Devil's Peak (2 page)

* * *

“I wonder if he believed,” she said, the minister’s full attention on her now. His eyes no longer strayed to the box.
“Unlike me.” The reference to herself was unplanned and she wondered for a moment why she said it. “Maybe he didn’t go to church or such, but he might have believed. And perhaps he could not understand why the Lord gave to him and then took away. First his wife, and then his child on the farm. He thought he was being punished. I wonder why that is? Why we all think that when something bad happens? I do too. It’s weird. I just could never work out what I was being punished for.”
“As an unbeliever?” asked the minister.
She shrugged. “Yes. Isn’t it strange? It’s like the guilt is here inside us. Sometimes I wonder if we are being punished for the things we are going to do in the future. Because my sins only came later, after I was punished.”
The minister shook his head and took a breath as if to answer, but she didn’t want to be sidetracked now; didn’t want to break the rhythm of her story.

* * *

They were out of reach. There were eight men behind the one-way glass, but he could only focus on the two for whom his hate burned. They were young and devil-may-care, their mouths stretched in the same “so-what” smirks, their eyes staring a challenge at the window. For a moment he considered the possibility of saying he recognized none of them and then waiting outside the police station with the hunting rifle . . . But he wasn’t prepared, hadn’t studied the exits and streets outside. He lifted his finger like a rifle barrel and said to the superintendent: “There they are, numbers three and five.” He did not recognize the sound of his own voice; they were the words of a stranger.
“You are sure?”
“Dead sure,” he said.
“Three and five?”
“Three and five.”
“That’s what we thought.”
They asked him to sign a statement. Then there was nothing more he could do. He walked to his pickup, unlocked the door and got in, conscious of the rifle behind the seat and the two men somewhere inside the building. He sat and wondered what the superintendent would do if he asked for a few moments alone with them, because he felt the compulsion to thrust a long blade into their hearts. His eyes lingered a moment on the front door of the police station and then he turned the key and drove slowly away.

3.

T
he public prosecutor was a Xhosa woman and her office was filled with the pale yellow dossiers of her daily work. They were everywhere. The desk was overloaded and the heaps overflowed to the two tables and the floor, so they had to pick their way to the two chairs. She had a somber quality and a vague absence, as if her attention was divided between the countless documents, as if the responsibility of her work was sometimes too heavy to bear.
She explained. She was the one who would lead the state prosecution. She had to prepare him as a witness. Together they must convince the judge that the accused were guilty.
That would be easy, he said.
It is never easy, she replied, and adjusted her large gold-rimmed spectacles with the tips of her thumb and index finger, as if they could never be wholly comfortable. She questioned him about the day of Pakamile’s death, over and over, until she could see the event through his eyes. When they had finished, he asked her how the judge would punish them.
“If they are found guilty?”
“When they are found guilty,” he replied with assurance.
She adjusted her spectacles and said one could never predict these things. One of them, Khoza, had a previous conviction. But it was Ramphele’s first offense. And he must remember that it was not their intent to murder the child.
“Not their intent?”
“They will attest that they never even saw the child. Only you.”
“What sentence will they get?”
“Ten years. Fifteen? I can’t say for sure.”
For a long moment he just stared at her.
“That is the system,” she said with an exonerating shrug.

* * *

A day before the court case was to begin he drove his pickup to Umtata because he needed to buy a couple of ties, a jacket and black shoes.
He stood in his new clothes before the long mirror. The shop assistant said, “That looks
sharp,
” but he did not recognize himself in the reflection—the face was unfamiliar and the beard which had appeared on his cheeks since the boy’s death grew thick and gray on the chin and cheeks. It made him look harmless, and wise, like a stalwart.
The eyes mesmerized him. Were they his? They reflected no light, as if they were empty and dead inside.
From the late afternoon he lay on his hotel bed, arms behind his head, motionless.
He remembered: Pakamile in the shed above the house milking a cow for the first time, all thumbs, in too much of a hurry. Frustrated that the teats would not respond to the manipulation of his small fingers. And then, at last, the thin white stream shooting off at an angle to spray the shed floor and the triumphant cry from the boy: “Thobela! Look!”
The small figure in school uniform that waited every afternoon for him, socks at half-mast, shirt-tails hanging, the backpack disproportionately big. The joy every day when he drew up. If he came on the motorbike, Pakamile would first look around to see which of his friends was witness to this exotic event, this unique machine that only he had the right to ride home on.
Sometimes his friends slept over; four, five, six boys tailing Pakamile around the farmyard. “My father and I planted all these vegetables.” “This is my father’s motorbike and this is mine.” “My father planted all this lucerne himself, hey.” A Friday night . . . everyone in a Christmas bed in the sitting room, jammed in like sardines in a flat tin. The house had vibrated with life. The house was full. Full.
The emptiness of the room overwhelmed him. The silence, the contrast. A part of him asked the question: what now? He tried to banish it with memories, but still it echoed. He thought long about it, but he knew in an unformulated way that Miriam and Pakamile had been his life. And now there was nothing.
He got up once to relieve himself and drink water and went back to lie down. The air conditioner hissed and blew under the window. He stared at the ceiling, waited for the night to pass so the trial could begin.

