The White Lioness

Chapter Twenty-eight

The man outside her house in Bezuidenhout Park had come back again. It was the third morning in succession Miranda had seen him standing on the other side of the street, motionless, waiting. She could see him through the thin drapes in the living room window. He was white, dressed in a suit and tie, and looked like a lost soul in this world of hers. She had noticed him early in the morning, not long after Matilda left for school. She reacted immediately, for people very rarely used her street. Every morning the men living in the detached houses drove off in their cars to the center of Johannesburg. Later on the womenfolk would set out in their own cars to do the shopping, go to the beauty parlor, or simply to get away. Bezuidenhout was the haunt of frustrated and restless members of the white middle class. The ones who could not quite make it into the very top white echelons. Miranda knew many of these people were thinking about emigrating. It had occurred to her that yet another fundamental truth was inevitably about to be revealed. For these people South Africa was not the natural fatherland where soil and blood had run in the same veins and furrows. Even if they had been born here, they did not hesitate to start thinking about running away as soon as de Klerk made his speech to the nation that February. Nelson Mandela had been released from prison, and a new age was dawning. A new age that might perhaps see other blacks as well as Miranda living in Bezuidenhout.

But the man in the street was a stranger. He did not belong there, and Miranda wondered what he was after. Anyone standing still on a street at dawn must be looking for something, something lost or dreamed about. She had stood behind the thin curtains for a long time, watching him; in the end she concluded it was her house he was keeping under observation. At first that scared her. Was he from some unknown authority, one of those incomprehensible supervisory organizations that were still governing the lives of blacks in South Africa? She had expected him to announce his presence, to ring the doorbell. But the longer he stood there, motionless, the more she began to doubt that. Besides, he was not carrying a briefcase. Miranda was used to white South Africa always addressing blacks through the medium of dogs, police, swinging batons and armored cars, or papers. But he had no briefcase, and his hands were empty.

The first morning Miranda kept returning to the window to check if he was still there. She thought of him as a sort of statue no one was sure where to place, or that nobody wanted. By shortly before nine, the street was empty. But the next day he was back again, in the same place, staring straight at her window. She had a nasty suspicion he might be there because of Matilda. He could be from the secret police; in the background, invisible to her eyes, there could be cars waiting, full of uniformed men. But something about his behavior made her hesitate. That was when she first had the idea he might be standing there precisely for her to see him, and realize he was not dangerous. He was not a threat, but was giving her time to get used to him.

Now it was the third morning, Wednesday, May 20, and he was there again. Suddenly he looked around, then crossed the street, opened her gate and walked along the path to her front door. She was still behind the drapes when the bell rang. That particular morning Matilda had not gone to school. She had a headache and a temperature when she woke up, possibly malaria, and now she was asleep in her room. Miranda carefully closed her bedroom door before going to answer the front door. He had only rung once. He knew somebody was at home, and it seemed he was also sure somebody would answer.

He’s young, thought Miranda when she confronted him in the doorway.

The man’s voice was clear when he spoke.

“Miranda Nkoyi? I wonder if I might come in for a moment? I promise not to disturb you for long.”

Alarm bells were ringing somewhere inside her. But she let him in even so, showed him into the living room and invited him to take a seat.

As usual, Georg Scheepers felt insecure when he was alone with a black woman. It did not happen often in his life. Mostly it would be one of the black secretaries that had appeared in the prosecutor’s office when the race laws were relaxed recently. This was in fact the first time he had ever sat with a black woman in her own home.

He had the recurrent feeling that black people despised him. He was always looking for traces of enmity. The vague feeling of guilt was never so clear as when he was alone with a black. He could sense his feeling of helplessness growing, now that he was sitting opposite a black woman. It might have been different with a man. As a white man he normally had the upper hand. But now he had lost that advantage, and his chair sank beneath him until he felt like he was sitting on the floor.

