When Time Fails (Silverman Saga Book 2) by Marilyn Cohen de Villiers

through it. The Rugby World Cup dominated the headlines, which was only to be expected with the opening just five days away. No one seemed to give the Springboks much of chance against Australia in the opening game.
    ‘Ach, they don’t know what they’re talking about,’ Thys said. ‘I know our boys. They’re hungry, they have a lot to prove. You’ll see. I bet we’ll win the whole tournament – wouldn’t that be something, hey?’
    Annamari nodded and turned the page. A small headline at the bottom of page four caught her eye.
    ‘Thys, look at this. It says today’s the twelfth anniversary of the Church Street bomb in Pretoria.’
    ‘Really? Shoo time flies. I remember it like it was yesterday. All those people killed. We’ve really come a long way since then, hey? I mean, who would have thought, after all the bombing and the killing and everything, things would be so... you know. Peaceful. But I was right, wasn’t I? When I saw that Peace Day thing up in Jo’burg, before the elections, I just knew it would be okay.’
    Annamari remembered how happy Thys had been when he and Petrus returned from Johannesburg after the meeting with the lawyer who was going to draw up the Kibbut z Steynspruit papers. Thys had tried to find a lawyer in Bloemfontein soon after they’d spoken to Petrus and the others when they’d got back from Israel, but every lawyer they approached told them they were crazy. So finally Thys decided to go to Johannesburg, to a Jewish lawyer, one who would know what a kibbutz was, who would understand what they were trying to do.
    ‘It was amazing, Annamari,’ he’d said. ‘We were walking to Mr Feinberg’s office there in Commissioner Street, and then all these people came out of the buildings, and everyone was wearing blue ribbons and the cars all had blue ribbons on their aerials. Then everything just stopped. People got out of their cars and joined the crowd on the pavement. And then a black girl – ach sorry, a black woman – she grabbed my hand and a white woman grabbed Petrus’ hand and my other hand and then everyone was quiet and I could hear this song playing on car radios and people were crying and when it was over the black woman... she hugged me and Petrus and the white woman too. And the cars went crazy hooting, and everyone was cheering and singing that song. And everyone was smiling. In the middle of Jo’burg, everyone was smiling. I wish you could have been there , liefi e .’ Thys wiped his eyes.
    Annamari had read about it in Rapport that Sunday. Peace Day they were calling it, organised so that everyone who was tired of all the killing and fighting could show their support for Peace. They wrote a special Peace song for it and everything. Even the Springbok cricketers – except they weren’t called Springboks anymore, which was so sad. Anyway, the South African cricket team, far away in Sri Lanka, stopped playing for a minute to show their support for Peace Day too.
    ‘Never mind what the politicians are saying there at the negotiations in Kempton Park. South Africans – all of us – we want to live together in peace just like Jesus said. That’s what’s important,’ Thys said. But she wasn’t so sure. Most blacks hated whites. Everyone – except Thys – knew that. Oh, not the blacks on Steynspruit of course, but the others, the terrorists.
    But a few months after Peace Day, when they were standing in the queue at Driespruitfontein Laerskool with Petrus and Pretty and everyone, even poor old Rosie who could barely walk anymore, Annamari felt – for the first time – the hope that Thys had spoken about. With Steyn snug in his carrycot, she lined up with the entir e dor p and every farmer and farm labourer and every single person in the district – even probably the terrorists who had come back after FW decided to give the country away. They had come from far and wide to cast their vote in what the newspaper called South Africa’s first democratic