Those Who Love Night (29 page)

“Freek?” Yudel said into the phone.

“I beg your pardon,” a female voice said.

Yudel recognized the voice as belonging to Mariette van Deventer. “Gordon here,” he said, immediately wishing that he had just hung up.

“Professor Gordon?”

“Mr. Gordon,” he said.

“Mr. Gordon,” she agreed. “I have a woman in my office. She's carrying a newspaper clipping and she wants to see Mr. Yachad.”

“No harm in that,” Yudel told her.

“And she is very insistent. She says Mr. Yachad was in her office at the newspaper with another old man, not as old as Mr. Yachad though, she said.”

“Young woman?” Yudel asked. “Long, rather ragged blond hair?”

“That's right. Do you know her?”

“No, I don't, but I understand that she works for the newspaper.”

“What I would like to know is where does this advertisement come from?”

“It comes from the woman who wants to see my father-in-law. You just told me that.”

“I don't mean…” He heard her take a deep breath. “I asked Mr. Yachad and he said something about marketing that I did not understand.”

Go away, Yudel was thinking, I have more important matters to deal with. He had glanced toward the dining room and could see a light burning inside. The power was back on, so that was how the van Deventer woman had got through. “Marketing is a complex subject,” he told her.

“I know nothing about marketing.” Mariette van Deventer's voice had risen a few notes. “But I do know that my name is in an advertisement in the newspaper.”

“Your fame is spreading. I suggest you introduce this lady to Mr. Yachad immediately.”

“I have already introduced twenty-three to him.”

“Well done,” Yudel said. “It's been wonderful chatting, but I have to go. I have important Zimbabwean government officials waiting for me, members of the Central Intelligence Organization. Goodbye for now.” He cut the connection.

He only waited a moment before dialing Freek. The answer came almost immediately. “Jordaan.”

“Freek, it's Yudel.”

“Good. I've been trying to reach you.”

“The power's been down in the whole city.”

“I found him.”

“And what did he say?”

“Listen, Yudel…”

“I am listening.”

“Listen well. You and Abigail need to be careful. You need to be very careful in dealing with this man.”

*   *   *

As soon as he had broken the connection, Yudel went in search of Abigail. He knocked on her door, then called her name, but there was no response. He looked at his watch and saw that it was almost dinnertime. In his own room, he found that the keys of the hired car had been removed.

It was not usual for Yudel to hurry over anything, but now he went down the stairs too quickly, stumbling on the landing. Abigail was not in the restaurant, nor on the terrace that he had left only two minutes before. Christ, he thought, we only just got back. He found Marjorie Swan in the hotel lounge, talking to one of her guests. She looked curiously up at him. “Is everything all right?” It was said in a way that suggested the expectation that perhaps everything was not all right.

“Do you know where Abigail is?”

“She took your car. I hope that's all right?”

“No, it's not all right. Do you know where she went?”

The hotel owner looked anxiously from Yudel to her guest. Emotional disturbances were not good for business. “I didn't give her permission to take the car. I thought you two were…”

“Do you know where she went?”

“No. She said something about an important meeting. I asked if she didn't want you to accompany her, but she said this was something she had to handle herself. Shouldn't she have taken your car? I know men are often touchy about their cars.”

“Damn the car,” Yudel said. “The car is of no importance. Did she say nothing more?”

“She said she may be a while. Is it serious?”

“I don't know. I hope not.” As he was turning away, the phone called to him again. This time it was Helena.

38

Abigail remembered that to reach the club, Jonas Chunga had taken the car through a number of turns. She had to stop twice along the way, once at a liquor store that had a stock of only two lines, a cheap brandy in half-liter bottles and a popular beer; then once more at a residence where she asked a woman, probably in her early twenties, to direct her further. The woman called her ma'am, told her where to go and offered the use of the phone if she needed it.

She had contacted Chunga by using the cell phone number on the card he had given her. Waiting while the ringing signal reached her, she had recognized all the old uncertainties. It was just like her early days with Robert.

What are you doing, girl? she asked herself. You want to know about him. You want to be certain. But what you know so far should be enough. You don't want the truth. You want to discover that everything you've learned so far is wrong. It can't be so, you're telling yourself. And that's what you want to learn.

He has to be what he says he is, Abigail thought. I can feel it. And yet, since I've been in this country there have been so many times I've known he's not. So many times and so many indications that nothing he says is true. And yet his eyes say something different. Oh God, Abigail. You sound like a fourteen-year-old. What's happened to the other twenty-odd years of your life?

When he had answered, she had heard something in his voice that she was certain was relief. “I'm so glad you called,” he said. “After yesterday, I thought there would be nothing more.”

And after she asked him to meet her, he had said, “Yes, of course I'll meet you. Can I fetch you?”

Her cell phone rang. Jonas, she thought. Oh, Jonas, don't say you can't come.

She slowed the car and, glancing down at the phone, recognized the calling number as Rosa's. For a moment she hesitated, then switched off the phone. No, Yudel, she thought. This is not for you. I'm not discussing this with you, not now, maybe not ever.

At the boom of the estate in which the country club was situated, a uniformed guard came up to the car. “Member?” he asked without smiling. His demeanor said that he was the man in charge of the gate and she had better have a good reason for wanting to enter.

“No,” Abigail said. “I'm a guest of Director Jonas Chunga.”

As she had expected, the man's manner changed. Was there any place in this city where his name would not have that effect? “The director is expecting you, ma'am. He said you'd know where to find him.” He waved her through.

Abigail drove slowly now. There were only a few hundred meters to the clubhouse. She did not want to hit one of the animals that roamed the property. She was not sure that she should have come at all. And in a few minutes she would be facing him again.

