The covenant - James A. Michener [544]
'They don't really need the vote,' Maria agreed. 'They can't possibly be interested in the things that concern us. They should fall back into place and be quiet.'
Johanna, feeling her life slipping away, was more bitter: 'Detleef, you must eliminate them from national life. Clear them out of the cities. Keep them off the work force. They're an affront to the nation, and if you don't keep trying to get rid of them, I'll be ashamed of you.'
'You speak as if you wanted us to ship them out, the way we did the Chinese.'
'I'd like that.'
'But don't you see, Johanna, there's no place to ship them. They have no homeland. They're the bastards of the world, and we're stuck with them.'
'Well, think of something!'
'I will. I promise you I will, but I must have time to plan.'
National attention was diverted from the Coloured question by 'Virtue Triumphant,' a rather florid statue that was placed in front of the government buildings in Pretoria. It had been carved by a promising young Afrikaner much influenced by Michelangelo and sculptors of the Quattrocento; it showed a woman of rather heroic proportions fending off lions, pythons and a politician who looked remarkably like Hoggenheimer. As with the work of many great sculptors, the woman was nude.
Many Afrikaner housewives, especially those from the Transvaal country districts, questioned the propriety of such a statue, and Johanna van Doorn, now seventy-four, came rushing down to the Cape, where Parliament was in session, to share her outrage with Detleef: 'It's immoral! There's no place in the Bible that condones naked women. St. Paul is emphatic that they must remain covered.'
'I think that refers to wearing hats in church,' Detleef said.
'If he could see this statue, he'd include it, believe me.'
She got nowhere with Detleef, but her feeling was so intense that Maria said, 'When we return to Pretoria, I must see this thing.'
'You won't like it,' Johanna predicted, and later, when the two women went to inspect the offending sculpture, Maria was even more incensed than her sister-in-law, and when she reached her rooms she penned a sharp letter to an Afrikaans newspaper:
All Afrikaner womankind is insulted by having such a statue in such a place. It is offensive to the spirit of the Bible and treats with contempt the noble traditions of our people. Women in Afrikaner statues should wear long dresses, like the ones shown in the Vrouemonument in Bloemfontein. For them to appear naked embarrasses not only all Afrikaner women, but also most of the men. The damage it does to children is incalculable. On behalf of all Afrikaner women, I demand that either the statue be taken down or that Virtue wear a dress.
Of course, the English-language press, always eager to embarrass its Afrikaner opposition, had a frolic with Mrs. van Doorn's proposals, and cartoons appeared showing Virtue wearing a Mother Hubbard, or a chain of fig leaves, or bending over to protect herself. One especially scurrilous cartoon depicted Oom Paul Kruger as this excellent statue, completely nude except for his top hat and one rather large oak leaf.
Foreign newspapers, ever on the alert for a story that would symbolize the curious happenings in South Africa, quoted Mrs. van Doorn's strictures about art, and when, under pressure, she gave an interview about the statue, editors had a joyous time:
'Ninety percent of Afrikaner women feel the way I do about that horrid statue. A few spineless art critics who defend it say that Michelangelo carved such statues for the prominent plazas in Italy. All I can say is that Michelangelo may be all right for Italians, who have a very low standard of morality, but he has no place in South Africa. Besides, what was this woman doing fighting a snake with no