The Serpentine Road (2 page)

‘I dunno.’

‘What did you see?’

‘Nothing. Nothing.’

‘You see anyone come out the back, the side of the shack there?’

‘No.’ Smith turns around, looks down the alleyway, shakes his head. He stares at De Vries, mouth agape, panting.

‘Wait here. Cover me.’

Keeping low, De Vries jumps the broken chain fence around the yard, runs to the front door, jams his back against the wall, primes his weapon, glances inside the building. He takes a deep breath, ducks inside.

The rain on the tin roof is like a thousand gunshots, the bitter stench of fresh blood clashes with the warm smoky air, thick with sweat and urine. The interior is lit only by a fading hurricane lamp atop a pile of firewood, a faint orange glimmer from a fire against the back wall. To his right, deep, dark blood oozes from the bodies of an old man and woman sprawled on a thin, stained mattress; ahead of him, in front of the fire, a young girl lies face up, her head encased in a solid helmet of hair matted in blood; to his left, two adults, he thinks maybe in their late thirties or early forties, lean against one other, heads touching, one with half his face blown away, the other riddled with bullets. In their agony, they seem to have embraced, arms around each other, ankles crossed.

De Vries fights back vomit in his chest, takes short staccato breaths, squeezes his eyes shut yet forces himself to picture each body, each face. He searches for weapons, sees none. He makes himself step forward, pushes aside debris with his foot and with the muzzle of his gun. Still he finds nothing.

He backs out, reaches the cooler, heavy air and breathes it into his lungs; he remembers where he is and what he has seen, swings around and sees only Constable Smith, alert yet somehow mes-merized, pointing his gun at him. He meets his stare, drops to one knee and checks around him. Still there is no sign of life on the streets. He pulls himself up, scurries towards Smith and the green vehicle.

‘What is it?’

‘Something set them off. Firefight. Five down in there.’

Smith swallows.

‘Blacks?’

‘
Ja
.’

‘We follow Major Nel?’

De Vries hesitates.

‘No.’

‘Sir?’

‘We go back to Obs. Back to the station.’

He rises, pulls Smith’s sleeve, scampers back to their own van, fights to get the engine started, pulls away, swings around, heads back in the direction from which they have come.

Above the sound of the straining engine, Smith shouts:

‘What happened?’

De Vries grits his teeth, fights the stench in his nostrils, keeps watch either side of the road, alert for ambush; he says nothing.

What happened?

Wrong house, wrong car, wrong information – if there ever was any. Trigger happy, angry, vengeful policemen, sick of the struggle, sick of seeing their own cut down, sick of the weather. Out of control commanding officer venting his hatred, his frustration that at the end of years of toil, decades of faith in the system, those above have capitulated; lashing out at anyone without answers, anyone black . . .

What happened?

‘Don’t know,’ De Vries says.

Kobus Nel is scarcely older than him, but he is broad and balding, and very fit, his muscular arms filling out his rain-and-sweat soaked uniform. De Vries is taller, but he is thin and lean, his hair still buzz-cropped, army-style. He is back on home territory in Observatory, but he has been away for two years and is newly posted to the station.

The changing rooms are located in an old stone building covered by corrugated asbestos roofing. The rain thuds against it. It is cold and damp and, mid-shift, empty. De Vries has showered under the sputtering tepid streams, torn between remaining to face his CO or getting out and going home, and facing him the following day. He is absentmindedly toweling himself down when he hears the door slam and Nel’s voice boom. Nel runs down the narrow corridor of lockers, pushes him hard in the chest. He stumbles back, falls over a low wooden bench, hurtles against the far wall of lockers, causing a crash of metallic thunder. He scrambles to his feet, naked, heart pumping.

‘Come here, De Vries.’ Nel points at the ground in front of him. Vaughn stands straight, winded and shocked. They are alone and De Vries can smell the liquor on the man’s breath, senses the unstoppable determination in his posture; that his will cannot be challenged. De Vries looks up at the grey lights.

‘De Vries. Where the fuck were you?’

‘Sir?’

Nel shoves him again, forcing him back.

‘We moved from the house in Pama Road to further locations. You were our back-up.’ He stamps forward, shoves De Vries hard;
another thunder-clap of bone on metal locker-front. ‘Where were you?’ He shoves again, until De Vries’ back hits the lockers; a cymbal cacophony echoes. ‘And Constable Smith?’

