The Covenant Part 84

'Now, Mr. Magubane, I want you to explain what makes you think you're an African.' Prod with the electric tip. 'Dance if you wish, but go on with your explanation.' More prodding.

'I'm a native of Africa, as you are. We're both Africans.' Smash to the face. 'I'm willing to accept you, and you must accept me.'

'You cheeky b.a.s.t.a.r.d!' And the fury of the two officers at being linked in a brotherhood stemming from a common terrain was ungovernable.

Next morning Magubane awakened convinced that on this day Officers Krause and Krog intended killing him. He was mistaken. BOSS was never so callous as to plan a murder; all it sought was to intimidate potential troublemakers. Tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the hedge,' Krause called it. 'When a cheeky Kaffir starts to stick his head up, like a wild branch in a hedge, what's the sensible thing to do? Knock it back.' This prevented trouble later on, so BOSS developed the system of bringing any black who was beginning to exhibit leaders.h.i.+p into custody, kick him around a bit, and set him free. The danger was that after nine or ten days of interrogation the black man might be beyond freedom: 'Case No. 51. Verdict. Death while trying to escape.'

And this might have been Magubane's end except for the work of two men outside the jail who had never met Magubane. The first was Andre Malan, white, twenty-nine, and a reporter for the Durban Gazette. Durban Gazette. He was a courageous chap dedicated to the high quality of South African journalism and suspicious of why so many Hemelsdorp investigations ended in fatal attempts at escape. He was a courageous chap dedicated to the high quality of South African journalism and suspicious of why so many Hemelsdorp investigations ended in fatal attempts at escape.

On the day of Matthew Magubane's arrest two black men had slipped into Malan's office and expressed a premonition that the young man was exactly the kind of black who would prove so intractable that Jurgen Krause would be tempted to forget what the regulations said about avoiding undue pressure. 'Watch what happens,' the blacks warned.

So Andre Malan began writing articles about the detention of Magubane, and he asked the police to issue reports of the young man's well-being. In fact, he created so much pressure that officials became irritated and decided to apply one of their laws against him.

There was a law in South Africa which said that BOSS could invade the quarters of any writer at any time without a warrant, and if they found any notes or materials or photographs which might might be used to write an article which be used to write an article which might might be offensive to the government, that writer could be detained indefinitely without any charges being brought against him. be offensive to the government, that writer could be detained indefinitely without any charges being brought against him.

On the morning of the eighth day one of Malan's two black informants ran to his apartment, shouting, 'Get rid of your papers!'

As a newsman who had watched three of his colleagues imprisoned by BOSS, he required no additional explanation; he destroyed the few papers he had allowed to acc.u.mulate, even those not relating to Matthew Magubane, then hastily scanned his bookshelves to see if any of the thousands of books banned by the government were there. Reasonably a.s.sured, he waited.

The BOSS crew did appear. They did ransack his quarters. And they did find one book published by the World Council of Churches in Geneva, and it was this which justified them in putting him in jail, on no charges, with no warrant, and with no right of self-defense.

News coverage of Matthew Magubane ended. The police were free to continue their probing of his life and beliefs as they wished, except that on a farm near Vrymeer the rebellious young black Jonathan Nxumalo, unemployed now but once a worker at the Golden Reef Mines, had been following in the newspapers the running record of Magubane's detention. Now he heard of Malan's arrest and deduced that Magubane was about to be murdered. Convening four friends, he took an informal vote: 'How many say we try to rescue Magubane?' All five voted yes. 'And then flee to Mozambique?' This time only four voted, the man who refrained explaining, 'My mother . . .'

'No explanations necessary. Tomorrow night we could all be dead.'

'Or on the way to Mozambique.'

Jonathan then cleared his throat and said, tentatively, 'My brother's home on vacation from university. I think we should have his advice.' Someone was dispatched to fetch the professor, and when he stood at the entrance to the small room in which they met, he realized that the men inside represented a conspiracy. To take even one step into that room would make him a part of the criminal movement, with the possibility of a lifetime in prison, or even death. His whole inclination was to turn and run, but the liveliness of their faces made that impossible. These were the young men he had been training, and now they were about to train him. He joined them.

'We're going to storm the jail at Hemelsdorp,' his brother said. 'I supposed that might be it.'

