The Crack

by Christopher Radmann

  But he kept a straight face and delivered the Disprins and the steaming tea. He even let them take them. Let them swallow their Disprins for the relief of pain and drink their tea as act of communion. Possibly they even smiled briefly at him, this square man in the tight white coat who looked like a doctor and who did not look like a doctor. But he had brought them some pain relief and the nicest mug of tea. And they sipped their tea out of the police mugs, and tried to make their tea last as long as possible because they knew in their hearts that this tea break from pain and terror could not last. When you are branded a terrorist, you must be prepared for terror. And, as each second passed, and as this white man, who looked like a Boer and sounded like a settler, who appeared so hard yet seemed so soft, asked them yet another gentle question, they knew in their heart of hearts what was coming.

  And he knew that they knew. He felt their sick certainty. For it was reciprocated by the pounding of his own heart, the constricting of his own pupils, and the light sweating of his palms. He slurped his tea as noisily as they did theirs. He was watchful in a way which was not watchful or wary, but in his very seeming gentleness and guilelessness, he knew that he terrified them. For what white man would spend time in their cell with no gun. Even if their hands were cuffed and their ankles hobbled. This white doctor ran a careful finger under the warm steel to see if they were hurt and did not glance suddenly over his shoulder even as the uniformed guards patrolled the corridor or as the sounds came muffled from behind closed doors, the soft portent of the pain to come. These Boers were famous for it. What marvellous adversaries they made. What wonderful foes in this battle over the centuries between Boer and black and British. So whilst there was no pain yet, they sipped their tea and quietly spat out the white tablets which they had not swallowed in case they were not Disprins and exchanged secret glances behind his back.

  He let those glances continue for a while, and ignored the soft patter of the tiny tablets dropped behind the steel bench, but then their tea had to come to an end. The dregs had to be drained and he finally sighed and removed their mugs. He placed them through the bars, four neat mugs as his was with theirs. They made a neat square and some of the sweet sugary sediment lay in the bottom of each mug and he saw how the white sugar was mixed with the brown tea and stained so that it too was a dull brown and could not be separated from the insidious tea. And he felt oddly moved by the ineffable fact of the brown crystals that were once a pure and refined white, almost translucent. And then were stained by the tea.

  The bars of the cell pressed against his forehead.

  He turned to them and came before them, where they were perched on the low steel bench that was fixed into the concrete floor and which could not be raised as battering ram or a big bludgeon. He squatted before them and regarded them earnestly, even sadly. As though he were genuinely sorry that they had finished their tea and now it had come to this. The white coat trailed down on either side of his strong haunches. The very edges of it kissed the concrete floor. His deep voice welled up. Is there anything you need to tell me, he asked. Anything at all that will make it easier, that will make things better. Informants have told my colleagues that you have been a little bit naughty.

  They stared at him. Naughty. Where did this word come from? Children were naughty. They were not children. And yet he squatted, a bit like a child before them, and told them that they had been naughty.

  He cleared his throat, as though embarrassed. It was getting to that delicate stage. When push came to shove. But he sensed that the fulcrum was yet to find its precise place. That if you were to move the earth, shift heaven and hell with a lever of infinite length, you had to be certain where to place it, where to find that all-important fulcrum. And that was precisely why he had been promoted. For he was a past master of patience and of knowing exactly where to insert that lever and what to use as a fine point, a moment about which worlds would tilt and spin.

  Very naughty, very bad, he clarified. Which was not good. He let the negative numb the air. He watched them swallow as perhaps the last slight taste of the rejected Disprins wore off. Nothing would dull the pain that was to come.

  You see, he said, still squatting sympathetically at their level, each of you has someone who is important to you. You, he nodded genially – even sorrowfully – at Mokoene, you have a wife – Grace. And you, to Mujabe, also have a wife. The youngest man, almost a boy, Rapele, has but a girlfriend, but she is very pretty, very pretty indeed. She is so pretty. Her name is Gloria Ngubane, if he was not mistaken. And the youngest man started as though stung. How did he know, how did this big Boer know?

