Love in the Time of Apartheid

by Frederic Hunter

  Gat glanced to see how Petra reacted to this detail. She stared at him, perhaps a little bored, but ready to hear it all.

  “At around four that afternoon I received a telephone call—I was at the military camp, Camp Massart—from Major Perrad. He’s the gendarmerie’s chief of staff. He ordered me to take a squad of military police to the airport. While I was assembling the men, I was called to the Interior Ministry. There the Security Service biggies, both Katangese and Belgian, were meeting. Lumumba was arriving at the airport, I was informed. Victor Tignée, officially—”

  Petra said, “These names mean nothing to me.”

  “I have to speak them!” Gat looked at her imploringly. “I was getting orders. From real people who outranked me.”

  Petra nodded to assure him that she understood although she did not.

  “I was saying . . . Minister Munongo’s private secretary, Victor Tignée, who made most of the decisions, he instructed me to take charge of Lumumba and the other prisoners.”

  “Who were the prisoners?”

  “Lumumba associates.” Petra watched him carefully enunciate the names. “Maurice Mpolo, top commander of the army. Joseph Okito, deputy president of the Senate. They’d been caught with Lumumba trying to reach Stanleyville. Congolese officials—and the Belgians, the Americans—were afraid Lumumba might stage a comeback from there.”

  Petra nodded.

  “I went back to Massart,” Gat continued, “to assemble the men and round up every Belgian officer I could find.”

  “There was no African in charge?” Petra asked.

  “Technically my superior was an African, Major Norbert Muke. He commanded the battalion and the camp. He palavered with the men; I made sure things got done. That was my job. To do that there was a direct phone line between the Interior Ministry and me.” Gat looked at her to make sure she understood, “Tignée was giving me the orders.

  “At the airport everything had to be controlled. So there’d be no problems with UN troops. Blue Berets—UN—were milling around the regular terminal. And we didn’t want Baluba troops—or townspeople—suddenly rallying to Lumumba. Control, control. Protect Lumumba. That was my job.”

  Petra nodded to encourage him.

  “It was late afternoon, about five, an hour or so before sunset. The heat of the day was receding, but out on the tarmac you still saw muggy shimmers rising off the pavement. It was quite a crowd: seventy or eighty Katangese ministers and their Belgian advisors, top police and military, even civilians, these last all Belgians. We waited in a kind of hush.”

  Petra saw that in his mind Gat was out on the tarmac again, waiting for Lumumba.

  “People whispered together, waiting for things to begin. I’d been sweating and my mouth was dry, with a bitter taste. I had no idea what would happen. Lumumba was coming to us as a prisoner. I knew that.”

  Gat closed his eyes and gestured with his hands.

  “I expected Lumumba to come off the plane in a suit. Subdued, not waving or smiling, but still moving with the dignity of his office. After all, he was the prime minister of a sovereign country. And surely it served the interests of Katanga to observe protocol. There were cameras everywhere. Photos of Lumumba’s arrival would appear throughout the world. Katanga showing respect seemed the obvious course.”

  Gat shook his head. “But I’ve seen African troops rampage like hyenas on a kill,” he said. “So it was always possible that an animal wildness would sweep across the crowd when they saw him. They might want to tear him to bits.”

  Gat seemed to get stuck. For a moment he said nothing.

  “And then,” Petra urged.

  “We heard the DC-4. Then we saw it, a mere speck. It landed and taxied across the tarmac to a section reserved for the military.

  “To make sure we kept the prisoners safe, I formed a double rank of soldiers from the plane to the vehicle that would take them away.” Gat shook his head as if resisting the memory. “I set the men up as a bulwark against whatever might happen if emotion swept the crowd. The door of the plane opened. Out came a Congolese soldier, Zuzu, a huge man, given to outbursts of violence. Oh, my God! I knew the man. I’d commanded him before independence. The sight of him scared me. Maybe Lumumba had not been treated with dignity.

  “The three prisoners came out.” Gat shook his head at the memory. “I clenched my teeth when I saw them. So I would not gasp before my men. Tall. I recognized Lumumba immediately. Even battered and bloody he had dignity.”

