The covenant - James A. Michener [649]
Philip Saltwood
He was indeed desolate. He had come to South Africa to find diamonds, and had found none. He had tried to marry a beautiful girl, and had failed. Most nagging of all, he had tried to comprehend a land with which his family had many ties, but had finished his tour as ignorant of its real construction as when he started.
He did not know why Frikkie and Jopie were so determined to settle questions with their machine guns, nor could he guess how much longer Nxumalo would be willing to make concessions. Indians, Coloureds, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikanershe was puzzled by them all, and especially by Craig Saltwood, who had accepted exile. Had he been Craig, he would not have fled.
Yet he was leaving. His work was ending on a cascade of falling notes, like a music box that has run down; his only reasonable next step was toward the exit. He packed his gear at the camp, notified Pretoria that all accounts with the workmen would be cleaned up as of Saturday, and made inquiries about flights back to New York, where a group of oil men wished to talk with him about problems in Texas.
By Wednesday he had things in order, with clean-up jobs assigned to all men still on the payroll. He talked with each about plans, about his wife and children. By now the blacks trusted him and were willing to explain their uncertainties: 'Maybe a job here. Maybe we go to Zimbabwe to help get their mines working again.' They were wonderfully resilient men, these Zulu and Xhosa, and he felt that regardless of how badly the black and white leaders messed things up, these technicians would keep their proficiencies ready to serve whatever type of government emerged. They did not seem sorry to see him go, but they did respect the high standard of his work as they had witnessed it. He knew his job.
The white workers usually knew what they were going to do next; like the blacks, they were not sorry to see the American go. He had never really fitted in, never quite understood the reasons why they had to keep the blacks in their place.
'Don't mess with any gangsters,' they warned him.
'Tell Jimmy Carter we're desperately awaiting his next words of advice.'
'If you see Andy Young, up his bucket.'
They were a competent, rowdy lot and he would be pleased to work with them anywhere, anytime, but they did not represent the South Africa he had grown to love. That was centered on Vrymeer, and when the camp was fairly well secured he drove over the hills to Venloo and then out to the farm nestling beside the lake. When he came down the approach and saw once more that enticing cluster of buildings, the five rondavels, the step-lakes and the herd of blesbok, he stopped his car, studied the relationship of each item to the others, and thought: This is paradise, chopped out of rock, and rich even in time of drought.
He noticed that several months of dry weather had lowered the level of the lake considerably, so that the rather steep flanks were visible, one layer after another of seemingly different kinds of rock: More likely all the same rock, but stained different colors by different exposures to water and air. He was about to formulate additional thoughts when a large group of flamingos rose from the far end of the lake, wheeled about in breathtaking patterns for several minutes, then landed delicately on one of the smaller lakes, annoying a flock of guinea fowl that had been pecking at the sand nearby. Whatever thoughts he might have had about the lake vanished, so he drove down to the yard, parked the car, and shouted, 'Marius!'
Before he could reach the house Van Doorn was at the door, laughing uproariously and waving a newspaper. 'Philip! I'm so glad