'We've a cache of guns smuggled in from Mozambique.' 'I wish you could do it without guns.'

'This is the year of the gun,' Jonathan said. 'If we get to Mozambique, what do you think we should do?'

If he had left the room even at this point he might have avoided incrimination, but like other blacks across the nation he felt a growing sense of the future. 'I would not storm the police station. You could all get killed.' As soon as he uttered these words he knew they were irrelevant; these men were prepared to die.

'About Mozambique,' his brother repeated. 'I can't go with you. My job is to teach young men at the university.'

'Daniel,' his brother cried. 'We don't want you to come. Men like you . . . stay here to build. Men like us . . . get out so we can tear down.'

Professor Nxumalo felt old and out of place; he was alarmed at where his teaching had led, but he was also profoundly excited by the challenge. 'When you reach Mozambiqueand you will, I know you w.i.l.l.you've got to consolidate. Make no move till you can rely upon help from all the frontiers. Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Vwarda, and especially Mozambique. Then move subtly, a push here, a retreat there. In a dozen years, with help from Russia, East Germany and Cuba, the monolith will crumble.'

'We give it the first push tomorrow,' Jonathan said, embracing his brother. And when the professor was gone, he handed out the guns.

By separate routes the five young men journeyed to Hemelsdorp, having agreed to rush the detention center at one in the afternoon, when lesser policemen, like Krog, would be at lunch and their superiors, like Krause, so well-fed as to be lethargic. Jonathan's men would be armed, a fact which almost guaranteed their execution if apprehended.

Quietly they converged on the barracks, waited an interminable five minutes in position, then without any kind of juvenile exhibitionism, walked resolutely into the headquarters, took possession of the desk and the hallways, and hurriedly searched the rooms till they found Magubane.

'What's happening?' he asked through swollen lips. 'Off to Mozambique!'

As they ran from the barracks without having fired a round, the young man who had to care for his mother headed north, where he would function underground. The others concealed their guns and went into exile.

One of the most gratifying days in Van Doorn's life occurred on 16 December 1966, when he was invited to deliver the main speech at the Day of the Covenant celebrations at the new housing development that had arisen, under his direction, on the site from which the black towns.h.i.+p of Sophiatown had been bulldozed. The area had been renamed Triomf and was now occupied by white Afrikaner families who kept their little houses neat and their flower beds flouris.h.i.+ng.

But as Detleef drove along the clean wide streets that had replaced the slum alleys he said somewhat sourly to his white chauffeur, 'I'll wager most people in those houses have no idea what the new name means.'

His chauffeur said quickly, 'But we know what a triumph it was, don't we?'

Van Doorn showed his appreciation for this support, then said, 'Sophiatown was a national disgrace. Crime, poverty, young tsotsis running wild.'

'A white man would be afraid to go there after dark,' the chauffeur agreed.

'Tell me frankly, isn't our new Triomf a hundred times better?'

Like any impartial judge, the chauffeur had to admit the new suburb was not only better, but was also inhabited by people of a much higher status: 'You did a wonderful thing here, Mr. van Doorn.'

Inspired by such approbation, Detleef showed real enthusiasm as he approached the podium in the church hall. Among the other dignitaries on the platform were four ancient men, oudstryders (old fighters), veterans of the Boer War, who nodded approvingly as he lambasted the enemies of the nation. In many ways his speech was a summation of his vision regarding the future of the Volk: 'Our beloved Voortrekkers, Retief, Pretorius and Uys, who answered the summons to freedom, saved this nation when it faced mortal danger. With pride I add my own grandfather, Tjaart van Doorn, who helped in handing to us the precious gem that is South Africa. They gave us moretheir vision of G.o.d's will as it guides the destiny of the Afrikaner nation . . .

'Never forget, this is the land of the Afrikaner, paid for with our blood and held through our faith. When the father of this nation, Jan van Riebeeck, first set foot on this soil in 1652 he found it empty, absolutely empty, of any Xhosa or Zulu, who had not then reached south of the Limpopo. Oh, there were a few Bushmen and Hottentot who died tragically from smallpox and other diseases. But this land was empty and we took it . . .

'To protect what G.o.d gave us in His covenant we have fought and won great battles, and we shall forever be ready to move back into laager to resist any onslaught against us. This we must do, because we were placed here by G.o.d to do His work . . .

