Chapter 8

November 1979

‘Hey, you blerry idiot! You going to burn the meat! That fire’s still too hot.’

Bester stepped back from the braai, waving the long-handled spatula at Van Zyl in mock protest. Marie smiled inwardly: the dynamics of the men.

‘No, kaptein. It’ll be okay. Called “flame-grilled”. It’s lekker like that.’

Van Zyl ignored Bester’s protest and asserted his seniority by pouring beer from the bottle in his hand onto the fire, spilling some onto the sizzling steaks.

‘Jeez, kaptein. Now you’ve drowned the meat.’

‘They’ll taste better like that, lieutenant.’

Van Zyl moved away from the braai and joined the rest of the unit sitting in a semicircle on white plastic chairs, scuffed and stained from many similar social gatherings on the outskirts of Pretoria. This meat and alcohol fest was the preferred sport of this elite unit on these Wednesday afternoons, reserved traditionally by all the security services for sports.

Marie took in the familiar setting. The nonchalant habits of power. A white plastic table with one broken leg propped up with a stick fastened with duct tape stood in the space between the two ends of the semicircle. On it stood bottles of brandy, empty beer bottles, a clutch of mismatched glasses, a pile of paper plates, plastic cutlery, paper napkins, two loaves of white bread and a bowl of potato salad, prepared and brought, as usual, by herself. Jutting out from under the table was a large plastic cooler box with Cokes, beers and ice.

Marie turned her eyes to the late Transvaal sun as it dipped below the tops of the trees, refracting light in chaotic patterns across the scrub, the smattering of stubborn boulders, off the surface of the lake and on the faces of the seven men and herself seated facing the plastic table as if it were an altar. Glasses and bottles moved rhythmically to lips. Legs were crossed and uncrossed. Heads were turned to Bester at the braai and then back to a neighbour for a whispered comment, or to Van Zyl each time he spoke, and now and then someone rose to replenish a beer or fill a glass with brandy and Coke, pausing at the braai on the way back to check on the meat’s progress.

‘Oh, kaptein, give Lieutenant Bester a break. He’s the best braaier in the unit. You know that.’

Van Zyl turned his head towards Marie. She sensed his resentment – permanent resentment, it seemed, given that she had spurned his advances three times. But, at this moment, it was spurred by her defence of Otto.

‘You think so, Marie? The best, hey? It’s just that these other bastards are too damn lazy to braai after a hard day’s work.’ Van Zyl swept his hand with the beer bottle around the semicircle.

‘Yes, kaptein. And he’s your best officer.’ Marie smiled at the others. Their grimaces transformed into wan smiles. Bester turned the meat.

‘My best officer? Why? Because he knows how to talk nicely to kaffirs?’

The men laughed. Glasses and bottles were clinked. Marie smiled again. ‘But, kaptein, how else are you going to catch terrorists?’

‘Marie, I know my trade. But Bester, he is too ambitious.’

Bester tilted his head to catch the words over the sizzling of the fire. He grinned at the steaks.

‘Too ambitious?’ Marie frowned.

‘No, Marie, I don’t mean he’s after my job. I mean this bloody project of his, it’s too long term. I need hard intelligence now. Who’s leaving the country? Who’s coming back? Where are the weapons? Where are the underground cells? Who’s protesting? Who’s throwing stones? Who’s throwing petrol bombs?’

‘Meat’s ready.’ Bester turned to his colleagues.

They all stood, fetched paper plates from the table and gathered around the braai. Bester placed a steak and wors on each plate, with a quiet word and his signature smile to each. When all had been served, he fetched a plate for himself, took meat and headed over to the table for bread, salad and a brandy and Coke. He took a seat between Marie and Van Zyl, placed his glass on the ground beside him and ate with his fingers, every now and then wiping his hand with a napkin before bending to pick up his glass. Apart from a few reluctant praises for the meat, conversation was stilled now. The silence let in the hum of the distant, home-going traffic from the Pretoria streets, a mellow consciousness of the world from which they had temporarily escaped.

‘So, ja, Bester, what’s your story?’ Willie Oberholzer turned from the table where he had placed his empty plate and took another bottle of beer from the cooler box, snapping the top off on the edge of the table. He moved quickly back to his chair, sat, stretched his legs out in front of him.

Bester looked up from his plate, again wiped a hand on the napkin and bent to pick up his glass. ‘My story? What story? There’s no story.’ He glanced at Marie and then back at Oberholzer.

‘What kaptein was saying. This long-term blerry thing.’

‘Hey, Willie, this war can go on for a long time. We need to get our people into the terrorist leadership. The higher they go the more we’ll know.’

‘Ha! You think this war will go on long? There’s no way, man. We too damn strong.’

‘The war will go on until the politicians find a way of accommodating the blacks.’

‘Accommodate the kaffirs? Haven’t we done enough? Jirre, Bester!’

‘Well, if we’d done enough there wouldn’t be a war, né?’

