Azanian Bridges

by Nick Wood

  He watches me and relaxes just a little. Then he chuckles, looking around the dingy yellow room: “Well, if you speak the truth, I can probably be sure this room is not bugged.”

  Is this one reason why his words have been so guarded, so hard to come by? It seems behavioural answers lie not just in a man’s mental state, but in their surroundings too. There’s a wide gulf between us indeed, even in this cramped and stale room, where we’re standing so close we can smell each other.

  Sibusiso is sweating, although the sun’s mid-morning heat has yet to build strongly. He stretches his arms in response to mine and looks down on me from across the table; he’s tall, thin and powerful. I feel the weight of early middle-age years and the spread of my stomach: “Shall we sit again?”

  He takes the back of his chair and moves it, appraising me coolly from a standing height as my own chair squeaks, swivels and spins unexpectedly beneath me.

  “I’ll do this on one condition,” he says.

  I stabilise and root myself by planting my shoes firmly against the concrete floor, grasping the table in front of me.

  “What’s that?” I look up to capture his glowering gaze.

  “You must go first, Doctor,” he says.

  Argh, I’d not expected this.

  I can see by his stare this is not negotiable. I hesitate, racking my brain for a therapeutic response that would open him up again, a psychological jujitsu phrase that would put me back in control, with therapy moving forward as planned.

  “Okay,” I say. That’s not it! (But what else can I say; who else will agree to do this?)

  I take a deep breath and clip the primary cap onto my scalp. He watches me closely; his eyes measuring mine more than they did yesterday.

  I hold the second cap up to him and he flinches away. “You can’t read me if you’re not connected,” I say.

  He lifts a warning finger: “Promise me you do it the way I want.”

  I nod and fumble with clipping the electrodes in place, glad he’s had his head tightly shaved since coming onto the ward. I am sweating too, even though it is not as hot as yesterday, a drop of sweat falls on the table between us, my collared shirt sticks to my back.

  We face each other over the Box, which is plugged in, green dials flashing.

  “Ready?” I say, breathing deeply and dreading I am breaking ethical codes across the board. There is still time to stop, to unplug the machine, and unclip our caps, to return to words…

  But Sibusiso just smiles and nods.

  I flip the switch on to ‘export’ and wait. For me, I feel nothing. All I can do is think calming thoughts about surf rolling across Durban North beach, which should hopefully hide my more intimate thoughts. At the same time I concentrate on sending him positive thoughts that should hopefully pulse along these wires with a mood of optimism and change.

  His eyes are closed and his face twists with amusement, concern, a bit of disgust, sadness… joy? I struggle to read the fast flash of feelings as they wash over his face like the sea – his mouth open, as if gasping for breath, but no sound emerges.

  Silence…

  I catch flashes of fire in my head, smoke stings my eyes and I fall as something hits me on the head. Glazed, I look up to see a white policeman swinging his sjambok.

  Dogs are barking nearby, big dogs. Wetness drips down my face and my clothes are damp. I look around the shack-ridden dirtied landscape. There are hundreds of us, but hemmed in, milling, the Peace March broken as gas infiltrates our lungs and purple spray marks us as enemies of the State.

  I cough and switch the machine off. Shit man, a bit of resurgent identity feedback, despite the one-way setting? I’m scared too of what Sibusiso may find, afraid of the effects of mixing brain waves, merging identities, even though our huge differences are mapped onto our skins.

  Sibusiso opens his eyes and looks at me, smiling peculiarly in what looks for a moment like self-recognition.

  “Well?” I ask.

  “You’re mostly okay, Doctor – a little more racist than you think, but a little less racist than I… worried.”

  “Ag thanks,” I say. “Who’s the one in need of help here, hey?

  “I am sorry,” he looks down, “I did not mean to be rude.” (But he continues to grin.)

  Someone knocks; his or her shadow filling the frosty door pane. I scrabble to pack the Box away under the desk. But it is too late. They don’t wait for a reply, opening the door with only the briefest of pauses.

