Rumours of Rain Read online

  “Now I won’t stand any further trouble,” I said, or words to that effect. “Our output is beginning to be affected and that cannot be tolerated. In the end you are the ones who suffer most. Those of you who do not report for work in the morning will be sent home straight away.”

  Once again I asked Charlie to translate. For a few seconds he stood with bowed head before he started talking very rapidly, going on for at least fifteen minutes. Thanks to our farm in the Eastern Cape I know some Xhosa but I couldn’t follow Charlie’s Sotho or whatever it was he spoke. Not that it worried me, for by that time I knew Charlie to be a born negotiator. He appeared to handle their barrage of questions with consummate skill. And when finally he handed the megaphone back to me he was applauded with a thundering: “Siya vuma!”

  After a cup of tea with the mine manager I returned to the pale grey Mercedes, where Charlie sat waiting at the wheel.

  “Well,” I said, “it just shows you, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He waited until we’d passed through the gates in the high fence surrounding the mine area and reached the Johannesburg–Potchefstroom main road. Then he said casually: “The real trouble is only starting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I couldn’t tell them what you said.”

  “What!”

  “I thought you’d prefer to get out from there in one piece.”

  “But how dare you.…”

  “You don’t know how angry those men really are.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does!” He’d never spoken in such a tone to me before but I managed to restrain myself. “Listen,” he said, “it’s bad enough for those who work in Johannesburg. They’re also locked up in compounds like a lot of animals in a bloody zoo. But at least they can get out from time to time to do some shopping, or even to dance for your White tourists on the mine dumps on Sundays. But this lot – Jesus, man, here they’re kept behind barbed wire with nothing but dust and dry grass as far as you can see. They want liquor, they want women. They need something.”

  “So what did you tell them?”

  He flashed his smile at me, exposing the pink of his gums. Behind his thick lenses his eyes looked like a chameleon’s. “Don’t ask me,” he said. “You know the saying: ‘When you return to the fire, don’t talk about the nest you found, for the birds will take away their young.’”

  He stopped at a yield sign, allowing a pantechnicon to pass before turning smoothly into the left lane.

  “What did you tell them, Charlie?” I insisted.

  “I told them you knew how dissatisfied they were. You knew they had every right to feel upset and you’re going to fix it for them. But first you’ve got to discuss it with the big-heads in Johburg. They said it was O.K. But they must have your answer before the weekend, otherwise they’re not coming back to work.”

  “My God, Charlie!”

  “Most of them had sticks with them,” he said quietly. “Some had bicycle chains or crowbars concealed under their coats.”

  I was prepared to waive the administration fee, provided they stepped up production and put an immediate end to all demonstrations. After all, I couldn’t allow them to blackmail me.

  The announcement was phoned to the mine manager at Westonaria. That was on the Thursday. On Friday morning the strike began. The small number, less than ten per cent, who were prepared to go on working were intimidated by the majority; two had to be taken to hospital with serious injuries.

  On Saturday the violence spread. From all over the Reef police reinforcements were moved to Westonaria. Even before they’d been mobilised the mining offices went up in flames. Fortunately the manager succeeded in getting out just in time. Then all the different tribal groups turned against each other. Xhosas, Zulus, Tswanas, Sothos. It happens invariably. And it wasn’t until Sunday that the police could risk it into the compound to start clearing up the mess.

  On Monday I sent Charlie to Westonaria to take stock of the situation, and the next morning I went myself. The police (about a hundred of them, equipped with automatic rifles, and stationed some distance from the gates) were very reluctant to let me through but I insisted.

  “It won’t be the first time I’ve had to deal with a rowdy mob,” I told them.

  But I did feel rather ill at ease when I stopped at the gates and blew the horn. In the distance a few men in blue uniforms were spraying the tarred ground surrounding the burnt-out offices. Just stay calm, I decided. Whatever you feel, don’t let them notice you’re anxious. It’s just like confronting a strange dog: if you look him in the eyes and convince him you’re not scared, he’ll respect you.

