John Davis - The Land God Made in Anger

McQuade’s heart sank. Helga’s parents lived on a ranch near Usakos, two hundred kilometres inland. ‘She’s spending the night there?’

‘She said she’d be back in the morning in time for school. She’ll be mad that she missed you.’

‘Not as mad as I am. May I use your phone?’

He went into the house, without optimism. He dialled exchange and asked to be put through to the radio tower. He asked the operator to try the call-sign of the Schmidt ranch’s two-way radio.

‘Sorry, no response,’ the man said.

‘Oh shit … ’

And he made up his mind. No way was he going another night without a screw. He thanked Annie and drove back to Kukki’s Pub. He bought four cold beers, two bottles of wine and borrowed a glass. He drove out of town, onto the tarmac road for Usakos and the Schmidt ranch.

The sun was going down as he roared out into the desert, gleaming golden pink on the dunes and rocky outcrops, the big water pipeline stretching away into the darkening east. He snapped the cap off a beer, and it tasted like nectar.

He had finished the beers by the time he reached the farm gate shortly before Usakos. Here the desert was turning to thorn trees, scrubby low mountains. This was the start of the cattle country. McQuade closed the gate behind him and set off on the long dirt road through the Schmidt land. It was nine o’clock when he rounded the hill and saw the Schmidt homestead twinkling ahead.

He was taken aback by the number of cars. It appeared that a big party was in progress. There was a black guard with a flashlight at the gate. McQuade wondered if he was doing the right thing, showing up uninvited. The black man recognized him. ‘ Goeie naand, Baas Jim.’ He pointed his flashlight, indicating parking space. McQuade parked near the back of the house, and when he switched off the engine he heard orchestra music.

He felt very doubtful about this. This was a large formal party and he didn’t even have a tie. But, hell, he’d just come back from sea and the old people always made him welcome. (‘You come to marry my dodder, aha-ha-ha!’). He mounted the steps to the verandah and walked towards the front door. As he passed the living-room window he stopped, and stared.

The big room had been cleared of furniture and two dozen couples were waltzing. From one wall hung a massive flag, red, white and black with a huge swastika in the middle of it. On another wall hung another flag, almost identical, but the swastika was three-legged: the flag of the AWB, the Afrikaner Weerstand Beweging, the right-wing Afrikaner movement. The women wore ball gowns; half the men were in military uniforms. Some wore black, some grey, with shiny black boots, and each was wearing a swastika armband. Some younger men were in smart khaki uniforms, wearing the AWB swastika armband. McQuade stood on the dark verandah an astonished moment, then suddenly a voice boomed behind him, ‘ Willkommen! ’ He turned around. Helga’s father was lumbering down the long verandah towards him.

He was a big man, with a barrel chest and a balding head with a round face wreathed in beery smiles, his big arms extended. On his arm was the swastika. McQuade took an uncertain step towards him, and the old man stopped. He stared at McQuade in surprise; then he dropped his arms. ‘What are you doing here?’

McQuade said: ‘Excuse me.’ He made to turn and leave.

The old man cried: ‘ Who invited you? ’

McQuade stopped. ‘Nobody. I’m sorry, I’ve just got back from sea.’

‘ Not even my stupid dodder would invite you today! ’

‘She didn’t.’

‘ So can’t you see today is a private party?! So what we going to do now? ’

‘Forget it, I’m leaving.’

McQuade strode across the verandah. The old man suddenly lumbered after him. ‘ Jim – Jim, I’m sorry … ’

‘Goodnight, Herr Schmidt.’

‘Jim …’ the old man pleaded, then he bellowed: ‘ Helga! ’

McQuade was on the lawn when Helga burst onto the verandah. She stared at McQuade disappearing into the darkness, then she clutched up her evening gown and ran down the steps. ‘ Jim! ’

McQuade was halfway across the lawn when she caught up. ‘Jim!’ She grabbed his arm. Her blue eyes were aghast. ‘What are you doing here?’

McQuade looked back at the house. Half a dozen figures had emerged onto the verandah. ‘What are you doing in there? Dancing under the Nazi flag. With gentlemen wearing uniforms and swastika armbands! And wearing this!’ He pointed at a black velvet choker around her neck, from which dangled a little gold swastika.

‘Didn’t the guard stop you at the gate?’

‘Yes but he thought I was a Nazi too.’ He frowned with amazement. ‘Do you do this often ?’

She glared. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t you know what the date is? The twentieth of April!’

‘So?’

She glared at him. ‘Oh, don’t be dense! Whose birthday is on the twentieth of April?’ She waved a hand at the homestead. ‘This is just … a little traditional celebration. The English do the same thing on the Queen’s birthday.’

‘Whose birthday is the twentieth of April?’

She glared at him sullenly. ‘Adolf Hitler’s, you fool!’

McQuade stared at her. Absolutely amazed. He couldn’t believe this. But suddenly he understood what had happened in the bar of the Europahof Hotel, and he was staggered that she was part of this. ‘Jesus Christ.’

She opened her mouth but he went on in wonder: ‘So every year you celebrate the Führer’s birthday? With great big swastika flags and SS uniforms and Nazi armbands? And this …?’ He flicked the little golden swastika.

She hissed. ‘That is just jewellery – the swastika is an ancient international symbol of good!’

‘The Nazi Party was good?’

‘You drink a toast to the Queen on her birthday …?’

He wanted to shake her. ‘The Queen of England happens to have an unblemished political record! You are celebrating the birthday of the most brutal mass-murderer the world has ever known! The man who ordered the Holocaust of six million Jews!’

Her hand flashed in the moonlight and cracked across his face. He stared at her, shocked, his face stinging, and she screamed: ‘ That’s the hoax of the twentieth century! There was no Holocaust! ’ Her breasts were heaving.

McQuade took a deep breath to control his fury. ‘Goodbye, Helga.’ He added sarcastically: ‘Heil Hitler.’ He turned and strode away.

Helga stood on the lawn, her eyes bright; then she shrieked; ‘ Yes, Heil Hitler! ’ She stamped her feet together and shot out her right arm and screamed: ‘ Heil Hitler! ’

A man leapt over the verandah rail and started running towards the Landrover. McQuade got in, slammed the door, and started the engine. He roared off down the gravel drive.

He drove hard back towards Swakopmund, the desert flashing by in his headlights. He was over the anger of the confrontation: now he was left with the shock. It made his flesh creep. It was macabre. Not just because she had obscenely shrieked Heil Hitler at him; it was the whole nine yards of the great swastika in all its frightening glory, the arrogant uniforms, the strutting jackboots – it evoked a legend of dreaded times, a legend he had learnt at his mother’s knee had been brought to life before his eyes. He had just seen ordinary, decent people ritualizing it, rejoicing at the altar, and if ordinary people were doing this on a remote farm in the heart of Namibia, what was happening in the rest of the country tonight?

Almost everything in life is a coincidence, in that something happens because something else has just happened to happen. If the good ship Bonanza had not come back to port a day early so that the Kid could have his new teeth installed for Beryl, this story would never have happened: if the Bonanza had returned any other day, the Stormtrooper would have been waiting for McQuade with open arms, he would not have driven out to the ranch in his determination to get laid, and he would not have come roaring back into the little German town of Swakopmund, angry and determined to get drunk, and parked outside Kukki’s Pub at the moment that the drunken Damara tribesman lurched around the corner and offered to sell him an Iron Cross.