Reconciliation for the Dead

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Every morning Matimu’s grandfather would come and clean his wound, check the stitching, apply more of the chewed mopane poultice. Matimu would bring him food and water, sit with him long hours, and Clay would tell him about the Scotland he knew briefly as a boy, about the ocean, about the planets and the stars. Matimu soaked it all up, his eyes flashing with wonder.

  Clay kept the Beretta close, but after a week the soldiers still hadn’t returned. He could have killed them, but the risk of reprisal was too great. Either the RENAMO unit they belonged to had moved off, or the threat of tangling with South African Special Forces was enough to keep them away. But he couldn’t stay here forever.

  One morning, rain came. Matimu sat with him listening to the thick droplets tapping on the thatch of the roof, the water guttering to the ground outside the entrance.

  The boy glanced outside. ‘The rain is early.’

  Clay nodded.

  ‘My mother and sisters will be glad,’ said Matimu after a long time. ‘Their crops will grow.’ Small talk.

  ‘Your Portuguese is good,’ said Clay. ‘Muito bom.’ Better than mine.

  Matimu smiled.

  ‘Do you go to school?’

  ‘School is very far.’

  ‘How did you learn?’

  ‘My father teaches me.’

  ‘Good.’

  Thunder rumbled like artillery in the distance, walked out across the plain in big booming footsteps. The boy glanced outside then pointed at the place where his wound was. ‘The hyenas did not do this.’

  ‘No.’

  The boy considered this a moment. ‘If the soldiers come back…’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘But you will leave.’

  ‘Yes. There is something I must do.’

  ‘If they come after you leave?’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ he lied.

  Matimu directed his big-eyed gaze at the handgun. ‘Teach me to use it,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Clay.

  ‘If you give it to me, I can protect my family.’

  Clay closed his eyes, opened them again. ‘What do you think would happen if you shot them?’

  ‘They would be dead.’

  ‘Others would come.’

  The boy frowned, sat a long time saying nothing. The rain had stopped. Sunlight lit the hut. Outside, the ground steamed.

  ‘What must you do?’ said Matimu after a while.

  It was a question Clay was unprepared to answer. He was running. That’s what he was doing. He was saving himself. While Brigade and others stayed and fought against the lie, while so many others had died fighting – Zulaika, Wade, Vivian – Clay was running. He’d promised Brigade and Vivian that he’d tell the world about Operation COAST. But what did he actually know? And, more importantly, what could he prove?

  All he had was fragments, isolated glimpses of something which he could not quite grasp. A black bomb? Was it even possible? What kind of warped mind could even conceive of such a thing? No one would believe it. And what had Vivian meant when she’d said: We are all the same? Her dying words. The possibilities circled in his head, collided and dissipated like the steam rising from the parched earth outside the hut. How could he ever hope to explain any of it to the press, let alone some foreign authority, if he couldn’t make sense of it himself? And all he had was his word. The word of a deserter. A traitor. A murderer.

  And he knew they would come for him.

  ‘The same thing you must do,’ said Clay, putting his hand on the boy’s head. ‘Live.’

  ‘Then live here,’ Matimu said after a time. ‘With us. You could marry my sister.’

  Clay smiled at the thought.

  ‘I could teach you how to hunt, how to keep the goats safe. You could show me how to shoot. I would be uncle to your children.’

  ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t want me,’ said Clay.

  ‘Oh, yes. She does. She could have copper babies.’

  Clay rumpled his brow. ‘Copper?’

  ‘White and black together. She says they come out copper coloured.’

  ‘She does?’

  The boy nodded. ‘She told me yesterday. She wants you to stay also. We all do.’

  Commissioner Ksole: Are you sure that the men you saw in Mozambique were RENAMO?

  Witness: Yes. Definitely. They were armed with South African-made and supplied weapons. They specifically mentioned SADF Special Forces.

  Commissioner Ksole: Are you sure?

  Witness: Yes, sir.

  Commissioner Barbour: This is extremely important, Mister Straker. If you are correct, this is the first time we have had first-hand, eyewitness accounts of government-authorised incursions into Mozambique.

