At the Edge of the Desert

by Basil Lawrence

  I was annoyed, furious even, if somewhat elated that my neighbour was too afraid to talk to me. Buoyed up by this triumph, I went home to write a note asking him to tend to his animal and to clean his front yard. I finished with a sentence about rats, trotted over to his place and shot the page through his letterbox. I’d folded it into thirds, with his house number written on the outside, and the letter somersaulted before landing, face up, with my writing on top. As if I’d placed it there by hand. I grinned at the security camera.

  Over dinner, I felt somewhat giddy with excitement. I had enough material from Harmony to start a film about Will, there was money coming into my account from Chesley, but more importantly I’d met Quinty. Afterwards I surfed my go-to porn sites but the flat images didn’t satisfy me. I needed someone touching me, Jago or Quinty’s firm arms around me. And all the while my neighbour’s dog, that godforsaken creature, mourned the night sky.

  —————

  ‘Tell me your rank.’

  It was always my first instruction to the ex-prisoners, and how I checked my sound levels. (On my Verwoerd documentary I’d ask about breakfast, but I quickly learnt that ‘breakfast’ was more complicated for this group of men who invariably arrived at my studio both hungry and high.)

  I’d spent my final weeks in Jo’burg mired in atrocious lives – horrendous childhoods, malicious guards, terminal illnesses (the men alluded to tuberculosis, but left hepatitis and HIV unsaid) – but on my return to Lüderitz I was most hesitant about watching Dollar. I’d left editing his interview until after all the others because everything about him made me itch.

  The man’s real name was Jan Note, according to his identity document, which the Jo’burg charity sent me. He’d been ‘outside’ for a year, having just served three for armed robbery. In common with the other men, he’d spent most of his adult life in prison.

  I’d stumbled upon the reoffender charity when I was doing some work for Wits University. It was a small non-profit; it dispensed free antiretrovirals, and counselled the ex-cons on suppressing their viral loads. It also provided them with combination therapy for tuberculosis and treated the occasional sexually transmitted infection.

  When Dollar entered my studio he ignored me. He dragged the metal chair from where I’d positioned it, in front of my camera, to face the wall. With his back to me, he played around with his phone.

  Like the others, he was a ‘multiple’. All of them were repeat offenders because repeats necessarily had to belong to a gang in order to survive prison: it was how they stayed alive. At first I’d asked the charity not to send any dangerous criminals, but it soon became clear to me that the ex-cons avoided neat categorisation. After all, a man not convicted of murder might well be a killer.

  Without exception, they were all addicts. None spoke about drugs; most didn’t want to tell me about their gang, the subject of my documentary, but because I was paying they grudgingly answered my questions.

  ‘Please look at my camera,’ I told Dollar: my voice was harsh on the playback. Nerves making me sound angry. I’d have been reminding myself to relax.

  He turned his head, and it came as no surprise that his eyes were bloodshot from smoking dagga.

  ‘Your rank?’ I prompted.

  ‘I’m a colonel,’ he said in Afrikaans. He made tiny bobbing and weaving movements with his head, as if about to pounce. I could envisage him waiting outside one of Jo’burg’s walled townhouse complexes, a rich suburban citadel, to hijack whoever was foolish enough to slow their car in front of a not-quite-open security gate. He’d take them to their house where he’d gather everyone he found. Bind their hands and feet with electric cables. Stuff socks in their mouths and shut them with tape before leaving the family and their maid tied up on the kitchen floor while he ransacked the place. The charity assured me that Dollar had never gone so far as to shoot anyone in the back of the head, or lift them by the hair to slit their throat. But even so, it was a rough life for him and his victims.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said. He was asking about the little camera I wore in a holster on my belt for quick shots. The other prisoners took longer to spot it, if at all, but Dollar had seen it right away.

  Ignoring his question, I made him return his chair to its original position and tell me his rank in English, louder this time. I’d composed my shot so there’d be enough space on the left side of the frame for the text I was adding in the edit: a transcription of Dollar’s imaginary uniform. (Da Vinci’s anatomical sketches inspired these medium close-ups.)

  ‘How old are you?’ I said.

