Butterfly on the Storm

by Walter Lucius

  For some time it had been very dark and very quiet. He felt like he was lying in the palm of a giant hand, which kept rocking him back and forth, gently, somewhere nobody could reach him, somewhere between heaven and earth. But he wasn’t dead yet.

  Noises began trickling through an invisible crack in the darkness.

  At first they were distant and distorted, like the faint signal of a radio station: market sounds, people shouting at each other, clothes being washed in the river and then beaten out, the engine of an old diesel truck which got stuck in the mud. But gradually the sounds became clearer. Human voices in a strange language. Men yelling harsh orders, alternating with female voices that sounded firm and occasionally tentative.

  Next, he detected the faces, as if his eyes were slowly getting used to the dark. In the beginning the faces were indistinct blurs with lifeless eyes. He briefly thought he saw himself, that he saw his own eyes. But they were set in the face of a naked woman studying the many small scars on her body in a mirror.

  It got him thinking: if I recognize my own eyes in a face, it means I can still see. And if I’m thinking, it means I still have my thoughts.

  That’s when the stars emerged from behind the clouds. He saw them through the window of the car driving him through the rain. And he saw his own reflection in the steamed-up glass. This time his eyes were set in the face of a girl who could pass for his twin sister. The girl had black kohl around her eyes and greasy lipstick on her mouth. As he traced his mouth with his fingers the girl did the same. Then the girl pulled at the crescent moon earring and he felt pain in his earlobe.

  The sequinned sandals pinched his toes. After each faltering step in the unfamiliar house the grip around his upper arm tightened. The hand forced him further down the corridor, through doors and rooms that were dead quiet save for their footsteps.

  The man who stepped from the shadows had his father’s eyes. His gun was shiny, as was his black suit. Then he heard a thumping sound and the man who’d escorted him down the corridor hit the floor beside him. The sound was that of his own heart. The man in the black suit grabbed hold of him and ran outside. The hammering in his chest and his panting alternated with shots, breaking glass, yelling and finally with a dull metal thud when he was hit by the white light.

  He was floating in the light. There was something wrong with his body. He couldn’t move. For the longest time, a blonde woman was hunched over him. He felt cold. The pain wore him out. His eyes fell shut. Out of the darkness, the woman he’d seen naked in front of the mirror appeared. Her eyes were blue. Unlike all the men earlier, she didn’t speak a different language. She spoke his language. She said his father would come and collect him. He just had to wait a while. ‘Aram bash bachem. U alan miyaya.’ Keep calm, sweetheart. He’ll be here soon.

  She also wanted to know his name, but he was too tired to even try to find the words. Still, what she said lessened the pain. Maybe he was dead after all. And she was his angel. A beautiful Angel of Death.

  ‘Ma peshet mebasham,’ she said. I won’t leave you.

  1

  Downtown Johannesburg teemed with honking minibuses. Groups of children in their school uniforms ran along the pavement, past high-rise residential flats filled with immigrants who’d travelled in huge numbers from all over Africa to Egoli, place of gold, as Johannesburg is referred to in Zulu.

  Despite the bustle of activity, the obvious security on the street and the urban conversions that were meant to make this part of the city more attractive to everyone, you primarily saw black faces. And as a white man − here in ‘Mugger’s Paradise’ − Paul Chapelle knew you were still asking for trouble. All the same, by now he’d worked as a freelance journalist in Jo’burg for three years and he’d simply ignored this from day one.

  Most of his articles were published in The Citizen, one of the few South African newspapers that hadn’t yielded to the temptation of splattering the most heinous of crimes across the front page. Paul found this repeated accounting of crimes without any context completely pointless. He was interested in writing in-depth pieces; stories that provided insights. The Citizen offered him that opportunity.