  “He was bloody?” Petra asked.

  Gat nodded. “Seeing him took my breath away. He was dazed, beaten half-dead on the plane. Like a common criminal chased through the streets, caught and pummeled. His face was swollen. He was pushed onto the stairway in a torn shirt, tied to the other prisoners. Blood oozed from his mouth and nose. They’d even pulled hair out of his goatee. Soldiers shoved him and the others down the stairway onto the tarmac.”

  As he spoke, Gat glanced at Petra to read her reaction. She nodded to assure him she was following his narrative. She wondered if she should have sat on the bed, holding Gat’s hand. No. The floor was hard, like the story. The hardness forced her attention.

  “My double rank of soldiers turned into a gauntlet. As the prisoners stumbled to the jeep, beatings continued. Soldiers pounded them with rifle butts, blacks and whites both. I kept shouting, ‘That’s enough now! Enough!’ But restraining blood lust, that’s like stopping a rainstorm. When we got him into the jeep, he lay on the floor. Soldiers stamped on him even there.”

  Gat looked through the darkness at Petra, reluctant to continue. She watched his face, dimly illuminated by the security light and the neon sign. She gestured to him to go on.

  “The police commissioner—Frans Verscheure was his name—had requisitioned a small house outside town. We took the prisoners there. It was still light. We got them into the sitting room. I did a walk-around the outside of the house. I set up guards outside and had men watching the roads.”

  “Did you know what was going to happen?” Petra asked.

  “It was worse than I expected. I knew it might get even worse.”

  She persisted, “Couldn’t you say, ‘I won’t be a party to this? Count me out?’ ”

  A smile briefly crossed his lips. He shook his head. “Soldiers do as they’re told.” Gat watched her through the darkness. “Fine to say they shouldn’t, but they do.”

  Petra said no more.

  “I expected a trial of some sort,” Gat continued. “Maybe not a fair trial. After all, Lumumba was in the camp of his enemies. But I assumed charges would be set forth. That Lumumba would have a chance to answer them—even if that was futile.”

  “Why a trial?” Petra asked.

  “To show the world that Katanga respected the rule of law,” Gat explained. “That it observed the forms of civil society. I knew he’d be declared guilty and jailed or put under house arrest. Then, I assumed, negotiations would begin. Lumumba would be used as a pawn in talks to settle Katanga’s secession.”

  Gat shrugged. “It would show that Belgium had given its colony workable mechanisms of government and that in Katanga they worked.”

  Gat thought of the chill in the air outside the small house that night, the smell of fear and blood lust inside it.

  “I went back inside the house and transferred the prisoners to the bathroom.”

  “Why the bathroom?” Petra asked.

  “I wanted to stop the beatings. When I returned to the house, they were continuing. I locked the prisoners into the bathroom and kept the key. That way I controlled access to them.”

  Gat thought of the long minutes passing, of the cigarette smoke gathering at the ceiling and fouling the air, of the solace of warm beer in his throat. That night important visitors, both Belgian and Katangese, came to the house. The Katangese biggies reeked of liquor. At the home of Moise Tshombe, Gat later heard, Katangese ministers celebrated Lumumba’s capture by feasting and drinking. President Tshombe was said to have c
onsumed an entire bottle of whiskey himself.

  When he and his Interior Minister Godefroid Munongo came to see Lumumba, Gat saw their liquored-up eyes gleaming with menace. He remembered—after he unlocked the bathroom to let the visitors see the prisoners—the screams that issued from it. Two soldiers brought the prisoners into the living room for the ministers’ inspection. Gat remembered the ministers’ thudding blows onto the prisoners. He tried not to watch. He recalled the prisoners’ groans and the blood that spilled onto Tshombe’s suit. He recollected Gabriel Michels raining blows down on Lumumba.

  “Throughout the evening,” he told Petra, “everyone asked to see the prisoners. The bigwigs demanded it, and I had to accede. The beatings went on.

