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He badly wanted to believe her. ‘Tell me the truth, Patti.’
‘Darling?’ She looked at him with big innocent eyes. ‘I also want us to keep a low profile so that we don’t have trouble. Just examine the facts. Have I made trouble since we started going together? Have I climbed or any whites-only buses? Walked into any white restaurants? Tried to cash a cheque in any whites-only queue at the bank – or buy a-whites-only postage stamp? Tried to swim in a whites-only pool? Have I?’
‘No,’ Mahoney sighed.
‘And that used to be my stock-in-trade. Now Patti Gandhi has disappeared from the magistrates’ courts. Why? Because I want to be happy with you. I don’t want to get into trouble and spoil it. So, I suppose I’ve become like ninety per cent of the white South Africans. Like ninety per cent of Germany under Hitler: don’t make trouble with the big bad authorities.’ She looked at him with big dark eyes. ‘Which is pretty despicable, I suppose, but that’s where yours truly is at.’ Then she flashed her brilliant smile. ‘And we’re not allowed to talk about politics, remember? So …’ She heaved herself up out of the bath, gleaming, and reached for a towel. ‘So, shall we just have fun while it lasts?’
‘Don’t talk like that.’
While it lasts. Oh God, those words frightened him. But somehow he did not believe them, that these glorious days could not last, somehow they would get away with it. This apartheid craziness could not go on forever. Lying alone in his bed in The Parsonage, staring at the ceiling in the darkness, he knew that these laws would not change for a long, long time and then only because of the bloodbath, and he knew she was right when she said they were doomed, living in an unreal world. But out here on Buck’s Farm, drinking wine by the pool in the sun, lying together in the slippery caress of the bath, making love on the big double bed, it felt like the real world, how people were meant to feel and live, and he could not believe it was not going to last.
Unhappiness came in the second year of their relationship. In May he was going to Write his law examinations: when he had that degree what the fuck was he going to do with it? What were they going to do?
‘You’ll write the local bar exam, and practise,’ she said.
‘I don’t want to practise law.’
‘Nonsense, you’ll be an excellent lawyer. You can’t keep on working for Drum. It’s been a great job but it’s a dead-end.’
‘I could work for the Star. Or the Rand Daily Mail.’
‘Luke, you’re destined for greater things than newspaper work.’
‘What’s wrong with being a political columnist? An opinion-maker.’
‘Luke,’ she said. ‘With your brain and gift of the gab you should be in the courtroom fighting for justice, raising hell. Helping people who’re politically persecuted, not being an armchair political commentator. We need people like you.’
‘Patti, law isn’t a very portable qualification – it’s not like medicine or dentistry, which is the same the world over – a lawyer cannot easily uproot himself and go to practise in another country. He’s got to write their local bar examinations. And one day South Africa is going to blow up. I don’t want to start exams all over again in Australia or Canada.’
‘That’s exactly the point! Yes, this country is going to blow up. But that’s when you must stay and help rebuild it after the dust settles, not run away to Australia or Canada!’
He sighed. ‘Patti, when the dust settles there’s going to be very little law. The policeman and the judge are the cornerstones of society, and they’re going to be black.’
She said quietly: ‘You don’t believe that us blacks are capable of running this country, do you?’
‘You’re not black, for Christ’s sake.’
‘The point is you don’t believe that we in the ANC can run a decent government, do you? You think it will be corrupt, inefficient and under-qualified.’
Mahoney sighed. True. ‘Not true. I just think it will take a hell of a long time to rebuild on those ruins. And during that time I will be unable to earn a reliable living as a lawyer. So if I’m going to be a lawyer I must leave South Africa, as my father said. But if I’m going to be a journalist, a political commentator, South Africa is the best place to be. Because there’s more to write about here than anywhere else.’
She looked at him narrowly with those beautiful brown eyes.
‘The truth of the matter is that you’re a racist, darling.’
No. A realist. The truth of that matter lay in those mortuaries, in the cloven heads, the stab and hack wounds down to the bone, the severed limbs, genitals cut off for muti; the stick fights, two, three, four hundred armed a side, all breaking loose. The truth of the matter was in the chaos of the Congo, the turmoil in Uganda, the horrors of the Mau Mau, the corruption of Ghana. The truth of the matter was Luke Mahoney liked blacks and wanted to help them: he simply did not believe they were ready yet to run the country.
‘No. The solution is a policy of gradualism,’ he said. ‘Equal rights for all civilized men. Meanwhile let the others have a degree of local self-government in their areas, so they gradually learn the responsibilities of democracy.’
‘The “civilized” ones. “Them.” You really don’t consider them to be ordinary people, do you? They’re a different species. God, that’s typical of the white man – even the liberal white man: the blacks are “them” out there picking their noses, they’re not like “us” though of course there are a few civilized ones and of course we mustn’t be beastly to “them”.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘But they are different.’
‘Of course they’re different, Patti. Different cultures, different institutions, different ideas on how to live and behave.’
‘And therefore unfit to govern themselves and have the vote?’
‘The vote, democracy, is a sophisticated Western institution. It’s alien to them, not one of their institutions. If they’re going to adopt it – or have it thrust upon them – they’ve got to learn how to use it.’
‘Become “civilized”? By your standards.’
‘By normal standards.’
‘By normal standards you’d have to exclude a lot of the dumb whites in this country.’
‘Agreed.’
‘And a hell of a lot of the peasants in Europe. So are you seriously telling me that if we were Italians, having this discussion in Rome now, you’d be recommending that we disenfranchise the peasants in the hills?’
He sighed. ‘No, because there are plenty of educated Italians to run the country properly. But there are not enough educated blacks to run South Africa by Western standards – and it’s Western institutions they want to take over.’
‘But there are enough educated blacks to run it their way.’
‘The African way? Sure. Shaka did it single-handed.’
‘Bullshit. You wouldn’t disenfranchise the Italian peasants because they’re white, but if they were black you’d only let the elite govern Italy. Or have a benevolent dictatorship, like Franco does in Spain.’
‘As a matter of fact a benevolent dictatorship may be good for Africa. “Nobody has the vote for the next thirty years until we’re all civilized sufficiently to use it properly” – maybe that’s the answer. The blacks respond well under their chiefs and behave themselves. But to answer your question: no, I would not recommend disenfranchising the Italian peasants because they do not settle their political differences with an axe. They do not chop the opposition’s head open to make a point.’
‘And the blacks will?’
‘For God’s sake, Patti, they do.’
‘So there’s no hope?’
‘The hope is civilization. Gradualism.’
‘And what are these normal standards of civilization?’
‘Various alternatives. A reasonable level of education is obviously one. Income is another alternative. Or property – a man who owns his own house is smart enough to have the vote. Age is another one: when a man reaches say, forty –’
‘Forty, huh? You’re twenty, you have the vote and you’re judging the maturity of a man of forty. What white arrogance –’
He groaned. ‘You’re looking for a fight, aren’t you?’
‘Me? Never.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Patti. I love you.’
‘I love you too, big boy, so what’s that got to do with democracy? Except we’re not allowed to love each other.’
He said slowly, leaning forward: ‘Patti, I loathe apartheid. Apartheid must go, immediately. But surely that doesn’t mean we must reduce this country to chaos. Do you honestly believe that the ANC – or the blacks – can be relied upon – tomorrow – to run South Africa? With its vast civil service – its health, and railways, and airports and its judiciary and police force and its navy and its agricultural departments and its mines and industries and forests and game reserves and its economy – the whole works. Do you?’
She said angrily: ‘Obviously we’ll have to train a new black civil service –’
‘But they wouldn’t – they’d fire the whites and put their pals in office. That’s why we need gradualism. For God’s sake, apartheid must go, we agree on that, but I’m asking you whether, if apartheid was overthrown tomorrow, you honestly think that the blacks could successfully take over the administration of this country?’ He shook his head. ‘It would be a shambles.’
‘Anything,’ she said, ‘would be better than apartheid. Like anything would have been better than the Nazis in Germany. And you, sir –’ she placed her fingertip on his nose – ‘are a racist in your secret heart.’
But what the fuck were they going to do about each other? About the real world.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘This is the real world. We’ll do nothing, until we’re caught and sent to jail.’ She added: ‘Or until you leave me.’
Oh, bullshit. ‘So that only leaves one alternative: leave South Africa.’
