Those Who Love Night

by Wessel Ebersohn

  “Exactly.”

  “We have the time. I’m sorry if it inconveniences you.”

  Abigail, who had been listening to the exchange, directed her warmest smile at Chunga.

  The group moved on, from block to block and cell to cell. Helena and Prince studied every face, occasionally asking someone to turn round to be identified. The reasons that the visitors had to be sworn to silence were everywhere. Cells that had been intended for six now held twice, even three times that number. Some of the prisoners wore ragged clothing that had obviously not been replaced for years and may not have been washed for months. The others wore the clothing they had been wearing when sentenced. Yudel could see no sign of reading matter or any other sort of diversion. The dirt floor of the exercise yard showed no signs of having been disturbed by human feet in the last week. Against its farthest wall, a sewage outlet seemed to have burst, spilling a trail of its contents onto the dirt.

  It was the condition of the prisoners themselves that disturbed Abigail most. The bodies of some were covered with sores—evidence of kwashiorkor, brought on by severe malnutrition. Almost everyone was desperately thin. Most of them were sitting or lying down on the mats that provided the only furnishings in the cells. They showed little interest in the visitors, many not even turning to look at them.

  As far as Abigail could see, Chunga never once looked into a cell. He walked in silence behind the prison officers, his face set in the stern expression she had come to associate with his displeasure. Mpofu walked a step behind him.

  It was after the second block that they found themselves in the part of the prison directly behind the hall where the hearing had taken place. They turned a corner, and now the smell that had entered the hall when the policemen had opened the window was everywhere. The change was so great that a valve may have been opened and the smell pumped into the air around them. Yudel turned toward it.

  “There are no cells there.” Chunga’s voice had taken on an urgent tone.

  “We both know what that smell is,” Yudel said. “We have to look there. One of our clients may be among them.”

  “What is it?” Abigail, who had fallen a few steps behind Yudel, caught up to him.

  Yudel was looking at Chunga. “It’s the prison morgue.”

  “It’s not necessary. None of your people are there.”

  Abigail had stopped. “Dear God,” she said. “This never occurred to me.”

  For the first time since they had started searching the prison, Prince spoke. “We have to look.” The thought that his Joyce may be among the bodies was frightening, but if she was, he wanted to know. “We have to.”

  Abigail steeled herself for what she knew had to be done. “The order is for us to search the entire prison, not part of it.”

  The director of the prison had made his own decision. He led the way to the door from which the smell was issuing. A ring of keys had appeared in the hands of one of his men. The director stepped aside for him to unlock the door. Yudel looked at Abigail. “You can do nothing in here. You don’t need to come.”

  “At last there’s a point on which I can agree with Mr. Gordon.” Chunga had positioned himself between Abigail and the door. “You don’t need to go in there.”

  But Abigail was there for the search, all of the search. “I have to,” she said.

  Yudel followed the prison director into what seemed to be an old solitary-confinement cell. Abigail was close behind him. She reached out and took hold of one of his sleeves. It was not much, but it provided some reassurance. Behind her she could feel the presence of Helena and Prince.

  The morgue had only one window, set high like those in the other cells, but it had been covered by newspaper. The heat of the African day penetrated all of the prison, but in this confined space it had no way to escape. The heat and the smell together were an assault on the senses that even Yudel had not expected. There was perhaps a quarter of the light in the other cells. It took almost a minute for Abigail’s eyes to become accustomed to the semidarkness. She was holding Yudel’s arm just above the wrist.

  At first glance, what she saw looked like a mound of elongated sacks, piled in layers. Only as her eyes became accustomed to the darkness could she see the face of a woman on the top layer nearest to her. It was smooth, unlined and expressionless, at peace now with the world that had consigned her to this place. There seemed to be three layers, four or five rows deep. The bodies were all in the ragged prison uniforms they had died in. “How long have they been here?” Abigail heard Yudel ask.

  “Four days or less.” The prison director’s voice carried no inflection that may have indicated what he was feeling.

  “These are the people who died in the last four days?”

  “Yes, since Monday. But you have to remember that the World Food Program’s food hasn’t come yet.”

  “They died of starvation?” Yudel asked.

  “No. We don’t have medical resources. You may not believe it, but I try to stop people dying of starvation.”

  “How many inmates do you have?” Yudel asked,

  “One thousand three hundred, more or less.”

  With that mortality rate, no one could be sure, Yudel thought. At the rate of three a day, more than half the prison population would be dead in a year.

  Abigail turned to look for Chunga, but he had not entered the cell. “How can our people examine them to see if their friends are among them?”

  “The bodies will not be decomposing yet. We can lift them. We’ll bring a torch.”

  “Are you able to do this?” Yudel asked of Prince and Helena.

  Prince was a motionless shadow against the light from the doorway. “I have to,” he said.

  “Jesus Christ,” Helena said. “Me too, I also have to.”

  “Cover your noses with your handkerchiefs,” Yudel said. “It’ll help.” Abigail felt him draw her close. “Go outside,” he said softly. “There’s nothing for you to do here.”

