by Trevor Sacks
I was thinking about his plan with the bakkie and the baseball bats still. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re really doing this on the weekend?’
‘Why not? Somebody’s gotta do something. Sure, you’re a white and everything but you souties are never gonna do anything about it.’ He looked at me. ‘Am I right, boetie? It’s up to the Boere. And all this black-on-black violence – it’s the best thing that could happen here. Less for us to do.’
I looked at this boy, with his fuzzy hair and his willowy frame, which gave him both a delicate look and a tendency for whip-fast movements. I stifled an involuntary gulp, covering my disquietude with a question. ‘Where are you guys gonna go? To look for black people, I mean.’
‘I’m not telling you that. It’s dangerous – for us; for you too, if you say anything. But if you think it’s not gonna affect you, just go look nearby the railway station. That’s municipal land and there’s already squatters there. Nobody’s doing anything. Soon they’ll be in Annandale and the middle of town, and in your house. One day you’ll thank us.’
‘What if the police come?’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said. ‘Some of the guys are the police.’
‘Does your mom know?’
He shrugged and looked away. ‘Hey, don’t judge me, boetie. This land is for the Boere. We have to fight for it, we’re not going anywhere else. It’s fine for you – you’ve got a country to run to.’
‘What country?’
‘Israel.’
‘Why the hell would I want to go there?’
‘That’s your people. You should go.’
‘They’re not my people,’ I said. ‘I don’t even know them.’
‘Well, who are your people, then?’
Marieke and Mrs de Bruin came in with the coffee and condensed milk. Hannes put his finger to his lips.
* * *
I didn’t know whether to believe Hannes. I knew things like he described were going on, and nowhere was more likely for them to be happening than in a town like ours. I hoped it was provocation, a story he had made up to rile me, to test me, to put me off his sister.
But it was also a reminder of the man with the piercing blue eyes. Could Leo Fein really be involved with a man who was stoking race violence? And how had he switched from helping terrorists, freedom fighters, the Doctor and Johannes?
There had to be more to his dealings with the blue-eyed firebrand. I had to believe that – we’d talked of the injustice of apartheid on the way back from the cane fields, how he had to stop the bullies. But then, he was the man who’d fleeced my mother.
Perhaps I didn’t dare disturb the layers of Leo Fein’s life, since I was one of the foulest skins in it. I thought if I could stick things out with him until I made enough money to be rid of him, I’d go through with it. In any case, my career options were limited, and Leo Fein didn’t seem to care that I was skipping military service, unlike any other employer. But ignoring the people Leo Fein worked with would become harder and harder.
6
KNOBKERRIE
A man in the cheapest kind of acrylic glasses was at Leo Fein’s house when I arrived for work. His eyes were tight behind the squared lenses and he had very neat hair parted low down on the side. He wore a blue ribbed jersey with elbow pads and epaulets and either the jersey or the man himself emitted a sour smell.
Leo Fein introduced me as his apprentice, and him simply as Snor Snyman, without further explanation. Although Leo Fein seemed amused by the epithet ‘apprentice’, Snor Snyman’s face didn’t register any sort of expression at all. The black dots of his eyes merely studied me. Why he had such a nickname made no sense to me, since the red-brown moustache (his snor) was totally unremarkable.
We drank good coffee, real coffee that wasn’t common in houses in those days, only in restaurants, and even then, in very few of the restaurants in our town. Leo Fein seemed to be enjoying the moment, although the business part of the meeting was over and the man in the acrylic glasses seemed to be fending off the relaxed atmosphere his host was trying to create.
I thought it odd to see Leo Fein balanced informally, with all his heft, on the arm of his stuffed chair, trying to make small talk with Snor Snyman. Snor got up to leave and pulled down the bottom of his ribbed jersey.
‘Won’t you stay for breakfast?’ said Leo Fein. Annie came in with a large tray of cut fruit: strawberries, kiwis, melons of different colours, skinned orange slices and grapefruit, all overlapping and spread in lines and rows as if copied from the pattern of an elaborate foreign flag.
