The Mandela Plot

by Kenneth Bonert

  At first light he is in a cab. As soon as he sees the school wall he asks to be dropped off. He starts walking along beside it in the dewy cool, the birdsong quiet of the new day. The key is in his hand, his heart beats hard. He can see the cameras watching down over him from the top of the wall, the razor coils. The closer he gets to the gate, the worse the sick feeling grows. He feels an irresistible tug, a compulsion. Go with it. The body knows. He veers off and starts walking across the street and then around a gated complex of townhouses and down a municipal trail, sloping towards trees below, and then on the other side of the trees the land opens up. A sign says brandwag park. He goes on. There’s something there in the fold of the land that the key in his squeezing fist is a part of. Don’t think about it, just follow the impulse. When he sees the trench with the stream he makes a sound, almost like a yelp, and starts to run. There was a flood here. And a pipe broke loose and was washed down . . .

  He phones the police from a tickey box. He wants to talk to the policeman in charge of Julius Caesar township. He knew the tall cop who was in charge of that place. It was where the firebombs were and Annie took him. That cop drove him home, was someone who seemed to be close to his father. So he can tell that cop about this, what he is remembering, and get some guidance. Because he has to be careful not to get himself in trouble now, if what he remembers is really true. But he also has to tell them. He can’t just leave it. It takes a long time, being handed from voice to voice, before they let him know that the one he wants is Superintendent Lukhele. A Swazi name, yet the tall cop was white. He goes to the address after lunch, a brand-new police station, a glass cube on Peter Mokaba Crescent in the new suburb that extends Julius Caesar township. At the desk he says he has some very important information for the superintendent and gives his name, Marcus Helger, and after they send his name in he is taken at once to the office, bypassing a long line of waiting people. The sign on the door says community facilitator, julius caesar developmental region, superintendent joseph buzwe lukhele. He walks in and sees the man behind the desk looking at him and then the man’s eyes expand and he jerks upright, he shoots to his feet. He’s bald and quite stout, with a thick neck and a round face.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” Marcus says.

  Lukhele just stares, his mouth open. Then he says, “They said Marcus.” His voice sounds choked, hushed.

  “Yes, my name is Marcus Helger.”

  Lukhele’s face twists, his head rearing back and to the side, his eyes bulging. “Marcus,” he says.

  “Yes. And. Well. I should probably first say before we—I mean I want to let you know that I’ve been a medical patient. I had a, uh, brain injury, was in a coma for . . . quite a while.”

  Lukhele’s twisted, retracted face seems horrified, like he’s staring at some monster. “I don’t understand,” he says.

  “This is going to be hard for me to explain. But I’d really appreciate your help and if you would just hear me out, Superintendent.”

  “Marcus,” he says again.

  There is something wrong with this man, Marcus thinks. “That’s correct. Like I say, Marcus Helger.”

  “Do you . . . ?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know me?” Lukhele says.

  “Do I what?”

  “Look at me,” says Lukhele. “Do you know me?”

  “I don’t. I mean I don’t think so. I—”

  “You don’t know me. You’re not joking.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You were in, what, hospital? Your brain injured, you say?”

  “Ja, that’s right. The Linhurst Institute. I was in a coma—”

  “A coma. How long?”

  “Nearly six and a half years.”

  “No!”

  “Ja, I know it sounds . . . unbelievable, Superintendent, but that’s what happened. But I’m . . . recovered—still recovering. And actually this is why I’ve come to see you—”

  “To see me,” says Lukhele. “Because . . .”

  “Because they informed me you’re in charge of Julius Caesar. And. Well actually, to tell the truth, I was trying to find someone else. There was a different policeman that I remember, from like years ago. I was hoping if I could talk to him. But . . .”

  “Which policeman?”

  “I don’t remember his name, but he was in charge of Julius.”

  “In charge.”

  “Very tall, like this. A white man. Thin.”

  “Why is it you want to talk with this one? Marcus.” When he says the word Marcus, the side of his mouth twitches. Then he says, “Sit down.”

