“I only … He had a Bible, Captain. He probably prayed this morning too.”
“The Bantu are less civilized,” Benjamin recited. “The more primitive a people is, the less they are able to control their emotions. At the slightest provocation they resort to violence. They cannot distinguish between serious and less serious matters. They are less self-controlled and more impulsive.” He locked eyes with Berg. “Page thirty-five of your Criminology and Ethnology handbook. Or did you skip over that part in college? Do you want them to do to our women what they did to that white woman over there, bash our children’s heads in?”
Berg had a look of defiance, his jaw set tight. “I read everything, Captain. It doesn’t explain—”
“Am I going to have a problem with you, Berg?”
“What do you mean, Captain?”
“When I’m in the bush, I don’t need a man who wonders which side is right. I need a man who will have my back. Who will follow orders without question. Otherwise, you are worthless. You might as well put a bullet in your own brain. It’s us against them. Understand?”
Berg nodded.
“I said, do you understand?”
“Ja, Captain. Us against them.”
Benjamin watched Berg join the others as they finished digging the pits, with them, but not part of them. He soon took over leadership of the group, directing the men to cover the pit with leaves and petrol after they dumped the six black men into the hole. Berg dropped a match into the pit. Petrol flames leaped up. Benjamin watched for a long time, remembering the feeling of fire dancing on his skin.
Tessa
She dried her hands, put her wedding ring back on her finger, and practiced a nonchalant smile, preparing herself mentally for what was to come. She had the face of a woman in her mid-twenties, thinner than she should be, perhaps, blond hair cut short in an attempt to fit in with the times, but her eyes betrayed the world-weariness she felt in every thought. Outside the bathroom door, Dean, his hair thinning, his middle-aged paunch spreading, would unwittingly wait for her to disappoint him again.
Tessa picked up the black sash she had sewn for herself and draped it over her shoulder. The solidarity she felt with the other women while protesting on the parliament steps gave her courage. She went as often as she could. Women protesting apartheid did not achieve much in a world run by men, but at least she felt like she was not passively watching the country go to hell.
She found Dean outside in the garden, fiddling around in the dirt, taking a break from the mounds of case files on his desk. “I’m off, darling.”
“Ah, my conscientious objector. Be careful?” Dean stood up and dusted his hands off.
People sometimes got physical against the women of the Black Sash. Tessa had had a narrow escape the week before, when someone flung a rock that missed her by centimeters.
“I will.” Tessa looked at his dirty hands. “How are the tomatoes?”
“It’ll be another week or so. If I can keep Rupert out.” At Dean’s feet, a golden spaniel wagged its tail. In the year since they got a dog, Rupert had managed to destroy the garden, two leather chairs and so many shoes that Tessa had a hard time finding matching pairs.
“We don’t spend enough time with him,” Tessa said.
“I know.” Dean went on his haunches and rubbed the spaniel behind the ears. “But the kids love it when I bring him along.” He often hosted community-outreach events in the townships and Tessa went with him, translating, helping where she could. The people called her Nobantu. Mother of humanity. Tessa thought it ironic.
“Makes one wonder if we should even bother having our own,” she said casually.
Dean looked at her, a subtle sadness clouding his easygoing demeanor. “Again?”
Tessa nodded. Without warning she started to cry. It surprised her that she still had it in her to be disappointed after all the months of prodding and poking by the doctors amid reassurances that there was nothing wrong with either her or Dean.
Dean had his arms around her. “Perhaps we should give in-vitro a try?”
Tessa shook her head, scared that if the doctors looked too close, they might find the truth.
“Listen, Lilly, don’t give up. If they can transplant a heart, they can certainly find a way to give us a baby.”
“It won’t work.”
“It might.”
Tessa looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “I can’t even do this one thing that’s supposed to happen naturally.”
