Roots of Outrage

‘Who took this photograph?’ And why was she showing it to him?

‘Gloria Naidoo. In my apartment upstairs.’ She explained, with a wisp of a smile: ‘The day after I was acquitted, who should come here but Sergeant van Rensburg? Ostensibly to warn me officially that Vice Squad were watching me. Then he got fresh and said that he could put in a good word for me. I thought fast. I said I was having my period, could he come back in two days. I set it up with Gloria, she’s a photographer. We bored a hole through the spare bedroom wall. When Sergeant van Rensburg came round for his illegal goodies Gloria photographed the terrible deed. But the photos didn’t come out well enough because of the light – I didn’t look like an Indian. So we set it up again for two days later, and that’s the result. When the good sergeant came round again, I showed him that photo and told him to get off my back, or else.’ She took back the photograph and slipped it into the envelope.

Why was she telling him this?

‘You’re wondering why I’m telling you this.’ She folded her arms. ‘Well, a few nights later I was raided by the Security Police. With a warrant to search for seditious material. My apartment was swarming with detectives, led by a certain Major Kotze. They ransacked the place, but found nothing – I’m not fool enough to keep seditious material at home. And I’m sure they weren’t looking for those photographs because they were even looking down spines of books. And why would Sergeant van Rensburg confide in Special Branch? No, they were looking for a connection with the ANC. Anyway, I was quite calm and I answered all Major Kotze’s questions very sweetly – I even offered him a drink. Which he declined at the time. But when the boys departed empty-handed, Major Kotze stayed behind to ask a few more questions and I got the distinct impression it was because I was wearing a rather revealing sari. And I thought: Hullo, maybe this trick can work twice. And sure enough, with the minimum of provocation, he made a heavy pass at me. Again saying he could put in a good word for me.’ She smiled widely. ‘Again I stalled him for a couple of days. Two days later Major Kotze was back again, boots and all. And so was Gloria, in the next room, with her camera.’ She grinned widely. ‘And the results are in this envelope.’

Mahoney had to command his hand not to reach out for those results.

Patti grinned: ‘There’s no reason for you to see them now – I only showed you the first one to convince you of the truth of my story. You’ll see them later, if you agree to my proposition.’ She smiled. ‘And it’s not an illegal proposition, Mr Mahoney. “Blackmail” would be a most inappropriate word to describe legitimate self-defence against the injustice of apartheid. Though I admit that if the entire South African police force wants to expose themselves to blackmail I’ll arrange it.’

It broke his heart to think about it, a beautiful woman like this! A brutal, shocking, wildly erotic thought.

‘I understand.’

She said quietly: ‘No, you don’t understand, Mr Mahoney. You’re white. You have all the normal privileges of a civilized Western country. I do not. You may sympathise, but you do not really understand what it is to be non-white in this country.’

‘Okay, you’re right, Miss Gandhi.’

‘Patti,’ she said. ‘Please.’

‘Patti. And I’m Luke.’

‘Wow, first-name terms already, we’re getting on like a house on fire and you’ve only seen me in one pornographic photo.’ She smiled widely. ‘I’m not really domineering, you know. I’m as soft as butter when I’m treated right. All I want out of life is justice. A good society. And cops to catch crooks. Is that too much for a citizen to ask?’

‘No.’

‘Ah, but it is, in this country. In fact it’s against the law.’

‘That’s true.’

‘So what are you going to do about it, Luke? Are you going to write courageous stuff?’

He knew now he was undergoing some kind of test. ‘I do my best – for a junior reporter.’

‘You do very well indeed. I’ve read a lot of your work, including your articles about whaling.’

The quickest way to a writer’s heart. ‘Thank you.’

‘But if whaling is so horrific – so cruel, as you so vividly described it – why did you keep on going to the Ice?’

‘For the money.’

‘Ah, yes, the money … Well, I can’t promise you any money out of the proposition I’ve got for you, but on the other hand you could make a killing, if things go wrong.’

‘Go wrong?’

‘If the police start persecuting me again. Because in this envelope are not only the photographs but two affidavits testifying as to how they were taken. I intend to put them into a bank safety deposit box with the story of how they came about – a well-written story, for publication in the event of my being seriously arrested.’