  And he watched the boy jump. He jumped and his eyes widened helplessly, a complete giveaway. And his eyes widened and he flinched fractionally, and his fists clenched even tighter. And the smell of the young man came to him through the flinch and the fists, the smell that was all the more acrid, an amalgam of wood-fire, and toil, and now fear. He saw, he sensed all of that as a complete picture of guilt and rude surprise. The portrait was revealed to him; he was aware of each constituent part, yet it was his appreciation of the whole that was so masterly. He was profoundly aware of how his subject leapt to artistic life without having to peer at the component strokes. No, the portrait was revealed in its organic completeness and its resonant simplicity. The others were better liars. The others were hardened and more professional. He always knew that this boy would be the one to crack, but it would be a while yet, though the signs were there to be read. It could not be more obvious. And he stood up and called the guards, still gentle and sorrowful all the while, as though saddened by the curtailment of their little tea party. And the uniformed guards came at his soft call and took away the two older men so that it was just he and his sweating friend. It would need to be a solo performance. Or maybe more of a duet if you counted himself. He did not want the youngest of the men to feel that he, Rapele, needed to put on a brave performance for his friends. Oh no. It had to be just the two of them. Mano a mano. If this boy, this terrorist they called Rapele, were to sing his song, it would be for his ears only. That much respect and distance the major had accorded him from the start. After that first performance late last year, they had not raised a single objection or even dared to refer to official procedure. It was just he and Rapele in the small, intimate space.

  And yet they were out in the open now. The cell opened up to encompass heaven and hell. There was life and death crammed into that small space and he could feel it as though it were a shape and he could smell it and hear it as though it were a ripe fart and so could the boy. They looked at those things that filled the space between them in the cell. They did not look at each other just yet. That would come. They both knew that would come.

  And Hektor-Jan let the silence grow. The silence that was filled with more wails and screams than it was possible to catalogue crammed their ears and quite deafened them. He had to wait for the resounding white noise to settle.

  He circled the impossible things in the very centre, the heart of the cell. He seemed to measure out, pace out the perimeter of the horror to come and then at last, after making absolutely certain, it seemed, he turned to the boy.

  Rapele did not look up. It appeared as though his bare feet had suddenly become the most fascinating things in the entire universe. Hektor-Jan also examined the calloused feet, the yellow toenails in need of a cut and the oddly serried ranks of the toes, uneven with two long and two short beside the blunt big toe. The boy knew that he was being circled. Even though the large Boer stood before him in his white coat, he knew that something dark and dangerous was stalking his very breath, his innermost thoughts and feelings and there was nothing he could do about it. And Hektor-Jan knew that his mere proximity had tugged at the heart of the boy’s sphincter as there came the scent of warm piss, a tiny gushing like a sudden smear across the canvas. The poor boy.

  Then he laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. It did not have to be like this. He told the boy with real sorrow and a tragic cert
ainty that it did not have to be like this. Could he not just play along. Help him. Help him help himself. It could be so simple. Please, asseblief, please let it be a simple matter of letting him help him.

  The boy stiffened beneath his touch.

  We are informed, he told the boy quietly, that you have hidden the weapons in Kwa-Thema.

  The township of Kwa-Thema was not too far away from where they were now. In half an hour they could be standing in Kwa-Thema, locating the weapons.

  It would be so helpful, so helpful if you told us where the weapons are hidden.

  It was like a child’s game. You have hidden the sweeties that we want. Now, where are those sweeties, which you have hidden. We want to find them, right now, please.

  But the boy was obliged not to play along. As much as he swallowed and fidgeted, as much as he would like to get this over and done with, he had to look obtuse and overtly innocent and say that he did not know what this man was talking about, that he had no idea, no idea whatsoever. He had to say that as he waded deeper and deeper into the darkness and the warm wetness spread over his crotch and he stewed angrily in his own embarrassment and fear. No idea whatsoever.

