Are We There Yet? (10 page)

I was beginning to feel the same way and decided to top up my personality with a cappuccino and
koeksister.
Despite the fact that it appeared on the menu, the definitive constituents of the former were a mystery to the cafe staff who topped a cup of Nescafé instant with two tablespoons of cold double cream. However, they were clearly at home with the latter. A twist of deep-fried pastry injected with, soaked in and sweating golden syrup,
koeksisters
are one the Afrikaners' gifts to humanity.

Gazing across the 341 hectares of grassland surrounding the monument, I tried to picture them filled with the crowd of 250,000 (ten times the population of Pretoria at the time) that gathered here with traditional costumes, songs, wagons and attitudes to celebrate the centenary of the Great Trek in 1938.

The assembly gave crucial weight to the burgeoning Afrikaner nationalism that would eventually sweep the architects of apartheid to power a decade later. Many of those present at the foot of the monument in 1938 had been forced off the land a decade earlier by the worst drought since settlement, only to be slugged by the unemployment and degradation that accompanied the Great Depression.

Staunchly Afrikaans political parties and cultural organisations seized on the discontent with promises to uplift what they termed “poor whites” by providing improved housing and social conditions. They also undermined trade unions by seizing on corruption amid their English-speaking hierarchy to illustrate that they would never have the interests of Afrikaner workers at heart. The English domination of business was portrayed in heartless, anti-Semitic terms with an alternative being provided in the form of compassionate new banks and financial institutions which were founded by Afrikaners for Afrikaners. The us-against-them line was hammered home by Afrikaner newspapers, and paramilitary organisations modelled on the Nazis clashed with government troops in the streets.

When World War II rolled around and South Africa fulfilled its Commonwealth obligations, even more Afrikaners turned their back on the government because they believed this was not their conflict. By the 1948 general election, the Purified National Party had added to the weight of Afrikaner nationalism with a propaganda campaign which played on fears that the nation's cities were soon to be overrun by black migrants. The government was split on the issue and dillydallied like a game-show contestant trying to decide between the foot spa and the sheet set. What's more, Jan Smuts was seen as an ageing prime minister more interested in playing the role of international statesmen and writing the preamble to the fledgling United Nations than addressing the suffering of his people.

On promises of rigid segregation and job protection for whites, the government that would administer apartheid for the better part of half a century snuck into power with a minority of the vote but a higher number of rural constituencies. And all from a picnic in a paddock.

Up close the Voortrekker Monument is so imposing that I didn't adequately take in the view it afforded of the city until I was driving away. Ensconced in a jacaranda-canopied bowl bordered by gentle slopes, Pretoria's other most notable architectural landmark threw seductive glances my way from a ridge on the other side of town. The Union Buildings were designed by Herbert Baker in 1910 as a trial run for New Delhi's government buildings. As prototypes go, it isn't half bad. Inspired by the Acropolis, it presides over the city from the acme of a magnificent tiered garden. Its facade is the hue of a hangover-strength latte, sapiently teamed with a burnished red Itali anate roof. A Renaissance extravaganza of fluid arches and shaded colonnades set behind Doric columns, it appears to be the happy beneficiary of an explosion in a nearby cupola factory. Stately, graceful and more entrancing the closer you get, it was everything a seat of government should be. Perhaps except transparent.

The complex spreads across the top of a lawn exploding in marigold pyrotechnics and converges on a central lily pond flanked by fountains and potted palms against a backdrop of domes upon which the figures of Atlas and Mercury look towards the Voortrekker Monument. It's an aspect that is unlikely to alter as building laws restrict the height of any new developments that may obscure the view. Apparently the omnipresent sight of the monument would remind the trekboers' parliamentary descendents of the struggles of their forefathers and their divine mandate to rule the land.
Ons Vir Jou Suid Afrika.