  “In the end Belgians turned out to be as savage—in our civilized way—and as bloodthirsty as the Katangese. The Katangese were like soldiers I’ve led into combat: gripped at first by anger and fear, then rampaging against an enemy over whom they had complete domination. It was unnerving to see the president and the interior minister of Katanga beating the prime minister of the Congo, especially when his hands were tied and he was already half dead.”

  Gat stopped for a time as if exhausted. Then he continued.

  “I began to understand that the Belgians would not stop the excesses. Our Belgian biggies weren’t sure what to do with Lumumba. They had wanted to get him in their possession. He seemed the source of all their problems. Now that they had him, they weren’t sure what to do.”

  Gat rose from the floor and walked from one side of the bed to the other. Petra did not stir. She watched Gat moving in a kind of trance.

  “About ten, ten thirty,” he finally said, “a convoy of vehicles formed outside the house: black American cars for the biggies and two jeeps. I knew what that meant: word had come from the palace in Brussels, giving the go-ahead for Lumumba’s execution. But the Katangese must be seen as doing the mischief. Belgium wanted the world to know it had clean hands. That was fine with the Katangese as long as Belgian officers did the dirty. The execution.”

  Gat stopped moving and sat tiredly in a chair. He looked down at Petra. “I had contradictory feelings,” he admitted. “I felt it was wrong to execute Lumumba. Foolish as well. But I understood why they wanted it done. His understanding of the world was as undeveloped as his country. He’d frightened allies that he needed. He seemed to be a problem that could only be solved by killing.”

  Gat stared at the wall.

  “Going to the convoy of cars, I felt: it has to be done. I rode in the fourth car with the police commissioner and the prisoners. They were handcuffed in the back. We drove maybe forty-five minutes toward Jadotville. There’s a lake up there formed by the Francqui dam, a fine place to view birds. In the darkness, as we passed, it looked like ghosts gathered there. We arrived at a clearing with a large tree. We left the vehicles. Policemen began digging graves in the sandy soil. Some of us were nervous, chain-smoking. Others made jokes.”

  “And you?”

  “I felt like I was moving in a dream. Everything was dark. I was shivering. It’s cold in Katanga in January. That’s the rainy season. Part of me was trying to be military. I had a job to do and . . .” His voice trailed off. “But I also felt depressed. What we were doing was historic, but we were doing it like criminals. I was to be in charge of the firing squad even though among the men of the convoy I ranked just above a common soldier. History would record that the others, the ones who took decisions, only watched. I was the one who commanded the deed to be done. My superiors were using me. But that was the job. I did not want to be there. So I just did it.”

  “Did it take long?”

  “Not long. We took the prisoners, one by one, and stood them in front of the tree. I gave the orders. The firing squads did their work.”

  “And Lumumba?”

  “He went last. All three of them were resigned to their fate. After all, it was a fate they’d known all their lives: white men telling black men to kill other black men. Lumumba had a dignity about him. Even at the end the beatings and humiliations had not stripped him of that.”

  Gat and Petra sat without speaking.

  Finally Gat said, “When we got back to Elisabethville it wasn’t much after midnight. The news quickly spread through town. Tshombe and Munongo and their pals went to the president’s house to empty more bottles of whiskey. Whites celebrated in bars and homes. Belgian advisors who had not been at the execution boasted to others that they had. And those of us who were there kept our mouths shut.”

  “Did you celebrate?”

  “I had a small apartment. Liliane was staying with me there: the secretary I told you about. When I got there, she’d put on a party dress. People were celebrating in the streets. She could hardly contain her joy. She wanted to go dancing and drinking and demanded that I come with her. I didn’t want to be with anyone. Or see anyone. Or touch anyone. While I was in the shower, she ran out.”

  Gat paused as if deciding what more to tell. “I took three showers that night. And more the next day. Lumumba looked at me just before we— I was trying to wash that look off me.

  “When I left the bathroom, I poured myself a beer and sat in the darkness. I had presided at the murder of a man I admired. I wanted to be somewhere else. To be someone else. I kept hearing the sounds of revelry in the streets, the music, the firecrackers. I tried to shut it all out. Finally I gathered up Liliane’s belongings and threw them into the hall.”

