Those Who Love Night

by Wessel Ebersohn

  “You will get your instructions. But you see to it that nothing happens to them.”

  “And the thing of their extra food. The thing of their special food makes the other prisoners angry. Things are tough enough here without that.”

  “Food is coming from Beira. The World Food Program is sending it.”

  “For all the prisoners?”

  “Yes, both the politicals and the others.”

  “Coming when?”

  “Soon. It’s coming soon. It’s already passed through Beira. In the meantime carry on this way.”

  The voices drifted away and the fog again rose from the floor, enfolding him from every side. It drew back with the sound of breath being sucked in. It came close again as the breath was released, accompanied by a hoarse whistling.

  Tony knew that the fog brought with it protection. It insulated him against the violence and brutality that seemed to surround everyone in his country, perhaps all of humanity. And yet fear also came out of the fog. The fear came every night. He had learned to expect it by this time, and he had been waiting. He knew that if he waited very quietly and did not fight it, it would pass. After that the fog would again be his, and he would be safe.

  25

  On Monday morning, Abigail was woken by her hotel phone ringing. A furious Helena was on the other end of the line. “So you were fucking the enemy last night.”

  It may have been close, but I never did it, Abigail thought. She adopted her most outraged tone. “I wasn’t fucking anybody last night. And your information is out of date. I did have dinner with the enemy the night before last.” She had spent Sunday in her hotel room, eating room service sandwiches, drinking coffee and occasionally trying to think. At other times she had tried not to think.

  “Why? How do we know we can trust you now?” If Abigail had held the phone a meter from her ear, she would still have heard every word.

  “The real question is—how can I trust you? Why didn’t you tell me about the explosion at party headquarters?”

  “It wasn’t relevant.”

  “Not relevant? You were going to allow it to be sprung on me in court, were you?”

  “After this, I’m not sure our people are going to be happy with you representing us.” Helena was trying hard to regain the offensive.

  “And I’m not happy representing people who hide relevant facts from me. I’ll be on the next flight to Johannesburg. Goodbye.” She hung up.

  Almost immediately the phone rang again. Abigail briefly considered ignoring it. When she did answer, Helena was trying to sound calmer. “You can’t expect me to be calm after last night.”

  “I was not making friends with the other side…”

  “I’m not talking about that,” Helena yelled. “I’m talking about the twins.”

  “What about the twins?”

  “Didn’t your boyfriend tell you? His mob picked them up last night after they broke down the door of the flat where they were watching the prison gate. They’re in custody too.”

  After she had hung up, Abigail dialed the cell phone number Chunga had given her. When she heard the recorded voice telling her to leave a message, she hung up and started dressing for breakfast.

  * * *

  The hotel had a small terrace where you could have breakfast served. She found a table that had just enough sunlight filtering through the branches of a tree. The breakfast menu was identical to that of the day before. She ordered two slices of French toast and coffee to come immediately.

  She had dealt with difficult clients on many other occasions, and she knew that she was not going to be on the plane to Johannesburg at any time in the next two weeks, at least not before she had done what she had to do at the hearing. The injection of caffeine would clear her head. She could not believe that she would have to initiate the next move, whatever it would be. Something about the events of the last few days indicated that they almost possessed a life of their own. The best she could do was to cling on tightly and try to survive the ride.

  While she knew very little about six of the missing activists, she felt that she did know something about Tony Makumbe. And she certainly knew Krisj Patel.

  If there was one of the players that she knew nothing about, that person was Jonas Chunga. She admitted to herself that she had behaved like a hormonal sixteen-year-old, allowing him to charm her. She had spent an evening in the company of a man who was not only powerful, but possibly an enemy, and she had been ready to go to bed with him. If he had chosen to take her on the hillside overlooking the city, she knew she would not have resisted.

  And if, but this was an unlikely if, she never again heard from any of them—activists, Chunga or the High Court—then she could return and see if there was still anything in her marriage worth saving. Even that was not an uncomplicated course of action.

  Abigail was aware of a tension that extended from her hands and arms into her shoulders and back. She closed her eyes and tried consciously to relax the offending muscles. She heard the waiter put down the coffee. Let it be freshly made, she prayed. Please let it be freshly made.

  Her attempt at relaxation was largely fruitless. The stress in her shoulder muscles and the pain in her lower back were unchanged. She opened her eyes and reached for the coffee as a shadow fell across the table. She heard the choking sound of shock that came from her throat. Recoiling from the shadow, she lifted both hands to protect herself.

  “Abigail, my dear,” a familiar voice said, “it’s only me.”

  She looked up into the concerned face of Rosa Gordon. In a moment they were in each other’s arms. “Rosa,” Abigail gasped. “And this? Are you alone?”

  “No, Yudel’s still in the restaurant. He’ll be along in a moment.”

  Through the windows that separated the restaurant from the terrace, Abigail could just make Yudel out. He was hunched over the table, a pen in one hand. “What’s he doing?”

  “Working out the tip.”

  “The tip?”

