Kruger's Alp (8 page)

‘And in this place,' Joyce yipped excitedly catching the spirit of his peroration, and relying no doubt on her Bible reading, ‘will we wear white clothes and golden crowns?'

‘White clothes, certainly,' Blanchaille replied with all the conviction he could muster, ‘but I cannot say about the crowns.'

‘Yes. Golden crowns!' Joyce insisted with an expectant smile as if she were feeding clues to a not very bright child. She tapped her head. ‘But not for
wearing,
maybe.'

At last he understood her. ‘You mean
coins.
Golden coins! Krugerrands?'

Joyce nodded, satisfied to hear the words. ‘That is what I remember of that old President, golden coins,' and she skipped before him like a child down the dirt road, despite the heavy suitcase she carried. ‘Come on then. Let's go, my Father.'

My Father? Her temerity enraged him. First she had attached herself to Father Rischa, the sprinting Syrian, entranced by his popularity, then she left Blanchaille for his lack of it; she went over to the Parish Consensus Committee and now without a blink she had deserted them and returned to her original master in the mistaken belief that after all perhaps he offered the better deal. Look how she skipped ahead of him! Why she even lifted the suitcase onto her head in the way women carry water from the well and with it wonderfully balanced there she danced and jigged! It would do no good to talk to her of the difficulties of leaving without permission, without a ticket or passport. This was scarcely the time for discussion. But there were other ways perhaps. He had no intention of leaving before paying a few last calls, to Bishop Blashford in particular, perhaps to Gabriel. Ecclesiastical authority might do to Joyce what he could not. A momentary access of charity afflicted him at this point and he thought that he might have misjudged her, that perhaps she was a poor weak creature, easily swayed; but commonsense reasserted itself to tell him that this was nonsense, she was a ferocious woman determined on escape and mere legal detail would not deter her; that she had no permission or papers was no obstacle, for while she was with him, he was her permission, her passport, and her ticket. Her heavy body shook under her white skirt and blouse. Her head-dress was beautifully ironed. She endeavoured to look like a nun of the old sort, from the days before nuns began dressing like traffic wardens. If ever the situation changed and revolutionary firing squads roamed the streets executing their enemies, Joyce would be there, praying as the bodies hit the ground: ‘He let me down, but forgive him, if you can.'

CHAPTER 4

And now I saw in my dream how the road which Blanchaille and Joyce followed took them past a great township on the edge of the city. Perhaps this was the township in which Blanchaille's friend Miranda had died, but if so he gave no indication of it. And outside this township, beside the usual scrolls of barbed wire so ornate they took on the look of some lean and spiky sculpture, the priest and his housekeeper saw police vans and Saracen armoured cars crowded in at the gates and armed policemen in positions on the roofs of the houses and in trees and on any high vantage point, training their guns on the township.

And then I saw a short, stocky man with a sub-machine gun under his arm step forward and introduce himself to the two travellers as Colonel Schlagter. This Schlagter was a burly capable-looking man, but that he was under some strain was clearly apparent from the tight grip he kept on the black machine gun, jabbing it at them and demanding to know their business.

‘We are on a journey,' Blanchaille explained, indicating the suitcases.

Schlagter jerked his thumb at Joyce. ‘Does this girl have a permit to be here? No one is allowed without a permit. Why is she outside? Why is she not inside with the others?'

‘She's with me. She's my servant,' Blanchaille explained.

‘O.K., in that case she can help you.' Schlagter turned to Joyce. ‘I hope you got strong arms, my girl. There's lots of work for you here. Now both of you listen to me. This is the position. I'm commandeering you in terms of the State of Emergency, which gives me the right under the regulations to commandeer any civilians who in the opinion of the military commander or senior police officer on the scene may contribute to the safety of the State.'

‘But what has happened? There's been trouble here, hasn't there?' Blanchaille demanded. ‘I thought the townships were peaceful.'

Now this was a telling point because one of the proudest boasts of the Regime at that time was of the peace to be found in the townships. Full-page advertisements appeared in international newspapers: they showed happy scenes, a group of children playing
soccer; a roomful of smiling women taking sewing lessons; a crowded beer hall full of happy customers, and over the photographs the headline: Y
OU ARE LOOKING AT A RIOT IN A SOUTH AFRICAN TOWNSHIP
. Trudy Yssel's Department of Communications ran this campaign with great success.

‘The townships are peaceful. Don't you bother about that,' Schlagter snapped. ‘Come along with me please.'

He led them into the township where before the huge and fortified police station a bleak sight met their eyes. In the dust there lay scores of people, very still, with just an edge of clothing, a corner of a dress, the tip of a headscarf lifting in the gentle breeze which carried on it the unmistakable heavy smell of meat and blood. Joyce put down the suitcase and drew close to Blanchaille, seizing his wrist in her terrible grip.

