Small Things

by Nthikeng Mohlele

  I arrived home at dawn. The yard was swarming with police vehicles. My heart thundered. My throat was aflame with helpless fear. The house was being ransacked, sniffer dogs led to cupboards, intruding into every imaginable space. There was dog hair on my towels, my bedding, my cheap curtains. I asked politely what the commotion was about – to which a uniformed figure advised: ‘Do not interfere with lawful police business, Kaffir.’ Though the officers were mostly polite and though they explained very little, their sombre search suggested there was something great at stake. The team leader, who had ignored me thus far, introduced himself as Major Joubert. Lead investigator. ‘You have to come with me. Answer a few questions,’ he said.

  ‘Who exactly are you looking for?’

  ‘You. Come with me. To that Ford by the gate.’

  I froze. Major Joubert’s terseness hinted at agitation: ‘To the car, please.’

  No handcuffs. No explanations. No force. I was warned: stop your nonsense. Of dan gaan jy kak (or you’re going to shit yourself). There was no further talk. Major Joubert signalled and his officers slowly shuffled out, torch beams still bouncing onto the walls, the coal box. Soweto was graveyard silent.

  I penned an article, all of three thousand words, ‘State of Neurosis’, the next morning. It was published on the front page of the Daily Argus, sparking furious anonymous support letters to the editor. I walked home to Soweto three days later, after killing time in the newsroom, to find Major Joubert’s yellow Ford parked at the gate. He looked at me, lit a cigarette, shook his head in pity and disbelief. He, before throwing me handcuffs, said: ‘You put me in a very awkward situation, Che.’

  I sighed. ‘What is the charge?’

  The four detectives accompanying him stirred against the walls. He shook his head, commanded: ‘Let’s go.’

  I was blindfolded, driven to Republic House, an infamous interrogation facility nestled on a hill, hidden behind high security walls, its secrets further entombed in intricate foliage. The amount of questions I was asked generated enough paperwork to cremate an average-sized corpse – yet there seemed to be no end in sight. The questions kept coming, in different guises, alternating tempos. None of the documentation explicitly bore my name or related to me in any way.

  Days and nights dragged by. Midnight interrogation sessions were mostly about specific poets and editors – whom Major Joubert accused me of knowing and, worse, sharing treasonous pursuits with. He was irritable, often dejected, and without doubt disillusioned by his interrogation crusade. There were obvious lapses in judgement on his part, in the way some questions seemed designed to pass time rather than establish deep-set treason.

  Major Joubert poured me coffee, explaining why justice was such a slippery slope; why it was, for a selection of people, necessary to follow long processes, weed out any contradictions, in pursuit of justice, in its purest form. He said it sometimes meant that things were left as they were. That did not mean there was an absence of justice or guilt, but that the purity thereof was in doubt. In such cases, he said, fixing me with a stare, even treasonous rogues are set free. Guilt, he said, like truth, does not end with establishing the facts, understanding the motivations, confirming and apportioning blame. Philosophical, that Major Joubert. I protested: ‘If you are going to line me up against the wall with a firing squad, do it quickly. I have no time for your theatrics.’ The major simply shook his head, stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. A skinny man of average build, clean-shaven, with a pleasant smile; more suited for packing watermelons and tomatoes in supermarkets than hunting down rebels. He looked at me, a gentle smile playing on his ruby lips, and said: ‘I have all the time in the world. The question is: do you? Thousands have sat in the exact same chair as you, answering and dodging the exact questions being put to you. Look, I have a comfortable bed, three adorable German Shepherds, a wife who abhors me as Adolf Hitler risen from the dead. Can you believe it? We can end this thing and go home. It is up to you.’

