A Dry White Season Read online

  In spite of himself Ben could feel his jaws tauten. But he refused to be convinced. “I tell you it was just to scare me, Stanley.”

  “So why didn’t you get scared?”

  “Precisely because they tried so hard. If they want to intimidate me, I want to find out why. There must be something there, and we’re going to find it. I can’t do a thing without you. But if you’re willing to help me, we can dig up whatever they’re trying to cover up. I know it won’t be easy and we can’t expect too much too soon. But you and I can work together, Stanley. It’s the least we owe to Gordon.”

  “You quite sure about this, lanie? I mean, this is no time for show.”

  “Do you remember the day I said we must be careful before it went too far? Then you were the one who laughed at me. You said it had only started. And you were right. I know it now. And now I’m going all the way. If you’ll help me.”

  “What’s ‘all the way', lanie?” Stanley was deadly serious now.

  “I can only find out by going on.”

  “You think they going to allow you to go on?”

  Inhaling deeply, Ben said: “It’s no use looking too far ahead, Stanley. We’ll have to handle every bit as it comes up.”

  The only reaction from the big man behind the wheel was a relaxed chuckle. Through smoke and dust they drove on in silence for a long time until Stanley stopped in what might have been either a side street or a vacant lot, a black hole in the dark. As Ben touched the handle to open the door, Stanley restrained him:

  “You wait here. It’s further on. I’ll check first.”

  “Didn’t you warn Emily then?”

  “I did. But I don’t want people to find out.” Noticing Ben’s questioning look, he said: “The joint is full of informers, lanie. And you got enough problems as it is. See you.” Slamming his door he disappeared in the dark.

  Ben turned his window down a few inches. An oppressive smell of smoke drifted into the car. The awareness of disembodied sound grew overpowering. And once again, but more intensely than before, he had the feeling of being inside an enormous animal body with intestines rumbling, a dark heart beating, muscles contracting and relaxing, glands secreting their fluid. Only, in Stanley’s absence, it acquired a more ominous, malevolent aspect, an amorphous menacing presence. What forced him to remain there, every muscle tensed and in his mouth a bitter taste, wasn’t fear of a gang of tsotsis or a police patrol or the thought that he might suddenly be attackedin the dark, but something vague and vast, like the night itself. He didn’t even know where he was; and if for some reason Stanley did not come back, he would never be able to escape from there. He had no map or compass, no sense of direction in the dark, no memory to rely on, no intuition to help him, no facts or certainties. Exposed to pure anguish, he sat motionless, feeling the tiny cold pricks of perspiration on his face where the air touched him.

  In that total invisibility Soweto was more real to him than the first time he’d been there in broad daylight. Simply because Stanley was not with him. Never before had he experienced so acutely the total isolation of their respective worlds, and the fact that only through the two of them those worlds were allowed to touch briefly and provisionally, and that only through Gordon it had been made possible at all. Gordon: invariably it returned to him.

  Trapped in the violence of his own thoughts, Ben remained in the car for what might have been hours until, suddenly, Stanley reappeared beside him.

  “You seen a ghost?” asked Stanley, his face laughing in the dim interior light of the car.

  “Perhaps I have.” The sudden relief made him feel lightheaded. “Now I know what this Black Peril is people are so scared of,” he said mockingly.

  Somewhere, in a street close by, a woman started screaming, long piercing sounds stabbing the night.

  “What’s happening?” asked Ben as he got out in a hurry.

  “How should I know? Murder. Rape. It can be anything.”

  “Can’t we do anything?”

  “You got a death wish, lanie?”

  The screams ended in a final low animal moan merging with the night’s more general hum.

  “But Stanley—”

  “Come on. Auntie Emily’s waiting for you.”

  Responding to the matter-of-fact tone in his voice, Ben followed him; but as they walked on he discovered that he was still listening tensely for the woman to make another sound. They proceeded from one tall lamp-post to the next, planted far apart and supporting white floodlights, creating the impression of aconcentration camp. From time to time Ben would stumble over things in his way – a tin, a discarded fender, unrecognisable rubbish littering the dark street – but Stanley found his way surely and easily, like a big black cat in the night.

  They went through the small rickety gate and up the two front steps to the door. Stanley knocked. It sounded like a code, part of his boyish love of cloak-and-dagger. Emily opened immediately, as if she’d been waiting with her hand on the key. Large and shapeless in her old-fashioned full-length dress, she stood aside to let them enter. There was only one gas lamp burning inside, and the corners of the small front room were in semi-darkness. Against the far wall a few children were sleeping under a grey blanket, small bundles close together, like loaves of bread set out to raise. On the sideboard the transistor was playing, turned down very low. Everything appeared unchanged, from the calendar pictures and the printed texts on the walls to the sewing machine on the scrubbed table and the old Dover stove in the corner. A vase filled with plastic flowers. The floral curtains drawn. There was a smoky stuffiness inside, aggravated by a stale smell of bodies. Beside the table sat a small grey man in a worn black suit, resembling a wizened lizard with two very bright, very black eyes twinkling among the many folds and wrinkles of his face.