He had spent the last few days and previous weekend trying to delve as far as possible into Jan Kleyn’s secret. He knew now that Jan Kleyn was always visiting this house in Bezuidenhout. It was something that had been going on for many years, ever since Jan Kleyn moved to Johannesburg after graduating from the university. With the assistance of Wervey and some of his own contacts, he had also managed to get around the bank confidentiality regulations, and knew Jan Kleyn transferred a large sum of money to Miranda Nkoyi every month.

The secret had opened up before his very eyes. Jan Kleyn, one of the most respected members of BOSS, an Afrikaner who carried his high esteem with pride, lived in secret with a black woman. For her sake he was prepared to take the greatest of risks. If President de Klerk was considered a traitor, Jan Kleyn was another.

But Scheepers had the impression he was only just scraping the surface of the secret, and decided to visit the woman. He would not explain who he was, and it was possible she might never tell Jan Kleyn he had been there, the next time her lover came to visit. If she did, he would soon have identified the visitor as Georg Scheepers. But he would not be sure why; he would be afraid that his secret had been exposed and that Scheepers would have a hold over Jan Kleyn in the future. Of course, there was a risk that Jan Kleyn would decide to kill him. But Scheepers believed that he had insured himself against that possibility as well. He would not leave the house until Miranda understood quite clearly that several other people were aware of Jan Kleyn’s secret life outside the closed world of the intelligence service.

She looked at him, looked through him. She was very beautiful. Her beauty had survived; it survived everything, subjugation, compulsion, pain, as long as the spirit of resistance was there. Ugliness, stunted growth, degeneration, all those things followed in the wake of resignation.

He forced himself to tell her how things stood. That the man who paid her visits, paid for her house, and was presumably her lover, was a man under grave suspicion of conspiracy against the state and the lives of individuals. As he spoke he got the impression she knew some of what he was telling her, but that some parts were new to her. At the same time he had a strange feeling that she was somehow relieved, as if she had been expecting, or even fearing, something different. He immediately started wondering what that could be. He suspected it had something to do with the secret, the elusive impression that there was yet another secret door waiting to be opened.

“I need to know,” he said. “I really don’t have any questions. You shouldn’t think either that I’m asking you to give testify against your own husband. But what is as stake is very big. A threat to the whole country. So big I can’t even tell you who I am.”

“But you are his enemy,” she said. “When the herd senses danger, some animals run off on their own. And they are doomed. Is that how it is?”

“Maybe,” said Scheepers. “It may be.”

He was sitting with his back to the window. Just when Miranda was talking about the animals and the herd, he detected the slightest of movements at the door directly behind her. It was like someone had started to turn the handle but then had a change of heart. It dawned on him he had not seen the young woman leave the house that morning. The young woman who must be Miranda’s daughter.

It was one of the strange circumstances he had discovered while doing his research these last few days. Miranda Nkoyi was registered as the single housekeeper for a man named Sidney Houston, who spent most of his time on his cattle ranch miles away in the vast plains east of Harare. Scheepers had no difficulty in seeing through this business of the absentee rancher, especially when he found out that Jan Kleyn and Houston had studied together at university. But the other woman, Miranda’s daughter? She did not exist. And now here she was, standing behind a door, listening to their conversation.

He was overwhelmed by the thought. Afterwards, he would see his prejudices had misled him, the invisible racial barriers that organized his life. He suddenly realized who the listening girl was. Jan Kleyn’s big and well-preserved secret had been exposed. It was like a fortress finally giving way under siege. It had been possible to conceal the truth for so long because it was quite simply unthinkable. Jan Kleyn, the star of the intelligence service, the ruthless Afrikaner fighting for his rights, had a daughter with a black woman. A daughter he presumably loved above all else. Perhaps he imagined that Nelson Mandela would have to die so that his daughter could continue to live and be refined by her proximity to the whites of this country. As far as Scheepers was concerned, this hypocrisy deserved nothing more than scorn. He felt that all his own resistance had now been broken down. At the same time he thought he could understand the enormity of the task President de Klerk and Nelson Mandela had taken upon themselves. How could they possibly create a feeling of kinship among peoples if everybody regarded everybody else as traitors?

