You can leave early tomorrow morning." 'You are very kind." Shasa sank back in his chair. The feeling between them had changed, but Shasa's intuition warned him there were hidden depths in their ?elationship which still had to be plumbed, and as he smiled into Manfred De La Rey's topaz-coloured eyes, he felt a sudden small chill, a cold wind through a chink in his memory. Those eyes haunted him. He was trying to remember something. It remained obscure but somehow strangely menacing. Could it have been from their childhood fight? he wondered. But he did not think so. The memory was closer than that, and more threatening.
He almost grasped it, and then Manfred looked down at the contract again, almost as though he had sensed what Shasa was searching for, and the shape of the memory slipped away beyond Shasa's grasp.
Heidi De La Rey came out on to the verandah in her apron, but she had changed out of her faded old skirt and twisted her plaited hair up on top of her head.
'Lunch is ready - and I do hope you eat fish, Meneer Courtney." Shasa set out to charm the family during lunch. Heidi and the girls were easy. The boy Lothar was different, suspicious and withdrawn. However, Shasa had three sons of his own, and he drew him out with stories of flying and hunting big game, until despite himself the boy's eyes shone with interest and admiration.
When they rose from the table, Manfred nodded grudgingly. 'Ja, Meneer, I must remember never to underestimate you." That evening a small group comprising a man and woman and four children came straggling over the dunes from the south, and Manfred's children rushed out to meet them and lead them up on to the verandah of the cottage.
Shasa stayed in the background throughout the noisy greetings of the two families. Theirs was obviously a close relationship of long standing.
Of course, Shasa recognized the head of the other family. He was a big man, even heavier in build than Manfred De La Rey. Like him, he had also been a member of the boxing team that had participated in the Berlin Olympic Games of 1936. He had been a senior lecturer in law at Stellenbosch University, but had recently resigned to become a junior partner in the firm of Van Schoor, De La Rey and Stander, the firm in which Manfred De La Rey had become the senior partner after the death of old Van Schoor some years before.
Apart from his law practice, Roelf Stander acted as Manfred's chief party organizer and had managed Manfred's 1948 campaign for him. Although not himself a member of parliament, he was a leg man of the National Party and Shasa knew that he was almost certainly a member of the Broederbond, the Brotherhood, that clandestine society of elite Afrikaners.
When Manfred De La Rey began to introduce them, Shasa saw that Roelf Stander recognized him and looked a little sheepish.
'I hope you aren't going to throw eggs at me again, Meneer Stander,' Shasa challenged him, and Roelf chuckled.
'Only if you make another bad speech, Meneer Courtney." During the 1948 election, in which Shasa had been defeated by Manfred De La Rey, this man had organized the gang of bully boys who had broken up Shasa's election meetings. Though Shasa was smiling now, his resentment was almost as fierce as it had been at the time. It had always been standard Nationalist tactics to break up the meetings of their opponents. Manfred De La Rey sensed the hostile feelings between them.
'We will soon be on the same side,' he said, as he stepped Between them placatingly and placed a hand on each of their arms. 'Let me find a beer for both of you and we'll drink to letting bygones be bygones." The two of them turned away and quickly Shasa scrutinized RoeIf Stander's wife. She was thin, almost to the point of starvation, and there was an air of resignation and weariness about her, so it took a moment for even Shasa's trained eye to see how pretty she must once have been, and how attractive she still was. She was returning his scrutiny, but dropped her eyes the moment they met Shasa's single eye.
Heidi De La Rey had not missed the exchange and now she took the woman's arm and led her forward.
'Meneer Courtney, this is my dear friend Sarah Stander." 'Aangename kennis,' Shasa bowed slightly. 'Pleasant meeting, Mevrou." 'How do you do, Squadron Leader,' the woman replied quietly, and Shasa blinked. He had not used his rank since the war. It was, of course, poor form to do so.
'Have we met?" he asked, for once off-balance and the woman shook her head quickly and turned to Heidi to speak about the children. Shasa was unable to pursue the matter, for at that moment Manfred handed him a beer and the three men carried their tankards down off the stoep to watch Lothar and the Standers' eldest boy, Jakobus, build the fire for the barbecue. Though the masculine conversation was informed and their views interesting - both Manfred and Roelf Stander were educated and highly intelligent men - Shasa found his thoughts returning to the thin pale woman who had used his airforce rank. He wished for the opportunity to speak to her alone, but realized that was unlikely and dangerous. He knew very well how protective and jealous the Afrikaners were of their women, and how easy it would be to precipitate an ugly and damaging incident. So he kept away from Sarah Stander, but for the rest of the evening observed her carefully, and so gradually became aware of undercurrents of emotion in the relationships of the two families: The two men seemed very close and it was obvious that their friendship was of long standing, but with the women it was different. They were just too kind and considerate and appreciative of each other, the certain indications of deep-seated female antagonism. Shasa stored that revelation, for human relationships and weaknesses were essential tools of his trade, but it was only later in the evening that he made two other important discoveries.
He intercepted an unguarded look that Sarah Stander directed at Manfred De La Rey while he was laughing with her husband, and Shasa recognized it instantly as a look of hatred, but that particularly corrosive type of hatred that a woman can conceive for a man whom she once loved. That hatred explained for Shasa the weariness and resignation that had almost ruined Sarah Stander's beauty. It explained also the resentment that the two women felt for each other.
Heidi De La Rey must realize that Sarah had once loved her husband, and that beneath the hatred she probably still did. The play of feelings and emotions fascinated Shasa, he had learned so much of value and had achieved so much in a single day that he was well satisfied by the time that Roelf Stander called his family together.
'It's almost midnight, come on, everybody. We have a long walk home." Each of them had brought a flashlight, and there was a flurry of farewells, the girls and women exchanging kisses, while first Roelf Stander and then his son Jakobus came to shake Shasa's hand.
'Goodbye,' Jakobus said, with the innate good manners and respect for elders that every Afrikaner child is taught from birth. 'I would also like to hunt a black-maned lion one day." He was a tall well-favoured lad, two or three years older than Lothar; he had been as fascinated as Lothar by Shasa's hunting stories but there was something familiar about him that had ni'ggled Shasa all evening. Lothar stood beside his friend, smiling politely, and suddenly it dawned on Shasa. The boys had the same eyes, the pale cat-eyes of the De La Reys. For a moment he was.at a loss to explain it, and then it all fell into place.
The hatred he had observed in Sarah Stander was explained. Manfred De La Rey was the father of her son.
Shasa stood beside Manfred on the top stair of the stoep and they watched the Stander family climb the dunes, the beams of their flashlights darting about erratically and the shrill voices of the children dwindling into the night, and he wondered if he could ever piece together the clues he had gleaned this evening and discover the full extent of Manfred De La Rey's vulnerability. One day it might be vital to do so.