See No Evil

by Michael Ridpath

  15

  August 3, 1988

  I had a horrible night last night. As soon as I went to sleep, the images came back to me, the images from those photographs. The boy’s back, the young woman’s lifeless eyes. At one point I scrambled to the bathroom and threw up. It didn’t make me feel any better.

  I’ll do what the man said, of course. I won’t mention the Laagerbond to anyone ever again. I can’t risk what that monster might do to Caroline. I wish I’d never opened Daniel’s briefcase, never laid eyes on those papers. What is Neels doing with people like that?

  I’ve got to get out of here. I want to go home. I want to be home. I’m going to book a flight to Minneapolis right now.

  Later…

  I’ve got the ticket, leaving tomorrow night. Doris is back from Port Elizabeth, so Caroline will be all right with her, especially now Zan’s around as well.

  August 5

  I’ve caught him. And I feel terrible.

  It happened like this. At the last minute I decided to stop off in Philadelphia on the way to Minneapolis. I don’t know why I did this. I told myself that it would be good to spend a couple of days there with Neels, see how Philadelphia was for us together, make some attempt at conciliation. I hadn’t figured out what I would say to him about the Laagerbonder, Moolman, or whatever his name is. On the one hand I desperately needed the comfort of Neels’s strong arms around me, on the other I didn’t know whether I could trust him. And if Moolman ever found out I had spoken to him …

  But there was something else. I didn’t warn him I was coming. I wanted to surprise him, to see what this American life he’s leading all the time now is like without him having the chance to cover anything up. I wanted to catch him out, get things out into the open, find some resolution to the way I am feeling.

  I took a taxi from the airport downtown. Philadelphia was hot: thick, sticky heat, the kind of heat that feels more like syrup than air as you walk through it. The Intelligencer’s building is a solid nineteenth-century edifice on Chestnut Street, with columns and Latin mottos scraped into the stone. Neels has the top floor. I announced myself at the lobby and an attractive black secretary met me and ushered me upstairs. She was very friendly, showed me into Neels’s office and gave me a cup of coffee. His office looks much the same as it did last time I was in there a year ago. That old photo of me is still on his desk, I was glad to see, although that’s pretty sad, isn’t it? A wife checking up to see if her photo is still on her husband’s desk. There is one new photograph there, of Todd playing rugby, taken last year. Neels is proud of Todd’s rugby playing, and he’s pretty good, although he’s never going to be as good as his father was.

  I sat there, on his sofa, watching the saturated air build into afternoon storm clouds over the city. The pressure was falling, I could feel it in my ears.

  Then I heard Neels’s loud voice approaching. He was speaking in Afrikaans. A woman was answering him, a young woman. As they approached the doorway to his office, she said, “Oh, Neels!” He laughed and said something I couldn’t catch, except he ended it with the word “liefie.” Liefie means “darling.” But it means more than that, so much more than that. It’s what Neels calls me. It’s the one Afrikaans word he uses with me, the only one. He says it’s mine. He never used it on any of the children, not on Zan or Caroline; he once told me that he never used it for Penelope. Just me. And her. This woman whom I hadn’t even seen yet.

  They came into the room. She was beautiful, of course. Blonde hair scraped back from her forehead, pale skin, strong angular face, smart business suit, perfect make-up. Only about twenty-five, maybe twenty-eight. And cool, oh so cool. Neels looked shocked to see me, but the woman smiled politely and held out her hand. “You must be Martha,” she said with a distinct South African accent. “I’m Beatrice Pienaar. Cornelius has kindly allowed me to work here for a couple of months.”

  I took her hand and looked into her eyes. Blue, intelligent, calm, calculating. Her control was perfect, almost. But, as I watched, two tiny blushes of pink appeared on those fine alabaster cheekbones. She was betrayed by a dozen capillaries.