  It’s Doctor Ronald James of course, today wearing a tweed suit and sticky-looking brown tie, sparse grey hair sleeked back. He looks past Sibusiso as if he were invisible.

  “Is that what I think it is, Martin?”

  I’ve always been a poor liar, so I don’t even try.

  Slowly, Dr. James shakes his head: “I’m sorry, Martin, but this time you’ve gone too far.”

  “I’m busy in a therapeutic session, Doctor.” There are boundaries that should be respected, whoever you are.

  “This is a step too far, Martin!” He continues without blinking: “And I may have to report you for this.”

  I hesitate; he has good connections with the National Psychology Board.

  “You will stop this session right now.” Dr. James stands as my father used to; back stiff with righteousness. I know the good doctor has connections with all the training Universities too – and some whisper even more than that, retaining his active military service.

  I look at Sibusiso, who returns my gaze with weary resignation, as if used to being ignored.

  No, I will not reinforce this experience for him, this experience of being no one.

  Dr. James is indeed a well-connected man. But then, when I was much younger, for many years I’d thought my father was directly connected to God as he claimed.

  I stand, restraining an urge to swear (not in front of my patients): “Didn’t you read my ‘do not disturb’ sign, Dr. James? Or doesn’t it matter to you, because my patient is black?”

  “How dare you!” He snaps, hanging on the door-handle. I refuse to sit and our gazes lock.

  His eyes narrow: “On your own head be it, then.” The door closes with a forceful bang, just short of slamming. Do the ghosts of one’s parents never disappear, even though they have yet to die?

  Sibusiso looks at me: “Trouble, Doctor?”

  I smile at his leaking concern. “I think I can talk Dr. James around when I show him this machine really works. It – it does, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, Doctor,” Sibusiso smiles widely. “Oh yes, it works. It is blurred, not perfect, but I think it works.”

  “So now I can hook you up?”

  Slowly, he shakes his head: “Sorry, Doctor, there is too much and too many we must protect, I can’t have anyone – even you – digging around in my thoughts. It won’t be safe for you either, to know what I know. And Doctor…”

  “Call me Martin,” I say.

  He fails to even blink, all serious and stern: “And Doctor… You must also take much care the Special Branch does not get hold of this. Such a box is both wonderful and dangerous.”

  Ah, of course… the State secret police. I’d never thought of that. For me, it was a box to share intimacy across physical boundaries… but what about risky secrets? How do I ensure their protection too? And will they welcome a Box that reaches across the racial divide? I doubt it.

  Sibusiso presses on through my thoughts: “I’m just happy to talk now and please, I also want yours and Jabu’s help speaking with my father, before I’m discharged. Will I see you again tomorrow?”

  Jabu is the lead male Zulu nurse, a no-nonsense man of brisk commands. I nod at Sibusiso and stand. Sibusiso takes on an aggressive political establishment; but struggles in fear with his own father... In that we share something too.

  He holds a hand out and smiles as I shake it firmly. “Hayi, but you do need to find another woman, Doctor.”

  I almost snatch my hand back in shock. “That’s confidential, S
ibusiso.”

  “Sure, I know what that means. I will keep it safe, as well as my thoughts that you also smell bad.”

  I feel my ears redden: “See you tomorrow same time, Sibusiso.”

  “Sala kahle, stay well, Martin,” he leaves quietly, gently.

  The Feelings Box has been scrambled under the table. I will pack it for home at the end of the day. When to speak to Dr. James? Perhaps a day is needed to enable us both to calm down. For now, there are other patients, a pre-discharge group and ward rounds. Always work to be done here.

  There is a faint whisper. I look around the room, puzzled, wondering whether it’s sound reverberating from the wards through the pasty-yellow thin walls. There it is again.

  I place my left ear against the cool, slightly damp wall and a word echoes through my head: “Beware, ’ware, ’ware…”

  Hell, does this mean I’ve now got tinnitus to add to the woes of my fat and ageing body?

