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‘So the bed could have been unmade like that for days. So why do you say it had been “recently” slept in?’
‘Because,’ the sergeant said triumphantly, ‘the bed was warm.’
‘Ah, yes, so you said. Warm? You used a thermometer, of course?’
‘No,’ the sergeant sighed, ‘I felt it with my hand.’
‘Oh, yes, your hand. I suppose your five years’ experience in vice has made your hand a reliable thermometer?’
‘The bed was warm, Your Worship,’ the sergeant insisted.
‘How warm, Sergeant?’
‘It was warm – it was obvious people had been lying in it.’
‘Obvious? People? Not just one person? It was obvious the temperature was caused by two or more human beings?’
The sergeant sighed. ‘The point is it was warm. And there were two people in the apartment.’
‘And two people will always jump into the same bed? Two people couldn’t possibly be in the presence of one bed without feeling irresistibly compelled to jump into it? Is that your experience?’
The sergeant sighed again. ‘I’m just telling the magistrate what I saw.’
‘And felt. With your experienced hand. So tell me, what was the temperature of the bed – in Fahrenheit. Or Centigrade.’
The sergeant muttered: ‘I don’t know. Just warm.’
‘I see. Hold your hand up in the air, please, Sergeant.’
The sergeant did so, grimly.
‘What is the temperature of the air in this courtroom?’
‘I don’t know, Your Worship,’ he sighed. ‘It’s normal.’
‘Normal for what? For Africa in general? Johannesburg in particular, six thousand feet above sea level? What is normal?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know! And what is the normal temperature of a bed that has just been vacated?’
‘I don’t know.’
In those days Drum had its premises in a rundown building called Samkay House, Troy Street, in downtown Johannesburg. It was a small outfit, with sales of only 80,000 copies per month, but over a million blacks read it. There was also a Rhodesia Drum and a Kenya Drum and the publisher intended to publish from Cape to Cairo in the fullness of time. Drum was also strong on black culture, all aspects of black urban life: Sophiatown had been the most dramatic manifestation of that urbanization, but Sophiatown had been razed to the ground and now Soweto was Drum’s new focus. Drum’s treatment was very American in style, heavy on American movies, cars, clothes, music and rising stars like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X. In those days the ANC and PAC imagined that the repressions of apartheid would make their causes bloom into open rebellion, but the government clampdown on all dissent in pursuit of its dream state was so effective that Drum was the only mouthpiece the blacks had, and they loved it. In short, Drum owed its success to apartheid.
But Drum was careful. The basic, day-to-day enemy was the Police Censorship Department, the Subversive Publications Act as supported by the Suppression of Communism Act, but the editor managed to steer a precarious course through this maze of legislation. Nonetheless, every Drum writer – and many from the other newspapers – had received an ‘invitation to tea’ with BOSS, the Bureau of State Security, a branch of the South African Police. It was the week after Mahoney’s story of Patti Gandhi’s acquittal was published that he received his invitation.
BOSS had its offices on the eleventh floor of Marshall Square Police Station, in the heart of Johannesburg. You were escorted into the building, and you rode up in a special elevator with only one button. You passed through a security gate, walked down a row of offices to the big one, and there was Colonel Krombrink, his hand extended and a smile all over his Afrikaner face.
‘Mr Mahoney, thank you for coming to see us …’
‘Us’ included a young man in plain clothes at the window, smiling faintly, holding a fat file conspicuously marked Luke Mahoney, which he now carefully placed before Colonel Krombrink. Tea was served on a tray by a black constable, with a saucer of Marie biscuits.
After the niceties, Colonel Krombrink said: ‘Mr Mahoney, every man is entitled to his opinions, hey, provided he doesn’t commit subversion, but tell me, have you read the Communist Manifesto, and Karl Marx’s Das Kapital?’
Mahoney had: it was in his father’s library. But now Das Kapital was a banned book. ‘No.’
‘No? That’s interesting, because it strikes us here in BOSS that so many of you English journalists have had a grounding in communism, hey. Particularly you people in Drum. Nothing wrong, I suppose, with an intellectual inquiry, hey, provided you don’t write about it, indirectly encourage it. Anyway, it’s nice to chat about these things, us intellectuals.’ He waved his hand at his bookcase behind him. ‘I’ve studied just about every book that’s ever been written on communism, hey. It’s my business. So I’m very interested to hear what you have to say, Mr Mahoney. About our Suppression of Communism Act.’
