The Covenant Part 90

'Grievously. I truly believe that our church is the most effective on earth today. It has spirit, meaning, force. It obeys the word of G.o.d and endeavors prayerfully to implement it. A real church.'

'But its support of apartheid? Surely . . .'

Marius rose and went to the refrigerator for another beer. 'Churches go through cycles. In America, if I understand correctly, your Catholic church is riding rampant on birth control and abortion. That's temporary, a fas.h.i.+on of the moment. It has very little to do with the ongoing operation of the church. Same with our church and apartheid. It's a problem for the 1980s. Fifty years from now it will all be settled.'

'So you support your church in all it does?' Philip asked.

'I do, because it's the moral force of South Africa. It's forever.'

'And in the meantime,' Jopie cried, 'to h.e.l.l with the visitors from Holland.'

'And the World Council of Churches!' Sannie cried, resuming their dance.

A few days later Saltwood observed his arrogant young Afrikaners knocked flat by a much different kind of foreign intervention. He was alone in the Van Doorn kitchen, waiting for Sannie, when her father and Jopie burst into the room, looking ghastly. Without speaking, they fiddled with the radio, located a Pretoria station, and listened as the awful news was reported: 'There is an unconfirmed report out of Auckland that the governments of Australia and New Zealand will be forced to cancel the scheduled tour of those countries by a rugby team from South Africa.'

'Good G.o.d!' Marius said, looking at Jopie as if the latter's arms had been amputated. 'That would mean you wouldn't get your Springbok blazer.'

'Wait, wait! This can't be serious.'

But it was. A different newscaster announced in tremulous Afrikaans, his voice near breaking: 'We have nothing definite yet, but governments of Australia and New Zealand have explained that rioting in the streets protesting the tours have made cancellation advisable.'

'Have you heard?' Frikkie bellowed as he rushed into the kitchen. 'Tour's been canceled.'

'Not officially,' Jopie said, his hands sweating.

Then came the appalling bulletin: 'It is now confirmed that the Springbok tour of Australia and New Zealand has been canceled.'

Marius fell into a chair, staring pitifully at the brothers. 'It's like you said, Jopie. The world thinks we're skunks.'

The three rugby players huddled at the radio, shaken by the urgent bulletins that flooded the air, and when the ugly story was fully verified, Saltwood was amazed by the violence of the men's reactions.

'It's criminal!' Marius shouted. 'Using sport as a weapon of confrontation. A game's a game, and politics should have nothing to do with it.'

'I'll teach them politics,' Jopie thundered. 'I'll fly to New Zealand and break those protestors in half, one by one.'

'It's not the ordinary citizens,' Marius said. 'It's the d.a.m.ned press.'

'The press in all countries should be muzzled,' Frikkie stormed, but at this moment the minister of sports, came on the radio to console the nation, and he was bidding them be of good spirit despite the shattering blow, when Sannie burst into the kitchen, weeping. 'Oh, Jopie! Oh, dear Frikkie! They've stolen your glorious tour from you!' She ran to the cousins and kissed them; Jopie gulped so deeply that Philip feared he might burst into tears, but instead he went about the room, knocking his fist against door-jambs.

Then came more shocking news: 'In New Zealand the agitation against our Springboks was led by a South African citizen, one Fred Stabler, who himself used to play rugby for Rhodes University in Grahamstown. This agitator has moved through both North Island and South, spreading the poison about what he calls apartheid, and he raised such a virulent storm that the New Zealand government had to intervene and order the tour to be canceled. In Australia, at least, it was native-borns who led the agitation. In New Zealand it was one of our own.'

Gloom settled over the Van Doorn kitchen as the Afrikaners realized the full impact of this decision. A generation of fine young athletes would never know whether they could match courage with the ferocious All-Blacks. The great good feelings that welled up when a touring side ran onto the field against New Zealand would be lost. It was important when a South African tennis player was barred from competing in world tennis, a thing to be deplored, but when a whole rugby team was denied an opportunity to win the green blazer, it was a national scandal, and men of all stripe were finally driven to wonder if perchance their nation was on the wrong track.

