Those Who Love Night

by Wessel Ebersohn

  She allowed her eyes to close. The thoughts blurred in her mind, and the troubled face of a young man she had never met rose and hung expressionless before her.

  Her consciousness had just started to dissolve into warm but troubled oblivion when the phone rang next to the bed. She did not recognize the voice of the woman on the other end of the line.

  “Abigail Bukula?”

  “Yes,” she murmured, not yet fully awake.

  “I’m a friend, someone with your best interests at heart.”

  Abigail heard only hypocrisy in the voice. “Who is this?”

  “My name is not important. I’m phoning as a friend.”

  Abigail already knew what the anonymous voice was going to tell her. Almost every part of her soul screamed at her to hang up. Only a few traitorous corners of her mind kept her listening. Her imagination had already raised the image of Robert’s gorgeous, pinkly blushing little PA. “What do you want?” she heard herself ask.

  “I don’t want anything from you. I just want to tell you something you should know.”

  “And what would that be?” her voice said into the mouthpiece. Stop, the wise part of her was saying. Hang up and unplug the phone.

  “First, I’d like to ask you if you know where your husband is at this moment. And if you know where that sweet little secretary of his is, and what they’re doing.”

  It had become impossible to respond in any way. She could also not hang up. She could only listen.

  “Perhaps you know the Sheraton, the one right opposite the Union Buildings. They have such comfortable suites there. I understand the mattresses are very soft.” A pause was followed by a question in the same soft, gently destructive voice. “You are still there, aren’t you, Abigail?” Again a pause to allow her the chance to answer. “I believe you are. I can hear your breathing. It seems to have become heavier in the last few minutes. I hope it has nothing to do with what I’m telling you.”

  Jesus, Robert, Abigail was thinking—not this, and not today. Please, not today.

  “They booked in just about half an hour ago. I don’t know what name they used. They’ve probably had enough time to get it done by now, don’t you think?”

  At last Abigail hung up. In almost the same movement she unplugged the phone. She was sitting on the edge of the bed now, dry-eyed, her face expressionless. There had been little love-making in the last three or four months, maybe even six. Christ, Robert, was this the reason? She was still in the same position when, almost two hours later, she heard Robert’s car come up the drive.

  She went down the stairs carefully, a hand on the banister for support. She needed to be downstairs when he arrived. The thought of waiting in the bedroom for perhaps an hour while he poured himself a drink and sampled the cook’s gammon steak dinner could not be entertained. She needed to know, and she needed to know now. She was in the hall when he came through the front door.

  Abigail had not planned it, but she moved quickly into his arms, her arms around him and her face pressed against his shirt. Her eyes found what she would rather not have seen, a dark smudge in the area of his shirt pocket, just at the right height to be mascara.

  She broke away from him, till she was almost the width of the room away. The surprise that showed on his face when she rushed into his arms had doubled with her sudden retreat. “Abby?”

  “Is it true?” she demanded. “Were you in the Sheraton tonight with that woman?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She could not decide whether the bewilderment in his face was that of innocence or guilt discovered.

  “You know damned well what I’m talking about. Were you in the Sheraton with that blond kid from your office?”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “Don’t tell me how to be. Just tell me. Were you in the Sheraton this evening?”

  Robert was looking straight into her eyes. He was speaking, and she had to listen carefully to hear him through the haze of her anger. There was sound but she struggled to make sense of it.

  “This is ridiculous. Of course, I was in the Sheraton. I told you last night that those Australians are here. I was with them, so was my PA and so were the chairman and Pete and Kgomotso. But you knew about it.”

  The mark on his shirt was just visible where his suit jacket hung open. “What’s that mark on your shirt?”

  “On my shirt?” He looked down, then threw off his jacket in irritation. “Oh Christ, look at this.” The expensive pen she had bought him was in his pocket and, as he drew it out, the nib was sticky with heavy black ink where it had leaked. “Jesus, look at this mess.”

  There was now no doubting the reality of his reaction. This was no performance. “Oh, Robert,” she said. “I’m such a fool.”

  He looked up from the ruined shirt and waved a dismissive hand. “It’s okay. Listen, that girl, she’s a temp. I wouldn’t hire that little cotton-wool brain as my PA. What do you take me for?”

  “Did you eat?”

  “No. I’m hungry as hell.”

  “Let’s eat then. Bintu’s food looks good tonight.”

  And so it was over. She had received a call from a troublemaker and had fallen right into the trap and attacked Robert, who had never given her any reason for doubt. But, on the other hand, it was not over. Robert had been there, and the chairman and Pete and Kgomotso and Robert’s PA. No other PAs seemed to have been at the meeting with the Australians, only Robert’s cotton-wool-brained temp. Or were the other PAs present? She almost asked Robert, but succeeded in restraining herself.

  That night, once again, they slept without making love. Robert got into bed half an hour after she had. She was reading, and did not look up from her book as he slipped in between the sheets. For his part, he rolled onto his side, faced away from her and was asleep in a few minutes.

