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She rapped loudly on the stained glass panel in the front door and waited. She rapped again, harder. Discouraged, she decided to walk to the building that, if she recalled correctly, was the Steynspruit Kibbutz Office. The last time she had visited Steynspruit she had found it totally fascinating that the farm, which had been in Annamari van Zyl’s family for generations, had been turned into a kibbutz, giving the farmworkers a voice in its operations and a share in its profits. She had written a glowing story about it, praising Thys and Annamari van Zyl’s courage in taking such a revolutionary step despite the displeasure of their racist farming neighbours. Even Mafuta had been grudgingly congratulatory about it. Tracy had been thrilled when the editor himself wrote a short commentary quoting her story and stating that the kibbutz concept deserved to be considered as a realistic alternative to the current failing claims system of land restitution which, he had noted, was taking too long and often resulted in the farms falling into disrepair because the new owners did not have the money, or the expertise, to keep them going.
But the calls for expropriation of land without compensation were growing louder and although there was no proven direct link between so called ‘land hunger’ and farm attacks—despite what Afriforum alleged—farms and farmers were being attacked every day. Before starting out on this story, Tracy had agreed with Mafuta and the Minister of Police that these attacks were no different to any other crime in the country. Car hijackings; house robberies in which home owners were assaulted and sometimes tortured; cash-in-transit heists; rapes, not only of women but of babies and children; assaults and murders—they were all so commonplace, it was exactly as Mafuta always said—crime just wasn’t newsworthy any more unless it involved someone famous, or if the perpetrator was white and the victim black.
This attack fell squarely into the famous person category, so there was every chance the editor would run the story.
But now, facing the pretty woman who introduced herself as Busi, the farm manager, Tracy finally had to acknowledge the one fact she had been avoiding. The fact that if anyone had been killed in the attack, it probably meant either Thys van Zyl or Annamari van Zyl, or both, were dead. Tracy had liked Thys van Zyl when he’d taken her on a tour of Steynspruit and described the workings of the kibbutz. Annamari not so much: she’d been abrupt and suspicious. But Thys had been polite and friendly, with a sharp wit that Tracy had found surprising, a far cry from the stereotypical dour, racist, ignorant Boer.
‘It’s unbelievable,’ Busi, said, wiping her eyes on a tissue and sniffing. ‘We think the attackers broke into the house after nine on Monday night. There was struggle – the furniture was all over the place. They stabbed BabaThys, many many times. There was blood everywhere. He must have fought really hard. He was a strong man but there were too many of them. They tied him up and... and they used his electric drill! It was too horrible.’
‘What did they use the drill for? Were they trying to open the safe?’ Tracy asked.
‘The safe was open. The key was in the lock. But there was nothing much in the safe, I don’t think. The money for the farm is kept here, in the office.’
‘So what were they drilling?’
‘BabaThys,’ Busi whispered.
‘What! I don’t think I heard you correctly. Did you say they drilled Thys?’
Busi nodded and sobbed.
Tracy stared at her. She couldn’t believe what she’d just been told.
‘I’m sorry Busi – can you tell me again what happened to Thys. You said they stabbed him, and they used the electric drill on him? Are you sure?’
‘Yes. They drilled his feet and his knees. Then they stabbed him and he died. I pray he died then. I pray he didn’t have to watch although the police think they probably made him watch first, before they drilled him and poured the boiling water on her face. And burned them with cigarettes. Ja, he probably had to watch.’
‘He had to watch Mrs van Zyl being raped?’ Tracy asked.
‘Yebo. They stabbed her too, but not so much as BabaThys.’
Tracy was horrified. ‘Why did they torture them like that? Why rape her?’
‘It’s what they do,’ Busi said. ‘The old gogo next door, over on Viljoenspruit was raped when that farm was attacked – last year, I think. Maybe the year before.’
‘You can’t mean Esti Viljoen? But she was old, really old! She must have been in her eighties!’
Busi shrugged. ‘They don’t care. They also raped some of the farmworkers there too. We were lucky. They couldn’t get to our houses. They tried, you know. But they couldn’t get through our security fence.’
‘Did you see them?’
Busi didn’t respond.
Tracy tried again. ‘Do you know who they were?’
‘If I did know, do you really think I would tell you? I wouldn’t tell anyone. That would just be asking them to come back again – with bolt cutters.’