This self-exploration was intensified next day when newspapers carried full reports from New Zealand, and one Auckland paper, long a defender of South African teams, editorialized: Through the years this newspaper had prided itself on being a champion of restraint in dealing with the th.o.r.n.y problem of South African rugby. In i960, when our Maoris were threatened with expulsion because their skins were not white, we apologized for the backward att.i.tudes of a nation grappling with a serious problem. In 1965, when in the heat of one of our grandest victories Prime Minister Verwoerd announced that henceforth no New Zealand team containing Maoris would ever again be welcomed in South Africa, we discounted his threat as one given in despair over the unexpectedly poor showing of his Springboks. And in 1976, when all the world condemned us for sending the All-Blacks to perform in a country so ridden with racial hatred, we supported the tour. And even when the refereeing proved disgracefully one-sided, we argued that any All-Black-Springbok champions.h.i.+p series was worth the effort, and we urged our boys and our nation to enjoy it.

But we can no longer see anything to be gained by allowing sport, however n.o.ble its intentions, to be used to sh.o.r.e up a racist regime. Belatedly, and with the saddest possible regret, we support Government's decision that this tour must not be allowed to proceed. There are some things in this world bigger than an All-Black-Springbok match, and humanity among brothers is one of them.

Jopie Troxel folded the paper and shoved it over to Sannie. There was so much he wanted to say, but he would not trust himself to speak. They don't understand us, he thought. They accuse us of things we've never done. All we want is to maintain an orderly society, and they protest.

While Sannie and Frikkie prepared sandwiches and beer, he sat staring at his knuckles and brooding. The United Nations had condemned South Africa, but that was a bunch of dark-skinned third nations flexing their feeble muscles, and could be disregarded. The World Council of Churches had condemned apartheid, but they were a gang of radicals. The French-Dutch Commission had spoken harshly, but they were vexed because South Africa did not follow supinely in their missionary-socialist trail. But when Australia and New Zealand canceled a rugby tour, the heart and spirit of the nation were endangered.

'Why can't they try to understand us?' Jopie cried. Sannie and Frikkie kept cutting sandwiches.

A few days later Saltwood was introduced to a South African game even more brutal than rugby, if that was possible. Daniel Nxumalo came casually to Swartstroom and asked, 'You free tonight?'

'Let me phone Sannie.' But when the call went through, Mrs. van Doorn said that her daughter had gone to Pretoria with the Troxel boys, and Philip visualized them moving as a threesome beneath the jacaranda trees. 'I'm free.'

By roundabout paths Nxumalo led Philip to a shack where three tall blacks waited: 'This is my brother Jonathan. This is my cousin Matthew Magubane. This is a new recruit, Abel Tubakwa.'

Philip gasped. A thousand police were searching for Jonathan and Matthew; indeed, the Troxel boys had been on the border primarily to pursue these two into Mocambique, yet here they were, boldly in the same hills as those who were hunting them. 'They were in Soweto last night,' Daniel said, 'and they go north tomorrow. Or at least that's what they told me.' The conspirators laughed.

'We suggested the meeting,' Jonathan said in Afrikaans.

'Why?' Philip asked.

'So that you could tell the Americans, when you go home, that we are far from defeated.'

'I may not go home.'

'You should. In a few years this could be an ugly country.'

Magubane interrupted: 'Marry the girl and get her out of here. All the bright young whites are leaving.' He spoke in such rapid Afrikaans that Saltwood failed to catch his full meaning, so Abel Tubakwa interpreted in fine English.

'How do you see the future?' Philip asked in English, and after that the men used this language.

Jonathan was obviously the tactician: 'If they caught us tonight, we'd all be shot. But they won't catch us. We move about pretty much as we wish.'

'Terrorism?'

'We don't call it that. Sporadic attacks. Hara.s.sment. Ridicule. War of nerves.'

'To what purpose?'

'To remind them always that we're serious. That we will never again go away and lie down like good dogs and not growl.'

'Will that accomplish anything?'

'It will gnaw at their minds. Saltwood, you've seen the enlightened Afrikaners. These people are not stupid. They know that accommodation must be made. I think they're ready to accept us now, on some radically new basis. Not total equality, not yet. And not one-man, one-vote. But a true partners.h.i.+p.'

'Look at what's happening in Pretoria right now,' Daniel said excitedly. 'They've built this new theater. With public funds. I understand it's as good as anything in Berlin or the one in Minneapolis.'

'I've been reading the stories,' Philip said. 'Public funds, and then they state that only whites will be admitted.'

Jonathan slammed the table. 'They doing that again?'

'Yes,' his brother said, 'but there's been this great outcry. From all parts of the public. People you'd never expect have stepped forward to demand that the theater be made available to everyone.'