  “This is Father Masonwane of our church,” said Emily, as if apologising for his presence.

  The little man smiled, exposing toothless gums. “We met before,” he said. “When the morena was here last time.”

  “The Baas must please sit down,” said Emily. “Take this chair here, the other one is too broken.”

  Ben sat down rigidly, a little distance away from the table.

  “Well,” Stanley announced from the door. “I’m going. You can have your chat in peace. So long.”

  With a touch of panic Ben half-rose again. “Why don’t you stay?”

  “Got a customer waiting,” Stanley said. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back.” Before Ben could protest again he was out, once again surprisingly soundlessly for such a big man. The three of them were left behind; the gas-lamp stood hissing on the table.

  “I put on water for tea,” said Emily, “but it will take sometime.” She hovered near the stove, too uneasy to sit down in Ben’s presence.

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he said, looking at the priest.

  “Father Masonwane is a big help to me,” she replied.

  The small man merely smiled mysteriously.

  “I’ve come to talk to you, Emily.”

  “Yes, it’s good, Baas.”

  “Now that the court has let us down, we’ll have to gather all the evidence we can ourselves. Stanley is going to help me. We must find out everything about Jonathan and Gordon, so that we can clear up the shame that has been brought over them.”

  After every sentence he paused, waiting for her to react, but she said nothing. The priest, too, remained silent. Once one of the children sleeping on the floor coughed; another mumbled briefly.

  “We cannot bring them back to life,” said Ben. “But we can make sure that this sort of thing won’t ever happen again.”

  “You mean well, morena,“ said the old priest at last. He spoke slowly and very correctly, as if considering each word separately. “But it is better to forgive. If we keep the pain alive then hate and bitterness will remain with us.”

  “The air must be cleared so we can breathe again.”

  “The air can only be cleared if we forget about yester
day’s thunder.”

  “No,” Emily said suddenly. “No, the Baas is right. It’s not that I want to go on with this thing, because it is a bad thing. That Jonathan died, that Gordon died” – she fell silent for a moment and had to control her voice first – “that is hard enough to bear, but I can forgive it. Father Masonwane has taught me a lot.” She looked up, the light falling directly on her round face. “But they covered Gordon’s name with dirt. They said things which he would never do. And we must clean it up, else he will never have peace in his grave.”

  “Sis Emily,” the old priest said, shaking his head, “that is not the way to set about it.” His dry voice became more urgent. “Those people who did it to him, they are poor sinful people who do not know what they are doing. We must have patience with them. We must learn to love them, otherwise everything will break down.”

  “They killed Gordon,” Ben said vehemently. “He was a man who wouldn’t even hurt a fly. And they killed Jonathan, who was only a child. How can you say they didn’t know what they were doing?”

  The priest shook his grey head. “I tell you they don’t know,” he repeated. “You don’t believe me? I know it is a terrible thing to say, but it is true. They don’t know. Even when they shoot our children they don’t know what they’re doing. They think it doesn’t matter, they think it’s not people, they think it doesn’t count. We must help them. That is the only way. They need our help. Not hate, but love, morena.”

  “It’s easy for you to talk,” Ben said. “You’re a priest.”

  The old man grinned, exposing his bare pink gums. “I also had to stand by when they took my sons to jail, morena,“ he said. “And every time I go into the city I must show the police my pass. Some of them treat me with respect. But there are others, young ones, younger than my sons, who throw it down on the ground after they have looked at it. There was a time when I also hated them, when my heart was bitter, like an almond. But I conquered it, morena, and now I know better. Now I pity them and I pray for them and I ask the Lord to help me so that I can learn to love them.”

  “They covered Gordon’s name with dirt,” Emily persisted calmly, staring straight ahead, as if she hadn’t heard what he’d said.

  “Aren’t you afraid, Sis Emily?” the old priest reproached her.

  She shook her head. “No. In the end one grows tired of being afraid, “she said.

  “This very afternoon you were crying about your husband. And now you are prepared to dry your tears just like that.”

  “I’ve cried too much, Father Masonwane,” she said. “Now the Lord has sent the Baas to me.”

  “You must think about it.”

  Emily stared past him, into the semi-darkness where her children were sleeping. “Father, you always told me to trust in the Lord. You said He could still perform miracles. Tonight He sent my Baas in here, a white man. Don’t you think that is a miracle?” And after a moment she repeated, in the same calm,resolute way: “They covered Gordon’s name with dirt. We must clean it up.”

  “In that case I must go,” said the old man, sighing as he got up. “There are ants in your heart tonight, Sis Emily.” With an apologetic smile he opened the door and slipped out.

  Now they were alone in the house, he and Emily, and the sleeping children. For a while they remained staring at each other uneasily, he rigid and lean on his straight-backed chair, she large and bloated beside the stove. And they were both relieved to discover that the kettle had started boiling, which gave her something to do. She poured his tea into a white cup with a faded gilt edge, shaking her head when he made a questioning gesture in her direction. Standing formally at attention she remained behind the priest’s chair while Ben stirred his cup. One of the children was snoring lightly.

  “What must I do now, Baas?” she asked.

