by Trevor Sacks
He met us at the prefab office, between the flagpole and the door, in a golf cart. A substantial, puffy-faced youth in air force uniform sat next to the General, who drove.
‘Tjoppa,’ said the General, jerking his thumb, ‘in the back.’ The cart was relieved for a moment as Tjoppa stepped down but creaked again as he took his place on the rear bench with me. There couldn’t be too many people in the air force with a nickname like Tjoppa. I was shaking hands with Carlien’s boyfriend, whose bakkie I’d be commandeering, and whose girlfriend my brother was commandeering.
The cart whirred down the narrow concrete paths around the base in the warm bushveld air. Air force personnel gave way and shot salutes without fail. Tjoppa and I faced the rear, so scenery and airmen surprised me from behind. It was in that manner that we were engulfed by black space. We came to a stop inside the building and I rose to get up.
‘Stay put,’ said the General, and Tjoppa extended an arm to hold me back. I was sinking; we all were. By way of an elevator platform, we were being taken underground.
‘Don’t move or you’ll break your neck.’
‘Where are we?’ I asked at the bottom, my voice whispering back to me from far, far away.
‘The underground hangars,’ said Tjoppa. The General’s assistant threw a switch and a bank of fluorescents lit up an empty, smooth-walled, concrete cavern; the space was almost spiritual, a gutted cathedral or the belly of a super-whale.
‘We don’t have the planes to fill them but it’s a good place to talk,’ said the General.
‘I see it’s not exactly empty, though,’ said Leo Fein. To one side, a stack of crates had been piled high.
‘I still know how to work, my friend,’ said the General.
Embarrassment and fear prevented me from erasing my ignorance about the contents of the crates by asking anyone (we were on a Defence Force base, after all). I clutched my leather folder and shut the fuck up.
‘I’ve pulled my side,’ said the General, ‘now it’s your turn. We can’t hold this here forever. There’s a referendum coming up, we have a schedule to keep. So when are things starting to turn over?’
‘Next week. Things are firming up at the hostels.’
‘Good. There’s demand for this. Some of our own boys want to go vigilante. Nie so nie, Tjoppa?’
‘Ja, Generaal!’ said Tjoppa.
‘As I’ve always said, General, we should give equal opportunities to all.’
‘Let’s stick to the programme for now, Fein. You can tell me about your opportunities another time.’
‘General, now’s the time. The right wing is motivated. And there’s the left to consider, too. What if things don’t go our way after the referendum?’
‘They must, Fein.’
‘And if they don’t?’
‘We’ll lose our funding. They’ll shut us down. Or worse.’
‘That’s why I’m shopping around, General. We need new funding.’
‘From where?’
‘Well, I don’t know yet. But I’m meeting with an influential anti-communist, a religious man. A black.’
‘Who?’
‘The Bishop from the ZCC,’ said Leo Fein.
This news seemed to energise the General.
‘Do you know they can pull a million and a half people at Easter?’
‘And they don’t like commies,’ said the General thoughtfully. ‘Ag, but they don’t like getting involved, that’s the problem with them.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Leo Fein.
‘We’ll see. But if this doesn’t go,’ said the General sweeping a hand over the goods in the hangar, ‘there’s always the Serbs.’
It was a warning.
As Leo Fein and I left the base, I tried to make sense of what I’d just witnessed, putting aside the all-too-close encounter with Tjoppa. I could guess what the crates contained, and who they were meant for. One phrase kept repeating in my head: the Third Force.
The papers had been full of this term in the past weeks as the government denied any involvement in a programme to tilt the country into chaos. They were finding it increasingly difficult to disguise their fumbling hand in violent flashpoints that were springing up between Zulu IFP supporters and freshly unbanned ANC supporters. Finally I had to ask Leo Fein straight out.
