The Bang-Bang Club (31 page)

The whole family queued to vote together, led by Boytjie. The identity documents that had for so long been their burden were now their passport to vote. When it was Maki’s turn to enter the curtained booth and make her choice, she told me later, her heart beat faster: ‘It was as if something has been lifted off my shoulders. I felt as if there was something magical about it; as if God had made the school holy for everybody who was going in. I felt happy that at long last we were asked to participate in who must govern the country.’

Maki and other neighbourhood women had prepared food and drinks for the voters. The morning had started out cold, but by ten o’clock the sun was hot and the old folk were feeling faint from the heat. Maki was concerned that the older people would collapse from the hours of waiting. But there were so many people that the neighbourhood women could only give each a plate of mielie meal porridge, soup made from bones, a bread roll and a glass of orange juice mixed in a bucket. When the ANC activists saw what the women were doing, they rushed out and bought barrels of take-away chicken for everybody in the queue.

Maki continued preparing and handing out food until dusk and then went with Tarzan to the church for a special service. There were far fewer people attending than was usual, but for Maki ‘The service was also magical. Everybody felt as if Nelson Mandela has given us the land of milk and honey, we had that feeling. Even the sermon spoke of that - the vote had come, we had been led to the land of milk and honey.’

The vote had come ten days after the shooting in Thokoza and I had
recovered enough to be able to cast my vote in the polling-booth at the hospital. As I approached the rather incongruously simple tin ballotbox, I felt elated. The AP had lent me a point-and-shoot camera. I shot pictures of my plaster-cast hand pushing the ballot-paper into the box. I was hoping the AP would put a picture out on the wire, because like a naughty schoolboy I had written, ‘Fuck the Nats (National Party)’ on the plaster. The AP had better pictures to move that day and my little dig went unnoticed. They had given me the camera because they knew how strongly I felt about missing out on photographing the election. And they were right, the chance to vote and to shoot some pictures had lifted me out of my depression, if only for a few hours.

Kevin was at a voting-station in the extremely affluent northern suburbs where white home-owners voted alongside their maids and gardeners. Kevin wanted to vote too, but he had forgotten his identity book. He argued and tried to cajole the officials into letting him vote anyway, but they refused. Kevin became angry, abusive, running his hands through his hair in frustration. I never did find out where Kevin eventually voted, but he must have done so - for there was still the next day in which to vote.

The second day of voting was quieter, and Joao, Gary and Brauchli spent it in Thokoza. They eventually ran out of fresh scenes to shoot and they just hung out as the lines dwindled and polling-stations closed. Dusk was approaching and they idly played Frisbee. Being in Khumalo Street, near the spot where Ken had died, made them sullen. The excitement of that historic vote had been much reduced by Ken’s death. Joao could not find the emotion he wanted to feel while photographing. While they were idling at the garage, it suddenly struck Brauchli that the South Africans, Joao and Gary, had photographed hundreds of votes being cast, but had themselves not yet voted. It was late on the final day and the first polling-booth they went to in Thokoza was already shut. They wanted to vote in the township, felt that it was right. They eventually found one that was still open. It was a school in the southern part of Kathlehong, where the ANC fighter Distance had told us that he was glad that Abdul had been killed. That had been just
three months before, but so much had happened since that it felt like years. Brauchli thought it a great moment, watching his friends cast their votes: he clowned with the women and made the boys laugh for the camera, but when Joao entered the cubicle to make his mark on the ballot-paper, he stopped smiling. His thoughts turned to Ken and me. ‘I was in so much pain that I did not savour the moment when I voted for Nelson Mandela.’

For Joao, the period following Ken’s death was dark and blurred. He worked like a machine, up at dawn to go into the townships and shoot pictures, and then come to visit me in hospital. He would invariably drink heavily before going home to sleep and start the cycle again the next morning. For Viv, it was a miserable period: Joao was aggressive and in pain, but he would not share it with her. It was as if he could only relate that pain to colleagues who had been in the townships. He felt that Viv should be shielded from the details. Viv had grown used to being excluded from what Joao experienced, but now, instead of home being a refuge, it had become a part of Joao’s hurt-filled world. He didn’t laugh any more. The weeks dragged on, in what seemed like one long, cheerless day. For the first time in their seven years together, she contemplated leaving him.

 

Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president behind bullet-proof glass because a right-wing assassination plot had been uncovered. But despite that, hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the lawns of the Union Buildings in Pretoria to cherish the moment. After decades of apartheid, and several hundred years of racial discrimination, South Africa finally had a democratically elected government. Kevin was there somewhere, and the others were spread out at different celebrations. I was out of hospital, back home and well enough to feel thwarted at not being able to participate in the day. My joy at watching Mandela dance his little jig to the roar of the huge crowd gave way to weeping and depression. I was worn out, thinking about Ken a lot of the time. Waves of self-pity swept over me - when would I be able to work again? The
AP had offered me a desk-job while I recovered. I had refused, but was touched that they were treating me like family. They had also offered to pick up my large hospital tab, but
Newsweek
had paid for that and the
Newsweek
photo director had promised me a contract - unlike doing piecemeal freelance work for them, a contract is one of the most lucrative and prestigious gigs in the business. Once I was back on my feet, things were going to be good.

Joao and Gary came round to visit me after photographing streetcelebrations. They told me that the townships were just one big party, everyone having a great time. I insisted we go to a party and they took me to Soweto. Balloons were strung low across the section of the street that had been closed off. People who had television sets had brought them out into their yards so their neighbours could also watch. Others had gathered around braais, barbecuing meat, and people were coming up and forcing drinks on us. Everyone wanted their picture taken. After a while we left that drunken street bash and went to visit the Rapoos. I was happy that at least I had experienced a little of the euphoria.

