Dead at Daybreak

∨ Dead at Daybreak ∧

39

There are dollars in it after all,” he said to Orlando Arendse in his fort in Mitchell’s Plain.

“How much?”

“I don’t know yet, Orlando. A million, at least, but I think it’s more,” and he knew he might be wrong but would have to press on. “It’s your transaction, if I get it, Orlando.”

“Let me get this straight, Van Heerden. You want me to believe that you’re going to steal dollars and bring them to me – you, one of the great untouchables from years gone by?”

“I’m not going to steal them, Orlando. I’m going to get them back for the widow of the deceased.”

“She’s no widow. They weren’t married.”

“You know a lot.”

Shrug of the shoulders. “I read the papers.”

“The money belongs to her.”

“And to you?”

“You know me better than that.”

“True.”

“She can’t do anything with the dollars. We’ll have to convert them into rand.”

Orlando Arendse tapped his reading glasses, which hung on a chain round his neck, with an expensive fountain pen. “But what’s in it for you, Van Heerden?”

“I’m being paid.”

“PI fee? It’s peanuts. As it should be. I want to know what’s in it for you.”

He ignored that. “I’m looking for soldiers, Orlando. They threatened my mother. I’m looking for someone to protect her.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Threatened?”

“Yes. Said he’d burn her with a blowtorch. Kill her.”

“It can’t be. She’s a national treasure.”

“What do you know about my mother, Orlando?”

Orlando smiled, like a patient parent with a naughty child. “You think I’m trash, Van Heerden. You think I’m a Cape Flats gangsta without style but good enough for a favor here and there. Well, let me tell you, just for the record, there are two of your mother’s originals on the walls of my house. My real house. Paid cash, I wish to add, at an exhibition in Constantia. Every time I look at them it touches me, Van Heerden, it shows me there’s another side to life. I don’t know your mother. But I know her soul and it’s beautiful.” And then, as though annoyed at himself. “How many soldiers?”

“How many do I need?”

Orlando thought. “You want her protected at her house?”

“Yes.”

“Two should do it.”

He nodded. “That’ll be fine.”

“For your ma, only the best. But it doesn’t come for free.”

“I can’t pay you. That’s why I’m offering you the dollar transaction.”

“Suddenly become a player, Van Heerden?”

“I no longer have the Force behind me, Orlando.”

“Too true.”

“Will you help?”

Orlando closed his eyes, the clicking of the fountain pen against the reading glasses continuing, opened his eyes. “I will.”

“And I’m looking for weapons. Firepower.”

Orlando looked at him in disbelief.

“You?”

“Yes. Me.”

“Heaven help us. I’d better throw in an instructor on the deal.” His soldiers laughing at their table, loudly and mockingly.

♦

He sat at his mother’s kitchen table, the women in the living room, Hope not there yet. He read the letters in chronological order, the unsensational story of an Afrikaans boy brimful of patriotism who was going to serve his country. Rupert de Jager, called up to the First Infantry Battalion in Bloemfontein, grateful for the familiar city, the short distance home, surprised by the mix of people in the army, the city slickers, the farm boys, the graduates, all together now, all equal, all cannon fodder. Taking pleasure in his physical achievements, believing in his chances for the Recces.

Selection at Dukuduku, the hell of testing physical limits, the euphoria of success, naive writing style, conversations with the father he obviously idolized, then, systematically, among long, sometimes boring descriptions of activities and weaponry and ideas for the farm, with the curiosity of a country-bred boy about origins and natures, the names of brothers in oppression.

“Hofstetter is a joker, Pa. He comes from Makwassie…”

“And then they allowed us to sleep…We were very tired but then Speckle took out his guitar. His real name is Michael Venter. He’s very short, Pa, and he has a birthmark on his neck. So they call him Speckle. He comes from Humansdorp. His father is a panel beater. He wrote a song about his town. It’s quite sad…”

“Olivier says no one can spell his name. They write it with an ‘S’ but it’s spelled Charel, because he’s named after a Middle Ages king. He’s as mad as a hatter and never stops talking but I think he’ll make it. He’s as strong as an ox.”

Van Heerden made notes as he read, a column of names that became longer and longer, realized not all would be applicable. Some were only mentioned once; others popped up time and time again in the descriptions. He made an extra column with their names, from one base to another, diving course at Langebaan, parachutes in Bloemfontein, explosives at First Reconnaissance Command in Durban, nine months of learning, suffering, and growth and then, a full-fledged Recce in South West Africa.

