‘Two events were crucial in driving the old man to this place. The story of the Thirstland Trekkers of the 1870 haunted Kruger, Happé writes. Perhaps you know it? The Thirstland Trekkers were not content even with a pure Boer Republic. Even there they felt the lack of freedom, even there they felt constrained, even there when they had what they wanted of Africa they dreamed of yet another Promised Land, a heavenly Republic beyond the horizon. They dreamed, in a word, of Beulah, the Promised Land, Eden, Shangri-La. It was a vision which drew this particular party of Boers to trek forever onwards to the sacred laager. It carried this small desperate party of six hundred or so men, women and children through the Kalahari Desert “dying as they went”, according to one historian. The end is sad. The dream drew them not to Beulah but to a steamy, fever-ridden province owned, not by Jehovah, but by Catholic Portugal. They set off, as Uncle Paul told Happé, those poor haunted brave Boers in search of heaven only to end in the hands of Portuguese market-gardeners! The special significance of this trek, said Uncle Paul, exposed the vital character of the Boers. They were destined to trek, but the mistake of the Thirstland Trekkers was that they trekked away outward, whereas the true trek was not one which covered territory but one that moved forever inward. An interior trek, an internal journey to the centre of themselves. This was the paradox at the heart of the true Boer, that he must continue to trek and yet he could never expect to arrive in the Promised Land. Kruger saw the fate which awaited his people if the trek failed. He saw it in the two colleagues closest to him, he saw it in Smuts who turned from general to bank robber overnight, and, worse, went on to show considerable flair for world diplomacy. Kruger did not know which was the greater scandal. And then there was General Piet Cronje, whose defeat in the Battle of Paardeberg and his subsequent surrender to the British enemy had been one of the most cruel calamities of the war and hastened the end of the struggle against the British Empire. He saw his enemies, the foreign outlanders, the gold bugs, throwing parties and buying beers all round, inviting Boer generals to sit on the boards of their companies. And then in the final months of his life he heard of General Cronje’s horrible plans in St Louis, Mississippi. For what was the old general preparing to do? He was preparing to stage, for gawping tourists, his Last Stand at Paardeberg. According to Happé this distressed the old man terribly. “Can you imagine it, can you imagine it?” he is supposed to have said. “Can you see, these Americans, queuing up to see this great disaster inflicted on our suffering people?” The knowledge tortured him. Visitors to the Kruger House in Clarens gave him graphic descriptions of the preparation for Cronje’s little piece of theatre in faraway St Louis.’
The matron drew deeply on her cheroot and puffed creamy smoke. Her voice sharpened and quickened in an American drawl. ‘Roll up! Roll up! See the Boojers meet the British in mortal combat! See General Kitchener’s final triumph! See the Boojers digging nests of trenches! See the Lydite shells blasting their positions! Read Cronje’s courteous request for a truce to bury his dead and for British doctors to treat his wounded. Listen as Field-Marshal Roberts pronounces his niggardly refusal. Then hear General Cronje’s noble response, which was in essence, Then bombard away…! Now watch the great Boer military genius De Wet harassing the British from Kitchener’s koppie which with supreme daring he has snatched from under their noses. See him command the strong point of Paardeberg for three days. But it is too little, too late. Now see everything lost. See General Piet Cronje and his four thousand men surrendering to Roberts. See him stepping down from his white horse, the Boer in his big hat and his floppy trousers and see the triumphant Roberts, neat and dapper, stepping towards him while in the shade Cronje’s broken troops watch impassively from their wagons, and all around them sit the British in their khaki, wearing their funny hats with those strange protective peaks back and front to keep the sun off those long, thin noses, those red necks…’ The matron’s impersonation using hands and napkins impressed a number of the diners who applauded politely. She acknowledged the compliment with a nod of the head. ‘You can imagine the old man’s agony when he heard of Cronje’s preparations at the World Fair, of his old friend’s plan to make money while the bones of the Boer dead whitened on the slopes of the mountains their General had lost. But it spurred Kruger on. He told his doctor, according to a story that has come down to us, “You take care of the bodies, but someone must take care of the souls. We must make a little hospital, a little spirit hospital, ready for them.” Well this is that little hospital. By July of that year, 1904, Uncle Paul was dead, but Bad Kruger was alive and well.’
‘And what do you do here?’ Kipsel was bold enough to ask.
‘What do we do? We tell stories, of course.’
‘More stories!’ Kipsel protested. ‘I’m tired of stories. Will we never get to the end of stories?’
