The Good Hope Centre was mobbed. Nadine climbed up the crowded steps, clutching the china mug from her room, which she was using as a take-out coffee.
She found her way to the press area, a bare room with a television surrounded by plastic chairs. The other reporters were animated. “It’s unbelievable, really,” a woman with a blonde pixie haircut said, after introducing herself as Ruth. “I can’t believe Gandersvoot is going to walk in here and tell the truth. He’d be jailed for the rest of his life if it weren’t for the TRC, but we’d never hear what he’d done, from his own mouth.”
“We know what he did,” said a bitter voice. Nadine recognized it and looked across the room to see George, holding a camera.
“Not the details,” said Ruth.
“Fuck the details,” said George. “Not worth giving Gandersvoot amnesty.”
“I guess that’s the question,” said Ruth tiredly. She had been covering the hearings for a year, she told Nadine, traveling all over the country. First the victims had told their stories, and now the accused had their turn. The hearings were open to the public, and every one was mobbed. The audiences were primarily black: after being mistreated their whole lives, blacks could finally hear the crimes against them spoken of openly. The process was clearly taking a toll on the reporters, many of whom, though hyped up on caffeine, looked exhausted. “The problem with us South African journalists is that we keep bursting into tears all the time,” said Ruth.
Today, she explained, Gandersvoot was being tried for the murder of a young man named Julian Hamare. Julian, a black high school student and activist, had been abducted, tortured, and fed rat poison. He returned home wheelchair-bound; his hair fell out from the poison. The second time he was taken from his parents’ home in Guguletu township, he never returned. Julian’s mother, Faith, had saved his hair in a plastic baggie for twenty years.
George approached Nadine. “We missed you last night,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” said Nadine. “I was tired.”
“I hear you,” said George. He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, then sighed and said, “Thola’s gone. She’s been gone a long time.”
Nadine’s knees felt weak. “What do you mean?”
“I mean she’s gone,” said George. “Come on.” He wanted to get shots of Faith, so they went into the main room where the hearings would be held. Some five hundred folding chairs were filling quickly. Headphones trailed along the floor: the hearings would be translated into eleven languages. In the corner, a woman held a pitcher of ice water. She was, George said, a “comforter.” Her job was to support whoever was testifying, victim or perpetrator. She supplied tissues, cold water, and human contact as necessary.
At the front of the room, the members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission sat at tables covered with white tablecloths. Nadine recognized Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with his gray hair and oversized glasses. A banner above the tables read THE TRUTH SHALL SET US FREE.
Faith Hamare, wearing a blue polyester suit, her hair wrapped in a matching scarf, sat with ramrod-straight posture in the first row, next to three seats with sheets of paper on them reading VICTIM’S FAMILY. The bag of her son’s hair rested on her lap. George knelt with the other photographers, taking pictures of the stony-faced Faith. Periodically, Faith held up the hair and shook it for the cameras.
Nadine walked to the back of the room. Ruth leaned against the wall, holding her tape recorder and a small pad, waiting for the hearing to begin. The noise in the room was deafening.
“Are you a reporter?” Ruth asked.
“Yes,” said Nadine. “The Boston Tribune.”
“Covering Gandersvoot?”
“Yes,” said Nadine. “And Jason Irving’s killers.”
“Of course,” said Ruth, resigned. “They fly you in and they fly you out. A dead American, big news.”
“The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is big news.”
“Have you read about it in the American papers, then?” said Ruth angrily. “Front page, hey?”
Nadine pulled her notebook out and pretended to look closely at the blue-lined sheet. On the day she’d flown from Nantucket, the Boston Tribune had featured a front-page story about renovations at Disney World.
“You know George, eh?” said Ruth. She tried—and failed—to conceal a smirk.
“I did know him,” said Nadine. “A long time ago.”
Ruth nodded. “Well,” she concluded crisply, standing up straight, “he’ll need you.”
“Sorry?”
“You heard me. I’m glad George has someone to lean on. He’s been carrying this by himself for way too long.”
