Out of Shadows (27 page)

Waiting patiently. Making plans together. Looking for ways to achieve the impossible dream.

“At one o'clock, boys who have been selected will gather for the formal opening of their new boardinghouse.”

Plotting. Lining up the pieces. Biding their time.

And now that time had come.

We have to fight back
.

Ivan's words swarmed around me. Like the bees. Stabbing, always stabbing.

If there was even half a chance they'd have their country back, you see if they don't
 . . .

. . . 
People will thank me one day, I'm going to be a hero
 . . .

. . . 
Don't you want to be part of that? Klompie and Pitters . . . They're okay, but you're better
 . . . 

Sweating, winded, I staggered from the door.

A low rumble rose beyond the glass. I saw lights by the Admin Block as three army Crocodile trucks trundled into the parking lot. They lined up side by side, then a jumble of soldiers with red berets poured out with rifles. They lit up smokes and spat. One urinated into the storm drain.

“So now you know.”

The words floated gently.

I spun around, and he was standing there. Just him and me at opposite ends of the foyer.

A few quick steps and he was on me.

“You could have been part of it but you turned your back on us.”

“You can't be serious,” I said. “Assassinate Mugabe?”

He launched his forehead and pain exploded in my nose. A powerful jab and I was down, gasping for air.

“Shut up. You're the only one who can get in the way and I've waited too long to let a stupid Pommie ruin it.”

But I wasn't the only one. Not really.

He read my face.

“I think you and I need to go for a little walk. We'll pay a surprise visit to Miss Marimbo before she opens her ugly black mouth, sort the both of you out at the same time.”

He grabbed my hair, but right then the doors to the main hall blew open and suddenly the foyer was flooded with boys. Ivan's grip dropped and I took my chance, I elbowed him and jumped into the current.

When I dared a glance, Ivan had been joined by the other two. They were looking for me, tracking my path. I started running and dived into the thick, warm night.

“Jacko! Run, Jacko,”
Ivan yelled.
“I'm telling you, you'd better run hard cos we're coming to get you. Gonna slot you, one time. You're dead.”

I was aiming for the main gate
, and as far beyond it as I could get, but even from a distance the moonlight was enough to show me the outline of a closed barrier. The cherry of a soldier's smoke flared red.

I veered from the road and cut across uneven ground. I stumbled over loose rocks and soil, then slammed into the fence because it was much nearer than I'd realized. Up the line I heard the sound of a rifle being readied.

“
Eweh!
Who goes?” came the gruff voice.

I pulled myself over and down onto the other side, and headlong into the pines.

At the road, I ran down the center lines until my lungs burned. I sat in the ditch, crying and heaving for air. There were no cars, no lights. I was alone and miles from anywhere. Anywhere but here.

Then a voice, and it wasn't Ivan's.

Forget you ever came to this school and get on with your life
.

Miss Marimbo.

A light wind grabbed me from nowhere and it made me cold.

Scared eyes through the gap. A chain kept the door tight.

“What are you doing here?”

She didn't know; they hadn't been yet. I'd never felt so relieved about anything.

“Miss Marimbo, you have to get away from here, it's not safe,” I told her. “I think he's . . . I think he could . . .”

She knew who I meant.

I heard noises and glanced over my shoulder. “There might not be much time.”

Her expression paled. She let me in off the
stoep
and locked the door behind me. Inside, I vaguely registered the naked living room and the boxes piled against one wall.

She noticed me looking.

“I am leaving tomorrow, as soon as speeches are over. I cannot wait until the end of term.”

“No, go now,” I said. “It isn't safe.”

She stared at the cut on my face. “What has happened?”

“All sorts. I can't explain everything now, but Ivan believes you might go to the police about what he did to you.” She looked at me, terrified, and I hated myself. “I told him we'd spoken. It's my stupid fault. Can you drive us out of here?”

“To where? There are soldiers all over, the headmaster has warned us that we must not . . .”

“Please. Right now.”

