They all cheer and she presses play again, stepping aside. The video men show how to scrape the heads off the Lion matches with razor blades, how to make a small hole in the light bulb and then to funnel the match stuff into the bulb until it’s filled. They bring out Casio watches, FW87s in close-up, then circuit boards and batteries. They show how to solder a watch to the board, how to set the timer, how to wire it to the stuffed bulb. They show how to solder in series and in parallel. I rub my eyes, my face, it’s like I’m dreaming. It’s starting to land on me why Annie didn’t want me to see this. I’m the one that copied this thing for her, this is my work up there too. Operation Fireseed.
I look to the screen again, it’s showing a field that is too green and wet to be South Africa, the sky too white and low and the trees all wrong. It looks soupy and miserable—it must be Europe or someplace northern. What’s strange is how all the goods they showed were South African. So it was shot overseas but meant for here especially, just like she said. Now we see this old barn close-up with cracked plaster walls. It looks Russiany or Polish, someplace like Lithuania where people like me come from. Kefiya puts a package down next to the barn wall.
Annie moves across and hits pause again. This time there’s a groan from the watchers. I look around at their faces in the semidark. They’re staring and eager. They burn down schools but they’re like the best students in the world right now. “You have in this tape here,” Annie says, “how to workshop firearms, mortars, flamethrowers, landmines, poisons. How to target these to destroy industry, to disrupt transportation and comms. To hit the enemy where it hurts most.” Fresh cheers are hurting my ears even before the translation gets finished. When Annie goes on she says more videos will come from the leadership in exile, with direct messages to the people. We have no TV station of our own but with distributing video we can establish “the people’s broadcaster.” I can see the sweat flicking off her nose as she swipes her hair back and the wet patches show in her armpits. She says, “Comrades, the regime controls us by controlling our information. Operation Fireseed will smash that control! Keep watching, Comrades. Keep watching!” She moves aside and onscreen the camera zooms in on the package. The audience waits like statues.
18
There she goes down a gap between two houses across the road. The American. Bouncing with every step. I don’t even know why I’m still following her. She spins on me, her face still shining like she’s onstage. “Evil little bastard,” she says.
“I’m fine thanks for asking,” I say.
“Dumbass. What got in your brain? You panic. Jump in a strange car, you don’t even know what you’re doing. With my property.”
“Don’t talk to me,” I say, heading past her. Uphill will take us back to the school.
“From now on you stay near me and you do what I fucking tell you,” she says.
“Aw, stuff you,” I say, the brakes coming off my feelings as I whip around to face her again. “You’re a bladdy maniac. You tried to shove me in a shithole for no reason. You’re a brain case.” I take a breath to go on but all-a-sudden my legs turn to pudding under me and my knees hit the ground. I’m full of buzzing, overloaded.
“Martin, get up,” Annie says. “Don’t be a drama queen.”
“But I helped. And they could blow people up. I mean anywhere. I mean it could be me, Da, Ma, anyone. Zaydi.”
“Yeah, well, and your brother in the army is up there putting bullets in black babies, I never saw you crying about that. Get up now. People are watching us.”
“You should’ve warned me.”
“Martin, you’re so brainwashed you wouldn’t have understood until I took you through the looking glass first, okay? To see how the majority lives. To see that you live off that.”
“Bombs,” I say, my voice climbing.
“Not only,” she says. “Video will connect the street to the leadership in exile, to bring some discipline to the Comrades.”
I look up. “You should have told me what you are.”
“Just a helper,” she says. “A nobody.”
“That’s bull,” I say. “Cos of you there’ll be more bombs all over the show.”
“Martin, look around, bud. These folks need a full-scale army to protect themselves. A couple of videos, we’re only pitching pebbles at the machine.” She watches me, hands on hips. “Dude, you should thank me for putting you on the right side of history. You will when you look back one day. Now get up, uh? You’re making a soap opera of yourself. How old are you?”
I rise slowly and go on behind her, dragging myself. When we get to the top of the hill and come around the side of the Leiterhoff School I catch a fresh shock. Parked in front is a Casspir, huge and bright yellow, with men of the South African Police sitting on it, some smoking cigarettes, their boots dangling. Annie waves, turning to me. “Just be cool,” she whispers. “Wave at the fuckers, keep smiling.” Then she hisses, “Don’t stare at em like that, Chrissake.”
