He was also given directions to his final destination. Geneva was the starting point and then old Kruger’s house by the lakeside in Clarens, near Montreux. But this, it was stressed, was only the beginning. From the official Kruger house he must climb to ‘the place itself.’ Happy showed him grainy black and white photographs of what she called ‘the place itself’ and bad though the shots were, he recognised the wild turrets of mad King Ludwig’s castle Hohenschwanstein, but said nothing, being loath to injure such simple, shining faith in the former Government negotiator. Having examined, in one of Lynch’s living history classes, both Paul Kruger’s official former residences and found them no more than a large bungalow and a simple farm respectively, it was impossible to credit that the old President’s tastes would have run to anything so fanciful. ‘Paul Kruger belonged to the Dopper sect of especially puritanical Calvinists, we can expect his last refuge to reflect his didactic, moralising spirit,’ Father Lynch had explained. ‘It is comical to reflect how his enemies might have played on this in the Boer War; consider — the British might have brought the war to an early end if they could have convinced the old man that the sight of white men shooting each other gave unalloyed pleasure to the natives…’
Fatima’s directions were as unpersuasive: ‘Above the lake and to the left,’ she said. ‘Start at Clarens. Where Kruger finished.’
So they made him ready for the journey. Babybel insisted on pressing his white shirt, because, she said, if a man was leaving for parts unknown with literally nothing but the clothes he stood up in, he would want to put his best foot forward. Visser agreed, saying that Blanchaille faced an ordeal ahead, a battle, a formidable enemy. When one entered the Garden of Eden, he explained somewhat mysteriously, one faced not merely the snake, but the apple, and there were circumstances in which apples were more subtle than serpents.
It was Freia who injected a note of realism into these conversations by revealing that Eden was hardly Blanchaille’s destination. He was going to England. Indispensable Freia! Owing perhaps to her training as a township tour guide she had checked his ticket and revealed that he was flying to London with a thirty-six-hour stopover before his flight to Geneva. Why not a direct flight? Blanchaille protested, but there was nothing to be done. Besides, said Visser, the police themselves had booked his ticket and must have known what they were doing. Only the police knew what they were doing. They comprised the holy circle. Since the police in this instance were personified by Van Vuuren, whose status as a policeman was increasingly mysterious, Blanchaille hoped he still fell within the holy circle referred to by Visser. Blanchaille hoped he knew what he was doing.
As if to console him, Babybel gave him a necklace of golden Krugerrands, pierced and threaded on a string which she told him to wear at all times and promised him that it was a key, the use of which he would know when the time came.
And then, in the evening, I saw how they personally escorted him from the hotel to the airport, stepping over the bodies of the Presidential Guard which lay scattered on the streets and pavements like soldiers from a child’s toy box. Whether dead or drunk, simply asleep or resting, he could not tell. Then I saw with what tears the girls fell upon his neck and kissed him goodbye. On the plane he was given a window seat beside an Indian gentleman. At ten o’clock the plane took off. Peering towards the bright lights of the airport as they began to taxi, the sight of Visser and his four girls waving from the roof of the building was the last he saw of Africa.
CHAPTER 11
On the non-stop flight to London Blanchaille sat beside Mr Mal who explained that he was a fleeing Asian. Blanchaille said he thought that Asians had stopped fleeing Africa, but Mr Mal replied that Africa was still full of fleeing Asians, if only you looked around you. Mr Mal had fled from Uganda to Tanzania, from Tanzania to South Africa, and he was now fleeing to Bradford. He spoke of Bradford in the terms of wonder American immigrants must once have used about California. In his opinion the Asians were the Jews of Africa. It was amazing, Blanchaille thought, just how many people claimed to be the Jews of Africa. President Bubé in a celebrated speech claimed that distinction for the Afrikaner; Bishop Blashford was not above claiming it for harassed Catholics in the days when they were often persecuted by the Calvinists as ‘the Roman danger’. President Bubé issued a statement declaring that the Catholics could pretend to be Jews or Methodists or Scientologists for all he cared, but while subversives threatened the country under the cloak of religion, he would show no mercy… (this a reference to the flight of Magdalena dressed as a nun). Let them go around in prayer shawls and yarmulkas if they liked, the security forces would root them out. Newspapers discussed this animatedly. CAMPS FOR CATHOLICS? the headlines wondered excitedly, and BUBÉ PLANS POGROM? What did the real Jews of Africa call themselves — with so many people competing for the title?
There was a large party of deaf-mutes travelling on the plane, pleasant young people who seemed quite unaffected by their disability. Blanchaille watched a young man in blue jeans and a red shirt carrying out an animated conversation with his girlfriend. He was a walking picture show. He held his nose, pulled his ears and seemed able to rub his stomach and pat his head simultaneously. He also did impressions: a boxing referee counting his man out, the drunk in the bar thumping his chest angrily, he opened bottles, he snatched a hundred invisible midges out of the air, hitched a ride, sent semaphore signals across the cabin. His fingers, his hands, his busy silent tongue that lapped against his open lips were altogether an eloquent and loquacious display. His hands and fingers flew, pecked and parroted, swam in the air, signalled, sang, played the old game of scissors, paper and stone. They were an excited aviary those flying hands, moving hieroglyphics, they signalled the meanings which words, if they had tongues of their own, would picture to themselves. His girl appeared to listen to him with her nose. Frequently her eyes applauded. He almost envied them their ability to talk so openly without fear of being overheard. He wished he knew why he had been routed through London. Beside him Mr Mal dozed, and cried out in his sleep of the pleasures of exotic Bradford.
Nothing prepared Blanchaille for the shock of finding her waiting at the barrier.
She took his trolley from him despite his protests and led him through the automatic glass doors into the thin uncertain sunshine of the English spring. He gazed at her, the thick blonde hair was pulled behind the pretty ears and expensively waved. Her perfume enveloped him in waves of warm musk. Magdalena looked chic and well cared for. He watched her small, square, capable, deft hands on the steering wheel. He couldn’t believe he was sitting beside her again.
‘This is kind, Magdalena. But not necessary, really.’
‘Not kind or necessary. Blanchie, it is absolutely essential!’
He sat back in the car and watched the huge clouds passing low overhead like enormous aircraft showing their massive bellies. The sky in England seemed very low. That was his only observation to date. Magdalena had hugged him mightily and noted his weight increase. ‘Too much beer,’ she said affectionately.
In the old days Father Lynch had remarked on the abundance of Magdalena’s affections. She resembled her biblical namesake, he said, and much would be forgiven her for she loved much, or more accurately she loved many. That was true. The altar boys had heard of Magdalena’s powers as one hears of a wonderful cave of diamonds from which everyone is free to help themselves; of a hill of cash; a love goddess one dreamed of, panted after and never expected to get and who suddenly announced she was giving away the lot, for the asking.