She tipped the bag over. A paper fluttered to the floor. She picked it up. It was a faded fax of a photograph. It looked familiar. She pushed her glasses up and squinted at the browning page. Yes, she recognised it. But what on earth had Christo been doing with a fax of the photograph that had been sticky-taped to the wall in Stefan Smit’s bedroom? The one of that awful man with his poor dead wife and daughter, taken – he had told her – just a few months before they were killed in the Church Street bombing. Scrawled across the photograph, in handwriting she didn’t recognise, were the words: “It’s him”.
She looked closely at the date and sender name printed at the top of the fax. It was from the Pretoria News. The date – it looked like a five, or was it an eight? She squinted at the number. It was a five, no fifteen. Fifteen June 1989. The day before her family had been murdered by the terrorists. The fax slipped from her fingers and her knees folded, depositing her in a heap on the bed. Once again, she retrieved the fax from the floor and stared at it, willing it to speak to her. To explain why it had been in Christo’s study and what that cryptic message meant.
She riffled through the papers, looking for something, anything that could answer the questions thundering through her brain. Most of the papers were pamphlets for fertilizers and seeds and tractors. She tossed them aside impatiently. There were some invoices. She glanced at them and shoved them back into the Checkers bag. There were a couple of envelopes. A white DL envelope caught her eye, it was addressed to Christo de Wet, Steynspruit, Posbus 32, Driespruitfontein. The postmark said Pretoria. The date appeared to be June, 1989. The envelope was empty.
Chapter 17
1995
Annamari turned the envelope over and read the return address neatly printed on the flap: Ian Joubert, c/o Pretoria News, P O Box 439, Pretoria, 0001.
Ian. She remembered him. He’d been in the army with Christo. Nice guy. From Warmbaths or somewhere. Christo had brought Ian to watch the Free State-Blue Bulls game in Bloemfontein. Thys had organised tickets. Ian, she remembered, had been a fervent Bulls supporter and even wore his blue jersey into the Free State dressing room after the game. She remembered thinking Ian was extremely brave – or just bloody stupid – to do that. It had been a very interesting weekend with Ian firmly holding his own against Thys, Christo and herself in analysis of the teams, the game, the ref. Ian had said he hoped to become a rugby reporter on a newspaper when he finished his national service.
Annamari dialled telephone enquiries and held on as the mechanical voice stated: ‘You are number eighty-five in the queue.’ She drummed her fingers on the coffee table. She wondered if Ian still worked at the Pretoria News. Or if he didn’t, whether they’d be able to tell her how to contact him.
‘You are number sixty-seven in the queue,’ said the voice. Annamari was tempted to hang up. It was so long ago. Ian must have moved on. For all she knew, he might not even be in South Africa anymore. A lot of young whites had emigrated. Even she had considered it.
‘Let’s go,’ she’d said to Thys a few months after the funeral. ‘Let’s just sell the farm and go. There’s nothing for us here. There’s only going to be trouble and violence and murder. It’s dangerous for our children. Think of them, Thys. It’s their future at stake here. Let’s go.’
But Thys had refused. This was their country, he’d said. No terrorists were going to chase him away. He believed, he truly believed, that it would all work out, eventually. And then when Mandela was released and the negotiations started, he was even more determined to stay.
‘I love you and the boys more than anything in the world,’ he always said. ‘Do you really think I would stay if I thought anything would happen to you? Yes, there’s violence. Yes, it’s dangerous – but it will all settle down. You’ll see. And South Africa will be the best place in the world to live. I don’t want to go somewhere where I’ll always be a stranger; where we’ll just be another bangbroek family who ran away. Where our boys won’t know their roots. We’re South African and we’re staying.’
So far, Thys had been right. Things had settled down. And he was right – it was wonderful to be part of something as exciting as seeing the new South Africa take shape. It was wonderful to be making a real difference as they were with Kibbutz Steynspruit. It was wonderful...
‘You are number three in the queue... Hello, what number do you want?’
