Azanian Bridges

by Nick Wood

  “I’m sorry, am I interrupting anything?” (Although I haven’t heard that voice in days, my blood still chills.)

  I stare at the doorway with my startled left eye, right eye burning closed - outside, I hear a clap of thunder.

  What an absurd announcement for the grinning face of Brand – he stands there – despite his grin, his voice is cold and clamps at me like invisible handcuffs.

  “I’ve just met a rather upset colleague of yours,” Brand says. “With something of interest to us too…”

  Chapter 15

  Sibusiso’s Scooter

  I leave the doctor on my loaned scooter, feeling sad it should be on such a sour note. Why can’t we just hold onto the good that has been between us?

  I drive carefully, watching the changing robots and traffic, careful not to attract attention. I have the satnav programmed for a return to Mamma, pressing the ‘home’ option.

  Home.

  Not an easy word to pin down. As the robot changes to green, I pull away, grateful for Nombuso’s rushed lessons. Now I have some wheels of my own, some independence, slow though the wheels may be. Mamma has many contacts throughout the community, a little like the mother that I find hard to remember, both generous in shape and spirit.

  There is a warning growl deep inside me. An old white woman crosses the road without looking, so I slow, wobbling to avoid her. Behind me, a car hoots and a man shouts in anger. He pulls up alongside me and I feel terror punch up through my bowels. It is two policemen, in a mellow-yellow van. They swerve across my path, blocking me off.

  The old woman is blocked off too and looks terrified for a moment, before turning to head back the way she came. The passenger policeman steps out, thickset and business like, holding out a hairy hand, “Dompas.”

  I give him my pass. He looks it over and gives it a slight nod, handing it back.

  I almost cry with relief, but he does not move. He holds his hand out again. “Learner’s License.”

  I scrabble in my pocket for the fake license Mamma had given me, sweating. The policeman looks at it for a moment and then fishes a cell-phone out of his pocket. He scans the license with his phone and suddenly goes very still.

  He drops my license onto the floor and waves at his fellow-cop with his left hand. “Step against the vehicle, boy, spread your hands and legs.”

  He asks with clipped and apparent politeness, but I know there is no way I can say no.

  I am eighteen. I am no boy.

  Still, I spread my hands against their hot van and straddle my legs wide. I hear the jingle of handcuffs. It seems he does not even want to touch me, so he does not search me.

  The other cop is opening the back of the van.

  Mamma! There is no answer to the plea in my head; my arms are twisted behind me and cuffed in a painful pinch.

  Inside me, a caged Beast growls, but the cops appear to hear nothing.

  They book me for possession of a false license. I am relieved at first, but they will not let me go. “Wait for final clearance to leave, boy,” says the police clerk, even though he is black too and only looks a little older than me.

  I go back to sit on a chair in the crowded black section of the charge room; people mill in and out and I eye the door and freedom outside, but a soldier stands there, an R4 rifle slung over his shoulder. Mamma has taught me a few things about guns – mostly to stay as far away from them as possible.

  I stand and saunter casually towards the door, pretending I have come in with a family, who are now leaving. I trail behind them, so they do not notice me. I catch the flash of a raised hand from behind the charge desk and the soldier steps forward, stopping me with a firm press of his hand on my right shoulder. “You stay, brother.”

  How can we have black policemen, black army, to enforce unjust laws against ourselves? Desperate times indeed, when brother takes up against brother, for a crust of bread.

  I turn back and feel my gut tighten. A black policeman has opened a waist high door from behind the charge desk and walks towards me with a grim face. He has a small sheet in his hand, “Sibusiso Mchunu, you are hereby under arrest for charges of terrorism and murder.”

  Another policeman has followed him through – this one is white and is bigger. He carries the standard handcuffs that seem deliberately too small to fit with comfort on any wrist.

  “I have killed no one,” I say, terrified yet somehow strangely pleased that my voice does not squeak. A part of me seems to hover outside my body, keeping calm despite my bowels turning with fear.