'But let us be always mindful that there are vicious forces arrayed against us, eager to break the spirit of our small proud people who sparkle like a diamond among the nations of the earth. These bitter enemies refuse to see the wisdom of what we are trying to accomplish here. Who are these enemies? The anti-Afrikaner establishment. The priest establishment. The English establishment. The press establishment. The wealthy liberalists who still grudge us our glorious national victory in 1948 . . .

'When we occupied this empty land, we were a pitiful few, devout Christians unable to stem the entrance of Xhosa and Zulu into our country. Now that they are here, it is our duty to guide and discipline and govern them. When the English ruled, the blacks were like cattle moving over all the land, grazing here, grazing there, destroying the rich veld. We put a stop to that. We put them back in the kraal. And now we move them from places like the old Sophiatown to new quarters of their own . . .

'But we are told today that civilization means equality and that the Kaffir [his first use of this word] must be raised up and given a free share of everything the Afrikaner worked and died for. I have nothing against the black man. I have deep sympathy for his backwardness, but I do not want him as my brother. [Laughter from the audience] And I certainly do not want to hear him prate about "Africa for the Africans." This part of Africa is for the Afrikaners, and no one else... [This occasioned wild applause, and Detleef took a drink of water; he was sweating now and very red in the face; his voice shook with emotion.]

'I am the first to admit that the Kaffir has a place in this country, and our new laws will help him keep to it. We will never allow him to dictate: "White man do this," or "White man do that," for if we do he'll take our head. I say to the Kaffir and the brown man, "Out of the kindness of our hearts, out of our deep study of Divine Providence, we will chart a path for you along which you can find happiness and peace . . ." [More applause and cheering]

'My final message on this sacred day commemorating the death of our heroes in Dingane's Kraal is to our young people. Sons and daughters! Be physically and spiritually prepared for the a.s.saults our enemies will make. Protect your ident.i.ty as we protected your language. When I was a child they stuck a dunce cap on my head because I spoke Dutch. I fought back. You, too, will have to fight, as these veterans behind me fought. Allow no terrorist regiments on your soil, no Communist propaganda, no liberalist weakness, no Anglican bishops spreading lies. And when you fight, know that you are doing G.o.d's will, for he ordained that you should be here . . .

'If you are steadfast, you will triumph, as we triumphed over poverty and slums when we bulldozed Sophiatown to make way for this splendid development you see today with its white houses and neat gardens. In the darkest days of war Oom Paul Kruger said, "I tell you G.o.d says this nation will survive. Most certainly the Lord will triumph." Today, young people, look about you. This is the hour of Afrikaner triumph.'

As he moved away from the podium, he felt a pain in his chest; he swayed unsteadily, but reached his chair and sat down. Other speakers followed, with one confining himself to 'Triomf over Sophiatown,' but it never occurred to anyone present to ask what it was that they had triumphed over when they erased this black spot. Over the old women who had worked in white homes for fifty years and hoped for a refuge in which to die? Over young black children who had begun to learn in Father Huddleston's missions? Over st.u.r.dy black workmen who had long manned essential jobs in Johannesburg and who now had to travel many miles to work each morning and back at night? Over the clergymen who had protested the immorality of bulldozing serviceable homes so that favored whites could be spared the sight of black neighbors? Over the good white women, English and Dutch, of the Black Sash who had tried to protect the rights of black mothers and their children? Over the attempts at reconciliation, which should have prevailed in South Africa and didn't? Over what had Van Doorn's system triumphed, except the forces of reason?

The pains a.s.sailed Detleef again, accompanied this time by a heaviness in the chest which he had to recognize as serious. To the Boer War veteran next him he whispered, 'd.a.m.nation! Just as we were getting things truly sorted out.'

He was whisked to a private ward in the Johannesburg General Hospital, and his family was summoned from Vrymeer. When they a.s.sembled at his bed and heard his labored breathing they waited for Marius to speak, but Detleef did not want to hear from that one. He distrusted his son, and as older people often will, leaped a generation and extended his shaking hands toward his granddaughter, flaxen-haired Susanna. 'Come closer, San-nie,' he whispered, and when he kissed her hands, a gesture most inappropriate from him, the others realized that death must be near. Marius left the room to call Vrymeer, asking that two things precious to the old man be brought in at once.

