The Mandela Plot

by Kenneth Bonert

  It’s ten minutes of wobbly driving before a real road appears and then I pull over and use the boot release. It’s all buckled and scraped but I can force the lid up, creaking. I still have my steak knife and lean in to cut the nylon ropes on Shaolin. I pluck the hood and help him out, he’s too cramped-up to do much. I half carry him around and lay him on the back seat, telling him we’ve escaped and the car’s stolen. He peels off the tape and asks for water and I shake my head and he asks where we are and tells me to head back to Joburg. We go on and eventually hit a sign for the highway. I take the on-ramp to the westbound lanes. Shaolin gives directions from the back. We change motorways to head south and then take an off-ramp. He tells me when to turn. Left, right, straight, and straight. I feel exhausted, adrenalin and brandy fighting it out in my system, draining me. Now we’ve reached a dirt road and again we go bumping through bushveld, the bright beams shining on the high yellow grass. We reach a railway bridge and park under it, killing the lights with the engine. I put my head on the steering wheel. Shaolin sits up in the back, moaning and rubbing his wrists, massaging his legs. He asks me if I was arrested and how I got away. “You lucky,” he says when I tell him.

  “Yes,” I say. “So are you.”

  He says, “Any weapons?”

  “What?”

  “Did you get away with a gun? Is there one in the cubbyhole there?”

  I lift my head and check. “No. Only got this knife.”

  “Help me out.” I go around and open his door, and pull him out, his face all mooshed up with the pain. He’s got cuts around his lips, his eyes, some lekker thick lumps and dark bruises. “Have to go that way,” he says, but he doesn’t move, he’s leaning on the car, panting.

  “Where’s that?” I ask.

  “This car will get you arrested. You’re a fugitive now, Greenside boy.”

  “Yes.”

  “What is your plan?”

  “Fly to America.” And I’m surprised how simple it is now and that I couldn’t see it before.

  “They will stop you at Jan Smuts if you try,” he says. “Oberholzer will put your name on a list.”

  “Can’t I go to Botswana?” I say, thinking of Hugo. “Fly out from there.”

  Shaolin groans, his face clumping with pain again. Then: “Yes. You can walk across. Or Swaziland. Someone has to show you where. You have a passport?”

  “Do you know anyone who can?”

  “Give me hand here. We have to get moving.”

  I don’t move. I’m looking at him and thinking about Annie, seeing her caramel eyes turned into those dead stones in her cold face, smelling the rot and the chemical pong. “He showed me Annie,” I say. “She’s dead, you know that? Stabbed all over.”

  He pants for a while. “Yes,” he says. “I do know.”

  “He said it was you—your guys who did it. Is it true?”

  He looks away, wipes his bleeding lips with his palm. “We need to move, Martin.” He pushes off and starts to shuffle down the track. He’s hurt even worse than I thought. I follow him.

  “Hey,” I say. “Tell me, Shaolin.”

  “You cannot blame the victim,” he says.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He’s gasping like a fish in air, bent over like a senior citizen. He has to stop every couple of steps. “I just wanna know who did it,” I say.

  He pants, his hands on his knees. “Give me hand.”

  “I asked you a question.”

  “It was police who did it.”

  “I don’t think so. You’re not being straight.”

  “I’m not?”

  “I can see you’re not. What happened?”

  “Will you help me?”

  “What happened?”

  He wipes blood off his lips again. “It was a rally. Annie was there. There were some Comrades who got carried off. Worked up. They have frustrations. It wasn’t right. Someone pointed on Annie. It was not our fault. It was a breakdown in discipline. They have lost brothers and sisters. They took their rage on her, a white. Someone said spy. It was the wrong place for her to be at that time.”

  “You know who did it?”

  He shakes his head, but I don’t believe him. All-a-sudden there’s a rock in my hand and I’ve got it cocked behind my head. I’m dizzy, brandy’s still in me. Shaolin asks what I’m doing. I could do it right now, I seriously could. Nobody would know. Leave his body and drive away. Like Oberholzer said. Get the bastards back for what they’ve done to you. “You’re angry, Martin,” he says, speaking all carefully.

  “You know what was done to my parents?” It comes out like a bark from an attack dog and he goes back, lifting his hands.

  “What happened?”

  I step after him, telling him about the vault at the Yard, the gas on a Sunday morning. “They said it was ANCs who did it.”

  “Can you put that down, please. Who is saying?”

  “The police.”

  “And you believe it?”

  “Why not? They killed Annie, you just admitted.”

  “That was different, a rally, a situation . . . with your parents—wait. What kind of a grenade was it?”

  “What?”

  “You tell me they threw in a smoke grenade, to this vault. I’m asking what kind.”

  “I dunno. Who cares?”

  “What kind?”

  The rock is getting heavy in my lifted hand so I lower it. “The detective showed it to me,” I say. “Was like this, round like a tube.”

