Ah But Your Land Is Beautiful Read online

  PART THREE

  * * *

  Come Back, Africa

  Mr. M. K. Bodasingh is standing in front of his big picture window in the big house in Reservoir Hills, and before and below is the fantastic view of the city of Durban and the Indian Ocean. But today it brings him no pleasure, nor does it appear to bring pleasure to his friend Jay Perumal. They are in fact in a gloomy mood.

  – They had no right, M.K., to call out our girls in public like that. If they want to join this Liberal Party that is their business. But to call them traitors! I will not stand for that.

  – I myself am sorry that Prem joined the party, but I cannot control her decisions. I used to think I could, but when she joined the Defiance Campaign, I knew that my days were over. She is nearly twenty, Jay, and you can see that she is a young woman. It is very hard to accept it, but I know it must be done. Do you know that when my father used to come into the room, it was like a judge coming into the court? It was like that not only for the girls, but for the boys too. But those days are gone. You must understand me, Jay, we are not ashamed of our daughter. My own sisters lived for simple pleasures, and to get good men for their husbands. But Prem is in love with justice.

  Mr. Bodasingh laughed hollowly at his own wit. Mrs. Bodasingh said sharply,

  – And she is in love with the Mainwaring boy too.

  Mr. Perumal could not conceal his curiosity.

  – Who is this boy, Mrs. M.K.?

  – You are not well informed, Jay. His father Mr. Henry Mainwaring is the Chairman of the Provincial Executive. I tell you, we are moving in very high society, Jay, and I’m surprised you do not know it, because this boy is also a friend of your daughter Lutchmee. They are always together. I remember you said in this very room that you do nothing for your grandmother. Now I see that you do nothing for your daughter either.

  – You shouldn’t say that, Mrs. M.K., I said that about my grandmother because I was very troubled. It is all right if I say it, but you should not say it.

  – You two quarrel too much, said Mr. Bodasingh. I have told you many times that there is already too much quarrelling in the world, and that we should bring peace.

  – I am not quarrelling, said Mr. Perumal, and if I want to quarrel I don’t want to quarrel with your wife. Mrs. M.K., tell me more about this boy Mainwaring. What does he do?

  – That’s a good question, Jay. He was going to be a lawyer, but now the firm won’t take him because he went into the Germiston location with Patrick Duncan. He was the head of all the students — what do they call it? — NUSAS, that’s it. And Prem was only a young student, and she thought he was wonderful. Then he joined the Liberal Party and so she joined it.

  Mr. Bodasingh interrupted sharply.

  – That’s not true. She joined it because she believed in it. All our children are going multiracial or nonracial or whatever you call it.

  – It’s not all our children, said Mrs. Bodasingh. Some of Prem’s friends have left her. Some have left her because they don’t want any politics at all, and some because they think she should have joined the Congress. Some of them want to get out of NUSAS and start an Indian Students’ Association.

  – And what did she feel about having her name called out in public? Was she frightened?

  – No, she was not frightened. She simply did not like it. But she did not like the Defiance Campaign either. That is what she had to do, and so she did it. Her father says she’s in love with justice. She’s in love with duty too. And of course with this boy Mainwaring.

  – Aren’t you frightened about that, Mrs. M.K?

  Mrs. Bodasingh shrugged her shoulders.