'Sannie,' the dying man said, 'you must always do the thing that is right for your country.' This had been the dictate of his life: the honest move, the just act. He felt that the determination of what was just and honest had best be left to the judgment of men like himself, who were above greed or vanity and who acted solely in the interests of society.

'You're inheriting a n.o.ble country,' he told the girl. 'Now that people have been told their place and can rely on just laws to help them keep it.' He noticed that Marius had reentered the room and was wincing at this summary, but he could not understand why. He could not conceive that a son of his might ask, 'Who a.s.signed the places? Can such allocations be made without consultation with those who are being a.s.signed?' Detleef was convinced that since well-intentioned men, attentive to G.o.d's teachings, had made these decisions, to question them endangered the republic. He could not believe that his son would peck like a raven at a fabric so justly woven.

As the afternoon wore on he again began to visualize the enemies who had endangered his land; immortal adversaries, they ranged themselves along the wall waiting for him to die. First were the blacks, who threatened to engulf the nation, cursed offspring of Dingane and stained, like him, with treachery. No! No! First there were the English. Always there were the English enemies, with their clever ways, their superiority of language and cla.s.s. Two thousand years from now, when Great Pretoria lay crumbled in dust, you could be sure that some Englishman had knocked down the stones. They were the permanent enemy, and he was about to cry out that he still hated them when his mind cleared and he said boldly to everyone in the room, 'I have never hated anyone. I have acted only from a sense of justice.'

He did not hate the Englishhe pitied them, with their lost empire and their doomed superiorities. Nor did he hate the Indians, either; they were a sad lot huddling in their stores. It was regrettable that they had not been expelled, as the Chinese were; then he smiled, for the vision of Mahatma Gandhi flashed across his mind. 'We got rid of that one,' he said. Nor did he hate the Jews, even though they had stolen the diamond mines and the gold. 'They contaminate our land. We should have expelled them, too.'

'Who?' his wife asked, but before he could respond, there was a commotion in the hall. An official of some kind, you could tell that from his voice, was warning someone: 'You can't go in there. Blacks are not allowed on these floors.'

Marius hurried into the hallway, offered explanations, and soon brought into the sickroom Moses Nxumalo, who carried in his arms the great bra.s.sbound Bible. It was impossible to determine which of these gifts from the country pleased the dying man most. He loved old Moses, who had shared so many of the important moments of his life, and he cherished the sacred Bible which contained the record of that life, reaching back through the generations to the young sailor who had planted this Holy Book, actually and figuratively, on South African soil.

He held out his hands to both the black and the Bible.

'I'm so glad you came,' he said weakly.

'I've been weeping for you,' Moses said. 'But now my eyes are cured, seeing you again.' They spoke of old days, of meaningful adventures, and it was impossible for the black to acknowledge that it was this white who had done so much to hedge in his sons, who had promulgated so many laws to restrict and emasculate them. Detleef was merely the good master, and to see him so near death was bitterness.

It was the Bible that brought Detleef back to reality, and he began thumbing its heavy pages, printed so long ago in Amsterdam, its heavy Gothic letters setting for all time the course of right and wrong. It was inconceivable that G.o.d had delivered these words in anything but Dutch . . .

He stopped. Not even at the doorway to death could he forgive one insidious enemy who fought both South Africa and G.o.d: the infamous World Council of Churches, which refused to see that what Van Doorn and his helpers had done was right and openly made cash contributions to murderous revolutionaries. 'How can they ignore the good things we've done?'

'Who ignores us?' Marius asked.

'Why do they all persecute us?' he whimpered.

And he began to recite the sufferings of the Boers: 'The Black Circuit. Slagter's Nek. Blaauwkrantz. Dingane's Kraal. The Jameson Raid. Chrissiesmeer Camp.' Bitterly he repeated that infamous name: 'Chrissiesmeer!' Then: 'Where's Sannie?'

Impatiently he gestured Moses and Marius aside and reached toward his granddaughter. When he saw her bright face outlined against the stark-white walls he whispered, 'Sannie, never forget what they did to us at Chrissiesmeer.'

