Reconciliation for the Dead

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Clay dug a ledge in the side of the dune. Then he cut away some of the parachute silk, wrapped it around the boy and laid him on the ledge as the air cooled. The first stars appeared, strobing in the heavy sea air. Clay opened his canteen and dribbled water into the boy’s mouth, but the boy could not move his lips or tongue. Clay took a swig himself, felt the water lave over his mouth, almost painful. He didn’t have much left.

  Alone, without water, carrying the boy, his chances of finding his way out of the dunes and reaching help were small. As he’d fallen from the Hercules, he’d been tumbling so violently he hadn’t had time to examine the territory. By the time he’d deployed his chute, he’d been too low to see much except a corded landscape of dune crests stretching away in every direction. He knew the dunes ranged parallel to the shore, roughly north–south, but not much more. Travelling across the dunes would be extremely hard work, especially carrying an extra thirty kilos. Much better to strike north or south, follow a crest, and find a draw or drainage that would lead inland. It could mean a hundred kilometres or more, on foot, with little water and no food. And in a few hours it would start getting hot.

  He sat a long time and watched the stars brighten, felt the dune’s heat radiating back into him. He looked at his watch. Ten hours until sunrise. He needed to find Eben. He knew that Eben would have been looking out for his chute, would have tried to land as close to them as possible. He was half surprised that Eben hadn’t already found them. Clay looked up to the crest of their dune. In the darkness he guessed about fifty metres of climbing. He’d get to the crest, pop a flare. Eben would see it. Clay ran his hands across the pouches of his Fireforce vest. One flare. Two smoke grenades. A couple of M27 frags. Lots of ammo for the R4. But heavy. He picked up his R4 and started up the slope, feet ploughing through the loose sand.

  Halfway up he stopped, realising his mistake. What if that wasn’t Eben who’d followed him out of the C-130? What if they’d killed him, or captured him, and the chute he’d seen was one of Cobra’s men, sent to track them? Dispose of them. That was the word the doctor had used. Dispose. Jesus. Clearly they didn’t want the boy around as evidence. Otherwise why would they have gone to all that trouble to dump the bodies at sea? As soon as he popped the flare, he’d be as good as dead. But, at the same time, he was sure that Cobra had recognised him, there on the deck of the Herc, just before he’d jumped. Had Cobra nodded to him? Or had Clay imagined that? What he was sure of was that Cobra had let him jump. But had Eben followed? And if Cobra had decided to send someone after him, would he have sent a man alone? The rule was you always sent men in teams. Pairs at least. Only assassins worked alone. Would Cobra really have sent a lone hyena to hunt him down, kill him and dispose of the boy? Clay sat on the slope, laid his R4 across his knees and caught his breath, looking out into the darkness. Somewhere out there, close by, was either his best friend or a deadly enemy.

  South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Transcripts.

  Johannesburg, 14th September 1995

  Commissioner Barbour: Mister Straker, welcome back. I must inform you, before we begin, that yesterday, ah, yesterday evening, Commissioner Rotzenburg tabled a motion to end your testimony and disallow what has already been committed to record. The commission has considered the matter, and, ah, despite the misgivings of some of our members, has decided to allow you to continue your testimony.

  Witness does not answer.

  Commissioner Barbour: Do you understand, son?

  Witness: Yes, sir. I … Thank you, sir.

  Commissioner Barbour: On the condition that you please stick to answering the questions asked of you, and refrain from any more outbursts or invective.

  Witness: I understand.

  Commissioner Barbour: Good. Now, yesterday, you told us that this … this doctor, the one on the plane, claimed that FAPLA was deploying biological weapons against its own people.

  Witness: Yes. That’s what he said.

  Commissioner Barbour: And you also told us that he was in Angola, working with our allies to protect them against this weaponised disease.

  Witness: That’s what he said. Cholera.

  Commissioner Lacy: These are extremely serious allegations, Mister Straker. I am sure you understand that.

  Witness: I am not making any allegations, ma’am. I’m just telling you what happened.

