Roots of Outrage. John Davis Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ and she makes headlines because she’s pretty. All that crap about going into white libraries and getting on white buses and swimming on white beaches. Even into the Dutch Reformed church. Got, man, she’s got no respect for other people’s feelings, she only thinks of her reputation as a trouble-maker. Then she goes to this high-fallutin’ school in England and they think she’s some kind of hero an’ her head gets more swollen. He frowned. ‘And now she breaks the Immorality Act and people like you write crap like this about her.’

      ‘She was acquitted!’ Mahoney interjected.

      ‘But only just! The magistrate said the evidence was very suspicious – “sinister”, he said – but it was just possible she hadn’t had sexual intercourse and he had to give her the benefit of the doubt! We all know she committed perjury! But you make her a heroine!’ He quoted: ‘“Beautiful … gorgeous … brilliant cross-examination … brilliant school record … courageous”.’ He frowned. ‘Got, man, that brings the law of the land into disrepute. Can’t you see that’s irresponsible journalism?’

      Mahoney badly wanted to retort about the law of the land – but, oh shit, he just wanted to get out of here. ‘My editor approved it.’

      Krombrink snorted. ‘Your editor, hey? That English pinko. An’ all those black colleagues of yours, no doubt.’ He shook his head. ‘Of course they would. All those drunkards at Drum are ANC.’

      Mahoney wanted to protest their innocence, and thereby his own, but before he could think of anything, Krombrink banged the desk and said with exasperation: ‘Got, man, Mr Mahoney, what’s a well-brought-up chap like you doing working for a kaffir magazine like Drum, hey?! A communist rag, man? An’ you with all the advantages! Your father a lawyer an’ MP. Head prefect of your school. First class pass in matric!’ (Mahoney was amazed he knew all this.) ‘The Mahoney family goes back to the Great Trek days.’ He shook his head. ‘Got, such a proud record, an’ then you come along, a Mahoney with real brains, an’ first you get expelled for screwing the communist history mistress, you lose your Rhodes scholarship, then you go to work for a kaffir magazine and write crap like this –’ he thumped the stories – ‘about Sharpeville, and Miss Patti Gandhi.’ He looked at Mahoney with grim, steely eyes; then said theatrically: ‘BOSS has watched your downhill slide with great alarm. And sadness, hey.’

      Mahoney’s heart was knocking. The statement was loaded. Krombrink looked at him witheringly, then stood up. Satisfied. He held out his hand, unsmiling. ‘Thank you for dropping round. Nice to have a chat about things of national interest. Contact me anytime you feel like another one.’

      Mahoney stood up. National interest? Oh Jesus … He took the hand. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

      As Mahoney reached the door Krombrink said: ‘Oh, Mr Mahoney?’ Mahoney stopped and looked back. ‘As you’re not a communist sympathiser, or ANC, any bits of information that come your way we would much appreciate to know about.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

      Mahoney looked at the man. And, oh God, he hated himself for not having the courage of his convictions, for not giving the man a withering stare and turning on his heel. ‘You make yourself clear.’

      He turned again, and Krombrink said: ‘Mr Mahoney?’

      He stopped again. Krombrink smiled: ‘Remember Miss Rousseau. A Banning Order is a terrible way for a young man to live, with all those pretty girls out there going to waste …’

9

      Colonel Krombrink was dead right: all the journalists at Drum were pro-ANC. What else was there to be in South Africa in those days if you were black? But none of the Drum writers was a communist, as far as Mahoney knew. It was true that if you supported the ANC you were indirectly sympathetic to the South Africa Communist Party because the two were partners in crime now that both were banned: the ANC relied on the communist’s cell structure and experience in underground survival. And Krombrink was dead wrong when he called Drum’s writers crap, but he was right when he called them heavy drinkers.

      Mahoney could hold his booze but those Drum guys had livers like steelworks. Hard living was part of the job at Drum, part of its black mystique: ‘Work hard, play hard, die young and leave a good-looking corpse.’ The ambience and prose at Drum was styled on the tough American journalism of the fifties, the rough scribes with hats tilted, ties loose, cigarette hanging out of the corner of the mouth, a hip-flask to hand, pounding out flash, hard-hitting copy on their beat-up Remingtons before sallying out once more into the tough, dangerous, fun world of gangsters, shebeens, cops, jazz, politics, injustice, flash cars and fast women. Most mornings Mahoney stayed at home studying for his law degree: at lunchtime he hit the streets of Johannesburg and Soweto, the courtrooms and the copshops and the mortuaries, looking for copy, chasing blood-and-guts stories. When he got to the office for the editorial meeting the boys were already getting along with the booze as they bashed out their prose; it was against the law for blacks to drink anything but kaffir beer, but Mahoney and the boss bought it for them, or they got it illegally at the Indian and Chinese fast-food joints that did a roaring trade servicing the black workers in downtown Johannesburg because they weren’t allowed into bars and restaurants. The editorial meetings were very stimulating, a barrel of laughs, ideas flowing as fast as the wine and whisky and brandy as the boss kicked around subjects with his scribes and dished out assignments. It was at one of these meetings that he tossed a letter on the desk.

      ‘An application for a job from a friend of yours, Luke. Justin Nkomo, says he was your garden boy. Know him?’

      ‘Justin? Sure! Good guy. Where is he?’

      ‘Transkei. Says he’s done a teacher’s diploma but wants to try his hand at journalism. Suggests he can be our education columnist. I’m embarrassed to tell him we haven’t got an education desk, none of you guys are educated enough.’

      ‘I’m educated,’ Mike Moshane said. ‘C-O-A-T spells JACKET. How’s that?’

      Mahoney said: ‘He was bloody good at English. And a marvel at cricket. Best batsman I’ve ever seen. Hit anything.’

      ‘Cricket?’ the boss said.

      ‘I swear, if he were white he’d be a Springbok cricketer. No bowler can get him out. Even if he uses a baseball bat.’

      ‘Baseball?’ The boss looked up at the ceiling for a moment. ‘Now there’s an angle: “Apartheid Foils Brilliant Sportsman.” If he’s as good as you say we could blow it up into a big story, make the government look silly. Now, how do we test him?’

      Mahoney said: ‘Take him to a private cricket pitch. Like Wits University, they’d turn a blind eye for a few hours. Get their best bowlers to turn out. I guarantee he’ll knock ’em for six. Invite some sportswriters from the dailies to watch.’

      ‘Then?’

      ‘Then,’ Mahoney said, ‘you invite some baseball league people along. Give Justin a baseball bat, let their best pitchers have a go at him. Invite the American Chamber of Commerce, maybe. Maybe Justin’ll get a scholarship to some Yank university.’

      The editor nodded pensively at the ceiling. ‘Now this bears thinking about. I’ll invite him to drop round, tell him to write me a piece, take it from there.’ Then he tossed a second letter on the desk. ‘And, you’ve got one other friend, Luke – nice letter from Patti СКАЧАТЬ