Sunstroke

by Madge Swindells

  At dawn, when my strength deserted me, I cried for the man I’d loved so much. I longed to feel his arms around me, his lips on mine, his hands caressing me, his firm hard body on my own. Why did I still love him so? If he had returned at that moment I would have accepted any excuse. If he called me, I would go anywhere to be with him and Nicky. I tried to make excuses for him, but I was forced to remember the terrible photograph of Nicky, with the ring of red around his little throat. The image turned all my excuses into nonsense. The pain of Wolf’s betrayal was almost more than I could bear. Only the need to rescue Nicky kept me going. For three years, I had loved an evil, unscrupulous man, and now he had my son.

  Chapter 31

  Gale-force gusts buffeted the car and whipped up minor sandstorms as I drove through the night. For summer, it was bitterly cold, but I cheered up when I saw a glimmer of grey in the east. I longed for a cup of coffee, a warm bath and breakfast, in that order. After a few minutes of indecision, I decided to stop at a road-house. I had time to kill since the frontier post did not open until eight.

  By the time I returned to the road, it was light. To the left was a desolate coastline, where gigantic rollers were breaking over jagged black rocks. To my right was a flat gravel plain stretching far into the interior. As I climbed into the car and turned on the ignition, I felt so old and tired. I couldn’t remember ever feeling like this before.

  Alexander Bay came into sight, a collection of gaunt square houses on a flat gravel plain where nothing green seemed to flourish. I passed through quickly, crossed the Orange river and joined a queue of ten cars. There was still an hour to endure. I wondered if I had done the right thing. Probably. In this region of diamond smugglers and terrorists, I was unlikely to excite any interest. Unless they had filed me as ‘wanted’ on the computer, I would soon be on a plane to Windhoek and from there to Lubeck.

  It was the longest hour of my life. At last a uniformed official waved me forward. I held my pre-marriage Ogilvie passport, plus details of my permanent residence and forwarding address. The man tapped into his computer, frowned, glanced at me in surprise, and returned to his computer. The keys clicked away, his frown became more menacing, the minutes passed.

  A sense of desolation settled upon me.

  ‘Oh dear. I’ve left my suitcase at the hotel. I’ll have to go back and fetch it.’

  ‘Please wait there,’ he said sternly. Another official slipped into the room and hovered behind me. The entire operation was so smooth and efficient. No one seemed to notice. To my confusion and fear, shame was added. My cheeks burned, my eyes watered. I had to keep reminding myself that I was the victim in this tragedy.

  ‘Would you kindly step in here, Mrs Moller?’ It was the official behind me who had spoken. His grip on my arm was very firm.

  ‘You have no right to detain me. I am a British citizen and free to move about as I wish.’ My voice had gone wrong. Or was it my sanity?

  ‘We have every right to detain you, Mrs Moller. A warrant has been issued for your arrest. Major Barnard is flying up to collect you. You will be flown back to Cape Town where you will be formally charged.’

  *

  Locked in a stuffy, overheated cell with six local criminals, I endured a frightening and humiliating day. I had seven hours to wait, plenty of time in which to examine my many mistakes and to grieve for my son. At last, Major Barnard arrived to accompany me to Cape Town.

  ‘A very unwise move, Mrs Moller,’ Barnard lectured me as he led me to the car. ‘You were warned not to leave Cape Town. I’m afraid you’re unlikely to get bail after this.’

  ‘Why? I had no idea I was going to be arrested.’

  ‘I think you did. Furthermore, your exit choice was suspect. Were you expecting to be met in Walvis Bay like your husband?’ His mouth twisted into a leer.

  ‘No! What are you talking about? Who met my husband?’ Nothing made sense. I felt like Alice in Wonderland.

  ‘Your actions could be misconstrued.’

  ‘Tell me what’s going on. Please! They said I was under arrest, but I haven’t been arrested. Why? What are the charges? I have a right to know. What about Wolf kidnapping my baby? Have you done anything about that? Where is my child? Do you know? What about my rights? I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  He turned a stony face to my pleas and I couldn’t get another word out of him.