Miranda did not take her eyes off him. He could not imagine what she was thinking, but he could see she was upset.

He let his gaze wander, first to her face and then to a photograph of the girl, standing on the mantelpiece.

“Your daughter,” he said. “Jan Kleyn’s daughter.”

“Matilda.”

Scheepers recalled what he had read about Miranda’s past.

“Like your mother.”

“Like my mother.”

“Do you love your husband?”

“He’s not my husband. He’s her father.”

“What about her?”

“She hates him.”

“At this very moment she’s standing behind her door, listening to our conversation.”

“She’s sick. She has a fever.”

“But she’s listening even so.”

“Why shouldn’t she listen?”

Scheepers nodded. He understood.

“I need to know,” he said. “Think carefully. The slightest little thing might help us to find the men who are plotting to throw our country into chaos. Before it’s too late.”

It seemed to Miranda the moment she had been awaiting for so long had finally arrived. Before now she had always imagined nobody else would be present when she confessed to how she went through Jan Kleyn’s pockets at night, and noted down the words he uttered in his sleep. There would just be the two of them, herself and her daughter. But now she realized things would be different. She wondered why, without even knowing his name, she trusted him so implicitly. Was it his own vulnerability? His lack of confidence in her presence? Was weakness the only thing she dared to trust?

The joy of liberation, she thought. That’s what I feel right now. Like emerging from the sea and knowing I’m clean.

“I thought for ages he was just an ordinary civil servant,” she began. “I knew nothing about his crimes. But then I heard.”

“Who from?”

“I might tell you. But not yet. You should only say things when the time is ripe.”

He regretted having interrupted her.

“But he doesn’t know I know,” she went on. “That has been the advantage I had. Maybe it was my salvation, maybe it’ll be my death. But every time he came to visit us, I got up during the night and emptied his pockets. I copied even the smallest scrap of paper. I listened to the random words he muttered in his sleep. And I passed them on.”

“Who to?”

“To the people who look after us.”

“I look after you.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“I spoke with black men who lead lives just as secret as Jan Kleyn’s.”

He had heard rumors. But nothing had ever been proved. He knew the intelligence service, both the civilian and military branches, were always running after their own shadows. There was a persistent rumor that the blacks had their own intelligence service. Maybe linked directly to the ANC, maybe an independent organization. They investigated what the investigators were doing. Their strategies and their identities. He realized this woman, Miranda, was confirming the existence of these people.

Jan Kleyn is a dead man, he thought. Without his knowing it, his pockets have been picked by the people he regards as the enemy.

“These last few months,” he said. “I don’t care about the time before then. But what have you found recently?”

“I’ve already passed it on, and forgotten,” she said. “Why should I strain myself to remember?”

He could see she was telling the truth. He tried appealing to her one more time. He had to talk with one of the men whose job it was to interpret whatever she found in Jan Kleyn’s pockets. Or what she heard him muttering in his sleep.

“Why should I trust you?” she asked.

“You don’t have to,” he said. “There are no guarantees in this life. There are only risks.”

She sat in silence, and seemed to be thinking.

“Has he killed a lot of people?” she asked. She was speaking very loudly, and he gathered this was so that her daughter could hear.

“Yes,” he said. “He’s killed a lot of people.”

“Blacks?”

“Blacks.”

“Who were criminals?”

“Some were. Some weren’t.”

“Why did he kill them?”

“They were people who preferred not to talk. People who had rebelled. Causers of instability.”

“Like my daughter.”

“I don’t know your daughter.”

“But I do.”

She stood up suddenly.

“Come back tomorrow,” she said. “There might be somebody here who wants to meet you. Go now.”

