The covenant - James A. Michener [521]
'Why are Afrikaners fighting Afrikaners?' Detleef asked in anguish, and Troxel growled, 'Because we Afrikaners want to keep this nation white.' He was a brave man, and when General Smuts in total frustration warned that heavy artillery would shell the heart of Vrededorp at eleven the next morning, he refused to move his family. 'Shells matter nothing,' he muttered, but when they began to fall, monstrous things intended for shattering forts, he quivered. Detleef, comforting the Troxel children, could not believe that his government was doing this, and as the dreadful concussions continued he thought: This is insanity. There must be a more sensible way.
In the midst of the barrage, Troxel left his shelter and ran directly across the open square where the shells were falling. He was heading for strike headquarters, and when he returned through the smoldering debris he was weeping: 'They committed suicide!'
'Who?' Detleef asked.
'Our leaders. The Englishman, the other. Pistol shots through the head.'
The armed rebellion was over, with the competition between the very poor Afrikaners in Vrededorp and the totally poor blacks in Sophiatown no closer to settlement than when the strike began. Only one poverty-stricken Afrikaner came out of the affair better than when he went in: after the fighting, when Nxumalo reassembled the three wagons for the trip back to Vrymeer, and Detleef saw them standing empty, he impulsively ran to the Troxel house and said, 'Come with me. This town is no place for an Afrikaner.' And on the spur of the moment he and Piet Krause threw into one wagon the pitiful collection of goods this family had accumulated after ten hard years in the city; it did not begin to fill it.
'They can use the De Groot place,' Detleef said as the bewildered cavalcade started eastward. He had seen Johannesburg and was appalled.
One Sunday, Detleef received the distinct impression in church that Reverend Brongersma was preaching directly to him, not in the long ordinary passages of the sermon, but whenever something of special import had to be said. Then Brongersma would stare in his direction, sometimes looking at others in his vicinity but again and again coming back to Detleef to make his points.
He said nothing about this to Maria and even doubted if she had been aware of it, but when on two following Sundays the same thing happened, he asked casually on Monday night, 'Did you notice anything strange in church yesterday?'
'No, except that Reverend Brongersma seemed to be preaching to you more than anyone else.'
'You noticed it?' When she nodded, he said, 'Did you not see it on the past Sundays?' and she said that she had. 'Why didn't you speak?' he asked, and she said, 'I thought that perhaps you had done something wrong and would tell me at such time as you deemed best.' In some anger he asked her what she thought he had done wrong, and she laughed.
'Detleef, I only said perhaps. You're not the kind of man who does wrong things. And if you have done something, it couldn't be very big.'
'There you go. What have I done?'
'Detleef, I only said if.'
But he was troubled, and every time his brother-in-law visited the farm and asked probing questions, Detleef became even more irritated, especially since the dominee continued preaching at him.
He was about to confront his two tormentors when Piet said abruptly one day, 'Detleef. Can you come to a special meeting tonight?' Hoping that the mystery would be revealed, he said quickly, 'Yes,' and that evening he was taken to a house he had never taken much notice of before, where the owner, a man named Frykenius, sat waiting, with Reverend Brongersma standing by a table.
'Sit down, Detleef,' Frykenius said. 'We want to ask you some questions.'
'What have I done?'
'Nothing, except being a good citizen. We want to find out how good.'
'I've done nothing wrong!' Detleef protested, and this was ignored.
'Tell me,' Frykenius said. 'In the rebellion against the war in Europe, would you have fought on, even though your father was killed?'