Oberholzer leapt to his feet. Marie flinched, but all he did was down the rest of his beer in one swift movement, walk back to the table, rummage noisily in the cooler box and slam the cap off another one. Bester shifted in his chair, lifted his heels off the ground to balance his plate more stably on his lap, took a bite of his wors and turned on the smile.

Van Zyl rose slowly and moved to the table as he spoke. ‘Hey, Oberholzer, give Bester a break. He’s got a bloody good network going. I just need results now. We might all be dead before some of his projects pay off.’

Graham Kline, the only English-speaking member of the unit, shifted in his seat, coughed falsely as he always did to get attention, his eyes darting to Marie as he spoke. ‘But Otto has a point, captain. All conflicts have to end in some sort of negotiation.’

‘Jirre, rooinek, we don’t negotiate with terrorists!’

Kline turned to Sergeant Booysens who had interrupted him, and then back at Marie. He bent to pour another shot from the whiskey bottle on the ground next to him, swirling the remaining ice in his glass. ‘No, sergeant, but if we didn’t have terrorists we wouldn’t have a war. Sooner or later the war has to come to an end and all wars end with some kind of settlement, even if we’re the winners. Look at what’s happening now. The Rhodesians are talking to their terrorists at Lancaster House right this moment.’

‘The Rhodesians are blerry stupid!’

Kline ignored him. ‘And the more of our people we have in the ANC, the higher they are in the ranks, the more chance of a settlement being in our favour.’

‘And beyond.’ Bester lifted his glass in salute to Kline.

‘Beyond?’

‘Ja, kaptein, beyond. If the settlement Kline is talking about involves maybe bringing the ANC into government, we could have our people on both sides of the government, so to speak.’

‘Yissus! You guys are crazy. You want to govern with communists!’ Oberholzer banged his beer bottle on the side of the chair.

Bester went over for more brandy, speaking over his shoulder. ‘Not all ANC are communists.’

‘The communists run the bloody ANC.’

‘Maybe, for now. But if we get our people in we can change that. That’s what the schools project is all about, isn’t it?’

‘Okay, Bester! That’s enough. Need to know. I’m not going to allow these sports afternoon sessions to turn into a secrets exchange.’ Van Zyl went to check whether there was any more meat on the grill.

‘Sorry, kaptein.’

Silence. Marie looked around. The sun dipped now below the horizon. Shadows stretched like indolent cats. She rose and collected plates and cutlery and placed them in a large black plastic bag. Glasses and bottles were drained with a flourish.

Bester placed an open photo album on the thighs of the still naked Marie. He ran his fingers over the smudges of sweat in the fine hairs of her belly.

‘See here, Marie, see this one? This is Pa’s farm at the dam. Actually, more of a water hole than a dam, or a reservoir. Pa built it to store water from the river for the dry spells. That’s me on the right. Must be about seven. A boy still, innocent, ignorant, happy. Yes, happy. The farm was my world. I didn’t know anything beyond, although Pa used to take me sometimes to town for supplies, but I sat in the bakkie mostly, while Pa did the shopping. He was always very quick. Made a list before he went into town, then in and out the shops – grocer, hardware, bottle store ... In with his lists and out with his bags and boxes.

‘See there in the background beyond the trees, the small forest – although for me it was a wild jungle – see, there, you can just glimpse the curve of the river and over there in the top left corner the little bridge and the road that took us to town and to church on Sunday, every Sunday.’

Marie hoisted herself a little higher on her elbow and bent over the picture. ‘And who’s that swimming next to you?’

‘That? That’s Tshepo. Yes, Tshepo. My little black friend. I forget the surname – Sotho name. He was the son of one of Pa’s workers. Imported from the Orange Free State. More reliable than the local workers, Pa used to say. Forget his name too. But Tshepo, Tshepo was my friend. My best friend, actually. My only friend back then. That was before I knew the difference. I was very young. But we were very close. Very close. Played together every day.

‘I can’t remember who took the photo. Another farm kid maybe. I stole – no, I mean, borrowed – Pa’s camera. We took other photos on that day. But this is the only one I found among Pa’s things after the funeral. I didn’t even know Pa had had the film developed, never mind that he kept any of the photos, especially this one – me and Tshepo.’

Bester leaned back, shoulders against the headboard.

‘So, ja, I had a black friend when I was a laaitie. But not long after this photo was taken Pa fired Tshepo’s father ... or maybe he died, I can’t remember. Yes, I think Tshepo and his mother left, moved to Soweto maybe. I don’t know. Pa was always firing workers, and shouting at them. Always just shouting. But maybe this time it was death. Anyways, Tshepo and his family were gone. Never saw him again. He did come to say goodbye, though, and ... jirre, we cried.’

Marie lay back. Otto’s eyes drifted and then returned with a shudder and shake of his shoulders, a forced laugh.

‘Ja, Marie, perhaps Tshepo’s a terrorist now, fighting to take the farm he was kicked off of. Maybe one day I’ll be the one to arrest him and lock him up. That would be a story, hey?’