Mahoney’s heart was knocking. He said: ‘I don’t believe in communism, Colonel Krombrink. For what my youthful opinion is worth, I think it is doomed because it must, by definition, be repressive, imposing a one-party state on the populace. And secondly, by definition, it must also suppress the most valuable resource a nation has, namely human initiative. Ambition. The work ethic. The determination to prosper.’
Colonel Krombrink smiled. ‘What big words for such a young man. But, of course, you are a journalist. And your father –’ he indicated the file – ‘is a Member of Parliament, an “independent”. And he is always proposing his votes of no confidence in the government, hey, so I suppose he taught you a lot of big words too.’ He smiled. ‘Tell me, Mr Mahoney, why don’t you have confidence in our government?’
Oh Jesus, he wanted to get out of here. ‘Because I think apartheid is also doomed to failure. Unworkable. And unjust.’
‘Ah. But you say you’re not a communist? Tell me, was – or is – Lisa Rousseau a communist?’
Mahoney was taken aback. Lisa – they knew about her? ‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘Perhaps your knowledge of her was only carnal? Oh yes, she’s a communist. Do you know where she is now?’
A communist?! ‘At the University of Cape Town, doing her doctorate.’
‘She’s in a house in Cape Town, doing her doctorate. She’s been banned.’ Mahoney stared. Lisa banned? Oh God, how awful!
‘It’s a terrible business being a banned person, hey, Mr Mahoney. Imagine, she’s not allowed to be in the presence of more than three people, she’s not allowed to make any speeches, or write anything for publication, she can’t play sport, she must be in her house from five in the afternoon to eight next morning. For three years. That’s a hell of a way to live, hey? It would be a pity if it happened to you. But it’s necessary in her case.’
Mahoney’s pulse tripped at the threat. ‘Why was it necessary?’
‘That’s our business. But you know she’s a member of the ANC. And now the ANC is a banned organization, after Sharpeville.’
‘I didn’t know she was a member. But being a member of the ANC doesn’t make her a communist.’
‘No? Have you read the so-called Freedom Charter of the ANC?’
‘Of course.’
“‘Of course”?’ Krombrink smiled. ‘Yes, journalists love to read things like the Freedom Charter, hey. Well, the so-called Freedom Charter says, amongst other things, that the land, and the mines, banks, life insurance companies, industry, big business, they all belong to the people and will be nationalised. What’s that if it’s not communism, hey?’
Mahoney took a deep, tense breath. Oh, he wanted this over. ‘But I think somebody like Lisa Rousseau can be a member of the ANC without supporting all its economic principles.’
‘You think so? Are you a secret member of the ANC, Mr Mahoney?’
‘No.’ Thank God he could truthfully say that. They could have no evidence to gainsay that.
‘Are you an ANC sympathiser?’
Mahoney mentally closed his eyes. And, oh God, he hated himself for being frightened of the bastards. ‘No’ would have been untrue. So would ‘Yes’. ‘Partly’ would open a Pandora’s box. ‘No.’
‘Then why – ’ Krombrink opened the file – ‘do you write nonsense like this, hey?’ He tossed onto the desk the glossy pages of Mahoney’s story in Drum about the Sharpeville massacre.
Mahoney looked at him grimly. ‘It’s news.’
‘News? It’s your opinion.’ Krombrink frowned at him. ‘You’re nineteen years old and your opinion is published across the land for all these stupid blacks to take as gospel. I ask you, is that reasonable? Would any other civilized country put up with that?’
It was Mahoney’s instinct to retort that the Pass Laws were not reasonable, that South Africa did not have a civilized government. ‘It was also my editor’s opinion – he made the decision to publish. It was also the opinion of the international press.’
Krombrink sat back in his chair and tapped the printed pages. ‘Mr Mahoney, you call the Pass Laws unjust. Unfair. Cruel. And you praise the defiance campaign, which resulted in all these people dying, hey.’ He shook his head. ‘Mr Mahoney, do you realize what would happen to this country if we didn’t have Pass Laws? Can’t you imagine the chaos? The millions of blacks streaming out of their homelands to look for work? Millions of blacks roaming our streets, knocking on doors – sleeping in the streets. Can’t you imagine the shanty towns? The squalor, the disease, the crime … Got, man, it would be chaotic! It would be asking for trouble. And so unhealthy. And for every job there would be a hundred blacks queuing up, hey – is that fair to them? They’ll be so desperate for jobs every Jew-boy will be screwing them for cheap labour, hey? And can you imagine the security problem?’ He shook his head. ‘Got, man, surely you can see that the Pass Laws are absolutely necessary for good government?’
