A Dry White Season (6 page)

Except this once, it seemed, for even Stanley was stumped. The police had picked up so many people on that particular day that it might take a week or more to obtain a list of names.

Early the next morning Gordon and Emily set out in Stanley’s great white Dodge, his
etembalami,
to Baragwanath
hospital. There was a crowd of other people on the same mission and they had to wait until three in the afternoon before a white-uniformed assistant was available to lead them to a cool green room where metal drawers were opened in the walls. The bodies of children, mostly. Some in torn and dusty clothes, others naked; some mutilated, others whole and seemingly unharmed, as if asleep, until one noticed the neat dark bullet-hole in the temple or chest and the small crust of dried blood clinging to it. Some wore tickets tied to a neck or a wrist, an elbow or a big toe, bearing a scrawled name; most were still nameless. But Jonathan was not among them.

Back to the police. There were no telephones working in Soweto in those days; the bus services had been suspended and for the time being there were no trains either. Once again they had to call on Stanley Makhaya’s taxi to take them, however hazardous the journey, to John Vorster Square. A full day’s waiting yielded nothing. The men on duty were working under pressure and it was understandable that they were crusty and brusque when approached for information on detainees.

After two more days had passed without any news of Jonathan, Gordon came to Ben for help. (No one had been surprised that he hadn’t turned up at his work lately. There was such widespread intimidation of black workers in the townships that very few risked going into the city to their jobs.)

Ben tried his best to cheer him up: “He’s probably gone into hiding with some friends. If anything serious had happened I’m quite sure you would have heard by now.”

Gordon refused to be persuaded. “You must talk to them, Baas. If I ask, they just send me away. But if you ask they will give you an answer.”

Ben thought it wise to approach a lawyer, one whose name had been prominent in the newspapers recently in connection with scores of youngsters brought to court in the wake of the riots.

A secretary answered the telephone. Mr Levinson, she regretted to say, was busy. Would Ben be prepared to make an appointment for three days later? He insisted that the matter was urgent. All he needed was five minutes to explain it to the lawyer on the telephone.

Levinson sounded irritable, but consented to take down a few particulars. A few hours later his secretary phoned to tell Ben that the police hadn’t been able to give any information but the matter was being attended to. And it was still receiving their attention when Ben arrived at Levinson’s office three days later.

“But it’s ridiculous!” he protested. “Surely they should know the names of their own detainees.”

Levinson shrugged. “You don’t know them as well as I do, MrCoetzee.”

“Du Toit.”

“Oh yes.” He pushed a silver cigarette case across his enormous cluttered desk. “Smoke?”

“No thanks.”

Ben waited impatiently while the lawyer lit his own cigarette and exhaled the smoke with a show of civilised relish. A tall, athletic, tanned man, his smooth black hair slick with oil, long sideburns, neatly trimmed moustache, Clark Gable redivivus. Large well-groomed hands, two solid, golden rings; tiger-eye cuff-links. He was working in his shirtsleeves, but the wide crimson tie and crisp striped shirt lent formality to the studied nonchalance of his bearing. It was a difficult interview, interrupted constantly: by the telephone, the well-modulated voice of a secretary on the intercom, or an array of assistants – all of them young, blond, lithe, competent, with the poise of entrants for a beauty competition – coming and going with files, rustling papers, or confidentially whispered messages. But in the end Ben managed to arrange for Levinson to follow up his telephone appeals to the police with a written demand for specific information.

“Now don’t you worry” – with a hearty gesture reminiscent of a soccer team manager offering his confident prognosis for the coming Saturday – “we’ll give them hell. By the way, do we have your address for the account? I presume you’ll be responsible for the costs? Unless” – he checked his notes – “unless this Ngubene chap has money of his own?”

“No, I’ll look after it.”

“Right. I’ll be in touch then, MrCoetzee.”

“Du Toit.”

“Of course.” He took Ben’s hand in a firm conspiratorial
grip, pumping it like a mother bird feeding its young. “See you soon. ‘Bye.”

A week later, after another telephone call, there was a letter from John Vorster Square: their query, it stated, had been referred to the Commissioner of Police. After another week had passed without further reaction, Levinson addressed a letter directly to the Commissioner. This time they received a prompt reply, advising them to take up the matter with the officer in charge at John Vorster Square.

There was no reply to their next letter; but when Levinson made yet another sarcastic phone call to the Square, an unidentified officer at the other end curtly informed him that they had no knowledge whatsoever of any Jonathan Ngubene.

Even then Gordon didn’t give up hope. So many youngsters had fled the country to find asylum in Swaziland or Botswana that Jonathan might well be among them. It would be in keeping with his behaviour of recent months. They just had to be patient, there would be a letter soon. In the meantime they had four other children to look after.

But the uncertainty, the anxiety, the suspicion persisted. And they were hardly surprised when, about a month after Jonathan’s disappearance, the young black nurse arrived at their home.

She’d been trying for nearly a week to find them, she said. She was helping out in the black section at the General Hospital. Ten days ago a black boy of about seventeen or eighteen had been admitted to a private ward. His condition seemed to be serious. His head swathed in bandages. His belly bloated. Sometimes one could hear him moaning or screaming. But none of the ordinary staff had been allowed near him and they’d posted policemen at his door. Once she’d heard the name “Ngubene". And then she’d learned from Stanley – yes, she knew him, didn’t everybody know him? – that Gordon and Emily were looking for their son. That was why she’d come.

They didn’t sleep at all that night. The next morning they went to the hospital where an impatient matron denied that there had ever been anyone by the name of Ngubene in her wards; nor had there been any police on guard duty. Would they please go away now, her time was valuable.

