Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
For one hundred and fifty years the country had been British, and there was a pride and a vast sense of security in that state. Now it was to change, and they were afraid. Even Shasa felt strangely bereft and uncertain.
'He doesn't mean it. It's just another sop for his own people. They are always ranting about the republic,' Centaine said hopefully, but Blaine shook his head.
'We don't know this man very well yet. We only know what he wrote when he was editor of Transvaler, and we know with what vigour and determination he has set about segregating our society.
There is one other thing we have learned about him. He is a man who means exactly what he says, and who will let nothing stand in his way." He reached across and took Centaine's hand. 'No, my heart. You are wrong. He means it." They both looked up at Shasa, and Centaine asked for both of them, 'What will you do, chbri?" 'I am not sure that I will have any choice. They say he brooks no opposition, and I opposed him. I lobbied for D6nges. I may not be on the list when he announces his cabinet on Monday." 'It will be hard to move to the back bench again,' Blaine remarked.
'Too hard,' Shasa nodded. 'And I will not do it." 'Oh chbri,' Centaine cried. 'You would not resign your seat - after all we have sacrificed, after all our hard work and hopes." 'We'll know on Monday,' Shasa shrugged, trying not to let them see how bitterly disappointed he was. He had held true power for too short a time, just long enough to learn to enjoy the taste of it.
He knew, furthermore, that there was so much he had to offer his country, so many of his efforts almost ready for harvesting. It would be hard to watch them wither and die with his own ambitions, before he had even tasted the first sweets, but Verwoerd would sack him from his cabinet. He could not doubt it for a moment.
'"If you can meet with triumph and disaster",' Centaine quoted, and then laughed gaily, with only the barest tremor in it. 'Now, chri, let's open a bottle of champagne. It's the only way to treat those two impostors of Kipling's." Shasa entered his office in the House, and looked around it regretfully. It had been his for five years, and now he would have to pack up his books and paintings and furniture; the panelling and carpeting he would leave as a gift to the nation. He had hoped to make a larger bequest than that, and he grimaced and went to sit behind his desk for the last time and try to assess where he had erred and what he could have done if he had been allowed. The telephone on his desk rang, and he picked it up before his secretary in the outer office could reach it.
'This is the prime minister's secretary,' the voice told him, and for a moment he thought of the dead man and not his successor.
'The prime minister would like to see you as soon as is convenient." 'I will come right away, of course,' Shasa replied, and as he replaced the receiver he thought, 'So he personally wants to have the pleasure of chopping me down." Verwoerd kept him waiting only ten minutes and then rose from behind his desk to apologize as Shasa entered his office. 'Forgive me. It has been a busy day,' and Shasa smiled at the understatement.
His smile was not forced, for Verwoerd was displaying all his enormous charm, his voice soft and lulling, unlike the higher harsher tone of his public utterances, and he actually came around the desk and took Shasa's arm in an avuncular grip. 'But, of course, I had to speak to you, as I have spoken to all the members of my new cabinet." Shasa started so that he pulled his arm out of the other man's grip, and the.
y turned to face each other.
'I am keeping the portfolio of Mines and Industry open, and of course there is no man better qualified for the job than you. I have liked your presentations to the old cabinet. You know what you are talking about." 'I cannot pretend not to be surprised, Prime Minister,' Shasa told him quietly, and Verwoerd chuckled.
'It is good to be unpredictable at times." 'Why?" Shasa asked. 'Why me?" Verwoerd cocked his head on the side, a characteristic gesture of interrogation, but Shasa insisted, 'I know you value straight talk, Prime Minister, so I will say it. You have no reason to like me or to consider me an ally." 'That is true,' Verwoerd agreed. 'But I don't need sycophants. I have enough of those already. What I have considered is that the job you are doing is vital to the eventual well-being of our land, and that there is no one who could do it better. I am sure we will learn to work together." 'Is that all, Prime Minister?" 'You have mentioned that I like to talk straight. Very well, that is not all. You probably heard me begin my premiership with an appeal for a drawing together of the two sections of our white population, an appeal to Boer and Briton to forget old worn-out antipathy and side by side to build the Republic. How would it look if with the next breath I fired the only Englishman in my government?" They both laughed, and then Shasa shook his head. 'On the matter of the Republic I will oppose you,' he warned, and for a moment saw through a chink the cold and monolithic ego of a man who would never bow to the contrary view, and then the chink was closed and Verwoerd chuckled.
'Then I will have to convince you that you are wrong. In the meantime you will be my conscience - what is the name of the character in the Disney story?" 'Which one?" 'The story of the puppet - Pinocchio, is it? What was the name of the cricket?" 'Jimmy Cricket,' Shasa told him.
'Yes, in the meantime you will be my Jimmy Cricket. Do you accept the task?" 'We both know it is my duty, Prime Minister." As Shasa said it, he thought cynically, 'Isn't it remarkable that once ambition has dictated, duty so readily concurs?" They were dining out that night, but Shasa went to Tara's room to tell her the news as soon as he had dressed.
She watched him in the mirror as he explained his reasons for accepting the appointment. Her expression was solemn but her voice had a brittle edge of contempt in it as she said, 'I am delighted for you. I know that is what you want, and I know that you will be so busy you will not even notice that I am gone." 'GoneT he demanded.
'Our bargain, Shasa. We agreed that I could go away for a while when I felt the need. Of course, I will return - that was also part of our bargain." He looked relieved. 'Where will you go - and for how long?" 'London,' she replied. 'And I should be away several months. I want to attend a course on archaeology at London University." She tried to hide it from him, but she was wildly, deliriously excited. She had only heard from Molly that afternoon, just after the new cabinet had been announced. Molly had a message. Moses had at last sent for her, and she had already booked passage for Benjamin, Miriam and herself on the Pendennis Castle to Southampton. She would take the child to meet his father.
The mailship sailing was an exciting event in which the citizens of the mother city, of whatever station in life, could join gaily. The deck was crowded and noisy. Paper streamers joined the tall ship to the quayside with a web of colour that fluttered in the south-easter.
A coon band on the dock vied with the ship's band high up on the promenade deck, and the old Cape favourite 'Alabama' was answered by 'God be with you till we meet again'.
Shasa was not there. He had flown up to Walvis Bay to deal with some unforeseen problem at the canning factory. Nor was Sean, he was writing exams at Costello's Academy, but Blaine and Centaine brought the other three children down to the docks to see Tara off on her voyage.
They stood in a small family group, surrounded by the crowd, each of them holding a paper streamer and waving up at Tara on the first class 'A' deck. As the gap between the quay and the ship's side opened, the foghorns boomed, and the paper streamers parted and floated down to settle on the dark waters of the inner harbour. The tugs pushed the great bows around, until they lined up with the harbour entrance and under the stern the gigantic propeller choppe, the water into foam and drove her out into Table Bay.