Inside, we find there’s a white police officer sipping coffee in Lindiwe’s tiny office. He’s a youngish fellow, early thirties—but what shocks me about him is that tin mug in his hand, one of the same mugs the girls get. I’ve never in my life seen a white man drinking or eating from a black person’s utensil before, let alone a cop. This one’s just parking there sipping his Frisco instant coffee like it’s the most normal thing in the world. He smiles as Lindiwe introduces him. Captain Wilhelm Francois Oberholzer. “No, call me Bokkie,” he says. It’s a nickname meaning little antelope in English, but it also means a hotshot, a keener, someone full of enthusiasm. This Oberholzer is alien-tall when he stands up, heading towards seven feet, I swear, with long and gangly limbs like the poles they use for cleaning swimming pools. But his blue eyes are kind looking over his square glasses, and his smile is all loose and sloppy, making me think of a happy golden retriever. “How do you do, Mizz . . . is it Goldstone?”
“Goldberg.”
“I stand corrected.” His Afrikaans accent is thick but you can tell right away his English is good, this is an educated man. He could have been an accountant if not for the blue uniform. He’s looking at me now. Annie says, “I’m staying with a family here, and he’s kind of my, uh, little brother. Ha!”
Oberholzer says, “And whereabouts is your home, little brother?”
“Greenside,” I tell him.
“You’re a long way from Greenside! Hey? Hey?” He reaches out like he’s going to touch my shoulder but then he leaves his hand hovering there. When he swallows his pointy Adam’s apple gives a funny wobble in his long neck. I glance down—the cuffs of his blue combat pants are tucked into the tops of his boots and I bet it’s because they’re miles too short for him. Oberholzer’s staring over Annie’s head, as if he can’t look in her face, her eyes. I know the feeling. “Principal Mokefi speaks so very highly of you,” he says to Annie. “As a representative of South African Police, I want to let you know we are all very much pleased to have an American coming in here to help to do such important and valuable work as educating our young people. There is nothing more vital for the future of our country than education. This school is going to be a real boost here for the girls of Julius Caesar location.”
Annie takes a second to answer. “I’m glad you, uh, feel that way, Captain.”
There’s this weird silence. Annie starts to talk and so does Oberholzer. “Oh sorry!” he says.
“No, you go on, please,” says Annie.
“I’m saying I know you will be surprised by a lot of things you find here on the ground. I am fully up to date on the negative propaganda which I know a lot of Americans is unfortunately subjected to on the media over there. But the reality on the ground here is that my job and the job of my men is to make sure that the ordinary man and woman in the street is able to live their life peaceful, with law an’ order, and free of intimidations. We will not tolerate any common thugs or gangs going round and trying to intimidate the populace.”
A policeman ca
lls from the corridor, in Afrikaans. Oberholzer says, “Wag net ’n bietjie daar, ek praat nou”—Wait a minute there, I’m talking now. “Our most important priority is that people can get to work, and also education and making sure that the schools are safe and running. That includes full protection for teachers, which I want you to know we are here for you.”
“Well, thank you,” says Annie.
“My pleasure. And here now is my card.”
We all wait as he searches his long self. Eventually he finds it and gives it to Annie and he sort of bows and his glasses slide so his hands jerk up to catch them. “Any time,” he says, “night or day. You remember. I am here to help.”
“I’m sure I’ll be right on that,” says Annie.
Oberholzer goes stiff, slowly puts the glasses away in his pocket. “Lots of good policemen and their entire families have given their lives in this place. Since we’ve come in here in force, life’s been much better for the general populace. Ask Principal Mokefi here. She knows.”
Lindiwe smiles slightly with no teeth.
“Now let’s talk about the video,” Oberholzer says to Annie.
“Video?” Annie says, her voice tight as my heart decides to hold off on the next couple of beats while my armpits spritz, but then Lindiwe is saying that the captain is here to “make some video of our new school” and Annie smiles again and my heart can carry on. “Ja, therezit,” says Oberholzer. “I am in charge of law and order here in Julius Caesar, and our good community relations is the key. We doing documentaries now, to let the world know the good things of what is happening, the positive side of life. How we are improving it every day. To balance all the other media lies about us, hey, isn’t it so, Principal?”
