Kruger's Alp (34 page)

Here I truly believe Blanchaille would have leapt at Looksmart and killed him if Kipsel hadn't pulled him off. The two friends turned to their path again and by starlight continued on up the mountain, soon leaving the sobbing, crippled, cracked visionary far behind.

CHAPTER 25

So I saw in my dream how they arrived by night at the high stone wall and the big iron gates and read by moonlight the name of the place:

BAD KRUGER

On each of the gateposts crouched enormous stone lions, much weathered; rain, snow and wind having smoothed away their eyes and blunted their paws; their crumbling manes were full of shadows. And I saw in my dream how priest and acolyte, or detective and aide, dish and spoon, fisherman and fish, call them what you will, pushed at a big iron gate which opened easily on well-oiled hinges and closed behind them soundlessly. Without any idea of the sort of place they had entered but too tired to stand any longer, they lay down on the grass and slept.

They awoke to a morning full of bird-song to find themselves in an extensive garden thick with flowers, ornamental ponds, gravelled walks, fountains and orchards and beyond, a small, thick wood. Kipsel identified several familiar blooms: blazing Red-hot Pokers, magnificent specimens standing five feet high, their full, tubular heads of red and yellow swinging like flaming bells; the rare Red Disa, Pride of Table Mountain, as it was called, with its little trinity of reddish-purple petals framing a third which turned the opposite way showing a cup veined in purplish ink. Blanchaille knew nothing of flowers but this identification of plants and blooms recognisably African excited him as the first definite sign that they had truly arrived. The water in the ponds was a cold green. The ponds were fringed with reeds and carpeted with blue water-lilies and these in particular made Kipsel exclaim: ‘Amazing! You see them? Blue!
Nymphaea
those are, blue-ridged leaves! Blanchie, they barely exist any longer. You used to find them in the Cape Peninsula many years ago. But not any longer. To find them here . . . they're virtually extinct! And look – masses of Red Afrikanders. It's far, far too late for them, surely?'

‘Virtually extinct,' Blanchaille repeated, wondering at Kipsel's floral knowledge and thinking that sociologists, like cold green pools, sometimes possessed hidden depths.

Small turtles swam across the lily ponds pushing a film of water before them. They watched a brilliantly coloured bird, its plumage a dancing gloss of green and purple, its bill and forehead in matching orange, its throat bright blue, hunting elegantly among the reeds and when it caught something it would pause to feed itself with its foot with the aplomb of a fastidious diner.

Through the small thick wood they pushed and came at its edge to a wide and well-kept lawn and across it saw a great building presenting a broad and sturdy front to the world. Here Kipsel and Blanchaille drew back into the trees, for walking on the lawn were groups of people. Some were in wheelchairs attended by nurses, some walked with sticks, others seemed fit and well and played a game of touch-rugby. The scene reminded Blanchaille of a convalescent home, of pictures seen of veterans home from a war, recuperating. Though the strains of music coming from the big loudspeaker mounted high on the pediment of the house gave to the scene something of the convivial quality of a village fête. Only the bunting was missing. They withdrew more deeply into the wood. At their waists were Kaffir-lilies, three-foot high at least with great trumpeting mouths of deep crimson; hip-high Chincherinchees, big white flowers with chocolate hearts; spotted velvet Monkey-flowers; and golden banks of the misleadingly named Snow-on-the-Mountain; all of which caused Kipsel further perplexity as such flowers were found only in African gardens. The music the loudspeakers relayed was a medley of light classics: Strauss marches mingled with traditional
boere-musiek,
or farmers' music, of which the old favourite ‘Take your things and trek Ferreira' seemed very popular, with its wicked thudding refrain:

My mat-tress and your blan-ket
And there lies the
thing
!

If the music seemed appropriate to the establishment they'd expected, the house did not. It was a solid, assertive building: a strange mixture of grand hotel, railway station and museum, built on two storeys, squat, bulky and prodigiously solid, perhaps eighty feet high and crowned by a great dome of coloured tiles, pierced by oval windows. A flight of stairs in two graceful stages climbed majestically to the bronze doors. The windows on the ground floor were arched and comparatively simple while those on the second storey were flanked by columns and surmounted with medallions and above it all, and for the whole of its length, the pediment was
crowded with statuary: Greek gods, perhaps; venerable old men with philosophers' beards; horsemen; griffins; wrestling cherubs and other fancies intended to give an aura of substance and dignity, but this was undermined by the big loudspeakers mounted on poles which framed the statuary.