  He went to live in the black township Alexandra, among its half-million black residents, to report on the daily misery there that sharply contrasted with life in neighbouring Sandton, Johannesburg’s affluent and mainly white business centre. Mandela had once said that South Africa was a rainbow nation, but in between the slums and the glass and steel skyscrapers Paul saw primarily the black–white disparity. Although the ANC had improved the living conditions of many poor blacks, the South African middle class had also acquired a better standard of living and therefore, on closer inspection, the glaring gap between rich and poor in Mandela’s rainbow nation had basically remained the same. It’s true, you saw a fair number of wealthy blacks scattered among the wealthy whites, but for most poor blacks, the location and possibility of mingling remained inaccessible, a pipe dream.

  And that was precisely what led to pent-up frustration and growing hatred, not only directed at affluent whites, but also against the ANC, whose leaders were suspected of lining their pockets. It was just a matter of time before a populist leader, a political demagogue, would mobilize an army of frustrated blacks and put an end to South Africa’s fragile democracy.

  This feeling of doom pervaded the air, but despite all of the city’s troubles and contradictions Paul loved Jo’burg: its beating heart of traffic jams, the endless honking, shouting and feverish activity. The city was like a blender where hope and hate, visions of the future and harsh realities, lies and truths were shaken up every day anew.

  From afar he saw the kiosk owner waving the international edition of the Algemeen Nederlands Dagblad in the air. It appeared every Friday.

  ‘Same as usual, Mr Chapelle?’

  ‘Same shit as usual,’ he replied with a laugh.

  Moments later, with the AND, The Guardian and The New Yorker tucked under his arm, he entered Stella’s Coffee Bar—where he always ordered his macchiato mixed with a double espresso – and started to thumb through the AND. He closely followed the path his uncle Edward Vallent had set out for the paper and, he had to give him credit, it was still a successful one. Edward had managed to attract a stable of young journalists who really threw themselves into their work, even if they were still wet behind the ears.

  But today Paul was having trouble concentrating. His eyes glanced at the bold headlines and the black-and-white photos on the front page, but his brain wasn’t registering anything. His thoughts constantly wandered back to the emptiness that had taken hold of his life in recent months. He hadn’t found a way to rid himself of the feeling, and he couldn’t stop obsessing about it either. It was like constantly running your tongue along a rotted tooth.

  Until six months ago, Paul had lived in Jo’burg just like he’d done before in Istanbul, Athens, Paris and Amsterdam. Always on the lookout for the next story.

  Paul had inherited his father’s genes and with that came an acute and unrelenting distrust of authorities, state institutions and multinational corporations. Whenever the opportunity presented itself to write a related story, he sunk his teeth into it with the ferocity of a great white shark.

  The commitment with which he threw himself into an investigation starkly contrasted with how capricious he was when it came to love. Although there were always women, nothing ever lasted. Paul was usually long gone before they realized that he lacked any need for intimacy. Or before anyone meant so much to him that he’d get hurt by them leaving first.

  He had dedicated himself to this lifestyle, until one parched evening he ran into Susanne. Literally. Paul had thrown himself into jogging ten kilometres three times a week and he regularly passed through Alexandra, usually followed by a pack of children shouting excitedly. He’d stopped that night in an unfamiliar neighbourhood at the intersection of five roads because he was lost. He saw her in a cloud of dust with her own group of little followers. It was a
funny situation and he laughed at her. But with an annoyed expression, she just kept running. Paul picked up his pace and came up beside her. He had to speak rather loudly because of the shouting children behind them.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Where’s what?’

  ‘That place called None of Your Business.’

  She stopped abruptly. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m just interested. And I seem to have lost my way,’ he answered in Afrikaans. She looked at him, taken aback. ‘And frankly, it isn’t every day I come across a jogging South African in a township,’ he said, with his most charming smile.

  She gave him a wry grin. ‘Get used to it.’

  ‘Okay if I join you?’

  ‘If you can keep up.’ And she took off.