  Commissioner Rotzenburg: This was fifteen years ago. How sure are you that you have recalled these details accurately?

  Witness: How am I supposed to answer that?

  Commissioner Ksole: Truthfully, Mister Straker.

  Witness: Why would I come here, of my own volition, and do anything else?

  Commissioner Barbour: Please, Mister Straker. Restrict yourself to answering the questions posed by the commission.

  Witness: Sorry. Yes. I am sure that I have recalled the events accurately.

  Commissioner Ksole: And did the boy – the one who you jumped from the plane with – did he show symptoms of cholera?

  Witness: He was sick, that’s for sure. He almost died. But I would say no; no he didn’t have cholera.

  Commissioner Rotzenburg: Are you a doctor, Mister Straker?

  Witness. No, I’m not.

  Commissioner Rotzenburg: And can you describe the symptoms of cholera?

  Witness: No, I can’t.

  Commissioner Ksole: And did you contract the disease at any point after these events?

  Witness: No, sir. I did not.

  15

  Mathematics

  Clay surfed back down the dune to where the boy lay, the sand hissing under his feet. Nestled into the flank of the dune, the boy looked peaceful, his chest now rising and falling in a slow but regular rhythm, all of him covered over with a thin layer of blown sand so that, in the pale starlight, Clay almost missed him. He realised that, in a few more hours, if he didn’t move him, the dune would take the boy into herself; he would disappear forever.

  He brushed some of the sand from the boy’s face, hair and chest, hoisted him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, adjusted the weight, and started south. Clay had to assume the worst, proceed as if an enemy were out there, stalking them. There was no other option. If Eben had jumped, there was nothing Clay could do for him. He could only hope that Eben would find them, despite the fact that Clay would now have to do everything he could to stay hidden.

  For the next two hours he followed the trough between the two great dunes, the sand thick and heavy beneath his feet, the boy a live weight through his shoulders, spine and legs. The air was cooler here, but it was hard going and he was sweating hard. At the rate he was losing fluid, dehydration wasn’t far off. Once, he thought he heard a voice in the darkness, a word only. He stopped and listened for a long time, alert, ready, but all he could hear was the whispering of the dunes. He kept going, blanked his mind to the ragings of his body, all the autonomous signals of survival.

  Three hours before sunrise, with the faintest hint of dawn lightening the eastern edge of the sky, he stopped and laid the boy on the sand. He stood and looked back the way they’d come. His tracks were clearly visible in the starlight, snaking along the base of the trough. Down here, his footmarks would persist for much longer than on the more exposed flanks of the dune, days perhaps. He estimated they’d covered about thirty kilometres, maybe less. In this landscape, thirty kilometres was nothing; a ripple. Clay sat, felt the exquisite relief in his legs, the thirst deep in his brain. He shook his head, checked the action of his R4 and blew sand from the sights and the trigger. If it came down to a fight, he would need his weapon in working condition. Come dawn, he would have to decide: keep going, visible to anyone on either crest, walk as far as he could until the heat became unbearable, or build a hide near the crest of one of the dunes, now, in what remained of the darkness, and wait out the day. At least up there, he’d be able to see what was coming. Just thinking of a whole day without water, waiting out the sun’s progress, took on a physical dimension, as if the m
ental and physical parts of himself were fusing, driven together by the imperative of thirst. But they were too exposed in the trough. They might cover a few more kilometres this morning, but at some point the heat would force them to stop, and they’d end up needing to do the same thing – build a shelter, rest. And if they did, the dune crest would be the best place.

  He pushed himself to his feet, feeling the effort in every sinew, and also the deeper, more concentrated challenge of will required to overcome the twin voids of thirst and hunger. He slung the R4 over his shoulder, took a long look at the night sky, so dark, like liquid, the river of stars running through it cold and clear, as if he could drink it in. But there was no slaking his thirst, only the mute aeons of sky, an infinity of time.

  He reached down to pick up the boy. As he slid an arm under the boy’s shoulders and another under his legs and lifted gently, he heard a voice. He stood perfectly still, listened. Nothing.

