The covenant - James A. Michener [522]
'I would have fought the English forever.'
'Do you speak Afrikaans in your home?'
'Nothing else.'
'Do you insist that your children speak it?'
'I allow them to speak no English.'
On and on came the questions, covering all aspects of what might be called his political, emotional and patriotic life. At the end his three interrogators asked him to step out in the yard, and while he looked at the glorious stars of the Southern Cross, they whispered among themselves.
After about fifteen minutes Piet Krause came out and said with obvious pleasure, 'Detleef, please come in!'
When he entered the room, both Frykenius and Brongersma rose to greet him: 'Detleef. You are one of us.' When he asked what this signified, Frykenius said, 'Sit down, Brother.' And when he was in his chair the three men, speaking alternately, informed him that a powerful and secret band of brothers, a Broederbond, had been quietly operating for the past five years, accomplishing much good. After the most careful investigation of his credentials by men in Pretoria, he was being offered a chance to join.
'Are you members?' he asked.
Frykenius said, 'I helped start it.' This seemed strange to Detleef, for he could recall no instance in which this quiet man had ever played a major role in anything; he knew that he attended church, but was not even an elder. He had heard that he had ridden with the Venloo Commando but had accomplished nothing of note. He ran the butcher shop in town, but obviously never made much money. And he never spoke in public. But it was clear that he was now in command.
'Reverend Brongersma has belonged almost from the first,' Frykenius said, 'and Piet here, one of our best, has been with us for three years.'
'What would I be supposed to do?'
'Advance the Afrikaner,' Frykenius said.
'I already try to do that. But how?'
Piet was eager to explain, but was interrupted by Frykenius: 'I already know the answers to these two questions, but we must have sworn statements. "Have you ever been divorced?" No. That's good. "Is your wife English?" No again. You're eligible.'
'Morally, we're very strict,' Piet said.
Satisfied that Detleef had committed no serious breaches, the three men placed before him a program of simple integrity: 'Whatever you do, from this moment till you die, must work toward making the Afrikaner supreme in this country. In politics you must elect men who will carry us away from English domination.'
'That I would like,' Detleef said.
'In education you must insist that every teacher become an agent for the supremacy of Afrikaans. They must teach our national history in the patterns we provide.'
'In the armed forces,' Krause said excitedly, 'we must remove every English officer. In government we've got to clean out the English officeholders.'
'But it's in the spiritual realm,' Brongersma said, 'that we must do our hardest work. Cultural societies. Work groups. Festivals. Patriotic gatherings. If there is to be a speaker, it must be one of us.'
'You saw the fighting in Johannesburg,' Frykenius said. 'Jan Christian Smuts using Afrikaner soldiers to fight Afrikaner workmen. That must never again be allowed.'
'Can we drive Slim Jannie from office?' Detleef asked.
'We must,' Frykenius said. 'Are you with us?'
When Detleef nodded, as enthusiastically as if he were going to war with General de Groot or to a rugby game against New Zealand, Frykenius in his dry, unemotional voice administered the oath of the Broederbond, and Detleef swore to uphold its secrecy, advance its purposes, and live each moment of his life so as to achieve the dominance of the Afrikaner. That night he rode home with a greater sense of mission than he had ever before experienced. The other war that General de Groot had so often referred to was under way and he had enlisted for life.
In the weeks that followed, Detleef developed an enormous respect for his brother-in-law. He was no longer the somewhat flighty schoolteacher or the man who had quit the Vrymeer farm after discarding responsibility; instead, Piet Krause showed himself as a fine