing black

        shawls tightly knotted over their breasts, talking and laughing,

        and a young woman, her face like a classical statues', smooth

        and oval, nursing her baby.  He saw the exposed breast, and the

        steady movement of the child's mouth.  He saw that the woman

        looked at Joan and Joan at her, as though there was something

        they both knew.  He saw everything that day.

             But he still did not see what he saw.

             Opposite the hospital was the Fort.  He had not even


        glanced at it.  He did not see the prison that straddled the

        city and looked down at it, like van der Merwe standing with his

        legs apart, looking down at the man on the floor.  Every day he

        walked past the Fort opposite the Non-European Hospital as

        though his eyes were closed and he could see nothing but the

        official city, Johannesburg, the shops and offices of the city

        in the valley to the south, and the mine dumps beyond them,

        those pale hills where he had not been allowed to play as a

        child;  and to the north, under the Fort's protecting eye, the

        northern suburbs, their gardens, their peace and luxury.  All

        sunned under the golden evil eye of the Fort,the prison set on a

        hill, on the very crest of the Ridge of White Waters, the gold

        bearing Witwatersrand.  That blind day he had not known yet that

        all South Africa was a prison.

             Though he was coming to see.  That very day he would meet

        Philip, and soon he would hear Joan count Philip among "those in

        prison for our sake," and hear her say the Fort was among the

        worst of prisons.  Did she know about this black and green cell

        in Marshall Square where the electric light never slept?


             Petrus Hugo came and did not speak to him.  He handed David

        an enamel plate of soup and a brick of brown bread.  The door

        locked behind him.

             David sat on the mattress.  He was hungry and the soup

        not think of, but it was easier now to feel human, remembering

        that day with Joan when time had seemed endless, sweet and

                                                                 Page 45


        clear.

             When they had reached Hillbrow they found that a change of

        mood had dimmed the streets.  Pedestrians clotted intersections

        where newspaper boys were selling the star.  An old man sitting

        at a tram stop stooped over a paper in his lap, muttering.  A

        woman swinging her handbag impatiently had the bereft look of a

        child playing alone in a time of grief.

             "Something's happened, Joan said.

             "I'll get a paper.

             David attached himself to the crowd pressing around a

        picannin who was sorting out change and handing out newspapers

        with stiff, hurried movements.  SOVIET TROOPS MASSACRE

        HUNGARIANS.TANKS IN BUDAPEST.

             Handing the paper to Joan he wondered why Kotze Street

        seemed so shaken by an event that seemed no worse than the usual

        thing in the papers.  Because his father listened to the news

        and talked about things at table, he had been dimly aware that

        there was trouble in Poland and the Middle East, perhaps in

        Hungary too.  But how did that become a calamity here, so many

        thousands of miles away?

        readers.

             "Come." He took her elbow and led her to the Florian.

             On a balcony overlooking Twist Street she read, turning to

        see whether he was ready for the next page, pushing the paper

        toward him so that he could see the pictures, a street full of

        corpses like dead leaves scattered.  At tables around them,

                                                                 Page 46


        others were reading, some talking to each other in foreign

        languages.  Below, in the street, secretaries and shoppers werre

        climbing off the crowded trams.  They too would know soon about

        the tanks in Budapest.  He felt that now he was living a moment

        of history.

             "They're so ruthless.  How can they be so ruthless?" Joan's

        mouth made a straight tight line as though she were putting on

        ruthlessness to feel what it was.  She noticed that he was

        looking at her and smiled.  Her eyes changed from a deep

        grey-green, and seemed to be full of light.

             "I'm sorry to be such bad company."

             "No.  You're not bad company at all.  He looked away,

        confused, at the afternoon crowds below, then back at her.

        Their eyes met.

             Outside, they turned to each other uncertainly.

             "If you're going somewhere near, I'll walk with you," he

             "A friends's invited me to supper.  We sometimes play

        chamber music together.  She's a violinist." Joan laughed in a

        short, pained burst.  "She's Hungarian."

             "Oh,you're upset for her."

             "Come with me.  I'm sure she won't mind."

             Hours ago, in another century, before he was alive, he had

        opened a book next to her in the library.  Fire ran from him to

        her, from her to him, through their joined hands.

             Evening was drawing in.  Silver watches and engagement

        rings glittered in the windows of jewelery shops.  Glows of neon

                                                                 Page 47


        led them through diffuse volumes of colour.  Here and there a

        line of orange on the chrome of a car showed that the sun was

        still about.  They came to the end of Kotze Street.  Hillbrow

        opened over Nugget Hill to a view of dim houses in the valley,

        warehouses and factories in Troy street, the city's office

        buildings, and pale mine dumps swimming like whales towards the

        horizon.

             The earth shook, and they felt the tremor of a rockfall in

        one of the mines.

             "That must've been a heavy one," she said.

             At the top of Nugget Hill an Indian flower seller was still

        transacting the small exchanges that transmuted her perishable

        end the day's work, packing flowers from different jam tins

        together.

             "Abdool," the woman called in a high, singing voice,"Show

        the baas the flowers." David scanned the bright display, and

        shied away from roses.  Joan tucked the twig of grey mimosa

        leaves and feathery orbs of pollen into the neck of her dress,

        smiling.

             Another rockfall shook the hill.


             Eugenie lived in an old block of flats in Abel Road, where

        the trams turned in from Kotze Street.

             "It's a relief to share this time with friends.  I've been

        longing to see you, Joan.  I'll give you something to drink, and

        you'll both tell me what you think of the news.  I feel so cut

                                                                 Page 48


        off from others who understand what this means to me."

             He could see that she was watching to see who he was, and

        how he was connected to Joan.  He was looking at the walls and

        bookcases encrusted with pictures and ornaments, the antique

        tables and mirrors, and plants in handpainted pots.  And at

        Eugenie.  She had shaved her eyebrows and, over the arch of bone

        where they would have grown, but with a slightly different

        curve, she had pencilled dark brown lines


             She had marked the shape of a mouth with lipstick over her

        She looked both bald and painted.  Seeing himself observed by

        her intelligent brown eyes, David felt that her European,

        experienced style was something he had never known until this

        afternoon and the walk with Joan.  Everything he had seen with

        her belonged to a heightened life.the world of art and music and

        history.

             "Now everyone will see who these Russians are]  They are

        barbarians.


             Brutes, peasants]  Mongols.]  I'm even glad they've done

        this, because now everyone will know."

             Eugenie gave them sherry and switched on the wireless.

        From Europe came the slow chimes of Big Ben striking four

        o'clock in England, sixteen hours Greenwich mean time.  Then the

        neutral voice of a British announcer said that Russian troops

        had entered Budapest and were patrolling the streets.  Heavy

        fighting continued, and refugees were streaming to the border.

                                                                 Page 49


        An emergency meeting of the United Nations would convene that

        evening.  Student uprisings in Poland were meeting with strong

        official resistance.  The American ambassador had voiced a

        protest.  Two men had been killed on the border between Jordan

        and Israel.  Prime Minister Eden had summoned the cabinet.

             Eugenie switched the wireless off.

        away.  I find it degrading, like being raped."

             David wondered how she knew what that was like.

             "The people there can't do anything either."

             "I know.  I know.  But they're there, and share my

        country's suffering.  It's hideous to be an exile at a time like

        this."

             Joan walked over to Eugenie and kissed her cheek.  Then she

        sat on the floor near Eugenie's chair, where she could hold her

        hand.  She looked at David.  How complicated it was to be alive.

        To feel sympathy with Eugenie's sadness, and this enormous

        happiness growing between himself and Joan.

             After a while he felt it must be time to leave,but Eugenie

        insisted that he stay to supper.  They all went into the

        kitchen, and David felt again how Eugenie was unlike anyone he

        had ever met.  His mother never allowed guests into the kitchen,

        and here he was, helping to slice beans and wash tomatoes.

             "In Budapest they must be running out of food now.  It

        always happens."

             She knew about history.

             "Do you still have family there?" Joan asked.

                                                                 Page 50


             When Mabotoana was arrested, Trevor went to visit his wife.

        Keep away, Francois warned.  It won't do her any good when they

        arrested, Munira had been anxious that David should not be seen

        coming in a taxi.

             If anyone knew that he'd been arrested, someone would come

        to visit Joan, and the police would be watching to see who it

        was.  Someone would have come to share the shock with her, to

        eat with her.  And the police would be watching every move.


             During the meal Eugenie went to the next room to turn the

        news on again.  They did not eat as the British voice recited

        what they had already heard.  Then there was a South Africa

        newscast.  Students in Stellenbosch were volunteering to go to

        Vienna, where refugee camps were being established.  Prime

        Minister Malan had issued a statement saying that Hungarian

        refugees would be welcome in South Africa.  A European worker,

        Mr Karl du Plessis, had been killed by a rockfall in the City

        Deep mine.  Three natives were killed in the same accident.

             Eugenie went to turn the wireless off.

             Before they left, there was a moment when Joan had gone to

        the bathroom and David was alone with Eugenie in the kitchen.

             "Joan's a very unusual person," she said to him.

             "Yes, I think she is."

             "Good.  I'm glad you see it.  I care for her very deeply."

             Then Eugenie released him from the grip with which her eyes

        commanded him.


             Joan had arranged to attend a meeting that evening.  As

        they walked down the stairs from Eugenie's flat he took her hand

        again.  And in the almost empty tram that rattled loudly and

        held them in a long capsule of light he felt the sweetness of

        this long day.


             He had been feeling the call of other people's lives, of

        all he had seen that afternoon, the woman feeding her baby on

        the pavement outside the Non-European Hospital.  the old man

        sleeping with his back against the wall like Sina, Ward

        Eighteen, the memory of that hospital, and of the Barends coming

        into the city so ignorant, Eugenie connected to those lumps

        lying in the streets of Budapest.  He had woken up.  He had

        started to see.


             All he had started to see had turned into the anger that

        had fouled his marriage, and twisted his bitterness against

        Joan.

             He threw the blanket aside and recognized what he had not

        noticed in his insistent and torrential dreams about her.  He

        was still angry.His mind turned on her because she could live as

        though she did not see what she had taught him to see.  When he

        came out of the City Hall after her concerts, he tripped over

        beggars sitting on the steps.  "Penny baas.  Have pity baas."

        Picannins danced on the pavement.  "Honger,baas, honger." In the

        weighed the musicianship of the performers.  Why didn't she

        hear, his musician wife?

                                                                 Page 52


             He paced the green frightful cell, clenching and

        unclenching his fists.  He was completely alone.  To Trevor he

        didn't exist.  To Philip he was a mad dog.  To Joan...?  He

        stared into the naked light until the jagged filament danced in

        his eyes leaving a red mark in his retina and his mind.No one

        knew what he saw.

             Before the key turned, he heard the noise they made and

        scrambled up.  Van der Merwe waited for one of the two new

        warders to bring him a chair.

             "How are you today?"

             "Just fine]"

             "Good." He looked up at David trustfully.  "Your friend has

        given us a complete statement."

             They tortured him, David reminded himself.  And anyhow,

        that ploy was an old one, that about the friend's confession.

             "We'd just like to clear up a few points." Again each

        waited for the other to speak, like an outstaring game.  When

        van der Merwe spoke first David thought, he can afford to.

             "Where did you get the dynamite?"

             "I stole it from a farm in the Orange Free State."

             "Who sells dynamite?  I must have been mad."

             "That's what you said."

             "Did I?  I can't remember."

             "Where did you really get it?"

             "In the Free State, like I told you." David marvelled at

        his cheeky tone.  He sounded like one of his own pupils caught

                                                                 Page 53


        cheating.  Van der Merwe's hand caught his eye.  It was stroking

        the thick thigh with an unobtrusive slow gesture.  Van der Merwe

        would feel anger like tumescence.  His release must be terrible.

             "What was the name of the farm?"

             "Totsiens.  It's near Kroonstad."

             "What's you friend's name?"

             "Christopher Columbus."

             The hands stopped their obscure caress.  "Don't be funny."

             "We all had code names.  I don't know any other."

             The fingers resumed stroking.  "What's your code name?"

             "Vasco da Gama."

             "And the others?"

             "We had only one name each." David could smell his own

        fear.

             "I mean the others in your group."

             "There were only two of us."

        the glossy bulges in van der Merwe's forehead.

             He felt cold again.  Why weren't they torturing him?  He

        paced the gloomy cell, nauseous as though he'd been handling

        dynamite and had picked up that familiar chemical headache.  He

        could smell himself.  Sweat and fear.  They'd have to let him

        shower some time.  He rubbed the lengthening stubble on his

        cheek, tender where the skin had broken.

             Exercise time.He worked through the pushups he had set

        himself.  Then he sat on the mattress looking at his feet.He

        started to put on his socks.  They were about to perish.He took

                                                                 Page 54


        them off and made a ball of them and stuffed it between the

        mattress and the wall, feeling a spiteful triumph that he could

        hide something from them.  Unless they were watching him through

        the judas.


             Monica's house was large and full of glass, light, dazzling

        and threatening.  Monica greeted them at the door and gestured

        them towards the living room.  He felt swallowed by the crowded

        luxury, and all the people Joan knew, sitting on the floor in

        groups, and on chairs near the walls.  He recognized some of the

        crowd from university.  He had always found their gestures and

        argot as foreign as the languages that threaded Kotze Street.

        Why was Joan part of this crowd?  Again he felt himself thinner

             Michael had saved a place, and immediately asked Joan

        whether she had come with Aviva.

             "She's coming with Philip."

             "We thought you were going along, to help."

             "How could I help?  I mean, if they notice, it's not going

        to make it any better if I'm in on it." Their secret

        conversation left him out.

             "I dunno.  They could think he's fucking you instead."

             David saw that Michael was amused at the reaction he was

        getting from David.

             "I'm sure Aviva's parents have no idea she's having an

        affair."

             "Even if she's just friends with a Coloured." Michael was

                                                                 Page 55


        still watching David,"Do they want their daughter to...?That's

        what it always leads to, you know." Looking for another reaction

        from him.

             "Oh, shut up Michael.  Philip's been passing for years.

        They'll never guess.Anyhow, I didn't know anything about it.

        She's silly to have him to dinner if she doesn't want trouble.

        They're going to ask questions.  I mean parents always do."

             "We told her."

             "Well don't gloat, Michael.  It's complicated enough, isn't

             Edward changed the subject for her."Did you come by car?"

             "No.  Did you?"

             "Yes.  I'll take you home."

             David burned.  He hadn't bothered to wonder whether Joan

        had a boyfriend.  Far less a lover.  Edward might be her lover.

        She hadn't spoken as though to have an affair was itself

        momentous or disgraceful.  It might be worse.  He had never

        thought of a friend or anyone he knew who would really be

        friends with a Coloured.  Suddenly, he felt overwhelmed by the

        presence of people he had never paused to think of.  He had

        heard that there were white liberals who associated with

        Coloureds and natives, but these people would never have

        anything to do with him.  Least of all with what he was feeling

        for Joan

             A large picture on the wall opposite him accused him.  It

        showed the figure of a man bent under a huge basket of pink

        flowers.He felt accused for the Indian flower seller at the top

                                                                 Page 56


        of Nugget Hill, and her son Abdool.  Joan had pinned the mimosa

        he'd bought under the collar of her dress.  It was beginning to

        shrivel and brown.

             When Aviva came, her cheeks flushed, Michael stood and

        waved.  There were more people now,and waves of contrary impulse

        over the crowd, holding her chin high.  A little pad of fat at

        her neck belied her slim waist and hips.  She came towards them

        picking her way over legs, and slowing to greet friends.  The

        man following her, his sallow face composed and private, looked

        thoughful and distinguished, no more Coloured than Michael with

        his olive skin and thick black curls.

             "Hullo" Michael greeted them, "How did it go?"

             "What?  Oh my parents?  Goodness, I don't know what you're

        making such a fuss about.  Of course it was all right, wasn't it

        Philip?"

             "It was all right." Aviva's voice had betrayed pleasure in

        its coolness.  Philip's was grim.

             Aviva turned to David,"Hullo." Her voice was set at an

        artificially high pitch,"I didn't know you were interested in

        the theatre."

             Again David realized that they had talked about him.

             Before he needed to answer, the speaker arrived, but he

        heard Edward say to Aviva,"Don't bitch,Viv.  He came with Joan."

             Harry's face had the soft,used quality David later came to

        associate with actors, writers, painters, pervasively wrinkled

        with deep and quavering lines.  His talk was about how eveything

                                                                 Page 57


        in South Africa's cultural life was distorted by concern about

             "Last year I wanted to stage a production of Othello with

        Ronald Mbatha in the lead.  We were three weeks into production

        when the Special Branch honored us by attending a rehearsal."

        Someone on the floor giggled at Harry's sarcasm.  "I would have

        been delighted to believe that there had been a change of heart

        and a new appreciation of the arts among these gentlemen.  But

        alas, it was no such thing.  Apparently we have a statute that

        forbids actors of different races to appear on the stage at the

        same time.I'm sure everyone here appreciates the importance of

        laws like these to our way of life.  I could, of course, produce

        Othello without contravening the Immorality Act or any other

        such law.  But that would be rather missing the point of the

        play, don't you think?" Harry developed his argument to its

        conclusion.  "Unless thought and art in this country allies

        itself with the struggle of the black masses, it becomes an

        instrument of cultural, and eventually of political oppression.

        There is no way for an artist, or anyone else, to stand aside

        from the Africans' struggle for freedom."

             Again David felt coerced and accused.  He recognized the

        jargon Harry was using, that stuff about the struggle of the

        black masses.  David associated it with simple minded

        explanations of history as an effect of class warfare, or of the

        relation of the workers to the means of production.  It all

        that denied things for which he had no words, but thing that

                                                                 Page 58


        were part of him and, although he couldn't understand or

        explain, more important than anything else.  The look of Joan's

        hair when the sun had caught it, the way muscles of water goping

        down the plughole twisted like a sheet Sina would hang up to

        dry, and pigeons descending in an evenining sky came in a spiral

        that twisted from light to dark.  What did Joan have to do with

        these people?  Could her sense of life be like their's?  Where

        was there a place in this schema and this jargon for her to play

        the cello with her friend Eugenie?  With the callous blindness

        of the oppressors?  And her amused stories about the Prince

        Imperial's beloved?  With the oppressors.

             He glanced at her, sitting straight and with her hands in

        her lap.  He would learn that it was part of her training as a

        cellist to sit like that.  Immediately, looking at her, he felt

        again the sure independence of her spirit.  She was not the dupe

        of this language.  She was alive, responding, golden and quietly

        centred on some inner peace that seemed to make her life more

        full and peaceful than this petty moil of envious political

        bickering her friends enjoyed.

             How simple it had seemed to him then to divorce her from

        their errors And to hear everything they said as a lie.  Now he

        Africa remained untouched by the bitterness of race, and that

        her music needed a wall of callous indifference around it.

             The bucket in the corner stank.  He still felt his old

        anger at the Congress line, the righteousness of their tone and

        the division he had felt them make between all whites who were

                                                                 Page 59


        oppressors, and all blacks who were the noble people struggling

        for freedom.  As though he still wanted a world impossibly true.

             In the end he had turned to Michael for help, and

        discovered that very few of them really believed the jargon they

        used.  But that night he had felt all alone in his aloof

        contempt for their language, and disdainful when a man he would

        come to know as Gerald, thanked Harry saying, "You are one

        artist who will always inspire us with your integrity."

             After the talk there were questions.  A long legged man

        sitting on the floor began.  "Harry, I think we're all pretty

        concerned about today's news.  I wonder what you think about

        it."

             Harry frowned," Well Simon, I came to talk about the

        theatre, and I'd really rather keep to that."

             But Simon, hugging his knees, persisted.  "You've just been

        saying that art can't ignore politics."

             "Yes, of course, but what can we get out of discussing

        impatiently.  "I don't know any more than you do, and from the

        same sources." gave have an empty stage laugh.  "We know how

        reliable the BBC and the SABC are." Another laugh.  "All we can

        be sure of is that we're hearing lies."

             You mean you don't think Russian tanks entered Budapest

        today?"

             "No.  Of course I believe the pictures in the papers and

        all that.  What I mean," Harry's voice became very patient," Is

        that we don't know what they mean, and we're in no position to

                                                                 Page 60


        find out until we have more information."

             Another voice challenged Harry.  "You mean you're prepared

        to justify the invasion when you know what the party line is."

             Harry raised an eyebrow.  "If you care to misrepresent my

        position like that, you may.  However, it cannot lead to

        fruitful discussion." He stubbed out a cigarette.  David looked

        at the others.  He could not see what they thought of this

        exchange.

             Gerald took up the argument.  "I think,Harry, once the

        topic's been raised, we have to talk about today's news.  But I

        want to say that I agree with Harry." His voice was flat and

        blunt.  "We don't know what's going on,yet.  We can't believe

        all the propaganda we're going to hear now.  It's all going to

        word about tanks in the streets of Latin America, or the

        peaceful intentions of the United States.  Let's remember the

        Rosenbergs when we hear all these tears about Hungary." David

        didn't know who the Rosenbergs were, but he felt that he got the

        gist of Gerald's argument.

             As the discussion turned to further orthodoxies and

        personalities, and politics dissolved into names, Beria, Nagy,

        Gomulka, Khruschev, he couldn't understand why Joan had come to

        this meeting.  He looked for her eyes, and saw Aviva's assessing

        him.  Then he saw Joan, and there was nothing but the connection

        between them.

             When their glance broke, he remembered Aviva, but now she

        was watching Philip who had joined the discussion.

                                                                 Page 61


             "This evening's meeting has been fascinating." David

        wondered where Philip had learned to speak with such an English

        voice and intonation.  Had he passed for white at a school like

        St John's?  No wonder he'd been able to fool Aviva's parents.

        "We came here to hear about the theatre, didn't we.  But only

        Harry has spoken about it.  We are incensed about something far

        more important - twenty white people were killed in Budapest

        today.  Or was it twenty-five?  Now let's see.  How many

        Africans were killed in South Africa today?  There were three in

        few children with kwashiokor.  I'm sure we could find

        twenty-five Africans dead today because of our own political

        situation But what we're worked up about is Hungary.  Why?"

             Philip's speech chilled the meeting, but Gerald broke the

        silence to say,"Don't be ridiculous, Philip.  You know that

        we're all terribly concerned about the things you've been

        talking about, but millions of people die all the time and we

        don't think it politically significant.  You know that Hungary

        is significant.  England and America are going to use it as an

        hysterical diversion from the real problem."

             "Like us?"

             "I don't know what you're trying to say, Philip."

             "Let me clarify.  First, the invasion of Hungary is

        atrocious - whatever the party line turns out to be.  Second,

        it's the same atrocity we see here.  The only terms that make it

        different are ideology.  The ideological struggle of the United

        States and Russia is irrelevant to this country, and if we won't

                                                                 Page 62


        consider anything significant except in their terms, we'll never

        achieve a revolution in this country.  Never.  Hungary is here,

        and has been here for hundreds of years, ever since the first

        settler party went out to hunt Hottentots."

             Gerald answered plaintively, "I cannot believe, Philip,

             It had seemed too silly to take seriously.  Philip was

        right, they were pretending to be students in Europe.  Aviva

        seemed to enjoy this game as much as her game with Philip and

        her parents.  When the question time gave way to tea, she asked

        David, "Were you interested.

             "Some of the time?"

             "You're pretty cryptic." But then she continued in a new

        tone, "I like being cryptic."

             Joan joined them.

             "Oh, I don't know." He edged towards the table and put his

        cup down so that it wouldn't betray him.

             "Ah," Aviva's intonation was full of meaning, "Don't you

        enjoy secrets?" He looked into her grey eyes, feeling suspicion

        in her question.

             "I've never been to a meeting like this."

             "Ah."

             She turned away abruptly.  Philip was standing near them.

        Without acknowledging him, Aviva walked away into the other

        room.  Joan smiled at Philip, and then followed Aviva.  David

        felt confused, but he couldn't very well leave Philip as though

        his presence had sent everyone off, so he said "I think you're

                                                                 Page 63


        right about Hungary."

        about the quarrel with Aviva.

             "Yes?  Why?" His tine sneered.

             "It doesn't make sense to judge everything in South Africa

        in terms of foreign ideologies."

             "Hmm." Then Philip asked abruptly, "Who are you?"

             "My name's David Miller."

             "That's not what I asked."

             "I don't know what you mean."

             "Tell me what you do, then."

             "I'm a student at Wits."

             "What do you study?"

             "I'm doing a B.A."

             "Oh, you don't really study;  you're getting a degree."

             Now David felt angry.  "Actually I study history, and I

        think that stuff about Hottentot hunts is just another kind of

        propaganda."

             "Of course.  I'd hardly expect you to think otherwuise.

        However, the records are there.  Do some research some time.

             "What do you do?"

             "I live."

             "Other people do too."

             "It takes them less effort."

             "You can't really know that."

        statistics?  An invaluable historical source.  You'll see who

                                                                 Page 64


        dies.  People like me.  Non-Europeans."

             "You mean Hottentot hunts?"

             "I mean you white people live off my blood."

             "You sound as if you're accusing me."

             "Yes, I mean that.  I'm glad you understand me."

             I don't see why you're talking to me this way.  What d'you

        expect me to do?"

             "Oh hell man.  Do what you like.  I don't trust white

        people."

             David surprised himself by his answer.  "Neither do I." But

        he knew, having said it, that he meant it.

             Philip looked at him, perhaps surprised too.  What had he

        meant by it?  It was the time before he knew anything.  But he

        had said it, in an inexplicable prescience about what he would

        come to feel later.  Philip had remembered that remark and

        repeated it to Francois.  Perhaps that was why they had trusted

        his seriousness.  Perhaps, without it, Philip would never have

        come to call him mad dog, never said, I'm sorry I ever met you.

             Philip hated him now.  Later there would be a reason.  They

        would torture him and he would tell them whatever they wanted to

        know.  About Philip.  About Francois.  Anyone.  Van der Merwe

        thighs.  One touch of the electrodes.  You shit and urinated.

        Then perhaps they'd let him wash.  They wouldn't leave him

        stinking, his beard growing out of him like the beard of a

        corpse.  He might as well be dead, all alone like this.  Waiting

        to be tortured.  These cells were made to make men mad.

                                                                 Page 65


             He faced the wall and started to beat his head against it.

        Rhythmically.  Beat, one, two, beat, one, two.  Reassuring pain

        filled his skull.


             He woke, apalled to remember how he had put himself to

        sleep like a lunatic.  His forehead felt tender to his touch.

             Crouching over the bucket,not allowing his flesh to touch

        the crusted rim, he could not release the lump that clogged him.

        Was it another day?  The soup plate on the floor and the hunk of

        bread in it stared at him like a dirty eye.  It was horrible to

        live like this, without any connection to the world outside.

             He pulled his pants up and stood.  They must bring it to an

        end.  He could not go on like this forever.  If only something

        in the cell could connect him to another person.  There must

        have been other prisoners before him, but the walls had been

        newly painted and he could find no mark on the floor or the

        black glaring ceiling.  He pulled his mattress away hoping for a

        mark underneath it.  The socks he had hidden rolled ou, and the

             Thinking about Joan had become like a duty now, his

        attachment to sanity.

             After his curious conversation with Philip, he had seen her

        in the next room, and gone to speak to her.  First they stood

        silently next to each other.  Then she asked, "What did you

        think of the meeting"

             "I didn't know you were a political person."

             "I'm not.  Musicians are terrible that way, completely

                                                                 Page 66


        apolitical.  But some of my friends feel involved."

             "I notice.  Aviva's been practically interrogating me."

             "Oh, Aviva's impossible, but it doesn't mean anything.

        She's had a row with Philip, and they're both rather upset and

        nasty.  I'll tell you about it some other time."

             Their eyes met on the promise.

             In Edward's car, taking Philip home, his thigh burned

        against hers.  Light from the street and darkness flowed by as

        vacantly as when he was little and fell asleep at the back of

        the car, drifing, sticks under a bridge, waves, here, near, far,

        forward, here, near.

             He had never before been to Fordsburg, where Philip lived.

        Small shops and crowded old buildings shone in a yellow light.

        Groups of Coloureds and Indians talked in the street and glaring

        was as alive as Hillbrow at this late hour, though the rest of

        the city was dark and sleeping.  Philip left them, and Aviva, in

        the front seat, put her head on Edward's Shoulder.  "Christ, I'm

        tired." David again jerked at the little volt of shock, as when

        Eugenie said rape.

             At Women's Residence he got out with Joan and watched the

        car drive up the road they'd walked that afternoon.  He took her

        hand and lead her to the amphitheatre near the swimming pool.

        They looked at the water glancing here and there with

        reflections of electric light.  She was sitting on his jacket

        and he held his arm around her.  They sat so still the thin blur

        of city noise reached them.  It was coming from Fordsburg and

                                                                 Page 67


        Hillbrow and the railway.  He felt that he was alive and knew

        every blade of lawn and every stone in the darkness, the bay

        trees they sat under and the wild grass behind them, the koppie

        path to Women's Residence and the straight path to the Arts

        Building;  the library where they had worked, Kotze Street, and

        Nugget Hill.  As if flying, he surveyed the dumps beyond the

        city, the veld beyond the dumps, the plateau, the escarpment,

        the coastal plain, the shore, the sea, Tristan da Cunha on the

        way to the Pole, the earth turning back, the peninsulas of New

        Zealand and Tierra del Fuego, the antipodes, the earth, the air,

        and knew her to be another close and secret universe.

             He kissed her and she kissed him.  He stroked her hand,

        wondering at its power to make music, to write, to be her.  His

        hands found her breasts.  His body was burning and his mind was

        pouring with intellectual joy.

             As he walked home afterwards, he knew that the joy he had

        felt would change his life.  Another moment of prescience had

        warned him how his parents would feel if he felt serious about a

        girl He would not give her up, and he would not tell them

        anything about her.  He was no longer the child he had been when

        he read The Wonders of Science.
                ___ _______ __ _______

             That book had changed everything he saw when he was a

        child.  He knew what things were made of.  Everything was made

        of atoms, too small to see, but the human mind could know more

        than it could see.  There was light that could take photographs

        of things no one could see.  And no one could see that light

                                                                 Page 68


        itself.  There were sounds only dogs could hear, but humans

        could whistle to them at those high pitches.  There were so many

        things in the world.

             He had taken The Wonders of Science out as one of the two
                          ___ _______ __ _______

        vocabulary and prepare him to be a Rhodes scholar and a great

        man like Smuts.  The pictures showed galaxies and whirlpools,

        dust storms, and water running out of the bath.  One law made

        all their spirals.The plantary system echoed the structure of

        atoms.  There was one law.

             He had tried to feel atoms in his own hands and searched

        for them in the wood of the polished diningroom table.  He

        expected a feeling of fine granules, but the veneer remained

        smooth.  It was hard to believe the book.

             He read that all the colours of the rainbow were in plain

        white light, that solid colours mixed together made black.  He

        did the experiments the book suggested, and looked into a drop

        of rain where the world was held upside down, as explained in

        the chapter,"How We See" and he believed the book.

             He began to feel that everything had its own being and

        inner secret, and this knowledge felt like an image of something

        he knew about his own self.  Even then he must have felt that he

        parents did not know, could not know, all that was in him.  As

        early as that?  Yes.  He must have been about eight.

             At that time he used to suck nigger balls bought after

        school.  After every house he walked past he took the nigger

        ball out of his mouth to see what colour it was now.  It would

                                                                 Page 69

        orange, until nothing was left but a greyish dot at the centre

        and a sugar taste in his mouth.  He used to wonder about the

        insides of the houses too.  Mr Schillermacher's had a sign near

        the gate, Music Lessons.  Scales and exercises flowed over the

        neglected roses and khakiweed.  Nintety-six had a low yellow

        brick wall, a yellow dry lawn, a facade of yellow brick.

        Ninety-four was also yellow brick, but blurred by tides of

        flowering trees and shrubs.  At its wire fence he stopped to

        look at a rose.  Red buds swelled out of their green clasps,

        opening and curling backwards.  The Wonders of Science said that
                                        ___ _______ __ _______

        the same basic patterns reappeared constantly in nature and now

        David saw, starting out of the rose as if underlined by a

        diagram, a spiral.  He didn't need a lense to see it.  It was

        plain.  The pattern of galaxies and snail shells.  He followed

        the line furling in towards the minuteness of atoms, reaching

        out towards the Milky Way.  It was more thrilling than the

        infinity of the baking powder box on the baking powder box on

        the baking powder box.

             He pulled the rose towards him to examine it more closely

        and found that it was the centre of swetness in the air, the

        warm smell he had not specifically noticed until he pulled the

        flower near.  He touched a petal.  He turned it down and saw the

        becoming finer and more invisible until they disappeared at the

        curling edge.  He saw how that network of petals dividing gave

        the petal its shape.  The whole world could be clear to the

                                                                 Page 70


        human mind,and lovely to the senses.  He felt that the world was

        full of wonders and his mind was blazing with intellectual joy.


             Joan and the rose came together in his mind.  Each was a

        universe formed by its own life and being, expressing itself in

        its own history.  History.  Marc Bloch had found history in the

        shapes of fields because nothing could remain entirely unmarked

        by what had happened to it, not even this cell.  He turned to

        face the wall.  He touched it.  Carefully, like a blind man.

        Nothing.  He moved a few steps to the right.  He felt.  The

        features of the wall touched his fingers.  A bump.


             It was only a knot in the paint.  He moved on, searching,

        the way he had tried to feel atoms after reading The Wonders of
                                                         ___ _______ __

        Science.
        _______

             While he was making a third circuit, lower yet, he heard a

        noise at the door.  He jumped away from the wall and pretended

        he'd been pacing.  It was Petrus Hugo again, bringing a plate of

        porridge, and a mug of tea covered with a thick slice of brown

        Petrus did not talk to him any more.  He went out,locking the

        door.  David took the plate quickly, standing up, and ate the

        mielie meal hurriedly, as though he had no time, he must get on

        with it before they interrupted.  Still swallowing the last

        mouthful, he came back to the wall.  He felt its surface gently,

        so gently.  He ran his fingers around in careful, overlapping

        circles.  Not an inch would escape.

             Perhaps they were watching him through the judas.  They

                                                                 Page 71


        wouldn't know what he was doing.  They would think he was mad at

        last.

             He was crouching, on his sixth circuit, when he found it.

        Under his breath he sounded out the letters as his fingers

        traced them Ffff.  Yes, that was it.  U.  Yes, of course, that

        was the thing to say.  Fuck the cops.  It came quickly when he

        was sure of the first letters.  He stood up, his heart beating.

        Euphoria, wild as fear, swept over him.  There was someone else

        in the world.  Fuck the cops]  Once more.  His energy was too

        much for him.  He ran in one spot pulling his legs up high.

        Fuck the cops]  Fuck the cops]  FUCK THE COPS]

             He went to the judas.  Nothing to see.  He took the spoon

        from his plate and licked it.  With his back to the door,

        shielding his hand from view, he started to scratch his

        not get the letters straight, so he made them big instead.  The

        work was surprisingly difficult.  Spent with effort and

        promising himself more, he wiped the spoon carefully with a

        remnant of sock so that they wouldn't see the paint.

             If he could, he would have thanked Joan for the power of

        that night's joy.  It still connected him to other sources of

        joy, his love for Marc Bloch writings about history, and now,

        other people, sanity.

             He could not sleep for joy that night after kissing Joan

        near the door of Women's Residence.  He was prevented by joy and

        the sense that he would have to fight his parents for what Joan

        meant to him.

                                                                 Page 72


             It was after two when he reached home.  There had been no

        buses so late, and he had walked through the sleeping, tree

        lined streets of the northern suburbs, the still emptiness of

        Louis Botha Avenue, and the barren new developments beginning to

        reach Alexandra Township.  When he opened the door his mother

        called,

             "David."

             "Yes Ma."

             "Why're you so late?"

             "I missed the last bus."

             "To a lecture.".i "Don't lie.  You've been with a girl."

             "We both went to the lecture."

             "Who's she?" Ah, Ma, let me go to sleep."

             "David, come here." He came to the side of her bed.

             "Yes?"

             "Don't you cheek me."

             "O.K.  Ma."

             "Who's this girl?"

             "She's just a girl at varsity."

             "Tell me about her."

             "There's nothing to tell."

             "All right, but I want to talk to you tomorrow."

             "Don't think you'll get away with it," his father warned.

             He heard every sound he made in the night house.  His shoes

        on the floor, the click of the bathroom door, urine hitting

        water, brush on teeth, water in basin.  It must have been about

                                                                 Page 73


        four oclock when he rose and dressed again, holding his shoes.

        He crept out by the kitchen door, and tied the laces of his

        shoes in the yard.  The deep air was prickling with morning

        sounds, distant milk bottles, a cock crow.He was walking

        quickly, his eyes giddy with the immense depth of the sky, and

        his mind singing.  The morning star was huge and brilliant.  He

             "Oh, Venus," he sent it a message,"Venus." A line of red

        showed between houses and trees.  Birds were stirring and

        cheeping.  A dazzle trickled over the silhouettes of roofs and

        trees.  When the unutterable sun rose he tried to stare in its

        radiant face, but he couldn't.  Blind and drunk with joy, he saw

        what his eyes could bear, a pine branch spraying light, fat

        spring buds on the Christmas-flower bushes, peach blossoms

        hanging over a whitewashed wall.

             He came on another sight, at first unintelligible and

        surprising.A migration of metal insects.  Louis Botha Avenue was

        whirring with the sound of bicycle wheels.  The natives were

        coming in to work from Alexandra Township.  They filled the

        whole street as far as he could see with a thick and speechless

        stream.  It was so early, hardly five in the morning.  There

        were so many.  He didn't know what to make of the sight, the

        hundreds, these thousands coming into the city.  They passed in

        front of him like an army from another world.  He turned back

        home, suddenly feeling the exhaustion of the sleepless night.

             At breakfast his father asked,

             "Where'd you go in the middle of the night?"

                                                                 Page 74


             "I didn't go anywhere."

             "Don't lie to me.  Caroline saw you coming in."

             "In the middle of the night?  Who d'you think I am?"

             David spread fishpaste on his toast.

             "You'll answer me, d'you hear]"

             "You're my father."

             "That's right." Having scored this victory, his father

        changed.

             "Listen David, you're my son.  I'm not against you, but I'm

        older and I know more.  You can't afford to mess around with

        girls at this time of your life.  You've got exams in three

        weeks.  You've got to concentrate.  Listen, I know it's not

        easy, but there's a way to handle it.  I've been in the army,

        and you know your mother.  I'm sure you've guessed she's not an

        easy woman.  Just keep up with the tennis.  And, a man's got

        hands.  Know what I mean?  Your whole future's still in front of

        you, but you've got to start right.  Look at your matric results

        - you're going to be a great man.  You can't spoil everything

        now.  No girls, no walks in the middle of the night.  You need

        to sleep and to work."

             But, going out to work, his father stopped to slap David on

        the back, "you're growing into a man,David." If he had been

        able, David would have cut away the place where that hand had

        touched him.


             The year he had read The Wonders of Science his father had

                                                                 Page 75


        been out of work.  It seemed to have something to do with that

        Nationalist victory he had sat up all night to hear.  After that

        election, his father used to say, "They're keeping all the jobs

        for their own now.  Look what's happening on the railways.

        Every Afrikaner gets a job .  Just us bloody fools who went to

        fight the war get nothing."

             His mother didn't answer these tirades, but she had taken

        to rebuking David for talking out of turn.  "Shallow streams

        babble all the way:  still waters run deep." "Speech may be

        silver but silence is golden." As though to strike his father

        through him.

             When he asked for sixpence to buy sweets, or half a crown,

        to go to the bioscope she compressed her lips and said,"No, we

        haven't got the money.  You'll have to do without extras." If

        his father heard her, he seemed to shrink, and kept quiet.  But

        later, alone with David, he would add his own stroke of advice,

        "Don't ever talk about politics.  It only gets you into

        trouble."

             David felt flattered to receive this grownup warning.  He

        sensed s submerged suffering in his father, and his father,

        feeling that David's sympathy stood with him, told about his

        childhood in England, the hard years of the Depression, his

        the northern Free State that was promised to be a gold mine

        because the soil was so rich.  It must have been the years of

        drought there that had laid a hard anger into his face and

        voice, an anger that exploded intermittently for years after,

                                                                 Page 76


        especially when the Nationalists spoke as though they were the

        only real South Africans, and the English were Uitlanders,

        Rooinecks who didn't understand the land.  "They've suffered for

        the land - well so've I, and I've as much right here as any of

        them.  Where'd they think they've come from anyway?  They're

        Europeans, like the rest of us, and they never forget it either

        when it comes to the kaffirs.  They're on top now, but they're

        scum, just scum.  Bloody Nazis]Stayed her while we were up north

        getting killed, and then when we came back they kicked Smuts

        out]  It's enough to break a man's heart."

             The day before his father's birthday, David got off the bus

        early, near the shops.He liked to look in the windows of the

        fishmonger's and the outfitter's and the florist's, feeling that

        each was different inside.  It was like nigger balls.

             In the florist's buckets of flowers stood on the floor, and

        fancy vases filled the glass counters.

             "Good afternoon, my young man.  May I help you?"

             "Yes,please,.  How much do roses cost?"

             He didn't know what to say.  While he was trying to find

        the right words for a dignified refusal, she added, "I have got

        some smaller roses of the sweetheart type for five shillings.

        You could talk half a dozen fora half-crown." She paused and

        then accomodated still further.

             "And we sometimes sell a single rose for a shilling.  We

        wrap it specially.  It makes a very handsome gift."