  “Yudel read somewhere that tips are now fifteen percent in the States. They’ve traditionally been ten percent in South Africa, so he feels twelve and a half percent might be fair. Do not ask me why. It’s not an easy percentage to work out, though. On top of which, he has just discovered that there is no currency below a dollar note in this country. I have no idea what sort of compromise he might reach.” Rosa had said it all in a way that suggested she would not be surprised if she was not believed. Perhaps she had difficulty believing it herself. She sat down opposite Abigail.

  Abigail found herself laughing for the first time since she had got off the plane, and it at last released some of the tension. “Does he have a calculator?”

  “No, my dear. He’s doing it by long division on a paper napkin.”

  “He’s a treat,” Abigail gasped between chuckles. In a moment, Yudel’s particular brand of lunacy had made the world seem a saner place.

  “He’s a little wearing sometimes,” Rosa said.

  Yudel appeared on the terrace, looking troubled. He still had the paper napkin in one hand. The picture that greeted him was of the two women sitting opposite each other and holding hands. “Hello, Yudel,” Abigail said. “How much was the tip?”

  “Two dollars, twenty seven and a half cents,” he said.

  “And what are you doing about the fact that there are no coins in Zimbabwe now?”

  “I gave them three dollars, and they gave me a credit note for seventy two and a half cents.”

  “Oh, Yudel, I love you,” Abigail said. Then, remembering Rosa, she turned to her. “Not in that way, Rosa.”

  “I know, my dear. I love him in both ways. But you … how have things been developing?”

  “Not very well. At this stage, it would appear that my urgent application will be heard in two weeks.”

  The unexpected presence of the Gordons—she dared not hope that it would be support—had all but overwhelmed Abigail. “But what are you doing here?”

  “We’re o
n holiday,” Yudel said.

  “Nonsense, Yudel. How can you say such a thing?” Rosa frowned at him. “After you called us and told us about the assassination of your attorney, I knew Yudel would have to come. I also knew that his contract with the department is coming to an end. On top of all that, they have refused to pay him out for accumulated leave. So I thought he might just as well take the leave. So I booked the tickets.”

  “Thank you, Rosa. What I feel is beyond gratitude.” She looked at Yudel. “You’re both so brave.”

  “Rosa’s the brave one,” Yudel said. “With me it’s a compulsion. Compulsions don’t count as bravery.”

  “This one counts for me,” Abigail said.

  Rosa looked seriously at the younger woman. “Abigail, Yudel made a solemn promise to me before we left.” There was no hint of amusement in what she was saying. “He promised me that every day he would tell me exactly what was happening and that when I felt the need to return home he would come with me.”

  “I understand,” Abigail said. She reached toward Rosa and, in a moment, the two women were holding hands again, looking into each other’s eyes. “My parents were killed many years ago. I know we haven’t seen each other much, but I have never felt closer to an older couple.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Rosa said.

  There’s the famous Gordon sex appeal going to the dogs again, Yudel thought. “I’m deeply touched,” he said.

  “One other thing.” Rosa was still holding Abigail’s hand. “While we’re here, I’ll be staying with a niece who lives outside of town. Her husband is one of the few white farmers who have been left alone. They run a school for the children of the farmworkers in the area. I don’t know if that’s the reason they’ve managed to keep their place. She’ll come for me later.”

  “Now,” Yudel interrupted, “you’d better tell us about your visit here, especially the death of your attorney friend.”

  26

  Abigail was not slow to put Yudel to work. Jonas Chunga had left a message for her, saying that they had a suspect in the killing of Krisj Patel and that progress had been made in the matter of the hearing. He would come by to fill her in. “Will you go to see Krisj’s widow?” she asked. “Perhaps she can tell us something useful.”

  Yudel had the name of the school where Suneesha Patel worked, but finding it had not been a simple matter. In his hired car, he picked his way through the potholed roads of a city teeming with people and vehicles, neither of which seemed to recognize the usual rules of the road. Intermittently working traffic lights seemed to provide only a broad guideline to the city’s motorists. If an opening existed, only a fool allowed a little matter like a red traffic light to hold him back.

  He at last found the school in an apparently unnamed street. A middle-aged woman with tired eyes who manned the administration office directed him to apartments on Josiah Tongogara Drive where Krisj had lived with his wife. “She has a few days off,” the woman said. “Her husband was murdered four nights ago. You may have read about it.”

  The once dignified-looking apartment block was in a part of town that had been dedicated to old African liberators—or dictators, depending on your point of view. Where street signs existed, they carried names like Kenneth Kaunda, Samora Machel, Julius Nyerere, Milton Obote, Kwame Nkrumah and Robert Mugabe.

  From what Abigail had told Yudel about Patel, he had expected Suneesha to be a person more interested in principle than in practical matters. As soon as he saw her, he acknowledged inwardly that he had been wrong on that score. She came to the door, wearing an apron that was white with bread flour. Bits of dough still clung to her hands. She frowned at him. “Can I help you?”

  “My name is Yudel Gordon,” he said. “I’m working with the advocate your husband was briefing on the seven people … the missing ones.”

  Suneesha looked at him, unblinking, from an expressionless face. Eventually she sighed and indicated with a tilt of her head that he should follow her.