  My ‘misguided insolence’, as he termed it, caused me several years in solitary confinement. I was driven around farms in rusty labour lorries, broke my back digging potatoes under police guard. The routine was predictable: ten hours under lock and key and practically every waking minute digging furrows, clearing bushes, moving and carrying logs and timber. My body ached. I longed for the comfort of the newsroom, the park pigeons, Bra Todd’s gramophone. What wounded me most was not the back-breaking work but being commanded to do things against my will. And the food! Stale bread and jam that tasted like motor grease. You could not feign sickness, and everyone in the work groups – condemned men fished from Johannesburg prisons, accused of the most imaginary crimes – knew you had to have your bowels hanging out of your anus to be even remotely considered sick. We mixed mortar on construction sites, chopped truckloads of wood for God knew which furnaces, dug graves and buried paupers, pruned trees wherever such a need arose. We developed friendships, learnt of appalling accusations, laughed heartily at our misery.

  1976 seemed like nine years folded into one – tense and unpredictable. A skew friendship blossomed between Major Joubert and I, away from the guards on the watchtowers. We, on some occasions, spoke through my cell window. By his own admission, Major Joubert was not sentimental. He had no ear for music but was a great admirer of explosives instead. Cesaria Evora, Sarah Vaughan, meant nothing to him. He dreamt of leaving the police force one day, to try his hand at farming. Vineyards. ‘Farming and music go together,’ I warned him, ‘for both depend on some dose of grace, of patience. It is not quite like digging rifle butts into the ribs of people. Grapes can’t be scared into blossoming.’ My guidance was not heeded. ‘What is this Soweto nonsense, kids burning their schools, clinics then?’ A beat. ‘Do you want kids with their brains on the tarmac? Have you any idea how bad that makes us look? Will you take responsibility for the loss of lives?’

  Major Joubert was indifferent during 1977, irritated by my persistent silence. ‘It is not that bad. All you need do is tell me who you are working for. Why this obsession to embarrass the Republic? We are not against newspapers. We take exception to crude opinions, to aspirant revolutionaries. To seeds of public unrest.’ He looked into my eyes, tapping the interrogation room table with his knuckles. Then, as if overwhelmed by being the bearer of bad news, said: ‘Steve Biko is dead. He was arrested at a roadblock outside King William’s Town, outside of his banning area.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘A hunger strike. Well, some scuffle with the police, but nothing serious. Poisonous, that Biko.’ He signalled to the guards on the watchtowers, clasping automatic rifles, dozing to breaking news on squeaky transistor radios. I heard a truck drive off as I eased myself onto the chair. I thought: confinement. Under vast blue skies, surrounded by blooming foliage. Beautiful.

  Major Joubert came back at the crack of dawn, with more news from home: Bra Todd had died. He endured broken ribs and blue eyes, retelling the same truth: that he never had discussed any revolution with me. That our late-night sessions at the newsroom were of a personal nature. Nothing more. He was dragged out of the newsroom to undisclosed locations, beaten to a pulp. Mauled by police hounds. Submerged under water. Electrocuted. Yanked by the testicles. A similar fate, said Major Joubert, awaited me. ‘Stop this obsession with martyrdom. Just tell the truth. Who are your accomplices? No man is an island. Don’t be a martyr. For what? To get a hospital, an orphanage named after you? Turn state witness. Tell me something. Anything. Don’t be a hero. Then we set you free. It is that simple. Silence is dangerous in our world.’

  Yet I chose silence. Served my time, every bruising millisecond, threats of imminent hanging ringing in my ears.

  It is true. My flirtations with newspapers had allowed me glimpses into certain secrets: that the Freedom Charter would be signed weeks before there was a whisper of it in Soweto. I sat in midnight meetings in obscure Johannesburg locations; received handwritten notes, scribbled jottings about imminent bus boycotts. Rumours that there would be a march in Sharp
eville. I never anticipated corpses strewn across dusty streets, their hearts and skulls blown to oblivion. Yet, unlike Bra Todd and others, I survived. Pruned trees. Dug furrows. Buried paupers.

  Nausea

  3

  My freedom seems like a mockery of all things decent. I had come to accept I was destined to die in detention, with a guaranteed pauper’s funeral. I am shocked by the angst of chasing the memory of Johannesburg. Eighteen years of separation has made things and faces unfamiliar, simmering with a daunting sweet-bitterness – like a cancelled march to the gallows. My destiny remains written in the stars. I have to survive. For Desiree. Even if it is only for an hour, a minute … for glimpsing a shadow of her walking in the moonlight. A scent of hers. Anything.

