Kruger's Alp (26 page)

‘I think you're on the run,' said Blanchaille.

‘You're in hiding,' said Kipsel. ‘We read the papers.'

‘Bullshit,' said Trudy pleasantly. ‘This house is Government property. As Government people we're entitled to stay here.'

‘You said you were getting ready. For what?' Blanchaille asked.

‘Our President is expected shortly. Once he arrives we'll be in a position to put certain thoughts to our Government at home. We plan to hold talks with our Government.'

‘What makes you think they'll talk to you?'

She smiled again. ‘We would rather talk to them than to the world press.'

‘Blackmail,' said Blanchaille.

‘We won't be blamed for having done our duty. When we've cleared our name we shall return in triumph.'

‘And until then?' Kipsel asked.

‘We will wait here. In the Kruger House. You believe in the sad story of a rest home for the refugees the Old President set up. You should be the first to understand the use we put this place to. Uncle Paul would have understood.'

‘You don't understand what has happened back home,' Kipsel said. ‘They've dispensed with you. When Ferreira found the figures, publicised them and died, he blew the matter wide open. The Regime stepped away from its anointed Minister and his favourite. First they covered for you. But now they're joining the crowds calling for your blood. You should be going where we're going.'

‘There is no place where you're going,' said Trudy. She led them into a small bedroom. ‘This is Uncle Paul's death room. Here is the actual death bed. Well no, not the actual death bed, but a replica.'

They saw the dark wood of the bedstead. The sturdy head board, the starkly simple bulk of the bed with its white linen counterpane. On a small bedside table stood a vase of pink carnations. Thick green drapes in the window and fuzzy white net curtains strained the sunlight to a weak, pallid wash. A huge old-fashioned radiator stood in the corner and a large carved chair stood very prominently
by the bedside. The seat and back of the chair were decorated in bold floral patterns and surmounted by crossed muzzle-loaders. This was a recurring emblem throughout the house, the Boerish equivalent of the fleur-de-lis. Other popular symbols about the house were powder horns, ox wagons and lions. Lions had always been associated with Uncle Paul. Hadn't he wrestled one to death before his thirteenth birthday? Or outrun one? And had he not been known as the Lion of the North? Or was it of the South? Blanchaille couldn't remember. All presidents had been identified with larger powerful beasts, or weapons. President Bubé had been known as Buffalo, or more colloquially as ‘Buffels Bubé', while the young and thrusting Wim Vollenhoven, ‘Bomber' Jan Vollenhoven as they called him, the Vice-President, continued the old tradition.

Trudy sat on the bed. Blanchaille was struck by the ease with which she committed this sacrilege. Here indeed was one of the new people. He pushed open the french windows and stepped on to the veranda where the flag gave its leathery rattle.