It was time to explore the city, so I dumped the car at the hotel and set out on foot. Church Square was once the CBD's architectural showcase. Bounded by the French and German baroque Ou Raadsaal (Old Government House), the century-old Palace of Justice, the South African Supreme Court and the imposing Reserve Bank, the square was in sore need of a high-pressure hosing. In these buildings brutal injust ices were carried out in the name of the law and policies were drafted to deny the majority of the population the opportunity to earn a fair day's wage. Judging by the decrepitude and neglect on display, it seemed the current government viewed the space as a tainted reminder of a bleak history. In the first of many instances in which my guidebook sank into ludicrous euphemism, it described the square as being “mellowed by a wide grassy expanse, where Pretorians may be found enjoying an afternoon nap”.

Mostly in their own vomit it turned out. Hustlers with suspicious trouser bulges eyed me from park benches as though they were calculating how much one of my kidneys would fetch on the black market. Metho-scented vagrants lay strewn across park benches and weed-choked beds. Fruit peels and food splotches decayed into pungent pavement collages and all that moved with any sense of purpose were the intermittent whirlwinds of litter.

There are certain phrases guaranteed to deliver a dose of fleeting arrhythmia to any man. Right up there with “as long as we remain monogamous and on medication, the burning should eventually die down” is “Get in the van! Now!” So naturally when I heard this being hissed in my ear I did what anyone would do and panicked. Much to my embarrassment it was only Conrad, the guide I'd chatted to at the Voortrekker Monument; he had spotted me from across the square and, having safely locked away a vanload of Belgian tourists, had decided to save me from a visit to one of the city's casualty wards.

“This is a very dangerous place,” he said, ushering me in the direction of the tour bus. “I don't even allow my tours to get out here – they just take pictures through the windows. This used to be the safest place in the city, now it's the worst. A lady had her finger cut off for the ring on it last month.”

I hitched a ride with Conrad to the home of Paul Kruger, the first president of the independent Boer Republic. This was a remarkable man on many counts. Not least of which was the fact that he instructed Johannesburg's city planners to shrink the size of the blocks to accommodate an increased number of corner sites, which attracted higher rent.

Born in the Cape Province to strict followers of the Dutch Reform faith, his family joined Voortrekker leader Andries Potgieter in fleeing British rule. Kruger's empire enmity would last a lifetime and flared in response to Britain's annexation of the Boer Republic north of the Vaal River in 1880. After his initial attempts at diplomacy fell on deaf Westminster ears, he proved an adept resistance leader who frequently defeated the disciplined British troops through a combination of guerrilla tactics and the fact that the former's bright red tunics made them stand out like a vegetarian at a spit roast. Elected president no less than four times, Kruger was a negotiator of note who secured the republic's independence from Britain and constructed a railway line between Pretoria and Maputo in what was the Portuguese territory of Mozambique. This was a masterstroke as his independent republic was now no longer dependent on British ports to the south; he even appeased his more resistant constituents with free trips to the sea on the shiny black choo-choo. A man of the people before the term equated to donning the jumper of a local football team in a marginal electorate, he would frequently take up a position on his verandah, a signal to passers-by that the president was available to hear any concerns they might have.

His accomplishments become all the more remarkable when you consider that he rooted like a rabbit. In the entrance hall of the single-storey tin-roofed house in which he lived for the last sixteen years of the nineteenth century hangs a photograph of his second wife, Gezina du Plessis, who bore him no less than sixteen children and wears the understandable grimace of a woman with a birth canal that was more of shipping lane.

In a shed out the back is Kruger's trophy room. Feted by the leadership of every nation or territory who had a bone to pick with Britain and her “shift over, old chap, you're about to become a colony” proclivities, he was viewed as hero by more than just Afrikaners. The shed walls are adorned with sumptuous messages of congratulation from the nascent American government and a cover of the French magazine
Le Petit Journal
showing a wild-eyed Boer bull impaling the startled Lion of Empire date-first on a jagged horn.

A shower and change of clothes later, I found myself seated before a frosty long-neck and a steak that didn't quite touch the sides – something which was more than made up for by the puerile thrill of being able to order “a lady's rump” slightly louder than was strictly necessary.