‘Don’t you read the papers?’ said Leo Fein. ‘There is no Third Force.’ He sighed heavily and we turned again onto the long straight road that led to the heart of town. ‘You asked how you could make more money, well, this is it,’ he said. ‘And I’m doing you a favour here. This is a chance for you to make things up to me. Give me my five years back. Contribute something to your family. You owe them that, you know. So stop thinking about yourself so much.’
‘I didn’t know what business you were in.’
‘Hey – you of all people should know. You turned me in, remember? If you want to lie to yourself then you do that, but save it for after hours. You know exactly what I buy and sell. Now get over it.’
I fell into a sulk, which I found easy to do in the give of the cream leather padding of the seat. ‘I don’t get you – you help the Doctor and Johannes: ANC, right? But you’re helping the AWB now, and your “growth business” is the Third Force. Whose side are you on?’
But it was becoming plain that Leo Fein was on Leo Fein’s side.
‘You have to approach this whole thing differently,’ he said. ‘I provide a bloody good service, top-quality products. I deliver on time, for a reasonable price. I like my customers and they know that. They can feel that. Don’t pull your face like that. This is the real world.’ His double chin ruffled out then withdrew and he softened slightly. ‘You’re not a child any more. I was at your bar mitzvah, so I know.’
‘You were arrested at my bar mitzvah.’
‘And you split on me, traitor, so zip it. If I stop my business, do you think these guys would stop what they’re doing? No, bloody right they wouldn’t. So, two things – one, I can provide them with the best equipment out there, that’s not going to blow up in their faces, that’s more accurate, so no mistakes; and two, if I don’t do it, somebody else will. So it may as well be us running the show.’
‘And you’ll sell to anyone?’
‘No,’ he said with emphasis. ‘Only those with money. That’s my principle. Money is the greatest equaliser there is. If there are two sides, it’s only fair they’ve got an equal chance.’
‘Isn’t it better to talk?’
‘What does talking solve? It just drags the whole affair out. When you were at school you’d much rather take jacks than detention, right? Over quickly; you knew your place again. Finish and klaar.’
‘When does it stop?’
‘It’s human nature. I didn’t invent that. People are going to try get what the other one has and neither you nor I can change that. So what do you do? Hide away from the world? Or fight a battle you can never win – against nature? No. No, you’ve got to love it, warts and all, wars and all, too. Listen, what do you believe in?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You know what I believe in? I believe in winners.’
‘I thought you believed in making things equal.’
‘But there’s always a winner. Today’s winner is tomorrow’s loser. And today’s loser could be our next customer. So give everybody a chance, I say.’
Where Uncle Victor saw the country going to ruin, Leo Fein saw an opportunity for growth; Leo Fein was bullish. He was positive about the future, but coming from him the words had a foreboding flavour to them.
‘But people die because of what you do,’ I said.
‘People die. One way or the other.’
It was out of selfish motives that I’d betrayed Leo Fein when I was thirteen, however much I’d tried to fool myself at the time that it wasn’t. But the fallout was beyond anything I could have imagined, a function of the limited workings of my prepubescent brain, and incommensurate with my crime.
But now I understood the da
rkness of his dealings, the possible consequences. My motives were less selfish this time around and extended to the circle of my family, but there would be fallout for dealing with the AWB, the air force, the Third Force. This time, my involvement with Leo Fein would be with full understanding, fuller perhaps than his: I wouldn’t fool myself, like he did, that if we didn’t do it, someone else would, as if that somehow exonerated us; I would take possession of my own dark role in Leo Fein’s operations.
‘And that’s how I earn commission?’
‘That’s the way – focus on the money, china. Come on – how much do you want to get out of this?’
‘Fifty thousand,’ I said. It seemed just about the maximum I could earn while not quite so high as to tie me to Leo Fein forever. Is this how one sells one’s soul? Are you in fact asked to set the price yourself?
‘Phew. You’re ambitious, I’ll give you that. But that’s a few deals’ worth. You’re just starting out. The annual report – that was good. But you do something for me and we’ll talk big bonus, all right? Heard of the ZCC?’
