The covenant - James A. Michener [545]
She won her battle. The matter was resolved rather neatlyby converting 'Virtue Triumphant' into a man, who fought the same enemies naked but behind a shield that protected the sensibilities.
While his wife was defending the moral purity of the nation, Detleef was laboring yet again to save its political purity, and this time, with the help of some very able parliamentarians, he came up with a totally new stratagem, which he explained to the leadership in this way: 'No more struggling with minor problems. We take this thing head-on. We need a two-thirds majority in the Senate and can't get it. Simple. Create forty-one new senators guaranteed to vote our way. And if you're still afraid that the Supreme Court might overturn the vote these new men give us . . . Simpleadd six more judges pledged to vote for us.'
It was, as he assured them, a simple solution, a steamroller so monstrous that any possible opposition would be crushed, and the government proceeded. It might have gone into effect without undue publicity except that a group of Afrikaner women with a social conscience united with a similar body of English women to activate a political-action committee called the Black Sash, as heroic a group as the world at that time knew. Against the full flood of national opinion, these women opposed every unlawful and restrictive measure of their government, never hysterically, never aimlessly.
They protected people who could find no other protection and kept a relentless spotlight on the irresponsible acts of their government.
Their president was a forceful woman, Laura Saltwood of New Sarum, the Johannesburg residence of this important industrial family. Born in Salisbury, near the cathedral, she had met Colonel Frank Saltwood's son Noel under memorable circumstances. As a resident of Salisbury she knew the local Saltwoods, of course, and did not like them; Sir Evelyn, a staunch conservative, made such an ass of himself in Parliament that she and her brother Wexton vowed they would run a liberal candidate against him when they were old enough. Her brother went to Cambridge University, a site she loved; whenever an opportunity presented, she went up to visit with him and his brilliant associates, and while on such a visit in 1931 she met a quiet young man from Oxford to whom she was much attracted. 'It's so nice to be with you, when the others talk so much and say so little,' she told him, and he blushed. He was Noel Saltwood, of the South African branch, and after a leisurely courtship in two of England's most enchanting towns, Cambridge and Oxford, they were married.
She had the good luck to reach Johannesburg while Maud Turner Saltwood was still alive, and from that stalwart woman, who had done so much to make South Africa habitable, she acquired the custom of direct speech and timely intervention. Like her mother-in-law, whom she revered, she was afraid of nothing: literally, she hunted lions with the same verve that she tracked down the latest restrictive laws of Detleef van Doorn. He despised her for the opposition she continually mounted against his best projects, and as for her Black Sash, he believed it should be outlawed and its members thrown into jail. He would look into this possibility after he settled with the Coloureds.
For the present he fenced with Mrs. Saltwood, who had accurately identified him as a major force behind the previous legislation and the current effort to strip the Coloureds of their vote. She spoke at meetings, gave interviews, appeared on radio whenever possible, and maintained a constant scrutiny. She was such an effective opponent, that at one strategy session held in Detleef's Pretoria home, Johanna wanted to know why a woman like that should be allowed free speech. That was a relevant question, for which Detleef had a quick answer: 'Because this country is not a dictatorship. Your husband, Johanna, had dangerous ideas, about Hitler and all that, but men like Brongersma and me drew back. We did not want Hitler then, and we don't want him now.'
Johanna began to cry, thinking