'It's strange to think that it all came out of there,' Garry said softly. 'Everything that you and Nana have built up. It makes one feel somehow humble, like when I am in church." He was silent for a long moment and then went on. 'I love this place. I wish we could stay longer." To hear his own feeling echoed like this, moved Shasa deeply. Of his three sons, this was the only one who understood, who seemed capable of sharing with him the almost religious awe that this massive excavation and the wealth it produced evoked in him. This was the fountainhead, and only Garry had recognized it.
He placed his arm around Garry's shoulders and tried to find words, but after a moment he simply said, 'I know how you feel, champ. But we have to get back home. I have to introduce my budget to the House on Monday." It was not what he had wanted to say, but he sensed that Garry knew that, and as they picked their way down the rough pathway in the dusk, they were closer in spirit than they had ever been.
The budget for Shasa's ministry of mines and industry had been almost doubled this year, and he knew that the opposition were planning to give it a rough passage. They had never forgiven him for changing parties. So he was on his mettle as he rose to his feet and sought the Speaker's recognition, and then instinctively glanced up at the galleries.
Centaine was in the middle of the front row of the visitors' gallery.
She was always there when she knew that either Shasa or Blaine was going to speak. She wore a small flat hat tilted forward over her eyes with a single yellow bird of paradise feather raked back at a jaunty angle, and she smiled and nodded encouragement as their eyes met.
Beside Centaine sat Tara. Now that was unusual. He couldn't remember when last she had come to listen to him.
'Our bargain doesn't include torture by boredom,' she had told him, but there she was looking surprisingly elegant in a dainty straw basher with a trailing pink ribbon around the crown and elbowlength white gloves. She touched the brim in a mocking salute, and Shasa lifted an eyebrow at her and then turned to the press gallery high above the Speaker's throne. The political correspondents from the English-speaking press were all there, pencils poised eagerly.
Shasa was one of their favourite prey, but all their attacks seemed only to consolidate his position in the National Party, and by their pettiness and subjectivity point up the efficiency and effectiveness with which he ran his ministry.
He loved the rough and tumble of parliamentary debate, and his single eye sparkled with battle lust as he took up his familiar slouch, both hands in his pockets, and launched into his presentation.
They were at him immediately, yapping and snapping at his heels, interjecting with expressions of disbelief and outrage, calling out 'Shame on you, sir!" and 'Scandal!" and Shasa's grin infuriated them and goaded them to excesses which he brushed aside with casual contempt, holding his own easily and then gradually overwhelming them and turning their own ridicule back upon them, while around him his colleagues grinned with admiration and encouraged his more devastating sallies with cries of 'Haar, boot! - Hear, hear!" When the division was called, his party backed him solidly, and his budget was approved by the expected majority. It was a performance which had enhanced his stature and standing. He was no longer the junior member of the cabinet and Dr Verwoerd passed him a note.
'I was right to keep you on the team. Well done." In the front of the visitors' gallery Centaine caught his eye, and clasped both hands together in a boxer's victory flourish, yet somehow she made the gesture appear at once regal and ladylike.
Shasa's smile faded as he realized that beside her Tara's seat was empty, she had left during the debate, and Shasa was surprised by his own feeling of disappointment. He would have liked her to witness his triumph.
The House was moving on to other business which did not concern ..... him 'and on an irdpuFs'e nasa rose and let the chamber. He went up the wide staircase and down the long panelled passageway to his office suite. As he approached the front entrance to the suite, he checked suddenly and again on impulse turned at the corner of the passage and went down to the unobtrusive and unmarked doorway at the end.
This was the back door to his office, a convenient escape route from unwanted visitors which had been ordered by old Cecil John Rhodes himself as a by-pass of the front waiting-room, a means for special visitors to reach him and leave again unobserved. Shasa found it equally convenient. The prime minister used it occasionally, as did Manfred De La Rey, but the majority of other users were female, and their business with Shasa was seldom political.
Instead of rattling the key in the Yale lock, Shasa slipped it in silently and turned it gently, then pushed the door open sharply. On the inside the door was artfully blended into the panelling of his office and few people knew of its existence.
Tara was standing with her bhck towards him, bending over the altar chest. She did not know the door existed. Except for the gift of the chest, she had taken little interest in the decoration and furbishment of his office. It was a few seconds before she sensed that she was not alone, and then her reaction was extravagant. She jumped back from the chest and whirled to face him, and as she recognized Shasa, instead of showing relief, she paled with agitation and began to explain breathlessly.
'I was just looking at it - it's such a magnificent piece of work.
Quite beautiful, I had forgotten how beautiful--' One thing Shasa realized immediately, she was as guilty as if she had been caught red-handed in some dreadful crime, but he could not imagine what had made her react that way. She was quite entitled to be in his office, she had her own key to the front door, and she had given him the chest - she could admire it whenever she chose.
He remained silent and fastened his eye upon her accusingly, hoping to trick her into over-explaining, but she left the chest and moved across to the window behind his desk.
'You were doing very well on the floor,' she said. She was still a little breathless, but her colour had returned and she was recovering her composure. 'You always put on such a good show." 'Is that why you left?" he asked, as he closed the door andspointedly crossed the room to the chest.
'Oh you know how useless I am with figures, you quite lost me towards the end." Shasa studied the chest carefully. 'What was she up to."?" he asked himself thoughtfully, but he could not see that anything was altered.
The Van Wouw bronze sculpture of the Bushman was still in its place, so she could not have opened the lid.
'It's a marvelous piece,' he sai& and stroked the effigy of St Luke at the corner.
'I had no idea there was a door in the panel." Clearly Tara was trying to distract his attention from the chest, and her efforts merely piqued his curiosity. 'You gave me quite a turn." Shasa refused to be led and ran his fingers over the inlaid lid.
'I should get Dr Findlay from the National Gallery to have a look at it, Shasa mused. 'He's an expert on medieval and Renaissance religious art." 'Oh, I promised Tricia I would let her know when you arrived." Tara sounded almost desperate. 'She's got an important message for you? She crossed quickly to the interleading door and opened it.
'Tricia, Mr Courtney's here now." Shasa's secretary popped her head into the inner office.
'Do you know a Colonel Louis Nel.?" she asked. 'He's been trying to get hold of you all morning." 'Nel?." Shasa was still studying the chest. 'Nel.9 No, I don't think so." 'He says he knows you, sir. He says you worked together during the war?