It comes upon you suddenly, the left turn from the R369 regional road and the signpost is hidden in the avenue of poplars bordering the town on its right edge. There’s only one entrance and if you miss it, as blooming lilies in diligently watered flowerbeds cause me to do, the next opportunity to make a U-turn is only at the far end of town. ‘Far end’ is mere minutes away however, so where the road’s shoulder widens at the unpaved entrance to the abattoir, I turn around. It is parchingly hot on the rocky plains of the Free State province in early December. In these inhospitable climes, as in various others, the hardy descendants of Dutch farmers and traders had forged a fruitful life after fleeing colonial rule at Cape Town in the middle of the nineteenth century. They were to become known as ‘Voortrekkers’, or pioneers, and eventually developed into the Afrikaner nation of South Africa. My kin. I nudge the nose of the car into the entrance in the poplar avenue. It is Sunday afternoon after lunch, and Orania is resting. My wheels crunch quietly through the gravel of the first right hand turn as I’m soothed by the peace of the place. The stringy leaves of the willow trees that line each sidewalk whisper at the cicadas to be quiet. From the north wafts on the merciful summer breeze the citrusy aroma of lemon and orange orchards, scientifically and successfully irrigated from the Orange River, the town’s only source of water and, often, recreation. Wooden chairs sway and creak on ropes slung over the thicker branches of white cedars, which cast their lilac-white flowers and pale yellow berries on the manicured lawns of lush garden idylls. The sign on an underused and rusty driveway gate cautions not to tease the yard dog, lest he wake the guard dog. Hand-painted advertisements wired to screen doors market each housewife’s own fresh batch of ‘koeksusters’. Literally translated to mean ‘cake sister’, the doughnuty quintessence of Afrikaner confectionery is laced with syrup and pride and served with sweet, milky tea on sweltering days such as this one. On the polished verandahs, each potted plant and garden gnome has found and knows its place. Everything is where, and how, it should be. The shabbily overgrown arum lilies and ill-tended low brick wall of number 49 Protea Street, therefore, are entirely misplaced and the peeling paint and rough hedges instantly draw my curiosity. I have to suddenly kick at the brakes in astounded horror, then curse under my breath as the imagined echoes of screeching rubber seem to shatter the town’s slumber. ‘Well yes,’ I grumble soundlessly at the steering wheel, ‘of course Orania has a bronze bust of Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd in someone’s rose garden. At least it’s in the ugliest one.’ I had been fleetingly seduced. I was charmed with blossoms and serenaded by whistling willows. For it is pretty, incongruous and unexpected as though its beauty is in this semi-desert. But the mirage was of my own making. As the gratingly unpleasant appearance of that statue reminded me, this place makes no effort to hide what it truly is. Verwoerd was the father of legislated racial discrimination in South Africa in the previous century, and Orania is to it, and him, a homage. In the final vestige of white racial ‘supremacy’ in South Africa, people of colour are welcome, but only to perform manual labour, most likely in the gardens. No amount of white cedar shade and citrus orchard blossoms can prettify that. I reach the abattoir again, but this time I don’t turn around, and continue east on the R369. I barely glance at Orania’s name written in painted white stone on the craggy hillside now disappearing to my right rear. I’m happy to be heading this way. I’d seen it, if only for the perverse satisfaction of being able to say it. Fat raindrops begin to batter the windscreen and the thirsty landscape, but I notice that the wind and I are driving in the same direction. The Orange has been running low this summer, and it won’t be raining on Verwoerd’s rose garden soon, I reckon.