The Monster's Daughter

by Michelle Pretorius

  “Thank you, Captain.” Alet hung up.

  “Do they miss you?” The playfulness was back in Tilly’s voice.

  Alet attempted a smile, but it turned rancid right away. “When was the last time you spoke to your ma?”

  “Did she start a fistfight at church, or is she drunk in the bar?” Tilly raised her hands in mock exasperation. “Can’t take her anywhere.”

  “No, I—”

  “I knew it would eventually come to this.” Tilly shook her head, the curl of her lips threatening to explode her mock seriousness. “She needs bail money, doesn’t she?”

  “Don’t. Please. I need you to listen to me.”

  Confusion clouded Tilly’s features. “Okay.”

  The waitress slammed a plate down in front of Alet, fries falling off the edge. She put a slip of cash register paper next to it. “You pay with me.”

  “Come back,” Alet said. The waitress clicked her tongue and walked away. Alet pushed the plate of food away.

  Across the table, Tilly’s frown deepened. “Why are you asking about my ma, Alet?”

  Alet reached for Tilly’s hand. “They found a match for the dental imprints of the victim, Tilly. They believe it’s Trudie.”

  “I’m not going to ask why you’re still in uniform, Alet,” Mynhardt said. He looked over at where Mathebe escorted Tilly into the interrogation room. Tilly had stared into space the whole way back to Unie, her face void of emotion. Alet wished she knew what to say, but she had always been bad at that sort of thing, delivering little more than ineffectual platitudes she had heard on TV. She sank into a chair in Mynhardt’s office.

  “When was the last time you saw Trudie Pienaar?”

  “I was late with the rent … the third? She was in the garden most mornings, though.” Alet crouched over, resting her head in her hands. She tried to remember, but days flowed into monotonous unity. Trudie had died late Friday or early Thursday morning. Someone had dragged her up the mountain, strangled her and set her body on fire. Alet felt like she was having a vivid nightmare. “I honestly don’t know, Captain.”

  “She’s been dead for five days! You live in her backyard, Alet. Are you telling me that you didn’t notice she was gone? We found her car hidden behind some bushes on the farm. You didn’t notice that was gone either?”

  “Trudie parked in the garage. And there was this Ngwenya kak. I’ve been a little preoccupied.”

  “And Mathilda?”

  “This wasn’t unusual. They’re always at each other. Trudie was stubborn. She refused to answer the phone and—”

  “You have no kooking clue about the shitstorm in this town when they find out it wasn’t just some random black. That it was one of our own.”

  “I want to help. There must be something I can do?”

  “Stay away from the investigation.” Mynhardt frowned. “I mean it. Go home and look after your friend.”

  Alet drove Tilly back to Zebra House after Mathebe had finished questioning her. Tilly placidly followed Alet’s instructions, taking the sleeping pill Oosthuizen prescribed and going to bed. Alet gave Maria instructions to look in on her. She considered going home, but she knew Mathebe would be there, going through Trudie’s house, looking for evidence. Alet took Tilly’s car keys from the coffee table. If there was one thing she hated, it was waiting around.

  Voetsek was locked up in his cage, baring his teeth, emitting a barrage of barks as Alet approached, his black snout pressed up against the chicken wire. She marveled that it was strong enough to hold him. She knocked at the back door. After the third time without answer, she walked around to the back of the house to Magda and Nonnie’s bedroom and banged on the window.

  “Fokof!” a man yelled from inside. Alet recognized the voice.

  “Police,” Alet said.

  The pink net curtains parted and Magda’s face appeared. “A moment, Mies. Please. No trouble.”

  Alet waited at the back door. A flustered Petrus Brink, the head of the farmers’ co-op, appeared in the doorway after a few minutes. He scowled at her, his face red, his hair and clothes disheveled. He opened his mouth to speak, but she waved him along. “Just go.”

  Petrus swore as he headed down the driveway. Alet hadn’t seen his car when she pulled up, but most likely he’d pulled off the main road, hiding it in case anybody drove by, exactly the way the murderer might have done. She waited a couple of minutes before she went into the house, finding Magda in the bedroom, frantically straightening the bed.

  “I’m not here about that.”

