The covenant - James A. Michener [569]
'He'd have been shot. I don't think Afrikaners understand Satyagraha.'
The mention of shooting saddened the two Indians, for the Desai and Patel families back in Natal had suffered grievously when the Zulu, infuriated by government laws restricting them, had taken vengeance not on the whites who had passed the laws but on the Indians with whom they traded daily. For three days the tall Zulu had chased little Indians through the streets, slashing and killing, while some whites even looked on with approval, shouting at times, 'Kill 'em, Zulu!' More than fifty Indians were slain; more than seven hundred required medical attention. It was a different South Africa after that, with many whites muttering that it would have been better if the Zulu had been allowed a free hand to settle the Indian Question once and for all.
Desai, who had lost an uncle in the riots, smiled sardonically. 'Well, we had a chance to get out. Remember when gommint provided boat fare and leaving funds so that every Indian could go back to India? I think three old men accepted. Wanted to be buried in their native villages. The rest . . .'
'My father told me,' Patel said, 'that any Indian who left South Africa for India could be certified insane. This was so much better than what he had known . . .'
As the sun approached its zenith, and the blacks' houses crumbled to dust, the two Indians went soberly home to Pageview, where they stood at an intersection and stared at the rows of houses and shops occupied by their compatriots; Indians always preferred living in tight communities for mutual protection. 'Do you think they'd dare knock all this down?' Patel asked nervously. 'Five thousand people. Homes, businesses. Insurance told me ten million pounds, at least.'
Before he could answer, Cassem Mukerjee came running. He was a small nervous man, much like Gandhi in appearance, and he spoke with that agitated enthusiasm some men display when circulating bad news: 'My cousin Morarji saw the papers at his office. They're going to bulldoze this place, too. All our houses are to go. And they'll take our shops too.'
Barney Patel did not like Mukerjee, and now he shook him. 'You stop that rumoring! Your cousin knows nothing.'
'He knew they were going to bulldoze Sophiatown,' the little man said, almost gleefully. 'Are the houses gone?'
'It'll take years,' Patel snorted, but Desai wanted to know about the supposed papers: 'Did Morarji actually see anything?'
'The orders have been drafted. All Indians to be cleaned out of Johannesburg.'
'My God!' Desai said, and he leaned against the wall of a solidly built brick house, and as he stood there, sick in the sunlight, he could see the dust of the future, and thought:
They will move the bulldozers here, and these houses of warmth and love will go down. The stone ones like mine and Barney's, they won't destroy them, but we'll be forced to sell at government price twenty cents in the rand. The school where my children went will be razed, and all the little houses where the old people expected to live until they died. Our stores on Fourteenth Street . . . My God, I worked so hard.
And we'll be moved far out into the country. Miles, miles from all our friends, all our customers. There'll be new houses at prices people can't afford, and new stores with no customers, and hours on the train each day, and all our money wasted on transportation we don't really need. And we'll be off to one side where no one can see us, and the streets we once knew will have vanishedand for what great purpose?
Woodrow Desai decided that night to form a committee to visit Pretoria for a serious talk with the government official whose office was responsible for planning the future of the Indian community. He took Barney Patel with him, but not Morarji Mukerjee, who was something of an alarmist. Patiently they explained the folly of such an evacuation, pointing out that it would accomplish not one single economic advantage, but the official assigned the task of dealing with them