17

UP AND DOWN

God has put his jealousy on me
God has greedy eyes

Traditional Acholi funeral song

After Mandela’s inauguration, things slowed down. The constant adrenaline rush eased, as did foreign interest in the story. There was a sense of anti-climax among journalists; almost all of our foreign photographer friends and colleagues had moved on, and, while the story of the transition to an ANC-led government was interesting enough, the global news focus had shifted to the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda. South Africa was, after all, an African story and there was not enough room for too many of those in the world’s headlines every day.

Unlike the rest of us, Kevin had some immediate excitement to look forward to. He was going to New York to collect his Pulitzer. He prepared carefully for the trip, researching how best to capitalize on the prize. Jim Nachtwey gave him a lot of advice and introductions at
Time
, so he wouldn’t go not knowing what to do nor whom to see, and also arranged with Canon to give Kevin a set of new cameras.

Kevin wanted to find a good agency and to make Africa his beat. Sygma seemed the best for that and they were keen: they had offered
him a contract and guarantee. Having parted ways with Sygma some years before, I warned him that agency guarantees are merely an advance and if you do not make enough money to cover them, you go into debt with the agency. One great French war-photographer was reputed to owe Sygma hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Kevin wanted to meet as many magazines as he could, to make personal contacts, to act for himself without going through the agency, which would take half the assignment fee. As best I could, I gave him a rundown on the picture editors he might encounter. Kevin was full of story ideas, he wanted to meet people in New York who would assign him or fund the ideas. It was a chance to start anew, the bad days of violence in South Africa were behind him and he had great career prospects ahead. Joao and I were concerned about his drug-taking, and we both separately told him to take it easy with the drugs so as not to blow the opportunity. He seemed entirely positive; that everything was clearly going to work out for him - how could it not?

The night before he was to leave for New York, he dropped in at the Reuters office to see Judith, who had told him a few days earlier that she was going to resign. He again brought up the idea he had first proposed a few days previously that they form a freelance writerphotographer team. The idea was that they would go to conflict zones together. Kevin admired Judith, an American Harvard graduate who was sexy, vivacious and smart. The relationship had not progressed beyond a work friendship, but two days before he was to leave, he revealed strong feelings for her. Although she was attracted by the intensity and commitment he put into his work, she kept her distance - his wildness was fascinating, but also scary.

Though it was
The New York Times
’s first ever Pulitzer for photography, Nancy Lee had been cautious about inviting Kevin to pick up the prize. She could hardly forget the incoherent phone call on the night that he had won, but in the intervening months there had been no problems, so she decided that Kevin should be the one to collect the prize. Lee and Buirski were determined that Kevin have a great time. They made sure he had a full New York experience, taking him to plays
and the best restaurants. Kevin was captivating and fun, and his excitement at being in New York for the first time was contagious.

Nancy Lee recalled, ‘We fell in love with him. I mean, he talked to us a little bit about his former addiction problems, and seemed very open and honest about it, while at the same time, very nervously needing to cash the Pulitzer cheque in New York for money so he could “buy equipment”. Maybe he did buy equipment, I don’t know. But when he insisted on the cash, I thought, “Why does he not just charge it?”

The Pulitzer award ceremony is traditionally a lunch at Columbia University, and so on 23 May Kevin and Nancy Lee took a cab up Broadway running north past the plush apartments of the Upper West Side, to the stone entrance of the university on the fringe of Harlem.

Kevin was totally manic. To Nancy, it seemed as if he was on something, as though he was speeding. ‘He was, like, zing-zing-zing. He literally bounced up to the stage.’

All Kevin noticed was the applause he received. He was by now fully aware of the significance of the prize, writing to his mother that ‘I swear I got the most applause of anybody. I can’t wait to show you the trophy. It is the most precious thing and the highest acknowledgement of my work I could receive.’

At the lunch that followed the ceremony and speeches, Nancy later told me that Kevin was loud, too loud; but Nancy put it down to his being excited, who wouldn’t be? In combination with all the other quirks of Kevin’s behaviour, she made a mental note. But receiving the Pulitzer is such a great honour in journalism, and Nancy really liked Kevin by then, so she put aside her reservations and enjoyed being with him at Columbia that day.

The trip was not without its difficulties. People began to pepper Kevin with questions about the ethics of the shot, about his feelings and actions when he photographed the child. A Japanese television crew had been following Kevin around the entire time, and he was getting irritated by them. The Japanese had fallen under the spell of the vulture picture like no other society. The image had clearly struck some deep
chord there and had been published again and again; programmes on the picture were aired. Schoolchildren discussed it in classes on ethics. They wanted to understand his actions and his thoughts when he photographed that Sudanese child. Questions about Kevin’s ethics and his humanity were beginning to be asked more frequently; the pressure on him was building. The strain was only greater because Kevin also had his own doubts about his actions that hot day in Ayod, and wrestled with them almost every day.

That night, Nancy Lee and Nancy Buirski took Kevin to a trendy café, with a spectacular view over the East River and downtown Manhattan. Kevin began talking about himself and Ken: how he looked like Ken, how he would frequently be mistaken for Ken. And that he was devastated by Ken’s death, because he was not there when it happened. Nancy said that it was as if Kevin felt that Ken was his good twin, that he was what Kevin should have been, a good person, with a stable home life. Kevin was spinning an idealized version of Ken, but after his death it was easy to make an icon of a loved friend - we all did.