‘Did Mrs van Zyl – did they kill her too?’
‘The ambulance took her to the hospital.’
‘Which hospital? In Bethlehem? Bloemfontein?’
Busi shrugged.
‘What did they want, the attackers? Did they steal anything? You said the safe was empty.’
The farm manager shrugged again.
‘Why do you think they attacked Steynspruit?’
Another shrug.
Tracy tried a different approach. ‘Do you think it was revenge? Were they getting back at the van Zyls for something? Did they treat you badly? Were they cruel to you?’
Busi laughed – a bitter, angry sound. ‘The police asked that too. Then they left and they haven’t come back.’
‘Well, were they? Isn’t there a land claim against Steynspruit? Were they angry about that? Did they take back the kibbutz? Were they racist?’
‘And if they were, would that make everything that has happened okay?’ Busi glared at her, and Tracy flushed.
‘Well, I told the police and I’ll tell you. Thys van Zyl was not a racist, not like other farmers. He was a good man. MaAnni too, a good lady. If it wasn’t for them... They taught me, they taught all of us. You ask Bontle Maseko – the judge, you know. You ask her if BabaThys was racist. She’ll tell you he wasn’t. They started the school here and ...yes, there is a land claim but they were going to leave. They weren’t going to fight us. They were just waiting for their papers. For New Zealand. They were going to go to New Zealand. De Wet has a farm there. They were going to go and help him with his farm. They were going away. They were leaving. But there was something wrong and the papers were taking a long time. But they were going. BabaThys told me. He was happy about going to New Zealand. He was excited to go. They were leaving. I wish they had gone. I wish their papers had come through. I wish this hadn’t happened. I wish BabaThys was alive. I wish MaAnni...’
Busi’s face crumpled. She collapsed into her chair and wailed. Tracy watched her helplessly. So much for Mafuta’s revenge theory.
***
Tracy parked outside Bethlehem’s only private hospital. Her Google search had indicated that there were two provincial hospitals in the town, but she thought it highly unlikely that Annamari van Zyl’s sons would have allowed their mother to be admitted to either, given the appalling conditions in the country’s public hospitals. However, there was also a chance that Mrs van Zyl had been taken to a private hospital in Bloemfontein, where it would be far more difficult to track her down.
She hesitated. Should she simply walk into the hospital and ask at the enquiries counter for Annamari van Zyl’s ward? What if they wouldn’t tell her?
A tall, bald man with a neatly trimmed, dark blond beard walked past her car, heading towards the hospital entrance. Tracy squeaked in surprise and scrambled after him. She followed him through the foyer and down the corridor. She watched him sign a register at the door to the Intensive Care Unit, spray his hands with an antiseptic spray and disappear into the ward. She walked casually over to the register and glanced down. Arno van Zyl. She thought she’d recognised him, although the last time she’d seen him—in the Silvermans’ kitchen—he’d had a full head of golden hair.
She waited. And waited. Eventually Arno emerged accompanied by a giant of a man, who was unmistakably Thys van Zyl’s son. Tracy shrank back, but the two men didn’t seem to notice her and walked off, deep in conversation. She walked back to the register and read through all the names until she found what she was looking for.
Now she had her story!
She was about to go back to her car when a thought stopped her. Was it possible that there was another story? A story that would be even more sensational than the fact that the 56-year-old father of South African-born, New Zealand Test cricketer De Wet van Zyl had been tortured and murdered, and his mother raped, in an attack on their Free State farm. A story she had tried to break after her first visit to Steynspruit – but had failed because she had been too timid, too afraid of causing offence, to have the guts to ask the hard questions.
She signed the ICU register—Marie Antoinette—and slipped through the doors. This time she would ask Annamari van Zyl only one question: ‘Was Alan Silverman Arno’s biological father?’
***
Tracy gaped at the news editor in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. She had been so sure.
She had flown out of the Bethlehem Private Hospital on winged feet, clutching her cellphone in triumph. She had left a hurried message on Mafuta’s voice mail telling him that she was on her way back with information no one else had about the attack. She’d give him the details later. But she hadn’t told him about her real scoop. No, she’d keep that one up her sleeve – perhaps she’d file it during the Yair Silverman trial, if Mafuta still refused to allow her to cover it. That would blow Duduzile—and Mafuta—right out of the water. It was a dynamite story.