Everyone knew about the Zion Christian Church. They had their headquarters about twenty or thirty kilometres out of town. Every year at Easter a million people, Shadrack among them, would climb into minibus taxis around the country and were drawn like magnets through our town to the hill twenty-five kilometres to the east.
And every year hundreds of pilgrims were given up as offerings to the almighty single carriageway that led there, mangled in vans, dead on the tarmac. But nothing – not their deaths, not a revolution – would ever upstage the Easter sermons, vigils, celebrations and consultations.
For the Easter weekend, white homes emptied of their black staff, the ones who wore the chromed-steel five-pointed star on black-and-green felt pinned to their breasts. No one asked what went on at this million-man church – it was just the nuisance of being without the servants for Easter.
But everyone knew about the family of clerics, the dynasty that founded and ruled over the Zion Christian Church. Everyone had heard the stories of the Bishop; whites didn’t know or care which one: the father, the son, grandson or nephew. But he wore a diamond ring, they said, sitting in the back of a black limousine, among a flotilla of bakkies descending on the town.
And at the Nedbank building they’d stop and haul steel dustbins, full to the brim with cash, into the bank vault. They’d arrive after banking hours, so arranged for the church to have the bank to itself.
‘You need to find a way to meet with the Bishop,’ said Leo Fein. ‘I heard he likes Jews.’
‘So why don’t you go?’
‘I can’t get past his advisors. Maybe he heard some nonsense skinder about me.’
‘What kind of deal is it?’ Though I’d heard the church mentioned in the underground hangar, I didn’t really want to know. Leo Fein didn’t think it necessary to enlighten me anyway.
‘You just tell him it’s in his interest to meet with me. You tell him I have a way to double his Easter money in two weeks after the Easter weekend.’
‘How?’
‘You just get him to come see me next week.’
‘Then I get a bonus?’
‘Then you get a bonus.’
‘How much?’
‘We’ll see. So you need to find a way to get there this Sunday.’
‘This Sunday?’
‘That’s when they have their service. They’re Christians.’
‘It’s just, I was planning to go away this weekend.’
‘Where?’
‘The Ranch Motel.’
‘That’s not away – it’s just outside town, man. You can go in the morning and be back in the afternoon for cocktails in the pool. They have a bar in the pool, you know? You’ll like it.’
‘Can’t I do it the Sunday after?’
‘Business is all about timing, my boy. Just like lovemaking.’
I wanted to get out of that car as quickly as possible at the thought of Leo Fein making love, and who he’d be making it to.
‘How do I get to the ZCC, anyway?’ I asked.
‘Ask any maid in town. They all wear those stars – those badges, you know? Say you’re sick and you need to see the Bishop to cure you. Or offer them some money to take you.’
‘And what do I tell the Bishop?’
‘Tell him: we must never give in to communists.’
Maybe I could do this, I thought. I’ll go, speak to this Bishop, earn my commission, take the money to Will’s lawyers and – only the next part caught as it went down – sink Leo Fein. I didn’t think too hard about whether I’d be dragged under alongside him in my second betrayal. After all, the longer I stuck by his side, the more heavily soaked I became in the very same guilt.
* * *
For twenty-six years Victor worked for Henred Walls and Bricks, rising from foreman to sales to management. Then, at the age of fifty-eight, he was shoved aside over a personal dispute of some kind. He never explained to any of us what had happened and, if it was mentioned, he would only wipe his hands together briskly as if to indicate that he was clean and free of them now.
So, at an age when he would have preferred to be thinking of which major sports events he would be watching in his retirement days, he began his own precast cement wall manufacturer in town. They were building walls like crazy in those days – walls for Africa, as Uncle Victor used to say. It must have made him somewhat bitter (though he never dared show it to Nadine) that, when his business was finally becoming really successful, he was giving it up to move to a new country.
