Swimming with Cobras Read Online Free Page B

was.
    Curiosity overcame me and I started attending the choir rehearsals with her. Before long I was in conversation with the handsome South African too. I had met English-speaking South Africans before but never an Afrikaner. Malvern’s mother was Afrikaans and his parents were card-carrying members of the Nationalist Party and faithful members of the Dutch Reformed Church. As the son of a railway stationmaster, he had grown up simply. There was no silver spoon in his mouth.
    Getting to know him was exciting. He had come to Oxford to read English literature and was curious about the world in a refreshing way, looking with wonder at all things English and keen to explore the places he had previously only read about in books. In his years as a student in South Africa he had developed strong anti-apartheid views, but he was adamant about one thing: he would be going back to his country.
    I found a shelf of books about South Africa in the Oxford public library and started reading. My simplistic condemnation of all things South African grew more nuanced as I read, and discussions with Malvern helped me to glimpse some of the complexities involved. As our friendship developed I became convinced that Patsy had matched us perfectly. He, on the other hand, secretly doubted that I would be able to make my life in his country, and in years to come I would look back with astonishment at how little I understood and how ill-prepared I was for life in one of the most complex societies on earth.
    We became engaged during a blissful weekend in Paris and planned to marry shortly after Malvern's final exams. He and my mother got on well and my father enjoyed debating with him. It must have been hard for them, knowing that their only daughter was going to live in a distant and troubled country, but never did they make me feel guilty.
    I felt deep gratitude to my father as he sat beside me in the car carrying us to St Peter’s on my wedding day. I also felt grateful knowing how close his relationship with my mother was. It gave me confidence as I prepared to take this enormous step away from them.
    My father’s strength was doubly important because he knew the anxieties and concerns Malvern and I had shared up to this point. We were to have been married a year earlier. Arrangements had begun but were fortunately far from completed when one weekend Malvern disappeared. He lived in a house with three others and none of them knew where he was. I was stunned and at a complete loss. His friends were helpful and my flatmates tried to console me, but I found it impossible to be passive or patient. In my distress I turned to a South African couple with whom Malvern and I had become friends.
    Alex and Jenny Boraine had voyaged to England on the same Union Castle boat as Malvern had three years earlier. Alex had studied theology at Oxford and later would become President of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and deputy chairperson of the TRC. Right now though, they were in Windsor Great Park acting as wardens in an international hostel. It was there that I phoned them. My mother asked me later why I had chosen to go to them when I had so many English friends – and I think she emphasised the word “English” – who would have helped me. I don’t think I had any expectation that Malvern would be there, but suspecting the worries he had about taking me home with him, I felt that talking to older and wiser South Africans might help me grasp the situation.
    The Green Line bus to Windsor gave my muddled thoughts time to sort themselves into a list of basic certainties. I knew that Malvern loved me. I knew that our lives belonged together. I knew that we shared enough to make our marriage possible. And I felt sure that his present panic was simply the result of the combined pressures of his final exams and the wedding preparations. I discussed these things with the Boraines. They were sympathetic and shared my relief when