Rage (35 page)

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Authors: Wilbur Smith

BOOK: Rage
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She watched his eyes in the mirror and saw the pain in them.
‘Yes,' he admitted. ‘Of course I do. Yet I dare not acknowledge it. I must lock such feelings away lest they weaken my resolve and destroy us all.'
‘Then I will love him for both of us,' she said softly.
As Marcus Archer had warned Tara, there were more road-blocks. As they drew closer to the great industrial and mining complex of the Witwatersrand they were stopped three times, the last at Halfway House, but each time the
chauffeur's uniform and Tara's white face and haughty manner protected him.
Tara had expected Johannesburg to be like a city under siege, but the road-blocks and the news posters on the street corners were the only indications of something unusual afoot. The headgear wheels of the mines they passed were spinning busily, and beyond the perimeter fences they saw the black miners in gumboots and shiny hard hats flocking to the shaft heads.
When they passed through downtown Johannesburg, the city streets were crowded as usual with shoppers of all races and their faces were cheerful and relaxed. Tara was disappointed. She was not sure what she had expected, but at least she had hoped for some visible sign that the people were on the march.
‘You cannot expect too much,' Moses told her when she lamented that nothing had changed. ‘The forces against us are obdurate as granite, and the resources they command are limitless. Yet it is a beginning – our first faltering step on the road to liberation.'
They drove past Puck's Hill slowly. It seemed deserted, and at least there were no signs of police activity. Moses parked the Cadillac in the wattle plantation at the back of the Country Club and left Tara while he went back on foot to make absolutely certain they were not running into a police trap.
He was back within half an hour. ‘It's safe. Marcus is there,' he told her as he started the Cadillac and drove back.
Marcus was waiting for them on the verandah. He looked tired and worn, and he had aged dramatically in the short time since Tara had last seen him.
He led them into the long kitchen, and went back to the stove on which he was preparing a meal for them, and while he worked he told them everything that had happened in their absence.
‘The police reaction was so massive and immediate that it must have been carefully prepared. We expected a delay while they caught up with the situation and gathered themselves. We expected to be able to exploit that delay, and call upon the masses to join us in the defiance campaign until it gathered its own momentum and became irresistible, but they were ready for us. There are not more than a dozen of the leaders at large now, Moses is one of the lucky ones, and without leaders the campaign is already beginning to grind to a halt.'
He glanced at Tara with a vindictive sparkle in his eye before he went on.
‘However, there are still some pockets of resistance – our little Victoria is doing sterling work. She has organized the nurses at Baragwanath and brought them out as part of the campaign. She won't keep that up much longer – she'll be arrested or banned pretty damn soon, you can bet on that.'
‘Vicky is a brave woman,' Moses agreed. ‘She knows the risks, and she takes them willingly.'
He looked straight at Tara as he said it, as if daring her to voice her jealousy. She knew of his marriage, of course, but she had never spoken of it. She knew what the consequences would be, and now she dropped her eyes, unable to meet his challenge.
‘We have underestimated this man De La Rey,' Moses said. ‘He is a formidable opponent. We have achieved very little of what we hoped for.'
‘Still, the United Nations is debating our plight,' Tara said quietly without looking up again.
‘Debating,' Moses agreed scornfully. ‘But it requires only a single veto from America or Britain or France, and no action will be taken. They will talk and talk while my people suffer.'
‘Our people,' Marcus chided him. ‘Our people, Moses.'
‘My people,' Moses contradicted him harshly. ‘The
others are all in prison. I am the only leader who remains. They are my people.' There was silence in the kitchen, except for the scrape of utensils on the plates as they ate, but Marcus was frowning and it was he who broke the silence.
‘So what happens now?' he asked. ‘Where will you go? You cannot stay here, the police may swoop at any moment. Where will you go?'
‘Drake's Farm?' Moses mused.
‘No.' Marcus shook his head. ‘They know you too well there. The moment you arrive the whole township will know and there are police informers everywhere. It will be the same as turning yourself in at the nearest police station.'
They were silent again until Moses asked, ‘Where is Joe Cicero? Have they taken him?'
‘No,' Marcus answered. ‘He has gone underground.'
‘Can you contact him?'
‘We have an arrangement. He will ring me here – if not tonight, then tomorrow.'
