Jupiters Travels: Four Years Around the World on a Triumph (24 page)

'You'd never believe the bigotry round here. Not in the towns so much, but in the fringe rural districts and among the Afrikaaners. There's a farmer they call "Baas M'Sorry". He brings his labour in from Malawi under contract - a lot of them do. When his new batch arrives, he puts each one in a jute sack and weighs him. Then he arranges the feed according to their weight. Like cattle.

'He wears those big snake boots, you know, knee high leather boots, because there are snakes in the fields. If he comes across a cheeky Mundt - that's a Kaffir who answers back - he steps on his foot and grinds with the heel of his boot until the fellow says "Baas M'Sorry".

'You know there's a law now that blacks are supposed to be called African Gentlemen and African Ladies. "African Ladies", says this feller. "There's no such thing. Just Kaffir bitches." '

Van den Bergh's stories come pouring out like a vaudeville routine. He hasn't met anyone for a while who would understand.

'When we first arrived we went to get meat for us and the servants. "Oh," they said, "for them you want boy's meat," and they produced this chopped-up bone and gristle and sinew. It was cheaper than meat for the dog. We thought "We can't give them that" so we bought them steak. After a while there was a mutiny because we weren't giving them the proper meat.'

Things are a bit risky around here, especially at night. There are raids across the border, both ways.

'The police are in here every night getting drunk. The army's the same. I'm afraid the Rhodesian whites are too flabby. If they ever came up against a really motivated black army, well they'd get rolled up.'

So what's going to happen?

'The blacks will get independence eventually - but it'll take about ten years.'

The Inn is a lovely place, in far better taste than anything else I've seen, set among flowers and lawns. The Van den Berghs seem like the right sort of people to have there too. It's sad to think of the fate hanging over them. I think his forecast is too optimistic. In Chipinga, the next town, a businessman called Hutchinson, who says his grandfather was governor of the Cape Province, agrees with me.

'My date is 1980’ he says. 'There'll be African Government by then.' His arguments are convincing. He seems to be in touch. What Africans think, I have no idea. I keep hoping that chance will throw me among them as it did in Kenya, but it does not happen. They appear before me only as servants, figures performing menial functions. All I hear is Yes Sir, No Sir, Three bags full, Sir. They inhabit some other world that I can't get in focus. On my way back to Fort Victoria I stop at a black village on the Tribal Trust Territory. The site has some magic. There are huge, smooth rocks piled on each other, like symbols of power and protection, with sheltered patches of ground among them. I'm not very far from Zimbabwe itself, and there is a kind of sorcery in the land, but all I see are endlessly outstretched hands, begging. One dumpy lady runs frantically to fetch her big copper pot and balances it on her head, in the hope of getting a posing fee, I suppose. Her haste is such that she gets it on wrong and has to stand with her head crooked to keep it up there. The anxiety on her face is comical and leaves a bad aftertaste. No, Lady, that's not what I came for.

Fort Victoria is Rhodesia's tourist trap for visiting South Africans. It funnels them right into the curio shops.

'Get yourself something Unique, something Arty!!!'

Beit Bridge, the South African border, is a long, dry ride south. On the way a million storks make a swirling, towering column in the sky, marshalling themselves for the journey to Europe.

The South African Immigration and Customs authorities can afford to be a good deal fussier than the Rhodesians.

'Do you have your return ticket out of South Africa, Mr. Simon?' says the first official.

'Well, hardly. I was booked on a ship to Rio, but the sailing was cancelled.'

'In that case I must tell you that you are classified as
^Prohibited Person.'

He gives me a leaflet and a form, and I see that there is hope here even for prohibited persons. All I need to do is make an interest-free loan to the South African government of $600 for the duration of my stay. This money can be used to purchase a non-redeemable ticket, or it will be refunded at the exit point. Ho-hum. I suppose they're good for the money, but I
know
there will be complications. Luckily I've got the $600.

Now for customs. I get this young fellow, full of bounce. He is even Whiter than White, but of course I am used to it now. He's got on the usual white gymnastics outfit, but unlike all the other officials who have some mark or rank on their epaulettes, he does not even have epaulettes. He is so junior he hardly even exists, and he's trying to make up for it.

First he packs me off across the road to get a road safety token,

whatever that may be. On my way back I see them all gathered round the bike. I'm so accustomed to the sight that I imagine they are admiring it, as everybody else does.

Inside the office Billy the Kid fixes me with his dull blue eyes.

'Now Sir, have you got any meat, plants, firearms, drugs, books or magazines, cigarettes or tobacco?'

'Yes, I have a book on Christianity.'

'Christ - i - anity?!!' He is incredulous.

I ask if he's heard of it, but he's too busy thinking about his next move.

'Have you anything else to declare?'

'No.'

He has a thin voice that shoots into an upper register on certain words.

'Then
why
Sir,' he pounces, heavily, 'do you not declare
the sword?'

The sword? Good God, yes, the sword. I forgot I had a sword. It's not my sword. I met a man in Cairo who wanted to emigrate to Brazil, but he was not allowed to, so he was trying to get his stuff out of the country first. He gave me $2,000 to send to his brother, and then asked if I could carry his father's ceremonial sword. I thought it was a genial idea, and I attached it on the opposite side to the umbrella. I never gave it a thought.

The Kid shows me his collection of confiscated arms. He is very proud of it, particularly a three inch dagger he took only the other day. But a sword! That's a real prize.

‘I shall have to take it away from you, Sir. I'm very
sorry.'

He sounds delighted.

'I'm afraid you can't,' I say. 'You see, it isn't mine. Anyway, it isn't actually a weapon. It is a family heirloom.' ‘I cannot let you take this sword, I am
sorry.'

