The covenant - James A. Michener [554]
'I would like nothing better,' Laura Saltwood said.
She had already battled, with little success, for the rights of black and Coloured ex-servicemen and was appalled by the injustices that were being perpetrated under the new laws promulgated by the Nationalists since their 1948 victory. When Craig explained how he had been excused and Heather thrown into jail, she was outraged.
'Clear up one thing, Craig. Is she a prostitute?'
'Hell no! She didn't entice me, like the court said. I chased her.'
'You visited her home?'
'Had dinner with her parents. As I would with any girl I liked.' 'Isn't her father Simon Botha, who restores the old Cape Dutch houses?' 'He is.'
That was all Laura Saltwood needed. Convening the small group of women who had joined her in her efforts to protect the rights of ex-servicemen, she laid the facts before them, and they were disgusted, but when she suggested ventilating the story in the newspapers, a Mrs. van Rensburg asked her if she thought this prudent: 'Hasn't your son suffered enough publicity?'
'We Saltwoods have never worried much about that,' Laura said, and
she hurried to Cape Town, where she poured out her anger to the Argus and the Times. She visited Heather's parents and told them to be of good courage, but she also advised them that if her fight to get this infamous sentence revoked was successful, Heather should leave the country.
'And go where?' Deborah Botha asked sadly.
'Canada. There they behave like human beings.'
She also visited Heather in jail, ignoring the snide remarks the authorities threw at her when she sought permission. She found Heather to be the kind of young woman a mother hopes her son will meetattractive, strong and with a robust sense of humor. 'We'll get you out of here, Heather.'
'In three months,' the girl joked.
I mean out of the country. You must get leave.'
I like it here.'
'You have no future in South Africa. Elsewhere you could lead a normal life.'
'I lead a pretty normal one here.'
'In a prison cell? For loving a young man? Don't be a fool.'
Heather had only a week to ponder this advice. In that time Craig Saltwood returned to Oxford, and his mother sought out the one person she thought would listen to her, Detleef van Doorn, chairman of the Committee on Racial Affairs, architect of the new laws. He did listen to her, attentively, then patiently explained that white South Africa had to protect its racial purity against the hordes that were trying to destroy it: 'Heather Botha's sentence is appropriate to the grave damage she might have done if she gave birth to yet another Coloured child.'
'What about my son's crime?'
'She tempted him,' and he cited several instances from the Bible in which honest young Israelites were tempted by the daughters of Canaan, and when Mrs. Saltwood smiled indulgently, he reached in his desk and produced an English Bible, which contained many paper markers. Searching for the applicable one, he opened to Genesis 28:1, which he read in sonorous English: ' "Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan." ' Closing the Bible triumphantly, he stared at Mrs. Saltwood.
'He did not, so far as I know, intend taking Miss Botha as his wife.'
Van Doorn, like any proper puritan, was incensed by this flippancy, but after a moment's silence, he said quietly, 'Mrs. Saltwood, if you continue along the path you've chosen, you'll find yourself in great difficulty.'
'No,' she said evenly, 'I shall find myself raising merry hell wherever I can about Heather Botha's disgraceful sentencing.' Laura was a resolute woman who feared nothing, who intended her closing years to be meaningful. The contributions of her family to this nation had not been minimal, and she did not propose surrendering her moral positions to the judgment of Afrikaner Nationalists, whom she considered excessively bigoted.
Van Doorn, looking at her determined face thrust forward toward his, could