“We all have to live together now,” one of the female members on the panel volunteered. “You must remember, no section of the population, white or black, escaped the violence, the abuse of their human rights. We want to avoid a victor’s justice. Nobody is exempt from appearing before the commission.”
“But certainly those in the apartheid government will have to pay for what they did?”
“We are here to hear the truth. It is the only way to heal our land, to reconcile our people. It is a crucial step in our peaceful transition to democracy. It is up to the accused to prove that his actions were politically motivated, or that he was forced to commit these atrocities by those higher up on the command chain. If it is found that he has fully disclosed his crime, and that it was proportionate, amnesty will be considered.”
“But, Archbishop—”
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a long road ahead of us. Perhaps you will gain a better understanding once you have spent some time here with us.”
Adriaan turned the television off. He sat down next to the bed, where the shriveled figure of Van Vuuren lay, an oxygen mask over his face. “How do you like that, Brigadier? Seven thousand have applied for amnesty. Everybody pointing fingers, crying to mamma that they were only following orders.”
Van Vuuren looked at him with dull eyes, a man counting his last hours. Around him the room seemed to echo the sentiment. This was what Van Vuuren was left with after devoting his life to his country, to his ideals. Adriaan felt depressed by the sparse surroundings, the furniture old and dilapidated, the curtains threadbare and dusty.
“The generals have denied that they knew. Imagine that, hey. Back then they gave out medals, now they’re hanging their men out to dry. And you …” He smirked. “Well, your timing has been impeccable, hasn’t it? You always knew when it was time to quit the party.”
Van Vuuren started coughing, his body convulsing from the effort, his chest heaving for air. The doctor had said it was a matter of days now. With him died Adriaan’s only hope of proving that he was acting under orders. Not that he had any intention of appearing before the commission. He refused to justify himself to a bunch of dimwits hugging it out. What he did was necessary for the survival of his people, for their place in this country. They all wanted apartheid, but it was men like him who had to get their hands dirty to make it possible.
Adriaan reached for his hat. “Well, so long, you old bastard,” he said. “You’re getting what you deserve.” Van Vuuren turned his head away.
Adriaan made a call on the pay phone outside. Kalo picked up.
“Is it done?”
“Jim won’t be a problem.”
“Good.” Adriaan couldn’t help but smile. The askari’s name had been on the list of asylum-seekers, and he had dispatched Kalo to deal with it. Nobody else would talk. He had made sure of it. “I have your money,” he said. “Meet me at the usual place.”
There was a message from the general on Adriaan’s desk when he walked into John Forster Square. He looked briefly at the internal memo and then dropped it into the trash. A meeting had been scheduled for the following week. Adriaan had a pretty good idea what it was about. The police were getting rid of the old guard, one by one, sparing themselves the embarrassment if one of their own popped up in front of the news cameras confessing their sins, a golden handshake included in the deal if they went quietly. The police was getting darker and more incompetent every day, promoting new officers who could barely read and write. Affirmative action, they called it. Adriaan had another word for it. He’d be damned if they pushed him out. He had quite enough on all of them to give them an incentive to keep him happy.
He glanced at the clock, a strange nervousness in his stomach. After much pleading and subtly veiled threats, he had arranged with Gerda to meet Alet for the first time in eleven years later that day. He wondered who his daughter had turned out to be. From the occasional surveillance he put on her, he knew she was smart, a bit of a loner. Like her old man. The thought made him smile. Adriaan opened his desk drawer and pulled out an envelope with photographs, retrieving the latest one. It was of Alet at the movies, dressed in a sloppy sweater, her wide-set eyes rimmed with black eyeliner, her dark hair long and unkempt. If she had grown up in his house, he would never have allowed her to walk around like that.
Adriaan glanced at his watch. Once his business with Kalo was done, there would be just enough time to shower and change. In the car, he double-checked the magazine of the Makarov he had stashed under the seat, a souvenir taken from a consignment they had delivered to Inkatha before the elections. It had come in handy on occasion, a gun that was traceable only to the terrorists of the old days, the heroes of the present. His bile rose at the thought.