“Nonsense.” Dean took both her hands in his. “Listen, we’ll take a holiday, go away. It would do you good to relax. Let me just finish with the Terrorism Act case …”
Tessa pried her hands loose. “You’re still working it? We talked about this.”
“We have to appeal, Lilly. They’re holding people without trial for sixty days now and talking about extending it. Don’t you remember what we went through when they took Phillip? What he went through? Imagine if they can do that for two months or more without having to justify themselves to anyone.”
“Always saving the world.”
“That’s why you married me.”
“Yes.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “But I worry.”
“Hey,” Dean said, pulling her close. “It doesn’t matter to me, you know? The baby, I mean.”
“I know,” Tessa said, convinced that he was only saying it to make her feel better. She knew the time had come to tell Dean the truth, but the words sounded absurd in her head. He would think she was crazy, leave her. Perhaps Ben had been right. Perhaps they were abominations and this was God’s curse. Tessa shuddered.
“Are you okay, Lill?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“All right.”
Rupert barked. In the house, the doorbell rang.
“You expecting anyone?”
Tessa shook her head. “Maybe Prudence? I invited her to bring Jacob over for a visit sometime this week so I could give him his birthday present. He’s getting so big.” A lump formed in her throat, but she swallowed it back. Dean squeezed her hand. Tessa couldn’t stand his look of pity, so she walked back into the house.
There was nobody at the front door. Tessa was about to close it when she noticed a package on the ground. She started, staring at the block letters on the simply wrapped rectangle. “TESSA.” She glanced at the street. Beyond their garden fence lay the white Johannesburg suburb of Sandton, manicured lawns, the smoke from braaivleis fires rising up from backyards. But he was there, she could feel his presence. Ben had found her.
Tessa grabbed the package and backed into the house, locking the door behind her. Her hands shook as she tore at the brown wrapping, revealing a plain school notebook. The cracked red binding and curled pages showed signs of wear. She opened it.
A woman’s name, Janine Herbst, was written in familiar childish script at the top of the first page. Obsessive pages of intimate details followed, her friends, where she went, even the dates of her menstrual cycle. At the end of the entry was a date and time, December 9, 1948, 0:42. Tessa turned the pages, Sannie van Aswegen, a slew of facts, a date and time concluding the entry. The whole book was filled with names. One entry made her stop. Melanie Steenkamp. Tessa remembered a newsreel in the cinema, black-and-white images of a beautiful blond girl with a bouquet in her arms. Tessa turned to the end of the entry, dated May 2, 1960, 23:10.
Dean was at the back door, wiping his feet, trying to keep Rupert out of the house. Tessa crammed the notebook and packaging inside her handbag on the dining-room table.
“Who was it?” Dean wiped his hands on his trousers.
“No one. Go wash your hands. I just did the laundry.”
“Sorry.” Dean looked at her sheepishly.
“You need a bath, my piggy.”
“You wanted to talk to me about something, Lilly?”
“Tonight, when I get back.” Tessa hesitated outside the bathroom door, her thoughts racing. They could empty their bank accounts
, pack what was necessary and leave. As soon as she thought it, she realized it was foolish. She couldn’t ask Dean to give up his work and hide for the rest of his life. But she also couldn’t bear to leave him. She needed to gather her thoughts, figure out what Ben was up to. She grabbed her handbag and car keys. “I’m off, darling. There’s a plate for you in the fridge.”
Dean stuck his head out of the bathroom. “Love you.”
Flippie
“I didn’t say it back, Flippie. I didn’t tell him I loved him too. I was only gone a couple of hours. I didn’t even go to the protest. I just needed to think, clear my head. I came back home and … There is so much blood. So much.”
“Tessa, slow down. What happened?” Flippie gripped the phone receiver between his shoulder and ear, trying to clear a space on his desk for his coffee mug. Prudence looked up at him from her knitting, concern in her eyes. On the floor of the living room, Jacob played with plastic farm animals, herding small sheep out to pasture with the help of a border collie.