  I puzzled over the innuendoes. What else had Wolf done, besides conning most of our friends and myself, and kidnapping my baby? I went through all that I had learned so far. Something far more serious than fraud was on the cards, I suspected.

  *

  We sat in the airport lounge, looking like any other couple, I assume, because no one gave us a second glance. A couple on the verge of divorce, perhaps, since we did not exchange one word. Only later, when the plane had taken off for Cape Town, and Barnard had tossed back a couple of neat whiskies, did he relent.

  ‘I believe in you, Mrs Moller,’ he said, in a voice that had become slow and deliberate. ‘This may surprise you. I think you’re being blackmailed by your husband. He probably took your child as a hostage.’

  He didn’t have to be a genius to work that out.

  ‘I don’t understand why Moller left you alive. You could be his greatest danger. My theory is that when the time came for Moller to leave, he found he could not kill you, as I feel sure he had intended to. You are a very lovely woman, Mrs Moller. Perhaps he fell in love with you.

  ‘Furthermore,’ Barnard went on, pressing home his obvious advantage, ‘I believe that he married you because you were exactly right to create the social background he needed for his work.’

  Barnard had been doing his homework.

  ‘Your safest and best bet would be to put your trust in us. Turn state evidence. Most of the Western world’s police are looking for Moller. Eventually they’ll get him, and your son.’

  ‘You’re not very convincing, Major Barnard. You’re trying to frighten me, but this man whom I married, but whom I never really knew, frightens me much more. Don’t you think he reads the newspapers? He’ll know… He’ll—’ I almost choked on the words. I had said too much. I stared at my hands to escape Barnard’s scrutiny and to hide my fear.

  ‘Mrs Moller, believe me, you have no choice. They’ll be waiting for us in Cape Town where you will be formally charged. You will be taken into custody.’ He waited, sighed and went on. ‘There’s a great deal that you don’t know about your husband, Mrs Moller. Our intelligence sources discovered belatedly that he was working as a Soviet spy all the time he lived in South Africa. In fact, he was using Armscor as his front to send American research to the Russians. We traced your husband as far as Walvis Bay harbour. After that there are no further sightings. He could have left by boat, but there were no passenger boats in dock. The only boat to leave Walvis Bay was a Russian Fisheries research vessel, known to be involved in intelligence gathering. They picked up Moller. We have no doubt about that at all. They probably dropped him off in Angola from where he could fly directly to Russia.’

  I sat there, mouth open, disbelieving. The sweat was rolling down my back and leaving great damp spots on my dress. My hands were shaking and I couldn’t think. Could Wolf be a spy? Was Nicky in Russia? If so, how would I ever find him?

  Chapter 32

  I pulled myself together, trying to make sense out of what Barnard had said. I remembered the time I’d heard Wolf speaking a foreign language at Chobe. It had sounded like Russian. But what did spying have to do with conning people? How could he be both a spy and a con? I couldn’t find any similarity between the man I thought I’d married and this other person who seemed to have co-existed in the body I had learned to love so much.

  Had the Russians sent a boat to fetch Wolf? Was he that important?

  ‘Mrs Moller,’ Barnard repeated, ‘I have to warn you that unless you co-operate with the authorities, you will be treated as your husband’s accomplice and given the same sentence as he will receive in absentia
. Only you will be here to serve yours.’

  My mind was racing round with millions of thoughts, but they came to the same thing: I was trapped. I struggled to push away my anguish and listen, for I sensed that Barnard was biased in my favour.

  ‘If only I knew what was going on, I might be able to make up my mind.’

  He thought about this for a while. Then he said, ‘Interpol and the CIA have been looking for Moller for some time. No one guessed that he was in South Africa. It’s rumoured that he had plastic surgery to alter his appearance. I doubt you were ever legally married. Moller was not his real name, let alone the title, but no one knows who he really is.’

  ‘If I’m not married to him, then he has no rights at all over my son.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Major Barnard, if I get a long sentence will you push through the kidnapping charges and document the fact that I have custody of Nicky?’

