Sacrificed

by Chanette Paul

  “But you were aware that there were people next door?”

  “I saw the curtains move. That’s all. My sister informed me that tenants normally stayed for a week or longer.” She couldn’t remember whether she’d already said so. Her mind was in turmoil.

  “Your landlady in Leuven mentioned she saw you with a street musician near her home. Not for long, but long enough to have a conversation. Is that correct?”

  What was he on about now? “I listened for a few moments because the music made me nostalgic for Africa, but I didn’t talk to the man.”

  “The street musician played an unusual instrument? A rather primitive one?”

  “That’s right. I looked it up afterwards on the internet. It’s known as an mvet or stick zither.”

  “Can you describe it?”

  Caz sighed inwardly. Where the hell was the man going with this line of questioning? “It’s a string instrument. The strings are attached to a bent stick. A gourd provides resonance. Or at least I think so. I’m not an expert on traditional or any other musical instruments.”

  “Can you tell us whether the instrument looked more or less like this?” De Brabander nodded at the inspector who got up and took something from a cardboard box. It was wrapped in transparent plastic and sealed.

  Caz swallowed against the lump in her throat when she realized what she was looking at. “To the best of my knowledge this looks like the instrument the African man was playing.”

  “I find it strange that you can identify an instrument you say you saw in Leuven but that was left in a cupboard in your sister’s rental home in Ghent by one of the tenants.”

  Caz could only stare at him, speechless.

  “I ask again. Do you know who the tenants were?”

  Caz shook her head.

  “Please answer out loud.”

  “No. I never saw them. My sister never even told me she was the owner of the house next door. She just told me the rooms were rented out on a weekly basis. I didn’t ask for further details.”

  “And you never met them?”

  Caz sighed despondently. Didn’t the man understand what she was saying? So far he had seemed to be following her Afrikaans well enough as long as she spoke slowly and chose her words carefully. “Not that I know of. If I did, I wasn’t aware that the person or persons lived in the house next door.”

  “Why did you ask Miss Colijn about the rental home?”

  “I said something about the neighbors being inquisitive. They peered from behind the curtains. Something like that. That was when my sister said they were temporary neighbors that changed on a weekly basis.” Crikey Moses, how many times would she have to repeat it?

  “You speak of your sister, but Tieneke Colijn was not really your sister, was she?”

  “No, but I only found that out just before I came here. I have called her my sister all my life; it’s what I’m used to calling her.” Exhaustion, which affected much more than her body, impeded her thoughts, made them clumsy and incoherent.

  “You were estranged from Miss Colijn even before you found out, not so?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had no contact for years.”

  “That is correct.” Babette must have thought fit to inform him.

  “When you found out you weren’t related by blood, you came here to see them. While you never did so in the something like twenty years since they returned to Belgium, when you were still under the impression that you were biologically related. How does that make sense?”

  “My sister ... Tieneke phoned me. She told me that our ... her mother was dying and wanted to see me. That was also when she told me that Josefien and Hans Colijn were not my biological parents and that her mother was the only one who knew the truth.”

  “Ms. Colijn, what is the real reason for your coming to Belgium?” he asked as if she hadn’t just answered him.

  Caz gave a deep sigh and forced back the tears. This was no time to crack. “To find out who my biological parents were and to see my daughter.”

  “You have a daughter?”

  “That’s right. She lives in Paris but she’s currently traveling for her work.”

  “Where is she now?”

  Caz tried to remember, but she was too confused. “I’m not sure. The Bahamas, no ... Morocco, or maybe Dubai. One of those two. I don’t remember the dates on the itinerary she gave me. I only know she’ll be back in Europe on October the seventh.”

  “What is she doing in Morocco or Dubai?”

  “Shooting.”

  De Brabander’s eyebrows flew up.

  “A photo shoot. Photographic session. She’s a model.”

  “Could you give us her name and contact details?”

  “She’s actually Lila Colijn—pronounced the Afrikaans way—but to make it easier for the English-speaking world, she’s known as Lilah. She doesn’t use her last name. Her permanent address is Rue St ...”

  “Lilah?” Agent Verhoef’s eyes grew wide. “You mean Lilah who was recently on the cover of Cosmopolitan? Last month, to be exact?”

  Caz sighed. She guessed what was about to come. “That’s her.”

  Verhoef gave an incredulous laugh. “Ms. Colijn, that is a barefaced lie.”

  De Brabander’s frown became a chasm. “What do you mean?”

  The woman got to her feet. “Excuse me for a minute.”

  The commissioner looked at her questioningly.

  “I know where to find a copy of the magazine.”

  “What’s going on?” asked De Brabander when Verhoef hurried out.

  Caz shrugged. She would give the agent her dramatic moment. Lord knows, she needed a breather to sort out her thoughts.

  “Your foster mother died the day after you arrived in Belgium, is that correct?” De Brabander was clearly not going to allow her the breather she needed.

  “It is correct.”

  “And did you find out the identity of your biological parents?”

  “Only the name of my biological mother and where she lived a long time ago. She doesn’t live there any more.”