“Dean was taking a bath. He is still in the tub, he’s …” Tessa broke off in undecipherable sobs. “He’s dead, Flippie.”
Flippie felt stunned, not sure if he had heard her right. He sat down. “How?”
“Ben found me. He shot Dean. I know it was him. I thought he only wanted me, but—”
Flippie felt alarm at the name. “Tessa, listen to me. Go to the office. I’ll come as fast as I can.”
“I can’t leave Dean.”
“Tessa! Get out of there. Now.” Flippie couldn’t hear anything on the other end of the line. For a moment, he panicked. “Tessa?”
“Ja?”
“Please, Sis. I need you to listen to me. It’s not safe to stay there. Get in your car and go. Right now, okay?”
“Ja.”
There was a soft click. The thought of Dean’s body in the house sent a new wave of anguish through Flippie. He tried to get his emotions under control and then called Pote Howard, a private investigator who sometimes consulted on cases. He explained the situation as concisely as he could, hoping that Tessa had made a mistake, that Pote would call back and tell him that Dean was fine, that he had simply slipped in the bath and hit his head.
“The police are swarming the place, Phillip.” Pote delivered the news an hour later. “Security Branch. Wasn’t much I could do. One of the younger laaities let it slip that it was a single gunshot to the back of the head. They are selling it to the reporters as an internal ANC dispute.”
Flippie sighed. This was the mantra of the police whenever they “took care” of bothersome members of the ANC. The blacks were so barbaric, they killed their own people. How can we possibly let them control the country? Since the ANC and PAC were banned, no real investigation was ever launched into the disappearance or death of black men. But this would be different. There would be an outcry in the media, whites cowering in their houses, their hatred of the black menace reinforced.
“What about Dean’s wife? Anyone mention her yet?” Flippie braced himself for the worst.
“They’re not too interested in her,” Pote said. “They’re making this political. Look, did she …?”
“No. But I need to ensure her safety, so it’s better they forget about her for now.”
“Understood. I’ll see what I can do.”
As he drove past the mine heaps, Flippie felt his age, the burden of the fight. His colleague, his dearest friend, had become another victim of a seemingly hopeless struggle. Even in police detention, when he was beaten, stripped of his dignity, when only the thought of Prudence and his son made him fight for life, he hadn’t been this hopeless. If the government was willing to kill white people now to maintain power, they would stop at nothing.
Downtown Johannesburg was deserted. Tessa’s car was parked outside the high-rise of Dean’s office. Flippie found her cowering inside, her dress covered in blood. She rushed over to him as soon as he walked through the door, crying hysterically.
“What happened?” Flippie asked once he managed to calm her down enough to speak.
“His head was all … I was only gone for a few hours, Flippie.” Tessa sank into Dean’s chair, her arms wrapped around her waist. “It was Ben.”
“You don’t know that, Tessa.”
“He sent me this.” She showed him the notebook. Flippie had never met Ben, only heard Tessa speak about him. He often wondered if she was exaggerating the relationship, a jilted lover becoming a monster in her mind.
“What does this mean?”
“I think it’s …” She held her mouth to her hand. “I think he killed them.”
Flippie sat down next to her. “Look Tessa, Dean did a lot of work that the government didn’t like. This case he was working on—”
“You’re not listening to me, Flippie!”
“I am, Tessa. I’m just saying that Dean ruffled powerful people’s feathers. It’s not the first time the Security Police would have done this sort of thing.”
Tessa’s face contorted, tears flowing freely. “I was going to tell him, you know.”
Flippie put his arm around her. “I know, little one.”
“It should have been me.”
Flippie felt his own grief rip at his chest. The only way he knew how to cope was to focus on what needed to be done. “We have to get you to safety. If it is this Ben—”
Tessa gave him a sharp look. When Flippie looked into those pale eyes, he often wondered if the old stories and scary movies were true, if she was one of those creatures that lived forever because she had no soul. He pushed the thought aside, ashamed of himself. Tessa had changed with Dean, the selfish little girl had disappeared. She was essential to their work now, facilitating communication, understanding. If she had been a man, her gift would have been invaluable.