‘Arrested for what?’

‘For a serious matter, like “furthering the illegal objectives of the ANC”. I want to be able to tell the authorities that if they persist in their persecution of me I will be releasing a highly embarrassing story. This envelope – ’ she picked it up – ‘is my insurance, Luke. Not blackmail – because it would be to the public benefit that everybody be informed that the custodians of the law are breaking the law.’

God, yes, it would be a story. Though he wasn’t so sure it wouldn’t be blackmail – but to hell with that for now.

‘You would be performing a public service, Luke. And showing up the cruelty of apartheid. And the ridiculousness of it.’

‘Yes. Except I doubt it would pull down this government.’

‘No, but it would rock the police. “Senior BOSS officer in Immorality Act love nest with ANC member”.’ She smiled. ‘It would let the cat loose amongst the BOSS pigeons: how many security secrets would Major Kotze have told the ANC through me?’

Mahoney was bemused. Almost exactly what Willy Thembu had suggested. ‘But do you intend to … see this Major Kotze again?’

‘Oh, yes.’

It shocked him. A beautiful woman like this.

She said: ‘This is too good an opportunity to pass up. The job must be done properly. The scandal must be about a love nest, not about a one-night stand. And I might even get some secrets.’

Jesus. BOSS secrets in a love nest? This story was getting better and better. He said: ‘Are you also a member of the Communist Party?’

Patti smiled widely. ‘I’m not going to make any unwise confessions in my story, Luke. The only crime I’m confessing to is contravening the Immorality Act with Sergeant van Rensburg and Major Kotze. Plus whoever of the BOSS hierarchy come my way. Of course, you must write that I was a member of the ANC before it was banned and that’s how I came to be raided by Kotze – and ended up in bed with him.’ She added: ‘Of course, this could be an on-going story, with more BOSS victims. But you haven’t agreed to write it yet. Will you, Luke?’

Would he? Any journalist would give his eyeteeth for the story! ‘Oh, I’ll write it.’

‘You realize you may never publish it? It’ll only happen on my instructions and that’ll mean I’m in big trouble.’

‘Yes.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘But you must realize that you’re taking a chance on this. I might be raided by the police and if they find the story – then you will be in big trouble.’

She shook her head. ‘If your house is raided they’ll find nothing to do with me. Because you’re not going to work on this at home. You’ll do so in a nice secure place. I won’t tell you where yet. And each time you finish a page, it’ll disappear.’

‘I see. Does your attorney know about this?’

‘Not yet.’ She smiled over the rim of her wine glass. Oh, she was beautiful. ‘Any questions, Luke? Aren’t you going to ask me why I’ve asked you to do this job?’

He grinned. ‘I hoped it was because of my big blue eyes.’

‘Oh, yes, those too.’ (That made his heart turn over.) ‘Because,’ she said, ‘you’re a very good writer, Luke. I read your stories in Drum every month. And I loved your articles on whaling in the Star, your descriptions of the horror of the hunt – how the mother whale tried to take her harpooned calf under her fin!’ Her eyes were suddenly glistening. ‘It made me cry.’

He’d made her cry? And she made him want to cry, thinking of those fucking hairyback policemen rumbling all over her. He heard himself say: ‘But there’re better journalists than me, Patti.’

‘If I phoned up the editor of the Star and told him I had a story for his ears only, would he have come along personally to see me?’

He tried to think what that august personage would do. ‘No, he’d send one of his reporters.’

‘Right. And I wouldn’t know that reporter. And would I like him?’ She smiled. ‘But I do feel I know you, and Gloria says you’re a good guy. And she says you’re studying law – that shows you’re serious, even if Gloria says you’re wild as hell. And,’ her smile widened mischievously, ‘I saw the way you looked at me during the trial. You like me.’

Oh, there was sexual teasing in that. ‘Yes, I do.’

She let that admission hang, her eyes bright with amusement, then said: ‘And I like you. That’s why I asked you to do my story.’ She added: ‘Probably as much as you like me, Luke.’

Mahoney’s heart seemed to turn over. Surely this was an invitation? But he hesitated to blunder in – he wanted to make a good impression.

She went on: ‘Tell me, what is it you like about me? Apart from my body.’