Annamari gulped. ‘Please can you give me the number for the Pretoria News newspaper, in Pretoria,’ she said, and quickly scribbled it down as the call centre agent gave it to her.
Fingers trembling, she dialled 021 555 3000.
‘The number you have dialled does not exist,’ said another mechanical voice.
She dialled again. Same response. Then she laughed, realising her mistake. She was dialling the Cape Town 021 code and not Pretoria 012. She tried again. This time the phone rang, and rang, and rang. Finally, just as she was about to put the receiver down, she heard a click, and then: ‘Pretoria News, good morning. How can I help you?’
‘Please, I want to speak to Ian Joubert. I think he’s in the Sport department.’
‘Hold on. I’m putting you through to News.’
Annamari held on while the phone rang and rang. Then a voice answered: ‘Hello. Ian’s phone.’
‘Hello.’ Her hand was shaking. ‘Can I speak to Ian, please.’
‘Sorry, Ian’s on leave. Can I help?’
‘No, sorry. Could you give him a message for me? Could you ask him to please call Annamari van Zyl at Steynspruit. The number is 0456 443399.’
After receiving an assurance that the message would be given to Ian the minute he returned, Annamari replaced the receiver.
She returned to her old bedroom, put the rest of Christo’s papers back in to the Checkers bag and stared thoughtfully out the window at the ramrod poplars.
***
Two weeks later, the phone rang just as she was getting ready to drive the minibus to Driespruitfontein for the weekly grocery shop. She handed Steyn to Pretty and rushed back into the house.
‘Hello?’ she gasped into the receiver.
‘Hello, Annamari?’
‘Yes.’
‘Annamari, hi. It’s Ian Joubert here. I got a message you’d called. I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to reply but I was overseas.’
She clutched the receiver tightly. Her hand had started shaking so much she was afraid she’d drop it. ‘That’s okay. Thanks for returning my call.’
She didn’t know what to say next. How on earth could she expect him to remember a letter he’d sent to Christo six years before. She was wasting his time, and hers, and all the kibbutz women who were waiting for her to drive them to Driespruitfontein.
‘Annamari, you still there? Is everything okay with you? I’m so sorry I haven’t kept in touch but, well, you know how time just gets away from you. How are you keeping? And Thys? And the kids? They must be quite big now?’
‘Ja. Arno’s in matric – he’s seventeen, nearly eighteen. De Wet is twelve – he goes to high school next year – and we’ve had another baby, Steyn – he’s fifteen months old. And you? How are you keeping?’
Thys walked into the lounge with a squirming Steyn in his arms. ‘Annamari, the women are waiting for you.’
She held up her hand, indicating to him to be quiet. ‘It’s Ian Joubert,’ she mouthed at him and heard Ian say:
‘I’m married now, and we have a child, a daughter, about the same age as your little one,’ he said and added with a laugh: ‘Christo always said I’d never...’ He paused. ‘Annamari, I’m so sorry about Christo and your folks. I should have contacted you after... you know ... but I just didn’t know what to say. It must have been terrible for you. But you’re living on the farm now? Is Thys enjoying being a farmer?’
She swallowed the lump in her throat. Christo would have made a wonderful husband and father, she just knew it.
‘Oh Ian. I’m happy for you. But listen. I need to ask you something. You probably wo
n’t remember, but do you remember sending Christo a letter? Not long before...before the attack? And possibly a fax as well, with a photograph of Stefan Smit and his family?’
There was a long silence, so long Annamari thought they might have been cut off. Thys put Steyn down and turned to face her, a frown of curiosity on his face.
Then Ian said: ‘Ja, I remember. Christo asked me to find out about the Smit family that had been killed in the Church Street bombing. I checked it out but there was no one of that name who had been killed or injured in that attack. I posted him the clippings with the lists of all the victims. There was no one called Smit.’
‘What! Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely. Christo was also very surprised. Then Christo faxed me a photograph of what he said was the Smit mother and daughter who had died in the bombing. He wanted me to check and see if any pictures of them had ever been published in relation to the bombing or perhaps another bombing. He thought maybe they’d been involved in another terrorist attack or had used the mother’s maiden name or something.’