Good government? Mahoney wanted to ask whether Job Reservation was also good government, but, oh God, what Krombrink said was also true – social chaos would ensue if the millions of blacks descended on the cities. Before he could muster a comment Krombrink tossed another pile of print on the desktop.
‘And if you’re not ANC, why do you write crap like this, man?’
It was his story of Patti Gandhi’s trial.
Mahoney stared at the top page: it was dominated by a photograph of Patti, looking like a million bucks, the breeze blowing her long black hair, descending the steps of the Magistrates’ Court, a smile all over her beautiful face. ‘What’s wrong with that story, Colonel Krombrink?’
The good colonel sat forward. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ He frowned in wonder. ‘Got, man, Mr Mahoney, I admit she is a good-looking girl, hey – you get some okay-looking Indian girls, I admit. Even some Coloured girls. But Got, man, that isn’t the point, hey.’ He frowned. ‘The point is we must have order. And the white man in Africa represents order. It’s all in the Bible, man. And therefore the white man must keep himself pure, hey. Can you imagine what a tragedy if the white man went kaffir, like in Brazil. Look what a mess South America is.’ He frowned again. ‘Mr Mahoney, does the sparrow mate with the swallow? Does a goose mate with a duck? Does a cow mate with a kudu?’ He shook his head, eyes big. ‘No, man – the sparrow sticks to other sparrows, the cow sticks to ordinary bulls. Why? Because it’s the natural law, man! God’s law!’ He stared, then raised his finger. ‘An’ what’s the only exception – the horse! The horse will mate with the donkey, hey. And what is the result?’ He looked at Mahoney sadly. ‘The mule. An’ we all know what a stupid animal the mule is! It can’t even breed.’ He shook his head. ‘The human being is as randy as hell, hey. An’ what’s the result? The result is Coloureds, Mr Mahoney – brown people who are neither one thing nor the other. Half-castes! Neither black nor white!’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘And Got, man, we know what a problem those bastards are: drunks, liars, crooks, prostitutes …’ He frowned at him, then jabbed a finger. ‘You know: you’ve been on the whaling ships with them.’
‘And most of them are perfectly ordinary people.’
‘“Most” of them! Ja – and the rest? Skollies. Hottentots. Troublemakers! Neither one thing nor the other! Don’t know where they fit in!’ He shook his head, then leant forward again. ‘Mr Mahoney, surely you can see that Nature did not intend that. Surely you can see that that is not God’s law. God’s law is pure. Sensible. Obvious.’ He held up a finger. ‘It’s all in the Bible, Mr Mahoney. God said unto Moses when he led them out of Egypt, “Thou shalt not let the seed of Israel mingle with the Canaanites”!’
Mahoney sighed. How do you talk to a guy like this? He heard himself say: ‘And the Sons of Ham shall be hewers of wood and drawers of water?’
Colonel Krombrink looked at him.
‘Man, that’s what it says in the Bible, yes. But you must admit we’re being bladdy fair to them, hey, because now the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act is going to give them independence. That’s okay, they can run themselves any way they like there. But Got, man, Mr Mahoney,’ he frowned, ‘you know bladdy well that they can’t run a white man’s country, hey? Do you seriously think they can? You know the Transkei, you’ve seen how simple they are. Stick fights and witch doctors and muti-murders. An’ here in Soweto – how violent they are. Got, man, one side is always knocking the hell out of the other. ANC versus PAC. Xhosa versus Zulu. That’s a kaffir’s idea of politics, hey. That’s how it’s always been since Shaka. Not so?’
Mahoney sighed. Oh, the age-old argument. And, yes, Krombrink had him there. He nodded.
‘Not so?’ Krombrink continued. ‘An’ even if they weren’t like that, even if they behaved properly instead of like animals, do you imagine they’ve got the know-how to run a modern country? You’ve seen them.’ Krombrink shook his head. ‘No, man, it would go to hell. Not so?’
