Bloodlines
Authors: Neville Frankel
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Events that bookend
Bloodlines
are historically accurate, and several political characters are drawn from reality. Research, interviews and correspondence clarified my thinking, added depth, and made it possible for me to write what I might have imagined but could never have lived. Any errors of fact or judgment are my own.
Copyright © 2012 by Neville D. Frankel.
All Rights Reserved.
ISBN: 0984963200
ISBN-13: 9780984963201
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62347-757-8
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For Makson
Who taught me what little I know
of forbearance
and humor
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Contents
Book Club and Study Guide Questions
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Having participated in the struggle for justice in South Africa, I am deeply touched by
Bloodlines
. For me, and for the many who sacrificed their lives and families for the freedom of others, this is a profoundly personal and moving story.
The future of many of South Africa’s citizens once seemed bleak and hopeless, but
The Truth and Reconciliation Act
*
began the healing process, moving South Africa forward from violence, divisiveness and hatred. The work of reconciliation is not yet complete--but Bloodlines is a call to hope and healing. It is also a work about love and justice, and about the possibility of redemption. It will undoubtedly inspire many, both within South Africa and around the world.
Although
Bloodlines
is a work of fiction, it offers the clearest understanding I have yet seen of what it was like for fair-minded people to live under apartheid, and what they suffered as South Africa fought for and gained its freedom. For South Africans too young to have lived under apartheid, this book should be required reading. It does not take long for a whole generation of children to lose the knowledge of their own history, and the significance of what their parents achieved.
Neville is a gifted writer and storyteller, and I am deeply honored to have had a hand in the editing process.
Michael Langa
Professor Michael Langa is a native of South Africa, and was personally involved in the struggle against apartheid. He worked alongside Bishop Desmond Tutu on the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, offering psychosocial support to the victims of apartheid. He served as a consultant and content expert, ensuring cultural authenticity in
Bloodlines
. He has taught Negotiation skills on several continents, and now lives in Boston, where he teaches Nonviolence Philosophy at colleges and universities in the Boston area, as well as in the Worcester Public Schools.
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Johannesburg, South Africa, 1956
A
solitary car drives through the southern suburbs of Johannesburg in the late evening hours. It is as sure to draw police as a lone, skittish impala draws predators. This particular car—a Volvo Duett station wagon—glides cautiously through the darkness, obeys all traffic laws to the letter, avoids shopping centers and other areas where a police presence is mandated.
The car is driven by a pregnant young woman; her passenger is a young man squeezing both hands around one thigh like a tourniquet. He sits in the back seat, creating the appropriate impression should they be stopped by the police, because while Michaela Green is white, Mandla Mkhize is a black man. The fact that he is a Zulu of the Mkhize clan, known to his friends by his clan name, Khabazela, is irrelevant. In the eyes of the police, there is only one legitimate reason for them to be in a car together at night. She is the employer; he, the gardener or kitchen boy, and she is driving him to the hospital after a midnight brawl in the servants’ quarters behind her home.
None of this is borne out by the facts, which include two boxes in the back of the station wagon, containing thousands of still warm mimeographed pamphlets announcing a protest against a raise in bus fares. The increase is only a few pennies, but for the hundreds of thousands who travel to their employers’ homes and businesses as washerwomen, cooks, gardeners, nursemaids and drivers, it is draconian.
“Mandla, are you still bleeding?” she asks, trying to see him in the rear view mirror. “It’s not far now.”
“Don’t worry about me, Michaela,” he answers through lips tightened against the pain. “Just get us there safely.” He takes a breath, grunts. “I’m bleeding all over your father’s car. I hate going to him like this. And I’m sorry for dragging you into this mess.”
“You didn’t drag me anywhere,” she says tartly. “And we have no choice but to go to my father. He’s been doing this kind of patch up in his dental surgery for years. Besides, where else could I take you? You have a bullet in your leg, the Special Branch is sure to be after us, and—” she pauses, and he thinks he hears a catch in her throat—“we left a dead policemen in the field behind us.”
He is silent, thinking about his first murder, wondering whether there will be others.
“I’m so sorry you had to see that,” he says, fading.
“I’m glad I saw it,” she says fiercely. “Don’t forget, I also saw what he did to you. He would have killed you if you hadn’t killed him first.”
Mandla lies back with his eyes closed. Michaela relives the events just passed, recalling every moment in terrible detail.
Michaela led the way from the shed where they were working together, through the woods, to the adjacent field where she had secluded her Volvo. She walked as fast as she could, holding the flashlight over her belly. He carried the two boxes of pamphlets, which they planned to distribute to cells around the city. When they reached the car she opened the rear and he put the boxes in the back. As he reached up to close it, however, they heard the screech of police cars pulling up to the garage behind them, followed by slamming doors, shouts, and the sound of furniture breaking.
“Damn them,” she whispered. “They’re destroying the mimeograph machine. Where the hell are we going to get another one?”
“Never mind that,” he responded. “Come quickly, Michaela. You need to get out of here. Get into the car and go home.”
“What about you?”
“You can’t be seen in a car with me. I’ll be fine. Go.”
He helped her into the car and as he closed the door there was the sound of footsteps from the trees. She watched through the car window as a policeman emerged from the darkness and collided with Mandla, who fell to the ground. The officer stepped forward and placed a boot on Mandla’s hip, having no idea that they were not alone. He spoke, but Michaela, watching behind the closed car window, heard nothing.
Mandla replied, and in response the officer swung his leg back and drove a boot into the prone man’s belly. Michaela watched as he tightened his gut against the impact, but the kicks were accurate and brutal. Each one forced the air from his chest, and she was sure that he would soon pass out. She readied herself to scramble from the car, find a log and hit the officer over the head. If she didn’t manage to knock him out, at least she would have created a distraction during which they might be able to get away. But when the next kick came, she watched as Mandla grabbed onto the boot and hugged it to his side. Without pause he rolled over, using the momentum of the kick to unbalance the officer, who toppled, pulling a revolver from his belt as he fell. A shot went off, startlingly loud.
Mandla rose to his knees, and as the officer pummeled him in the face, was somehow able to wrap his arms around the man’s neck. The blows kept coming; Mandla wanted only to stop them. Finally he jerked his forearms up into the man’s throat, twisting as he did so. Bone and cartilage snapped with a sound that seemed to reverberate in his head as loudly as the shot from the revolver, and Michaela saw the body in his arms slump to deadweight. Mandla rose and limped to the car, holding his thigh. Michaela opened her door and in the car light she saw that his trousers were stained with blood.
“Oh, God,” she said. “You’re shot.”
Before she could help him into the car, a black policeman emerged from the trees, armed with only the truncheon in his belt. He saw the body on the ground and glanced up at Mandla. They stared at each other for a long second.
The man knew what work they’d been doing. He hesitated briefly, nodded imperceptibly, and stepped back into the darkness. Mandla raised a hand to his forehead in thanks.
Michaela helped him into the back seat and maneuvered herself behind the steering wheel. Breathing heavily, she drove off. In the rear view mirror she saw the black policeman come out of the trees again. For the benefit of anyone who might be behind him he ran after the car, hand raised as if to stop them.
Mandla awakens lying on a plastic sheet draped over a blanket on the heavy wooden table in the Davidson’s kitchen. Dr. Davidson bends over his thigh, and Michaela hovers anxiously at her father’s elbow. The blood-soaked pants have already been cut off his leg, and Dennis, the black gardener who has worked for Dr. Davidson for thirty years, is washing the blood from his leg and foot, where it has pooled in his shoe.