De Vries unconsciously switches to military mode, barks his answers, loud and staccato.

‘Understood we were to remain in situ, guard the scene, sir.’

Nel has him trapped at the end of the row. He slams his fist into the locker door next to De Vries’s ear.

‘No, Captain, you cowardly fucker. You fucking left that scene, abandoned your unit and slunk back here. What if we had encountered resistance?’

‘I misunderstood your orders, sir.’

Nel is shaking now; his gloved hand shoots for De Vries’s neck. Vaughn feels the cold, clammy leather on his windpipe, knows he has only seconds to decide whether to fight back. Nel smashes the locker door with his other fist, releases his grip on De Vries’s neck, stands back. De Vries realizes that the physical threat is bluster, that Nel’s anger is diminishing, mutating into a different mood.

‘Your report on my desk before you leave the station. Make sure it’s right. You understand?’ He takes a small step away from De Vries. ‘Check what Constable Smith writes, counter-sign it and leave it with yours. You have a duty, Captain. Fulfill it and this is over.’

De Vries prevents his head from nodding automatically; he stands still, ignores his heart pounding in his chest, feels control returning to his limbs. Imperceptibly, he draws himself taller.

‘What do you want in my report, sir?’

Nel stares at him, his pale eyes focused.

‘Nothing that brings disrepute to this station, to my command. I make myself clear?’

De Vries stands taller. His shaking has abated, his nakedness forgotten.

‘What role did those people play, sir, the people who are now dead, in the incident at the Victoria?’

‘That is not your business. You report what you saw. Only what you saw, not what you think you saw.’

‘I saw,’ De Vries says.

There is a beat of silence before Nel comprehends, recoils. De Vries sees him re-evaluate the threat he poses. Nel lowers his voice, comes back towards him.

‘I am the commanding officer, De Vries. What you believe you saw makes no difference. There are four witnesses who will recount what occurred. We were threatened at gunpoint by men and women who harboured terrorists. We defended ourselves, confiscated weapons. No one will recall differently.’ He backs away and then struts towards De Vries anew.

‘One word from me and you’re gone. When the new regime comes to power they will exploit any weakness to gain control. So, you decide, De Vries. Stay with us, or be our enemy. See how many friends you have then. You won’t live to see the new fucking
kaffir
South Africa.’

‘I’ll see it rather than start a bloodbath.’

‘
Ja
, that is what you would do. You and fucking De Klerk and the Nats who’ve sold every one of us down the fucking river. And that fucking
kaffir
terrorist, fucking saboteur, Mandela. You think he will bring peace to this country? He’s a fucking bomb-maker. You think men like me will let him become the fucking messiah?’

Kobus Nel struts in a circle, still blocking De Vries’s exit. He is shrieking.

‘You know what will happen? The police force is over; they’ll disband it because there’ll be no fucking rule of law. They’re going to take our jobs, our houses, our land, destroy everything we have done to build this country into the great nation that we are. They’re going to fuck us all up, and with the whole world watching, cowards like you are going to let them.’

De Vries baulks, knows that over brandy and cokes with his friends he has drunkenly debated the future, acquiesced to the ugly fears of his colleagues, the hateful proselytization, but he has never fully accepted it. His new wife, Suzanne, younger and more enlightened, more informed, has tempered his insistent gnawing fears and argued to accept the inevitable, to gauge a reaction, not to allow knee-jerk ignorance to rule his heart, and to believe in hope for their daughter’s future in the new Republic of South Africa.

De Vries says quietly:

‘You know what’s frightening about people like you? I am angry, I feel betrayed, fear for my country, but you know what? You make me sound so fucking reasonable.’

Nel laughs bitterly, shakes his head.

‘We’re all fucked, whatever you pathetic liberals, you fucking apologists think, but I’m warning you, you threaten my future and I will bring you down. So, right now, you better do your duty, Captain. Don’t do it for yourself. Do it for your wife and child.’

He turns, and in the split second Nel’s back is to him, the thought comes to De Vries to jump the man, to bring him down, to beat the life out of him.