             "Yes please miss.  Can I buy a red one?" She wrapped the

                                                                 Page 77


        flower with a bit of fern and baby's breath in a cone of green

        waxed paper.

             "A present for your mother?  Roses make a lovely gift."

             "It's for my father.  It's his birthday tomorrow."

             "Oh." David didn't understand the expression in her face,

        though he reverted to it afterwards with the same kind of

        bitterness with which his father learned that his farm in the

        Free State had, after all, been a gold mine, but in the mining

        rather than agricultural sense.

             The next morning he set the rose at the side of his

        father's plate the way his mother set birthday presents, and for

        it to be unwraped it and seen, the flower, the spiral, the

        wonders of the world.He went to the kitchen to ask Sina what she

        was putting on his sandwiches, and to the back door to watch

        sparrows pecked for food, and the sky was a deep, immense blue.

             At the table his father unfurled the green cone with a look

        of foreboding.  "What do you mean by this?" he saw his father's

        cheeks flush and swell, the minute stubble left after shaving

        darkening them like dirt.

             "How dare you taunt me, you pipsqueak?" He turned on his

        wife,"You put him up to this]It's not enough to criticize me in

        public - you teach him to taunt me]  You bitch]  You slut]"

             "I dont know what you're talking about, and I think you

        should mind your language in front of the child."

             "You don't know]  You make me laugh]  As for my language,

        I'll teach the boy]" He turned to David, " Just you come with

                                                                 Page 78


        me." As he stood up, his chair fell over.  He pulled David from

        his seat and towards the door.

             "What are you doing, George?"

             "I'll teach you]  I'll teach you both.  You won't mock me

        and you won't teach my son to mock me.  I'm a man still." He

        dragged David to the bedroom Pull down your pants and get onto

        the bed."

             "George, you're mad]  What are you doing to the boy?  He

        gave you a birthday present]  Where would he get an idea like

        that himself?" i He turned to David on the bed, "Cry baby,I'll

        buttock with a loud clap.

             "Don't touch the boy, his mother tugged to pull them apart.

             "Don't provoke me, or I'll show him who's the man in this

        family]" He pulled her down onto the bed.

             "If you touch me, George, I'll call the police.  Help]

        Help]"

             The servants had heard the whole explosion, standing at the

        kitchen door, uncertain whether they dared become embroiled.  At

        the cry for help, Sina ran in.

             "Baas, baas" she implored and, obviously terrified by her

        own daring, touched his father.

             "Get out you black devil]"

             Sina retreated to the door, "Baas, baas."

             He rushed towards her, pushed her away, and slammed the

        door.  He turned and leaned against the wall.

             "Get up, both of you.  You make me sick.  Pulling himself

                                                                 Page 79


        up in a military stance he shouted louder, "Sick, you hear." He

        turned and banged out.  They heard the front door slam.

             "Go wash you face David, and get ready for school.  You're

        probably late."

             After school that day, his mother took him to town and

        treated him to a milkshake and a cream doughnut.  She told him

             A sick taste stayed from that day, like a grease mark on a

        book.

             All the angers flowed together.  The new drew up the old.

        As the old joy had drawn the new.  He went to the place where he

        had found the words under the paint.  He felt around it,

        searching for a name.  Irrationally, for a moment, he was

        convinced that he would find Francois's name and know that they

        had shared his cell.  The thought filled him with joy and

        horror.  he could not find any name.  He moved along the wall,

        feeling it.  The light stroking action of his hands disturbed

        him.  It confused emotions about Joan and van der Merwe in one

        gesture.  He stopped and began pacing again.

             What he had seen with Joan transformed everything he saw.

        On the walk down the hill to the universityhe saw the woman at

        the Non-European hospital who had smiled at Ann.  She was still

        sitting against the wall.  Her baby was sleeping.  Had she been

        there all night?  She couldn't have- there was a curefew for

        natives, and she would have been arrested.  Sina had always

        needed a nbote from his mother or father if she was going to e

        out after eleven o'clock.  She couldn't have slept all night

                                                                 Page 80


        with the baby in her lap.  There must be a native hotel

        somewhere, perhaps in Alexandra Township or somnew other

        Botha Venue, the natives bicycling to work before the sun was

        fully up.  He had never seen anything like it.  Or like the

        hospital Sina had died in, sitting outside on the concrete

        though it was winter.  He felt that he had never seen the city

        around him, had not been walking on solid ground.  Now he felt

        that only a thin layer separated him from hollow chambers,

        tunnels, and mines, and this was the first time he had felt

        their tremor.

             He didn't see Joan at the English lecture, in the canteen

        or the library.  He looked for her on the steps at eleven

        o'clock, but no one from her set was there.  He couldn't find

        her at lunchtime or in the afternoon.

             At home in the evening, his mother took him aside,"David, I

        want you to tell me about this girl" "There's nothing to tell."

             "You can't come home at all hours of the nighht without any

        explanation."

             "I missed the last bus."

             "Why?  What was going on?  Were you alone with her?"

             "Ma, I can't answer all these questions."

             "You have to.

             "I'm your mother, and I've got a right to know."

             "I can't answer and I won't."

             "We'll see about that."

                                                                 Page 81


        went to the front door.

             "Where are you going, David?", his father asked.

             "For a walk."

             "Don't you have to study?"

             "I'll do it when I come back."

             "I want you to stay home and work."

             "I'll do it when I come back."

             "I'm not allowing you out."

             "Ugh, hell."

             "Don't you swear at me.  You'll show respect, understand?"

             "For Godsake leave me alone."

             His father hit him over the head.  David slammed the door

        and walked quickly.  He couldn't think about the incident.  At a

        Greek cafe in Louis Botha Avenue, he tried to phone, but the

        line to Women's Residence was continually engaged.  After a

        while he tried another cafe, then he looked for a public phone

        booth, but the phone was broken.  At the third cafe he got

        through, but Joan wasn't in..i "That was quite a walk you took,"

        his father accused.  "How was the weather in Timbuctoo?"

             "Fine.  The sun was shining."

             "All right, that's enough cheek.  You're not going out of

        the house again without permission.  You're still a minor, and I

        You don't bloodywell know what kindness it." David didn't

        answer.  He went to his room and fell asleep without another

        word..i The next day too he couldn't find Joan or her friends

        anywhere.  He came home early and tried to phone her.  This time

                                                                 Page 82


        it was easy to get through to Women's Residence, but she wasn't

        in.  He left no message.

             His mother came home before his father.  She came to his

        room.  "David, I want to talk to you."

             "Yes."

             "You can't treat your father like that.  You know how

        sensitive he is."

             "I'm not his prisoner."

             "Don't test him, David.  You know his temper." She sat on

        his bed.  "And I want to talk to you about something else.  What

        kind of girl is this Joan Hamilton?"

             "Who told you her name?"

             "Caroline."


             He had forgotten that Caroline would hear his

        conversations.  Natives were still invisible to him.


             "You'd love it.  Rich, Natal English.  They hunt and play

        polo."

             "You're joking?"

             "Didn't Caroline tell you she's at Women's Residence?  They

        lock the door before twelve every night, so you've got nothing

        to be afraid of."

             "I'm not afraid of anything David.  I'll be very happy if

        you find a girl you love, but you're still very innocent and I

        think it's my duty to find out who you're seeing and what you're

        doing.  I don't want to pry, but I've got to know."

                                                                 Page 83


             "There.  You know."

             He did not see Joan all week, and the next week, despairing

        of seeing her or understanding her disappearance, he went into

        town to study at the main library.

             She was sitting on the library steps.

             "David]  What's the matter?  You've gone absolutlely

        white."

             He laughed,"I've been trying to get hold of you.  Where'd

        you disappear to?"

             "I tried to contact you, but I don't know where you live."

             "Bramley.  You haven't been at varsity."

             "I've been staying with Aviva.  Her parents are in a

        fantastic stew about that newspaper story, and theyre hardly

        letting her out of the house, so we've all been going there.

        But she's swotting here today.  It was getting too much"

             "Didn't you see it?"

             "No."

             "About the Special Branch calls after the meeting?"

             "No.  I never read newspapers."

             "But you've got to."

             "If it's important I'll hear about it anyway."

             "Well this is important and you didn't"

             "Tell me what happened."

             "I can't tell you everything.  There must've been a spy at

        the meeting.  The Special Branch phoned everyone who had a car

        outside Monica's house, I mean, in the middle of the night.

                                                                 Page 84


        Edward's parents said he was with Michael and Aviva and me, so

        they phoned Aviva's parents too, but not Michael's and we're

        trying to work out why..."

             "And you?" he interrupted.

             "They haven't done anything about me either.  Just Edward

        and Aviva.  And Aviva's parents are terribly upset, there's

        going to be a war in Israel and they have to go out to meetings

        every night, so they won't let Aviva go out, and she's had a

        fight with Philip.  It's been awful.  So I've been staying

        there.  I got permission from Miss Grundy."

             "What did the Special Branch want to know?"

        anyone asks.  They're so silly."

             "Some of them sounded like Communists to me."

             "Don't be silly David, I can't bear it.  You think they

        were going to start a revolution in the middle of the night

        because of something that Harry told them?  Or anything anyone

        said at that meeting?"

             "No."

             "Well that's the point.  They just want to scare people

        like Aviva's parents.  They think she won't get a passport and

        she's supposed to go to Europe for Christmas."

             "But they are Communists." "I suppose some of them are.

        Harry is.  He's been for years.  So what?  He's not going to

        start a revolution.  It's just too silly.  I can't bear to argue

        with you about such nonsense."

             "What about the others?"

                                                                 Page 85


             "I don't know, but I think it's just a fad, the way it is

        for Aviva and Michael."

             "And for you?"

             "I don't know anything about politics.  THey don't interest

        me."

             He took her hand, feeling, as he had before, how mysterious

        its power, how unknown her life was to him.

             "Ja.  We all are.  I suppose we'd better go in."

             "Ja." They didn't move.

             "Aviva thinks you might be the spy at the meeting."

             "Why?"

             "She says you were watching everything."

             He didn't ask whether she thought him a spy.

             The library hush held them in artificially silent hours,

        interrupted only by quiet requests for rubber or red pencil,

        offers of Lifesavers or toffees, chairs that scraped as someone

        rose to fetch a book from the shelves or request one from the

        stacks, enveloped them in a privacy that David felt drawing him

        into Joan's everyday life as quietly as air, and as intimately.

        He was sorry to go out when they decided to break for lunch.  At

        the small cafe near the library, he felt still not one of them.

             The day wore into afternoon.  They all fell into a reading

        stupor and worked slowly until Aviva whispered, "I can't stand

        this any more.  Lets's go to my place and swim."


        Arid city glare gave way to suburban gardens.A few jacarandahs

                                                                 Page 86


        had started to flower and late fruit trees still held blossoms.

        Aviva's house was set off from the street by oaks and pines, and

        byond them, a sunny lawn flowering with imported daffodils.

        When they had changed, and gone to the pool, Michael short and

        skinny and lank, protecting himself with a loose shirt against

        the burn that showed red where he had been careless before, a

        fat native girl brought them a jug of Oros and a plate of

        biscuits.  Michael rubbed oil onto his legs and asked Edward to

        do his back.

             "That's sublime.  Positively erotic.  Try some on your

        legs."

             Edward shook his head.  "It won't help."

             "Shall I do you, David"

             "No." He didn't feel comfortable at the thought of

        Michael's naked touch and insinuating wit.

             Joan and Aviva came out of the front door and the native

        girl again emerged from the kitchen, bringing tea and sandwiches

        cut into small triangles with the crusts removed.  Joan's collar

        bone and shoulder blades showed near the surface of her skin and

        he saw h er notched,supple spine as she sat holding her knees.

        Their gossip worried at exam questions and anecdotes about

        lecturers.  Edward and Michael were going tio Cape Town for the

        long holidays, and Aviva would go to Europe if she got her

        passport.  "Let's not talk about it," she said.

             In the silence, they all began to swim.  Aviva threw a

        ball;they caught and threw and pursued, splashing bright

                                                                 Page 87

        touch, David brushed by Joan and knew that he had felt her flesh

        by his naked flesh, innocent and distant as if he touched her in

        an aquarian underworld.  Mermaid and human at last, Joan climbed

        out of the water.  They lay on their backs feeling blades of

        grass prickling through their towels.  David closed his eyes and

        saw the red corpuscles swim among haloes and translucent

        colours.

             He made no effort to follow their conversation.  It always

        tended towards politics in those days, as though their buoyancy

        was tugged by the injustice that held them up so light.  Aviva

        said,"It's so awful.  We"ve got no right to be living like

        this."

             "There's nothing wrong with enjoying ourselves," Michael

        countered ,"What's wrong is that no one else's allowed to.

        That's what we're going to change."

             "We can't keep our privileges," Edward warned,"If we really

        want the revolution."

             Perhaps Aviva still thought David might be a spy and the

        conversation too risky for him to hear.  She asked in a low

        voice,"Is David asleep?"

             "No." He sat up and clasped his knees in his arms,"Just

        dreaming."

             "What about?"

        him the luminosity of a dream.

             "Don't be so cryptic.  Tell us," Aviva teased.  "You know I

                                                                 Page 88


        like other people's secrets."

             "It's no secret."

             "Hmmm."

             "You're right, David," Michael had his own game, "If you

        tell Aviva a dream she'll psychoanalyse it to death.  Though in

        the end there's only one interpretation.  Sex.  Whatever you

        dreamt, it's about sex."

             "But he was," Aviva crowed, "Look at him.  You hit it first

        shot, Michael"


             Caroline reported that he hadn't come home until after

        five.  His father wanted to know where he'd been.

             "Swotting in the library."

             "How'd you get sunburnt in the library?"

             "Are we going to have another fight.Dad?" They turned away

        from each other, holding the break for another time.  The next

        day and the next Dav's sunburn went unchallenged.


             When Petrus Hugo came, he brought a bucket, a towel, and a

        piece of soap chopped from one of those yellow bars Sina had

        used for laundry.

             The touch of water on his face startled him.  In the relief

        face, as though the water and lather would hide them even from

        himself.

             He remembered that he hadn't finished making his own mark

        yet.  He took the spoon and set to it.  The chips and grains of

                                                                 Page 89


        paint fell in a thin waste onto the floor.


        No one told him why.  They gave him his shoes.  They handcuffed

        him between them like Trevor and walked him through the

        corridors with casual brutality, pulling him to their pace.

        They unlocked him and pushed him into the Black Maria with a

        shove that made him hit the floor with his face.  New rage made

        him screw his eyes so that he didn't at first look out, at the

        buildings of the city, but soon,


             Rissik Street caught his eye.  He stood to look out of the

        fenced window at the back.  At the railway station a barricade

        marked off the place where a wall was being rebuilt.  Boom.  His

        rage flashed deeper.  The police van moved.  It rolled past

        summer trees and Indian flower sellers outside the European

        hospital.  Further up the hill Africans were still sitting

        against the wall of the Non-European Hospital.  The pepper-tree

        was still growing in the corner of the yard.  As the van turned,

        he caught a glimpse of Hillbrow's flats.  He heard metal doors

        open.  A red, and white bus passed before the doors shut.


                                THE FORT

                                                                 Page 90


             He could hear the life of others in the Fort, footsteps,and

        keys, doors opened and shut, a clatter of pails.  There were

        other people in the world.

             As they brought him through the corridors he saw a gang of

        African prisoners on their knees.  He was still in the larger

        prison where he would never be free of service from Africans.

        His bomb had not changed the privileges apartheid forced on him,

        heavy as a rock.

             His cell had a bed under the mattress.  There was a box he

        could sit on.  There was a basin of water for washing.

             The prisoner in the next cell introduced himself.

             "Hullo.  My name's Gericke.  Hendrick Gericke."

             He went to the door to stand near the grating, where he

        could hear better."I'm David Miller."

             "Ja.  I heard about you.  Hell, what's the idea man?"

             "Oh,I dunno." Boom.  Even here they had heard the

        explosion.  Perhaps it has not been in vain.

             "The fellow before you was also here for murder." David put

        his hands on the wall for support.  He could feel his heart

        beating huge and terrified.  Murder.  So someone had been killed

        in the explosion.  Gericke was still talking.  "His wife was

        time in court, you know.  He was also running round.  Jirre]
                                                              _____

        Why should a guy like that get into trouble?  He wasn't hurting

        anyone.  Jus this wife,she comes to him one day in a jealous

        rage.  So he clouts her one.  What d'you expec?  So she falls in

        the sea, man, en drowns.  You think a dame could swim.  Anyhow,

                                                                 Page 91


        it's O.K.  He got off with manslaughter, ten years en good

        behaviour.  He's got a terrific lawyer.  Nothing but the best.

        Man.  Who've you got?"

             Murder.

             "I haven't got a lawyer."

             "Jesus man, you better hurry up]  You got money?  Get

        Thompson if you got money."

             "I haven't got any money."

             "Well then you jus got to take what you can get, like me

        man.  It's no good man.  When I get out, I'm going to get money

        so next time I can get a good lawyer, none of this cheap

        rubbish."

             Murder.  That was why Philip had called him a mad dog.

        They'd spoken about it, how people one might call innocent could

        be killed.  He'd said he didn't believe any white person was

        innocent in this country.  Every white was loaded with

        intended it, expected it.  But never expected it to sound like

        this.  Murder.

             "So someone was killed in the explosion."

             "Who was it.?"

             "Jesus.]  Don't you know?"

             "I was on the run.  I didn't hear." Though he should have

        understood something from Philip.

             "Well, who?"

             "Mrs Blackmun.  She was a widow.  Jesus, man, you're in

        trouble."

                                                                 Page 92


             "Anyone else?"

             "There's none of your chommies here.  I heard there's one

        of them in England.  You know Francois Marais?"

             "Francois in England?  I thought he was in prison."

             "That's him.  He's in over there."

             "In prison?"

             "Of course man.  Accessory before."

             "Not here?"

             "Not him, jong]  he's jus walking roun, en he sees trouble.

        Next thing he hops on a plane, en blitzjong, that's the end of

        him."

             So what Philip had told him in Pretoria had been wrong.

        David.  His hands...

             "Was anyone else killed?"

             " You're a bladdy cool customer]"

             "Well, tell me."

             "Nobody else has died yet."

             "What d'you mean, yet?"

             "There's a little girl, about eight, in hospital, en a

        typist.  She lost a leg.  You got it in for women, hey]"

             David left the grating and found the bed.There was nothing

        he could do about it now.  In any case, he had accepted it long

        ago that the innocent die with the guilty.  There was no way to

        separate them.  Other children had died and died of injustice.

        He couldn't say that he hadn"t killed them.  He was white.

             A warder brought him food and said he wasn't allowed to sit

                                                                 Page 93


        on the bed.  He paced the cell and measured it.  Ten paces by

        six.  Big.  He read the names scratched on the wall Piet Kreer,

        Tertius Keyter, Hans Breitenbach, Jacob Arndt, Louis Spaarman,

        Pretorius Eybers, Peter Venter, Andrew Smith.  in different

        scripts and sizes, some skew and crooked, some firm and broad.

        All in for murder?  No, some listed their crimes with their

        names.  Rape.  Burglary.  Immorality.


        While he was fitting the wires to the clock, he had imagined how

        think of what he had done.  Would Luthuli say something?  Even

        though nothing Luthuli said could be published, because he was

        banned, he would hear about the bomb.  What had he said?  And

        Sobukwe?  He wanted them to know that one white man had given

        his life for justice.  He wanted it to be possible for the new

        government after the revolution to be something better than a

        racial tyranny pushing over the old like a huge boulder, while

        worms and slugs and things without names scrambled away from the

        sunlight and weak things crouched in the path of a weight they

        could neither escape nor survive.  He had known that these

        things would happen.  There was no revolution the innocent

        didn't pay for.  He had known and had fit the wires to the

        minute and the hour hand to touch at noon.


             He was here for murder, murder, murder, murder, murder.  If

        he said the word often enough, it wouldn't mean anything.


             Mabotoana must have been drunk to boast that way at

                                                                 Page 94


        Edward's party, so many years ago, that he was in the P.A.C.

        shadow cabinet.

             "Come the revolution, man, I'll be Minister of Interior.

        Man, I'll move into one of those big houses in Houghton, and

        I'll send the madam to live in Soweto where the whites have

        given us such good housing and cleaned up the slums.  I can just

        Oh boy]  She can come and be my meid if she doesn't like Soweto,
                                        ____

        and she can live in the girl's room.  I'll be good to her and

        won't tell the police if her husband comes at night.  But no

        children.  Come the revolution, man, I'll have a swimming pool

        and a tennis court, and I'm not joking, man, the whites are

        going to live in Soweto." He laughed.

             "Revolutions aren't that easy," David had answered him,

        altogether green and full of history out of books, "By the end

        of a revolution life gets so bad, places like Soweto seem like

        Houghton to the people who're still alive."

             "Ugh sis, man]  You don't know what you're talking about.

        You come and live in Soweto for a week.  Or make it a week-end.

        If the tsotsis haven't stabbed you by Monday morning, we'll hear

        what you have to say then."

             "O.K.  I don't know Soweto, but you don't know revolutions.

        Who cares.  Have your revolution.  You may be right that things

        can't get much worse."

             Edward, the peacemaker, had listened silently, and Michael

        had been dancing with Aviva.  The lights of Johannesburg

        sparkled outside the wide windows that opened onto the terrace

                                                                 Page 95


        of Edward's home.  Late summer.  Between Coalbrook and

        rushed on a group of policemen coming to search their houses for

        illegal liquor and men, and had killed them.  David believed the

        rage in Mabotoana.

             Joan didn't.  Driving home, he told her what Maboatoana had

        said.

             "He wouldn't do it.  It's too petty for him.  He's beating

        up his courage for the pass protests next month.  If he really

        felt that way about whites he wouldn't've come to Edward's

        party."

             Those were the pass protests they later called Sharpeville.

             "You don't really believe there's got be a revolution, do

        you?"

             "Why does that sound like an accusation, David?"

             "I feel as if you don't care."

             "I don't, in a way.  If revolution brings only a reversal

        of white and black in Soweto and Houghton,its not worth hoping

        for."

             "How can you stand it, Joan, how can you stand living the

        way we do?"

             She took his hand on the steering wheel and held it.  He

        saw her face, the long firm curve of cheek, the line of white

        round her mouth, sad.

             A few months ago Mabotoana had been at Francois's flat.

        guts for real work.  You wanted revolution without trouble.

                                                                 Page 96


        Maybe no revolution.  Changed your mind, hey?"

             "O.K.  I've changed my mind.  You still want to live in

        Hoghton?"

             "Why should I change my mind?"

             Pieces of the past lay flat on the surface of his mind like

        pennies on the ground.

             Eight years old.  His own age when he read The Wonders of
                                                        ___ _______ __

        Science.
        _______


             Exercising in the courtyard, he saw Gericke, middle aged

        and drooping in every feature, the eyelids over the eyes, the

        jowls over the jaw, the lips over the chin.

             "That's Prinsloo," Gericke looked at the warder and spoke

        out of the corner of his mouth."We're chommies.  Anything you

        want, jus ask me en I'll fix it with Prinsloo."

             "Thanks."

             "That's O.K.  boet.  We're in this together."
                           ____

             Involuntarily, he recoiled.  As though he was not Gericke's

        brother, in anything together.  Not a murderer.  The glare of

        red tissue, blood moving between his eyes and the light.  He

        opened his eyes.

             "What's the child's name?"

             Gericke looked at him askance.

             "Freda Bekker."

             His pleasure, hunger, tiredness, were all a murderer's.  He

        must be the same man he had been yesterday in that dark cell in

                                                                 Page 97


        Marshall Square, the same who had driven through the clear dawn

        of the Orange Free State.  Who the dawn before that had heard

        the birds begin to sing as he cleared away evidence of his

        night's work making the bomb.  So it must be he who had hurt the

        child and murdered the old woman.  He tried to imagine her,

        swathed in bandages, in the Children's Hospital, only a few

        blocks away from the Fort.  The picture ran into that other, the

        children at St Therese's.  There was no way to separate the

        guilty from the innocent.

             The sunshine, the joyful play of air on his skin, the heat,

        clouds forming huge balls in the sky, sounds of traffic bringing

        the city's life over the embankment and walls of the Fort.

        Secretaries would be coming home now in crowded buses.  The

        plane trees would be in full leaf, newsboys selling their papers

        in Kotze Street.  Just outside the Fort..  The longing and joy

        overwhelmed him.  He could not repel the incongruous happiness

        of being alive.

             The warder who came to shave him, a skinny boy, pocked with

        acne on a pallid skin, told him that there was a lawyer to see

        him.  It was not a matter he could argue with this gawky barber,

        but he was not going to allow them to pretend they could bring

        legality as a semblance of justice against him.  He had murdered

        because the law murdered:  they were equal.  Snyman's gentle

        awkwardness reminded David of Edward.  Perhaps he had fallen

        into this work as guilelessly as he might have fallen into a

        position at a bank or selling shirts in a department store if he

                                                                 Page 98


        had been English instead of Afrikaans.

             When they set out for the office, Snyman said, "I must

        handcuff you." David noticed that he expressed his act of

        coercion as a coerced act, imprisoned himself.  They walked

        along concrete corridors lined with other men's cells.  David

        felt numbed by the possibility that they knew who he was.  The

        murderer.  He knew that his expression was haughty.  He was

        their peer, whatever their crimes.


             In the small office, the lawyer stood to greet him.

        "Maurice Kaplan," he stretched out a pudgy hand.  David felt

        that he recognized the quick brown eyes behind thick glasses,

        Kaplan had been a music lover at Joan,s concerts.

             "Take the handcuffs off, please," he said to Snyman, who

        looked dubious but did as he was told.  Kaplan smiled, and his

        cheeks formed little red apples like those David had liked as a

        child.

             "You can leave us alone now," and Snyman left.  Kaplan

        gestured to a chair facing his own across the cheap varnished

        table, and David sat.

             "Now where shall we begin?" David shrugged, and Kaplan gave

        him a quick glance.

             "All right.  I've been asked to take your case, so of

        course that's why I'm here.  I'd like you to tell me as much as

        you can, and then we'll work out a defence."

             "Were you appointed by the court?"

                                                                 Page 99


             "No, but my client would like to remain anonymous.  I have

        been instructed to tell you that you can choose another lawuer

        if you prefer."

             "Is my wife paying you?"

             "No.  I was instructed to tell you that too."

             "Why can't you tell me then?"

             Kaplan did not answer him.  Then, "Would you prefer someone

        else?"

             "Yes."

             "Not to be represented at all."

             "What do you mean?"

             "I don't want to stand trial."

             "That, I'm afraid, is not up to you."

             " I don't want to defend myself, or to be defended."

             "And why not?"

             "I don't want to pretend that we have a system of justice

        here."

             "I'm afraid your scheme is impossible.  You have to stand

        trial in court."

             He looked at the square window of the small office.  It

        obscured the outside world with bars.  Dust on the glass made

        the sunlight opaque.  Freda Bekker.  Eight years old.

             "You know that there is nothing I can say in my defense."

             "Let me see what I can do Mr Miller."

             Mr Miller.  And he had stood up to take his hand as though

        David could be not only a mad dog, but still a man.

                                                                Page 100


             "What can you do?"

             Kaplan shifted on his hard wooden chair and smiled, as

        though he had achieved the first victory.

             "First I must find out as much as I can, of course, then we

             "I'm sure you know as much as I can tell.  I gave a

        complete statement to the police, They'll probably let you see

        it."

             "I have seen it.  I've got a copy here.  Kaplan handed him

        his own confession.  Noticing the quality of chubbiness on

        Kaplan's hands,David wondered whether Kaplan was a man who

        dieted all the time instead of allowing the comfortable

        rotundity he would have had as a medieval monk, with that bald

        pate.

             "There's nothing more to tell."

             "Not quite nothing, Mr Miller.  You leave a great deal

        unexplained - where you got the dynamite, how many others you

        worked with, whether anyone else was involved.  A great deal."

             "All right.  No one else was involved in the station

        explosion.  I was the only one.  Is that clear?"

             "Then how did you get hold of dynamite?"

             "Van der Merwe's been asking me the same thing.  D o you

        know van der Merwe?" "Come, come, Mr Miller.  I'm on the defence

        side, not the prosecution."

             "Then you don't need to know how I got hold of dynamite.  I

        had it.  How I used it was my own decision and my own work."

             " Let me say that Trevor Reed has given a complete

                                                                Page 101

        it is known that others are implicated."

             "Has he given any names?"

             "I don't know."

             "Can you find out?"

             "I doubt it."

             "Well then you don't need them from me.  Trevor knew I had

        dynamite.  He had nothing else to do with the station explosion;

        it was all my own work."

             "It only makes it harder for you, Mr Miller, if you take

        the whole burden on yourself."

             "It won't help me if they hang other people too."

             Kaplan did not answer him."Is Trevor still in prison?"

             "No, he's out on bail, charged with being an accessory

        before the fact, and he's under surveillance, but I think the

        charges against him will be dropped if he testifies at your

        trial.  Is there anything damaging he can say against you?"

             David laughed,

             "Do you think it'll make any difference?"

             "Then there's Francois Marais in England."

             Francois.  David looked down at the varnished table between

        them, a cheap wood, like the desks at school.  All goverment

        buildings had the same kind of furniture, and walls painted dark

        green or dark brown below hand level and some mistrustful colour

        whitewashed and cool.  Inside, the wood and furniture were dark,

        polished, and shining.  The air moved freely.  In Francois's

                                                                Page 102


        home in the Long Kloof, the kitchen floor had been made of peach

        pits set in mis, like a mosaic, and then polished smooth by
                    ___

        Africans on their knees, like the prisoners here at the Fort.

        What was it like there for Francois in an English prison?

             "Francois is like Trevor." He stared Kaplan in the eye.

        Brown and deep.  "He knew that I had dynamite.  That's all.

        What're they going to do about Francois?"

             "His case is causing some stir in England where he's

        fighting extradition.  If the court can be persuaded that his

        involvement was purely political, not criminal he'll be

        released."

             "Can I make any difference?  I mean, can I say that it was

        purely political?"

             "And commit perjury?"

             David raised his chin and stared at Kaplan angrily.

             "It won't be perjury.  I tell the truth."

             "Frankly, Mr Miller, its a delicate situation."

             "In other words, contact with me can only bring harm."

        David looked down at the table again, and then at Kaplan, who

             "So why are you willing to take my case?"

             "It isn't really relevant to discuss that Mr Miller.  We

        have only a short time today."


             "So you got a lawyer," Gericke said.

             "Yes." Impervious to David's brevity, Gericke chattered,

             "Ja man, it makes a man feel better, you know, when you got

                                                                Page 103


        someone to talk for you.  Take me.  If I didn' have a good

        lawyer I wouldn hev a snowball's chance in hell.  I'm in for

        rape you know, but reduced to immorality, cause she's only a

        koelie meid.  But Jesus, what a sweet cunt, fifteen en still
        ______ ____

        juicy.  Hell.  Ag man]  but they could have me for the works,

        man, jus like you.  We was jus having a sweet time, man, you

        know, en nex' thing I know they got me locked up on a hanging

        charge.  Without a lawyer, man]  Jirre]"
                                         _____

             Sometimes in Pretoria, when he was shaving, his father's

        face had risen to the surface of his own like the face of a

        drowned man.  In prison he would not have to see that face.  No

        mirrors here to show him who he was like, except Gericke.  He

        would never attain his father's face, or Gericke's.  He was

        going to die young.  Kaplan's talk about a defence was nonsense;
                                                          ______ ____

        and they had let off the constables who made Zwane drink so much

        water at Bitterspruit, and then beat him with a rubber hose so

        that his stomach exploded.  They would not find an excuse for

        him.  Fifteen and still juicy.

             Innocent of David's anger, Gericke asked, "You like curry?

        Every Tuesday we get curry.  The food here's so boring, man, en

        it makes me constipated.  I'll tell you what, it's because we

        don't get enough exercise.  Sometimes I think the kaffirs is the

        lucky ones, at least they gets a chance to move, they cleans the

        floors, they works in the kitchen."

             "Ask your friend Prinsloo to let you clean some floors."

             "Jesus, you sour.  What'chou got to be so sour for?"

                                                                Page 104


             He wanted a newspaper to tell him an outrage, something

        like Zwane's death at Bitterspruit - or the hill of rotting

        oranges when there was a glut on the market and the children at

        St Therese's were dying of starvation.  He needed the narcotic,

        alien suffering of men he did not know, children he had never

        dandled.  Without the clamour of their cries his act seemed

        meaningless.  He wanted to remember why he had risked his life

        and would lose it now, why he had made the bomb and planted it,

        so that it had killed Mrs Blackmun, a widow, and brought the

        it had to be done.

             He could hear Gericke farting and groaning, and wondered

        whether Gericke could hear him walking.  Piet Kreer, Tertius

        Keyter, Hans Breitenbach, Jacob Arndt, Louis Spaarman, Pretorius

        Eybers, Peter Venter, Andrew Smith.  Perhaps there were walls

        somewhere in the Fort reading Mohandas Ghandi, Albert Luthuli.

        Not in these white cells.  Among the capitals and lower case,

        some large, some crooked, some small, in scripts as various and

        confusing as the crimes and their dates, other words addressed

        him.  I'm sick of clink.  Money is the root of all evil.  A line

        drawn through money, and women written above.  Perhaps there

        were other walls inscribed Michael Henderson, Philip Brink.

             By the time Michael had been arrested during the state of

        emergency after Sharpeville, he had known that these things

        happened;  the innocent jumbled with the guilty.  When Philip

        was arrested with the others accused of treason, he had not

        known how to understand his shock until the opening days.

                                                                Page 105


        Blood.  Joan.  The police beating at the crowd.  The gates

        pressed so that the vans of prisoners couldn't get out.  Philip

        must have been in one of those vans.  In the Non-European

        section of the Fort, he might have read those names, Mohandas

        Ghandi, Albert Luthuli.  Those in prison for our sake.

        Joan, he had seen them the day they were released, that thin

        group left of all the accused.  Crossing Church Street near the

        Square where official buildings of the stone state stared at

        each other, and President Kruger's bronze eyes surveyed the

        heart of his dry republic, he saw a small crowd outside the

        building called the Palace of Justice - with the same logic

        Michael had laughed at in the Extension of University Education

        Act.  He had not realized who they were, scattered and small in

        the hostile space, until he read in the evening paper that all

        the remaining defendants in the Treason Trial had been

        acquitted.  More four years.


             .i The whole business had seemed so implausible.  Aviva had

        said from the first that the charges were trumped up.  At that

        time, so green and ignorant, he hadn't understood her reference

        to the Reichstag fire.

             He had never felt one of that group around Aviva, though

        Joan was among them and so he was drawn in, finding his way

        among first year exams, and Joan's friends, still wary, and his

        parents fearful that he was still seeing this girl, Joan

        Hamilton.  Every day he saw her at the library, in town or at

        Wits;  every afternoon they swam at Aviva's house.  Aviva's

                                                                Page 106


        parents were never at home now.  Israel had erupted into war,

        had failed.  Suddenly, in a way he had never noticed before, the

        streets were filled with newspaper boys hawking special

        editions.  For the first time he saw the world racked by

        history.  Had there always been times like these when calamities

        cracked like dam walls, pouring their consequences on apalled

        civilians who had not caused them?  The years of his childhood

        must have been like that, but the only portentous events he

        remembered were the night the Nationalists won the election and

        Smuts lost his seat, and the Torch Commando marches his father

        had marched in.

             To celebrate the end of exams they had gone to see a

        Hitchcock film at the Empire, and when they came out the street

        was thick with readers again.  Michael bought a paper, and the

        others all clustered around him.

             "It's just like Nazi Germany." Aviva's eyes blazed with a

        hot temper of life.  He hadn't been able to tell, that day,

        whether she was angry or happy.

             They read snatches of the story to each other, adding coals

        to each other's fire.  To him it had still seemed a story about

        distant people.

             "They havent finished the arrests yet."

             People going home after work, pressed passed the clot they

        made on the pavement.

             "And Philip."

                                                                Page 107


             That had shocked him.  Although he had met Philip only that

        once at the Discussion Club meeting nearly a month before, he

        couldnt connect threat with that sensitive face and slight

        figure.  Philip had criticized the way the others played at

        ideology.  He couldnt be a Communist.

             So he had been drawn in by sympathy with Philip.  A mad

        dog.  I trusted you.  They had gone round each other in a

        circle.  I trusted you.  Like a dog chasing its tail.

             "Let me see," Aviva took the paper from Michael's hands,

             "Under Coloureds," he showed her.

             "Fuck and damn," she swore."If my parents recognize his

        name they'll kill me]"

             "Don't worry, they're too busy with Israel," Michael

        promised.

             "Where is he?" Joan asked.

             "In the Fort."

             "Oh no.]  The Fort's one of the worst," Joan said.

             And David had been shocked that she should know which

        prisons were the worst.

             The Fort clacked around him.  Doors opened and closed.  He

        had fallen into the habit he had allowed in solitary, thinking

        a murderer.

             He had gone along with the others, suspicious of their

        excitement and pleasure, but following them when they agreed to

        phone Monica.They trailed to the library because there was a

        phone in the lobby, and when no one answered at Monica's house,

                                                                Page 108


        they called Gerald.  Edward warned, "No names on the phone.

        Gerald's tapped," and David was apalled again at the things they

        knew.

             Aviva reported what Gerald had said.

             "He wants me to phone back in a few minutes.  He says I

        should check at home first in case something's happened there."

        Her eyes were burning with the joy of being in the centre of

        things, like his father in history.

             But Joan and Edward seemed to know that this time it wasn't

        a game, although they didn't know what it was.

             "I can't get the hang of it," Edward said,"It looks like a

        lot of Congress people, but I can't see then why they've taken

        Philip.  He's not Congress."

             "What're they going to charge them with?"

             "It doesn't say.  They can cook up something.  They can do

        anything they like."

             A shadow had fallen across Michael's face as he bent his

        around her shoulder, Edward's face was pale as he said, "This

        feels more serious than random intimidation.  I can't see the

        point.  Why now?  Why arrests in the middle of the night?"

             Joan was standing like a flower in the sheath of her green

        dress.

             "Let's hear what Aviva's got to say," as Aviva came out

        into the dim library lobby.

             "It doesn't look as though anything's happening at my

        house.  Gerald says he'll come over tonight.  He wants to talk

                                                                Page 109


        to us."

             Edward went to the phone booth with Joan, and David felt

        cut off from them.  He didn't even know what Congress was, and

        felt jealous of this danger and experience drawing them all

        together.

             No one had come for Edward or Joan.  "Let's go." Aviva

        sounded impatient, although there was nothing for them to do.

             They walked to the car, Edward with Michael and Aviva, Joan

        with David.

             "What does Congress do,Joan?"

             "Nothing.  Its's all like the meeting you came to.  Talk."

             "Nothing else?"

             "You heard Philip at that meeting.  Congress is a lot of

             "Are you a member?"

             "No."

             "And Edward and Michael?"

             "I think so."

             "And Aviva?"

             "Also."

             "Why?"

             "Why don't you ask them?" she sounded angry and scornful.

             When they reached the car, he felt the issue between them

        unconcluded.  Taking the first step away from his parents'

        control and dreams, he climbed into the car and sat next to

        Joan.

             Caroline answered his phone call from Aviva's house.  "I'm

                                                                Page 110


        not coming home for supper.  Please tell my mother."

             "Madam's here baas.  I'll call her to the phone."

             "No, I don't want to talk to her.  Just give her the

        message."

             "You speak to her, baas."

             "No." He hung up with a sense of victory.


             At the swimming pool, they were all drinking sherry and

        talking, because Aviva's parents were there, about the weather,

        and the drought that Mrs Solomon said was ruining the lawn.

             "We're lucky the police caught them in time."

             "In time for what?" Aviva challenged.

             "There must've been something going on darling.  They don't

        arrest people in the middle of the night for doing nothing."

             "How do you know?  They did it in Germany."

             "Don't be ridiculous darling.  The situation here's

        completely different."

             "How?"

             "Well darling, I'm sure when you learn more you'll see that

        these people have been up to something."

             "What, for example?"

             "I knew you'd disagree with me darling, but you're young

        and idealistic, and I'm afraid it'll get you into trouble.  I

        just wish you'd be more sensible and careful.  I don't just mean

        your passport.  You just don't know how you can damage your

        whole life by something you do now.  I mean that for all of

        you," she addressed them.  "You're a lovely group of friends,

                                                                Page 111


        but you don't know where your ideas will carry you.  You'll

        learn as you grow older.  I just hope it won't be too late." She

        looked at their faces, noncommittal and polite, "Well, every

        generation has to learn from its own mistakes."

             Michael signalled to Aviva to shut up, and her parents left

             "Why do parents have to be so silly]" Aviva exploded as

        their car pulled out of the driveway.

             They felt together, a band sharing the secret of danger and

        Gerald's impending visit.

             At dinner Michael engaged Aviva's younger sister, Cynthia,

        in questions about a swimming gala to be held in the last week

        of school.  When the phone rang they heard Aviva's end of the

        conversation, "We're all fine...All of us.  I can't mention

        names...I can't talk to you now...  No...I'll phone you...Please
                                                                  ______

        don't mention names on the phone." Cynthia was not even

        intrigued.  She had been kept out of her older sister's secrets

        too often to taker particular notice this time.

             After dinner, Joan said, "I'm going to practice for a while

        until Gerald comes.  I've got a Messiah rehearsal on Thursday."
                                        _______

             The sound of her exercises overlaid the servants' talking

        and washing up in the kitchen, and Michael and Aviva and Edward

        in the study speculating on the meaning of the arrests and what

        Gerald would tell them.