Mention of that dreadful place so enraged him that blood drained from his brain and he pa.s.sed into a strange kind of coma: He saw his bed ringed not with members of his family but with the timeless enemies of the Volk: Hilary Saltwood siding with the Xhosa. The man from America giving orders to the hangman at Slagter's Nek. Dingane giving his bloodstained signal. Cecil Rhodes, implacable foe. Teacher Amberson making him wear the sign: i spoke dutch today i spoke dutch today. The Jew Hoggenheimer, who had monopolized the mines. The Catholics who had sought to destroy his Martin Luther church. Officials from the United Nations talking sanctions. Was ever a nation so beset by enemies? And among the shadowy figures he saw his own son, who had chosen a scholars.h.i.+p at contaminating Oxford rather than a captaincy of the Springboks. Enemies all.

Then blood returned to his fevered brain and a light seemed to enter the room, illuminating past and future. He rose on his arm and began shouting, 'Laager toe, broers Draw the wagons into a circle!'

'Sannie, tell the drivers to draw ...' He fell back, breathing heavily, and reached for old Moses: 'Warn your sonseveryone must hold to his a.s.signed place . . .'

When it became apparent that he was dead, Marius leaned down to kiss the embattled face, then covered it with a blanket. Closing the old Bible, he said, 'Lucky man. He won't have to watch the consequences of his handiwork.'

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On three hundred and fifty-five days a year you could smell Pik Prinsloo at a distance of twenty feet. One old prospector who had worked the diamond diggings with him said, 'Pik takes a wash once a year. Twenty-fourth of December. Says it covers him three ways. Christmas, New Year's and the heat of summer. So for about ten days he's tolerable, but come the middle of January, then it's the same old Pik.' three hundred and fifty-five days a year you could smell Pik Prinsloo at a distance of twenty feet. One old prospector who had worked the diamond diggings with him said, 'Pik takes a wash once a year. Twenty-fourth of December. Says it covers him three ways. Christmas, New Year's and the heat of summer. So for about ten days he's tolerable, but come the middle of January, then it's the same old Pik.'

Had he been married, his wife would probably have made him bathe, but he lived with a slatternly sister in a gypsy-type tin-walled house-wagon drawn by eight donkeys. He was seventy-one years old, toothless, bearded, stooped, with rheumy eyes and matted hair; he wore a flimsy unders.h.i.+rt, sagging pants, untied shoes with no socks and an oil-stained khaki hat. He had been haunting diamond fields since the age of ten.

He lived on canned foods, bits of meat and such mealie-pap as his slovenly sister bothered to make; his house-wagon was such a disgrace that other diamond hunters said, 'Even the bush lice won't go in.' Yet he lived in a kind of odoriferous glory, because on six mornings a week, year after fading year, he wakened with the conviction that on this day his luck was bound to change: 'Today I find that diamond as big as a fist.' After a swig of lukewarm coffee two or three days old, he would shuffle out the door of his house-wagon, stand in the dust, scratch himself under both arms and shout, 'Kom nou! Waar is die diamante?' And he would almost run to the spot where his five sieves waited and his pick and shovel rested against a tree. He was perpetually convinced that a day would come when he would find his diamond.

He had little cause for optimism. As a boy of fourteen he had been the main support of one of those marginal Afrikaner farms, and on this waterless land he had been expected to sustain himself and his sister. Four dreadful drought-ridden years pa.s.sed as they fought to grub existence from the inhospitable acres, always urged on by their predikant, who cited various parables relevant to their condition. One Sunday, after returning from prayers for rain to a noontime meal of pumpkin and mealies, Pik and his sister concluded that G.o.d did not intend them to struggle with land to which He sent no water, so they abandoned the farm and acquired the house-wagon and eight mules.

In 1926, as a youth of eighteen, he searched for alluvial diamonds on the Lichtenburg diggings, following a tributary of the Vaal, and there he found his first profitable gem: a flawed stone of just under four carats for which he received the intoxicating sum of 47. That night he announced himself as a diamond digger: 'Pik Prinsloo, diamonds.'

His luck had not held. For five desolate years he trudged the Lichtenburg diggings without turning up another diamond of any size. He found chips. He found trivial stones of less than half a carat. But the diamond as big as a fist eluded him, as did those as big as the tip of his little finger, and in 1932 he experienced the indignity of having to quit the diamond fields to test his fortune in the eastern Transvaal gold fields, but even when he did pan a few payable nuggets he derived little satisfaction from them. He was a diamond man; the lure of those beautiful gems tantalized him, so back he went with his spinster sister, his mules and his sieves to probe the smaller streams of the north.