  I’m not quite sure what happened next. Neels stumbled and stuttered before regaining his self-control. The Beatrice woman made her excuses and left. Neels got into his stride and talked heartily about his plan to buy the Herald. A rival buyer has popped up with a higher offer, but Neels thinks he will win. No mention of impending bankruptcy. No mention of the Laagerbond. He said how pleased he was that I had come to see him, how we’d have a great couple of days together. I smiled and nodded, still dazed, although I remember thinking that if I had interrupted him in a business meeting instead of flirting with his lover he would have been much less friendly.

  Neels had lunch booked with the editor of one of his Ohio papers, and so he suggested Edwin take me out. We agreed I’d see Neels at the apartment at seven. I really don’t like Edwin. He’s only twenty-eight, but he’s so pompous in his little three-piece suit despite the ninety-degree heat. He acts like he’s forty-five, and the way he’s gaining flab and losing his hair he’ll soon look like it too. He’s so unlike Neels. But he’s not stupid, he’s a devious little creep. He doesn’t like me much either; I did steal his father from his mother, after all. But we’ve always been polite to each other. I think Edwin has a much bigger problem with Neels, but that’s another story.

  I couldn’t face lunch with him, so once we were out on the sidewalk I shooed him away, and stood outside the Intelligencer offices with my suitcase, waiting for a cab. It had started to rain, one of those summer torrents that sends giant pebbles of water hopping all over the streets. I watched the rain for a quarter of an hour before a cab stopped.

  I told it to take me to the airport.

  I’m writing this on the plane to Minneapolis. There’s quite a bit of turbulence, the pilot said something about more thunderstorms, so it’s difficult to keep my pen on the page.

  I feel terrible. I feel as if a giant hand has worked its way into my stomach, grabbed my guts and started twisting. And it won’t stop. That last sentence is blotted by a tear, not the vodka and tonic I’ve just spilled. That landed on my knee, staining my white pants. But I don’t regret going to Philadelphia. I had to know. And I didn’t want to find out by snooping around Neels’s stuff, or hiring a private detective, or asking our friends about the gossip. I’m also glad I saw her.

  Glad? As I was standing in the rain waiting for a cab, I realized the obvious. She’s just like me, or like I was. I met Neels in exactly that way. I was her age when he suggested I work in his offices for a while. He was married then and I was tall, blonde, attractive, although I was never a cold-hearted bitch like her. But there’s a pattern.

  I knew I was wrong to take Neels from Penelope, but I didn’t regret it. I told myself I had no choice: I was in love, and Neels loved me. She was an awful woman, already on the way to becoming an alcoholic. Mom and Dad didn’t approve. At first I think they thought I had gone off my head, marrying some apartheid-loving Afrikaner, but when they met Neels they recognized at least that he was a decent man, decent, but older, ten years older, and married.

  My parents are good people. They forgave me. I think they even grew to like Neels. What am I going to tell them now? That he is the cheating philanderer they always assumed he was?

  I need another vodka.

  August 6

  How I love my parents! My mother was so good. She knew something was wrong, of course, when I showed up at the door, half-drunk, my face dark with misery. Apparently Neels had called all agitated wanting to know where I was, why I wasn’t at the apartment in Philadelphia. Mom didn’t ask questions, she didn’t pressure me, she just welcomed me home. She called Neels back to tell him I was with them and I was okay, but I was too tired to talk to him.

  This morning I’m sitting on the swing seat out on the porch looking out over the lake. I’ve called Caroline, she’s just gotten back from school and she’s fine. I feel bad about leaving her
, but I know she’ll be okay with Zan and Doris for a few days.

  I’m going sailing with Dad this afternoon. I hope he’s up to it. He looks a lot more frail than he did last time I saw him, which was when they came out to South Africa at Christmas. He’s over seventy now, seventy-two, and for the first time he looks it. Although Mom’s sixty-nine, she doesn’t act anything like an old lady yet.

  I think I will talk to her about Neels. She’s the only person I really can talk to.

  Later…

  I went sailing with Dad. He could scarcely manage it. I’m sure he couldn’t go out by himself now. It’s a horrible feeling to see him getting old.

  But it was nice out on the water, darting around the little islands I know so well. And I could see that he loved being out there with me. It’s hot here, in the mid-eighties, but not nearly as humid as it was in Philadelphia. Too hot for Dad, though. I was glad to get him back indoors in the air conditioning.

