The Delta

by Tony Park

  While Selma started packing up her things and Cheryl-Ann talked Mathias through his lines, Sonja slipped out the door of the cabin. Sam followed her.

  She stood in the shade of the hut, her eyes scanning the construction site in the valley below. She reminded Sam of a predator surveying its savannah hunting ground.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but you seem quieter than ever.’

  She turned and looked at him, not speaking, and he gazed out over the dam.

  ‘You’re taking their money to make a propaganda video for them, aren’t you?’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘Cheryl-Ann and I are hired by a production house that makes films for Wildlife World. We also make corporate videos for people who pay us.’

  ‘And you don’t ask questions.’

  ‘I’ve turned down requests from the hunting lobby and the Japanese whalers to make documentaries for them.’

  ‘So whales are important but the Okavango Delta isn’t?’

  ‘You don’t think people are as important as animals? What about all that stuff about electricity and food and water for the local people?’

  She shook her head. ‘The Okavango Delta supports thousands of people in Botswana who make their living from the safari industry, including, by the way, professional hunting. This project isn’t about food and water, it’s about money, and that,’ she jabbed a thumb towards the door, ‘confirmed it. If you can’t see that, Sam, then nothing I can say will convince you otherwise.’

  He was about to follow her towards the Land Rover when Cheryl-Ann called him to listen to Mathias’s interview.

  When Sam walked back inside Sonja opened the Land Rover and found her daypack. She took out her hairbrush, slid the rubber band off her ponytail and brushed her hair, leaving it hanging loose. She had no makeup, but she licked her lips and checked her teeth in the rear-view mirror before closing the door. She undid the third button of her safari shirt and turned up her collar.

  The site office was made up of three cabins, set in a horseshoe arrangement on the ridge overlooking the dam. Cheryl-Ann and the crew were still in the cabin used for meetings and presentations. Sonja watched Deiter Roberts leave his office, walk to the meeting cabin, disappear inside, then re-emerge a few seconds later with a laptop under his arm. It was the computer Selma had used for her presentation.

  Sonja waited a couple of minutes after Roberts had returned to his office, then walked over to it. She knocked on the door of the one next to it and asked to see Deiter. An African woman called through a partition and Roberts came out to greet her.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hi, Deiter. I think I know all I need to about hydro-electricity and water storage facilities, so I thought I would see if I could get a coffee.’

  He looked past her, towards the open door and the next hut where he had just come from. He was clearly distrustful of the media people, even if they were here at the company’s invitation. The laptop he’d taken from the conference room was on his desk, next to his PC.

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘I need a break from my friends. Yes, but they’re worse than Englishmen.’

  A smile fractured his face. ‘Come into my office. The aircon works better so it’s cooler in there. Frieda,’ he said to the African woman at reception, ‘please, bring us two coffees.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the woman said.

  ‘What did you think of the presentation?’ Roberts asked her.

  Sonja shrugged. ‘It was pretty interesting. There are obviously a lot of sensitivities about this project, though.’

  Roberts nodded and motioned for her to take a seat. ‘Hell, you don’t know the half of it. We have to watch every word we say and the Germans in head office check everything ten times. They’re forever changing brochures and documents and presentations to make sure every “i” is dotted and every “t” crossed. The big boss, Schwarz, is fanatical about communications – I only just loaded the version of that presentation half an hour before you arrived. You say the wrong thing to the wrong person on this project and it could cost you your job.’

  ‘Very political, hey?’

  Roberts rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, then relaxed a little in his chair. ‘You came up from Botswana, but you’re not from there, I think. South African?’

  She shook her head. ‘I was born in Okahandja.’

  His eyes widened. ‘So you’re a Namibian.’

  ‘It said South-West Africa on my birth certificate. My family moved to Botswana after the war. I grew up in the swamps.’

  ‘Quite a change from Okahandja. What did your parents do there?’

  ‘In Namibia?’

  He nodded.

  ‘My dad was a cattle farmer, but he was called up with the SWATF when the war got busy.’