'Well, how will I get it back? Obviously I cannot just abandon it. It does not belong to me.'

'We shall see if we can wrap it and send it
under seal
and at your
expense
to Brazil.'

I can tell he's improvising now. The ground is slipping away under his feet.

'Why can't I collect it at customs in Cape Town?'

He is looking very confused. His neighbour at the next desk who has a broad gold band on his shoulder and seems to be keeping an eye on him, leans over to him and says softly:

'Why don't you go and ask your father?'

Daddy, of course, is the boss. ('Ach please, Daddy, let me go to Customs, and confiscate my life away like you?')

A party collects in his office to inspect the weapon with enthusiasm. Daddy draws it from the scabbard and makes a few experimental strokes.

'How can we stop the natives having them if we let you in with this
’
says Number Two.

Does he imagine the 'natives' engaging in knightly combat, cut, thrust, parry, according to the rules of chivalry? 'Natives' don't need swords. They have pangas, which they use to cut cane, and grass, and if necessary, throats. I think these white knights are mad, but this is not the moment perhaps to say so.

Now Daddy has an idea. 'Son, see if you can seal it into the scabbard, and then wrap it up well so no one can see what it is.'

The Kid is happy. He's got his orders, which he can carry out to the letter, to the very seriph.

'Come over here Sir,
please.
Now, Sir, you see I am going to wire this hilt to the scabbard, and seal it. You see there is a number on this lead seal. If this seal is broken you go
straight to jail.'

'What happens,' I ask, 'if someone should happen to steal it from me.'

'You go
straight to jail.
Same thing if you lose it or sell it.
Straight to jail.
Now Sir, I am going to wrap this sword up in brown paper which will carry the customs seal also, and I am bound to warn you that if it is tampered with in
any way . . .'

'Straight to jail,'
we cry in unison.

He manages quite well with the paper, but the sealing wax is too much. Little drops of it keep falling on his plump white thighs and he's dancing with pain and frustration. He is able at last to get some wax to stick to the paper, but it is obvious to me that the first rainstorm will soak it to a mash.

'Usually,' he says, primly, 'we get the natives to do this sort of thing. Now I must ask you for a deposit so that we can be sure you will declare the sword in
Cape Town.'

But this is too much for me, and I am glad to see the older man shake his head, silently and repeatedly.

'All right,' says the Kid, as if it were his idea. 'You can go.'

From Beit Bridge it is only three hundred and fifty miles to Johannesburg. I imagine that I will arrive there tomorrow night, and set off to get as far as I can today. A considerable range of mountains, the Soutpansberg, bars the way, and the road climbs up into a cold cloud. There are tunnels to pass through, and on the other side, some rain. At a small town called Louis Trichardt I decide to stop and treat myself to a hotel, which proves to be memorable because of the dining room. This is a large square room, with a smaller room inside it, like nesting boxes. The smaller room has glass panes for walls and is the kitchen, and all the cooking can be watched from the dining room. In a London restaurant this could be an ingenious and even attractive idea, if rather courageous. Here in South Africa it has a gruesome feeling, because the kitchen staff, naturally, is black. We, the diners, are white. The owner patrols the dining room in a

planter's safari outfit, and oversees both parts of his business simultaneously. I watch the 'galley slaves' with a sick fascination. They do not talk to each other, or show the slightest expression of pleasure, fatigue, self-consciousness or, indeed, any emotion at all. The scene, to me, is so highly abnormal, and to everyone else it is so completely normal, that I feel I have wandered, by chance, into a land as strange as any Gulliver ever visited. I make a conscious effort to reserve my judgement. The logic of the arrangement is all too obvious.

I am now only two hundred and eighty miles from Johannesburg, an easy day's ride. The significance of this day's journey is great. Since Cairo I have been riding with a damaged piston. It seems scarcely possible that the engine has been able to survive this far. Not only the distance, more than seven thousand miles, but the conditions of heat and effort, especially in the north, must have put the machine to a very severe test. Now, one day's ride from here, are all the facilities I need to overhaul the cylinders, re-bore, put in new pistons, and do anything else. Up to now, at best it would have meant shipping parts from England with great delays and bureaucratic entanglements. Most of the way it would have been impossible.

My confidence in the Triumph has gone beyond surprise and gratitude. I now rely on it without question, and it seems past all coincidence that, on this last day, the unseen fate working itself out in the cylinder barrel should manifest itself. It is not I who is looking for significance in these events. The significance declares itself unaided.

Just beyond Trichardt, in the morning, the power suddenly falters and I hear, unmistakably, the sound of loose metal tinkling somewhere; but where? Although the power picks up again, I stop to look. The chain is very loose. Could it have been skipping the sprockets? I tighten the chain and drive on. Power fails rapidly and after about four miles the engine simply stops in first gear. There's a strong smell of burning. Is it the clutch? It seems to have seized, because even in neutral it won't move.

Two friendly Afrikaaners in the postal service stop their car to supervise, and their presence irritates me and stops me thinking. I remove the chain case to look at the clutch, a good half hour's work. Nothing wrong, and then my folly hits me. I tightened the chain and forgot to adjust the brake. I've been riding with the rear brake on for four miles, and the shoes have seized on the drum. Apart from anything else, that is not the best way to treat a failing engine.

I put everything together again and set off, but the engine noise is now very unhealthy. A loud metallic hammering from the cylinder barrel. A push rod? A valve? I'm so near Jo'burg, the temptation to struggle on is great. At Pietersburg I stop at a garage. The engine oil has vanished.

'That's a bad noise there, hey!' says the white mechanic, and calls his foreman over.

'Sounds like piston slap. The piston's seized.'

'Can I go on like that?'