  Later that evening, while drinking lots of ice-cold beers at an outdoor café, she told him about her work with the Be Aware Foundation. She’d already spent six months in Alexandra helping children who, because of poor sanitary conditions, were at an increased risk for tuberculosis. Susanne became Paul’s jogging mate, his confidante, his drinking buddy and – thank heaven for running girls – not long afterwards his passionate lover.

  In that same period, Paul was investigating the South African Minister of Defence, Jacob Nkoane, who’d apparently spent billions of dollars purchasing weapons. The deliveries originated in the Ukraine and went via Egypt to Johannesburg. At least two planes registered in the Ukraine had each delivered thirty tons of weapons via that route. And then there were all kinds of questionable transactions as well. Part of the money from his ministry had almost certainly been pocketed by Nkoane himself. A flow of funds, efficiently channelled into overseas accounts, was traced back to his bank account.

  The sources at Paul’s disposal were so reliable that The Citizen dared to prominently publish his article on the front page. In reaction, a government spokesman claimed it was libel, but the paper wasn’t sued. Responding to the article in a television interview, Nkoane said if there were problems, they were South Africa’s problems and would be resolved by South Africans and not by foreigners.

  Strengthened by the fervent denials and reactions, Paul felt himself grow in his role as David, the tireless journalist going up against Goliath, the ANC political party – so deeply rooted in the country it seemed untouchable. He’d undoubtedly find more officials in high places who’d used their power to enrich themselves at the expense of their constituency.

  He became obsessed with the investigation. At last he’d make history with his reporting and follow in the footsteps of his respected father Raylan. Paul became something of a fanatic, rushed from one mysterious appointment to another while Susanne, after her daily work in the slums, craved his presence but hardly ever found him at home.

  Shortly thereafter, Susanne was told that her work for the Be Aware Foundation was ending with immediate effect. The ANC wasn’t prepared to fund an organization who let their doctor associate with a subversive journalist. She had to choose.

  Paul was furious. That very same day he’d slammed his fist on the table during an editorial meeting at The Citizen, after the editor announced that in view of the pending national elections, more positive news needed to be reported. News that should express a ‘will to transformation’. Another way of saying that any follow-up articles Paul wrote about fraud in high places wouldn’t be printed.

  ‘I won’t be stopped,’ Paul barked at Susanne that evening. ‘Not by anyone!’

  ‘Did you hear me, Paul? I’m being forced to quit my job,’ Susanne said.

  ‘Yes, too bad. But of course there was no other option.’

  ‘Of course there was another option!’ she cried angrily. ‘Doesn’t that even occur to you? And what about me? I’m being forced to abandon my children, because you always need to go off on a crusade!’

  He hated blackmail and especially detested the emotional variety.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t know it was about you. Or “your children”. You’re not some goddamned Mother Teresa!’

  Her eyes flashed. ‘No, this is not about me. It’s about you. About your life with those ghosts you’re always chasing. You think about them when you wake up. And at night you dream about them. You can’t think about anything else. Until you’ve found something you can use to nail them to the cross. And why is that? Because you want to make the world a better place? Or is it because you want to prove to everyone you’re as brilliant a journalist as your father?’

  He had let her speak her piece. On the outside he looked calm, but he was fuming on the inside. She had no idea who he was or what was important in this world.

  ‘And you don’t want to live with a ghost any longer. Is that it?’

  ‘What do you want from me, Paul?’ Her response said it all. She didn’t want to make the decision herself. He would have to do it for her.

  ‘I want you to see me for who I am,’ he said as calmly as possible. ‘It’s very simple. Without my work, I’m nobody. A nobody without a purpose. And without that, I have no life.’

  ‘And without me?’ she asked with tears in her eyes. Relationships. The equivalent of opium. First, the blissful intoxication. Then, the hangover and the inevitable loneliness.

  ‘I’ll survive just fine without you.’

  He didn’t hear anything from her for a week. He’d called her. Left messages that he was sorry. But the answering machine didn’t respond. Once in the middle of the night, when he couldn’t sleep and he knew she was at home, he went and stood on her doorstep and hurled a torrent of abuse at her.