             David was moved by Joan's constancy.  He loved her for the

        discipline he felt then as a true effect of civilization,

        preserving art against the destructive instrusion of crises.  It


        was the same habit of work he had come to feel as a vice of

        atrocious indifference.  He couldn't resolve the knot of his

        feeling.

             The dilemma had come to them that very night.  When Joan

        finished her exercises, she brought her cello to the study, and

        Michael carried a straight-backed chair towards the empty hearth

        so that she could sit in front of them and play.  For a moment

        before putting bow to strings, she sat with her eyes closed,

        collecting herself.  Looking at her pale lids, David felt again

        the mystery of her separateness, the inward life she closed from

        them and communicated to herself.  He felt that having seen her

        this way, he would never be the same again.  Light from the lamp

        caught her golden hair and deep glints in the wood of her

        instrument.  He felt himself fixed to a vision of something he

        could not name, alter, or escape.  The sweetness of an ideal

        Europe entered the room, veiled by the summer crickets in the

        garden where the air was heavy with the scent of stocks, and the

        last clink of dishes and murmur of conversation from the

        servants in the kitchen.  For the moment it was as if they need

        not wait to hear more about who was in jail, in danger, in

        flight.

             At the pause between the first movement and the second,

        Edward said, "Please stop, Joan.  It's too incongruous.  I can't

             She set the bow on a small table and looked at him,

        waiting.

             "I hope I'm not offending you Joan, but I can't listen

                                                                Page 113


        today, and I can't even understand how you can play."

             "I play every day.  It's not something I make new choices

        about.  I do it the way I breathe.  That doesn't mean you have

        to listen."

             " But today...I mean, it's not like every day.  All those

        people in prison."

             "That's just like every day."

             "I don't see how you can go on playing as though nothing's

        happened." Again Joan paused, her eyes downcast and her lids

        fringed with short golden hair,"What happened today is what

        happens all the time in this country.  Today's different for us

        because we know the names of those in prison for our sake, and

        they're our friends."

             Edward heard the danger in her words.

             "What do you mean, for our sake?"

             "Everything here," she had raised her golden green eyes to

        look at Edward, and moved her hand at the wrist in a cramped

        gesture that showed the room around them, perhaps the whole

        house and garden, perhaps more, "Everything is this way for us

        prison, we couldn't be here.  We couldn't even be who we are.  I

        know why you don't want to listen to music when you think of

        them, but music is the same as everything else in our lives."

             "How can you go on living like this then, if that's how you

        feel?" Edward leaned forward as though he couldn't afford to

        lose a fraction of her answer.

             Joan looked him in the face.

                                                                Page 114


             "I could ask the same of you.  How can you go on living

        here?  What do you want me to do when you ask how I can go on

        living?"

             "I don't want you to do a damn thing.  I want to know for

        myself.  Perhaps we should go overseas.  But I'd always know

        that the same things are going on here:  I'd just feel I was

        turning my back on it."

             Joan tone, accepting and realistic, patient in a way David

        had come to know so well, but not to understand, shaped her

        voice.  "If it destroys you, you must turn your back on it."

             "I don't know whether it will destroy me."

             Aviva broke the bubble of concentration that enclosed the

        two of them.

             "You're both getting awfully cryptic" Cryptic had been

        Aviva's word that season.

        liberals have been doing that for years, just leaving the rest

        of us more isolated.  Sometimes I think liberals have done this

        country more harm than the Nationalists.  We've all agree we

        must stay, and work for the revolution."

             "I don't think we can say everyone must do the same thing,"

        Joan rebutted in an aloof tone,

             "Everyone's different."

             "Oh Joan, you're incurably bourgeois," Michael sided with

        Aviva."You can't excuse individuals from an inevitable

        historical process."

             "If it's inevitable, we don't have to do anything about it.

                                                                Page 115


        It'll happen whatever our opinion."

             "That isn't so, Joan.  We can shape the way the revolution

        goes."

             "That's not my vocation, and perhaps not Edward's"
                         __

             "Of course, if you're going to be Catholic about it..."

             Edward forestalled a religious squabble by saying, "It's

        eleven o'clock, let's listen to the news."

             Arrests were still being made all over the country.

             A few minutes later, Gerald arrived.

             "Thank God you're here," Aviva greeted him, "We've been

             Later, they wondered whether he had.  Rumours pointed to

        Gerald as a spy.  They recognized discrepancies in his stories,

        and remembered that he had supported the exchange on Hungary at

        the Discussion Club meeting.  Perhaps he had wanted to hear who

        would say what.

             But the evening of the Treason Trial arrests they did not

        suspect him.  Rather, he wanted to know who David was.

             "Where've we met before?"

             "At the Discussion Club when Harry Gordon was talking."

             "Of course." Gerald settled into a leather chair.  "I'd

        love some coffee, Aviva."

             When she came back from the kitchen, he said,"This is the

        situation.  Almost all the Congress leaders have been arrested.

        There are a few left - no one knows why.  Probably just

        inefficiency.  They aren't interested in liberals.  Alan Paton's

        free.  So are most of the smaller leadership in Congress.  There

                                                                Page 116


        seem to be some mix-ups.  They've arrested Marge."

             "Marge]  But that's ridiculous," Aviva protested.  "She's

        not even political.  I bet she's never even handed out

        leaflets."

             Aviva still didn't know that they could do anything they

        liked.

             "I didn't know that." Aviva sounded chagrined.

             "They've been living together for the last month," Michael

        confirmed.

             "How do you know?"

             "I had dinner with them."

             "When?"

             "About a month ago."

             "And you didn't even tell me..." Michael did not answer her

        accusation.  "Anyhow, just being a girlfriend's no reason to be

        in jail."

             "She is in jail," Edward's voice was quiet, but his lips
                  __

        had disappeared into a straight line.

             Aviva looked at him for a moment, and then turned back to

        Gerald,"We couldn't get hold of Monica."

             "She's all right.  No one's been to her place."

             They did not talk about Philip.  Joan had told David that

        the quarrel with Aviva had become increasingly bitter.

             "We'll have to see what happens next." Gerald seemed to be

        instructing them.  "It looks as though they'll all be charged

        with treason."

                                                                Page 117


             "Teason]  You can't be serious." This charge was too heavy

             In retrospect it seemed strange that Gerald knew the

        charges so early.  "There've been a lot of scare stories in the

        Afrikaans press during the last few months - plots to poison the

        wells, bomb the railways, that kind of thing.  Now they'll say

        they found the plotters."

             "But they can't do that without evidence," Aviva protested,

        as though she had forgotten her earlier suspicions.

             "They can do anything they like, my dear.  For all we know,

        they've prepared evidence.  Or perhaps they don't care whether

        the charges stick or not.  It suits them to have everyone under

        lock and key, and people praising the government for saving them

        from God knows what.  The smear'll stick."

             "Charming." Michael had always turned to irony to vent his

        rage at apartheid.  He praised the government for its bumbling

        and folly - at least they sometimes mitigated its laws.  When

        the Extension of University Education Act was passed to keep

        Africans out of the universities, he wrote an article for the

        Star on how many laws in Souith Africa could be called Extension

        of Freedom Acts.  The London Observer printed a ribald piece on

        the Immorality Act, and another on how the Orange Free State

        lived up to its name.  He made apartheid, so far as he could, an

        object that could be criticized or praised as though it had no

        human consquences.  That was how he tried to survive without

                                                                Page 118


             .i When Snyman brought the day's soup David began to eat it

        hungrily, holding the warm taste in his mouth.  He did not know

        how to connect himself with who he had been.  He felt as

        separate from that day as from the spoon fallen idle in his lap.

        Everything had dried out.  The country had not changed.  It had

        ignored them and beaten them, Michael to England;  Aviva into

        complaisance, Edward to quixotry.  Joan had always accepted it

        all, in a way David could not understand.  Now he was here in

        the Fort, and soon they would hang him.  It would be as though

        he had never lived.  Except for Mrs Blackmun, Freda Bekker,

        Lettie du Toit the typist.  And Joan, the murderer's wife.  He

        could smell the food.  He put it away from him

             Somewhere when he was a child he had seen three picannins

        scavenging in rubbish bins for bread and rotten fruit.  They ran

        away when they saw that he was watching, so he pretended not to

        look.  He turned his back and played behind a tree, and when

        they weren't looking, he watched them.  They found some half

        eaten mielies and buns, and chased flies off a piece of meat,

        and ran away when they saw him looking again.

             It was his adult mind that turned at the thought.  He

        hadn't considered it at the time.

             There was nothing to think about.  The prison made metal

        car door.

             A soft snore came from Gericke's cell.  Then a panting

        sound, and blurred words struggling through sleep.

             "Hullo, Gericke.  You all right?"

                                                                Page 119


             "Huh.  Huh." The voice struggled to become words.  "What?"

             "You all right?"

             A pause, then "Course I'm all right.  Why shouldn I be?"

             "I thought you were having a bad dream."

             "No, hell man, there's nothing wrong with me."

             "I was in a bad mood before lunch."

             "Jirre you were.  It's O.K.  We all get in bad moods here."
              _____

             "How long have you been here?"

             "Two months, this time, but I was here two years once.

        That was for a fight.  I nearly killed that bastard, but I was

        lucky.  One of my chommies knocked me out before I could do

        anything serious.  Otherwise, man, I'd be roped by now.  My wife

        always tells me I got a terrible temper."

             At exercise time he noticed the deep and endless blue of

        the sky, pure and thoughtless.  Sina used to air mattresses in

        the backyard.  When he came home from school he jumped on them

        until she told him to stop, and then he lay kicking his legs,

        blue behind blue, until he was giddy with distance.  Sometimes

        he fell asleep and woke in the late afternoon to see bulbous

        clouds pressing against a pane of air, about to come down in

        heavy rain.  By the time the storm broke he would be inside

        again doing his homework in time for his father to check it.


             "How is my wife?"

             Kaplan tapped a yellow pencil on the table between them;

        it sounded like a wooden heartbeat.

                                                                Page 120


             "She hasn't been well.  She doesn't want to see you for a

        while."

             "How long?  Since the bomb?"

             "No, longer than that.  She's been overstrained since

        November."

             So.  After their visit to Aviva.

             "She went to visit a friend in Uniondale."

             "Oh, Tannie van Zyl."

             The summer before Sharpeville the apples had ripened, the

        wheat had been reaped, they rode horses, they swam.  They forgot

        the quarrels erupting into their marriage.  There were no

        newspapers, no news.  He put aside the extension of the pass

        laws to women, and the women killed protesting them.  There were

        only their bodies, the sun, the sweetness of life.  Visiting

        recover the affection he could once feel for Afrikaners.  Tannie

        told them stories about the local eccentrics.  There was

        seventy-three year old Kritzinger, who climbed every mountain in

        the Long Kloof to plant a single Lombary poplar on its summit.

        There was du Plessis, who fed his prize hogs wheat from the

        rolling lands northeast of the valley and wine from the

        peninsula.  "A hog's human, like anyone else," he used to say.

        Then there were the mad Marais.  The maddest of them was Lord

        Ford, the first man east of Cape Town to buy a car.  Lord Ford

        was dazzled by the world beyond the Long Kloof.  Every year he

        sent a case of his finest apples to the Queen of England, the

        President of the United States, the Aga Khan, and Charles de

                                                                Page 121


        Gaulle.  He kept his collection of thank you letters signed by

        these mythic beings next to his bed, locked in a steel box.

        Tannie said that he read them every night before saying his

        prayers - they put him in a reverent mood.  When the Royal

        Family visited South Africa, Lord Ford was invited to entertain

        them.  "Just lay out the red carpet for them," a member of the

        Visit Committe told him.  So Lord Ford ordered a mile and a half

        of red carpet to be delivered from the nearest town, Port

        Elizabeth, two hundred miles away, and laid it over the dirt

        road from his two whitewashed gate pillars to the entrance step


             Tannie had taken them to visit some other Marais in the

        valley.  The kitchen floor in their Cape Dutch homestead was

        made of peach pits set in mis, and on the living room wall he
                                  ___

        had noticed a pastel sketch of a young boy with dark curls and

        large intelligent eyes.  Francois.  Lord Ford was his uncle.

             After that summer in the Long Kloof they had gone to Cape

        Town.  The newspapers told them about the miners choking to

        death in the Coalbrook disaster and the women who rose up with

        sticks and ululations to kill the policemen at Cato Manor.

             "Is my wife still at Uniondale?"

             "No, she's back, preparing for a concert next month."

             "I suppose all this will hurt her carreer."

             Kaplan did not answer.  He tapped the pencil and looked at

        the table.

             "I see.  Is she living alone?"

             "No, she's with friends>"

                                                                Page 122


             "Who?  Eugenie Tikos?"

             "Mr and Mrs Rosen."

             "Oh." Aviva and her husband.  "They have a baby now."

             "Not yet.  It hasn't been such a long time, you know."

             "Of course."

        doctor.He asked how David had been feeling before the bomb, when

        he met Joan, when he met Francois, when he learnt about

        explosives, about teaching at the school in Pretoria, about the

        principal, and the other teachers.  David answered absently not

        caring what the point of the questions might be.

             Perversity made him hold on to his sick headache as though

        nausea would reassure him that he was still alive.  It felt like

        the headache that came from handling dynamite too long.  Work

        quickly and keep cool, Francois said.

             When the miners died at Coalbrook, Joan played at a benefit

        for their families.

             "The owners will thank you, Joan.  Show sympathy and rally

        when there's a disaster.  Then they won't have to do anything

        serious about working conditions."

             "I can't force them to do more.  But I won't do less

        because I can't do more."

             When a truck on the surface changed gear and the earth

        opened ar Carltonville and people and houses fell through into

        the mine below, Joan played for these victims and their

        families.

             "Damn Nationalists.  Why the hell do you raise money for

                                                                Page 123


        them?"

        There's more to a person than a label."

             "That's not what they say.  They say look at your ideas,

        we're going to kill you.  Or they say, black skin, kaffir, dirt,

        you better die.  It's not a label, Joan, its a disease they give

        to other people to die of if they're not white."

             Gericke said,"No man, that's not the way to carry on.

        You'll get sick if you mopes.  Clink's not such a bad place if

        you know how to handle it."

             David heard the sounds of Prinsloo's visit in the next

        cell.  Then Prinsloo came to his door.  "Gericke told me to look

        after you, hey, so you can ask me if there's something you want.

        O.K.?"

             "I'd like some books."

             "Tomorrow.  I can't do nothing about that now."

             "How about a newspaper?"

             "Newspapers isn't allowed.  You want cigarettes?"

             "If you get some, please them to Gericke.  I don't smoke."

             "O.K.  I don't know nothing about it, hey?"

             "Of course."

             When he thanked Gericke, he answered, "Ag man, you needn

        thank me.  You do the same for me man, if you knew the ropes."

             When Snyman said,"You gonna get sick if you don't eat,"

        David answered, "I don't mind.  I feel sick already."

             "Come on, leave me alone.  I bet your mother nags you to

                                                                Page 124


        eat and you don't listen"

             Snyman flushed.

             "Listen, it's O.K.  I'm O.K."


             "No one can force you to eat, David," Kaplan rebuked him,

        "but you won't be able to get through this business if you're

        sick."

             "You talk as if you expect me to get out."

             "There's a chance, but not if you carry on like this."

             "Why do you think there's a chance?"

             "I want you to plead insanity."

             "I'm about as insane as you are, and no insult intended."

             "I'll give you time to think about the choices.  You're

        sane enough to know what they are."

             "If I'm sane, how're you going to make me insane?  Who's

        going to commit perjury to save my neck?"

             "It won't be perjury.  I've been discussing your case with

        Dr Lippert.  He'll give you some tests, you'll talk to him a

        bit, and we'll see."

             "I won't have anything to do with Lippert.  He's a

        collaborator.  When we had a one hour strike at Wits to protest

        the Extension of Universities Education Act, he kept telling us

        civilization, but he said one hour was too extreme, that we

        couldn't achieve anything without moderation.  You can tell him

        from me that I think he's mad.  Or worse.  Who does he think we

        deal with in this country?  People amenable to reason?  If he

                                                                Page 125


        wants lunatics, let him look to the government."

             "If you're amenable to reason, you should forget petty old

        grudges, David."

             "Do you think I'm mad?"

             A look of grief and misery pulled Kaplan's mouth so that he

        seemed like a child about to cry.  "I never said you were.  I'm

        looking for a legal way out."

             "You know the sane government that passed a law to prevent

        interracial blood transfusions because it's better to die than

        be saved by a kaffir's blood - well, Lippert's got the wrong

        colour blood for me."

             "All right, David."


             "Jesus, that guy puts you in a bad mood man.  Listen, did

        Prinsloo get you those books."

             "It's O.K.  I've got everything I want."

             "Jesus, I wish I could say the same.  You wait.  When I get

        out, first thing I'm going down to Kerk Street, I'm going to

        take a blonde...Jesus]" Overwhelmed, he fell silent for a

             "I don't mind the colour."

             "You're right man.  Jirre, when you comes right down to
                                 _____

        it...  Hell man, I ever tell you about my first bruintjie on my

        brother's farm?  Jirre]  You can't beat those Coloured girls."
                         _____


             For a few interviews Kaplan did not raise the topic of

        insanity, but then he said, "I've been wondering about your

                                                                Page 126


        father."

             "Yes?  Have you seen him?"

             "I have.  He wanted to talk to me.  But I wanted to know

        something else."

             "Yes?"

             "You ran away from home."

             "I didn't run.  I decided, and left."

             "Why?"

             "We had a difference of opinion."

             "Every family has differences of opinion.  Tell me more."

             "What's it got to do with my case?"

             Kaplan gave him a strong look, defying contradiction.  "All

        right.  You left home, you left your wife, you hate the

        government, you hate the principal of your school, you're

             "I see.  We're still going to play that I'm crazy." Again

        that hurt and nearly crying mouth.  "Lunatic asylums have that

        effect on the inmates.  But really, the only thing crazy about

        what I did is that it didn't work, and I should've known it

        wouldn't.  I wouldn't be mad if more people resisted the

        government at its own level of violence.  We'd get somewhere

        then, and it wouldn't be mad to go out of your mind trying to

        get justice."

             "I'd like you to trust me, David."

             "How can I, if you think I'm mad.  It's bad enough without

        your help."

             Kaplan was looking down at the table, rolling a yellow

                                                                Page 127


        pencil between his fingers.  "I know that, but what's your

        choice?  It's insanity or death."

             "In a nutshell."

             Kaplan looked up at David, "It's better to live than to

        die."

             "Not for me."

             "You're too young to say that.  You can't know what the

        future holds.  I want you to live."

             "Why?"

             Again Kaplan looked down at the table, "A great uncle of

        was executed."

             David contemplated Kaplan's hands.  The pencil between his

        fingers was still.

             "I don't know why you told me this, but it doesn't matter

        to me.  Obviously it matters to you, but it can't possibly

        persuade me to perjure my whole life by pretending that I am or

        was mad.  South Africa isn't pre-revolutionary Russia.  One of

        the reasons I never joined the Congress was that I felt everyone

        there was trying to play a repeat performance."

             "No, I agree.  I didn't intend to tell you about my

        great-uncle.  It's not important."

             They looked at each other emptily.  Then Kaplan spoke.

        "Actually you've helped greater repression.  The ninety day bill

        has just been enacted."

             "What's the point of this?  I've got no illusions about my

        effectiveness.  Their repressiveness is not my fault.  They've

                                                                Page 128


        done beautifully for years without me.  And I can't do anything

        about it by pretending I'm madder than they are."

             "You're very young, David.  I know that its often idealism

        that inspires acts like yours.  I won't call it youthful folly.

        It's serious.  But is it worth dying for?"

             "I don't think I've got a choice about that.  And in any

        killed for.  If that's the choice, I'm a murderer, not a

        madman."


             Piet Kreer, Tertius Keyter, Hans Breitenbach, Jacob Arndt,

        Louis Spaarman, Pretorius Eybers, Peter Venter, Andrew Smith.

             If he was mad, he could live.

             If he was mad he could escape the stone that had begun to

        crush him from the first weeks he knew Joan and went about with

        her friends, and began to see what he had never seen before, the

        servants, the women who sat all night on the pavement outside

        the Non-European hospital, and the people who went to prison.

             He had not asked to see these things.  It was Joan who saw

        them, and Aviva and Michael who couldn't keep away from the

        excitement they'd felt the day of the arrests.  When the trial

        itself began, they went to the opening.  Waiting for their eyes

        to be hurt.  For what they saw to make them mad.


             They arranged to meet at the Drill Hall for the preliminary

        hearings.  Michael, who had a nose for news and friends in the

        press, warned that they should come early because of the crowds.

                                                                Page 129


             In the morning streets where few shops had opened, David

        looked at the natives he passed.  He had come to notice them so

        recently, he did not know whether today imposed a special

        importance for them.  A few looked at him in a friendly way that

        through summer plane trees as with his sense that that he was

        connected to their side now.  As he came near the Drill Hall, he

        saw more natives.  Some were wearing black, green and gold

        rosettes, and one or two were dressed wholly in these Congress

        colours.  They seemed happy, excited, prepared for some

        significant event.  He was surprised to find how thick the crowd

        became near the Drill Hall.  Here was the world he had not seen

        before, the invisible city that always surrounded him.  He felt

        elated to see it, and partly to share in it.

             The others also seemed elated.

             "That's the reporter for Time." Michael pointed to a man in

        one of the groups talking in the courtyard of the brick hall.

        The whole day, he would be the one in the know, narrowing down

        to his journalistic vocation with the zest of learning and

        giving information that made him relish his work even when he

        hated what he learnt and told.

             "There's Jacoby," Aviva pointed.  "They're lucky he's

        willing to take this case.  It could be risky."

             "I don't think so," Michael argued.  "Look what he stands

        to gain.  We're getting international attention." He waved to

        someone in another group.  Later he pointed out members from a

        delegation of observers sent by the International Commission of

                                                                Page 130

             "Look they're taking films," Aviva pointed to a crew of

        cameramen, but as they watched, a policeman came up to them and

        the film crew moved away.  Policemen stood guard at every gate

        and door, and out in the street where the natives were now

        beginning to press.  Someone David recognized from the

        Discussion Club meeting joined them.  Aviva introduced him as

        Tony.  He listened to their conversation a while, chewing dirty

        fingernails.

             "I think the government's just fools.  Harry says

        everyone's using this time in prison together to have a

        conference.  It's terrific."

             Fired by imaginary triumph, Michael cried, "Mayebuye]" the
                                                         ________

        Congress cry David would hear from the crowd all day.

             The sun was shining, there was the press, and observers

        from all over the world.  It was like his father's dream of

        history.

             Policemen locked the gates and shouts of anger rose from

        the crowd.

             "Just look at them, the bastards," Aviva complained.  But

        David could see that she also felt herself in the eye of

        history.

             Only Joan seemed downcast.  Occasionally David saw her

        crowds, the sun flickering in the poplar tress across the

        street, the feeling that this was history distracted him.

             But it was going to be a long day when they would do little

                                                                Page 131


        but move into the hall and out.  The press table remained empty.

        For a while someone sat at the table set aside for the three

        judges, and people came to talk to him, but then he left.

        Joan's friends attached themselves now to this group, now to

        that.  He felt apart from them all, even from himself, and

        watched their confluence and separation as if looking at pond

        organisms under a microscope.

             A confused clamour of shouting and singing rose from the

        crowd.  People in the yard pressed back into the doorway of the

        hall, people in the hall pressed to the windows and door.

        Several large police vans had arrived.  Prisoners showed their

        hands through the wire netting, their thumbs raised in the

        Congress salute.  "Mayebuye]  Mayebuye]" Voices from the crowds
                           _________  _________

        inside and outside joined in the Congress songs, joyful and

        fervent.  The police hustled their prisoners along, but the

        singing and the cries only grew louder.

             He did not know any of their songs.

             When the singing died down, Aviva said, "It's hot," and

        that side of the hall.  The inner block of seats was reserved

        for non-Europeans.

             "Well then, why don't they let them in?" Aviva fulminated,

        "They're not even letting in relatives."

             "Father Knowles is talking to them," Edward pointed.  David

        had heard of Father Knowles as one of those interfering

        missionaries who thought they knew more about race relations

        after ten years in the country, than people who'd been born in

                                                                Page 132


        South Africa.  The policeman seemed to be refusing his request.

        They saw that he moved to a group Michael had identified as

        reporters.  Edward went to greet Father Knowles, a friend of his

        parents.

             "He tried to persuade them that it would look bad overseas,

        but they don't care."

             It seemed to David that, like the crowd outside, they

        reflected their anger to each other.  History was taking too

        long.  It was tedious, and he was hungry, impatient, irritable.

             Eventually Aviva said, "I've just got to have lunch.  I'm

        starving."

             Men in the crowd helped the girls climb out over a low

        fence of brick and cast iron.

             At the small cafe where David sat next to Joan, holding her

        in her he did not understand, Aviva marvelled,"There must be

        five thousand people here."

             "It's magnificent]" Michael took up her enthusiasm.

             Although Edward shared their excitement, he did not forget

        the fleshly scrape of injustice that had brought the crowd here,

        and the pain likely to spill out at any moment."I hope there

        won't be trouble.  I don't think the police expected a crowd

        like this."

             "Everyone's so friendly," Aviva disputed his foreboding.

        Although she protested, again and again that the government was

        unreasonable, she never quite exprected it to behave

        unreasonably.

                                                                Page 133


             When they came back to the Drill Hall, and the crowd again

        helped the girls over the fence, David wondered why they didn't

        simply break through themselves.

             The afternoon hours passed like the morning's, empty.Tony

        suggested that the hearings had been delayed because the

        microphones weren't working.

             "I think we should leave." Edward sounded as though he had

        made the suggestion before.

             "Just another half-an-hour" Aviva argued, "We've been here

        all day.

        matter?"

             "I phoned you last night.  Did your mother tell you?"

             "I'm not living there any more."

             "Oh.  They didn't tell me."

             "What did they tell you?"

             "Nothing very pleasant.  In fact, they really attacked me,

        and said I was ruining your life, and all sorts of things.  I

        don't even like to think of it.  What's going on, David?"

             "I'm sorry.  They probably blame you for a lot of things

        that've got nothing to do ith you, like my leaving home."

             "Why have you left?"

             A coke bottle shattered at their feet.  Fragments of glass

        shot up at Joan.  She looked up, surprised.  He stepped between

        her and the street.  There was a small commotion in the crowd

        where the bottle thrower must be.Joan said, "Please God, don't

        let it be a riot."

                                                                Page 134


             "I think it's all right now." He put an arm over her

        shoulder.  "It was only one person."

             Before he could guide her back into the hall, a policeman

        was asking for an account of the incident, but they could tell

        him little.

             "Let's go and get something to drink."

        were leaving.

             When they came back into the yard they saw that policemen

        were trying to clear a way for the prisoner vans, but the press

        of the crowd was too great.

             Using their batons, policemen started to beat people away

        from the gates.Four policemen pushed each wing of the gate to

        force it open.

             "Careful there.  That woman's pregnant," they heard someone

        in the yard, but the policemen continued angrily forcing the

        gates and beating the crowd away.  Singing prisoners were led

        into thee first van, where again they pressed the wire netting

        at the back, showing their raised thumbs.  The van moved

        forwards slowly.  "Get out of the way." "Move." Slowly the crowd

        retreated, and the freedom songs carried before the vans, up

        Twist Street, towards Hillbrow.  Towards the Fort.


             They walked away from the Drill Hall and the

        disintegrating, deflated crowd in the streets.  They came to a

        silent part of town where small shops neighboured flats and

        doctors' offices.  A few geraniums bloomed on balconies where

                                                                Page 135


        pensioners had come out to sit in the afternoon sun and watch

        the quiet streets.  A drunk veered from gutter to shop window, a

        dog sniffed at walls and light poles.  Soon they came to larger

        one seemed to know about the encysted mass of people at the

        Drill Hall.  Natives acted their commonplace selves.  Delivery

        boys on bicycles whistled hit parade tunes, errand boys pushed

        the glass doors of the new Post Office so that the sun flashed

        and the street blinked.  A fat old woman sat on the pavement

        selling peaches.  A beggar offered his felt hat where a few

        coins beckoned for companions.  Nothing had changed.  The

        banners of evening newspapers announced a quiet day at the

        treason hearings.


             Joan was looking at him over the small table.  The Indian

        waiter who had brought their tea was spreading linen cloths, and

        setting cutlery out for dinner.  The cashier sitting near the

        door stared straight ahead, an absent expression on her powdered

        face.

             "What's been happening, David?"

             "My parents didn't want me to see you again."

             "Why?  What do they know about me?"

             "Nothing.  The didn't want me to see anyone, I mean, any

        girl.  They have other plans for me.  My father's got my whole

        life worked out.  The only trouble is that I want to live my own

        life."

             "But can't you talk about it, work it out with them?"

                                                                Page 136

             ""What are you going to do?"

             "I don't know.  I don't even want to make too many plans,

        right now.  That's what my father does.  He's had me all set to

        win a Rhodes Scholarship and become the kind of man he should

        have been.  I don't know what's going to happen, but I want to

        let things unfold naturally, without deciding too soon whether

        it's good or bad, or what I'm going to do about things."

             "How do they know you were seeing me at all?"

             "I came home late after the Discussion Club meeting, and I

        didn't come home to supper the day of the arrests - you

        remember, we waited for Gerald at Aviva's"

             "Yes."

             "When I came home that night we had a big row, and the next

        day I just left."

             "So of course they think it's to do with me.  Why didn't

        you tell me about all this?"

             "I didn't want you to feel that it does have to do with

        you.  It was probably going to happen someday, one way or

        another.  If you thought I left home because of you, it'd put a

        kind of pressure on you that I don't want.  You know what I feel

        about you.  I want you to have time to know what you feel about

        me."

             "What do you feel about me?"

        palm up.  He put his palm over hers, and said "I don't trust

        words Joan.  I think you know that everything in my life has

                                                                Page 137


        changed since I met you.  But I don't want to rush you.  You

        don't have to feel that you must say, Yes, I love you too, or

        No, this is too much, too soon.  We could just leave it, and see

        what happens." He looked at their hands on the table, "Though

        perhaps it's too late now, and I've told you."

             "I'm glad.  I wanted to hear it.  I do love you too."

             He stroked her wrist, and looked into her golden, green

        eyes.

             "I don't know what's going to happen in my future."

             "You know that you're going to finish you B.A.  How're you

        going to manage it?"

             "I've got a scholarship, and I've been working nights at

        Pop's.  He'll take me again next year, and he's renting me a

        room."

             "Will you come to visit my family at Christmas?"

             "Yes." She looked down, and he saw the golden fringe of

        lashes edging her pale lids.

             "I want to show you my place.  Will you come with me?"

             "Yes."


             As they walked through the empty city and over the railway

        for the first time, the empty evening streets, the orange glint

        of sun on the railway tracks as they crossed the bridge.  He was

        alive and saw everything through Joan, close beside him.

                                                                Page 138


             When he kissed her, in his room, her lips were soft and

        dry.  He stroked her golden hair.  He touched her neck with the

        tips of his fingers, wondering.

             "We'd better leave now.  I'll walk with you to Aviva's."

        Again his sense of the city and his sense of Joan came together.

        They passed gardens and walls, the cast iron fence of the zoo,

        and the willows of the Zoo Lake.

             "I won't come to the house with you." He touched her

        temple, where a curl of hair had fallen.  He did not know

        anything that would happen in his life, but he felt that it

        would all be right.  At the corner he turned back to wave, but

        Joan had gone inside the gate and did not see him.

             The next day, he woke eagerly.  Nothing could be more happy

        than the water he splashed on his face, the smooth feel of his

        skin when he had shaved, the taste of the peach he ate for

        breakfast.  He rubbed the hair on his chest before he buttoned

        his shirt.  Out in the sunshine, walking towards the Drill Hall,

        he whistled.  As he approached the Parade Grounds opposite the

        Drill Hall he saw that the crowd was even larger than the day

        across Twist Street.  The shopkeepers and pedestrians seemed

        subdued, afraid.  The line of police in Twist Street started to

        move forward.  He saw that they were beating the crowd back with

        their batons again.  He was walking quickly.  Natives ran

        towards him.  There were screams and shouts.  Pedestrians

        retreated into shops and shop entrances.  More natives fled past

        him.  In the empty lot near the hall a few crouched behind

                                                                Page 139


        parked cars.  Some picked up stones and broken bricks, and threw

        them at the line of approaching police.  Now there were shots,

        and a storm of stones, bottles, bullets, bodies, hurtling

        towards him.  Leaning, as if against a rainstorm, he ran towards

        the Drill Hall.  He saw Michael crouching near the fence.  The

        clatter of bullets and missiles, screams, natives stampeding

        from the police, others running back towards the melee, dust and

        glare, tumbled about him.

             "Where's Joan?" he shouted at Michael.  But Michael also

        seemed deafened.  David turned away, running, calling, "Joan.

        Joan, Joan, Joan, Joan" He ran back to Michael.

             "Where's Joan?  Where's Joan?"

             A scream sounded close to his ear.  He saw that the woman's

        hand was dripping off her arm.  She was staring at the place

        where it had been, yelling.  He put an arm around her shoulders

        like Sina's.  He propped her against a wall, pulled his shirt

        off, bit, and ripped.  He tight the bandage as tight as he could

        near the gory wrist.The dark flesh bulged over his rough

        tourniquet.  He tried to wad the rest of the shirt where it

        would stanch the mess of blood still pouring out.

             He left the woman.  Michael had disappeared.  He ran back

        towards the gates.  Bullets were still making it hard to see.

        There was the film crew they had noticed yesterday.  Joan.  He

        turned back to look for her.  Someone grabbed his hand.  Joan]

        He tried to pull her away, but the stampede was too thick.  He

        felt that she was pulling back, and turned to see why.  He face

                                                                Page 140


        was pale.  He led her to the edge of the pavement and made her

        sit with her heads between her knees.  He sat next to her,

        holding her.


             In the gutter, trickles and small puddles of blood mixed

        with stones, cigarette stubs, glass, and paper.  Smudges of

        blood tracked the street and pavement.  He stroked Joan's hair.

        He watched the ambulance that drove doiwn Twist Street and

        parked in the Parade Grounds.  Michael had climbed onto the

        bonnet of a car near the ambulance and was addressing a small

        group.  A policeman came to him, and he climbed down.  He saw

        that several groups of Red Cross workers were scavenging for

             "There's an ambulance, Joan.  I'll take you to a doctor."

        She shook her her without raising it.

             Edward found them, and sat on the kerb next to David.

             "What's the matter with Joan?"

             "I don't know.  Shock, I suppose."

             "Have you seen Aviva?"

             "No.  Were you together?"

             "She was looking for Michael."

             "I saw him a minute ago, over there." Edward went off to

        look, and soon came back.

             "He's O.K.  Let's take Joan to the ambulance." Again she

        shook her head, but they both supported her and led her across

        the street.  Natives stepped aside for them with closed looks.

        A Red Cross worker helped them lay Joan on a stretcher.  She was

        the only person in the ambulance.  He looked round for the other

                                                                Page 141


        hurt people, and saw their stretchers laid out on the ground, in

        the dappled shade of the summer poplar trees.  They were all

        natives, and would have to wait for a native ambulance.

             "You look as if you need help yourself," the nurse said to

        him.  Blood had dripped over his khaki shorts.

             "It's not my blood," he said.


             "Joan, I'll be back in a minute." He looked for the woman

        the natives lying on stretchers.  He didn't recognize her.  He

        saw horny feet, whitened with callouses and cracked.  Sina.

        Some had stepped into blood and the dark lines seeped up the

        cracks.

             He went back to the ambulance.

             "I'm going to look for Father Knowles," Edward said, "Maybe

        there's something I can do."

             "I'll stay with Joan."

             He sat on the step of the ambulance looking out at the

        dusty Parade Grounds.  Joan's friends were voyeurs.  He hated

        them.  Michael on the car, the police, the scavengers and the

        reporters.  He hated the feet, the woman who poured blood all

        over him, the people who put stretchers for natives on the

        ground, Sina, Hungary.  He hated everything that tied his love

        into a tissue of death and terror.  He wanted nothing to do with

        history, nothing to do with politics.  He wanted to take Joan

        back with him, into the world he had woken to that morning,

        where, a lifetime ago, he had splashed water on his face and the

        world had seemed to be full of light.

                                                                Page 142


             Nothing had relieved him of the sight of blood,those

        cracked and whitened feet, that clamour.  He was going to die.

        Hanged by the neck.

        History had forced itself upon him.  It had been mad to try to

        carry that weight.  He had not chosen this world.  He had been

        insane.  He wanted to live.  He would tell them he had been

        insane.


              


                                PRETORIA

                                                                Page 117


             If ever there would be an end to the world, it would be

        preceded by a universal Pretoria.  Everyone would be rich or

        starving, big in the belly with fat or hunger.  Everyone would

        be tyrant or victim.  All the air would smell of cars and

        putrefaction, inorganic and organic processes of destruction.

        Noise would be interminable and intolerable.  Brakes, gears,

        motorcycles, shrieks, juke boxes, marches, planes, commands,

        mobs, pneumatic drills biting streets, shovels, cranes, balls

        punching walls, concrete mixers.  No speaking voice would be

        heard.  No voice would be allowed to speak.  Prudence,caution,

        fear, exhaustion, satiety, sun, exercise, concerts, rallies,

        patriotic displays and duplicity would embalm the living flesh.

        Everyone would be calm.  Electric lights flickering too fast to

        be watched would snag where one globe was broken.  Distracted

        eyes would bury that distraction.  Concentration would be

        impossible.  No one would be able to resist degradation.

        would be no end to the world.  It would survive with impunity.

        Survive, flourish, and destroy.  It would swallow Johannesburg

        and Sweetwaters and the Long Kloof.  It would replace the sun

        and bring drought to the whole country, from the Limpopo to Cape

        Aghulas.  South and north, east and west, it would assimilate

        the British Protectorates, Basutoland, Swaziland and

        Bechuanaland.  It would establish concealed empire in Mozambique

        and Angola.  Rhodesia would become its northern province.

        Missionaries and entrepreneurs would spread Pretoria further,

        into black Africa, into the bowels of Europe and America and

                                                                Page 118


        Japan.  Pretoria would extract from the world a moral submission

        as glorious as gold and diamonds, first carriers of the disease

        into foreign bloodstreams.  Communicating with the whole world

        by its secretions, Pretoria would emit its enzymes:  gold,

        diamonds, uranium, platinum, apartheid, baaskap, the purity of

        the white race, pilchards, oranges, sherry, grapes.  And the

        more poisoned the world, the more it would call for diamonds,

        gold, uranium, apartheid, titanium, white leadership, flowers in

        December, peaches, apricots, race purity, karakul, rock lobster,

        tobacco - every pusilanimous luxury that could be squeezed from

        mothers with flaccid breasts, men with dagga breath and yellow

        eyes, kaias without men, compounds without women, kraals where

             He had been mad to let Pretoria get him down.  He couldn't

        save the world.  He had known that.  That was what depressed

        him.  The world followed its own appetites.

             He had been reading the Bible because there was nothing

        else to read in the Fort but cowboy stories.  David found

        himself preferring the crabbed collection of ancient writings

        that the Nationalists thought supported their cause although

        large stretches of the Bible seemed downright unreadable, others

        comically vindictive and preening.  But other parts demanded

        justice with a fury like his own, and showed him something of

        what Joan had found there, and why she had been happy when

        Muller had proclaimed aloud, for all his church to hear that the

        Bible opposed apartheid.  They would have to listen to Muller.

        He was one of their own, not only a dominee but the professor of

                                                                Page 119


        theology at the the University of Pretoria who had translated

        the New Testament into Afrikaans.  But for all Muller's standing

        and learning, for all his severely righteous Calvinist mien, his

        face deeply lined and unflinching, unambiguous over the stiff

        white collar and stiff black suit, he had accomplished nothing.

        His truthfulness had provoked only obstinate anger and denial.


             In any case, only prisoners read the Bible.

             Living alone in its dust and noise, he tried not to hear

        bacon.  People who tried to curb the world's appetites were

        fools.  They thought they could force South Africa to decency by

        trade boycotts.  He read about their attempts and drank his tea.

        What]  Would they make Pretoria bankrupt when her very shit was

        full of precious metals?  Bankrupt the world's greatest producer

        of gold?  The United Nations resolved a boycott.  Of course

        Britain and America and Japan and France did not support it.

        They had too much trade with South Africa.  Portugal and Spain

        also had their reasons.  What had the sponsors expected?  Why

        did they waste their time and spill the patience of the

        oppressed.  If they were serious, they would do something

        serious.

             Sometimes he saw Michael's name signed to articles

        supporting the boycott.  As though Michael had not really

        understood, and talked that way with him in Pretoria.  Their

        discovery of each other had come too late, but it assured David

        that Pretoria was the hell he thought it was.  That he was not
                      ___

        really mad.

                                                                Page 120


             Rifkin thought he was mad.  Lippert might have thought so

        too, but Kaplan hadn't mentioned Lippert again.  It was Rifkin

        who would do the job, certify him, and let him live.  Rifkin

        cast in one eye gave him a secretive look.  To Rifkin, Pretoria

        was hell only in David's sick mind.  Talking to him was like

        being back in solitary.  Or in Pretoria.

