Kruger's Alp

‘There is no hopping here,’ said Blanchaille briskly. ‘Here I get the feeling that they do everything by the book. Unless you go into the baths you can’t join the others.’

‘It reminds me of Lynch’s thoughts on salvation. Do you remember his Clean Living Fallacy?’ Kipsel said.

Who could forget it? This was Lynch’s answer to the morbid teachings of the Margaret Brethren on sudden death and inevitable damnation. The Margaret Brethren taught them that by going about in a state of sin knowing not what the day brought forth they risked the wrath of God: a motor car accident, a sudden electrocution, asphyxiation, choking, or one of the hundred hidden ways in which God might strike and send the si

This mere mention of Lynch made them both wonder and look around them as if hoping that they might spy the little priest lurking about. Perhaps they might ask him whether he thought people here lived by the book and if so whether the book was any good and life lived by it worth the trouble?

They were in the dining-room now, a magnificent iron and glass pavilion which looked rather like a huge bird cage. There were many tables and many diners. Obligatory portraits of President Kruger hung on the walls. In the centre a fountain kept its awkward watery balance in a great stone basin shaped like a giant baptismal font. All the diners wore the same creamy towelling robes and all looked freshly scrubbed. A short, square, capable looking woman in a dark blue uniform which gave her the look of a nurse, though there was also something vaguely military about her, stepped forward. There were black epaulettes on her uniform and silver stars that served as buttons and her bearing was upright and disciplined. Clearly someone not to be trifled with. But her smile was open and genuine and her welcome warm. She was smoking a short, thin black cheroot.

Though there were none of the faces they half-hoped, dared perhaps, in their wildest imagination to find, there were all around them familiar countenances. Surely that grey-haired old gentleman was a former prime minister who was said to have retired to his farm in Swellendam to raise bees? And was that a necklace of golden coins he was wearing threaded on a piece of string around his neck? (As they were to discover it was not string, but fishing tackle that served best for this purpose.) Here surely was the origin of the legend of the golden crowns which all who reached the last refuge would receive. Some of the women, with considerable ingenuity, had designed jewellery, elaborate harps or butterflies made entirely of gold coins, and some of the rougher looking men, perhaps farmers or rugby players in former lives and who could hardly be expected to go in for bodily decoration or for fancy jewellery, had fashioned their coins into large gold rings, chains, and chunky medallions which nestled in the thick black hair of their chests. A few held golden flutes and some played on them, rather badly but with great enthusiasm.

The matron followed their glances. ‘Patience. We have such a wide variety of people in Bad Kruger. We are many things to many people — a club for retired gentlefolk, an old folks’ home, an old boys’ reunion, a retirement village, a sheltered accommodation scheme, a hospital, a shelter for the incurably desolate and an asylum for patriots. You are perhaps looking for people you know? It will take a while to recognise all those who are here, and not everyone comes down to di

The food was served and the wine went round. The meal was good, if rather heavy. Soup, followed by veal in a thick cream sauce, fried potatoes and solid wine which they took from a carafe at the table. The waiters wore black trousers and rather grubby white bu

In the centre of the room the fountain played. Matron explained: ‘The fountain is known as the Afrika Stimme, or the African Voice. When Uncle Paul arrived here with his valet Happé he found the place in ruins. It had been a spa once, it was to have been a palace of health visited by the crowned heads of Europe and was founded by one Pringsheim with casinos above, baths below. Built in 1875 at a time when the great spas of Europe were begi

‘Uncle Paul did not hesitate. He knew the curative properties of the water, these had been analysed and found to contain various chemicals: lithium, manganese, phosphoric acid, fluorine, caesium, and even a tiny touch of arsenic, besides, of course, being radioactive. Fifteen mach units of radon was the measurement, good for the blood, for breathing problems, for arthritis, rheumatism, for just about anything you care to mention. He knew this, but that wasn’t the main attraction. The main attraction was the hot spring, the African Voice. It seemed fated. Intended by God. It was a sign. Of course they told him that the spring had failed. That it would never flow again. The old man is reported to have said nothing, merely to have asked Happé to help him over to the base of the fountain you see there, and proceeded to strike it with his walking stick. And the spring flowed again. Those around him understood the significance of that gesture, they read their Bibles regularly, they knew the story of Moses striking the rock in the desert and finding water. They knew of the wanderings in the desert of the Israelites in search of the Promised Land. They knew the old man had made his choice. In a sense he had come home, he had realised his dream. The spring flowed again. He had made a home for others to come home to.