Treasonous

by David Hickson

  The glass doors emitted a subtle hiss, like portals to another world, and Matlala appeared, beaming and holding out his hands for an embrace as if our presence was an unexpected surprise.

  “It’s okay, Lulu,” he said to the receptionist. “These are my guests. The big guy knows about it.”

  The receptionist’s forced smile relaxed, and she pulled her shoulders back in a way that demonstrated the efficacy of the straps that defied science by holding the top part of her clothing in place. Matlala beamed with pleasure, and Bill and I smiled to show there were no hard feelings, and with that we were ushered, a hand of Matlala’s on a shoulder each, into the exalted domain.

  Thulani Mbuyo, president-to-be and hero of the people, was standing in the centre of the room, with a small crowd of men clustered around him. Matlala had timed his approach well because as we neared him there was a burst of laughter and the crowd shifted as a natural break in the conversation occurred. President-elect Mbuyo was a tall man and as the lopsided smile on his face subsided, he looked over the heads of the men around him and his eyes settled on our incongruous trio. His bright intelligent eyes focused on mine, and although the smile on his face was slipping, there was amusement still in his eyes. The repair work that had been done to his face had been hasty and not a good example of the abilities of the medical profession at the time. They were only patching him up in order to shove him into jail, after all. And there, they had reasoned, it wouldn’t matter if he had less than a quarter of a face. At least that was the way the press liked to explain it. And now, when it did matter, he wore his scars with pride. Physical evidence if you needed any that he was a true hero of the people, in the mould of Nelson Mandela, and not the power-hungry charlatans that had followed him. Nevertheless, the sight of his scarred face was a shock.

  Matlala introduced me as ‘that journalist I told you about’, and Bill as ‘the writer’. The president-elect held my hand for quite a long time after we’d exchanged a complex sequence of shuffling handshakes, twisted the corner of his mouth and told me to just call him Thulani after I’d addressed him as ‘Mister President’, feeling like Marilyn Monroe. I did so in the hopes that he would release my hand, and it wasn’t long before he did. He gave Bill the same treatment, and for a moment we all stood around like idol worshippers drinking in the presence of the supreme being.

  “You had some questions about my brother,” said just-call-me-Thulani, and he smiled to show that he didn’t mind.

  “About Lindiwe Dlomo,” I said. There seemed little point in beating about the bush, although Bill’s face twitched as if he had a nervous tic.

  “Lindiwe Dlomo,” he repeated, as if trying to get his tongue around the letters for the first time. Somewhere between the D and L he produced a sound as if he’d knocked two pieces of wood together. “It’s been many years since I heard that name.”

  “She was your brother’s girlfriend?”

  “She was. Many, many years ago. But, like my brother, she is now long gone.” He said it with no regret, and his bright eyes held mine as he took a sip of his sparkling mineral water. “I’m surprised anyone remembers her. Or my brother.” Thulani’s eyes made that into a question.

  “A journalist,” I said, “A newspaper journalist asked me about her. Mr Matlala gave us a little background.”

  Thulani turned to look at Matlala, not entirely with pleasure it seemed to me.

  “And this journalist. Where is he now?” asked Thulani.

  “Travelling,” I said.

  “Of course,” said Thulani in a way that made me wonder whether he knew that Johansson would not be returning from his travels. “This becomes more intriguing. First the mention of my late brother, then a woman who died many years ago, and now a journalist who is travelling.”

  “I knew you would want to know,” said Matlala suddenly, feeling perhaps that the conversation was not going in a direction that would reap him the rewards he had hoped.

  Thulani swung his beneficent gaze onto him and the corner of his mouth that still had some muscle attached curled upwards.

  “You were right about that, Jake,” he said, and Matlala glowed. Thulani turned back to me. “The thing that surprises me,” he said with a warm tone so it didn’t come across as threatening, “is that anyone would have any interest in my brother. Or his girlfriend.” He paused, and I opened my mouth to speak, but he raised a scarred hand and continued. “Particularly considering that they both died thirty years ago. My brother was not someone worth speaking about when he was alive. Why speak about him now?”

  “He was an informer,” said Matlala with a sudden burst of acrimony. “He deserved to burn.”

  A slight flash of what I mistook for anger passed behind Thulani’s eyes, but when he turned to Matlala, he spoke gently.

  “Now, Jake,” he said. “You weren’t there.” Matlala looked contrite and sipped at his sobriety cure like an enthusiastic devotee flagellating himself after overstepping the mark. “My brother was a weak man, that is true,” said Thulani, turning back to me. “But not a man that was worth holding any resentment over. I never have. Resented him.”

  He looked at me as if suggesting that I doubted this assertion.

  “What were the questions that your travelling journalist had?” he asked.

  For a moment I thought of Johansson lying in the refrigerator and wondered whether he did have any questions about Lindiwe Dlomo. Was her name just one that he had stumbled upon while catching up on his reading in the archives as Fehrson suggested? Was it all just a ploy to have me stir up trouble hoping some loose change would be shaken out to fall into his pocket? Perhaps he was lying in the refrigerator now because he’d had one drink too many and hadn’t been given the time to explain his elaborate joke.

  “He suggested,” I said cautiously, “that she might have been an informer.” There was no reaction from Thulani. “And that you and your comrades were betrayed by her,” I added in the hope that made the whole thing sound convincing.

  Thulani didn’t respond for a moment, and it felt as if there was a pause in time. Or as if everyone in the room was holding their breath, which was absurd because others around us were talking and laughing. Thulani took a deep breath. His mouth attempted another smile.

  “For many years,” he said, “others have pointed fingers. They have accused everyone they can think of for the fire that killed my friends. That killed my brother. That nearly killed me.” Thulani turned to Matlala. “You know it, Jake. The only people who have not been accused are the people who had the good fortune to die before it happened. Such as my father. And my mother. No one has suggested they started the fire because they had been dead for many years by the time the match was struck. God rest their souls.”

  Thulani laughed, perhaps in an effort to lighten the mood, because we were all looking pretty glum. At least Bill and Matlala were not looking as if they were finding much to amuse them.

  “You know what I always say to these accusations, Jake?”

  Matlala nodded. “That it is not important,” he said obediently.

  “That it is not important,” repeated Thulani. “Because it isn’t. The fire happened. I know that better than anyone. And knowing who started it will not change that. Everyone else seems to want to know. I am happy not to.”

  Thulani looked to each of us as if to ensure that we were hearing him. I was beginning to understand how he had risen to the position he had. There was something of the religious teacher in his rhetoric.

  “Or perhaps I would rather not know. Because if I did know, the anger within me would be so great that I would do something more unforgivable than the crime they are guilty of. To kill for vengeance is truly unforgivable.”

  Thulani sipped at his mineral water, and Matlala said, “So true, Big T. So true,” in a low whisper. Bill and I kept silent lest the thing turn into a religious gathering.

  “Which is why the question of whether Lindiwe Dlomo was an informer is not a question worth asking,” sai
d Thulani. “You can tell your journalist that, and he can focus on more interesting subjects.”

  “There was the suggestion,” I said. “That information about Lindiwe Dlomo might be used against you.”

  “Information? What information?”

  I opened my mouth to answer that but was saved by Matlala who said, “She had no information. Big T gave her nothing.”

  Thulani nodded. “That’s right Jake,” he said, and turned to me. “You can tell your journalist that there is no story.”

  “Not so much information from Lindiwe Dlomo,” I said. “More, information about what happened to her. There was the suggestion that might be used against you.”

  Thulani didn’t react. His eyes regarded me from behind the mask of scar tissue. His tongue came out and ran along the ridge that served as an upper lip.

  “Was there?” he said after a pause that had seemed a little too long. “How extraordinary.”

  “Which is why,” said Bill, for whom that awkward pause had been too much to bear, “we thought we should follow up on this.”

  “Of course,” said Thulani. “Of course you should.”

  “On the other hand,” I said, “she came to see you. On Robben Island. Is it possible that something you said might have fallen into the wrong hands?”

  “Ah,” said Thulani, and he put up another smile as his composure returned. “Your journalist is suggesting that I became an informer myself. That when my late brother’s girlfriend came to the Island I was so overcome with emotion that I gave her all the names I could think of, and that she carried that information back to her apartheid masters. That is very good. Very amusing.”

  A youthful man with glasses and a receding hairline appeared beside Matlala. “Mr President sir,” he said in a breathless voice. “I am sorry to disturb you.” He glanced at us dismissively. “We have the room prepared. You can begin as soon as you are ready.”

  “We shouldn’t keep the people waiting,” said Thulani solemnly, and he passed his glass of water to the callow man and held out a hand to me. I took the hand, but instead of shaking it, he held my hand between his. “You should tell your journalist when he returns from his travels that he has nothing to fear. None of us have anything to fear,” he added magnanimously, raising a hand from mine and using it to indicate the occupants of the room, “because it would be a mistake to think that any information could be used against me. Let me state clearly for the record. I did not betray my people thirty years ago to the girlfriend of my late brother. The truth is not to be feared because, as we know from the Good Book, it will set us free.”

  “It might make us miserable first though,” I said.

  “Ah!” the corner of his mouth curled up, and he squeezed my hand a little harder in appreciation. “You quote a president to a president! You journalists are not all bad, although I think Jake is mistaken in thinking you are one.” Thulani turned to Matlala. “You hear that? He quoted an American president to me. A dead American president. He doesn’t smell like a journalist to me.” Then back to me, “Tell your journalist friend that I would be very interested in hearing his information, even if it does make me a little miserable before setting me free. There is nothing to be feared in the truth, but sometimes carrying it can become a burden, and your friend should share that burden.” Thulani released my hand and took Bill’s hand in his. “There was nothing bad in Lindiwe,” he said as if trying to convince Bill of it. “Nothing at all. Not her fault that the man who adopted her was a policeman. Nor was she responsible for what happened between my brother and her. No,” he turned back to me. “There is nothing about Lindiwe that could hurt me, so you tell him that.”

  With that Thulani moved away from us, and like a ship leading an armada, the others followed. The callow man held the half empty glass of mineral water like a holy relic and looked at us sternly as our cue to depart.

  “History in the making,” said Bill as we walked back to the car. “The politicians and the people with the money.”

  The wind was picking up again, and it started tugging at Bill’s orange jacket. He pulled it tighter about him and glanced up at the sky anxiously. The clouds were lowering again, and we rushed to get to the car before the rain started.

  “I guess your journalist friend was wrong,” said Bill as I nursed the car into action. “No dirty secrets.”

  “Looks like it,” I said. The engine finally caught on the fourth attempt.

  We made our way out of the parking lot, past the moustachioed security guard now sporting a large sheet of clear plastic over his uniform to protect it against the rain. He was remonstrating with a man in sunglasses who had parked his Lamborghini in the disabled bay and was refusing to move it.

  “You must be relieved,” said Bill, unconvinced by my response. “You’re going to drop the whole thing?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  I knew how stressful Bill had found this direct challenge of authority. He was someone who liked to stay within the lines, no matter how much he complained. Sometimes I envied people like him because once you stray outside the lines it can be hard to get back in.

  Seven

  The entrance hall of The Gold Mining Conglomerate of South Africa Archives, or Gold Archives, was what the architect had managed to remember about Gothic churches without having to look it up in a book. There was a lot of genuine marble worn smooth by the feet of the proletariat. The extensive security desks, tables and benches looked like they were authentic Anton Anreith church pews which had only been slightly chopped up and glued back together again. The vaulted ceiling echoed the reverent tones of the security guards behind the x-ray machine and the clicking shoes of a woman on her way out. I felt sure that if I listened carefully enough, I would hear the echo of my own breathing. The security team were serious about protecting the history of our nation. Or perhaps they were serious about the kind of people they allowed in to view that history. They went to great lengths to prevent me from entering the building, subjecting me to a pat-down because the fact that the x-ray machines refused to beep was clearly an error: I was the kind of man who looked as if he carried a weapon. They reluctantly allowed me through but held me in no man's land until the honey-voiced, long-limbed private secretary to Mr Riaan Breytenbach appeared in person to escort me into the presence of the master.

  Riaan “BB” Breytenbach remained seated as I settled into the low-slung chair at the visitor's end of his mahogany desk, and he waited patiently as I declined the offer of sustenance from his private secretary. He kept the friendly face up for as long as it took the secretary to leave us alone, and then he allowed the suspicion to return to his eyes.

  BB showed no glimmer of recognition, which did not surprise me. The encounter we had shared had been several years ago, and I had been in uniform, covered in the mud of the Ugandan rainforest and the blood of men whose existence he denied. I recognised him though. All five feet and six inches of him, the tan you get from spending more time on the golf course than in an office, and the wavy dark hair peppered with grey at the temples and carefully coiffed in order to give him more height than his genes and early nutrition had provided. His face was familiar to most South Africans. The dark eyes, black hair and strong nose implied an Italian ancestry, and he was often touted in the pulp media as the country’s most eligible bachelor with his film-star good looks and oodles of money. But it was a particularly familiar face to me. I did my best to conceal the shiver of revulsion that I felt on seeing him and gave a brave smile to match his suspicion.

  “They call him Father now?” asked BB. “In my day it was Fearsome.”

  “I think he prefers Father,” I said.

  “I told him there was nothing to worry about. Why all this anxiety?”

  “Being thorough. If there are nasty secrets lurking in the background, I am sure everyone would rather know about them now, before they take us by surprise.”

  “Us?” said BB, but then without waiting to hear who we were, said, “The journal
ist is dead.”

  There was no question in that statement, but I took it upon myself to provide an answer.

  “The concern is others he might have spoken to, and of course the source of his information.”

  BB grunted and studied me carefully. I wondered whether some recognition was beginning to form behind his cold steel eyes.

  “Don’t know why you’re here,” he said. “Nothing I can say about it. Doesn't matter a damn what he did to that woman, does it? She’s been dead for thirty years. Who cares? Your Fearsome Father might mourn her and worry like an old woman about it, but no one else gives a damn.”

  “We wouldn't want someone suggesting that the president-elect was responsible for her death.”

  BB shrugged, a gesture that was European in its manner. I remembered how he liked to model himself as the refined descendant of an elite European culture, although that was a very thin layer which barely covered the ugly, brutal nature that lay beneath.

  “Why would he have killed her?” he asked.

  “If he discovered what she and her boyfriend were doing.”

  “Doing?” BB loaded each word he uttered with aggression. He used his short manner of speaking as a means of attack rather than communication.

  “They were passing information to the security police. It was your operation as I understand it. Spieël … or have I got it wrong?”

  BB’s face lifted a little, as if amusement had replaced the suspicion. His eyes almost twinkled.

  “The information they passed was nothing,” he said. “A silly game they played. What would have made him angry was realising that she and his little brother were the ones who tried to kill him. But he never figured that one out, or if he did, she was long gone before he could do anything about it.”

  “It was them who started the fire?”

  “How the hell would I know?” The defences went up again, and the suspicion returned.

  “You handled the reports they sent in. Didn’t you know that was the plan? To get rid of them all?”