At seven-thirty the next morning McQuade arrived in Pretoria. He was wearing a hat and his new spectacles. It was a brilliant day, the sun shafting fresh and bright through the jacarandas. He left the Landrover in a multi-storey car park and set off through the rush-hour to the van rental company.
He arranged for one to be driven to the cemetery, while he followed in the other, then drove the man back to his garage. He returned to the cemetery. He parked one van directly outside the gates. He then parked the other one at a point where, through the cypress trees, he could clearly see the German war memorial. He returned to the first van, at the gate, and climbed into the back.
He cut the cloth he had bought to the correct sizes, then strung them as curtains, suspended on adhesive tape and string, across the windows and the back of the driver’s compartment. He fixed the string at the corners with super-glue. He returned to the second van, and did the same job on that.
It was nine o’clock. His were the only vehicles here at this hour.
He entered the gate. Tarred paths ran between avenues of trees that divided the cemetery into religious and racial zones. He walked up towards the German burial zone. He came to the first part of the Jewish zone, many tombstones inscribed in Hebrew. Ahead was the single-storied Jewish mausoleum which had a yellow Star of David over the door. A man stood in the doorway, wearing a skullcap, a banner hung from the ceiling within: Charity Delivereth From Death. Sepulchral music wafted out. The German zone was divided from the Jewish by only a narrow path. On the corner of the pathway stood the big German war memorial.
It is a square block of grey granite, as tall as a man. On top stands a black steel dish to hold a flame. Engraved in the granite are the words: Gefallen und Gestorben für Deutschland. On the left side is 1914–1918; on the other, 1939–1945. There is a large black steel wreath.
McQuade glanced around. There were many funereal trees and shrubs, and many large tombstones to provide cover. But the ideal place was inside the Jewish building, filming through the window.
He returned to his panel-van.
From the front seat, through the trees, he could see the Jewish mausoleum and the German memorial. A trickle of people made visits to graves. The cemetery was waking up. Shortly before eleven o’clock he saw Johan Lombard arrive with a cameraman.
He was wearing a trout fisherman’s hat. They disappeared inside the cemetery gates, and reappeared at the Jewish building. Johan looked around the area, as McQuade had done. Then the Jewish caretaker emerged from the building, Johan shook hands with him, and they disappeared inside.
McQuade pulled his hat down a little more, got out of the van and went towards the cemetery gates.
He walked up to the Jewish mausoleum, and went in uncertainly. ‘Dear boy!’ Johan cried. ‘We have the perfect set-up! I’ve brought my video for you! Meet the gentleman who’s so kindly given us permission …’
McQuade shook hands with the caretaker. ‘Can my cameraman come inside to film?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you can have copies of my photographs too,’ Johan said. ‘Fetch them at the house at about three.’
McQuade thanked them, collected Johan’s video camera and hurried back to his van.
Minutes later he saw his own cameraman arrive. He hurried over to his car. ‘Mr Oosthuizen?’
They went back to McQuade’s van. He pointed through the cypress trees at the memorial and the Jewish building, and explained it to him. ‘When you’ve filmed every face from inside that mausoleum, go out the back door into the graveyard behind the building. There’s a thick hedge around it. I want you to get more film, from that angle. Okay?’
‘Okay, sir,’ the earnest young cameraman said.
‘Meanwhile, I’ll be filming from here. Now, when you’ve filmed all the faces – and before the ceremony ends – dash across the back of the Jewish cemetery, climb over the fence, and get back to that van over there at the gate.’
They went to the second van, and climbed into the back. McQuade parted the front curtains.
‘You set up your camera back here, poking through the curtain, and film through the windscreen as the people come out of the cemetery gates. They’ll be walking straight towards you, so you should get everybody, full-face.’
Ten minutes later Mr Oosthuizen was installed in the Jewish mausoleum alongside the benevolent Johan Lombard and a dozen other pressmen.
McQuade returned to his van, and climbed into the back. He picked up Johan’s video camera, switched it on, poked it through the curtains, and focused on the German memorial. He had a good image.
He settled down to wait.