  Commissioner Ksole: On this basis, a full investigation of the SADF and its activities is warranted.

  Commissioner Rotzenburg: That is premature, and not in the power or mandate of this commission.

  Commissioner Barbour: Son, is there anything else you can tell us, about, ah, about what happened to you in Mozambique.

  Witness: I didn’t stay with that family. I left two weeks later. I walked to Massinga. It took me ten days. From there I went overland to Maputo, by bus mostly. Some I walked. But I did go back.

  Commissioner Barbour: Back? To the village, the family kraal?

  Witness: Yes, sir.

  Commissioner Barbour: When did you go back, son?

  Witness: Last week.

  Commissioner Barbour: A few days ago?

  Witness: Yes, sir. Before coming here to testify. I went back to that same place.

  Commissioner Barbour: And? Is there something you would like to share with us?

  Witness does not answer.

  Commissioner Barbour: Son? Are you alright?

  Commissioner Lacy: Perhaps we should recess.

  Witness: No. I … I went back to see, to see if…

  Commissioner Barbour: And what did you find?

  Witness: Nothing. There was nothing there.

  Commissioner Barbour: It was a long time ago. They probably, ah, moved on. Most in that region are itinerant.

  Witness: It was hard to find. Scrub trees had taken over. Mopane and bushwillow. But it was definitely the spot. I found a patch of melons, gone wild. The skulls and bones of goats. And I found something else. Scattered all over the place where the kraal had been. 5.56 millimetre shell casings. Dozens of them. Old. South African made.

  40

  117 Days

  November 1982,

  Maputo, Mozambique, one year later

  The civil war dragged on. For Maputo it meant continuing shortages of everything, frequent lengthy power cuts, and the never-ending inefficiencies of the workers’ committees and state-run services. Like everywhere, life below the official surface continued.

  November was a time of unsettled weather, the heavy rains of December and January looming in the towering, anvil-topped cumulonimbus massing over the western plains, the distant echo of thunder. Clay peeled his shirt away from his back, wiped his brow, and climbed the two flights of crumbling cement stairs to the one-bedroom flat he’d rented above a tailor’s shop in the old town, just off the recently renamed Avenida Vladimir Lenin. He stopped a few steps short of the door, pushed himself up against the wall, palmed the handle of the Z88 in his belt. He crept closer to the door. Before he’d left that morning he’d dusted the door knob with cement powder. He kept a small bag of it inside the flat, near the doorway. The lightest layer was enough to reveal any handling. It was undisturbed.

  He let go of the handgun, pulled out his keys and opened the door. Inside, it was dark, despite the tropical sun blazing outside. Clay closed and locked the door, threw the keys onto the table set against the wall near the only window and flung open the shutters. The stink of the harbour wafted through the room, the smell of rotting fish from the docks, rubbish piled in the alley below, woodsmoke from a thousand braziers and open
fires.

  It had been another morning of frustration at the British Embassy. Obtaining a passport without proof of citizenship was proving impossible. He’d put his name on a list of asylum seekers, had filled out the forms months ago, but apparently processing was slow, and there was a glut of South Africans clogging up the system, so many of them here fleeing the war and the regime. Be patient, the embassy staff told him. Meanwhile, every day was an exercise in paranoia. The communist government seemingly paid him no attention. He was, after all, just another South African draft dodger, one of the hundreds of young, bearded, bedraggled white men floating around the city, congregating in the same bars and clubs.

  A few days after he’d arrived in the city, he’d been interrogated by what could only have been a KGB agent – thick Russian accent; leather jacket despite the heat; pallid Arctic Circle skin stretched over Mongol cheekbones; cheap plastic sunglasses. The man had jotted a few things down in a notebook – Clay’s name, unit, the fact that he was a deserter – and warned him not to leave the city without notifying the police.

  Since then, Clay had moved around the city, never staying anywhere longer than a few weeks. He shunned other South Africans, stayed away from their haunts, wary of informants. That BOSS was here, too, he had no doubt.