Matron turned on him sternly. ‘Never. And what would you do if that happened? Stories have brought you this far. From the most powerful member of the Regime to the lowest gardener, cook or nanny, we all need stories. We owe our lives to stories. Would I be here now? Or you? Or any of these people if it weren’t for the stories of another place, of Uncle Paul’s arrangements for the likes of us? Do not spit on stories, Mr Kipsel, or stories might spit on you.’
Kipsel hung his head. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that we never seem to get to the end.’
‘The end? Mr Kipsel — we are the end of these stories. I see you’re puzzled. You fail to understand — even now.’
Sweets were brought, great big dishes of koeksusters, golden plaited sweetmeats oozing oil, and milk tarts as big as wagon wheels, fig jam, watermelon conserve, raw sugar cane, fly cemetery, coconut ice and, of course, peach brandy with the coffee.
‘Fail to understand what, precisely?’ Blanchaille asked.
‘Everything,’ came the laconic reply. Matron nodded her head towards the first speaker who had got up and was preparing to address them. ‘Listen and you’ll learn.’
A thin man with a nervous manner. His cream towelling robe made him look rather like a chemist, a little drunk, and he tugged nervously at his ear-lobes while he spoke.
‘My friends, my name you know.’
‘I don’t,’ whispered Kipsel.
‘It’s Peterkin, Claude Peterkin, the radio producer,’ said Blanchaille, ‘from home, I knew him immediately.’
‘From home!’ Kipsel echoed in hot sarcastic tones. ‘Where’s that?’
Matron banged on the table with her spoon. ‘Let him tell his story,’ she ordered.
Peterkin bobbed his chin gratefully towards her. ‘I was by trade a radio producer and rose in time to become Head of Broadcasting. My motto had always been — “choose the middle way”. Useful advice to myself, working on the State radio you might say, since it meant I could steer between what was on the one hand a public broadcasting facility and on the other a Government propaganda service. You could say I’d been happy and moderately successful. Then one day I made a mistake. I allowed myself to be persuaded by Trudy Yssel that times were changing. “Produce plays,” she said, “which display our adaptiveness to new political perceptions, which are modern, which are of today!” I went out and commissioned a play by none other than Labush Labuschagne. The Labuschagne you all know with his Eskimo wife and his interest in Zen and his quivering attacks upon the Regime’s race policies and his impeccable Boer credentials, being a descendant of one of those heroes in Piet Retiefs party who were murdered by Dingaan. And what did Labuschagne give me? He gave me an attack on the Catholic Church in Africa. Fair enough, you might say. The play was entitled Roman Wars — and not, let me stress, not Roman Whores. That was an incredibly stupid printing error. The same combination of bad luck and mechanical error which has pursued me all my life. Be that as it may, my intentions were good. Could I have made a better choice of playwright than Labush Labuschagne? His radicalism was unchallenged and yet his Government connections were superb. He wrote a play about a Church which is far from popular and he portrayed its missionary activity on our continent as hypocritical, self-serving and deceitful. What better way of encouraging a debate? Why then did the Regime put out a statement saying that while it was true they had differences with the Roman Church in the past, there was now no room in the new South Africa for religious or racial bigotry and they deplored the irresponsibility of those, they did not say whom, who attacked other religious groups? Now if this wasn’t enough, at the same time stories of my homosexuality began appearing in the newspapers. It was suggested that I had a particular taste for young police reservists. Readers’ letters choked the columns of the newspapers demanding that this faggot be neutered on the spot. Then the Board of Governors of the Broadcasting Service put out a statement that I was considering, quite voluntarily, whether I shouldn’t perhaps take early retirement. The first I knew of this was when I heard it on the “Six O’Clock News”. Then the Chairman of the Governors organised a farewell party. And who do you think he invited? He got in Bishop Blashford, the Papal Nuncio, Agnelli, and half a dozen pretty young police reservists. And this was to be my retirement party — a surprise retirement party! I walked in and found myself on the way out. Of course the cameras were there and the whole thing was shown live on television. I was presented with a farewell memento. I have it here.’ Peterkin reached inside his robe and withdrew a large knife. ‘It’s a hunting knife, for those of you not near enough to see it. It has a sheath of genuine kudu-hide, its blade is fashioned from a piece of steel taken from one of the original rails from the Delagoa Bay line which carried President Kruger to exile. Its handle is made of rhino horn. This is inset with four golden studs, representing the four major racial groups in South Africa. I accepted the gift. After that I was escorted to the door and shown into the night. And so I came here, like so many of you. One morning the gardener found me wandering in the vineyard, and here I am. I thank you for listening to me and most of all I thank our President who made this place ready for us.’ And with that he lifted his glass towards the portrait of President Kruger on the wall. The old man with the tufty beard, the sashes, the rows of medals, stared broodingly down upon his displaced children.