Greene en Leroux (Insig, 1991-05-01)

Vanuit Digitale Etienne Leroux Projek

Deur Koos Human

Dear Mr Leroux

You must believe me when I say that I am not in the habit of writing "fan" letters, but even before I have finished reading Seven Days at the Silbersteins I must send an old man's signal towards you of excited admiration. It's 10 o'clock at night, I have dined well, and I want to leave the second half of your book till tomorrow, when my mind will be clear again.

With great admiration,
yours,
Graham Greene

--

Graham Greene se verbintenis met Suid-Afrika het in 1967 begin toe die Amerikaanse uitgewers van Sewe dae by die Silbersteins aan hom 'n stel proewe gestuur het om kommentaar te kry wat hulle in reklame kon gebruik. Greene was betower deur die boek en het 'n brief (hierbo) van bewondering aan Etienne Leroux geskryf. (Greene het dieselfde jaar hierdie boek in The Observer as sy "boek van die jaar" gekies.)

So het Greene te wete gekom van die dorp Koffiefontein, en toe hy 'n paar jaar later in sy roman Travels with my aunt 'n afgeleë plek moes vind waarheen die oujongnooi Barbara Keene ná haar pa se dood kon verhuis, kies hy Koffiefontein. Daarvandaan skryf sy aan haar bankbestuurder Henry Pulling: "My cousins have a small(!) farm of ten thousand acres and they think nothing of driving seven hundred miles to buy a ram."

Later skaff Miss Keene 'n tikmasjien aan en skryf 'n brief vol tikfoute aan Henry, o..m.: "I miss very much St John's Church and the vicar's sermons. The only church here is the Dutch Deformed, and I don't like that at all." Maar die verteller sê sy het die "deformed" gekorrigeer, die ander tikfoute nie.

In 1973 het Graham Greene Suid-Afrika as Leroux se gas besoek en afgesien van 'n lang verblyf op Ja-nee baie met die Lerouxs rondgereis. Sy kodenaam by die reël van geleenthede was "die groen man" of, soos Elizabeth Leroux dit nogal guitig gestel het, "Die Groot Groene".

Nou het Greene Suid-Afrika beter leer ken en hierdie kennis vind sy neerslag in die roman The human factor wat handel oor Castle, 'n Britse diplomaat wat tydens sy dienstyd in Pretoria verlief geraak het op 'n swart vrou, Sarah, en bedreig is (veral sy) deur "BOSS". Kommuniste het haar gehelp om weg te kom en so het Castle hom onder 'n verpligting teenoor hulle bevind.

Die verhaal speel in Engeland af, maar daar is allerlei verwysings na Suid-Afrika. In 'n gesprek laat 'n besoekende Afrikaanse agent, Cornelius Muller, blyk dat hy nie juis in die Afrikaanse letterkunde belang stel nie. "He admitted that there were some novelists and poets around - and he mentioned the Hertzog Prize, but he added that he had read none of them. 'They are unreliable,' he said, 'most of them.'" Waarom? wil sy gasvrou weet en Muller antwoord: "They get mixed up in politics. There's a poet in prison now for helping terrorists."

Die treffendste in hierdie boek is egter die beskrywing van ene Rougemont, wat in die Vrystaat naby 'n slagveld uit die Boere-oorlog boer. Dit kan net Etienne Leroux en sy plaas naby Magersfontein wees. (Sien uittreksel hiernaas.)

Greene het my 'n keer gevra waarom byna almal wat hy ontmoet het Brighton Rock gelees het en hom daaroor uitvra. Later het ek besef dit is waarskynlik omdat Van Wyk Louw in Vernuwing in die prosa die eerste reëls van Brighton Rock bespreek as voorbeeld van 'n uitstekende begin vir 'n roman.

Nou, ná sy dood, is daar meermale dikwels verwys na Greene as 'n "Rooms-Katolieke skrywer". By 'n onthaal wat dr. en mev. Anton Rupert vir hom op L'Ormarins gehou het, staan 'n paar van ons en praat. Dirk Opperman begin met 'n sin, iets soos volg: "You, as a Catholic writer..." "No," val Graham Greene hom in die rede, "I'm not a Catholic writer. I'm a writer who is a Catholic." Ook seker nie die hele waarheid nie.

Ek het die indruk gekry dat hy verveeld raak as 'n mens te veel oor letterkunde praat. Hy wou eerder oor politieke of sosiale sake gesels, van sy reise vertel, vreemde ervarings wat hy gehad het, merkwaardige mense wat hy ontmoet het (belangrik en onbelangrik). 'n Mens het die gevoel gekry dat hy niks vergeet wat hy sien of hoor nie, dat hy, wanneer hy 'n boek skryf, 'n onmeetlike skatkamer van herinneringe tot sy beskikking gehad het.

--

Etienne is Rougemont

[Twee van Graham Greene se romans het 'n verband met Suid-Afrika. Hier volg 'n uittreksel uit The human factor waarvan hierbo melding gemaak word.]

'When he woke he said to Sarah, 'It's funny. I dreamt of Rougemont. I haven't thought of him for years.'
'Rougemont?'
'I forgot. You never knew Rougemont.'
'Who was he?'
'A farmer in the Free State. I liked him in a way as much as I liked Carson.'
'Was he a Communist? Surely not if he was a farmer.'
'No. He was one of those who will have to die when you people take control.'
'My people?'
'I meant of course 'our people',' he said with sad haste as though he had been in danger of breaking a promise.
Rougemont lived on the edge of a semi-desert not far from an old battlefield of the Boer War. His ancestors, who were Huguenot, had fled from France at the time of the persecution, but he spoke no French, only Afrikaans and English. He had been, before he was born, assimilated to the Dutch way of life - but not to apartheid. He stood aside from it - he wouldn't vote Nationalist, he despised th United Party, and some undetermined sense of loyalty to his ancestors kept him from voting for the small band of progressives. It was not a heroic attitude, but perhaps in his eyes, as in his grandfather's, heroism began where politics stopped. He treated his labourers with kindness and understanding, with no condescension. Castle listened to him one day as he debated with his black foreman on the state of the crops - they argued with each other as equals. The family Rougemont and the tribe of the foreman had arrived in South Africa at much the same time. Rougemont's grandfather had not been an ostrich millionaire from the Cape, like Cornelius Muller's: when he was sixty years old grandfather Rougemont had ridden with De Wet's commando against the English invaders and he had been wounded there on the local kopje, which leaned with the winter coulds over the farm, where the Bushmen hundreds of years earlier had carved the rocks with animal forms.

'Fancy climbing up that under fire with a pack on your back,' Rougemont had remarked to Castle. He admired the British troops for their courage and endurance far from home rather as though they were legendary marauders in a history book, like the Vikings who had once descended on the Saxon coast. He had no resentment against those of the Vikings who remained, only perhaps a certain pity for a people without roots in this old tired beautiful land where his family had settled three hundred years ago. He had said to Castle one day over a glass of whisky, 'You say you are writing a study of apartheid, but you'll never understand out complexities. I hate apartheid as much as you do, but you are much more a stranger to me than any of my labourers. We belong here - you are as much an outsider as the tourist who come and go.' Castle felt sure that, when the time for decision came, he would take the gun on his living-room wall in defence of this difficult area of cultivation on the edge of the desert. He would not die fighting for apartheid or for the white race, but for so many morgen which he called his own, subject to drought and floods and earthquakes and cattle disease and snakes which he regarded as minor pest like mosquitoes.'