  “And your foster sister, Tieneke Colijn, was Mrs. Colijn’s sole heir?”

  Where was he coming from this time? “Correct.”

  “Do you happen to know who the beneficiary is of Tieneke Colijn’s estate?”

  The way he looked at her gave her the shivers. “I don’t have the faintest idea.”

  “Any suspicion?”

  “No. I honestly don’t know what went on in Tieneke’s life, let alone her will. As you’ve already said, we’ve been estranged for many years.”

  The door opened and the agent came in. She put the magazine in front of De Brabander with a flourish. “That is Lilah on the cover. The article is on page 103, with more photographs.”

  Caz doubted whether De Brabander had heard. He stared at the cover. At the beautiful woman with the masses of long black braids, decorated with bronze beads and feathers, the high cheekbones and striking silvery blue eyes in sharp contrast with the sepia skin tone.

  He looked up, let his gaze sweep over her slowly, taking in the long gray hair that had once been blonde, the sun-bronzed white skin, the Caucasian features. At last his gaze found hers. “I take it she’s your adopted daughter?”

  Caz shook her head. “No, she’s my biological daughter, Commissioner. And for the record, her biological father, my ex-husband, is white too. She’s a fluke. A beautiful fluke.”

  A strange sound exploded from Agent Verhoef’s lips.

  De Brabander cleared his throat. “Let’s leave it there for now.” He paged through his notes.

  Leave it for now. It. “It” that had turned her entire life upside down. Of course they thought she was lying. Like Hentie had thought she was lying. Andries. Magdel. Fien and Tieneke. A white couple could not h
ave a dark-skinned baby. It was impossible. A sallow complexion, perhaps. But not umber.

  And it had to happen in South Africa, of all places. In 1983, the heyday of apartheid. During the P.W. Botha administration. His new Constitution worth less than the paper it was written on.

  In 1986 the Immorality Act was scrapped and pass laws recalled, yet Lilah was still denied entry to white nursery schools. In the mornings Caz left her with a domestic helper to go to the doctor’s surgery where she had a half-day post as a receptionist. In the afternoons she studied for her translation diploma at home, with Lilah chattering at her feet in a mixture of Sotho and Afrikaans.

  The domestic helper had thought it her duty to teach a black child a black language. She was a wonderful woman but certainly not an ideal candidate for daycare. She began to treat Lilah more and more like a protégée, trying to alienate her from Caz.

  It had been one of the reasons why Caz had chosen translation over teaching. She had hoped to get along without a domestic helper. She would work from home and be there for Lilah.

  During her pursuit to get an answer to the question of how it was possible for a white couple to produce a black child, she found out that Lilah had a predecessor in South Africa in the person of Sandra Laing, a black girl born in 1955 from a white marriage. Sannie Laing, her mother, was also suspected of adultery with a black man. The big difference was that the father believed the mother and stayed married to her. Their greatest struggle had been having the child classified white and enrolling her at a white school.

  The mystery of Sandra Laing’s descent was never solved. Neither was Lilah’s. The Maritz family tree, as far as Caz could discover, was lily-white, and so was Magdel’s. As lily-white as any South African’s family tree can be, mind you. Hans and Fien’s pedigrees were even purer. None of their ancestors had set foot in Africa before Hans came to South Africa.

  “Would you mind,” De Brabander brought her back to the present, “sharing with us the identity of the person you plan to meet tomorrow regarding, and I quote, ‘a private matter’?”

  For a moment Caz didn’t know what he was talking about. Then she remembered. Leuven. Tomorrow. Her contact with Ammie Pauwels. Luc DeReu’s friend. She shook her head, bemused. “It has nothing to do with Tieneke’s death. It’s a completely different matter. As the person who’s inspecting my cellphone will tell you.”

  “Ms. Colijn, what is the person’s name? It can’t be such a hard question to answer.”

  She gave a deep sigh. “I don’t know the person’s real name.”

  De Brabander’s eyebrows shot up again. He had perfected a facial expression that portrayed surprised scepticism. “How is he or she known to you?”

  “Tijl Uilenspiegel.” The moment the words were out she could kick herself. She should simply have said TU.

  De Brabander lowered his chin, but his gaze held hers. As if he was peering at her over imaginary spectacles.“Tijl Uilenspiegel.”

  “It has nothing ...”

  De Brabander held up his hand. “Yes, Ms. Colijn, you’ve already said it has nothing to do with Tieneke’s murder—that’s right, not Tieneke’s death, Tieneke’s murder. Could you tell me then what he or she has anything to do with?”

  Suddenly Caz had had enough. Of detectives and dead bodies and musical instruments turning up where they had no business to be and of Uilenspiegels as well. “Yes, Commissioner, I could. But I’m not going to. Ask the man who’s checking my phone.”

  She got up and slung her handbag over her shoulder. “Am I under arrest or can I go home? I’m tired. Dreadfully, dreadfully tired.” She looked him in the eye. “I hope you won’t ever be in a situation where you have to identify your sister’s body on the same day that you’re accused of her murder. Believe me, it’s not an agreeable position to find yourself in.”

  De Brabander got up too. With her chin raised, Caz looked down at him.