Adriaan exchanged the Mercedes for an old Toyota bakkie he kept at a garage near the airport. He took the highway back into Johannesburg and pulled the bakkie into an alley across the street from a Hillbrow bar. The area had been abandoned by whites years ago, and violent crime was now rampant, the derelict apartment buildings filled with prostitutes and illegals. He watched the entrance in his rearview mirror. Kalo appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, clinging to a girl who teetered on a pair of bright pink heels, her skirt so short that Adriaan could take a good guess at the color of her underwear. Kalo slipped the girl money and slapped her on her ass when she turned to go back inside. He swayed across the street.
“Hey, Chief!” Kalo reeked of Klipdrift and day-old sweat. He climbed into the passenger seat.
“What did you say to the whore?”
Kalo smiled. “She should keep my seat warm.”
Adriaan reached into his jacket and pulled out the envelope. Kalo opened it, counting the notes inside, his face twisting in mock concern.
“Is a little light, my bra.”
Adriaan stiffened. He couldn’t get used to the familiarity, the disrespect the blacks thought they were entitled to now. “It’s what we agreed on.”
Kalo shook his head. “A man like me has responsibility, Chief. Things are getting expensive, hey. Eish …” He pursed his lips together as if considering the situation. “If that Jim went to the commission, who knows? You’d be in big trouble. But I found him. I made sure he doesn’t talk ever. I take care of you, bra. You’re my number-one priority.” He touched his chest. “I’m not a greedy man, hey.” He smiled, the village idiot.
“How much?”
Kalo bounced the envelope in his palm as if he was weighing it. “One more like this, I think.”
Adriaan kept his expression blank, his hate in check. “I don’t have it on me.”
“No worries, bra.” Kalo patted him on the shoulder. “I check you’re good for it.”
“Let me give you a ride.” Adriaan turned the key in the ignition. “We can stop at the cash machine.”
Kalo’s grin broadened until it threatened to engulf his face. “You look out for me, Chief. Like I look out for you. ’Cause we’re brothers.”
Adriaan drove through the alley, making a right deeper into Hillbrow. Instead of taking the ramp to the highway, he stopped under an old underpass covered with graffiti. Traffic rumbled overhead, the noise amplified by the concrete structure. Kalo’s initial confusion gave way to understanding when he saw the Makarov in Adriaan’s hand.
Kalo’s nostrils flared. His lips pulled away from his teeth in a macabre smile. “Is just a joke, Chief. A joke. You know Kalo will never talk.”
“You’ve become greedy, Kalo.”
“No, Boss. Honest.”
Adriaan pressed the gun to Kalo’s forehead. “Get out.”
“I found the girl.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That girl from the picture.”
Adriaan lowered the gun.
“I was going to tell you, Boss. Bonus for the money. No lies. But I give it to you free now, okay?”
“You told me years ago you couldn’t find her.”
“I saw her. Same as the picture. I
swear.”
“You’ve been lying to me, Kalo.”
Kalo raised his hands, the whites of his eyes large. “No. Honest, Chief.”
“Where is she?”
“I tell you, Boss. Sure I tell you. But Kalo needs to go home first, okay?”
Adriaan lifted the gun. “You tell me now.”
“Eish, no. I don’t—”
Adriaan pulled the trigger. Kalo’s eyes looked right at him, his mouth still open in denial as blood and brain matter spattered the interior of the car. Adriaan clenched his jaw at the mess, a high-pitched ringing in his ears. He’d have to clean it up now. He’d be late. He wondered if Kalo had been telling the truth about the girl. She could be the way to get to De Beer, and Adriaan might have wasted his only chance to find her. He brushed the thought aside. Kalo was loyal to nothing except money. If he really knew the girl’s whereabouts, he’d have put a price on the information a long time ago. Adriaan leaned across Kalo and opened the passenger-side door. He kicked at the body until it fell out of the car and landed with a dull thud on the ground. Adriaan made a U-turn and drove back to the airport.