Miss Marimbo stood, dazed, wanting and not wanting to understand.

I told her what I knew.

“Ivan's planning to kill the prime minister tomorrow.”

She didn't laugh, or rebuke me, or even ask me to say it again.

“Okay,” she simply said at last. “We'll go now.”

There was a sharp crack against the window and the curtain puffed into the room. Miss Marimbo jumped and frowned at it, then at the pieces of glass on the floor, but already I understood. Before I could warn her a second crack sounded, and this time the stone smacked into the shade hanging from the ceiling. The bulb exploded.

Miss Marimbo screamed. I grabbed her hand, pulled her to the kitchen and shut us in, killing the lights. I slid the table across as a barricade while heavy feet smashed into the front door.

I pushed the window.

“Is that your car?”

Miss Marimbo nodded. She grabbed keys off a hook.

“Get out and start it. Quickly.”

“What about you?” she wavered.

A loud thud against the kitchen door. The table rammed in and for one horrifying moment Ivan's face was there. I leaped and made him disappear and wrestled the barrier back into place.

Miss Marimbo was halfway out.

“Robert.”

“Just go.”

“But—”

“
Now!
”

With a sob, she vanished, and long seconds later the engine roared to life. Headlights flooded the kitchen. With a last shove, I jumped and scrambled headfirst out of the gap and rolled to the ground. The car wailed, then Miss Marimbo's scream rose above it. Pittman was on the passenger side slapping at the door while Klompie had managed to get the driver's side open and was lunging in.

Without thinking, I dived at Klompie, tackling him to the ground. He slashed his arms while I pinned him face down. Pittman picked up a rock and aimed at the windshield.

I reached out my foot and kicked the car door shut.

“
Get out of here!
”

Miss Marimbo didn't need telling. With one quick movement, she pulled the car into reverse and sped through a narrow gap between the trees, leaving Pittman bathed in blinding headlights and swinging his rock at fresh air. He was almost clownlike in the way he spun and collapsed to the ground.

Now the car was on the track. Miss Marimbo straightened up and the tires dug deep. Above me, Ivan leaned out of the window. Without looking back I scurried the only way I could and didn't stop until I was over the perimeter fence, away from the retreating glow of the car and back out into the safety of the bush.

The night stalked me. I felt I'd been going for hours, my limbs aching and hot.

The stars were hidden now and every few seconds the clouds glowed silver as a battle ravaged the sky. Angry murmurs rumbled in the distance. I wasn't sure where I was going, but I needed to stop and think so instinct took over and put me on the path to the Cliffs. I also needed to shelter because the rain had started to fall, instant and heavy.

I shuffled under the overhanging rock close to the drop. Initially I cursed how the storm trapped me there but secretly I was comforted by it. I felt safe, the sound of it a reassuring blanket. As long as it was there I was certain they wouldn't be hunting for me, so I pushed myself further beneath the granite and lay with my head on the earth.

Sleep was fitful, and in my dream I saw that Miss Marimbo had made it and released the news, so that when I went back to school it was all over. Soldiers and police were everywhere. Ivan and Klompie and Pitters had been arrested and Prime Minister Mugabe was safe. And I was welcomed back
as a hero. Then the dream turned and Miss Marimbo
hadn't
made it, so I had to smuggle my way back, get past the soldiers, and disable Ivan myself. Only I couldn't find him. And I could hear the prime minister's motorcade getting closer and closer, but however hard I tried to tell them, the lines of boys and masters and parents in the chapel sat blankly and unhearing like dummies. They couldn't even see me. I screamed at them, I shook them. They did nothing. And now the prime minister was here, coming through the huge doors at the far end with all his bodyguards around him. The light behind him was so bright he was faceless, an apparition devoured by silhouette.

Snap
, the bolt of a rifle echoed.

Klompie was at the altar and aiming his gun down the aisle.

Snap
.

Pittman, in the pulpit, rifle butt nuzzled against his cheek.

Snap
.

Ivan, suddenly right next to me, ready for the shot.