  “You’re not under arrest. But I want to be informed of your movements.”

  “I’m going to the nearest bus stop and from there to my guesthouse. Do you want to be informed of my movements inside the house as well?”

  “You know what I mean. Are you still planning to go to Leuven tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “To meet Tijl Uilenspiegel?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Someone whose real name you don’t even know?”

  Caz sighed. “That is correct.”

  De Brabander tried another curveball. “The estrangement between you and your foster mother and sister, what was the reason for it?”

  “They disowned me because of the color of my daughter’s skin. And because of their so-called logical conclusion that I had slept with a black man. It was before the Immorality Act was recalled.” She didn’t give a damn whether he knew about the Immorality Act. She’d had it.

  The man returned with her phone.

  “The thing is hot, Commissioner.” He looked in Caz’s direction and said something she couldn’t hear.

  Caz frowned. Did he mean it was stolen? Couldn’t be. She’d got it brand new with her most recent upgrade. It had been registered according to the strict regulations in South Africa.

  De Brabander turned to her again. “Are you aware that someone can read all your messages and listen to all your calls?”

  So TU had been right, though she hadn’t believed him. “No.” She wouldn’t even try to explain that she had suspected it. She didn’t know how TU had guessed it anyway. “Can you fix it?” she asked through dry lips.

  De Brabander gave the cellphone man an inquiring look. “MSpy,” came the cryptic reply.

  The commissioner turned back to Caz. “We could remove the software, but I’d much rather use the phone to flush out the person who’s monitoring your calls. Try to establish his or her identity. Or do you know who it might be?”

  “I can’t think of anyone.”

  “Whoever it is must have had access to your phone,” the cellphone man said. “The software has to be downloaded on your phone to make it work.”

  Caz shook her head. “My phone is always with me.”

  “You take it along every time you, say, go to the restroom? Even when you’re in the presence of someone you trust?”

  Caz hesitated. She couldn’t think straight. There were too many thoughts milling about in her mind.

  De Brabander fixed her with his gaze. “If this person is an accessory who doesn’t trust you, things might just get interesting. It would be better if you were honest.”

  Accessory? Suddenly a few things made sense to her. He believed her when she said she didn’t commit the murder, that she was in Leuven, but he didn’t believe that she had nothing to do with it.

  Enough was enough. “I am not an accessory to anything. Please find the guilty person, Commissioner. I would sleep more soundly myself if I knew who it was and why he did it. Now I’m going home. Where’s the nearest bus stop?”

  De Brabander was still staring at her. After a while he nodded. “Grevers, please take Ms. Colijn to her guesthouse.”

  The taciturn inspector got to his feet.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll manage. When can I have my phone back?”

  “I’ll let you know. And I insist that Inspector Grevers takes you home.”

  Caz gave in on both counts. She didn’t think he was entitled to keep her phone, but there wasn’t much point in kicking up a fuss about a phone she couldn’t use if she didn’t want some stranger to know exactly what she was saying and to whom. And she would welcome a lift home. The sooner she could wash this day away with soap and water and a glass of wine, the better.

  Twenty-five

  Luc

  Leuven

  Luc glanced through the menu at the Thai restuarant that had been one of his favorites when he had lived in Leuven. The menu had not changed much, but the
waitresses were much younger than he remembered.

  It was too early for supper but he couldn’t face going over Tuesday’s lecture yet again. And Herman’s place made him feel morbid. Exactly why, he couldn’t say. Perhaps it was all that chrome and glass and blond wood.

  He liked coziness. Even in her advanced age, Ammie’s place was cozy. Like their home here in Leuven had been when she had been married to Jacq.

  Luc struggled to reconcile the memory of the Ammie of his childhood and youth with the elderly woman in her apartment. It was as if they were two different people. Not just on the outside, in temperament as well. Or maybe he simply looked at her differently now that he was older.

  Then she had been a mother, now she was a lonely old woman. Then he had been a boy and later a young man, now he was a middle-aged man.

  He wondered what Ammie remembered of the almost two decades she had been married to Jacq. Whether it was as clear in her memory as the memories of her life in the Congo.

  She had brought Elisabethville alive to him. Including, unfortunately, the night Elijah was shot. To think she had known Patrice Lumumba personally.

  Of course he was aware of the bomb Ludo de Witte had dropped in 1999 with his book De moord op Lumumba. He had studied the report of the parliamentary commission that had investigated the matter. Tried to analyze the reasons for their conclusion that Belgium was morally implicated in the murder of Lumumba. He had followed everything else that had happened as well. And all that time it had never crossed his mind that Ammie had been there. He’d had no idea that she had known the man and had lost her beloved that same night in exactly the same way. In Elijah’s case, the motive for his murder had not been political, of course, but personal.

  How much more was there that he didn’t know about? That had passed him by because he had paid more attention to the written word than to people’s personal experiences?

  Caz

  Ghent

  It wasn’t out of consideration that Grevers was told to take her home, Caz realized when he accompanied her to the front door. De Brabander wanted to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere else. And without her cellphone she couldn’t warn anyone. About whatever.