Dear Ma, her son writes, I’m writing this letter because I feel I owe it to Ma — even though I know Ma thinks these things are claptrap, or even worse, paranoid thumb-sucking. I do not want to think one day that I neglected my duty by not keeping Ma informed or forewarned.
I furnish the facts — Ma can decide for herself what Ma wants to do with the information. As soon as Ma resolves to consider this matter in earnest (and with prayer), I’ll forward more comprehensive intelligence. For the time being I am only once again sketching the situation in broad outline, to give an indication of the gravity of the situation.
As Ma probably knows, Siener van Rensburg predicted several events that have already come to pass, as did Johanna Brandt, and the lesser-known Siener Serfontein. (Ma can google all of these.) Johanna Brandt and Siener van Rensburg both predicted a ‘night of the long knives’. It amounts to the following:
As soon as Mandela dies, there will be a country-wide strike. He will lie in state in Pretoria for seven days in a glass coffin and be buried on the eighth day. The night of his death, or his funeral (that’s the only detail that’s not altogether clear) will act as a signal for blacks to murder as many whites as possible in Johannesburg. To murder in a brutal manner, I need not elaborate, Ma is aware of what is happening in the country and what these people are capable of. Escape routes will be closed off and the electricity supply will be cut. This campaign of murder will spread from Johannesburg to Pretoria, and from there to every city and town in the country.
In order to survive as whites we must be prepared. This city and others must be abandoned as soon as possible. Quite a few assembly points outside Johannesburg have already been identified. At these points people will be referred to camps and resorts so that they can unite in resistance. The Spar in Heilbron, in Bethal and in Koster are three such assembly points for Gautengers.
Some of the predictions of Siener van Rensburg that have already come to pass are the termination of apartheid, riots and imminent revolution, necklace murders, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, large-scale emigration, farm murders, the influx of illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries, rapes and hijackings, escalating unrest and country-wide strikes.
Some of the predictions of Siener Serfontein that have already come to pass are the worldwide recession, the destruction of the Twin Towers, the murder of Eugene Terre’Blanche, the irresistible rise of a young black despot (Malema), the fall of the Berlin Wall, the gradual demoralisation of the Afrikaner and his subjection to powers intent upon bringing about his downfall at all costs. (Siener Serfontein also warns repeatedly against the growing imperialism of the English language — it was revealed to him in more than one dream — and its devastating effect on Afrikaans.)
Ominous signs that cannot be ignored are the military training of ex-APLAs, — MKs and — PACs beyond the national borders, the increasing number of pangas and other weapons being sold to blacks in Pretoria, and that clearly can be regarded as practice runs — the sporadic blockading of main routes, strikes, murders, and the meticulous reconnoitring of country areas by black learners.
Mandela’s glass coffin waits in readiness in Pretoria. At his funeral millions of blacks will assemble in stadiums all over the country, sing traditional songs and commemorate apartheid. That night many whites will be sitting at ease on their stoeps, until the dogs start barking hysterically, bloodcurdling screams are heard, and it is too late for flight. High up in the sky the letters XC will be suspended.
Siener Serfontein has even predicted that a darkness will come upon the land, as during the rending of the curtain of the Temple.
If Ma is interested (and it is my prayer that Ma will be), I’ll forward a list of camping supplies, emergency food rations and a first aid checklist. Mandela is old and no longer in very good health.
Ma, I beseech you in all seriousness and with all my heart to regard these things in a serious light, for Ma’s own welfare and security. I pray regularly for Ma so that Ma should see the light.
Regards also from Lizelle.
Lots of love,
Freek.
PS Sharné is becoming very cute.
‘What am I to make of this?’ Vera Schoonraad asks Maria. ‘This is a child who received a good education, who visited the Prado and the Uffizi with me. How and where did I fail him? And where do they get a name like Sharné? With their convictions, shouldn’t they have selected something a bit more ethnically authentic?’
Maria has no answer to any of these questions.
*
A month later Benjy phones. When is she coming to Cape Town again? Maria can tell from his voice that something’s not right. When he’s in trouble, his nose develops a slight wheeze (the enlarged adenoids). Her ex-husband warned her that Benjy was in trouble. She does not want to consider its possible cause. How is his research going? she asks, as neutrally as possible. It’s going okay, says Benjy, also neutrally. So, what then? she can’t help asking. (Conditioned maternal reflex.) He has here like, he says, got himself actually into a sort of a difficult situation. Something that she or his father should help him with? she asks. His father says he’s sort of busy, as in actually busy with some kind of upcoming show. (That surprises her not at all. Damn Andreas and his upcoming shows.) Something they can discuss by telephone? she asks (hopefully, although she already suspects the worst). Actually as in actually not, he says. She’ll see what she can do, she says. (It’s not the first time that she’s left holding the baby.)
She gets her affairs in order (there are a few clients she can see in Cape Town; as far as work is concerned, there’s enough to occupy her for at least two weeks), she buys an air ticket, asks Joy Park once again to keep an eye on the house. Water the plants on the balcony, please, see to it that the gardener is paid every week, bring in the post every day, switch on different lights in the house every evening so that nobody (malefactor and intruder) should suspect that the house will not be occupied for a while. She might stay away for longer this time, she says. She asks her neighbours to cast an eye over her property now and again in passing. She tells her business partner that she can’t say exactly how long she’ll be absent. There are a few personal matters requiring her urgent attention.
Maria packs her case. She takes along the natural history book, as well as Sofie’s red exercise book. For the second time in three months she leaves for the Cape of Good Hope. Now she has to undertake this journey, just at the point when she was starting to hope for a kind of spiritual awakening to the wonders of the natural world — an empathy of some kind with locust, moth and eel. Blade of grass and alga.
This opportunity she must make the most of. Here she is once again (sooner than she had any reason to expect) being accorded a chance to have a proper conversation with Sofie’s partner, Tobie Fouché.
*
Karl wakes up the next morning with a number in his head. Before he can block it, before he can say the right numbers, before he can count around the numbers, it leaps into his half-asleep head. Nothing to be done about it now — the number, in conjunction with the date, means that he can’t undertake the last leg of his journey today. It’s not safe. No use arguing. He’s powerless against the forces of his own subconscious. Been there, got the T-shirt. Might as well make his peace with it, find something to occupy himself today, and hope that the number thing won’t get out of hand any further. You mustn’t yield to it, Juliana used to say. Yeah, sure. Did she really think he didn’t know it was irrational? At least today he doesn’t have to justify, exonerate, please explain himself to her. He knows the number thing is an effect of stress. When his stress levels get too high, it sticks out its hideous head. Beelzebub. Satan. Whatever you want to call it. Suit yourself. Assume control over your life! Juliana used to say. (Exclaim in despair.) Yeah, sure. Embracing, exorcising, every possible route and strategy he tried. However much he curses himself for his feebleness, however distressed he is about the relationship (he’s crazy about Juliana, as simple as that), at least today he doesn’t have the additional stress of trying to cope with her reaction on top of it all.