* * *

The accused sat alongside each other: Khoza and Ramphele. They looked him in the eyes. Beside them the advocate for the defense stood up: an Indian, tall and athletically lean, flamboyant in a smart black suit and purple tie.
“Mr. Mpayipheli, when the state prosecutor asked you what your profession was, you said you were a farmer.”
He did not answer, because it was not a question.
“Is that correct?” The Indian had a soothing voice, as intimate as if they were old friends.
“It is.”
“But that is not the whole truth, is it?”
“I don’t know what . . .”
“How long have you been a so-called farmer, Mr. Mpayipheli?”
“Two years.”
“And what was your profession before you began farming?”
The state prosecutor, the serious woman with the gold-rimmed spectacles, stood up. “Objection, Your Honor. Mr. Mpayipheli’s work history is irrelevant to the case before the court.”
“Your Honor, the background of the witness is not only relevant to his reliability as a witness, but also to his behavior at the filling station. The defense has serious doubts about Mr. Mpayipheli’s version of the events.”
“I shall allow you to continue,” said the judge, a middle-aged white man with a double chin and a red complexion. “Answer the question, Mr. Mpayipheli.”
“What was your profession before you went farming?” repeated the advocate.
“I was a gofer at a motorbike retailer.”
“For how long?”
“Two years.”
“And before that?”
His heart began to race. He knew he must not hesitate, nor look unsure.
“I was a bodyguard.”
“A bodyguard.”
“Yes.”
“Let us go one step further back, Mr. Mpayipheli, before we return to your answer. What did you do before you, as you say, became a bodyguard?”
Where had the man obtained this information? “I was a soldier.”
“A soldier.”
He did not answer. He felt hot in his suit and tie. He felt sweat trickle down his back.
The Indian shuffled documents on the table before him and came up with a few sheets of paper. He walked to the state prosecutor and gave her a copy. He repeated the process with the judge and placed one before Thobela.
“Mr. Mpayipheli, would it be accurate to say you tend towards euphemism?”
“Objection, Your Honor, the defense is intimidating the witness and the direction of questioning is irrelevant.” She had glanced at the document and began to look uncomfortable. Her voice had reached a higher note.
“Overruled. Proceed.”
“Mr. Mpayipheli, you and I can play evasion games all day but I have too much respect for this court to allow that. Let me help you. I have here a newspaper report”—he waved the document in the air—“that states, and I quote: ‘Mpayipheli, a former Umkhonto We Sizwe soldier who received specialist training in Russia and the former East Germany, was connected until recently to a drugs syndicate on the Cape Flats . . .’ End of quote. The article refers to a certain Thobela Mpayipheli who was wanted by the authorities two years ago in connection with the disappearance of, and I quote once more, ‘government intelligence of a sensitive nature.’ ”
Just before the prosecutor leapt up, she glanced fiercely at Thobela, as if he had betrayed her. “Your Honor, I must protest. The witness is not on trial here . . .”
“Mr. Singh, are you going somewhere with this argument?”
“Absolutely, Your Honor. I ask for just a moment of the court’s patience.”
“Proceed.”
“Is that what this newspaper article is referring to, Mr. Mpayipheli?”
“Yes.”
“Excuse me, I can’t hear you.”
“Yes.” Louder.
“Mr. Mpayipheli, I put it to you that your version of the events at the filling station is just as evasive and euphemistic as your description of your background.”
“That is . . .”
“You are a highly trained military man, schooled in the military arts, urban terrorism and guerrilla warfare . . .”
“I object, Your Honor—that is not a question.”
“Overruled. Let the man finish, madam.”
She sat down, shaking her head, with a deep frown behind the gold-rimmed spectacles. “As it pleases the court,” she said, but her tone said otherwise.
“And a ‘bodyguard’ for the drug syndicate in the Cape for two years. A
bodyguard.
That is not what the newspapers say . . .”
The state prosecutor stood up, but the judge pre-empted her: “Mr. Singh, you are testing the patience of the court. If you wish to lead evidence, please await your turn.”
“My sincere apologies, Your Honor, but it is an affront to the principles of justice for a witness under oath to fabricate a story—”
“Mr. Singh, spare me. What is your question?”
“As it pleases the court, Your Honor. Mr. Mpayipheli, what was the specific purpose of your military training?”
“That was twenty years ago.”
“Answer the question, please.”
“I was trained in counter-espionage activities.”
“Did this include the use of firearms and explosives?”
“Yes.”
“Hand-to-hand combat?”
“Yes.”
“The handling of high-pressure situations?”
“Yes.”
“Elimination and escape.”
“Yes.”
“And at the filling station you say, and I quote: ‘I ducked behind the petrol pump,’ when you heard the shots?”
“The war was over ten years ago. I was not there to fight, I was there to fill up . . .”
“The war was not over for you ten years ago, Mr. Mpayipheli. You took the war to the Cape Flats with your training in death and injury. Let us discuss your role as bodyguard . . .”
The prosecutor’s voice was high and plaintive. “Your Honor, I object in the strongest—”
At that moment Thobela saw the faces of the accused; they were laughing at him.
“Objection sustained. Mr. Singh, that is enough. You have made your point. Do you have any specific questions about the events at the filling station?”
Singh’s shoulders sagged, as if wounded. “As it pleases the court, Your Honor, I have.”
“Then get on with it.”
“Mr. Mpayipheli, did you forget that it was
you
who attacked the accused when they left the filling station?”
“I did not.”
“You did not forget?”
“Your Honor, the defense . . .”
“Mr. Singh!”
“Your Honor, the accused . . . excuse me, the witness is evading the question.”
“No, Mr. Singh, it is you who are leading the witness.”
“Very well. Mr. Mpayipheli, you say you did not charge at the accused in a threatening manner?”
“I did not.”
“You did not have a wheel spanner or some tool . . .”
“I object, Your Honor, the witness has already answered the question.”
“Mr. Singh . . .”
“I have no further questions for this liar, Your Honor . . .”