Victor employed Shadrack at Capricorn Precast Walls, and I found him in the half-covered workshop in the back, which I knew how to access without Victor seeing me.
With all the urgency of pouring walls it was difficult for anyone to remove himself from his duties under the foreman’s gaze; Shadrack finished dribbling the slurry and walked to me in his slow, self-possessed manner when he saw me.
We shook hands. His were caked with cement, but even under the grit I knew the pads of his palms were armoured. Though he left his hand in mine while we spoke, his grip was loose as ever.
‘How are you?’ I asked.
‘Victor is going.’
‘What’ll happen to your job?’
‘I don’t know. It’s a bugger-up. And my eye is a bugger-up.’ He blinked the red-veined orb at me. ‘How is Mum?’
‘She’s okay.’
‘She’s working?’
‘Not yet.’
‘And Elliot?’
‘He’s working at the university.’
‘William is here?’
‘No. In Pretoria, in the army.’
‘And you? You’re going to the army?’
‘No. I’ve got a job.’
‘Yes-thanks. Hey! You’re a man now.’
Shadrack let go of my hand and made to move away, back to work.
‘Don’t you want to know what I do?’ I asked.
‘You’ve got a job.’
‘I’m working for Leo Fein.’
He made no response besides blinking.
‘The man who took our money.’ Why I told him, I don’t know; perhaps I was playing for absolution or damnation, or just a little wisdom. ‘You can’t tell anyone, though, Shadrack. It’s just for now. We need some money.’
‘Yes-thanks.’
‘You think it’s wrong? I mean, I know it’s wrong.’
‘It’s a bugger-up.’
‘It’s temporary. I’m working on something, Shadrack. To get our money back. Go back to Jorissen Street.’
‘Jorissen Street is gone.’
‘I need your help, Shadrack.’
‘For what?’
‘Do you still go to the ZCC?’
‘Yes-thanks.’
‘I need you to take me there.’
‘You must go to shul. See the Rabbi.’
‘I need to talk to the Bishop.’
‘You’ll never talk to the Bishop. Zion City? It’s big.�
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‘But can you take me there?’
‘Whites don’t go.’
‘This is for work, for my job. I have to go, Shadrack. Will you take me?’
‘This is a bugger-up.’
‘This Sunday?’
‘Yes,’ he said. Not ‘yes-thanks’, but not ‘no’, either.
* * *
I hadn’t found a way to tell Marieke yet. After she closed up the shop on Saturday, we went with Carlien to fetch Tjoppa’s Nissan 1400 bakkie from his father’s house. Tjoppa’s father was an elderly man who still wore thick polyester shorts, and he was cutting his nails with a biltong knife when we walked in.
He greeted Carlien gently in a croaky voice and regarded Marieke and me more distantly. Once Carlien had reversed out of the driveway we drove to her house and I sat in the driver’s seat.
I remained silent on the details of my meeting with Tjoppa in the underground hangar throughout, but the memory of his XXXL frame flashed at me as I took the wheel. I tried not to think about what Tjoppa would do if anything happened to the car while in my care.
We’d be travelling on the main road out of town, where speed cops regularly hid behind bushes. For Marieke’s sake, I did my best to pretend I had no qualms about driving, and there was no question of anyone else doing it, since Marieke didn’t know how.
We were already halfway to The Ranch Motel, a sprawling property twenty kilometres south of town, when I mustered the courage to tell her about work.
She was incredulous.
‘Well, like you worked this morning. I have to work tomorrow.’
‘Can’t it wait?’
‘Look, I’ve just started this job. I can’t really say no, can I?’
‘But we’ve only got tonight and tomorrow night.’
‘I know, but it’ll just be the morning and then I’ll come back and we’ll have the afternoon and the night.’
‘What are you gonna do on a Sunday, anyway?’
‘I have to go to the ZCC.’
‘The blacks’ church?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘What are you doing there?’
I didn’t like the emphasis. ‘There’s as good a place as any.’