             But Michael had known.  They'd had that conversation.  It

        was strange that they had never talked during the four years

        between the Treason Trial and Michael's time in solitary during

        the state of emergency after Sharpeville.  Though perhaps not so

        strange, because David had, at first, hated the political

        certitude of Joan's friends.  They knew too absolutely that they

        were right and the government was wrong.  Or perhaps he had

        avoided them because he knew, after those opening days of the

        Treason Trial, that he saw too much now, and could be driven to

        madness.

             Evasion had not helped him.  He could not learn to not see.

        And seeing had poisoned his marriage until he and Joan separated

        and he asked the Education Department to transfer him to a

        school outside Johannesburg.  He could not separate his sense of

        the city from Joan, and the bitter thing he cherished instead of

        love.

             When Michael heard that David would be coming to Pretoria,

        he phoned and said, "What a time for you to arrive in our

        nation's capital]  Come cam see me before I leave.  I wish you'd

        been here last year, but if you come soon, I'll introduce you to


        a few people and show you where can get a decent meal."

             So they had spent a day together.  David met some of

        Michael's colleagues on the Chronicle, and Munira and Mr
                                    _________

        Moodley, and then they had lunch.

             After coffee, Michael lit a cigarette,

             "I'll have to give this up when I get to England.  Can't

        afford it there."

             "Better for your health."

             "Everything'll be better for my health, and I'll miss South

        Africa like hell.  God, this is a marvellous country, and I

        don't just mean cigarettes and swimming pools.  I wonder if I'll

        ever find anything to match it."

             "Well if getting arrested in the middle of the night's what

        you like..."

             "No]  God it'll be good to get out]  Even if I miss it like

        hell.  I thought I'd never leave.  Remember how we used to talk

        about it.  But I'm forgetting how to live like a human being, in

        this country.  Everything turns into politics, as if there's

        nothing else in life.  I can't write any more.  Last year I was

        doing the women's pass protests.  It was the usual - policemen

        beat up women carrying babies on their backs.  How the fuck can

        I write about that again]  It's hackneyed.  I got a tiny piece

        would've been page four.  No one wants to hear that old stuff

        again."

             David knew that Michael was describing his own condition,

        but he said,

                                                                Page 122


             "There's no point in staying.  You can't do anything now

        except go to jail again."

             "But that's it.  I can't take another bout of solitary.  I

        feel such an awful coward."

             "You know what you'd called yourself if you stayed because

        that's how you feel"

             "What?"

             "A sado-masochistic martyr."

             Michael laughed.  "You're right, fuck it.  I'd feel like

        Edward."

             "Edward?"

             "I thought you knew.  He's gone off with a bunch of

        missionaries to a godforsaken hole in the eastern Transvaal.

        Actually, Sekhukuniland.  Just where I covered those women's

        protests."

             "You mean with the Ramsbottoms?  Where there've been the

        Group Areas removals?"

             "Ja.  They haven't been removed yet, but it won't be long

             "What's Edward doing there?"

             "God knows.  Aviva says Father Knowles got hold of him and

        told him he should do something useful.  Useful, my foot]

        Religious bladdy perversion, that's all it is.  I was apalled."

             "Edward didn't tell you himself?"

             "I was in solitary.  He went in June."

             "Have you heard from him since?"

             "Not much.  He used to be my closest friend." Michael

                                                                Page 123


        picked up the red box of cigarettes on the table and turned it

        over so that the blank underside showed.  " It's too hard man.

        It's too hard.  I'm going to miss too many people."

             David poured out the last wine.  "You'll make new friends."

             "Actually, Edward's been headed this way a long time."

        Michael leaned back, savoring the blue smoke.  David noticed

        that unconsciously, habitually, Michael was observing everone

        else in the restaurant.  "Edward's always had a hankering for

        asceticism."

             "Remember the way he talked the day of the Treason Trial

        arrests?  As though it's not right to listen to music because

        people are in prison?"

             "Ja.  I remember." Michael lit one cigarette from the stub

        of another.  He looked at David and his expression acknowledged

        while they were interrogating me, I kept wondering whether Joan

        was practising scales and Bach suites." He laughed.  "It's

        bizarre."

             "She probably was"

             "Oh, I didn't doubt it." Again Michael hesitated, "Is it

        really finished between you?"

             "I think so."

             "I'm sorry." I never expected it, and you know, one does,

        half the time, with a lot of people.  I wouldn't talk like this

        if I weren't leaving.  He turned the cigarette box over again,

        red side up now.  " I'm getting married myself, you know.  I

        don't think you've met Ruth."

                                                                Page 124


             "I hope you'll be happy."

             "Thanks." Michael glanced away and then back at David.

        "You know, you and Joan both looked extraordinary together - as

        though there wasn't really anything else in the world for either

        of you.  I remember, at the Treason Trial, when they were

        shooting, you didn't seem to notice anything except Joan.  You

        were full of blood yourself.  I wonder if I'd ever forget myself

        that much for Ruth.  For anyone."

             "I wasn't hurt.  It wasn't my blood."

             David took a cigarette from Michael's box.  Michael watched

             "You stood up on a car and talked to the crowd."

             "Tried to."

             "I thought you were showing off then.  I hated all of you

        for getting involved.  But I wonder if I'll ever be that brave."

             "Oh, showing off might've been part of it."

             They fell silent again.

             "You really hit it with that question about Joan.  David

        lit and puffed.  "It drives me mad that she keeps so calm, and

        nothing ever interferes with her work, and the way she talks to

        people like her relatives as though they're decent though she

        knows perfectly well how they treat the Africans on their farms.

        I just can't see how she separates everything like that.  I'm

        like you, I don't know how to keep politics out of anything else

        in this country.  How can she stand playing for whites?"

             "You're beginning to sound like Edward.  Or like Lenin.

        You know, he once said, let me see if I can remember it, I was

                                                                Page 125


        very struck.He said, I can't listen to music too often.  It

        affects your nerves, makes you want to say nice things and

        stroke the heads of people who create such beauty while living

        in this vile hell.  And now you mustn't stroke anyone's head -

        you might get your hand bitten off.  You have to hit them on the

        head without mercy..."

             "Ja."

             "I don't think my hand'll be bitten off.  That's not what

        bothers me.  You remember Cato Manor?  When I read the

        headlines, I thought, at last they've begun to fight, now its

        the policemen's turn to get killed.  Those damn cops were asking

        to be donnered, raiding the location night after night.  I don't

        know what I hoped for.  I thought maybe it could be the

        beginning, the first real battle after the simmering last year -

        you know, all the pass protests and those damn stories on page

        four.  All Joan thought was, how cruel." He looked round, like

        Michael, at the people in the restaurant.  "I'm sick of

        cruelty."

             Michael grimaced, as though he knew that sickness, shared

        it.

             "She wanted to tell me that you can't get justice by

        bloodshed.  When we saw the pictures of Sharpeville it was the

        same kind of thing." The cigarette tasted harsh and nauseating.

        David stubbed it out.  "You know Joan's friend Eugenie Tikos?"

             "No."

             "Well, it doesn't really matter.  She's Hungarian, and when

                                                                Page 126


        the Russians invaded Budapest she was unhappy, but she was glad

        too.  She said that now everyone would see that that's what the

        seemed for a while as if the world's attention would help.

        After all, the pass laws were suspended for a while.  But to

        Joan it was only violence, like Cato Manor, as though all

        violence is the same."


             Michael was denting lines in his cigarette box with a

        knife.  He set the knife down and looked at David."All right,"

        he answered.  "You feel differently about some things.  But

        surely that's not enough to break everything between you."

             "It's been enough.  Its's been a year full of the things we

        feel differently about, Cato Manor, Sharpeville, the state of

        emergency and people like you being arrested in the middle of

        the night, like the Treason Trial again.  This year has made me

        feel that we'll never get out.  Everything that's bad for the

        rest of the world is good for us.  We get richer and richer.  No

        one will ever destroy the government.  We'll just go on for ever

        and ever, like Dante's hell."

             "Milton's is the one with all the gold and jewels."

             "That'll do.  But you see, Joan doesn't think history's a

        prison.  In some ways she thinks it's all planned and

        everyone'll go to heaven in the end, whatever that means.

             "But you've always known that Joan's a Catholic."

             "Yes, I'm the one who's changed."

             "Why didn't you ever join the Congress?"

                                                                Page 127


        this until last year...  No, it's really that I can't stomach

        all the cliches about the people, and friendship and solidarity

        with Nkrumah and our brothers in Algeria, you know all that

        stuff.  Remember that awful discussion when the party line was

        to defend the invasion of Hungary and Philip got angry and said

        that it had nothing to do with what's going on here?  I felt he

        was right."

             "I want to see Philip before I leave," Michael said

        thoughtfully.  "I'm going to miss so many people." He took a pen

        from his jacket pocket and wrote "P.B." on the ciarette box.

        "But," he turned his attention back to David, "You know, he

        really was naive.  There is an alliance of interests that goes

        beyond this country both for and against apartheid.  It was

        clear enough last year when the Americans saved us after

        Sharpeville, so that we could get back to normal and keep

        apartheid going.  You teach history.  You must know that this is

        true."

             "Only half true.  Whatever interests there may be outside,

        this is where the revolution's got to happen if it's going to

        happen.  We've got to believe that this is our country, and that

        we've got the right to make decisions in it.  That ideology

        business in the Congress is just playing the same game with

        Pretending that everything overseas is better."

             "But Congress has been the only white party in touch with

        the people."

             "What people?  I'm sorry, Michael, but that just feels like

                                                                Page 128


        another piece of jargon to me."

             So he put away his connection with the Congress people.

        When he read that the Treason Trial had ended he felt like a old

        man finding relics of his youth, now become history.  He looked

        through a funnel of time to that morning almost five years

        before, when the dapple of poplar leaves had fallen on the

        crowds of Congress supporters wearing black and gold and green.

        The colours were banned now.  And the "Mayebuye]" the crowd had
                                               _________

        chanted, also banned.  They had smiled at each other that day,

        sharing history.  He would not smile again those green, hopeful

        smiles.  Nor would they smile at him if he tried to join them

        now.  Too many friends had betrayed them during these years.

        They would not trust strangers.

             He felt old, and that even his conversation with Michael

        had been a conversation of old men.  They had been remembering a

        time before they knew that they would not be able to change

        history, when they had still thought events susceptible to their

        shrunken.  History did not need them for it's grinding.  Friends

        and lovers would follow purposes in which they had no say.

             Sometimes David thought of writing to Michael now, but

        there was nothing to say.

             Distance separated him from Michael.  Bitterness separated

        him from Joan.

             In Pretoria lassitude infected him like senility.  He did

        not bother to put his name on the waiting list for a telephone.

        He did not bother to buy new clothes when his shirts frayed.  He

                                                                Page 129


        saw himself in the mirror, looking seedy.  Like his father.


             He tried to ignore the tremor that flickered on his right

        eyelid, distracting as those signs in Pretoria.  It sometimes

        eased when he closed his eyes.  He sat on the box with his head

        in his hands.  Whether he liked it or not, his nerves were

        giving way.  Rifkin had noticed the quiver, and asked whether he

        had any other tics.  The questioning that would save him felt

        like something that would destroy him.  He was as isolated here

        as he had been in Pretoria.


             Michael had given him one contact and route to relief, the

        Asiatic Bazaar, where once a week, Mr Moodley drove him to the

        apartment behind his shop where David would tutor him and Munira

        Ismael for the B.A.s they were taking by correspondence.

        wanted.  With them he allowed himself to comment,as he dared not

        in the classes at school, on the right answers given by the

        correspondence notes.  Sometimes he asked wicked questions.  He

        felt as if something like friendship was growing between them.

        Sometimes they invited him to a slide show about India, or the

        Ghandi Memorial Lecture, or a performance of Shakuntala at the
                                                     __________

        Wits Great Hall.

             Although Munira was plump and pretty, her features fine

        boned and her expression full of patient sweetness, and Mr

        Moodley, darker, older, and begging to show a weight of years,

        he must have been in his mid thirties, never talked about a wife

                                                                Page 130


        or children, the frienship between the two seemed as asexual as

        their friendship with him.  Munira was a Moslem, Mr Moodley a

        Hindu.  Perhaps in a larger community, overseas, their religious

        differences would not have been so intractable.  But Munira

        dared not escape like her older sister who had gone first to

        Kenya, then to England.  Munira was now the only wage earner for

        her family.  Her mother was dying of cancer, her grandmother was

        senile and blind.  They lived with her in three rooms behind Mr

        Moodley's shop.  When Munira told him that she was plagued with

        anemia, David felt that he could not sympathize any more, as

        too thick..i In exchange for the tutoring, Mr Moodley wanted

        David to buy whatever he could in his shop, at wholesale prices.

        David walked among the counters of toothpaste and liver pills,

        tinned fruit and sardines, touched the rayon ties and cheap

        shirts, chose among buttons and shoe laces and writing pads, and

        admired the patterned blankets hanging from the ceiling.  If he

        saw othere purchasers in the aisles, he avoided them.  He would

        rather do without buttons than hear an apology because their

        bodies blocked his white way.

             Sometimes, happily, he needed nothing.  Then, before the

        curry supper that Munira cooked for him, he would wander in the

        Asiatic Bazaar, looking at the heaps of red and orange powders

        in shops windows, admiring the ornate richness of saris, and

        regretting the oleographs of Hindu gods and the Sacred Heart

        that showed him how a civilization as intricate, gorgeous and

        lavish as the saris implied, could yield to the garish

                                                                Page 131


        shoddiness the Asiatic Bazaar counted desirable because it

        seemed European.  When fat mothers wearing a swathe of their

        saris over their hair, brushed past him and he caught the glint

        of nose rubies and golden earrings, when shrill cries emitted by

        skinny boys playing ball in the street skimmed past him, when

        lozenges of odour in front of each shop door - incense and

        dry heat, when afternoon and evening glare were muted, falling

        kindly on dark eyes and shining hair, sari curves and finely

        boned features, in this forgotten slum of Pretoria, he felt that

        he had escaped to another country and other possibilities.

             Mr Moodley's life was more opaque to David that Munira's.

        He did not talk about himself, and although he was irritatingly

        inclined to defer instead of asking questions when they talked

        about history, he held to his own opinions.  Knowing little else

        about him, David knew that he was often consulted by members of

        the Indian community on questions of who should compose the

        welcoming ommitte when the Minister of Indian Affairs came to

        visit the Asiatic Bazaar, and how to resist eviction to Laudium.

             "Why do you have a welcoming committee at all?  Why don't

        you boycott the whole business?"

             "We must cooperate.  It's the best way."

             "Why?"

             "There's no other way."

             "What about passive resistance, like Ghandi?"

             "We tried passive resistance.  Our leaders are in jail."

             "But if you joined they Africans?"

                                                                Page 132


             "We tried.  It didn't work.  And they're worse off than

        us."

             "Then they'll make laws against us.  It's happening in

        Kenya."

             " It's not a bright future.

             "We don't think of the future."

             So the Asiatic Bazaar was, after all another closed door.

        Its inheritance was division, caste, religion, race, and

        impotence.  It had no future.

             During his first months in Pretoria he invited Mr Moodley

        and Munira Ismail to visit his flat, and gave them supper.  The

        next day, his landlord phoned to tell him that Non-Europeans

        weren't allowed.

             "There's nothing about that in the lease."

             "I'm giving you a month's notice, Mr Miller.  I can't

        afford to have your type in my building."

             "I'm surprised, Mr Kaminsky, that a Jew will support racial

        prejudice, after Nazi Germany."

             "I've got to look after my own interest."

             "I'm sure that's what the Nazis used to say."

             He heard the phone banged down.

             A letter warned him that he would be evicted if he did not

        move.  He found another flat.  Munira and Mr Moodley refused

        subsequent invitations.  Perhaps they had guessed why he moved.

             The incident left him feeling that he did nothing in

                                                                Page 133


        read, caught a bus painted the colours that meant whites only,

        took clothes to a cleaner whose sign said, Blankes Alleen, ate

        in a cafe, he lived only as apartheid allowed him to live.

             When he went to Johannesburg where he could find a

        newspaper from England in a bookstore, he bought it.  Overseas,

        they knew that apartheid, not he was mad.


             Very occasionally Rifkin asked a question that suggested

        how he must be cataloguing David's account.

             "Did you ever do anything that made you feel less passive?"

             David could not see where his eye was looking, and the

        question irked him, also looking skew.  He could have pretended

        to be more active, and even found a sphere of petty power for

        himself like Gardy, the geography teacher who presided over the

        Common Room at school, and had his chair that no one else would

        sit in.  Gardy pretended that he was the one who ruled the

        school.  There were infinite ways to be happy and forget who

        held the guns.  He felt contempt for them all.

             "Not much."


             During the celebrations in May that marked South Africa's

        becoming a republic outside the Commonwealth, all ties with the

        hated British rule of the past broken or breaking, David hardly

        moved out of his flat.  He didn't want to go to the cafe to buy

        Afrikaners were full of pride and the world was not big enough

        for them.  The streets were not big enough for them.  Once David

                                                                Page 134


        saw three soldiers push an old man into the gutter.  Milk ran

        from the bottle he had been carrying and spilled like blood onto

        his clothes and naked feet.  The soldiers laughed.  When they

        had left, David helped the old man up, and gave him money to buy

        another bottle of milk.

             "Dankie, baas.  Dankie."

             It was unbearable.


             Next time he would protest.

             Knowing his own cowardice, he read the papers with secret

        guilt as though he were drinking brandy before noon.

             When the Muller trial broke into the headlines, he knew

        that Joan had also looked at the photograph of that righteous

        and severe face on the front page.  Perhaps she was sitting at

        the table where the morning sun caught the checked cloth.  Next

        to the bookcase with the African violets.  Where she could look

        out over Hillbrow, the sun touching her left ear and making a

        cloud of light in the fine hairs springing into curls at the

        back of her neck...

             He had scoffed at Muller when Joan first told him about his

        paper for the World Council of Churches.

        Scripture.What else could he say to that kind of audience?"

             "But don't you understand?  Everyone in the Dutch Reformed

        Church is going to know what he said.  He's going to be attacked

        in every way they can do it."

             "You think they'll take any notice?"

             A few weeks later, Joan told him that some of Muller's

                                                                Page 135


        students were warning him to be careful.

             "They don't know what's brewing, but they say it's going to

        be serious."

             "How serious can it be?"

             "He can certainly be fired from the University."

             "Hasn't he got tenure?"

             "They'll find a way?"

             "Of course.  We've seen what they think of academic

        freedom.  But then someone else will give him a job, and he'll

        look like a hero.  I'd be impressed if there was a chance he'd

        be sent off into banishment like an African."

             "Sometimes, David, I feel that you're so full of hatred..."

             "I am, Joan."

             "It's monstrous."

             "Isn't what they do monstrous?  Why has it taken Muller and

        his cronies so long to notice?"

        Muller wouldn't have found out if he hadn't been asked to write

        that paper on the Scriptural basis for apartheid."

             "Why did he have to wait for that?  Hasn't he got eyes?  I

        trip over beggars wherever I go."

             "You didn't always know either."

             "When I was a child.  Muller's forty years old.  He's had

        time.  And he's supposed to be a leader."

             "It takes courage, David.  Muller wasn't the first choice

        to give that paper.  I've heard that the other man refused,

        saying that he was old , just about to retire.  He knew what

                                                                Page 136


        he'd find, and didn't want to face the consequences."

             "Sometimes I hope you Christians are right, and there

        really is a hell.  For people like that."

             "I can't judge."

             "Why not, Joan.  Doesn't the Bible command him to bear

        witness to the truth?"

             Muller was beginning to discover what bearing witness would

        bring.  During a class on the Gospel according to St John, three

        students stood to say that his interpretation of the cases of

        Greek nouns denigrated the Son in comparison to the Father.

        They recited the Apostles Creed in unison, accused Muller of

        heresy, and marched out.  None of the others students in the

        lecture.  Now the charge of heresy had been brought to the

        general synod of the church..i At the cafe where he ate

        breakfast, David lowered the paper and looked at other single

        men drinking tea and eating toast, at the refrigerator counter

        gleaming like a fish, the sallow owner counting boxes in a

        delivery of cigarettes, gleams of traffic in the street.  Was

        this city, boastful of its modern buildings as though they

        proved that Afrikaners belonged in the modern world, going to be

        the setting for a Trinitarian heresy trial fit for the fourth

        century?

             He followed the Muller trial as though in some magical way

        it could connect him to Joan again, or offer him a way to live.

        He saw the streets of Pretoria fill with dominees wearing black

        suits.  A special fund had been raised to bring some of them

                                                                Page 137


        from drought-stricken Platteland dorps.  Dusty men who had not

        left their flocks these twenty years would sit in judgement on

        the theological purity of the professor whose comments on Greek

        grammar were dangerous to salvation.  David saw their faces awed

        and pleased when they went into the hotel near his flat or

        examined the windows of department stores with dignified care so

        that they wouldn't make fools of themselves.  He saw them

        cheerful and excited as they queued outside cinemas.  They

        dominee who walked with greater confidence and knew his way.

        David wondered whether they sat up late hours at night to talk

        in rooms where the lights were electric and the power never shut

        off, like children who have permission to sleep away from home.

             One night someone fired at Muller through a lighted window.

        A week later his wife was taken to hospital after an accident

        caused because the nuts holding her car's tyres had been

        loosened.  David didn't want to see the country dominees in

        Pretoria who lost their way and asked policemen for directions.

             Other country faces came to town, of the same lean and

        hardened stock as the dominees.  A fourth year of drought in the

        Transvaal was killing the cattle, and farmers were moving to the

        cities to look for work.  There seemed to be none for these

        silent, sun eaten men.  Their wives baked Boer delicacies and

        their sons hawked koeksusters from door to door.  They did not
                          ___________

        beg.  Frequently now, a ring at the door would call David from

        marking IVB's tests to meet a man with pale eyes and a khaki

        skin, or a boy wearing faded shorts, a shirt that had been

                                                                Page 138


        washed too many times, and an air of indefinite confusion,

        reproach, and soapscrubbed frankness.  He bought their rusks and

        boerebeskuit so that they could buy bread.


             "Did you have any friends?" Rifkin asked.

             "I saw a few people..." But his tone sounded doubtful.

             For a while he had felt friendship growing between himself

        and Richard Cooke.  They often fell into conversation in the

        Common Room, and one day Richard invited him to come home in the

        afternoon and stay to dinner.

             "I've told my mother about you.  She wants to meet you.

        She's formidable, but she usually likes people I like."

             Mrs Cooke was formidable.  She carried herself with a

        straight back and examined David with assured curiosity.

             "Take David to see the garden after tea," she told Richard.

        So they soon walked out towards the rockery and small orchard.

        "I've just bought another plot of land.  Come and see it." They

        climbed over a rusted, sagging fence.

             "It's so wild here I hardly want to touch it.  I may just

        plant indigenous things to keep the wild feeling.  Don't you

        agree?"

             They picked their way along the bed of a waterless stream,

        and cut to where the trees grew so thick only a highlight of

        sunshine here and there drew the eye to a wrinkled trunk or dark

        feather of leaf.  A stand of bluegums allowed more light through

        to a debris of pungent leaves and curved pieces of bark falling

        in long strips, white trunks and branches.  Some bark, still


        peeling, lodged in crotches.  They turned away from the stony

        declivity and came to an abandoned house.  Its concrete stoep

        was littered with beer cans and broken bottles.

             "I don't know what I'll do about this place," Richard

        refuted its silence.  "Shall we go inside?"

             The dirty, echoing rooms seemed dark and surly, and

        harboured a smell of stale beer, urine, dust, dagga, decaying

        leaves.  A crack in the concrete floor was shaped like

        lightning.

             On the way back, Richard stopped at the decaying fence that

        bounded the established garden, and looked over the land he had

        just bought, to the valley, and the dry winter hills beyond.

             "Magnificent view, don't you agree?" The thin light of

        approaching evening rendered the ochre hills indefinite and

        muted, faded, rich.  Savoring the words, Richard recited,

             "In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,

             That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

             As the death bed, whereon it must expire

             Consum'd with that which it was nourished by."

        He looked towards the darking east, "Shakespeare's so perfect.

        Don't you agree?"


             Where Richard was looking, the more dense blue of smoke

        showed where there must be more houses.  "Where's that?" David

             "I don't really know.  Garsfontein, I suppose."


        Garsfontein.  Joan had given a recital there, in a mean and

                                                                Page 140


        splintery school.  Afterwards she invited the children to touch

        her cello and draw the bow themselves.  When excitement and

        pleasure overcame their shyness, she hugged them.  He had felt

        uncomfortable to see her touch their skin flaking white with

        dryness, their dusty hair redding with kwashiokor, their clothes

        whose colours had all gone under.  The filth of the townships'

        decrepit hovels, litter and refuse, surrounding the puny school

        in its drought-caked yard, burdened him as though it was all his

        responsibility.

             The six German nuns who ran the mission complex had also

        established a maternity clinic.  David followed Joan to the neat

        enclosure where flowers edged the paths.  "Ve haf our own

        vindmill," a chubby nun explained, "So ve haf alvays vater for

        the hospital.  Und also our own generator for the electricity."

             When they had seen the wards, where Davis saw a thin

        Coloured woman sweating and concentrating on her labor,

        indifferent to their presence and everything outside her own

        body, the nun took him into a parlor to wait for Joan.  He was

        not allowed into the ward where mothers might be nursing their

        infants.  The nun offered him biscuits and tea, but a nunnish

        questions about how many cases the hospital handled, what they

        did in case of complications, how many babies lived.  "Vell, it

        is very sad.  Many die in the first year.  They haf not milk,

        und it is very dirty." When Joan came back the nuns took her to

        the chapel to say a prayer before she left.  At the door a box

        asked in gilded letters for "Offerings for the Poor." He put

                                                                Page 141


        five rands in the box, resenting the inadequacy of the sum.

             On the way home, Joan told him that the nuns had been

        warned that they might have to move because the location was a

        black area and they were white.  He wondered whether they were

        still there in their black habits, rosaries at their belts and

        crucifixes over the stomachs, remembering gemutlichkeit, still
                                                  _____________

        sweeping the bare and sunny wards, and still keeping from the

        newborn the debris and filth of the world they were to inhabit.

             "Have you ever been there?" he asked Richard.

             "No.  Have you?"

             "Only once."

             "It's rather shameful that I've never noticed that it's in

        the view."

             "Oh, our lives are designed so that we won't notice."

             Richard's eyes were different colours, both pale, one green

        difference before.  Perhaps something in the poetry Richard read

        and quoted had taught him shame that he had not noticed

        Garsfontein.  Perhaps he had heard King Lear pray for poor naked

        wretches.  His eyes of two colours troubled David.


             "Draw the curtains, Richard," Mrs Cooke commanded, and

        Richard closed the last colours of afterglow out of the room,

        obeying her with gentle deference.  He filled David's glass of

        sherry again.  David saw that Richard had inherited his mother's

        high cheekbones and long chin, but her eyes were both light

        brown.

                                                                Page 142


             "Richard tells me you're from Johannesburg." David nodded.

             "How do you like it here?"

             "I'm getting used to it."

             "It always takes a while.  Once you meet some nice

        girls..."

             "Actually, I'm married."

             "Oh.  Richard didn't tell me."

             "Perhaps I haven't mentioned it.  My wife and I have

        separated, so I live rather a bachelor's life."


             Richard had turned to look at him, surprised and curious.

             Mrs Cooke said, "You do have a bachelor look about you." It

        was obviously not a look she favored.

        Richard reprimanded..i "I like to know who your friends are."

             And by the time coffee was served, David felt sure that she

        knew the answers to all the questions it had occurred to ask,

        either aloud or silently.  He liked her decisiveness and

        efficiency.  It had showed in the meal too.  He had forgotten

        how, in white homes,


             every evening, unconscious of ceremony,


             there would be tables spread with heavy starched white

        cloths, polished silver and glasses, linen serviettes rolled in

        silver rings, salt and pepper in shakers, and butter in a butter

        dish with a butter knife.  There would be bread plates, and mats

        to protect the table from warmed dinner plates, and a bell to

                                                                Page 143


        summon in meat platters, vegetables dishes, and the gravy boat.

        There would be a maid to remove these when the course was done,

        and to bring dessert dishes and take them away in due time, and

        bring in tea or coffee.  He had forgotten how white people

        lived.

             Soon after dinner Mrs Cooke went off to her own room, and

        then called Richard to her.  Explaining that his mother needed

        some medicines from the pharmacy nearby, and that he'd be only a

        minute, Richard settled David with a record on the turntable, a

        book of Renaissance line drawings to look at, and a glass of

             David sat on a green armchair and listened to the music and

        the maid and man servant talking in the kitchen.  Their small

        clatter of dishes and cutlery and gossipy, warm activity

        replayed the sounds he remembered from Sina and Samuel.

        Softened by the luxury of human society, and the memories of

        Joan and Garsfontein, he felt mournful for the life he had left.

             The music flowed and bounded in a volume that seemed to

        open great spaces within him.  His chest pulled tight.  He stood

        quickly, and went to the bathroom at the end of the passage.  He

        closed the door.  Dry mechanical sobs lurched into him.  Tears

        started, and then a feeling of grief.  He tried to weep quietly

        so that Mrs Cooke and the servants would not hear him.  He

        unrolled some toilet paper to sop up the tears.  Gradually the

        tempo and harshness of his sobbing quietened.  As the tide of

        weeping faded and renewed in fainter waves he did not try to

        stop it.

                                                                Page 144


             As involuntarily as the first sobs, a new series started,

        at first gently, then with the harsh contraction and pull of

        muscles that had clenched him before.  This bout of weeping

        passed too, and he washed his face and looked at the white tiles

        and shining chrome.  He splashed more cold water on his face,

        looked at his uncertain face in the mirror, and walked out.  Mrs

        stopped.

             When Richard brought him home that evening and he read the

        paper, he saw that another case had supplanted Muller's on the

        front page.  An African prisoner released from the Bitterspruit

        prison claimed that he had beern tortured, and that another

        African, arrested with him on suspicion of having stolen a

        bicycle, had died when the police forced him to drink water

        until he could drink no more, and then beat him with hosepipes.

        Msomi said that when Zwane died the police had stopped beating

        him, and threatened that if he ever told what had happened, they

        would kill him too.  But, reporting the story, he said, "I'm

        dead already." The Bitterspruit police denied the accusation but

        the case had been brought to court.

             David did not want to know what he had read.  He bathed,

        ignored the dirty cup left in the kitchen sink, and tried to

        read.  Instead of the detective story's cast of characters in an

        English country house , his imagination brought him to a party

        he'd been to in Cape Town soon after he had married Joan.  In

        the garden overlooking the sea, Joan protested to Edward, "I

        never see you any more Edward.  What's happened to you.?"

                                                                Page 145


             "It's been a foul year, Joan.  I've been deciding what to

        do with my life."

             "I still don't know.  I thought of law for a while, but

        then the thought of doing anything with the legal system in this

        country..." He had been holding a glass of wine, not drinking

        from it.  He leaned forward and set it on the terrace's

        flagstone floor.

             "It's the old story Joan."

             David watched coldly, annoyed that Edward was tapping his

        old intimacy with Joan.

             "So what are you going to do next year?"

             Edward leaned back in his chair and shielded his eyes as if

        from the sun's brilliance.  His hand half-covered his mouth.

        "Prolong my childhood.  Hang on at varsity." He spoke as though

        he tested the bitterness of his words more on himself than on

        her.  "Braithwaite's offered me a job in the maths department,

        but of course he wants me to go to England and collect more

        degrees.  I can't see it.  But I don't know what I can see."

             "I've missed you,Edward.  You don't come to my concerts any

        more."

             "I don't listen to music much these days.  It feels too

        much like maths." He picked up his glass and drank the wine too

        quickly, his face puckering as though it had turned to vinegar.

             "I don't understand what you mean," but Joan's tone sounded

        foreboding, as though she knew what to expect.

                                                                Page 146


             "That's ridiculous," Joan said quietly, looking into

        Edward's eyes, "And it hurts."

             "I know it hurts, Joan.  It hurts me too.  We talked about

        this the night of the Treason Trial arrests.  I don't see how

        else to be consistent."

             "Why should you be consistent?  You're not French."

             Edward laughed.  He turned to David, "Where are you going

        to be teaching?"

             When the sun had set and the party moved indoors, David sat

        next to Edward again while he and Michael were having one of the

        long discussions they had indulged in while they were all still

        students, and everything they said had seemed true, and

        predictive of how they would live.  The topic came round to

        music again.

             "I don't trust it," Edward said.  "There's a reason that

        music is the preeminent art of dictatorships."

             "Is it?" Michael challenged.

             "Yes.  Think of Germany.  Think of Facist Itality and

        opera.  Think of the Afrikaans universities here, Stellenbosch

        and Pretoria - wherever there are educated Nationalists there

        are chamber music groups."

             "That sounds like a classic example of bad sampling and

             "Not at all.  You see, we human beings long for harmony and

        beauty.  Even the most savage and primitive tribes make art.

        Even Nationalists."

             Michael laughed at Edward's jibe.  "Yes.  So?"

                                                                Page 147


             "Say you live the way we live.  Or like the Nazis.  How can

        you make beauty of this filth?" Edward gestured to the party

        around them but he seemed not to see the people there, or even

        to notice David, listening.  An abstraction in his mental eye

        imposed its vision between his senses and attention.  "You have

        to turn your eyes away, and satisfy the aesthetic hunger with

        forms that have nothing to do with life, avoiding the imitation

        of reality.  So you turn to abstract and intellectual forms of

        harmony.  Maths and music.  In that way, you can tolerate the

        conditions of life around you.  You can even cooperate.  You

        listen to Mozart with appreciation and it does not interfere

        with your duties as superintendant of the concentration camp."

             Michael set his glass down on the table with a thud for

        emphasis.  "That's an outrageous argument, Edward.  I'd call you

        a philistine if I didn't know you better."

             "No, call me a philistine."

             "So what do you do to satisfy the aesthetic hunger?  Or are

        you beyond that?"

        made me feel happy this year has been inventing and solving

        elegant math problems."

             "Shit, Edward.  But what you say is kaf.  Look at the

        visual arts..."

             David began to feel his old impatience with their talk,

        arranging everything too neatly, consistent, systematic, full of

        words.  He was known as the silent one in their group.  He felt

        that words always fell somewhere else than their mark.

                                                                Page 148


             But now, because he couldn't sleep, and had remembered Joan

        and Garsfontein, and listened to music and wept, and come home

        to read about how Zwane was killed by the policemen at

        Bitterspruit, the conversation caved in on him like a rockfall.


             The morning paper carried the same story and added more

        about the Bitterspruit prison, electric wires attached to limbs,

        heads and testicles, near suffocation in plastic bags, and a

        death rate even higher there than in most South African jails.

        Again the authorities denied everything.

             There was an article on Muller too, butDavid found himself

        impatient with Muller's heroism again.  Whatever Muller had

        endured he had risked, and in some way assented to.  He was

        white.  Protected.  Like David himself.

             All day he felt as if something in the air was hurting him.

        mother was feeling now, he noticed Matthew, the man, called boy,

        who brought the tea in,an extremely dark, round-faced, cheerful

        person who always greeted people with a wide smile.  David liked

        him.  Today he saw Matthew as vulnerable as Zwane.

             "Did you see that article about Bitterspruit?" he asked

        Richard.

             "Oh, I never read the news.  These things aren't

        important."

             David went to the table where Matthew had set the tray of

        tea and scones.

             When he came back to his chair, he found the Afrikaans

                                                                Page 149


        teacher, Adrian Marais, talking with Richard.  Adrian was

        another who should have been a friend.  He had told David a

        little about Afrikaans poetry, saying that the language was at

        an exciting stage in its development, comparable to

        Shakespeare's time in Enmgland, Though most Afrikaans poetry, he

        said, was just growing out of sentimental and patriotic pieces.

        David noticed how Adrian carried a quiet humour in his face,

        softly lined, too marked for his years.  He was sure Adrian

        wrote poetry himself.

             Richard had been asking Adrian about his family.

             "We've got a farm in the Long Kloof." So Adrian was one of

             "Is Lord Ford still alive?" David asked.

             "Did you know Lord Ford]  What a character]"

             But no affectionate memory of the eccentrics of the Long

        Kloof could heal David's raw imagination that day.  All through

        school he heard rasping sounds - a suitcase carelessly lugged

        along the floor, the squeak of chalk, a desk top banged down,

        scuffing and kicking as the boys waited in corridors, the snap

        of metal clasps as the boys packed at the end of the day, sounds

        of careless and destructive contact.  After school he packed

        textbooks and composition books into his own case.  Outside, the

        superintendant was yelling at the Africans who scrubbed the

        floors.  He always yelled at them.  Every afternoon the school

        was full of those unanswered shouts, magnified and echoing in

        the empty spaces from wall to wall.  It was impossible to know

        why the superintendant was always so angry.

                                                                Page 150


             David heard the white yells superimposed on those other

        sounds continually carried in the South African air, the crack

        of whips on flesh, screams, "Thank you baas." It was a dream of

        hell to walk through Pretoria's dusty streets, lowering his eyes

        against the glare of cars and dust.  Winter jacarandah leaflets

        were sifting down like foliate excrement.  The traffic set its

        metal anguish against his will to not hear.

        attention away from the Bitterspruit trial.  The story developed

        as he had expected.  All the officials denied Msomi's

        accusations.  The judge warned Msomi that if the evidence went

        against him he could be jailed for perjury.  Cabinet Ministers

        and Members of Parliament complained that the English press was

        making a fuss of the story to put South Africa in a bad light.

        Prime Minister Verwoerd said nothing, and neither did the

        Minister of Justice and Prisons, Vorster.  David did not

        understand silence from these two and it oppressed him with

        impatient uneasiness.

             His attention continually snagged on Bitterspruit.  He set

        aside the book by Marc Bloch he had been reading and enjoying.

        He couldn't attend to it, although the detective stories he

        turned to could not numb his imagination.  Images of a difficult

        student, van der Walt, an overgrown and loutish boy at the back

        of IVB, intruded into his mind.  Hosepipes, that day at

        Garsfontein, a curve of road in the sunny Long Kloof, a location

        superintendant with thick grey eyebrows who had stopped Joan in

                                                                Page 151


        Soweto to ask her business, the house on Richard's property,

        floated behind the butler's evidence and the witty detective.

        When he was teaching the class where van der Walt squeezed his

        pimples and played poker at the back of the room with two

        the Seven Causes of the French Revolution, he wondered about the

        Bastille.  What noise did a man make when his stomach burst?

        Luminous declensions of sunlight among the desks and faces

        hardnened into an airless amber where no sound carried.

             In a few weeks the newspaper told him that the prison

        commandant and doctor at Bitterspruit had been found guilty of

        criminal negligence.  They were sentenced to four years in jail,

        three suspended.  The young constables, found guilty of

        manslaughter, were sentenced to eighteen months, six suspended.

        Outraged supporters throughout the country wrote letters to them

        sympathizing because the sentences were so severe.  When the

        English newspapers called for a Parliamentary Commission to

        investigate prison conditions, Vorster replied that he saw no

        need for such an inquiry.  He had made it clear that abuses like

        those at Bitterspruit would not be tolerated.  Now David

        understood why Vorster had been so quiet.


             If it had really been they who were mad, what did that mean

        about Rifkin's attitude to him?  And his defence?  He paced the

        cell.  Guy Lechaptois, Piet Kreer.  The constipation and

        headaches that came with confinement were making it hard to

        think clearly.

                                                                Page 152


             "Hullo, Gericke."

             "What's the time?"

             "Three o'clock, maybe.  The warders haven't changed shift

        yet."

             "What's the date, Gericke?"

             "Twentieth of January?  Why man?"

             "Nothing.  I don't know why I asked."

             "Ja."

             "You feeling bad, Gericke?"

             "It's nothing, really, man." Just sometimes I don want to

        go on."

             "I know what you meran."

             "Ja."

             "You think it's going to rain this afternoon?"

             "Ja.  It's the weather.  When it rains we'll feel better.

        You'll see.  On my brother's farm, this time of day in summer

        everyone goes to sleep.  Then in the evening you mos fresh
                                                         ___

        again, you go out en find girls.  Ag,man, that's the way."

             "When were you there, on your brother's farm?"

             "Well, it's really a long time ago.  You know how it is.

        Time flies.  It must've been ten years ago.  No more.  It was

        the year Danny Boy won the Durban July.  You remember that, hey?

        I was lucky.  I had a lot of money on that horse.  The odds was

             So Gericke cheered him.  In prison he was learning to

        become as tolerant as Joan.  In Pretoria he had not been able to

                                                                Page 153


        manage it, not even with Adrian.  They discovered that they both

        played tennis, and arranged to meet once a week to use the

        school's courts.  Adrian gave David some Afrikaans poems he

        admired to read, and one day he showed David a new anthology

        that included six of his own poems.  David congratulated him.

             "What's it feel like to be famous?"

             "This isn't famous.  Hardly anyone'll see them."

             "Does it bother you that so few people speak Afrikaans?"

             "A little."

             "Have you ever tried writing in English?"

             "I don't feel at home in it."

             "But if you practised?"

             "No.  I don't believe anyone can write in English about

        South Africa.  In English it always sounds like some other

        place.  The language doesn't feel the country.  It has no words

        for koppies, or veld, or khakibos, or anything.  If I say Weenen
            _______     ____     ________

        in English, no one knows that it is a place called Weeping.  If

        I wrote in English it would cut me off from my people and my

        imagination."

        tennis court.  With his free arm he tilted a ball on the strings

        of his racquet.  Without looking at David, he added, "Foreigners

        don't understand this country."


             The phrases was a political excuse, and David wondered why

        Adrian had chosen to touch this dangerous ground.

             "What don't foreigners understand?"

