Those Who Love Night

by Wessel Ebersohn

  “Why did she call?”

  “I think she’s frightened. She’s had the CIO onto her already.”

  “Those are the horrible people who…”

  “By reputation, yes.”

  “You said she should come home. Is she going to?”

  “No.” Yudel’s thoughts were not with Rosa’s questions now. His imagination was in Harare, a city he and Rosa had visited only twice, and then many years before, on leave. “She says she can’t see herself coming home, until she feels the job is done.”

  It was a long moment before he looked directly at Rosa and saw the horror in her eyes.

  17

  The light in Krisj Patel’s office came from a single reading lamp. He was working late on the conveyancing of a property in the wealthy security estate of Borrowdale Brooke, just a kilometer from the president’s own residence. He had received part payment in U.S. dollars the day before, and was expecting the rest as soon as the deed was registered.

  He knew that a portion of his fee would have to go to the staff in the deeds office to encourage them to do their work. Patel did not see it as a bribe. He knew that many of the clerks in the deeds office earned so little that they could barely afford their transport to work. Often there was nothing left for rent or food. Clothing rarely came into any calculation. The clothes you had, had to be made to last. Sometimes, if you were to get the job done, fees had to be shared with others.

  He also had to do a will for a farmer. It was being paid for in eggs. Then there was a business contract that would also be paid in U.S. dollars, but over six months. A nurse was suing her employer for wrongful dismissal and Patel had agreed to take the matter on a contingency basis. He had very little hope of collecting anything, even if he won. It was a private hospital, and the word from the staff was that it was not expected to be open much longer.

  These were the cases that would help to put food on the table for himself and Suneesha, his wife, at least for the moment. Sometimes her teaching contributed a little. The parents of one of the children in her class had a smallholding outside of town and occasionally Suneesha received a parcel of vegetables from them. Her baking also contributed something. It was not much, but it was regular.

  The battle against the dictatorship for the release of the Harare Seven was not going to bring in any revenue, unless the matter came to the attention of an international donor organization. But they were reluctant to release money for fear of it falling into government hands.

  Being a member of the Organization for Peace and Justice in Zimbabwe had taught Patel to be careful. The curtains in his office were heavy and overlapped the windows on either side, making it impossible for anyone outside to see in. He had steel doors fitted, front and back. Entering and leaving the building, he first checked the stairwell to ensure that it was empty, then switched off the light and descended in darkness. If anyone was going to take a shot at him, that person would not have his task made easy.

  On this evening, Patel had been careless in only one respect. Usually, as night approached and parking spaces emptied around the building, he would fetch his car, which was sometimes parked blocks away, and park it directly opposite the door of the building.

  It was only when he reached street level that he appreciated the mistake he had made. He now had three blocks to walk down Nelson Mandela Drive to the car. But he could see no one in the street, except a lone night-watchman in the next block. The night-watchman was sitting on a plastic chair that leaned against the wall of a building. Patel knew him well enough to call him by his first name, Petrus. The watchman always called him Mr. Patel, a habit that seemed impossible to change.

  Patel left the building, walking quickly, following a path that would take him right past the night-watchman. The watchman, seeing him approaching, half rose from his seat, one hand raised in greeting. Patel waved back. It was good to be known and liked where you lived and worked. He saw the white of teeth against the brown of the man’s face as he smiled.

  Neither man heard the click of the rifle’s bolt action as the cartridge was slipped into the firing chamber. Neither saw any movement out of the ordinary or suspected that anything could be wrong. Patel had already forgotten fears that were surely groundless.

  The first bullet struck his right shoulder before he heard the sound of the rifle. His collarbone shattered and much of the tissue around it was destroyed. It felt like a heavy punch, numbing rather than painful. He thought he had seen a flash, somewhere to his right in one of the windows a block or more away. The night-watchman was on his feet now, but had not moved toward him. Patel was aware that he had taken one step back. Could it have been the force with which he had been struck? His body felt heavy and he sank slowly to his knees.

  The second bullet struck much lower, destroying the joint of his right hip. He was falling to that side. He tried to reach out a hand to break his fall, but the arm was not working. The third bullet penetrated his heart, killing him instantly. The last image he saw was that of the night-watchman coming toward him. “Mr. Patel,” he was saying in a voice that betrayed his disbelief. “Mr. Patel!”

  * * *

  Abigail had been in bed for more than an hour when the hotel telephone at her bedside rang. She did not immediately recognize Helena’s voice.

  “Abigail, Abigail, my God, Abigail…” The voice fractured into sobbing.

  “Who is this?” Abigail demanded. “Who’s speaking?”

  “Abigail, I saw him. They called me, my God. Those other people were already there.”

  “Who are you? What are you talking about?”

  “Krisj, Krisj, I saw Krisj on the pavement. He was on the pavement…”

  Abigail understood immediately that the caller did not mean that Krisj had been standing on the pavement.

  The voice went over to screaming. “You told us that you and Krisj would be safe, but the rest of us had to be careful.” The hysteria subsided slightly and something about the voice had become familiar. “They got him. Krisj’s wife called me. What about the rest of us now?”