  “We must gather all the information we possibly can. You and Stanley must work together. Try to find every person who can tell us something about Jonathan or Gordon. Even if it doesn’t sound important at all, bring it to me. Or send Stanley to me. You’re right here, you have ears and eyes in this place. And I’ll set to work with whatever you bring to me.”

  “I have something for you, Baas.”

  “What?”

  She waited for him to finish his tea before she said: “I don’t know if I can give it to you.”

  “Let me see.”

  “It is all I have left of Gordon.”

  “I’ll look after it, whatever it is. I promise.”

  All of a sudden she seemed nervous, and first went to lock the door, standing with her back to him for some time before she put one hand into the front of her dress to extract something. Hesitantly she came back to him and put it on the table in front of him, still warm from her body. A small crumpled bit of paper.

  Two separate ones, in fact, he discovered when he unfolded it. The first was ruled, like an exercise book, the other a square of toilet paper. Both were inscribed in soft pencil, almost illegible through handling and crumpling. The handwriting was shaky, the style oddly formal.

  The first note was the easier to read:

  My dear wife you must not have worries for me but I am longing for you and the children you must look after them in the fear of the Lord. I am hungry and I cannot understand what they require from me there is too much shouting going on but I think I shall be home some day I think about you all the time. With kind regards,

  From your husband.

  The piece of toilet paper proved more difficult to decipher:

  My dear wife I am still in these conditions (followed by a few illegible words) worse and too much pain you must try to help me for they do not want to (illegible) me. You must care for the children and if you need money you must ask the church or my (illegible) master who is kind to us. I do not know if I will come home alive they are very (illegible) but God will provide and I miss you very much. Try to help me because

  It ended abruptly, not torn off, but in the middle of a line, with ample space below.

  “There’s no name on it, Emily,” Ben said.

  “I know Gordon’s writing, Baas.”

  “How did you get these letters?”

  She took out a handkerchief, unfolded it very carefully and blew her nose. Then she put it away.

  “Who brought them to you, Emily?”

  “I cannot tell you.” She avoided his eyes.

  “I have to know if we want to take this matter further.”

  “It is a man I know, Baas. I cannot make trouble for him in his work.”

  He became suspicious: “Does he work for the police?”

  She turned away and, quite unnecessarily, rearranged the blanket covering the children.

  “Emily, you must discuss it with him. Tell him I’ll keep it secret. But I’ve got to know.”

  “He cannot come out.”

  “Just tell me his name then.”

  She hesitated before she said, almost resentfully, “Johnson Seroke.” Immediately she became very agitated again and insisted: “It is no use, Baas. He cannot talk.”

  “Won’t you send him to me?”

  She shook her head. Putting out her hand, she demanded: “It is better to give it back to me.”

  Ben covered the two bits of paper on the table with his hand. “It is to clear up his name, Emily. It’s the only way.”

  After a long hesitation she withdrew her hand.

  “When did you get the letters?” he asked.

  “The first one came early. Two days, three days after they took him away. The other one” – she frowned with concentration, one hand fiddling with a loose thread from her dress – “the other one came later. Just before we got the trousers, Baas, with the blood and the teeth.”

  “And afterwards?”

  She shook her head. “No, that was the last one.”

  “But Emily, why didn’t you tell me long ago?”

  “If they hear about the letters they make it more bad for him.”

  “But you could have told
me after his death, when we went to court.”

  “Then they take my letters away from me. I was afraid, Baas.”

  “It might have made a difference.”

  “No,” she said bluntly. “If I show it at the court they call that other man again and he say it is not Gordon’s writing.” She was breathing deeply. “I think you must give it back to me, Baas.”

  “I promise you I’ll look after it, Emily. Nothing will happen to it. And it may still be very valuable to us, if we can find more evidence to go with it.” Urgently he leaned forward, pressing both hands on the table: “Emily, you must talk to Johnson Seroke. He helped you once, he brought you these letters. Perhaps he’ll be prepared to help us again. It’s for Gordon and Jonathan, Emily.”

  “He didn’t want to talk to me. He just give me the letters.”

  “Promise me you’ll at least speak to him.”

  “I will speak to him, but he won’t listen. The people are too much afraid, Baas.”

  “If they keep quiet because they are afraid, everything just gets worse. And then we’ll never be able to clear Gordon’s name.”

  Almost shamelessly he repeated it, knowing it was the only way to get through to her. And gradually their conversation became less urgent, as they began to talk about Gordon; and about Jonathan too, but more about Gordon. What they could recall of him, little things he’d said or done. Obviously beginning to feel more at ease, she refilled his cup and they went on reminiscing about Gordon and Jonathan; and about the second son, Robert, who’d run away to Botswana.

  “You shouldn’t worry about him too much,” Ben said. “At his age all boys tend to be difficult. My wife also has constant trouble with our son.”

  It became very homely: two parents discussing their children. And the strangeness ebbed away. He was beginning to find it easier to communicate with Emily. At the same time Gordon reappeared in a different perspective, as if the focus of some inner lens had been adjusted. He felt involved in a different way, more immediate than before, more personal.