  Before they came to bed, Abigail had noticed that he looked tired. Despite herself, she could not help wondering if the tiredness was the result of a tough day at the office or vigorous exercise in one of the Sheraton’s bedrooms. She could always call Pete or Kgomotso about the meeting and, if they confirmed that there had been such a meeting, she could ask them about which PAs had attended. But would they tell? Men closed ranks, she had heard. They covered for each other. Other women had warned her that men never ratted on each other, because they knew that some other day they would be needing the support of the one who was in trouble.

  What the hell am I thinking? Abigail asked herself. That was not Robert. That had never been Robert. Let me not direct my anger at my husband. He is not the one who has arrested an innocent man. It makes no sense to exercise my anger on him.

  And that damned smudge had turned out to be ink, not mascara.

  She put down her book and turned away from Robert. She had not mentioned Krisj Patel’s call and his insistence that a cousin of hers, one whom as far as she knew did not exist, had fallen into the hands of Zimbabwe’s CIO. She had also not told him about Gert Pienaar and what the police were putting him through. She felt ashamed that the matter of the PA and the Sheraton had been more urgent.

  I will not be able to sleep tonight, she thought, not with all this keeping me awake. But she was wrong about that. On this night, her consciousness sought rather to escape it all. Soon she was asleep.

  7

  Seventy-two hours had passed, twenty-four more than the law allowed, and the police were still holding Gert Pienaar. The weekend had been of the sort that people usually refer to as a nightmare. Abigail had spent Sunday with senior counsel at her own expense. The next morning she ignored two messages from the director general to see him in his office. “He should be doing what I’m doing,” she had said to Johanna. “Screw him.”

  “Not me,” Johanna had said.

  “Not you what?”

  “Not me. I’m not going to screw him.”

  For a moment Johanna had managed to dissipate the tension that surrounded the Gert Pienaar matter. They clung to each other, laughing at
the thought of Johanna screwing the director general. He was not a man either would ever have thought of in those terms.

  By nine o’clock though, a message came from the minister himself. Brought down by one of his assistants, it said simply, “Be in my office in five minutes.”

  “Nomsa brought the message,” Johanna told her. “He wants to see you alone.”

  “Alone?” Abigail tried not to let her relief show.

  “The DG won’t be there. That’s what she said.”

  Nomsa’s information had been accurate. The minister was alone when she entered his office. Because he was new to the post, Abigail knew little about him. She did know that he was a stalwart of the party from the days of the liberation struggle. Like so many of the present leadership, he had been a political prisoner on Robben Island. In his case, the sentence had been ten years for smuggling young party members out of the country to join the liberation army. He had the reputation of being one of the hardest-working cabinet ministers, and also a great football-lover. On the side of his office farthest from his desk was one of the standard, government-issue round tables for meetings. But this time he remained seated behind the broad oak desk where he did his work. He gestured for Abigail to sit down opposite him.

  He seemed to be examining every shade of expression on her face, but said nothing for a period that was far too long for Abigail’s comfort. As for her, she had decided to follow Robert’s advice: restraint and control would be more likely to work in her favor than her usual frontal attack.

  “Good morning, Abigail,” the minister said at last.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “You’ve been very busy lately.”

  “Yes, sir.” There was much else she wanted to tell him, in fact, was determined to tell him. But stay away from the rapid-fire onslaught, she warned herself. Slow and rational will yield better results.

  “Not all of it in the service of this department, I believe.”

  “That depends on how you look at it,” Abigail said. The self-restraint tactic was becoming increasingly difficult to implement.

  “How do you look at it?” he asked.

  Could it be, Abigail thought, that there’s the slightest smile somewhere in that stern countenance? “I look at it that a colleague of mine was taken into police custody for no real reason and I am trying to do something about it.”

  “You are?”

  This was the moment, and no, there was no smile. “Yes, I am.”

  “Defending your colleague?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your colleague, and my staff member.”

  “Yes, your staff member.” Abigail was aware that she was nodding emphatically.

  “And you don’t think you could have trusted me with the matter?”

  “Well, of course, but…” Her explanation had nowhere to go. The truth was that she did not trust him with the matter.

  “You know that there’s nothing I could do for the first forty-eight hours. But you started talking to outside counsel yesterday, I believe.”

  All of that was true, but he was missing the main issue. “I know, Mr. Minister, but now seventy-two hours have passed since they picked him up.”

  “That’s true.” The minister nodded slowly, seeming to concede the point.

  “And so?” Abigail demanded. “Where is he?”

  “In his office,” the minister said. “They did hold him too long, and I have sent the Minister of Police a written objection.”

  Abigail had looked in at Pienaar’s office an hour earlier and it had been empty. Now it was difficult to say anything at all.

  “Would you like to go down the passage to check on the accuracy of that statement before we continue?” he asked gently.

  “No, Mr. Minister, of course not.” The relief brought on by the knowledge that Pienaar had been released was competing with the humiliation caused by the feeling, perhaps the certainty, that she had acted in a way that revealed her reservations about the workings of the system and the effectiveness of the minister himself. She was, after all, a senior executive of the government and a card-carrying member of the party.