  The apartment building was old and its rooms, including the kitchen, were large. On a counter, a bowl of dough awaited further attention. She had obviously been kneading it by hand. “You can sit over there,” she said, nodding toward a chair. “You don’t mind if I go on with my work?”

  “Please do,” Yudel said, sitting down on the chair.

  “What can I tell you, Mr. Gordon?” She glanced at him as she resumed her kneading. “You look surprised. I know I’m not the typical grieving widow. That was what you were thinking, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. I was thinking that.”

  “We haven’t been close for years.” It was said almost defiantly. Could it be that the wife of this hero who had died in the cause of justice was not sorry he had died? To Yudel, she seemed to be daring him to challenge her right to admit that. “No, that doesn’t state the position clearly. We were never close.”

  “You married him, though.”

  “Obviously.” She was kneading the dough as furiously as if it was to blame for the failure of her marriage. “You see what I’m doing?” she demanded. “I’m a schoolteacher, but this is how I’ve made our living for years—till late every night. There are still a few people who can afford home-baked bread, and I bake it for them. It’s a living…” She paused to think over that statement. “… of sorts.”

  “There was also the law practice,” Yudel suggested.

  “Law practice?” Suneesha snorted extravagantly. “Sometimes what I earned from my baking had to pay the rent for his office. I never saw any money from that so-called law practice.”

  “These are difficult times…”

  “Difficult times?” she interrupted him with blazing eyes. “Yes, these are difficult times. They may have been easier for me, if I had only one mouth to feed. Other lawyers at least made some money.”

  “Is that what drove you apart? That he did not contribute much to the household?”

  “Oh, heavens, Mr. Gordon, that and a hundred other things, his friendships among them.”

  “His friendships with these activists bothered you? Are you saying that?”

  “Some of them bothered me, certainly. Oh, some of them did, all right.” Yudel heard a trace of bitterness in the laugh that followed.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Forget it, Mr. Gordon. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead—not even of Krisj.” Suddenly all Suneesha Patel’s anger seemed to melt away. “I loved the stupid bastard,” she said sorrowfully. “But sometimes I hated him.”

  And now he’s gone, Yudel thought. And you don’t know what to feel.

  “He was a clever man. Did you know that? He studied in South Africa, and he was in the top two percent of his class. Did you know he was that clever? He could have had a brilliant career if he had taken my advice and we had migrated south.”

  “You didn’t agree with his politics, then?”

  “Of course I agreed with him. Every sane person agrees. We can all see what they’ve done to the country. But you can dissent without getting yourself killed. You don’t have to present yourself as a red flag to a bull. You don’t have to set yourself up as a target.”

  “There’s something else you might be able to tell me. It has to do with a bomb they exploded.” Abigail had asked Yudel to see if he could discover anything about it. “Did your husband know anything about that?”

  “Yes, he knew about it. It was a year ago. But he never planted it. A certain Tony Makumbe did. He seems to be the craziest of them all. That damned husband of mine would have done anything for him. He would have done much more for him than for me.”

  That was the name Yudel least expected to hear in connection with the bomb blast. To his knowledge, it was not the sort of thing writers usually did. “Was Makumbe arrested for it?”

  “No.” The word was accompanied by a decisive shake of the head. “At least, not until the other day. And we don’t know if they picked him up for that.”

  “Do you know why your husband wasn�
��t arrested? They certainly knew where to find him.”

  “No.” Again, the quick shake of the head.

  “Did you know this Makumbe?”

  “Slightly, not as well as my husband.”

  Yudel knew there must be a reason that Suneesha’s answers were becoming shorter and more abrupt, but she was a strong personality who would only tell him what she wanted him to know. “Enemies?” Yudel suggested. “Did he have personal enemies?”

  Suneesha Patel looked at him, as if he had so far managed to misunderstand their entire conversation. “Only the entire ruling party, the president, the cabinet, the police, the CIO, the armed forces—search for the culprit among their members. That should be just under half the population. Did anyone hate him for any other reason? No. Only me.”

  “Just one more thing, Mrs. Patel. Have the police been to question you?”

  “No.”

  “The CIO?”

  “No. You’re the only one.”

  * * *

  Yudel drove back to the hotel by a more direct route. Abigail was sitting in the lobby when he came in. She had been resting in an armchair, her eyes unfocused, looking up at the ceiling. She saw him out of the corners of her eyes and sat up as he approached. “Did you learn anything?”

  “Only that the police haven’t questioned her.”

  “Not at all?”

  “No.”

  Abigail felt the involuntary twitch of her head as she tried to clear her thinking. “I suppose it’s because they already have a suspect.”

  “No doubt,” Yudel said.

  “The CIO people are on their way here. They’re going to allow me to be present when they take his statement. He’s already confessed.”

  “That was easy.”

  She looked thoughtfully at Yudel. There was something about his manner that was adding to her own discomfort. “You have doubts?”

  “I haven’t seen the suspect yet. I’ll come with you.”

  “No, Yudel, I don’t think so.” It was said too quickly. She was aware that she had averted her eyes. “I am an officer of the court here, but you have no standing. I don’t think we should take the chance.”