Her body … Now he was in no doubt. His heart was hammering. But play it cool… ‘Your mind. And your courage.’

‘But you don’t know anything about my mind yet. Except that possibly I’m a hard bitch who’s prepared to screw policemen.’

Her mind was the last thing on his mind right now – let’s get back to the bit about her body. He said: ‘I saw your mind in action in the trial – you were clever. And you were courageous to make a public issue over that Miss South Africa contest.’

‘And how do you like my politics?’

Oh fuck politics. The conversation, moments ago so promising, was taking an unfortunate turn. ‘All I know about your politics is that you’re against this government – and so am I.’

‘But are you really against the government, or are you a typical schizophrenic South African liberal? All talk and no action. Against apartheid, vote for the United Party, but secretly understand why the government’s doing what it is, because in your secret racist heart you’re really scared to give the blacks the vote. Because most of them are so ‘‘primitive’’ and your civilization will be swamped.’

He wished they could get off this tack. ‘“Schizophrenic”.’ He smiled. ‘“Secret racist heart”: I must use those expressions.’

‘Well,’ she smiled, ‘are you?’

Was he undergoing a test to see if he deserved getting laid? He was determined to pass it. ‘Absolutely not.’ That was only half-true but it felt like a hundred per cent.

She grinned. ‘Then you’re very much an exception, Luke. Even the Indians are scared of blacks. Well, not only am I anti-government, but I’m a do-er, not just a talker.’ She lifted her wine glass to her sensual mouth, her eyes shining with amusement. ‘Well? Does that worry you?’

Worry him about what? Right now there was only one thing he wanted her to be a do-er about. Right now he didn’t care if she blew the South African government to Kingdom Come as long as she didn’t involve him. ‘I’m a journalist, Patti, my job is to write what’s happening. I’m shock-proof.’ He added for good measure: ‘And I’m trustworthy.’

She threw back her lovely head and laughed. It was resonant with sex. ‘Oh Luke … I know what you’re thinking. And I like you …’

Now you’re talking, Miss Gandhi …

‘And I like you …’ he said huskily.

He was about to cross the room and take her in his arms when she said: ‘Know what I like about you, despite your schizophrenia? Your boyish charm … In fact, your body …’

His body? And this was definitely it! Luke Mahoney got up out of the armchair with uncool alacrity, put his glass down, and crossed the room. And Patti Gandhi put her glass down, as if to make ready for the assault. Mahoney halted in front of her, she lifted her lovely face and he crushed her smiling mouth to his, devouring her with kisses; then he tried to heave her up to her feet.

‘No, Luke!’ she said, grinning.

No Luke? After that come-on? He stared down at her smiling face.

‘I’m sorry, Luke, I’ve led you on.’

Damn right she had! And he wasn’t taking no for an answer. He dropped to one knee and put his arms around her and she laughed, and stood up. She smiled down at him, holding his hands, and said: ‘Not tonight, Luke. It may surprise you, after all you know about me, but I’m not an easy lay. I like you, Luke, but going to bed with me is not part of our deal yet …’

11

Not part of the deal yet? When, oh when would it be? And how long was he going to have to wait to get his hands on this story? And on that gorgeous body. He’d undertaken not to telephone her in case her lines were being tapped. It was seven long days later that Gloria Naidoo brought the message.

He was taken aback at the elaborateness of the arrangements. He could understand why she couldn’t risk him writing the story at home, but wasn’t this taking things too far? As instructed, he left the Drum offices at five o’clock and walked to the public underground parking near the City Hall. On the lowest level he located a blue delivery van. He climbed in and pulled the doors closed. He was in total darkness: the van had no windows. Half a minute later he heard the driver’s door open. The van drove off. It emerged into the rush-hour traffic. About thirty minutes later the vehicle turned onto a dirt track. Not long afterwards it stopped, the rear doors opened and there stood Patti.

‘Hi! Sorry about the cloak-and-dagger stuff.’

He climbed out. She was more beautiful than ever and his loins stirred. ‘Where are we?’

‘On a farm belonging to a friend of mine, sorry I can’t tell you where. Come.’ She started leading the way towards a cottage.

