A Dry White Season

by Andre Brink

  “What about Gordon Ngubene?” he asked.

  “I’d like to find out everything you know about him,” Ben said calmly.

  “Why don’t you ask the Attorney-General for a copy of the court proceedings?” Herzog suggested, with an expansive and almost generous gesture. “It’s all in there.”

  “I attended the inquest from beginning to end,” Ben said. “I know exactly what was said in court.”

  “Then you know as much as I do.”

  “You must forgive my saying so,” said Ben, “but that wasn’t exactly my impression.”

  “May I ask what interest you have in the case?” The question was simple enough; but the voice sounded a darker warning.

  “I knew Gordon. And I’ve taken it on me not to rest before the truth has come out.”

  “That was what the inquest was for, Mr Du Toit.”

  “I’m sure you know as well as I do that the inquest didn’t answer one single question of real importance.”

  “Mr Du Toit, aren’t you treading on rather dangerous ground now?” Herzog put out his hand and took a cigar from an open box on the desk, pointedly declining to offer one to Ben. Without removing his eyes from his visitor he meticulously removed the band and lit the cigar with a small kitsch lighter in the shape of a naked girl emitting a flame from her vagina.

  “Dangerous for whom?"asked Ben.

  The doctor shrugged, blowing out smoke.

  “Wouldn’t you welcome it if the full truth were told?” Ben insisted.

  “As far as I’m concerned the case is closed.” Herzog started sorting his papers. “And I’ve already told you I’m extremely busy. So if you don’t mind—”

  “Why did the Special Branch summon you that Friday morning, fourth February? If he’d really complained of toothache, surely they would have called a dentist?”

  “I’m used to attending to all the medical needs of the detainees.”

  “Because Stolz has a good working relationship with you?”

  “Because I’m a District Surgeon.”

  “Did you take an assistant with you?”

  “Mr Du Toit.” The big man placed his hands on the armrests of his chair, as if preparing to push himself up. “I’m not prepared to discuss the matter with a total stranger.”

  “I was just asking,” said Ben. “I should think an assistant would be indispensable if there were teeth to be drawn. To hand on the instruments and so on.”

  “Captain Stolz gave me all the assistance I required.”

  “So he was present when you examined Gordon. In court you said you couldn’t remember.”

  “Now this is enough!” Herzog said, in a fury, pushing himself up on his hairy arms. “I’ve already asked you to go. If you don’t leave this minute I’ll have no choice but to throw you out.”

  “I’m not going before I know what I’ve come to find out.”

  Moving with surprising speed for such a corpulent man Herzog came round the desk, planting himself squarely in front of Ben.

  “Get out!”

  “I’m sorry, Dr Herzog,” he said, restraining his voice, “but you can’t force me to shut up the way the Special Branch did with Gordon.”

  For a moment he expected Herzog to hit him. But the doctor remained motionless in front of him, breathing heavily, his eyes blazing under the heavy eyebrows. Then, still blown up with rage, he returned to his chair and picked up his cigar again, inhaling deeply.

  “Listen, Mr Du Toit,” he said at last, in an obvious effort to sound light-hearted. “Why go to all this trouble for the sake of a bloody coon?”

  “Because I happened to know Gordon. And because it’s become just a bit too easy for too many people to shrug it off.”

  The doctor smiled with almost jovial cynicism, revealing the gold fillings in his many teeth. “ You Liberals with your lofty ideals: you know, if you’d been working with those people the way I’ve got to, day after day, you’d soon sing a different tune altogether.”

  “I’m not a Liberal, Dr Herzog. I’m a very ordinary man who’s had it up to here.”

  Another benevolent grin. “I see what you mean. Don’t think I blame you. I mean, I can appreciate your sentiments, having known the chap and all that. But listen to me, it’s not worth your while to get involved in this sort of business. No end of trouble. When I was younger, I often got all het-up about things too. But one soon learns.”

  “Because it’s safer to co-operate?”