  After a few weeks he’d found a fence for his diamond. Clay was sure the guy had ripped him off, but it gave him enough money to survive, even occasionally have a couple of cold beers and a plate of grilled prawns by the pool at the Polana hotel, listening to the bikini-clad Uzbek singers slaughter Dylan under the watchful eye of their KGB minders. Otherwise, he kept a low profile, bought food from local markets, stayed clear of trouble. At least his Portuguese was getting good.

  The only friend he’d made was an elderly Jewish lady who lived not far from the Polana in a rambling colonial-era house. South African originally, she’d been exiled for anti-apartheid activities in the early 1960s, after the Sharpesville Massacre. A devout communist, she’d come to Maputo in 1978 and taken a post lecturing at the university. He met her one day at the university library. Clay had gone to see if there were any engineering or mathematics textbooks, hoping to spend a few hours learning, dreaming of a new, different kind of life. They’d met at the sign-out desk. Old enough to be his mother, she had a sharp, angular face, a thick head of dark hair and deep, penetrating eyes. Clay had been refused a library card. She’d picked up the books, glanced at the titles, smiled at him, and offered to take out the books on his behalf.

  She introduced herself as Ruth. They agreed to meet back at the library two weeks later. From then on, their regular meetings had been the highlight of Clay’s fortnights. She was witty, vivacious, and hyper-intelligent. Sometimes they’d have coffee together in a local café and talk about politics, the situation in Mozambique. She never probed Clay about his past, never asked him about the scars he carried.

  About a month after they met, she gave Clay a signed copy of one of the books she’d written. It was in English: 117 Days, it was called. Clay read it in a single day, deep into the night, a harrowing account of her detention, imprisonment and torture at the hands of South Africa Police Special Branch in the 1960s. After finishing it, he took a long walk along the beach, north out of the city, and watched the sun rise over the Indian Ocean.

  And then in September, Ruth stopped showing up at the library. At first Clay had thought it might have been because of work, or sickness. Twice more she missed their rendezvous. Finally, Clay had gone to the faculty building where she taught. Her colleagues told him that she’d been killed back in August. She’d received a letter in the post. When she’d opened it, it had exploded, killing her instantly.

  Clay cracked the fridge and grabbed a beer. The power was off again and the beer had warmed. He opened it anyway, drank half the bottle down. Two months he’d been in this flat, now. Too long. He was getting lazy. It was time to move. Tomorrow, he’d find another place.

  Clay had just settled back on his cot, cracked open his disintegrating copy of War and Peace – one of the few books in English he’d managed to find in the city – when there was a knock on the door. Clay dog-eared the page he was on, closed the book, slipped the elastic back around the volume and palmed the Beretta.

  Seconds passed.

  The knock again.

  ‘Senhor? Por Favor.’ It was his landlady, Senhora Lizabet.

  Clay swung his feet to the floor, slid the Beretta into the belt of his trousers at the small of his back, flipped his shirt over it, and walked to the door. It was unusual for Senhora Lizabet to come to his door. If she wanted to speak with him, usually about the weekly rent, she’d catch him near the front door of the building.

  ‘O que é isso, Senhora?’ Clay called out. What is it?

  A pause, and then the same words as before. Sir. Please. Clay took a step back. Something was wrong.

  ‘Agora não,’ said Clay. Not now. ‘I’m busy. Come back later.’

  Whispering outside, the sound of footsteps. ‘A friend is here to see you,’ she said in Portuguese.

  ‘What friend?’ asked Clay.

  ‘Just open the fokken door, Straker.’ A man’s voice, in Afrikaans.

  And then the sound of a key being thrust into the lock.

  Clay stepped away, oblique to the door, drew the Z88, chambered a round. Just as he did the door flew open.

  It was the first time Clay had seen him out of uniform.

  ‘Put the gun down, Straker,’ said Crowbar.

  41

  Orders

  Crowbar closed the door behind him and stood surveying the flat. He wore blue jeans, a white, collared shirt and a tan canvas jacket, none of which disguised his obvious military bearing. ‘Nice set-up you’ve got here, broer,’ he said. And then, glancing at Clay’s weapon: ‘Expecting company?’