  Marcus thanks him and takes a seat, as does Lukhele, Marcus still thinking how strange this cop is, the way he keeps staring with big eyes and his back all stiff as he sinks. Marcus says, “Sorry. Did I catch you at a bad time, Superintendent?”

  “No. No, you didn’t. Marcus. What is it I can do for you?”

  “There’s no other way for me to put this except to come out and say it. But I’ll be honest. I need to trust that I’m not going to be like arrested or anything.”

  “Why, have you done something?”

  Marcus leans forward. “I don’t know if I have. See, when I came out of this coma, the brain trauma, I really couldn’t remember much. Like not even my own name. It’s taken a lot of work and a very long time to gain some function but I’m still not . . . a hundred per cent. With memories.”

  “What is it that happened to you? To put you in hospital?”

  Marcus shrugs. “They think traffic accident was likely, the head trauma.”

  “And your people? Nobody came to find you?”

  “Maybe I’m lucky. Someone could have shown up and turned the machines off.”

  “Come on, now.”

  “Really, my parents are gone. They were murdered.”

  “Ai. I’m sorry to hear it. What about any other family, an auntie, cousin—maybe a brother?”

  Marcus shakes his head. “Not that I know of. I am still tracking down records, still trying to find those memories, if they’re there.”

  “But you don’t recall other family.”

  “No, I don’t, as yet. I just have some vague pictures of my da and ma. That’s it, really.”

  Lukhele sits back, his chin on his chest, one hand wrapping his fist in front of his mouth. “I think you are being honest,” he says.

  “Yes, I am,” Marcus says. “I know it sounds crazy, but you can check with the Linhurst Institute, which is, like I said, where they’ve been treating me.”

  “Marcus, Marcus,” says Lukhele.

  “Yes?”

  “Marcus Helger.”

  “Yes. What is it?”

  Lukhele keeps staring.

  “What?”

  “Marcus Helger. You are one hundred per cent positive that is your name.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Because if you forgot. How could you know it?”

  “There were records to help.”

  “I see.”

  “But the reason I’m here is cos I’ve had some memories of a, uh . . . a bomb.”

  “Bomb?”

  “Yes. I believe. Before the accident, back in the old days, I was, I have memories of being involved in the, here, in Julius Caesar township, I was involved in the fighting. You know, the anti-apartheid stuff.”

  “You think so.”

  “Well, ja. I do. But I was also young, you see. Was also going to school. And the school I went to it’s called Wisdom of Solomon High School. It’s in—”

  “Regent Heights. Everybody’s knowing this school. Madiba is going there.”

  “That’s right. That’s sort of why I’m here, actually. Because I have these memories. I think that before, I might have been involved, before, in putting a—well, a bomb.”

  “You mean explosive.”

  “Like a homemade bomb, ja. I think it might have been me who put it in there.”

  “In where?”

  “In the sch
ool. Well, see. In the synagogue, like really. I mean I can remember that part. I went to the school today, and I remembered there is a pipe underground that I used to crawl up to get inside the wall without anyone knowing, cos security is very full-on there, at Solomon. But I found in my old house, even, that I had stuff for going up the pipe.”

  “Stuff?”

  “Like overalls and a mining hat and that. And a key.”

  “Key.”

  “Look, I know this sounds completely nuts—”

  “Is okay. Marcus. Go on.”

  “The key unlocks the, uh, bars, or whatever you call them, at the top of the pipe, without setting off an alarm. And you come out inside the school. And there’s no security inside. And that’s what I remember. That’s what I think I did. With others, maybe. We. I don’t know how many. But I remember it, there was a bomb. And we stuck it. I did. Under the bimah.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s a kind of stage in a shul, a synagogue. Every shul has a bimah. And there in the school it’s the place where special guests talk from. That’s why I’m here, see. Why I have to be. I mean that’s the main reason. What I’m scared of.”

  “Because?”

  “Well, for him,” Marcus says. And points to the wall.