  Whatsoever, Hektor-Jan repeated thoughtfully. Whatsoever is a big word, a profound compression of three words but it did not leave much room to hide. Hektor-Jan unpicked the word, dismantled it into its three smaller cogs: what-so-ever. If he had no idea what-so-ever, that did not help very much at all. Did he not have just the tiniest inkling. What. So. Ever. That would be so helpful if he had even the slightest idea. Did he not overhear someone saying something. Maybe one of the others. Did he not have an address to which he might send his friends to find the weapons. Then all would be well. No harm would befall him whatsoever. Did he really and truly not want to tell him.

  But the boy could only stare at his feet.

  The big Boer sighed. It was a soft sound. So very incongruous.

  The young man would have felt a lot better if the big Boer had just shouted and stamped his foot, ranted and railed, carped and cursed. Not that gentleness, that terrible tenderness. That sadness. That reluctance. Because if it made that terrible Boer so sad, what on earth was going to happen to him, the prisoner, the black, die swarte, die kaffir, in that tiny cell.

  And then it came.

  Gloria, Gloria, Gloria, her name rolled from the Boer’s tongue like a hymn.

  And the boy reeled with the triple blow. Of course.

  Gloria, repeated the Boer, his mouth making her filthy. Glo-ri-ah.

  He offered the dying fall of her name, the boy’s girlfriend’s name. How it sank beneath the weight of its own syllables. Glo-ri-ah. But hidden within it there lurked the threat of gore. Gloria. Gore to come. Glorious gore. But for the moment he let her name sigh to silence – ah.

  No, screamed the boy suddenly. Nee, asseblief nee. No, please no. Perhaps he thought that if he addressed the Boer in his native Afrikaans, it would help. How could it help.

  The hiding place of the weapons, the Boer asked quietly and the boy knew that that was his last chance. He hesitated, Hektor-Jan granted him that. But it was not enough. No idea whatsoever, said the boy, in polite, formal English with his eyes screwed shut.

  In the stifling silence of the cell, the Boer’s voice came quietly. It was some signal, and the Boer’s voice did tremble, the boy might have granted him that.

  And a door clanked open and into the corridor two uniformed guards brought his Gloria. She did not come quietly. She was sobbing and struggling and it took a while for the policemen to handcuff her wrists to the outer bars of the cell so that she was spread before him, her arms wide as though about to embrace him but instead she reached out to cold metal, the bars that were sheer and vertical and unyielding. And the Boer nodded to the men in uniform and their shoes squeaked like mice, like rats, down the corridor and then were gone behind the closed door.

  Hektor-Jan moved to one side of the cell. This was awkward. He was the uncomfortable go-between. There was the boy on one side of the cell, clamped to the low, steel bench. And opposite him, outside the cell, her arms stretched wide, was his girlfriend who looked as though she had spread her wings and was about to fly into his arms. But she was sobbing and her eyes were swollen and snot ran down into her mouth and she could not flap her wings.

  Hektor-Jan ran a hand over his brow. Then he looked at the boy. He had opened his eyes all right. There was a fruitful pause. The boy finally tore his eyes from his Gloria and looked at Hektor-Jan and then in a helpless instant he spat. A sudden reflex, a sodden reflux. The gob of spit that came from his mouth was large and loose, surprisingly gelatinous and it landed with a streak on Hektor-Jan’s right shoe. Hektor-Jan looked down at his soiled shoe and shook his head.

  The walls and the bars of the cell opened up and fell away. No more was it the claustrophobic cavern of the whale’s belly. No longer did the functions of suck and swallow apply. It was as though all laws of gravity and motion had fallen away and they were in the bright realm of infinite possibility. He could strike the boy in the mouth for that. He could send the pile-driver of his fist smashing through the boy’s face for that. He could kick the boy. He could rupture the boy’s groin and explode his balls with one well-judged, vicious kick. He could crush his toes with the heel of his soiled shoe. He could take a short step and break his kneecap. He could grasp the boy’s head by the ears and bring his face smashing into his rising knee. All these things were now possible and Hektor-Jan knew what had happened countless times in this cell, and his penis, a stiff tuning fork, an urgent divining rod of terrible tension, had already responded to those seductive echoes, to the aphrodisiac of power that saturated the cell. But he knew better than to trust his own base nature. This was not sex; this was not even art. Hektor-Jan despised the hardness in his trousers, a stiff, creased tangent, so disturbing and distracting. Hektor-Jan sighed. Spare the rod. Thy rod and staff comfort me still.