‘I’ve had breakfast,’ said Snor.
‘Well, maybe next time.’ Leo Fein held out his hand for shaking. ‘Thanks for stopping by. We’ll meet again soon.’
‘Will we?’ asked Snor without irony. I was left alone with the fruit tapestry for a moment while the man was seen to the door.
‘How’s your Zulu?’ asked Leo Fein of me when he returned.
‘I don’t know any,’ I said, chewing on a strawberry from the red line of the fruit flag.
‘What do you kids do at school?’
‘We did Northern Sotho till Standard Seven.’
‘Pity. We can do good business with Zulus.’
‘Who was that?’ I asked.
‘He’s one of our men in the field, you could say.’
‘And where’s he from?’
‘Depends who you ask – Directorate of Special Tasks, Internal Stability Unit, Civil Cooperation Bureau, National Co-ordinating Mechanism …’
Evidently I looked blank.
‘Government,’ he said. ‘Or at least, the part of the government nobody in government wants to know about. Let’s go.’
‘What Zulus were you talking about?’
‘East Rand Zulus.’
‘The hostels?’
‘Come on, we need to go into the office today.’
You couldn’t escape knowledge of the hostels and the violence attached to them. They housed men who came from the far reaches of the country to mine her depths, migrant labourers kept migrant by the laws, the overcrowding, the wretchedness, and the all-male environment.
Every night the TV news reported on ‘politically motivated’ attacks by hostel dwellers. ‘Black-on-black’ violence was studied in editorials and around dinner tables. Panga wounds, traditional weapons, smuggled automatic rifles and explosives were mentioned.
We drove into town in Leo Fein’s new green Mercedes-Benz SL500. I had no idea he had an office in the Nedbank building, across the road from the VleisPaleis and Video Den, the former site of Great North Diesel and Auto Electric.
It was on the twelfth floor, and from up there you really felt a sense of power since there were few vantage points like that in town. No wonder he called the business Northern Horizons. That office became my place of work and, though it was only me and Leo Fein inside it, we had a sign, stationery, and mail delivered daily.
I told Ma I had a job at Nedbank and she was pleased for me. She even cried a little. ‘See, I told you – something in finance,’ she said. ‘I think it’s going to be good for you, Ben. I’ve got a good feeling.’
‘You working for Venter?’ asked Victor. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s doing.’ My uncle mentioned other people he knew in the bank.
‘I’m still learning everyone’s names,’ I said.
Under Nadine’s gaze I was sure my lies were transparent, but then that woman always had that effect on me.
Our space on floor twelve consisted of a front room where I sometimes sat answering the phone and opening mail; a large, mostly empty space with a couch, a pot plant and a row of steel filing cabinets; Leo Fein’s office with a desk and a small meeting table; and a boardroom, which we never used.
I was given piecemeal tasks to do and kept busy enough that I had questions about the job in front of me and nothing more. On the one hand it was a relief that submitting to Leo Fein’s will had resulted only in tame office administration. But on the other, work w
as so new a phenomenon to me that it was somewhat of a shock to the system. I was used to sleeping till I wanted; an eight-hour day was a marathon for me and by three o’clock I veritably ached for home.
I assumed that many of the tasks I was given I should already have known how to do and pretended in many cases that I did know. I’d never written a cheque and, although we received more than we sent out, at the end of the first week there was a batch I needed to write according to a list Leo Fein gave me.
I entered the amounts in a painstaking hand, far away from my usual scrawl, but thought a line in the backdrop design of the leaf was a border of some kind and I squashed the words into the wrong spaces.
‘You’ll have to do these again,’ said Leo Fein without any criticism at all. ‘Like this,’ he said and showed me the correct method.