  ‘I can do that much for you, Mrs Moller. I’ll tell you what I know, unofficially that is, because it might help you. I do realize that your baby is being held hostage to keep you quiet, however much you have denied this.’

  He waited, but I said nothing.

  ‘Moller duped local officials by pretending to help South Africa obtain items denied to us by international boycotts. He was uncovered after CIA agents arrived at Armscor to find out about computer shipments that were supposed to come here, although their real destination was the Soviet Union. It became clear that South Africa had been used as a key link in smuggling US military secrets to Russia.

  ‘Your husband is a brilliant systems engineer and well versed in modern military technology. With a continuous supply of money from the Soviets, and Armscor’s help, he was successful in obtaining whatever he wanted through bribery, blackmail and pay-offs. You see, most people would baulk at taking bribes to supply the Soviets, but they might not worry so much if the goods were destined for South Africa. It was a brilliant ploy. Through it, Moller was able to send the Russians the computer tracking system for the intercontinental ballistic missile. This put back the West’s nuclear lead on the Russians by at least four years. The CIA have vowed to kill him if they find him.

  ‘Now do you understand your position, Mrs Moller? You became Moller’s accessory when you destroyed his documents.’

  ‘But the Soviet system collapsed almost exactly a year ago.’

  ‘Exactly, just after Moller had completed his project. No doubt he found himself out of pocket so he conned a whole lot more money to replace what he had lost, taking advantage of the local rich who were desperate to shift their cash overseas.’

  Was that why Wolf had become so tense and anxious, I wondered.

  ‘Mrs Moller, I expect you have some crazy idea of searching for your son, but listen to reason. Intelligence services from the US, Britain, West Germany, South Africa and Israel, plus Interpol, are looking for him. So far they have been unsuccessful. He was operating right under our noses for years and we never even knewr his name or his identity, so how can you hope to succeed?’

  ‘And you expect me to put my faith in you to find my son?’

  He had the grace to flush. ‘Naturally, we’re in serious trouble with the US. Justice must be seen to be done. They’ve lost your husband, but they have you.’

  ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ I couldn’t handle my fear.

  ‘Moller made a fool of us,’ he said, mournfully.

  I remembered Bernie and the desperation in his eyes as he had said almost those exact words.

  ‘I wish I could help you,’ he added, more gently. ‘I believe in you. You must trust us.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’ I murmured. ‘Surely you realize that a man as clever as my husband would never tell me anything. I lived in a fool’s paradise, imagining myself to be happily married and loved.’ I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. ‘Even now, I’m not at all sure that I believe a word you’ve said. I know he stole but, believe me, my husband hated all Russians.’

  ‘Your husband is Russian, Mrs Moller.’

  After that Barnard leaned back, closed his eyes and didn’t say another word. Why should he bother? I was entirely annihilated and suffering all the physical symptoms of blind panic.

  When I was sure that he was dozing, I scribbled a note to my father explaining briefly that I was innocent, that Wolf had kidnapped Nicky and telling him the facts that I had learned from Barnard. Father must employ a missing persons’ agency to search for Nicky. Dresden, Beeskow and Liibeck might provide some clues to Wolf’s real identity. I explained why, but my hands were shaking so much that the note would be difficult to read.

  I planned to visit the airport toilet and bribe or beg a passenger to airmail the letter.

  Then I considered my plight. They might put me on trial for fraud and spying, and lock me away for years. What could I do? I tried to think of a plan but my mind fluttered around, like a wild bird in a snare, trying to find a way out. I calmed down when I realized that there was no way out. There was nothing to do, no point in planning. The choice was quite simple: my freedom or my son’s life. Barnard was right. Turning state evidence was my only escape route. Which was what Wolf had feared and why he had taken my baby hostage.

  What sort of woman would buy her freedom with her baby’s life? I had a sudden vivid image of Nicky’s crumpled face when he needed to be comforted. Was he crying for me now? Was he with Wolf? Or had Wolf placed him in an institution?