  Lukhele moves his eyes. The portrait hanging there is the Honourable Nelson Mandela, framed, relaxed and smiling. “I see,” says Lukhele. “You are saying you think you remember putting a bomb in that place where Madiba is going to give a speech.”

  “Yes. Exactly. Right under where he’s going to talk. I remember coming through the tunnel. I remember putting the bomb . . .”

  “Can you excuse me?” Lukhele leaves Marcus in the room by himself and when he comes back he says he’s checked the reports going back to the eighties, and there’s never been a mention of any bomb discovered at Solomon High. He says let us assume there is a bomb there, and not something Marcus made up from brain damage. That means it’s been sitting there dead for years. It’s not going to suddenly decide to go off just because Mandela is standing there for half an hour on a Friday morning. The real danger is that it could go off at any time, killing schoolboys. If it exists.

  “If something was to happen,” Marcus says, “I would never be able to forgive myself.”

  “You doing the right thing, Marcus. But we have to have caution on how we proceed in terms of investigating. We don’t want to spread panics to the people for no reason.”

  “I understand.”

  “So we don’t talk about this outside of this room, heh?”

  “Absolutely, Superintendent.”

  “Good. Until I have investigated.”

  “But Superintendent . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m also worried that I’m going to be blamed—I mean charged, if—”

  “Charged? Marcus, you think you put a bomb for the Struggle, in that school—not to kill but to go off when is empty, to disrupt the learning in the apartheid system, yes?”

  “I . . . yes, I think so.”

  “Then you can get a medal now. Is people like me who are putting charges.”

  “Like you. I see.”

  “Yes. Because me, myself, I was a cadre in MK. Which that man founded.” He nods to the Mandela portrait. “I also was the youth leader of the freedom fighters right here, in Julius Caesar township, in fact. You know?” He lifts his eyebrows and seems to be waiting. Marcus shakes his head. Lukhele snorts and goes on. “After liberation, MK was synthesising into our armed forces, we became the officers, ministers of defence. I was given this position. My previous leadership role was synthesised into the state command structure. One day you are on a wanted poster, the next one they put you in your own office.” He shrugs, bringing his hands together. “Two opposites come like this, make something new, a new stage in history. Then it starts again.”

  The plot goes on, Marcus thinks, remembering Dr. Norm’s letter. Even the Mandela plot. He asks, “And that tall cop that I think I remember, you know who he was? He was maybe in charge of Julius Caesar.”

  Lukhele smiles. “Then I can make bets he was trying to arrest me.”

  Marcus smiles back. “And do you know where he is now?”

  Lukhele shrugs, makes a rolling motion with his hands. “Keeping afloat,” he says. “Like all of us.”

  Revelations

  17

  Sunday morning at first light Marcus gets picked up at the Linhurst Institute by Lukhele, driving a white BMW alone. It takes a while to find the soccer field in Regent Heights, with Marcus trying to fit the topography to what he half remembers. They park and Lukhele takes a leather tog bag from the back and then they walk through a break in the fence and on into Brandwag Park. Marcus is wearing old jeans and a T-shirt, Lukhele has on an untucked silk dress shirt unbuttoned to show gold chains, pressed khakis, snakeskin loafers, and a leather ball cap with gemstone studs. He smells richly of cologne. The land has that typical Highveld dryness, the loose yellow grass and the red sand baked hard. Marcus leads them down to the trench with the trickling stream and they climb down into it and walk along until Marcus finds the pipe. Lukhele unzips the bag, brings out new, crisply folded overalls, kneepads and torches, plastic gloves and booties and hairnets and eye protectors.

  “What’s all this?”

  “You know what.”

  “Why don’t we go in the front?”

  “No. This is the way, to show me everything.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “No. We must do it like this.”

  Marcus puts on the gear slowly, studying the filthy pipe. This is where the juice is, Dr. Norm would say. You have to. But he wouldn’t be able to without Lukhele here—the official command plus his physical presence. It’s easier than the front gate at least, or feels that way, so far. He climbs up into the darkness and starts worming forward, torch in hand.