There was a lot of mail and there was a lot of filing to be done. We’d receive a large envelope from an address in Johannesburg, containing letter-size envelopes from all over the country. Inside these were cheques and I’d have to take them down to the bank for deposit. Then there were statements to be drawn up for each of the clients and a kind of financial reconciliation done at the end of the week.
Soon I allowed myself to feel a little pride. Someone had shown enough faith in me to give me a job – and I was actually capable of doing it; I was competent. The desire to tell Elliot what I’d achieved would rise in me, but then I’d remember who I worked for and I’d have to press the urge down again.
It was only when a man in his forties, Henry Conradie, from the small insurance brokerage on our floor, made a comment that I put together a vague understanding of what sort of business Northern Horizons was.
He’d often come by and say something like, ‘Where’s it booming?’
I’d shrug, or laugh awkwardly. Henry would come back the next day and ask the same thing, or, ‘Got something good going today, hot shot?’ And, ‘What’s the big movers?’
I hated the guy and began to feel sure his banter was mockery. Whatever information he had on me or Northern Horizons must have come from somewhere – I imagined gossip and jokes at my expense between Henry and the Nedbank tellers over lunch. One morning he came in, blowing on his coffee, and said, ‘How come you didn’t stay at Harvard?’
I dropped the letter opener with a loud bang on the desk. ‘Jeez, Henry, you come here every morning with some comment. I don’t know what you want from me. Fucking Harvard now. I don’t know, Henry. Why don’t you tell me, please? Why didn’t I stay at Harvard?’
I was sure I was being made fun of but saw then how his face froze up, and he became quieter. ‘Sorry, Ben. Just wondered what it was like, you know – to be the youngest student there. Probably a lot of pressure. Guess that’s why you came back. That’s all. I know you must be very busy. I won’t bother you again.’ He started for the passage in the direction of his own office but turned. ‘It’s just – I know you don’t deal with small fry like me but I’m struggling, Ben. It’s the divorce, you see. If you can get me in, that’d be a big help. Amazing.’
‘In?’
‘The fund. Or if I could just speak to Mr Fein.’
I sat silent, unable to answer.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Henry. ‘I have no right to ask.’
‘I’m sorry, Henry.’
‘No, I’m sorry, Ben.’
As soon as Leo Fein came in, I went into his office and closed the door. ‘Did you make up some story that I went to Harvard or something?’
‘Hm?’ he said without looking up from a letter. ‘That’s a pretty good rumour. If people were saying that about me, I’d just shut up about it.’
‘Well Henry thinks it’s true. He asked about some fund. He wanted to talk to you.’
‘If anyone wants to see me, I’m never available. Got it? Never.’
‘What do I say?’
‘You say they’ve just missed me. Or I’m in a meeting, or on an overseas call. If they come back you say they just missed me again. I’m in Honduras. Make it up.’
‘What’s the fund?’
He got up from his desk and rifled through some papers, found them and stuffed them roughly into a bag. ‘Northern Horizons. That’s what this is – all the cheques you get, the statements et cetera. A big, beautiful fund.’
‘An investment?’
‘Exactly.’
‘In what?’
‘I don’t have time to explain. But we’ll talk about it later, china. I’ve got to get going. Make sure the cheques are in before three.’
At the end of the second week, I was making out another batch of cheques, reading off a list Leo Fein had written. His handwriting was startling in its precise beauty.
How melancholy those fat fives were, slightly bigger than the other numbers, the right angles of the bracket supported on the softest of springs below. And what a balance the four was, between curve and straight line. Who knew a four could show so much movement?
Below A & J Printers: R6 239,68, I recognised my own name. Benjamin Aronbach: R3 000,00. It was my first salary, for which I wrote out my own cheque.
The profit motive can outshine whatever other glaring signs exist. It felt good to be earning something for the first time in my life. And I was somewhat removed, I could tell myself, from the AWB and Snor Snyman, concerned only with the investment business.