  My hands are cuffed in front of me and the big white policeman pulls me by the small chain between them, chafing my wrists further. “We shall see,” he says, as a large metal door opens in front of him.

  “Room 619!” shouts the first cop after us.

  This white cop has a bit of a paunch, so we take the lift. The lift has two cops and two other black men in tow, both looking miserable. I wonder if I look as miserable to them. (I am starting to feel so.) On the 6th floor, the white cop drags me along a corridor that is painted a cheerful pink. I want to vomit on the floor in order to paint it the colour it deserves, but I have no opportunity to do so, as the cop pulls me so hard and so insistently.

  He clatters for a key with his left hand in his pocket, finally barging the heavy door open with his left shoulder.

  I vomit on this floor though – it’s red plastic, as if to hide blood. My vomit is a sticky orange-brown and the cop yanks me off my feet so that I clatter to my knees, banging them hard so that I yelp. He pulls me forward and I smell the stink of the vomit. It makes me retch again, but only a thin line of spittle comes out. “Eat it, kaffir,” he says, but he does not push my face into my kotch.

  It is the room that has made me sick. It is barred and bare, apart from two chairs, a hanging light and an open, stained box that looks like a set of dental tools I’d seen once, in a mobile township dental clinic. “Agggh....” the cop shouts, suddenly looking bored, yanking me to my feet and thrusting me at the one chair which has straps on it.

  He pushes me back and kicks my feet from under me, so that I lose my footing and fall into the chair. He clicks the cuffs open with a key and then straps my arms onto the chair. “My teeth are fine,” I say.

  He looks at me blankly for a moment and then suddenly he roars with laughter, his head rocking back so that I can see his red tongue and heavy set of fillings. His right front tooth is chipped slightly in the middle too. He snaps his mouth shut and grins at me: “You’re a fokking funny kaffir,” he says. “I hope they don’t kill you too quickly.”

  He shrugs, pockets his keys and walks out. I hear the metallic clunk of the door being locked behind him.

  Only then do I cry, although I know it will do me no good.

  Chapter 16

  Martin’s Interrogation

  The charge office is quiet; a few families reporting muggings, I think, but Brand does not give me time to settle. He clicks open a solid metal door behind the office with a remote in his hand and leads me along a dark corridor, suddenly ducking into a side room. It’s basic, a soft chair and a wooden bench opposite, set across a wide wooden desk – the bench has no back support. I do not need to ask where I should sit.

  “Rrright!” Brand rolls his r’s enthusiastically, as if keen to show he’s tweetalig. He rubs his hands expectantly and leans back in his comfortable chair, which rocks back with his movement, with solid-looking ergonomics.

  I sit and shift my buttocks. The bench is built on the thin side too, enough to cause discomfort to anyone sitting with a normal bum. I’m disadvantaged further by my fat arse, which is unable to find sufficient supportive purchase on the bench. Added to that, my right eye feels like it is swelling, it’s stinging and closing, the vision blurring. I am not used to sitting on this side of the desk either. Although I am frightened, I need to hide this – and shift the power dynamic between us.

  Somehow.

  “Tell me first, Doctor, how you lost and got your Mi
nd Box back. I have information from your colleague, but only up until the box was – lost – or perhaps given away? To undesirables, I believe.” Brand leans forward, his hands open, clasping for information, his face benign.

  Do I look like that at all, to my patients?

  I stand. Keep moving, as I told Sibusiso; don’t let the mongoose freeze you with its gaze.

  Brand looks up, surprised, “I don’t recall giving you permission to stand, Doctor.”

  I stretch and start trying to touch my toes. I can only get as far as my left knee. Shit, I’m going to have to get fitter; leaner is meaner. Or Brand is. He’s up and around the desk in one fluid movement; his face is no longer benign, pushing up against mine.

  By now I can only see through my left eye.

  “Are you taking the pisssss, Doctor, as the English saying goes?”

  “I know my rights,” I say. “I get one phone call.”

  “Hah!” He laughs and turns to the desk, picking up a cordless receiver. “You’d better make it count, Doctor, you’re in some really deep kak, I can tell you.”