“I believe you, Tessa.” Flippie touched Tessa’s arm. “But we can’t rule out the alternative. The government might simply have wanted him out of the way. There’s an ANC safe house on a farm about fifty kilometers outside town. You can stay there for a while. I’ll organize a new ID book and birth certificate, but it’ll take a few days.”
“What, then?” Tessa looked lost.
“You need to get out of the city.”
“I can’t.”
Flippie took her face in his hands. “Like Pa taught us, remember?”
There was a flicker in Tessa’s eyes, a memory they both shared. Andrew packing their bags when they were children, deciding what they could take with them. “Moving is like shedding your cocoon,” he’d say. “Nobody will remember the ugly worm you were, they’ll only see the new butterfly.” Flippie wondered if it had become easier over the years for Tessa to shed her old self. From the pain in her eyes, he doubted it.
Flippie moved a cabinet behind Dean’s desk away and unlocked the safe behind it. He took cash from inside and placed it on the desk. “Take this. I’ll try to get you more.”
Tessa stared blankly at the money. “I forgot Rupert.”
“Tess?”
“I left him there, alone. Dean would never have left him.”
“Tessa, don’t do this.”
Tessa grabbed his wrist. “You don’t believe me about Ben, but you have to listen, Flippie. He’s dangerous.”
Flippie gently took her hands. “I’ll make sure he can’t find you.”
Tessa looked up at him, a wry smile distorting her lips. “He said he’d always find me.”
Benjamin
Distracted men and the smell of cheap perfume filled the smoky bar. Benjamin glanced at his watch. Van Vuuren was late. He’d reassigned Benjamin to the new Bureau of State Security—BOSS—the moment he set foot back in the country. It seemed that news of his … efficiency had reached the higher echelons of the force, and they always needed a man who could get things done.
Benjamin finished his brandy, his limbs softening at last. He took the newly bought notebook out of his briefcase and placed it on the table. Only one entry. A short one. It wasn’t hard t
o find out what he needed to know this time. He started writing the date at the bottom of the page in a careful, almost childish script. A drink appeared on the table, and Van Vuuren sat down.
Benjamin tucked the notebook into his briefcase. “You didn’t get me one?” Benjamin touched his hand to his chest. “I’m hurt, Boss.”
“Who authorized the hit?” The corners of Van Vuuren’s mouth were set in a hyperbole of disgust.
“Sir?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, De Beer. The lawyer today, Kritzinger.”
Benjamin leaned back. “You did, of course. Congratulations, sir. You took care of a Communist collaborator. Maybe we’ll have another secret medal ceremony in the defense minister’s office. What do you think?”
“Don’t play games with me, boy.”
Benjamin smiled at being called “boy.” He got up and walked away from the table, chatting with the bartender as he languidly ordered another drink.
The old man’s face had taken on a livid hue by the time he got back to the table. “You explain yourself, right now.”
“You should go home, Boss. You might miss an important call.”
“Look here, I will not let a snot like you dictate what happens in my unit, understand?”
Benjamin watched a stumbling drunk man at the bar. The man clung to a woman young enough to be his daughter. Benjamin found it curious that he felt nothing, no moral judgment, no disgust. He didn’t get hard at the sight of the man running his hands over the woman’s breasts, his thumbs lingering over her nipples.
The numbness hadn’t happened all at once. It was like a spiral winding tighter and tighter as the days went on, crushing everything in his soul. War had changed the value of life for him. All the people around him became inconsequential puppets, obstacles to achieving his salvation. He went through the motions of being among them, following the rigid, ritualized code of behavior that made it so easy to blend in, but he knew that he could put a bullet in any of their brains and feel nothing. God had shown him his true place, a lion among the sheep.
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