Off the Voortrekker Road Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Thanks

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Dedication

  Dedicated to my father, Jack, whose life experiences and stories were the inspiration for this work of fiction

  Thanks

  With love and thanks to Adam, Gemma and Joel Sharples and my mother, Rita

  Special thanks to my agent Elly James at HHB Agency, to Jenny Green for all her invaluable support, to Lucy Webster for her advice and practical assistance, to Sue Tyley for editorial help, and to Henry Brown for reading and commenting on the novel.

  Cover design: Adam Sharples

  Chapter 1

  May 1958

  Jack sat in the hushed courtroom. High in the ceiling a single fan whirred slowly, spiralling down a fug of stale air. It was unusually warm for the time of year, an unexpected last gasp of heat before the Cape breezes picked up bringing rain and cooler air.

  He watched the jurors settling down. The men loosened their ties and discarded their woollen jackets and felt hats. Some took out handkerchiefs to wipe their faces, one mopped his bald head, while a young woman in a bright floral dress opened her bag, applied a dab of powder and a greasy smear of red lipstick. Carefully, she rolled up a magazine to act as a makeshift fan, flicking it backwards and forwards in awkward, jerky movements. Had they heard the stories and read the newspaper headlines in the Cape Argus and die Burger? Had they already made up their minds?

  As the courtroom began to fill, a low hum of noise rose; murmuring voices, the rustling of paper, a nervous cough, throats being cleared, but Jack knew that, when the judge swept in, there would be a sudden stillness, a collective intake of breath and then silence.

  He took up his fountain pen, unscrewed the lid, and pulled towards him a pad of lined paper. He wrote: ‘May 7th 1958’ then jotted down a few phrases to calm himself, words that he wasn’t even sure he would actually use. He’d been mulling it all over for so long now, rehearsing the different permutations, one word against another, considering the precise effect of each. His training had schooled him in the need for clarity and exactitude; a word in its everyday context could mean something quite different in a court of law. Verdicts could turn on linguistic niceties and nuances; there was little room for error. His own experience too had taught him how words could open doors, break down barriers, establish fresh, revelatory understandings but they could also damage and destroy. He still hadn’t fully determined what he was going to say. Any minute now he would be forced to go one way or another, choose one set of words over another and face the consequences.

  What would the woman with the rolled-up fan make of it all? He’d latched on to her, as representative of a kind of South African he thought he understood well. Her small, rather bored eyes and full red mouth, her showy dress, cerise pink with flowers, made him doubt that she would be sympathetic to him. She would almost certainly be looking for something simpler than he could offer, a nice straightforward story that she could take home to her husband or fiancé at the end of the day. ‘It was lekker,’ she might say, ‘really great. We listened to all the facts and that was that - nice and easy, the law of the land, working perfectly, just like it should. Man, I’m proud of this country of ours, proud to be an Afrikaner.’ Instead, he feared that she would come away from it all confused, perplexed, probably even angry. It would all depend; on her and whether he’d judged her right, on the outcome of the trial but most of all on him and what he finally chose to say.

  There was a soft buzz of talk in the corridor and then, more distantly, out on the wide stone courtroom steps, the sound of shouting. A crowd had gathered. There was a queue for the public gallery and those who hadn’t secured seats were still milling around outside; tempers were clearly frayed. Earlier, buses had disgorged eager spectators out into the square and he’d had to barge his way through the crowd to get in.

  The court officials hurried to and fro, whispering among themselves, sensing a possibility of trouble. Any minute now, the Judge would come in; soon Jack himself would have to speak. What if he opened his mouth and nothing came out?

  The school yard. The memory of it came out of the blue, sharp and shockingly precise.

  The boys are standing all around him in a circle, laughing. J-J-J-Jackie. His head is bowed. He is looking down at the red dirt of the Parow Elementary School yard. He sees his shiny leather boots, made for him by his oupa in the little cobbler’s workshop at the front of his house, a present for his first day at school. The tiny black stitches trace an ant’s path round the stiffened toe-pieces. His socks have fallen down to his ankles, the worn grey elastics having failed. A trickle runs down his leg, producing a dark stain on one sock that soaks quickly into the baked red dirt of the yard. He holds his arms out straight to his sides. His fingers twist nervously but otherwise he is perfectly still, like the posts holding up the schoolyard fence, like the columns on either side of the gate, like the Stinkwood tree on the other side of the street. He wants to disappear into the background.

  ‘Mrs Uys, Mrs Uys, Little Jackie’s done a wee in his broekies! But he won’t tell, ’cause he can’t speak!’

  His trousers are wet and there is a sharp-sweet tang of the urine and warm wool on his skin. He waits for the school bell to ring so he can go inside, to the safety of Mrs Uys and away from the laughter of the boys and girls.

  *****

  A gentle tap on his shoulder brought him back to the courtroom. An usher, bringing him a note from his chambers, with a message asking him to phone when the court adjourned for lunch. There’d been a last minute question in a case that was about to draw to a close and Vera, his secretary, wanted to know how to respond.

