The Covenant by James A. Michener
The days at Wits were like the rich summer days of February in a good year; the enthusiasms of spring were gone, but the fruition of the ripening season was at hand. Daniel met students from all over the country, and professors of extraordinary brilliance from all over the world. Many of the students were Jewish, a group he had not known before, and their keen analysis of things he took for granted enlightened him; he was particularly impressed by the way many Wits students ridiculed apartheid, defying the segregation laws in private and infuriating the more conservative citizens of Jo’burg by lining the sides of Jan Smuts Avenue outside the university and waving at them, as they streamed home from work, amusing placards of an abusive nature.
But his real education came not from Wits, where he acquired an M. A., but from a university unique to South Africa and one of its most commendable inventions. The University of South Africa had no campus, no buildings, no classrooms in the sense of a regular university. Its campus was merely a post-office address in Pretoria and a faculty of learned men and women capable of supervising students throughout the republic. By mail Nxumalo registered for his doctoral studies and by mail he conducted them. He rarely met his professors, posting them each week the results of his study. He worked in silence, spending large sums on books published in London and New York, and if he lacked the advantage of arguing with students in dormitories, he achieved a comparable intellectual stimulus when his professor wrote: ‘Interesting, but apparently you haven’t read what Philip Tobias says on this subject. Can you dismiss Peter Garlake’s theory on Great Zimbabwe?’ In fact, he read rather more widely than young men his age at Stanford or the Sorbonne.
UNISA enabled any bright young man or woman in even the most remote village to acquire an advanced degree, and from government’s point of view this produced two desirable results: South Africa was becoming one of the most capable nations on earth; and the lack of a central campus prevented potentially rebellious students from congregating at one spot, where ideas offensive to the proponents of apartheid might germinate. It also avoided the problems that would arise when the government ordered other universities like Wits and Cape Town to segregate.
At the conclusion of his doctorate-by-mail, Daniel Nxumalo, having utilized the system to maximum advantage, was an educated man with a burning determination to effect revolutionary change in his birthplace, and a firm resolve to escape entanglement with BOSS. Few men graduating that year from universities like Harvard or Oxford were undertaking a more difficult, tightrope assignment, but unexpected assistance from Matthew Magubane enabled him to fulfill it.
In his early years this Matthew had showed little promise—a bull-necked boy who resented discipline—and his education might well have ended at fourteen, except that his father knew the Nxumalos and asked young Daniel, already studying for his doctorate, to talk with his son.
Nxumalo found the boy quite difficult and was about to conclude that further education would be wasted, when the boy said suddenly and with great arrogance, ‘Man don’t have to go to college like you did to get what you want.’
‘And what do I want?’
‘Change things. I can tell by your face.’
‘And you want to change things, too?’ When the boy just sat there, refusing to answer, Nxumalo wanted to shake him as if he were a stubborn child, but he repressed the urge and said quietly, ‘Matthew, to achieve what you want, you, too, must have an education.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I can see that you want to lead others. And you can’t do this unless you know at least as much as they do.’
He arranged for Matthew’s entrance to the black high school at Thaba Nchu, erected on the very site which Tjaart van Doorn and his Voortrekkers had occupied when they were seeking their freedom. There, like Nxumalo before him, he fell under the spell of an inspired woman teacher who kept on her desk a wood-carved motto: TEACH THIS DAY AS NEVER BEFORE. She was convinced that a revolution in values was under way across all of Africa; the Portuguese had been driven from Moçambique and Angola; South-West Africa would soon be black-governed; and great Rhodesia was crumbling. She never ranted about these vast changes, merely kept on the wall behind her as she lectured a large map of the area with three changes indicated by paste-on alterations: South-West Africa became Namibia; Rhodesia was Zimbabwe; and the fine port city of Lourenço Marques was now Maputo. Day after day her students saw those signals.
‘You will be with me only for a brief time,’ she told them. ‘I must arouse enough enthusiasm to last your lifetime.’ And she did, and underlying it all was a visible commitment to revolutionary change. On no student was her impact greater than on Matthew Magubane, whose marks never exceeded a low average but whose fiery convictions surged to an apex.
Magubane expressed himself not in sports, for he was awkward, nor was he much good in debating, which required an adroit mind. What captured him, sweeping his soul, was music. He had a resonant bass voice, unusual in a high school student, and an innate sense of how to use it to advantage. He sang alone; he sang in the quartet; and best of all, he sang in the school chorus. Four times a year the South African Railways offered black high schools concessions so that soccer teams and choruses could travel to various parts of the republic for competition with other black schools, and these safaris awakened Matthew to the possibilities of his country. He saw the rich ranching lands of the north, the Indian character of Durban, the majesty of the Cape. While other boys roughhoused in the S.A.R. coach, he stayed at the window staring at the endlessness of the barren Karroo, taking its brutal quality to heart, and with this awareness of the land he had inherited, even though it was not now his, he began to appreciate what Daniel Nxumalo had told him—that to accomplish anything in South Africa, he had to learn. In his final year he won the English and history prizes.
Magubane and Nxumalo arrived at the University of Zululand the same April, the first as a stocky fellow with the kind of hairdo that infuriated whites, the second as a gracile young man with a three-piece suit and neat haircut. They maintained a cool distance until the first term had almost ended; then Nxumalo went to the younger man’s quarters, missed him, and left a note: I would be pleased to see you in my room at five, Daniel Nxumalo.
When Magubane in his rough clothes reached there, he found two upperclassmen seated on the floor, accompanied by three girl students, all drinking sweetish tea and discussing Gunnar Myrdal. It was a disconcerting experience, with Magubane conspicuously out of place but appreciative of the fact that Professor Nxumalo still retained an interest in him.
He did not want to become like the polished young men sitting on the floor; he was more at home with radical students who met around back tables at the café, and it was through association with them that he fell afoul of BOSS. It had started on a train excursion to Durban when Matthew led a gang of noisy students in a selection of revolutionary songs:
‘There’s a sun in the east
Rising, rising.
There’s a moon in the west
Falling, falling.
I follow the sun, no matter how bright.
There goes the moon, down into night.
Oh, glorious sun!’
Police officials went to the university following this exhibition, for there were always spies, and the administrators asked Professor Nxumalo to warn young Magubane of the dangerous path he was pursuing, singing songs like that and encouraging others to join him.
When they were alone Daniel turned to Matthew: ‘You’re heading for trouble. You must pause and take a deep breath.’
‘There can be no more pausing,’ Matthew said.
‘What do you intend?’ Nxumalo asked evenly, not wanting to hear the response.
‘I think many like me will have to go into exile. Into Moçambique.’
‘No!’ Daniel cried. ‘That is not the way.’
‘We’ll go into Moçambique and get guns, the way the blacks in Moçambique went into Tanzania and got their guns.’
‘So
‘Then we will have to shoot the Afrikaners.’
‘Believe me, they will shoot you down.’
The first ten thousand, the second. But others will keep coming.’
‘You expect to be in the first ten thousand?’
‘I’d be ashamed not to be.’
They spoke in Zulu, and the phrases young Magubane used echoed the great periods of Zulu history; they were words from a past century applied to the one that was coming. He visualized himself as marching in an impi that dared not turn back, even though it faced certain annihilation. ‘The others will keep coming,’ Matthew said. He would not be among those others, and the victories they won would be unknown to him, for he would be dead, but they would be his victories, too.
Teacher and pupil ended this painful exchange centuries apart but with strong admiration each for the other, and when Professor Nxumalo discussed Magubane with the administration, he used empty and noncommittal phrases: ‘I came away convinced that Matthew Magubane saw the error of his ways … There is no reason why he cannot return to what he was at Thaba Nchu … I see a bright future for this young man, for his commitment will match his grades …’
Before the end of the second term, Magubane was picked up by BOSS operatives and transferred to a police interrogation center in remote Hemelsdorp, where many infamous inquisitions had been conducted and where Jurgen Krause, grandson of Piet Krause, was determined to stamp out even the slightest signs of black insurgency.
He was a six-foot-three, broad-shouldered blond Afrikaner with a generous smile and powerful fists. As soon as the door closed behind Magubane, and the northern officers were gone, Krause said to his assistant, Sergeant Krog, ‘Bring him here.’
With a mighty sweep of his right arm, Krog struck Magubane from behind, knocking him forward, and as the black stumbled toward Krause’s desk, the latter swung his right fist with full power and smashed Matthew in the face. As the boy fell, both Krause and Krog leaped at him, punching and kicking until he fainted.
A security investigation anywhere in South Africa was a solemn affair; over the years some fifty men had fallen carelessly from eight-story buildings, strung themselves up with public-works blankets and died, but in Hemelsdorp, investigation was an art, and here such mistakes were avoided. When Magubane revived, his face wet with the water tossed over him, he found himself facing Sergeant Krog, who held an electric cattle prod.
‘Undress,’ Krog said.
When Magubane hesitated, the sergeant summoned two minor assistants, who ripped Matthew’s clothes away, and as soon as he stood naked, Krog applied the prod to his testicles, watching with satisfaction as Matthew leaped and jumped to avoid the torture. When he ran into a corner, bending to protect his genitals, Krog jammed the end of the prod into his anus, applying such a heavy charge of electricity that the student fainted.
Year after year one black in four throughout the general population was arrested for some trivial offense or other, and it was fortunate for them that not all police were as determined and sadistic as the team of Krause and Krog. Their like could be found in most countries; Russia, East Germany, Iran, Argentina, Brazil, all had such interrogators. But the majority of South African policemen tried to be law-abiding officers of justice; Krause and Krog were officers of terror.
For three days Magubane was punched and kicked and tormented. He did get fed and he was allowed to go to the bathroom and drink as he required, but the torture was incessant. At the end of four days the only charge against him was ‘You cheeky Kaffir bastard,’ a phrase leveled against any black who had progressed as far as high school or who refused to behave deferentially. It was a terrifying charge, because almost invariably it was accompanied by some brutal punishment, so that the words actually meant ‘Take that, you cheeky Kaffir bastard,’ the that being a smash to the mouth or a prod with an electric probe.
Matthew had been told, on the playing grounds at Thaba Nchu, that ‘white police officers are preoccupied with black genitals,’ but in his innocence he could not conceive what this meant. Now he was learning, for Krause and Krog relished having him stand before them naked so they could jab his private parts with the electric tip, and once, as they prepared to do so, Matthew broke into laughter. He was recalling what he had heard a black man say after being released: ‘They put so much electricity into me I was afraid I’d light up like a bulb.’
Matthew’s laughter so infuriated Krause that he and Krog kicked him unconscious, and when he revived, still naked in the cold room, he heard the first serious charge against him. The officers were singing in cracked and un-harmonious voice the freedom song:
‘There’s a sun in the east
Rising, rising.
There’s a moon in the west
Falling, falling.’
The words were familiar, as Matthew came out of his daze, but not the tune, and he looked with pity at the two officers, for they were singing their own dirge and could not find the melody.
‘What do you mean, “a sun in the east”?’
‘Nothing, Boer.’ A smash to the side of the head.
‘Don’t you mean Moçambique?’
‘No, Boer.’ Another smash behind the ear.
‘Don’t you mean the swine who have fled this country into Moçambique?’
‘No, Boer.’ Another smash.
‘I suggest, Magubane, that you mean the terrorists with guns over there.’
‘No, Boer.’ This time he was jabbed so hard with the electric prod that he danced in the air, arms and legs in all directions.
‘Running to Moçambique, are you?’
He was too numb to respond, so they jabbed him for almost two minutes, after which he fainted.
When he revived, too weak to stand erect, they propped him against a wall, and he felt blood oozing from his nose. He was positive that this had not occurred when he was conscious; they must have been kicking him while he lay on the floor, and he moved parts of his body to see if anything had been broken by their heavy boots.
‘And what, pray tell, Mr. Magubane, is “falling, falling”?’
‘Nothing, Boer.’ More punishment.
‘Stand up, you cheeky Kaffir bastard. Now you tell us what you mean by “falling, falling.” I put it to you, Magubane. You mean that South Africa is falling, don’t you?’
There was more punishment, the flailing out of worried men, and Matthew realized that he was being tortured so furiously because he had been overheard singing a song whose words the police could not interpret.
‘All right, you cheeky bastard, you sing the song for us.’ Krause began in his monotone to chant the words, joined quickly by Krog, whose efforts augmented the dissonance. ‘Sing!’ Krog screamed, and slowly, with deep powerful tones, Magubane picked up the song, lending it significance and beauty:
‘I follow the sun, no matter how bright.
There goes the moon, down out of sight.’
Krog, reading from a typed copy of the song, detected Magubane’s change in words and halted the singing.
‘You changed the words!’
‘There are many verses,’ Magubane said.
On the seventh day he heard the second serious charge: ‘People say you’re a black-consciousness activist.’
‘I am for black power, yes.’ Smash to the jaw.
‘You’re a Bantu, a stupid goddamned Kaffir Bantu, with no power at all!’
‘Yes, Boer, I am an African.’ Fist in the mouth.
Afrikaners like Marius van Doorn, the son of Detleef, looked forward to the day when there was one citizenship in South Africa; he felt himself to be a man of Africa—an African—and he did not want that honorable word applied only to blacks. But other Afrikaners were infuriated if any black claimed to be an African, as Magubane was doing, for they sensed a grave danger: the black was seeking outside help from his brothers in powerful black nations like Nigeri
‘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 bastard!’ 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. ‘Trimming 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 leadership 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 André Malan, white, twenty-nine, and a reporter for the 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.
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 André 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.