Tehogo came in the next day. I wasn’t there; in the late afternoon I went back to the village behind Maria’s shack to find out if there was any word of her. There wasn’t, and in a melancholic frame of mind I took a drive all the way to the escarpment. I got back to the hospital in the evening, when it was already dark. All the lights were burning in the main wing, so that the building was very bright, and I could see figures moving in the windows.
I hurried in. The office was empty. I could hear activity next door, in the surgery, but when I started down the passage they were already coming out – Dr Ngema, the Santanders, and Laurence.
Nobody spoke to me. There was an air of distraction and wildness, everything out of control. But in a little while the frenzy seemed to settle. The Santanders were babbling together in Spanish, Dr Ngema was writing out clerking notes in the office. For a few minutes Laurence was floating, like me, in the lurid void of the corridor.
He said to me, ‘What’s going on?’
‘I was hoping you could tell me.’
‘I don’t know, I don’t understand it.’
‘But what’s happening?’
‘He’s down there. He’s been shot in the chest. I don’t think he’s going to make it. Dr Ngema tried to operate, but it’s too close to his lungs. I think – ’
‘Who? Who are you talking about?’
He stared incredulously at me, as if I was the inexplicable element in the scene. ‘Tehogo,’ he said at last. ‘Where have you been?’
Even then I didn’t understand. And then I did.
I went down the corridor. In the middle of the surgery, under the blue sepulchral glow of the night-lights, Tehogo lay on his back, a sheet up to his waist. He was on the ventilator, with an intravenous drip in his arm. His torso was bare, except for bandages and padding. And his face, when I bent over him, was collapsed inwards on its bones, as if he was already dead.
I went back up the passage. I said to Laurence, ‘Who brought him in?’
‘That other guy. That friend of his. I think.’
‘You think?’
‘I wasn’t looking. It happened so quickly.’ He put a hand to his head and I could see that he was on the edge of tears. I’d never seen Laurence cry before. ‘I was on duty in the office and I heard a car come in outside. Very fast. Then the hooter went – over and over. I ran out. And the guy, whoever he was, the driver, was pulling Tehogo out the back.’
‘What kind of car?’
‘Sorry?’
‘What kind of car was it?’
‘I don’t know, Frank, I wasn’t looking, I’m sorry.’ Now a tear did break free and run down, but his voice stayed steady. ‘I took hold of Tehogo and started pulling him too, just to help, you know. But next thing the guy had got back into the car and was driving off hell for leather. I don’t know, Frank, I think it was his friend, but I can’t be sure. Why has this happened? What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. But I did know, as certainly as if I’d seen it.
I drove to Mama’s place. It was still early and the bar was almost deserted. Mama was at the bar, counting stacks of small change into plastic bags. She smiled when she saw me.
‘I’m looking for Colonel Moller.’
The smile faded; she’d seen something in my face. ‘He’s upstairs. In his room.’
‘What number?’
She told me, and I climbed the stairs. It was the last door in the passage, on the corner of the building. He answered almost immediately when I knocked, as if he’d been waiting. But his wooden face betrayed a tiny tremor when he saw me; just for a second, then it was gone.
He was in uniform today. Camouflage pants, brown boots. But he’d taken off his shirt and the upper half of his body, smooth and almost hairless, seemed unrelated to the uniform below. Behind him I caught a glimpse of the room, like the one Zanele had stayed in down the passage. But the nude austerity of it had been hardened, if that was possible, by his presence. In the cupboard I saw his clothes piled up in rigorous vertical stacks. There was a disassembled rifle lying on the table, all its component parts laid out in neat, gleaming rows.
‘Could I come in for a second, Colonel?’
He shook his head. ‘If you don’t mind, Doctor, I’m busy now. You’ll have to talk to me at the door.’
Very polite, very distant. And I have no doubt that he used the same level tones with the people he’d tortured and killed. There was nothing personal in it for him.
‘Colonel,’ I said. ‘We have a wounded man at the hospital. I think you know who he is.’
He gazed calmly at me, waiting.
‘I want to know what happened to him.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He shook his head again. ‘I wish I could help you, Doctor.’
He was still polite and opaque, but his attitude to me today was different. Last night I was just a loon, someone who could be brushed off with contempt. But now he was wary. His detachment had an element of power, a guarded watchfulness that was part of a game. He took me seriously now, though he was giving nothing away.
I said, ‘Let me talk plainly. You don’t have to tell me anything. But I know. I know you shot that man – you or your men. You went to the army camp, because I told you to go. You didn’t think you’d find anything, but you did. And something happened, somebody ran, or fired a shot – and this is where it’s ended up.’
He kept on staring at me, looking politely interested.
‘Colonel,’ I said, and the note of anguish was audible to us both. ‘Can you not understand that I feel responsible? I am not here to blame you, or make trouble. I only want to understand. I told you where to go. I didn’t think anything would happen, but now it has happened. I am the reason for this. I know that. Not you, me. It will help me to know what happened. That’s all I’m asking. Please help me, Colonel. Please.’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor.’
‘All right. Tell me this, then – just this one thing. Was anybody else hurt? What happened to the others? Did they get away? Did you arrest them?’
‘I can’t answer your question.’
‘All right then. Forget about them – forget all of them. Just one person: the woman. The woman I told you about last night. Was she there? Is she safe?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Just one word, Colonel. Yes or no. Not even a word – just nod or shake your head. Is she alive or is she dead? That’s all I ask.’
He stepped back and closed the door. All the dialogue came down to the finality of this single gesture. I rested my forehead against the wall for a while, then went back down the passage.
The hospital had gone still and quiet again, but somehow the air of commotion hung over it like a fog. Laurence and the Santanders were still sitting around in the office. The talk was all about Tehogo. The general opinion was that he would die.
I went to see him again. He was still in the surgery, still hooked up to the machinery that was keeping him going. He seemed to be half-made from synthetic materials and the human half was inert and passive.
I said his name. But there was not the slightest response. So I stood and looked at him, at his face. I noticed a birthmark, a slightly darkened patch, on one cheek. A tiny crescent scar on his forehead. These were details I had never seen before, until this moment. And though I had lived and worked for years of my life close to him, I think I can say that this was the first time that my life felt connected to his.