No, it was not that she was unsure about the wisdom of coming. Somewhere deep within her, not as an officer of the court, but as a woman, she knew that she should not be here. But she also knew, as a woman, that she had to be here. Turning back had become impossible.

Abigail saw him the moment she stepped onto the fairway. The day was over, but the African twilight remained. Fringing the horizon ahead of her, the sky still glowed with the warmth of the sun. Chunga was a silhouette under the tree that spread across the fairway, just where he said he would be. His feet were apart and his hands seemed to be in his pockets. She saw him for what he was—a man of power, an alpha male in the center of his territory, a physical presence that drew her toward him. It was only with the greatest restraint that she did not run to him.

She compelled herself to walk slowly and stop all of twenty paces from him. He had not moved since she had first caught sight of him where he stood, waiting for her. “There are things I have to know,” she said. She had raised her voice just enough to reach him across the distance between them. “There are certain things I just have to know about you.”

“Ask me anything and I'll tell you.”

“Do you know where the seven are?”

“No, I do not.” His voice was strong and calm, reaching her without any apparent effort.

“Were they abducted by members of your organization?”

“As I told you before, not as far as I know.”

“Did you have anything to do with the arrest of the Makwati twins?”

“Yes, I orchestrated it. You can't have people observing the movements in and out of a prison. You have to ask yourself what the purpose is.”

“Did you know about the conditions in Chikurubi prison?”

“Yes.”

“But you did nothing?”

“I am not all-powerful, Abigail. Ordinary working people have little to eat. The country is starving. I know the prisoners get too little, but a World Food Program delivery has just reached Chikurubi. The prisoners ate better today. They will in the weeks ahead.”

“Do you know who killed Krisj Patel? Tell me again.”

“No. The arrest we made was clearly a mistake. Our agents are not as skilled as I would like them to be. They are all desperately underpaid. We are still searching for the killer.”

“Have you ever personally killed anyone?”

“Yes. Twice I've killed criminals in self-defense.”

“The Gukurahundi killings, of which my aunt was a victim—were you involved in them?” This question was a surprise to her. It had arisen from somewhere within her, unplanned and perhaps unwanted.

“I was just a boy of twenty when they started. I had only left school the year before. I was already a police officer, but I was a victim of the Gukurahundi, not one of the perpetrators. I was beaten and left for dead by members of Five Brigade. I saw what happened in Bizana. I was there right after the massacre. The people who died were my people. After that, I decided that it was impossible to resist the government. Since then I've worked from the inside to stop even worse things from happening. At Plumtree, where I grew up, I was the youngest station commander in the history of our police. It was there that I was recruited by the
CIO
.”

“Why did you leave us at the prison? Why didn't you stay?”

“I've seen it before. I couldn't bear to see it again.”

“So you left?”

“Yes.”

“Someone had been trying to kill Tony earlier. Was that the
CIO
?”

“First of all, we have no real evidence that anyone was trying to kill him. His friends say that someone was, and they blame us. In any event, Abigail, have you any idea how many enemies those people have made?”

“And what about the
CIO
? Everywhere, in the world press, from activists, Western politicians and others, the stories are the same … and the
CIO
is at the center of it. How can I believe that you have no part in it? Or at least that you don't know about these things?”

“Look at me.” He had spread his arms wide, a defenseless posture. “Do I look like a killer? What you have seen of me so far, does that look like a killer? Do I behave like a killer?”

“No, you don't behave like a killer.” It was true. At that moment, looking at the man before her, she could not believe that he was part of murders and assassinations. But then, how do killers behave while they're not killing? she asked herself.

“Good God, woman, you were in my arms a few evenings ago. Did I feel like a killer then?”

Abigail's next question was for herself. Why am I here? I knew the answers before I came. I knew what he would say before he spoke. She turned, as if to leave, uncertain of her next step, knowing that she had learned nothing.

Afterward, Abigail was never sure when Chunga had first moved, or how she came to be lying in his arms on the grass of the fairway, or at which point her own passion had ignited. She felt his hands in the small of her back, pressing her against him. Breathing was difficult, and yet the racing of her breath and his merged so that all other sound was eliminated. Her hands were clutching the fabric of his jacket. She heard his voice, barely audible through the sound of their breathing. “Why did you ask me to come? Not to answer those damned questions. I don't believe that.”

“Jonas,” she heard herself gasp his name. “Jonas, please, Jonas.”

“Please what? What are you asking of me?”

“Jonas, please.” Her voice was no more than a whimper. She hated the weakness she heard in it. “Jonas.”

Then she was lost in the whirling vortex of her passion. She was unaware that there was still enough light for them to be seen, if not from the clubhouse, certainly from a hundred paces down the fairway. She was not aware of exactly what he was doing, he seemed to be everywhere. “Jonas.” Again the whimper, the pleading, “Jonas, please.”

“What do you want from me, woman?”

“I don't know. What do you want from me?”

“I want everything. I want your soul. I want every moment of your life. I want your body now, this moment.”

She had lost her jacket. She saw it on the grass, beyond her reach. Her brassiere had been pushed up. She lifted an arm to try to cover her breasts. They were not very big and perhaps he would not like them, seeing them as too small. God, what am I thinking? she asked herself.

The arms that she had tried to use as protection had been swept aside and she felt his lips on her nipples, first one, then the other. “Jonas, please.” Surely I can find something else to say, she thought.

Then suddenly he was holding her at arm's length. “My God, you're beautiful.” He was looking at the very naked breasts she had been ashamed of just a moment before. “What is it, Abigail? You know what I want of you; what do you want from me? Why did you bring me here tonight?”

“Jonas, please.” How many times had she said that since she had been in his arms? Her voice sounded as weak as it had before.