‘Where have you brought Joyce? I believed in Father and where has he brought me?'

‘We must do as he says,' Blanchaille whispered.

‘We are caught here. Stuck forever,' Joyce replied.

‘Less talk, more work my girl.' Schlagter indicated the fallen people in a matter-of-fact way, lifting his arms and drawing with his two forefingers an imaginary circle around them. ‘The people you see here are guilty of attacking the police. Believing themselves to be in great danger my men, after several warnings, returned fire. Just in time, I can tell you. The Saracens held their fire. They were not called or the damage would have been far greater, particularly to peaceful people in their houses. I'm proud to say these officers contained the charge with rifle fire and well-directed barrages from their sub-machine guns, even though this is a comparatively new weapon, extremely light and portable but inclined to jam when fired in haste due to the palm-release mechanism which must be squeezed simultaneously with the trigger. It takes some time to get the knack of it. But it's no more than a teething problem, I can assure you. Now these casualties must be removed. You have a free hand. You and the girl will be covered throughout the operation so there's no cause for alarm' – this last was directed at Joyce who had begun sobbing. ‘To your right you will see the front stoep of the police station which at the time of the murderous attack was occupied by only four black constables. Lay out the people there in orderly rows to facilitate counting and identification. Any problems, call on me.'

Priest and servant wandered among the fallen people, men, women and children tumbled into heaps or sprawled alone.
Blanchaille noticed the remnants of clothing, several old shoes, a petticoat and even an old kitchen chair scattered about. Most of the people had been shot recently for they were warm still and bled profusely. He'd never realised how much blood the human body could contain and how the violent perforations of heavy, close-range fire will make the blood gush and spread. And then, stranger still, there were others who showed no signs of blood, or wounds, not even a single puncture. But there was blood enough, soaking into the dust, making a pungent sticky mud which Blanchaille and Joyce stirred up still further with their feet, though they tried to be as careful as possible. The policemen from their vantage points sighted down their rifles.

‘If we pick them up together that will be easier,' Blanchaille said.

‘Do your own work yourself,' Joyce retorted.

Blanchaille began lifting the body of a young man, seizing his left arm and his right leg and carrying him across the stoep, hearing the blood drip as he shuffled across the open space. The man was a terrible weight. ‘I cannot do it myself, nor can you. We must help one another.'

Joyce didn't even bother to look at him. She grabbed hold of the ankle of a plump woman with a gaping wound in her chest and simply dragged her across the ground in a slew of pebbles and dust. Blanchaille heard the woman's head bang on the edge of the wooden stoep as she hauled her on to the bare boards.

‘Heads all the same way!' Schlagter yelled.

After that Blanchaille followed Joyce's example, seized a leg or an arm and turning his head away hauled the body to the stoep. Only the children he carried.

It was backbreaking labour and eventually Blanchaille could stand it no longer and went to Schlagter. ‘There are so many, this is going to take a long time.

‘Well, get on with it then.'

‘Perhaps we could have some help?' Desperation made Blanchaille bold.

Schlagter shook his head. ‘My men are on watch.'

‘Watching for what? These people are dead,' Blanchaille said.

The Colonel smiled. ‘When you've been in the police force as long as I have, you'll learn to be very careful before jumping to conclusions. These people may look like they're dead, I grant you that, but how do we know that some of them aren't pretending? Lying low? They're a sly lot these township people, I can tell you that from the years of working with them. What happens if some of
them are just waiting until I order my men to put their guns down and go and start carrying the bodies? Then they jump up and attack! No man, I'm not taking any bloody chances.'

‘These people are dead,' Blanchaille insisted.

‘Says you! I'm in charge here and I'll decide who's dead or not.'

Blanchaille went back to work.

‘We will never escape,' Joyce snapped at him bitterly.

‘Why should they want to hold us? Once this is finished we'll be out of here.'

‘You think there aren't other townships, other bodies? They'll take us with them. Or perhaps they'll shoot us.'