  Then his phone finally rang, but with the news that Susanne had been murdered during a violent burglary in her flat. In Hillbrow, the downtown district of Jo’burg where she lived, the hotels and flats had once been inhabited by the upper middle class. Now they were home to people from the countryside and lands bordering South Africa. There was no street watch, and she didn’t have a dog or gun at home and certainly didn’t have a burglar-proof cage protecting her bedroom. She was attacked in her sleep, raped and beaten to death. Just another one of Jo’burg’s many unsolved murders.

  Consumed by guilt, Paul was too upset to even start looking into the facts of the case. As if finding the murderers would solve the problem. So he threw himself into betting on illegal fights as a remedy, and with the money he made drowned his sorrows in a bottle. His research into the corrupt Nkoane came to a standstill.

  Then one evening he got a call from an unidentified man who, with the soft, cultured voice of someone who undoubtedly belonged to a better social class, said he could provide Paul with information that would lead to a breakthrough. Information that would definitively tie Nkoane to the Russian mafia.

  By now it had become busy in Stella’s Coffee Bar. Paul’s macchiato was lukewarm and the headlines still danced before his eyes, unintelligible. After Susanne’s death, he’d come here countless times by himself, like he had before he’d met her. But he still couldn’t stop himself from looking up every time he heard the cafe’s door open.

  He cursed himself and the inane fantasy that it would be her: He’d get up and place his hands on her smooth, powerful body. With a flying start, they’d end up in his bed, where groaning from pleasure and sweating heavily, biting, grabbing and clinging to each other, they’d make love. Then they’d lie awake together, listening to the sounds of the city.

  He glanced at his watch, realized he was going to be late arriving at the location of the appointment with his unknown informant. He paid the bill and hurried outside, where he immediately tried to hail one of many minibuses. It would take a long time before all that emptiness inside him could be filled again. Susanne was still in his head, his heart; she was in his whole body and it hurt like hell.

  2

  Decked out in oversized sunglasses, wearing a flowery scarf on her head, Angela Faber emerged first from the car that pulled up at the WMC staff e
ntrance.

  Given the woman’s appearance, Danielle straightaway had serious doubts about the plan she’d devised with Cathy Marant. But she couldn’t back down, not now.

  Dennis Faber, also in shades, stepped out behind his wife. From his faltering movements, it seemed like he was attached to the car interior with elastic: at any moment he might snap back inside the vehicle. He was barely recognizable without that fake TV grin plastered on his face, Danielle thought. Faber seemed disoriented. He clung to his wife, who melodramatically peered over the rim of her enormous glasses.

  It wasn’t every day that the Faber couple was dropped incognito at the rear entrance of a hospital.

  The third, unfamiliar person whose rugged face jutted out above the car roof – armed with a photo camera and a case full of lenses – seemed to be the only one of their group who understood they had to enter through this door here.

  He stuck out his hand, and Danielle responded by gripping it firmly.

  ‘Eric Sanders, photographer.’

  ‘Wait here, Eric.’

  Danielle walked over to Angela Faber, who looked utterly lost, and introduced herself to her.

  ‘Oh, you’re Dr Bernson, the one who saved his life!’ Coming from her mouth it sounded like she was complimenting Danielle on her mascara brand, her hair colour, or the model of her white lab coat.

  ‘Dr Bernson?’

  Danielle turned and saw the sea-green eyes of Cathy Marant – hardly any make-up and a perfect complexion. Tight-fitting red lace-up boots under Pepe jeans, light-grey jacket, expensive-looking handbag and a piercing look that said, I’m in charge here.

  ‘Please, just call me Danielle.’ It was her attempt to break the ice. Women like Marant got right down to business, but kept their distance, and Danielle needed her close, at least for a while.

  ‘Well, Danielle, thank you for giving us the chance to tell this wonderful story and to put things right.’ Her handshake felt like the confirmation of the alliance they’d agreed to previously on the phone.