‘And?’
‘And I recognised the photograph. But it had nothing to do with the Church Street bomb. The woman and girl in the photograph – they were Wilhelmina Botha and her twelve-year-old daughter Sara. Sara went to school with my little sister. And the man in the photograph was Wilhelmina’s boyfriend, Fanie Strydom.’
‘No! It can’t be. It’s Stefan Smit. He had that photo in his house. He said it was his family – his wife and his daughter who were killed in the Pretoria bombing.’
‘No. The guy in the photograph is definitely Fanie Strydom – and he and Wilhelmina weren’t married. Sara wasn’t his daughter. I sent Christo a fax with the story about them – and I confirmed that the photograph he’d sent me was of Fanie Strydom. But he never responded.’
‘I only found the fax with the photo a few weeks ago,’ Annamari said. ‘There wasn’t anything else – no newspaper clippings. I don’t know if Christo ever saw your fax. I think it came after the attack – or perhaps just before. I don’t know. What was the story about? Why was the photo in the newspaper?’
‘Wilhelmina and Sara were killed on their smallholding near Warmbaths. It was a couple of weeks before the Pretoria bomb, if I remember correctly. They thought it was terrorists.’
Annamari felt her legs collapse under her and she sat down heavily. ‘Really? Ian, are you sure? Oh that poor man. I didn’t like him but still... what a terrible thing to happen. No wonder he was so... so odd. But ... ’ She looked across the room at Thys who was watching her: ‘But then why did he say they died in the Pretoria bombing? Could we have misunderstood? Maybe he said it was a terrorist attack and we somehow got the wrong end of the stick. Maybe because the attacks were so close ...’ Her voice trailed off.
But they couldn’t have misunderstood. Stefan Smit had made a big thing about how his wife and daughter had died. Every year, on the anniversary of the Church Street bombing, he went to Pretoria. But after Pa and Ma and Christo had died, he stopped going. He said he couldn’t bear to go anymore. Only, if Ian was right, his wife and daughter weren’t his wife and daughter at all. And they hadn’t died in the Church Street bombing. And, more importantly, it was pretty clear that Stefan Smit had lied about being in Pretoria when her family was killed.
‘Do you know where Fanie Strydom – Stefan Smit – is now?’ Ian asked. ‘If I remember correctly, Christo said he worked for you. Is he still on Steynspruit?’ Ian sounded excited.
‘No, we fired him a few years ago. I think he got a job on a farm near Aliwal North. Why?’
‘Well, the last I heard, the police wanted to question him about the murders. There was some talk about the possibility that there was something strange about the whole attack and the way Wilhelmina and her daughter had died. There was some speculation that it was actually a family murder. One of the stories I sent to Christo was about that. It said the police were broadening their enquiries into the deaths.’
Chapter 18
1995
Annamari jumped out of the Kibbutz Steynspruit minibus and slammed the door. She ran up to the house, wrenched the back door open, stormed into the kitchen and tripped over Steyn’s yellow and red aeroplane, sending it skidding into the wall. Steyn looked up from mashing his toast soldiers into his highchair tray, and howled. Pretty jumped up and hurriedly retrieved the toy. Steyn grasped the plastic plane in his chubby, buttery fingers and beamed at his mother.
Annamari drew in a deep breath and leaned over to kiss his blond curls. ‘Thanks Pretty,’ she said. ‘Sorry Steyntjie – but jislaaik, men can be so bloody stupid and stubborn. Don’t you get like that, you hear?’