  “Helena,” she said, “is that you?” On the only other occasion when Abigail had heard her voice it had been characterized by a calm so studied that it must have been carefully imposed. Now it was ragged with a hysteria that threatened to make it unintelligible.

  “Oh God, Abigail. He was lying facedown. Everything was wrong, the way one of his arms was twisted. The blood on the paving stones made a river in the cracks. I never knew there was so much blood…”

  The picture the other woman was describing was unbearable, but Abigail had to make sure that she knew who was on the line. “Helena,” she said. “I think it’s you. Tell me, is it you?”

  “Yes, yes, yes.” There seemed to be no stopping the outpouring on the other end of the line. “Yes, it’s me. Suneesha phoned me. It happened hours ago, maybe seven o’clock. She said she knew it was going to happen sooner or later. The bastards tried with Tony before. She said she just couldn’t go. But I couldn’t stay away. I had to go. Jesus, I hate those bastards.”

  “You said those other people were already there. Who did you mean?”

  “The CIO. They murdered him and they were standing there pretending they had nothing to do with it.”

  “Did they shoot him?”

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes…” It seemed as if she would never stop. “… yes, yes, yes. Everything was wrong. I saw his body there. It was not Krisj any more.”

  “Where are you, Helena?”

  “In a friend’s car. I’m going back. I’m leaving. I can’t be here. I know what Suneesha meant. It’s bad enough they killed him, I’m not going to watch them gloat.”

  “Yes, go home. Go home and stay there,” Abigail told her. “Take a sleeping pill. We’ll talk in the morning. I know it’s terrible, but try to sleep now. Better still, go to a safe place and sleep there. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you do it?”

  “Yes.”


  After she had hung up, Abigail got out of bed and dressed carefully. She was trying not to hurry, trying above all to maintain the fragile control she had over herself. Once dressed, she left the room, locking the door behind her, and walked the length of the broad passage. She descended the stairs as purposefully as everything else she had done since learning of Patel’s death.

  Abigail knew that for her the knowledge of his death was not enough. She was like Helena in that way. She would have to go there and see for herself. He was dead, but, for her, that fact would not be real until she had seen the body. Intellectually, she knew it was so and she knew she would have to go on without him now and that they may be coming for her too, but none of it would be real until she had seen his body.

  In the foyer, she met Marjorie Swan. “Is it possible to get a cab this time of night?”

  The woman’s eyebrows rose, questioning the need at so late an hour.

  “You know Krisj Patel, of course,” Abigail said.

  “Of course.”

  “He died tonight.” Abigail looked into the woman’s face that was asking a different question now. “He died of gunshot wounds.”

  “Dear God,” the hotelkeeper said.

  18

  The cab company had said they would send a car and that Abigail should wait inside the hotel. Marjorie Swan had poured herself a brandy and asked Abigail if she wanted one.

  “Not now,” Abigail said. “Perhaps when I get back.”

  “I’ll leave one at your bedside. You’ll be needing it.”

  “Thanks,” Abigail said.

  “I’ll make it a double.”

  “All right.”

  But waiting in the hotel foyer was almost impossible. On her third brief visit to the street to meet the cab, she saw a large vehicle coming hard round a corner a few blocks away. It was one of the black double-cabs Patel had pointed out to her. It came to an abrupt halt next to her, and Jonas Chunga leaped from the door on the driver’s side. He came round the front of the vehicle in long strides. “Abigail, have you heard?” His eyes looked wild. His jacket and tie had been left somewhere and the top two buttons of his shirt were open. “Your colleague has been killed.”

  If this was an act, Abigail would reflect later, it was a very good one.

  “I came as soon as I heard. I know you were friendly with him.”

  “Apparently he was gunned down on the street,” Abigail said. Her voice was shaking, but it was impossible to do anything about that.

  “Yes.” He tried to take hold of one of her shoulders, but she stepped away. She was aware that Marjorie Swan was also on the pavement. So were two men who had come with Chunga. Probably the two who had been with him earlier, Abigail thought.

  “We rushed to the scene immediately,” Chunga said, “but he was already dead.”

  The conversation could not be allowed to continue in this vein. “His friends think your people did it,” Abigail said.

  “It’s not so.” He was looking directly into her eyes. “It just isn’t so. I swear to you it isn’t so.”

  “They say your men killed him and that they were gloating over his dead body.”

  “Absolutely not. I was at the scene shortly after the first of our men got there. There was absolutely no gloating. I swear it. We see this as a very serious crime—all the more so because government agencies will be suspected of carrying it out.”

  Her eyes were seeking his, not because of any inner power he possessed, but because of her need to know the truth. Abigail remembered Yudel telling her on another occasion that psychopaths were better able to hold eye contact without blinking or turning away than other people—just as Chunga was doing now. They could often maintain the semblance of truth better than those who were telling the truth. But perhaps Chunga really was just telling the truth.

  “Please believe me,” he was saying. “If this act was initiated by our organization, I would certainly know about it. And I don’t. Please believe me.”

  “Will you take me there?” Abigail asked.

  “To see his body?”