Tessa
“My son, he went to work that morning. When evening came, I was worried. I stood by the gate to look for him. But he did not come. Then my neighbor ran to me. She said to come to her house. To come look on the TV. I did not understand. It was the news, on the TV. They said the police shot terrorists. White police, they stood there with AKs. The one smiled at us. They showed the bodies of men on the ground. They were all young men from our village. Then I saw him. My son. He was dead. My son he was not a terrorist. My son was a good man. He worked to bring money, because my legs are bad, there is no job for me. Nobody came to tell me my son was dead. I had to see it on the TV.”
“Trudie, luv.” Jeff reached across the bar to switch the radio off, a warning in his voice.
Tessa slowly came back to the present, her thoughts still with the grieving mother from Craddock. Across Zebra House’s bar, ruddyfaced men in khaki shirts averted their eyes to the bottom of their brandy-and-Cokes. Tessa wiped her cheeks, realizing they were wet, sorrow crushing her chest in empathy with the woman, like all the women she’d listened to over the last few months. Clips of the TRC hearings were broadcast every day, every story more horrific, more heart-wrenching than the next.
“Ja. Put the game on instead of that rubbish.”
Tessa locked eyes with the young Terblanche, home for the holidays from Agriculture College. He had become muscular, built like a rugby player, his hair longer than his father would have allowed when he was still living at home. A petite young blond thing in a tie-dyed top clung to him, all giggles and blandness. She wasn’t from around there. Old man Terblanche was sick. Lung cancer, his wife had told Tessa the last time she saw her in town. By the look of him, Boet Terblanche was already throwing his weight around, trying out the role of master.
“Nobody here wants to listen to them whine, Tannie Trudie.” Boet’s defiance gave way to insecurity under her glare. If he was being shown the ropes at the farm, he probably knew that they needed Tessa’s land.
“This woman did nothing. Her son was killed for nothing. Aren’t you interested in the truth? In the history of what happened in this country?”
“That’s what she says, but you know they were all in on it. Murdering people, even their own, calling themselves freedom fighters. ’Cause that’s the African mentality. They’re a bunch of savages.” A few of the men at the bar nodded in agreement, egging Boet on.
“You don’t think what those policemen did was savage?”
“They did their jobs. These blacks claim they were so oppressed? Let me remind you, nobody in this country has been more oppressed than the Afrikaner in the Boer War, or has everybody forgotten that? Our people suffered more for this land than the blacks ever did. But we didn’t go out killing everybody. We rebuilt the nation. We didn’t need to become terrorists or thieves or murderers to do it.”
Tessa’s neck muscles stiffened. She felt so angry that tears burned behind her eyes again. “Do you know anything about your own history, Boet? Do you know about the Broederbond? The Citizen’s Cooperation Bureau? Let me tell you, there is blood on all our hands. Nobody in this country is innocent.”
Boet lifted his chin, a young man’s arrogance glaring down at her. “I know my history, Tannie Trudie. Those people can change it now to make themselves look like little angels because they’re in charge, but we all know what they did.”
“They had no choice. Things would only have gotten worse if—”
“They all just want free handouts, or they take it.” A chorus of “Ja,” and “Hear, hear,” went up around him. Boet had a light in his eyes, his confidence growing. “Those people don’t want to work for anything. Nobody in here has had a good night’s sleep in a long time because of the cattle thefts. Even if they get caught, nothing happens to them. Murderers don’t spend more than a few years in jail now, so why should they care? They are trying to wipe us out. That, Tannie Trudie, is the truth of what’s going on in this country.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me about truth, all of you. All these years you’ve had it lekker while the people working on your farms lived like animals. The consequences of what you did are only coming back to haunt you now, that’s all.”
“I’ve worked for what I have,” said De Hart, one of the farmers. The others chorused agreement.