Mahoney shifted. He began: ‘Of course they haven’t got the ability to run the country yet –’
‘Exactly. They hadn’t even invented the wheel when the white man came – an’ even the ancient Greeks had the wheel! No, South Africa would become just another kaffir country, hey. Look at Ghana. Kwame Nkrumah makes himself President-for-life and the country goes to ratshit. Do you want South Africa to go like that?’
Mahoney said grimly: ‘No, but I don’t want it to become a bloodbath either.’
‘Of course not, and that’s exactly what we will avoid with our policies, because the races will be kept apart, to develop along their own lines in their own areas an’ won’t interfere with each other. One day soon each race will be looking after its own affairs, an’ if they want to have a bloodbath in somewhere like the Transkei, it’s their problem, hey, not ours –’
‘But apartheid will bring the bloodbath right here,’ Mahoney said, ‘to Johannesburg. Like Kenya.’
Colonel Krombrink smiled. ‘Mr Mahoney, South Africa is totally different to Kenya – there were only fifty thousand whites in Kenya, there are five million of us here. Here we’ve got control, man.’
‘And Russia – can you control them? Apartheid is driving the blacks into the arms of the communists.’
The colonel shook his head. ‘Mr Mahoney, it is only by apartheid that we can control the communists. Without apartheid there will be chaos in which communists flourish. And apartheid offers the blacks an alternative to the rubbish of communism, it offers them the goal of self-government in their own territories. Russia wants to impose a one-party communist government. To achieve this, Russia wants chaos, it wants a bloodbath so it can seize power. Russia wants our gold and diamonds, Mr Mahoney – and Russia wants the Cape Sea Route. Because with the Gape she dominates all the sea traffic to the Far East, because the Suez Canal is now controlled by Egypt, and Russia can easily dominate Egypt. With the Cape route, she’ll have the whole of Africa in her hand, man. An’ from Africa they start on the rest of their world revolution. Do you want that?’
Mahoney sighed. ‘Of course not, but the point is –’
‘That’s the only point, Mr Mahoney: apartheid or communism. World communism.’ He frowned. ‘Are you sure you’re not a communist sympathizer, Mr Mahoney?’
Oh Jesus. It was intended to intimidate, and it worked. ‘Quite sure.’
‘Then why do you write crap like this, man?’ He smacked the Patti Gandhi story. ‘Trying to make a laughing stock of the Law … The Afrikaner is self-destructing … ’ Before Mahoney could muster a response he continued: ‘Do you know Miss Gandhi is a communist?’
Mahoney frowned. ‘No. She comes from a wealthy family of Indian manufacturers.’
‘Karl Marx was well off. Engels was rich. There’re rich communists too. What they want is power. What Miss Gandhi wants is revolution. She’s been making trouble for years and she makes headlines because she’s pretty. All that crap about going into white libraries and getting on white buses and swimming on white beaches. Even into the Dutch Reformed church. Got, man, she’s got no respect for other people’s feelings, she only thinks of her reputation as a trouble-maker. Then she goes to this high-fallutin’ school in England and they think she’s some kind of hero an’ her head gets more swollen. He frowned. ‘And now she breaks the Immorality Act and people like you write crap like this about her.’
‘She was acquitted!’ Mahoney interjected.
‘But only just! The magistrate said the evidence was very suspicious – “sinister”, he said – but it was just possible she hadn’t had sexual intercourse and he had to give her the benefit of the doubt! We all know she committed perjury! But you make her a heroine!’ He quoted: ‘“Beautiful … gorgeous … brilliant cross-examination … brilliant school record … courageous”.’ He frowned. ‘Got, man, that brings the law of the land into disrepute. Can’t you see that’s irresponsible journalism?’
Mahoney badly wanted to retort about the law of the land – but, oh shit, he just wanted to get out of here. ‘My editor approved it.’
Krombrink snorted. ‘Your editor, hey? That English pinko. An’ all those black colleagues of yours, no doubt.’ He shook his head. ‘Of course they would. All those drunkards at Drum are ANC.’