             "They think that every evil they see here is something we

                                                                Page 154


        have done deliberately.  I don't deny that there is some evil.

        In other countries too there is evil.  But foreigners treat us

        as if we are all guilty, and only guilty."

             "Aren't we guilty?"

             Adrian hestitated to accept the challenge had provoked.

        His bounced his ball a few times on the racquet.

             "Are we?"

             David looked at Adrian on the lawn, slim in his white

        tennis clothes, brown, his face scribbled with premature lines.

        He did not want this fragile friendship to break.  He tasted the

        bitterness that had poisoned his marriage.  But he asked the

        question, in a gentle voice.

             "Aren't we?"

             "No.  Every man is responsible for his own life.  He is not

        responsible for actions beyond his control."

             "Condoning is his own evil."

             David felt himself skidding towards open challenge.

             "Are you a Christian?"

             Adrian was surprised.  He stopped playing with the ball and

        racquet.  "Yes."

             "So's my wife.  She was very moved by Muller.  His case

        seems a paradigm.  He wouldn't condone, so he's in trouble."

             "I know in the English press Muller's a political martyr.

        Most of the reporters are Jewish.  What do they care about his

        orthodoxy?"

             "Do you think anyone else really cares?  The theological

                                                                Page 155


        point seems pretty obscure to me."

             "Are you a Christian?"

             "No."

             Adrian sat up and hugged his knees.  "Then I don't know

        whether you can appreciate how even the most delicate points of

        theology can affect the whole life of the church."

             "The command to love your neighbour as youself doesn't seem

        especially delicate or obscure.  What happens to the church when

        it says, Don't let the black man be your neighbour, he must live

        in a separate group area?" "That's not the church.  That's the

        state's law."

             "It could be.  Christians must love everyone in the world,

        but they can't live next to everyone.  Love is not a physical

        thing."

             "So Christians have nothing to say if the law forces people

        from their own homes and separates them from their families?"

             Adrian turned his face away from David, "I know that much

        suffering is caused by such laws, but they are needed to prevent

        worse suffering.  Apartheid is the only way to avoid friction

        between the races.  In America they try integration.  Look how

        much trouble they have."

             "You think we have less friction here?"

             "We've never had a lynching in South Africa."

             "I would call Sharpeville a kind of lynching." Adrian was

        silent.  "In any case, some kinds of peace are worse than

        trouble.  A corpse causes no trouble."

                                                                Page 156


             Adrian turned to face him.  "You know, David, I like you

        too much.  We shouldn't talk politics.  You want me to agree

        with you, but there are many reasons that I won't.  I have grown

        up all my life as an Afrikaner.  I am troubled by many of these

        questions, but I also have a love for my people that is very

        deep, and I cannot let them be criticized by an outsider, even

        by a friend like you.  We shouldn't talk politics."

             They smiled at each other.  They played another set.  But

        the conversation left David bereaved, feeling that their

        friendship had died.  Although they still met to play, once a

        week, and talked in the Common Room, the fissure between them

        seemed to deepen like a donga, sign and further cause of

        erosion.


             More and more David felt spent and alone, crumbling and

        drying out, like the veld during drought.  Then, in September,

        three days fell on him like lashes from a sjambok.

             On the Tuesday when the synod's final judgement was due in

        the Muller case, the syllabus brought him to a lesson about Dr

        Philip of the London Missionary Society.  Dr Philip had caused a

        lot of trouble by preaching equality to the natives and

        agitating for the repeal of the pass laws.  Then, when they were

        repealed in l828, the land filled with lazy vagrants, and cattle

        theft increased on every side.  The Boer resentment Dr Philip

        provoked, combined with other grievances like the abolition of

        slavery, eventually persuaded the Boers to leave for the

                                                                Page 157


        interior, on the Great Trek.

             As David talked about Dr Philip, van der Walt, at the back

        of the class, was talking with Venter and Smit in a voice hardly

        lowered as a gesture towards classroom decorum.  David stopped

        began the lesson again.  Again van der Walt started.

             "I know that history bores you, van der Walt, but you'll

        need some to pass your matric.  You might as well listen and let

        the rest of the class listen." He felt that van der Walt, his

        face darkening with stubble and reddened with pimples, was the

        gross material that jail warders and policemen were made of.

        There was something curiously, ignorantly, pitiful about van der

        Walt in his naive discomfort with learning, overwhelmed like the

        woman in labour at Garsfontein, with the needs of his own body.

        What need to fuel him with hatred of Dr Philip?  "Of course,

        passing matric is not the only reason for learning history.

        Many issues in history are still alive today.  Dr Philip, who

        may seem a bore to you, is having half his case replayed in the

        Muller trial right now."

             Surprisingly, Muller did not seem a bore to van der Walt.

        "Do you think he's guilty, sir?"

             "I've no idea.  If it's a theological question, the

        judgement will be made on theological grounds.  It's difficult

        to judge as case that's tried in secret.  But let's get back to

        Dr Philip."

             Venter, following van der Walt's lead, said, "My father

        thinks Muller's a tool of the Communists."

                                                                Page 158

        know.

             David started to feel that there was something suspicious

        in all this interest.  "The Communist Party didn't exist in

        l828."

             "But he was a foreigner.  He didn't understand this

        country," Venter said.

             "Yes, Dr Philip was a foreigner," David allowed himself to

        stray from the syllabus, "And it explains a great deal about his

        troubles.  There's a pattern in history that repeats itself.

        The city person and the country person won't agree.  The Greeks

        have even given us words for this quarrel.  Living in the polis
                                                                  _____

        made you polite.  They called foreigners barbarians.  The Romans
                 ______

        thought the same.  If you lived in the city you could be
                                               ____

        civilized and civil, the urbs made you urbane, but if you lived
        _________     _____      ____          ______

        in a villa in the country you came a villain.  Have a look some
             _____                           _______

        time at the English word boor, closely related to our Afrikaans,
                                 ____

        boer.  Dr Philip came from the largest city in the world to a

        country where hardly anyone could read.  It wouldn't have

        mattered whether his ideas were good or bad, as long as they

        were different." He knew that he had gone too far, but it felt

        like a relief.

             "We'd better get back to the syllabus.  I'm going to

        dictate six points about Dr Philip.  This could be an exam

        question."


             He felt angry with himself.  If he couldn't talk with

                                                                Page 159


        Adrian, why did he try to enlighten the likes of van der Walt?

        He dragged through the rest of the day, feeling depressed and

        inert, and when he came home in the afternoon he lay down and

        slept.  After an hour he woke, suddenly feeling alive and

        drained of the poisons that had been clogging him.  His teaching

        was a death and an abomination.  At the end of the year, he

        would have paid off the loan from the Education Department that

        had paid for his B.A.  He would be free to resign and stop

        teaching.  He would leave, and find some other way to live.

             He fell asleep again, happy as he had not been for a long

        time, and dreamed of palaces and civilizations growing out of

        each other in wonderful succession, the amazing sequence of

        human history.  When he woke again, in the late afternoon, he

        felt that he longed for civilization.  He wanted to live like a

        decorum and the inheritance of self discipline he had once loved

        in Joan.  He made the bed, washed the dishes and cups that had

        accumulated in the sink, showered, dressed, and decided to find

        something better to read than those vile detective stories that

        cluttered the flat.  He would cook himself a civilized meal.  It

        was too late to get meat or fish, but he could still buy eggs at

        the corner cafe and make an omelet.  Perhaps he would still be

        in time to buy some wine.

             As he walked through Burger's Park feeling happy, free, the

        blurred rose of the afterglow was rising to the zenith.

             He bought wine, and at the corner cafe he looked happily at

        the rows of tinned food.  He could buy aparagus to put in the

                                                                Page 160


        omelet, some tinned peaches for dessert.  He could make himself

        a really decent meal.  Why hadn't he done this before?

             He picked up a newspaper and went to the counter to wait

        for service.  A wizened old African was waiting already.  The

        woman behind the counter turned to David.

             "Yes?"

             "This man was here first," David gestured.

             "Kaffirs must wait.  What can I do for you?" David looked

        at her impatient, blowsy face.  He wouldn't have guessed that

        she had the discipline to maintain a principle.

             He must have tapped some pent up anger.  "Don'tchou tell me

        how to run my business," she screamed.  "Filthy kaffirboetjie.
                                                        _____________

        I don't need your business.  Get out]  You get out too]" she

        pointed to the African


             He cringed and explained in a pleading tone that he only

        wanted a penny matches, he didn't mean to make any trouble.

             "Scram, both of you.]" She pointed at David, "Don't you

        come back here, kaffirboetjie drunk]"
                        _____________

             He put the newspaper back on the pile.  The old African was

        still excusing himself to the woman, who seemed ready to be

        mollified.

             He disgusted himself.  What a futile gesture to invite a

        scene and make himself feel good and civilized.  Phoo]  And his

        omelet]  What propaganda he had made to excuse himself for

        wanting to guzzle and live easy.  He wanted to play civilized,

        the English South African, so superior to the boorish Boers who

                                                                Page 161


        didn't know what was going on in the world.  They knew enough.

        The Nationalists knew who must pay for wine and guzzling in

        South Africa.  If that was civilization, they knew how to get

        it.

        the kitchen sink.  He felt hungry, but the only thing he could

        find in the flat was a tin of beans.  He ate them cold out of

        the tin, standing in the kitchen, but afterwards he washed the

        spoon, making one gesture towards civilization.  And he looked

        for the copy of by Marc Bloch's Feudal Society he'd been
                                        ______ _______

        reading, but something about the clear and patient mind

        searching for order seemed painful to him, and he could not read

        it.  He tried a detective story.


             In the morning paper he read that Muller had been found

        guilty of heresy.

             Just after the lunch break, Mrs Blake, the school

        secretary, sent a boy to fetch him from class to take a phone

        call in her office.  She busied herself with files while he was

        talking, but David felt that she was listening, wondering about

        this Indian woman who had phoned him.

             "Mr Moodley can't fetch you today," Munira said.  "He's at

        the police station."

             "What's happened?"

             "They arrested him in the shop this morning.  They said

        he's wanted for questioning."

             David did not want to say too much in front of Mrs Blake,

                                                                Page 162

        Blake think this Indian woman called on him as African servants

        sometimes called on their masters for help with the police.

             "No."

             "I'll get one, then."

             "Maybe he shouldn't have a lawyer.  The police don't like

        it.  Maybe we shouldn't annoy them."

             "They've got no right to be annoyed." Munira did not

        answer, and David realized that her silence was an argument

        against him.  Mrs Blake was hardly looking at her files.

             "I'll come straight after school.  Where are you?"

             "At a phone near the shop.  How will you come?"

             "By taxi."

             "No.  A taxi'll make talk.  I'll ask someone to fetch you."

             "Make it half-past three."

             Mrs Blake had gone to the filing cabinet.

             "Perhaps you shouldn't come.  The police may be watching."

             "What for."

             "We don't know why they've done anything."

             "Come and fetch me."

             "I'll send someone."

             Yes, of course.  They couldn't be alone in a car together

        because of the Immorality Act.  He had felt impatient of Mr

        Moodley's caution.  He was coming to see how the terror that


             A young Indian his own age came to fetch him.  He walked

                                                                Page 163


        through the shop, dark, stricken, and shunned, as though word

        had gone out to all the customers that there was calamity and

        danger within.  Munira was sitting at the small room at the back

        of the shop where they met for his lessons.  He took her hand

        and pressed it.  Her mother was sitting in the one, large old

        armchair, flanked by two men he had seen consult Mr Moodley on

        community affairs.  They nodded to each other, and Munira

        introduced him.  Their group sat solemnly, like mourners meeting

        before a funeral.  The conversation changed from Tamil to

        English, a courtesy to David, although sometimes one forgot, and

        came out with a sentence David did not understand.  One of the

        men explained to David that the most likely reason for the

        police visit was some matter connected with the group areas

        removal to Laudium.  Mr Moodley had not been filling out the

        papers and returning them as he was supposed to.  He had hoped

        to remain unnoticed.  He had hoped that Munira could be allowed

        to stay in the rooms at the back of the shop.

             David suggested a lawyer again, but they all demurred.  Not

        knowing what else to do, like mourners repeating the incidents

        leading to death, they told him how the police had come at

        ten-to-eleven and taken Didi away in their van.  So Mr Moodley

        how courteously Mr Moodley would answer the police, and their

        contempt for his koelie tone.
                         ______

             They sat for a long time.  In the centre of the room a

        brass vase on a doily was beginning to look like a spider

        waiting in its web.  David felt that his presence was only a

                                                                Page 164


        constraint.  He wondered whether to ask for a lift home, but in

        a state of boredom, irritation, embarrassment and pity, he held

        to his hard seat.

             "D'you know if they came for anyone else?" No one had heard

        of other arrests, though Mr Moodley's strategy to postpone

        removal must have been a common one.

             It grew so dark in the little room that Munira switched on

        the light.  He mother pulled herself out of the obese armchair

        and went out.  Soon sounds from the kitchen showed where she had

        gone.  David felt that at a meal he would seemed even more

        uncomfortably an outsider and a white.  He would ask to leave

        soon.

             They heard voices in the shop, exclamations, questions and

        answers.  Mr Moodley came in and they made their own

        exclamations.  Munira called her mother, and Mr Moodley's

        friends embraced him.  He did not touch Munira, but he shook

        had guarded the till at the shop, stood at the door.  Other

        people pushed past into the little room.

             "How are you?" "What did they want?" "Are you all right?"

             "It was a mistake.  They wanted someone else.  They got the

        names mixed up."

             "Did they treat you all right?"

             "I'm fine.  No, it was someone else they wanted.  For

        sabotage."

             "Allah]" Munira exclaimed.

             "It's all right now.  They know it's not me."

                                                                Page 165


             "But how could they make such a mistake?"

             "So many Moodleys.  It was a mistake.  We won't talk about

        it any more."

             After the supper, a feast, Mr Moodley took David aside.

             "I want you to know how much I appreciate it that you came.

        Now we know that you are a friend."

             "I'm sorry I couldn't do anything useful."

             "Friendship is like a rose.  We don't love it because it is

        useful." As Mr Moodley pressed his hand, David felt awkward.

        Indians were always talking about flowers in a sentimental way.

             "Well, don't mention it."


             That was Wednesday.

        wanted to see him after school.

             When the boys packed and the school emptied, and David

        heard the superintendant yelling at the African cleaners again,

        he went to Spence's door.  The thin sound of his knock rebuked

        him

             "Yes?"

             "It's Miller sir.  You wanted to see me."

             "In a few minutes."

             He waited on a bench in the anteroom.

             When Spence called him in, he did not ask David to sit.

        Throughout the interview he pressed the tips of his fingers

        together, and bent and straightened his fingers so that his

        hands moved with the slow rhythm of snake swallowing a large

                                                                Page 166


        prey.  Black hair grew on the back of his hands.

             "You are aware, Miller, of the law against politics in the

        classroom."

             "Yes, sir."

             "But you had a discussion about the Muller case in class?"

             "I mentioned the Muller case, sir, because I was talking

        about Dr Philip and wanted to point out that some of the issues

        are still alive today."

             "Hmm.  You mentioned the Communist Party."

        I pointed out that the the idea was an anachronism."

             "I see.  And I gather that you made some pejorative remarks

        about the Boers of Dr Philip's day.Something about their being

        uncivilized."

             Whoever had reported his remarks in class had understood

        better than David might have guessed possible from IVB's dreary

        history compositions."My remarks weren't intented to be

        pejorative, sir.  I was trying to explain some of the hostility

        Dr Philip felt and provoked.  I was making a general comment on

        the suspicion often found between city and country people,and

        used some illustrations from etymology."

             "You find etymology part of history?"

             "The history of words, sir, is a useful historical tool."

             "Ah." The room waited.  A large reproduction of Bellini's

        Doge hung on the wall.  It was a surprising picture for Spence

        to choose.  "I think such refinements are beyond the boys'

        scope.  That's why we have the syllabus, Miller.  Too much

                                                                Page 167


        sophistication may be too, ah, urbane, for the boys to

        understand." Bellini's Doge looked at the world calmly.  "I

        cannot have teachers in my school breaking the law, Miller.

        There will be no politics in the classroom, and no material not

        specified in the syllabus." A white balustrade separated the

        between Spence's hands, contracting and distending.

             "That will be all, Miller."


             "What's wrong?" Richard asked when he came to fetch David

        to supper.

             "I'll tell you later." Several poppy petals were lying on

        the fresh-turned earth of a flowerbed outside the front door.  A

        flower in a hurry to die.  A cold wind sprang up.

             "What's the matter with you, David," Mrs Cooke demanded as

        they sat at tea.  "You're looking like a starved cat."

             "Mother]"

             "I've been living too much like a bachelor," David dodged.

             "Then it's time you took your wife back.  You've got no

        right to be looking so sickly at your age.  Eat your cake, and

        make up your mind to live like a married man again." David ate

        the cake.

             After supper, a neighbour came to the door.  Richard

        invited Dierdrechs in for coffee and for a while they all sat in

        front of the fire and talked neutrally.  Dierdrech's face had

        lived too hard.  Pouches had developed under his reddened eyes,

        and flaps at his jowls.  His skin had burnt a hard red-brown,

                                                                Page 168


        his nose was pitted.  It was a face that warned against life.

        David couldn't follow his rapid Afrikaans and was left with an

             When Dierdrechs left, David heard him saying to Richard, at

        the door,

             "Tomorrow is another day." But then they had a long

        conversation in undertones.  Afterwards, Richard told him,

        "Dierdrechs wants me to join a commando the neighbours have

        organized to protect the ridge from attack.

             "Attack from whom?"

             "There's been a lot of restlessness in Garsfontein.  It's

        just down the valley you know.  We'd be the first target in a

        riot."

             "Why do you think there's going to be a riot?"

             "It's just a rumour."

             "So what's the commando for?"

             "Just in case."

             "So will you join?"

             "I don't want to, but Dierdrechs lives next door, and he

        says that if I won't protect myself, it just means he's got to

        look after us as well as his own family.  I've told him I've got

        a gun, but I havn't practised shooting since high school

        cadets."

             If Richard heard a noise on the terrace and looked through

        the French window that faced east, where Garsfontein lay, and

        saw a pair of eyes, he would shoot.  He had a gun.  If women ran

                                                                Page 169


        he would shoot.  Perhaps he would shoot a child born at the

        clinic run by the German nuns whose care taught the newborn that

        they were human before they could learn they were black.

        "You're not asking him to protect you.  You could tell him to go

        to hell."

             "It's easy to say that, David, if you've got no

        responsibilities.  I've got my mother to look after.  I can't

        think only of myself." Like you, the unfinished accusation hung

        in the air.

             "So you'd do it."

             Richard stared at David.  He hadn't been stared at like

        that since he was a child and had played contests to see who

        must look away first.  He stared back, and felt the whole world

        recede from the arena where their eyes locked like animals in a

        fight that could end only in victory or humiliation.  There was

        nothing now but Richard's irises, different colours.

             Richard looked away.  "Would you like some tea?"

             "I'm rather tired.  Would you mind if I leave early?"


             Although he felt as exhausted as he had ever been, he could

        not sleep, feeling that Pretoria whirled him in a centrifuge

        that separated everyone according to race.  Everyone fell into

        his proper place, whirled, whirling, African, Coloured, Asiatic,

             Many hours later, as he was being drawn down into sleep at

        last, he heard car doors slam in the street.  Soon after he

        heard banging, like wood on wood, and then screams.

                                                                Page 170


             He climbed out of bed and looked out of the window.  The

        light behind him blinded the street.  He switched them off.

        Across the street below him a flicker of torch shafts came down

        the alley between two blocks of flats.  Angry voices and

        indefinite thuds sounded among the screams.  He saw two

        policemen dragging an African boy, perhaps a skinny man, emerge

        from the alley.  A third policeman walked behind them and

        kicked, making the large thuds David had heard.

             He turned and ran out of his flat to the lift.  The

        concrete floor was icy.  The lift sighed and rustled up, like a

        fat lady doing an unpleasant chore.  It opened unwilling doors

        with metallic shuffles and clicks.  As David reached the street

        he heard the van doors bag shut and the van driving off.  He had

        not been able to see the numberplates.

             His bare feet ached with cold and he went into the building

        again and waited for the lift to shuffle its doors open and take

        him upstairs.  Its walls were padded with khaki mattingand

        smelled of dagga.  Under the shower where he washed the filth

        and cold of the street off his feet, he examined what he could

        the arrest.  He could phone Michael's colleagues at the

        Chronicle - though what sort of story could he give them?  What
        _________

        else?  He could not think of anything.

             He did not try to sleep.  He tidied the flat and made his

        bed as though he were going to leave, and did not want strangers

        to see the sordid misewry he had lived in.  Shaving, seeing his

        face in the mirror, he beat his head with his fists and banged

                                                                Page 171


        it against the tiled wall.  He went to the window and looked

        again at the alley he had seen lanced with torches.  The sky had

        become deep and very blue now.  The first glow of morning was

        rising into the darkness with impassive perfection.

             When the city was ready to wake, he went out and bought a

        newspaper and scanned the front page.  Muller had decided that

        for the sake of the many who had stood by him in a time of

        testing, and for the principles he believed in, he must contest

        the synod's judgement in a civil suit and an open court.  He

        would have preferred silence and peace, but conscience demanded

        justice.

             David counted his change and went to the public phone

        booth.  The police could give him no information about the

        arrest.  None of Michael's colleagues had come in to the
        _________

        Pretoria's traffgic showed sunny and metallic.  His mind slept

        and knew nothing but sensation - the blue sky, the muffled shift

        of gears, the smell of urine and exhaust fumes.  He sorted out

        the coins he would need for a call to Johannesburg.

             "Hello.  Joan?  This is David."

             "Hello, David."

             "Can I see you again?"

             "Yes."

             "This afternoon?"

             "Yes."


             "You reconciliation was successful?" Rifkin asked.

                                                                Page 172


             "Yes."

             "So why didn't you stay with your wife?"

             "I couldn't"

             "If you were my patient, I'd say you wouldn't.  But tell me

        about it.  What was your fantasy?"

             "You think everything I know is fantasy." David could hear

        the breathing of them both.  "You think I'm mad."

             "I think you've been very disturbed.  It's perfectly

        understandable."

             "Answer me straight, dammit.  You think I'm mad It's not

        isn't it?  It's what you think]"

             Rifkin said nothing.

             "I'm a damn fool.  Of course I'm mad.  It's what I want you

        to say." Rifkin probably called the screams a fantasy too.  And

        St Therese's.  David put his hands to his face.  He could feel

        his hair.  He started to pull it.  "That's it]  That's the point

        of it]"

             Rifkin called Snyman in to handcuff him and take him back

        to the cell.

             "You O.K.,David?" Gericke asked him.

             "Thanks, Gericke.  I'll be O.K."

             But he was thinking, I can't go through with it.  He was

        shuddering, and sweat was pouring from his whole body.  He had

        played with the word.  He hadn't believed that anyone would

        really think he was mad.


<R.MOSS>THEBOMB.RNO.59, 18-Sep-78 12:40:40, Edit by R.MOSS


              


                                THE BOMB


             A membrane thin as the skin inside an egg held him away

        from the glare and anger of Pretoria and the school.  On

        weekends, while Joan practised, he worked near a sunny window

        that looked over the high skies and white mine dumps beyond the

        Hillbrow where the owners came to expect them and the exchange

        of pleasant remarks about the weather and the state of things in

        genertal.  They walked in Joubert Park, and booked a tennis

        court at a club where no one knew them.  At Joan's rehearsals he

        sat near the back of the hall.  They avoided old friends as

        through they feared for the fragility of their new marriage.

        They had no telephone yet.

             One day Joan found a note from Aviva.  "Let me hear from

        you, dammit.  I've got news." The women met for lunch while

        David was in Pretoria, teaching.

             "Aviva's married," Joan told him that evening.

             "Well]  Who to?"

             "It's really surprising.  A friend of her parents, a

        businessman, older than her.  Actually he's a widower, and

        there's a child."

             "Whew]  That is surprising.  What's he like?"
                          __

             "She says we must come to visit soon, so we'll see.

        They've moved to a new house in Northcliffe."

             "It all sounds amazingly bourgeois for Aviva."

             "Yes, doesn't it.  Imagine Aviva a stepmother]"

             "That's easy enough.  I've always found her rather

        formidable."


             Aviva's intrusion into their idyll opened a tear in the

        films that protected them.  News came at him brutally again -

        raids, arrests, and the increasing ferocity of the drought.

        Because of a glut in the market, oranges were being allowed to

        rot on the farms.  There were pictures of heaps like hills.  The

        newspapers ran a campaign to collect money so that the oranges

        could be bought for children starving in the reserves and

        townships.  There was talk of a new sabotage bill that would

        allow arrest and solitary confinement on suspicion, without need

        for a specific charge or trial, and, as if to justify these

        preparations, a government office in Pretoria blew up, but no

        serious damage was done.


             Although the drought would nor break, spring came on, the

        leaves on Christmas bushes fattened, and early fruit trees began

        to blossom.

             "Let's go to Barberton during your Michaelmas holiday,"

        Joan said.  "I've never seen the daisies, and they're supposed

        to be spectacular."

             "I haven't either.  It'll be good to get away."

             "Perhaps we'll stop on the way to see Edward.  He's working

        at St Therese's,a Catholic mission right nearby."

             "Has be become a Catholic?"

             "No.  He started out at the Ramsbottom's place, but when

        Area, and he had to get out.  But whites are still allowed at St

        Therese's.  I saw him while he was still with the Ramsbottoms,

                                                                Page 174


        and he seemed happy, settled in some way.  I'd love to see him

        again."

             "Yes, let's."

             She knew that Edward must have heard something like those

        screams in Pretoria.  That was why , ripening for some dreadful

        act of abnegation, he couldn't listen to music, and couldn't

        play with mathematics, Perhaps Edward had found a way to live

        now.

             When they drove out of the city, they saw that its urban,

        watered fertility had been a mask.  The veld's starved thirst

        showed a world as dry as if it had never rained, as if the

        stalks of yellow grass fixed to the ground had grown from stone,

        or dust, or mineralized air.  Discarded dongas filled their beds

        with stones.  Dead thorn trees cast arid shade onto boulders and

        sand.  Not even vultures flew in the opaque and dessicated sky.

        They passed through dorps whose half-mile main street became the

        road again.  The blank, disheartened stare of dusty shops and

        sullen loungers forbade them to stop until they needed petrol.

        When they did stop, the rattling air attacked them like a bird

        of prey.  Teenagers played irritated pinball machines in empty

        splintering voices.

             In one of these dorps they stopped to phone Edward.  He

        told them how to start on the road to St Therese's.  Eleven

        miles on, they would see the buildings of a school on their

        right, and a row of trees.  He would meet them there.

             The dirt road led from the familiar dry, golden openness of

                                                                Page 175


        the highveld to a new kind of earth, grey, breaking out

        occasionally into black scrub, boulders, ravines, and jutting

        knobs.  Its funereal pallor and skeletal, angular coarseness

        threatened and warned.  The highveld had seemed dead and

        inorganic.  This land was a corpse.

             The foreboding waste seem necessarily and totally

        uninhabited, but at a downbending curve in the road they twisted

        to the sight of several hundred tents pitched on barren arms of

        land clutching a donga.  They could see no water among the round

        stones that littered its bed, but on the banks some children

        played, and among the tents human figures moved.  As David

        slowed the car, picannins threw stones at them across the dead

        river.  One stone hit metal, and an unhappy bang resounded

        between the dead earth and the dead sky.  Joan's face took on

        the grey, killed look of the world around them.  They drove on,

        past the encampment of walking corpses.  Except for the hostile

             About three miles on, a high plume of dust coming towards

        them showed them where Edward was approaching.  When the cars

        met and stopped, they all stepped out into the road.  Edward

        embraced Joan and put a hand on David's shoulder.

             "I'm so happy to see you both]" His skin was grey, and his

        faded hair also looked more drained than fair.  He had become as

        thin as if the cadaverous landscape had gnawed the youth off him

        to make him part of itself.

                                                                Page 176


             "We're going to have so much to talk about.  Your room's

        all fixed and Sister Anna's baking a cake.  One of you come with

        me."

             So Joan rode with Edward, and David followed close on their

        dusty trail.  The landscape slowly rose from grey constrictions

        to rounded, dry hills.  Near the mission, the valleys held

        swatches of poplar and willow, and evening light glanced

        sidelong over worked fields.  Stone buildings, among them the

        church, scattered in the shallow valley.

             Edward took them to a small, white room reserved for

        guests.

             "Why don't you wash, and rest a bit?" He pointed to a

        pitcher and basin on the dresser.  "Supper's in about an hour.

        I'll come to fetch you."

             "Edward looks terribly tired," she said, "Downright

        haggard.  "Almost as bad as you." Her arm moved with a strong,

        steady movementdown, and away from the breast where she had laid

        the heavy, living tress of threads, down, away, up.

             "Come here Joan." She set the brush on the dresser and came

        to the side of the bed.  Looking at him, she touched his

        forehead.

             "Not that haggard."

             "Getting better."

             He pulled her down to him.  feeling the firm and supple

        weight of her body.  "I love you."

             "I'm so happy, David.  I'm so happy we're together again.

                                                                Page 177


        I love you so much." As they were making love, he felt that her

        face was wet with tears.


             When Edward brought them to the dim, narrow room used as a

        dining room for lay people at the mission, they found a gaunt,

        dark man eating before them.

             " Dr Frank Kinley," Edward introduced him.

             Frank greeted them and then continued eating, methodically

        and with the air of someone who eats out of a sense of duty.  He

        did not join the the conversation.  Though at one point David

        saw that his fork moved more slowly.  He was listening with

        on the donga.

             "Who are those people?"

             "They're the people the Ramsbottoms were working with last

        year," Edward's voice had the dry ring David recognized as the

        way he contained pain..i "Why are they out there, in the

        desert?"

             "The police moved them there."

             "To punish them for resisting removal?"

             "They were in a white area."

             "And what's the place they'ree in now?"

             "That's their new homeland."

             " I read that their old one is fertile and beautiful."

        Edward looked at him but did not answer.  What was he trying to

        prove?  Frank had turned his deeply lined face towards them and

        was stroking the lobe of his left ear.

                                                                Page 178


             "When were they moved?" David pursued.

             "About five months ago."

             "Just before winter."

             Again Edward said nothing but reached for a piece of bread.

        David understood that there was nothing to say, but like a child

        who cannot stop scratching at an itch, he let curiosity and

        horror drive him.

             "From the river," Edward answered.

             "And when it's dry, like now."

             "It's not as dry as it looks.  The water's more than four

        inches deep in some places.  You probably couldn't see it from

        the car."

             David laughed.  "Four inches]  That's handsome." Frank had

        stopped eating.  "So you went to measure?" Edward did not

        answer.  "Did the children throw stones at you?"

             Edward looked up.  "Did they throw stones at you?"

             "Only one hit the car," Joan answered.

             "They're very bitter." Edward's voice seemed to taste their

        bitterness.  Then, resuming his duty, he offered vegetables to

        Joan and David, and took some himself.

             David's curiosity picked at another question.

             "What do they do about sewage?"

             "There's the river," Edward answered.

             Frank poured himself a cup of coffee.

             "Well, that should solve the problem, one way or another,"

        David could hear that he sounded like Michael, retreating into

                                                                Page 179


        helpless irony.


             After dinner Edward took them took them to a guest lounge

        where he lit a fire.

        occasion.  Wait." He came back with a bottle of brandy.

             "K.W.V.,Edward.  You've got good connections."

             "It's a present from Father Knowles.  He's got good

        connections."

             "Not what one usually imagines."

             "I suppose not, but he's very friendly with some cabinet

        ministers and Bantu Affairs officials.  They can't understand

        how such a pleasant person can have such deplorable politics."

        Edward laughed.  "And they're awfully good about warning him

        when they're going to close down one of his schools."

             "I don't know how people with such deplorable politics can

        be pleasant." David's voice hardly sounded joking.  "I wonder

        how he stands them"

             "I suppose they're human, like anyone else."

             Now David laughed.  " Remember that farmer in the Long

        Kloof who used to say that about his pigs, Joan?" He felt happy

        with her, calmed, in spite of those children at the dry donga.

             Edward was pouring the brandy, with careful pleasure,

        looking at the transparent liquid.  When he had handed Joan and

        David their glasses he held his for a while, and sniffed its

        bouquet.  David wondered.  Edward had used to seem so

        indifferent to luxury.

                                                                Page 180

        yielded to unaccustomed comfort.  Suddenly David recognized that

        his pleasure was an index of the austerity of his daily life.

             "My best occasion," Edward toasted them.  He sipped his

        brandy slowly, "Ah, that's good]" He leaned back.  "I think

        you've made a friend of Frank, David."

             "How did I do that?"

             "He's just waiting for an order banning him from this area.

        The local magistrate warned him to stop interfering with the

        Pedi at the river.  He's been taking food there and teaching

        them to boil the water before drinking it.  Though they don't

        listen much to him.  There isn't enough wood or dung for them to

        waste fire on things like that."

             "Of course.  I can see that teaching them things like that

        could interfere weith the whole idea."

             Edward stretched his legs in front of him and stared at

        their length.  "I don't think Keyter really has a specific idea

        about the Pedi.  He just doesn't like the arrangements he's made

        criticized.  He's defending his self respect really."

             "You mean, he's also human."

             Edward sipped his brandy.  "There's been too much trouble

        with that tribe."

             "Yes.  I remember reading about them.  And Michael talked

        about them."

        in coming here." Edward smiled, recognizing the irony David made

        explicit.

                                                                Page 181


             "He's be damn upset to know it."

             "Oh, I know]"

             "He felt hurt you didn't tell him."

             "He was in solitary." Again that voice as pale as drought.

        "And anyhow, I didn't want to argue about it.  I knew what

        Michael would say.  That's the trouble with good friends.  I've

        been imagining you'd say the same things yourself."

             "You mean about why you shouldn't be here?"

             "Yes."

             "No.  I've got nothing to say.  You live your own life.

        I've got nothing better to offer.  I'm stuck." David looked into

        the fire, trying to believe its warmth could resist the deep

        chill that had entered him.

             A knock at the door brought Edward sharply out of his

        chair.  He stepped outside and closed the door behind him.  Joan

        came to David's chair and sat on the arm.  He took her hand and

        kissed it.  How was it that she could see all that he saw - she

        had been with him that afternoon when the stone banged on the

        car, and her face had gone grey - how was it that she could

        recover, become easy again?  He carressed the callouses the

             "I love you," he said, feeling his difference, and his

        distance from her.

             Edward came back carrying candles and matches.

             "The generator stops at nine," he explained.  "Did you

        bring your cello, Joan?"

             "Of course.  I've got a concert next week.

                                                                Page 182


             "Could we fetch it?  I need a benefit."

             So Joan played for Edward, imperfectly visible in the

        irregular firelight and candlelight, like a musician of another

        time.  Her music brought their past and Europe into the room and

        told, in her other voice, of possibilities of being other than

        their own.  It bound them to configurations of order and sound

        made for other audiences in other countries and other times.  If

        the men who had somposed these harmonious sounds had looked into

        the imperfect future, they could hardly have guessed their music

        would make men know their life anew in this bubble of fire set

        in the exposed and windy veld, dark and dry.

             Another knock interrupted them, and again Edward closed the

        door behind him..i "They want me at the hospital," he said,

        coming back.  "I'll show you to your room, if that's all right,

        and see you in the morning."

             But when morning came he was still busy, and asked one of

             Brother Isidor, a pink man with the face of a baby, showed

        them the fields and vegetable gardens, the carpenter's worshop,

        the anvil, the generator.  The mission seemed much larger than

        it had looked in the evening light.  He took them to the school,

        where the rooms were ranged with looms, sewing machines, more

        carpentry tools, and nutrition charts with gay pictures of meat,

        eggs, milk, and leafy green vegetables.  There were few books.

             "Is there a library?" David asked.

             "No.  The children look after their own text books.  You

        know, they pay for them themselves, and that makes them more

                                                                Page 183


        careful because they can sell them afterwards." Brother Isidor

        was garrulous.  "In any case, we don't do much with books.  It's

        no use with natives.  They can't come to school long.  One, two

        years, sometimes three or four.  That's the most, usually.  So

        we don't bother with subjects they can't use.  We stick to

        hygiene and crafts, some agriculture, woodwork for the boys,

        sewing for the girls.  Of course we teach them a bit of reading

        and arithmetic.  They need that too."

             It was clear that Brother Isidor agreed with the philosophy

        of Bantu Education, but David felt the school like a harsh

        prison closing the young in their own ignorance.  Last night

        when Joan had played, she had bridged this remote mission to

        boundless company populating the future and the past.  The

        children of this school, set shallowly in their own world would

        learn no history, no geography, nothing to let them hear or

        speak to other men.  He saw that his own school in Pretoria was

        the complement of this one.  The history he taught was also a

        prison, the story of how God chose the white race to be

        guardians.  His own school trained the warders, and was the

        brother of this one.  Cain.

             Again he promised he would stop teaching at the end of the

        year.


             Edward had arranged to meet them after mass.  David went

        with Joan.  The dim and garish nave was crowded, men worshippers

        on the left, women on the right.  Joan protested when two fat

                                                                Page 184


        ladies waiting with an air of confident piety, vacated seats for

        them, but they would not allow a white madam and baas to stand.

             The church breathed and shuffled.  Nuns brought candles to

        the altar and fussed with cloths.  Acolytes wearing red and

        white robes performed errands in the area beyond the altar

        rails, and in the nave, women rose from reciting their rosaries

        in front of statues of the Virgin, babies whimpered and cried

        until their mothers suckled them, and ushers admonished seated

        worshippers to crowd together on the benches.  When the service

        Women in the aisles pressed rosary beads through their fingers.

        After the sermon the worshippers in the aisles kneeled on the

        bare floor, but Joan and David sat until a bell rang and all the

        congregation, except David, slid to their knees for the

        consecration.  With unbowed head, David looked at the fervent

        faces around him, the women with their eyes closed and Joan,

        like them, holding a reverent pause during the tinkling of more

        bells.  Joan's expression was as attentive as the crone's whose

        high cheek bones and medieval lines of suffering spoke now so

        singly of worship that she became beautiful.  He felt himself

        outside this company, alien in the church.  If he had any

        company, it was invisible, single disbelievers, uncomfortable

        sceptics.  Among the Africans, though not in this congregation,

        there must be a man like him, alien on his own soil, a stranger

        in the country he could never leave.  He longed to meet that

        man.

             Most of the other worshippers remained in the church after

                                                                Page 185


        mass.


             Edward, outside, explained, "Some of them walk twenty miles

        to church.  Once they're here they want a long service."

             On the dry lawn, clumps of men and women sat talking.

        Children, a red jersey here, a blue doek there, gave the scene a
                                                                ______

        Society.  In that world too, the church had gathered people
        _______

        together like this.  But here, something in the dry air, almost

        invisible, like candlelight in sunshine, reminded David of the

        hostility they had met on the dead river bank.

             While Joan took time to practise after lunch, Edward

        offered to take David on a tour of the monastery.  They walked

        in silence along a sunny causeway, and then on a narrow road

        bordered by fallow winter fields.

             "How was your tour with Brother Isidor this morning?"

             "Depressing.  Brother Isidor doesn't seem to mind Bantu

        Education at work."

             "No.  He's not very bright about some things.  He's really

        a carpenter.  He's done some fine work for the hospital.  You've

        got no idea how much that's worth when you're two hundred miles

        from anywhere."

             "Does he teach carpentry too?"

             "A bit."

             "And you?  What's your work here, Edward?"

             "I'm a jack of all trades.  Less useful than Brother

        Isidor.  Mostly I help with administration."

             "Why?"


             "Someone had to do it, and other people have different

        skills."

             "That's not what I'm asking."

             "I thought it might not be." He kicked a stone off the

        road.  "I suppose it's because of Michael." Edward paused and

        grimaced.  "When he was arrested I saw what was probably going

        to happen to all of us.  I could've seen it before, it's

        happened to so many, but you know how close Michael and I were.

        At first I felt a hell of guilt because he'd been arrested and

        not me.  I was jealous too." David gritted his teeth.  So Edward

        had felt this too.  When the police were holding Mr Moodley he

        had felt such jealousy, as though to be arrested would certify

        that he had rejected apartheid validly.  "But I knew I'd been

        doing much the same as Michael.  Next time I'd be arrested too.

        So I began to think about it, and what would happen after.  What

        do you do after prison?  Go on as before, get arrested again?

        Some do, and it has a kind of usefulness.  There're a few things

        you can do while you're out, though you've got to be careful not

        to incriminate other people - I mean, more careful each time.

        And there's something about a moral witness.  It's O.K.  But in

        the end, that kind of life wears out.  Most of our friends've

        decided to leave after one or two rounds in prison.  I'd

        probably do the same.  So then you work overseas.  I suppose

        the same without all the international horror.  But since

        Sharpeville we've been back where we started from, and overseas

        opinion doesn't seem to make much difference after all.  So what

                                                                Page 187


        else, if you do the kind of things that get you into prison?

        You can turn state's witness, or informer, or slip out of the

        whole business and never think of justice again."

             They walked in silence.  Afternoon heat bore down on them.

             "You've said it," David acknowledged, "Those are the

        choices."

             "You've been thinking about them too." Edward looked at

        David.  His green eyes and fasted lips smiled out of a sadness

        that made David feel, for the first time, that Edward was closer

        to him than anyone he had ever known,perhaps closer even than

        Joan.  They shared a weight that oppressed them like a secret.

             "Yup," David confessed,"And I'm stuck."