“What?”
“Tholakele. The whole thing. Oh, hold on. It’s showtime.” Ruth pressed the RECORD button on her tape recorder. Nadine squinted, failing to find George in the crowd.
All eyes were on a white man who made his way to the front of the room flanked by bodyguards. He was wearing a suit and striped tie and had a narrow moustache. His step was swaggering and confident. To Nadine, Gandersvoot looked like an accountant with a clear conscience.
Gandersvoot settled himself in a chair, took his oath, and poured a glass of water from a pitcher before him. He was ten feet from Faith, who stared straight at him. Gandersvoot’s lawyers led him through his plea for amnesty. He seemed strangely removed as he described the day he took Julian.
“I was under orders,” said Gandersvoot, his accent clipped. “I picked up Julian Hamare on the night of October twenty-ninth in Guguletu township.”
“Where’s Guguletu?” said an Australian reporter.
“Fifteen minutes from here,” said Ruth.
“And where did you take Julian Hamare?” asked Gandersvoot’s lawyer.
“I took him to Post Chalmers,” said Gandersvoot.
“Where’s Post Chalmers?” the Aussie asked.
“Do shut up,” said Ruth.
“After that,” continued Gandersvoot, taking a sip of water, “I shot him, and buried him in the river.”
“The Fish River?” said a lawyer.
“Yes,” Gandersvoot said. “The Fish River.”
Faith’s eyes had been dry until this point. She cried out hearing Gandersvoot’s words, her wail filling the courtroom. She knew, at last, where her son’s body lay. Pain fluttered in Nadine’s gut.
“And why did you kill Julian Hamare?” asked the lawyer.
“I was told to kill him,” said Gandersvoot. “He was a threat to national security.”
“Now this is hard for me to ask you,” said the lawyer, “but what happened at Post Chalmers?”
In a flat tone, Gandersvoot said, “He was tortured, at Post Chalmers. We burned his body, me and some other officers. We gave him a cup of sleeping pills so it wouldn’t hurt, and we had a braai.”
Murmurs of outrage rippled through the crowd. A member of the TRC spoke. “You put Julian Hamare’s body on a barbecue grill?” he said. Around the room, spectators had their hands pressed over their mouths, eyes watering.
“Yes,” said Gandersvoot.
“How long did you braai Julian Hamare?” asked another TRC member.
“Six hours,” said Gandersvoot. “Maybe seven hours,” said Gandersvoot.
“What did you do for six or seven hours?” said a TRC member. “Did you stay there, for six or seven hours?”
“We did, yes,” said Gandersvoot. Nadine felt bile rise in the back of her throat.
“When the body was burned,” said Gandersvoot’s lawyer, “what did you do then?”
“We had had a bit to drink, as you will at a braai,” said Gandersvoot. He seemed to think this would get a laugh, but the room was completely silent. Gandersvoot cleared his throat. “When the bones were cool, we disposed of them,” he said.
“In the Fish River,” said his lawyer.
“Yes,” said Gandersvoot. He nodded solemnly.
Faith was silent, tears running down her face.
There was a break after Gand
ersvoot’s testimony, and Nadine went back to the hotel. It must have been the lack of sleep—she sat on her bed and started to cry.
Nadine wanted to talk to Hank. She wanted to be in his Nantucket living room, telling him about the TRC, listening to his calm voice, his considering thoughts. She wanted to be taken care of. In Hank’s home, Nadine had not felt alone.
She dialed his Falmouth number, but there was no answer. It was the middle of the night in Massachusetts, but the phone rang and rang. She tried the Nantucket number, and on the second ring, she heard his voice.
“It’s me,” she said.
“Nadine,” said Hank. “Nadine. Is something the matter?”
“Well,” said Nadine. “I’m pregnant.”
There was a silence, and then Hank laughed. “I can’t believe it,” he said. There was joy in his voice.
“I know,” said Nadine.
“Isn’t this,” said Hank, and then he said, “Maybe,” and then, in a more professional tone, “How are you feeling?”