More than profit perhaps was the feeling of worth it gave me to be recognised for my labours, such as they were. To strive, whatever the occupation, is to be under a kind of hypnotic spell. Even if the goal of that striving is obliterated by the white light of denial; you allow yourself to be dazzled by it, and strive even harder lest you see through it.
I even shut out the rumour of Harvard, and the possibility that I was being packaged as part of the investment, an Ivy League financial wunderkind.
* * *
Elliot was at the university, Nadine and Victor were at work, and Ma was asleep, so I answered the phone when Will rang.
‘Where have you been?’ I asked. ‘I’ve been trying to call you.’
‘Sorry, buddy,’ he said. ‘I’ve been working behind the scenes. Setting things up with the lawyers. Did you ask Victor for the money?’
‘He won’t give us any. Are you really talking to lawyers?’
‘Hey, come on. Of course,’ he said. ‘But we need some tom to play with. We have to get some cash.’
‘Well, I can maybe get some. I should be getting some soon.’
‘Where?’
‘I’m helping a guy out.’
‘Hand jobs?’
‘Business.’
‘You’re very vague,’ said Will.
‘So are you.’
‘Come on, give us a clue.’
‘I’ve got a job. At Nedbank.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sakes,’ said Will. He inhaled and took a moment. ‘Ben, I’m happy you’re exploring your options. Really. You’re gonna learn a lot, I’m sure. Good for the CV. But we can’t wait for a salary. I’m talking real money. I’ve got something lined up for us, something I had to work really hard to get us. We can’t miss this, though – the timing’s important.’
‘I heard The Ox was looking for you.’
‘Been talking to Angie, huh?’ he said after a pause. ‘ Look, I’ll level with you: the Kolonel is ready to put me back in regular service. I’m not making the same money for him any more, so I’ll be sent into the heavy shit, the dangerous shit going down in the townships. We don’t have long. We need thirty grand, minimum.’
‘I don’t know if I can get that,’ I said.
‘We have to, or we can forget getting our money back from that skatofatsa. My hands are tied here, buddy. Now, did you ask Victor?’
‘He said no.’ I couldn’t bring myself to ask him. I hadn’t even tried.
‘Bastard. Doesn’t he care about your future? Okay, okay. This job of yours – what’s your boss like?’
‘Why?’
‘You’ve got a good relationship with h
im?’
‘I suppose.’
‘See if you can ask him for a loan. It’s legit. People do it all the time – an advance on your salary.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘It’s just a temporary thing, Ben. Once we’re squared away, you pay the bank back and we’re done.’
I could barely answer Will’s questions, so close had they come to the secret of my employment. ‘All right.’
‘Ben, we’re going to get that skatofatsa. We’re going after him. Don’t forget. That’s what you’ve got to focus on here.’
Too many curtains had dropped. I felt that his words were bravado, a façade, and from the mouth of someone who, for once, had fewer options than I did.
* * *
Despite my pride at doing a good job for Northern Horizons, a creeping disgust had begun to come over me for having linked arms with Leo Fein. I was tied to him in so many ways already and couldn’t push him off without becoming more entangled. I dragged myself to work and was happy to find he wasn’t there.
I was becoming accustomed to the routine of sorting out the mail and recording the cheques, and had begun reconciling the bank statements according to instruction. I didn’t hate work but there was the shameful reminder each day, when I passed the site of the family business, of how our lives had changed. From the twelfth floor I could see the roofs of VleisPaleis, Video Den, the Christian bookshop and the others in the strip.
Leo Fein came into the office in the afternoon just as I was raising the receiver to call Marieke on the company line. I replaced it.
‘We have a special job today,’ said Leo Fein.
‘What is it?’ I asked with the slightly crushing panic that it involved a new function I didn’t know and probably should, or worse, business that would pull me into ‘the field’, to the hostels on the East Rand, where men like Snor Snyman prowled.
I was relieved when he said the job involved the Northern Horizons annual report.
‘What do I have to do?’
‘Well, this is a marketing thing. You have to sell the company.’