  The minister looked searchingly at her the way he had when she first entered the office and, again, too long for her comfort. “Would you like coffee?”

  “Strong and black,” she said.

  “Like some of my staff members,” he said, and this time he did smile. After he had called his PA to order the coffee, he again gave his attention to Abigail. “When I was deployed to this position, I was told that in you I had my most talented staff member, but also the one least amenable to discipline.”

  Abigail breathed in deeply. The moment to tell the minister what had been driving her actions over the past two days had come. “It’s not a matter of discipline,” she said.

  “What is it a matter of, then? Tell me.”

  “It’s a matter of justice.” She was ready to let it all flow out at last. The flow of words came out quickly and emphatically. “Gert Pienaar has served this government well. You have a no more diligent staff member. If some of his investigations embarrassed certain senior people, it is only because they have something to hide. I will stake my life on the fact that he is guilty of nothing. He is also a white Afrikaner. His being taken in for questioning for seventy-two hours by some of the very people he was investigating gives the impression of justice being ignored and a racist element creeping into our actions. The whole matter was simply not right. And it all comes on the back of their closing down our unit, the most successful in the history of crime-fighting in this country. And the first thing they do after closing us down is to start taking us into custody.”

  “Is that it?” the minister asked.

  “In essence.” So, now that you know how unrepentant I am, tell me my fate and get it over with, she thought.

  The minister took off the glasses that he usually wore indoors, wiped the lenses on his tie, and laid them down on the desk in front of him. “I share your concerns,” he said. Sensing the possibility that she was not finished, he raised a hand to ward off another Abigail broadside. “The unit you have been working in has been closed, it’s true. But criminal justice has not ended with it…”

  “But, Mr. Minister…”

  The forbidding hand was still raised. “No. I have listened to you. Now, you listen to me.” He waited until he was sure that Abigail was ready to listen. “The Scorpions are dead, but the Hawks are alive. I am offering you a deputy director general position in the new organization. It’s a well-earned promotion. You deserve it.”

  For someone who had expected to be disciplined, perhaps even demoted, the minister’s offering her a promotion and telling her that she deserved it was enough to upset her equilibrium. And Abigail was ambitious. The idea that she would, before the age of forty, be one step away from heading a government department was a powerful temptation. But, for her, it was not that simple. “And Gert?” she asked.

  “The department’s negotiations with another employee are simply not your business.”

  She would not be that easily diverted. “But are you offering him a post?”

  “I will tell you that, but only once I have discussed it with him.”

  Abigail wanted the promotion more than anything, except perhaps faithfulness from Robert. And she was afraid that her desire was probably obvious to the minister. “I’ll have to think it over, Mr. Minister,” she said.

  Every trace of friendliness had left his face when he spoke again. “I’m afraid it’s this or nothing.”

  “I understand.”

  “There’s one more thing. If you accept, and I hope you do, I am giving you a six-month sabbatical.”

  “Six months? But I haven’t earned it.”

  “I’ll tell you the truth. The restructuring of the Scorpions into the Directorate of Priority Crimes, or the Hawks, as people are calling it, is going to be a delicate affair. I want you on leave while I do it. After your activities of the last seventy-two h
ours, I need you out of the picture for a while. After that, you can return, with my blessing. And remember, the new body is probably going to fall under the Minister of Police, not me.” Again that searching look seemed to be examining her every thought and motive. “I want you in the new organization, the Minister of Police wants you, the government wants you. Please consider the offer carefully.”

  There was only one question left. “When will my sabbatical start?”

  “Right now.”

  8

  It was early afternoon when Abigail arrived home. Thirty partly completed cases had been put aside, a crying Johanna had been hugged, a probably smug director general avoided and her office cleaned of personal items. Then she had left the building, driving slowly through the suburbs, a woman who no longer had a purpose in life.

  At home, a parcel that had been delivered by a courier company was waiting for her. The sender was shown as Mr. K. Patel of Smythe, Patel and Associates, Harare. She tore open one end and shook it. The first items to fall out were two photographs.

  The first was of a small African girl, not more than six or seven. She was wearing a school uniform and standing proudly erect, facing the camera, her heels touching and her hands at her sides. A school bag hung from one shoulder. The expression on her face was one of the simple pride that went with a first day at school.

  The second picture was of the face of a young man, his main characteristic being his extreme leanness. The flesh seemed to have retreated around his eyes, making them seem unnaturally large. The whites were visible right round the pupils, giving him a frightened, even pursued appearance.

  He was the one who, according to Patel, was being held illegally by the Zimbabwean authorities. Abigail’s eyes searched the face of the young man in the photograph for much longer than she would remember afterward. She saw something of strength and vulnerability, also boldness and sensitivity. She imagined that he was not uncomplicated, and it seemed that he was kin to her. What has brought you to this point? she asked the photograph. And would we have been friends, had we known each other? Yes, she thought. I know we would have. I can feel it.