“Feeling? I feel sick. The stuff I’m hearing at the trials, it just makes it worse.” She told him about Faith Hamare and her bag of hair.
Hank’s voice became clinical as he instructed Nadine to stop taking the Demerol and find some folic acid pills. “Why don’t you come home?” said Hank finally. “Why don’t you come back, and we’ll take it from there.” Hank sounded hopeful: he had confessed how much he wanted children.
“I can’t just…run away from this.”
“But you can run away from me,” Hank said darkly.
“That’s not fair.”
“Would it help if I came there? To South Africa?”
“No,” said Nadine. “I don’t know. I just feel like this is something…something I have to do.”
“I don’t…,” Hank said sadly, “I really don’t understand you.”
“I know,” said Nadine. Neither of them hung up, but neither had a word to say. Nadine listened to Hank breathe. They were eight thousand miles apart.
After she hung up, Nadine opened her minibar and stared at the small bottles. Faith Hamare’s lined face swam in front of her eyes. And Gandersvoot, who had committed such evil acts with such confidence: his sneer turned her stomach. She wanted a drink.
There was a rap at the unlocked door, and George walked in. “I’ll join you,” he said, pulling out a gin. He drank it, and wiped his lips. “All right then,” he said. “Ready for the afternoon testimony?”
“No,” Nadine said.
“You’re shaken,” said George. “You knew this was happening, Nadine.”
“Yes. But I…I don’t think I can hear any more.”
“Jesus, Nadine! You can’t just ignore things that are hard to look at. You have to…to stare into them. Document them. Bear witness. That’s our job, isn’t it? What’s happened to you?”
“It never used to bother me,” said Nadine. “But now…I feel sick. I really do. I’m dizzy. I was beaten up…”
“So you can just fly in here. You can just…listen to the story of Jason’s death and then fly home. The world is yours to play in as you wish. And there’s not a price, right? Am I right? What’s your expression? The world is your oyster.”
“My expression?” Nadine said. “What are you talking about?”
“I was born in San Francisco,” said George. “I could have lived the rest of my life in blessed American ignorance. I thought it was my right to be safe and happy, to love whoever I wanted, and marry and—”
“And have children,” Nadine said.
“Sure, whatever I wanted. It was my right. But fate has a way of letting you know who’s in charge.”
“What happened?” Nadine said, leaning in to touch George’s knee. “Tell me. What happened to Thola?” They stared at each other, and then George said, “I have something to show you.”
“Fine,” Nadine said.
“It’s ten hours from here.”
“Ten hours?”
“Yes.”
“Jason’s hearing,” Nadine said feebly.
“It’s not until Monday.”
“George.”
“Fine,” said George. “Forget it. I should have known.”
“No,” Nadine said, looking at the phone. Hank’s words hung in her ears: I don’t understand you. Nadine looked at George; the dark planes under his eyes from lack of sleep. George understood.
“Let’s go,” said Nadine.
Twenty-eight
NANTUCKET TO STARDOM
Bear with me. This starts out sad, but it ends up being the best day of my life.
I got a ride into town with Mom, jamming my bike in the back of her Saab. I waved as her ferry took off. She looked really nice in jeans and a fitted T-shirt. She had told me all about the man she was meeting, someone she had been friends with before she had even known Dad. When I asked Mom if she was having an affair, she smiled and gave me a big hug. “No way,” she said, and I believed her.
I sat on the steps of the Nantucket Juice Bar and looked at the boats. I started to think about where you could go once you got to the mainland. Florida, for example, or Los Angeles—big places, where you could be cool without having to know about baseball. I got really excited, thinking about traveling all over the world, like on tour, having my picture taken in Japan and Australia. I would ride in limos, and see exotic animals, like emu.
Then came the bad part, starring Roger Fell and his BMX bike. Roger was my friend until fourth grade. We pretended to be Indians in the cranberry bogs, fighting each other with homemade bows and arrows. Roger always won, and then we ate his mom’s peanut butter oatmeal cookies, lying on the ground and watching the clouds. But now everything was different.