  He goes on through the tunnel, his shaky breaths echoing as he slithers over dirt and stones, twigs and rat shit. Eventually there is sunlight ahead and he climbs the final slant to the grate above, unlocks it with the key. He clambers out of the tunnel and turns to help hard-breathing Lukhele. They stand on Solomon ground. Suddenly memories are fighting to rise in him—but another part clamps fiercely down. Cold sweat pops out on his neck. He hides his sick feeling from Lukhele. They strip off the wet plastic and start walking. Something worse is happening inside him now, something is breaking. An overpowering sense of wrongness seems to shine from everything—the tall grass, the tennis courts, the distant buildings. They go down hillside stairs and cross an open stretch of grass under the sun. It’s dead quiet, motionless but for black birds in the blue, wings seesawing on a breeze he cannot feel. They reach the synagogue and go down more stairs and cross the marble lobby to the teak doors.

  Lukhele is ahead now and Marcus follows into the hushed cool of the sanctuary, the thick red carpets, the sunbeams through the huge windows. He feels hot, ready to faint. He climbs the seven stairs onto the bimah, through the gap in the low wall of glass bricks. The reading table is opposite. He remembers lifting the Torah there. He was Strong­est Lad. A top rugby player and a boxer. My name is Marcus Helger and my name carries fear. Every glint of a memory comes with an intimation of panic. This breaking in him must not give way to a flood, a deep part of him holds on for its life.

  Here’s the little bench, just as he remembers. He kneels in front of it and tries to lift the top, but it won’t move. He feels around the edges for a catch, it takes time to find, Lukhele watching him intently. When he finds the catch and slowly lifts the lid, Lukhele whistles behind him. “Yoh-yoh-yoh,” Lukhele says. “Jeeee-zus.” The stacked paint tins seem a lot smaller than the cans in his memory and they are thickly coated in white dust. Taped-up torpedo-shaped tubes stick through the tops of the cans, wires linked together with plastic caps. On the right side, resting on a car battery, is a transistor board. Bags of nails packed around. “You see?” he croaks. “It’s real.”

 
“Do not touch anything. Leave it open, like this exactly.”

  Outside in the bright morning Lukhele takes a Motorola unit from his bag. He holds up a palm for Marcus to stay put and walks off, talking. Marcus watches him a moment and then returns to the lobby. This wrongness, this wrongness. Everything here presses on him. Lukhele—what of him? Something . . . There’s a set of boards in the corner. He goes over. Malcolm Steinway. The bus bomb—yes. He remembers this display. And over there is the door to the toilets. When he looks at it, something starts to shriek in his nerves like a metal detector. He wants to move away but he forces himself to walk toward it. He’s cold sweating again. It’s like it was at the front gate. He stops at the door, looks down. A puddle of blood is oozing out from under it. He takes a half step, fingernails sinking into palms. He hears something, cocks his head. Some kind of moaning. Inside. His soles are sticky on the blood. Do not open this door. He can’t anyway, doesn’t have the will, but then when he turns to get away dizziness wells up and he stumbles forward through the swing door.

  Empty whiteness. Tiles, sinks. A urinal gutter and toilet stalls. No more blood, no ghosts. But the air feels thin and cold. He forces himself to walk to the sink. This breaking-apart feeling, this glaring of wrongness at him from everywhere. There is a reason that all the memories he has are wrong. His white face looming in the glass. Marcus Helger. I was here before. The door opens and he turns his head and a boy in uniform is walking in. A tall wiry yellow-skinned boy with eyes set deep in his skull. I know you. There are others, also in school uniforms. The wiry kid is rushing in, swinging his leg as if to goal-kick a rugby ball. But it’s no ball down there. He, Marcus, is on hands and knees. The kick hammers the head into the pipe, the sharp protruding valve in the bend of it. And again, again. He watches himself lolling. “You’re killing him,” says someone. “You’ll murder him.” They pull the kicker away, eventually. But blood is oozing from the eyes and ears and lacerated scalp.