He left the house. When he got to his car parked on a side street, he was sweating. He drove off, thinking about his own weakness. And her strength. Was there a future in which they could come together and be reconciled?

Matilda did not leave her room when he left. Miranda left her in peace. But that evening she sat on the edge of her bed for a long time.

The fever came and went in waves.

“Are you upset?” Miranda asked.

“No,” replied Matilda. “I hate him even more now.”

Afterwards Scheepers would remember his visit to Kliptown as a descent into a hell he had thus far managed to avoid in his life. By sticking to the white path mapped out for Afrikaners from the cradle to the grave, he had trodden the path of the one-eyed man. Now he was forced to take the other path, the black path, and what he saw he thought he would never forget. It moved him, it had to move him, because the lives of twenty million people were affected. People who were not allowed to live normal lives, who died early, after lives that were artificially restricted and never given the opportunity to develop.

He returned to the house in Bezuidenhout at ten the next morning. Miranda answered the door, but it was Matilda who would take him to the man who had expressed a willingness to talk to him. He had the feeling of having been granted a great privilege. Matilda was just as beautiful as her mother. Her skin was lighter, but her eyes were the same. He had difficulty in making out any features of her father in her face. Perhaps she kept him at such a distance, she simply prevented herself from growing to look like him. She greeted him very shyly, merely nodding when he offered his hand. Once again he felt insecure, in the presence of the daughter as well, even though she was only a teenager. He started to feel uneasy about what he had let himself in for. Perhaps Jan Kleyn’s influence over this house was altogether different from what he had been led to believe? But it was too late to back out now. A rusty old car, its exhaust pipe trailing along the ground and the fenders broken off, was parked in front of the house. Without a word Matilda opened the door, and turned to him.

“I thought he’d be coming here,” said Scheepers doubtfully.

“We’re going to visit another world,” said Matilda.

He got into the back seat and was hit by a smell he only later recognized as reminiscent of his childhood’s henhouse. The man behind the wheel had a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. He turned and looked at him without saying a word. Then they drove away, and the driver and Matilda started a conversation in a language Scheepers did not understand but recognized as Xhosa. They took a southwesterly direction, and Scheepers thought the man was driving much too fast. They soon left central Johannesburg behind them and came onto the complicated network of highways with exits leading off in all directions. Soweto, thought Scheepers. Is that where they’re taking me?

But they were not headed for Soweto. They passed Meadowland, where the choking smoke lay thick over the dusty countryside. Not far beyond the conglomeration of crumbling houses, dogs, children, hens, wrecked and burned-out cars, the driver slowed down and came to a halt. Matilda got out then came to sit beside him in the back seat. She had a black hood in her hand.

“You’re not allowed to see from now on,” she said.

He protested and pushed her hand away.

“What is there to be afraid of?” she asked. “Make up your mind.”

He took hold of the hood.

“Why?” he asked.

“There are a thousand eyes,” she said. “You are not to see anything. And nobody’s going to see you, either.”

“That’s not an answer,” he said. “It’s a riddle.”

“Not for me it isn’t,” she replied. “Make up your mind now!”

He pulled the hood over his head. They set off again. The road was getting worse all the time. But the driver did not slow down. Scheepers rode with the bumps as best he could. Even so he banged his head on the car roof several times. He lost all count of time. The hood was irritating his face, and his skin started to itch.

The car slowed down and came to a halt. Somewhere a dog was barking furiously. Music from a radio was coming and going in waves. Despite the hood he could smell the smoke from fires. Matilda helped him out of the car. Then she removed the hood. The sun shone straight into his unprotected eyes, blinding him. When his eyes got used to the light he could see they were in the middle of a mass of shacks cobbled together from corrugated iron, cardboard cartons, old sacks, sheets of plastic, venetian blinds. There were huts where a car wreck formed one of the rooms. There was a stink of garbage, and a skinny, mangy dog was sniffing at one of his legs. He observed the people who lived out their lives in this destitution. None of them seemed to notice he was there. There was no threat, no curiosity, merely indifference. He did not exist as far as they were concerned.