  ‘Thirty.’

  The image froze, Dollar’s eyes remaining shut, as I paused the clip to make a note of its timecode. With my pen ready to transcribe his words, I clicked play.

  ‘Tell me about your gang uniform.’

  Even though he’d worn a blue overall jacket and loose army trousers to the interview, he said, ‘I wear the red coat with ten gold buttons.’ His finger drew a line from neck to stomach, tracing the path of those imaginary buttons. ‘And the black collar and the black sleeve. There is gold around that black.’

  I paused the clip again to double-check my verbatim. Then: ‘How many stars do you have?’

  ‘Four stars. I’m the colonel.’

  ‘Do you wear a helmet or a hat?’

  ‘White helmet with the gold badge.’ He grasped the air above his head to indicate the invisible badge. ‘The twenty-eight inside that circle. I’m a man of the Twenty-Eight.’

  South Africa’s dominant prison gangs are the ‘number gangs’ – the 26s, the 27s and the 28s. Initially it had been my intention to ask the men about life as a gang member, but I’d shifted my focus when they began telling me about their uniforms.

  I probably had enough footage of the ex-cons to make a halfway-decent movie a week before I met Dollar, but because I’m an optimistic filmmaker dealing with pessimistic subjects, I’m always on the lookout for more. My lesson from Assassinating Apartheid was that when it came to my final cut, there could never be enough: no matter the hours of good stuff I thought I had in the can, during that edit I’d spent my time cursing my poor filming decisions and shortcuts. So for my prison documentary I’d promised myself as many gifts as possible. And Dollar was an unlikely gift.

  Without watching any more, I began typing his description of his gold-buttoned uniform into my editing software. It took a long time before I was happy with where I finally positioned this text onscreen. Hours of distraction before I returned to my budget spreadsheet.

  —————

  Chesley’s assistant took a week to ring me with news that her boss had decided to employ the Capetonian filmmaker after all. I conveyed the bad news to my sister, who threatened to speak to Mrs Archipelago, but I told her that I wanted to visit Chesley’s mother myself.

  That part of the family lived in a working-class suburb to the east of Lüderitz’s old town; I’d not included the modest houses in Jago’s architecture-appreciation tour.

  My sister had revealed to me that Chesley’s first purchase, after making partner at his firm, was a new house for his parents. He’d convinced his mother to retire from social work and cash in her government pension. She’d followed this advice, but never allowed his insurance broker to touch her money. Instead she’d diversified her portfolio by opening Bows, a massage parlour – not quite in line with Chesley’s plan – which proved to be a recession-resistant ‘alternative investment’ in its own right. Bows operated from the Archipelagos’ old family home on the other side of the road from their new place.

  ‘Mrs Archipelago serves happiness by the hour,’ my sister said slyly, ‘which is a satisfactory outcome for everyone except Chesley.’

  I rang the bell, and the receptionist buzzed me through the security gate, squinting in the sunlight as I entered. The waiting room was the old kitchen, discreetly accessed from the side of the house, and the woman motioned me to a chair near the washing-machine.

  ‘I’m only pass
ing by,’ I said because I didn’t want to sit. ‘I’ve got something for Mrs Archipelago.’ The receptionist took my wrapped gift, a framed photo of Chesley and Zenaid kneeling before the altar at their wedding, and yelled to her boss.

  ‘Hermanus,’ Mrs Archipelago responded from one of the rooms, ‘is dit jy?’

  ‘Yes, Auntie,’ I said.

  She came down the passage with both arms outstretched. A pinafore covered her dress. ‘How are you? How are you? What a lovely surprise! It’s so nice to see you, my darling.’

  I said, ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt …’ after she hugged me.

  ‘Nonsense. Ons maak die plek ordentlik. We’re spring cleaning today.’

  ‘Auntie?’ said a woman from further down the passage.

  The receptionist gave Mrs Archipelago my gift.

  ‘What’s this?’ my aunt said.

  ‘Just a little something.’

  She unwrapped the photo.

  ‘Ag, my engel, dis pragtig.’ She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and hugged me again. ‘Your mother would be so proud that her little boy turned into such a gentleman.’

