My mother laughed. “Don’t be silly, of course we’ll come back.”
“You promise?” Cat and I asked at the same time.
“I promise.”
I already knew that when the time came to go to bed, Cat would go through the motions of pretending to sleep in our room. She’d climb into her bed, wish me a good night and switch out the light, but just as soon as she thought I was asleep, she’d sneak off to our parents’ room where she’d climb into their big bed. That was the only place she felt safe when they were gone, and that way when they came back, she’d be the first to know.
My mother bent down to hug us good-bye. She wore Charlie perfume and despite my need for assurance, the floral scent was overpowering and I struggled to pull away. She picked the car keys up from the kitchen counter and tossed them to my father.
My mother turned to Mabel. “We’ll probably be home close to midnight, so just sleep on the floor in the lounge if you get tired.”
I watched as my father ushered my mother out the door, his hand on her elbow. He blew us kisses and then turned to Mabel. “Lock all the doors, Mabel. This fucking country has gone mad today.”
It was the last thing I ever heard him say.
Seven
ROBIN
16 JUNE 1976
Boksburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
The pounding on the door started up just before midnight. I jolted awake, alone; as expected, Cat had snuck off to our parents’ room as soon as I’d fallen asleep. I tiptoed to my bedroom door and peeked out to see Mabel standing frozen in the lounge.
“Maak die deur oop!” Open the door!
Bang, bang, bang.
It’s the firemen coming to save us. The veld fire’s reached the house and they’ve come to get us out.
Before I could voice this thought to Mabel, the shouting started up again, this time in heavily accented English. “It’s the police. We know you’re in there. Let us in.”
Mabel beckoned me with a trembling hand and I rushed to her side. The police didn’t come for fires. She pulled me in tightly against her and I wrapped my arms around her hips. We shuffled to the door, which Mabel unlocked and opened, and then stepped back to let the men inside. I peeked around Mabel and saw police vans in the street. Their flashing lights lit up our yard and the surrounding houses like a disco ball, making the familiar suburban landscape oddly festive.
The two policemen loomed in the entrance hall; they wore the distinct blue South African Police uniforms and their guns were holstered at their sides. One of them was tall and thin with tightly cropped red hair and a beard that covered most of his face and neck. His partner was older with darker features, and he wore his blue cap pulled low over his forehead. It cast a deep shadow over his face while the gold badge above the peak glinted when it caught the light.
The tall redhead was the more aggressive of the two and he did most of the talking. “Why don’t you make the door open when you see the police?”
“Sorry, baas.” Mabel’s voice was a tightrope on which her quavering words struggled to find purchase.
“What are you doing in this house? You sleep here?”
“No, baas. The madam and the baas have gone out, and I am staying in here to watch the child.”
“Come, we’re taking you to the police station.”
“You cannot leave this child alone, baas.”
His voice rose with impatience. “She’ll come with us.”
“But the madam and the baas, they will be worried when they come home and see she is not here.”
“The madam and the baas aren’t coming home,” he snapped. He had no patience with Mabel answering him back; he was clearly a man who was used to being obeyed.
“Why, baas? Where are they?”
“Who do you think you are talking to, kaffir meid, huh? I ask the questions here, not you.” He jabbed his finger at Mabel’s nose, and she flinched as his spittle landed on her cheek though she did not make a move to wipe it off. The policeman stepped forward and stared her down. Mabel did not step back or look away. He wanted to intimidate her and she would not be cowed.
Don’t do that, Mabel, I thought. He wants you to be scared. Show him that you’re scared.
Their eyes remained locked, neither of them prepared to be the first to look away, and I spoke to divert their attention, and also because I couldn’t keep the questions in any longer. “Where are my mommy and daddy? Are we going to meet them?”
The other policeman spoke to me in a softer tone. “Just come now.” He reached out for my hand, but Mabel stepped back and pulled me with her.
“You are not taking this child.”
The backhanded slap connected with the side of Mabel’s head, and her jaw snapped shut as she stumbled back against me. I couldn’t stop her fall and she crumpled to the floor, hitting her head against the polished wood. She lay there for a few seconds, whimpering and dazed, and then eased herself up on her elbows.
“Get up,” the man instructed but Mabel didn’t move.
I reached down and tried to pull her up, but she was a deadweight who wasn’t yielding to my efforts.
“Get up now!” the policeman barked again.
There was no way I could move Mabel by force or protect her using my body; I was too small and too weak. Still I tugged at her.
Please, Mabel. Help me. Get up!
I was just beginning to panic when my mother’s voice came to me, cutting through my fog of terror and calming me.
Stop dwelling on the negative. Try to think up solutions, she instructed.
It occurred to me that if I couldn’t move Mabel with my might then perhaps I could move her with my words. Dropping to my haunches, I whispered into her ear. “Come, Mabel. Please stand up. Please. Let’s just go. It’s fine. We’ll go together. Mommy and Daddy will find us.”
