The October Killings

by Wessel Ebersohn

  Had not bothered to attend? she asked herself. Perhaps it was not like that. Perhaps attending was impossible. You had to know him to even guess at the reasons. And no one knew him.

  On any other night the warm water cascading the length of her body and splashing around her feet would have been relaxing. On this night it was a shield, a protection against the advances of a loving and virile husband. God knows, she thought, he deserves a less complicated woman.

  Leaving the water running, she took the few steps across the bathroom that would, through the crack of the door, give her a view of Robert on the bed. His arms and legs spread-eagled, he gave every impression of being unconscious.

  She lingered another ten minutes in the shower, eventually emerging from the bathroom in a Chinese gown he had brought back from a fact-finding trip to the East during his days as a civil servant. By this time he was as she thought he would be. Robert would not be conscious again until morning.

  Instead of lying down on the bed next to him, Abigail left the bedroom and made her way through the apartment to the French windows and onto the balcony. She stood for some time looking down into the street where splashes of blossoms could be seen wherever a street lamp lit one of the city’s omni-present jacarandas. Tonight Abigail saw neither the blossoms nor the city lights stretching away to the west.

  She did become aware of something moving in the deep darkness of the shadow of a large house that bordered the secure complex where she and Robert lived. Whatever it was would be able to see her clearly, she thought. It was probably just a cat, but the thought was not convincing enough to keep her outside. She was retreating toward the French windows when she saw the pale form of the bull terrier emerge from the deeper shadow. The dog had a reputation earned by attacking messengers and deliverymen with a ferocity not expected in a domestic animal. According to rumors spread by the neighborhood’s domestic workers, the house owners routinely paid hospital bills and small bribes to keep the incidents from the police. Abigail shuddered at the sight of the creature padding along a pathway, its narrow eye slits giving the appearance of being closed. The animal rounded a corner and again disappeared into the darkness. She stepped inside, locked the French windows and closed the steel security screen. By the faint light from outside she sat down in one of the easy chairs.

  You are a fool, she told herself. There is no connection between the dog and the man. Even so, it was three o’clock before she came to bed and, even then, sleep was not possible.

  5

  Sunday, October 16

  The four female executives from the national rail carrier were seated in government-issue chairs around Abigail’s desk. They all looked indignant, righteously indignant.

  Her responsibility in the Department of Justice was the gender desk. This meant ensuring that new legislation did not keep women at a disadvantage, it being assumed that all women, especially African women, were already disadvantaged. It also meant that she could not avoid delegations like this one.

  She had asked for a job that would allow her closer to major litigation, but the deputy director-general had answered through bored, half-closed eyes that the gender desk was an important part of the department. The department thought so, the party thought so, the president himself thought so and therefore she should think so too and do her best to make her section effective. It was clear to her that the deputy director-general himself did not think so.

  She had cornered the minister at a conference once to tell him about her ambitions. He had nodded and smiled while he listened to her, then placed a large hand on one of her shoulders and said, “All in good time, my dear. I will not forget you.” That had been that.

  “Let me understand this,” Abigail asked the four women. “You cannot take this matter to your boss herself, because she is the problem.”

  “She has reduced us to the level of mere clerks,” the one, who seemed to have been chosen as spokesperson, said. “We are not allowed to undertake overseas trips unless she has cleared them.”

  Abigail clicked her tongue in apparent sympathy.

  “And we no longer have advertising budgets. Our company cars have to be in the company garage overnight—we may not even go home in them. And there is a total moratorium on new staff.”

  “I understand why you came to me,” Abigail said.

  The spokesperson looked at the others. “I told you we should come to Abby.”

  Abigail smiled her best public relations smile. “But, unfortunately I have been specifically forbidden to get involved with issues regarding parastatals.”

  “What point is there in a gender desk then?” one of the others burst out. “I thought it was to look after the interests of women.”

  Well, perhaps the intention may have been to look after the interests of impoverished rural single mothers, Abigail thought. Or perhaps to see to the interests of those women whose rights are being trampled by outdated tribal laws that should long ago have passed into history. Or to start eliminating the remaining statutes that treat women as minors. Perhaps the idea was not to fight for your right to fly overseas at taxpayers’ expense. “I do sympathize,” she said. “I really do.”

  It took her another fifteen minutes of sympathizing before she could turn her attention to the conference she had to run—the conference the minister had told her could very well define policy into the future. Its subject was the role of gender diversity in the administration of developing national economies in Africa. A list of speakers had been passed down to her by the deputy DG, who had made it clear that these names had come from higher than himself, hinting that the presidency had a hand in the matter. She had objected to some of the names on the list, especially that of the dictator running Zimbabwe who was no advocate of female advancement, but was told that there could be no discussion about the matter. She could suggest further names to fill out the list, but those on the original list were to be the keynote speakers.

