A Trojan Affair

by Michael Smorenburg

  “He just said he’s too well known in Carnarvon, and our business… the things we wanted to discuss, we didn’t want anyone here knowing. It’s complicated.”

  “What business, Dara?” She was agitated and let it show, because he was making no sense. Perhaps he’s still delirious? she told herself and decided to back off and just let him talk, even if he sounded deranged. “I’m sorry sweetie. Sorry.”

  “No mum, I’m sorry. I know what you’re thinking, and I can’t blame you. It’s nothing like that, he’s married. It’s just the stuff I like to write about on blogs and in social media. I’ve developed cyber friends and he’s one of them.”

  Marsha relaxed. Of course! she wanted to say out aloud, but kept the anonymity of her own pseudonym observations of him with her silence. But she did want to know who this man was, what his pen name was. “Does he have a name, Dara? I’m not prying but under the circumstances, though...”

  “He also a pseudonym, it’s an Afrikaans one, spelled V-o-o-r-v-e-l… It’s hard to pronounce.”

  Marsha had seen that character making comments under the name, a name whose silly provocative meaning was lost on her. She’d enjoyed his dry wit and incisive thoughts but kept this to herself for now.

  She nodded, “Okay.”

  “He was at school here years ago. He lives in Cape Town. He’s like, forty or something, buys hospitals. His dad’s that big policeman, Kruger, the one from the day we stopped at the station.”

  The connection slapped her like a wet eel in the face. In her limited interactions with him, Constable Andre Kruger had creeped her out. She willed herself to remain deadpan, but her expression betrayed her.

  “He’s a very nice guy mum... my friend. He’s very different from his dad and the others round here. We just chatted, it was innocent. I’d have been home, and nobody’d have known. I was heading home when I nearly had an accident.”

  “You did have an accident, Dara,” his mother corrected him.

  “No mum. I got spooked out on the tar road about twenty kilometres before the dirt, and I hit the barrier; that’s how I hacked my knee. But I had to turn off onto the dirt road because the police had closed the last stretch because of the bad accident. And then a few kilometres on the dirt road I was… something happened… I was attacked, ambushed.”

  “Accident? Ambushed? What...?!” Marsha’s mind was doing somersaults again. “Dara. I… what is… just hang on a second,” she shook her head, her forehead creased into a frown. She stood and began pacing, telling herself inwardly to get a grip. “Dara, you got ambushed? Hang on. What accident closed the road that caused you to get ambushed?”

  “The accident on the road coming into town. The police stopped me—JJ’s dad, Kruger; he diverted me onto the gravel road that links across to the R63. That’s why I was on that road,” he said with conviction.

  It took a lot of sorting out as Marsha cross-questioned him and Dara tried to explain the sequence of events as they had unfolded. Eventually they had the story straightened out. He got to the point when he’d ridden into the trip-wire that had plucked him from the bike.

  She opened the sheets and stared with fresh horror at the livid bruising across his chest. His story gelled; the straight angle spanning his breadth from bicep to bicep had made little sense to the doctors when they’d speculated the cause. The medical staff had assumed he’d hit the handlebars with his chest, but now his claim was that he’d been clotheslined by a trip wire perfectly fitted the arrangement of, and the proximity between, where Dara and his bike were found.

  “Do you know what you’re saying?” she asked carefully. “Attempted murder. If that was a wire pulled across a road, it could have taken your head off!”

  “I’m certain of what I’m saying, mum. I’m saying what happened.”

  “This is very serious, and I’m bewildered. I… I’m surprised. Nobody’s mentioned any accidents or road closures. In a small place like this, that would be big news.”

  She paused a moment, her mind racing, her emotions wanting to explode but she kept them firmly suppressed in favour of lucidity. This was not the time to react like a mother as her emotional irrationality begged her to do, not so far off her turf and in an environment hostile to them.

  “You said it was the Constable that diverted you to the gravel, that he’d said there was an accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I gave a statement to Kruger and he said absolutely nothing to me about either a road closure or having seen you. Did you actually talk to him when he redirected you?”

  “Yes mum.”

  “So, he knew it was you?”

  “I was covered up and kept the visor down, but you’d think he’d know my accent.” Dara tilted his head. “And he immediately spoke to me in English. They always speak in Afrikaans first. He knew it was me…”

  Marsha caught herself scowling, horror in her eyes and turmoil in her mind. She sat down again and felt her hands shaking uncontrollably. She needed to arrest them, to not let Dara see the depths of her distress, so she quickly cupped his hand with hers and held it tight. “There is something going on here Dara and I dread to admit to myself what it is.”

  He adjusted his position in the bed and it caused him to cough. With broken ribs and so much abused flesh, it was an agonizing and protracted process.

  Marsha cringed but tried to maintain the poker face. Her eyes teared up for her son and she wiped it so he wouldn’t see.

  “Dara?” Marsha startled and whirled to face the voice from the doorway. There was a big man with a beautiful girl at his side filling the doorway, just inside the room.

  Dara looked their way and smiled a lopsided and pained greeting. “JJ!” He heaved as he battled to prop himself up to properly greet the man and girl at the threshold. “This is my mother, Marsha.”

  Dara instantly recognized the girl; she was the one with the hair from the school.

  “It’s a pleasure, Ma’am. JJ… JJ Kruger.” He offered a hand the size of a paddle.

  He was very good looking, Marsha saw at once. His grip was firm, dry and gentle, while his eyes were his father’s. His body was taught and his jaw chiselled. The girl had lustrous hair and an angel’s face—the two bore a strong resemblance to one another.

  “This is my sister, Sonja.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” said Marsha. She was still shaking slightly, so she clasped her hands together in her lap.

  Dara’s face became etched with growing shock; the coincidences mounting at an uncomfortable pace, friend and foe too closely related to make sense of it all.

  His mind raced to the possible agendas. Sonja could be here on behalf of Vermaak to confirm Dara’s condition; JJ might be doing his father’s bidding to see what story Dara was telling.

  It could be very sinister, he realized. He hoped his mother understood this too.

  Marsha was guarded as she gave an account of Dara’s condition, and they reacted with genuine care.

  “You did a real number on yourself,” JJ summarized. “You look strong though, you’ll be better soon. I just brought Sonja along because she says she remembers you from school, when you had that, uhmm… incident.”

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t say it then because of the Principal at the hearing,” Sonja spoke for the first time, looking directly at Dara. “He warned me that my father would expect me to stand by my people and the community. I feel terrible that they forced me to lie. Neels...”

  She was beginning to win Dara’s trust.

  “Neels has got so many friends, especially with the teachers. I asked them to check the cameras, the CCTV, but…” She huffed and paused. “You know…? He’s the Dominee’s special...” she didn’t finish her sentence.

  “I’m afraid it’s all a bit sick; small town politics,” JJ shrugged apologetically. “Sonja told me about it and didn’t know what to do. Our parents and the Vermaaks are old friends… complicated.”

  “I’m certain,” Marsha agreed, warming slig
htly to their earnest appearance and genuine expressions of concern. “It takes courage to speak up.”

  “I understand you’re on Jakob van Breda’s farm?” JJ asked.

  “Indeed,” Marsha agreed. “Why do you ask?”

  “I heard Dara had his accident on the dirt road over to the R63.” He was about to mention that it made no sense for him to be on that road if he was returning from Loxton, but thought better of it if the mother didn’t know about their meeting, so the statement hung in the air.

  “I had to divert because of the accident on the main route into town,” Dara volunteered.

  JJ looked at Dara quizzically, his head slightly cocked.

  “When your dad said there’d been an accident and diverted me, I was worried it might be you.”

  “I don’t know about an accident or diversion.” JJ frowned.

  “That’s what I said too,” Marsha added.

  “Well—I was diverted. Your dad had the police van parked across the road. He said the main road into Carnarvon was closed.”

  “That’s very strange,” JJ said, but he omitted to confirm something that this new piece of information suggested, a detail within his own mind falling into place.

  On his way toward Carnarvon that day, JJ had passed his father coming the other way at great speed in the police van.

  When he’d recognized his dad, he’d flicked his headlights, but his father was on the radio and had an intent expression. He’d just lifted a finger on the wheel in greeting and flashed headlong past.

  At the time, JJ had imagined that there was some kind of an emergency out of town and he’d thought nothing more of it… until now.

  But now, this new piece of information pushed that occurrence into a much more sinister direction.

  Sonja read JJ’s expression. “Ernstig?” she asked in a single word that the foreigners wouldn’t understand.

  JJ nodded just perceptibly. “Yes, it’s serious,” his nod confirmed.

  “I’ve been too busy to chat much around town,” JJ told them, “but nobody’s mentioned any recent accidents that would close the highway, and I’m sure they would. I’ll look into it.”

  He needed time to think and find out more before committing his thoughts.

  Marsha had seen the exchange between the siblings, but the Afrikaans word had been too quick and obscure to betray anything more than the girl’s surprise and worry.

  “Is there something we need to know?” Marsha made it clear that she knew something was up.

  “No, it’s just we only stopped in for a quick visit and we must go. I have to drop Sonja out of town, but I wanted to see how my friend here is doing. I also thought Sonja and Dara should meet.”

  Marsha could also play poker. JJ’s ruse and cover hadn’t fooled her.

  “I do intend to find out what’s going on,” she was deadly focused in her delivery.

  “I really do intend to find out too.” JJ looked her directly in the eye and she saw that he grasped the full scope of her meaning, and meant what he said too.

  “We’d better get a move on—I’ll stop by again. You get better my friend,” he said to Dara.

  Chapter 17

  The men were due to arrive for a meeting at the Kruger house within the hour. Prime on the agenda was pushing forward on the next step in their bid to oppose and forestall the SKA development.

  Right now, father and son were locked in heated confrontation and the women of the house had evaporated out of the way. The men’s voices were raised, arguing aggressively in Afrikaans.

  “You arrive, and the kak begins,” Andre was furious.

  He’d got wind of JJ’s impossible-to-miss car parked outside the clinic and he’d confronted his son the moment he’d come through the door. There was only one inpatient, so the significance of the visit was obvious.