Was this an ANC hide-out? This was stuff tailor-made for a journalist but Jesus Christ he’d better be careful! If the cops knew about this. ‘Patti, is this an ANC safe house?’

‘Good Lord, no. Look it’s a real farm. Real cows, real fields.’ In the distance he could make out the roof of a farmhouse through a thicket of trees, perhaps a kilometre away, beyond a fence. ‘The only reason I can’t tell where we are is that I’ve promised the owner I wouldn’t tell a soul. Because it’s illegal – he’s white and I’m Indian.’

‘I see. Where is the owner now?’

‘He only comes occasionally. You won’t see him, there’s a separate road and entrance he uses, on the other side of the farm.’

She led him into the living room. There were two armchairs and a dining table with a typewriter on it. Two small bedrooms led off the room – he saw a double bed in one, two iron cots in the other. There was a small kitchen. In the backyard was a small swimming pool surrounded by a wooden fence ‘This was the farm manager’s cottage, but he lives over at the main house now because the owner rarely uses it. He won’t disturb us. I use this place as a weekend retreat. Aren’t I lucky?’

Wasn’t he lucky? ‘Very …’ And with all his heart he just wanted to take her in his arms and feel those breasts and thighs crushed against him and carry her off to that double bed.

‘What can I get you to drink?’ She fetched beer and a bottle of wine, kicked off her shoes, settled in an armchair and curled her lovely legs under her as only a woman can. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Where do we begin?’

He sat down at the table. ‘At the beginning. Childhood. Family life. Schooling. Your defiance campaign. Miss South Africa. What it’s like to live under apartheid. Every detail to rouse public sympathy …’

That first night he only took notes, looking for angles. It was going to be a long story and, by the time he had wrung every tear and jeer out of it, a good one. The beautiful, dutiful Indian girl, great-niece of one of the most important leaders of our time, Mahatma Gandhi, the man who started the disintegration of the mighty British Empire. The highly intelligent Indian girl who always came top of her class, who started learning the family trade at age seven, working on the cutting-room floor so that one day she could take over. The defiant schoolgirl who made such a nuisance of herself she had to leave town and go to live with her relatives in Natal. The girl who continued to defy apartheid, walked into the public library in Durban and sat down to read and went to jail after telling the magistrate she ‘only wanted to learn, like other children, Your Worship’. The girl who, when she was released four days later, walked straight back into the public library and got arrested again. The girl who climbed into a whites-only railway coach and padlocked herself to the stanchion. The girl who walked into the Dutch Reformed church, sat in the front pew and waited, reading a prayer book, for the dominee to enter, as worshippers stormed out until the police came in: ‘I only wanted to worship, Your Worship. I wasn’t disturbing the peace.’

‘You’re a trouble-maker,’ His Worship said.

‘All I did was study the prayer book. I think it’s the government who’s making the trouble, Your Worship.’

‘You’re a Hindu,’ His Worship said, ‘you have your own temples.’

‘But I’m very interested in Christianity, this being a Christian country, and this being my country, where I was born – and anyway we all worship the same God, don’t we? There’s only one God, the Christians say, and I just wanted to worship Him, I’m sure that as a Christian you understand, Your Worship.’

‘And what did the magistrate do?’

‘He was in a cleft stick, wasn’t he? The press were there, in force. And not even this government – yet – has been so stupid as to forbid multi-racial worship – though don’t bank on that. I was charged with disturbing the peace.’ She laughed. ‘Oh boy. The peace? By silently reading the Afrikaans prayer book, Your Worship? If the other churchgoers are so un-Christian that they refuse to worship God in my presence and call the police to haul me out of their Christian church, they are disturbing the peace, surely, God’s peace, Your Worship, making Him jolly angry, I bet. Remember how angry the Lord got about the moneychangers in the temple, Your Worship, how He threw them out, and quite rightly too? But I was only reading the prayer book, Your Worship, I’m quite sure the Lord wouldn’t have thrown me out for that.’

Mahoney was furiously making notes. ‘Lovely stuff,’ he murmured, ‘And … ?’