  Abigail stumbled through the door. Once in the passage, she again looked for Chunga. A man in the uniform of the prison staff was waiting in the passage, as if to guard the corpses. “Did you see Director Chunga?” she asked.

  He waved a hand in the direction of the main entrance. “He left.”

  “He’s left?”

  “Yes, he left. He’s gone.”

  After a warder had gone to fetch a torch and returned with it, the shuffling of feet and muted voices reached her as the group in the cell searched through the bodies. It was taking too long, she thought. How could it take so long to look at fifteen or twenty faces? Oh God, fifteen or twenty since Monday. And Tony, where is he and what, if anything, is he getting to eat? What diseases is he being subjected to? And how far is he from a situation like this?

  At one point the warder who had fetched the torch emerged, muttering something about batteries. The others came out to wait in the passage until he returned. Helena leaned against a wall with her eyes closed. Prince stood a little distance away, as if he was no part of this matter.

  “How many still?” Abigail asked Yudel.

  He looked pale. “Still a way to go. They have to be certain.”

  “Jonas has gone.”

  “When?”

  “He never came into the morgue.”

  After the warder came back, having fitted the torch with better batteries, and the group had gone back into the cell, Abigail was again alone with the warder. “Is it always like this?” she asked. “So many dying?”

  He shrugged. “The doctor only comes on Fridays.”

  “One doctor, to see all the sick prisoners?”

  He shrugged again. This was clearly not his business.

  “Why do you keep the bodies here?”

  “There’s no space in the city morgue.”

  “The morgue there is full?”

  “Too much,” he said. “It’s the cholera.”

  And Jonas? She asked herself. Did he not have the stomach for this aspect of his countr
y? The makeshift morgue in Chikurubi prison was a long way from the country club with its toadying waiters, wildlife on the fairways and bills that no one expected you to pay.

  When they did emerge, even the prison officials looked as if they may be close to puking. “Nothing,” Helena said. “Not a damned thing. I don’t know who those poor people are, but none of them are ours.”

  * * *

  Eventually they had been through all the cell blocks, all the stores and even the offices. The director who had followed Yudel patiently through his own prison turned to Abigail. In a tone of voice that revealed nothing, he said, “Ms. Bukula, they are not here. I don’t know where they are, but they aren’t in my prison.” Abigail looked at Yudel, who seemed to her as if he were trying to remember something. He turned toward the main entrance, then suddenly turned back to face the director. “Is there anything else, Mr. Gordon?” the prison director asked.

  “The solitary-confinement cells, where are they?”

  “I think there are three prisoners in them at the moment, just three.”

  “We’d like to see them, please.” Yudel almost added “if it’s not too much trouble,” but this man had already gone to great trouble, and sarcasm would not be helpful.

  “This way.”

  The cells they were looking for were in a separate part of the building on the side farthest from the main entrance. The first two were empty. The next held a man who was sitting on the far side of the cell, his head between his knees. When the warder called his name and he looked up, both Helena and Prince shook their heads. In the next cell, a prisoner who had probably heard them coming was standing at the inspection hole in the door. “Am I going back to the others now?” he asked of the first face he saw. It was Helena’s, and she shook her head. “Am I going back?” His voice followed them as they went on to the next cell. “Am I going back now? When am I going back?”

  In the last cell, what looked like a pile of rags was unmoving in a far corner. The light in this cell was worse than in the others, and Abigail was not sure that this was a person. Then something twitched and a small foot emerged from the anonymous heap of rags. Prince maneuvered his way forward, all but pushing Abigail away from the door. “Joyce?”

  “Prince?” A young female voice answered uncertainly. Then, in a moment, the bundle of rags had come to life and a figure was dashing toward the inspection hole. “Prince, oh, Prince.”

  “Joyce.”

  “No, it’s me, not Joyce.” With her face framed by the inspection hole, Abigail recognized Natasha Makwati. “Have you come to fetch me?”

  “Have you seen Joyce?”

  “No. Have you come to take me?”

  Abigail had to push Prince aside. “Where’s your sister?”

  “She’s somewhere else in this place. They put me in here because I got into a fight with another girl.”

  Abigail left the inspection hole to Prince. “Director, this is one of them. This woman is one of them.”

  The director raised both hands, as if to defend himself. “No, she came in after the others. Her name is not on the court order.”

  “After the others?” Abigail’s voice rose. She was immediately the prosecutor who had found a weakness in the defense of the accused. “What do you mean—after the others? When were the others here?”

  There was nowhere left for the director to shelter, but he had done what the court had ordered him to do. “This visit is over. None of the people on the court order are in my prison. Please come to…”

  “When were they here?” Abigail shouted. “Tell me—when were they here? And where is this woman’s sister?”

  From the cell, she could hear Natasha Makwati. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me here.”

  34

  In his rearview mirror, Bino D’Almeida saw the trailer swinging heavily from side to side. He slowed right down, bringing the rig to little more than walking pace. The potholes were causing it. If you hit one hard and the trailer was heavily laden, it could throw you off the road. He had once had a rig jackknife on him on a road like this one. The load of liquor he had been carrying had been thrown across the road in a mix of broken glass and pungent liquid. The incident had taken place not long after he got his heavy-duty license. It had cost him his job, and nearly his license as well.

