Roots of Outrage. John Davis Gordon

It had to happen next weekend. And he did not care if he was playing a dangerous game.

      It did happen the next weekend. And when it did, it was even more wonderful, more exciting, more erotic, more exotic than he had imagined: he was trembling with desire as he took her in his arms and crushed his mouth against hers, and, oh, the wonderful feel of her again, and this time her loins were pressed against his, she was kissing him as hard as he was her, and he peeled her dress off her golden shoulders, and, oh, the bliss as he cupped her beautiful breasts. Her dress fell off her hips in a silky heap, and there she stood, naked but for her brief panties, her glorious thighs golden and perfect, and he lowered himself to one knee and kissed down her belly and thighs, and then peeled the panties off her rounded hips, and he buried his mouth into her soft sweet pubic triangle. And she sighed, then she turned out of his embrace and walked to the sofa; she sat down, then she lifted her knees and she opened her long golden legs to him.

PART III

      SOUTH AFRICA BECOMES A REPUBLIC

      CONGO CHAOS CONTINUES

      KENYA, TANGANYIKA, UGANDA GRANTED INDEPENDENCE

      CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

      TROUBLE IN RHODESIA

      ANC ANNOUNCES ARMED STRUGGLE

      NELSON MANDELA ARRESTED

      POLICE FIND ANC UNDERGROUND HQ

12

      A lot of things happened in the two years that followed. Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd led South Africa into becoming a republic, severing its ties to the Queen and the Commonwealth; the Afrikaner had thrown off the British yoke at last, the Boer War had finally ended and there was an orgy of emotion. In Kenya the last of the Mau Mau had been wooed out of the forest with an amnesty and a promise by Britain of independence, which caused outrage amongst the settlers. Tanganyika was given its independence, for the British government had lost its stomach for fighting. Immediately a new Marxist government began collectivization and villagization and communization; America was alarmed, the USSR applauded and South Africa said: ‘I told you so.’ Uganda was granted its independence and Milton Obote, the new prime minister, sent his army, under the command of a sergeant major named Idi Amin, to blast King Freddy, the popular monarch of Buganda, out of his throne and palace. America wrung its hands, the Soviets rubbed theirs and South Africa said ‘I told you so’ again. In Ghana the Great Redeemer continued throwing his opposition into jail. Nigeria was granted independence and immediately there was a military coup, the first of many. In the United Nations President Khrushchev banged his shoe on the table and sent Cuba intercontinental ballistic missiles to be aimed at America. In the Rhodesian Federation the black nationalists sent their youth about burning mission schools and dip tanks, maiming cattle and throwing petrol bombs. In the Congo chaos reigned supreme, tribalism and Marxism and nihilism and cannibalism and black magic, and Moise Tshombe defended the secessionist Katanga against this chaos with white mercenaries. In South Africa, the Spear of the Nation, under Nelson Mandela, started setting off bombs. The rival PAC sponsored a terrorist organization called Poqo, which means We go it alone, and random murders of whites began. The government responded with a new raft of tough legislation, the press was curbed and suspects in police custody began having fatal accidents. It was a bloody, frightening time in Africa as the colonial powers withdrew with reckless haste, and to many people all over the world the South African kragdadigheid seemed the only way. It was the start of the really bad times.

      But to Luke Mahoney they were wonderful, exciting, happy times. And when they ended in a crack of thunder, in shock, in desperation, in running for his life, it was all the more heartbreaking because they needn’t have ended that way. In the years that followed he never ceased to remember the happiness of those days. And the unhappiness.

      The happiness of being head over heels in love; the happiness of knowing he had one of the most beautiful women in the world to love; the excitement of knowing that tonight they were going to make glorious, riotously sensual love. And there was the excitement of danger, of delicious forbidden fruit – the sheer fun of getting away with it; the breathtaking joy of making love in the apartment above her emporium, with the tailors working below, the telephones ringing; the thrill of smuggling her into The Parsonage for quickies during the afternoons, the excitement of stolen secret hours, sometimes whole perfumed nights.

      The stolen nights were mostly on the farm. He was allowed to know where it was now; he drove himself, but always by a different circuitous route, always watching the rear mirror. Although she had neutralized the Vice Squad, or at least Sergeant van Rensburg, it was unwise to spend the night together in her apartment above her shop, and The Parsonage was out of the question because although he trusted the boys he could not trust the girls who emerged in the mornings. The farm was the only place they could safely do it. And did they do it? Oh, the anticipation of waiting for the weekend, the excitement of driving out by roundabout ways, then, when he was halfway to Pretoria, doubling back by other roads to Buck’s Farm. He drove up to the cottage, grinning with anticipation, and the front door burst open and out she came, looking like a million bucks, a laugh all over her lovely face. And his heart turned over each time. And, oh, the wonderful feel and scent and taste of her. And, oh, the joy of being out in the open again, for nobody to see …

      It was lovely to be twenty years old and head over heels in forbidden love with a beautiful woman most of South Africa knew about – but didn’t know he had. Lovely, exciting, knowing that they had the whole weekend to themselves until Monday morning, with nobody to knock on the door. Each weekend he brought his law books – he had finished her story – and in the mornings he studied but midday found them lying beside the little pool, drinking wine, cooking on the barbecue, the sun glistening on her goldenness, her long legs so gloriously female, her tiny bikini covering her mount of Venus, the wonderful olive line where her thighs touched, her rounded soft-firm hips, her glorious breasts naked, her long black hair loose, her mouth happy below her sexy sunglasses. They were lovers who had been kept apart most of the week, catching up on each other’s news, what happened at the office, who said what about whom: the delightfully important business of talking about unimportant things when out there in the rest of the land awful things were happening. It was a relief ‘to get away from South Africa’. And, oh, the blissful knowledge of what they were going to do after lunch: just take each other by the hand and lay themselves down upon that big double bed with a smile of anticipation, happiness all over their faces. It seemed that each time he looked at her, her perfect body, cool and warm, the droplets of the swimming pool on her, he took a happy sigh. And she was as beautiful a person as she was beautiful. And their love-making was as beautiful as she was.

      Sometimes they got away from it all by getting the hell out of South Africa. Gandhi Garments had outlets in Botswana and Mozambique, all of which fell under Patti’s jurisdiction. About once a month she had to visit one of them, and they made a holiday out of it. They had to go in separate cars, because a white man leaving the country in the same vehicle as an Indian woman, particularly one as well known to the authorities as Patti Gandhi, would be a prime suspect for contravention of the Immorality Act when he returned – the wires would be hot between the border and Police HQ. So they left in separate cars and met in the hotel on the other side of the border. Patti had a cousin in Botswana whom they sometimes visited, but they always stayed in hotels. And, oh, it was a lovely feeling to be free. God knows there is nothing beautiful about the towns of Botswana, flat and dry, the sun beating down hot as hell, but to them it was lovely, freedom. Freedom to be like two people in love, to lie together by the motel pool, to have dinner together by candlelight, to dance together for all the world to see. To them Botswana was beautiful. But Mozambique was truly beautiful: the Portuguese motel on the palmy beach outside Lourenço Marques, the Indian Ocean warm and clear, the fishing boats, fooling together in the warm surf, chasing, splashing, ducking each other like two kids let out of school, pulling her bikini off midst girlish squeals, the wonderful fleeting feel of her nakedness, the laughing salty kisses, lying