‘Our belief, our brief, our mission was straightforward. In this matter of putting across our country's position we should attack. Fuck sitting on our arses any longer. Get out there and sell the bastards our bag of goodies. Don't try and win through to the big men overseas, spot the young ones in advance, pick them when they begin to come up the tree, and gamble. Don't expect the foreign newspapers to print nice stories about you, the only reason they like producing stories about you is because you're so horrible. So don't wait for them to tell your story, buy a space and tell it yourself. If possible buy the fucking newspaper, radio station, investors' bulletin, whatever. If that won't do then buy the owners lunch, dinner, drinks as often as possible, have them around to your place for confidential chats. If governments are against you, fly their MPs over, show them the game reserves, the war zones, the beer halls, peace in the townships. Play golf with them. Did you know we were the ones who got Bubé to play golf with the newspaper owners? We made him take lessons, even though he moaned like hell at the time. Well, today, they're saying back home that we stole the money for the golf clubs. They say it was Government money. Well of course it was bloody Government money! Where else would it come from? And what's more the Government knew it was Government money, because that was the deal. I said to them, I spoke to half the damn cabinet, that half of it which matters: Kuiker, the President himself, Vollenhoven and of course General Greaterman, the
Defence Minister. I said to them, look, I want permission to go ahead on a propaganda offensive. O.K. they said. Wait, I said, till I finish. It's going to cost a bomb. If I need to send an editor away with his mistress to Madeira, then I'll do it. If I have to bribe a newspaper editor, then I need the funds immediately. No questions asked. If I need to hire an executive jet to fly a party of journalists into the country via Caracas or Palm Springs or anywhere else on the globe, then I want the wherewithal to do it – without anybody raising an eyebrow. Bubé was there and he wanted to know how much this campaign would cost. I gave it to him straight. Millions, I said. He took it on the chin. I should start as soon as possible and the funds would be forthcoming. So I went ahead, and I stress this, with full official backing. And I've done so from that day to this. They all knew. President Bubé knew. Vollenhoven knew. Greaterman knew. And approved. The money was raised from various departments so as not to cause too great a dent in individual budgets. So much from Defence, so much from Security, so much from Tourism, everybody had to cough up their share and the money was then transferred to Switzerland and passed through various Swiss banks. And let me here say a word for the Swiss banks which have been bloody unfairly slandered. We have a great debt of gratitude to the Swiss banks. They have raised loans for us when nobody else would and we were damned hard up for foreign capital. They've safeguarded difficult deposits, overseen delicate payments and observed the strictest confidentiality in sensitive matters such as the volume of gold sales. To suggest that we bribe certain Swiss banks to hold secret funds is a gross lie. And a nonsense. They did it for nothing. Well, for a small holding percentage. And even there we get a discount from them. No, I won't hear a word said against the Swiss banks. Where would South Africa be today without them?'

‘Why were you denounced then? Why have you made a run for it? Why are you hiding out here?' Kipsel demanded, scratching blearily at the thick stubble on his jaw, and shivering slightly in the early morning damp rising from the lake.

‘We were fingered by the Regime! They were frightened to own up to a mission they had sanctioned. They wanted scapegoats.'

‘And the story about the missing money, the Swiss accounts, the house in Capri, the apartment on the Italian Riviera?'

‘The houses were part of the job, safe houses for our people, reception centres for new recruits, entertainment bases for important visiting VIPs who didn't want the world to know that they were spending the weekend with South Africans. The houses were used in the course of operations, they weren't holiday cottages, you
know. As for the money we're supposed to hold – what money?'

Blanchaille looked out across the big green lawn to the lake. It was on this balcony the old man had sat, the Bible open on his knees, peering blearily across the water at the big blue mountains on the other side. The locals had paused, he knew, as they passed by and pointed up at the famous old exile, Uncle Paul on his balcony. The lake lapped at the bottom of the garden. The gulls made their skidding contact with the water, claws angled for the landing as if not knowing for certain where they were putting down until they had actually landed, distrustful of the medium. The old man had sat on his chair, solid as the mountains, deep as the lake. Perhaps he had seen and admired this tireless energy of the gulls, this compulsion to take off and land, but that energy always tempered by caution, their wildness calmed into life-preserving habit. Away to the right was the town of Montreux, it crowded down to the water's edge along a gentle crammed curve of densely packed buildings on the shore, pretending to be a small Mediterranean port. But here was no sea, this was still water, a great placid lake lying in the bowl of the mountains. Those mountains in the distance, the big blue ones across the water that he knew were in France, if one screwed up one's eyes and gazed blindly until they began to water, they were vaguely reminiscent of mountains in the Cape Peninsula. But of course the old refugee and his rented accommodation wouldn't have known the Cape mountains either, he'd seldom been out of the Transvaal veld until, that is, he began his great last journey into exile.

The flag-pole on the balcony was slanted at an angle of forty-five degrees and from it hung the familiar blue and white and orange colours. Very carefully Blanchaille lowered the flag to half-mast.

‘Any more questions?' Trudy asked jumping up and smoothing the white coverlet on the death bed. ‘Oh yes, I know – you're dying to ask me if I'm Gus Kuiker's mistress. So, then – do I sleep with Gus Kuiker?'

‘No,' Kipsel protested weakly, ‘we were not going to ask you that.'