He had no luck whatever, and 1937 found him on the emerald fields near Gravelotte, at the western border of the Kruger National Park. Sometimes at night, sitting in his house-wagon in some lonely spot, he would hear the lions and hyenas, but unlike the other diggers, he never ventured into the park to see the great beasts. 'I'm a diamond man,' he growled. 'I oughtn't to be here at all. A bucketful of emeralds isn't worth one good diamond, and some day . . .'

No matter where he went, or how his fortunes decayed, he had one treasure which differentiated him from most other men, and on the rare occasions when he left his sister to join the other diggers in some rural bar and strangers would intrude, he would be apt to place upon the counter a small flat object wrapped in dirty canvas and say ominously, 'Look in there and you'll see who I am.' And the stranger would rather gingerly unfold the canvas and find therein a Digger's Certificate, printed by the government in 1926, which stated that Pik Prinsloo, of Kroonstad in the Orange Free State, was a licensed digger. And on the back, in variously colored inks, stood the record of his having renewed this precious license each following year, at a fee of five s.h.i.+llings.

'I'm a diamond man,' Pik explained, and if anyone pointed out that he was working emeralds, he would apologize: 'Right now I'm gathering capital, because I got me eye on a stream up north . . .' He would hesitate, turn his rheumy eyes upon the stranger, and ask, 'Would you maybe want to back me? I know where there's diamonds for certain.'

In this way, in the summer of 1977, Pik found his fifth partner, a commercial traveler from Johannesburg who had always wanted to partic.i.p.ate in the diamond madness. They had met in a bar, and when Pik displayed his Digger's Certificate with its endless renewals, the man said, 'I been looking for a fellow just like you. How much do you need?'

In the excited discussion which ensued, the Johannesburg man had the good sense to ask, 'By the way, has anyone else staked you? I mean, would there be outstanding claims ahead of mine?'

For Pik Prinsloo to lie about his diamond business was impossible: 'I owe four men ahead of you.' Then, grabbing the stranger's arm, he added quickly, 'But they was long ago. Maybe twenty years.'

The Johannesburg man drew back, looked at the old digger, and hesitated. But then he saw that wizened face, the lips without teeth, so that nose and chin almost met, the torn unders.h.i.+rt, the sockless feet and the deep fire burning inside the watery eyes, and he knew that if he intended gambling on some self-deceived diamond man, this was the kind he had been seeking.

'How much would you need to move north?' he asked quietly.

Without hesitation, for he had been calculating such problems for fifty years, Pik replied, 'Three hundred and fifty rand.'

'You have it,' the man said, and that was how in the New Year of 1978, Prinsloo and his nagging sister drove their donkeys north to the Swartstroom, parked their house-wagon in a field some miles north of Sannie's t.i.ts, and started their prospecting.

Old Pik had been attracted to this particular stream by signs he had seen many years before, the harbingers of diamonds: agates and flecks of reddish garnet mixed in with ilmenite, the jet-black rock which had first been identified and named at the Ilmen Mountains in Russia. The more he studied the stream in those days, the more convinced he had become that it must be diamantiferous. 'The bantoms are heavy and black,' he told his sister in their filthy wagon. 'There's got to be diamonds here.'

'If there was,' she grumbled, 'somebody else would've noticed.'

'Maybe somebody else wasn't as smart as me,' he said, but when weeks pa.s.sed without a find, she insisted that he head south to sites which had been proclaimed.

Now he still had more than three hundred rand, enough, counting his state pension, to live on for three years at the frugal rate at which he and his sister ate. One huge can of baked beans, the top knocked off by a dulled opener, a pot of mealie meal and some scraggy mutton would suffice for three days, bent forks sc.r.a.ping over the tin plates. 'Ek se vir jou, Netje. [I'm telling you, Netje.] There's diamonds this time, and I'm the one to find the d.a.m.ned things.'

Jamming his beaten hat with its torn wide brim onto his uncombed head, he hunched up his shoulders as if marching to war, and went forth to probe the Swartstroom.