Roger called me a fag as he and his friends rode in, wearing shorts cut off below the knee and hooded sweatshirts. Their shins showed above their stupid sneakers with no laces and the tongues hanging out. Roger was wearing a wool cap that said AC/DC.
I ignored them.
“Faaaag!” yelled Tristan Morris. “Nice outfit, gay boy!” He filled his straw from his can of orange soda and blew it all over the paisley shirt I had borrowed from Kyla. They rode around in a circle, spitting soda on me. I kept my head down and didn’t cry.
“Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” said Roger.
“Come on, Roger,” I said.
He sucked soda into his mouth, and spit.
I was red-faced by the time I ran from the harbor to Hot Locks Salon and Spa, and I just said, “Please hurry. I have to catch the noon ferry.”
“The Mashpee Mall Regional Auditions!” cried Joe.
“My shirt!” said Kyla. They put their customers on hold and hustled me into a shampoo chair. Joe washed my hair while Kyla cleaned my face with a warm washcloth. They didn’t mention my tears all mixed into the dried soda.
“Bastards,” hissed Joe. He blow-dried my hair, adding styling gel for an even better look than before. Kyla rushed out and came back with a whole surfer outfit for me: Quik-silver T-shirt, baggy pants, and Adidas soccer slippers. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Nothing was open but Force Five Watersports.”
Joe folded his arms over his potbelly and looked me up and down. “I know,” he said, snapping. “Sing Beach Boys!”
“I’m doing ‘Sue Me’…,” I said.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older,” sang Kyla, her palms open in front of her. Her dreadlocks swung back and forth.
“Then we wouldn’t have to wait so looong,” added Joe in a scary falsetto.
“No,” I said. “Please. I’m doing ‘Sue Me’!” They were silent. Even I could hear the hysteria in my voice.
“Call Mr. Murray,” said Joe, finally. “Tell him we’re opening the Toggery. One thing Mr. Murray’s got, he’s got seersucker.”
Half an hour later, Joe, Kyla, and Mr. Murray watched me board the ferry. Mr. Murray loaned me the suit for free, and I bought a round-trip ticket with money I had stolen from Mom’s purse.
“America’s next superstar,” called Kyla.
“Sinatra has returned,” Joe yelled.
I held my white straw hat on tight, and stepped carefully to avoid messing up my suit.
Malcon stood in jeans and a red sweater at the end of the gangway in Hyannis. His face brightened when he saw me, and I made myself walk—not run—off the boat.
“You look fantastic,” he said. He gave me a big hug, which was a little strange but okay.
“Thanks,” I said. I was so glad I was not wearing soccer slippers. Malcon’s sweater was cashmere, I could tell.
We reached the car, and Malcon opened the door for me. He slid into his seat and started the motor. It was a beautiful sunny day. We sped toward the Mashpee Mall.
I’ve been to Mashpee before, and to Boston. I have even been to New York. And on my tenth birthday, when my parents said I could pick anywhere in the world to go, I picked Orlando, where American Superstar is filmed. (I can still see Mom and Dad at Gatorland, watching them feed raw chicken to the alligators. They had wanted me to pick Paris or Rome, leaving travel brochures on the kitchen table, but when I stood up for my choice, they went gungho, even getting tickets to Wham! Tribute Night at the Hard Rock Cafe.) Still, this drive in Malcon’s Dodge Neon was the most exciting trip of my life.
“You going to make me proud, buddy?” said Malcon. He put his hand on my knee and squeezed. He kept his hand there. It felt a little creepy, but I didn’t say anything.
“Yes,” I whispered.
There were hundreds of kids at the Mashpee Mall Regional Auditions, maybe a thousand. The auditions were held in the Gap, and the line stretched past mannequins wearing baggy pants. Malcon took me by the hand and helped me fill out the forms, signing his name wherever it said Parent/Guardian.
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