‘And the magistrate had to acquit me. But not without having the stupidity to warn me not to do it again and make a public nuisance of myself. Public nuisance … ! Can you imagine what the press did with that gaffe? “Magistrate warns Indian not to bother God”! “Worshipper is a nuisance, His Worship says”!’ She grinned. ‘They called me the “God-Botherer” after that …’

And after that, many things. The beautiful Indian girl who shamelessly walked into the public whites-only toilet, put a penny in the slot before the white attendant could stop her, pulled down her knickers and had a pee while the press waited gleefully. ‘Don’t you dare come in here, you perverts …’ she shrieked at the police. And when the woman-constable finally led her away she beamed at the cameras and said: ‘What’s a girl to do? When you gotta go, you gotta go!’

Mahoney grinned. ‘And … ?’

‘No option of a fine, this time, with my criminal record. A straight fifteen days.’

Fifteen days. And, when she was released from prison that time, not only were the press there to meet her but her father.

‘But what did your parents think of you?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you know what parents are like … My family was very conservative in that they’d come up the hard way, and even though they were bitter about apartheid they didn’t want to rock the boat. When their darling daughter started rocking the boat they were so worried – for me. They wanted the best for me, to finish school and take over the business and get married to a nice high-caste Indian boy, and here I was, sixteen years old and seven criminal convictions behind my name. Not good. So, when the God-Botherer waltzed out of prison the last time, beaming for the pressmen’s cameras, there was my father with an air ticket to England, to finish my schooling there.’

‘And how did you feel?’

‘At sixteen? With my eyes full of stars about thrashing the apartheid system? I’d already spent over thirty days in jail for my various offences – I was becoming an old hand at it, and I was something of a celebrity with the local press. I wanted to carry on. There were all these other apartheid laws I hadn’t defied yet. I still hadn’t booked a room in a white hotel. I hadn’t gone to a white cinema or played tennis on a white court. I still hadn’t gone into the Orange Free State where Indians are forbidden to set foot even in transit. And,’ she grinned, ‘I still hadn’t screwed a white Afrikaner policeman.’

‘Did you really intend to do that?’

‘Well, I was still a virgin. But I thought it was a bloody good idea in principle – hoist the bastards on their own petard. And I had a few chances, by the way. Anyway, although my parents were generally very supportive, they’d had enough – particularly my poor mother. So, off to England I was sent to finish my education.’

Patti Gandhi, head prefect in her final year, leading light in the debating club, victrix ludorum. And, oh, she loved it in England. Not denied buses, tea rooms, cinemas, restaurants, hotels, not told to stand in another queue at the post office or bank or railway station. ‘What a novelty! I was like a kid in a candy store. Just being treated like an ordinary person.’ But, ah yes, an exotic one: there were advantages to being a non-white in lily-white England, standing out in a crowd: the head-turns, the wolf-whistles. ‘I felt like a million bucks for a change, knowing I could date any boy who asked me, dance with anybody, hold his hand legally – kiss him goodnight! And the girls were all super to me, invited me home for weekends, and in the summer we went on coach tours of Europe and to villas by the sea – and the Europeans seemed to go out of their way to be nice to me. And the fact that I’d been to jail for defying apartheid? Oh boy, that made me a heroine in the girls’ eyes.’

It made her a heroine in Mahoney’s eyes too. South Africa had plenty of liberals who said apartheid was cruel, economically unfair, and so on, but who did nothing about it – all talk and no action, as Patti said: but here was a sixteen year-old Indian girl who did, and did her talking in court: it took a hell of a lot of courage to take on the South African system. And when she went on to university she was even more of a hero – and belle of all the balls. God, you’re beautiful, Mahoney thought as he looked at her photograph albums of those days: Patti Gandhi being punted down the river; Patti yelling her head off at the Oxford-Cambridge boat race; Patti in a bikini on the French Riviera; Patti in ski-gear in the Austrian Alps; Patti in her graduation gown.

But when she returned to South Africa, she wasn’t a heroine anymore, she was a criminal. As the sergeant from BOSS, who was waiting for her at the airport, warned her: ‘Don’t think you can come back here with your fancy English ideas, hey, jus’ remember this is a white man’s country, hey, and we’ll be waiting for you before you make any more bleddy trouble, hey!’

‘And what did you say?’

‘Just smiled sweetly and said it was lovely to be home – what else can you say to an oaf like that, his English is too poor.’