“Welcome to Kliptown.” said Matilda. “Maybe it’s Kliptown, maybe it’s some other shantytown. You’d never find your way back here anyway. They all look the same. The destitution is just as bad in all of them, the smells are the same, the inhabitants are the same.”

She led him into the cluster of shacks. It was like entering a labyrinth that soon swallowed him up, robbed him of his entire past. After a few paces he had totally lost all sense of direction. He thought how absurd it was that he had Jan Kleyn’s daughter by his side. But absurdity was their inheritance, something that was about to be disturbed for the first time, and then destroyed.

“What can you see?” she asked.

“The same as you,” he replied.

“No!” she said sternly. “Are you shocked?”

“Of course.”

“I’m not. Shock is a staircase. There are many steps. We are not standing on the same one.”

“Maybe you’re at the very top?”

“Nearly.”

“Is the view different?”

“You can see further. Zebra grazing in herds, on alert. Antelopes leaping and leaving gravity behind. A cobra that has hidden itself away in an empty termite stack. Woman carrying water.”

She stopped and turned to face him.

“I see my own hatred in their eyes,” she said. “But your eyes can’t see that.”

“What do you want me to say?” he wondered. “I think it’s sheer hell, living like this. The question is, is it my fault?”

“It might be,” she said. “That depends.”

They continued deeper into the labyrinth. He would never be able to find his way out alone. I need her, he thought. Like we have always needed the blacks. And she knows it.

Matilda halted outside a shack that was slightly bigger than the others, even if it was made from the same materials. She squatted by the door, which was shoddily made from a sheet of hardboard.

“Go on in,” she said. “I’ll wait here.”

Scheepers went in. At first he had difficulty in distinguishing anything at all in the darkness. Then he made out a simple wooden table, a few wooden chairs, and a smoking kerosene lamp. A man detached himself from the shadows. He gazed at him with a hint of a smile. Scheepers thought he must be about the same age as himself. But the man facing him was more powerfully built, had a beard, and radiated the same kind of dignity as he had found in both Miranda and Matilda.

“Georg Scheepers,” said the man, bursting into laughter. Then he pointed to one of the chairs.

“What’s so funny?” asked Scheepers. He had trouble in concealing his growing unease.

“Nothing,” said the man. “You can call me Steve.”

“You know why I want to meet you,” said Scheepers.

“You don’t want to meet me,” said the man who called himself Steve. “You want to meet somebody who can tell you things about Jan Kleyn you don’t know already. That person happens to be me. But it could just as easily have been somebody else.”

“Can we get to the point?” said Scheepers, who was beginning to get impatient.

“White men are always short of time,” said Steve. “I’ve never been able to understand why.”

“Jan Kleyn,” said Scheepers.

“A dangerous man,” said Steve. “Everybody’s enemy, not just ours. The ravens cry in the night. And we analyze and interpret and think we know something is going to happen, something that could cause chaos. And we wouldn’t want that. Neither the ANC nor de Klerk. That’s why you must first tell me what you know. Then perhaps we can combine to illuminate some of the darkest corners.”

Scheepers did not tell him everything. But he did divulge the most important points, and even that was a risk. He did not know who he was talking with. Nevertheless, he had no choice. Steve listened, stroking his chin slowly the while.

“So it’s gone that far,” he said when Scheepers had finished. “We’ve been expecting this. But we really thought some crazy Boer would first try to slit the throat of that traitor de Klerk.”

“A professional killer,” said Scheepers. “No face, no name. But he might have cropped up before. Not least in the vicinity of Jan Kleyn. Those ravens you were talking about could perhaps do some listening. The man could be white, he could be black. I’ve found an indication that he could be due for a lot of money. A million rand, perhaps more.”