  “Martin, that’s a police weapon, army weapon. ANC guys don’t have such smoke grenades.”

  “They could if they stole it.”

  “What is more likely, it was ANC or police guys? If that was their weapon. Think about that, Martin. But please. Now we have to move. Will you drop that thing and help me?”

  I look away. “I don’t buy all this crap about the grenade. It was someone who worked there. Who knew they’d be there on a Sunday morning.”

  “Oh you think they wouldn’t know it? The police?”

  “How would—” But then I stop. Cos it strikes me boom in the chest like the kick from that shotgun. That time at Oberholzer’s farmhouse, he was saying something about my father having all his weekends off and Hugo mentioned no, he worked on Sundays at the end of every month, doing stocktaking. And those detectives again. The “giraffe” who sent for me. Who wanted me to see them.

  “Please, man, Martin,” Shaolin is saying. “It wasn’t me who has done anything to your people or to Annie. Annie was a good comrade. I am sad for it. All of the cadres are.” I drop the rock and move in on him and he makes a funny yelp, trying to get away. But when I grab his arm I only pull it over my shoulders and we start walking together down the track.

  We come to a shack of corrugated iron, moths buzzing at a paraffin lamp. I’m breathing hard, wet with sweat. A tattered sign speaks very highly of Lucky Star canned pilchards. “Wait here,” Shaolin says. The adrenalin’s burned out of me, but it’s left me with one moerse headache on the brew. Shaolin brings out a green tin of cream soda. It’s warm and sweet and I kill it with four gulps. A taxi comes, Shaolin asks if I have money. I shake my head and he gives me a twenty and says, “You saved me tonight, Martin Helger.” I’m thinking about what could be waiting at my house and it gives me an idea—I ask Shaolin if this little shop has any biltong, he looks at me like I’m a total oddball but he goes in and fetches a piece. The taxi takes me all the way to Greenside, DJ Cocky Two Bull Tlhotlhalemaje on the radio. I ask to get let off on Mowbray Road and then cut down to Shaka Road on foot and stop at the Greenbaums’ gate, waiting for their Jack Russells to rush up and then I feed them the biltong in chunks before they can start barking. There’s nothing a dog loves more on planet earth than a lekker stukkie biltong. They lick the salt and fat off my fingers and keep quiet as I climb the wall. In the fifteen-foot hedge we share with the Greenbaums there’s a spot that Isaac plugged with a piece of board. I wiggle it loose and crawl throu
gh, the dogs whining and pressing their cold noses to my hands as I replace it. I’m behind Gloria’s old room now, in the narrow alley where the cut grass gets dumped to compost. There’s an inner wall along the backyard and I climb it and from there get onto the slanted roof of the house, lying flat on my belly on the tiles. From the apex I can check down into Clovelly Road and all along Shaka, can check meshugenah Mr. Stein’s lawn, crisscrossed with the silver lines of his booby traps. There is a car parked on the street across from my smashed front gate. Could be anyone’s, but people don’t park outside overnight—cars get stolen or broken into. I reckon there’s someone in that one, watching. I retrace my silent way to the hedge, then move along it to the corner where the papyrus grows.

  Uncovering the Sandy Hole, I feel huge relief it’s all there. Next, my pockets get stuffed with Hugo cash and the notebook searched for that scrap of half-burnt postcard. Then I make sure the envelope still has the American green cards and all the account info and Hugo’s letter. And my passport, which is a nice extended one, good for fifteen years, the kind that Isaac paid extra to get for all of us. The pipe togs get dumped out of the satchel, replaced by the envelope and notebook, plus my commando knife. What else? The ring of keys that I copied. I hesitate about the Fireseed master tapes and the Volper pages. Then shove them in as well.

  Out the same way and I vikkel all the way down to the Greenway Road shops. There’s a tickey box outside George’s cafi and the cafi is open already, before dawn. Stepping inside to get change, I notice three white boys at the back by the Tetris and the Space Invaders. At first it checks like they’re dancing around, maybe cheering a high score or something, but then I notice the black man trying to get up off the floor. He looks drunk and the boys are probably back from some all-night jol and they keep pushing him down and kicking him. I say to George behind the high counter, “Hey, aren’t you going to stop them?” And he just chuckles. I get my change and then I shout to the boys, “Better leave him go. I’m ganna call the cops on you.” They all laugh at me. “Cops’ll give them medals,” says George.

  Outside in the tickey box I dig out the half-burnt postcard and dial the number on it. The last number is burnt off, so I have to keep trying them all. I get some wrong numbers and some choice swear words before I hit the pager. It says to leave a number, so I give the tickey box’s but now I have to wait here. After a while the kids come out and bang on the door, telling me they are going to smash me up. I keep the door pressed shut with my feet and repeat the word cops until they wander away. Then I fold my arms and wait. “Come on, come on,” I keep saying. There’s really no one else I can even try. Time passes and the black man staggers out of the cafi and weaves his way down the street. I slide down to sit on the dirty ground with my knees pulled up, getting cold and stiff. I drift off for a while, opening my eyes to the first sun, a nice soft pink light that mellows out my shivering as it gets stronger. A black boy with no shoes sets up shop at the intersection, selling the morning paper. Another bomb on the headline board. The streetlights switch off and time goes by and cars drive up and people unlock their shops, a few of them giving me odd looks. I’m afraid to phone again in case he is trying to get through. I haul myself up and stamp the tingling out of my feet. The phone rings. I grab it like a ratel snapping up a snake.