Steyn gurgled and tried to feed a toast soldier to the toy. Annamari left Pretty to deal with the mess, went into the lounge, flung herself down on the couch and fumed. She went over it all again. She’d been so sure, so certain. Well almost. She’d had it all planned. How she’d show Wynand the evidence she’d so painstakingly compiled; how he’d praise her for her exemplary detective work. How he’d get on the phone and call for backup. How he’d swoop out of the police station and, sirens blaring, would go off to catch the effing murderer. He wouldn’t have been able to do anything else. Because it was all there in the neat brown folder: the photocopies of the newspaper clippings Ian had faxed through again; the photograph that had been published in Die Transvaler. And there was the caption which stated that the man in the photograph was Fanie Strydom who escaped from the attack that had killed Wilhelmina Botha and her daughter, with nothing more serious than a badly cut leg from catching it on the barbed wire fence he’d crawled through to get away from the terrorists. The newspaper clipping was dated Friday, 6 May, 1983. There was absolutely no question about it... even someone as dof as Wynand would be able to see that Fanie Strydom was Stefan Smit.
But it was clear that time hadn’t improved Wynand Vorster’s capacity to see past his bulbous nose. He’d been leaning back in his chair in the Bethlehem Central Police Station, his size fourteens propped up on the desk, eating a koeksuster when she walked in. His office was tiny: there was scarcely any room for the two desks and four chairs. Captain James Motaung – according to the sign on the door – had eased his considerable bulk out from behind one desk, nodded at her and left after she asked ‘Wynand, can I speak to you?’
Wynand hauled his boots off the desk and noisily sucked the sticky syrup from his fingers. He gestured to Annamari to sit in the cracked red plastic chair on the other side of his desk. ‘Good riddance,’ he said. ‘Can you believe it that that k... oke outranks me? He says he was in the Qwa Qwa police but I don’t believe him. He was a terrorist – APLA or more probably MK – Umkhonto we Sizwe. That’s why he’s a captain already and I’m... I’ve heard none of us from the old South African Police Force can expect promotion anymore because they’re bringing in these toy cops from the homelands and, even worse, the terrorist armies, and putting them in charge. It’s f...bloody crazy. But ja, what can we do? So, what’s up, Annamari? Been years, hasn’t it? How’s Thys?’
Pleasantries over – Wynand was married with three laaities now; his wife was also a police officer – Annamari handed Wynand what Thys had teasingly called her dossier. He put it down on the desk without looking at it.
‘What’s this?’
She swallowed. ‘You remember when my parents were killed?’
‘Ja, of course. We never got the terrs that did it. But once De Klerk took over and released Mandela, catching terrs wasn’t a priority anymore.’
Annamari bit back an angry retort. ‘Wynand, why were you so sure it was terrorists? Did you ever consider that maybe it wasn’t?’ She was proud of how she managed to keep her voice steady, and calm.
Wynand rocked back in his chair and stared at her. He was silent for a while and then he barked out a laugh.
‘You are kidding, right? Of course it was terrs. They cut through the fence, killed the dogs, made their way to the house and shot up your family with
an AK47. Then they took your father’s shotgun and left. That’s it. We tried to follow their tracks but...’
‘Did you find any tracks? Where did they go?’
‘What is this, Annamari? We investigated but the terrs were gone. It’s not far to the Lesotho border, as you know.’
‘Wynand please. Listen to me. I don’t think it was terrorists. I think Stefan Smit had something to do with it.’
This time Wynand snorted. Loudly. ‘Jissie, Annamari, you’ll get yourself into deep shit with accusations like that. I know you never liked Smit – I mean you even accused him of raping that kaffir girl – but really! Kill your family? That’s really crazy.’
So she showed him the photograph of Stefan Smit with the woman and girl he’d always claimed were his wife and daughter who had been killed in the Pretoria bombing but were not listed as victims of that attack.
‘Ja, so what? That proves nothing,’ Wynand said, his left leg jiggling under the desk.
She showed him the story about terrorists attacking Wilhelmina Botha’s smallholding and killing her and her daughter a couple of weeks before the Pretoria attack. She showed him the newspaper photograph of Fanie Strydom. The photograph that looked exactly like Stefan Smit.
For a second, Wynand hesitated. Then he shook his head and leaned back in his chair again, so far that Annamari expected it to topple. ‘Ja, okay. It looks like Smit. But so what?’
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit of a coincidence that two lots of people he’s been close to have all been killed in terrorist attacks? And both times he barely got a scratch on him.’
When Time Fails Page 10