  Clay slid his Beretta back into his waistband. ‘Jesus Christ, Koevoet. You scared the kak out of me. I thought it was BOSS coming to get me.’

  Crowbar walked to the fridge, opened it, grabbed two beers. ‘Power’s off,’ he said, popping off the tops against the windowsill, handing one to Clay. ‘They’re warm.’

  ‘This is Africa, bru.’

  ‘Ja, ja. TIA.’

  ‘What the hell are you doing here, Koevoet?’

  ‘I thought you’d be glad to see me.’

  Clay raised his bottle. ‘Jesus, Koevoet, I am. I am. It’s just you’re the last person I would have expected to walk through that door, that’s all. I almost put a slug through you.’

  Crowbar smiled, drank, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘You always were a jumpy one, Straker. I guess I should have called ahead.’

  Clay smiled. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  Crowbar frowned, finished his beer. ‘It’s taken me a while to find you.’

  A fizz ran through Clay’s legs, echoed in his ankles. ‘How long?’

  Crowbar waved this away. ‘Doesn’t matter, Straker. Not now.’

  Clay drank, his mind spinning. How long had Koevoet been here, looking for him? And why? He was the one who’d told him, all those months ago back at 1-Mil, to leave South Africa, run as far away as he could.

  ‘But I did find you, Straker. You should be more careful.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  Crowbar reached into his jacket, produced a manila envelope, and threw it onto the table. ‘This is for you.’

  Clay opened the envelope and slid the contents out onto the table. A British passport, a birth certificate, and his military ID card. The passport was out of date, the picture unrecognisably young, the face innocent, smiling – a younger version of him. Clay leafed through the passport, examined the birth certificate. Now, finally, he could get out.

  ‘Dankie, Koevoet,’ he said. ‘Jesus. It couldn’t have been easy getting these.’

  ‘It wasn’t.’

  When Clay looked up, Crowbar had a gun in his hand.

  Clay wasn’t surprised. He’d rarely seen Crowbar without a weapon.
But why had he drawn it now? ‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing, Straker.’ Crowbar levelled the gun at Clay’s chest.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘This isn’t easy, Straker.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Reach back and lay that Z88 on the floor for me, bru. Nice and steady.’

  ‘What the fok?’

  ‘Just do it, Straker.’

  Clay did as his Liutenant asked. By now, his insides were tumbling.

  ‘Kick it over.’

  Clay sent the gun skidding across the floor. Crowbar stooped and picked it up, stashed his own gun in his jacket pocket, and levelled the Z88 at Clay’s chest.

  ‘What the hell is going on, Koevoet?’ said Clay, scared now, angry. ‘What the fok are you doing?’

  Crowbar scuffed the floor with his boot, took a deep breath. ‘I was ordered to come here and find you, Straker.’

  ‘Since when does the army send field officers to track down deserters?’

  ‘It wasn’t the army.’

  ‘Who then?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Crowbar. ‘What matters is that some very powerful people thought it important enough to send someone like me all the way here to find you.’

  ‘Talk sense, for Christ’s sake, Koevoet.’

  Crowbar shook his head. ‘What did you do, seun? I told you to leave, to get out. Instead you go and get yourself mixed up in something you don’t even understand.’

  ‘I understand enough.’

  Crowbar shook his head again. ‘No, Straker, you don’t.’

  ‘You came all this way to tell me that?’

  ‘No, seun, I didn’t.’

  ‘For what then?’

  Crowbar frowned. ‘Haven’t you figured it out yet?’

  ‘You’re here to take me back.’

  ‘No, Straker. I’m sorry. I’m here to kill you.’

  42

  Live Your Life

  Is the universe random, without coherence or purpose? Or is there order underlying the chaos? Does an individual life have meaning, or are we as disaggregated plasma, spinning in vortices we neither control nor understand? And when, if there is meaning to it all, will our purpose be revealed?