  She had completed the list of speakers, it had been approved by the minister without comment, Johanna had contacted them all and now the synopses of all the speeches lay before her on her desk. The speakers fell into two distinct categories: those she had added to the list would all be discussing things that the African countries themselves could do to promote economic growth. Those on the original list would all be talking about how much the West owed Africa and that it was time that reparations were made.

  She had barely finished going through them when Johanna came in. She looked anxious, an unusual state for her, and puzzled, an equally unusual state. “There’s a strange white man downstairs,” she said. “He came without an appointment and he’s asking to see you. He’s wearing a suit that’s too small for him. His hands are so big … you should see them…” Johanna was clearly proud of her powers of observation. “Also, his suit is old and a bit creased…”

  “Tell me, Sherlock,” Abigail asked, “did he mention a purpose for this visit?”

  “He said it’s personal. I told him that you were very busy and only saw members of the public by appointment. I said you were preparing for a major conference and could not be interrupted. I told him that he can’t just walk in and expect to see senior justice department executives. But he’s still there.”

  A white working man with dirt under his fingernails? “Might he have a name?” Abigail wanted to know.

  “Leo Lawrence,” Johanna said.

  Abigail paused a long moment before she was sure that she would be able to speak. “Leon Lourens?” she asked, correcting Johanna. She had only heard that name once before and had never expected to hear it again.

  “That sounds like it.”

  Abigail seemed to be looking straight at Johanna as if studying her face, but she was not seeing her. The younger woman moved uncomfortably from one foot to the other, sure that she had done something to displease her boss. “I’ll send him away.”

  “No,” Abigail said at last. “I’ll see him.”

  “He looks quite rough.”
/>   “Take these.” She handed Johanna the synopses. “And bring him up immediately.”

  “Right now?”

  “This moment.”

  After Johanna had hurried away, Abigail rose slowly and came out from behind her desk. It would not seem right to be waiting, seated at the desk, when he came in. She went over to the office’s only window which, had she looked in that direction, would have given her a view of the Schoeman Street traffic. Instead she turned to face the door. She had waited perhaps two minutes when the door opened and Johanna came in, her head swiveling anxiously back and forth between Abigail and the man following her.

  Leon Lourens had changed in the twenty years since the night when she had first met him. He had been a boy of perhaps nineteen then, sturdy, but with the lightness of youth. Now he was broader, his shoulders heavier, thick-fingered hands protruding from the sleeves of a suit that no longer fitted well on his widening frame. His face, too, looked darker in the way of Caucasian faces that are exposed to the sun every day.

  He took just one step into her office and stopped. Standing before the window, she was no more than a silhouette. He waited for her to advance across the room. “You’ve changed a lot, but I can see it’s you,” he said.

  For the moment Abigail was unable to speak. She too could see that this man was the boy of all those years before. She reached out and took his outstretched hand in both of hers. Johanna, realizing that she was in the presence of something that she did not understand and where she was not welcome, retreated quickly, closing the door behind her. “I’ve followed your career,” he was saying. “A few times there were things in the papers. When I read it I knew it was you.” He spoke with a heavy Afrikaans accent.

  At last Abigail found her voice. “I’m glad to see you,” she said. “I’ve often thought about you.” How could she do otherwise? On a night when she had been sure that she was going to die, he had appeared unexpectedly and she had lived. She had known him for just seven hours, but they had been hours that had left their mark indelibly on her soul. To say that she would not forget him did not describe it. She had been changed by those hours. Remembering or forgetting was not the issue. “You’re not in the army anymore?” she asked.

  He spread both arms in a gesture of helplessness. “They retrenched me after the 1994 elections.”

  “What do you do now?”

  Again the helpless, almost embarrassed gesture. “I fix cars, I do odd jobs.”

  She led him across the room to the window where there were chairs and a coffee table. “Won’t you sit down?”

  Lourens accepted with the awkwardness of someone who was not often invited to sit down in the offices of senior people. He sat upright with his hands on his knees on a seat that invited relaxing. Abigail waited until he spoke. “You’re big now, but you still look the same.”

  “I was big then.” She found herself smiling. Something about the manner of this ungainly man was putting her at ease.

  “But you were just young, still at school, I think.”

  “That’s right. I was still at school.”

  “I heard that you and the others escaped the next night. I was glad that you escaped.”

  So you know very little about the next night, she thought. “You were not glad that my friends also escaped?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I couldn’t let you go myself.”

  “I know.”

  Again there was silence as Abigail waited and her guest looked for the words to begin. “Miss Bukula…” he began, looking down at his hands.

  “Leon,” she interrupted him, “had it not been for what you did that night I would not be here now. I would not be alive. You called me Abigail then. Please call me Abigail now.”

  He tried again. Her name came out uncertainly, almost experimentally. “Abigail, I think I need your help.”

  She could not help being aware of his hands and the poorly fitting clothes. “You need employment?”