             "I felt stuck."

             They walked on.  Then Edward started again.  "You know, if

        I'd thought the revolution could come soon...  But we know that

        it's not going to happen for ten years at least.  I couldn't

        wait that long.  It felt like a luxury.  I could've gone to

        prison, satisfied my vanity and my guilt.  I knew that was a

        waste of time."

             "I haven't had to do anything special.  The Congress is

        banned now.  But I came here."

             The pale winter sky and dry sun surrounded them.  "Tell me

        why this matters," David asked.

             "There are some absolutes.  You teach a little.  You're not
                    ___

        allowed to teach much, and I'm not Brother Isidor, I find the

        school depressing too, but it's better than nothing.  You feed

                                                                Page 188


        the starving, and teach them a bit how to feed themselves.  You

        teach them to boil water.  O.K.  They shouldn't be hungry in the

        first place, but if you don't feed them they won't last till the

        revolution.  And you do what you can to heal the sick.  That's

        also palliative, but sick people also can't wait for the

        revolution."

             "So you've given up on big change."

             "I can't wait for it, and I'm not strong enough to make it

        happen on my own."

             "But you could work for it."

             "Yes, and that'd get me into jail, and then out of the

        country, if not worse, and that'd be the end of that.  I'm not

        even sure that I could work for the revolution.  It's not going
                         _____

             "I'm sure you know as well as I do that palliatives don't

        work."

             "No, I don't.  If there's a child alive because I helped

        run the hospital, that'll be enough."

             "So he can die of malnutrition three years later?  Or work

        in the mines when he grows up?  And say, yes baas?  You can't

        pretend that you can do anything outside politics."

             "I don't pretend that.  You think it's not politics to feed

        the hungry and heal the sick?  Look what's happening to Frank.

        I've just given up using the promise of revolution as an excuse

        to do nothing until it happens.  But I know that it's a matter

        of time before the mission's closed, if we're doing any good."

             "And then?"

                                                                Page 189


             "I don't know.  I'm going one step at at time."

             "Why's that better than waiting for prison to stop you?"

             "Because I know that what I'm doing know is immediately

        useful.  I repeat, there are some absolutes.  Congress

        propaganda doesn't strike me as one of them."

             David did not answer.  They walked further down the narrow

        road and turned back.

             "I wish I knew something better," Edward admitted.

             "I'll agree that they're useful absolutes."

        time in their conversation, they laughed.


             After their walk, Edward had to go off again, and again, in

        the evening, he was called away when Joan played for them.  The

        next day too he left Joan and David to books and walks.  David

        began to wonder whether his life was always so busy, or whether

        he had some reason to avoid them.

             The mission was quieter without the medieval worshippers

        who had populated the Sunday landscape.  Here and there, a

        single person walked among the buildings, and small sounds of

        carpentry and dogs sounded under the opaque sky.  Outside the

        hospital they saw a small crowd of women.  David took them for

        patients.


             They didn't speak to each other, hardly moved, did not look

        up, and when their glances randomly touched him and Joan, did

        not tender human recognition.  They wore the absorbed look of

        people debilitated by sickness, drawn halfway into death.  As

                                                                Page 190


        before, at the church, he felt something he couldn't see.  The

        sky was a skull.


             Edward met them again at supper.

             "I'm sorry my time's been so interrupted.  A visit's rare

        enough, and yours has been like new life to me."

             "We've found plenty to do.  You don't have to amuse us."

             "You sound as if you're leaving."

             "We must soon, if we're going to go on to Barberton."

             "I'll miss you." But David suspected relief.

             "Where's Frank tonight?"

             "He's still busy at the hospital."

             "I'd like to see the hospital, if it's not inconvenient."

             Edward set his knife and fork on his plate, still half full

        of stew.  Holding his hands on the table, he looked at David.

             "Let me tell you what's going on." He bit his lower lip.

        "We've got a ward with eighty children, mostly kwashiokor and

        gastro-enteritis.  They share beds of course.  One of them

        developed measles last week.  Five children've died since.  Some

        of the others are going to die soon.  It might take the whole

        ward.  We can't let any of them out because in no time there'll

        be measles all over the area, and hundred's'll die.  The

        children's mothers have been begging us to let them out.

        They've been banging on the windows, trying to see their

        children.  They won't leave."

             "I think I saw them, sitting outside."

                                                                Page 191


             "We can't let them in, of course.  I think we may have a

        riot on our hands soon.  Perhaps next Sunday, when there're men

        here too."

        do if they're starving.  Internal bleeding starts.  If the sores

        open, there's some hope, but internal haemorrhage means they'll

        bleed to death.  They ones who live'll probably be blind, or

        deaf, or retarded."

             "Is there really nothing you can do?"

             "Nothing we know of.  It's too late for them.  We're just

        hoping it won't spread, but Frank found measles in one of the

        villages today.  But when they saw what he was doing, the

        parents wouldn't let him near the child.  They think we'll kill

        all the children we can get here."

             He poured coffee, and offered them some.  "Of course,

        they're right, in a way.  We've given up, really, for the

        children in that ward."

             "You weren't going to tell us, were you?" Joan asked.  "You

        were going to bear all this alone."

             Edward looked at her, and she at him.  They were close to

        each other again, the way they had so often been.  This time

        David did not feel excluded.  They were all weighed down by the

        same helplessness.

             Deliberately, Edward poured himself a second cup of coffee.

        He's expecting a long night, David thought.  "What'll you do if

        there's a riot?"

             "We're holding a meeting to decide.  Actually, in ten


        minutes.  This may be the end of the mission."

             "I had no idea, yesterday."

             "Oh, yes.  It's all horribly close." Edward turned a dry

        grin to them.  "I'm glad I told you.  It sounded too settled and

        worked out for me."

             "I'm glad you told us," David answered.

             Joan stood and went to Edward.  She embraced him.

             "You'll leave early," he said, holding her by the shoulders

        and looking into her face.  "Anything could happen here, and

        it's pointless for you to be involved.  I didn't think it was so

        serious until Frank found that case of measles today.  And I

        don't like that stone-throwing you met when you came."

             "We'll leave early, Edward."

             "Do you want us to contact newspapers?" David asked.

        "Perhaps they'd raise monewy for milk or something."

             "It's too late, and probably better for us to avoid

        publicity."

             "God.  It's awful," Joan said.

             They both looked at her as though she had spoken out of

        character.  Edward embraced her and kissed her on both cheeks.

        He pushed her away.  He faced David.  They put their hands on

        each other's shoulders.

             "Thank you," David said.


             Driving past the hospital as they left in the morning, they

        passed the women, vague shapes under a row of lighted windows.

                                                                Page 193


        Inside there must be nurses and nuns in a morning bustle of

        thermometers, charts, carts of medicine and water.  And screens

        around silent cribs.

             They did not go on to Barberton, but turned back to

        Joannesburg.  They crossed the dead river again, and saw

        movements among the tents.  Small figures moved among the river

        stones with inscrutable actions.  The caked earth lay dumb on

        each side of the road.

             Joan gradually moved out of the silence they had taken back

        from St Therese's.  David watched her patience as though she had

        become a stranger to him.  Somewhere she could endure these

        things with her God's massacre of the innocents, his innocent

        death, and the intolerable piety of cripples singing hymns at

        Lourdes.  Although he remembered how Edward had eaten, out of

        self-discipline, he could not eat.  When Joan brought spring

        flowers home, and arranged daffodils in vases filled with water,

        he watched her from a dream.  She had always known what these

        things cost and accepted "those in prison for our sake." She

        knew why she lived.  Like Edward, who had instructed himself to

        keep alive, who knew that the children in the ward could not be

        choice.  Only he was naive and had never yet decided who must

        live.  Who must be allowed to live.

             He would have to change.  Soon.  He would have to decide

        about his life.


             The Sunday they went out to visit Aviva, the wattle trees

                                                                Page 194


        had come out in thick clouds of yellow flowers like mimosa, and

        the new spring leaves showed bright and green, as though the

        dead veld near St Therese's had been a dream.  At the new house,

        they met Sidney, a heavy featured man with the confident bearing

        of success, and his son Cecil, about ten years old, still slight

        and somewhat shy.  David wondered how Cecil felt about the new

        arrangements for his life.  He seemed happy enough, set apart in

        his own world, playing with a red leather ball on the terrace

        outside where a maid brought sherry and biscuits.

             Soon Aviva said to Joan, "I want to show you the house.  Or

        should we started with the garden?  It's in a terrible mess.

        The peri-urban board won't allow anyone to water until the

        drought's over, and you can't start a garden without water."

             Sidney, obviously as proud as Aviva of the new house,

        added, "The swimming pool's been in two months, and we can't

        fill it.  I don't know what we'll do if the drought doesn't end

        soon."

        that threatened him.

             "Let's go inside, Aviva.  I'd like to see the house.  Do

        you want to come David?"

             He obeyed her wish to be alone with Aviva, and shook his

        head.Perhaps Joan would tell Aviva about St Therese's, and warn

        her of the sardonic bitterness that infected him now.

             They went off and David accepted Sidney's offer of the

        Sunday papers.  On the front page he read of another sabotage

        attempt in Cape Town.  Three telephone booths in the suburbs had

                                                                Page 195


        been blown up.  It seemed a pitiful and ill-conceived act.

        Another front page story reported that the Dutch Reformed Church

        had issued a statement criticizing petty apartheid.  The told

        the faithful not to address grown natives as Boy, Girl, or John,

        but to learn and use their real names.  Christians should not be

        rude and shout when giving orders.  Family servants should be

        allowed time to attend church on Sunday.  In too many whites

        homes they were kept busy with a big Sunday dinner instead.

        David set the papers aside.  What more could he learn about

        apartheid, after St Therese's.  He watched Cecil playing with

        his red leather ball.  It was like a ball he had once played

        with.  The ball had lodged in a gutter on the roof once, and

        months later he had found it, split, and with thew stuffing

        of a dead cat in the gutter, he'd seen once on the way to

        school.

             The indistinguishable chatter of the women in the house

        moved nearer and flitted away.  Once, when they must have been

        in a bedroom overlooking the terrace, he heard Aviva say,

        "Ruth's been sending me books about the Lamaze method, but I'm

        not sure I'll be able to find someone here who'll let me have

        the baby that way.  She says it was such a thrill for Michael

        too, to be with her, but I'm not sure that Sidney'd like that

        kind of thing."

             He could not hear Joan's answer, but from another room he

        imagined his own name in Aviva's questioning voice.

             Soon, when the women came out into the sunny garden again,

                                                                Page 196


        he saw that Aviva winked at Sidney as if to tell him that Joan

        knew.  He felt all their happiness separated from his life as

        though one must be an hallucination:  his, where St Therese's

        children clutched his ankles to hold him in their desert, or

        theirs.

             During dinner, a spread of roast beef, potatoes, and peas

        that might well be keeping the servants from church, Aviva asked

        Sidney about new medicines for measles.  Joan must have told her

        about St Therese's.  Sidney's business imported pharmaceutical

             "It wouldn't be worth it.  Measles is nothing these days.

        Cecil got over it in two days."

             "Joan's just been telling me a dreadful story."

             Joan said, "We've just been at a mission in Sekhukhuniland

        where the children were dying of it.  I could hardly believe it.

        I'd never heard of people dying of measles."

             "I'll have a look at some catalogues after lunch.  But I

        don't think there's anything we import."

             "Have you heard from Edward since your visit?" Aviva asked.

             "No.  And of course, we're rather worried for him"

             "Isn't that just like Edward, though]  You'll hear some

        time that he's moved on to a leprosy camp, or decided he'd

        rather waste his life looking after imbeciles or something."

             "He's not wasting his life, Aviva," Joan defended Edward,

        "He's running a hospital."

             "Oh pooh.  He's got no right to run off to the bundu to run

        tuppeny-hapenny hospitals.  Let the missionaries do that.  They

                                                                Page 197


        don't need Edward.  It's time for him to grow up."

             "What's not grown up about running a hospital?" David

        asked.

             "I've got nothing against the hospital.  Let them have a

        hundred thousand.  In fact, it's all money in our pocket, if one

             "I still don't see why."

             "All that pity and agony.  It's adolescent.  It was all

        very well when we were students.  Oh, those endless discussions

        we used to have.  They were fine, in their time.  It was very

        exciting too.  But it was a game, and we knew it was a game."

             "It wasn't a game for all of us."

             "Let's be honest, David.  We all went to the Treason Trial

        and things like that, as much for the excitement as for anything

        else."

             "Speak for yourself Aviva.  And I don't find pity and agony

        childish.  I think Edward's being more responsible than most

        people."

             "You know, I never used to understand what Aristotle meant

        about purging pity and terror.  Terror, yes.  One doesn't want

        to be a coward.  But pity?  I used to think everyone decent must

        feel pity.  Well, I woke up when Edward went off to the bundu
                                                                _____

        like that, just wallowing in pity.  It's so damn unreal]  It's

        silly, that's all.  He's not going to touch apartheid that way."
                                              _____

             "What else do you recommend?"

             "We're adults now.  It's time to get on with our lives and

        do the things that adults do."


             "And what do adults do."

             "We get on with our lives.  We get on with the work of the

        world."

             "Ignoring things like apartheid?"

             "I'm not saying we can ignore it.  We must do what we can.

        But within reason.  The world's full of injustice and starvation

        and all that.  You can't stop living because ten million people

        are dying in India."

             "Not in India, Aviva.  Here."

             "Here then.  It's the same thing.  You can't stop living."

             Just when David felt that it was pointless to argue with

        Aviva, tainting the good meal set before them, Sidney rallied to

        defend her argument.  "Aviva's right.  If you want to do

        something for the native you should get on with real work.  The

        native doesn't want a hospital in the bundu.  He's flocking to

        the cities, and even the government isn't going to stop that,

        for all their Bantustan nonsense.  And why?  It's because the

        cities have the highest standard of living.  That's what the

        native wants, just like anyone else.  And this country's where

        he gets it, apartheid or no apartheid.Why d'you think natives

        come here from all over Africa?  I'll tell you.  It's because

        we've got the highest standard of living, and that's what the

        native really cares about." Meeting blank faces from Joan and

        economy's going to do more about apartheid than a milion

        soft-headed liberals.  The Afrikaner's getting into business

        now.  Mark my words, once the Afrikaner's got a stake in the

                                                                Page 199


        economy, apartheid'll just melt away.  It just doesn't make

        economic sense."

             David raised his glass."Let's hope you're right, Sidney.

        It'll be a less bloody way than anything else in sight.  Here's

        to adult life and economic determinism]  Come on, Aviva.  Aren't

        you going to drink with me?"

             Aviva raised her glass, "Life and work," she toasted.

             "Oh, yes.  Even better.  Life and work]" David drained his

        glass and held it out for more wine.  He did not look at Joan,

        and did not join the conversation when she had steered it to the

        University Players' production of The Cherry Orchard and Aviva
                                          ___ ______ _______

        started to plan for them all to see it together.

             When the meal was finished, Cecil was sent to practise his

        violin for a hour, and Sidney, apologizing about the pressure of

        work, and promising to look up his catalogues for Joan, went off

        to attend to some business inside, which David suspected was a

        nap.  Joan, Aviva, and David went out to the terrace again.

             A stuporous feeling of three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon

        new leaves, hearing the women talk.  Near his hand, an early

        rosebud was flowering, red and spiral.  In a dreamy haze,

        portentous and certain, he felt that Aviva was right, and wished

        that he could live like her.  Humanly, the way people had always

        lived.  The very crumbs of a life like hers became history.

        Archaelogists and historians who gave their wives gifts

        understood, through living like Aviva, the brooches they found

        in tombs.  Their children's discarded toys became evidence of

                                                                Page 200


        human life and clues to each particular culture.  The very

        trifles of Aviva's life, her pots and combs, intelligible to all

        humans after, were the stuff of immortality that would survive

        ages of time lying upon them like the sod of graves.  Only he

        was divorced from the web of common humanity.  Knowing that a

        child playing with a ball was immortal, he refused children,

        comfortable meat, friends.  And wife.  He was chained to a

        desert where angry children threw stones at him.


             When they came home to the flat, after tea, he helped Joan

        off with her coat, but did not take off his jacket.  She looked

        at him, waiting for words she seemed to know before he spoke

        them.

             "I'm not going to stay, Joan."

             But as soon as he said them she became as white as if a

        table near the window.  He came to sit opposite her.  She did

        not seem to see him.  In the street below, an African was

        strumming a guitar and singing.  The muted traffic of Kotze

        street rose between them.  He heard the bells of a distant

        church, the almost indistinguishable clamour of a train, a

        recording from some building nearby of the Beethoven Ninth.

        Joan roused herself.

             "Then go," she said.

             "I love you, Joan, but I'm not free."

             "Then go.  Don't come back.  Don't phone me." Her voice and

        face were weary and cold.  "Don't torment me.  Don't destroy

                                                                Page 201


        me."

             "Joan, you know that I don't want to hurt you at all."

             Her hands formed fists on the table.  "Say what you do, or

        do what you say."

             "I can't stay.  I'll hurt you if I stay."

             "Then don't stay.  Leave.  Leave." He stood and left her at

        the table.  Her hands were still clenched.  She did not look at

        him.  He closed the door without having touched her.


             The cell's heavy walls closed round him.  The smell of

        prison entered his lungs.

             Piet Kreer, David Smith, Tertius Keyter, Hans Breitenbach,

        Harold Isaacs, Willem Schoeman, Guy Lechaptois.


             Kaplan told him that Rifkin would not need to see him any

        more.

             "I know.  He thinks I'm really mad."

             "Don't make everything so hard,David."

             David sat in his straight wooden chair and looked at the

        dark walls of the room they were sitting, dark brown at the

        bottom, dirty cream at the top.  The bars on the window blocked

        the world outside.  There was nothing left of life.  Only

        himself, in his mind, scolded by the older man who had his own

        reasons, his uncle in Russia, David did not know what was in his

        mind.  Weariness filled him like a rod of pain that forced him

        to hold himself upright, though what he wanted was only to be

                                                                Page 202


        prone.  Or not be.

             They would give him what he wanted.

             "Edward Quail will be coming to visit you tomorrow," Kaplan

        said.

             "Edward]  I've been thinking a lot about him."

             "He thought you must be."

             "Have you spoken with him?"

             "Yes.  He's a remarkable person."

             "Is he still in Sekhukhuniland."

             "It's happened so soon.  Poor Edward."

             Kaplan said nothing, as though he knew that David's words

        had not been spoken to him.

             They had little more to say, and Snyman soon led David back

        to the cell.


             Piet Kreer, David Smith, Tertius Keyter, Hans Breitenbach,

        Jacob Arndt, Louis Spaarman, Pretorius Eybers, James King,

        Harold Isaacs, Willem Schoeman, Guy Lechaptois.


             As Prinsloo led them out to exercise, he saw a group of

        African prisoners being hustled away.  It was a common prison

        sight, but suddenly he remembered an afternoon when he must have

        been about seven, when they had just moved to Bramley.  He had

        watched African prisoners paving the new street outside his

        house.  They made hot tar and mixed it with gravel, they poured

        it on the road, and the beat it smooth with flat bottomed

                                                                Page 203


        staves.  They were singing.  A leader carried the line of song

        and alternated with the chorus.  It was a hot afternoon, and the

        smell of tar carried all over the sunshine.  The convicts sang

        in complicated African harmonies, and beat the tar in the rhythm

        of their song.  He knew only a few words of the kitchen kaffir

        his mother used, and did not understand what they were singing

        about, but their voices and movements, rhythmic and continuous,

        barrel of hot tar and rippled over the road, and the white

        policemen who supervised the work kept shouting out in irritable

        hot voices.  The song did not pause, the staves lifted and fell,

        the beat smoothed the road, the tar smelt pleasant and black,

        and when the workmen left, he went to feel the road with naked,

        inquisitive toes.  When he came back home Sina was sitting on

        the back steps shelling peas and gossiping with the girl next

        door.  She exclaimed at his dirty feet and told him to wash

        before his mother came home.  The shadows of a fig tree dappled

        leaves down a whitwashed wall.

             The memory made him happy now, retrieving a state in which

        he was not guilty to either black or white.  He was alive.  He

        was who he had been, a prisoner too now, marched into the

        courtyard to walk his set course under the brilliant sky.  He

        was not mad.  He had done what he could for the children at St

        Therese's and those women sitting there on the ground, the way

        Sina sat.

             Snyman took him to a room he had not been to before to see

        Edward.  There was more light than in the office where he met

                                                                Page 204


        Kaplan, the room was bigger, and divided half way by a shallow

        wall and a grille of heavy wire mesh.  A bar held him away from

        the grille.  On the table near the back of the room, where

        hiss.

             When Edward came in, on the other side of the mesh, David

        saw that he had put on weight.  He looked rested, and sad.  He

        had not seemed sad at St Therese's.

             "Thank you for coming, Edward.  You're the only visitor

        I've had."

             "Joan will come soon.  She hasn't been strong enough yet.

        But she asked me to tell you that she'll be coming very soon."

             "I'm glad you've seen her.  How is she?"

             "It's been a hard year, of course."

             "Did she have a nervous breakdown?  Is that what it is?"

             "No, she was just exhausted, overstrained.  She's staying

        with Aviva now and they're looking after her.  She's fine.

        You'll see her soon."

             "I don't know what to say."

             "It doesn't matter."

             "I suppose it doesn't"

             Although Edward also had to sit a few feet away from the

        grille, David could see his truthful, green eyes.  "I hear

        you're leaving South Africa."

             "Yes.  St Therese's closed down."

             "Was it that measles epidemic?"

             "That, and Group Areas."


             "It's come so soon for you."

             "For both of us."

             Again silence joined them, full of things they could not

        mention in this prison room, with the tape recorder listening to

        their words.

             "I"ve come to say good'bye, David."

             "When are you leaving?"

             "Tomorrow night."

             David felt his eyelid twitch.  He put his hand to his cheek

        to hide it.

             "We won't see each other again," Edward said.  He had

        always been able to speak the hard truth.

             David looked at him through the metal veil.  "My lawyer

        says there's a chance they won't hang me."

             "My God, David." Tears were coming out of Edward's eyes.

             Terror flashed through David.  His indrawn breath sounded

        like a gasp.  "Ah]" His body pulled back and he clenched his

        fists into his thighs.  He felt his palms became damp, wet, and

        then drops of sweat falling off his forehead.  His shirt was

        clinging to his chest, wet with fear.Another gasp wrenched

        through him and came out like a sob.

             "David." Their eyes met in shame.

             "I want to tell you," Edward stopped, not able to talk.  He

        would never have done what you've done.  But I know that you did

        it the way I've done everything." Again Edward stopped, to take

        breath.  "They don't leave us other ways."

                                                                Page 206


             David gestured to the tape recorder on the table behind

        him.  Edward nodded.

             "I want you to know how much I admire your courage.  I know

        that my way can't last.  It'll come to your way." Edward stopped

        and sighed.  "Oh God]  Oh God]  I know you'd have done anything

        else, if there'd been anything else to do." He did not hide the

        tears pouring down his face.  He held empty hands towards David,

        like a beggar who shows that he has nothing.

             David also held out his hands, and then let them fall slack

        in his lap allowing Edward to see his tears and the sweat

        running off his forehead and cheeks.

             When Snyman touched him to take him away, he stood.  But at

        the door he turned back to say, "Live well, Edward," and waved,

        and smiled.

             Walking back to the cell he held himself very straight and

        with a fierce expression on his face that denied the tears.


             Piet Kreer, David Smith, Tertius Keyter, Hans Breitenbach,

        Jacob Arndt, Louis Spaarman, Pretorius Eybers, James King,

        Harold Isaacs, Willem Schoeman, Guy Lechaptois.

        to read, but the Bible's language pulled him back to fierce

        emotions.

             When night came, he could not sleep.  He heard the cars of

        the city outside.  Hillbrow was still awake.  He closed himself

        in the blanket.  Edward knew they would put him to death, and

                                                                Page 207


        madness would not save him.  The traffic ebbed.  Trains shunted

        back and forth in the night.  He had done what he must.

             All they had done was in vain.


             At first, when he left Joan, still searching for what he

        would do, he had thought about sabotage.  The few botched

        efforts of recent months disheartened him.  What was the use of

        blowing up telephone booths in the suburbs?  He wanted something

        stringent and irrestistible, something to reach the mine owners

        in Johannesburg and the government officials in Pretoria,

        something to rip under the hypocrisies of Parliament and make

        the whites see that they had made South Africa a barbarous

        terror.  The whites brazened it like gods, but they were mortal.

        He wanted something simple but portentous, impossible to deny,

        radiant with terror for the whites and hope for the Africans.

        He wanted something possible for one man.  It must be a crack to

        breach open the whole dam of retribution to be poured over the

        government and all its allies.  Something to undo them all and

        not yet know what.

             He wrote to Michael and told him that he had left Pretoria,

        and come back again.  He told him about the screams in the night

        and St Therese's.

             While he waited to hear from Michael, Pretoria seemed

        translucent to him;  the lightning of impending justice shone

        through it.  The school, the policemen, the persistent image of

        the Voortrekker Monument monument filled him with joy.  The new

                                                                Page 208


        sabotage laws thrilled him with justification.


             As before, Mrs Blake listened to the phone call that came

        for him at school.

             "Michael Henderson wanted me to give you a message.  Could

        I meet you this afdternoon?"

             "I teach until three."

             "Three thirty then.  I"ve got your address." The phone

        clicked.  David set it back in its cradle.  "Thank you, Mrs

        Blake."

             "Mr Spence doesn't like private calls at school.  That's

        the second time."

             "I'll warn people."

             "It's not you personally, you understand, but if everbody

        does it."

             In his dingy Pretoria hotel he marked compositions on the

        Discovery of Diamonds at the Cape.  He did not know what he

        hoped for.  If this was one of Michael's Congress friends he

        wouldn't be squeamish about their ideology or self-righteousness

        now.  Whoever was not against him would be for him.  Once it

        occured to him that the man might simply be a friend Michael had

        ent to comfort him, so that he could bear, sanely, what had made

        him mad.  No.  He would not be sane.  He would not bear his

        country's madness any more.  He would not lose this freedom and

        this joy.

             When he opened the door and saw the man, they looked at

                                                                Page 209


        each other for a few seconds.  The long, sensual lips and face

        wore traces of discretion, humour, and frequent, mobile use.

             "Francois Marais."

             Perhaps it was the name, or perhaps the thin build and dark

        complexion, the silence of the brown eyes - this man reminded

        him of Adrian.

             In the lounge of the Ambassador Hotel, where the dominess

        had congregated after the sessions of the synod that judged

        Muller, they ordered drinks.

             "Michael sends his best.  I saw him in London three days

        ago."

        newborn baby girl, articles he'd been writing.  He mentioned

        friends David had met at parties with Michael.  He said that

        Michael was eager to hear more about Aviva, that he'd written to

        Edward at St Therese's.  He did not mention Joan.  David knew

        that he was presenting his credentials.

             "He thought you might want to meet some of us."

             "Who's us?"

             "He said you'd had a conversation before he left." David

        waited.  "Do you remember Philip Brink?"

             "Yes."

             "I asked him about you." Francois smiled, acknowledging

        that he had been as careful about David's credentials as David

        about his.

             "I'd be surprised if he remembers me."

             "He does.  Very distinctly.  He said he'd like to meet you

                                                                Page 210


        again."

             "I'd like that too."

             "I'll fetch you on Saturday.  Five o'clock.  Outside

        Blystra's on Church Street."

             "I'll be there."

             "You know, the weather here may be bad for farming, but

        it's a great relief after England.  I can't get over how much I

             The first examination was over, though Francois would still

        be weighing him.

             After a while David said, "This may be silly, but do you

        know Adrian Marais?"

             "You mean the poet?  Looks like me a bit?" David nodded.

        "He's my cousin.  I haven't seen him for years."

             "He teaches at my school."

             "You like him."

             "I do, though I find it difficult..."

             Francois completed his thought, "Because of his politics?"

             "Yes."

             "Michael said you were finding it difficult to have

        anything to do with Afrikaners.  I'm an Afrikaner myself, you

        know.  Adrian's politics could change.  He feels uncomfortable

        with apartheid.  But I don't know what could do it for him.  His

        father's an elder of the church, treasurer of the party in the

        western Cape, you know, a pillar of the community, and Adrian's

        a very loyal person.  He'd have a hard time if he went against

        the family."

                                                                Page 211


             "Did you have a hard time?"

             "I've been a black sheep for so many years no one expects

        anything of me now.  It's much more convenient this way." He

        be up to all sorts of tricks together as boys."

             "In the Long Kloof?"

             "You know the Long Kloof."

             "Just slightly.  I visited once for a few weeks."

             "You must've heard about Lord Ford."

             "Oh yes."

             "Adrian and I used to steal those wonderful apples he used

        to send the King of England and everyone.  What a wonderful,

        crazy man]  They were good apples]  You won't tell Adrian you

        met me."

             "Of course not."


             On Saturday, Francois drove David to Soweto.  David had

        never been able to find his way among the township's dim, small

        houses and unlit streets when he drove here with Joan.  Of

        course the was no map for sale.  Perhaps in some government

        office, or police headquarters, there would be a drawing of this

        invisible city, the white city's shadow, though separated from

        its own afflicted self by an armouring belt of empty veld.  He

        felt strange at the party, where African men were drinking,

        laughing, a record played loud township jazz, and it seemed that

        no one feared a police raid, an unexpected relief to be among

        Africans instead of reading about them.  Even at St Therese's

                                                                Page 212

             Although he felt awkward at this party where no one knew

        him, and no one but Francois and he were white, but no one

        seemed to take notice.  Francois shepherded him from group to

        group, introduced him to more people than he could remember, and

        watched, David thought, to see how he was received.

             "Let's find Philip."

             He took David through a narrow passage, crowded with

        guests, to the kitchen at the back of the house, also crowded

        with guests.  Philip was there talking, with his chair tipped

        back against a wall.  When he saw them, he straightened his

        chair and waited.

             "You two know each other, Francois said.

             Philip stood, and shook David's hand.  "I rather hoped we'd

        meet again."

             "I'm surprised you rembered me."

             "I remembered.  You understood what I said though you

        didn't agree with it."

             "I've learnt more since that night."

             "Good."

             "But I don't know what to do about it."

             "What do you want to do?"

             "I haven't worked out what would be most useful, but that's

        what I'm thinking about."

             They could not continue this conversation without risk.

        From this step, he could be betrayed.  Without this step he

                                                                Page 213


        would have to act altogether alone.

             "The usdual risky things.  But I don't care about risks

        now.  They won't stop me."

             "What sort of risks?"

             "Banning, exile, prison, torture, death.  Some combination

        of the avove.  I don't think there's too much point in thinking

        about that.  My real question is, whatis worth doing now?"

             "I knew I could get to like you," Philip grinned.  "Let's

        meet again." He looked at Francois, raising an eyebrow, and

        Francois nodded.

             Soon after, they left the party.

             "All right, David," Francois said on the drive back to

        Pretoria.  "Could you meet me in Johannesburg on Wednesday,

        about six?"

             "Yes."

             "Good.  Make it outside St Mary's.  Know where it is?"


             Trevor Reed was the fourth at Wednesday's supper.  David

        had been to exhibitions with Joan where Trevor's bright

        abstracts and drawings of nudes had fed gossip about his

        successive wives, mistresses, entanglements with actresses,

             "During this meal," Francois warned, "which I have cooked

        with my own hands, conversation with be restricted to wit and

        weather.  After dinner we can be less serious."

             So they talked about art exhibitions and plays, and some

        new buildings in Pretoria whose architecture amused Trevor.

                                                                Page 214


             When Francois seated them in the living room he put a

        Beatles record on the turntable and turned the volume very loud

        for a moment as though by mistake.

             "Oops," he twiddled the knobs, getting the highest volume a

        few more times.Then he set the music to a more tolerable level

        and turned to them with a wink.

             "That's better.  Lat's start with you, David.  Philip

        quotes you saying you don't trust whites."

             "With few exceptions."

             "Like us, I hope."

             "I hope so."

             "Do you trust Africans?"

             "Yes.  No one has to tell them what's wrong with this

        country, or to doubt their motives in wanting change.  Of

        course, there are always a few Africans who could work with

        apartheid for some crazy reason.  But if we're talking about

        groups in general..."

             "Of course.  That's what it's about, isn't it.  I think I'd

        find it a relief.  Part of the whole insanity for me has been

        that I feel everything in a vacuum.  I read about dying people,

        but I don't know them, about atrocities, but it's all words.

        But I don't know any Africans to work with.  I hardly know you."

             "What were you thinking of doing?"

             Davis sipped the brandy Francois had given him.  They had

        examined him, but what did he know about them?  No matter.  He

        had decided to take this risk.

                                                                Page 215


             "Sabotage is one possibility."

             "You sound doubtful," Trevor prodded.

             "I am.  Sabotage is so easy to ignore.  I don't think many

        people are upset about the incidents we've had lately.  It

        doesn't feel serious.  At that rate we'll never have change.

        And when it comes to bombing telephone booths, it's comic]  or

        lunatic]"

             "If there were better targets?" Trevor pursued."

             "I'd feel better about it.  I'd love to see the Voortrekker

        Monument blown up."

             "I don't see why that'd be better than a railway line,"

        Philip sounded quizzical, as though the idea appealed to him.

             "The architecture is terrible," Trevor agreed, "But do you

             "Well David, it is our national shrine," Francois smiled at
                             __

        the ambivalence of his siituation, "And we'd be furious to see

        it blown up, but railway lines and electric pylons make more

        sense to me."

             "Perhaps the Voortrekker Monument isn't a good idea if you

        don't see the point of it.  But I feel that sabotage is really a

        way of saying something, and that to be convincing it's got to

        be said again and again, and on a wide scale.  Can we manage

        anything like that?"

             No one answered him.

             "What're the other possibilities?" Francois asked.

             "You have been thinking of others," Philip seconded

        Francois's invitation, looking at David.  And immediately it was

                                                                Page 216


        like that night they'd first met at the Discussion Club, when

        Philip seemed able to draw out of David thoughts he had hardly

        dared to think.  That night he had said he didn't trust whites;

        now he said, "I have been thinking of one other way.  It's

        simple, it's not going to be ignored, and it doesn't take many

        to start with.  It'd show that we're as serious as we can get."

        He hesitated, feeling it difficult to say what he must."

             "Well, tell us.  The suspense's killing me," Philip joked.

        speaking elliptically.

             But they understood.  No one spoke.

        Then as a deliberate act of leadership, Francois broke the

        silence.  "What do you say, Philip?"

             "It's worth thinking about."

             "Trevor.?"

             "No]  It's murder]  I don't want to commit murder]"

             "Do you want to say anything to that,David?"

             "Yes.  We've got to know what we're trying to do." He

        looked round.  The others were listening, not so apalled by what

        he had said that they would not listen at all.  He began to feel

        that he was happy.  He had trusted them, and he was talking to

        them as he had not dared talk to anyone.  He was not all alone

        in his hatred, and his need to do something about apartheid.

        "What I want is a complete reversal of power in this country.

        In other words, revolution." He looked at Trevor and Trevor

        nodded.  Philip was leaning back in his chair watching, as

        though still curious about how far David had come.  "There's

                                                                Page 217


        never been a revolution without people getting hurt and killed.

        I mean even innocent people, decent people, women and children.

        If we can't stomach that, we have to live with what we've got

        now.  We can't change it without bloodshed."

        happiness bursting out of every pore of his being.  He has

        risked the bitterest thoughts of his mind, and Philip had

        understood him, and accepted the truth of what he saw.  He was

        not alone.

             David took up what he had been saying, looking at Philip.

        "Of course innocent people are dying right now, women and

        childrewn, because apartheid is a killer.  Let's not pretend -

        doing nothing is murder in another way."

             "But it's not the same as deliberate murder," Trevor

        protested.  "No.  It's too horrible.  And it'll only turn people

        against us."

             "Philip, what do you think?" Francois seemed to be the

        chairman of their group.

             "I'd like to know how David thinks terrorism can do what

        sabotage won't."

             Francois gestured to David to speak."Fear," David answered.

             "The Mau Mau killed thirty six people, and the British left

        Kenya.  I'm not sure what the figures were in Palestine to get

        the British to leave there."

             "We're not going to leave, David." Francois objected.  "I'm

        not a settler, or an Englishman.  I'm an African."

             "Of course we're Africans.  That's why we're in thid.

                                                                Page 218

        Our rulers call themselves Europeans."

             "Not in my language," Francois retorted, "Ons is
                                                       ___ __

        Afrikaners]"
        ___________

             "You really do identify with the."

             "Yes, dammit.  I'm not an Englishman, and I'm not going to

        admit that I'm less than human because I'm Afrikaans.  You damn

        Englishmen are always pushing us into that corner."

             "I say chaps," Philip interrupted, "Let's not degenerate

        into white politics."

             "I apologize," David said.

             "It's all right," Francois accepted, "We inherit a

        difficult history."

             "Well, how do you feel about terrorism?" Philip drew

        Francois back to their topic.

             "I also don't like it," Francois answered, "It's too hard

        to control.  It's too easy to use for any reason, by anyone,

        against anyone - to settle old scores, to get a man's wife or

        his farm, or anything.  In our situation it could release race

        war.  It's too damn dangerous."

             "Actually," Philip said,"If the two of you feel that way,

        we should keep away from terrorism for the time being.  We've

        bloodshed in the long run.  But we may not be there yet.  We

        don't have to set out to kill, though we may find ourselves

        coming to every extreme of violence in the end."

             "I do feel that patience is also bloodshed," David said.

                                                                Page 219


             "It may be.  But If Francois and Trevor feel strongly

        against terror we have to weigh that."

             David looked at Philip, feeling the joy of trusting him.

        "You don't object on other grounds?"

             "No.  One doesn't resort to terror when there're other

        means, but when there aren't...We need to think about it more

        carefully."

             "I'll make some fresh coffee," Francois said, "Help

        yourself to the cognac.  Trevor?"

             "You certainly know how to live," Trevor held out the

        goblet whose stem he'd been rolling between his fingers like a

        pencil.

             "Gather ye rosebuds," Francois joked.  He reminded David of

        Edward, accepting petty luxuries because his whole life denied

        them.

             Philip was standing near David now, and said in an

        undertone," I wouldn't have guessed you'd come as far as this."

             "It has been quite a road," David agreed, smiling slightly

        at their instant power to recognize each other's meaning.

        Philip knew what he had been thinking and feeling.  He'd been

        feeling similar things himself.  David looked into his face,

        "Tell me, why did our discussion go the way it did?  It felt as

        if you've never talked about these things before."

             "We haven't," Philip answered.

             "But how could you avoid it?  You must have thought about

        it."

             "I think many things I don't talk about," Philip answered

                                                                Page 220


        in a sardonic voice, and raised his glass as if to toast David,

        as if to recognize that David too had much he did not say.

             David raised his glass, to answer Philip's silent toast and

        make his own.


             Two days later the Special Branch raided several homes in

        Johannesburg, Pretoria and the townships.  David saw Trevor's

        name among the "suspected Communists." Their next meeting was in

        a flat Francois described as "a friend's."

             Here too Francois put a record on the turntable, and set it

        to its full volume a few times before they started to talk.

        Then he turned to Trevor, "Tell us about the raid."

             "It was just the usual.  They took some books, none of them

        banned, and copies of the New Statesman.You know what really

        interested them?  Government Gazettes." Trevor laughed."

             "Why on earth did you have any?" David asked.

             "I must have wanted to read the Suppression of Communism

        Bill years ago.  I didn't even know I had these things."

             "Hmm.  No one could have a good reason for wanting to read

        that stuff," David joked.

             "We'd better all go through our things and see that there's

        nothing interesting," Francois suggested, and before the end of

        the evening, he asked David, when they were alone,

             "Could I give you some papers?  There's nothing dangerous

        in them, but the S.B does have my name, and I'd rather not have

        these things around.  You're still an unknown."

             When David looked round his hotel room, he hardly knew what

                                                                Page 221


        to do with the papers.  He did not want to leave the brown

        envelope in open view.  The cupboards and desk seemed inanely

        obvious.  He put the envelope in a suitcase with some old socks

        and underwear.  Anyone could have found them easily, but he

        couldn't think of anything better.  In the company of the

        others, conspiratorial manners seemed natural.  Alone, the felt

        unreal and melodramatic.


             Either the police were intensifying their activity or David

        was being tested.  Francois phoned at the hotel.

             "Yes."

             "You free this afternoon?"

             "Yes."

             "I'll see you outside Hamiltons, Church Street, in ten

        minutes."

             "Fifteen." The phone clicked.

             The hotel owner, sitting in a glass-walled office, looked

        up as David walked past.  Could he see any change?

             He went to the toilet, fetched his jacket and wallet,

        combed his hair and straightened his tie.  He looked the same as

        he always looked in the mirror, beginning to resemble his

        father;  but he had moved into a new world now, and it would

        upset the old.

             Francois opened the back door of the car.  Driving towards

        Fountains, he said, "Norman, meet David.  David, meet Norman.

        You'll be driving towards Basutoland.  You could try to get some

                                                                Page 222


        sleep on the back seat, David.  Save these for the trip back."

        He gave David two rolls of Lifesavers.  " Don't stop, and don't

        wait too long after Norman gets out.  Drive back immediately.

        I'll hand over to you now." He stopped near a clump of trees.

        David saw that his own car was parked under them.  Norman took

        the wheel, and Francois walked away without a backward glance.

        like a child.  High clouds heaped over the Free State, and

        clustered like grapes in some inconceivable promised land, huge,

        godly, and weighty, pressing against the platter of air that

        held them up in the sky.

