memoirs, 1933–77 ❧ 37
fantasies that would doubtless fade on further experience. I have, however,
gathered cloves and peeled off cinnamon bark from bushes by the roadside
for the kitchen at home.
Johannesburg
I found a delightful couple waiting for me at the airport. It was Cyril and Peta
Fisher who run the Pro Musica concerts. Alerted by Pierre Fournier from Ans-
bach, they have literally taken me over, and how I welcome it in this hard bitter
city which contains a quintessence of all that is worst in overgrown island cities
deprived of the benefi cent effects of rivers or of large bodies of water. Around
the city the mountains of refuse from the mines tower golden and sterile like
planetary landscapes and everything is of a diamond-like hardness.
This morning I was taken to see the extraordinary Sunday morning per-
formances of the black workers in the mines. Most of the large mines have
amphitheaters in which these hapless visitors from far-off regions are allowed
to work off steam by performing native dances with costumes and properties
entirely designed by themselves. In the midst of this universal hardness it was
like seeing fl owers blooming in a chink of concrete. When afterward I caught
sight of the slave-performers being given their lunch, I could only think of
the manner in which pigs were fed in my youth.
Cape Town
After Johannesburg, Cape Town and indeed all the Cape Province have the
attributes of an earthly paradise. It is spring here and great clumps of multi-
colored daisies stretch to the very edge of the beaches on both sides of the
Cape. The fl aming colors of South African spring constantly reminded me
of autumn in New England. An abundance of fruit and vegetables, fi sh, and
good native wine, and charming and hospitable acquaintances make it easy
to forget what lies under the surface or is pushed away onto the outskirts
of the city. When one penetrates to this other world, the contrast is even
sharper than in Johannesburg because of the smiling savoir vivre that blooms
on the surface.
The Universities of Cape Town and Witwatersrand are still not completely
segregated, but no one knows how long they can hold out. I fi nd diffi culty
in encountering any views that differ from my own, whether in the English
papers, which daily berate the policies of the government, or in the attitudes
of my new friends, nearly all of whom are engaged in some sort of clandes-
tine work for the benefi t of the blacks.
Although I can make out the substance of the Afrikaans papers by virtue
of German once removed through Dutch, I cannot seize nuances of politi-
cal opinion, nor have I found any Afrikaaners^17 with whom I can freely dis-
- Afrikaaners are descended from Dutch settlers who came to South Africa in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
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