  – I would have been more frightened if I had not spent those years in London. And there the caste distinctions seemed quite stupid. Not only the caste distinctions, but also the race distinctions. I remember Zubie Bayat of Boksburg. She fell in love with a German student, and they married and went to live in Munich. Under Hitler’s eyes, so to speak. She must have hated it. Then came the war and they were never heard of again. After the war the Bayats went to Germany, but the German family could tell them nothing either. Zubie and her husband were taken away by Hitler’s police, but what happened to them no one knows. It was, and still is, the great tragedy of the Bayat family. And an English student wanted to marry me, and if I had married him, I would have been Lady So-and-so today. But my luck, if you call it that — here Mrs. Bodasingh gave what is called a hollow laugh — my luck was quite different. Do you know why I didn’t marry the Englishman, Jay Perumal? Because I was mad. I wanted to get back to Durban, to the hotels where I wouldn’t be allowed to eat, and the beaches where I wouldn’t be allowed to swim. How mad can one be? In any case it doesn’t help to be frightened. These young people have got caught up in the Liberal Party, and they go about together, and some of them fall in love with each other. And of course forbidden fruit tastes better. Young Indian girls are beautiful, Jay. I was beautiful once too. That’s why M.K. wanted to marry me, though the Naidoos didn’t want me to marry one of the Bodasinghs. They said the Bodasinghs thought only about money. But I was headstrong, and I persuaded my father. and we got married. M. K. was a clever young man, and we got rich, just like you. And yet we produce daughters like Prem and Lutchmee, who just don’t care about being rich at all. But you can’t help worrying. The Security Police watch them all the time. They stop the cars to see if the tyres are worn, or to see whether they might be carrying dagga or for some other silly reason, but they are looking to see if their clothing is disarranged.

  – To see if what?

  – Jay, you are very simple. They are looking at their clothing to see if they have been up to mischief. But in any case they want to arrest them under the Immorality Act. They will be found not guilty, but their families will have been frightened out of their wits. And the name of the Liberal Party will have been smeared. Think of the big white Chairman of the Provincial Executive. His voice will tremble when he is making a big speech. Think of the big businessmen, Jay Perumal and M.K. Bodasingh. They will need to cover up their faces when they go to the bank.

  – Wife, your tongue is too sharp.

  – You have known that for a long time. It is time for you two to wake up. Your daughters are going into a new world, and you can’t stop them. They join this Liberal Party and they mix with all sorts of young people. So you must not be surprised if your daughter falls in love with a smart white boy who was head of all the students.

  – Who told you she was in love? Did she?

  – No, she did not tell me. She does not need to tell me. I can see her shining eyes. Her eyes shine just like yours used to shine when you wanted to marry one of the clever Naidoo girls.

  – What is the matter with you today?

  – Nothing is the matter with me. Have you told Jay who came to see you today?

  – No.

  – Well, tell him. It’s only fair. They will probably go to see Jay tomorrow.

  – Who was it, M.K.?

  – I’ll tell you. It was the great Dr. K. Ram, the one who insulted our girls at the meeting. I thought how can he have the impudence to come to see me. He said he had come to ask me for a contribution to the liberation fund of the Congress. He said Dr. Monty was sure I would make a contribution. So I looked in my book and I saw it was six months since I made a contribution. It was a hundred pounds, and I said yes, I would give the fund a hundred pounds. He said to me, A hundred pounds? for the liberation struggle? I said yes. He said to me, Only a hundred pounds? don’t you believe in the liberation struggle? I said to him, Yes, I believe in the struggle, I support the struggle.

  – You don’t believe in the struggle, said Mrs. Bodasingh, you support it, but you don’t believe in it. You don’t want to be liberated, nor does Jay want to be liberated. Why can’t you be honest? You’d much rather be governed by Dr. Malan than by Chief Lutuli and Dr. Monty. And did you ask Dr. Ram why he insulted our girls at the meeting?

  – He said he didn’t ins
ult them. He said politics was a hard game, and if they entered politics, they must expect hard words. I asked him, Words like traitor? He admitted it was a hard word. I said our girls were not traitors, they had never belonged to the Congress so how could they be traitors? I was giving one hundred pounds to the liberation fund, I was doing it for Dr. Monty, but I would not give any more until Dr. Ram had apologised to our girls.

  – I’m proud of you, said Mrs. Bodasingh.

  M.K. surveyed her with some asperity.

  – I suppose you are proud of my courage. That’s what comes of marrying one of the Naidoo girls.

  Mrs. Bodasingh laughed immoderately, spurring her husband to greater asperity.