  “What do you expect of a man in my position, Mr Du Toit? I mean, Jesus Christ, think for yourself.”

  “So you really are afraid of them?”

  “I’m not afraid of anyone!” All his earlier aggressiveness welled up again. “But I’m not a damn fool, I tell you.”

  “Why did you prescribe tablets for Gordon if you found nothing further wrong with him?”

  “He said he had a headache.”

  “Tell me, Dr Herzog, man to man: were you worried about his condition when you saw him that day?”

  “Of course not.”

  “And yet he died a fortnight later.”

  Dr Herzog blew out smoke, not deigning to reply.

  “Are you quite sure you never saw him again during that fortnight?”

  “I was asked the same question in court. And I said no.”

  “But we’re not in court now.”

  The doctor inhaled, and exhaled again. The heavy smell of his cigar smoke was pervading the room.

  “You did see him again, didn’t you? They sent for you again.”

  “What difference would it make?”

  “So it’s true?”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Suppose I can produce witnesses who followed you wherever you went during that fortnight? And suppose they’re prepared to testify that you did go back to John Vorster Square before Gordon died?”

  “Where would you find such evidence?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  Leaning forward, Dr Herzog peered intently at Ben’s face through the smoke. Then he uttered a brief laugh. “Come off it,” he said. “Bluff will get you nowhere.”

  “What clothes was Gordon wearing when you saw him that morning?”

  “How do you expect me to remember every little detail? Do you know how many patients I see every day?”

  “You remembered the clothes he was wearing when you examined his body in the cell.”

  “I had to draw up a report immediately afterwards, that’s why.”

  “But surely you can remember whether he was wearing the same clothes the first time? I mean, this sort of memory tends to link itself to similar ones.”

  A sudden derisive laugh. “You’re an amateur, Mr Du Toit. Now please, I’ve got work to do.”

  “You realise it’s in your power to expose or to suppress the truth?”

  Dr Herzog rose and walked towards the door. “Mr Du Toit,” he said, looking back, “what would you have done in my place?”

  “I’m asking you what did, Doctor.”

  “You’re on a wild goose chase,” Dr Herzog said affably, opening the door. He caught the receptionist’s eye. “Miss Goosen, please tell Dr Hughes I’m ready to see him now.”

  Grudgingly, unhappily, Ben rose and went to the door.

  “Are you quite sure that’s all you can tell me, Doctor?”

  “There’s nothing more, I assure you.” His gold fillings gleamed. “Don’t think I take your interest amiss, Mr Du Toit. It’s good to know that there are still people like you, and I wish you the best of luck.” Now he was talking easily, smoothly, filled with benevolence and understanding, as glib as any afterdinner speaker. “Only” – he smiled, but his eyes remained unchanged-“it’s such a hell of a waste of time.”

  8

  The moment he opened the door and saw the seven men crowding together on the stoep, even before he could recognise some of the faces, he knew what was happening. It was the first day of the new term and he had just arrived home from school.


  Stolz produced a sheet of paper. “A warrant,” he announced quite unnecessarily. On his cheek the thin white scar. “We’ve come to search your house. I hope you will co-operate?” A statement, not a question.

  “Come inside. I have nothing to hide.” There was no shock, no fear-seeing them in front of him on his own doorstep, it suddenly seemed totally unavoidable and logical – only a sense of not really being involved in what was happening, as if he were watching a bad play; as if the messages sent from his brain were obstructed on their way to his limbs.

  Stolz turned towards the group behind him, and proceeded to introduce them. But most of the names escaped Ben, except for the one or two he already knew. Lieutenant Venter, the smiling young man with the curly hair he knew from John Vorster Square. And from the inquest he remembered Vosloo, squat and swarthy; and Koch, athletic, broad-shouldered, heavy-browed. They looked like a group of rugby players waiting for a bus to depart, all washed and shaven, in sports jackets or safari suits; all of them beaming with good health, exemplary young men, probably the fathers of small children; one could imagine them accompanying their wives to shop in supermarkets on Saturday mornings.