             "If you're not sleeping," Norman said, "Let's change

        places." They stopped in a stretch of veld.  For a moment David

        heard the majestic silence, so still it seemed he could hear

        grass thrust against grass, earth clicking under the footfalls

        of small animals, the nearly imperceptible tick and rustle of

        stillness in living country.

             Soon he heard Norman's soft snore.

             In the small dorps of the Eastern Free State, churches and

        houses were built of sandstone.  Their honey colour sheltered a

        few dahlias and roses.  David wished the amplitude and noble

        dignity of this space and light could find some echo in the

        people who lived here.  But this platteland was where the most

        pitiless Nationalists came from.  Here they were as ignorant as

        stone, as obstinate as drought.  Thse Afrikaners never expressed

        doubt, like those from the Cape, they knew nothing of the qualms

        David sensed in Adrian.  Here they knew, with the assurance of

                                                                Page 223


        thew sun, that they were right.

             He drove through their dorps with an anger that fused into
                                         __

        judgement was at hand.  In the highlands of Kenya, a golden land

        like this, the weak had overturned the strong and taught them

        that even though they were white, they were human, they were

        mortal.  That day was coming here, and when it came children

        would drink the milk their masters had wasted, and men would

        slaughter the cows they had tended.  There would be feasting and

        singing.  And after the joy, every man would work for his own

        good.  He would build a house and live in it.  He would plant a

        field and eat from it.  The cattle he tended would be his

        wealth.  The earth would replenish his life.  He would govern

        the country for his children to be men in it.

             Ah, he mocked himself, it wasn't going to be that easy.  It

        wasn't going to be that good.  He didn't know what society the

        Africans would construct after the revolution.  He couldn't read

        whether Luthuli's generosity and Mandela's courage would rule,

        or whether there would be pettiness, squabbling, and a new

        tyranny after the old.  It did not matter.  Nothing could be

        worse than apartheid.  He would open the gates.  He would let

        the water through.  Let history flow.

             It was dark before they reached the border.  Norman woke

        up.

             "How do you feel about driving without lights until we get

             "I'll try."

                                                                Page 224


             It was slow, but after about thirty minutes, Norman said,

        "This'll be a good place."

             Through the open window, he shook David's hand, "Give me a

        few minutes before you start the car again.  Thanks."

             "My pleasure."

             High blanks of darkness that must be mountains blocked out

        the brilliant stars shining over a world David couldn't identify

        as the same in which this morning he had ignored van der Walt's

        talk at the back of the class, marked twenty compositions on the

        Discovery of Gold, and talked about upcoming exams with Richard

        and Adrian in the Common Room.  The feel of seat leather under

        his tired torso, and a new hunger, assured him that this was the

        world he lived in.  Perhaps the other was a dream.  The stars

        were so bright he could see their burning colours, red and blue.

        There were galaxies aeons away.  The world was infinite, and he

        felt extended to its depths.

             He turned the car cautiously in the darkness.  A few miles

        later he switched on the headlights.  He could feel the bones in

        his back, the muscles in his neck, hunger grinding his stomach.

        He wanted to sleep now, and forbade himself to stop at a cafe

        for a cup of coffee.  Once, he stopped to urinate.

        garages that showed Johannesburg was near he felt more impatient

        to squeeze the time short, to stop, to rest, to eat.  Unobserved

        light sweetened the sky, and the sun suddenly flashed in the

        rearview mirror.  As he turned through the sleeping streets of

        the smoky city, reflections ran along the dashboard and chrome

                                                                Page 225


        knobs.  It was the new day.

             Francois seemed to know his happiness as if he had expected

        it.

             "Hullo," he shook David's hand as though he must touch him.

        "Coffee's ready.  Come into the kitchen and sit down."

             "I'll stand, if you don't mind."

             "You want to shower first or to eat?"

             Water brought his naked skin to life again.  It poured over

        his head, face and body.  He pressed the lather to himself, he

        rubbed himself dry.  Everything was new, alive, clean.

             "How many slices of toast?" Francois asked.

             "Ten, but I'll start with two."

             "I didn't like giving you a job like that without warning,

        but you were the best person I could find in a hurry, especially

        because you don't know Norman so you can't tell anything about

        him."Francois handed him a mug of coffee and set a plate of eggs

        and ham on the table.

             "What time did you drop him?"

             "I don't know.  It was dark."

             "Better get a luminous watch." Francois did not ask about

        coffee before he poured.  "And a car."

             "I might be out of a job at the end of the year.  I'd

        better tell you about it, but not now."

             "Here." Francois brought another plateful of eggs and ham.

             Teaching after the sleepless night was strenuous, but his

        custom of silence stood him in good stead.  He wondered how the

                                                                Page 226


        boys would think of him if they guessed.  Perhaps his new sense

        of power showed, in spite of his tiredness.  Van der Walt gave

        him no trouble in IVB's class on the Jameson Raid.  In the

        Common Room, Adrian said, "You look tired.  I'll bring your

        tea." He felt himself tempted to say, You're just like your

        cousin.  He forbade himself to think of the connection.


             The four arranged their meetings around visits to

        bioscopes, picnics, swimming and tennis, so that there would

        seem nothing but inane pleasure in the time they spent together.

        There were no more parties in townships, but once or twice David

        met Africans at Francois's flat.  In the large building

        accomodating divorcees, homosexuals, and artists, no one made

        trouble about Francois's guests.  Once David met Mabotoana, when

        as "one of us." He was surprised that Francois should be so

        open.

             "Don't worry, I've known him for years, and he may work

        with us some time.  David wondered why he had never met Francois

        among Michael's friends, the people Joan knew.  Perhaps there

        were more than he knew about in this world that had been

        invisible to him.

             They decided against terrorism.  For the time being, they

        would aim for a series of explosions on railway lines all over

        the country to give them an appearance of poluar strength.  They

        would not endanger human life.  They would leave red flags to

        warn approaching trains.  School holidays would be coming soon,

                                                                Page 227


        and it would be a good time to scatter and examine their sites.

        David bought a car ands moved to a flat where he could be sure

        of greater privacy.  And Francois invcited them to spend a

        weekend with him near Hartebeestpoort Dam.  They would seem to

        spend their time swimming, reading, and climbing the koppies.

             The dynamite magazine was in a small cave in one of those

        koppies.


             When David handled the sticks, they seemed curiously

        inadequate, wrapped in heavy brown paper, twelve inches long,

        not particularly dangerous.  Francois showed them where to

        paper at the base of each cylinder.

             David held a stick to his nose to smell them.  Francois

        watched him, quizzically.  Immediately David felt how the smell,

        like chemical fertilizer, began to make him feel sick.  Dynamite

        was not as passive as he'd thought.  It maintained a purr of

        violence all the time.

             The detonators, in a another magazine, were less

        interesting:  bright caps on two legs of plastic sheathed

        electric wire, like toys.  They practised exploding a few, using

        torch batteries.  David remembered an advertising sign in

        Soweto, "Freedom from fear.  Eveready batteries."

             At the house they practised timing with clocks, batteries

        and electric wires.  They worked in silence.  Their secrecy hid

        them freom their own eyes.  Hours of pretended leisure spent in

        a dazzle off the dam's water, under the unconcerned blank of the

        sky, wrapped them in isolation.  Several times they swam, and

                                                                Page 228


        the water washed dry concentration off them, refreshed them with

        living sweetness.

             At sunset they built a fire and cooked a braaivleis.

        Afterwards they sat round the fire singing songs David had first

        heard at the Treason Trial, songs from the Defiance Campaign and

        the Congress, from the Civil Rights movement in America that

        from childhood and scouts and picnics, school hymns, Gilbert and

        Sullivan, musicals.  Nostalgia and resolution drew them into a

        bond as impenetrable as their silence had been.

             In sleep, that night, Trevor cried out, gave his name, said

        "I want to see my lawyer," and cried out again, "Aaah." Then his

        words became an indecipherable suppressed appeal.Francois

        switched on the light.


             "Don't hit me.  Don't]" Trevor sat up, still dreaming.

             "Wake up, Trevor.  It's O.K.  There's no one here."

             Trevor's wide, blank stare focussed and gave way to

        recognition.

             "I'm sorry.  It was a dream"

             "Yes, we know.  There's nothing to be sorry about.  We

        can't prevent our dreams," Francois reassured him.

             But afterwards, lying sleepless, hearing each other's

        breathing, they all listened to the night.

             As if to confirm Trevor's nightmare, a neighbour came next

        day to find out what was happening on the Celliers farm.  They

        watched the long dust trail of his car coming near.  When he

        stopped the car he found them all sunning and reading.

                                                                Page 229


             "Hullo.  Botha's the name.  I was jes wondering who's on

        Franz Celliers's land."

        nephew, Francois Marais.  We met at Karl Lamprecht's wedding.

        Remember?"

             Botha said he remembered, and Francois took him through a

        long, genealogical conversation about the Celliers and Marais

        clan.  David noticed that reminscences and jokes did not prevent

        Botha from letting his eyes, only apparently vague, wander over

        the props they had prepared for him, the coloured towels, sun

        tan lotion, cigarettes, sandals, magazines - all symptoms of

        careless idleness.  When Botha left, Francois walked where he

        had walked and sat where he had been sitting.  Finding the beer

        bottle Botha had emptied he smashed it vehemently on the ring of

        stones round the fire's ashes.  They each had their own rage and

        terror.  He was not alone.

             "We should probably talk about what happens if we get

        caught," Francois said.  "Why don't you say a few things,

        Philip."

             So Philip told them about the characteristic team of harsh

        and friendly warders and interrogators, about the temptation to

        feel guilty.

             "Do you want to talk about torture," Francois prompted.

             "Not my favourite subject.  But yes.  I'll say this.

        There's not much point in describing what they do - it gets

        better and they change it all the time - but they've got

                                                                Page 230


        resist.  In fact, it's probably better to break quickjly, when

        you might still be able to control what you say a bit."

             "Anything else?" Francois insisted.

             "No.  It's impossible to foresee too much.  Everything'll

        change.  Your whole sense of reality dissolves.  You can't

        remember or concentrate.  You feel worthless and depressed.  And

        then if they torture you...the main thing is to remember not to

        feel guilty, not to try to be heroic.  I don't think we should

        think too much about these things."

             "O.K." Francois said.  So they swam again, and made a fire,

        and a braaivleis, and sang watching the sparks die as they flew

        up to the stars.

             Before they set out the next day, Francois had them check

        their code for contacting each other during the two weeks when

        they would not meet, and gave them directions on the escape

        route through Basutoland.

             "If you need it, one of Mabotoana's friends will get in

        touch with you at this house in T.Y.  Learn the map and then

        destroy it.  This is only for an emergency, if we have to get to

        England.  We shouldn't need it.  We'll be in touch again on the

        twelfth.  O.K.?"

             They shook hands before they parted.

        David did not resign.  Teaching was irrelevant now.  The school

        felt like a museum, displaying a life already past.

             On Thursday night someone knocked on David's door.  The

                                                                Page 231


        police]  But they weren't banging]  How could he escape?  Should

        he escape.  There was nothing damaging in the flat.  He'd hidden

        the dynamite and detonatrors in the abandoned house on Richard's

        preoperty.  There were Francois's papers, but he'd said they

        weren't particularly incriminating.  The knock came again.  In

        despair about doing anything else, David opened the door.

        Philip slipped in and closed the door quickly.

             "They've got Francois and Trevor."

             "When?"

             "Tonight."

             "How did you hear?"

             "Mabotoana sent a friend to warn me."

             "What'll we do?"

             "I'm driving to Basutoland."

             "Do you think we can still use that route."

             "Yes.  Francois set it up so that it wouldn't need him.

        But we've got to use it quickly."

             "O.K.  Have you changed your numberplates yet?"

             "No.  I wanted to warn you first."

        longed to meet another man in his company to have a friend like

        this.


             He felt himself standing straighter with happiness, meeting

        Philip's eyes.

             "Let's go." He took Francois's papers and packed the rest

        of the suitcase.  They looked over the flat.  Nothing except the

        haste of leaving, the bed unmade, food in the fridge, clothes

                                                                Page 232


        left behind, would betray him.  If the police came at all, they

        knew too much.  He wrote a note for the man who cleaned the

        flat, and ten rands as a Christmas box.  He wrote another note

        to the building superintendant explaining that a family illness

        had called him away suddenly, and that he'd probably be back

        before New Year's.  He noticed his alarm clock and took it.

             "Whose car shall we leave behind?" Philip asked.

             "Mine.  But we'd better drive to a place I know to change

        the plates." He led the way to Richard's abandoned house.  They

        worked without speaking.

             "Better drive your car to somewhere it'll look innocuous

        parked for a few days," Philip suggested.  "I'll follow you."

             "I'll come later.  I'll meet you in T.Y.  I'm going to do

        something."

             "What?"

        anything."

             "You can't go ahead with the old plan."

             "No, I see that."

             "I think we should just get out.  Quickly.  Before the

        escape route's cut off too."

             "Look.  Dont't wait for me.  I'll come."

             "Do you want me to stay?"

             Again David felt the happiness Philip's friendship was

        bringing him.

             "No.  We've agreed always to work alone."

             "If they get you, it's the last thing." Philip looked at

                                                                Page 233


        him.  David knew they both weighed their danger.  He had made

        his decision.  He could not turn away from action any longer.

             "It may be the last thing anyhow."

             "I'll stay with you," Philip offered.

             "I don't want you to." He looked at Philip, insisting on

        his will, smiling, insisting on their friendship.  There would

        be time for more later.  Philip smiled."I'll see you in T.Y.,"

        he consented.  They did not need more words with each other but

        before parting they stood for a moment with their arms on each

        other's shoulders.

             David waved as Philip drove away.  He decided to change his

        the dynamite, remove the glass from the clock face, fix the

        wires, the battery, the detonator.  He worked quickly, listening

        to his own breathing, unconsciously noticing and remembering the

        crack in the concrete floor, hearing his own steps, the click of

        objects as he set them down, the significant tick of the clock.

        When he wiped the glass face clean and shattered it, he

        remembered how Francois had smashed Botha's beer bottle.  He

        carried the suitcase to the boot of the car.  He hid the

        envelope of papers Francois had given him under the spare tyre.

        The sky was deepening, birds stirred, morning was coming.  He

        felt very calm and acute.  He would have time to change the

        plates.  By the time he had finished, sharp rays reached through

        the trees and sank into him.  The fire of the sun met a fire

        inside him.

             Daily traffic thickened on the road to Johannbesburg.  He

                                                                Page 234


        passed the Voortrekker Monument and the Air Force base,

        desultory farms and cafes.  He must do it in Johannesburg.  In

        Pretoria he did not feel comfortable, could not trust himself to

        know what stood behind each corner.  He had to know and be calm

        and confident, honed by rehearsal, like Joan before a

        performace.  He passed Alexandra Township, smoky on his left.

        Tonight his act would be known there and would shine like a

        in blood, as it had to come.  The time was coming.  He carried

        it.  It smelled like fertilizer.  Louis Botha Avenue was jammed

        with cars and buses.  The Africans were still coming into town

        in packed green buses and bicycles, but white's cars were coming

        now too.  David looked at the faces of drivers, thoughtless in

        their capsules.  Their time was coming.  He looked at white

        faces at bus stops.  Schoolboys were gathering for the last

        inane day.  Soon he would phone Mrs Blake with an excuse that he

        was not well and could not teach today.  But he was well.  He

        was well.  All was well and would be better.  He laughed behind

        the wheel.

             He drove into the centre of town and looked for a parking

        place.  A south side would be best, so the sun wouldn't shine on

        the car and heat it.  He would do everything neatly.  Today he

        would be meticulous.  He paid the meter and listen to the whirl

        and click that registered his legitimacy.  He walked to a cafe.

        He ordered breakfast and bought a newspaper.  There was nothing

        in it about Francois or Trevor.  Perhaps they had been arrested

        too late.  Perhaps no one had told the papers.  A small item

                                                                Page 235


        caught his attention.  During the night, police had conducted

        raids in the townships.  He passed over the other stories, a

        front page article on children looking forward to the holidays,

        day bill winning a fierce way through Parliament.  He phoned the

        school and left a message with Mrs Blake, reverting to the story

        of a sudden illness in the family.  He finished breakfast.  He

        wanted to wait until town was more full.  He wanted a time when

        any white person would think, "I could have been there." He

        would create a universal vulnerability today.  He could wait for

        the ripest time.

             In the library, the reading room was peaceful and almost

        empty.  There were no university students.  Exams must be over

        for them too.  He carried books by Marc Bloch among the gleaming

        desks.  He was going to enjoy this silent morning, the sun

        coming in quietly from high windows, the mannerly librarians who

        would bring him, if he asked for them, obscure and learned texts

        from the stacks.  Evidence of past civilization.  Connections to

        others who had been alive.

             In the middle of the morning he left the library to buy a

        portable radio.  He would want to hear the news.  He took it to

        the car and drove to a new parking place.  Today he would commit

        no offences.  At lunch time he went out again, bought sandwiches

        and took them to the car to eat later.  He opened the boot and

        carried the suitcase to the men's room in the library.He wound

        the clock and set the wires so that in half-an-hour they would

        make a closed circuit.  What a leap of fire it would be]  What a


        flash of justice]  He snapped the suitcase shut, delighted with

        the precision of the click.

             Down the cool dimness of the interior stairs, down the

        shallow steps of the main entrance, past the thin shade of the

        librarey gardens, past the glare of buses and tram rails, past

        the Indian flower sellers near the Cenotaph, past the drab City

        Hall, past the planting on Rissik Street where political

        meetings used to be held (his father had marched past in the

        Torch Commando).  At the intersection he had to wait for the

        light to change.  It was a brilliant noon.  He passed the Post

        Office.  He came to the shops of Eloff Street.  He turned left.

        Elegant dresses peered at him.  Jewelery.  Glazed fruit.

        Pianos.  They deserved it.  The station waited for him.

             He followed the signs, Blankes Alleen - Whites Only.  They
                                    _______ ______ _ ______ ____

        gave him permission to go where he was going.  A policeman was

        loitering in the entrance of the new white's concourse.  He

        walked past, confidently.  Today he would use his rights as a

        white man joyfully.  Near a sign marked Information he stopped
                                                ___________

        with the suitcase.  He pretended to look as if he was waiting.

        Leaving the suitcase, he went to a window displaying African

        curios for sale.  The time was getting close.  He walked out

        moving quickly like a man who has important business to do.

        There were phones on the other side of the street.  He found it

        difficult to focus on the numbers in the directory.  He forced

        himself.  He dialled.  He smelt urine and dead cigarettes.  He

        watched the traffic through the glass.

                                                                Page 237


             "Hello, Star office," the woman said.
                     ____

             "This is the beginning," he told her.

             The rich boom of the explosion reached him, almost lost in

        city noises.  He put the phone down.

             A crowd was beginning to form, pressing to see the

        commotion.  He waited, walked to it, allowed himself to be

        carried with it towards the station, to be pushed behind the

        throng, to peer in from the edges, to see nothing, give up and

        walk away, to find the car, to take the road to Basutoland.


         


                               JUDGEMENT

                                                                Page 238


             As soon as they brought him into the court where the judge

        wore red and the barristers wore black, and policeman crowded

        around him, and the wooden galleries pressed down, he knew it

        would be death.  His life had sent him to this blood and

        the others, to condemn him.

             Kaplan, beside him, assured him that he was lucky to get

        Justice Kok who had a reputation for fairness and mild

        sentences.  David saw the room, wooden as a church, the benches

        like pews, heard the oaths administered, and knew that they

        brought God and the law together against him.  He looked for

        Joan.  She was wearing the dark dress, like mourning, she wore

        when she visited him.  It had become her habit.  Her darkness

        also condemned him.


             He had waited for her first visit as if it were a threat.

        So much rubble lay between them.  He didn't know who she would

        find him to be in the wreckage.  A lunatic?  A murderer?  What

        else could he be?

             When Snyman took him to the room he said, "I'll stand here

        at the door.  I don't have to come in."

             Thank you.  I appreciate it." But he dreaded the privacy

        Snyman had taken care to give him.  He waited for Joan.

             She hesitated at the door, as though she also feared their

        meeting, or couldn't see where to move.  Immediately he

        recognized that his fears had been a fig leaf of false pain put

        on to protect him from this - no protection after all.  Her body

                                                                Page 239


        walked as though it had learned to have a set place.  The

        been drained, not the way a child's illness drains, still

        promising recovery, but by an erosion she would never recover

        from.  At the chair, she hesitated a hair's breadth, as though a

        film over her eyes was beginning to make her blind and hesitant.

        He saw how she bent to put her bag on the floor.  It was a

        movement he would never have noticed.  Now it seemed middle

        aged;  and her hands, when she held them loose in her lap,

        seemed powerless and empty.

             But there were no lines in her face.  It was only the way

        she moved that proved him completely accused, judged, guilty,

        and sentenced.  He waited for her to adjust to the dim, bare

        room, the grille, and him on the other side.

             "Are you feeling better?" he asked.

             "Yes.  I'm quite strong now."

             "You've lost weight."

             "Aviva says I'm lucky."

             "How is she?"

             "Putting on weight."

             "You're still staying with them."

             "Yes.  I don't like being alone."

             "I'm sorry."

             She shrugged, as though there was no way to deal with his

        apology.

             He nodded.  "Will you go to England or Europe afterwards?"

                                                                Page 240


             "I don't know."

             "Wouldn't it be better?"

             "I don't know."

             Mr Moodley had said, "We don't think of the future." He had

        cramped her into that dilemma.

             They both waited for a new sentence.

             "How's Sidney?"

             "Fine.  Also excited about the baby.  Cecil too, though

        he's a quiet child, and it's hard to tell."

             "What've you been doing?"

             "Practising, as I always do." She made a noise that would

        have been a laugh before.  "Michael wrote to me.  He's written

        to you too, but they say you're not allowed letters."

             "They didn't tell me."

             "He asked me to say that when you were in Pretoria you

        talked about being brave - he thinks you have been brave."
                                                 ____

             "Will you thank him, for me.  He must know how much it

        means to hear from him here."

             "He does.  He said it's one of the hardest things since

        he's left, that he can't visit you now."

             "Edward's told him about seeing you.  He told me too."

             At Edward's visit terror had soaked him.  Now, he could

        feel nothing but a distant sadness because Joan had been

        quenched.


             When she visited again she brought more messages that

                                                                Page 241


        suggested support, or sympathy, or understanding.  She never

        said what she felt.  She told him news of the world outside, but

        he found the life where people would still be marrying and

        catching buses, hearing music, harder and harder to imagine.

        The prison was his normal life.  His world had become Prinsloo,

        Snyman, Gericke, Kaplan, the books Kaplan had brought for him

        languishing in the front office, Joan visitingn, wearing her

        dark dresses.

             The last visit before the trial he said, "You don't have to

        come to court, Joan."

             "I know."

             But she did not say whether she would protect herself from

        the stares and the reporters.


             They brought their witnesses out, people he had known and

        people who had stood in the periphery of the action.  All

        testified, all would concur.  Although he was dead in their

        judgement, while they compelled him to wait they kept him

        unravelled the meanings of his life.  He stood in the evidence

        piling round him like litter.  Strange wrappings, words he had

        not remembered, fragmented conversations, fell around him as

        though he had become, like them, something for the dustbin, the

        coffin.  They would not dispense with this ceremony, although

        they had already judged him.  They needed the ritual to

        exonerate them - so they enacted contest:  mercy, understanding,

        and forgiveness on the side of the defence;  justice, order,

                                                                Page 242


        peace, respect, safety, decency and civilization on the side of

        the prosecution.  David waited.  Their ritual conceded a place

        for him to speak.  Without hope of revocation, he would speak,

        and pit his justice against their justice.


             They called Mr Moodley and Munira against him, and he

        discovered that they had been imprisoned under the ninety-day

        act passed while he was in prison.  Mr Moodley's hands trembled

        all the time.  Munira's skeleton called for attention.

             He had not thought about the passage that linked his life

        to theirs, or how, if his life collapsed, he would bring theirs

        down too, and tumble prison down on top of them like a rockfall.

             He hardly heard what they said in court, crushed by other

        questions.  What had happened to Munira's family without her

        protection?  Without Mr Moodley's solicitude?  Didi's friends

        must feel justified.

             The prosecutor asked what business they had had with David.

        Why did they want B.A.s?  Were they dissatisfied with their

        lives?  Had they ever discussed politics with David?  What were

        their political views?  How had David come to know them?  They

        knew Michael too - did they know of his activities in London?

             When David prompted Kaplan to object, Dietz insisted that

        he must demonstrate that David had long been associated with

        dangerous characters.

             Munira?  Mr Moodley?

             They gave their answers with fearful politeness.  At first,

                                                                Page 243


        David thought they were afraid of the police, the judge, the

        court, the barristers, the crowds in the gallery.  Then he

        realized that their faces were always turned away from him.

             He wanted to repudiate their averted faces, to explain that

        he would never wish them any harm and could not hurt them.  He,

        who had toppled prison onto them?

             Munira was wearing a blue sari, although she usually wore

        European clothes.  He recognized it.  They had all three gone to

        see Shakuntala when an Indian dance company visied Wits, and
            __________

        Munira, proud to share her history with the daners and the play,

        To hide the graceless protrusion of bones behind its lavish

        folds?  Or because she robed herself like the judge and

        barristers for the ceremony of condemnation?  He was glad to see

        it, as he had been glad to see the saris and Indian features of

        the Asiatic Bazaar.  At times, when she was giving evidence, he

        was filled with such tenderness he wanted to stroke Munira's

        face or put his arms around her, to protect her from the

        injuries he had brought upon her.

             He felt the same weeping warmth with Mr Moodley, whose

        trembling hands he wanted to hold still, whose face he wanted to

        turn toward him so that he could look with a clear feeling that

        would take away all the pain.  But Mr Moodley would not look at

        him.

             Until that aversion, David felt, he had not tasted his

        guilt in his own mouth.  The others found him guilty;  he was

        honoured by their condemnation.  His nausea now tasted of

                                                                Page 244


        himself.

             The courtroom lights increased his nausea and he half

        closed his eyes.  How condescendingly he had offered his love

        and pity.  They were right not to look at him.  How repulsively

        he had wished to save them and protect them.  He was no better

        than the Nationalists who, no doubt, had the same benign

             They trembled because of him, and he, incurably white,

        wanted them to look at him and accept his love.  His love - now

        he knew its taste - white, white as Spence, who was in the

        witness stand now, white as maggots, white as mould, white as

        tape-worms, white as all secret, disgusting creatures that never

        see light.  It would be better for everyone if he did not think

        of them, inflicting his noble feelings on them.  It would be

        better for them if he had never lived.

             At first he had been disappointed that the Non-European

        gallery was so empty - only a few Indians when Munira and Mr

        Moodley had testified, and for the rest rest, only a few African

        men who might have been reporters.  He had flattered himself

        that Africans must take precautions against showing sympathy, or

        even too much interest in the case.  They were wise.  They were

        not interested in his pity and noble feelings.

             His salvation was not wanted, he had nothing to do with

        them, he was a European.  Nothing could exonerate him from the

        whiteness he shared with Spence, who also had fine feelings and

        had chosen Bellini's Doge to hang on his office wall.  Slowly,

        pushing upwards like a plant that has been germinating

                                                                Page 245


        underground and presses towards the surface, something he had

        known, or could have known - in a luminous sweetness, he

        outside Ward Eighteen, shaking her head at the chocolate he had

        brought her, feigning no gratitude at his concern.

             He could not conceive the boy Sina must have known, angry

        that his shirts weren't ironed yet, stupid with youth, staring

        at her breasts, casually kind perhaps when he was in a good

        mood.  He must have been like other white boys.  A pompous,

        unintelligible impulse had brought him to her with a bar of

        chocolate in his hand.  What did she care?  She was dying.  He

        didn't even know her husband's name or that she had children.

        She wasn't interested in his kindness or his prurience.  She

        knew him too well.  She was busy with her own death.

             He was interminably alive.  Kaplan prompted his attention,

        "Here's your friend who likes poetry," and he saw Richard, in

        his turn, take the stand, his eyes two colours, pale, to tell

        the court about the abandoned house he had shown David (a crack

        in the concrete floor like lightning).  None of them understood

        each other.  David's nausea clung to him as though he were

        continually rehanding the dynamite he had used.  He asked Kaplan

        for aspirin.


             His cell sheltered him like a cave.  He tried the think

        about Munira and Mr Moodley and Sina, but his attention

        flinched, and he could not concentrate.  The coarse food and

        prison shouts relieved him.  Continuous and independent, they


        existed without him, guilty or innocent and had become

        predictable, familiar, and lulling, like his regular pacing

        between the grey walls.  His headache would go away.  His nausea

        would diminish.

             Piet Kreer, Tertius Keyter, Hans Breitenbach, Karl

        Borcherds, Guy Lechaptois, Duncan Campbell, Johannes Pereira,

        David Miller.  I'm sick of clink.  Women is the root of all

        evil.  He did not imagine who had left their names to keep him

        company, who had reached forwards, wanting to be remembered by

        their successors, who had established this frail memorial for

        themselves, who had not wanted to be lost anonymously in

        history, to whom he joined his name.  He read the names emptily,

        habitually.  They also lulled him.  Prison was a kindly drug.


             They took him away from prison to bring him before the

        court again.  Mrs McMullan described her mother, who had been

        killed instantly in the explosion.  Mrs Blackmun had been

        standing very near the bomb, waiting for the train to Cape Town

        where she would visit her grandchild.  So it was inhuman that he

        had blown her to bits.

             He could not concentrate on the testimony.  He had never

        known the woman and couldn't imagine her, though Mrs McMullan

        mentioned that she had been wearing a blue dress that matched

        her eyes.  Instead, the taste of guilt flooded his mouth again,

        greeted him.  er skin was loose and slipped around her fragile

        bones as though decay was loosening her before her death.  So he

                                                                Page 247


        had killed an old woman, like Mrs Cooke who had offered him

        chicken and tea.  How curiously stupid he had been.  He hadn't

        imagined the people he would kill.  He was like the policemen at

        Bitterspruit.  After all, he was white too.

             The next witness was Mrs Bekker.  She used a lace

        handkerchief when she cried.  David wondered who had given it to

        her.  Or had she bought it for the trial or used it at the

        little girl's funeral.  He hadn't noticed a child.  He hadn't

        noticed anything.  He hadn't noticed the colour of his own skin

        and mind.

             The day was cloudy and the courtroom seemed dark and full

        of varnished wood like a church.  They would rehearse the whole

        tedious business again and again;  they would drag him through

        time as at a horse's tail, before they hanged him.  They would

        parade their justice.  It was part of his punishment.

             His cell was kind.  It kept him among the condemned and

        offered him the names of companions.  An impulse of castigation

        made him stop in his pacing and scratch new names under his own

        - Mary Blackmun, Freda Bekker, Munira Isamail, Didi Moodley,

        Joan Miller.  Later prisoners would wonder how they had found

        too.  Their contiguity had been unfortunate, an accident of

        prison life.

             During the night he woke suddenly.  Murderer.  Murderer.

        It didn't mean anything.  He would go back to sleep.  Murderer.

        Murderer.

                                                                Page 248


             Days of random, incomprehensible litter accumulated again.

        Other victims came to the stand.  A man whose arm had been

        amputated.  The pinned sleeve waggled a warning to David.  A

        middle aged brunette wore a patch where her eye had been.  A

        portly businessman had been in bed four months, recovering from

        acute burns.  David could not like him.  In court, and pallid

        from months indoors, he lacked his cigars, his secretaries.  The

        pretty shop assistant who had lost her leg, Lettie du Toit

        limped now.  How could he pay attention to all the

        ramifications?  Feel sorry that no one would take her dancing

        now?  He was busy with his own death.

             The nights were shreds, waking and recoiling from faces and

        names and accusations.  They would put him to death for the old

        lady's hand and bits of flesh scattered in the rubble, clots of

        hair and blue rag, an arm still bleeding while the dust settled,

        fragments of marble and splinters of varnished wood like bone

        shining with blood.

        The noisy prisoners shouted and sang drunken songs.  Gericke's

        confidence about a short sentence had dissipated, and he was

        depressed now.  He complained that the bladdy racket was getting

        on his nerves, man.  David asked Snyman to give him some of the

        fruit Joan had brought.

             "It'll be O.K., Gericke, you'll see," he muttered during

        their exercise time.

             One night he woke as he had been waking but this time he

        had the answer.  He hadn't known what he was doing.  He was not

                                                                Page 249


        responsible.  He had been depressed in Pretoria, and then, with

        Francois and the others, euphoric.  Why, if he'd been able to

        think, he would have known all along that the venture was crazy.

        Michael's friends had been talking about revolution for years.

        He'd never taken them seriously before.  He wasn't responsible.

        It was obvious.  Anyone could see that.  Kok was a fair judge.

        Rifkin's evidence and Kaplan would keep him alive.


             Distant and calm with acknowledged madness, he saw Trevor

        take the stand.  Trevor had told them everything.  Kaplan had

        shown him the statement, half-translated into Afrikaans

        illiteracies by the man who had written it down, but accurate

        about the details and the names.

             "You're disappointed," Kaplan said, " aren't you."

        told me he'd talked.  I knew all about it.  They brought him in

        to see me.  I told you.  What's the point?"

             "I can see your face."

             "It doesn't matter.  I don't feel anything.  I knew he'd

        talked, otherwise they wouldn't brought me here would they?

        They'd've kept me in ninety-days until I talked.  I'm grateful.
                                               _

        There you are."

             "You understand that he'll be a state's witness."

             "Of course.  Otherwise they'd hang him too.  I'm not upset.

        We agreed to talk if they tortured us."

             "They didn't torture him.  The night they came to arrest

        him they found that he'd been drinking ever since he'd heard

                                                                Page 250


        about the explosion.  He talked as soon as they asked him."

             David looked at the papers in his hand.  So neither Trevor

        nor Francois had been arrested.  Philip's scare had been for

        nothing.  For Trevor, it must have seemed like his nightmare

        again to hear that knocking,to hear it drunk with no one to wake

        him from this dream.  He looked at Kaplan.  "We could've guessed

        he'd break.  Anyhow, he's not responsible for what I did.  He

        opposed killing.  As he says." He found the section in Trevor's

        statement where he reported their discussion..i "I wish you

             "You don't have to save my life.  I don't care."

             "I do care.  I said more difficult.  Not impossible.

        Rifkin will testify that you were temporarily insane."

             "Temporarily?  Will I get better?"

             Kaplan looked away and tapped his pencil with an irregular

        beat.  Walz time.

             "My great uncle was betrayed."

             "Our cases have nothing in common.  Trevor hasn't betrayed

        me.  It was only a matter of time.  He doesn't have to give his

        life for me.  Isn't it enough?  How many corpses do I have to

        carry?"


             On the stand, Trevor was swept by sudden pallors and

        flushes.  His hands also shook.  Sometimes he leaned forwards to

        clutch the wooden rail of the witness stand.  Sometimes he

        squeezed his hands into fists.  At times he stammered, as though

        some judgement within him resisted giving testimony like a

                                                                Page 251


        traitor.

             Kaplan harped in the nerve of his pain.

             "Please explain to the court why you have decided to give

        evidence for the state."

             Dietz objected, and Kaplan retracted.

             "You knew the accused well.  You were friends."

             "But you knew each other well enough to plot sabotage

        together?"

             "Yes."

             "Which means well enough to trust your lives to each

        other?"

             "Yes."

             "That seems fairly well."

             Trevor waited.  Kaplan attacked again.  "According to

        Captain van der Merwe, whom I shall call to the stand shortly,

        you were rather eager to pin the blame on the accused.  How

        could you be so certain he was responsible?"

             "We were all prepared to blow up installations," Trevor's

        voice changed pitch, became shrill, "but we never wanted to kill

        people.  We weren't murderers.  He was the only one who wanted

        to shed blood.  It's horrible.  Horrible]" He covered his face

        and then dropped his hands.  He regained control of his voice.

        "Excuse me."

             "How did you know it was not another member of your group?"

             "He was the only one who wanted to do something like that.

        He s-s-s-spoke about it the first time we met.  He s-s-s-said

                                                                Page 252


        sabotage wasn't enough.  He s-s-s-said we should k-k-k-kill

        people."

             "Right at the beginning.  It must've been October."

             "So, from the first you gave the impression that these were

        ideas you might seriously consider yourself."

             "No.  I said right away I didn't agree.  We didn't agree to

        it." Dark rings had appeared under Trevor's eyes during the

        short time he had been on the stand.

             "All of you?"

             "I s-s-s-suppose I spoke most s-s-s-strongly.  We didn't

        agree to it." Trevor was flushing now.  "He used us."

             "Do you mean that he planned terrorism even when he seemed

        to agree that you would only commit sabotage against

        installations?"

             Trevor took a moment to think about his answer, and then

        spoke slowly and almost inaudibly, "No.  He was sincere.  It

        probably just occurred to him when he thought he was the only

        one left."

             "Ah.  That's something you didn't mention in the statement

        you were so eager to give the police when they found you in a

        drunken stupor."

             Dietz tensed to protect his witness, "Objection, your

        honour."

             "Objection sustained."

             Kaplan did not seem to mind.  "Mr Reed, you admit that your

                                                                Page 253


        this statement to the police?"

             "I was shocked."

             "I am sure you would not perjure yourself to injure a

        friend out of simple malice," Kaplan admitted.  "I wonder how

        long your, er, unusual state of mind had existed.  Would you say

        from the you heard about the bomb's explosion?  Before?  How

        long before?"

             "I was shocked when I heard."

             "And before?  You were also planning an act of sabotage.

        What was your own state of mind?"

             Dietz looked perturbed, ready to object again, but he said

        nothing.  Trevor was looking down at his hands clasped round the

        wooden bar of the stand.

             "I wasn't feeling as usual."

             "You would agree that the defendant's state of mind could

        also have been unusual?  Overexcited?  Tense?"

             Trevor looked up.  "I don't know.  I hadn't s-s-seen him

        for a few days."

             "But you think it possible."

             "Yes." Trevor had become extremely pale again.

             "Do you think his state of mind could be considered

        insanity?"

        expert's opinion.  Kaplan promised that he would call experts to

        testify later, "But taking into account that I'm not asking for

        a scientific judgement, just an impression, you understand,

        would you consider the defendant in an unusual state of mind?

                                                                Page 254


        Perhaps even temporarily insane?"

             "Yes." Now Trevor sounded surprisingly calm.

             "You seem very certain.  Can you explain why?"

             "Sane people don't act that way." This reply did not seem

        to satisfy Kaplan.

             "Did you think him insane before the act?"

             "No.  We wouldn't have worked with him if we'd though

        that."

             "But now you do think he might have been insane, or in an

        unusual state of mind before committing the act."

             Again Trevor paused to think before he answered.  "He was

        always very quiet.  It was difficult to know what he was

        thinking.  Our discussion at the beginning was the only time we

        really talked much.  We all thought we understood one another."

        At this moment Trevor carelessly looked up at David, and their

        eyes met.  He suddenly paled again.  "Yes.  I did always think

        he could be mad.  I was shocked when he s-s-spoke of terrorism.

        I felt he was capable of anything." He stopped to render his

             Kaplan thanked Trevor and allowed him to leave the stand.

        Dietz's expression showed that he was, after all, not pleased

        with his star witness.

             David did not attend to van der Merwe's testimony, a

        corroborative account of how Trevor had given his written

        statement.  He was angry for Kaplan.  Trevor only wanted to live

        and save himself from the crimes of pity.  Kaplan would have had

        nothing to say to him if he had lived peacefully like a white

                                                                Page 255


        South African, painting his bright abstracts and enjoying the

        gentle sun.  But because he had felt pity ands been sucked into

        madness like David's own, Kaplan, who had never flaunted a cape

        at dangerous dilemmas, jeered that he was gored.  Kaplan was

        stupid, as stupid as the rest.  He implied that Trevor too was

        mad, with his, er, unusual state of mind.  It should have been

        usual for Trevor to live in sunshine and not notice that his

        eyes showed him anything but designs and colours for pleasing

        canvases.  He should have enjoyed fine brandy.  Trevor

        appreciated flamboyant women and men who knew how to live.  He

        should have clung to life's pleasures only, not to conspiracy

        and mortal risk, to wildernesses of fear that Kaplan knew

        nothing about.

             Through the mesh window of the police van, he saw the leafy

        among their brilliant wares, and women in bright dresses and

        shorts, as happy as if they had never heard of him.  Trevor had

        chosen to walk back to the women and flower sellers, and the

        city, to reject madness and blood.

             As though a sac inside him had burst, want poured through

        David.  He wanted life.  He was young.  He wanted to swim again

        and climb the mountains near Rustenburg, to eat peaches warm off

        the trees near Vereeniging, to walk under the oaks in Cape Town

        and hear the doves' long colloquy with each other.  He wanted

        see Joan in a bright dress again, and to hold her, to live with

        her where they could love freely, she could look at him from the

        mirror where she sat brushing her hair, he could see how she

                                                                Page 256


        chose a dress in the morning, how she leaned foward to pour tea

        and the sun touched her head and made gold of her hair.  He

        wanted to live.  Not to die strangled by crowding, naked

        beggars, skeletal children, drought, everything that made men

        mad.

             Kaplan would save him.  He would live.  The van pulled into

        the prison and the metal doors shut behind him.  In the other

        prison they would call him mad.  The sadness he had felt for

        Trevor reflected back on himself, as his madness had reflected

        onto Trevor.

        bread and jam that served as supper.  It was food his mother had

        given odd job boys.  David had accustomed himself to prison

        food, but tonight he did not touch it.  He paced and absorbed

        the familiar, subliminal litany of names on the walls.

