Later...
I went sailing with Dad. He could scarcely manage it. I’m sure he couldn’t go out by himself now. It’s a horrible feeling to see him getting old.
But it was nice out on the water, darting around the little islands I know so well. And I could see that he loved being out there with me. It’s hot here, in the mid-eighties, but not nearly as humid as it was in Philadelphia. Too hot for Dad, though. I was glad to get him back indoors in the air conditioning.
I spoke to Mom about Neels. She was really good about it, as I knew she would be. She wasn’t at all judgmental, she never said she knew he was a bastard all along. She didn’t give me any answers; there aren’t any easy answers and I know her — she would say that it’s up to me to decide what to do. But I needed to talk about it, and to receive such love in return, simple, unqualified love. I know she can’t kiss me and make it all better, but it doesn’t do any harm to live under the illusion for a couple of days that she can.
I didn’t tell her about the Laagerbond and my experience in Guguletu, though. That would scare her silly. It still scares me silly.
I called Monica to see if we can get together. She said that Nancy is over from California with the kids visiting her folks. She said she’d try and get hold of Arlene and fix something up for tomorrow night.
August 7
Just got back from an evening out with the girls. I’m a little drunk and a little worked up. But I’ve got to write it down. Just for a moment it all seems clear to me. America, South Africa, Neels, that fucking Afrikaner bitch Beatrice. I know what I should do. What I should do about Neels that selfish creep. He thinks he can do what he likes with that Beatrice bitch and forget about me just because I’m forty-four. I still look good, I know I look good, he’s the one who’s old, and what about his children, what does he think he’s doing to his children, and what about his country, he’s abandoning his country, what a goddamn coward, what a goddamn fucking old old coward.
August 8
It’s eleven o’clock and I’ve just got up and had a cup of coffee. Actually I’m on my third cup. Hangover. Big time. And what a lot of embarrassing drivel I wrote last night. Did everything really “all seem clear to me”? If I really did have the answer to all my problems, I can’t remember a thing about it. It’s pretty sad when the world seems to make more sense when you are drunk than when you are sober.
We went to a place called TGI Fridays in Minnetonka. They’re big on cocktails at TGI Fridays. It was great to see the others, at least at first. Monica, Arlene and I have all been friends since Elementary School, and Nancy joined us at Junior High. We were all a hit with the boys, but we were all smarter than them too. I think we scared them. We probably scared the teachers as well, we were so full of ourselves. But we all went on to good colleges, Monica and Arlene went to St. Olaf in Minnesota, I went east to Smith and Nancy went out west to Berkeley.
The drink flowed, and the stories came thick and fast. They’ve all had a tough time with jobs, children, husbands. Especially husbands.
I told them about Neels and the Beatrice woman. I didn’t intend to, but after they had told me so much about their lives I felt I had to do the same. They were sympathetic, but all three of them seemed to think that men were like that. I tried to explain about South Africa, about how I still believed in the need to end apartheid and in the rights of black people there to be treated like normal human beings.
On the way out of the restaurant, Monica touched my arm. “If you feel like you have to stay there, stay,” she said. “See it through. Don’t run away.” I think she was talking about South Africa, not Neels. I wonder if it will come to that choice.
Actually, I think I remember what I was thinking about last night. I’m not sure it’s such a good idea now I’m sober. But... we’ll see.
August 11
We land in Cape Town in a couple of hours. The sun is rising over the continent of Africa to the east, and I am happy.
It’s so long since I have felt like this. I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about it.
But I can’t write it down. I’d like to, I’ve gotten so used to confiding in my diary. I’m careful to keep it hidden. I’m positive Neels doesn’t even know it exists, let alone what I’ve written. I think Doris and Caroline might have seen me scribbling in it once or twice, but neither of them has said anything. The trouble is you can never be 100 percent sure that no one else will read it in the future. So you can’t tell the whole truth. I want to, but I shouldn’t.
No doubt once I am back at Hondehoek, Neels and the Cape Daily Mail and everything will grind me down again, but for now I shall put this away, stretch out my legs, watch the sun rise, and smile.
16
It was early summer in Zurich and the Swiss had taken note of the fact: the people strolling around the Paradeplatz were in shirtsleeves, jackets slung over shoulders, and summer dresses were getting their first airing. The sun streamed through the plate glass windows of the konditorei and warmed Andries Visser’s sallow, sagging face. He sipped his coffee and stared out over the square at the blue trams trundling backwards and forwards and behind them the solid grey stone buildings which housed the private banking headquarters of the large Swiss banks. No gleaming skyscrapers in this city: here, power was discretion. It was only an hour and a half since their plane had touched down after the long flight from Johannesburg, and his cough had kept him awake. He had done his best to smother it so as not to disturb the other passengers in business class, but from the expressions on their faces in the morning he hadn’t succeeded.
He coughed again.
‘Are you all right, Andries?’ asked his companion, Dirk du Toit, as he polished off the last crumbs of his torte. Dirk was a strapping man of about forty with a shock of red hair, which these days he slicked back in a bankerly way. He was, in fact, a banker, and a very smart one, for the United Farmers Bank, the third biggest in South Africa. His father, Martin, had been chairman of the bank until five years before, but there was no suggestion that du Toit’s rise had anything to do with nepotism. Neither had his induction into the Laagerbond at the age of thirty nor his recent assumption of the role of treasurer from his father. Given the scale of the Laagerbond’s assets, treasurer was no small responsibility and du Toit handled the position admirably.
Visser coughed again and shook his head. ‘Just a smoker’s cough. My doctor has convinced me to give up. I hope it will go away. We’ll see.’
His doctor had indeed convinced him to give up when he had seen him earlier that week, by the simple expedient of telling him he had lung cancer. He was booked for an appointment the following week for further tests and scans, but the doctor was quite confident of his diagnosis. Lung cancer was bad. A low chance of survival, lots of chemo and radiotherapy, lots of pain. Visser was still trying to grasp the enormity of the news. He hadn’t told anyone yet, not even his wife, and certainly not other members of the Laagerbond. His mind constantly returned to the idea of his own mortality, what it would mean to have only a few months left to live, what he would do with the time, how he would find the courage to put up with the pain. He hadn’t come to any conclusions yet, but he was beginning to feel that the Laagerbond would play an important part in whatever time was left to him.
He touched his shrunken bicep where he had placed a nicotine patch that morning in the toilets at the airport. It was hard dealing with this kind of problem without a cigarette. Especially sitting in the sun with a cup of coffee. Maybe he should just go back to fifty a day and be done with it.