Fortunately, the level of the stream was low, so that he could concentrate on the meanders of this remnant of the mighty rivers which had cut away the earth. He worked only the inside of the bends, for there the water slowed and dropped whatever heavy objects it might be carrying. If there were diamonds, they would be hiding here, so day after day he dug the gravel and pa.s.sed it through his sieves. When he eliminated the larger rocks, which he inspected fleetingly, he was left with a residue which might conceivably hide a diamond, and this he sieved carefully, with much water and a poetic, drifting motion that swirled the gravel about in such a way as to gravitate the heavier bantom to the bottom and into the center. Thus, when he flipped the sieve over onto a flat surface, any diamond would be on top, in the center.

On a hot morning in January 1978 he carried his sieve to the shaded area where he always did his inspecting, flipped it, and with a curious knifelike sc.r.a.per, which he had been using for more than forty years, sorted the agates, certain that on this lucky day he was destined to find a diamond. None appeared. Had one been in the rubble it would have shone so brilliantly in the shadows that he would have spotted it within seconds, but none did. Instead he saw something which pleased him mightily, so that he ran from his pan to call his sister: 'Netje! Look at what we have!'

In her felt slippers and faded cotton dress she came grumbling from the house-wagon, picking her way along the rocky footpath to the stream, where she studied the mess left by the sorting and snorted, 'Gemors, man. Nothing!'

'The little ones!' Pik cried with bursting excitement.

She looked at the little ones and saw nothing, at which her exasperated brother shouted, 'The little red ones! They're garnets!'

Beside them she saw the ilmenite, too, glistening black, and then even she had to concede that this stream was worth searching.

January and February, the sweating months, were spent probing the inner banks where the water slowed, and although not a single diamond chip was found, garnet and ilmenite continued to show in faint traces, signs as positive as if someone had posted a notice: diamonds hiding here. diamonds hiding here.

So he kept searching, and then one morning in October, after he had gobbled two spoonfuls of cold pap, he shuffled out, heart high and trousers dragging, to a new bend in the Swartstroom, and on the first panning, when he flipped the gravel, there in the middle of the small mound rested a s.h.i.+mmering gem larger than the end of his thumb.

There could be no mistake about it, for although the stone lay in shadow it glimmered like a light in darkness, vibrating even through the film of muddy deposit that clouded it. It was a diamond, the biggest old Pik had ever found in fifty-two years of searching, and he was so stunned by his discovery that when he tried to shout for Netje, no sound came from his throat.

And that was good, because as soon as he hefted the diamond, and cleaned it, and studied it in sunlight, seeing that it had pentagon-shaped faces and what appeared to be a good color, he realized that he must keep his find secret until such time as he had explored the vicinity. But this posed a problem. South African diamond law was bitterly severe where possession of uncut gems was concerned; and the most reviled profession a man could follow was I.D.B.illegal diamond buyer.

The finding of even the smallest diamond became an act encased in legal paperwork. Within twenty-four hours Pik had, by law, to enter his diamond in his personal register, stating its site of finding, its approximate weight and likely value. Then within three days he must carry his diamond to some police station and register it, and he could not simply report that he had found such-and-such a stone of such-and-such weight; he must show it to them physically, and allow them to describe and weigh it. These details would be entered in both his register and the police record, and stamped. And as soon as that was done, the world would be informed that Pik Prinsloo had found a diamond stream, and hungry men would flood the place.

Pik was familiar with this procedure; indeed, he had often dreamed of chaperoning a real diamond through the intricate process, but now that he had control of one, he sought to protect himself. He wanted four or five days to inspect this bend on the chance that it contained a parcel of equal gems, but to delay involved illegality, and he had seen too many men go to jail for ignoring the strict rules.

What to do? He sat for some time with the diamond in his cupped hands, convincing himself that it was as fine a stone as he had first believed: h.e.l.l, this one'll bring two thousand rand! The thought staggered him, so he studied the stone again. It was a good one and it really could bring as much as two thousand rand: G.o.d Almagtig! We're rich! Trembling, he spit on the diamond, polished it, and was sitting with it in the sun when he became aware that a drop of moisture had fallen upon it. He was sweating, and it was then that he buried the diamond beneath a well-marked rock and returned feverishly to the stream.