  “Are you going to let us in?” Stolz asked, a keener edge becoming perceptible in his voice.

  “Of course.” Ben stood to one side and they came trooping into the passage.

  “Were you expecting us?” asked Stolz.

  Suddenly, with that question, Ben’s lethargy was suspended. He even managed a smile.

  “I can’t say I’ve been sitting here waiting for you, Captain,” he said. “But it’s not entirely unexpected either.”

  “Oh really?”

  In spite of himself he said: “Well, you turned up at Gordon’s house as soon as you heard that he was making enquiries about the death of his son.”

  “Does that mean that you have also started making enquiries?”

  For a moment it was deadly quiet in the passage, in spite of the cluster of people.

  “I suppose that is what your visit implies,” he said tartly. “Was it Dr Herzog who told you?”

  “You went to see Dr Herzog?” Stolz’s dark eyes remained expressionless.

  Ben shrugged.

  Susan’s arrival from the dining-room ended their brief tug-of-war. “Ben? What’s going on here?”

  “Security Police,” he said neutrally. And, to Stolz: “My wife.”

  “How do you do, Mrs Du Toit?” Once again the officer went through the formalities of introducing his men one by one. “Sorry about the inconvenience,” he said after he’d finished. “But we have to search the house.” He turned back to Ben: “Where is your study, Mr Du Toit?”

  “In the backyard. I’ll show you the way.” The men stood with their backs pressed against the wall to let him pass.

  Pale and rigid, Susan was still staring at them in disbelief. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she said.

  “I’ll appreciate it if you could come with us, Madam,” said Stolz, adding with a stiff smile: “Just in case you try to slip out and warn someone.”

  “We’re not criminals, Captain!” she retorted, stung.

  “I’m sorry, but one can’t be too careful,” he said. “So if you’ll be so kind?” In the kitchen he asked: “Is there anyone else in the family?”

  “My son,” said Ben. “But he stayed behind at school for cadets.”

  “Servants?”

  “I do my own work,” Susan said coldly.

  “Shall we go then?”

  The study was rather cramped for so many people and they all seemed to be in each other’s way. After Susan had curtly refused to sit down, Ben seated himself on the easy chair beside the door to be out of their way while she remained tense and silent in the doorway. One of the men kept watch outside, cigarette in hand, his back to the door; the six others started working systematically through the room, as busy and thorough as a swarm of locusts. The drawers of the desk were pulled out and stacked in a pile on the floor to be emptied and examined, one after the other, by Stolz and one of his lieutenants. Venter squatted in front of the low cupboard Ben had built to house his papers: examination questions, circulars, progress reports, notes, memorandums, timetables, inspectors’ reports. Koch and one of his colleagues ransacked the filing cabinet in the corner, working their way through all his personal documents: accounts, receipts, income tax forms, insurance, bank statements, certificates, correspondence, family albums, the journals he’d kept sporadically over the years. In his student years it had started as a regular diary; as a young teacher first in Lydenburg and later in Krugersdorp he’d made a habit of jotting down anything that had interested or amused him – examination howlers, phrases from essays by his best pupils, expressions of his children, bits of conversation which might prove useful one day; also comments and reflections on his subjects or on current affairs, on books he’d read – much of it totally irrelevant and incomprehensible to outsiders. In recent years he’d occasionally written more intimate notes, on Susan and himself, on Linda or Suzette or Johan, on friends. And through all that Koch and his colleague were paging steadily, meticulously, while the remaining policeman was examining the furniture, apparently in search of secret hiding places – under the chair cushions (Ben had to get up for it), behind the shelves, inside his chessbox and even inside a small bowl of polished semiprecious stones from South-West Africa; at last he rolled up the carpet to look under it.

  “If only you would tell me what you were looking for,” Ben remarked after some time, “I could save you a lot of time and trouble. I’m not hiding anything.”