  Vandals have played havoc with my modest home. Years of neglect, and fate, ensured the yard is now a thriving flower shop belonging to a deaf Mozambican cobbler. All his paperwork, citizenship included, confirms he is the rightful owner of 284 Hope Street, Meadowlands.

  I sleep in city squares, bath in public toilets. The pigeons know me by name now – but they are too busy competing for breadcrumbs to converse about life and its limits. I am, in their company, alone to admire the many types of knees belonging to mini-skirted beauties fishing for life companions and fuck-mates in the alluring evening light of the city precincts. Distant giggles (clandestine love affairs) and cutlery sounds from an array of nearby Mediterranean and African restaurants provide the ambience. I examine myself: faultless jaw line; a smile that has, once in a while, disrobed giggly beauties; a well-formed torso; handsome face; eyebrows rich-textured, with a modest shine; and eyes that put planets to shame.

  Years pass, with no discernible change in my fortunes. I am drawn to the Nelson Mandela Bridge, linking Newtown and Braamfontein, dignified under its white and blue lights. I run my hand along the pedestrian railing, my eyes collecting known sights: idle trains and gleaming railway lines below; late-night workers running for taxis and safety; beggars draped in plastic and grime. A truck ferrying street sweepers in orange overalls roars past, as bridge lights dazzle moths. A Dark Figure walks from Braamfontein in the direction of the city centre; the leisurely walk of a loner content with life. I marvel at the postcard view of Johannesburg, its fusion of lights, the illusion of cosmopolitan prosperity, admire the deceptions of the cityscape, the elaborate highways, the skyscrapers and horizons painted enchanting hues by God and pollution. Speeding cars glide along the M1 South highway, to Soweto and other destinations. The M1 North, in the opposite direction, snakes past Melrose Arch, Woodmead, Midrand and Centurion, to Pretoria and its surrounds. A chilly evening breeze bites my nostrils. I muse on youth dying predictable deaths; on souls in transition, each suckling at the city’s varied breasts for survival. The Dark Figure is now a few paces away. His jeans hang halfway down his buttocks. He wears a red tracksuit top, sports an Afro, with a Jimi Hendrix-type hat concealing his face.

  ‘Share some smoke with a nigger,’ he says, without greeting.

  ‘I don’t smoke.’

  ‘No shit. You don’t smoke?’

  A jet thunders overhead, majestic in the night sky. ‘Why don’t you smoke?’

  ‘I just don’t,’ I say, getting agitated.

  The Dark Figure thinks long and hard, finally says: ‘Sorry-ass motherfucker. So you think you are better than me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You a priest or something, man?’

  ‘No. A former prisoner.’

  ‘No shit. What the problem was?’

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘Why did they jail your ass?’

  ‘For nothing.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Eighteen years.’

  ‘Nigger, please. Eighteen years, and you ain’t done shit? Spineless son a bitch. Why the fuck should you continue living, fool?’

  ‘Because I am a good man.’

  ‘So I am a bad man now, huh? Good man my ass. Fuck that shit. You ain’t shit.’

  The Dark Figure pulls a gun. ‘Hook a nigger with some Benjamins.’

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘Some paper, motherfucker, money!’

  ‘I am unemployed.’

  ‘Don’t make me shoot you, man, I ain’t playing with your stupid ass!’

  I snap: ‘What gives you the right to insult me?’

  A shot rings out, tears through my stomach. The Dark Figure smiles. Such beautiful teeth. Another bullet grazes my groin, and a third shatters my big toe. I clutch my stomach, oozing with warm, sticky, foamy blood. I feel cold, light-headed. I collapse onto the bridge rail, feel my life slowly drain away. Something about the gunshots is marvellous: the deafening explosions, the flash of angry blue flame, the intoxicating smell of gunpowder. Those seconds, time between the shots, the tense moments of unpredictable consequences, are the closest one gets to a God experience – that complete tranquillity of a brutalised body numbed of all feeling, as the Dark Figure aims his gun with random abandon. My fading mind feeds me enchanting views of the Nelson Mandela Bridge, of the city, unlike any other spot in the temptress flirt that is Johannesburg. This unforgiving concrete thing. I marvel at the furious and arty cloud formations, the breathtaking hues of fiery pinks and moody greys.