She spat, a globule of moisture in the dust. What an odd collection of belongings littered the killing ground: there were quantities of shoes in different sizes and colours, some matching pairs as well as abandoned single shoes; there was a baby's pushchair, rusted, in blue leather, but still usable; there was, besides, a petticoat touchingly embroidered with pink lace, pink lace finely worked; a pair of spectacles with one lens smashed; a set of dentures, the teeth clicked shut, a bizarre solitary expression of naked obstinacy, the teeth presented an air of invulnerability which reminded him of that unyielding almost jaunty bravado that skeletons wear; and then, somehow most touchingly of all, there was the up-ended kitchen chair lying on its side as if someone had leapt from it only minutes before and left in a hurry. These small domestic details were more sad, and somehow more vocal, than the torn, shapeless bodies. The work was very hard. Joyce continued to drag the bodies to the stoep. He lifted some of them despite the strain and his aching muscles but he was now moving very slowly. Things changed when he came across a mother and child killed by a single bullet. The child was strapped to its mother's back in a red and blue blanket, tightly knotted. Their combined weight was too much for him to lift and he was forced, reluctantly, to try and separate the bodies but their blood had soaked the blanket and the knots would not budge. His hands slipped and reddened. With a snort of impatience Joyce came over and seized the mother's hands. He took her feet and between them they carried the bodies to the stoep. Joyce would have laid the mother out, face down, with the baby above but Blanchaille was revolted by the unnaturalness of this and gently turned the woman on her side so it looked as if mother and child were curled up asleep.

Perhaps this sign of gentleness softened Joyce, for she took up the next body with a brisk nod at Blanchaille, indicating that from now
on they would clear the field together. Hoping this was the beginning of better relations, Blanchaille set the chair back on its feet, as if it would preside, become a witness, over their business. Joyce seemed to understand and approve of this gesture for there is always some comfort in extreme situations in the restoration of an even temporary normality. In the course of his work Blanchaille learnt something of bullet wounds. Learnt how the entry point may be smooth, how the speeding bullet may draw threads of clothing with it into the wound and the bullet, often encountering no obstacle on its passage through the body, burst out with ugly force from shoulder or neck. Or it might take a wildly eccentric course through the inner organs rebounding off bone to emerge in unexpected places, anything up to a foot above or below the point of entry. Head wounds could be particularly severe, seen from behind.

He went to Colonel Schlagter. ‘You said that these people had been attacking your men.'

Schlagter eyed him warily, ‘Well?'

‘A lot of them have been shot in the back.'

‘Christ man, what's that got to do with it?'

‘Well it looks like they were running away.'

Schlagter shook his head. He laughed grimly. ‘Front, sides, back – what the hell does it matter? Look, you've never been under attack. Let me tell you that when you're being attacked you don't stop to ask what direction the people are running in. Anyway, like I told you, they're a crafty lot. I mean for all you know some of them turned round and were running at us backwards. Have you thought of that?'

Blanchaille admitted that he had not.

When at last all the corpses were laid out on the long wooden veranda in front of the police station and an armed guard posted, ‘just in case', Schlagter came over and thanked them for their work. ‘You have been an indispensable help. You have served your country. All these people you see lying here will now be counted and photographed and their relatives will be brought to identify them, and afterwards they will be allowed to reclaim the members of their families. This is a strict procedure because the enemies of our country like nothing better than to inflate the figures of those killed and to claim that all sorts of people have been killed when they know this is a lie and a slander.'

The armed police were stood down and relaxed visibly. The Saracens left. Schlagter directed Blanchaille and Joyce to a stand-tap behind the police station building and asked them if they'd like
to wash their hands.

Joyce washed first, holding her feet under the tap and then scrubbing ferociously at the blood stains on her white dress, folding handfuls of gravel into the material and rubbing it harshly, catching the water in a great scoop of her skirt like a prospector panning for gold and in this way she managed to reduce the vividness of the blood marks, but the stains remained.

Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, so the story went, Blanchaille reflected. Only it wasn't like that, not here. It was blood to dust and dust to mud and mud to water and away down the ditch with it. He watched as Joyce scrubbed at the blood which had caught in the cracks of her nails using the wet hem of her dress.

‘I think they're going to let us go now.'

‘You? Think! This is the new life you promised me. When I see how it starts, God knows how it will end!'

Blanchaille stepped up to the tap conscious of her rage, of her eyes boring into his back. He cleaned his face and his hands as best he could and rubbed rather hopelessly at the blood stains on his clothes but only succeeded in darkening and spreading them. When he turned again, Joyce was gone. He was not surprised and doubted whether anyone would have tried to stop her. Well, she would have a great deal to tell Makapan when she returned.

He walked to the front of the police station and, as he had expected, no one took any notice. He picked up his suitcases, one in each hand and one, bulky and uncomfortable, underneath his arm and began moving towards the front gate. Away to his right a group of policemen in shirt sleeves were playing a game of touch rugby using a water-bottle as a ball. The kitchen chair stood where he had left it, surveying the killing ground. He barely got out of the front gate before he collapsed, exhausted. He sat down in the dust on his suitcase beside the road.

And then I saw in my dream that a man driving a yellow Datsun estate stopped and offered him a lift. A short and balding man with a pleasant smile whose name was Derek Breslau. A commercial traveller for Lever Brothers dealing in ladies' shampoos. The inside of his car was so heavily perfumed it made Blanchaille swoon and he could barely find the words to thank him for his kindness.