They drew even deeper into the wood, aware of how strange they must look, two ragged fugitives, eyes pink from lack of sleep, bodies smelling of sweat, chocolate, cheese and brandy.

‘We should go forward. Introduce ourselves. We should see if this is the right place after all,' Blanchaille spoke without conviction.

‘Or we could wait until we felt a bit stronger,' Kipsel suggested.

Blanchaille appreciated his trepidation but knew it wouldn't do. ‘We'll never feel as strong again.'

‘Excuse me, but I need a swaz,' said Kipsel and disappeared hurriedly.

A swaz! How many years was it since he heard that expression? One had to admit it was precisely onomatopoeic, echoing perfectly the zip and gush against the rock in the dusty veld, or the business of drilling muddily into a garden bed, but it pained and discomfited here in its buzzing directness. Accuracy of observation, whether of the names of flowers or of the sonic effect of urination did nothing to help; what was needed was not description but meaning!

When Kipsel returned he challenged him accordingly.

Kipsel shrugged. ‘Fall into a small pool of words early on and you'll spend the rest of your life splashing around in it. For example, I had a girlfriend once, by name Karina. She had five brothers, all cricketers. I think her father played, too. Her life was taken up with starching shirts, whitening boots and keeping score. As a result she was a child of the pavilion. There
was
no other world. Her bag of words came straight out of the changing room. She had no other terms of reference. Everything was described in cricketing language. Even sex. She was forever making jokes about maidens. When we were in bed she would cheer me on if I looked like flagging with cries of “only another sixty to go or you have to follow on”! And when she was coming she'd cry “how's that?” and stick a finger in the wind like an umpire giving his man out.' Kipsel banged his fist against his forehead to still the extravagant memories of these exhausting matches. ‘Going to bed with her was like going into bat without a box. She took that as a compliment when I told her. See what I mean? It wasn't so much that she was really interested in cricket itself but it provided her with a life she could get hold of. And beat. Cricket was her way of living, her get up and go, her entry
into the life of action settlers must have, because doing gives an illusion of winning. Her way of grappling with life.'

‘And going forward,' said Blanchaille. ‘No illusion is more precious.'

It is interesting to note that they themselves did not go forward at this point but walked away from the house until the music from the loudspeaker faded. They found themselves in an apple orchard. The fruit beckoned them, the crispness of the huge pale green apples tempted them. They must have eaten half a dozen each, tearing at the tight sweet flesh as if their systems needed it, as if it was some sort of antidote to the poison of too much travel, a diet of brandy, chocolate, cheese and a constant series of shocks to the system.

I saw also that there was a vineyard nearby and this, too, they invaded, gorging on the plump white grapes until they could eat no more. I watched Kipsel who lay on the ground with his fingers over his eyes to keep out the sun and let the juice run down his throat, spitting the pips into the air, even though Blanchaille had asked him politely to stop. And then with full bellies and pleasantly overcome by the walk they slept, restlessly muttering of home, heaven and angels and policemen, no doubt believing themselves safe in the privacy of their dreams.

Then I saw that they weren't alone.

He stood up among the vines. A big broad man in a floppy straw hat, waring faded and patched brown dungarees, with his thumbs hooked into his belt. He stood watching the sleepers from a little distance away, listening to them; a big man with freckled arms and a considerable tan, attending closely, taking notes in a small book with great rapidity. And when he saw me watching him, he looked up and smiled and said: ‘What's so puzzling? They come here, they're tired and hungry, they eat, they relax, they sleep. In their sleep they talk. It's a habit of people like this, terrified of speaking aloud what they think, they confine their comments to this sort of dream talk. Dreams are the only underground left.'

‘And you? Is your note-taking also a habit?'

He didn't answer me, but I had my suspicions.

So I saw when the sleepers woke they found the man watching them, though he no longer carried his pencil and notebook.

‘Who are you?' Blanchaille asked.

The big man smiled, he rubbed his neck, he cracked his knuckles, he flexed the muscles in his freckled arms and he said: ‘I'm a gardener. At least I help to keep the place up. Of course I've got
under-gardeners with me. This place is too big for one man.'

‘I hope you didn't mind us helping ourselves to your fruit,' said Kipsel.

The gardener smiled. ‘That's why it's there. Only I wouldn't stay here very much longer, it's getting on towards evening. You'll be wanting dinner soon. The others have already gone in, the music has stopped.'