  I hear the Dark Figure light a cigarette, smell nicotine, hear him shuffle away. Blood drains from my wounds onto the concrete, bathed in blue and white light. Late trains pull into Park Station below, their coaches drumming a choochoo rhythm. I think: what a beautiful way to die. To a rhythm. I finally admit to myself: Desiree never loved me. She pitied me, maybe, but it was never love. I also, my soul ensnared in barbed wire, admit that her rebuffs, her barking at me, did not dent the purity of my love; for it continued, like termites, to chew at my soul, leaving me perpetually light-headed and on the verge of weeping.

  Two policemen visit me, two weeks after I was shot. I’m told I am in Auckland Park, at the Milpark Hospital. The bullets have missed vital organs, and I am lucky to be alive, a Dr Moodley informs me. I am shown three identikits by Inspector Matros, a chubby, chocolate-skinned, dimpled police officer of modest sensuality. Not ugly, not beautiful, but of average, tolerable looks. She asks after my well-being, before switching to official police business.

  ‘Are any of these men the one who shot you?’

  I squint. She walks closer to the bedside, pictures of suspected thugs in her hand. I don’t answer.

  ‘This one, maybe?’ I shake my head. None of the pictures are monster-looking at all – though Inspector Matros’s colleague, Detective Govender, confirms the men in them are deadly fugitives. Armed robberies. Murder. Daring fraud. Yet they look nothing like murderous robbers with fraudulent tendencies but, rather, average altar boys, commanded by spiritual obedience. Ice-cream vendors. Petty pick-pockets maybe. But murderers? A tube is pushed into my side, drains the phlegmy, clotted blood. Breathing is laborious, coughing torturous, laughing brutally painful.

  ‘Beautiful teeth. The man who shot me had lovely teeth,’ I tell them.

  ‘Can you describe him?’ asks Detective Govender.

  ‘No. It was night. He had a Jimi Hendrix hat over his head.’ Inspector Matros frowns: ‘Anything else, besides the teeth?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A statement will help us with opening an official docket and launching an investigation – you know, laying formal charges,’ says the modestly sensual one.

  ‘I have nothing to say. If you find him, good; if not, that is also fine with me.’

  ‘This devil nearly took your life, almost put you in a wheelchair!’ says Detective Govender, visibly agitated.

  I sneeze. The pain tears through my wounds, leaving me on the brink of bellowing. I take a deep breath.

  ‘Yes. But I am not dead, neither am I in a wheelchair.’

  ‘So you are not pressing charges?’ asks the dimpled one.

  ‘I take a philosophical view of these things. So, no.’

  Exasperation. Irritation. Bewilderment.

  The
re are chimes from the hospital hallways, announcing an end to visiting hours. Dr Moodley returns, advises that I should be left alone to rest. Inspector Matros and her accomplice shuffle out, taking their thug photo gallery with them. I doze off into deep, magnetic sleep.

  I am woken at seven: dinner and medication time. A nurse hands me pain tablets, wheels in a beeping machine to record ‘vital signs’. I survive on custard and jelly, following my futile surgery. The bullet eluded the surgeons, though it is ‘somewhere inside you’. How do they know that for sure? Easy, they answer: there is no exit wound, which is unusual, given the point-blank range.

  I have never thought there is anything wrong with dying. Two of my ward mates are discharged (gallstone operation, hip fracture), leaving me with the handsome monk admitted with suspected arsenic poisoning. He sleeps all day, adding to the gloom of dreary television programmes: documentaries on Adolf Eichmann but nothing about music; obsession with celebrity carnal scandals but not a word about the purpose of life, of existence. I lie back, listen to my murmuring heart. A heart that has been twitching with profound yet unreachable desires ever since I knelt in that wretched church, my knees molten with love. I mumble my poems from memory; poems about secrets, about moonless nights pierced by trumpet sobs, about obscure things. Dr Moodley clears his throat, readies that soothing baritone of his: