Gert still marvelled at the prospect of seeing the person he was about to talk to half a world away, not quite believing it possible. He’d never imagined he’d live to see the day.
“Ja Neels, en hoe gaan dit, seun?” He was startled to see how gaunt and tired the normally robust boy looked, but he tried to keep the shock out of his greeting.
“Alles goet, Dominee.”
It was always like this between men in this culture. Though they might ask for help, when it came, they’d declare from the outset that all was fine and there was nothing amiss. Their strategy was to cause the other party to draw it steadily out of them, step by step, leaving them feeling vindicated and light as if they’d never needed any assistance.
“Is it a good place there? Are the people being good to you?”
“They are good people here Dominee, very good. Very faithful.”
“Good, my boy.”
There was a long awkward silence.
On both ends of the line observers were milling and both men used body language to ask, without the other seeing, for the watchers to give them room.
Neels in his hosts’ home-office nook half turned but did not look at the listeners in his room and they got the message and melted away. He could have kept talking as they spoke in Afrikaans, but he could not relax with spectators.
After a few moments of silence, Neels’ head bowed to the camera, then his shoulders convulsed once.
Gert used his hand in a “leave us” gesture and Dr. Louw steered Johannes and Frans out.
“Oom… Oom Andre…” was all that the big lad said in a whisper and another tremor racked through his shoulders. A moment later they shuddered a third time, and then the spasm grabbed him and he began to collapse onto his own lap.
Gert just watched as a tear of his own ran and leapt from his cheek. He wiped the warm, tickling trace away—it was hard to watch a man cry, harder to watch a hard man sob.
“He has gone to a better place,” he eventually assured Neels tenderly.
“I know, Dominee…” The voice was muffled. “But why? Why?!”
Gert knew there was no answer to the pleading question. It was not the question of why Andre had done it, that much was obvious—they had driven him to it. No. He was asking why God had allowed it.
“We can only accept that his work was done here my son.”
“But taking your own life is a sin, Dominee… it is a deadly sin. You yourself have said it many times before. You have preached it. Why would the Oom sin? He was not a sinner. He was a man of integrity.”
Neels was in anguish far beyond mere sorrow, he was in the anguish of doubt, and this the Dominee knew to be the most dangerous of turf. It meant the Devil was about.
“The Lord will make His reasons known in good time,” he told the boy carefully. “It is not our place to ask that question. It is only that we know and remember the man that Oom Andre was, and that the Lord allowed this to happen.”
Neels kept sobbing, becoming incoherent.
Gert’s concern grew, yet he dared not let his fears show.
“Have you prayed?” he asked tenderly.
“I have, Dominee… I’ve done little else.”
“Have the people there prayed with you?”
“They have, they have been beyond hospitable. The whole community has come to my aid. They are good people, Dominee. They are like us in so many ways but still, they… they’re not our people. I did not know how far away my heart would feel. I did not know how lonely I could be in a crowd.”
“I am sorry my boy, I am sorry that this distance is necessary. I am sorry that it is so necessary at this difficult time.”
“I want to come home.”
“You can’t, not now.”
“Why? Surely… under the circumstances… this tragedy…”
It was an immature view, the Dominee knew that; as if it was all a game, a game in which the legal jeopardy that Neels faced was not real.
Like a child with a game or prank not going his way, Neels was appealing for his version of fair play to govern; as if this dire hurt to the community’s core were a scapegoat that could be traded to mitigate those lesser injuries that he had perpetrated.
“This tragedy only means something to us, to our people; outsiders don’t care, Neels. They are pursuing this, making more and more trouble, in spite of the tragedy.”
Gert was aware, sickeningly aware, that awkward and ugly questions were being asked about Neels around town. A witch hunt was afoot to ferret out anyone who had ever had friction with the boy, an urgency to bring them into one single legal appeal to bring him to book, but this was not the time to disclose that much.
“You must remain there until we can clear these matters up for you.”
“Matters, Dominee?” Neels’ question was almost childlike, discounting the private admissions he’d made to the Dominee in confidence before he’d been bundled off.
“It is not wise that we talk about the details now Neels, not openly like this. I don’t know these machines and I don’t know who is listening or recording.”
“Yes, Oom.” Neels understood.
“It is more difficult now, Neels… now with Oom Andre gone. Now we cannot get justice from our own police anymore. They are against us, so we must be careful. Careful and vigilant and clever.”
“Yes, Oom.”
“Now—let’s put this aside. Are you exercising? Your mind will be strong if you keep your body fit.” Gert angled to get the boy onto less introspective and questioning topics, onto areas he was certain to dominate.
“Yes, Dominee!” It lightened his mood. “I went to a practice of their football game, but all those helmets and pads get in the way; I don’t know why they wear them. These ouens—these American boys—they’re soft. They’re big, but they’re soft,” he commented, and laughed. “I hurt them if I just run past. They’re so scared of me now so I have no trouble. They won’t tackle me and don’t want me to tackle them.”
“That’s my boy.” The Dominee was buoyed with pride and relief that he’d so quickly stemmed the slide of Neels’ uncomfortable emotional drift.
“You stay away from the girls,” he warned Neels. “They’re different to us. I know they’re pretty, but we don’t know them. We don’t know their accents, and we can’t read the foreigners and that means you don’t know the… uhmm… the breeding of the girl or how she is.”
By ‘how’, the Dominee referred to promiscuity and Neels fully understood it within its intended context.
“Yes Dominee … they are pretty though.”
“Pretty can be dangerous… the Devil can appear pretty, Neels. Their culture is different. If you make a mistake there I can’t help you. I can only instruct you to behave and know that God is watching.”
“Yes, Oom.”
Approaching footsteps and voices got suddenly louder in the corridor and a moment later the police Captain strode through the door of the computer room, followed closely by one of his aides and Dr. Louw in a furious mood. A few moments later, the van Doorn father and son followed close behind.
“I must go now Neels,” Gert told the boy. “We have something going on here.”
He didn’t want the boy to see or hear whatever it was that might be afoot—not at such a distance and in so brittle a condition.
Neels quickly said his shocked goodbyes.
Unaccustomed with computers, the Dominee pressed the on/off LED button illuminated on the monitor in the expectation that it would finish the call. The screen cut off but sounds from the other side kept emitting from the speaker as someone with an American accent asked how it had gone.
The American sounds meshed in an orgy of confusion in the room as Principal Louw admonished the Captain for trespassing into a private conversation.
“Is this not a public institution, sir?” the Captain asked.
He got no confirmation, but no contradiction either.
“Good. Then I would very much like to review the C
CTV footage. I believe, as I learned from this boy, that it’s housed in here?”
The confrontation had begun in Principal Louw’s office, where the van Doorn father and sone, and Dr. Louw had been waiting so that Frans could close down the call after the Dominee was done.
The sun had long since set. The lights illuminating the Principal’s office interior and other rooms in the building and the few cars parked outside had attracted the Captain’s attention.
The Captain had personally come out to the school to see if CCTV cameras covered the parking lot where an earlier incident reported to him had occurred. He’d been surprised to see cars parked on the grounds at such a late hour. He’d parked and entered Dr. Louw’s office uninvited.
A short and sharp confrontation had ensued during which the Captain, who knew through the town grapevine that Frans was the local whizz on electronics, had asked Frans directly if he knew where the CCTV monitoring was located, and Frans had nervously confirmed that he did, “In the computer room, sir.”
“Do you know how to access it?”
“Yes sir.”
“Come with me then, we need to see the parking lot from earlier today—can you pull that up?” the Captain had asked as he walked briskly, Frans in tow.
“I’m sure sir.”
As they approached, Gert and Neels’ voice had echoed through the empty corridors.
Both Johannes, Frans’ father, and Deon Louw in particular, had been outraged; how dare this black policeman directly address the boy? Frans was in their charge. The proper protocol would be to ask through his elders. Worse yet, the boy had been so servile, calling the man ‘sir’ at every turn; it was demeaning… unbefitting.
“Onbeskof…” the Principal kept repeating to Johannes, loud enough so the Captain could not fail to hear.
“It’s only rude, Doctor, if there is something to hide,” the Captain tersely observed.
“Are you suggesting something?” Louw had challenged him as they surged through the corridors at a brisk pace, closing in on the computer room where Gert and Neels were conversing.
“I won’t suggest anything until I have the facts, Doctor.”
“Well, what is it you’re looking for?”
“I’m quite sure you can hazard a guess, Doctor.”
Dr. Louw hated it when the Captain called him Doctor—he said it with condescension, and it reeked of insult.
Suddenly the American voices over the speakers from the computer went dead; the other side had cut the call.
“Can I turn that off properly?” Frans asked the policeman, further infuriating the boy’s seniors who each silently determined to put the boy’s priorities in order as soon as he could be taken aside from this unpleasant man and situation.
“Go ahead.”
They could all see that the Captain was enjoying this and it made them hate him all the more.
When Frans was done he pointed the Captain to the large monitor dedicated to the CCTV.
“Let’s look at the parking lot on the southern side first, that’s where the three cars were parked. Start at one thirty pm, that’s when they discovered the problem… then jump back in thirty-minute increments until we see the vehicles are unharmed. Then we can fast forward till we see precisely who slashed their tires.”
As the Captain spoke, Frans busily clicked with the mouse on the several dozen camera angles on screen, identifying the camera he was instructed to review. “It’s camera seventeen that will give the best angle sir.”
“Okay.”
The boy opened a menu and clicked through it.
“I can’t, sir…”
“Can’t what?”
“Can’t seem to access the recording.”
“You can’t?”
Frans clicked back out and said, “Ahhhh.”
“You’ve found the problem?”
“It hasn’t been recording.”
“What? Why not?!”
“It looks like seventeen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-three… actually, all the cameras on the front of the building focused on the parking lot aren’t recording.”
“And the others?”
“Hang on—no the others are fine, sir.”
“The others are all recording… hmmm. Can you tell when last it recorded in the front?”
