Hoogenhout speaks out
2001-10-25 23:47
Cape Town - The motto on the porcelain plaque against the lounge wall reads: Spreken is Zilwer, Zwijgen is Goud (Speaking is silver, silence is golden). But by Thursday Imker Maree Hoogenhout, 87, had had enough. He wants to talk.
Esmè van Zijl, 49, is claiming damages from him because he allegedly raped and sodomised her when she was a child. Of course he understands he is not allowed to speculate on a court case or interfere from outside.
In any case, he no longer has money to contest the case in court, he adds. After suffering a mild stroke last year, his health is not 100% - that, coupled with money issues, has kept him from court.
From his retirement apartment with an ocean view in the Strand, he says he can only maintain what he has already stated in court documents: He denies all the allegations against him. His wife, Beulah, a well-kept 71, confirms it: "Of course I would have known if something like that happened. I am married to this man, we know everything about each other."
They explain that they met in the Strand years ago. She used to work for Saambou and he had just started at the Rembrandt group after several years in the diplomatic corps.
They married two days before his 40th birthday and she resigned from her job. "Maree told me: create a nice home for us, I'll work."
Nothing untoward ever happened
Up to now it has been a wonderful marriage, they say. Not like modern unions where people split up, get together, split up again and do as they please. The one regret is that they could never have children.
Maybe that is why they are both so fond of children. All their cousins regularly came to visit them and yes, Hoogenhout says, he did cuddle all of them. But nothing untoward ever happened.
"Now one gets caught up in such a stink," he says.
The furniture and decorations reveal something about the couple and their interests. A collection of delicate shells in a display case, tapestries of country scenes, an early oil painting by Sydney Carter. Oost West, Thuist
Best (No place like home) reads another porcelain plate.
A small painting in one of the rooms depicts the jungle aflame in a Joseph Conrad-like Congo of dark hearts. A road in the foreground meanders through a darkening forest. In the background, trees are burning.
Very few people can capture a fire on canvas like that, explains Mrs Hoogenhout. It was given to her husband when he was in the Congo.
During the war years he travelled all over Africa while in the diplomatic service, he explains. He was South Africa's Consul-General in the former Leopoldville, now Kinshasa. He was also acting High Commissioner in Nairobi.
From there he joined the Rembrandt group? public relations department. He was also the first editor of finance magazine Tegniek.
In 1966, he and Anton Rupert established the organisation Historical Houses of South Africa and he became the first managing director.
"We did good work," he says. After the earthquake in Tulbagh he travelled between Stellenbosch and Tulbagh 299 times to see to the restoration of buildings in Church Street.