  He hands me the phone, smirking. I take a card out of my back pocket and dial. Oh, I do intend to make this count.

  “Helen?” I say, “It’s me, Martin van Deventer. I’m being interrogated by a Mr. Brand from the Special Branch.”

  “A woman?” Brand laughs disbelievingly and sits down behind his desk, grinning.

  “You haven’t said anything to him yet, have you, Martin?” Her voice is as sharp as I’d remembered it.

  “No,” I say.

  “Good. Lucky for you I’ve done a lot of pro bono representation around security legislation – and not on behalf of the state either.”

  I wait. Brand opens a file, picks up a pen and smiles back at me, tapping the empty page expectantly with his pen.

  “Let me have a word with him.”

  I hand the phone to Brand, who takes it with his left hand and places it to his ear. “Hello, madam,” he says.

  I watch as his smile fades. Then he drops the pen with his free right hand. Finally, he starts to scowl. “She wants to speak to you again!” he snarls, thrusting the phone at me.

  I turn my back on him. “Hello again, Helen?”

  “I’ve sorted him out, Martin... and by the way, did you know Dan was screwing other women?”

  I’m quiet, unsure what to say.

  “You men, you’re always fucking sticking together. Funny thing is he seemed to think you’d ratted on him, when I could smell the cheap whores on his skin... Never mind, he’s had to find new accommodation for himself.”

  “You’ve split?”

  “Careful, that SB bastard is probably listening. You’re not out of the woods yourself yet, either. Take care, Martin. Give me a call when you’re out, so we can set up a legal meeting.”

  I hand the phone back to Brand. He slams it down. “You’re free to go. For now.”

  He no longer calls me Doctor, but I don’t mind.

  Chapter 17

  Sibusiso’s Interrogation

  The man scares me.

  He’s not very big, he’s thin, with straggly blond hair and moustache, but his blue eyes have no temperature. He sits opposite me, scrolling through his phone, reading text.

  “Rrrright!” he says, as if preparing to use English. He puts his phone down on his chair’s wide armrest and looks at me. There is only space between us – and frighteningly little of it. He leans forward and pushes the trolley of dental-looking equipment away from us.

  I breathe a bit easier, repressing a sigh of relief.

  He smiles.

  It’s a game.

  With only one winner.

  I close my eyes. Anything to keep his blue eyes from infiltrating me.

  “You know Dr. Van Deventer, I believe?” His voice is rough, but not unkind.

  I open one eye. He is scrolling through his phone again. I open the other eye.

  “Yes,” I say, “I was his patient at Fort Napier.”

  “I believe he treated you with somewhat unorthodox methods.” He looks up at me, but I keep my eyes open. “Unorthodox means unusual.”

  “I know!” I feel the Beast stirring within me.

  He glances up at me and smiles, “You’re feisty for a boy.”

  I must have looked blank, because he went on: “Feisty means...”

  But I don’t wait for him. I rattle off a torrent of abuse in isiZulu. He looks at me blankly.

  I stop. He smiles, but this time a little less smugly. “Shall I call in an interpreter then?”

  It’s hard to shrug with these straps so tight around my arms and wrists; already I feel numb, sensation draining from my body.

  He shakes his head. “I agree. Why call in an interpreter when your English is good enough to give me the information I need. One less Bantu person to witness our special relationship developing...”

  I was wrong. His voice is unkind. “So,” he says, “how did the good doctor treat you with his new – invention – I believe?”

  “It reads minds,” I say, “Lets people get below the skin. Makes them see how similar we all are.”

  “Hmm,” He raises his right eyebrow, “My, you are a clever boy indeed. So what did you do with this doctor’s box? It is, I believe like a box, no?”

  I nod.

  He puts down his phone and leans forward. Despite myself, I close my eyes again.

  “So. Where did you go, with this box? And did the doctor give it to you?”

  I open my left eye in surprise. “No, he didn’t – I, uh, took it.”

