Kruger's Alp (27 page)

‘First thing in the morning,' he promised. ‘Crack of dawn, I'll finish them.'

Downstairs in the cellar Kipsel was in a bad way. Trudy's knots cut so deeply into his wrists that the circulation had gone and try as he might to loosen the cord he only succeeded in cutting more deeply into the flesh and making his wrists bleed. He'd not been able to contain his bladder either and a pool of urine spread beneath the chair.

It was then that Blanchaille had a brainwave.

‘Ronnie,' he said suddenly, jerking upright in his chair, ‘Jesus what an idiot I am! I've been sitting here for days putting up with this crap and all the time I had a way out of here.'

Kipsel licked his lips weakly. ‘Good. Only hurry, Blanchie.'

Sometime later Mevrou Fritz arrived with a pile of ironing. She grimaced at the sight of the urine and wrinkled her nose.

‘Mevrou Fritz,' said Blanchille, ‘do you get well paid?'

‘Are you joking?' the concierge demanded. ‘I work for the Department of Works, that's who this house comes under, through the Embassy in Berne, that's who I work for. I thought I told you. Do I get well paid? Bus drivers get better paid! Then there's my accommodation here, for free, so they dock the salary accordingly. Why?'

‘What would you say if we disappeared?'

Her grey eyes stared into his unblinkingly. ‘Hooray. That's two less to worry about, I'd say. This house isn't meant for people, you see. Not living people. At the moment I've got the attic full of guests, and you men in my cellar.'

‘I think we can help you on both counts,' said Blanchaille.

A few minutes later they were on their feet and Mevrou Fritz was stroking the necklace threaded with Krugerrands with which Blanchaille had been presented in the Airport Palace Hotel by the beautiful Babybel – a key she had said which he would know how to use when the time came.

Mevrou Fritz took them to the front door but to the old woman's horror they would not go until they signed the visitors' book. Trembling she took them to the book and begged them to hurry before the big boss upstairs, as she called him, woke up and shot them all.

Very carefully, Kipsel wrote this message in the book: TO THOSE WHO COME AFTER US – BEWARE! THIS IS NOT THE HOLY PLACE YOU THINK. THIS IS THE HIDE-OUT OF ESCAPED MINISTER GUS KUIKER AND TRUDY YSSEL. THEY ARE LIVING RIGHT ABOVE YOUR HEADS. TELL OUR EMBASSY IN BERNE. YOU WILL BE REWARDED.

Blanchaille wrote simply: WHERE ARE THE KRUGER MILLIONS?

And then to Mevrou Fritz's intense relief the two fugitives slipped into the night.

CHAPTER 20

Now I saw in my dream how the travellers wandered the lakeside in the manner of those wild tribes who are said once to have populated the shores of Lake Geneva in Neolithic times. They looked, it must be said, no less savage being red-eyed from lack of sleep, tousled, dirty and smelling to high heaven.

It was fine weather all that day with the sky high and blue, full of rapidly scudding thick woollen clouds, and the shining freshness of the prospect increased the feelings of relief and freedom which Blanchaille and Kipsel enjoyed as they made their way along the lakeside towards the town of Montreux. Kipsel wanted to stop at an hotel to wash and eat a meal but Blanchaille allowed only a brief pause by the water's edge where they splashed themselves, dunked their faces, ran their fingers through their hair and Kipsel at last got rid of the strong ammoniac smell of the dried urine that clung to him. Blanchaille removed his underpants and threw them into the rubbish bin. This was after all Switzerland and the trim sparkle of the countryside insisted on respect. Nothing could persuade Kipsel to do likewise. ‘I simply cannot walk about without underpants, it gives me the oddest, most uncomfortable sensation. Sorry, Blanchie, I know I pong a bit. Where to now?'

‘Up into the mountains, above the town. Remember the readings from Kruger's book old Lynch gave us so often? Remember the story?'

And Blanchaille quoted exactly as he could remember, the passage from
Further Memoirs of a Boer President:

‘Travellers approaching their journey's end will find themselves as it were between heaven and heaven, one as deep as the other is high. They will think themselves close to Paradise, and they will be as close to it as faithful servants are permitted on this earth, for the country answers to the heavenly ideal in these several instances; to wit, it possesses elevation; it is a republic; it respects and honours the memory of John Calvin; and, not least, honesty prevailing over modesty requires the recognition that it has taken to its bosom this servant of his broken, scattered people, Stephanus Johannes Paulus
Kruger. That it is not the divine country itself but its reflection will be apparent to those who walk in its mountains and still lose their way. But help is at hand for those who seek their true homeland. Scouts will be posted by the camp kommandant as I did always when establishing a concealed
laager,
or Boer strong-point. . .'

‘Between heaven and heaven, the book said,' Blanchaille pointed to the deep blue lake on their right and the bright sky above. ‘I'm sure that's what he meant.'

