Later two white warders carried him down a hall. He moved in and out of consciousness. As Gat saw the hallway’s fluorescent lights pass overhead, his body silently screamed with pain. He was taken to a small room. He saw clothes draped over a hanger on a wall hook, the clothes he had worn driving in from Lobatse. The warders laid him on a gurney. They pulled the jump suit from his body. Gat lay naked, his body crying out in pain, but he clenched his teeth so that neither scream nor whimper escaped from him.
He saw Rousseau enter and gaze at him. Although the movement caused him pain, he shifted his hands to cover his groin. He closed his eyes. “Everything is here,” he heard Rousseau tell him. His voice came as if shouted through a tube of infinite length. “Everything: passport, wallet, watch, money. You have taken from us, but we have taken nothing from you.” Gat heard a door open and close. His eyes opened onto the place Rousseau had been. He was gone. Gat cracked a smile.
The warders dressed him in his clothes. Sometimes he was conscious, sometimes not. When they fit his socks and shoes onto his feet, he passed out from the pain.
SINCE PETRA was furious with him, since she could not stop crying for more than a few minutes, Rousseau suggested to Margaret that they have dinner sent up to the suite by room service. Petra sat with her parents at the makeshift table only because she wanted to know what had happened to her husband. Her father refused to discuss the matter until they had all had dinner. He insisted that Petra eat.
While she did, Rousseau informed her that Gat had acknowledged that he was a member of a terrorist conspiracy.
“There was no conspiracy,” Petra said. “We gave a man a ride.”
“He admitted that there was a conspiracy. He was carrying money to fund terrorism.”
“That’s nonsense, Father. Did you torture him to make him say that?”
“He was not tortured,” Rousseau said. “I promised to release him—for your sake. He admitted giving the man money. Were they ever alone?”
“No,” Petra told him. “Never.” Then she remembered that Gat and Garvey had gone together into the Indian store in the Mafeking township. But it was not possible that Gat had given Garvey money. “Where is Gat now? When can I see him?”
Trying to maintain his patience, Rousseau suggested it would be wise for Petra to return immediately to Cape Town. She, too, had acted as a conspirator. If she got out of the province of the Transvaal, Rousseau thought he could steer the investigation away from the young blonde woman who had made such a vivid impression at the border post. He might also arrange to have the marriage records in Lobatse lost. “I’m trying to protect you, young lady,” Rousseau told Petra, “because I love you. I am risking my reputation and my retirement for you.”
“You are lying, Father. You have lied to us for years.” Petra’s tears were gone now, her calm giving emphasis to her rage. “Shall we talk about why Jan-Christiaan does not come home?” At Petra’s impertinence Rousseau’s face went pale. He stared at her, unable to speak. “Torturer! Did you torture my husband?”
Rousseau took control of himself. He folded his hands and gave his daughter a look of infinite patience. “Pet,” he said quietly, “the world is not always the way we want it to be.” He reached across the table to take her hand.
She put her arms behind her. “What have you done with him?” she asked. “Did you hit him? Throw him out a window? He’s my husband.”
“Collect yourself,” her father said.
“Let’s all calm down,” Margaret suggested.
Petra stared at the table, clenching her teeth so she would not scream.
“This isn’t easy for me, Pet,” her father said. “These aren’t easy things to say. What life has taught me, though, is that sometimes the things we most want are the things that hurt us most.” He bit his lips. His eyes grew teary. “When I say that, of course, I am thinking of Jan-Christiaan.”
Petra glanced at her father. Because she had not heard him mention his son for two years, she knew that he spoke out of deep emotion.
“I talked with Captain Gautier, as he calls himself,” he said. “An attractive fellow. I thought so when we met in the Groote Kerk.”
“When can I see him?” Petra asked. “Where is he now?”
“He told me he thought it best if he did not see you again,” Rousseau said.
“That can’t be true,” Petra retorted. “You’ve got him locked up somewhere.”
“I am sorry to say that he is acting like a Belgian,” Rousseau declared. “The Belgians had to flee the Congo because they wanted only to exploit it, rob it, suck it dry of resources. That’s what’s happened here.”
“What are you talking about?” Margaret asked. “They were married today. How can he not want to see his wife?”
“Pet, he exploited you,” Rousseau said. Petra shook her head. “Do you think I enjoy telling you these things?” he asked. “He used you as a cover for contacting terrorists.”
“I don’t believe that, Father.”
Rousseau pushed his dinner plate into the center of the table. He set his hands before him, folded them, and stared at them. Petra and Margaret watched him, knowing that he was wrestling against one of his black moods. Finally he looked up at Petra, an expression of pity in his eyes. “Captain Gautier has a wife in Belgium,” Rousseau said.
The blood drained from Petra’s face. Her mother pulled her chair beside Petra and put her arm about her. “I don’t believe that,” Petra managed to blurt out.
“He gave me this.” Rousseau took a small photo from his pocket and set it before Petra. It showed a young fair-haired woman holding a child. Petra turned away and burst into tears. “It’s been very hard duty in the Congo and Katanga these last six-eight months. He came here for a break from that.”
“Why didn’t he go home to his family?” Margaret asked.