  “No, I don’t need a job. I get enough work. I actually do better now than when I was in the army.” Again the silence as he tried to begin, then finally, “You remember the Maseru raid?”

  To Abigail it was a question almost without meaning. Every part of their conversation of the last five minutes related to it. “Of course,” she said.

  “We were quite a small team that actually entered the house.”

  “Yes?”

  “I think there were only twenty or so. The main force blocked all the roads leading to the area.” He was looking closely at her face now. “Do you think…?” It was not easy to ask the question. “Do you think the government might be having us killed, the men who entered the house?”

  “Come again?” Abigail was on her feet. “What did you say?” Lourens too, rose—but his movement was slow and tentative while hers had been sudden and decisive. Her tone was demanding. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sorry, but do you think it’s possible … could the government be having us killed?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “You see, some of the men who were there have died.”

  “Sit down, Leon.” Abigail herself sat down. Her hands were now moving restlessly in her lap. “There can be many reasons that people die. The government is certainly not having people killed.”

  But Lourens had not finished. It had taken considerable courage for him to come this far and now he needed satisfaction. “After the raid I kept no contact with the others, I don’t even remember the names of most of them, but I have heard of three of them dying.”

  “That means nothing.”

  “I’ve been told that they were all murdered.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “This is an urban legend, Leon, a story concocted by those who feel they have no place in the new South Africa.”

  Despite his awkwardness, Lourens looked determined now. “I thought so too, but there is another thing.” Abigail waited silently. “Do you remember what day the raid took place?”

  “October twenty-first,” she said. Remembering took no effort.

  “Those men all died on October twenty-second, the night you and the others escaped.”

  “I don’t believe it.” But her eyes were searching the face of a wall calendar.

  “Today is the sixteenth,” Lourens said. “The twenty-second is in six days.”

  “This is impossible.” Abigail made as if to rise, but restrained herself. “This is not right. I don’t know why you come here with this story.” It was said accusingly. She could give no credence to what he was saying. She felt as if he was tampering with the very foundation of her existence.

  “What I heard is that they were murdered. But I do know that two of them died on that same day. One was reported in the newspaper and one was the only man I still had contact with. Then last week I met a policeman in a bar who told me that there were others killed on that day, but I don’t know who.”

  To say again, in the face of his information, that this was impossible seemed crass. And she knew this man. It had only been for a few hours, but she knew what he had risked. More deeply than she knew anyone, even Robert, she knew this man.

  He was speaking again. “You see, the thing is I am the only support my wife and children have. I don’t even have brothers or sisters. She has a half brother, but that’s all.”

  “Wait, wait.” Abigail’s anger had been replaced by concern for this man whose concern was not for himself, but only for his wife and children. She realized that, had she anticipated such a situation, she would have imagined his reaction just as it was now. Abigail had not smoked for a year. Now she went in search of a cigarette. In the back of one of her desk drawers she found a pack that still held a few. “Will you have one?” she asked Lourens.

  “Not for me. I don’t.”

  “I don’t suppose you have a light?”

  “No, no.” He patted his pockets ineffectually.

  She opened th
e door into Johanna’s office. “Have you got a light?”

  “Are you smoking again?” Seeing the look on Abigail’s face she continued almost without pausing. “I’ll find one.”

  Abigail sat down again, the unlit cigarette twitching back and forth between two fingers. Lourens was a man who, if what he said was true, needed her help badly, more than anyone else ever had. “Where are you hiding? Are you hiding?”

  “No, I work from home. Where would I hide?”

  Johanna came in, waving a cheap plastic cigarette lighter in one hand. “Mr. Lesoro lent it to me. I told him…”

  “Never mind what you told him.” Abigail snatched the lighter. Her hands were shaking as she lit the cigarette.

  “Are you all right?” Johanna tried inanely to whisper it so that only Abigail would hear.

  Abigail handed back the lighter and waved her away. After the door had closed, she spoke to Lourens again. “Do you have the names of those who died?”

  “The three I found out about, I know who they are.”

  “Do you know any of the others?”

  “Just one, but he’s in C-Max.”

  “Do you mean van Jaarsveld?”

  “Yes.”

  Like everyone else who had been involved in the liberation struggle in the 1980s, Abigail knew all about van Jaarsveld. She knew that he had been the senior policeman that night in Maseru when Lourens had stood between her and van Jaarsveld himself. His reputation as a killer had been built during a career that had started in the sixties and ended only weeks before the 1994 elections. He had personally killed more activists than any other member of the apartheid security forces. But unlike his colleagues, when the opportunity came for him to confess to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and go free, he had not taken it. Abigail had been in court on one of the days of his hearing. “I was fighting for my country,” he had testified. “I won’t, like so many others, say today that what I did yesterday was wrong. I knew it was right then and I know now that it was right. Look at this country. My people have lost their homeland, but no one cares.” He had been sentenced to life in the country’s maximum security prison. Parole would never be a possibility.