“You had opportunities, education, support, you had—” Tessa struggled to get the words out, outrage tripping her tongue. From across the restaurant, Tilly glared at her, her arms full of empty glasses and dirty plates as she cleared tables. She’s embarrassed by me, Tessa thought.
Jeff put his hands on Tessa’s shoulders. “Tru, why don’t you take a break?”
Around the room, hostility radiated back at Tessa. She felt acid panic rising from her stomach. Everybody’s eyes were on her. She frantically scrambled out from behind the bar, breaking into a run once she got outside.
“Trudie!” Jeff caught up to her on Kerk Street. “Wait, luv.”
“You didn’t say anything. You just stood there while that bastard …” Tessa heaved for air through her sobs, unwilling to look at him.
“Look, Tru, you have to understand where they’re coming from. Young Terblanche has a chip on his shoulder, sure, but a rumor’s been going around that the ANC might start a land reclamation, that they will lose their farms. They’re all from here. Most of them have never gone farther than Oudtshoorn since the day they were born.”
“Ignorant, stupid! Just like their fathers and grandfathers.”
“They are just people, and they’re scared.” Jeff pulled Tessa to him, but she pushed away.
“They still think they’re owed something.” Tessa’s words were almost incoherent, her hysteria growing. “They cling to this myth, this lie of their so-called noble ancestors.”
“Nobody wants to be told that they’re bad, Tru. My mum always used to say that everybody loves to remind you of their suffering, because suffering makes them right. Let them have their Boer War and their indignation. It’s all they know. All they have left.”
“I was there, Jeff. I’ve seen what people can do to each other. White, black, it doesn’t matter. All I feel when I listen to those hearings is shame, regret that I didn’t do more. My own daughter thinks I’m a loon, but how can I remain quiet? And if I speak up, nobody will believe me.”
“Let me take you home. Tomorrow when you come back—”
“I can’t go back. I can’t pretend that the world works the way they believe it does.”
“Running away is not the answer.”
“I’m done with running.” Tessa looked up at him, defeat bowing her body. “Where could I even go?”
“At the end of the day, we all have to get along, Tru.” Jeff reached for her, but she brushed him off.
“I own myself, Jeff. I’d rather spend the next hundred years alone than saying yes to those people
.”
Jeff nodded. Tessa watched him walk back to Zebra House, something hollow settling inside her.
Benjamin
The organ sounded the last bars of the hymn. As one, the congregation sat down in the polished pews. The young dominee, pink-cheeked and energetic, bounded up the steps to the grandiose pulpit, black robes flowing behind him. “Good morning, brothers and sisters,” he said, his hands outstretched. “I welcome you in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Our reading today will come from Nehemiah Nine.” Bible pages fluttered throughout the cavernous church like butterfly wings.
“… they reveled in your great goodness. But they were disobedient and rebelled against you; they turned their backs on your law.”
It was one of Matrone’s favorites. Benjamin looked up at the dominee, whose face gradually changed to a deeper hue as he finished the reading, ready to feverishly dissuade his congregation. God chose Israel, like God chose Benjamin. But Israel worshipped other gods, turning away from the one true God.
“What is your false god, brothers and sisters?” The dominee pointed a finger down the middle of the congregation. “What is keeping you from following Him?”
Benjamin dropped his gaze, blood pulsing in his ears. Had he strayed without knowing? He had always done what God demanded. The notebooks would prove it, come the Day of Judgment. Each and every one of the girls was anointed for sacrifice. God had shown him the path, pointed them out to him. But there was still one of them left. Benjamin rebelled against the thought as soon as it surfaced. Tessa was promised to him, he would not kill her. But she is also one of them, the thought pushed back. So are you. The last two abominations of man to walk the earth. No. God had promised him salvation. The Bible shook in Benjamin’s trembling hands.
“Renew your vows with God, then, brothers and sisters. Go on your knees and beg him to show you the way. Let us pray so that you may tell Him how you will dedicate your life to Him. It is only in blind faith in His plan for us that we can be saved. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
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