The Rivers of Joy and Sorrow

Justin Roberts

Description

South African students who decide to oppose apartheid are propelled on a journey entailing love, abandonment, yearning, betrayal, and redemption.
It is the height of apartheid in South Africa as Justin Roberts enters university with dreams of becoming a lawyer. While attending a meeting in Soweto, he encounters African students who reveal some of their shocking experiences. After Justin and the others decide to publicize details of the torture, they have their first brush with the Special Branch. These initial actions draw Justin deeper in political activism.
Justin meets Colleen by way of a blind date, but this unlikely beginning eventually blooms into a fully fledged love affair. Despite the misgivings of her parents, Colleen too becomes involved in some of Justin’s activities.
As events unfold, Justin and his colleagues are gradually radicalised, and drawn closer to those involved in the armed resistance. Finally matters come to a head and Justin, like others before him, is forced to flee the country. Now living in exile in the United Kingdom, he returns to South Africa with a false name and passport to undertake an undercover mission to warn his friend, Sipho, of the danger he is unknowingly facing. Will his mission be successful and will he find personal redemption?
In this poignant story, South African students who decide to oppose apartheid are propelled on a journey entailing love, abandonment, yearning, betrayal, and redemption.

Sujets

• Historical
• Sudáfrica
• South Africa
• Fiction
• Afrique du Sud

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 10 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665730235
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE RIVERS OF JOY AND SORROW
A novel
 
 
JUSTIN ROBERTS
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Justin Roberts.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3022-8 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3023-5 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022917969
 
Archway Publishing rev. date: 10/10/2022
CONTENTS
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY ONE
EDITOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
 
 
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are th eirs.
Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through it
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppre ssor.
Desmond Tutu
Goodness is stronger than evil;
Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than dark ness;
Desmond Tutu, An African Prayer Book
And joy is stronger than so rrow.
Colleen Rob erts
ONE

Surely that rock must be somewhere close. There are many rocks along the brink of the Blyde River Canyon, but the one Justin was looking for, Colleen’s rock, held some special memories. It was here all those years ago—a different life time in reality—where he and Colleen had first kissed, where they had crossed the boundary between dating and becoming a couple. The landscape had changed since those happy times. The rutted track that used to run near the edge of the canyon was now an improved road. Many of the old landmarks were gone, the old foot paths obliterated. But as he continued his hike he became increasingly confident that he was closing in on his destination. And suddenly there it was. He climbed up onto its flat surface and drank in the grandeur of the canyon below. He felt in his shirt pocket for the photo of Colleen that he always carried with him, but of course, it was not there. He had had to leave it behind along with anything else that might provide a clue as to his true identity.
Thinking rationally, he knew that there was not the slightest chance that Colleen would be on this rock. And yet somewhere in the deepest and more desperate reaches of his consciousness he had hoped somehow, just somehow, that she might actually be there. But of course she was not. The feelings of utter loss and loneliness once more engulfed him, as so often they had during these past couple of years. He tried to push these feelings aside by filling his mind with memories of the day that they had met for the first time and of the many happy hours that they had spent together subsequently. So many happy memories indeed, and yet that is all that they were now—just memories. They belonged to the past, not the future or present.
It was not the happy memories of the past but the anxiety of the present that now flooded his mind. Had things gone according to plan, by now he would be back in England, safe in his secure but meaningless exile. Instead, here he was sitting on the brink of the canyon wondering whether this foolhardy escapade would end in disaster. Why was he even here in South Africa, using a false name and passport? How had he been sucked into this foolhardy venture? What were the turning points in his life when he might have taken a different road? Why was he not the successful lawyer that he had once aspired to become rather than a lonely exile with no prospects? He began to examine the turning points in his life.
What if he had never gone to that meeting on education for Africans? It was not as if he had intended to do so. He was one of the few second-year students who owned a car, albeit a beat-up Volkswagen Beetle. Some of his friends had persuaded him to attend the seminar mainly because it would afford them a ride. As a result, he became increasingly involved in the illegal endeavour of helping African students obtain an education—students who were politically active and refused to be part of Bantu Education.
What if he had avoided student politics as did many of his more career-minded compatriots? In those days student politics were inextricably bound to protests against apartheid. But his involvement in African education seemed to lead seamlessly to participation in the national student protest movement.
What if he had never met Colleen? After their first date he had been surprised that a girl as beautiful and vivacious as her had even considered going out with someone like him. He was even more surprised when their dates blossomed into a love affair, which is how it came about that she was to become his Achilles’ Heel.
What if he had never agreed to assist with the Institute for Racial Reconciliation’s curriculum resources project?
What if he had flown to Cape Town for that emergency meeting of the national student organisation instead of driving? Then Sipho and he would never have spent the time together on the way back from Cape Town to Johannesburg—time that inevitably dragged him deeper into the struggle.
What if his escape from South Africa had been foiled by the Special Branch?
What if he had made his way to Canada, as per his original intention rather than being seduced by the lucrative, but in the end empty, offers of scholarships by a number of British universities?
Above all, what if he had refused to be persuaded to undertake this madcap mission by that shadowy stranger who had appeared out of the blue at his university office only a few days ago?
What-ifs can drive a person to madness, and so Justin decided to focus his attention on the surroundings. The Blyde River Canyon is surely one of the great sights in the world. It is sixteen kilometres long and eight hundred metres deep. What sets it aside from other great canyons of the world is that is is known as a green canyon. Other than the vertical cliffs, it is covered in verdant vegetation. From his rock, Justin gazed out over the magnificent vista. To the north were the rock formations known as the three rondavels, their domed heads iced in green and their sides stained with fiery orange lichen. Beyond them Mariepskop, one of the portals of the canyon, where the edge of the escarpment gives way to the mouth of the canyon. And beyond the canyon mouth the flat Lowveld stretched away into the far horizon. To the south, but out of sight at the head of the canyon, lay Bourke’s Luck Potholes, a series of cylindrical wells and plunge pools carved out by the swirling waters at the confluence of the Blyde and Treur Rivers. The river that mesmerized Justin as he watched the swirling water at the bottom of the canyon contained a mixture of these two rivers, the river of joy and the river of sorrow. Somehow this intermingling was apt to his mood as he contemplated both his past and present.
He wondered if tourists ever questioned how these two unusual names came about. Some time around the middle of the nineteenth century a voortrekker leader named Hendrik Potgieter made several attempts to forge a path to Delagoa Bay. On one of these excursions the expedition was on top of the escarpment looking for an easy route down to the Lowveld. To expedite his quest, Potgieter took a few men and broke away from the main party to search for a route. When the men did not return from their trip on the expected date, the trekkers who had remained behind, which included all the women and children, expected the worst—that Potgieter and his men had not survived. And so they decided to move on. They appropriately named the river at which they were camped the Treur River, the River of Sorrow. However, a few days later, Potgieter and his men caught up with the trekkers unharmed, and there was much rejoicing. It was then decided to name the river along which they were now camped the Blyde River, the River of Joy.
Gradually, the beauty and tranquillity of the natural surroundings soothed Justin’s troubled mind. Natural beauty had always had this effect on him, but none more so than his beloved Eastern Transvaal. He removed his shirt and lay back on the rock, drinking in the warm, calming rays of the afternoon sun. It was Colleen who had first introduced him to this region, but since then he had returned to it as often as possible, sometimes with her and sometimes alone. At first they had visited the main tourist areas, God’s Window, Berlin, Lisbon, and MacMac Falls, and of course the canyon itself. But later they explored and delighted in the hidden gems,