  ‘Me too.’ Roberts looked out his window over the dam, and she could tell the mere mention of the acronym of the South-West Africa Territorial Force had brought back a cascade of memories. ‘They put me in an engineering unit after I graduated so I wasn’t in a lot of combat, but …’

  Sonja picked up the thread. ‘There was no escaping it, I suppose. Not even us, on the farm. We were attacked by terrorists while my dad was away on call-up. My mom and I were fine, but things changed after that. She wanted to leave the country – she’s English – and he wanted revenge. I went to live in England with her for a while and he transferred to Koevoet.’

  Deiter reached into the pocket of his shirt and drew out a packet of cigarettes. He flipped the lid and Sonja could smell the roasted tobacco from the other side of the desk. He raised his eyebrows, but she shook her head.

  ‘Do you mind if I do?’

  ‘It’s your office,’ she said, craving the hit. ‘Roberts doesn’t sound very German.’

  He lit up and she was momentarily entranced by the orange tip that burned like a tiny sunset. ‘Ja. My mom was from German stock but my father was an Englishman who came here looking for diamonds.’

  ‘I’m the reverse,’ Sonja said. ‘German Namibian father and an English mother.’

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Thank you, Frieda,’ Deiter said, as the receptionist laboriously set out the cups, sugar, milk and a plate of biscuits. When she was finished and they were alone again he said: ‘So, your old man was in Koevoet, eh? Hard bastards.’

  ‘Too hard.’ She stirred sugar and milk into her coffee. ‘My father had to leave the country after independence. We sort of went into hiding in the Okavango Delta. My mom and I came back out and my folks managed a safari camp for a number of years.’

  He sighed, then blew on his drink. ‘Terrible, terrible times, Sonja. Wait … Sonja?’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Not Sonja Kurtz?’

  She nodded. She’d picked his age right, and made sure she mentioned Okahandja and the SWAPO fighters attacking the family farm. She was fairly sure he would recall who she was. It rankled and sometimes in the past when she’d met men of Deiter’s age from Namibia she’d given a false surname or deliberately avoided mentioning it as someone always made the connection.

  ‘You’re the little girl who killed the terr!’

  She shrugged. ‘I could strip, load and fire an R1 from the time I was eleven and I was loading magazines from the age of seven.’

  ‘You were the toast of Windhoek, you know?’

  Sonja swallowed and smiled at the awkward compliment. She had been twelve at the time.

  ‘You saw more action than I did. I suppose you get sick of people asking what it’s like to kill a man?’

  ‘You’re very perceptive, Deiter.’

  He laughed. ‘So what are you doing with this bunch of American TV people? I was told their guide was going to be a man.’

  Sonja breathed in the smoke he exhaled as he spoke. ‘I think I might have one of those, if you don’t mind.’

  He reached back into his pocket and offered the pack to her. She drew it out, slowly, watching his face as she did so. Before he could palm the lig
hter across the table she placed the filter tip between her lips and leaned forward. He seemed pleased as he lit it, and closed the distance between them.

  She inhaled and closed her eyes, leaning her head back, but keeping her elbows on the timber laminate of his desk.

  ‘First one in a while?’ he asked.

  She smiled as she opened her eyes and caught him raising his eyes from her cleavage. ‘Mmmm. You’ve corrupted me, Deiter Roberts.’

  He coughed, and she wrinkled her nose as she flashed him a smile. She had him.

  She sat back in her chair and crossed her legs, cool and aloof now. ‘Ja,’ she exhaled. ‘Their guide was injured when he crashed the helicopter they were filming from. I’m a last-minute substitute. I can’t say I particularly like them, but it’s work, hey?’

  He nodded. ‘And the man, the television star? Chapman?’

  She could tell what he was thinking. ‘I think he’s a moffie.’

  ‘Ah-hah,’ said Roberts, as though she was confirming his suspicion that any man who worked on television must be gay.