  ‘As soon as I saw this picture, I knew you should have it.’

  The receptionist offered me coffee but I said I ought to get back to work.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Mrs Archipelago said, ‘kuier a while. Maybe you can help me.’

  I followed her to the first room on our right where a massage bed waited expectantly, as did a plumbed-in corner shower. A woman was bending over a low cabinet that housed a combination television-VCR. She turned and waved hello.

  ‘Wat maak jy, Love?’ Mrs Archipelago asked her.

  ‘Dis die TV,’ Love said.

  ‘I want to break my customers’ fingers when they fiddle with this,’ Mrs Archipelago said to me. ‘When you catch them, Love, you need to give them a smack from me, bonsella.’

  ‘Auntie?’ said another woman who’d just peered into the room from behind us. On seeing me, she said, ‘Kom sit saam met Suzy, my darling.’

  ‘Suzy, that bathroom must shine when I check it,’ Mrs Archipelago warned without looking back.

  ‘I’m not your maid,’ Suzy said. ‘I’m mos a partner in this joint venture.’

  ‘Then go make it shine for our partnership.’

  Suzy shuffled off in her stokies. ‘OK, miesies …’

  ‘Problems?’ I said, meaning the television.

  ‘The men always fiddle fiddle fiddle with my movies,’ Mrs Archipelago said, ‘and they end up jamming the whole system so I have to throw away the machines or get one of Love’s customers, an electrician’ – Love was momentarily puzzled – ‘that one with the funny leg, to help us eject the video. But today I had a brainwave.’

  The equipment was ancient. ‘Where on earth did you buy this stuff?’ I said.

  ‘You see!’ Mrs Archipelago said to Love. ‘I tell you we need to modernise. Hermanus knows these things cost money, but you ladies want all the cash in your pockets instead of wasting it on the men. Isn’t that true?’

  ‘The customers will break anything,’ Love said sourly as she handed Mrs Archipelago a roll of gaffer tape. ‘If we buy expensive then a week later it gets burgled.’

  ‘We used to be robbed three, four times a year, nê?’ Mrs Archipelago explained as she freed the cables from the rear of the television in order to shift the whole thing forward. ‘Everyone who comes to Bows sees what we have. So now my ladies explain to their clients that if anything is stolen then our rates must increase to recoup our losses. And surprise, surprise, the robberies stop. But I buy cheap anyway because it avoids temptation. Chinese rubbish. And we only worry when it jams.’

  She’d begun to cover the control panel with tape. I helped her run the adhesive strip all the way around the back of the set before sticking its end under the machine to make it difficult to peel off without picking the whole thing up. She said not to worry if it interfered with ventilation.

  ‘So how’s your sister?’ she said. ‘Lucia’s the most dedicated person I know.’

  ‘She sends her love and was sorry she couldn’t make the wedding.’

  ‘It was lovely seeing you there, Hermanus.’

  ‘Ja, I enjoyed it. And it gave me a bit of extra cash, which helps.’

  ‘That’s nice. It’s so important for each of us to have a job. Look at me: I can’t sit around “retired” all day long.’

  ‘Chez mentioned he might have some extra work for me.’

  ‘Did he? I’m glad to hear that.’

  ‘I just hope I’ll be able to do it.’

  ‘Nonsense. Who says you can’t?’

  ‘He told me that they might fly someone in from Cape Town.’

  ‘Instead of you? No. That doesn’t make sense. He’ll be lucky to get you! Let me talk to him.’

  Together we’d secured the remaining televisions, and when we were done I kissed her cheek and sent my regards to my uncle. Later that afternoon, Chesley’s assistant called to apologise for the mix-up, and to confirm that my cousin’s firm would be booking my services after all.

  ‘She has a guilty conscience,’ my sister said when I relayed this to her. ‘And he’s a good little boy who listens to his mother.’

  Kolmanskop

  Chesley retrieved a page from a file behind his desk. On it was a paragraph he’d highlighted in yellow:

  The Herero people must leave the land. Within the German borders every Herero, with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot. I will no longer accept women and children, I will drive them back to their people or I will let them be shot at. These are my words to the Herero people.

