Glittering Gallows

Chapter 13

95 C Chapter 13 t five minutes past nine that night, hours after Lerato Makgunda visited the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart; Father Hendrik van Vuuren sat in the lounge of his rectory, troubled with what she had told him and undecided on the action to take. As a priest he wanted to be a good shepherd; the one who brokered and advocated peace between antagonistic parties. Lerato and the politician were his sheep. Both seemed fearful of the Lord. Sitting still in a leather sofa, Lerato’s words playing verbatim in the back of his mind, he saw the two’s commitment in their regular tithing and offerings, though the billionaire’s contribution surpassed that of the entire congregation put together. The premier was a respected philanthropist; many things proved it. Among other philanthropic undertakings, he was the benefactor of a special orphanage in Limpopo Province where his rural home was. It was a pity she suspected Moagi of intimidating her. If he suggested to the premier her suspicions, it might enrage the politician whether he was innocent or not, and stop money from flowing into the coffers of the church. Of course, God was the Head of the Church, but money made things tick and gave them substance and form. The Book of Ecclesiastics put it very well: A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things. He lived in comfort as a priest courtesy of the premier’s generosity. As was Joseph of Arimathaea to Jesus, an unsung disciple, valuable yet forever in the shadows until the final moment, Moagi was an indispensible asset. However, if he sat on what she told him, and she was murdered, her blood would be on his hands. From the age of twenty-five, when he was ordained priest until now, when his head was becoming hoary, he had prayed against being found wanting on the Day of Judgment. It would be an embarrassment if he were arraigned as an accomplice to murder. A 96 After several minutes, the priest stirred, yawned and made the Sign of the Cross. For allowing himself to admit that money, instead of the Holy Spirit, gave the church impetus, he was sour inside. Father Van Vuuren hated it when he thought carnally despite his convictions. Over thirty years of priesthood had failed to engrain it in his head that the Lord sustained all things. Thinking in monetary terms was mundane. All things mundane pertained to the Devil. As a parish priest, God’s ordained representative in Pretoria, it would’ve soothed and boasted his self-esteem had he thought strictly in terms of dependability on God, not man. Resolute to make peace with the Lord that evening, he walked out of the rectory, locked the door behind him and made his way down a pergola to the cathedral about fifty metres away. He entered the building through the vestry, turned on the lights and stood genuflecting before the altar. St Alphonsus, patron saint of sinners, and Mary Magdalene, patron saint of penitent sinners, would behove God to forgive him for thinking carnally. God would bestow a new heart in him, one that didn’t revere man. He was in need of a revival and a renewal of his mind, or he would fall short of the glory of God. Meditative, he knelt, his eyes on a large crucifix on the rear wall. The curving impressed it on him that Christ suffered and he, Hendrik van Vuuren, didn’t have to suffer indeed or in thought. Kneeling, hands clasped, he was set to raise his voice in prayer when a faint noise startled him. It came from the direction of the main door. Was someone in the cathedral or in the atrium? He looked over his shoulder and saw nothing but polished pews in meticulous rows. The cathedral struck him as a divine receptacle of God. By and large, it was a colossal altar of the Most High, symbolic of the Ark of the Covenant Israel carried to war. But this was South Africa, a land of violent sacrilegious rapists, neo-sodomites, robbers and Satanists. Who would lurk in the house of the Lord? Momentarily it impinged on him that this land of superstitious Boers and native Africans was home to bizarre sangomas too. If a sangoma instructed 97 someone to fetch white priestly blood for use as...