  I laugh, but the word stays with me throughout the day, impossible to shake, whatever I do.

  Voices…

  “Beware, ’ware, ’ware…” the word throbs alongside alarm beeps, as I punch in the alarm de-triggering code into the pad inside the front door.

  The house is quiet, the hall and dining room settled, undisturbed. I place my bag with the EE machine quietly under the dining room table.

  Something’s wrong. Jacky hasn’t run to greet me.

  I pick up an old hockey stick I keep there, just in case. Where’s Jacky? The dog walker should have brought her back hours ago.

  Removing my shoes, I stalk through to the kitchen; stick raised over my right shoulder.

  There’s a man standing by the kettle, helping himself to a cup of rooibos tea. A large black briefcase – obviously his – stands on the kitchen desktop.

  He turns as I enter, with a welcoming smile that chills the muggy air.

  “Good afternoon to you, Dr. Van Deventer.”

  Relief and then anger floods me after the initial shock of seeing him – he’s white with mild blond hair, receding and lean in build, but respectfully dressed in a suit – so he’s not out to rob or attack me then. I let the bottom part of the stick drop to the floor, but keep a grip on its handle with my right hand.

  “Who the hell are you and where’s my dog?”

  He replies in Afrikaans: “My name is Brand. That’s all you need to know, Doctor. I am here in the interests of the security of our country.”

  Ag, kak…

  I drop the stick with a rattle on the tiles and look past him, but I speak Afrikaans too, knowing he sets the agenda here: “Where’s my dog?”

  “I shut him out the back. He wasn’t very nice to me.”

  Yelps come from the back yard, but I leave Jacky there, suddenly too frightened to turn my back on this man.

  “How the hell did you get in?” I want to step up the force of my language, but am too terrified.

  “Just a few quiet words with a patriotic dog walker,” he smiles.

  “What do you want?”

  “Your special box, Doctor – I just want that box.”

  I know better than to argue. White skin is not an absolute charm against harm, even in this country.

  He follows me through to the lounge with his tea and briefcase. I pull the EE machine from my bag, place it on the floor, box, wires and scalp caps. He stands, assesses it calmly and takes a sip of tea.

  “This is the sole prototype isn’t it?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, as if he knows it all already. “Well, as long as the State is the sole possessor of this box I think we can reach an agreement, Doctor. We’ll be nationalising this invention solely for state purposes… in true communist fashion.” He smiles again. “I trust you note the irony?

  You’ll need to sign this away to us – on pain of… assertive state retribution, shall we say?”

  “But – but, it could help us all reach out, understand each other better; live together better, move towards peace…”

  He puts his cup down on the table and looks at me. “Fok peace! They’ve declared war, or haven’t you noticed, Doctor? You’re betraying your own volk with this, don’t you understand, you’re a verraier? These are terrorists we’re dealing with – and there can be no peace with terror.”

  I look down at the black Box. It’s small, a foot square, but responsible for that magical wash of empathic feelings across Sibusiso’s face earlier in the day and I feel the burn of a blow across my head.

  “If you sign this box away and promise never to build another, you will be safe, my friend. We will have a similar agreement with your colleague Dr. Dan Botha.”

  I am no friend of his, but nor am I a hero; I look at the man’s cold green eyes and am afraid, very afraid.

  “All right,” I say.

  He wishes to seem a good-humoured man, smiling again as he hauls a sheaf of papers out of his suit pocket. He places them down on the table in front of me: “See, Doctor, we work within the rule of law, that’s what makes us civilised.”

  I scan the terse document quickly; it’s as he says, with President Terreblanche or a proxy ratifying it, so I sign in coloured triplicate. How on Earth did they find out?

  “Your copy, Doctor,” he hands me the green copy at the bottom.

  I fold the document and put it in my trouser pocket, holding in a sudden urge to wet myself as I realise what I have to do.