“Uhhhmm,” he clicked at the menu, and a table popped up. “Well, seventeen was recording this morning at eight… at nine… ten… not at eleven… There, it’s last recording waaaaas…. ten thirty-seven.”
“Interesting…” The Captain was looking at the principal when he asked, “And how do you turn recording on and off?”
“Oh it’s easy, very simple,” the boy answered in kneejerk fashion. “I showed Dr. Louw earlier. You just toggle this button here,” he clicked an on/off toggle on the screen, “and when the red R light comes on, it’s recording. Click it again and it’s stopped.”
“That’s interesting, Doctor. You said earlier you didn’t know anything about how these things work and now it appears we didn’t record who the vandals were. It doesn’t make the school look good when the sponsors have their private property damaged and the system they paid for to safeguard it has been tampered with.”
Chapter 32
“Looks juuus’ like home t’me,” Gabriel Broad drawled in his Texan accent. He was scanning the dry flat scrubland toward the distant hills.
His small delegation had touched down on the new hardtop runway outside Carnarvon an hour earlier than expected. This had put the welcoming committee half an hour late for their arrival.
The hour of difference in arrangements had been because Uganda’s time zone was an hour ahead.
“I do apologize for our lateness, Pastor,” the Dominee said in the most impeccable English he could muster, “but we was set for your arrival at eleven and only got a call after you’d touched down. We made a scramble the fastest we could to get here.”
“No need for the apology, y’all. That would be my own fault,” Gabriel declared, feeling magnanimous for the rare admission. “Jus’ didn’t think t’ check if y’all had more than one time zone. But this place is beauuudiful,” he declared, not wanting to dwell on his folly, “just like Houston in my boyhood.”
“We like it, it’s a heavenly land,” Gert agreed. “How was your flight?”
“Craaamp’d,” Broad complained, his hand patting the vastness of his ample gut. “But Bud Junior here, he was a-swimmin’ in his seat weren’t y’all just, Bud. Sure hope y’all can get him a proper meal t’ fill him out.” And he began to laugh at his own joke at Bud’s diminutive size; his jowls—flanges of loose flesh at his jaw—dancing a merry jig to his grunts of laughter.
Bud remained silent. He rarely spoke or offered a facial expression.
They looked an odd pair; the preacher, a barrel with legs, and Bud his understudy, a telephone pole topped by a Stetson.
They both wore expensive suits—rattlesnake boots for the preacher, and running shoes on his aide.
The Dominee had also donned his finest suit for the occasion and he looked rather like an emaciated penguin.
The farmer—Willem Bauer, Oom Karel the Bushman’s employer—had his best suit on too, though it was years since he’d worn it and the waistcoat buttons didn’t come close to doing their job.
Jan de Villiers was kitted in his blue safari suit. He’d made it a moral decision as he didn’t like Americans. Thirty years earlier as Kommandant he’d felt betrayed by the Americans in the Angolan War when their promised invasion through Zaire had not materialized and he’d lost men to the diplomatic double-cross. At least, that’s what his superiors had told him the issue had been. Regardless, he was determined to hold the grudge and made both men pay when he shook their hands.
“Y’all got a fine strong grip there, son,” the preacher said, massaging his hand when he got the crumpled thing back from Jan.
Jan was ten years the Texan’s senior in age but was fifteen years his junior in health and vigour. His blanket di
slike of Americans aside, he didn’t appreciate the man’s manner from the outset and so had punished him most severely.
The runway lay eight kilometres south of Carnarvon, just off the R63 highway to Loxton and Cape Town. The flight path approach had put them directly over the SKA compound.
“You must have had an early start?” Willem kept up the small talk. At heart he was a peacemaker and wanted to support the Dominee who had said this meeting was important to their struggle.
“Up at three,” Broad confirmed. “We cleared through y’r Johannesburg customs and came straight on down. Planned t’ fly past Cape Town first to collect young Andy, but he’s up a-ministering to a new congregation somewhere hereabouts. He’ll truck in under his own steam later I guess.”
“Yes, Andy will be here at noon,” Gert confirmed.
Fact was, Andy Selbourne was not ministering at all; he was busy acquiring a new church in the town of Kimberley four hours’ drive to the northeast of Carnarvon, but there was no need for Broad to divulge that to the Dominee if the man didn’t already know it.
“Now Bruce, y’all sure you wanna run on foot t’ town?” Broad asked of his pilot.
Bruce Matterson had been Broad’s pilot of the private Gulfstream jet for the past three years. He was a keen runner and had announced to Broad that rather than accept a lift into town he’d jog the distance to loosen up from too many days cooped in the cockpit and hotels. They’d take his bags in the vehicles and he’d follow directions to the guesthouse.
“It’s a straightforward road, I scoped it from the sky, it’s not real far,” Bruce replied. “So, I may do an extra lap somewhere. Don’t you worry about me; I enjoy getting lost, if that’s possible here. Oh… no wild animals to worry about in these parts I read?” he added as an afterthought.
“No four-legged animals,” Jan had scoffed, implying that two-legged predators might abound.
The men all shook their heads at the notion of running; it seemed madness to them.
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