  It was Charlie who came to the gates. But he was followed at a short distance by the whole horde – a vanguard of ten or twenty, with a solid phalanx in the background. They were no longer wearing their overcoats: in spite of the June cold they were all naked or half-naked. Most shocking of all was the sight of Charlie in this savage guise.

  I leaned out of the window. “Open up, Charlie. I want to talk to them.”

  “No!” he shouted back.

  Behind him the vanguard was drawing a few steps closer.

  Without switching off the engine, I got out to demonstrate that I was quite alone and unarmed, and unafraid.

  Once more there was that subdued humming as of bees.

  “They don’t want you here,” Charlie said.

  “Do you expect me to turn tail like a coward? What will happen to my authority?”

  “They shit on your authority as it is.”

  Again I became aware of his eyes behind the thick glasses: now more bloodshot and swollen than before. Had he been up all night? Or had he drunk some unspeakable concoction with the mob?

  “Open the gate, Charlie!” I ordered.

  He pushed it open, but just wide enough for himself to slip through. Behind the fence the crowd was pressing closer.

  He caught me unawares. Half turning round to them he shouted something, raising a clenched fist. The next moment he stooped to pick up a brick. Looking at me squarely, his grin frozen into a grimace, he hurled the brick through my windscreen. A shout went up among the crowd. Far behind me I could hear the police cars starting up.

  I didn’t wait a moment longer. Jumping back into the Mercedes I broke out a section of the shattered windscreen and drove off, revving the engine. A cloud of dust obscured the compound gates.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing?” I asked furiously when, exhausted and dishevelled, Charlie turned up in my office the next day. “You were acting like a bloody savage.”

  For once there was no sign of a smile on his face. “What did you expect me to do?” he asked. “If I hadn’t scared you off they’d have torn you to pieces. And me too.”

  “Were you really only play-acting, Charlie?” My throat felt tight.

  “I’m resigning,” he said. “I can’t go on like this. I’ve become a sell-out, working with you the way I’ve been doing.”

  “You’re exhausted, that’s all. How can you be a sell-out by trying to restore some peace and order?”

  “And turning against my own people?”

  “You can only turn against them if you think in terms of monolithic groups.”

  “Who taught us to think in terms of groups?”

  “Be reasonable, Charlie.”

  “I’m sick and tired of being reasonable.”

  “Do you really identify with a mob like that?” I asked. “You?”

  With his ancient chameleon eyes he peered at me as if, over a great distance, he found it difficult to see me. My God, I thought, the man really is at the end of his tether.

  “Will you help me?” he asked. His voice sounded like dry grass scraping on rock. “I think most of their violence is spent by now. Perhaps we can get them to co-operate if you and I had a go at it together.”

  “Of course we can. I’ve got to go away for the weekend, but I’ll be back by Monday night.”

  “It
would be safer to try and settle this first.”

  “It’s impossible, Charlie. I must go to the Eastern Cape. No choice. It’s urgent. After all, you said they’re all right now.”

  “Well, if you really can’t make it.” He smiled from habit, quite mirthlessly. “But it’s a pity. A great pity.”

  Strange how much resistance I had to overcome to get to the farm that weekend, as if all sorts of people and events were trying to restrain me. Charlie. Bea, most fervently of them all. But even Elise who, after twenty years of married life, should have been used to my comings and goings.

  “I can’t see why you should go there for a weekend, Martin. If you took a proper holiday for a couple of weeks, all right, then the children and I can go with you. But this is pointless.”

  “It’s impossible to take more time off now.”

  “But it’s too far for a weekend. In your condition.”

  “For God’s sake stop talking about my ‘condition’ as if I were pregnant or something.”

  “But it’s barely three months since you —”

  “So what? I’m not going to stay an invalid for the rest of my life.” I had a brainwave: “And I want to take Louis with me.”

  She was surprised. “Louis?”