On the long drive back to Johannesburg, Tracy had succumbed to the temptation to stop and replay Annamari van Zyl’s garbled confession with its tearful incoherence, whispered pleas for forgiveness and agitated acceptance of blame for a host of sins and transgressions that made absolutely no sense at all. Even after listening to the recording twice, Tracy found it hard to believe that she had kept pushing the poor woman for the answers she’d wanted. She swallowed her shame and distaste at the way she’d harassed the badly injured and traumatised woman, and listened intently for the confession she knew was coming.
Now, back in the newsroom, she listened to it again.
‘Was Alan Silverman Arno’s biological father?’
A strangled sob, then silence.
‘Please. You just need to answer yes or no. Was Alan Silverman Arno’s biological father?’
Incoherent muttering and sobbing.
‘Mrs van Zyl, do you understand my question? Who was Arno’s real father? Was it Alan Silverman?’
Tracy could hear the frantic note in her own voice. She had kept glancing at the nurses’ station, worried that the sister would come over to see why the pale, bruised and burned, grey-haired woman tethered to drips and a catheter, was weeping.
‘Thys. Thys. My poor, poor Thys. They killed my Thys. My Thys is gone.’ Annamari van Zyl’s voice fades into heart wrenching sobs.
‘So you’re saying that Thys van Zyl was Arno’s biological father?’ Tracy again, voice now a sceptical, hissing whisper.
‘Forgive me. Oh Lord. Forgive me.’
‘Why should the Lord forgive you? You’re lying about Arno, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. Lord forgive me.’
‘So Alan Silverman was Arno’s real father?’
‘Yes. Lord forgive me.’
‘Does Arno know? Who else knows? Did Thys know?’
‘Lord forgive me. I’m so sorry. Forgive me.’
‘So just to confirm. Alan Silverman was Arno’s biological father? Yes?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. So sorry. Yes.’
Tracy switched off the recording and swallowed hard. The confession was clear. Even Mafuta would have no reason to doubt her word. She only hoped she’d never have to play it for him. It wasn’t her finest hour’s work, but it had done the trick. Once she had written the story, it would be a sensation. No one would be able to doubt her journalistic credentials any more. Her story would be quoted and reprinted by every other news outlet in the country – possibly the world. And the editor would be furious that Mafuta had barred her from covering the Yair Silverman trial in order to give it to his mistress.
Mafuta’s sarcastic, hectoring tones penetrated her fantasy.
‘Ms Jacobs – this is the most pathetic excuse for a farm murder story I have ever read,’ he roared across the newsroom.
‘What? Are you kidding?’ Tracy jumped to her feet and gaped at the news editor.
‘You’ve made Thys van Zyl out to be a fucking saint. Where’s the story in that?’
‘But... but... he was a good man. Everyone I spoke to said so. I even got hold of Judge Maseko and she said the same thing. And what about how he was tortured?’
‘Oh come on, Ms Jacobs. He was a farmer, a fucking boer! He obviously deserved it. There’s no story here, no story at all.’
‘What about the fact that he was De Wet van Zyl’s dad? Surely that makes the story newsworthy?’
Mafuta snorted. ‘De Wet van Zyl is just another racist whitie cricketer like Kevin Petersen who ran off overseas because he couldn’t compete against black cricketers for a place in the South African team. He wasn’t good enough, so he blamed the quota system and ran away.’
‘But he’s an excellent cricketer. He’s been in the New Zealand Test side for years.’
‘So what? Now if he had been in the All Black side, that might be something to write about. But a New Zealand cricketer – what a joke! He’s no better than those South African rugby players who went to play for Japan. Or Italy. No one remembers who they are, and no one cares!’
‘Japan beat us in the World Cup last year – and the Springboks lost to Italy last week!’ Tracy blurted.
‘That’s beside the point. The point, Ms Jacobs, is that once again, you have given me a crap, nothing story that the editor may be kind enough to use on page 15. Or perhaps the sports department can make something of it because it’s really not news.’
Tracy sat down, deflated. Perhaps it was time to start looking for another job. But where? Newspapers were retrenching journalists left, right and centre. Which publication would employ a white, Jewish reporter with a mediocre track record? No – before she could even think of applying for a job elsewhere, she would have to have at least one ‘blow their socks off’ scoop.