  The road from town to Chikurubi went through a well-kept, comfortable-looking suburb. Only the surface of the road spoiled the picture. A few kids playing football in a side street allowed the ball to come bouncing into the path of the truck. It struck just below the windscreen and cannoned across the pavement.

  I made it, he was thinking. I lost a bit of the load to the crowd in Marondera, but only a few bags, maybe one bag in a hundred, no more. That was not bad going. And there was no way you could get past that many hungry people and not give away something. As for the police, having sampled his load, they had lost interest in it. Getting past them had cost him fifty, but that too was not bad. The boss would be all right with that.

  The outer perimeter of the Chikurubi complex drew into view. It was a great sight, he thought. The end of every journey across national borders was a relief, but this one had been harder and slower than most. Carrying food could be tricky, but he had made it with his load almost intact.

  The guard who approached the truck had been expecting him. Bino handed over the documentation, and another man disappeared into the guardhouse. Five minutes later he and two others came out to search the vehicle. Bino climbed down. He had been through this before. They searched him and the cab, they peeped under the tarpaulin in a few places, pretending to approve the load, then one walked round the truck with a mirror mounted on the end of a pole. With that they inspected the bottom of the truck for limpet mines. The whole procedure took no more than fifteen minutes. The gate opened and he climbed back up and drove through.

  From a distance, Bino saw cars parked outside the main entrance to the prison building. The gate seemed to be open, and people were moving through it onto the verge of the road. He allowed the rig to roll to a stop next to the entrance. As he got down, an attractive black woman, wearing a dark trouser suit, walked quickly toward him. A small, gray-haired white man with both hands in his pockets was following her from a distance. “What’s in that load?” she demanded. This was someone accustomed to giving orders and demanding responses.

  “Food, ma’am,” Bino said. “World Food Program delivery.”

  “You’re too damned late,” Abigail said. Then, seeing the look of surprise and dismay on his face, she checked herself and spoke more gently. “You’re too late for my clients. But this may save the lives of others. You did well.”

  * * *

  “I hate them, I hate them. Christ, how I hate them.” Helena was leaning forward in the backseat of the car, her hands clasped together.

  “Be quiet, you foolish woman.” Abigail’s mind was elsewhere.

  “Don’t you hate them? I do. You were in that damned morgue with us. You saw the Makwati girl in that hellhole, and why wasn’t she on the court order?”

  “Because she was arrested after our pleadings were filed.”

  Helena was not yet finished. “You should hate them too. What’s foolish about hating them?”

  “Be quiet, damn you.” Abigail had turned in her seat. “How much you hate them is not important. What we do about it—that is important. For you to sit here whining about how much you hate them only serves to bore the rest of us.”

  Yudel could see Helena’s face in the rearview mirror. It seemed to swell with the humiliation of Abigail’s rebuke. He spoke before she could. “Security checkpoint,” he said. “Let’s give them no reason to hold us back.” The guard who had taken Bino’s documents now took Yudel’s. He counted the number of people in the car and waved for the gate to open. “Since the twins were arrested, has anyone else been watching the prison?” He was looking at Helena in the rearview mirror. He could see the effort it took her to desert her argument with Abigail.
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  She still sounded as angry as ever, but she answered the question. “Paul has been watching the road from a house he still owns on that side of town. He does his best, but he’s not that close to the prison and he’s the only one, and he’s out for an hour or more every day. While he’s away nobody watches. He doesn’t sleep much, and sometimes he wakes when a conveyance from the prison is passing. It’s a hit-and-miss affair.”

  “Something else,” Yudel said. “Where is Tony’s sister?”

  Prince answered. “We don’t know. None of us do.”

  “Did he ever talk about her?”

  “Never. We didn’t know about her until Krisj told us.”

  “How did he know?”

  “Tony must have told him.”

  Yudel glanced back at Prince. “How well did you know Tony?”

  “Not well. We didn’t see him often. He sometimes came to meetings with Krisj.”

  “You trusted him, though?”

  “Jesus,” Helena broke in. “You should read his writings.”

  “I have. Did anyone know him well?”

  “We knew enough,” Helena said.

  “There was someone else,” Prince said. “There was a caregiver.”

  “A caregiver?”

  “One who looked after them as children.”

  “She knows nothing about politics,” Helena said. “She’s just an ignorant old woman.”

  “We’ll need to meet her.”

  “She knows nothing.” Helena was leaning forward, aiming all her furious insistence at Yudel. “There’s no point. She’s an old wet nurse.”

  “You know where to find her?” Yudel asked Prince.

  “I’ll write it all down for you.”

  “Jesus,” Helena said. She was having a bad day.

  “One more thing,” Yudel said.

  “I can’t wait to hear it,” Helena told him.

  “Is there anyone who knows Director Chunga well and will talk to us?”

  “Ask your buddy, sitting next to you. She knows him better than anyone else.” Helena’s natural bitterness had given way to jeering.

  Yudel felt Abigail’s bridling at the intended insult. “For instance, a disaffected CIO operative?” he said.