Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
At last, with Tara at his side, Shasa made a round of goodnight: with a party organizer steering him tactfully to each of the enos important local dignitaries, making sure that none of these wa slighted, and everybody agreed that the family made a charmint group.
They stayed overnight with the most prosperous of the local farmers, and the following morning, which was Sunday, attended the Dutch Reformed Church in the village. Shasa had not been in a church since Isabella was christened. He was not looking forward to it. This was another grand show, for Manfred De La Rey had prevailed upon his uncle, the Reverend Tromp Bierman, moderator of the church, to deliver the sermon. Uncle Tromp's sermons were famous throughout the Cape, nd families thought nothing of travelling a hundred miles to listen to them.
'I never thought I would ever speak for a cursed rooinek,' he told Manfred. 'It is either advancing senility, or a sign of my great love for you, that I do so now." Then he climbed into the pulpit, and with his great silver beard flashing like the surf of a stormy sea, he lashed the congregation with such force and fury that they quivered and squirmed with delicious terror for their souls.
At the end of the sermon, Uncle Tromp reduced the volume to remind them that there was an election coming up, and that a vote for the United Party was a vote for Satan himself. No matter how some of them felt about Englishmen, they weren't voting for a man here, they were voting for the party upon which the Almighty had bestowed his blessing and into whose hands he had. delivered the destiny of the Volk. He stopped just short of closing the gates of Heaven in the face of any of them who did not put their cross opposite the name of Courthey, but when he glared at them threateningly, there were very few who felt inclined to take a chance on his continued forbearance.
'Well, my dear, I can't thank you enough for your help,' Shasa told Tara, as they drove home over the high mountain passes of the Hottentots Holland. 'From here on it looks like a cakewalk." 'It was interesting to watch our political system in action,' Tara murmured. 'All the other jockeys got down off their mounts and shooed you in." Polling day in South Boland was merely an endorsement of certain victory, and when the votes were counted it appeared that Shasa had wooed across at least five hundred erstwhile United Party voters, and, much to the delight of the Nationalist hierarchy, increased the majority most handsomely. As the results came in from around the rest of the country, it became apparent that the trend was universal.
For the first time ever, substantial numbers of English speakers were deserting Smuts' party. The Nationalists took 103 seats to the United Party's 53. The promise of strong uncompromising government was bearing good fruits.
At Rhodes Hill Centaine gave an elaborate dinner dance for 150 important guests to celebrate Shasa's appointment to the new cabinet.
As they swirled together around the dance floor to the strains of 'The Blue Danube', Centaine told Shasa, 'Once again we have done the right thing at the right time, chgri. It can still come true - all of it? And she sang softly the praise song that the old Bushman had composed at Shasa's birth: 'His arrows will fly to the stars And when men speak his name It will be heard as far And wherever he goes he will find good water?
The clicking sounds of the Bushman language, like snapping twigs and footsteps in mud, raised nostalgic memories from the distant time when they had been together in the' Kalahari.
Shasa enjoyed the Houses of Parliament. They were like an exclusive men's club. He liked the grandeur of white columns and lofty halls, the exotic tiles on the floors, the panelling and the green leathercovered benches. He often paused in the labyrinth of corridors to admire the paintings and the sculpted busts of famous men, Merriman and Louis Botha, Cecil Rhodes and Leander Starr Jameson.
heroes and rogues, statesmen and adventurers. They had made this country's history - and then he reminded himself: 'History is a river that never ends. Today is history, and I am here at the fountainhead,' and he imagined his own portrait hanging there with the others one day.
'I'll have it commissioned at once,' he thought. 'While I am still in my prime. For the time being I'll hang i at Weltevreden, but I'll put a clause in my will." As a minister, he now had his own office in the House, the sam suite of rooms that had been used by Cecil Rhodes when he wa prime minister of the old Cape parliament before the House hoc been enlarged and extended. Shasa redecorated and furnished it a his own expense. Thesens, the timber firm from Knysna, installec the panelling. It was indigenous wild olive, marvellously grained ant with a satiny lustre. He hung four of his finest Pierneef landscape on the panelling, with a Van Wouw bronze of a Bushman huntel standing on the table beneath them. Although he was determined to keep the artwork authentically African, the carpet was the choices' green Wilton and his desk Louis XIV.
It felt strange to enter the chamber for the first time to take hi place on the government front bench, a mirror image of his usua view. He ignored the hostile glances of his erstwhile colleagues smiling only at Blaine's expressionless wink and while the Speaker o: the House read the prayer, he measured the men to whom he hat transferred his allegiance.
His reflections were interrupted as the Speaker of the House endec the prayer, and across the floor De Villiers Graaff, the tai handsome leader of the opposition, rose to propose the traditiona vote of no confidence, while the government members, smug ant cocksure, still revelling in their heady election triumph, mocked bin noisily with cries of 'Skande! Scandal!" and 'Siestog, man! Shame or you, man!" Two days later Shasa rose to deliver his first speech from the government front benches and pandemonium seized the House. Hi,.
former comrades howled their contempt, and waved their order] papers at him, stamping their feet and whistling with outrage, whil his newly adopted party roared encouragement and support.
Tall and elegant, smiling with scorn, switching easily from Englis!
to Afrikaans, Shasa gradually quietened the benches opposite bin with his low key but riveting oratorical style, and once he had thei: attention he made them squirm uneasily as he dissected their part: with an insider's surgical skill, then held up their weaknesses ant blemishes for them to contemplate.
When he sat down he left them severely discomforted, and the prime minister leaned forward in his seat to nod at him, an unprecedented public accolade, while most of the other ministers, even those northerners most hostile to his appointment, passed him notes of congratulation. Manfred De La Rey's note invited him to join a party of senior ministers for lunch in the member's dining-room. It was an auspicious beginning.
Blaine Malcomess and Centaine came out to Weltevreden for the weekend. As usual the family spent all of Saturday afternoon at the polo field. Blaine had recently resigned as captain of the South African team.
'It's obscene for a man over sixty to still be playing,' he had explained his decision to Shasa.
'You are better than most of us youngsters of forty, Blaine, and you know it." 'Wouldn't it be pleasant to keep the captaincy in the family?" Blaine suggested.
'I've only got one eye." 'Oh tush, man. You hit the ball as sweetly as you ever did. It's simply a matter of practice and more practice." 'I don't have the time for that,' Shasa protested.
There is time for everything in life that you really want." So Blaine forced him to practise, but deep down he knew that Shasa had lost interest in ball games and would never captain the national team. Oh, certainly he still rode like a centaur, his arm was strong and true and he had the courage of a lion when he was roused, but these days it needed stronger medicine to get'his blood racing.