‘Scouts will be posted, I remember that.'

‘Well, then, shall we start climbing? They'll be expecting us.'

‘Bloody well hope so. You could wander in these mountains forever without a guide.'

Blanchaille surveyed the great blue lake, smooth as a dance floor. He saw the flat brown pebbles neatly packed beneath the clear surface, the brown ducks daintily dunking their heads, the roving sea-gulls, the sailing swans. At his feet miniature waves slapped tidily against the rocks. A few palms stood by the lake. Palms in this place! It cheered him faintly. Some sleek crows scavenged an old sweet packet and a sparrow carefully shadowed a gull and ate what it dropped. A duck dived and showed its purplish under-feathers, two swans pecked at each other viciously. The water of the lake began with pebbles and clarity at his feet and turned grey-blue under a gentle rippling surface and then still further out showed itself in pure grey slicks bounded by great shadows, flat and full it stretched into the mist of the further shore line where blue mountains reared; if he half closed his eyes they reminded him eerily of Africa. But this wasn't Africa: Africa was dead and gone for him. He was here now, and here he must keep his feet firmly planted. At his feet there floated a split cork from a wine bottle, several shredded tissues, a fragment of the
Herald Tribune,
a Pepsi-Cola can, several orange peels swimming in a bright school, wisps of swansdown, an old pencil, the filters of many cigarettes, and all the few small signs of life washed in by the tiny waves which arrived with gentle decorum. The lakeside was broken up by stone jetties and small coves and he noticed how cunningly the trees and shrubs had been introduced among the rocks: saw the ivy which crawled down to the waterside, the huge willow flanked by palms, those shrubs planted in pots and cunningly blended among the rocks, saw everything was arranged, everything cemented into place. The apparently haphazard grouping of rocks into natural stone piers and causeways was an illusion, he saw that they were
actually propped with wooden stakes and iron bars beneath the surface. He could see the steel cables that held these structures in place. Everything was at once so natural and so skilfully arranged. Here was a country which lent itself to such paradoxes. Here, you felt, everything was allowed providing it could be properly arranged. A family, mother, father and two sons in a red paddle boat, with knees going like pistons, floated by. They waved. It was time to be getting on.

In Montreux they paused at a camping shop to buy two knapsacks which they filled with chocolate, bread and milk and a couple of bottles of cherry brandy – they also bought two stout walking-sticks, walking-boots and then struck into the mountains.

Here in this corner of French Switzerland they admired the clipped serenity of the countryside, its villages, vineyards, hotels and castles. They noted how well all things were accommodated, the way in which the country entered towns and villages in the form of carefully mown lawns and artful gardens, while the towns tiptoed into the countryside never disturbing the settled neatness. Here everything was made to fit but given the semblance of casualness. They passed orchards of heavily laden apple trees and burgeoning vineyards and had no qualms about raiding the fields of fruit, snatching apples and bunches of grapes as they went.

The road above the town of Montreux climbs steeply and soon leaves vineyards and orchards behind. The day was hot. They were soon pouring with sweat. The lake was now a long way below.

It was here, in the late afternoon, that they were met by four men wearing walking-boots, short leather trousers, thick red woollen socks and walking-sticks decorated with brightly coloured tin badges showing the coats of arms of all the cantons thereabouts.

The men said they were shepherds.

Kipsel rejected this and in fierce whispers told Blanchaille why: ‘One, they don't have any sheep; two, they're carrying sticks and not crooks; three, this is cow country, you don't get sheep here; and four, they're countrymen of ours, right? Well, you don't get South African shepherds. I vote we be careful.'

Blanchaille secretly agreed. Something in the manner of these men reminded him of the policemen in their shiny orange mackintoshes who had stopped him on the road to the Airport Palace Hotel. Yes, he was fairly sure of it, their heavy and rather aggressive manner suggested representatives of the Force. Or at least ex-policemen, who were now going straight. But he confided none of this to Kipsel.

‘Scouts have been posted,' he reminded his friend of the clues in
the Kruger book. ‘We can but hope.'

By way of breaking ice Blanchaille told the shepherds that they had helped themselves freely to grapes and apples and water from the streams along the route and he hoped that there was no objection. The shepherds replied that walkers had been coming this way for so many years and that some of them wandered for so long among the mountains that the owner of the big house to which they were bound, this was delicately put, had an understanding with the neighbouring farmers under which any of his people who came that way were free to help themselves from orchards and vineyards, in moderation of course, and providing no damage was done or camp fires lit, since the Swiss were a particular race and, like farmers everywhere, took a dim view of strangers tramping on their land. However, the procedure had worked well enough for many years and just as well for there were travellers who had come from great distances and who were tired and hungry and parched, not to say absolutely bushed and clapped out, by the time they got this far. And besides, the altitude got to one, if one was not used to it.

‘Is this the road then to the big house?' Kipsel asked.

