A Rock and a Hard Place

by George Zelt PhD

  In geology there is an established process that explains findings as Joost postulated. But I found no supporting evidence that this process had occurred within the area I studied—and there was simply no way I could say it did. I went over my story again, thinking about the simplest way I could demonstrate my findings so no one could argue that my calculations or the things I’d done were wrong.

  The bottom line was simple. I had thin sections from the metabasite rocks I’d found along the length of my field area. As I viewed them sequentially under a microscope from east to west, I found no change in the minerals present. And, in the field, as I traveled west along my field area toward the ocean, I saw no visible changes in the rock types. The black (high-grade metamorphic) metabasite rocks, oblong like partially flattened wagon wheels, were so hard and dense they rang like a bell when struck with my sledgehammer. These metabasites more or less marched along the strip, their strike east-west and dip vertical, without change. I found them like black stains across a white sand tablecloth.

  The exception was near the coast, where the strike changed very abruptly to north-south, and hitting them with my sledgehammer produced a dull thud as the decomposed rock absorbed the blow.

  The metapelites changed, too. New minerals formed; there was no more clearly visible red—the high T and P garnet. Over the coming days I began to think each bell-ringing hard rock was my dissertation’s death knell. Looking for something that isn’t there takes far more time than looking for something that is there.

  On the one hand, I’d done my job and discovered something new and previously unknown. But on the other hand, I’d unearthed enough rope to hang myself. Yeah, there was no way I could bend my findings to agree with his. The differences were like day and night. Yet so far, he didn’t seem worried—in fact, he didn’t seem to care. I was nothing more than a pesky fly.

  Yet I wondered: Did he expect me to falsify reality? Maybe. He was, after all, Afrikaner Joost. Later it reluctantly occurred to me the man simply didn’t understand metamorphic petrology. He didn’t question what was really there; instead, he put forward what he wanted to be there.

  I returned to UCT, where I pored over everything again. I looked at thin sections along the length of my area again and again. No difference from metabasite to metabasite; the same indicative minerals were present. I confirmed it for myself: I was right, and there was no way a scientist could conclude differently. Joost’s dissertation should have been rejected. I saw him as one of those old-school Afrikaners who dragged misguided opinions with him. He knew he was right, because God told him so. But what would the university decide? Surely right was right—and I wouldn’t be sacrificed to protect him, would I?

  I felt I was walking a thinning plank, carrying a heavy metabasite rock with me. Below me the swirling cold, deep water of the Cape Bay was calling. My major responsibility was to construct my dissertation—difficult enough to accomplish—not battle with this travesty of science. I was carrying unfair weight and staggering from the load.

  Thanksgiving time in November, I realized one of the worse things about this was I couldn’t, at that stage, talk to most of my colleagues about the problem, although they had all heard something about it from Patrick and Catina, who tried to defend me. They too were working on degrees and didn’t want to be involved with anything that could by association adversely affect their careers. I found myself effectively removed from society by matters of diplomacy and survival.

  I walked alone most days, thinking about my situation. At one depressing point I realized that if I did die from that leopard or from thirst, Joost would win. Oddly, a few days after that low point of consideration, I was invited to attend an autopsy. Given my depressing situation, it kind of fit in. Even more oddly, it helped me put things into perspective later.

  * * *

  The story began early one morning under a camphor tree on the beautiful Stanley Street brick sidewalk in Middle Campus, when I met a woman wearing a short summer dress, almost like a figure-skating outfit. She was walking her Scottish terrier, Arch, who seemed to enjoy pooping on whatever he could and proudly sniffing his coiled accomplishments. I took the opportunity to introduce myself.

  Janet taught at the university and was an attorney of British descent. She was about ten years older than I, slim, intelligent, wore pleasing makeup, and had lovely coiffed black hair. I told her a little about my work, and found it refreshing to have someone new to talk to. I liked the clever way she spoke and suspected she was interested in me a bit.