“It ought to be possible to identify him,” said Steve. “Jan Kleyn only picks the best. If he’s a South African, black or white, we’ll find him.”

“Find him and stop him,” said Scheepers. “Kill him. We have to work together.”

“No,” said Steve. “We’re meeting now. But this is the only time. We’re going from two different directions, both on this occasion and in the future. Nothing else is possible.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t share each other’s secrets. Everything is still too unsure, too uncertain. We avoid all pacts and agreements unless they are absolutely essential. Don’t forget we’re enemies. And the war in our country has been going on for a very long time. Although you don’t want to recognize that fact.”

“We see things differently,” said Scheepers.

“Yes,” said Steve. “We do.”

The conversation had lasted only a few minutes. Even so, Steve got to his feet and Scheepers gathered it was all over.

“Miranda exists,” said Steve. “You can contact my world through her.”

“Yes,” said Scheepers. “She exists. We have to stop this assassination.”

“Right,” said Steve. “But I guess you are the ones who are going to have to do it. You are still the ones with the resources. I have nothing. Apart from a tin hut. And Miranda. And Matilda. Just imagine what would happen if the assassination came off.”

“I’d rather not think about it.”

Steve stared at him for a moment in silence. Then he disappeared through the door without saying goodbye. Scheepers followed him into the bright sunlight. Matilda led him back to the car without speaking. Once again he sat in the back seat with a hood over his head. In the darkness he was already preparing what to say to President de Klerk.

De Klerk had a recurrent dream about termites.

He was in a house where every floor, every wall, every piece of furniture had been attacked by the hungry insects. Why he had come to the house, he had no idea. Grass was growing up between the floorboards, the windowpanes were shattered, and the furious chewing of the termites was like an itch in his own body. In his dream he had a very short time in which to write an important speech. His usual shorthand typist had disappeared, and he had to do the work himself. But when he started writing, termites came pouring out of his pen.

At that point he usually woke up. He would lie in the dark, thinking how the dream might anticipate coming reality. Maybe everything was too late already? What he wanted to achieve, to rescue South Africa from disintegration while still preserving the influence and special status of the whites as far as possible, could well be already too far out of step with black impatience. Only Nelson Mandela could convince him there was no other course to take. De Klerk knew they both shared the same fear. Uncontrolled violence, a chaotic collapse that no one could control, a breeding ground for a brutal military coup intent on revenge, or various ethnic groupings that would fight each other until nothing was left.

It was ten at night on Thursday, May 21. De Klerk knew the young lawyer Scheepers was already waiting in his anteroom. But de Klerk did not feel ready to receive him just yet. He was tired, his head bursting with all the problems he was constantly being forced to try and solve. He got up from his desk and went over to one of the high windows. He sometimes felt petrified by all the responsibility resting on his shoulders. He thought it was too much for one man to bear. He sometimes felt an instinctive urge to run away, to make himself invisible, to go straight out into the bush and simply disappear, to fade away into a mirage. But he knew he would not do that. The God he found increasingly difficult to talk to and believe in was maybe still shielding him after all. He wondered how much time he still had. His mood was constantly changing. From being convinced he was already living on borrowed time, he could start believing he had another five years after all. And time was what he needed. His grand design-to delay the transition to a new kind of society for as long as possible, and meanwhile to entice a large number of black voters into his own party-needed time. But he could also see that Nelson Mandela would refuse to allow him time that was not used to pave the way for the transition.

It seemed to him there was an element of artificiality in everything he did. I too am really an upholder of the impossible dream, that my country will never change. The difference between me and a fanatic madman who wants to defend the impossible dream with open violence is very small.

Time is running out for South Africa, it seemed to him. What is happening now ought to have happened many years ago. But history does not follow invisible guidelines.