‘I’m not leaving South Africa, Luke.’
He sighed angrily. ‘So that only leaves jail. And when we come out, what happens? Get caught again?’
‘True. So? So there’s only one thing to do.’
‘And that is?’
She said solemnly: ‘Capitalize and get married.’
He wondered if he had heard aright.
She smiled. ‘We get married in Swaziland in a blaze of publicity. You set it up through Drum and we’ll get other newspapers involved. “Young White Lawyer Defiantly Marries Indian Wench.” We drive back into South Africa to set up our happy home, we get arrested the first night and thrown in jail. Outcry. A black eye for South Africa.’
He groaned. ‘Be serious, for God’s sake. We go and live somewhere else. In England. In Swaziland.’
She smiled at him. Tenderly. ‘Thank you, Luke. And I love you too. But darling? This is my country of birth and I’m going to stay and see it through.’
‘See what through? Our jail terms? The bloodbath?’
‘I’m going to see those bastards in jail. A Nuremberg trial. Crimes against humanity.’
He took both her hands. ‘We can’t wait for that. We have no alternative but to leave the country.’
She sighed. ‘Yes we have. And that is to quit.’ She looked at him. ‘Split up. Before we’re caught. And never see each other again.’
He stared at her. ‘You don’t want that, so don’t say it. Ask yourself what you do want. And how you can achieve it.’
‘I want,’ she said, ‘a hell of a lot more than most women. I don’t just want a nice home and a nice husband with a nice job and nice children – I want justice for all. Freedom. Legal freedom – instead of legal bondage. And how do we achieve that? By getting rid of this Afrikaner government.’
‘You’re preaching to the converted.’
‘Yes, but you’re not prepared to fight for it. I am.’
Oh Jesus. He said grimly: ‘You’re right, I’m not prepared to fight for it – because you can’t win, because they’ve got all the big battalions. All the laws. But I’m prepared to work for it –’
‘By leaving the country?’
‘By writing about it. Creating a fuss, raising public awareness, international public awareness –’
‘From outside the country.’
‘Jesus Christ, I only want to leave so that I can live with you! As we can’t do that here we’ve got to do the best we can from outside. You can’t fight if you’re in jail, Patti.’ He glared at her. ‘Tell me how you’re going to fight, Patti.’
She said grimly. ‘Ask no questions and you’ll get no lies.’
Oh Jesus, words like that frightened him. ‘For Christ’s sake! Tell me what you’re doing! So I can evaluate it!’
‘Evaluate it? And if you don’t approve?’ she said grimly. ‘What you don’t know you can’t be forced to tell Colonel Krombrink next time he pulls you in.’
‘For God’s sake! Do you think I’d betray you?’
‘I think our cops can make anybody betray anybody. Unless you throw yourself out of one of their upper windows.’
He paced across the room. ‘Patti – I can’t live like this, tell me what you’re doing. So that maybe I can … help you. Protect you.’
‘Help me?’ She smiled fondly ‘You weren’t meant to be a fighter, Luke. You’re a great guy, and I love you to bits, and you’re an adventurer, but you’re not a warrior, you’re a worrier – that’s why you’re such a good writer. You’re a wordsmith – that’s what nature intended you to be, and that’s wonderful.’
He was stung. Not a fighter? He sat down and took her hands. ‘But you are a fighter?’
‘Yep.’ Then she closed her eyes. ‘Darling, I’m doing nothing.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
She snorted softly. ‘Too bad. Nor would Colonel Krombrink.’
He glared at her. Too bad, huh? He stood up angrily. ‘Okay. That’s it. You don’t trust me. And I don’t trust you not to land us in the shit. So neither of us trusts the other. And we can’t live inside the country, and you refuse to leave. So you don’t love me enough. So there’s no future in this relationship. So? So I’m off. I’m getting out of your hair.’
She looked up at him. ‘On the contrary,’ she said quietly, ‘I love you with all my heart.’
‘But not enough to run away with me!’
‘I’m not a runner. I’m a stayer.’
He glared at her. ‘Goodbye, Patti. It’s been great. I really mean that.’
Her eyes were moist. She said: ‘Next weekend I’ll be here.’
It was a long week.
‘I love you,’ he said.