  “It’s high time he and I had a proper chat. He’s been hanging round since February now, refusing to go to university or do anything constructive. And it’s no use confronting him with it, as you know. He just closes up like a clam. But if he goes with me, maybe we can have a proper man-to-man talk.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “Of course.”

  She sat watching me intently for a while. We were still at table, the reading lamp burning in the corner. Ilse had excused herself earlier on to prepare for her exams. Louis was – somewhere. He hadn’t come home for supper. And so we were alone, Elise and I. Which was unusual, since more often than not I work late at the office and come home to something warmed up in the oven; otherwise we’d have a party or a reception or something. But that afternoon I’d driven straight home from Westonaria, too upset by what had happened there to go back to work, and in no mood for arguments.

  In that silence I was forced to look at her, to take cognisance of her. Perhaps it was the side lighting which caused me to discover for the first time that she was also getting older, looking her real age, forty-two. Here and there a grey line in the dark-blonde hair tied loosely in a chignon. An old shapeless sweater round her shoulders, although the central heating made it unnecessary; but she’d been wearing it in the garden and neglected to take it off when she came in. Her eyes were still the same intense blue of so many years ago, that Sunday afternoon on Bernard’s farm. The same blue, but not the same expression. Again a matter of Songs of Innocence – Songs of Experience? No song at all, in fact. I believe that was what really struck me that evening. Previously I’d wondered, sometimes, which of the extremes in her would finally take over: the cleric’s daughter who, back in the early fifties when such things had been much less conceivable than now, had dived naked into a dam with me, or the one who, on our wedding night, had said: “Let’s first pray to ask the Lord’s blessing on us”? But that evening, in our strange isolation on opposite ends of the yellowwood table, such memories appeared unreal if not irrelevant. In cruel sincerity I had to acknowledge that Elise was still a person with strong convictions, except that she no longer knew of what she was convinced; she was still strong, only she had no idea of what was threatening her; she would still go her way unswervingly, but she couldn’t tell where it was leading her.

  After the long silence her question was, I suppose, inevitable: “But why are you going down to the farm? Surely not just for Louis’s sake.”

  “No. I’ve got to talk to Ma.”

  She sat in silence, waiting for more, watching me.

  “She can’t stay there all on her own,” I continued. “She’s getting too old for that sort of life.”

  “But you know how often we’ve tried to talk her out of it. She won’t leave her graves.”

  “Things are changing. It’s getting dangerous. You realise the farm is on the very edge of the Ciskei.”

  “It’s always been there.”

  “But the Blacks are getting restless. I’m just not happy about her down there. We’ve got to sell the farm so that she can come and live with us.”

  Another long silence before she asked, dead-pan: “How much are you getting for the farm?”

  “That’s not important. The point is —”

  “Of course it’s important. I know you’ll never sell the farm unless you get very good money for it.”

  “I keep telling you I’m concerned about Ma.”

  “Martin.” The lines beside her mouth deepened slightly. “You think you can gloss everything over with words. All your life you’ve been able to have things your way because you’ve got the gift of the gab.” Absently she started toying with a heavy silver knife, but without taking her eyes off me. “Well? What’s the price?”

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand.”

  “The farm isn’t worth one quarter of that!”

  “That’s what I’ve been offered.”

  “And for that you’re prepared —” A pause. “You can’t do it, Martin. Not the farm.” For the first time she raised her voice; and she put down the knife.

  “It’s all settled. I’ve just got to discuss it with Ma.”

  The doorbell rang. Annoyed, Elise looked up, but I felt relieved.

  It was Neels Jansen, our church elder. Not on any official business, just one of his periodic “look-ins”. The man had a special sixth sense which unfailingly informed him whenever I needed peace and quiet so that he could come and disturb it. A huge bulky ox of a man, looking more like a butcher than anything else, with a kind but sallow face and close-cropped hair. Not the sort of person whom I’d normally count among my friends, but from the first day he’d arrived at my house (accompanied by the dominee in the service of the Lord) he seemed to take a liking to me. That had been late one afternoon while I was working on the filter pump of the swimming pool. I’d been struggling with it for over an hour when I looked up to find Neels standing behind me in a black suit much too small for him, his tight white collar digging into the lower section of his many chins.