  Oh, my baby! Where are you? I won’t let you down, my darling. Not if they put me away for years. And one day I’ll find you.

  Part Two

  16 May 1994 – 11 November 1994

  Chapter 33

  Pollsmoor Prison, 16 May 1994

  When the cell doors slammed on me I succumbed to despair. Then help came from within in the guise of a dream. I became aware of a part of me that was so cruel and strong I could hardly believe it was real, a part that could kill. I knew I must trust and nurture this deadly side of my psyche. I called it my tokoloshe.

  I have been in prison for eighteen months, but my tokoloshe grows daily more deadly. I keep it chained in the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind. It has been burned by the furnace of my anger, drenched by my fears, tortured by the long, agonizing wait, deformed by my own hands into a vicious tool. My tokoloshe is cunning. It will lead me to Wolf and my son. It will give me courage to do what I have to do. It is my strength and my strategy. It is the dark side of my soul.

  Chapter 34

  Our cell, which was the size of a large bedroom, housed twenty-four women sleeping on bunk beds. We came from the eroded hills of the Transkei, the sugar fields of Natal, the arid plains of the West Coast, and the Cape’s squatter camps. We had stolen, whored, mugged and two of us had murdered, but we were women, and we shared the same agony at being parted from our families and particularly our children.

  A late summer heatwave had turned the overcrowded prison into an intolerable hell on earth. The walls were blistering with heat and we lay on our bunks in our prison uniforms almost afraid to breathe. God knows what germs were spawning in the tepid brew that passed for air. We had been told that today we would not be working in the laundry or cleaning the prison. We did not know why, but for me inactivity was harder to bear.

  I lay on my sweat-soaked pallet feeling dazed, straining to hear the voices of the warders’ children playing outside, for they seemed to provide a link with sanity. I was startled out of my apathy by the wardress calling my name.

  ‘You’re to come.’ She stammered a little. ‘Come now. Hurry!’

  Fear brought bile into my mouth as I was tossed back in time to those terrible pre-trial months. I could see the chair, the cruel clasps, the electric wires leading up to the wall, and smell the heavy disinfectant that could never obliterate the stench of vomit, urine, sweat and blood from those who had been there before me. Oh, God! The warder was smoothing the thick jelly-like substance around my ears and the back of my knees. I could hear my own screams as I fought
to keep out of the chair.

  ‘Hurry. The Captain’s waiting.’

  A feeling of damp around my inner thighs shamed me into mustering my courage. I could take whatever they had in store for me. How many times had I proved that to them and to myself as the interrogators strove to make me talk about Wolf and his spying? Giving a last, despairing glance at the others, I followed the wardress out of the cell.

  I was led along corridors and through gates, which had to be unlocked and locked again, to the office block where I ended my stumbling walk in the governor’s office.

  Captain Hendrik Vermeulen was going to seed. His shirt was soiled, his fingernails were dirty, his hair was flecked with dandruff. Life had not been kind to the Captain. I had often wondered what led a man or a woman to become a warder or a prison governor. It was hardly the sort of occupation kids dream about. Engine driver, yes. Prison governor, no.

  The Captain spent a while flicking through my file, while I stood before him feeling foolish. Even after eighteen months as a prisoner I still resented standing in the presence of men who were seated.

  At last he cleared his throat. His blue eyes flashed towards me and as quickly shied away, but not before I saw his bitterness.

  He said, ‘President Mandela, in his wisdom, has issued several pardons to celebrate the launch of the new South Africa. You are one of the lucky recipients.’

  What did he mean? A shorter sentence? I held my breath.

  He paused and took a deep breath. He was trying to control his anger, but he failed and a part of it came gushing out.

  ‘Hardly surprising, is it? Your husband being a Commie spy. I suppose you’ll be in Moscow in next to no time tossing back the vodka.’

  He broke off, frowning, and I pondered on what the new South Africa meant to landless, working-class whites. A slow regression into statelessness while their jobs were taken by blacks? Was this what he feared?