  JJ had already told his father why he’d gone to the hospital. “I’m interested in this whole project,” he’d told Andre. “I have had discussions and meetings with many of the scientists. You don’t even know—I donated half that hospital.”

  Andre ignored the proclamation; it ashamed him before all of the community that his son should make such a donation through foreigners into his own town.

  “And I am friends with the lady whose son got injured.” JJ bent the truth a little, knowing the Loxton police would have called in his meeting with a dark boy back to his father. He was furious with his father over the sinister probability of his involvement, and intended to torment the man by not disclosing everything he knew, as custom dictated he should. “I wanted to see how they were doing.”

  “And you take your little sister too?” Andre accused. “So that she can get mixed up with these skelms.”

  JJ shook his head. “Where do you make up this stuff? Skelms? What makes them crooks?” He already knew what his father’s answer would be, but wanted to draw his father out.

  “This is our land and they come here stealing it, bringing their ungodly selves and ungodly machines with them. That’s why they’re skelms! Why didn’t they go to Australia like they said they would? Why here? In this blessed place, between our God-fearing people? Why?”

  “Because it is the future, father, and because it is not ungodly. Because this area needs to be uplifted and because this is the best place on earth to build it. Because through science, it will put Africa on the map.”

  “Well, we don’t care about science in Africa or uplifting anything, if that is how they uplift; by taking away our farms, blocking our communications, trying to break our economy and calling our beliefs into question.”

  “They have not called your beliefs into question. You are paranoid and injecting issues where none exist.”

  “You watch how you talk to your elders! I am still your father.” His father stood up, a challenge, looming over a son who had grown bigger, stronger, and faster than him.

  JJ didn’t flinch. He stayed neutral, his palms down on the table between them. He’d been forcing them not to fidget and now he kept his voice low and steady. “Pa,” he blinked a slow and deliberate blink of confidence, “…sit.”

  They locked a mutual stare for long moments and then, slowly, his father sank back down, fists like hams still clenched, remaining in front of his son’s open hands.

  “I will never trust these atheists… these, these—antichrists!” Andre spat it out, deliberately, provocatively. “These… Satanists.”

  “You mean ‘these scientists’, Pa?”

  “Satanists, scientists? Yes, they’re the same ungodly thing!” Andre asserted.

  “Well, yes, of the leading scientists in the world, nearly a hundred percent are atheists, sure.” JJ dared twist his father’s meaning to make a point. “And what does that say? It certainly doesn’t make them Satanists.”

  “It says they’re against God and that makes them Satanists in my book.”

  JJ ignored the attempt to draw him once more into the empty old argument on the topic they’d had too many times.

  “And now you talk for them hey?” his father challenged. “You count yourself with the scientists?”

  JJ reminded his father that he was a student of many things, among these things he leant toward proofs and rational answers over philosophical ones.

  The argument, as always, drove his father blind with rage. Andre would dogmatically insist that atheists and scientists were synonymous with Satanists, and they remained one untrustworthy blanket collection of immoral communists in his mind.

  “You forget why we were thrown out of the Garden of Eden!” Andre accused, still niggling for confrontation.

  “Because a talking snake said a woman shouldn’t eat an apple,” JJ couldn’t resist the ridicule seeping into his words and tone.

  “You’re a verrrrry funny boy these days,” Andre snapped sarcastically. “Forgotten all you have been taught. The snake was Satan; he wanted mankind to seek knowledge that God had protected us from knowing.”

  “And you believe this, Pa? Yo
u really believe it? That knowledge should be avoided? That looking for answers is a sin? Is that why you and the old manne are so bedonnerd—so insane with anger about the SKA? Because once again it shows Genesis is unscientific nonsense? I hear there are real problems the installation is causing. Why not argue those rather than this pointless angle?”

  Andre glowered at him but said nothing. The Dominee had explained that the Americans would fight this fight, but he wasn’t going to arm the enemy through his son with that important knowledge.

  JJ sighed, shook his head, and pulled his laptop from its bag, flipping the lid open.

  “And that,” Andre said, pointing at the computer, “wasting time with people who know nothing. I have the only book I need. It is filled with everything I must know—love and obedience to our maker. I will not deny Him, I will always do his work.”

  “I used to say the same thing Pa, until I met people who were perfectly good without any God. And I read books filled with actual facts, not just full of opinions; books that have data that actually describes the universe. Books so precise that they aren’t open to petty, wasteful, concocted interpretation that causes people to go to war over absurd and childish differences.” He paused. “And, they also have the benefit of being true.”

  “Ja,” Andre responded. “And it is as our Dominee says—when you are a heretic, you think the answers that come from men are more important than the words of God. Since you met that woman, you have become self-centred and arrogant.”

  Andre had never acknowledged JJ’s marriage and would never say Morgan’s name; “that woman” was all the mention she’d get.

  “I think it is more arrogant to imagine a whole universe made only for you. I think that’s a lot more arrogant than realizing how insignificant we are in the scheme of the universe,” JJ bit back, then stopped himself—it would only perpetuate more dead-end conversation. “I know you oppose this development—the telescope—but it is futile, pointless. It is finished. The contracts are signed and sealed. You can’t change that.”