My eyes burst open into the murk of predawn. The rain had stopped, the air was heavy and still. It was too early even for the birds.

I pulled myself out.

I hadn't been to the Cliffs in ages—this was their domain—and the whole area seemed different somehow, smaller. I remembered the night I'd saved Klompie, the day of Nelson and the scorpion . . . So long ago. It could have been another lifetime. It
was
another lifetime; I'd been so many different people.

They obviously still used the place because there were patches on the ground where fires had been lit. Then I noticed the marks in the bark of a tree, all our names and a date. I picked up a rock and started to hack at it, wanting to erase
every sign, past or present, that they existed and that I'd had anything to do with them.

And then I stopped. The rock slipped from my fingers.

Something hidden through the bushes.

Nothing very remarkable, just mounds of earth, each no more than a few inches high. They hadn't been there before, I was certain of it. They looked out of place because some of them had grass or plants on them that weren't growing anywhere else, while a few were completely bare.

Just long drops, I told myself. Ivan never liked people shitting near the camp.

And then there are the children who do not return
.

The light crept and shapes emerged from the dark. All of a sudden this was a very bad place to be.

I inched forward until I was at the first line of raised earth, one of the fresher ones without any growth. I didn't want to touch it so I broke off a stick and started to rake over the top. When I eased the end down it went in easily, and kept on going until it met resistance. A rock? Too soft. Elastic, almost. I prodded my way around until I was underneath whatever it was, then levered back. The top of the mound breathed, but whatever was down there was too heavy for my length of wood, and as I pulled harder something gave and a popping sensation raced to my hands. A rancid smell hit my nose.

I let go instantly and stumbled. I fell. The bush suddenly came to life as birds woke and cried and flapped. I watched them overhead, a flurry of shapes against the pale sky, and I wondered what evils they were fleeing, and what they had seen in the past.

Finding my legs, I ran.

The soldier must have been watching me the whole time as I struggled at the top of the fence, trying to unhook my shirt,
because as soon as I hit the ground he stepped from behind the trees. He held his Kalashnikov in one hand, in the other he had a length of sugarcane, which he tore at and shredded with his teeth. His uniform buttons were mostly undone and his eyes were heavy and red. I caught alcohol fumes as he swayed.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing?”

I threw up my hands. “I go to school here. I'm a pupil.”

“What are you doing?” he said again, spitting out bits of cane. He jabbed me with the barrel. “This is Prime Minister's day, you are trespassing,
murungu
.”

“No, I—”

He held the gun in both hands.

My throat hitched.

“I'm a pupil. I was just going . . . for a run. I didn't know we weren't allowed to move around still.” His finger wavered over the trigger and my words garbled. “I'm sorry I didn't know I'm really sorry. Please.”

He stopped chewing. He believed me, but that didn't mean anything and he dug the butt of his Kalashnikov under my ribs. I collapsed with a groan.

Laughing, he stepped over me for a second helping when a voice boomed across the athletics field.

“What the bloody hell do you think you're doing? Leave that boy alone.”

Dunno was marching toward us, his lips so tight they'd disappeared.

“You can see perfectly well he's harmless. You so much as lay another finger on him I'll have you reported for malicious intent.”

The soldier trained the weapon on him.

“He must not be here. We have orders to protect the prime minister. I say he is wrong.
You
are wrong.”

“And I say you're nothing more than a thug in uniform,” Mr. Dunn told him.

“I am a war vet.” It sounded like
wovit
. “I fought for this country.”

“With the likes of
you
in a position of authority, God help us. And don't you bloody point that thing at me.” Dunno swatted the rifle away.

The soldier had to do something. To my relief, he backed down and walked away with a tut and a sneer.

Dunno helped me up.

“Thank you, sir,” I managed.

“Don't thank me. You're a bloody idiot. But
that
lot . . .” he smoldered. “You know you're lucky to be alive. What the hell do you think you're playing at? And at this hour?” He noticed my clothes. “What have you been doing, boy?”