  “Give it to me, man,” he said. “You’re stripping that screw.” With obvious relief he removed his jacket and waistcoat and took over the spanner; and for the next half-hour I looked on, fascinated, while his large soft hands took apart the entire pump and refitted the parts. When he switched it on with immediate positive effect he uttered a loud guffaw, at the same time bringing down his butcher’s paw between my shoulder blades with such violence that I was left gasping for breath while he put on his formal gear again to lead me home to the patiently waiting dominee.

  I’m not by any means a regular churchgoer. Three or four times a year I am prepared to make the sacrifice and I’m not ashamed to admit that it is mainly because it is good for business to be seen in such circles. (Prosperous congregation; all we still need is a wine-list for Holy Communion.) But Elise goes regularly, often twice on Sunday, mainly as a result of the conditioning of her childhood as a dominee’s daughter, but also because she regards it as a good example to the children, especially Ilse.

  After that first visit Neels Jansen returned at more or less regular intervals, usually to check that the filter pump was still working, that the pH and chloride levels of the pool were in order and that all other mechanical installations on my property were functioning as they should. His two main interests in life (roughly for identical reasons) were cars and women. But he also seemed concerned about my salvation (“A man’s soul is like a car engine, it needs a regular overhaul”).

  He turned out to be not a butcher after all but a member of the Security Police; a major, in fact. As he gradually took over the maintenance of all my machinery he also started conveying juicy tidbits from the “inner circles”, generally punctuated
with an enigmatic wink before any point was reached. And in the course of time I developed a soft spot for him, the way one learns to grow fond of a large, clumsy mongrel.

  This was the deus ex machina which interrupted our bitter inquisition that Tuesday evening. Elise soon excused herself and went to make coffee (unnecessarily, since both servants were still washing up in the kitchen), while Neels Jansen flopped down in an armchair with a large brandy he’d poured himself. As usual when not on an “official” visit he was wearing his red tracksuit. It soon became clear what had brought him: I’d missed Communion the previous Sunday. But he tried to be “tactful” about it by approaching it along as circuitous a route as possible; so I tried to ease his discomfort by asking him about his right hand, swathed in plaster-of-Paris from fingertips to beyond his wrist.

  “Oh, this?” he snorted, tasting his brandy. “Broke it on a bloody kaffir.”

  “What?” I couldn’t make out whether he was serious. “You’re joking.”

  “No, genuine.”

  “Did you hurt him?”

  “Hurt him? He’s gone, man. Zap, one time.”

  “But then you’re in serious trouble, Neels!”

  “Ag, no,” he said cryptically. “Don’t you worry. We got it all squared.” He crossed one massive leg over the other, revealing, between the bottom of his track pants and the edge of his canvas shoes, a length of hairy shank. “Now forget about it, man. I tell you it’s nothing. What I want to talk to you about is why you didn’t come to Communion last Sunday.”

  That night, when Elise was already sleeping soundly in her own bed, I lit a forbidden cigarette, wondering: Shouldn’t one do something about the matter? But after reflection I knew it was out of the question. What Neels Jansen did or had done was no concern of mine. One couldn’t get involved in that sort of thing. I had a job to think of. I stubbed out the cigarette. I felt relieved that Elise hadn’t said anything more about the weekend.

  I’m not sure that I am altogether happy about this whimsical way of writing down whatever comes to mind. But I have to explore the terrain first: I must allow myself to discover the full extent of the area involved before I try to get down to that weekend as such. As an entrepreneur I owe much of my success to the thoroughness of my investigation before embarking on a new project, as well as to my perseverance in not abandoning anything once I’ve taken it up. I owe it to myself to proceed with this undertaking too.