  “Is he still where it happened?”

  “I believe so. He was five minutes ago.”

  “Will you take me there?”

  “I’d advise against it. It’s not … it’s not good to see. I don’t think…”

  “Will you take me?”

  “If you insist.”

  She started toward the twin-cab. “I’ll sit in front with you.”

  * * *

  As Chunga had said, Patel’s body was still in the same position, just as he had fallen. A crowd had gathered, not the typical joyous, noisy African crowd that might attend a football match or a revival meeting. This was a subdued gathering, drawn from apartments and houses in the nearby streets. Questions were being asked and replies whispered. The people were fascinated by the events of the night. It was not every day that someone was shot dead in the streets of their neighborhood. There were those who knew Patel. He had kept some of them out of jail and helped others in various ways.

  A police photographer was taking pictures of the body, aiming from different angles. Abigail saw three men in civilian clothes entering one of the buildings on the far side of the road, perhaps the direction from which the shots had been fired. Another was making notes as he questioned the night-watchman who had seen Patel die. Six or seven uniformed policemen were holding back the gathering crowd. It was not a bad response from the police for one of the poorest countries on earth.

  Abigail stayed seated until Chunga opened the door for her. As she got out he was speaking again. “I will not allow this sort of thing. It reflects badly on my country. I promise you we will find the culprit. We will search until we find him.”

  “Where will you look?” Abigail heard herself ask.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  Was there some small sign of alarm in his face? Abigail wondered. Or did I imagine it? “Where will you look, surely not among his friends?” she asked.

  “We will go wherever our information leads us.”

  And where will that be? she wondered.

  A part of the crowd came forward to get a clear view of Abigail. Perhaps she was the widow and they would be on hand to see her reaction to the dead body of her man. Perhaps they would see her kneel beside the body to pray, or scream in agony, or collapse in shock. Chunga moved quickly between her and the crowd, holding up an arm to protect her. “Stand back,” he commanded. “Stand back immediately.”

  A uniformed policeman came hurrying forward to help. “Stand back or we’ll have to clear the street.”

  Patel’s body was much as Helena had described it. He was still facedown. The right arm was twisted away from the torso at an angle it would never have occupied in life. The stream of blood on the pavement was largely congealed now, a reddish-black line filling the space between two paving stones until it spilled, spreading, into the gutter. Helena had been right. Abigail too had not expected that much blood.

  She bent over to see Patel’s face. To her surprise, the violence of his death had left no mark on his features. He looked peaceful, possibly more peaceful than he had in life. And this, finally, would be the end of Smythe, Patel and Associates, that he had been so proud of.

  What am I doing in this country? she asked herself. Rosa was right. And Robert was right. The only sensible thing is to get on the first flight home tomorrow. But Tony, what about Tony?

  Yes, that’s what I’ll do, she thought. I’ll get out of the damned place tomorrow.

  Chunga had the grace to stop his protestations of innocence. Abigail glanced at him. His face was set in what looked to her like an expression of absolute determination. The look alone seemed to be telling her that he would find the killer, no matter what resources it took or how long they worked on it.

  She searched the pavements for CIO operatives and found four or five whom she was sure were Chunga’s men. Unlike the people in the crowd dressed in a motley assortment of whatever had come to hand, t
he men were all wearing well-worn suits and ties, or at least jackets and ties. Like so much of the country, they were doing their best to look as good as possible with what they had. They all looked stern and serious, not the gloating mob of Helena’s imagination. Where does the truth lie in all this? she asked herself. Only one thing was indisputable. The body on the pavement had once belonged to Krisj Patel.

  “Could you take me back to the hotel now?” Abigail asked.

  19

  When Abigail opened the door of her room, she saw the parcel lying on the only table. Next to it was the brandy Marjorie Swan had promised. The parcel was wrapped in brown paper that appeared to have been used more than once in the past. Abigail drank the brandy and carefully unwrapped the parcel, taking out the affidavits and the application. Everything was there; the originals and three copies of each document. There was even a check for the court fees. She hoped that had not come from Patel’s slim resources.

  He must have sent them by messenger before he was killed, she thought. It could not have been long before. Everything was there, the affidavits and the application. He must have sent them off, then gone down to the street to become a sniper’s target.

  Abigail was crying. She had heard the news and she had seen his body, but there had been no tears. Now there was this parcel, the last act of the little solicitor’s career. He was not really small, but somehow she saw him that way. Her tears flowed freely down her cheeks and over her lips. She remembered that she had asked if Patel was putting her head into a noose. As things had developed, his head had been sacrificed alone—at least so far.

  Any thoughts of leaving on the next morning’s flight had disappeared. Patel’s brown paper parcel had made that course of action impossible.

  She wept for Patel, but Jonas Chunga was the other reason for her troubled state of mind. It could not all be a pretense, she told herself. His reactions were too real. And yet, if it were not a CIO agent who had pulled the trigger, who else would have wanted this ineffective-seeming solicitor dead? Friends of the old dictator perhaps? And if the killer was to be found in that company, would the police be prepared to make an arrest? Would Jonas Chunga and the CIO?