  – I haven’t seen any sign of the Naidoo girls wanting to be liberated. As for your professor of whom you are so proud, he goes round the world from one conference to another, talking about making drinking-water from sewage, but does he ever say a word about liberation?

  – I think I shall make some tea. Would you like some tea, Jay? It always helps to calm M.K. down.

  She left the room gaily, and they could hear her laughing her way down the passage.

  – Sometimes, said Mr. Bodasingh, it’s as though the devil gets into her. Your wife is not like that, Jay.

  – My wife is a saint, said Mr. Perumal complacently. I am married to a saint. You are not.

  – You mean she is not a saint today.

  – You can’t be a saint one day, and not a saint the next. You are a saint all the time. My wife has her own shrine. She is a praying woman. I know it hurts her that I am not a praying man. I don’t mind praying in public, M.K., at a wedding or a funeral, but I don’t go for praying in private. She is what they call dutiful, M.K. I wish she would sometimes — how do you say it? — yes, I wish she would answer back. You know we have been married for more than twenty years, and she has never once answered back.

  Mr. Perumal looked at his friend more complacently than ever.

  – You must cheer up, M.K. It is not all — what do you say? — it is not all roses to be married to a saint. You ought to be thankful in some ways. I tell you one thing you can be thankful for. It is very hard to have a good party in the house of a saint.

  Their laughter was brought to an end by the return of Mrs. Bodasingh.

  – What is all this talk about saints?

  – I was talking about Shintamoney, Mrs. M.K., I was saying she is a saint.

  – He was also saying, said Mr. Bodasingh with some relish, that you are not a saint.

  – A very interesting conversation. I’ll tell you one thing about yourself, Jay Perumal. You come here and eat our food and drink our tea, and you can’t say boo to a goose, but as soon as I go out of the room you come to life, even if in a stupid way. And I’ll tell you both another thing. You ought to be proud of your daughters. In this mad and cruel country they are sensible and full of care for others. You mustn’t think I want either of them to be like our professor who can make drinking-water from sewage. You forgot to mention, M.K., that in this very room he was boasting that he could also make samoosas from the same substance. It was a disgusting conversation. I can assure you that the Naidoo girls think that he is the greatest bore in the world. Now, Jay Perumal, you can come and fetch your own tea. There are no women saints in this house.

  The party is experiencing a kind of minor boom. Its most illustrious recruit is Manilal Gandhi, son of the Mahatma, and no other party in South Africa has recruited the son of a Mahatma. In Cape Town, besides having the two Ballingers as members, the party has recruited the redoubtable Donald Molteno, who is thought by many to have the finest legal brain in South Africa, and Leo Marquard, the founder of NUSAS, the first man to open the eyes of the students, and many others, and to persuade them to look at the truth about their own country.

  In Johannesburg John Parker, one of the leading games-masters in the Transvaal, has resigned from the teaching profession because the Transvaal Education Department has banned all sporting relationships between white students and others. He has joined too, and has proposed that the party should work for the exclusion of all South African teams from international sport. He has torn the party in two, for while the more militant members support him, the more conservative ones, although they have denounced the colour bar unequivocally, never contemplated working for the exclusion of South Africa from world sport. That is going too far and too fast, for sport is the country’s religion. White South Africa, with its small population, has distinguished itself in world cricket and world rugby. The more timid members of the party are also anti-Parker. He will bring down the rage of white South Africa on them and, while they will endure ridicule, they are afraid of rage.

  It was John Parker who challenged the conservative and the timid at the Cape Town conference. Was the party against the colour bar or was it not? If it was, then it must oppose South Africa’s participation in world sport. Did they think they could oppose the colour bar on platforms and keep quiet about it on the sports fields? Did they think the duty of the party was to proclaim noble principles and to funk doing anything about them?

  It looks as though John Parker is going to be a stormy petrel in the party. The trouble is that he wants people to do something. It is very uncomfortable to be with him in a national committee meeting. Noble speeches mean absolutely nothing to him. He stands up at the end of a noble speech, he acknowledges its nobility, then he wants to know what the speaker suggests should be done.