Mabel looked at me blankly for a moment and then her expression cleared. She nodded and struggled to her feet, and I slipped my hand into hers. The policeman frowned at the sight of our fingers entwined like that.
“Where are my mommy and daddy?” I asked again. “I want them.”
“You can’t have them,” the redheaded policeman spat. “Do you know why?”
I shook my head.
He nodded at Mabel. “Ask your friend why. She’ll tell you.”
Mabel squeezed my hand. I looked at her and waited for her to say something but she didn’t. She only squeezed harder.
“You can’t have them because the black bastards slit their throats from ear to ear leaving them almost headless like chickens,” the policeman said. “Your mother and father are dead.”
Eight
ROBIN
17 JUNE 1976
Brixton, Johannesburg, South Africa
Cat!
As we were being shoved into the back of a police van, I finally thought of my sister. I hadn’t forgotten her; it’s just that with everything else happening, she hadn’t been foremost in my mind.
“Mabel,” I whispered. “What about Cat?”
She blinked but didn’t say anything; her eyes were open but she looked like a sleepwalker.
“Cat was sleeping in Mom and Dad’s bed. We need to go back and—”
“No.” Her voice was a desert landscape, flat and desolate.
“But we need to tell them—”
“No,” she repeated, more emphatic that time.
“But—”
“I said no!”
It was the first time I’d ever seen Mabel lose her temper. Over the six years she’d worked for us, I’d sometimes seen her annoyed, flustered and impatient, but I’d never seen her truly angry.
“You must not speak of her to these men. Do you hear me?” Her eyes glowed with fervor as she glared at me. There was something feral about her expression, something I didn’t dare ch
allenge, and so I just nodded.
“You must not speak of her!” she repeated and I nodded again. If Mabel thought Cat was safer at home, then that’s where we’d leave her.
Your mother and father are dead. The policeman’s words nicked at my consciousness like a tiny blade.
It can’t be true, it just can’t. He has to be confused or lying, I thought desperately.
All I knew of death was that it was a mysterious force that came for baby birds and hamsters and people like my Ouma. Dying was what happened to the sick or the weak or the old, and my parents were none of those things; they were young and strong and healthy.
They have to still be at their party. There’s been a mix-up, that’s all.
My dad was a joker who’d do almost anything for a laugh, although people didn’t always get that he was kidding around. My mom often said that not everyone understood his weird sense of humor, and the policemen didn’t look like people who enjoyed laughing. They just didn’t understand whatever prank it was my father had pulled.
Of course they’re not dead. Of course not.
It was a ludicrous thought and even entertaining it was disloyal. So I shook the evil notion from my mind and looked around the van’s cabin instead. Two benches ran the length of the space, facing each other, and I sat on one and Mabel sat across from me. The metal of the seat was cold under my pajamaed thighs. Crisscrossing metal grates that looked like braai grills covered the glass of the side windows and back door. There was a cage between where we sat and the front-seat cabin where the driver was, and as I slid up to it, something stirred inside.
It was a dog, an Alsatian by the looks of it, and as it got to its feet, my spirits rose with it. I loved dogs but hadn’t been allowed to get one of my own. I reached out to try to pat it.
“No,” Mabel cautioned as she swatted my hand away from the cage.
She was almost too late. I’d already managed to fit two fingers through the metal bars and the dog was quick to react. It lunged just as I snatched my hand back and its hot breath sliced against my wrist. The dog started barking viciously, and I backed away from the cage just as the redheaded policeman banged on the partition from the front.
The van rumbled to life, the floor rattling beneath my feet, and we pulled off with a lurch. There was no light in the back, just the sweeping arcs of streetlights as we passed under them, and with each splash of light that fell on Mabel, the swelling on her face got worse. We were jostled around on our seats each time we hit a rut in the road, and I crossed over to sit next to Mabel so we could lean against each other for support and so I wouldn’t have to look at her.
I looked out of the window instead and saw what appeared to be thousands of tiny red eyes staring at me from the darkness. It took a second to realize they were the dying embers of the veld fire. My mother had been right: the fire had been far enough away from us to not be a threat and the fire trucks had gotten it under control.
After another few minutes, I noticed that we’d passed the turnoff we should have taken for the Boksburg Police Station.
Where are they taking us?
The question had barely formed in my mind when the one cop radioed in that we were en route to Brixton.
Brixton! The Murder and Robbery Squad. They’re taking us to the “Squad Cars” team.
Mabel started trembling. I could feel the vibration of it against my shoulder, and I thought she must be cold. I huddled up against her to warm her with my body.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “The ‘Squad Cars’ team will find Mommy and Daddy. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Mabel, though, did worry because she knew something that I didn’t. She’d heard the rumors about the station that was notorious for its torture of blacks, and probably sensed in that moment what lay ahead for her in the long hours before dawn. She didn’t stop trembling all the way there.
• • •
Later, I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, we arrived at the station and entered a large open room that stank of cigarettes. The tall cop pulled Mabel aside and took her away as soon as we arrived, while his partner led me to a long wooden bench.
“Sit here and wait for me, okay?”