  I spoke to Mom about Neels. She was really good about it, as I knew she would be. She wasn’t at all judgmental, she never said she knew he was a bastard all along. She didn’t give me any answers; there aren’t any easy answers and I know her – she would say that it’s up to me to decide what to do. But I needed to talk about it, and to receive such love in return, simple, unqualified love. I know she can’t kiss me and make it all better, but it doesn’t do any harm to live under the illusion for a couple of days that she can.

  I didn’t tell her about the Laagerbond and my experience in Guguletu, though. That would scare her silly. It still scares me silly.

  I called Monica to see if we can get together. She said that Nancy is over from California with the kids visiting her folks. She said she’d try and get hold of Arlene and fix something up for tomorrow night.

  August 7

  Just got back from an evening out with the girls. I’m a little drunk and a little worked up. But I’ve got to write it down. Just for a moment it all seems clear to me. America, South Africa, Neels, that fucking Afrikaner bitch Beatrice. I know what I should do. What I should do about Neels that selfish creep. He thinks he can do what he likes with that Beatrice bitch and forget about me just because I’m forty-four. I still look good, I know I look good, he’s the one who’s old, and what about his children, what does he think he’s doing to his children, and what about his country, he’s abandoning his country, what a goddamn coward, what a goddamn fucking old old coward.

  August 8

  It’s eleven o’clock and I’ve just got up and had a cup of coffee. Actually I’m on my third cup. Hangover. Big time. And what a lot of embarrassing drivel I wrote last night. Did everything really “all seem clear to me”? If I really did have the answer to all my problems, I can’t remember a thing about it. It’s pretty sad when the world seems to make more sense when you are drunk than when you are sober.

  We went to a place called TGI Fridays in Minnetonka. They’re big on cocktails at TGI Fridays. It was great to see the others, at least at first. Monica, Arlene and I have all been friends since Elementary School, and Nancy joined us at Junior High. We were all a hit with the boys, but we were all smarter than them too. I think we scared them. We probably scared the teachers as well, we were so full of ourselves. But we all went on to good colleges, Monica and Arlene went to St. Olaf in Minnesota, I went east to Smith and Nancy went out west to Berkeley.

  The drink flowed, and the stories came thick and fast. They’ve all had a tough time with jobs, children, husbands. Especially husbands.

  I told them about Neels and the Beatrice woman. I didn’t intend to, but after they had told me so much about their lives I felt I had to do the same. They were sympathetic, but all three of them seemed to think that men were like that. I tried to explain about South Africa, about how I still believed in the need to end apartheid and in the rights of black people there to be treated like normal human beings.

  On the way out of the restaurant, Monica touched my arm. “If you feel like you have to stay there, stay,” she said. “See it through. Don’t run away.” I think she was talking about South Africa, not Neels. I wonder if it will come to that choice.

  Actually, I think I remember what I was thinking about last night. I’m not sure it’s such a good idea now I’m sober. But … we’ll see.

  August 11

  We land in Cape Town in a couple of hours. The sun is rising over the continent of Africa to the east, and I am happy.

  It’s so long since I have felt like this. I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about it.

  But I can’t write it down. I’d like to, I’ve gotten so used to confiding in my diary. I’m careful to keep it hidden. I’m positive Neels doesn’t even know it exists, let alone what I’ve written. I think Doris and Caroline might have seen me scribbling in it once or twice, but neither of them has said anything. The trouble is you can never be 100 percent sure that no one else will read it in the future. So you can’t tell the whole truth. I want to, but I shouldn’t.

  No doubt once I am back at Hondehoek, Neels and the Cape Daily Mail and everything will grind me down again, but for now I shall put this away, stretch out my legs, watch the sun rise, and smile.