  Gat said nothing for a long time. “That’s not the end of the story,” he finally acknowledged. “The biggies decided the bodies must disappear. They didn’t want Lumumba supporters making pilgrimages to his burial site. Or claiming that witchcraft had resurrected him. So the next night two Belgian police commissioners took a dozen Katangese policemen back to the graves. They dug up the bodies, took them to the Bayeke heartland where Munongo’s brother is the paramount chief, and buried them there.

  “A couple of days later one of the police commissioners—Gerald Soete is his name—and his brother dug up the bodies again. They cut them up with meat knives and hacksaws and threw the remains into a barrel of sulphuric acid provided by Union Minière.

  “At the same time the biggies started having second thoughts. They realized Western countries would never recognize Katanga if it came out that Katangese officials had murdered Lumumba. So under orders a week or so later a squad I led took three policemen, impersonating the prisoners in civilian clothes, and drove them to a village called Kasaji, almost at the border with Angola. My men told people in Jadotville and Kolwezi—those are mining towns—that we had the prisoners in the vehicles. People saw three men. They were supposed to assume that one was Lumumba and he was still alive. Later the prisoners would ‘escape.’ Villagers would kill them.”

  “That’s what you said would happen this noon,” Petra said.

  Gat nodded. “Our photographer took photos of the supposed jailhouse. A mud hut. He also took shots of a car disabled in a ditch. Those photos are probably being circulated right now.”

  Gat fell silent. “I’ve done a lot of thinking since all this happened,” he said finally. “I don’t pretend I was not a willing participant. At one moment I may have even been proud of myself for having a role in the affair. But no more. I was just an instrument in the hands of rich men, a tool to serve their purposes.”

  He added, “Life is a process of using and being used. This time I got used and I may be used again. Get blamed for what happened. I received death threats in E’ville.”

  Darkness and silence filled the room. Finally Petra said, “You take the bed. I’ll stay here.”

  Gat nodded. If that’s what she wanted, it did not matter to him. He was spent from telling and remembering his story. For a long time neither one of them moved. Finally Gat rose. He pulled off his shoes and lay down on the bed. He wondered if Petra would leave. Why not? What were they to each other anyway?

  PETRA SAT wedged against the corner of the room. She wondered if h
er father did the kinds of things Gat had talked about. Her father who never brought his work home, who never talked about that work, who was never keen—from modesty, she had always supposed—to offer the information that he was with Special Branch and a colonel. Special Branch was, in fact, a phrase never spoken in his home. So what about his work? She knew only that he was a good man who loved his family and sought to preserve “the South African way of life.” Because of his goodness she had never inquired too closely about what exactly that preservation involved. She had sensed that at times it meant bearing down hard on Bantus, especially those who did not accept their place. But if Belgian officers and Katangese bigwigs beat a country’s prime minister . . . If they tortured him, for surely it had been torture . . . If they cold-bloodedly ordered his execution . . . Well, what would her father do—or order done—to Africans who were not prime ministers, but counted for nothing except as possible enemies?

  No! She could not believe it! Her father would not do that. She recalled the family taunt, used sparingly by her mother, more frequently by her, about kaffirs being thrown out the windows of police headquarters. She had assumed it was a joke. Or if not, that it was kaffirs mistreating kaffirs. Now she realized that behind the taunt was— Tears filled her eyes. No! It could not be!

  Gat’s breathing grew regular on the bed. She listened to the soft inhalings and exhalings, knowing that she could not spend the night in this room with him. Probably the hotel had another room. But what if she just left? Took her suitcase and the car keys and drove off? Quietly she rose, took her purse and the car keys. Reaching for her suitcase, she sensed that the rhythm of Gat’s breathing had altered. She stood stock-still. The regular rhythm returned. She got the suitcase, tiptoed toward the doorway. As she passed the bed, Gat’s hand touched her arm. It closed around her wrist. She gave an involuntary intake of breath, frightened by his touch.