  Jesus, he was starting to hear things, hallucinations brought on by extreme thirst. He hoisted the boy up over his shoulder and started up the slope. He was almost to the crest when he heard it again. This time he knew it was no hallucination. Three words, in Portuguese: Agua, por favour.

  Clay kicked out a ledge just below the crest of the dune and laid the boy down. His eyes were closed, lids dusked over with sand. But his lips were parted. And then again, frail over the hiss of the waking dune, the same words, drifting up from between the parted lips: Water, please.

  Clay pulled out his canteen, felt the absence of weight, the thin sloshing. Perhaps a quarter-litre left, less. He opened the bottle, held it to the boy’s mouth and dribbled in a thin stream. The boy coughed, spluttered, lips moving now, but with effort. Whatever they had given him was wearing off. Muscle control was returning. Clay could see it in the way the boy’s breathing had regularised, in the colour of his lips where the water had washed away the sand.

  And then the boy’s eyes opened.

  And for a moment, as Clay knelt on the sand and watched this rebirth, he could see the boy’s mother – in those irises the colour of Kunene river water, brown mud with flecks of wood and leaf, in the whites clear and pure and the round shape with the upturned, almost European corners.

  The boy nodded and swallowed.

  ‘Está bem,’ Clay said, putting one hand on his own chest. It’s okay. ‘Mim. Amigo de sua mãe.’ Me. Friend of your mother.

  The boy nodded.

  Clay gave him more water.

  The boy started to say something.

  Clay put a finger over the boy’s mouth, shook his head. ‘Quieto,’ he said. ‘Don’t speak, little guy. Save your strength.’ You may be thinking you’ve woken up from a nightmare, but you may have just landed in another. Quiet now. I need to think. An hour till dawn. Clay scanned three-sixty. From where they sat, they had a good view in every direction. In the faint, grey pre-dawn he could see the dune crests sculpted to knife edges, one after the other, ranking away seemingly forever. They were alone.

  Clay dug another notch out of the seaward side of the dune crest for himself: big enough that he could curl up comfortably against the sand; deep enough that his body and head were below the crest. Then he cut a wedge in the crestline so that he could see out landward, along the ranks of serried dunes, their sharpened edges just starting to bleed red in the morning sun. Day was coming fast. He pulled off his boots and placed one close to the boy’s head, and then arranged a panel of parachute silk so that it covered the boy, the boot propping up the silk like a tent pole, creating a space around his nose and mouth. Clay anchored the silk around the boy with deep handfuls of sand and pulled the panel taut. Hunching down into his part of the excavation, he positioned his R4 in the crest wedge and pulled the rest of the parachute silk up and over himself, using his other boot to prop open a viewing port on the seaward side. Anchoring the edge of the silk around himself, the panel was good and tight, allowing breathing space and circulation of air. Now he had cover from the sun and good views of both adjacent sets of dunes, and to the south. His only blind spot was longitudinally north. He pulled out his knife and cut a rip in the silk. By pushing on the taut surface of the silk he could open up a viewing slit that gave him a full view along their dune and down into the trough below. He took a small sip of water and settled himself into the sand, felt it shift and contour to his body. Already he could hear the grains of quartz scurrying across the taut silk above them, pushed along by the quickening breeze. Cocooned, man and boy, they breathed the close, warming air and waited for their fates; waited for God to pass judgement on them, on their actions past and future.

  The sun rose, flicking angry red tongues into the void, pulsing in a cloudless sky, atomising the morning’s fallow brume until there was nothing except the air and the sand and the heat broaching from the dunes.

  Clay looked out through narrowed eyes across the heating mirage. Already the sea breeze had drifted the sand up and over their shelter, and other than the three openings that he had to continually keep clear of sand, the dune had swallowed them up. They were invisible.

  As he had started to do on the long patrols, Clay played games in his head. He’d found that it kept him awake, sharp – prevented his mind from wandering into the dark places he did not want to go. He started with the simple stuff, counting out prime numbers, stalling in the high hundreds, counting back again, branching out along multiples of primes, deconstructing those same numbers by subtraction. In school he’d always been good at maths, had been able to get top marks without ever studying, something in the innate logic of numbers that his brain seemed to process naturally. And then the mathematics were gone, and he was thinking about this boy lying nearby, and the other boys and men swallowed by the ocean.