“And everyone here is being redeployed. Only Speckle and I are left of the old group. Our squad sergeant is Bushy Schlebusch and they say he’s completely bush crazy because he’s been in Angola twice. His eyes are crazy, Pa, but I think he’s a good soldier. He swears better than anyone else…”

He looked at the date. Early in ’76. He read faster, knew he was getting warm, De Jager and Venter and Schlebusch and five others, supply line to Unita in Angola. He made a new column for the squad. His eyes searched the written lines, looking for more Schlebusch, found very little, frustration, because De Jager’s letters were sometimes vague and wandering, paragraph after paragraph of descriptions of the landscape and politics and bush-war tactics and propaganda about the efficacy of the Recces. Casual references to the Thirty-second Battalion, but the squad’s main task was to keep supply lines open between Rundu and somewhere in Angola, to ensure supplies – “I’m not allowed to write much about it, Pa. I’ll tell you about it when I get home” – with occasional skirmishes here and there.

“Last night Sarge Bushy almost drilled Rodney Verster to death because he didn’t have his rifle’s safety catch on…”

“Gerry de Beer’s father farms with angora goats near Somerset East. He says we don’t know what drought really is but their market prices are far more stable.”

“Clinton Manley can barely speak Afrikaans. He’s Catholic, Pa, but he’s just like us and a good guy. He’s thin and he doesn’t know about giving up and he shoots better than any of us, even if he is a city guy from Rondebosch.”

Eight names eventually, on a list with added detail:

1. Sergeant Bushy Schlebusch: Durban? Natal! Surfer.

2. Rodney “Red” Verster: Randburg. Son of a dentist.

3. Gerry de Beer: Somerset East. Father an angora goat farmer.

4. Clinton Manley: Rondebosch. Western Province Schools rugby.

5. Michael “Speckle” Venter: Humansdorp. Father owns a panel-beating firm.

6. Cobus Janse van Rensburg: Pretoria.??????

7. James/ Jamie “Porra” Vergottini. Father owns a fish-and-chip shop in Bellville.

8. Rupert de Jager.

There were three letters left when Hope came back.

“Found anything?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” He couldn’t keep the frustration out of his voice.

“You upset?”

“He wasn’t a good correspondent. He didn’t know why we would need the letters one day.”

“My partner will complete the preparation of the interdict. It’s virtually ready.”

“Thank you.”

“And Military Intelligence took the answering machine. Marie says the telephone still rings occasionally but she doesn’t answer it.”

He nodded. He sketched the background to the letters, explained his plans and notes. He shifted the packet of photographs toward her. “We’re looking for the faces on this list.”

She nodded and picked them up, the faded color snapshots, bleached to pastel. She saw there were inscriptions on the back, as she put down one face after another; some had dates, some differing handwriting. De Jager senior and junior? She read the inscriptions first, then turned over the pictures. Boys’ faces, she thought. Too young to be soldiers. Excessive exuberance for the camera. Tired faces sometimes. Sometimes small figures in bush country, savanna, semidesert.

“Would you like some coffee?”

“Please.”

She went to the kettle, hesitated, walked down the passage. Carolina de Jager, Wilna van As, and Joan van Heerden were in the living room. They were speaking quietly, smiled at her as she peeped in. While she waited for the water to boil, she thought about the women who always remained behind, the widows and the mothers and the loved ones.

She took the two mugs back to the table, sat down, looked at Van Heerden, reading the letters, a slight frown of concentration, the two of them, working together, a team. She picked up the pile of photos.

“Porra, Clinton, and De Beer” – written on the back of a photo. She turned it over and they stood, arms over one another’s shoulders, in full uniform, smiling broadly. They looked so…innocent. She put it aside.

Four photos later, “Speckle playing the guitar.” The picture was taken with a flash at night, the lighting bad.

“Cobus and me carrying water.” She recognized the young Johannes Jacobus Smit/ Rupert de Jager. He and a sturdy boy were struggling with a large, evidently heavy drum through dusty white sand.