  Donald Molteno is rising to his feet. Brains against fire. Sheer cold intellect against unbridled idealism.

  – Mr. Chairman, I shan’t keep you long. A client is coming to see me in ten minutes, and I must say I am looking forward to seeing him and getting away from this evangelistic zeal which is going to kill the party dead if it goes on much longer. We are talking of fighting an election in Sea Point. It is probably one of the most favourable constituencies from our point of view, fairly affluent people with guilty consciences, a high percentage of Jewish voters, and a large number of retired business and professional men. There is probably a higher percentage of voters opposed to racial discrimination than anywhere else in South Africa. There are thirteen thousand voters on the roll, and if eight thousand of them go to the poll, the party might get two thousand votes. which would be nothing to be ashamed of. Then we announce, or worse still our opponents announce, that the party has given Mr. John Parker the job of getting South Africa excluded from world sport. What would be the result of this lofty ethical statement? I should imagine that at the least we would lose the support of one thousand of our hoped-for votes. If at the same time the party were to announce that it would press for the opening of the white beaches and the white swimming-baths and the white tennis courts at Sea Point to people of all races, I should imagine that we would lose another five hundred votes, and the remaining five hundred who would vote for us would be those who no longer swim or play tennis. Of course this may go down quite well in Johannesburg, and I should expect rather less well in Durban, but in Cape Town it won’t go down at all. We in the Cape want the party to win the election in Sea Point, and the rest of the country has so far supported us, but if the national committee takes a decision of this kind, the party will lose a great many of its members here. Now tonight Mr. Robert Mansfield, the Natal chairman, is going to speak to a meeting, which I think will be a big one, in the Cape Town City Hall. I want to ask him a question. Is he going to tell the meeting that the party has decided to launch a campaign, or is contemplating launching it, to throw South Africa out of world sport?

  – I couldn’t do that, Mr. Chairman, until the party has taken such a decision. I certainly would not tell the meeting of any steps that we were merely contemplating.

  – Well, I sincerely hope that the party won’t do anything so foolish as to take such a decision. I have to go now, but I must warn you that if you take such a course, and you announce it tonight, then you will be dealing a deathblow to the party in the Cape.

  �
� Donald, I don’t understand you, said Emmanuel Nene. You joined the party because you were against racial discrimination, but you don’t want us to oppose it in Sea Point.

  – You must make up your minds. If you want to fight white elections and get white voters, then you mustn’t take away white pleasures and arouse white fears. The trouble with you, Emmanuel, is that you think the Liberal Party is a church.

  Emmanuel greeted this with a smile of approval.

  – You are a clever man, Donald, because you are right. The party is my church. Well, perhaps not quite right, because I have my other church where I learn what is right, but in this church I try to do what is right. You force me to agree, the party is also my church. But you must please not tell my minister.

  Molteno picked up his briefcase.

  – You’re a nice chap, Emmanuel. You understand religion and ethics very well, I am sure, but you don’t understand politics at all. Mr. Chairman, excuse me.

  Die Burger is one of the three (or four or five, it depends on your politics) leading newspapers in South Africa. It was founded in 1916, and its first editor was no less a person than the great Dr. Malan. Thirty-two years later he became the Prime Minister. When a new organisation like the Liberal Party holds its first meeting in Cape Town, the first thing you do the next morning is to rush for the newspapers, with curiosity, hope, apprehension, even dread, to see what these powerful men have to say about you.

  Robert Mansfield forced himself to go first to Die Burger, and he recoiled when he saw its leading editorial which was titled ’n Gevaarlike Party, A Dangerous Party. The editorial declared that the speech of the national chairman bordered on treason. It took a grave view of his statement that the Suppression of Communism Act, supposedly designed to defend a properly elected government against revolution and subversion, was in fact designed primarily to perpetuate the rule of the National Party.