  I read the words a few times. They weren’t difficult, yet I struggled to comprehend them.

  ‘Do you have the original?’ I said.

  Chesley slid a second sheet over the first. The meaning, as best I could translate from the German, was the same.

  He said, ‘How much do you know about Shark Island?’

  ‘It had something to do with the war, didn’t it?’ I’d come across a few things about Lüderitz online, but wasn’t sure how much to believe. ‘It’s really beautiful: I swim there every day.’

  ‘Well, it’s a terrible history,’ he said, ‘which not many people want to talk about. And not just us Buchters. This reticence goes all the way up to government: none of our ministers want to remember it either. Basically, it will take years before we set foot in court, but we’re suing the Germans for what they did to our country while it was their colony.

  ‘Look, there’s one fact that nobody under the sun can dispute. Everything else in this case can plausibly be argued a million different ways, but in the first decade of the twentieth century the Germans issued this extermination order’ – he prodded the photocopied pages with a finger – ‘against the Herero. Germany committed genocide in Namibia, and we’re demanding reparations. General Lothar von Trotha, the man who drafted these words, was in charge of their colonial troops. It was his official order. The original proclamation is held in Botswana.’

  I contemplated the words. Jeder Herero erschossen. Every Herero will be shot. ‘It doesn’t sound like he was warning them,’ I said.

  ‘No, he wanted to destroy the entire tribe. He almost succeeded, and that’s why the Herero now make up less than ten per cent of our population. By the time he’d finished his massacre, we estimate that about eighty per cent of the Herero were either dead or driven out of Namibia.’

  ‘Eighty per cent?’

  ‘Numbers vary – if it’s even possible to put an accurate figure on something like this – but there’s no question that the genocide killed countless people.’

  ‘If the Germans did this—’

  ‘As best they could, they did it. They tried really hard. So, ja, it was genocide.’

  ‘Then surely it’s an open-and-shut case?’

  ‘But that’s where things get complicated.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Our government has its own human r
ights abuses—’

  ‘Are you serious? How does that even compare to something like this?’

  ‘I’m not saying that it compares, but the abuses committed during the liberation struggle are a considerable embarrassment for some of our politicians.’

  ‘They should just deal with it.’

  ‘Well, they worry that if lawyers like me start digging up the past there’s a good chance that the other side will find just as many skeletons in the government’s closet. Some Herero remains have been repatriated from Germany, and there’s a genocide statue in Windhoek’s independence museum, but I honestly believe that’s because our government hopes this will go away: “What’s done is done. We must look forward, eksetra eksetra.” And the longer they delay, more and more Herero who remember this history will die.’

  ‘And their memories will vanish.’ I imagined the dead souls drifting up into the sky.

  ‘Your job is to make sure we don’t lose them.’

  ‘What do you need me to do?’

  ‘I need you to interview the families of the Herero survivors.’

  ‘When you say “survivors” …?’

  ‘You must film as many descendants as you can, and record everything their ancestors told their family about the genocide. Artefacts. Memories. The Germans abolished the last concentration camp in 1907, but we know there are grandchildren and great-grandchildren who’ve heard these stories. A lot is already in the public domain, if you know where to look, but we need real people, if you know what I mean, to demonstrate that this lawsuit is about justice for them. We need to hear voices and see faces and feel some sort of emotion if we’re to believe their accounts. My partners and I know that if we disseminate these living testimonies online we’ll stand the best possible chance of winning.’

  ‘I know what it’s like having people pretend that something never happened,’ I said. ‘How it’s ignored and forgotten, but how that history always lurks beneath the surface.’

  He returned his papers to their file and sat back in his chair, shifting about as if finding it difficult to make himself comfortable. Eventually he went to close his office door. ‘There are legal questions about how we define genocide,’ he said as he came back. ‘There are legal arguments about whether the colony was at war with the Herero people, or if the Germans were merely responding to a local Herero rebellion … but that’s not for you to worry about. Depending on how those questions are answered, though, the descendants might not have sufficient legal standing to sue. Which is why we need short, punchy testimonies that can easily be shared, and that have a chance of going viral, to get the public on our side.