Back to Ben; back to Dan Levinson.

The hospital superintendent: “It’s preposterous. I would have known if there had been such a case in my hospital, wouldn’t I? You people are always raking up trouble.”

Two days later they received another visit from the young nurse. She’d just been sacked by the hospital, she told them. No one had given her any reason for it. Only a few days ago she’d been commended for her conscientiousness; now, all of a sudden, her services weren’t required any more. However, she assured them that the black boy was no longer there. The previous evening she’d slipped round the building and climbed up the waterpipes to peep through a fanlight, but the bed had been empty.

Two more letters by Dan Levinson to the police failed to elicit even an acknowledgement of receipt.

Perhaps, Gordon grimly insisted, perhaps it really had been just a rumour; perhaps there would still be a letter from Mbabane in Swaziland or Gaberone in Botswana.

In the end it was Stanley Makhaya, after all, who found the first positive lead. He’d been in touch with a cleaner at John Vorster Square, he said, and the man had confirmed that Jonathan was being held in one of the basement cells. That was all the man had been prepared to say. No, he hadn’t seen Jonathan with his own eyes. But he knew Jonathan was there. Or rather: had been, until the previous morning. Because later in the day he’d been ordered to clean out the cell and he’d washed blood from the concrete floor.

“It’s useless just to write another letter or make another phone call,” Ben told Levinson, white with anger. “This time you’ve got to
do
something. Even if it means a court interdict.”

“Just leave it to me, Mr Coetzee.”

“Du Toit.”

“I’ve been waiting for a break like this,” said the lawyer, looking pleased. “Now we’ll give them the works. The whole titty. What about dropping a hint to the newspapers?”

“That will just complicate everything.”

“All right, have it your way.”

But before Levinson had framed his plan of action he was telephoned by the Special Branch with a message for his client
Gordon Ngubene. Would he kindly inform the man that his son Jonathan had died of natural causes the night before?

2

Once again Gordon and Emily put on their Sunday clothes for the trip to John Vorster Square – by that time the trains were running again – to enquire about the body: where it was; when they could get it for burial. One would have expected it to be a simple and straightforward matter, but the enquiry turned out to be yet another dead end. They were sent from one office to another, from Special Branch to CID, told to wait, told to come again.

This time Gordon, for all his old-worldly courtesy, was not to be moved. He refused to budge until his questions had been answered. In the late afternoon a sympathetic senior officer received them. He apologised for the delay but there were, he said, some formalities that still had to be attended to. And an autopsy. But everything should be finished by the Monday.

When on Monday they were once again sent away with empty hands they returned to Ben; and with him to the lawyer.

As on all previous occasions the tall man with the Gable looks dominated, with spectacular self-confidence, the enormous desk covered with files, telephones, documents, empty coffee cups and ornamental ash-trays. His teeth flashed against the deep tan of his face.

“Now this has gone too far,” he exclaimed. In an impressive and elaborate show of efficiency he telephoned police headquarters immediately and demanded to speak to the officer-in-charge. The officer promised to make enquiries.

“You better start pulling out your fingers,” said Dan Levinson aggressively, winking at his attentive audience. “I give you exactly one hour. I’m not taking any more nonsense, right?” He turned his wrist to look at his large golden chronometer. “If I haven’t heard from you by half-past three I’ll be phoning Pretoria and every newspaper in the country.” He slammed down the instrument, flashing another grin at them. “You should have gone to the newspapers ages ago.”

“We want Jonathan Ngubene, Mr Levinson,” said Ben, annoyed. “Not publicity.”

“You won’t get far without publicity, Mr Coetzee. You ask me, I know all about it.”

Much to Ben’s surprise the Special Branch did ring back at five past three. Levinson didn’t say much; he was listening, obviously flabbergasted by whatever the officer on the other side was telling him. After the conversation he remained sitting with the receiver in his hand, staring at it as if he were expecting it to do something.

“Well I never!”

“What did they say?”

Levinson looked up, rubbing his cheek with one hand. “Jonathan has never been in detention at all. According to them he was shot dead on the day of those riots and as nobody came to claim the corpse he was buried over a month ago.”

“But why did they tell us last week – ?”

Levinson shrugged, scowling as if to blame them for the latest turn in the affair.

“What about the nurse?” said Gordon. “And the cleaner at the Square? They both spoke about Jonathan.”

“Listen.” Levinson pressed the tips of his strong fingers together. “I’ll write them an official letter demanding a copy of the medical report. That’ll do the trick.”

But in the simple reply from the police, a week later, the matter was closed with the brief statement that, unfortunately, the medical report was “not available".

It is easy to imagine the scene. Ben’s backyard at dusk. Johan and his friends splashing and cavorting in the neighbours’ pool. Susan preparing supper in the kitchen: they had to eat early,
she was going to a meeting. Ben at the back door. Gordon standing with his old hat pressed flat against his lean chest with both hands. The grey second-hand suit Ben had given him last Christmas; the white collarless shirt.

“That’s all I say, Baas. If it was me, all right. And if it was Emily, all right. We are not young. But he’s my child, Baas. Jonathan is my child. My time and your time, it’s passing, Baas. But the time of our children is still coming. And if they start killing our children, then what was it that we lived for?”

Ben was depressed. He had a headache. And he could think of no ready answer.

“What can we do, Gordon? There’s nothing you or I can change.”

“Baas, that day when they whipped Jonathan you also said we can do nothing. We cannot heal his buttocks. But if we did something that day, if someone heard what we had to say, then perhaps Jonathan would not have got the sickness and the madness and the murder in his heart. I don’t say it is so, Baas. I say
perhaps.
How can we know?”