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Kipsel had found the newspaper rolled around a long stick in the cordial ma
Blanchaille, barely able to contain his horrified astonishment, pointed out to his friend that although he descended from a Mauritian sailor and his mother had had high ambitions for him in the France she had never seen, although he carried a French passport, his knowledge of the language was elementary. None the less, after much muttering in a voice from which the tones of horror could not be eradicated, he stared at the headline: LA GRANDE ESPIONNE SUD-AFRICAINE RENTRE.
‘Big, grand or great South African spy returns,’ Blanchaille offered reluctantly.
‘Returns?’ said Kipsel wonderingly. ‘That means she’s been with them all along. It is Magdalena — isn’t it?’
‘I’m sorry, Ro
Inside the paper there were more pictures. They showed Magdalena’s secret life in colour photographs. Here was a picture of her spymaster, Brigadier Jim Langman, taken in Magdalena’s garden, Blanchaille a
Now I saw Kipsel struggle to an elbow and with glazed eyes begin to speak: ‘Look, let’s get this straight — I never set out to be what I am. Hell, no! I mean a guy starts off at home as a rugby player, most guys do, but if he’s got more than a smidgen of brain someone comes along who tells him there’s more to life than playing ball, there’s politics which is just as dangerous, intellectually satisfying and pulls girls who start thinking about these things from an early age being more mature than boys. So before I knew it I was investigating the living conditions of our cook and pressing my old folks to increase her wages — and this while still at school, such is the pace of political development. At university, well, you find yourself leading a protest march on the police station, or picketing the profs for free medicals for black lab assistants, you go on marches, join demonstrations, engage in sit-ins and get arrested when failing to disperse after being ordered to do so by a police officer, but after a while it palls, or at least disenchantment sets in, you don’t feel that you’re really doing anything, you’re simply not scoring, so you get active, you start a trade union for gardeners and you dream of becoming a para-medic in the starving homelands. Jesus! you even send for the home-tuition course and you run a literacy night-class for black taxi-drivers and still you don’t feel you’re co