             Gericke was also silent, more depressed than David had ever

        known him.  They started one conversation, but it soon died in

        gloom.

             "Agh, man, don talk to me about my case.  Tell me how it's

        going with you."

             "Oh, I don't know, Gericke.  My lawyer's getting me down."

             "Ja, man.  That's how it is sometimes.  Sometimes I get so

        sick 'n tired've clink I don even care, you know that?  I

        thinks, what the hell]  If they let me out, I'll be back.  If

        you're in once, you're in for life.  You might's well give up

        right now.  But you got to say, bugger it, it's not forever."

                                                                Page 257


             The weekend brought relief with its clamour of petty

        arrests.

             On Monday, Kaplan said, "Dietz has asked for a few days'

        delay."

             "Why?"

             "I don't know."

             At exercise time, Gericke said, "They got your boet."

             "Who?  Francois?"

             "Philip Brink.  He's you're boet isn he?"
                                         ____

             "When did they get him?"

             "Las night.  He was trying to get to Mozambique."

             "Where is he now?"

             "Here in the Fort.  Not with us whites, nachrilly.  Daardie
                                                                 _______

        kant." His thumb made a cautious gesture towards the
        _____

        Non-European section.

             Gericke called Philip his boet, his brother.  If they had
                                       ____

        Philip, they'd take him to be hanged with his boet in Pretoria
                                                      ____

        Central.  Unless Phlip followed Trevor's example and turned

        state's evidence.  Perhaps he had realized the choices already

        in Basutoland.  Or had he been shocked like Trevor, sick like a

        white man at the smell of white blood?

             After they rounded Prinsloo and the new warder, a bony man

        whose mouth made David fear, tight and wide, he asked, "What

        charge?"

             "Nothing so far.  It's ninety days."
                    ____

        dissolved, like the one at Marshall Square where they had shown

                                                                Page 258


        him Trevor and he had been grateful when van der Merwe

        interrogated him, because interrogation was a human contact

        outside the flux and tumbling of his own mind.

             "Is there any way to get a message to him?"

             "Don't be mad, man.  In ninety days?  Hang]  Who you going

        to get to do something like that?" David felt half relieved.

        What could he say to Philip?  Sorry, old chap?


             The screams, next day, had no clear rhythm or cause.  When

        strokes were given in the Fort, the screams were regular.

        There'd be a hiss - the lash - a thud, a yell.  Sometimes, after

        a few stokes, a hiss, a thud, no yell - the prisoner had fained.

        These screams rose and fell untiring.

             The prison's noises stopped, as if every inmate held his

        breath as the chill of pity fastened on his bones.  Behind the

        screams, the muffled city brought workers home in cars and

        buses.  A telephone rang, warders locked doors and paced noisily

        in echoing corridors.  The cells began to move and talk again.

             "What're they doing to him?" David asked Gericke.

             "I dunno.  Shocks maybe."

             Snyman wouldn't talk when he brought their food, and soon

        again.  David bit his hands.  Perhaps he was really mad.  It was

        a fantasy in his imagination.  No one had voice to scream so

        long.

             "Gericke."

             "Ja."

                                                                Page 259


             "I'm not imagining them?"

             "Shut up man, and stop worrying.  There's not a damn thing

        you can do."

             "Have you heard this kind of thing before?"

             "No."

             It was impossible to do nothing.  No matter what Philip

        felt about him, it must be some encouragement to know, if he

        could know anything at all, that other people could hear him.

        If sound could come out, it could go in.

             As loudly as he could, David started to sing the freedom

        songs he had learnt at Hartebeestepoort Dam.  Voices from the

        Non-European block joined his.  The screams did not stop.  The

        singing grew louder.  When David exhausted the repertoire he had

        learned singing with Philip, he turned to the defiant promise

        from the Messiah he had sung driving to Basutoland, "He shall
                 _______

        crush them with a rod of iron.  He shall crush them." More
                                                        _______

        Perhaps some had belonged to the thousand voice African choir

        Joan accomnpanied every year.

             "He shall break them in pieces like a potter's vessel.  In

        pieces.  In pieces." The screams paused.  The Africans, turned

        now to themes of familiar piety, introduced new songs, most of

        them sad mission hymns.  The screams began again.  David hoped

        that Philip did not know how, for days before an execution, the

        condemned in the death block at Pretoria Central sang hymns, and

        carried their melodious piety to the gallows.

             The singers did not stop in the intervals when the circuit

                                                                Page 260


        of screams broke, or as the intervals of silence grew longer.

        If some slept, others woke to hold their song.  When morning

        came, the warders changed shift, distributed breakfast,

        supervised the Africans polishing the passage floor on their

        knees, shouted loud commands to the gangs chained together to

        work outside.

             In the cold, bright morning of the courtyard David and

        Gericke did not speak.  Mournful harmonies wound round them, and

        screams whipped their faces.

             After lunch he did not hear them anymore.

             That night, because he could not sleep, David took his

        he could look through the mesh and see a piece of the sky pale

        with the full moon.  After some hours he thought morning must be

        near.  He listened for the whirr of bicycles along Louis Botha

        Avenue and the first buses bringing Africans to work.  Soon the

        prison would wake and fold night's grim thoughts to day's

        lethargy of accustomed impotence.

             He climbed down from the box and slept.


             On Wednesday, Kaplan saw him.

             "We're going to court again on Monday."

             "They've got Philip Brink, haven't they?"

             "Yes."

             "They've been torturing hom.  We heard the screams."

             "That's a serious allegation, David."

             "All morning yesterday, and the night before."

                                                                Page 261


             Perhaps Kaplan thought David had fantasies about screams in

        the night.  Perhaps Rifkin had corrupted his trust in David.  Or

        David's in him.

             "I'll investigate."

             But on Thurday Kaplan told him there was no entry to show

        that Philip had been admitted to the Fort.

             "So they've faked the records, that's all.  You know

        they've got him.  Where are they keeping him?"

        evidence for the state."

             "Ask what they've been doing to him.  In court, if

        necessary."

             "I'll do what I can, David, but you know questions like

        that often get us nowhere."

             "You've got to ask them."


             Until Monday, time locked him in its prison.  He could not

        reach forward to the hour when the court would meet, he would

        see Philip, and wrest truth out.  At last Monday came, hot and

        drowsy, boding storm in the afternoon.  In the courtroom the

        judge's face grew more severe and distant, the reporters

        thinned.  David noticed that his father, extraordinarily aged

        now, kept dropping off until his head lolled and jerked, and he

        woke up again.

             It was afternoon before Philip was brought to the stand.

        David wondered whether he had been given drugs, he looked so

        strange, his gestures were so slow, his speech so weighted.  His

                                                                Page 262


        face seemed bloated and rigid, as though injected with

        preservative, and one eyelid hung lower than the other so that

        he looked absurdly villainous.

             Philip read a prepared statement.

             "I met the accused the first time in l956.  This is at a

        liberalistic, Communistic organization.  At this time we have

        discussed the white man in South Africa.  The accused says he

        cannot trust the white man.  After this I don't meet the accused

        no more, but I hear he is in the company of known Communists and

        Liberalists.  I meet the accused again at a party.  This is a

        mixed party and there is illegal drink.  This is in l962, at

        which time the accused says we must overthrow the government.

        Accordingly, we arrange to meet secretly and talk about this

        matter.  At this time he suggests many violences, also

        terrorism.  We don't agree about this.  We think sabotage is

        better for our purposes.  We work many weeks to study sabotages.

        All these occasions the accused is altogether calm.  Four

        noights before our first sabotage, I get a message the police is

        after us.  Accordingly, I go to the accused to escape

        altogether, but he is not interested in this course of action.

        He is altogether calm at this time.  He helps me change the

        licence on the escape car.  Next thing I hear on the wireless

        there is this explosion in Johannesburg.  I hear people is being

        killed.  Next thing, the accused is coming to me looking for

        shelter, but I kicks him out."

             David beamed at Philip and then looked down at the table.

                                                                Page 263


        He wanted to laugh.  How had Philip managed to produce such a

             "Could you please explain to the court the circumstances in

        which you agreed to give this evidence," Kaplan began his

        questioning.

             Dietz objected that the question was not relevant, but

        Kaplan held his ground.

             "My client tells me that on the fourth and fifth of

        February he heard screams in the Fort and that he recognized the

        voice as Philip Brink's.  At first I must admit, i was somewhat

        sceptical, but I notice that that this statement is dated the

        fourth of February."

             David was surprised.  Had Philip given the statement first

        and been tortured afterwards?  It didn't make sense.

             "Does the witness have any comment on this coincidence?"

             "I have no comment."

             "Is it a coincidence?"

             "I'm not sure what you mean."

             "Were you in the Fort on the fourth and fifth of February?"

             "No.  I was in Ermelo."

             "I had the impression you might say that.  You were

        admitted to Ermelo prison on the fifth of February.  Where were

        you on the fourth?""I can't recall.  I have been in prison, and

        perhaps my sense of time," Philip hestitated, "And place, may be

        confused."
                     ___

             Kaplan seemed to understand what Philip just said too.  And

                                                                Page 264


        perhaps Judge Kok did too.  "There will be an investigation," he

        ruled.  "Proceed with your questioning."

             "Thank you, your honour." Kaplan turned back to Philip, "I

        realize that your written statement is not given in exactly your

        own words," telling Philip, as well as David, that he knew they

        came from torture.  Oh, he was a good lawyer after all.  "I

        presume that an investigation will explain the discrepancy.  But

        could you say more, in your own words, about the first occasion

        of your meeting my client.  At the Discussion Club meeting, I

        believe it was.  What was the subject of the discussion that

        night?  And what did you say to Mr Miller that led to his

        statement that he didn't trust whites?"

             David looked at Philip.  The distant room in Monica's house

        where they had first met stood between them brilliant with its

        own lights, Budapest and mine accidents, David's confused

        eultation at being with Joan, Philip's anger with Aviva, and the

        conversation about blacks and whites and who lives that had told

        each that the other had resonance with his own meaning that

        could lead to friendship.  Who they were to each other had

        started there, though it led here.  Philip smiled at David.

        took some peculiar effort, forced through resisting numbness in

        the bloated, tallow face with its drooping and piratical eye.

        Philip was sweating, David saw.  He keeled over.  He had

        fainted.

             The court woke up.  A policeman took water from a carafe on

        Dietz's table and washed Philip's face.  David closed his eyes.

                                                                Page 265


        Had they splashed Philip with water to revive him from torture

        before?

             "You're not going to faint too, are you?" Kaplan was

        holding his arm.  David shook his head.

             Officers of the court crowded around the witness stand and

        spectators pushed forward in the galleries.  Reporters edged for

        good vantage points.  Kok banged his gavel, and in what silence

        he could gain, adjourned the proceedings.  Perhaps because the

        ritual rules had been disturbed, the strong arms that hustled

        David to the van, pulled at him with rougher force than usual.

             Heavy clouds darkened the city's office and flat windows,

        and uneasy storm brooded in the trees near the Fort.


             Gericke had been sentenced to ten years' hard labor.

             "Hell man, I didn't expect it.  Jirre." It's a long time."
                                             ______

             "Jesus Christ]  What bloody luck]  What bloody fucking

             "Where'll you be?"

             "I dunno, man.  Some bloody place in the bundu where I'll
                                                      _____

        mos rot away."
        ___

             "Maybe they'll send you to Pretoria Central with me." "No

        thanks, hey.  Pretoria's bloody murder.  You just wait.  Anyhow,

        your lawyer'll get you off."

             "I'll miss you."

             "Agh, man, I'll miss you too.  You're too bloody serious,

        but otherwise you're O.K.  Anyhow, Prinsloo says I'll still be

        here a week or so, so you needn' say good'bye yet.  Hell, I'm

                                                                Page 266


        not in a hurry."


             The rain came down in heavy rushes.  David heard thunder.

        His cell was too deep in the prison's embankment wall for him to

        see the lightning or smell the new air, cleared of dust, but he

        was happy.  Whatever Philip's smile had meant, it could not be

        condemnation.  The rain muffled the sharp sounds of prison.  He

        took the stool to the window so that he could see drops clinging

        to the mesh, holding the grey light inverted and formed.  Soon

        night overlaid the storm's darkness, and there was nothing to

        see but spills of radiance coming before thunder.

        that Philip had disappeared.  There was talk of his having

        escaped from prison.

             "So there'll be no investigation into whether he was

        tortured, I suppose."

             "Probably."

             "I don't want to drop the issue."

             "I'm not going to push it, David.  It can only prejudice

        our case."

             "There's nothing to our case.  We might as well prejudice

        it."

             "I represent you in court David, not every worthy cause.

        Let's keep to the business in hand.  Dietz is going to be ending

        the first part of his presentation soon, and we'll start the

        argument for the defence.  You might find this part of the trial

                                                                Page 267


        hard.  I know that it's all been telling on you."

             "It doesn't matter." David refused his pity.


             Gericke had heard the story too.  "So your boet's escaped."
                                                        ____

             "Yes.  Who told you?"

             "Prinsloo.  Lucky bastard.  I wonder how he did it." David

        did not tell him about Kaplan's embarrasing questions in court.

        Instead he asked, "You want some peaches?"

        Strue's God."

             But their conversation, hampered by the imminence of

        separation, felt sad.

             He paced.  So Kaplan wanted to forget about Philip and the

        question of torture, and not make too much fuss.  He would

        conspire tacitly with van der Merwe or Dietz or whoever it was,

        to let Philip escape and the issue die.  And perhaps the return

        would be to let David get off hanging because he was mad.  That

        must be the arrangement they had come to, silently, without need

        for incriminating words.

             Guy Lechaptois, l7th June l955.  How odd.  He had never

        noticed the date before.  It was the day Sina had died.  That

        wasn't supposed to be what he was thinking about now.

             Philip, then, would be implicated in his madness as Trevor

        had been.  They had all worked together.  But it was nonsense.

        Philip had been brave and calm.  They had not been mad.  Philip

        even less than Trevor.  His only madness had been to be willing

        to take arms against an overwhelming power.  But if that was

                                                                Page 268


        madness, who was sane?  Verwoerd.  Vorster.  The fools and

        madmen were those who did not survive, and those who pitied

        them, the silly women who sat on the ground outside hospitals,

        at St Therese's in the dim morning, and here, just across the

        silly men who went into mines to pick up gold dust on their

        lungs and let the earth collapse on top of them.  The silly

        nannies who tended their oppressors' children and sang them

        lullabies instead of strangling them before they grew up to

        become policemen and teachers and businessmen.

             By that judgement, he must choose to be mad, but not mad to

        survive.  He must reciprocate Philip's courage, and insist that

        apartheid, not he, was mad.  Mad and guilty.  So he must let the

        system of law he had offended put him to death - it was

        apartheid's law that made corpses by law, made laws to make

        corpses, made charnels, locations where, in spite of Everready

        batteries, knives got you for a pair of secondhand shoes, laws

        that made reserves watered by dead rivers, mines where no one

        was responsible for explosions and rock falls, wages to kill

        children with starvation, passes to take wives from the

        husband's beds, children out of their mothers' hands, schools to

        take the eyes out of young heads, the brains out of their

        skulls, laws like plagues.  The country was an abbatoir.  Let it

        be known that he had died by its hand.  Let them strangle him.

             He leaned his head against a wall.  It hard cold mass

        assured him there was a world outside madness.

             He could hear Gericke in the cell next door also pacing

                                                                Page 269

        while and then went to the door.  "Gericke."

             "Coming.  Just a minute." David heard his steps.  "Ja,

        David, what is it?"

             "Gericke, tell me about Pretoria Central."

             " Ag man, it's a nare plek.  Hell man, you musn' let it get
               __             ____ _____

        you down.  Strue's God, your lawyer'll get you off."

             "No, man, tell me," David insisted.  "Can you see the

        gallows?"

             "Ag, man what'choo want to know for?"

             "I want to know."

             Gericke hestitated, and began.  "You sees it when they

        admits you.  When you comes in, there's this huge bladdy hall

        with a black floor.  You looks right across where there's a

        notice.  It says SILENCE.  Hell]  You looks underneath.  That's

        it.  That's where we go.  Jesus]"

             "And then?"

             "There's nothing else."

             "Can you hear when they take them out?"

             "Ja.  They sings a long time before, and then when they

        opens the door, the singing gets very loud."

             "And then?"

             "What else, man]  Jirre.  Hell man, David, I dunno what to

        say to you."

             "Tell me what happens after they open the door."

             "You hears them going down the passage, en then you hears

        the trap fall, en it mos sort of trembles everywhere."
                             ___

                                                                Page 270


             "I suppose you hear some of them crying and screaming."

             "Ag, man, it can't be so bad.  You know, you comes the best
              __

        time in your life.  D'you know that]  Jesus, things 's crazy you

        know.  You can't make sense of anything]"


             He dreamed that he was underground, sweating, the walls of

        his mine chamber had caved in on him.  They were watching him

        through the judas.  It was their eyes that made him sweat.  When

        he woke and stared at the electric light is zigzagged like

        lightning.  A crack in the concrete floor of that house.  The

        cracked feet of beggars and children bled like milk.

             "Please baas." He couldn't answer them.  He was dead broke.


             At the next discussion with Kaplan he felt a pang that he

        was going to break the comfort of their routine.

             "I got a rather difficult request to make."

             "You know I'd like to help you, David."

             "I want to change my plea.  I'm not insane."

        legal technique.  We've been over this ground before, David."

             "I'm sorry.  I can't make these fine distinctions between

        legal jargon and what people will really think words mean.  I

        will not plead insanity."

             "Why, this time."

             "Don't be patient with me, Mr Kaplan."

             "I thought we'd settled this issue."

             "It's come unsettled."

                                                                Page 271


             "And why, may I ask?"

             "I don't want the tone of the way the trials's going."

             "Please don't be ridiculous.  Yopu don't seem to realize

        that you're responsible for several deaths and other matters.  I

        don't think you're in a position to be fastidious about tone."

             "I am responsible, and I'm going to take the

        responsibility."

             "What, exactly, are you objecting to?"

             "That we're going to keep everything private and

        psychological - all about my state of mind and my father and

        that sort of thing.  As though politics have really got nothing

        to do with it.  And we needn't mention unpleasant things like

        torture.  Philip was tortured.  And you know it."

             "Yes, I think he was.  You understand how it is that he

             "I'm grateful for that.  I am." He looked into Kaplan's

        brown eyes and felt the joy he he felt at their first meeting,

        when Kaplan had called him Mr Miller, not mad dog.Kaplan was a

        decent, humane, reasonable man.  And, as Gericke had told him, a

        good lawyer.  Once again he felt sad that he must separate

        himself from the life that sufficed for others.  The life he had

        seen Aviva choose.  That he had acknowledged to be good.

             Seeing his warm glance, Kaplan added, as if to placate him

        further, "Kok's ordered an investigation."

             "Yes.  He's probably fair, according to his lights."

             "Why won't you hope for life, David?"

             "You know, I'm immensely touched that you don't treat me

                                                                Page 272


        like a pariah."

             "You're far from that, David.  I don't take you to be the

        hero that some people make you - oh, you didn't know about that.

        well, of course, you're a political martyr.  But I'm sure you're

        sensible enough not to be too swayed when you're usedthat

        way.So, I don't think you're that kind of hero.  But..." Kaplan

        looked away, and then back at David, "I want you to live.  This

        is quite personal.  I want you to live, and if you don't plead

        insanity, you'll be hanged."

             "If I do plead insanity, I'll be damned."

        damned.  No devil will come to poke a fork at you.  Talk about

        reality, David.  Live."

             "I want to talk about reality.  Not to pretend that the

        reason for my actions is that I am, was, or could be considered

        crazy.  My reason is apartheid.  That's what's crazy]  An

        abomination]  I want to talk about the real reasons, the pass

        laws, the reserves, the prisons, the people who die in this

        country."

             "And what do you think you'll achieve if you have tirades

        in court?"

             "How do think I'll live if I perjure my whole life and go

        on breathing in a lunatic asylum.  It's not worth it.  I have to

        tell the truth."

             "Everyone has his own truth."

             "I have to tell my truth."

             "I don't know what to say to you, David."

                                                                Page 273


             They sat silent for a while.  Kaplan picked up his pencil

        and started to tap the table with it.

             "Let's not setlle anything now, David.  Dietz's going to

        call your father as his next witness, and that's abouyt the end

        of his case.  We'll talk after that."

             "All right."

             "So do I."


             At Joan's next visit he told her, "I'm changing my plea,

        Joan.  I'm not going to let Kaplan use insanity."

             "I'm glad, David."

             He drew in his breath.  He was not prepared for her to say

        that she was glad he would die.

             "I've been hating your despair."

             "Despair?"

             "That's what it was, wasn't it.  You've looked so tired and

        bored in court, just sick of it all, waiting for it to end, you

        didn't care how."

             "Yes, that's how it's felt.  How did you know I've

        changed?"

             "I can see it.  I can hear it in your voice.  And, of

        course, in what you're tellingme.  Why would you accept

        responsibilty if everything's just meaningless."

             "You've changed too, Joan."

             "Yes," she paused, gathering her feelings into words, "It's

        not very clear to me.  I mean, it's clear, but hard to put into

                                                                Page 274


        words.  But I want to tell you about it." She paused again,

        looking at him through the grille with an expression like

        pleading on her face.  "Michael's been writing to me.  He

        wanted me to know that you talked in Pretoria.  He says that he

        feels terribly to blame.  Not that he condemns you or anything

        like that.  He's been describing you as heroic.  But, though he

        knew that you felt you had to risk everything, he didn't

        foreseee that it would come out the way it did when he sent

        Francois to you.  He didn't want you to die."

             "No one foresaw how it would come out.  Will you tell him

        that?  I didn't know all I was doing.  But it was my doing, not

        his guilt, or Francois's, or anyone else's.  Will you tell him

        that, Joan?"

             "Yes." She was smiling at him, sitting more firmly, as

        though happiness could come back to her.  "At first his letters

        made me very angry.  I felt you'd betrayed me the way you talked

        with him.  I hated you." She was looking at him directly, as if

        to challenge him, also bearing responsibility for what she had

        felt.  "I hated everything that reminded me of you.  I was so

        full of hate I wanted to hurt everyone I talked to.  I don't

        know how Aviva put up with me."

             Now Joan looked down at her hands in her lap.  With a

        movement he had not seen in her before, she folded her arms

        across her body, holding the elbows, and rocked forward slightly

        as she spoke, "Perhaps that's how I started to understand why

        you couldn't talk to me after St Therese's.  I started to feel


        that there could besomething horrible in the way I can keep

        calm, go on practising and playing." She looked up, smiling

        ironically, "Michael wrote to me about that.  And I remembered

        how Edward used to feel.  I saw a lot of Edward before he left."

             She would go to England.  She would see Edward.  She would

        live.  "You've always been able to talk to one another."

             "Yes.  You and Edward are very alike, in some ways.  You

        both let yourselves get hurt.  I've protect myself so much.  I

        was prepared for things to be cruel and unjust, because that's

        how they'd been for God.  I didn't see that my faith's been

        upside down.  It showed me that the whole world's a prison, but

        I didn't really see that Christ became a prisoner to show how to

        be free.  All this comes in Christian images to me, David, but I

        could say it another way.  I mean, I took it for granted that

        there would be injustice, in a way that protected me from being

        hurt by it, so I wouldn't do silly things like you or Edward."

             "Did you talk to Edward about this?"

             "No, but I've been writing to him."

             For a moment David felt his own jealousy.  He beat it down.

        Joan would have to live after he was dead.

             "Will you tell Edward something for me?" She nodded.  "At

        St Therese's I said I couldn't accept what he was doing because

        it was only temporary."

             "Well, I've come to see that everything in human life is

        only temporary.  Nothing lasts longer than individual human

        lives.  Not in any way to mean anything.  I wanted to do away

                                                                Page 276


        with death altogether.  It can't be done."

             The terror of his own death coming so soon, flashed over

        him again, and he knew that he was sweating.

             "He cares for you, he admires you, David."

             He nodded.

             "So does Michael."

             Again he nodded.  When the spasm of terror had passed, and

        he could speak normally again, he asked, "Does Michael really

        believe what he writes about me?"

             "He thinks what you did a tragic waste."

             They listened to each other's silence.

             "Who's paying Kaplan, Joan?  The anti-apartheid movement,

        or someone else?"

             "Aviva.  Sidney, really, I suppose."

             David laughed.  "Tell me I'm crazy."
                                      ___

             "They don't want anyone to know."

             "Why're they doing it?"

             "Friendship.  Mostly for me, I think, but for you too.

        him and made him eat and swim and rest.  He put on twelve pounds

        during his visit."

             "She knows that he'll go on being silly."

             "That's got nothing to do with it, though she argued her

        head off with him."

             "Will you thank them.  Kaplan's been a very good lawyer.

        Though he's upset about this decision of mine."

             "He also cares for you.  He wants you to live."

                                                                Page 277


             Silence fell into the space between them.  He noticed the

        bars, the mesh, the barren prison walls.

             "I love you, Joan."


             But in the cell again he knew that he was free of her, only

        his own self now.  Alone.  Even Gericke had gone.  They would

        have no more conversations about the taste of peaches or his

        brother's farm.


             Kaplan told him that in Dar-es-salaam Philip had told

        reporters that he had been tortured.

             "So it's come out.  Good.  Do you think there'll really be

        an investigation."

             "I respect Kok, David.  He's going to try to get what he

        said he'd get.  We should talk about you.  Your father's on the

        stand tomorrow.  Let's reassess our position after that."

        brought me?"

             "I think they want to make sure we aren't using a secret

        code in them."

             "I wonder if they'll ever let me read Marc Bloch again."

             "I'll try, David."


             In the court Joan smiled at him, ignoring the reporters.

        He knew that he would die soon.

             His father was wearing a suit that looked new, bought

        especially for this public occasion, but his tie lay awry, and a

                                                                Page 278


        red nose and watery eyes bleared his aging features.  He had

        become unkempt and shabby, almost like those drought-worn

        farmers whose sons had come to David's door in Pretoria selling

        koeksusters.  The leathering of his own years of drought had
        ___________

        given his face a South African cast.  If he left for England

        again because he could not live in the country where his son's

        name, and thereby his own, meant shame, he would seem a

        foreigner again.

             He took the oath, and Dietz invited him to tell the court

        about the character of the defendant.  At first he talked

        wanderingly, but it all came out - his hopes, his ambitions for

        David, the ideals he had set up for him, Smuts and Churchill and

        to read and play sports "But there was always a barrier.  No

        matter what I did for him, he turned against me.  Even when he

        was a little, he was like that.  My wife used to set him against

        me.  She was a difficult woman.  She quarelled with me in front

        of him.  She insulted me in front of the child, and even in

        front of the servants.  When he was cheeky and criticized me,

        she took his side, even when he contradicted me and flouted me.

        I blame her.

             "But it didn't do her any good.  He didn't like her any

        better than he liked me.  He was always a cold, heartless child.

        When I told him my hopes for him he walked out saying he didn't

        want to hear my problems.  Imagine that.  He left home without a

        word of explanation or good'bye.  He's never had any heart,

        though this is a terrible thing to say about my own son."

                                                                Page 279


             David heard the words enlarged and multiplied, as though

        these pleas and accusations had continued to sound in some

        unheard depth of his being, in a whispering gallery where all

        the originals and repetitions accumulated so that now, when time

        reversed and carried him back to his father's voice, he heard

        all in a claustrophobic foreground, a noise not wholly inside,

        not wholly outside his own seething mind.  This was his father,

        his own flesh, whose face he had been afraid to see rise out of

             "Everyone who is a parent will understand how my heart is

        breaking now.  All my life I did my best for him.  He despised

        me, and he went wrong.

             "I say that when a child dies, a parent experiences a

        tragedy.  When a child is crippled it is a tragedy.  But when a

        child goes wrong, I tell you, a father weould prefer it if his

        child had died.  I ask those of you who are parents to look in

        your own hearts:  think of everything you suffered for your

        children;  and think how lucky you are compared to me."

             The pressure and clamour in David collapsed, and he laughed

        with relief to find his father so reduced and comical.  Why had

        his father seemed so large and resounding?  He was puny and full

        of self-pity.

             The court turned to stare at his laughing.

             "What more do I need to say?" his father declaimed, "You

        see for yourselves that he is heartless and feels no remorse.

        See how he laughs at his old father.

             "But still, your honour, he is my son, and I hope the court

                                                                Page 280


        will show him mercy."

             David laughed again.


             Feeling the precious sun on his limbs as he exercised,

        congratulating Snyman, who said he was soon getting married,

        his father before him and releasing him from the injunction to

        make history.  He could not struggle any longer with the world

        into which history had delivered him.  History was utterly

        beyond his power.  He could do nothing now but live what was

        left of his own life.  Moving.  Enjoying the sun.


             Dietz concluded his case.

             "What shall we do now, David?" Kaplan asked.

             "I think I have to conduct my own defence now."

             "I'm sorry we're not going to finish this trial together.

        But I understand that you feel you have to do it this way."

             "I wish I could say something more than thank you.  You've

        helped me keep sane here."

             In court Kaplan told Kok that David refused counsel now.

             "Do you wish the court to assign other counsel?" Kok asked

        David.

             "No.  I feel that I have had the best possible counsel, but

        must conduct my defence myself now." Kok consulted with Kaplan

        again, and then, appearing satisfied, asked "What do you plead?"

             "I don't plead anything.  I have been found guilty already.

        What I plead will make no difference."

                                                                Page 281


             "Be careful not to commit contempt.  I repeat, what do you

        plead?"

             "Then I shall continue your first plea, not guilty by

        virtue of insanity."

             "If I am insane, it is because you are guilty.  The crimes

        of the law you uphold are enough to make anyone mad with

        despair."

             "I have warned you that I can find you guilty of contempt."

             "If I'm guilty of contempt, it can only be because you

        consider me sane.If I am sane, I judge you guilty."

             Dietz rose.  "Objection, your honour.  I submit that the

        accused is mocking the court." Kok silenced him with a glance,

        and turned again to David.  "I must warn you that you are trying

        my patience."

             "No, your honour, I am trying your office.  I find you

        guilty of upholding a system of law that perverts justice."

             Dietz objected again.  "Your honour, the accused is trying

        to use this trial to make political speeches.  He is not being

        tried for politics.  His crimes are heinous - treason, murder,

        and terrorism"

             "I committed them to accuse you too," David retorted, "of

        crimes committed in the name of the law, by officers of the

        state, and by everyone who abides within the law.  The law

        itself, in this country, is criminal."

             "I will not allow this courtroom to be used as a political

                                                                Page 282


        behaviour, I shal find him guilty of contempt."

             "How can you frighten me with penalties for contempt when I

        know that you plan to kill me?"

             "The court is adjourned."

             Two policemen standing behind David grabbed his arms and

        hustled him out.

             "Think you smart, hey]"

             "Bloody Communist]" They pushed him into the van.

             Kaplan had watched this performance, and came to see David.

        "For the last time I ask you, behave reasonably."

             "I won't say another word.  He can enter any plea he likes.

        I've said what I wanted."


             Joan was allowed to visit him next day." Joan,I've been

        thinking about what Michael said, that it's all a tragic waste.

        You think so too, don't you?"

             "Yes."

             "And you hate it for being so ruthless."

             "Yes]" Her reply was vehement.

             "I wanted to say that even if it is a waste, I had to do

        it.  Everything's been a waste.  We haven't found anything yet

        to destroy apartheid.  We don't know what'll work."

             "I know." He heard her as if her words confessed that she

             "I don't think we'll know until we do what does work.  I'm

        not going to condemn what I did as a waste.  It's only use may

        be to show that some ways are a dead end.  All right, I'll die

                                                                Page 283


        for that then."

             "And the others who died?"

             "I haven't wanted to think asbout them.  I don't know.

        I've said all along that the innocent and the guilty are caught

        together, and that acting and not acting are both bloody.  But

        it feels even more complicated than that.  I've been thinking

        about Aviva and Sidney paying Kaplan.  About the way he's

        treated me.  As is if there's something to me beyond my ideas,

        whether they agree with them or not, and even beyond what I've

        done.  And that's fused with other thinbgs I've been feeling

        here.  You can't guess how important physical things become in

        prison - the size of your cell and the food and the number of

        blankets.  I don't think I even knew how many blankets I used

        outside.  Everything real was in my head, in newspapers, in

        ideas, in hating apartheid.People started to seem to me just

        aspects of apartheid.  There was a teacher in my school in

        Pretoria, I really liked him, but we couldn't talk to each other

        because he's a Nationalist.  I was like a totalitarian system

        all inside myself just like apartheid.  I couldn't've done what

        was becoming inhuman."

             Joan nodded, and he saw that tears were sliding down her

        face."I knew you were right, but in some way I felt I had to let

        it happen to me.  Perhaps I was even trying to numb myself so

        that I wouldn't think about how everything else has failed, all

        those in prison and exile or worse, and the hopelessness of

        everything so far.  I didn't want to be reasonable about things

                                                                Page 284


        like those children at St Therese's.  Maybe I did want to be a

        bit mad.  Maybe it needs madmen to try to unlock justice.."

             "I don't want to be mad."

             "That's why I wanted to say all this to you.  I want you to

        go on playing music, whatver else you do, to hold on to your

        senses and to being human.  You called it being complacent.  It

        isn't.  It's being sane.  You'll never stop playing, will you?"

             She laughed."It's a danger I've never considered."

             "You see how the imagination gets out of hand in prison."

        They sat silent.

             "We've got nothing to talk about now, have we," she said.

             "Are you sorry we were married, Joan?"

             "No.  Not, after all." She looked down at her hands, "I

        didn't want to cry."

             "All right.  Come to your senses.  SDtand.  Stretch up.

             "What's going on here?" Snyman opened the door, looking

        dismayed.

             "Ag man, Snyman, these chairs are so hard we had to move
              __

        our bones," David told him.  Still looking worried, Snyman

        nodded and stood aside at the door again so that they couldn't

        see him.

             "I've brought the copy of the Marc Bloch book you wanted,

        but van der Merwe thinks The Historian's Tools might be
                                 ___ ___________ _____

        subversive.  Dangerous, anyhow.  He says he has to check it

        first."

             "Try to visit me again in Pretoria."

                                                                Page 285


             "I will."


             But when they legalized his guilt, and took him to Pretoria

        Central, and stripped him of his own clothes, and put him in

        their condemned uniform again, and shaved his hair against lice,

        and locked him up with Lewis Cope, another murderer in the same

        uniform, he fell into a vertigo in which he felt he could not

        bear another visit.  She came in the first week, but they could

        not talk to each other.  He asked questions about Aviva's

        newborn baby girl and Joan's own health as though they were

        shared a cell with Lewis Cope.  She said that she had brough

        Marc Bloch's books now to Bultman, at Pretoria Central, but he

        also wanted to examine them before David could read them.  He

        asked her to get permission to bring him a jersey.

             The routine of Pretoria Central was more harsh and

        superficially irrational than the Fort's.  They were wakened at

        four-thirty and ate dinner at three in the afternoon.  Thjey

        cleaned their buckets during exercise time, and collected their

        food in dixies washed under the same tap where they emptied

        their buckets.  The body that had restored him to a feeling of

        sanity in the Fort, produced involuntary sequences of loathing

        and terror in him at Pretoria Central.

             During the second week, when he and Cope were staring at

        the African prisoners who, on all fours, polished the black

        concrete hall outside their cell, he recognized an individuality

        of movement and a face.

                                                                Page 286


             "Dumela, Mabotoana," he projected a loud whisper.  The
              _______

        polisher lifted his head and moved towards the cells.  David

        crouched.

             "We didn't know you were here already," Mabotoana said.

             "What did they get you for, Nate?"

             "Furthering aims," was Mabotoana's shorthand for furthering

        the aims of an unlawful organization.

             "How long?"

             "Fifteen."

             Looking into this gulf of time, David clutched his near

        death.  He would not have to endure so long.

             "Khotso, Ntate," Mabotoana jerked his head to show that a
              _______ _____

        warder was watching.  They could not talk.  David stood,

        wondering.  Mabotoana had addressed him with the term of

        respect, Ntate, Father.
                 _____

             Mabotoana must have spread the news.  During the next two

        days some of the white politicals contrived to walk past his

        cell.  He recognized some from photographs in the papers, others

        from parties he had been to with Aviva's set at Wits.  He

        recognized two, Barnard and Taylor, from the group that had

        committed sabotage in Cape Town, blowing up telephone booths.

        They had also been tried and found guilty of treason.  Prison

        was no place to disagree with their tactics.  He was free to

        accept their friendship.  Perhaps they had been as apalled as

        Trevor at his act.

             Mabotoana polished the floor again, and other African

                                                                Page 287


        taut messages, "Welcome," "Don't let the bastards get you down."

        One dropped a cigarette, another two matches and a piece of

        matchbox to strike them on.  When they passed, he whispered

        "Mayebuye]" and raised his thumb.  Unobtrusively, they raised
         ________

        theirs.  The government had given them all the same uniform, and

        they were giving him friendship until he died.

             He gave the cigarette and matches to Cope, who thanked him

        and said nothing about David's welcome into a society that mined

        the whole prison.  Or David's cry, every night at the moment the

        lights went out, when the whole prison fell silent and a voice

        called out, "Amandhla?" Whose is the power?  The prison answered
                     ________

        with a thousand voices out of all its blacks cells, "Nagawethu]"
                                                             _________

        It is ours]  And David's voice joined theirs.  Cope put up with

        David's shout and raised thumb as another unchangeable condition

        of prison life tolerated because there was no alternative.  But

        when Cope's death sentence was commuted by the President, and

        they told him they were taking him to serve hasrd labour in

        Rustenburg, he wouldn't shake hands with David.  "You're a

        traitor to your race]"

        days left.  The prison began to sing for him.  African voices

        initiated hymns he had heard at St Therese's and other missions,

        he had visited with Joan, and in the Fort when they sang against

        Philip's torture.  As always on the missions and singing chants

        of hoeing and lifting loads and cracking stones and stamping

        roads, their voices divided into harmonies and descants, every

        melody opened out like a ray of light passed through a prism to

                                                                Page 288


        show its colours.  The plain hymns of protestant Britain and the

        bold chords of counter-reformation Catholicism became African,

        subtle, and complex.  Their sad, intricate, courteous farewell

        sang him to death.  New songs gre out of old, new harmonies sent

        out shoots and buds.  Day after day they sang to him in African

        languages he had never learned although he had heard them from

        the first days when Sina gossiped with Samuel as she shelled

        peas, or with the maid next door as she ironed sheets and towels

        and pillowcases and folded them into dazzling order, when a fig

        tree cast shadows on the garden wall, and African convicts built

        a road outside his house, stamping it with staves, singing.

             The harmonies sweeping round him eroded his separateness.

        They were singing for him as though he would die the death of an

        African convict.  They were singing as though he lived his last

        days now with them, in their prison, their condition, their

        courtesy.  Hour after hour their song held him and comforted

        him, and protected him from the clack of keys, steps, dixies,

        doors, metal and force.  It was death, but they knew death.  It

        was loneliness, but they knew the mine barracks and servants'

        kaias.  It was fear, but they knew the nights, the tsotsis, the
        _____                                              _______

        hospitals, the police, the random white bullies.  They knew the

        careless white madam, the farmer who wanted convict labour, the

        location superintendant, the informer, the traders who gave no

        credit, the children who stopped crying, the prisoners who

        stopped screaming.  It was oppression, it was early death.  They

        had been into the mines.  It was defeat.  They had eaten the

                                                                Page 289


        food white men doled them.

             But, they assured him, the power was theirs.  Nagawethu.
                                                           _________

        They welcomed him.  The power was his also.  Their power was his

        power.  They would take his power and save it.  He had poured

        out his life.  He had not reversed history.  He had not broken

        the dam But he was not lost.

             He was all one man.  He was who had slept in the sun, who

        had loved Joan, who had read Marc Bloch, had looked at Sina's

        breasts, eaten with Eugenie, hated Spence.  He was who had

        spilling over his feet, been swimming in a mountain pool

        streaked with malachite, he was the son of his father, he was

        who loved saris, he was who had heard Gericke fart, he was whose

        friend had been tortured, he was his whole life, he was white in

        South Africa and the Africans were singing for him.They made him

        himself and more than himself.  They included him in their

        history.  They found an echo of their lives in his life.  Under

        one law.  Like the spiral in a rose and a galaxy.

             The last night, when the lights went out and the prison was

        silent, the cry asked, "Amandhla" and the night answered,
                                ________

        "Nagawethu]" they waited for him to start the songs he wanted
         _________

        them to sing for him.  He began the songs he'd learned at

        Hartebeestpoort Dam, and then "'Nkosi Sikelele Afrika," the
                                       ______ ________ ______

        anthem the African choirs used to sing instead of the white

        anthems after performances of the Messiah.  When he ran out of
                                          _______

        songs, the politicals who had sent him greetings offered songs

        of their causes, which he might not have made his causes,

                                                                Page 290


        partisan songs of the defeated anarchists in the Spanish Civil

        International and the Marseillaise, and more Congress songs than
        _____________         ____________

        he had ever known.

             When Bultman and the other warders came to fetch him, the

        prison waited again, and he started the words promised by

        Handel.  To catch other sounds through that exultant "He shall

        break them," his hearing must have been abnormally clear, but

        through "In pieces]  In pieces]" he caught the sound of cocks in

        the prison yard.  They had started to crow, and others all over

        Pretoria were answering them, although it was still night, and

        lions were roaring in the distant zoo.