‘But I insist. Sleeping with Gus Kuiker means that once or twice a week he gets into bed beside me. I lie on my back and spread my legs. He puts a cushion under my backside because, he says, he doesn't get proper penetration otherwise, and then he pushes himself into me with some difficulty and moves up and down very fast because he gets penis wilt, you see. He can get it up but he can't keep it up. You can rub him, suck him, oil him. It doesn't help. While he's going he's O.K. The moment he stops, it drops. So about
two minutes later, that's it. Overs cadovers. So much for sleeping with Gus Kuiker. He's also heavier now, sadder, he drinks almost all the time and he seldom shaves. But, as you say, we do indeed sleep together. Though I hope next time you use the phrase you will think hard about its implications.'

Back in the cellar Blanchaille was gloomier than ever. ‘What if I'm wrong and the Kruger story ends with this house?'

‘It doesn't.'

‘But say it did.'

‘No, dammit. I won't say it did! You know the story as well as I. This is just another stage on the journey which began in Pretoria, went on to Delagoa Bay, touched Europe and Marseilles, and then moved on to Tarascon, Avignon, Valence, Lyons, Mâcon and Dijon to Paris, as Uncle Paul travelled Europe to win support for the Boer cause. He pressed on to Charleroi, Namur and Liège, he called at Aachen and Cologne and Düsseldorf, Duisburg and Emmerich, and then he went on to Holland, stopping at over half a dozen cities before pitching up at the Hague. December 1901 saw him in Utrecht, nearly blind, 1902 he was in Menton for the warmth. He was in Hilversum in the following year and then back to Menton for the sun. Only in 1904 did he come here to Clarens, to this house which he did not buy, but rented from a M. Pierre Pirrot – some doubt has been cast on the existence of this man – notice the similarity between his name and the French pantomime character with the white face, Pierrot. The picture we have of the solidity of this house, of his living here in exile, of the near-blind old man in his last days looking out across Lake Geneva to the mountains, it all sounds like a drama, doesn't it? Or a tragedy? And it suits the people to give the legend weight and durability, to make it solid and believable. The bourgeois respectability of this house aids that delusion. But it's not a drama, or a tragedy. It's a pantomime! Everybody's dressed up, everyone's pretending. For instance, he wasn't here alone, Uncle Paul. His family was with him, his valet, his doctor, countless visitors called. And he was by no means finished either. He had his plans. The last act of the pantomime was not yet played out. And he had to hurry. He came here in mid-May of 1904 and by the end of July he was dead. But in those short months he was busy, sick as he was, planning a place for those whom he knew would come after. He knew that many of his people would collaborate with the enemy. But he also knew that some would hold out, escape, and would have to be accommodated. He wanted a place, an ark that should be made ready to receive the pure
remnants of the
volk
.'

But a black passion had seized the ex-priest and he said stubbornly. ‘Yes, but what if there is no such place?'

‘Then,' said Kipsel, ‘all I can do is to quote to you again the mad old Irish priest who knew a thing or two – if a last colony, home, hospice, refuge for white South Africans does not exist, then it will be necessary to start one.'

That night Trudy lay beneath Kuiker who was hissing and bubbling like a percolator and had his tongue clenched beneath his teeth in a frenzy of concentration as he entered her, trying to ensure that his erection lasted through the entry phase.

‘I think,' said Trudy, ‘that you are going to have to get rid of our guests.'

Kuiker did not reply. He had begun moving well and did not want to break his intense effort to remain upright and operational. Instead he shook his head, not to indicate his refusal, but to show her it was not the time to talk of these things.

‘Now,' said Trudy, cruelly tightening her exceptional vaginal muscles.

Kuiker shrank, he fell out of her, he sat back on his haunches and said, ‘Damn! That's lost it.'

‘We can't hold them much longer, Augustus. Something is going to have to be done. They claim they don't care about us. They say they're above all this. But they might just give us away.'

But he was not interested. He considered his failed member. The brandy he had drunk had befuddled him and was making him very sleepy. He reckoned he had at least one chance to make it inside Trudy that night and he was going for it. Such determination, such single-mindedness had been the mark of his political success in the days when he was tipped as the next prime minister. Desperately he seized his penis and began rubbing it firmly. It stiffened perceptibly. There was no time to lose. With a grunt he pushed her back on the pillows, thrust his hands under her buttocks and rammed himself home.