  Hours passed. The sun turned above them, the heat so intense now that it seemed to atomise the very air they breathed, to scour it from their lungs, and with it, precious fluid. He dosed the water carefully now, small sips for himself, dribbling the water carefully into the boy’s mouth.

  Slowly, the day burned on. The zenith came, blistering. And then, somehow, the dune shadows lengthened. A hint of a sea breeze wafted over them, and the heat relented. Not much, perhaps just a few degrees, but he could feel it. A measure of relief.

  The boy was recovering rapidly. Already his breathing was stronger and more regular. Clay was sure now that this had nothing to do with cholera. He reached out and touched the boy’s tightly curled hair, felt the delicate smoothness of the top of an ear, the curve down to the lobe, softer again, exquisite almost. He considered again all that the boy’s mother had told them. He had just begun to extrapolate towards what she had been surely hiding, when a flash of movement stopped him blank.

  Two dune crests away, something emerged from the heat haze. At first he wasn’t sure what it was. The shape dematerialised into a disembodied mirage, wavered there, all in pieces, then reformed.

  It was a head, poked above the dune crest.

  He watched it swivel left and right, then emerge from the dune, body and arms and legs swimming in the distortion, fully silhouetted now against the sky. Clay lay motionless, his breathing shallow, slow. Was it Eben? One of Cobra’s men? He couldn’t tell.

  The figure stood a moment, seemingly scanning up and back, and then started down the face of the dune, moving seaward, in Clay’s direction. Within seconds the figure had disappeared behind the crest of the intervening dune. A few minutes later the figure reappeared; the same cautious, almost predatory behaviour, pausing at the crest, partially hidden, the top of the head only visible, scanning the terrain, about a hundred metres away from Clay’s hide, with just the broad red trough separating them. Then it was up again and moving. The man wore a wide-brimmed bush hat with a coloured bandana wrapped around his eyes and mouth, and a brown canvas Fireforce vest. He was armed, R4 at the ready. It was Eben.

  Years later, Clay would wonder at what impulse, what luck or intuition had made him look away at just that moment. Perhaps it had been the bo
y stirring, maybe it had been his subconscious reasoning out what should have been so obvious, what he would have realised sooner had he been more experienced and had he not let his fear and thirst dull his thinking. Perhaps it had just been his training. By then he could not remember. Whatever the reason, at just that moment, Clay poked open the slit in the sand-covered silk and looked along the knife edge of his dune to his left.

  And there he was, prone against the seaward side of the dune, rifle aimed at Eben.

  In his memory it had all happened so quickly, a blur. Bursting from under the cover, whipping his R4 around towards the threat, Eben’s name flying from his lungs and across his parched vocal chords, emerging as a hoarse grunt, the man glancing up and towards Clay, Eben spinning towards the flash of parachute silk and flying sand. They all fired at once.

  16

  No Illusion Come

  Clay rolled the man over with his boot, leaned forwards and pulled the bandana away from his face.

  ‘Moeder van God,’ said Eben.

  It was O Medico de Morte’s assistant. Clay’s bullet had shorn away half his throat and the meat gaped pink and strangely bloodless in the sun. Clay crouched and unhooked the man’s canteen. It was almost empty. He passed it to Eben.

  ‘You go ahead, bru,’ said Eben.

  ‘How much you got left?’

  Eben shook his head. ‘Not much.’

  ‘Me either.’

  ‘Save it for the boy.’

  Clay nodded then went through the man’s pockets. He found a small notebook and a few rand. No ID of any kind. Clay stashed the book and the cash in his inner vest pocket. There was no trace of the satchel the man had been carrying back at the landing strip.

  Eben kicked at the dead man’s rifle, a scoped R4. ‘I saw his chute open not long after mine. He was arguing with Cobra just as I jumped.’