‘Keep straight on,' came the answer. ‘You can't miss it, set high on a hill in the last fold of this range of mountains, you'll know it when you see it.'

‘How much further?' Blanchaille asked.

Here the shepherds were less forthcoming. ‘Too far for some,' they said. ‘Not everyone makes it. There are accidents.'

‘What sort of accidents?'

‘Climbing accidents. Heat-exhaustion in the summer. Cases of exposure in the winter,' said the shepherds. ‘People arriving from Africa often underestimate the ferocity of the winter.'

Now I saw in my dream that the shepherds questioned them closely, asking exactly how they found this route, and how they'd come so far without maps, directions or luggage. But when they heard of Father Lynch, of the death of Ferreira, of the betrayal of Magdalena, they smiled and said, ‘Welcome to Switzerland.'

The shepherds had fierce, flushed jaws, hard, cold eyes like washed river stones, hair blond and thick, necks thick too, and muscles everywhere. Their names were Arlow, Hattingh, Swanepoel and Dekker and they took the travellers to one of the travellers' huts which the thoughtful Swiss provide in the high mountains for those who need them. This they found well stocked with tinned food, a paraffin stove, blankets, bunks and all necessities, and here after a meal the travellers went to bed because it was
very late.

In the morning they rose and breakfasted on beans and bacon and although they had no razors and could not shave, there was running water so they enjoyed the wonderful luxury of a good wash. They breathed the clear mountain air and wondered at the fierce gleam of the rising sun on the snowy peaks of the distant Alps.

A little later the shepherds arrived and, taking Blanchaille and Kipsel back inside the hut, they drew the curtain and showed them slides on a small portable projector. ‘We would just like to clear up a few points which may have been puzzling you boys,' they said. The first slide showed battle casualties fallen on some African battleground. The troops appeared to have been caught in some terrible bombardment, artillery perhaps or an air strike because they were hideously wounded, limbs had been torn away and there were many soldiers without heads. The soldiers, they noticed, were young, no more than boys.

Then Blanchaille said: ‘What does this mean?'

And the so-called shepherds, who by this time had produced flasks of coffee and kirsch and were drinking heavily, replied: ‘These are innocent boys who were called up to fight for their country and for Christian National civilisation and for the Regime and for God and for the right of all people of different races to be entitled to separate toilet facilities, which is the custom of that country, as well as for every family's rights to a second garden boy and for the freedom to swim from segregated beaches, and who now lie where they have fallen in the veld because on the day on which these pictures were taken the troops suffered a reverse and were forced to retire owing to the perfidy of the Americans who having persuaded the Regime to launch an invasion of an adjacent country then left them in the lurch and so these children lie here in the sun. What you see here is the death of a nation. Civilisations have died of old age, of decadence, of boredom, of neglect, but what you are seeing, for the first time, is a nation going to the wall for its belief in the sanctity of separate lavatories.'

‘It is a tragedy,' Blanchaille said.

The shepherds nodded. ‘And a farce,' they said.

Further slides showed the Kruger lakeside villa at Clarens they had so recently vacated. And the shepherds said, ‘We wanted you to see crowds of deluded pilgrims visiting what they're told is Uncle Paul's last refuge abroad, though it was nothing more really than a stage prop. At the heart of their delusion is the belief that the
Regime is the true heir of Uncle Paul and will preserve the white man's place in Southern Africa forever. Whereas the poor sods are no more than tourists and the site they visit may be compared to an abandoned stage, or the deserted set of some old movie and the Regime of course is busy selling out everything and everyone in the service of the only reality it recognises, survival.'

In the pictures parties of the faithful arrived in coaches, flocking into the house with looks of awe and reverence. They wept when they saw the ugly bust of old Uncle Paul, they wept when they saw the death bed, they wept at the President's last message to his people, set in stained glass, encouraging them to look to the past, they admired the view from the balcony where the old man had sat, and they wrote of their feelings in the visitors' book. Examples of their messages were also shown in a variety of different colours of inks and hands:
Uncle Paul your dream is alive and well in South Africa; We will never surrender!; The Boer War goes on!
There were angry threats:
Kill the Rooineks
and
God Give Us More Machine Guns
and
We Will Die on the Beaches;
as well as more frivolous slogans such as
Vrystaat!
and
Koos Loves Sannie . . .

At this point in the proceedings the shepherds, having become rather drunk on the large quantities of kirsch consumed during the slide show, withdrew to relieve themselves at a discreet distance from the hut and Blanchaille and Kipsel met each other's eyes and blushed to think that even they, who should have known better, had been unable to resist a visit to this empty shell of a house and had paid dearly for their foolishness by spending days under the whip of Gus Kuiker and his paramour.

Kipsel, perhaps to deflect attention from that humiliating episode, again expressed his suspicion of the so-called shepherds. And despite Blanchaille's attempts to dissuade him he met the four men on their return with these words: