Yesterday. Yesterday I was a different person.
Yesterday I went to a board meeting at the Project. Finneas drove me, poor broken Finneas. If it had been Nimrod things might have been better. Despite his small size, Nimrod is quite capable of looking after his master. And his master’s wife.
After my experiences at Thando’s funeral I was enthusiastic about going to the Project and I actually felt safe as we drove through Guguletu. The meeting lasted a couple of hours and then we took our usual look around the school. It was about four o’clock when Finneas and I set off for home. We had barely gone a quarter of a mile when two bakkie pulled up, one in front and one behind us, and men leaped out with guns. They were black, but they didn’t look like locals, they were bigger and stronger and better dressed and they had an air of disciplined purpose. They definitely knew how to use the guns they were waving.
Finneas started sobbing and chattering and I was too stunned to know what to do. They dragged me out of the car and I began to scream. I can remember seeing three small boys standing by the roadside staring at me and then some foul-tasting cloth was shoved in my mouth. I tried to kick out but there was no point, these men were strong. Then they thrust a sack over my head, yanked my hands behind my back and bound them. I was lifted up and dumped on to hard metal. The rear of the bakkie. A sheet of some kind was thrown over me and someone heavy sat on me. Then they drove off.
God knows how long they drove for, I lost all track of time. Maybe twenty minutes. Maybe an hour. But eventually the bakkie came to a halt. I could hear the sounds of traffic in the distance, but not the constant hum of township music and chatter. I was carried off the bakkie and into a building, through a couple of doors and dumped on to a hard cold floor. A moment later the hood was lifted.
I was in some kind of store room. There was a small window which was boarded up. A single electric bulb hung from the ceiling. A rickety table stood in the center of the room, on either side of which were two upended Castrol oil drums. The two men who had dumped me on the floor left the room, locking the door behind them. I stood up and began to yell for help. Instantly one of the men was back. He stepped rapidly over to me and struck me once in the stomach. It didn’t seem a particularly hard blow, but it winded me and left me doubled up on the floor again, gasping for breath.
“Quiet!” he snapped, glaring at me. Then he left the room again.
I decided not to scream anymore. I stood up and paced about the room, my hands still tied behind my back. I wondered who these men were. If they were kidnapping me for money, would Neels pay? A couple of months ago, I wouldn’t have had to ask that question. But now? Would he view this as a simple means of getting me out of the way?
The men were tough and professional. I assumed they wanted money.
I was very scared.
After about ten minutes the door opened and another man appeared. He was white, which surprised me. He was short and bulky, muscular rather than fat. He had a thick neck, a small moustache and hard little eyes. I noticed his hands were very large. I realized my first instincts had been wrong: this man was a policeman, a “rockspider,” as Zan would no doubt call him. He looked mean, but my spirits rose. I was in the hands of the authorities. I should be safe.
“Sit down, Mrs van Zyl.” Although the accent was harsh, the voice was surprisingly soft. Soft and confident.
I did as he asked, perching on the oil drum. He sat on the other one.
“I’m sorry we had to bring you here,” he said, pulling out a packet of cigarettes. He offered me one, and when I had shaken my head, lit one up himself. “I’m afraid we don’t have any coffee. But we do have some water. How about that?”
I shook my head again.
The man smiled. “I think you’ll need some water before we have finished.” He went over to the door and shouted out to someone called Elijah.
Then he sat down on the oil drum and examined me across the table.
“Why have you brought me here?” I asked.
“To talk to you.”
“But why did you kidnap me like that? Who are you, anyway?”
A man came in with a plastic cup of water, the man who had pulled the hood off my face and hit me in the stomach. The white man waited until the other had left.
“I’m a member of the Laagerbond.”
“And what are you holding me for?” I said. “You can’t do this. I’m an American citizen. I demand to speak to someone from the US consulate. Do you know who my husband is?”
The Laagerbonder smiled. “I know very well who your husband is, Mrs van Zyl. In fact, that’s why you are here. And as for the consulate, well you can demand what you want, but although my friends and I are employed by the government, we are acting in an unofficial capacity.”
“Well, in that case let me go.”
“I want you to tell me everything you know about the Laagerbond.”
“I don’t know anything about the Laagerbond. I’ve never even heard of it.”
“Now, I know that’s not true. Please answer my question.”
“I have answered it. I’ve never heard of the Laagerbond.”
“I can make you tell me.”
“No you can’t,” I said, stupidly.
This made the rockspider smile. “I can’t think how many dozens of people, hundreds of people, have told me what I want to know over the years. You will tell me.”
It was the certainty of his last comment that shook me. Until then I had been doing well with the bravado, buoying myself up with it.
“You won’t torture me,” I said. I meant it as a brave statement, but it came out of my mouth more as a half question.
“I won’t have to,” the man said, leaning forward. “There’s really no need. I will, of course, if necessary, but you and I both know that what you are hiding from me isn’t that important, at least not to you. I could make you betray your own mother, your husband, even,” he paused and smiled quickly, “your daughter. It wouldn’t take me long, less than an hour. But I don’t want that. All I want is for you to tell me something that really has nothing to do with you. You don’t care, or you shouldn’t.”
“You dare not torture me,” I said. “My husband is an important person. There would be all kinds of diplomatic consequences.”
“I’m going to show you some photographs,” the man said. “You’ll probably recognize Elijah, he’s the man who showed you in. And although you won’t see my face, you might recognize these hands.” He held out his meaty fists and opened and closed his fingers. “And you might recognize someone else.”
He opened the brown envelope and withdrew about twenty prints which he placed face down on the table in front of him. He turned the first one over. It was a black and white photograph of the terrified face of a black man, or kid really. Eyes wide, teeth bared, I had never seen such fear.
Another photograph. This time a black woman of about twenty. Fear again, but not just fear, dread. “Remember this face, you’ll see it later on,” the rockspider said.
I should have shut my eyes, but I stared at the photographs, I couldn’t help it.
The next was of the torn back of a child of about ten. The man called Elijah was standing next to him, a rhino-hide whip in his hands. Then more photos. Men, women, children; naked, bloodied, bruised, broken. Then the face of the first woman I had been shown, pressed against the floor, her eyes staring sightless. “I told you to remember that face,” the rockspider said.
Then, I think I started to sob. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the photos. A white man being hit with chains. The chains were held by the same meaty fists that were clutching the photo. The white man naked on the ground. The man’s face, dead.