“Okay.” I sat on the bench as instructed, my legs dangling above the green linoleum floor. He hitched his navy pants and squatted so we were at the same eye level.
“Where are you taking Mabel?” I asked.
“We are just going to ask her a few questions.”
“Can I go with her?”
“No, you must not move from here, all right?”
“All right.”
“Not even a few steps. You must stay right here.”
I nodded that I understood and he patted my head and then stood to go, but hesitated before turning back again. “I know you feel very alone right now, but I want you to know that you don’t need to because your parents are here with you.”
His words confirmed what I’d been thinking.
Mommy and Daddy are here! The “Squad Cars” team solved the mystery of what really happened to them and now we’re all going to be together for the closing credits of the show.
I craned my neck as my eyes darted around the room.
The policeman must have realized his mistake because he quickly added an amendment. “What I mean is, your parents are now in heaven, with God, and they are looking down on you and watching over you. You will never be alone because they will be with you. Always.”
“But where are the ‘Squad Cars’ team?”
“Who?”
“The guys from the radio? The crack team of detectives who work here?”
His confused frown turned to a smile. “Ag, no, man. That is just made up. Those guys do not exist in real life. They are just actors who pretend to be detectives.” And with a wave, he was gone.
The safety net of denial I’d built for myself was slowly unraveling, but still I refused to harbor the thought that the policemen were right about my parents. My entire relationship with my mother and father was built on the faith—the unquestioning, all-consuming, unwavering faith—that they were infallible.
If they truly always knew what was best, if they could drive and have jobs and drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes, if they could come and go as they pleased without asking for permission, if they could make hundreds of decisions about my life and their lives and only ever have to justify themselves with “because I said so,” then I had to believe them worthy of that exalted position. Without blind faith, the whole illusion of the child-parent relationship fell apart, because what is a parent more essentially than a child’s God? I would not lose faith in my Gods. And so, I waited for them to come get me.
Every now and again, a door opened somewhere and the sounds of metal clanging, angry shouting and pitiful crying escaped. Sometime later, the kind officer brought me a blanket when he came back to check on me. Dozens of black people were brought into the waiting area throughout the early hours of the morning and were pushed through the same doors Mabel had disappeared behind. Many of them looked like teenagers and most were bleeding or injured in some way.
One girl was wearing only a bra and panties covered by a long-sleeved man’s shirt. The buttons were all ripped off and the shirt only came to mid-thigh; she had her arms crossed over her chest and was shaking. When I leaned over and held out my blanket to her, she looked at me wildly like a rabid dog I’d once seen at a garbage dump. Despite the cold, a sheen of sweat coated her skin and she gleamed in the fluorescent lighting. A whitish blemish, either a burn mark or a birthmark, spread out from below her lips, down her chin and disappeared below the shirt’s collar. She smelled bad, like sweat and smoke, and I had to wave the blanket in front of her for a few seconds before she understood my intention. She snatched it from me. Within seconds, she’d wrapped it around herself to fashion a dress and then she was led away.
Another hour passed.
Has Cat woken up yet? I wondered. Does she know she’s all alone in the house? Is she scared? Maybe Mommy and Daddy are at home with her. When are they going to let Mabel out?
I was desperate to wee, but I’d been told not to move from the bench.
I’m not a child anymore. My age is almost in double digits. I can hold it in.
But I couldn’t and a wet warmth seeped across the bench as the acidic smell of urine saturated the air. I flushed with shame. As my wee dripped down the bench and pooled under my feet, my aunt Edith turned the corner. She was running and out of breath, frantic as she searched through the crowd. When she didn’t see me, she turned to retrace her steps.
My voice was shrill as I called out to her, “Edith!”
She turned back and her face was pale and pinched with anxiety. She shoved her way through the throng of people, and when she reached me, she collapsed on my bench and clasped me to her chest.
Edith is here. She’s here and everything is going to be okay.
When she finally let me go, I searched her face for answers. If there was one person I could count on to not lie to me, it was Edith. I opened my mouth to ask the question, but then I closed it again because I could see no questions were necessary. The truth was there in her tear-puffed eyes and her swollen nose. It was there in the bleakness of her gaze and the grayness of her skin. She did not wear her despair well, and all of a sudden, I didn’t want to hear it. A few seconds ago, all I’d wanted was the truth, but in that moment, I knew I couldn’t bear it.
I started to babble. “Edith, we need to go get Cat.”
“What?”
“Cat was sleeping in Mommy and Daddy’s bed. She was asleep when the policemen came and she didn’t wake up and I wanted to tell them to bring her but—”
“Robin—”
“She’s there all alone and we need to go get her—”
“Robs, honey—”
Don’t tell me Mommy and Daddy are dead. “She’ll be scared. You know how she is.” Don’t tell me Mommy and Daddy are dead. “She’ll be really, really scared and she shouldn’t be alone and we have to go get her. Now! Right now. We have to get her. Let’s go! Cat will be wondering where we—”
Hum If You Don't Know the Words Page 6