  Sonja felt a pang of guilt at perpetuating what she knew was a lie. ‘From what I’ve read you were lucky to get your dam finished, what with all the international environmentalists opposed to the project.’

  Roberts sipped some more of his coffee and took a biscuit. ‘It’s not just the greenies who were against us. These mad bloody Caprivians want to blow us up, as well.’

  Sonja smiled. ‘Speaking of blowing things up, are you still blasting here on site? One thing I’ve learned about these TV people is that they like to film lots of action.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, but you might have seen a truck carrying explosives on the road around here, or onsite.’

  ‘Yes, I think that’s probably what made me think of it.’ The truck in the vehicle park that looked like a fuel or water container, she suddenly realised, contained explosives.

  Roberts leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. ‘These GrowPower people aren’t just into farming, you know. They’ve also bought the exploration rights for this area and they’re doing some blasting to look for diamonds. If they find what they’re looking for they’re going to need a hell of a lot of water for the mines. They park their bloody truck full of Nitropril here because we’ve got good security. Can you imagine what would happen if those damned Caprivians got hold of a truck full of that stuff?’

  ‘Goodness, no,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘But you’re safe here. I see you have some military back-up. That’s a good thing.’ She looked out the window of the office.

  He followed her eyeline to the far side of the river where the BTR 60 was trundling down a dirt road, with a dust cloud in attendance. ‘Those clowns spend most of their time eating pap or snoozing in the shade of their vehicles, but when the bullets started flying last time it was good to have them there.’

  ‘One armoured car isn’t much, though, surely?’

  He shook his head. ‘You misheard me. I said vehicles. There are three of them and, yes, you should hear the racket when their guns open fire. Also, we have four mortar tubes covering the site.’

  Sonja drained her coffee and stubbed out her cigarette. She hated Steele for telling her what to do, but her time with Roberts had already yielded an extra mortar tube and two more armoured cars.

  Sonja stood and carefully picked a couple of biscuit crumbs off her bush shirt. ‘I’d better get back to my Americans.’ Roberts rolled his chair back and she could see the disappointment in his eyes. She had no more need of the man – he had served his purpose.

  EIGHTEEN

  Sonja paused outside the site office to let the heat blast away the imaginary layer of grime that covered her skin and her soul.

  She had flirted only a little with Roberts, but she hated Martin for making her feel like a whore, and hated herself for falling for his lines every time. But he knew how to play her emotions as well as he’d once known how to play her body. All she wanted to do right now was blow something up so, in essence, she knew Martin had won her over once again.

  The door of the meeting-room cabin opened and Cheryl-Ann walked out, chatting to the African bureaucrat who followed her and now looked a lot cooler and relaxed. Jim, Gerry and Sam trailed them, carrying cameras, tripods, sound gear and other paraphernalia. Sonja opened the Land Rover’s doors and got in and switched on the engine.

  ‘Get what you wanted?’ she asked Sam.

  He paused, carrying a tripod and a case, and just looked at her. He’d read the sarcasm in her tone and she looked away. She was still angry, but she knew she shouldn’t be taking it out on Chapman. He wasn’t the cause of her problems. She turned and walked from him and got back in the driver’s seat. Who was she to judge the morals of a television presenter who took money from a legitimate corporation to tell their side of a story? She’d just used the fact that she had killed as a child to get information out of a man who thought he had a chance of sticking his dick inside her. Looking at Sam and remembering how she’d fantasised about him that night in the camp in Botswana made her feel even more ashamed of what she’d just done at Steele’s urging.

  ‘We need to stop in at Popa Falls and get some vision there, Sonja,’ Cheryl-Ann said.

  Sonja nodded. She was sick of being a chauffeur, as well.

  There was a tap on her window and she saw Deiter Roberts standing there. She rolled down her window and he handed her a card. ‘It’s got my mobile phone number on it. Just call anytime if you’re in the area.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What was that all about?’ Cheryl-Ann said.

