“Wonderful,” said Khanyi.
“Madiba was here for six years,” said Warden Noxolo proudly, using Nelson Mandela’s Xhosa clan name. His tone implied that Mandela’s incarceration here was one of the prison’s proudest moments.
“He was a prisoner here?” I asked.
Warden Noxolo’s eyes were like those of a pig. Small dark eyes, close together, surrounded by a lot of flesh. He turned them onto me now to see if I was trying to diminish the importance of Mandela’s relationship to Pollsmoor because he had been behind the bars.
“He spoke fondly of his time here,” said Warden Noxolo as if Mandela had been a holidaymaker enjoying a hotel stay instead of a man serving a life sentence. “We gave him a roof garden,” he added in support of this argument.
“Wonderful,” said Khanyi again, because she knew that I was about to make a comment that would demonstrate the warden’s ability to raise his blood pressure on cue. Khanyi liked to avoid confrontation. She gave me a push on the elbow, and we continued along the corridor.
The recreation room contained a few tables and chairs. They looked as if they had been there since before Mandela’s enjoyable stay on the premises and were all damaged.
Against the wall was an old wooden kitchen unit with cupboard doors beneath a row of drawers. One of the doors was missing and gave us a glimpse of mouldy cardboard boxes which were leaking chess pieces, board games and decomposing cartoon books. On another wall, an incongruous blackboard boasted a poorly executed chalk drawing of a buxom woman with yellow circles for hair and large pink nipples.
The best part of the room was the stretch of window that came down to about the level of the top of Warden Noxolo’s head, and gave us a view of rain-warped face-brick buildings, a roll of barbed wire, and in the distance a guard tower where I could just make out the figure of a man looking down into the yard. It wasn’t a beautiful view, but it was probably the best view available in the complex.
“Perfect,” said Khanyi, and she was right, it was. For once, the slow wheels of bureaucracy had turned in our favour.
“He’s medicated,” said Warden Noxolo, who had kept back some bad news to use against us now. “Heavily medicated,” he added with satisfaction.
“That’s a pity,” said Khanyi. “We did ask that he not be medicated.”
Warden Noxolo had another go at the bowel movement, with a small curl at the edges of his mouth to show his pleasure at breaking this news.
“He’s epileptic,” he said. “The medics refused to hold the medication back. Don’t want him having a fit. That’s not nice.”
“No, of course not,” said Khanyi.
“Only epilepsy medication?” I asked, “or have they given him something else?”
Noxolo’s pig eyes swung onto me. “They have given him what he needs.”
From the door behind him, came a rattling sound mixed with the shuffling of many feet on the linoleum floor. A group of five prison guards appeared in the doorway, concealing behind them a shorter man in a droopy orange jumpsuit that was two sizes too big for him. His thin hands were clutched together and encased in thick steel bracelets. The rattling came from the chain that hung down from his wrists and dragged along the floor, where it joined with the chain that linked his feet. The guards halted outside the door, then two of them came into the room. The man in the orange suit was pushed forward and stumbled, a penguin who had lost its footing on the ice, and then the other three guards came in behind him.
Nqobeni ‘Q’ Nyambawu was an unprepossessing man with a thin face, hollow cheeks and bald head. His eyes were fixed on the ground before him, as if that was as far as he could face into his future. He was about the same height as Warden Noxolo, so we were afforded only momentary glimpses of him between the shoulders of the guards.
A guard said something in an indigenous language to Warden Noxolo, who turned to Khanyi.
“We don’t recommend removing the shackles,” said Warden Noxolo in a voice that sounded smug, but which he had probably intended to sound regretful. “This prisoner is dangerous,” he added, because the visual evidence of that danger was not being adequately conveyed by the sad slouch of the little man gazing at the floor before us.
“Please do as agreed,” said Khanyi.
Warden Noxolo gave an irritated order to the guards, and they removed Q’s chains. A guard brought in a tray with three steaming mugs on it. He looked enquiringly at Warden Noxolo, who gestured at a table with ill grace, and the man placed the tray there.
When the chains had been removed, the guards all stepped back from the prisoner as if expecting that he might erupt. But he stood there like a wilting orange marigold and stared at the floor, his hands clutched together as if he was still bound.
“Thank you,” said Khanyi, and with reluctance the guards withdrew, followed by Warden Noxolo, who suggested leaving the door open, but then slammed it when we declined.
The man everyone called Q shuffled over to the table and sat in a chair facing the window after Khanyi insisted that he sit down. He didn’t raise his eyes, but studied his hands, which he clutched together on the table before him. Khanyi passed him a mug of hot chocolate, and he opened his hands to receive it as if they were bound together at the wrist. Then he discovered they weren’t bound, and moved his hands apart experimentally, then brought them back together again and they warmed themselves around the mug. Khanyi passed me a mug, and I went to stand before the window. She helped herself to the third mug and sat across the table from Q, leaned back in a relaxed way and spoke in Zulu to him, asking him to look at her. He looked up with some reluctance. His eyes were framed with long eyelashes, and he blinked frequently as if some internal timer had gone awry.