“Yes,” Lindiwe says, her face closed.
“Here we have a nice new school just finished being built, but is that on the television in America?” says Oberholzer. “I do not think so.” There’s a knock-knock from the door. A cop is holding a big video camera by his knee, like a suitcase. “I hope you’ll say a few words,” Oberholzer says to Annie. “Is jy gereet, Kaptein?” says the camera cop. Are you ready, sir?
19
Everyone is still laughing. The filming is over and the lighting guy made a good joke and Oberholzer is putting his cap back on, turning to go, when he turns back and plops his long veiny hand on my shoulder to say, “Hey, by the way, Principal, do you have a document of permission for this fine young lad to be here?” The laughing dies off like it’s been strangled.
“He just came with Annie,” Lindiwe says.
“Well we mustn’t be naughty,” says Oberholzer. “He cannot be in Julius Caesar and if he has no job at the school . . .”
“Please, Captain. We didn’t know.”
Oberholzer holds up his palm. “It’s ukay, it’s ukay. Dun worry. He is not being arrested. I will just give the lad a lift home, that is all.” He winks down at me now. “That’ll be nice hey, I’ll take you back to nice Greenside and drop you off. Just like a taxi service, hey? You lucky fish.”
“Thank you, Captain,” I say.
There’s a plain blue Ford Cortina parked behind the Casspir out front, and walking out with him into the sun with his hand on my shoulder like an uncle’s, I feel relieved to be going home safe, getting away unharmed from this madhouse of a place. From Annie. She will stay and finish out the school day like always, pretending she’s just a teacher and has nothing to do with any bombs or Comrades. The passenger door is locked, Oberholzer opens the back for me. Inside there’s steel mesh between the back and the front and not much room for my knees. It pongs lank bad of old sweat and piddle. We drive in silence down the dirt road, only the radio crackles. I clear my throat. “Captain, may I ask something?” His answer is to bang the accelerator flat so the engine revs high and I go splam back into my seat. Next second he stomps the brake and I shoot like a rocket into the mesh, so hard that my teeth click and my head buzzes. “Jou kan jou bek hou, jou fokken stuk stront,” is what Oberholzer says to me, now that we’re alone. You can keep your trap shut, you fucking piece of shit. He drives on at normal speed. I guess that’s all settled then and the answer is no. Any case, I can’t remember what I would have asked him now. I rub my elbow and the side of my head, both stinging from the mesh. I don’t say a word and neither does he until we get stalled on the highway in thick traffic. Then he says, “That American cow. Comes here and sticks her long nose in none of her business, blerry unbelievable. And those bunch a pusses upstairs, man if I was proper in charge she’d be where you are right now. I’d shove her on the first flight back to Jew York with my boot up her puss, the shit-stirrer. It is cunts like her that make all the crap for all the rest of us to clean up. It is them that puts all the ideas in those empty kaffir heads. Ja, burn down your schools and kill your elders and don’t go to work, ja, great idea!” He thrusts his chin at the mirror. “Hey, you think you conning me, hey? Is that it, you think you got us conned so clever. I know what you doing there!”
“I’m not, Captain. I’m not doing anything!”
“You not, you not, hey? Ja ja ja. You know full well she’s in there to stir up those munts. It’s all my okes in the riot squad that are ganna get burned or shot cos of her! And you her little helper aren’t you? What else you doing there? And lemme tell you something, I don’t care who it is, if you go for my men, if you danger the lives of my okes, we are ganna come down on you hard. We ganna break you, man! We’ll bust you every which way! You hear me?” I remember how Oberholzer’s eyes had looked kind and blue back in the school, but now in the mirror they look dark, almost black, I swear. And he’s knocking around up there. I think of an ostrich going mad in a cage, smashing. It’s his long arms and legs and his cap that looks like a beak. All-a-sudden I’m not feeling jailed in by that mesh, I feel protected.
“You get yourself involved with American idyuts in a Swiss school of girls in the middle of Jules and what? What you think’s ganna happen? You think they grateful? Boy, you will be the first one begging for help when they come to necklace your stupud arse. I am telling you, you are playing with fire, boy! And it pisses me off so much that me and my men we spend our lives on the streets to keep little brats like you safe in your nice clean beds! And this the thanks we get!”
