Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
'No." He shook his head firmly. 'I must travel swiftly and you would impede us and put us in danger. You will be safer here. It will only be for a short time. After the assassination of the white slavemasters, our people will rise. The young comrades of Umkhonto we Sizwe are in position and ready to call the nation to revolution.
Millions of our people will spontaneously fill the streets. When they have seized the power, I will return. Then you will have a place of high honour by my side." It was amazing how naYvely she accepted his assurances, he thought grimly. Only a besotted woman could doubt that afterwards the security police would take her away, and her interrogation would be brutal. It did not matter. It did not matter if they tried and hanged her. Her husband would be dead with Verwoerd and Tara Courtney's usefulness would be at an end. One day when the people's democratic government of the African National Congress ruled the land, they would name a street or a square after her, the white woman martyr, but now she was expendable.
'Give me your promise, Moses,' she begged him.
His voice was a deep reassuring rumble. 'You have done well, everything I have required of you. You and your son will have a place at my side just as soon as that is possible. I give you my promise." 'Oh Moses, I love you,' she whispered. 'I shall always love you." Then she sat back in her seat and adopted the role of cool white madam, as Moses turned the Chevrolet out of Parliament Lane into the members' carpark and the constable at the gate saw the sticker on the windshield and saluted respectfully.
Moses parked in the reserved bay and switched off the engine.
They had fifteen minutes to wait before the House went into session.
'Ten minutes to, Mr Courtney,' Tricia called Shasa on the intercom.
'You had better start going down, if you don't want to miss the opening of the PM's speech." 'Thank you, Tricia." Shasa had been totally absorbed with his own work. Verwoerd had asked him to draw up a full report on the country's ability to respond to an embargo on sales of military equipment to South Africa by her erstwhile western allies. Apparently Macmillan had hinted at this possibility to Verwoerd, a veiled threat in private conversation just before his departure. Verwoerd wanted the report before the month's end, which was typical of the man, and Shasa would have difficulty meeting that deadline.
'Oh, by the way, Mr Courtney,' Tricia stopped him breaking off the connection. 'I spoke to Odendaal." 'OdendaalT It took Shasa a moment to make the mental switch.
'Yes, about the work on your ceiling." 'Oh, I hope you gave him a flea in the ear. What did he say?" 'He says there has been no work done in your office, and no request from your wife or anybody else for rewiring of any kind." 'That's decidedly odd,' Shasa looked up at the damage, 'because somebody has definitely been fiddling around in here. If it wasn't Odendaal, then have you any idea who it might be, Tr, icia?" 'No, Mr Courtney." Nobody been in here to your knowledge?" Shasa insisted.
'Nobody, sir, except of course your wife and her driver." 'All right, thank you, Tricia." Shasa stood up and fetched his jacket from the dumb valet in the corner. While he shrugged into it, he studied the hole above his desk and the length of wire that had been drawn out of the corner beside the bookcase and the end tucked behind the row of encyclopaedias. Until Tricia mentioned it, he had forgotten his irritation in the face of other more dire considerations, but now he thought about the little mystery with full attention.
He crossed to the mirror and while he reshaped the knot of his tie and adjusted his black eye-patch, he pondered the additional enigma of Tara's new chauffeur. Tricia's remark had reminded him of it. He still hadn't taken the man to task for his unauthorized private use of the Chev. 'Damn - where have I seen him before?" he wondered, and with one last glance at the ceiling, he left the office. He was still thinking about the driver as he went down the corridor. Manfred De La Rey was waiting for him at the head of the stairs. He was smiling and quietly triumphant, and Shasa realized that he had not spoken to him in private since, the shock of Macmillan's speech.
'So,' Manfred greeted him, 'Britannia has cut the apron strings, my friend." 'Do you remember how once you called me Soutpiel?" Shasa asked.
'Ja." Manfred chuckled. '"Salt Prick" - with one foot in Cape Town and the other in London and the best part of you dangling in the Atlantic Ocean. Ja, I remember." 'Well, from now on I will have both feet in Cape Town,' Shasa told him. It was not until that moment, when the fact of Britain's rejection had sunk in, that Shasa realized for the first time that above all other things he was first and foremost a South African.
'Good,' Manfred nodded. 'So ,at last you understand that although we may not always like each other or agree, circumstances have made us brothers in this land. One cannot survive without the .other, and in the end we have only each other to turn to." They went down into the chamber and took their seats on the green leather benches, side by side.
When the Assembly rose to pray, to ask God's blessing on their deliberations, Shasa looked across the floor at Blaine Malcomess and felt a familiar rush of affection for him. Silver-haired but tanned and handsome with those protruding ears and big strong nose, Blaine had been a tower in his life for as long as he cared to remember. In his new mood of patriotism - and, yes, of defiance of Britain's rejection - he was glad of the knowledge that this would draw them still closer together. It would narrow the political differences between them, just as it had brought Afrikaner and Englishman closer.
As the prayer ended, he sat down and turned his attention to Dr Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd as he rose to make his address. Verwoerd was a strong articulate speaker and a brilliant debater. His address was sure to be long and carefully reasoned. Shasa knew they were in for fine entertainment and he crossed his arms, leaned against the padded back rest with anticipation and closed his eyes.
Then before Verwoerd could say his first word, Shasa opened his eyes and sat up straight on his bench. In that moment when he had cleared his mind of all recent worry, while he was relaxed and receptive, the ancient memory had flashed in upon him - full blown.
He remembered where and when he had last seen Tara's new chauffeur.
'Moses Gama,' he said aloud, but his words were lost in the applause that greeted the prime minister.
Tara gave the doorman at the main entrance to parliament a cheery smile, and was surprised at herself. She felt cocooned in a layer of unreality, as though she watched an actress playing her role.
She heard the muffled applause from the chamber as she swept up the stairs with Moses following her at a respectful distance in his chauffeur's uniform and burdened by an armful of parcels. They had done this so often, and Tara smiled again as they passed one of the secretaries in the corridor. She tapped on the door to Shasa's suite and without waiting for an answer swept into the outer office. Tricia rose from her desk.
'Oh, good morning, Mrs Courtney. You'll be late for the PM's address. You'd better hurry." 'Stephen, you can just leave the parcels." Tara stopped in front of Tricia as Moses closed the outer door.
'Oh, by the way. Somebody has been working on the ceiling of your husband's office,' Tricia came around the desk, as though to lead the way to Shasa's office. 'We wondered if you knew anything --' Moses placed the armful of parcels on a chair, and with his hands free turned to Tricia as she came level with him. He whipped one arm around her neck and with his other hand covered her mouth.