Mahoney wanted to protest their innocence, and thereby his own, but before he could think of anything, Krombrink banged the desk and said with exasperation: ‘Got, man, Mr Mahoney, what’s a well-brought-up chap like you doing working for a kaffir magazine like Drum, hey?! A communist rag, man? An’ you with all the advantages! Your father a lawyer an’ MP. Head prefect of your school. First class pass in matric!’ (Mahoney was amazed he knew all this.) ‘The Mahoney family goes back to the Great Trek days.’ He shook his head. ‘Got, such a proud record, an’ then you come along, a Mahoney with real brains, an’ first you get expelled for screwing the communist history mistress, you lose your Rhodes scholarship, then you go to work for a kaffir magazine and write crap like this –’ he thumped the stories – ‘about Sharpeville, and Miss Patti Gandhi.’ He looked at Mahoney with grim, steely eyes; then said theatrically: ‘BOSS has watched your downhill slide with great alarm. And sadness, hey.’
Mahoney’s heart was knocking. The statement was loaded. Krombrink looked at him witheringly, then stood up. Satisfied. He held out his hand, unsmiling. ‘Thank you for dropping round. Nice to have a chat about things of national interest. Contact me anytime you feel like another one.’
Mahoney stood up. National interest? Oh Jesus … He took the hand. ‘Thanks for the tea.’
As Mahoney reached the door Krombrink said: ‘Oh, Mr Mahoney?’ Mahoney stopped and looked back. ‘As you’re not a communist sympathiser, or ANC, any bits of information that come your way we would much appreciate to know about.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Do I make myself clear?’
Mahoney looked at the man. And, oh God, he hated himself for not having the courage of his convictions, for not giving the man a withering stare and turning on his heel. ‘You make yourself clear.’
He turned again, and Krombrink said: ‘Mr Mahoney?’
He stopped again. Krombrink smiled: ‘Remember Miss Rousseau. A Banning Order is a terrible way for a young man to live, with all those pretty girls out there going to waste …’
9 (#ulink_4ad24974-142d-52ef-a47c-553bae4f75d5)
Colonel Krombrink was dead right: all the journalists at Drum were pro-ANC. What else was there to be in South Africa in those days if you were black? But none of the Drum writers was a communist, as far as Mahoney knew. It was true that if you supported the ANC you were indirectly sympathetic to the South Africa Communist Party because the two were partners in crime now that both were banned: the ANC relied on the communist’s cell structure and experience in underground survival. And Krombrink was dead wrong when he called Drum’s writers crap, but he was right when he called them heavy drinkers.
Mahoney could hold his booze but those Drum guys had livers like steelworks. Hard living was part of the job at Drum, part of its black mystique: ‘Work hard, play hard, die young and leave a good-looking corpse.’ The ambience and prose at Drum was styled on the tough American journalism of the fifties, the rough scribes with hats tilted, ties loose, cigarette hanging out of the corner of the mouth, a hip-flask to hand, pounding out flash, hard-hitting copy on their beat-up Remingtons before sallying out once more into the tough, dangerous, fun world of gangsters, shebeens, cops, jazz, politics, injustice, flash cars and fast women. Most mornings Mahoney stayed at home studying for his law degree: at lunchtime he hit the streets of Johannesburg and Soweto, the courtrooms and the copshops and the mortuaries, looking for copy, chasing blood-and-guts stories. When he got to the office for the editorial meeting the boys were already getting along with the booze as they bashed out their prose; it was against the law for blacks to drink anything but kaffir beer, but Mahoney and the boss bought it for them, or they got it illegally at the Indian and Chinese fast-food joints that did a roaring trade servicing the black workers in downtown Johannesburg because they weren’t allowed into bars and restaurants. The editorial meetings were very stimulating, a barrel of laughs, ideas flowing as fast as the wine and whisky and brandy as the boss kicked around subjects with his scribes and dished out assignments. It was at one of these meetings that he tossed a letter on the desk.
‘An application for a job from a friend of yours, Luke. Justin Nkomo, says he was your garden boy. Know him?’
‘Justin? Sure! Good guy. Where is he?’
‘Transkei. Says he’s done a teacher’s diploma but wants to try his hand at journalism. Suggests he can be our education columnist. I’m embarrassed to tell him we haven’t got an education desk, none of you guys are educated enough.’
‘I’m educated,’ Mike Moshane said. ‘C-O-A-T spells JACKET. How’s that?’
Mahoney said: ‘He was bloody good at English. And a marvel at cricket. Best batsman I’ve ever seen. Hit anything.’
