Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
'Will he know you?" she insisted, and Moses considered it carefully.
'It was long ago, before the war. He was a child." Moses shook his head. 'The circumstances were so different, the place so remote and yet for a short while we were close. I believe we made a deep impression upon each other - if merely because of the unlikelihood of such a relationship, black man and white boy becoming familiar, developing an intimate friendship." He sighed. 'It is certain, however, that at the time of the trial he must have read the intelligence reports and known of the warrant for my arrest which, by the way, is still in force. Whether he would connect the wanted revolutionary criminal with his childhood friend, I do not know, but we cannot take that chance. We must do what has to be done as soon as possible." 'It seems that Shasa has been out of town every weekend for the last five years." Tara bit her lip with frustration. 'But now that I want him gone, he won't leave Weltevreden for a single day. Firsl it's this damned polo b ' ' usmess. The Argentinian polo team was touring the country, and Shasa was hosting their stay in Cape Town, while the polo fields of Weltevreden would be the venue for the first test match of their visit. 'Then immediately after that it will be the British prime minister, Harold Macmillan's visit. Shasa won't be leaving Cape Town before the end of the month at the very arhest.
e ' ' She watched his face in the driving-mirror as he pondered it.
'There is risk either way,' he said softly. 'To delay is as dangerous as to act hastily. We must choose the exact moment." Neither of them spoke again until they reached the bus stop, and Moses parked the Chev on the opposite side of the road. Then he switched off the engine and asked: 'This polo match. When will it take place?" 'The test match is on Friday afternoon." 'Your husband will be playing?" 'The South African team will be announced in the middle of the week, but Shasa is almost certain to be on the team. He might even be chosen as captain." 'Even if he is not, he will be the host. He must be there." Yes,' Tara agreed.
'Friday - that will give me the whole weekend." He made up his mind. 'We will do it then." For a few moments Tara felt the suffocating desperation of somebody trapped in quicksand, sinking slowly, and yet there was an inevitability about it that made fear seem superfluous. There was no escape and she felt instead an enervating sense of acceptance.
'Here is the bus,' Moses said, and she heard the faintest tremor of excitement in his voice. It was one of the very few times that she had ever known his personal feelings to betray him.
As the bus drew up at the halt, she saw the woman and child standing on the platform at the rear. They were both peering eagerly at the parked Chev, and when tara waved the child hopped down and started across the road. The bus pulled away and Miriam Afrika stayed on the platform at the back of the bus, staring back at them until it turned the next corner.
Benjamin came to meet them, his face bright with anticipation. He was growing into a likely lad, and Miriam always dressed him so well - clean white shirt, grey shorts and polished black shoes. His toffee-coloured skin had a scrubbed look and his crisp dark curls were trimmed into a neat cap.
'Isn't he just too gorgeous?" Tara breathed. 'Our son, Moses, our fine son." The boy opened the door and jumped in besides Moses. He looked up at him with a beaming smile and Moses embraced him briefly.
Then Tara leaned over the seat and kissed him and gave him a brief but fierce hug. In public she had to limit any show of affection, and as he grew older, their relationship became more difficult and obscure.
The child still believed that Miriam Afrika was his mother, but he was almost six years old now, and a bright intelligent and sensitive boy. She knew that he suspected some special relationship between the three of them. These clandestine meetings were too regular, and emotionally charged, for him not to suspect that something had remained to be fully explained to him.
Benjamin had been told merely that they were good friends of the family, but even at his tender age he would be aware of the social taboos that they were flouting, for his very existence must be permeated by the knowledge that white and black were somehow different and set apart from his own light brown, and sometimes he stared at Tara with a kind of wonder as though she were some fabulous creature from a fairy tale.
There was nothing Tara could think of that could fulfill her more than taking him in her arms and telling him, 'You are my baby, my own true baby, and I love you as much as I love your father." But she could not even let him sit on the seat beside her in case they were seen together.
They drove out across the Cape Flats towards Somerset West, but before they reached the village, Moses turned off onto a side track, through the dense stands of Port Jackson willow until they came out on to the long deserted curve of beach with the green waters of False Bay before them, and on each side the mountainous ramparts that formed the horns of the wide bay.
Moses parked the Chev and fetched the picnic basket from the boot, and then the three of them followed the footpath along the top of the beach until they reached their favourite spot. From here anyone approaching along the beach would be obvious from half a mile, while inland the exotic growth formed an almost impenetrable jungle. The only persons likely to venture this far along the lonely beach were surf fishermen casting into the tumbling waves for kob and steenbras, or lovers seeking seclusion. Here they felt safe.
Tara helped Benjamin change into his bathing-costume, and then all three of them went hand in hand to the enclosed rock pool where the child splashed and played like a spaniel puppy. When at last he was chilled through and tired, Tara towelled down his shivering body and dressed him again. Then he helped Moses build a fire amongst the dunes and grill the raw sausages and chops upon the coals.
After they had eaten, Benjamin wanted to swim again, but gently Tara forbade him. 'Not on a full stomach, darling." So he went to search for shells along the tide-mark of the beach, and Tara and Moses sat on the crest of the dune and watched him. Tara was as happy and contented as she could ever remember being until Moses broke the silence.
'This is what we are working for,' he said. 'Dignity and a chance for happiness for all in this land." 'Yes, Moses,' she whispered.
'It is worth any price." 'Oh, yes,' she agreed fervently. 'Oh yes!" 'Part of the price is the execution of the architect of our misery,' he said sharply. 'I have kept this from you until now, but Verwoerd must die and all his henchmen with him. Destiny has appointed me his executioner - and his successor." Tara paled at his words, but they came as such a shock that she could not speak. Moses took her hand with a strange and unusual gentleness.
'For you, for me and for the child - that he may live with us in the sunshine of freedom." She tried to speak, but her voice faltered, and he waited patiently until she was able to enunciate. 'Moses, you promised!" 'No." He shook his head. 'You persuaded yourself of that, and it was not the time to disillusion you." 'Oh God, Moses!" The enormity of it crashed in upon her. 'I thought you were going to blow up the empty building as a symbolic gesture, but all along you planned to --' she broke off, unable to complete the sentence, and he did not deny it.
'Moses - my husband Shasa, he will be on the bench beside Verwoerd." 'Is he your husband?" Moses asked. 'Is he not one of them, one of the enemy?" She lowered her eyes to acknowledge the truth of this, and then suddenly she was agitated again. 'My father - he will be in the House." 'Your father and your husband are part of your old life. You have left that behind you. Now, Tara, I am both your father and your husband, and the struggle is your new life." 'Moses, isn't there some way they can be spared?" she pleaded.