  Brand bends down to scoop the electro-encephalo-caps into his expandable briefcase. He has black leather gloves on now and I notice he is balding on top.

  I brace myself, remembering the urgency of Sibusiso’s plea; his fear. I step forward and stomp on the box, my weight crumpling its thin metallic frame with a crunching grind of broken parts. I wince as a piece of glass snags my ankle and I pull my foot back, blood starting to drip through my grey sock.

  Brand lurches forward, pushing me away with a snarl on his face and I fall to the floor, clutching my ankle. He stands over me, looking down. I lie on my back and hold my right ankle, waiting for him to do something terrible.

  But he doesn’t.

  Instead, he sits down gracefully on the floor next to me, sweeping a few shards of the broken box away with his gloved right hand.

  “A mistake, Doctor, but we all make mistakes.”

  Why does he put himself at my level?

  “I do what I do to help people like you, Doctor, but I sense you will not build us another one.”

  I see the calm sincerity in his face and it hits me: he is a people-reader too.

  “It is no matter. You will build no more for anyone.” He smiles again, but it is tinged with… sadness? “We are not so far apart, brother, we both have faith in what we do. But now that America has elected a kaffir president who seeks world peace and the fokking Nobel Peace Prize by talking down the Soviet Generals, we are losing the support we once had under the Bushes and Blair. Now is the time we need to be strong.”

  I let go of my foot and sit up, bracing myself with my hands. Where is this lecture leading?

  He sighs and takes something out of his top pocket, placing it on the floor-space between us: “Just doing my job, Doctor, as you do – there shall be no more feeling machines. Let this serve as a warning.”

  He levers himself to stand over me in one deft motion; he’s fit too, a lot fitter than me.

  Looking down, he repeats himself, even though I have no doubt as to his message:

  “No more Feelings Boxes, Doctor van Deventer, you understand?”

  Jacky’s frantic yelps outside are rising in volume; she is scrabbling desperately at the door, which judders duh-duh-duh against the lock. I am aware that Brand has gone and I did not even hear him leave. I stare at what he has left me, propped up on the floor amongst the debris of my broken EE machine.

  It’s standing on its own rounded base, metallic, long and pointed – an unmarked rifle bullet.

  It sucks in my gaze like a black hole.

  I start to shiver, despite the balminess of t
he late summer afternoon. No, I will not stay sitting here. My bloody right foot is marked only by a shallow gash, already coagulating. I keep my sock pulled down to avoid it drying against the wound and stand up, making my way to the backdoor.

  Jacky jumps into my arms. She’s unhurt. Box or no box, I know she will always love me… I cuddle her on the couch and she licks my face, until I stop shivering.

  The sun blazes lower and warms my face too. No point staying here.

  I stand up and sweep the EE machine into the corner of the room, piece upon broken piece; springs, coils, relays, software boards… and it feels as if I’m sweeping myself raw inside. Dan will be devastated.

  A double-edged sword of invention, the box now resembles little more than a broken down metal and glass toy constructor set. I’d loved construction sets as a child, but my ultimate game had been building racing tracks for electric cars, especially the trickiest part, the bridge in a figure eight. It needed just the right amount of pressure and angling… The stress of a raised bridge could mean poorly connected track-pieces and cars failing to make it over the hill.

  I move to the bedroom to clean and bandage my ankle.

  Suzette looks at me from the picture at my bedside, the Umgeni Bridge dangling dangerously in the background. I’d proposed marriage to her there, almost dashing across the bridge to the other side to celebrate – or perhaps show off – when she’d said ‘yes’.

  I remember getting some way across, but the bridge started to swing in the building breeze, alarming us both. I’d scrambled back, without pausing to help Suzette, carrying an irrational but private and enduring shame.

  We never spoke about it – even though we were both psychologists in training – and a little more than seven years later, all our words ran out.

  Funny thing is I’m not looking at her. Instead, I watch the thin brown rope bridge spin across the gorge, wondering how it might feel to cross that bridge now.