  He smiles, but only slightly: “So where did you take it, Sibusiso?”

  His use of my name throws me slightly and I have to stop myself answering. It seems rehearsed too, and slides off his tongue as if he’s familiar with isiZulu. But he did not blink when I’d called his mother a bitch with three balls. It’s hard to believe he could be so controlled.

  “Where, Sibusiso?” He leans forward and I smell meat on his breath; biltong, I think. I almost want to laugh at the stereotype, but I know laughing will only make things worse.

  “I can’t remember,” I say.

  “Ohhh,” and he leans back, “of course not.”

  The stench of his breath lingers and I want to be sick again, but I feel hollow, empty, without feeling. The numbness is seeping down my spine now. It feels as if my body is floating above me, looking down on some poor sucker strapped by his arms to a chair, with no hope of escape.

  The man turns and pulls the trolley of dental-looking tools closer to us. He picks up a narrow sharp looking pincer tool and inspects it closely.

  He holds it up to me, wagging it, as if he is thinking, and then speaks, “Did you know I failed dental school before I joined the police, boy? I don’t know why. Shall we find out?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Good,” he says. “So where did you go?”

  I am floating no longer. Instead, I’m trapped in a terrified body, a Beast prowling inside me, but helplessly - watching a Beast smile in front of me, taunting me with a scary piece of metal.

  His phone rings.

  I sob.

  He picks up the receiver, speaking in rapid Afrikaans I can follow. “Ja? I told you not to disturb me. Alright then, you’ve finally confiscated it? Good. Bring it here.”

  He switches the phone off and gives me a long, discomfiting look, “I’m a civilized man, Sibusiso” he says, “We’ll do things the gentle way, shall we?”

  I nod, unsure of what he means.

  The door opens. A policeman stands there, holding the doctor’s Mind Box.

  The blond man puts his phone and sharp tool down, stands up and rubs his hands. “Ex-cell-ent! Let’s see how well this works, shall we?”

  I hear the Beast inside me roar.

  But the man opposite me hears nothing, as he fixes the wired caps to our scalps. It looks as if he’s done his homework on how this works.

  He smiles as he flicks the dial on the doctor
’s Box.

  Chapter 18

  Martin’s Visit

  I return Gertie’s car with thanks, a bottle of Cape red, and a pipe with psychedelic swirls on it. From the James’ house, I phone work and apologise to the Principal Psychologist for three days unannounced and unauthorized absence. I’d seen him at the OASS meeting – and thankfully he’s very forgiving, as if he has some inside information on my difficulties.

  I call Jabula ward then – Jabu is finishing up his shift and I arrange to collect Jacky. First, though, Gertie kindly drops me at the hospital, where I collect my car, embrace Jabu, and follow his car to his small terraced township home. Jacky gives me a huge greeting, leaping up and scrabbling at me, even though she has obviously been well cared for. I stay for a meal with Jabu’s generous family and we joke about my black eye.

  I get home, home sweet home, completely exhausted at 8.08 p.m.

  Jacky’s on my lap as I sit on the couch, brain dead, watching TV, which is hinting at secret peace talks with the ANC.

  “Shit.” I tell her cocked retriever-cross face, her brown eyes fixed on mine, as if wondering why I haven’t brought my usual sweet snack to watch the news with, “Things are starting to move bloody quickly.”

  My cell rings and I fumble it out of my pocket. The number is withheld. “Martin?”

  “Yes?” the voice is feminine and familiar.

  “It’s Sally Jones here. We have heard that the police have Sibusiso. Special Agent Brand is leading the interrogation.”

  Shit, shit, shit. I briefly wonder how she has my number, but that’s irrelevant now.

  “I can’t visit him; they want me very badly. I hear you’ve got some legal clearance. Can you please help him and… and, send him my love?”

  She sounds choked, vulnerable, unlike the powerful, collected woman I had spoken to somewhere in the heart of Imbali a few nights ago.

  “Sure,” I say, “Which police station?”

  “’Maritzburg Central. And… Doctor?”