  After a week or so she casually invited me to accompany her to watch an autopsy, as if asking if I would like to have tea. “My law students have to be knowledgeable about autopsy procedures in case there is a question in their future about a murder. You can come along with us, if you like.”

  Of course I knew the purpose of an autopsy, but I never thought about what actually took place. I think most people don’t have a reason to consider the details. However, I guessed it would take my mind off my own problems, so I accepted the invitation.

  In a few days I met Janet and about ten of her students next to a shabby loading platform in the rear of a local nonwhite hospital. That loading-platform beginning should have given me pause.

  “You mustn’t be shocked when you see the body,” Janet suddenly said. “It will be dead, remember.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “Will this be gruesome?”

  “To meet the objectives,” she said, “certain things must be done. It’s like preparing a turkey.”

  “A turkey?” I looked at her with great surprise. An odd statement . . .

  She turned a bit red at her analogy, but then I understood she probably had the upcoming American holiday on her mind.

  No further comment was made as we passed through double doors and along a dismal concrete-block corridor to the operating theater. Meeting us at the stage door was a white forensic pathologist wearing a white lab coat. He would perform the examination and officiate. He was an older man and seemed pleasant enough when Janet introduced us. We all followed him inside.

  My eyes immediately fixed on the naked body of a young African girl, about twenty, lying as if asleep on a slightly slanted galvanized-metal table. A thick block of well-worn wood supported her neck. Droplets of water remained on her, as she had just been hosed down. Under different conditions it could have been heavy sweat. Her long hair hung over the end of the table, and I couldn’t help thinking she was pretty. Any minute she might sit up and talk to us, it seemed. It was very unnerving.

  “The air conditioning’s stuffed,” the doctor explained as twelve of us found places on the bleacher-type seats in the very small, hot room. “They promised to fix it, but we’re obviously still waiting.” His apology sounded almost as if we were entering his home.

  Janet herded me to the front row and we sat down on hard seats. The body was two arms’ lengths away.

  “We couldn’t get much closer,” I whispered.

  “I have to lead the way, as students don’t like to get too close. If they sit way in the back, they may miss something. And it’s necessary they understand the entire procedure.” She placed her finely manicured hand with dangling gold bracelets on my knee—to comfort me, I assume. Actually, it felt oddly romantic.

  “My assistant will now open the cranium,” the pathologist stated, nodding to his Indian colleague.

  The assistant decidedly leered. He knew something, I suspected. A moment before, he had looked appropriately morbid. Now he was grinning. All this seemed strangely casual. I stared at the girl and wondered how she could have died.

  “I hope this isn’t going to be macabre,” I whispered, though I realized it couldn’t be anything else.

  “She is so pretty,” Janet replied. “Her breasts seem full.”

  “Full?”

  The assistant, with a stroke of his scalpel, deftly cut a curved path around the back of the girl’s head. It’s peculiar she didn’t scream, I thought. At least it proved she was
dead. Without delicacy or the slightest effort toward tenderness, the assistant pulled and then peeled the skin and hair banana-style over the top of her head and down to cover her face.

  Dear God! I paled and felt the unease in the room. All was deathly silent. It was too much.

  The assistant grinned again—a gesture I was now very suspicious about—and with extraordinary showmanship, he flicked a switch, and an electric buzz saw whined. The girl lay there. I feared some vicious stuff.

  He touched the blade to the skull, which produced a hideous sound. Seconds later I heard a deep, guttural urrrrrr-urrrrrrr behind me. Something splattered on my neck. Startled, I half turned to see a female student jerking out of control, being sick, her hands cupped under her mouth, bent over and going for the door. She was the first.

  I swallowed repeatedly to try and keep the contents of my stomach where they were when I arrived.

  The saw changed pitch as it caught hold, and all attention was riveted forward . . . most through parted fingers clamped over eyes and mouths trying to hold on while others made for the door, bent over, chucking.

  Janet began to knead my thigh.