  Stolz looked up — he was working on the third drawer fromthe desk-and said laconically: “Don’t worry, Mr Du Toit. If there’s anything of interest to us, we’ll find it.”

  “I was just trying to make it easier for you.”

  “It’s our job.”

  “You’re very thorough.”

  Across the pile of drawers the dark eyes looked at him. “Mr Du Toit, if you knew what we’re working with every day of our lives, you would understand why we’ve got to be thorough.”

  “Oh I appreciate it."He was almost amused.

  But Stolz replied sternly, even sharply: “I’m not so sure you really appreciate it. That’s the problem with people who start criticising. They don’t realise they’re just paving the way for the enemy. You won’t catch those Communists napping, mark my word. They’re at it, every hour of the day and night.”

  “I wasn’t accusing you of anything, Captain.”

  A brief pause, before Stolz replied: “I just wanted to make sure you understand. It isn’t as if we always enjoy what we’ve got to do.”

  “But there may be more than one way of doing it, Captain,” he said calmly.

  “I can understand that you’re upset about having your place searched,” said Stolz, “but believe me—”

  “I wasn’t talking about this little visit,” Ben said.

  All over the room the men suddenly stopped working: the rustling sound, like the feeding of a multitude of silkworms in a big box, fell silent. Outside, in the distance, a bicycle bell shrilled.

  “Well, what are you talking about then?” asked Stolz.

  They were all waiting for him to say it. And he decided to accept the challenge.

  “I’m referring to Gordon Ngubene,” he said. “And to Jonathan. And to many others like them.”

  “Do I understand you correctly?” asked Stolz very calmly. The scar on his face seemed to turn even whiter than before. “Are you accusing us—”

  “All I said was there may be more than one way of doing your job.”

  “You’re suggesting—”

  “I leave that to your own conscience, Captain.”

  In silence the officer sat gazing at him across the piled-up stuff in the small room. All the others were there too, a room filled with eyes: but they were irrelevant. He and Stolz were isolated from them. For that was the one moment in which he suddenly knew, very quietly and
very surely: it was no longer a case of “them", a vague assortment of people, or something as abstract as a “system”: it was this man. This thin pale man standing opposite him at this moment, behind his own desk, with all the relics and spoils of his entire life displayed around them. It’s you. Now I know you. And don’t think you can silence me just like that. I’m not Gordon Ngubene.

  It was the end of their conversation. They didn’t even continue searching much longer, as if they had lost interest. Perhaps they hadn’t intended it very seriously anyway, a mere flexing of muscles, no more.

  After they had replaced the drawers and closed the cupboard and the filing cabinet, Venter found a foolscap page on the desk, bearing Herzog’s name and a series of brief notes on the interview. That was confiscated, together with all the other papers and correspondence on the desk, and Ben’s journals; he was given a handwritten receipt of which they retained a duplicate.

  Returning to the house they asked to be shown the bedroom. Susan tried to intervene: this, she felt, was too private, the humiliation too blatant. Stolz offered his apologies, but insisted on going through with the search. A concession was made, though, by allowing Susan to stay behind in the lounge in young Venter’s company, while Ben showed the others the way to the bedroom. They wanted to know which bed was his, and which wardrobe, and briefly examined his clothes and looked under his pillow; one of the men got on a chair to check the top of the wardrobe; another flipped through the pages of the Bible and the two books on his bedside table. Then they returned to the lounge.

  “Can I offer you some coffee?” Susan asked stiffly.

  “No thank you, Mrs Du Toit. We still have work to do.”

  At the front door Ben said: “I suppose I should thank you for behaving in such a civilised way.”

  Unsmiling, Stolz replied: “I think we understand oneanother, Mr Du Toit. If we have reason to suspect that you’re keeping anything from us, we’ll be back. I want you to know that we have all the time in the world. We can turn this whole house upside down if we want to.”