said.
'I read your 'Rage' series,' Raleigh told him, studying Michael with those black onyx eyes. 'You understand my people. You examined their aspirations with a fair and impartial eye.' 'Not everybody would agree with you - especially those in authority in South Africa.' Raleigh smiled. His teeth were even and white. 'I have very little to tell you that will comfort them now. But first may I offer you a drink?' 'A gin and tonic.' 'Ah, yes, the fuel on which the journalistic mind functions.' Raleigh's tone was scornful. He went to the bar and poured the clear liquid from a crystal decanter, and squirted the tonic from a hand-held nozzle connected to the bar by a chrome-sheathed hose.
'You don't drink?' Michael asked, and Raleigh frowned again.
'With so much work to be done, why should I cloud my mind?' He glanced at his wristwatch. 'We have only an hour, then I must go.' 'I mustn't waste a minute of it,' Michael agreed. As they settled facing each other in the cream Connolly-leather chairs, he said: 'I have all the background I need: your place and date of birth, your education at Waterford School in Swaziland, your relationship to Moses Gama, your pre sent position in the ANC. May I go on from there?' And Raleigh inclined his head in assent.
'The term 'terrorist' is generally applied to.
Michael repeated his definition, and Raleigh's features tightened with anger as he listened.
'There are no innocent bystanders in South Africa,' he cut in brusquely.
'It is a war. Nobody can claim to be a neutral. We are all combatants.'
'No matter how young, how old? No matter how sympathetic to your people's aspirations?' 'There are no bystanders,' Raleigh repeated. 'From the cradle to the grave, we are all in the battlefield. We all fall into one of two camps, either the oppressed or the oppressors.' 'No man or woman or child has a choice?'Michael asked.
'Yes, there is a choice - to take one or the other side. Neutrality is not an option.' 'If a bomb explodes in a crowded supermarket, some of your own people, your own sympathizers may die or be maimed. Would you feel remorse?' 'Remorse is not a revolutionary emotion, just as it is not an emotion of the perpetrators of apartheid. Those who die are either enemy casualties or courageous and honourable sacrifices. In war both are unavoidable, even desirable.' Michael's pen dashed across the sheets of his notepad as he attempted to capture these frightful pronouncements. He felt shaken and aroused, both excited and terrified by what he heard. He had the feeling that, like a moth that circled the flame too closely, he would be scarred by the white heat of this man's rage. He knew that he could faithfully record the words, but he could never reproduce the fierce spirit in which they were uttered.
The allotted hour sped away too fast, as Michael tried to use every second to the full, and when at last Raleigh glanced at his wristwatch and stood up he tried desperately to prolong it.
'You have spoken of your child warriors,' he said. 'What age, how young are they?' 'I will show you children of seven who will bear arms, and commanders of sections who are ten years old.' 'You will show rne?' Michael asked. 'Is that possible -that you will show me?' Raleigh studied him for a long moment. The intelligence that Ramsey Machado had passed on to him seemed to be valid. Here was a useful tool. One that could be fitted to his hand and his purpose. He might be well worth the effort that would be needed to develop him fully. He was one of Lenin's 'useful idiots' who, to begin with, could be made to serve the cause unwittingly. Later, of course, it would be different. At first, he would be the spade and the ploughshare; only later, when the time was ripe, would he be forged into the sword of war.
'Michael Courtney,' he said softly, 'I am disposed to trust you. I think that you are a decent and enlightened man. If you keep my trust, I will open doors for you into places you have never dreamt existed. I will take you into the streets and hovels of Soweto. Into the hearts of my people and, yes, I will show you the children.' 'When?' Michael demanded anxiously, aware that his time was running out.
'Soon,'Raleigh promised, and at that moment they heard the front door open.
'How will I find you?' Michael persisted.
'You won't. I will find you when I am ready.' The double doors to the sitting-room swung open and a man stood at the threshold. Even in his preoccupation with Raleigh Tabaka's promise, Michael was struck, his attention was diverted. He recognized the newcomer instantly, even in his street clothes. The name Kendrick should have alerted him.
'This is our host who owns this apartment,' Raleigh Tabaka introduced them.
'Oliver Kendrick, this is Michael Courtney.' 'I saw you dance Spartacus,' Michael said, his voice subdued with awe.