Khanyi smiled, and it was like an extra light had been switched on in the room. She slurped at her hot chocolate noisily as if demonstrating how to do it, and he obediently raised the mug to his lips and tested his drink. Through the window I could see the guard in the tower shifting his position subtly, like the minute hand making its way around the circumference of a clock. The rain was still coming down hard, and for a moment the only sound in the room was the gentle wash of drops striking the window. Khanyi explained in Zulu that we were not police, that we wanted to have a conversation. A conversation about his father. There was a silence while Q absorbed this. Khanyi let the silence extend as we’d discussed, and eventually Q spoke, his voice hoarse from lack of use. He said only a few words that I didn’t understand, but Khanyi’s reply included the word for police, and so I guessed that he was going over the surprising element of our situation. I turned away from the window in time to see him lift the mug to his lips for a tentative sip.
“Not as good as the hot chocolates your father gave you on Saturday nights,” I said in English. “Down at Rosie’s shebeen. Not enough sugar?”
Q didn’t look at me but kept his gaze on the hot chocolate. We watched him take another sip, then he placed the mug back on the table, and removed his hands from it as if realising that it looked as if he was tasting it in order to answer my question.
“Might be too much sugar,” said Khanyi after another loud slurp.
“You’re right,” I said. “Too much sugar and too little chocolate.”
I turned to look out at the guard in the tower. The rain eased a little and I could make out the barrel of the weapon slung on a harness over his shoulder. It looked like a McMillan TAC-50, which surprised me. A sniper’s weapon. He wasn’t going to be standing up there shouting at anyone who tried to cut through the barbed wire. The silence in the room swelled, and we listened to the gentle noise of the rain, and the ever-present sounds of the prison.
“What are you offering me?” said Q eventually, his voice raised a little to draw my stubborn back into the conversation. I turned to him.
“Nothing,” I said. “Did someone say we were offering you something?”
Q looked at me for the first time. His eyes were dark holes in a face that was stained with exhaustion. I
don’t suppose that he had been allowed much sleep, and his mind had retreated far behind the shell that faced me now. He struggled to hold my eyes and blinked rapidly a few times. I could see the confusion stirring behind his eyes. The concept of talking in exchange for some kind of leniency is so ingrained that it comes as a surprise when the rules are changed. That surprise was what I needed.
“You remember those trips with your father to Rosie’s shebeen?” I asked.
“I’ve been ill,” said Q defensively.
“I know,” I walked over to the table and took a seat. I sipped a little more of the disgusting hot chocolate. “How has the epilepsy been? Worse in here?”
Q shook his head and looked at me in a way that was almost a plea. It surprised me to see that look so soon. It comes when the emotions are stirred, when you’ve reached behind the wall they have built to keep the dangerous stuff hidden, and you’re ready to start the approach from inside the camp. For a moment I sensed the tragedy of Q’s life. We’d had to go back twenty-five years to find a happy moment in his life, and just the mention of it had touched him.
“Your father would be proud to know you remember those Saturday evenings. You went every week? A family occasion? You and your parents?”
“We didn’t have my mother with us,” said Q.
I nodded. His mother had died when he was only a few years old. Andile’s background sheets had been thorough.
“You and your father then.”
“And my brother,” said Q with a hint of irritation in his voice, as if my not mentioning his brother bothered him.
“They say you saw what happened,” I said. “To your father. That you were there.”
Q nodded and looked down at his hot chocolate. He placed both hands around it again and blinked.
“Sunday evening, wasn’t it?” I said.
“Sunday,” confirmed Q and he took a breath, then let it out like a deep sigh, watching me all the time. “You want to talk about my ubaba? About him being shot?”
“I don’t,” I said, dismissing the defining moment of his life with two words and a shake of the head. “Let’s talk about the night before your father was shot. You went to Rosie’s?”
Q nodded. For a moment he looked as if his confusion would cause him to clam up, but the appeal of speaking about a safe subject that had no bearing on his current misery, was too strong.
“Xolani and I had our chocolate drink at Rosie’s,” he said. “ubaba had his three beers.”
“Every week the same?” I asked.
“Just the three Lions. He sat on the stoep, my ubaba, and talked with his friends. We played soccer with the other kids in the street.”
“You were a good player?”
“No, but Xolani had a mean foot on him. He was just eight, but he could put that ball right where he wanted. We played until the sun was down. If the ball burst, we had to wait for ubaba to fix it, so we’d use an old Castrol can, and kick that around.”
“You were playing with a can that night? Your father’s last night?”
Q nodded. “We played until it was too dark, and not even the lights from Rosie’s were enough. Then we walked home.”
“Your father and you?” I asked. “Ubaba is father, isn’t it?”
“Yebo,” said Q using the Zulu word for ‘yes’. He looked at me and I could see the momentary struggle behind his eyes, but he had to say it: “And my brother, Xolani.”
“Your brother. Yes, of course.”
Could it have been that easy? In all my experience in using this technique, I had never encountered the reveal so quickly.
“Let’s talk about your brother,” I said. “Where has he gone on this trip of his?”
Q shrugged and sipped his hot drink, but his face clouded over a little. Khanyi and I waited.
“Pilgrimage,” said Q, and he looked up at me again.