  Suddenly I understood the purpose of the block of wood; it would prevent the blade from striking the metal table. The sound stopped as half the skull parted from the remainder like a hard-boiled egg struck midway with a knife. The half-skull fell off the small rectangular metal table to the floor, to rock on its round side. Instinctively, I jerked my leg up to avoid contact with it and in doing so pressed my knee against Janet’s. She rubbed back.

  The doctor said something about coloration while pointing to the yolk-like brain that protruded from the remaining skull. While this bit of knowledge was being digested, the assistant briskly slit his way from her groin to her throat, using the buzz saw to deal with the breastbone area.

  The doctor used his hand to fan the air above the chest cavity up toward his nose. “Most poisons we deal with leave a detectable odor,” he said as he fanned. “I find nothing suspicious here. She died of natural causes that may or may not have been related to this.” With the instincts of a magician, he extracted a fetus by its foot—without further comment.

  The room was dead quiet. Mouths hung open. People even stopped gagging as they stared at the unborn baby. I turned sideways, away from the sight. One or two female students were shaking. Hysteria was near. Janet was breathing hard, like a train, her lips parted, her teeth showing with tension. It was horrifying. Our legs were pressed and rubbing—an impractical joining together rather at odds with the gory dismantling before us but, surprisingly, stimulating nonetheless. My God, I thought, how low I’ve gone.

  “How old is the fetus?” someone managed to say, more out of shock, it seemed, than concern.

  “Just a second,” the pathologist said. He gripped a leg as if it were a piece of rope and lopped off the foot just above the ankle. “Seven months,” he replied, peering at the stump. As he looked up, he unceremoniously released the fetus, which settled in a heap of odd-angled limbs. By this time, half the students had stumbled out of the room in bent-over positions. I was barely hanging on.

  Surprisingly, someone asked another question. Actually, I reminded myself, that was what they were supposed to do. I myself could think of nothing but the immediate presentation. Apparently, the answer required a diagram. Although the subject’s body fluid had been previously drained (the table sloped toward a hole), some remained and had collected at the deep end. The doctor dipped his finger in this and, with a grin I was becoming wary of, wrote on the white-porcelain tiled wall, returning his finger to the makeshift red inkwell as required.

  “Could the fetus have been saved?” a male voice asked, perhaps disturbed by the outcome.

  For once the doctor didn’t smile. He thought for a bit and then said, “Probably not.”

  I ran my eyes over the contents on the table. The class ended, and all the organs were informally piled back into the body cavity, including the whole brain, which had been scooped out like ice cream during the proceedings. The severed half of the skull was retrieved once the doctor asked for it to be replaced. The skin was drawn back over the face like a glove put on a hand. Had the corpse been dressed and some perfume added, anyone viewing the body would not know her brain was in her stomach area.

  Janet and I filed out into the warm sun and fresh air with the remaining students. There were a few nods, but no conversation. Everyone walked off quickly, trying, presumably, to put the experience behind them.

  As Janet and I moved away, I wondered about the unborn baby. I didn’t even know if it was a male or female. It was nothing to anyone, I realized.

  The doctor said it probably could not have been saved. The girl was black, and the system was apartheid. I mentioned to Janet that the operation seemed a bit crude.

  “The main objective for the law students,” she said, “was to understand that once you are dead, you are dead—and to find out the cause in whatever manner, so you can proceed to help the living.” She took my hand. “You have to carve it to make use of it, like a turkey.”

  I figured she must use that enlightening description with her students to open their eyes to the finality of death. I couldn’t think about anything for hours after what we’d seen. That poor young girl and a baby that would never breathe.

  My life could be far worse. Why worry about a bunch of rocks?

  Chapter 11

  Watering Hole Death

  Patrick and I had a beer on the Springbok Hotel porch to celebrate the beginning of our adventure. We had talked about a trip like this some time ago—a visit to his northern field area. We would meet in Springbok and drive his Land Rover on N-7 over dry, barren land toward the Orange River, which forms the geographic boundary between South Africa and his area of study in South West Africa. He explained to me his findings. I asked him how he was coming along with his degree.