  16

  It was early summer in Zurich and the Swiss had taken note of the fact: the people strolling around the Paradeplatz were in shirtsleeves, jackets slung over shoulders, and summer dresses were getting their first airing. The sun streamed through the plate glass windows of the konditorei and warmed Andries Visser’s sallow, sagging face. He sipped his coffee and stared out over the square at the blue trams trundling backwards and forwards and behind them the solid grey stone buildings which housed the private banking headquarters of the large Swiss banks. No gleaming skyscrapers in this city: here, power was discretion. It was only an hour and a half since their plane had touched down after the long flight from Johannesburg, and his cough had kept him awake. He had done his best to smother it so as not to disturb the other passengers in business class, but from the expressions on their faces in the morning he hadn’t succeeded.

  He coughed again.

  ‘Are you all right, Andries?’ asked his companion, Dirk du Toit, as he polished off the last crumbs of his torte. Dirk was a strapping man of about forty with a shock of red hair, which these days he slicked back in a bankerly way. He was, in fact, a banker, and a very smart one, for the United Farmers Bank, the third biggest in South Africa. His father, Martin, had been chairman of the bank until five years before, but there was no suggestion that du Toit’s rise had anything to do with nepotism. Neither had his induction into the Laagerbond at the age of thirty nor his recent assumption of the role of treasurer from his father. Given the scale of the Laagerbond’s assets, treasurer was no small responsibility and du Toit handled the position admirably.

  Visser coughed again and shook his head. ‘Just a smoker’s cough. My doctor has convinced me to give up. I hope it will go away. We’ll see.’

  His doctor had indeed convinced him to give up when he had seen him earlier that week, by the simple expedient of telling him he had lung cancer. He was booked for an appointment the following week for further tests and scans, but the doctor was quite confident of his diagnosis. Lung cancer was bad. A low chance of survival, lots of chemo and radiotherapy, lots of pain. Visser was still trying to grasp the enormity of the news. He hadn’t told anyone yet, not even his wife, and certainly not other members of the Laagerbond. His mind constantly returned to the idea of his own mortality, what it would mean to have only a few months left to live, what he would do with the time, how he would find the courage to put up with the pain. He hadn’t come to any conclusions yet, but he was beginning to feel that the Laagerbond would play an important part in whatever time was left to him.

  He touched his shrunken bicep where he had placed a nicotine patch that morning in the toilets at the airport. It was hard dealing with this kind of problem without a cigarette. Especially sitting in the sun with a cup of coffee. Maybe he should just go back to fifty a
day and be done with it.

  Du Toit’s face was full of concern as he examined his colleague. Visser summoned a smile. He had always thought that du Toit was a good kid. Perhaps he would take over as chairman one day, after Visser had gone. That would be good. The Laagerbond needed to be run by a new generation, not the dinosaurs from the apartheid years. The Afrikaner nation was finished if it defined itself by the glory days of Verwoerd and Vorster.

  ‘Dirk, you know we have an opening for two new members now that Jan and Dawid have died.’ General Johannes Lessing had played a leading role in the invasion of Angola in 1987, and had just died at the age of eighty-one. Dawid Roux had held a senior position in the Foreign Ministry. Like many of the other Laagerbonders they had both been key members of the State Security Council, the body that coordinated South Africa’s counter-revolutionary activities throughout the 1980s. The Laagerbond was limited to a complement of twenty-four members; when one member died another had to be elected.

  ‘I thought Freddie Steenkamp had a candidate?’

  ‘He does, he does. Paul Strydom. He’s a sound man and well connected, and we are going to initiate him next week, but do you know anyone for the other position? Anyone more … forward-looking? Maybe someone in his thirties who’s heading for the top.’

  Du Toit nodded. ‘I understand. I’ll see what I can do.’

  Visser smiled. ‘Good. I am worried. I want to keep the Laagerbond intact so it can influence South Africa long into the future. If we succumb to funding lunatics like Eugene Terre’Blanche, with his pseudo swastikas and his stiff-arm salute, or any of those other nutcases who want to start a Third Boer War, we’ll be finished. Oh, the money will last a long time, but we’ll be exposed, discredited, maybe even destroyed. But if we can use our funds to promote those who will leave us alone and discredit those who will do us harm, then we will achieve something. The Afrikaner nation will live on in Africa, where it should be.’