Gerald Seymour - A song in the morning

Her brother on the telephone. The irritation was gone.

Her young kid, her Jan, her crippled brother. Always so close, brother and sister. Since he was little more than a baby she had loved the young kid. Perhaps a reaction to time long ago when she had seen the poorly-disguised dismay of her father that his only son was handicapped.

Could Ros tell her mother that Jan would not be home lor dinner. Jan couldn't call his mother direct, of course, their mother was out at whist.

To Ros, her brother was a more precious part of her life than anything she thought she would find in the hands of the young men in the office.

A radio news bulletin on the hour. The correct English diction of the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

"One person was killed in unrest at a Black township on the Western Cape. A spokesman at the Police Directorate in Pretoria said the Black teenager was shot dead when a policeman's relative fired into a crowd that was trying to set light to a policeman's home.

"A total of 107 Blacks were arrested during unrest in the East Rand following incidents during which administration board vehicles and municipal buses were stoned.

"In another incident of unrest in the East Rand a White woman driving an administration board car fired in self-defence on a mob that had stoned her. No injuries were reported."

A pretty quiet night.

But since the state of emergency had been declared by the State President, and since the curbs had been slapped on Press reporting, fewer details of attacks and incidents and deaths were furnished by the Police Directorate.

A quiet night, and the unrest was far down the order of the bulletin. The unrest came after a speech by the Foreign Minister, ahead of the results of the Springbok men's gym-nastic team on tour in Europe.

The message of the bulletin to its White audience was polished clear. Difficulties, of course there were difficulties.

Crisis, of course there was no crisis. Inside the laager of the old wagons the Republic was holding firm. Holding firm, and holding tight.

That was the message of the S.A.B.C. as the Boeing from far away Europe taxied on the long Jan Smuts runway.

Jack came down the steep open steps onto the tarmac.

Around him the passengers blinked in the crisp sunlight.

Jack was tired, nervy. Had to be nervous because he was going to walk up to immigration and make the pretence that he was a tourist with his head full of sea and sunshine and safaris. He was part of a shuffling crocodile that moved past four Black policemen, immaculate and starched, and into the terminal.

A young White policeman was seated by the doorway. He was lounging back on a tilted straight chair. He wore short drill trousers, long socks to the knee, shoes to see his face in, a tunic and a Sam Browne belt onto which was hooked a shined brown leather revolver holster. Jack caught his eye, looked away. He thought there was an arrogance about the bastard, a contempt for these unshaven, crumpled flotsam spilling in from Europe.

He took his place in the FOREIGNERS line.

It was brief and it was correct.

All that anxiety had been for nothing. Passport examined, immigration form looked over, the belt of the stamp on the slip of paper that was stapled into his passport, his passport returned.

They had given him six weeks.

He had to grin.

He would be out in three weeks or he would be dead, or he would be staying as a guest for twenty years.

He collected his bag, was waved through customs, and took a taxi. He was driven away on a sweeping multi-lane highway. He flopped in the back seat. The tiredness was aching in his shoulders and legs. The driver was middle aged, White, overweight. Beside his speedometer there was sellotaped a photograph of his family, an obese woman and two plump children.

"You're from England, eh? What brings you to South Africa, eh?"

The driver ignored Jack's silence.

"Don't get me wrong, man, I've nothing against you, but that's where our problem is, foreigners, specially English foreigners. People telling us what to do. People who don't live here, don't know a thing about South Africa, and all they can think of is telling us how to get on with our lives.

The English tell us… That's rich, that's a real joke. The English tell us how to treat our Blacks, and they've riots in Birmingham and London… What more do I have to say?"

On either side of the road Jack could see the effects of the months of drought, high dried out grass. Then modern industrial estates, sprinkled with the For Sale and To Let signs.

"Eh, man, we know our Blacks a sight better than they do. We've had years of them. You know that? What a Black man respects is strength. If you pussyfoot to the Black man then he'll cut your throat. If you're firm with him, then he behaves himself. You have to be firm with the Black man and you have to remember not to trust him, not an inch.

What I say about the Black man is this – if he can't steal it or screw it, then he'll break it. My sister, she's on a farm up in the North East Transvaal. She's got a neighbour who's come from Rhodesia, started again, started from nothing, building up a new farm. You know what her neighbour told her, as God's my witness? He said, 'Winnie, if there's trouble, just a hint of trouble, first thing to do is to slot the nanny.' Good advice, because you can't trust the Blacks."

The road was lined now with small concrete bungalows.

White homes. Perhaps the homes of taxi drivers. Higher up on the hill, on sites that were scraped from the ochre-red soil were the speculators' town houses.

"What they don't understand, those people in England, preaching to us, is that the violence isn't about Blacks and Whites, it's Black against Black. You didn't know that, I'll bet. You should see what they do to each other. They're savages, they chop each other, burn each other. And people in England say we should give them the vote. Most of them can't read… They don't want the vote. Most of them just want to live quietly, have their beer, work on a farm.

They don't want politics and they don't want violence. The blame's with the agitators and the commies, winding them up. All the encouragement they're getting from liberal places, England, America, it's doing nothing for the Blacks.

I've a nephew in the police, great young man, in the anti-terrorist unit, uniformed, he tells me it's all the fault of agitators and commies. They're too soft on those A.N.C. people, that's my criticism of the State President. They should hang the lot of them. Shouldn't just hang those they get for murder, like those swine that did the court, they should hang any of them they find with guns and bombs."

"Are they going to hang them?" Jack asked.

"You know about them, do you? In your newspapers, was it? It was on the radio last night. No clemency, not for any of them. All the liberals in England will be shouting when we hang them, but we're a long way from England and we don't hear the shouting… You a rugby man, eh?

That's the Ellis Stadium… "

Jack saw the huge terraces of concrete, the rows of red seating.

"My idea of heaven. Up in the West Stand with a few beers and the Boks in their green jerseys, and even that those radicals have managed to spoil. I had tickets for the All Blacks last year, I thought they had more guts in New Zealand, I didn't think they'd cancel on us. Here you are, man, your hotel."

Jack slid out of the taxi. He was bathed in sweat. He paid the driver, gave him a tip before he realised how much he loathed the man.

"Thank you, very kind. I've really enjoyed our conver sation. You have a good holiday, sir. And you take my advice, get yourself to the Ellis Park when the Transvaal are playing."