“He came here to advance a terrorist plot. He saw the wife at Christmas.” Rousseau looked carefully at his daughter, his expression pained, to see how she received this difficult news. “While here— I hate to say it—he needed a young woman to mask the plot he was here to promote. And to have a good time as well.” Rousseau looked at his folded hands. “And I introduced him into our home,” he acknowledged repentantly. “I’ll never forgive myself for that.”
“A man looking for a good time does not ask his goodtime girl to marry him,” Petra said. “It was his idea that we marry. I never pressed him for that.”
“Darling, I’m sorry,” Rousseau said. “Gautier told me that he had concocted a story about himself that would engage a young woman’s sympathies. Something that would make her think he needed her.”
Petra quietly began to weep. “If this is true,” she said, “why didn’t you make him come here with you to tell me face-to-face?”
“I suggested that,” Rousseau said. “He declined. He said he knew it would break your heart and he couldn’t bear to see that.”
“So there was some affection on his side,” Margaret suggested, reaching for a few scraps of good news for Petra to hold onto.
“I told him where we were staying,” Rousseau said. “I invited him to come and do the honorable thing. I refused to hold him out of consideration for you. He’s a free man now.” The colonel watched his weeping daughter. “I’m so sorry. The cost of our mistakes can be so dreadful!”
Petra stood and made her way uncertainly to the room she would occupy. Margaret hurried after her.
Once in her room Petra lay on her bed. Her mother shut the door and came to her side. “It’s not true,” Petra said. “He’s lying. He would have lied to keep Jan-Christiaan and he’s lying to keep me.” Her mother embraced her, began to rock her as she would a child. Petra gently removed her mother’s arms. “I’m a woman now, Mother,” she said. “I’m going to face this like a woman. And I need to be alone.” Margaret embraced her and left the room.
When she saw her husband’s bent figure still sitting at the table, Margaret shook her head. “You should have made him
come with you,” she told Rousseau. “If it’s true, she needed to hear that from his own lips.”
“I wish I had,” Rousseau told his wife. “I know you’re worried about her. But let me assure you: in two weeks it will all blow over. She will be adjusting to varsity. She’ll be meeting men who will seem enormously more interesting and talented and attractive than the Belgian. She will feel immensely proud of herself for being at Wits, for having declared her independence and defied me. She will take secret pleasure in knowing that for a few hours she was a married woman. But it is a secret she is not likely to share with the next man in her life.” He took his wife’s hand. “Everything will work out, I assure you.”
Margaret said nothing, thinking: How little you know of women!
Rousseau glanced at his watch. “Excuse me,” he said. “I must make a short telephone call downstairs. I may get a cognac in the bar.” Margaret watched him leave, knowing that he was going into the night to meet the black mood that was already trying to find him.
In her room Petra stood at the window, looking into the streets below. Gat had told her about various women he had had. If there truly were a wife and a small child, why did he not also mention them? If he was already married, why did he want to marry her? And that business about Lumumba. Why would he tell her that if it wasn’t true? He had insisted on telling her names. She had not known love, except with Gat, but she knew in her heart that Gat loved her.
But her father also loved her. Was he telling the truth? She had to admit that men did take advantage of young women. She had always taken Gat at his word. Maybe that had not been wise. Maybe he married her for whatever reassurance he could derive from the fact that she would actually marry him. Would she ever know? Only if and when she saw him again.
GAT WAS lying on a gurney in a van and the van was going somewhere. He knew strangely that he was wearing his own clothes. Because of that, even though the motion of the van made him wince, the pain and stiffness in his body seemed to have lessened. Because the van was traveling through darkness, he thought—when he was able to think—of the ride out of E’ville that chilly night only four weeks before, the convoy of cars moving toward the lake formed by the Francqui dam where the bird-watching was excellent. The cars had pulled up in a line at the clearing with the large tree and left their headlights on. He wondered if they were taking him there.
Finally the van stopped. The rear doors swung open. Two men in suit coats and ties stood beside the doors, one on each side. “Here are your escorts,” a warder told Gat. The two men reached into the van as the gurney was wheeled toward them. “Can you stand, mate?” one of the escorts asked. Suddenly the gurney was turned upright. Gat slid to the ground. When his feet hit the pavement, he emitted a whimper. His knees buckled. The men grabbed him, stood him upright. His feet found footing beneath him. “Sorry we have to do this, mate,” the escort said. “Regulations, you know.” The escort slipped a pair of cold handcuffs around Gat’s wrists. “Tight enough, but not too tight. How does that suit?” The escort tightened the cuffs. “Better to hold your hands this way.” He positioned Gat’s hands, one clutching the other, before his stomach. “Thumbs under belt. That’s it.” The escorts took Gat’s arms above the elbow. Although he could hardly walk, they steered him through the balmy summer night. “Nice out,” observed one of the escorts.
“Can you climb stairs?” asked the other.