He returned to his desk and rang the bell. Shortly afterwards Scheepers came in. De Klerk had come to appreciate his energy and thoroughness. He overlooked the streak of naive innocence he also detected in the young lawyer. Even this young Afrikaner had to learn there were sharp rocks under the soft sand.

He listened to Scheepers’s report with half-closed eyes. The words that got through to him piled up in his consciousness. When Scheepers had finished, de Klerk looked searchingly at him.

“I take it for granted everything I’ve just heard is true,” said de Klerk.

“Yes,” replied Scheepers. “No doubt about it.”

“None at all?”

“No.”

De Klerk thought for a moment before proceeding.

“So they’re going to kill Nelson Mandela,” he said. “Some miserable contract killer selected and paid by the executive branch of this secret committee. The murder will take place in the near future when Mandela is making one of his many public appearances. The consequence will be chaos, a bloodbath, total collapse. A group of influential boere are waiting in the wings to take over the government of this country. The constitution and the social order will be overturned. A corporate regime will be imposed, consisting of equal parts from the military, the police and civilian groups. The future will be one long, drawn-out state of emergency. Is that right?”

“Yes,” said Scheepers. “If I may be allowed to venture a guess, I would say the assassination attempt will be on June 12.”

“Why?”

“Nelson Mandela is due to speak in Cape Town. I have received information to the effect that the army information office has being displaying an unusual amount of interest in the plans made for dealing with the occasion by the local police. There are also other indications which suggest this is the case. I am well aware it is only a guess. But I’m convinced it’s an informed guess.”

“Three weeks,” said de Klerk. “Three weeks in which to stop these lunatics.”

“If that is in fact right,” said Scheepers. “We can’t ignore the possibility that June 12 and Cape Town are a red herring. The people involved in this are very cunning. The assassination attempt could easily take place tomorrow.”

“In other words, at any time,” said de Klerk. “Any place. And there’s nothing we can do about it.”

He fell silent. Scheepers waited.

“I must speak with Nelson Mandela,” said de Klerk. “He has to know what’s afoot.”

Then he turned to Scheepers.

“These people must be stopped without delay,” he said.

“We don’t know who they are,” Scheepers pointed out. “How can we stop something we don’t know about?”

“What about the man they’ve hired?”

“We don’t know who he is either.”

De Klerk looked thoughtfully at him.

“You have a plan,” he said. “I can see it in your face.”

Scheepers could feel himself blushing.

“Mr. President,” he said. “I think the key to all this is Jan Kleyn. The man in the intelligence service. He has to be arrested immediately. Of course, the risk is he won’t talk. Or he might prefer to commit suicide. But I can see no alternative to interrogating him.”

De Klerk nodded.

“Let’s do that,” he said. “In fact we have quite a few skillful interrogators who can usually force the truth out of people.”

Out of blacks, thought Scheepers. Who then die in mysterious circumstances.

“I think it would be best if I could conduct the interrogation,” he said. “I know most about it, after all.”

“Do you think you can handle him?”

“Yes.”

The president rose. The audience was over.

“Jan Kleyn will be arrested tomorrow,” said de Klerk. “And I want running reports from now on. Once every day.”

The shook hands.

Scheepers left, nodding to the old security guard waiting in the antechamber. Then he drove home through the night, with his pistol on the seat beside him.

De Klerk stood at his window for a long time, deep in thought.

Then he worked at his desk for a few more hours.

Outside in the antechamber, the old guard ambled round straightening out folds in the carpets and smoothing cushions on chairs. All the time he was thinking over what he had overheard with his ear to the door of the president’s private office. He realized the situation was extremely serious. He went into the room that served as his own modest office. He removed the telephone from the plug routed through the switchboard. Behind a loose wooden panel was another socket only he knew about. He lifted the receiver and got a direct line out. Then he dialed a number.

The answer came almost immediately. Jan Kleyn was not yet asleep.

After his conversation with the guard at the president’s private office, he could see this was going to be a sleepless night.