  Magda looked at Alet with wide eyes. “What, then, Mies? Mr. Brink, he won’t come back now. He’s a regular.”

  Alet suddenly felt sorry for barging in, her uniform a calculated move to take advantage of Magda. Nobody in town would have tolerated her still playing cop. And Petrus’s money probably also went a long way to contribute to Nonnie’s school fund. “I’m sorry, Magda,” she said, “but I need to talk to you. What Nonnie said—”

  “It was just kids’ talk, Mies. You said so yourself.”

  “No it wasn’t, Magda. You know it wasn’t.”

  Magda sat down on the edge of the bed, her hands folded in her lap, her upper body slumped. “I don’t know what you want, Mies.”

  “I want you to be honest with me.”

  Magda shrugged her shoulders.

  “Do you know a man named Joseph Ngwenya?”

  “No, Mies.”

  “Look.” Alet held Ngwenya’s photocopied mug shot up for Magda. “Is this one of your men?”

  Magda shook her head.

  “You sure? How about Gareth Skosana?”

  Magda averted her eyes. Alet felt a stir of excitement, her hunch paying off. Skosana was the leader of the gang. Ngwenya was a smalltime criminal, but Skosana was a different matter altogether.

  “He sometimes does business here in the area, Magda. People call him the Thokoloshe.”

  Magda kept her eyes fixed on the ground.

  “You know what I think? I think he is one of your boyfriends. Am I right?”

  Magda pulled her cheap satin nightgown tighter around her. “He’ll kill me, Mies.”

  “Is that what Nonnie meant when she said she saw the Thokoloshe? Was Skosana here that night?”

  “Please, Mies.”

  “If you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll get Child Services in.” Alet knew she was being cruel, but she didn’t care. “Do you hear me? I’ll tell them what I saw. I’m police, they’ll believe me. They’ll take Nonnie away for good.”

  Magda let out a sob. “Please, no.”

  “Then you tell me the truth.”

  “Ja, Mies. He comes here.”

  “And Nonnie saw him last Wednesday?”

  Magda nodded. Alet shuddered at the thought of Gareth Skosana going anywhere near Nonnie. He was dangerous, his gang involved in a number of violent crimes. And he was a known associate of Joseph Ngwenya. He was in the mountains on Wednesday night, the same night Trudie was killed. The same night the American tourists were in town. It was tenuous, but then, Alet had never believed in coincidences.

  1960

  Benjamin

  The prime minister, Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, was a large man with a square jaw and wavy blond hair greased flat on his head. Benjamin noticed the scar on Verwoerd’s ear where an assassin’s .22 bullet had grazed the skin that April. The joke around town was that Verwoerd’s skull was too thick to be penetrated by a .22.

  Verwoerd addressed the tall man. “Is he one of yours, Van Vuuren?” He shifted his piercing gaze to Benjamin. “Looks wet behind the ears.”

  “He is trusted.”

  Verwoerd nodded. Van Vuuren’s authority was never doubted. Even powerful men deferred to him. There were rumors in police offices and government hallways, nothing confirmed, of course, but Benjamin recognized something in the Security Branch chief, understood it absolutely the first time he laid eyes on the man. Van Vuuren would be a dangerous enemy to have.

  “Let’s g
et on with it, then.” Verwoerd finished the last of his brandy. He lifted himself out of his seat with effort. “Have that report on my desk as soon as you’re back in Pretoria.”

  Van Vuuren nodded. He motioned to Benjamin to open the door. Two policemen stood directly outside. The hallway had been cleared. They escorted Verwoerd to the front entrance of the building. Benjamin and his men brought up the rear. A black car waited outside, the driver one of the Security Branch men from Pretoria. Verwoerd got into the backseat.

  Benjamin got into a second black car with three of Van Vuuren’s men. He had been introduced to them earlier during the briefing at the station. Vossie was a burly redhead with an easy manner and Gustav could have been his porky, dish-eared cousin. A nervous guy, Stefan, was behind the wheel.

  “Who did you naai to be in on this?”

  Benjamin ignored Vossie, keeping his gaze trained on the car in front of him. He disliked these “trusted” men of Van Vuuren’s. They lacked focus and alcohol seeped from their pores.

  “Doesn’t talk much, does he?” Gustav chipped in.