“He is a man of God?”
“A good man,” said Q.
“And he’s gone somewhere to be closer to God?”
Q shrugged.
“How did your brother travel on his pilgrimage? Did he take a bus? A train?”
Q hesitated. The tiniest of moments.
“Bus.”
“When did he leave on his pilgrimage?”
“In the morning,” said Q.
He was closing up again. Rain drummed on the window to emphasise the silence.
“Is it true that your brother sympathises with the EFF?” I said. “I believe the entire village support the Economic Freedom Fighters. It is a freedom fighting enclave. Is that so?”
Q’s eyes lifted, and he considered me for a moment before nodding.
“That’s unusual. A political priest.”
“If you knew the history of this country,” said Q, snapping out of his shell, “you would know that it is the people of God who fight for our freedom.”
“And your brother is still fighting for your freedom? He believes in taking the land back for the people? He believes in killing the white people? One settler, one bullet? Kill the Boer?”
I had hoped to evoke more anger, but Q’s anger was spent as quickly as it had flamed up. He sipped at his chocolate and kept quiet.
“Are you also EFF? You believe in fighting for your freedom?”
For a moment I thought that Q was going to affirm this falsehood. He looked as if he wanted to. But he shook his head.
“You studied economics,” I continued. “Perhaps you warned your brother of the danger of the collapse of the economy? If the EFF get their way, that is what will happen, isn’t it? Zimbabwe was brought to its knees in that way. Did you and your brother argue about that?”
“What economy?” said Q. I had finally stirred a little anger. “The economy that supports the white people? Our people live in abject poverty. What would it affect them if the white people’s economy collapsed?”
I nodded. That was an argument that had seeped into the consciousness of the country in recent years. An idea that had shaken the core of the confident white South Africans who argued that their country could not collapse in the way that neighbouring Zimbabwe had. It was also an argument that opened up the possibility of a violent and destructive solution to the country’s problems.
“This pilgrimage of your brother’s,” I said. “Is it something that is bringing him closer to God, or closer to achieving freedom for your people?”
Q’s eyes regarded me over his hot chocolate. He said nothing. There was something about his brother he was keeping hidden.
“Before your brother left on his pilgrimage,” I said, “did the two of you get together? Have a farewell party?”
“No party. A few drinks at Xai-Xai.” Q’s eyes dropped to his hot chocolate and stayed there. It was a subtle sign, but my time was running out. I pushed ahead.
“Is that the village bar on the field they call the campground?”
Q nodded and sipped at his drink. I copied him. My drink was growing cold and congealing into unappetising lumps.
“You and your brother drank late into the night?”
“No. There was a fight.”
“Who was fighting?”
“Hendrik van Rensburg.”
“Van Rensburg came to the village?”
Q hesitated and looked into his mug of lumpy chocolate.
“Did he come alone?” I asked. “Or with friends?”
“Just two of them,” said Q. “They came in his jeep, the green one, like the ones the army has.”
“They came for a drink?”
He shook his head. “Girls,” he said.
“Did Hendrik often bring friends to the village?” I asked.
Q nodded.
“Members of his White Africans?”
There was a glimmer behind Q’s dull eyes. I thought for a moment that it was anger.
“You know about the White Africans?” I asked.
“They are playing games,” said Q, and a corner of his mouth lifted. I realised that it was not anger, but contem
pt.
“Those games of Van Rensburg. Do they make your brother angry?”
“No.” Q’s eyes refused to meet mine. He stared into his congealing hot chocolate.
“Your drinks with your brother were cut short by Van Rensburg and his friend?”
“Yes, they had a fight.”
“Your brother and Van Rensburg?”
“No. Van Rensburg and his friend.”
“What started it?”
“The gun?” said Q as if we were now playing a guessing game and he was hoping to get the right answer.
“Hendrik’s gun?” I said.
Q nodded.
“Why would they fight over Hendrik’s gun?” asked Khanyi.
“He was shooting in the air with it,” said Q with a glance in her direction. “He was too drunk. He came in on the jeep and didn’t stop in time. Hit a girl who was dancing in the field. Not bad, but we were all angry, and he got frightened. He started shooting, then the friend grabbed the gun from him. There was a big fight. The friend was small, and Van Rensburg strong. The friend lost the fight.”
“Lost it how?”
“Van Rensburg knocked him down, got more frightened and drove away.”
“What did you do?”
“The man was sitting there on the grass. We helped him up. The school nurse said he had concussion and must lie down. So we put him in the school. He spent the night there.”
“Did you see him after that?”
Q shrugged.
“What about your brother? He must have been angry with Van Rensburg and his friend. Two white men arriving at the village and shooting must have made him furious.”
Q shrugged again.
“My brother is a good man. He wanted to talk with Van Rensburg. Make him calm. That was all he wanted to do.”
“I understand. And Van Rensburg with his gun, it must have been a tense situation.”
“Everyone was angry,” said Q again.
“Your brother spoke to him? Calmed him down?”
“Maybe,” said Q.
“Would you mind looking at a photograph?” I asked. “Tell us whether you recognise the friend of Hendrik van Rensburg?”
Murderous Page 16