“Sarge Schlebusch,” she saw on the back of one photo. She turned it over. A young white-blond man without a shirt, wearing only army pants and boots, his torso shining and hairless and muscled, large rifle in one hand, the other shoving a threatening forefinger at the camera, the mouth verbalizing at the moment of the click, the upper lip curled back in derision. There was something…a shudder shook her. “Zatopek,” she said, and held out the photograph. He put down a letter, took it, looked at it.

“It’s Schlebusch,” she said. He turned the picture over for a moment, read the inscription, turned it back, and stared at it for a long time and intently, as if he wanted to take the man’s measure.

Then he looked at her. “We’ll have to be careful,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

♦

The black man was a terrifying size, tall and broad, and on his cheek a zigzag scar ran down to his neck. Next to him stood a colored guy, short and painfully thin, with the finely chiseled features of a male model.

“Orlando sent us. I’m Tiny Mpayipheli. This is Billy September. The weapons are in the car,” said the black man, and he gestured with his thumb over his shoulder to a new Mercedes-Benz ML 320 at the front door.

“Come in,” said Van Heerden. They walked to the living room.

“Lord save us,” said Carolina de Jager when she saw Mpayipheli.

“And protect us,” said the big man, and he smiled, showing a perfect set of teeth. “Why don’t they write hymns like that anymore?”

“You know the old hymn book?” Carolina asked.

“My father was a missionary, ma’am.”

“Oh.”

Van Heerden introduced everyone.

“You’ll have to share the spare bedroom,” said Joan van Heerden. “But I don’t know if the bed is going to be long enough for you.”

“I brought my own bedding, thank you,” said Mpayipheli in a voice like a bass cello. “And we’ll sleep in shifts. I just want to know whether there’s an M-Net channel here.”

“M-Net?” said Van Heerden blankly.

“Tiny is a weird Xhosa,” said Billy September. “Likes rugby more than soccer. And on Saturday it’s the Sharks against Western Province.”

Joan van Heerden laughed. “I’ve got M-Net because I don’t miss my soaps.”

“We’ve died and gone to heaven,” said September. “I’m a Bold and the Beautiful fan myself.”

“Do you want to look at the weapons now?”

Van Heerden nodded and they walked to the car outside. September opened the trunk.

“Are you the weapons expert?” Hope asked the small guy.

“No, Tiny is.”

“And what’s your…speciality?” asked Van Heerden.

“Unarmed combat.”

“You’re not serious.”

“He is,” said Mpayipheli, and he lifted a blanket from the trunk of the Mercedes. “I didn’t bring a large assortment. Orlando says it’s window dressing because none of you can shoot.”

“I can,” said Hope.

“You’re not serious,” said September, a perfect echo of Van Heerden’s intonation.

There was a small arsenal under the blanket. “It’ll be better if you take the SW99,” he said to her, and took out a pistol. “Collaborative effort of Smith and Wesson and Walther. Nine millimeter, ten pounds in the magazine, one in the barrel. It’s not loaded. You can take it.”

“It’s too big for me.”

“Is there somewhere we can shoot?”

Van Heerden nodded. “Beyond the trees. It’s the farthest from the stables we can get.”

“You’ll see. It handles easily,” Mpayipheli said to Hope. “Polymer frame. And if you can’t handle it” – he took out another pistol, smaller – “this is the Colt Pony Pocketlight, .38 caliber. Firepower enough.” He turned to Van Heerden. “This is the Heckler and Koch MP-5. Fires from a closed and locked bolt in either automatic or semiautomatic mode. It’s the basic weapon of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team and the SWAT units and it’s what you want when you work at close quarters and you’re not a good shot. Can you really not shoot?”

“I can shoot.”

“Without hitting anything,” said September, and giggled.

“With that mouth I sincerely hope you’re really good at unarmed combat.”

“You want to try me, Van Heerden? Do you want firsthand credentials, so to speak?”

“Zatopek,” said Hope Beneke.

“Come on, Van Heerden, don’t chicken out. Go for it.”

“Billy,” said Mpayipheli.

He measured the small man. “You don’t scare me.”

“Hit me, PI man. Show me what you got.” Mocking, tempting, challenging.

And then Van Heerden hit at him, open-handed, annoyed, and lost his balance, felt himself falling, and then he lay on the gritty gravel of his mother’s drive with Billy September’s knee on his chest and his pointed fingers lightly against his throat. And September said: “Japanese Karate Association, JKA, Fourth Dan. Don’t fuck with me,” and then he laughed and put out his hand to help Van Heerden up.