The covenant - James A. Michener [553]
There was much laughter in the Botha home, and many books and quite a few records by Wilhelm Furtwangler and Arturo Toscanini, plus a shelf of His Master's Voice operas. The Bothas spoke English, but were at ease in Afrikaans, and on Sundays they worshipped at the Dutch Reformed church (Coloured) where Simon and Deborah had been married and their children confirmed.
The Korean War had just ended, and Simon spoke proudly of the South African fighter planes in the Far East, but he could not mask his disappointment when reflecting on his own four-year service during World War II. 'Jan Smuts came personally to thank our Coloured unit when it was over, and I can still see the Oubaas standing not ten feet from me, telling us we were needed back home to build a new South Africa. "God bless you all," he said. "May you prosper in peace even more than you did in these years of conflict." Fifty thousand men like me fought against Hitler. For freedom, they said. But when we got home, Smuts forgot every promise he made, and now they're even trying to take away our right to vote.'
When Heather saw how sympathetically Craig participated with her family, her response was so warm that all suspected that she might be spending the next nights with him in the Sea Point boardinghouse he was using for his vacation, but on the second night a suspicious woman in a room opposite telephoned the police to warn them that a crime was being committed in Room 318. The case was handed to two policemen, a sergeant fifty-five years old who was revolted by such duty, and a gung-ho young fellow of twenty-two from a country district who was greatly excited by the prospect of bursting into rooms where nude couples were in bed. At four-fifteen one morning, having kept the premises under observation for several nights, they crashed their way into the room, took photographs, and arrested the naked couple, the older policeman blushing with shame.
'The sheets! Don't forget the sheets!' cried the younger man as he watched Heather while she dressed, and the sergeant was forced to strip the bed and wrap the sheets in a bundle. The investigators would send the linen to a medical research institute, where highly paid technicians using ultramodern equipment would ascertain scientifically whether miscegenation had truly occurred.
'I'm sorry for this,' the older policeman apologized as he led the lovers down the corridor and past a doorway in which a triumphant woman demonstrated her pride in having served as guardian of her nation's morals.
'You pitiful creature,' Heather said to the watchdog, and this 'act of arrogance and spite against a decent citizen' was cited against her at the trial.
'Insolent and unrepentant, even though guilty of a major crime,' the magistrate thundered at her, after which he delivered a sentence standard in these cases: 'Craig Saltwood, you come of a good family and have a respectable university record. You have clearly been influenced by alien ideas in England, and your behavior is a disgrace. The example set by you and other white men of your ilk cannot but be seen as shocking in the eyes of decent Coloured people, whose daughters must be protected against such liaisons. Three months, sentence suspended for three years' good behavior.' The magistrate glowered. 'But if you ever again consort with any woman outside your own race, you will go to jail.'
He studied Heather for a moment, balefully, then said, 'You have chosen to ignore the warning I issued at your previous appearance. I have pity for what your parents must feel as a result of this disgraceful act. But the court has no alternative. Prison, three months.'
It was assumed that the white man, feeling the sting of censure from his society, would slink off and keep his mouth shut. But Craig Saltwood was so outraged by the gross unfairness of Heather's sentence