4.

I
think he believed he could make things right. Anything,” she said in the twilit room. The sun had dropped behind the hills of the town and the light entering the room was softer. It made the telling easier, she thought, and wondered why.
“That is the thing that I admired most. That somebody stood up and did something that the rest of us were too afraid to do, even if we wanted to. I never had the guts. I was too scared to fight back. And then I read about him in the papers and I began to wonder: maybe I could also . . .”
She hesitated a fraction and then asked with bated breath: “Do you know about Artemis, Reverend?”
He did not react at first, sitting motionless, tipped slightly forward, engrossed in the story she was telling. Then he blinked, his attention refocused.
“Artemis? Er, yes . . .” he said tentatively.
“The one the papers wrote about.”
“The papers . . .” He seemed embarrassed. “Some things pass me by. Something new every week. I don’t always keep up.”
She was relieved about that. There was an imperceptible shift in their roles—he the small-town minister, she the worldly-wise one, the one in the know. She slipped her foot out of its sandal and folded it under her, shifting to a more comfortable position in the chair. “Let me tell you,” she said with more self-assurance.
He nodded.
“I was in trouble when I read about him for the first time. I was in the Cape. I was . . .” For a fraction of a second she hesitated and wondered if it would upset him. “I was a call girl.”

* * *

At half-past eleven that night he was still awake on his hotel bed when someone knocked softly on his door, apologetically.
It was the public prosecutor, her eyes magnified behind the spectacles.
“Sorry,” she said, but she just looked tired.
“Come in.”
She hesitated a moment and he knew why: he was just in his shorts, his body glistening with perspiration. He turned around and picked up his T-shirt, motioning her to take the single armchair. He perched on the end of the bed.
She sat primly on the chair; her hands folded the dark material of her skirt over her plump legs. She had an officious air, as if she had come to speak of weighty things.
“What happened today in court?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“He wanted to blame
me.
The Indian.”
“He was doing his job. That’s all.”
“His job?”
“He has to defend them.”
“With lies?”
“In law there are no lies, Mr. Mpayipheli. Just different versions of the truth.”
He shook his head. “There is only one truth.”
“You think so? And what one truth is there about you? The one where you are a farmer? A father? A freedom fighter? Or a drug dealer? A fugitive from the state?”
“That has nothing to do with Pakamile’s death,” he said, anger creeping into his words.
“The moment Singh brought it up in court, it became part of his death, Mr. Mpayipheli.”
Rage flooded over him, reliving the day of frustration: “All that Mister, Mister, so polite, and objections and playing little legal games . . . And those two sitting there and laughing.”
“That is why I have come,” she said. “To tell you: they have escaped.”
He did not know how long he sat there, just staring at her.
“One of them overpowered a policeman. In the cells, when he brought him food. He had a weapon, a knife.”
“Overpowered,” he said, as if tasting the word.
“The police . . . They are short of manpower. Not everyone turned up on shift.”
“They both got away.”
“There are roadblocks. The station commander said they won’t get far.”
The rage inside him took on another face that he did not wish her to see. “Where would they go?”
She shrugged once more, as if she was beyond caring. “Who knows?”
When he did not respond, she leaned forward in the chair. “I wanted to tell you. You have the right to know.”
She stood up. He waited for her to pass him, then stood up and followed her to the door.