Trackers (6 page)

I guess he says that to all his students.

Sat
in front of the computer for three hours, trying to write my book. Nothing. Are
there school figures for writing, an attempt at a novel reduced to
one-two-three-backstep for amateurs? My thoughts drifted off to unfamiliar
places. The nature of freedom, its relativity. Freedom, bound by conscience, by
longing, guilt and dependence and money and stimulation and structure and
talent and goals. And courage. I had lost mine, somewhere in the northern
suburbs, years ago.

24
August 2009. Monday.

Milla was in the Pick 'n' Pay in the Gardens centre when
Kemp, her attorney called.

'Two things. There is a letter here from your son. To you.
And Christo phoned, very angry. He said people came to see him, at work. About
your background check.'

'My background check?' Completely at a loss. 'Apparently you
applied for a job somewhere.' She battled to put two and two together. 'Did
you?' asked Kemp. 'Yes ...'

'He said they were asking questions about your political
background.'

'My political background?'

'May I ask where you applied for work?'

'I... the ... employment agency couldn't tell me much. It's a
journalism job .. .What did Christo tell them?' 'His exact words?' 'Yes.'

'That you are a bloody communist, just like your father. And
as crazy as your mother. Apparently he was very upset, it was a big
embarrassment for him, he said you ought to have warned him ...'

'How could I... ?' She heard the tone of another incoming
call. 'Gus, I have to go ...'

'I'll send our messenger to deliver the letter to you.'
'Thanks, Gus.'

He said goodbye and she checked her screen. UNKNOWN CAI ,LER.

'Hello?'

'Hello, Milla, this is Mrs Nkosi...'

Milla wanted to ask about the checks, she wanted to protest
politely, but before she could react: 'I have very good news for you. You are on
the short-list. Can you come in tomorrow for another interview?'

It was so unexpected that Milla asked: 'Tomorrow?'

'If that's convenient.'

'Of course.' She confirmed a time, and said goodbye. She
stood behind her trolley in the middle of the shopping centre aisle, trying to
absorb it all. Apparently Christo's comment about her father, the communist,
hadn't done too much harm.

Then Milla turned and walked back into Pick 'n' Pay and
bought herself a pack of cigarettes and a Bic lighter. For the first time in
eighteen years.

In the Presidential Intelligence Agency Operations room, the
big screen displayed a photo of the man in a suit getting out of a car. He was
coloured, dressed in a tasteful dark suit, white shirt and grey tie. He carried
a black briefcase over his shoulder. It was a grainy image with little depth,
and gave the impression of a telephoto lens.

Janina Mentz and Advocate Tau Masilo sat and studied it.
Beside them stood Masilo's right-hand man, Quinn, the Chief of Staff: Operations.
He pointed at the screen.

'That is one of the members of the Supreme Committee, Shaheed
Latif Osman,' said Quinn. 'You don't often see him in a suit, more usually in
traditional Muslim dress. The photo was taken on Sunday, at about half past
twelve, at a five-star guest house in Morningside, Johannesburg. Osman booked
in under the name of Abdul Gallie. Here he is on his way back to the airport.
Twenty minutes earlier this man...' Quinn clicked the mouse of the laptop and
another photo appeared.'... also left the location.' A big black man, smart in
a dark blue jacket and grey trousers, getting into the passenger seat of a
black BMW X5 in front of the guest house.

'This morning we identified him through the vehicle number
plate. His name is Julius Nhlakanipho Shabangu. He goes by the alias inkunzi',
which means 'bull' in Zulu. The greatest source of information on him is in
the SAPS Criminal Intelligence database, connecting him with organised crime in
the Gauteng area. He has a criminal record, two jail terms for armed robbery.
He is under suspicion of being the brains behind a car hijacking network and
various cash-in- transit robberies over the past four years. There is more
information in the former Scorpions' files, but that will take a while to access.'

'According to one of the kitchen staff, Shabangu and Osman
met in the library, behind closed doors,' said the Advocate.

Quinn confirmed this with a finger pointed at the screen:
'Shabangu arrived at the guest house at ten in the morning. His chauffeur
waited outside. Two hours later he emerged, and shortly after that, Osman came
out. Osman had not left the guest house since the previous evening.'
'Interesting,' said Janina Mentz.

'We have no previous record of a meeting between these two.
Osman frequently travels to Johannesburg, but normally to mosques in Lenasia,
Mayfair and Laudium. Shabangu was never seen at any of those places,' said
Quinn.

'A new partnership.' Janina Mentz was pleased. This was
progress. 'Strange bedfellows,' said Tau Masilo.

'I presume we are going to keep an eye on Shabangu.'

'Indeed.'

She wanted to light a cigarette before opening the letter.
She realised she didn't have an ashtray. She went to the kitchen to fetch a
saucer, lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. And coughed.

She
smoked the whole cigarette, staring at the letter on the coffee table. She
picked it up reluctantly and tore it open.

Dear Ma

I'm very sorry, Ma. I was rude and I
didn't behave right. I didn't appreciate you, only when it was too late. Ma, I
have learned my lesson, I promise you. If you can forgive me, I will make it up
to you. I swear, Ma. Pa says if you can just talk, we can make it all right
again. Please, Ma, I miss you and need you in my life. I don't know what to say
to my friends.

Call me, Ma

Barend

His handwriting was usually untidy, sometimes illegible. She
didn't know where he had found this paper, thin, expensive, she could see here
he had written with a great deal of care. Despite the spelling mistake.

Milla pushed it away across the coffee table, because the
guilt and the longing burned right through her.

Late that night she lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling in
remorse, building containing walls against the guilt by composing an answer to
Barend in her head.

Let me tell you the whole truth: it won't help for me to have
a talk with your father, because I don't love him any more. And to my shame, I
don't know if I ever loved him. I don't hate him either, I moved on from that a
long time ago. I feel nothing for him.

I love you, because you are my child.

But love is like a message. It only exists if there is
someone to receive it. You have to admit that you haven't been receiving for a
long time now. You, Barend, begging and pleading and full of remorse now, where
was that when I sat down with you time after time in love and tenderness and
asked, please, just talk civilly to me, because the way a man talks to a woman
defines him? You are bigger and stronger than I am; physically I am afraid of
you. I don't want to list your sins, because I can already see your face if you
had to read them, those meaningless, suburban, domestic sins of the teenager:
your pigsty of a room, your dirty washing always on the floor of the bathroom
despite my pleas. Your dullness, your selfishness, your superiority, as though
I were trash, to be endured only with effort. Your general lack of consideration,
your self-centred existence, your endless requests for more money, more
possessions, more favours. Your reaction when I say no, the explosions, the
swearing. Your accusations, so bitterly unfair, your manipulation, your lies.
You are a bully and a fraud and I love you despite all of it, but it doesn't
mean I have to live with it for ever.

She composed that in her head, knowing that it would never be
put down on paper.

Tomorrow morning she would write Barend an actual letter. She
would say that she was not going to phone him just yet. He was to give her time
to find her feet, please. But they could correspond and she would always reply
to his letters.

That she had forgiven him already. That she loved him
endlessly.

25
August 2009. Tuesday.

In the same vaguely depressing, characterless interview room,
this time with four people: the cheerful Mrs Nkosi, a black man who just
introduced himself as 'Ben', and at the back against the wall, two unidentified
spectators, a very fat Indian, and a white woman in her fifties.

'I must say the background check was a bit of a surprise,'
Milla cautiously addressed herself to the good nature of Mrs Nkosi.

'Understood,' said Ben, who reminded Milla of Shakespeare,
one of Julius Caesar's 'lean and hungry men'. 'Unavoidable. Giving notice would
defeat the purpose. Undermine the credence.' His sentences marched out like
soldiers.

'But the good news is that you made the short-list,' Mrs
Nkosi said. 'The job is just as I described it to you. And now we can tell you
a little more.'

'It's for a government agency. A very important one. Are you
willing to work for the government?' Ben asked.

'Yes,
I...
May I ask, which
other people you spoke to? About me?'

'Usually, we take a look at your body of work as a
journalist. Talk to previous employers and colleagues. Your case was different.
Spoke to your ex-husband. A former schoolteacher. Former lecturer. You passed.
Flying colours.'

She was dying to ask which teacher, Wellington had all those
conservative
Broederbonders ...

'Now. The job. For a State Department. Secrecy is essential.
The major factor here: you won't be able to talk about your work. The real
work. You will have to lie. To your friends. Your family. All the time. It can
be a strain.'

'In the beginning, really just in the beginning,' said Mrs
Nkosi soothingly. 'You get used to it.'

'Of course, you will be trained. To manage. But, perhaps this
is not what you had in mind at all.'

'It's ... I had no idea ...'

'We
understand, it is sudden, it's unexpected. Don't worry, you'll have plenty of
time to think it over. But if you feel right now that it is something that you
absolutely don't want to do ...' 'No,' said Milla Strachan. 'I... It sounds ...
exciting.'

27
August 2009. Thursday.

Rajhev Rajkumar knew Janina Mentz well. He knew how to win
her favour.

'About the Report Squad appointment...'

'Yes?'

'This one, I think, was the strongest candidate,' he said and
tapped a fingernail on a folder. 'Why?'

'She's intelligent, little bit flustered, but Ben can be
difficult. She's politically almost neutral, with a liberal background. Living
on her own. And, of course, she can start on the first, which is a bonus.' 'She
has no real applicable experience.'

'None of them had. As you know, it's a blessing in disguise.
No bad habits, no media ideology.' 'Mmm ...'

Rajkumar
waited patiently, because he knew Mentz had read the full transcripts, he knew
which paragraphs would make the breakthrough.

Personnel Interview:
Vacant position - Report Squad

Transcription:
M. Strachan, interviewed by B.B and J.N.

Date and Time:
25 August 2009. 10.30

BB:
Will you receive alimony?

MS:
No.

BB:
Why not? Surely, you deserve it. And your husband is a wealthy man.

MS:
Taking money from him would be an acknowledgement of dependence. And
submissiveness. Weakness. I am not weak.
'Yes,'
Janina Mentz said at last. 'Appoint her.'

1
September 2009. Tuesday.

Fourteen chairs in the training room, a lectern in front, but
she and the induction official sat side by side. His voice droned on, his face
frowning and serious. 'Your primary cover is what you tell your family, and
your friends. In your case, your primary cover is
News This Week.
It is a publication that actually exists, it is produced
by the government's Department of Communication, distributed to ministers and directors
general and their staff. So you tell people that you work there, that you scan
the print and electronic media daily for grassroots level news from Limpopo
and Mpumalanga, your area of focus. And that you write a weekly page on this in
the newsletter. You should know, the Government really cares, they actually
want to know these things. And you should also study the actual newsletter
every week, so that you know the contents. Now, it is essential for a cover to
have aspirational aspects, so you can also tell people that you hope to handle
one of the bigger areas one day, like the Western Cape, and perhaps become the
assistant editor in a few years.'