  “I’m basically working on my own,” he said. “No one is really advising me.”

  “Joost should be doing that.”

  “Yeah, but he’s not, at least not yet. I’m collecting information and mapping my area for the moment.”

  “You need to talk to him, find out if you’re going in the right direction. Surely he will help you.”

  “I guess, but I want to study my area a bit more before I present something. How are you?” It seemed as though he wanted to change the subject.

  I told him, wondering if he was also having difficulties.

  “I’m being viewed as if my findings were not only wrong,” I said, “but that I lack the ability to investigate my field area. No one in the PRU has said the word ‘dumb’ (I do wonder sometimes), but it hung in the halls like a cloud pissing down on me as I passed. Some looked at me with pity, likely glad it was me and not them. I felt dejected—terrible, actually—and wished it were all my imagination. But in truth I was in deep shit, period. I need to clear my head.”

  “Well, this trip should give you something else to think about.”

  “I hope it makes things clearer, at least as far as what I will do next. I don’t want to make a decision I would regret. I tried to talk to Joost, but with a smiling mask-face, he continues to state he’s right. He has denied me access to the analytical machines I need to use so I can continue my calculations and comparisons, because I need more verification. He implied they were needed more by others.”

  An awkward silence followed. Then Patrick asked, “Could he be that wrong?”

  “That’s a problem; it’s too hard to believe he’s that wrong.”

  “Does he agree with anything you’ve discovered?”

  “No. He acts convinced beyond doubt that he’s correct. As you know, the new head of the geology department was automatically appointed to be my advisor when Dr. Manfred left. The new guy patronizes Joost, because Joost brings in money to the department. I’m just getting to know him, but he doesn’t encourage discussion on subjects unfavorable to Joost. Hell, he was a scientist at NASA—a
nd now he’s trying to fit in here. Joost has his ear. How can I argue with someone from NASA? I need more proof of what I’m talking about. Actually, I think Joost saw an outcome he wanted and then manipulated his way to that point. Exactly what you don’t do in science.”

  “Money talks everywhere. It sounds like Professor NASA has personal ambitions that would be harmed if he got on the wrong side of Afrikaner Joost. It’s nothing to do with facts such as yours.”

  “Yeah, it sure looks that way,” I said. “But hell, this is a university. That shouldn’t happen here.”

  Patrick smiled. “The optimism of our youth.”

  We finished our beer, climbed into Patrick’s Land Rover, and headed off toward the Orange River.

  The sky was cloudless and watery blue. The land of sand and gravel lay prostrate in the unforgiving heat. Hours later, in the far distance, a mirage-like green line appeared across the horizon. As we neared, the apparition revealed itself to be the graceful and delicate tracery of fine-leaved fever trees rooted on the river’s banks. Always growing near water, fever trees were blamed by early settlers for causing malaria, while their bark was used as a preventative against the disease.

  We drove parallel to the trees and looked through their branches as they dipped low toward the brown water, festooned with multitudes of swaying weaver bird nests, like bulbs on a Christmas tree. The black-faced and very social birds screeched endlessly as they hung upside down from the basket-shaped nest above their heads. There on the other side of the trees we clearly saw the mighty, muddy Orange River. It looked quiet, content, as though it was hiding—a powerful snake shifting forward as it invaded and swallowed the dry land in its path.

  The Orange is the longest river in South Africa. Sitting in the Land Rover, I followed its course with my finger on our map. It originated in the east, in the rugged nine-thousand-foot-high mountains of the kingdom of Lesotho. From there it ran west to the arid regions of the southern Kalahari and Namaqualand, through large areas characterized by diamond pipes. Then, on its last stretch, it reached the Atlantic Ocean, having defined the six-hundred-mile South West African border.