  “What’s important is that things go right today.” Stefan ignored the traffic signals as he kept a constant distance from the prime minister’s car.

  The dusty Bloemfontein streets were lined with curious white faces on necks craning to see, waving vigorously as the motorcade passed. Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, had survived an assassination attempt by a madman at close range. He was about as popular as the risen messiah, proof that God was on their side. He was spared to lead the volk on a path to glory, the papers declared. It was a legend that Verwoerd was playing up. Perhaps he even believed it himself.

  The fact that his would-be assassin, David Pratt, was a wealthy white farmer who disagreed with the apartheid policies was glossed over. Van Vuuren had interrogated Pratt himself, had him declared insane and committed before anyone else could get to him. Verwoerd went on British television after he recovered and denied that Pratt was a symbol of white people’s mood in South Africa. Earlier that year, the Sharpeville massacre had left a scar on the country’s image, another police fokop. Sixty-nine unarmed blacks dead, most of them shot in the back by police while they were protesting the law that required them to carry passbooks. This sparked a wave of protests throughout the country, and a state of emergency was declared. Verwoerd had tried to reassure the world that all was well, but his interview was overshadowed by the announcement that women could now take a pill and not get pregnant. Winds of change. Benjamin could feel the bedrock of control shifting.

  The prime minister was an academic. He had studied German before the war, had met Hitler, was part of the Ossewabrandwag, which opposed South Africa entering the war on the British side. They supported the Nazis. Benjamin wondered if Verwoerd knew about Jooste’s failed attempts to re-create Leath’s experiments. That he wanted to father the perfect Afrikaner race.

  The road curved. Benjamin let his eyes rest momentarily on the Oranje State Mental Hospital in the distance, the main building barely visible behind a heavy fence and enormous cypresses. Behind the thick walls, in one of the rooms that Benjamin knew intimately, David Pratt waited for a trial that would never come. A few kilometers farther they crested the bridge. The stadium came into view, orange-white-and-blue flags flying everywhere. It had rained the day before, and cars struggled through the mud as they turned off the paved road and drove through the gates.

  Gustav leaned over from the backseat and patted Stefan on the shoulder. “You didn’t fuck up once, girlie.”

  Stefan took the keys out of the ignition. “Congratulate yourself when it’s over.”

  Bodies pulsated in waves, pushing to get a glimpse of Verwoerd. The Pretoria guys scanned the crowd, their bodies like coiled springs, ready to react at the slightest sign of trouble. The policemen made eye contact with their unit commanders. Nods passed between them. Vossie stepped aside, opening the door for Verwoerd. Applause burst forth as the prime minister got out of the car. More pushing. More shoving. Verwoerd stepped out, his shoes sinking into thick mud. He raised both arms to cheers. The conquering hero.

  The stench of horse manure, braaivleis, and something sweet wafted through the air, weaving with the sound of distant music and a cacophony of high-pitched voices. Benjamin escorted Verwoerd up the steps and down to his seat. Huge bouquets of white balloons obscured the line of sight. A security nightmare.

  A special section near the front had been cordoned off for the prime minister and other officials, sheltered by oversize parasols. A display of traditional volk dances was already under way, concertina music blaring over loudspeakers. Benjamin thought of Tessa in her costume during the centennial, kissing him on the cheek. A pang went through his chest, sharp as a knife. He sometimes succeeded in making himself forget, but the slightest reminder plunged him into memories so vivid that he could almost smell the sandalwood of her skin and feel her hand on his neck.

  “Take position near the exit,” Vossie instructed. “Don’t let anyone—”

  A deafening thunder interrupted him as Air Force jets flew overhead in a perfect V formation. People gasped and clapped enthusiastically at the display. It was a symbol of strength, of independence. South Africa would become a republic, shedding British rule once and for all.

  A marching band streamed in from the far entrance of the stadium. Drum majorettes in tall white boots and short skirts marched in formation as the band played. Vossie and Gustav leered at hemlines and passed remarks that could not be heard above the music.