“No, Captain,” I say. “It’s a mistake.”
“I don’t care how old you are, I can sling your arse inside on emergency detention for thirty days to start with! How’d you like that?” I bite into my wrist. He goes on, “I should take you and show you the things we have to deal with! Every day! It’s us who stop the bombs from blowing the legs off your granny at the supermarket. It’s us who is there to stop the Russian and Cuban brigades from parachuting into this country and putting you up against a wall! You know how many of us have died already to save your white arse? Do you know the pressure of this job? How many suiciders we get? How many of us end up blowing their whole family away and then save that last bullet for their selves? And they suffering for you! For you! This is Africa, boy! This is survival! If you weak, if you limp, those hyena come out and take you. There’s no democracy in Africa, Jezus Chrise. That is for up there in bladdy frozen Swisserland or wherever, where it’s easy cos everyone is nice and polite and white as yogurt anyway. Here we have got the real tribes of Africa, with the spears and the witch doctors and the real spells—man, Africa is war and survival and that is all!”
The back of his neck has turned watermelon red. His spittle on the windshield is like the soap spray from those guys at the petrol station. I try to keep very still and I’m praying that traffic will get moving pronto. The whole car is rocking. “You think I am a racialist,” Oberholzer says. “That is such kuk. Firstly, I am an African also. We Afrikaners are the white tribe of Africa that have been here as long as any of them that came down from the north and we have had to fight for every inch of what we have. And we have built this country, piece by piece, nobody else did. It’s ours, our sweat and blood and history. And nobody—nobody�
�else deserves to run it. Second, I don’t mind a black, I work with them like family, I speak Zulu as well as most a them and that is a fact. They respect me and I respect them. Lemme tell you about these white liberals, these Jews in the northern suburbs who write in the papers and the books how wunnerful it will all be for this country if we just turn it all over to the kaffirs, just give em the keys to all what we built and say go have fun, you buggers. Lemme tell you, at one time—I am technical, me, right, that’s what got me to where I am, improving myself, technology, like making the videos, ja, I mean I developed those skills—and one time a while ago, they asked me up to the ninth floor to edit tape. That’s the Special Branch up there hey, security police. Those are the real main manne—wearing their cool suits, man, doing all the most hectic stuff. I used to go up there and help sort tapes they recorded from the phone and from the house of this woman who is a famous book writer and lives there nearby Greenside actually. She is also another Jew, big surprise. And, man, they love her in the overseas. Her and her husband both are big Jew liberals, ja. She thinks we don’t know that she hides ANC rats in her backyard. We know, we know it all. It’s she who duzzen know that the Branch has got at least a dozen transmitters stuck up her old puss and everywhere else round that property. But those people she hides are just too minor to arrest, it’s better to listen in and see what’s what, and besides half of them work for us anyway! Kaffir has no loyalty, remember that. Anyways, I’m sitting working, listening in on her, and I started realising why it is she is such a half-brained communist. Is because all of the blacks she knows are not ordinary ones. They the clever ones who know to act all nice to her to get her on their side and she can’t even see through it. All these white libs in the north suburbs like her with their little knitted UDF scarves and freedom T-shirts, you notice they don’t speak Zulu. Not one word! They write books like they big experts on this country but they can’t even speak one single African language! What a joke! Don’t speak Sotho, don’t speak Xhosa or Venda or Tswana or Shangaan, nothing. Can hardly praat Afrikaans. They never been in the platteland, the real country. They don’t understand Africa at all! They don’t understand the real African, the common African. But I do. I grew up with them. And they wanna call me the racialist! Listen. More than half the men under my command are black Africans, ukay. We talking riot squad, active duty. These are men who would die for me. But that duzzen mean you mustn’t watch them like a hawk and keep them in line. S’long’s you do that, you okay, but if not—it’s jiz like old Dingane who invited Piet Retief to supper in 1838 and when they left their guns outside and sat down, Dingane’s warriors jumped them and gutted the lot. So you never turn your back. But they respect a man who is strong. Who fights like a man. Side by side. I am telling you as I sit with you here today, boy, on the blood of Jezus Chrise, I swear to you if people like me and my men were to stop fighting hard every day, you’d be finished! That is a fact! Where the hell is your gratitude?”
The Mandela Plot Page 9