'G.o.dd.a.m.n!' Jonathan cried, and Magubane rose and walked agitatedly about the room. It was the situation they had fought against for the past three years. 'We no longer want crumbs from the master's table,' Jonathan said. 'We don't want a slice of bread. We don't want the loaf. We want the whole d.a.m.ned bakery. And we want it now.'

'We're not part of their society,' Magubane said sardonically. 'We would not appreciate Shakespeare or Goethe.' He kicked at the chair he had just vacated. 'I can recite whole pages of Oth.e.l.lo, Oth.e.l.lo, but I can never see it performed.' but I can never see it performed.'

Jonathan burst into laughter. 'Magubane, you a.s.s. Oth.e.l.lo Oth.e.l.lo is not really welcomed in South Africa. He's black, man. He's black, or didn't you know?' is not really welcomed in South Africa. He's black, man. He's black, or didn't you know?'

Magubane brushed his chin as if embarra.s.sed by his ignorance, then stood by the door, his right hand across his chestI am a Moor of Venice!' and declaimed: 'Had it pleased heaven To try me with affliction; had they rained All kinds of sores, and shames, on my bare head; Steeped me in poverty to the very lips, Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes, I should have found in some part of my soul A drop of patience . . .'

He quit his oratory and said quietly, 'We have that "drop of patience," but only for so long.'

'What I was trying to say,' Daniel Nxumalo continued, 'was that right now in Pretoria booths have been set up in many spots. White people, women mostly, manage them . . .'

'For what purpose?' Jonathan asked.

'They're collecting signatures, pet.i.tioning the authorities to allow non-whites to attend performances in the new theater. And I understand the response has been overwhelmingly in favor.'

'Well,' Jonathan admitted grudgingly, 'change does come. s...o...b..t inevitable.' He rocked back and forth, then asked, 'Dan, do you think I'll ever be free to come back here and live like an ordinary workman?'

'Yes. Without the slightest hesitation I say yes. There's change in the air. Good things are happening, and I honestly believe we can attain our goals.'

'I don't,' Jonathan replied. 'Not without armed revolution, which will probably not come till I'm an old man.'

'You see yourself living a life of exile?' Philip asked.

'Yes. Magubane here will never see his birthplace free. Tubakwa, when you join us over the border you will never come home.'

'What will you do?' Philip asked.

'Maintain pressure. Goad the Afrikaners into taking an open Hitler stance until the world has to intervene.'

'If the government offered you amnesty'

'We would reject it,' Magubane broke in. 'This is war to the finish. The evil tricks of these people must be ended.'

'But Frikkie and Jopie, the two rugby players. They say almost the same thing. War to the finish. To preserve the kind of government G.o.d willed them to have.'

Jonathan started to make a cynical denouncement, but Magubane cut him off, saying to Philip, 'That's why I advise you to marry the girl and get out of here. You Americans proved in Vietnam you had no stomach for the long fight. The Troxels do. And we do. This war will last forty years, and it can only increase in severity and barbarity. That's why the airplanes are filled with those young people leaving. That's why you should go.'

Philip turned to Daniel Nxumalo. 'But you think there's still hope?'

'I do! The people signing those pet.i.tions in Pretoria are proof.'

But when Philip reached his camp he found his workmen excited by a news flash from the capital. Rural Afrikaners calling themselves the Avengers of the Veld had stormed into Pretoria, dynamited the kiosks in which the theater pet.i.tions were being signed, and burned the rubble, threatening to donder the women if they persisted in this unpatriotic effort to mix the races. The spokesman for the Avengers explained: 'G.o.d has forbidden us to accept Canaanites in our midst, and if this effort continues, we shall have to burn down the theater.'

When Sannie and the Troxel boys returned home, they were elated.

Philip wasted much of his leisure time at the diggings trying to fathom why above all elsethe men at Vrymeer were so devastated by the cancellation of the New Zealand tour. He reached no conclusion, but one morning he was summoned to Pretoria for an evaluation meeting with Amalgamated Mines. The princ.i.p.al officers convened at the Burgers Park Hotel, and as they sat in the lounge with drinks, Philip saw coming through the door a man whose face was vaguely familiar. 'Who's that?' he whispered to one of his superiors.

'That's the minister of finance,' the Johannesburg man said without taking further notice, but apparently there was some kind of governmental meeting, for within a few minutes the new prime minister came bustling in. He had been in office such a short time that Philip only vaguely recognized him. 'Is that who I think it is?' he whispered.