  “And now, the lovely ladies of the Union of South Africa,” a voice boomed over the loudspeakers. “Miss Transvaal …”

  The first of a procession of convertibles appeared at the stadium’s entrance, each with a waving beauty in an evening gown and tiara sitting in the backseat. A wide sash with her province name embroidered on it draped every girl’s body. Miss Transvaal and Miss Natal rode in first. Verwoerd smiled, waving back at them.

  “Miss Orange Free State, Melanie Steenkamp!”

  The girl had long, almost white-blond hair, fashioned in a partial beehive that fell loosely down her back. Her features were carved in skin so fair that it seemed to bleed into the edges of her pale-pink gown. Benjamin mouthed her name, letting each consonant drip into a vowel.

  “… and Miss Union herself, Anita Erasmus!”

  The crowd’s rhythmic clapping rose to a crescendo as the cars circumnavigated the stadium floor, Miss Union tossing long-stemmed roses to the crowd.

  “Lovely.” Vossie stood next to Benjamin. “Nice childbearing hips, hey.”

  “Out of your league, bra,” Gustav said in passing. He cocked his head toward Verwoerd, whose gaze was locked on the car, a hungry child eying candy. “She’s not meant for the likes of you.”

  “Why did you leave your post?” Benjamin masked his excitement in irritability.

  “He’s going to give his speech. Don’t want our mugs on the front page.” Gustav leaned on the steel balustrade lining the stairs. “Might look like the old man is scared.”

  Verwoerd stepped up to the microphone. The mayor took a white fan-tail dove out of a cage at his feet and handed it to Verwoerd. The crowd hushed.

  Verwoerd lifted his eyes to the sky. “We call ourselves European, but actually we represent the white men of Africa.” Small beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. “The white man came to Africa, perhaps to trade, in some cases, perhaps to bring the gospel. He has remained to stay. And particularly we, in this southernmost portion of Africa, have such a stake here that this is our only land; we have nowhere else to go. We set up a country. We believe in balance, we believe in allowing opportunities to remain within the grasp of the white man who has made all this possible. In South Africa, there will be a white state, a big and strong white nation, along with various Bantu national units. How is that different from what we have in Europe? What would have happened to France, to Germany and to Britain if they had lost all their borders and their populations
had become intermingled? Have those nations become intermingled, or has a multiracial state been established in Europe?”

  Verwoerd paused dramatically, the dove clutched between trembling fingers. “In terms of the policy of apartheid, the white man will control his own area, whatever the difficulties might be and however hard it might be. He has the opportunity to save himself, which under a multiracial state he will not have. Leadership in a democracy is not retained by men of pious words. It depends on numbers. Must we simply allow the rest of South Africa to become mixed and in the final result to become dominated by the Bantu? With the Natives outnumbering the whites four to one?”

  Verwoerd manipulated the crowd with ease, moving on to the imminent Communist threat, the black menace of the African National Congress. The recent sanctions passed by the United Nations against them made the path clear. His voice boomed, reaching the climax of his speech. “The Afrikaner would yet again pull his wagons in a laager, like his ancestors, this time against the rest of the world.”

  The mayor, gray-bearded and dressed in a three-piece suit, stepped up to the microphone and struggled to be heard above thundering applause. “And now, we will sing the national anthem while the prime minister releases a white dove as symbol of Afrikaner freedom.”

  A brass band started the first notes of “Die Stem van Suid Afrika.” Everybody stood at attention, their arms at their sides, their hands balled into fists. Verwoerd raised the dove high overhead. With a quick dip, he lowered the bird and flung it. The dove arced through the air.

  Voices trailed off. Heads followed in unison as the dove’s motionless body thumped down at Verwoerd’s feet. The brass band, slow to realize what had happened, maintained an allegro tempo.

  “O fok.” Gustav looked at Vossie in slack-jawed horror.

  Verwoerd’s face turned crimson, his jowls quivering. The last notes of an oblivious tuba player died down to absolute silence. The officials all stared at each other, waiting for someone else to make the first move. A murmur brewed deep in the crowd, nervous agitation threatening to build to ridicule. Benjamin broke the spell. He swooped in front of Verwoerd, grabbed the dead bird, and threw it back into the cage. Behind him, policemen sprang to life. Vossie barked orders. The mayor motioned to the bandleader and the band started the anthem’s introductory notes again. Hesitant voices idled, then gained strength as the song progressed.