Moses looked across the table at Tara. ‘Can I come with you to the expedition base at Sundi Caves? It's the only safe place I can think of at the moment.' And Tara's spirits bounded. She would have him for a little longer still.
Tara explained to Marion Hurst, not attempting to conceal Moses' identity nor the fact that he was a fugitive, and she was not surprised by the American woman's response.
‘It's like Martin Luther King coming and asking me for sanctuary,' she declared. ‘Of course I'll do whatever I can to help.'
As a cover, Marion gave Moses a job in the pottery section of the warehouse under the name of Stephen Khama, and he was absorbed immediately into the company of the expedition. Without asking questions the other members, both black and white, gathered around to shield him.
Despite Marcus Archer's assurances, it was almost a week before he was able to contact Joe Cicero, and another day before he could arrange for them to meet. The hardest possible way they had learned not to underestimate the vigilance of the police, while Joe Cicero had always been secretive and professional. Nobody was certain where he lived or how he maintained himself, his comings and goings were unannounced and unpredictable.
‘I have always thought him to be theatrical and overcareful, but now I see the wisdom behind it,' Moses told Tara as they drove into the city. Moses was once more dressed in his chauffeur's uniform. ‘From now on we must learn from the professionals, for those ranged against us are the hardest of professionals.'
Joe Cicero came out of the entrance of the Johannesburg railway station as Moses stopped the Cadillac for the red light at the pedestrian crossing, and he slipped unobtrusively into the back seat beside Tara. Moses pulled away, heading out in the direction of Doornfontein.
‘I congratulate you on still being at large,' Joe told Moses wryly, as he lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the last and glanced sideways at Tara. ‘You are Tara Courtney,' and smiled at her surprise. ‘What is your part in all this?'
‘She is a friend,' Moses spoke for her. ‘She is committed to us. You may speak freely in front of her.'
‘I never speak freely,' Joe murmured. ‘Only an idiot does that.' They were all silent then until Joe asked suddenly, ‘And so, my friend, do you still believe that the revolution can be won without blood? Are you still one of the pacifists who would play the game by the rules that the oppressor makes and changes at will?'
‘I have never been a pacifist,' Moses' voice rumbled. ‘I have always been a warrior.'
‘I rejoice to hear you say it, for it confirms what I have always believed.' Joe smiled a sly and inscrutable smile behind the fringe of dark beard. ‘If I did not, I would not
be sitting here now.' Then his tone altered. ‘Make a U-turn here and take the Krugersdorp road!' he ordered.
The three of them were silent while Joe turned to scrutinize the following traffic. After a minute he seemed satisfied and relaxed in the back seat. Moses drove out of the built-up areas into the open grassy veld. The traffic around them thinned, and abruptly Joe Cicero leaned forward and pointed ahead to an empty lay-by on the side of the road.
‘Pull in there,' he ordered, and as Moses parked the Cadillac he opened the door beside him. As he stepped out he jerked his head. ‘Come!'
When Tara opened her own door to join them, Joe snapped, ‘No, not you! Stay here!'
With Moses at his side he walked through the stand of scraggly black wattle into the open veld beyond, out of sight of the road.
‘I told you the woman is trustworthy,' Moses said, and Joe shrugged.
‘Perhaps. I do not take chances until it is necessary to do so.' And then he changed direction. ‘I asked you once what you thought of Mother Russia.'
‘And I replied that she was a friend of the oppressed peoples of the world.'
‘She wishes to be your friend also,' Joe said simply.
‘Do you mean me personally – Moses Gama?'
‘Yes, you personally – Moses Gama.'
‘How do you know this?'
‘There are men in Moscow who have watched you carefully for many years. What they have seen they approve of. They offer you the hand of friendship.'
‘I ask you again. How do you know this?'
‘I am a colonel in the Russian KGB. I have been ordered to tell you this.'
Moses stared at him. It was moving so fast that he needed a respite to catch up.
‘What does the offer of friendship entail?' he asked cautiously, buying time in which to think, and Joe Cicero nodded approvingly.
‘It is good you ask the terms of our friendship. It confirms our estimate of you. That you are a careful man. You will be given the answer to that in due course. In the meantime be content with the fact that we have singled you out above all others.'
‘Very well,' Moses agreed. ‘But tell me why I have been chosen. There are other good men – Mandela is one of them.'
‘Mandela was considered, but we do not believe he has the steel. We detect a softness in him. Our psychologists believe that he will flinch from the hard and bloody work of the revolution. We know also that he does not have the same high regard for Mother Russia that you do. He has even called her the new oppressor, the colonialist of the twentieth century.'
‘What about the others?' Moses asked.
‘There are no others,' Joe told him flatly. ‘It was either you or Mandela. It is you. That is the decision.'
‘They want my answer now?' Moses stared into the tar pits of his eyes, but they had a strangely lifeless dullness in them and Joe Cicero shook his head.
‘They want to meet you, talk to you, make sure you understand the bargain. Then you will be trained and groomed for the task ahead.'
‘Where will this meeting take place?'
Joe smiled and shrugged. ‘In Moscow – where else?' And Moses did not let his amazement show on his face, though his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
‘Moscow! How will I get there?'
‘It has been arranged,' Joe assured him, and Moses lifted his head and stared at the tall thunderheads that rose in silver and blue splendour along the horizon. He was lost in thought for many minutes.
He felt his spirits grow light and take wing up towards those soaring thunder clouds. It had come – the moment for which he had worked and waited a lifetime. Destiny had cleared the field of all his rivals, and he had been chosen.
Like a victor's laurel they were offering a land and a crown.
‘I will go to meet them,' he agreed softly.
‘You will leave in two days' time. It will take me that long to make the final arrangements. In the meantime keep out of sight, do not attempt to take leave of any friends, do not tell anybody you are going – not even the Courtney woman or your new wife. I will get a message to you through Marcus Archer, and if he is arrested before then, I will contact you at the expedition base at Sundi Caves. Professor Hurst is a sympathizer.' Joe dropped the butt of his cigarette and while he ground it under his heel, he lit another. ‘Now we will go back to the car.'
V
ictoria Gama stood at the top end of the sloping lawns of the Baragwanath nurses' home. She was still dressed in her uniform with the badges of a nursing sister sparkling on her tunic, but she looked very young and self-conscious as she faced the hundred or so off-duty nurses who were gathered on the lawns below her. The white matron had refused permission for them to meet in the dining-hall, so they were standing' out under a sky full of towering thunderheads.
‘My sisters!' She held out her hands towards them. ‘We have a duty to our patients – to those in pain, to those suffering and dying, to those who turn to us in trust. However, I believe that we have a higher duty and more sacred commitment to all our people who for three hundred years have suffered under a fierce and unrelenting oppression—'
Victoria seemed to gather confidence as she spoke, and her sweet young voice had a music and rhythm that caught their attention. She had always been popular with the other nurses, and her winning personality, her capacity for hard work and her unselfish attitude had seen her emerge, not only as one of the most senior nursing staff for her age, but also as an example and a trend-setter amongst the younger nurses. There were women ten and fifteen years older than she was, who listened now to her with attention and who applauded her when she paused for breath. Their applause and approval bolstered Victoria and her voice took on a sharper tone.
‘Across the land our leaders, in actions rather than' pale words, are showing the oppressors that we will no longer remain passive and acquiescent. They are crying to the world for justice and humanity. What kind of women will we be if we stand aside and refuse to join them? How can we ignore the fact that our leaders are being arrested and harassed by the infernal laws—'
There was a stir in the crowd of uniformed nurses, and the faces which had been lifted towards Victoria turned away and the expressions of rapt concentration changed to consternation. From the edges of the crowd one or two of the nurses broke away and scuttled back up the steps of the nurses' home.
Three police vans had driven up to the gates, and the white matron and two of her senior staff had hurried out to confer with the police captain in charge of the contingent as he alighted from the leading vehicle. The matron's white tunic and skirt contrasted with the blue of the police uniforms, and she was pointing at Victoria and talking animatedly to the captain.
Victoria's voice faltered, and despite her resolve, she was afraid. It was an instinctive and corrosive fear. From her earliest remembered childhood the blue police uniforms had been symbols of unquestionable might and authority.
To defy them now went against all her instincts and the teaching of her father and all her elders.
‘Do not challenge the white man,' they had taught her. ‘For his wrath is more terrible than the summer fires that consume the veld. None can stand before it.'
Then she remembered Moses Gama, and her voice firmed; she beat down her fear and cried aloud, ‘Look at yourselves, my sisters. See how you tremble and cast your eyes down at the sight of the oppressor. He has not yet spoken nor raised a hand to you, but you have become little children!'
The police captain left the group at the gate and came to the edge of the lawn. There he paused and raised a bullhorn to his lips.
‘This is an illegal gathering on state-owned property.' His voice was magnified and distorted. ‘You have five minutes to disperse and return to your quarters.' He raised his arm and ostentatiously checked his wristwatch. ‘If you have not done so in that time—'
The nurses were scattering already, scampering away, not waiting for the officer to complete his warning, and Victoria found herself alone on the wide lawn. She wanted to run and hide also, but she thought about Moses Gama and her pride would not let her move.
The police officer lowered his loud-hailer and turned back to the white matron. They conferred again, and the officer showed her a sheaf of paper which he took from his dispatch case. The matron nodded and they both looked at Victoria again. Alone now, she still stood at the top of the lawn. Pride and fear held her rigid. She stood stiffly, unable to move as the police captain marched across to where she stood.
‘Victoria Dinizulu?' he asked her in a normal conversational voice, so different from the hoarse booming of the loud-hailer.
Victoria nodded, and then remembered. ‘No,' she
denied. ‘I am Victoria Gama.' The police officer looked confused. He was very fair-skinned with a fine blond moustache. ‘I was told you were Victoria Dinizulu – there has been a mess-up,' he muttered, and then he blushed with embarrassment and immediately Victoria felt sorry for him.
‘I got married,' she explained. ‘My maiden name was Victoria Dinizulu, but now I am Victoria Gama.'
‘Oh, I see.' The captain looked relieved, and glanced down at the document in his hand. ‘It's made out to Victoria Dinizulu. I suppose it's still all right, though.' He was uncertain again.
‘It's not your fault,' Victoria consoled him. ‘The wrong name, I mean. They can't blame you. You couldn't have known.'
‘No, you're right.' The captain perked up visibly. ‘It's not my fault. I'll just serve it on you anyway. They can sort it out back at HQ.'
‘What is it?' Victoria asked curiously.
‘It's a banning order,' the captain explained. He showed it to her. ‘It's signed by the Minister of Police. I have to read it to you, then you have to sign it,' he explained and then he looked contrite. ‘I'm sorry, it's my duty.'
‘That is all right.' Vicky smiled at him. ‘You have to do your duty.'
He looked down at the document again and began to read aloud:
TO VICTORIA THANDELA DINIZULU
 
Notice in terms of Section 9(i) of the Internal Security Act 1950 (Act 44 of 1950). Whereas I, Manfred De La Rey, Minister of Police, am satisfied that you are engaged in activities which endanger or are calculated to endanger the maintenance of public order –
The captain stumbled over the more complicated legal phraseology and mispronounced some of the English words. Vicky corrected him helpfully. The banning document was four typewritten pages, and the policeman reached the end of it with patent relief.
‘You have to sign here.' He offered her the document.
‘I don't have a pen.'
‘Here, use mine.'
‘Thank you,' said Victoria. ‘You are very kind.'
She signed her name in the space provided and as she handed him back his pen, she had ceased to be a complete person. Her banning order prohibited her from being in the company of more than two other persons at any one time, except in the course of her daily work, of addressing any gathering or preparing any written article for publication. It confined her physically to the magisterial area of Johannesburg and required that she remain under house arrest for twelve hours of the day and also that she report daily to her local police station.
‘I'm sorry,' the police captain repeated, as he screwed the top back on his pen. ‘You seem a decent girl.'
‘It's your job,' Victoria smiled back at him. ‘Don't feel bad about it.'
Over the following days Victoria retreated into the strange half-world of isolation. During working hours she found that her peers and superiors avoided her, as though she were a carrier of plague. The matron moved her out of the room that she shared with two other nursing sisters and she was given a small single room on the unpopular southern side of the hostel which never received the sun in winter. In this room her meals were served to her on a tray as she was prohibited from using the dining-hall when more than two other persons were present. Each evening after coming off shift she made the two-mile walk down to the police station to sign the register, but this soon became a
pleasant outing rather than a penance. She was able to smile and greet the people she passed on the street for they did not know she was a non-person and she enjoyed even that fleeting human contact.