When it was clear he could not do this, the two men lifted him off his feet. As they took him up the stairway into the plane, he clenched his teeth against the pain. They bundled him through the cabin, past open-mouthed passengers watching in astonishment. They moved to a row of three unoccupied seats at the rear of the plane. One escort took the seat at the window, the other the seat on the aisle. They maneuvered Gat into the seat between them. By the time he sat, his body was sweating, his throat panting. He felt his body had never worked harder in any ten-minute period in his life. He lowered his head against the headrest. It throbbed with pain and dizziness. He fainted and revived, fainted and revived, over and over. He was hardly aware of the plane racing down the runway of Jan Smuts airport and lifting into the sky.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LONDON / JOHANNESBURG
FEBRUARY / MARCH 1961
At Heathrow Gat and his escorts waited until all other passengers left the plane. The escorts removed the handcuffs—there was no need to humiliate him here—and Gat asked a stewardess for a pair of crutches. By the time he made his way to the front of the cabin, lurching from one row of seats to the next, gritting his teeth against the pain, one escort in front of him, the other behind, the crutches were waiting for him. The stairway was more than he could manage. The escorts lifted him by his armpits and carried him to the ground. Walking with the crutches was possible, but very slow. There were still moments when pain rushed to Gat’s head, dizzying him, moments when he thought he would faint. Inside the terminal the escorts arranged for him to have a wheelchair. Gat was pushed through passport control, holding the crutches upright on a foot pedal, and wheeled into the transit lounge. There he was transferred to a chair, his suitcases placed on the seat beside him.
“What now, gents?” he asked the escorts. “I’ve never done this before.”
The escorts said they would find a loo and see about arrangements with British authorities. He should wait where he was; they would be right back. It struck Gat as strange that the escorts should go off so casually. After all, until then they had all but manacled themselves to him. But he assumed they knew their business. He thought about trying to flee. But he knew he would not get far on crutches and, in any case, from whom was he fleeing? He had not slept well on the plane. He spent the night worrying what Rousseau would tell Petra and wondering how to contact her. Now amid the comings and goings of the transit lounge, he nodded off. He slept fitfully for two hours. When he woke, he was alone. He looked about, wondering what had happened to the escorts.
As he searched for them, turning this way and that in the wheelchair, the woman in charge of the transit lounge approached him. She had seen that he was awake now, she said. She bent beside the wheelchair and explained that, when they’d left, the friends he’d arrived with had asked her to give him his passport and other documents. Gat looked baffled at first, but thanked her and took the documents. He realized that the escorts had dumped him.
At first he felt elation at receiving his freedom, but that emotion quickly passed. He began to experience the same depression that accompanied his first days in Johannesburg. He had no career now. Even if he wanted to return to soldiering, what Rousseau and his black warder had done to his feet made that impossible. He had no connection to family, few friends and none in Europe. Worst of all his wife of a single day must now be repenting her foolhardiness in marrying him. She was half a world away and possibly forever beyond his reach.
What should he do now? Return to Belgium? But what would face him there? He had not seen his parents in a decade. He had not even written them during the worst hysteria over the Congo’s collapse to assure them that he was safe and in good health. Could he return to them now, a broken man and a failure? Would they believe him if he revealed to them what happened in Katanga? From a paper he had seen on the plane he knew that Katanga authorities were still insisting that Lumumba had escaped from prison, that he was making his way either to Bukavu in the eastern Congo or to the base of his support in Stanleyville. Could he ask his parents to take him in? No, Gat could not turn to them. He had too much pride for that. Maybe someday he would write them, but he could not contact them now.
And he could not ask for help from his brothers. They had just entered their middle teens when he left. They would not want him around. He’d be a stranger.
If he went to Belgium, could he get treatment in a military hospital? Not without endangering himself. Had he not received strong advice—and a good deal of money—to disappear? If the people at the address in Tervuren knew he had gone to South Africa, would they not
know if he turned up in Belgium? Luckily he still had the money they had sent him. He was not without resources.
With the help of a customer service rep Gat found a cheap hotel near the Parsons Green tube station and arranged by phone for a room. The rep got a second wheelchair, took Gat to a cab, and he was on his way. The hotel was simple, but satisfactory, and offered breakfast, the customary fry-up. The room was warm and had a telephone. The hotel owner arranged for Gat to see a doctor, an Indian. His nurse gasped when she saw his bruises, but the doctor assured him in singsong Gujarati-accented English that in no time at all he would be running along the Thames.
PETRA SPENT the day after her wedding wondering what had happened to Gat. Had he really been released from questioning, as her father insisted? If so, why didn’t he call? Or come to see her? Did he not come because he knew that her father would have shown her the photo of his wife? But how could that possibly be? Was the child really theirs? For long periods she sat staring out the hotel window, tears streaming down her cheeks, waiting for Gat to call.
At other times she paced the room. Was it possible her father had lied to her? If he had, what had he done to Gat? Was he in jail? Had he been charged with aiding terrorists? How could she find out? She locked her door and called Johannesburg police stations. There was no record of a Captain Gautier in custody. But would the police tell her the truth? Africans need not be told about detainees, but she was white. So was the person about whom she was inquiring. If there was no record of Gat, then it must be that her father had never arrested him. They must simply have talked. After which her father released him. Unless, of course, he had been deported. Or told to leave the country and escorted to the airport.
Love in the Time of Apartheid Page 25