‘Are they expecting us – up there?' Blanchaille nodded his head towards the big house beyond the wood.

The gardener nodded. ‘Anybody who gets this far is expected. They'll be looking out for you all right. The worry always is that people who make it this far might get lost again.'

‘We weren't lost,' said Kipsel. ‘A few detours, perhaps. A few hedges and ditches to jump. But not lost.'

The gardener smiled. ‘If you hadn't been lost, buster, you wouldn't be here.'

‘What's your name?' said Kipsel.

‘Happy.'

‘Happy!' Kipsel laughed, genuinely rolled about. Blanchaille was embarrassed.

In fact it wasn't too difficult to understand Kipsel's amusement or his friend's sheepishness, since, after all, the term ‘Happy' was used in their own country as one of the many derogatory terms in the rich vocabulary of racial invective the ethnic groups enjoyed directing against each other. Mutual abuse was a mainstay of political life. The pleasure of calling supporters of the Regime, Happies, with all the ironical strength the insult carried was matched only by the enjoyment with which the Regime declared its opponents to be Kaffir-loving Jewish Commies who should go and live in Ghana. . . Hence Kipsel's laughter and the embarrassed silence which followed.

The big man stood by impassively watching. ‘There've always been Happies here,' he said. ‘Ever since the old man started up the place.'

‘I think I see what he means.' Blanchaille cleared his throat with the air of a man anxious to prevent misunderstanding. ‘This word “Happy” I think is a corruption, or at least a mutation, of the name of Kruger's valet, a certain Happé. You remember? He was the one who was with Uncle Paul when they found whatever it was they found.'

‘Came at last to the place in question,' said Kipsel.

‘Quite.'

‘Which was this place.'

‘Very likely. Happé is supposed to have taken down the notes dictated to him by Uncle Paul, which became the
Further Memoirs.
Our friend says he's a Happy. I think what he means is that he descends from an unbroken line of the Happé family. Is that right?'

The big man did not offer to enlighten them. Instead he indicated where their direction lay with a jerk of his chin towards the big house. ‘They'll be expecting you.'

He walked them through the wood; perhaps marched would be a closer description of their brisk determined progress.

As they came to the edge of the wood the windows of the big house scintillated in the afternoon sunshine which gave an equally rich lustre to its gutters and drain-pipes which Blanchaille realised with a start were made of copper and polished to this ruddy sheen.

‘This is the place?' he asked,
‘Bad Kruger
?'

‘Is
Bad Kruger
the place?' Kipsel demanded more subtly.

He was more than a match for both of them. ‘This is it.
Bad Kruger.
Of course it's the place. Where else would it be if it wasn't
Bad Kruger?
It's
Bad Kruger
or nothing.'

I saw how the gardener knocked on the door which was opened immediately and he handed over his companions to a pair of bare-legged attendants most curiously dressed in what looked like checked pyjamas; short pants, loose fitting shirts without arms and big white buttons. I watched as these two attendants took Blanchaille and Kipsel firmly by the hands and drew them inside, the enormous bronze doors closed behind them and the great house presented once again its look of massive solidity as it presided over the perfect lawn flowing past the front steps like a tranquil green river which the gardener now crossed, giving the occasional chuckle to himself as he went, amused no doubt at the foolishness of those who did not know the place when they found it.

Blanchaille and Kipsel were escorted through the great entrance hall with a vaulted roof. Old-fashioned iron lamps hung overhead from long chain pulleys; the walls were decorated with frescoes showing knights on horseback, boys on dolphins, dying dragons, naked maidens, castles, rivers, holy grails and mermaids wearing large golden ear-rings. The place was vast and silent; the only sound their own footsteps, for their barefoot companions made no noise at all. There was a very strong smell, too, a strange mixture of sulphur, mud, salt and above all of soap, and a certain peculiar dampness pervading everything. They made their way down an extraordinary corridor off which led handsome arcades flanked by tall Corinthian
columns. The frescoes became more extravagant as they proceeded; angels struck rocky outcrops with golden wands and jets of crystal water burst into the light of day. The mermaids combed their long blonde hair on high rocky promontories, turning their angelic faces to the high-flung spray from the pounding seas below. Plump olive-skinned bathers with a faintly Roman or Grecian look to them, were shown taking to the waters, moving in stately fashion – noses rippling the surface like sea-lions, and their eyes shining like dates.