Alone in her room she listened to her portable radio and read the books that Moses had given her, and thought about him. More than once she heard his name on the radio. Apparently a controversial film had been shown on the NABS television channel in the United States which had created a furore across the continent. It seemed that South Africa, which for most Americans was a territory remote as the moon and a thousand times less important, was suddenly a political topic. In the film Moses Gama had figured largely, and such was his presence and stature that he had been accepted abroad as the central figure in the African struggle. In the United Nations debate which had followed the television film, nearly every one of the speakers had referred to Moses Gama. Although the motion in the General Assembly calling for the condemnation of South Africa's racial discrimination had been vetoed in the Security Council by Great Britain, the debate had sent a ripple across the world and a cold shiver down the spine of the white government in the country.
South Africa had no television network, but on her portable radio Victoria listened to a pungent edition of
Current Affairs
on the state-controlled South African Broadcasting Corporation in which the campaign of defiance was described as the action of a radical minority, and Moses Gama was vilified as a Communist-inspired revolutionary criminal who was still at large, although a warrant had been issued for his arrest on a charge of high treason.
Cut off from all other sympathetic human contact, Victoria found herself pining for him with such desperate longing that she cried herself to sleep in her lonely room each night.
On the tenth day of her banning she was returning from her daily report to the police station, keeping to the edge of the pavement in that sensual gliding walk that the Nguni woman practises from childhood when she carries every load, from faggots of firewood to five-gallon clay pots of water, balanced upon her head. A light delivery van slowed down as it approached her from behind, and began to keep pace with her.
Victoria was accustomed to extravagant male attention, for she was the very essence of Nguni female beauty, and when the driver of the vehicle whistled softly, she did not glance in his direction but lifted her chin an inch and assumed a haughty expression.
The driver whistled again, more demandingly, and from the corner of her eye she saw the van was blue with the sign EXPRESS DRY CLEANERS – six HOUR SERVICE painted on the side. The driver was a big man, and although his cap was pulled low over his eyes, she sensed he was attractive and masterful. Despite herself her hips began to swing as she strode on, and her large perfectly round buttocks oscillated like the cheeks of a chipmunk chewing a nut.
‘Victoria!' Her name was hissed, and the voice was unmistakable. She stopped dead and swung round to face him.
‘You!' she whispered, and then glanced around her frantically.
For the moment the sidewalk was clear and only light traffic moved down the highway between rows of tall bluegum trees. Her eyes flashed back to his face, almost hungrily, and she whispered, ‘Oh Moses, I didn't think you'd come.'
He leaned across the front seat of the van and opened the door nearest her, and she rushed across and threw herself into the moving van.
‘Get down,' he ordered, and she crouched below the dashboard while he slammed the door closed and accelerated away.
‘I couldn't believe it was you. I still don't – this van, where did you get it? Oh Moses, you'll never know how much – I heard your name on the radio, many times – so much has happened—' She found that she was gabbling almost hysterically. It had been so long since she had been able to talk freely, and it was as though the painful abscess of loneliness and longing had burst and all the poison was draining in the rush of words.
She began to tell him about the nurses' strike and the banning, and how Albertina Sisulu had contacted her and there was going to be a march by a hundred thousand women, to the government buildings at Pretoria, and she was going to defy her banning order to join the march.
‘I want you to be proud of me. I want to be part of the struggle, for that is the only way I can truly be a part of you.'
Moses Gama drove in silence, smiling a little as he listened to her chatter. He wore blue overalls with the legend ‘Express Dry Cleaners' embroidered across his back and the rear of the van was filled with racks of clothing that smelled strongly of cleaning solvent. She knew he had borrowed the van from Hendrick Tabaka.
After a few minutes Moses slowed the van and then turned off sharply on to a spur road which swiftly deteriorated into a rutted track, and then petered out entirely. He bumped the last few yards over tussocks of grass and then parked behind a ruined and roofless building, the windows from which the frames had been ripped out were like the eyes of a skull. Victoria straightened up from under the dashboard.
‘I have heard about the nurses' strike and your banning,' he said softly as he switched off the engine. ‘And yes, I am proud of you. Very proud. You are a wife fit for a chief.'

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