‘Why were you denounced then? Why have you made a run for it? Why are you hiding out here?’ Kipsel demanded, scratching blearily at the thick stubble on his jaw, and shivering slightly in the early morning damp rising from the lake.
‘We were fingered by the Regime! They were frightened to own up to a mission they had sanctioned. They wanted scapegoats.’
‘And the story about the missing money, the Swiss accounts, the house in Capri, the apartment on the Italian Riviera?’
‘The houses were part of the job, safe houses for our people, reception centres for new recruits, entertainment bases for important visiting VIPs who didn’t want the world to know that they were spending the weekend with South Africans. The houses were used in the course of operations, they weren’t holiday cottages, you know. As for the money we’re supposed to hold — what money?’
Blanchaille looked out across the big green lawn to the lake. It was on this balcony the old man had sat, the Bible open on his knees, peering blearily across the water at the big blue mountains on the other side. The locals had paused, he knew, as they passed by and pointed up at the famous old exile, Uncle Paul on his balcony. The lake lapped at the bottom of the garden. The gulls made their skidding contact with the water, claws angled for the landing as if not knowing for certain where they were putting down until they had actually landed, distrustful of the medium. The old man had sat on his chair, solid as the mountains, deep as the lake. Perhaps he had seen and admired this tireless energy of the gulls, this compulsion to take off and land, but that energy always tempered by caution, their wildness calmed into life-preserving habit. Away to the right was the town of Montreux, it crowded down to the water’s edge along a gentle crammed curve of densely packed buildings on the shore, pretending to be a small Mediterranean port. But here was no sea, this was still water, a great placid lake lying in the bowl of the mountains. Those mountains in the distance, the big blue ones across the water that he knew were in France, if one screwed up one’s eyes and gazed blindly until they began to water, they were vaguely reminiscent of mountains in the Cape Peninsula. But of course the old refugee and his rented accommodation wouldn’t have known the Cape mountains either, he’d seldom been out of the Transvaal veld until, that is, he began his great last journey into exile.
The flag-pole on the balcony was slanted at an angle of forty-five degrees and from it hung the familiar blue and white and orange colours. Very carefully Blanchaille lowered the flag to half-mast.
‘Any more questions?’ Trudy asked jumping up and smoothing the white coverlet on the death bed. ‘Oh yes, I know — you’re dying to ask me if I’m Gus Kuiker’s mistress. So, then — do I sleep with Gus Kuiker?’
‘No,’ Kipsel protested weakly, ‘we were not going to ask you that.’
‘But I insist. Sleeping with Gus Kuiker means that once or twice a week he gets into bed beside me. I lie on my back and spread my legs. He puts a cushion under my backside because, he says, he doesn’t get proper penetration otherwise, and then he pushes himself into me with some difficulty and moves up and down very fast because he gets penis wilt, you see. He can get it up but he can’t keep it up. You can rub him, suck him, oil him. It doesn’t help. While he’s going he’s O.K. The moment he stops, it drops. So about two minutes later, that’s it. Overs cadovers. So much for sleeping with Gus Kuiker. He’s also heavier now, sadder, he drinks almost all the time and he seldom shaves. But, as you say, we do indeed sleep together. Though I hope next time you use the phrase you will think hard about its implications.’
Back in the cellar Blanchaille was gloomier than ever. ‘What if I’m wrong and the Kruger story ends with this house?’
‘It doesn’t.’
‘But say it did.’
‘No, dammit. I won’t say it did! You know the story as well as I. This is just another stage on the journey which began in Pretoria, went on to Delagoa Bay, touched Europe and Marseilles, and then moved on to Tarascon, Avignon, Valence, Lyons, Mâcon and Dijon to Paris, as Uncle Paul travelled Europe to win support for the Boer cause. He pressed on to Charleroi, Namur and Liège, he called at Aachen and Cologne and Düsseldorf, Duisburg and Emmerich, and then he went on to Holland, stopping at over half a dozen cities before pitching up at the Hague. December 1901 saw him in Utrecht, nearly blind, 1902 he was in Menton for the warmth. He was in Hilversum in the following year and then back to Menton for the sun. Only in 1904 did he come here to Clarens, to this house which he did not buy, but rented from a M. Pierre Pirrot — some doubt has been cast on the existence of this man — notice the similarity between his name and the French pantomime character with the white face, Pierrot. The picture we have of the solidity of this house, of his living here in exile, of the near-blind old man in his last days looking out across Lake Geneva to the mountains, it all sounds like a drama, doesn’t it? Or a tragedy? And it suits the people to give the legend weight and durability, to make it solid and believable. The bourgeois respectability of this house aids that delusion. But it’s not a drama, or a tragedy. It’s a pantomime! Everybody’s dressed up, everyone’s pretending. For instance, he wasn’t here alone, Uncle Paul. His family was with him, his valet, his doctor, countless visitors called. And he was by no means finished either. He had his plans. The last act of the pantomime was not yet played out. And he had to hurry. He came here in mid-May of 1904 and by the end of July he was dead. But in those short months he was busy, sick as he was, planning a place for those whom he knew would come after. He knew that many of his people would collaborate with the enemy. But he also knew that some would hold out, escape, and would have to be accommodated. He wanted a place, an ark that should be made ready to receive the pure remnants of the volk.’
But a black passion had seized the ex-priest and he said stubbornly. ‘Yes, but what if there is no such place?’
‘Then,’ said Kipsel, ‘all I can do is to quote to you again the mad old Irish priest who knew a thing or two — if a last colony, home, hospice, refuge for white South Africans does not exist, then it will be necessary to start one.’
That night Trudy lay beneath Kuiker who was hissing and bubbling like a percolator and had his tongue clenched beneath his teeth in a frenzy of concentration as he entered her, trying to ensure that his erection lasted through the entry phase.
‘I think,’ said Trudy, ‘that you are going to have to get rid of our guests.’
Kuiker did not reply. He had begun moving well and did not want to break his intense effort to remain upright and operational. Instead he shook his head, not to indicate his refusal, but to show her it was not the time to talk of these things.
‘Now,’ said Trudy, cruelly tightening her exceptional vaginal muscles.
Kuiker shrank, he fell out of her, he sat back on his haunches and said, ‘Damn! That’s lost it.’