  And even as he began to remove his spit-smeared shoe, slowly, almost reluctantly, he knew that it was a job, a job that he did well, sublimely well, and the faces of his beloved children came to him just as the salary that his job supplied brought food to the table and nourishment to their tiny bodies. And even as he slipped off the shoe to reveal the intimacy of his socked foot, last seen at home in his bedroom, so his actions carried sustenance to the solid wood table in the homely kitchen. And as he took the shoe to Gloria’s face, so it was also a loaf of bread that fed Shelley and Pieter and little Sylvia. And as he smeared the stringy mucus in Gloria’s wet face, so his actions by simple extension brought food to the sweet, sweet mouths of his children. He did not have to do it, it was true. He did not have to wipe her boyfriend’s spit in her face. What had she done. But someone would have to do it and at least he did it gently, tenderly.

  He put his shoe back on. They were both very quiet now.

  He gave the boy every chance, one last chance. Please, he said again, asseblief, just tell me. Because, wragtig, when I call those dogs back again, it will not be a good thing for your Gloria. And even as he sent out the final overture, Hektor-Jan knew that the boy would stare sullenly, the artery in his throat pulsing with the quaint effort, the heroic stupidity, to remain morose and silent.

  And Hektor-Jan had to turn to the girl. She was pretty. Despite the swollen, tearful, smeared face she was a pretty woman, maybe a little older than the boy, her body shapely. She would make a lovely mother; her body would nourish little mouths in years to come, if only he would speak. But he would not and Hektor-Jan was left with no choice. There was so much riding on the boy’s voice. Lack of a voice.

  The boy would never know that it hurt Hektor-Jan as much if not more than it maimed and injured the victim. Did not the psalmist say, Let a righteous man strike me – it is a kindness; let him rebuke me – it is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it. Yet my prayer is ever against the deeds of evildoers. And did not our Lord say, Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou a
nointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. How much oil could Hektor-Jan spare. How much could it hurt him, did it cost him. The boy was safe in the here and now. Yes, Hektor-Jan was pincered in the present, too, but he was also caught between the terrible weight of the past and the future. He knew exactly what it was like, and what it would be like. It was and would be dreadful. And it could so easily have been stopped. With just a word.

  And with a heavy heart Hektor-Jan uttered the words that he did not want anyone to hear.

  Thus summoned, the two men returned. The dogs that he had mentioned, against whom he had tried so clearly to warn. They were unleashed now; there would be no stopping them now.

  They were the dogs who, before the young man’s very eyes, slowly stripped his Gloria. With her arms stretched like a dark Jesus before him, they carefully undid each button, buckle, clasp and zip so that she was prised free from every last stitch of dignity. They did not hear Gloria’s gurgling gasps, the clanking of her wrists that tried to shake the very foundations of the bars but which succeeded only in letting the blood slip from the delicate skin of her wrists so that her clenched fists seemed to rise like buds, like flowers, from their slender stems of blood. And they folded her clothes, her dress, her nylon stockings, her panties and her bra and placed them on top her shoes, off the floor, neatly out of the way. And then they each took a leg by the calf and, as she turned frantically to see what they were up to, they spread her legs gently wider and wider so that she sank a little closer to the floor and her fists now slipped back in time, now bulged like buds about to burst into bloom against the added, downward pressure. Then they cable-strapped her ankles to the bars so she became a dark dove spread-eagled and as her voice choked in her throat, she became Da Vinci’s Everyman. But she was most palpably and certainly a woman. For her female space was aired, was most obstetrically vaunted. Flaunted. They were making her flirt.