The game reserve where Pik Botha would spend part of his vacation in the Kalahari was discovered and bookings were made for me and the boys for the same week. So we flew to Jo’burg, thence to Krugersdorp, and thence by light aircraft to a dusty strip in the grounds of the shooting lodge.
It was a very convivial week, and Pik Botha was affable when we met again. He was eager to bag himself
an eland and spent days tracking them. I thought it wise at least to “purchase” something for Stuart and Shane. On the second day, Stuart bagged his impala and was delighted when the forehead and horns, stripped to whitened bone, were presented for him to hang on his wall.
Shane was lectured lengthily by a warden as to what he should do, listened politely, and then from the back of a stationary truck put a bullet through the heart of a blesbok with a snap shot at 150 paces. The buck was photographed, but the real picture was the warden’s face. After that, he became their mascot.
My opportunity came on the penultimate day. A very small party would camp overnight in the wilderness. There were Pik Botha and his “minder” from Pretoria; the two sons of the owner of the ranch; my two lads and me. Plus two game wardens and several African porters.
After a long day tracking, the porters built a fine fire of brushwood, a barbecue and a braai provided a meat supper, sleeping bags were unrolled, and we settled down to sleep. The atmosphere was intensely relaxed and I thought the moment was ripe. We were all around the dying fire with the four sleeping boys between the foreign minister and me. So I asked quietly, “Pik, when the rainbow revolution comes and the ANC takes over, what are you going to do with the six atom bombs?”
South Africa had long had atomic bombs, built with Israeli help. Everyone knew this, despite the strict secrecy surrounding them. London also knew there were six and they could be carried by the RSA’s British-built Buccaneers.
That was not the problem. Nor was the moderate Nelson Mandela. The problem was that the ANC Party had an ultra-hard-line wing, including several devoted pro-Moscow Communists, and even though the USSR had been disbanded by Mikhail Gorbachev the previous year, neither London nor Washington wanted nuclear bombs under the control of the anti-West extremists. It only took Nelson Mandela to be toppled by an internal coup as so many African leaders had already been and . . .
My question hung in the air for a few seconds, then there was a low chuckle from across the embers and a reply in Pik’s Afrikaans-inflected voice.
“Freddie, you can go back home and tell your people we are going to destroy the lot.”
So much for an elaborate cover story. The old buzzard knew exactly what I was, who I was asking for, and what they wanted to hear. I tried to share the joke.
But, to be fair, they did. Before the de Klerk government handed over power, they destroyed all six. Three of the casings are on display somewhere, but that is all. Three of the Buccaneers still fly out of Cape Town airport, but only for tourist rides.
FROM MAIKO TO MONKS
Over many travels I have had the chance to attend a variety of religious ceremonies in rites far different from my own Anglican background. These have included Russian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim, and in some of the finest cathedrals, synagogues, and mosques of those faiths. But my wife, Sandy, has always been fascinated by the Orient and by Buddhism.
In 1995, my Japanese publishers, Kadokawa Shoten, invited me once again to be their guest in Tokyo to promote the latest novel, and Sandy came with me. Going all that way, it made a lot of sense to extend the visit after the publicity work to see more of the real Japan.
So when the usual round of interviews and book signings in Tokyo was over, we took the bullet train west to the former capital of Kyoto. This is a beautiful little city, full of parks, gardens, temples, and shrines, both to Buddhism and Shintoism. But Buddhism could wait; there was another aspect I wanted to explore.
With a guide, we penetrated the small area known as Gion, the home of the geisha culture. Contrary to a common misconception, the geisha is not simply a prostitute, but a highly skilled entertainer dedicated to restoring the exhausted male client with what is best described as relaxation therapy. Bedtime may follow, but it is by no means inevitable.
There are only about 120 true professional geishas left, perhaps because they are multitask-skilled after years of training, which costs about half a million pounds. The training madame will hope to recoup this, fee by fee, when her charge starts to earn professional commissions.
A geisha can sing, dance, recite poetry, flatter, and play the samisen, a sort of medieval lute with strings plucked only by the fingernails. To listen to and understand her client’s possible financial woes, she reads all the commercial pages in the daily papers and keeps abreast of current affairs.
The geisha’s uniform is the full kimono with obi sash, bouffant jet-black hair (a wig), bright-red lips, and a bone-white (powdered) face. Many clients will not wish any of it to be removed. In Gion, one can see many of these practitioners of the ancient arts, in full regalia, click-clacking along on their wooden sandals, heading for their nightly engagement, eyes cast down in order never to make eye contact with anyone but the client.
Sandy and I were lucky as we were invited to visit a geisha training school, something a gaijin (foreigner) rarely manages to do. It took a password to gain entry through the heavily timbered door.
The geisha usually comes from the most deprived rungs of society, from parents so poor they are content to sell their daughter into a world from which she will never emerge. But not just any girl will suit. A skilled madame, running such an academy, will look for exceptional beauty, grace, a clever mind, and a singing voice that, with schooling, will become crystal pure. The parents are paid off and never see their daughter again.
Once a young woman is absorbed into the geisha world, it is virtually impossible for her to leave it, marry, and become a mother, let alone a housewife. Something about her can be instantly recognized and will never leave her.
A husband would immediately know and feel shamed. His colleagues would spot it and may be tempted to become lascivious, or at least mocking. Their wives would become instantly hostile. Conventional suburbia is not for the geisha. It is a closed world with a long, hard road in and no way out.
Some madames run agencies of only skilled geishas; a few run training schools, such as the one we visited. The trainees are called maiko, meaning “dancing girl,” but they are taught much more than dancing, and that includes knowledge of every detail of the male body and the male psyche, specializing on the erogenous and susceptible points. The only aim is to please the male. The maiko paint only the lower lip as a sign of virginity. The client who will one day take that will be charged a huge premium.
Considering we were in a sort of bordello, the polite proprieties were scrupulously observed. Anything else would have been crude, rude, and offensive. Incidentally, when a Japanese girl laughs or giggles, she may not be amused. She may be profoundly embarrassed. Laughter is also a defensive shield.
So we squatted on cushions on the floor and conversed through the interpreter with the madame while her trainees, in their “apprentice” kimonos, served small cups of saké. They are taught to seduce with their eyes alone, eyes made large and docile with skillfully applied makeup, and I have to admit they are extremely disconcerting. Sandy kept shooting me warning glances.
Finally, it was time to go, with copious and mutual bowing. Years later, I know I could never find it again.
There was a visit to a saké factory, where, hidden behind the modern machinery of stainless-steel vats and hissing steam is a small, separate enclave where saké is still made by the old medieval processes involving the transformation of the rice into the purest saké possible, all by hand and therefore immensely slowly and carefully. The product is tiny and dedicated only to the use of the emperor and the royal court. Nevertheless, we were permitted a few cups in tiny ceramic thimbles, and it really was like no other saké I had ever tasted.
But the pinnacle (literally) of our tour was to proceed toward Osaka and then, just short of the teeming city, to divert to the mountaintop monastery shrine of Koyasan. This peak is so hard to get to that the railway line runs out and the last section is accomplished by funicular.