The bedside radio jolted me awake with a mouthful of vowels the next morning. It seemed that the previous occupant had not only settled on one of those “nonstop block chock full of rock” stations, but wanted to sing along to Limp Bizkit in the shower and had adjusted the volume accordingly. As I scanned the dial, a current affairs station emerged from the static in crisp stereo, atwitter with a story that would grip the nation for the better part of the week.

By all accounts it had been your standard bashers, smashers and slashers Monday morning at the Bronkhorstspruit police station until a blond-haired, blue-eyed teen fronted up to the constable on duty and addressed him in the Ndebele language. According to the eighteen-year-old he had been kidnapped twelve years previously by his family's black maid and kept as a slave in a remote village. Beaten, threatened with poisoning and forbidden from watching television after he saw his picture “sometime between 1994 and 1999”, he went by the name his new family had given him: Happy. Turns out that Happy Sindane was most likely Jannie Botha, whose 1992 disappearance sparked a heartbreakingly fruitless search.

My final destination in Pretoria was the National Botanic Garden. Truth be told, I've never been the type to detour for flora and on the occasions I have found myself wandering such establishments have routinely passed the time by swapping the names of plant species with diseases or body parts in a mildly amusing manner. “Can't come in today, boss, I've got an inflamed gypsophila.” “Next thing I know he's standing on the doorstep with a contrite expression on his face and a bunch of chlamydia in his hands.”

What had in fact drawn me to the garden was a single statistic: 75 per cent of all the plant species in Southern Africa occur only in this area.

It was a crisp, clear Monday morning in late summer and it felt as though I had the place to myself. Divided into a formal garden and nature trail separated by a squat rocky ridge, the garden was not merely manicured but had undergone a cosmetic surgery overhaul. The result was beguilingly contrived and undeniably fetching. Thick shafts of opalescent sunlight lasered through the trees, throwing stone pathways into chequered relief. A few of the thoughtfully placed benches were occupied by retired couples who wore the soft smiles of those who have realised that life doesn't get much better than an unhurried cuppa with the love of your life by a sea of perfumed roses.

It was like stepping into a Hallmark card. Flanked by stands of trees drizzled with the first blushings of autumnal scarlet, a gentle slope of lawn tumbled away from a thatched bandstand from which the sounds of Porter, Gershwin and Basie drifted every Sunday.

A section of the park is given over to traditional healing herbs of the Ndebele tribe and with a tuneless whistle of contentment on my lips, I wandered through the most fragrant pharmacy I have ever visited. In one bed lay pelargoniums whose crushed leaves release scents from rose and peppermint to pine and spice and are used as a remedy for diarrhoea, dysentery, fever and colds. In another were rangy helichrysum stems which support the universal curative powers of a good lie-down by being used as both bedding and a fever remedy.

From syphilis (pineapple flower) to sinus (wild garlic), one's every ailment could be cured; but for sheer flexibility, you can't go past the marula tree.

This botanic equivalent of a Swiss Army knife boasts a coarse outer bark which is used for haemorrhoids (although whether the remedy is applied externally or internally remains unspecified); the inner bark is an effective antihistamine for insect bites; the oil from its nuts – oh grow up – makes a fine preservative; its fruit produces a potent moonshine and the peel of the fruit can be burned and ground into a coffee. But what about the gum? I hear you cry. Mix it with soot and you have pretty decent ink for cave art. Finally, if you're into cruising, why not take your lead from Namibian tribes who have been making boats from marula wood for centuries.

The gradient had sharpened by now and soon I found myself atop the ridge, face to face with an animal whose nearest living relative is the elephant. Cross a rabbit with a guinea pig then yank it by the arms and legs until it sinks a tooth clear through your thumb and you've got one remarkable little creature called a dassie. Aside from the fact that they do not drink water, instead preferring to source it through grass, roots and bulbs, they have the endearing habit of standing on their hind legs to view oncoming predators or wheezing, sweat-stained authors, whichever manifest first. And so it was that I was greeted by a dozen curious heads that popped up simultaneously from behind a boulder in much the same manner as the inhabitants of an open-plan office when voices are raised by the water cooler.