When the door to the locker room finally closes, leaving him alone, he bows his head, his weight still on the steel doors against which he had been trapped. He pretends that he hasn’t yet decided what he will do but, deep inside, he already knows. He wonders whether the shame will allow him even to stand upright to leave this place, to dress, to type up his lies and cajole the frightened Constable Mitchell Smith, to walk through the station to the exit, to travel home to his wife and baby.

3 April 2015

Colonel de Vries rides De Waal Drive as far as the Mill Street slip road, sees one plane of the tower blocks in the CBD bright with white sun, the Waterfront lit by watery rays of sunrise, turns left up towards the face of the dark Mountain, encounters only gradations of grey, from grey tarmac, through the thick layer of smoke, up the staggered, unending growth of mountain, to dark white cloud above it. He guns the puny engine up the steep incline, inhaling rich, choking smoke through the ventilators, presses on, almost in darkness, awaiting the moment when he crests the deep haze and finds daylight again. He locates the turnoff onto Serpentine Road, swings the car parallel to the coastline. The smoke follows him, lies on his rear window. For three months now, the fires have blazed. More of the famous posters have appeared on billboards, those which scold and beg simultaneously, the design decades old, a cartoon for adults: the vast, delicate Springbok head, wide eyes anguished, naïve, painted flames behind it, a tear falling from its eye. The fawn, engulfed by pathos, pleads: ‘Only YOU can stop bush and veldt fires.’

He finds Park Terrace, draws up short of the misty blue flashing lights ahead of him, swings open the car door, feeling the wind take it away from him, and struggles to slam it shut. Behind him, the eponymous little park at the road’s end with its Umbrella Pines seems unscathed, and he sees no flames from the foot of the Mountain where the fire must have blazed during the night. He turns back, walks with the wind, engulfed in smoke, towards the scene.

‘Fucking fires,’ he mutters, cupping his hands around the tip of a new cigarette, emerging choking into the square of marked police vehicles. The cylinder ignites and he draws deeply. He turns to a uniformed cop, flashes his ID.

‘Day doesn’t begin till the poison meets my lungs.’ He waves the cigarette at the officer between the ‘v’ of his fingers, strides on through the haze towards the house wrapped in police tape. He pauses, takes two further drags, flicks the butt into the gutter and spits on the road. He trots up the stairs, passes through a wide front door, sees a group of Cape Town Central officers in the palatial hallway.

‘Who thinks they are in charge here?’

The men shuffle to face him, fall silent. He hears footsteps on the wide staircase, suspended seemingly in midair, wide plains of white marble tapering down to the ground floor. Two sets of cheap shoes, crisply pressed grey trousers, white shirts and navy ties appear in fifteen centimetre degrees. The taller man, a broad black African, fit and muscular, snorts, tilts his chin at De Vries.

‘Of course it would be one of you.’

De Vries meets his eye.

‘Who are you?’

‘Nkosi. Lieutenant Sam Nkosi.’ He holds out his hand.

‘Step outside with me, Lieutenant.’ De Vries turns from the proffered hand, walks back to the front door, onto the street. As he passes the wide mirror in the hallway, he sees the eyes of the other officers turn towards to Nkosi.

De Vries waits, stares up at the mountain, his back to the property. When he hears footsteps behind him, he turns.

‘I am Colonel de Vries of the Special Crimes Unit . . .’ He observes Nkosi’s blank reaction. ‘If you know who I am, your attitude is misjudged. If you don’t, then I’m telling you now, Lieutenant: I’m taking this case from you.’

‘I know that,’ Nkosi says.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Central.’

‘Before that?’

‘Pretoria.’

‘Nobody likes this system. But it works. Chalk it up to experience. What do I need to know about the scene?’

‘I have walked it with my Sergeant to check it. We have touched nothing.’

‘I hope not.’

‘Been done right.’

‘Good. I’ll base my opinion of you on your word. Give me a card?’

Nkosi shakes his head.

‘I don’t have one. I have been here six months and they still have not been printed.’

‘Write down your cell-phone number, Lieutenant, in case we need you. Then take your men away. Tell them no one discusses the scene. I rely on you to enforce that order. You understand?’

‘Yes.’

De Vries looks past him, involuntarily taps his right foot.

‘Don’t make me say it, Lieutenant.’