'Yes, that's the prime minister.' And again no one moved.

A little while later an extraordinary man walked past them. It seemed to Philip that one of the Drakensberg Mountains had come to Pretoria, for the man was gigantic, not in height, although he was quite tall, but in the girth of his body, the enormous spread of hips, the lower jaw that jutted at least four inches farther than normal. He had black hair and great dark eyes.

'Who's . . .' Philip started.

'My G.o.d!' the chairman of Amalgamated cried. 'That's Frik du Preez!' At this, all the businessmen stood up and nodded at the great Springbok who had played in more international matches than any other South African. Like an Alp wading across the Mediterranean, he moved majestically through the lobby to enter the dining room, and everyone in Saltwood's party marked his progress.

'That was Frik du Preez,' the chairman repeated.

'I think my family had some doings with the Cape Town Du Preezes,' Saltwood said, and at this news all the men regarded him with additional respect.

The most revealing incident concerning rugby occurred one morning at the camp when Philip received a day-old Pretoria newspaper, across the front of which appeared four excellent photographs depicting one continuous play in Sat.u.r.day's game against Monument. The left-hand picture showed Frikkie Troxel being savagely tackled by a Monument brute named Spyker Swanepoel, who was using what American football called 'the clothesline tackle,' in which a man with the ball running full speed east is grabbed about the neck by a bigger man running full speed west. In this photograph it looked as if Frikkie was about to lose his head.

Shot two showed him flat on the ground, unconscious, ball flopping away, while Spyker Swanepoel delivered a savage, heavily booted kick with full force right at his temple. It was a blow which would have killed a mere human being, but rugby players were something beyond that.

Shot three was the precious one. Frikkie lay almost dead, spread-eagled.

The triumphant Spyker was striding away. And up behind him could be seen Jopie Troxel, leaping off his left foot, his right fist swinging forward with terrifying force and striking Spyker so fiercely that it was clear that his jaw jumped sideways three inches.

Shot four was total bedlam. Frikkie lay dead, or almost so. Spyker Swanepoel lay unconscious, his jaw awry in such a way as to impart a beatific smile. And seven Monument men, engulfing Jopie, were knocking him to the ground and kicking him. In other parts of the photograph some half-dozen major fistfights were taking place, with one Venloo man neatly kneeing his opponent in the crotch. The series was ent.i.tled spirited play at loftus versfeld. spirited play at loftus versfeld.

When Frikkie regained consciousness in the hospital, sports reporters wanted to know how he felt about the game, and he said, 'We should've won.'

'You did,' they told him.

'Hooray!' He tried to get out of bed, but could not control his movements and fell back.

'Did you know that Spyker kicked you?'

'What if he did?'

'Did you see the papers?'

'I haven't even seen daylight.' They showed him the four photographs, and he spent some time on the first one. 'That Spyker made a strong tackle, didn't he?'

'But the kick?'

'Jopie took care of that,' he said, pointing to the ferocious blow in the third shot. Then he studied the last picture: 'I'm down. Spyker's down. Jopie's going down. I'm glad we won.'

The kick to the head had temporarily deranged the mechanisms which enable a human being to maintain equilibrium; it was as if someone had set in motion a gyroscope which held to one course, no matter what the lateral pressures. Frikkie would start walking in a given direction, and when the time came to make a turn, he would continue straight ahead, sometimes going right into a wall.

The doctors were more alarmed than he. 'I'll get it back into control,' he said, and added that he fully intended to play in Sat.u.r.day's fixture against a team from the Orange Free State, but by midweek it was quite clear that he would not even be out of the hospital. It was then that Sannie began attending him regularly, and as she observed the straightforward manner in which he accepted his punishment, and the determined way he went about recovering, she felt increasingly that he represented the best in South Africa. Was there a job to do on the Mocambique border? He would go do it. Was there a tackle to be made? He would make it. Did the government require some new approach to old problems? He was the man to effectuate it. He was direct, uncomplicated and trustworthy.

She was at his side when Spyker Swanepoel came to visit, his jaw wired back into place. 'That was a strong tackle, Spyker' was all Frik said.

'You still got ringing in your ears?'

'Something's out of balance. It'll fall into place.'

'What you need, Frikkie, I've seen it a dozen times. A little sharp exercise and a dop of brandy.'