an excuse to stop you.
He hates you already for driving a motor car that he cannot afford himself. Never put yourself in his power. The road skirted the rolling fairways of the Johannesburg Country Club, oases of green in the brown veld, watered and groomed and mown until they were velvet green carpets on which the white golfers strolled in their foursomes followed by their barefooted caddies. Further back amongst the trees the white walls of the club house gleamed, and Moses slowed the Ford and turned at the bottom of the club property where the road crossed the tiny dry Sand Spruit river and the signpost said Rivonia Farm'.
They followed the unsurfaced road, and the dust raised by the Ford's wheels hung behind them in the still dry highveld air and then settled gently to powder the brittle frost-dried grass along the verges a bright theatrical red.
The road served a cluster of small-holdings, each of them five or ten acres in extent, and Dr Marcus Archer's property was the one at the end of the road. He made no attempt to farm the land, he had no chickens, horses or vegetable gardens such as the other small-holders kept.
The single building was square and unpretentious, with a tattered thatched roof and wide verandah encompassing all four sides. It was screened from the road by a scraggly plantation of Australian blue gums.
There were four other vehicles parked under the gum trees, and Moses turned the Ford off the track and stopped the engine. Yes, my brother. The years have passed swiftlY, he agreed. They always do when men are intent on dire purposes, and the world is changing all around us. There are great events afoot. it is nineteen years since the revolution in Russia, and Trotsky has been exiled. Herr Hitler has occupied the Rhineland, and in Europe there is talk of war, a war that will destroy forever the curse of Capitalism and from which the revolution will emerge victorious. Hendrick laughed, the black gap in his teeth making it a grimace. These things do not concern us. You are wrong again, my brother. They concern us beyond all else. I do not understand them. ,Then I will help you. Moses touched his arm. 'Come, my brother. I am taking you now to the next step in your understanding of the world. He opened the door of the Ford and Hendrick climbed down on his side and followed him towards the old house.
It will be wise, my brother, if you keep your eyes and your ears open and your mouth closed, Moses told him as they reached the steps at the front verandah. You will learn much that way. As they climbed the steps, Marcus Archer hurried out onto the verandah to greet them, his expression lighting with pleasure as he saw Moses, and he hurried to him and embraced him lovingly then, his arm still around Moses waist, he turned to Hendrick.
You will be Henny. We have spoken about you often. I have met you before, Dr Archer, at the induction centre. That was so long ago. Marcus Archer shook his hand.
And you must call me Marcus. You are a member of our family! He glanced at Moses and his adoration was apparent.
He reminded Hendrick of a young wife all agog with her new husband's virility.
Hendrick knew that Moses lived here at Rivonia Farm with Marcus and he felt no revulsion for the relationship.
He understood how vitally important Marcus Archer's counsel and assistance had been in their successes over the years and approved the price that Moses paid for them. Hendrick himself had used men in the same fashion, never as a loving relationship but as a form of torture of a captured enemy. In his view there was no greater humiliation and degradation that one man could inflict upon another, yet he knew that in his brother's position he would not hesitate to use this strange red-haired little white man as he desired to be used.
Moses has been very naughty in not bringing you to visit us sooner. Marcus slapped Moses arm playfully. There are so many interesting and important people here who you should have met ages ago.
Come along now, let me introduce you. He took Hendrick's arm and led him through to the kitchen.
It was a traditional farmhouse kitchen with stone-flagged floor, a black woodburning stove at the far end and bunches of onions, cured hams and polonies hanging from the hooks in the beams of the ceiling.
Eleven men were seated at the long yellow-wood table, Five of them were white, but the rest were black men, and their ages varied from callow youth to grey-haired sage.
Marcus led Hendrick slowly down both sides of the table, introducing him to each in turn. beginning with the man at the head of the table.
This is the Reverend John Dube, but you will have heard him called Mafakuzela, and Hendrick felt an unaccustomed wave of awe.
Hau, Baba! he greeted the handsome old Zulu with vast respect. He knew that he was the political leader of the Zulu nation, that he was also the editor and founder of the Ilanga Lase Natal newspaper, The Sun of Natal, but most importantly that he was president of the African National Congress, the only political organization that attempted to speak for all the black nations of the southern African continent.
I know of you, Dube told Hendrick quietly. You have done valuable work with the new trade union. You are welcome, my son!
After John Dube, the other men in the room were of small
interest to Hendrick, though there was one young black man who could not have been more than twenty years of age but who nevertheless impressed Hendrick with his dignity and powerful presence.
This is our young lawyer-'
Not yet! Not yet! the young man protested.
Our soon-to-be-lawyer, Marcus Archer corrected himself.
He is Nelson Mandela, son of Chief Henry Mandela from the Transkei. And as they shook hands in the white men's fashion that for Hendrick still felt awkward, he looked into the law student's eyes and thought: This is a young lion. The white men at the table made small impression on Hendrick. There were lawyers and a journalist, and a man who wrote books and poetry of which Hendrick had never heard, but the others treated his opinions with respect.
The only thing that Hendrick found remarkable about these white men was the courtesy which they accorded him.
In a society in which a white man seldom acknowledged the existence of a black except to deliver an order,