  “It’s Martin,” I say.

  66

  I wake up in the hot, black spare room with the tinfoil stuck over the windows. When I open the door I’m stabbed in both eyes by the sun off the pool outside. Pats is cracking eggs in the little kitchen on the far side of the snooker table. He looks at me over his shoulder. I tell him shot, bru, for coming to fetch me and letting me crash here. He says no worries and asks if I want to graze. I say for sure, slipping into a wicker chair at the round kitchen table. There’s a big pot of tea and I pour out a mug and tip in loads of honey. Pats brings scrambled eggs over with a bottle of All Gold tomato sauce and a plate of toast. He eats fast and I watch him tap out some white powder when he’s finished. He has a tiny golden spoon on his key rings, he dips it and sniffs into alternating nostrils. He gasps, rubs his gums. “Woof,” he says. “Good stuff, ay. Want a schnoff?” I shake my head. He looks at me. “I’m hell of a sorry about what happened to your parents, Marts. Hell of a sorry.”

  “I know, hey.”

  “Still can’t believe it. I’m . . . also lank sorry I didn’t come to the funeral. I—”

  “It’s oright, man,” I say. “You sent that postcard, which I’m bladdy grateful for. Or I’d be in even deeper kuk now.”

  He shakes his head. “So crazy,” he says.

  “And it gets worse,” I say. “Marcus.”

  His eyes stretch wide. “No.”

  “Missing in action,” I say.

  “Oh, God.”

  “Ja, we got the notice at home like a few weeks ago. So he could still be alive, technically. But—let’s face it, that’s not bladdy likely. It was just brutal for us, my folks.”

  “I can imagine.” He pulls on his bottom lip, avoiding my eyes.

  “What’s it, bru?”

  “Nooit, hey,” he says.

  “No, what? Tune me.”

  “’Member I told you I thought I checked your brother, walking around in town? But then I called you later and said it was a mistake, after I went into the Dynamite Gym.”

  “I remember, hey. Sounded fishy though, the way you said it. Why?”

  He nods. “Ja, well, I did see him. I’m sure of it. I spose he must have come for leave and just avoided you guys. For whatever reason.” He shrugs. “Doesn’t make any difference now.”

  “No,” I say. “It doesn’t. But there was a Dynamites oke there last night.”

  “Where?”

  “My house.” I tell him about the man who rocked up with Oberholzer, the tattoo on the wrist, the weightlifter look of him.

  “That’s Liam Stone, china,” he says straightaway. “The one and only. And with the cops?” I nod. “That’s lank weird,” he says. “They come busting in your house last night and you ran away, right? Now you say this security cop Oberholzer is soeking for you, got you mixed in with all kinds of terrorists.”

  “That’s it,” I say.

  “Martin, china, you sure you not just . . . like, exaggerating.”

  I shake my head. “Take a spin past my house and check the gate, Pats. Check the car parked outside with a cop watching.”

  He gnaws on his lip, sniffs more powder. “Dynamites and cops. Your brother mixed in. And he was also Dynamites, before the army.”

  “That’s right,” I say. “The tuxedo. But you know it for sure. Right?”

  Pats looks at me. “He was, ja.”

  “Well then,” I say, “that’s a good place to start.”

  Pats snaps up straight. “What’s that? What you talking about start?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “You don’t start anything,” Pats tells me. “The plan is we duck you over to Gabs. Soon as we can. End of.”

  “It is. But first—”

  “No buts, bru.”

  “Pats, there’s some major questions that I’ve still got.”

  He is shaking his head, “What for? He’s gone, man. What’s the point? Forget all that. Now listen. I know someone who’s got his own plane, flies out of Lanseria all the time. You know the little airport? It’s like forty minutes from here. I’ll rap with him, he’s a good oke. There’s no probs with security or anything there. He’s taken me to Gabs lank times. I’m positive he’ll take you. Oright?” I look at him and he says, “Okay?” I nod.

  While he goes to shower and get dressed for work, I stretch out on the leather couch. He’s not wrong. But leaving the country with the law looking for you is not a step you can take back. Ever. The clock on the stove says it’s almost four, Pats starting his workday. He told me I should have a swim in the pool, mellow out, play some snooker, help myself to whatever I want. There’s a television in the front room and some videos. If I need anythin
g, there’s a shopping mall twenty minutes’ walk away. There’s no one in the main house here so the place is perfect for me.