  None of your fucking business, Sonja thought. ‘He might have some security work for me.’ Sonja drove off down the access road, glad for the moment to be out of sight of the dam. She drummed her hands on the hot black steering wheel as she waited for the guard at the perimeter boom gate to sign them out.

  ‘Anybody else thirsty?’ Rickards asked from the back seat.

  ‘I am,’ said Gerry.

  ‘There’s the general store at Divundu,’ Sonja said. ‘We can get cold drinks there.’

  When they came to the intersection of the B8 Sonja slowed for the roadblock, but the policeman on duty must have recognised the vehicle, because he motioned with his hand for them to continue. She turned right onto the tar road, then swung immediately to the left to pull into the store and fuel station. The forecourt wasn’t paved and white dust swirled around the Land Rover as she drove past a braying donkey. Two mangy dogs watched her and a trio of young boys dressed in rags emerged from the meagre shade of the whitewashed store’s walls. A shiny black double-cab Toyota bakkie with darkly tinted windows was the only other vehicle parked outside the store, occupying the only natural shade in sight, under the bare branches of a stunted tree.

  ‘I am hungry, madam, give me ten dollars,’ one of the boys said, as he pressed against the driver’s side door.

  ‘No.’ She got out of the vehicle and locked it once her passengers had piled out.

  ‘I will mind this car for you, madam.’

  ‘That’s my job.’ Sonja walked over to the fuel station’s island, where the female attendant sat, wilting in the heat with her back against a pump. ‘Afternoon, how are you, sister?’

  ‘I am fine, but it is too hot. How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’ Sonja looked over at the black pick-up and saw grey smoke coming from its exhaust pipe. ‘How long has that bakkie been there?’

  The woman shrugged.

  Sonja reached into her breast pocket and pulled out a one hundred Namibian dollar bill.

  ‘For about one hour,’ the attendant said, reaching up, though still not standing.

  Sonja extended her hand, though not all the way. ‘How many people inside?’

  ‘Ah, four men.’

  ‘African?’

  She nodded. ‘But not from here, I think. Zimbabweans. They must be mad. How can they wear jackets in this heat?’

  Sonja shrugged, then handed over the mon
ey as Cheryl-Ann and the three men emerged from the store. Sonja bleeped the alarm with the remote, thanked the woman and walked back to the Land Rover.

  Perhaps, she thought as she headed back towards Popa Falls, she was being paranoid. She glanced in the rear-view mirror again. Nothing. She eased her foot off the accelerator.

  Cheryl-Ann looked up from her notebook. ‘Why are we slowing?’

  ‘The car that just drove past flashed his lights. Could be a speed cop up ahead. You don’t want a fine do you?’

  Cheryl-Ann lowered her head again. The last car had done no such thing, but Sonja knew Cheryl-Ann was too engrossed in her work to have noticed. Rickards and Gerry were dozing in the second seat and Sam, who was taking a turn at the rear, next to the camera cases, was looking out the side window, mesmerised by the African landscape.

  She was sitting on eighty kilometres an hour now. When she checked her rear-view mirror again she saw them.

  The black bakkie loomed up on them, and she guessed the driver was doing at least a hundred and twenty. The road was clear of oncoming traffic, so there was no reason for the truck not to zoom past her.

  It slowed.

  Sonja dropped down to fourth and planted her foot. The engine screamed in protest and Cheryl-Ann looked up. ‘Make up your mind, Sonja.’

  She checked the mirror again and saw Sam looking backwards and forwards. ‘Is that pick-up following us?’

  ‘Wha … what?’ said Rickards, his head snapping up.

  ‘What’s going on, Sonja?’ Cheryl-Ann demanded.

  ‘Relax, everyone,’ Sonja said, fighting to sound calm. ‘Cheryl-Ann, take the wheel for a second.’

  ‘What?’

  Sonja slipped back up into fifth, the speedometer needle climbing to one-twenty. The black bakkie was three car lengths behind them, matching their speed. ‘Take the wheel, please, Cheryl-Ann. Just for a moment.’