  Up to now Jack had been given only minor briefs, the kind of cases his more experienced colleagues avoided: petty thefts, disputes about a piece of land over in Paarl or a lease on a shop in Maitland, broken contracts, messy middle of the road divorce proceedings. A few solicitors had given him a break, trying him out to see what he was capable of. So far things had gone reasonably well, given how inexperienced he was, fresh out of his pupilage. He’d done a decent enough job and a number of judgements had gone his way. He was a quick learner, he knew that. He did his homework and the attendants at the Law Library knew him well. ‘Back for another stint, Mr Neuberger? You’ll be a High Court judge before you know it!’ the one older librarian joked. But he wasn’t fooling himself. He was still a rookie and he knew why this particular case had come his way rather than going to one of the more established members of the chambers.

  He’d heard the talk among the other advocates, before he’d agreed to take it on. The new Immorality Act had just come into force and this was the first case to be prosecuted – a test case, with a lot of attention focused on it. Fineberg, a senior counsel, couldn’t do it. He was right in the middle of a big case, he said, a long one, and really wouldn’t be able to squeeze it in. Berman, Cohen and Ronnie Levine were also offered the cas
e and declined.

  ‘I don’t want to get known for this sort of thing,’ he’d overheard Berman telling a colleague, over coffee and a salt beef sandwich in the Waldorf. ‘You can find yourself with a reputation for cases like this and then that’s all you get. It damages you. You lose the quality cases, the commercial clients. The thing is to find an excuse, like Fineberg – much too busy, dying mother, wife expecting any day – whatever it takes to get yourself off the hook.’

  Big, fat divorces of gold, or diamond-mining magnates, chunky, complicated business disputes, or maybe even a good, meaty murder case from time to time – that’s what senior barristers like him wanted to spend their time on.

  Finally when the solicitor called, having tried a few others and had no luck, it was mentioned to Jack. He’d agreed straightaway to take it on. Mixed marriages, sexual relations between black and white – this case spoke to him, not only because of its political content, some abstract commitment to a cause, but for another reason as well. That episode when he was just a boy, in his father’s shop in Parow, with Terence, his childhood playmate, the only boy he’d ever really thought of as a friend. He’d never forgotten it; it had stayed with him.

  ‘A word of advice, Mr Neuberger,’ Bob Cohen had said, when he’d heard the news.

  ‘Yes, Mr Cohen?’

  ‘There’ll be publicity for this one. An Afrikaner in his position, it’ll be a juicy one for the press. They’ll lap it up. I’d keep a low profile, if I were you. Whether you win or lose isn’t really all that important. It’s your reputation that you want to hold on to, if you want to make your way at the Bar. Use your head, not your heart.’

  Jack hadn’t replied. Bob Cohen had worked as an advocate for thirty-odd years; his opinion was not to be easily dismissed or ignored. Head or heart? He’d used his head that time before, he’d listened to his parents and followed their lead, but what if he’d listened to his own feelings, if he’d struck out on his own and gone the other way? Perhaps that too would have been an equal, if different, burden to bear.

  There was a sudden flurry of movement in the courtroom, the ushers moving into position by the doors, the clerk of the court taking his place behind his desk.

  ‘All rise,’ the clerk called. ‘All rise for Justice Steyn.’

  The moment had come. Jack stood up. He felt a trickle of sweat running down the back of his shirt. He adjusted his bib and collar, straightened his gown against his shoulders, brushed off stray pieces of lint and took a deep breath.

  Justice Steyn came in through the wood-panelled door behind the bench. He was a thin man, small, with a grizzled beard and deep-set dark eyes, a long, narrow nose and a pale complexion. Not a very imposing figure, more like a librarian or book-keeper than a judge, yet able to draw on the authority of his position instantly, to command the respect of the courtroom. Gathering the folds of his gown around him, he leaned forward and opened his notebook, then gestured to everyone to be seated. Jack followed his sharp gaze as it scanned the court, resting finally on the jury. This was it. The start. The opening remarks.

  ‘Let me remind you of the seriousness of your duties, in this case perhaps even more than most, where a new immorality law is being tested and the outcome will have significant consequences beyond this courtroom. It will be broadcast far and wide. It will send out a message, not just about the illegitimacy of marital relationships across races, nor just about the sex act itself between Europeans and non-Europeans, both of which have long been enshrined in our country’s law as criminal offences, but about all sexual contact between whites and non-whites. ”Immoral or indecent acts,” the new law says. That is the ground that is being tested here today and you, the jury, will have to decide whether the two defendants are guilty of contravening it or not. Immorality and indecency. Two words that can mean very different things to different people. Perhaps you have your own strong views? Maybe your wife or your brother or your neighbour takes different ones? But our job is to regard them as legal terms, not just as everyday words, such as you might use in banter with friends. You will need to put aside whatever prejudices you bring to the courtroom and decide whether the defendants are guilty of immoral or indecent acts, as defined by this new law, and as a result whether they should be subject to the full weight of its penalties.’

  He paused and looked towards Jack and the prosecuting counsel, Willem du Toit, sitting just across from him.

  ‘You will hear a lot of arguments from these two learned men. They will use all their knowledge, all their cleverness and their verbal skill, to persuade you that their view is right, for let me tell you they are both very clever men. They’ve been trained in all the techniques of argument and persuasion. But they will also present you with evidence and with facts. And you will hear the evidence of the witnesses they call to appear before you. It is your duty to judge the two defendants on the basis of the evidence. Facts, evidence and the law. That is all that matters.’

  Du Toit, his adversary. Fifty years old, or thereabouts, paunchy, reassuringly unkempt, with a florid complexion and an easy smile. He looked relaxed. His arms were folded and he had his legs stretched out in front of him, as if settling down to watch a good film at the bioscope, rather than launching into the first day of what everyone recognised to be a major trial.

  ‘He looks like a great big, cuddly teddy bear,’ Bob Cohen had warned. ‘But don’t be deceived. He has an enviable record of successes and, let me tell you, that doesn’t come from being nice. He’s ferocious. And he’s cunning. Watch your back.’

  He wondered what approach du Toit was going to take. The smug look on his face suggested that he thought he had every angle covered, held all the cards in his hand, but perhaps that was just part of his game plan; maybe under that cool exterior, he too was feeling just a bit nervous about what was to follow. He’d never been up against Jack in court before and perhaps he would have preferred the known patterns and rituals that he could follow with his contemporaries, men he’d trained with at university and whose careers had closely mirrored his own. A new young advocate might be more of a wild card for him than Bob Cohen or Marius Fineberg, the more senior men, whose every trick and courtroom joke were by now absolutely familiar to him.

  Jack ran his eye along the rows of the jury. Nine men and three women, all white of course. What more could he tell about them? The big Afrikaner with the shiny bald head and flat, broad nose, the tall thin man with horn-rimmed glasses, dressed in a threadbare suit, the girl with the red lipstick and paper fan, these stood out. He tried to do a quick tally, to tot up the score. Four or five Akrikaner men, two Afrikaner women and one man who he thought was probably, like him, a Jew. The rest, going by their appearances, seemed to be of English stock. Their thin noses, redder skin, their choice of clothing, assumed air of refinement, all marked them out from the Afrikaners. He was a pretty good judge of these things. All those years of looking at people in his father’s store in Parow had helped; he’d become adept at the art of the quick summing up, whether picking up on the clues of physiognomy, like the shape of a nose or the texture or teint of the skin, or a single gesture, such as the way a person swatted a fly, or reached across to take their change.

  More women, a few more Jews, that’s what he had been hoping for. They were more likely to favour his client, or so the folklore among his fellow advocates went. He might have thought of contesting one or two, to get a more favourable balance, but then what was the point? All in all, given the circumstances, it was unlikely to make a difference. He’d let it go.

  Some of the jury had their eyes trained on him and on du Toit. He caught the gaze of one or two and then quickly looked away. It was an uncomfortable moment, this first hesitant sizing up of each other. He wondered what conclusions they would draw. Like him, they would probably be quick to pigeonhole him, from the physical signs that he himself knew to be fairly obvious. Dark hair, olive skin, an e
nergetic, mobile face. He’d been told by Louis Abrams, his pupil-master, that he should practise the art of studied indifference. ‘You give too much away, you know. You risk showing your hand too early. Try to be more like a poker-player. Be more like the English, with their well-known sang-froid, and keep your emotions to yourself.’ But, as Renee had said when she’d first met him, ‘What I like about you, Jack, is the way you wear your heart on your sleeve.’ The exact phrase the jurors might use to describe him would depend on their own persuasions and prejudices. Maybe ‘one of those clever Cape Jews’, or ‘a Litvak, a Lithuanian immigrant – why the hell did so many of them end up as attorneys?’ or, and he didn’t kid himself about this more unpleasant possibility, ‘another Jewish kaffir-loving communist’. He’d heard that phrase enough to be realistic about how he might be regarded.

  He was distracted by these thoughts and so, rather absurdly, felt a sudden jolt of surprise when his client was brought in, a court official holding him firmly by the elbow. Johannes van Heerden, a man in his early fifties, a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, whose wife, Laura, did flowers for the Sunday service and baked koeksisters for the annual Bring and Buy; a respectable man of the church. He entered the dock, his head bowed, then briefly looked up and caught Jack’s eye.

  Jack had hardly been able to believe it when he’d first heard the details of the case. Of all people to be brought to court under this new law! It had pushed the whole issue right back into the public gaze; the headlines in the local papers were full of it, focusing on van Heerden himself, with a prurient interest in every detail of his private life. But there had also been furious debate in the serious press. The Cape Argus and the Cape Times, the voices of the English-speaking, more liberal community, had both struggled to tread a line between raising questions and concerns, and out-and-out condemnation. What exactly were immoral acts? What was indecency? The Afrikaans newspaper, die Burger, of course took a more predictable government line.