'Three times. Such virility and athleticism., Oliver Kendrick smiled and crossed the room with the springing gait of the ballet-dancer, and offered Michael his hand. It was surprisingly narrow and cool, and his bones felt light as those of a bird. It was appropriate, for they called him 'the Black Swan'. His neck was long and elegant, as that of the bird, and his eyes were as luminous as a mountain pool reflected in the moonlight. His skin had the same dark lustre.
Michael thought that close up he was more beautiful even than he had appeared in the romantic lighting of the stage set, and his breathing cramped. The dancer left his hand in Michael's grip, as he turned his head to Raleigh. 'Don't rush away, Raleigh,' he pleaded in that musical West Indian lilt.
'I must go.' Raleigh shook his head. 'I'm afraid that I have a plane to catch.' Oliver Kendrick turned back to Michael, still holding his hand. 'I have had a beastly day. I swear I could simply curl up and die. Don't leave me alone, Michael. Do stay and distract me. You can be entertaining and distracting, can't you, Michael?' Raleigh Tabaka left him and let himself out of the flat. One of his men was waiting for him outside the door, but they did not leave the building.
Instead the man led Raleigh only a short distance down the passageway to a less ostentatious doorway. This second flat, beyond it, was much smaller and starkly furnished. Raleigh went through to the inner room, and the second of his men made to stand up from the chair beside the lit window in the side-wall.
Raleigh gestured to him to remain seated and crossed to the window. It was of unusual shape, tall and narrow, like a full-length dressing-mirror. The glass was shaded with that slightly opaque tone that was characteristic of a twoway mirror viewed from the reverse side.
The room beyond was a bedroom, lavishly furnished like the rest of Oliver Kendrick's apartment. The colour theme was pale oyster and mushroom, and the satin bedspread matched exactly the shade of the deep pile of the carpet. Hidden lighting glimmered and glowed on the mirrored tiles of the ceiling. Set in an alcove facing the bed was an ancient phallic symbol, carved from amber-coloured obsidian, a precious antique from a Hindu temple.
The room was empty, and Raleigh turned his attention to the camera equipment that stood ready, aimed through the two-way mirror.
The apartment and the camera equipment belonged to Oliver Kendrick. He had loaned it to Raleigh on previous occasions. It was odd that a man of Kendrick's talent and fame would consent to take part in an arranged tableau such ag this. However, not only did he do so willingly, but he had also actually offered his equipment and his services to Raleigh.
He participated with such unfeigned enthusiasm and inventive delight that it was obvious that this was very much to his particular taste. His only stipulation was that Raleigh hand over to him a copy of the videotapes and photographs to add to his huge private collection. The video equipment was of the very finest professional standard. Raleigh had been impressed by the quality of reproduction even in this low-light environment.
Raleigh glanced at his wristwatch again. He could safely leave the rest of it to his two bodyguards. They had done this before. However, a perverse curiosity made him linger. It was almost half an hour before the door to the bedroom opened. Kendrick and Michael Courtney entered. Raleigh's two assistants moved quickly to their positions, one to the video-recorder and the other to the big black Hasselblad camera on its tripod. The still camera was loaded with monochrome theatrical film, rated at 3ooo ASA which rendered crisp prints in the poorest light conditions.
In the room beyond, the two men embraced, a long lingering kiss with open mouths, and the video-recorder emitted a faint electric hum. The sound of the shutter of the Hasselblad was much louder, almost explosive in the quiet dark room.
At one stage, as the white man lay expectantly in the centre of the oyster satin bedspread, Kendrick crossed naked to stand in front of the two-way mirror. He pretended to examine his own body, in reality flaunting it before the men who, he knew, were watching on the far side of the glass.
His musculature was extraordinarily developed by long hours at the practice barre. His calves and thighs were disproportionately massive.
He gazed arrogantly into the mirror, and the diamond ear-rings in his lobes glittered as he turned his head on its long swan's neck, striking a theatrical pose. He ran the tip of his tongue along the inside of his parted lips and stared through the darkling mirror into Raleigh Tabaka's eyes. It was the lewdest gesture he had ever witnessed, with a chill of evil to it that made even Raleigh shiver briefly.
Kendrick turned away and sauntered back towards the bed. His velvety black buttocks swayed in that stylized mincing gait, and the man on the bed raised both arms to greet him.
Raleigh turned away and left the apartment. He
