Does it Hurt to Die (6 page)

Chris looked at Digby. He had the feeling that a decision had been made that he (Chris) was not a part of. Digby ordered the intravenous
Pethidine at the nurse’s station and signed for it.

Jannie felt sleepy and struggled to hold on
to his consciousness. Through the mist that seemed to surround his mind, he could make out Renata’s profile. It was her smell; that very distinctive perfume that helped him focus. The blur that was her outline came closer, and she put her arms around him and her face next to his cheek. The contrast startled him: his beard against her soft wet skin. Putting his hand to his chin, he felt the stubble and then the wetness of her tears.

‘
Jannie, I’m sorry this has happened,’ she said as she lifted her face from his. ‘I’m just so glad that you’re alive.’

He looked at her, and for the first time in many years wondered whether he had misunderstood how much she cared.

‘How long have I been sleeping?’

‘
On and off for twenty-four hours. They thought that you were suffering post traumatic stress and kept you a little sedated.’

Jannie looked at her, wondering whether she had been part of the decision to ensure he did not speak out. He felt sure that that was the real reason he had been sedated, and wondered whether his friends would ever admit to it.

‘I bought the
Cape Times
for you to read. It’s probably the most balanced review of what happened.’

Jannie picked up the paper and looked at the headlines:
‘NATION REELS FROM NIGHT OF EVIL’ and then in smaller print underneath, ‘pastor of church says all is forgiven.’ He quickly scanned the list of dead and injured people and saw Noah Smit’s name listed. Tears started to well up with the memory of that young, caring life, sacrificing himself to protect others. The sight of Noah’s body lifting off the church floor as the grenade exploded beneath him returned to his mind in its entire, ugly, full colour. He felt the anger rise as he recalled the laughter of the gunmen.

‘
They were just animals. How can anyone forgive them?’

‘
I know,’ said Renata. ‘The whole world is astounded. It’s not just the pastor who is saying he forgives them.’

‘
Well, they’ve obviously decompensated psychologically and aren’t thinking straight. They’re stressed out and are being led down the path of forgiveness by a pastor who doesn’t have anything really to forgive.’

‘
Jannie, the press wants to talk with you. They’ve been hounding the staff all day, wanting to know when you would be fit enough to speak. They see you, I think, as a source outside this sea of religious compassion.’

‘
Well, someone needs to bring some kind of clinical judgment to the situation and divorce it from the spiritual claptrap.’

‘
Jannie, the nation, whites and blacks, have been overwhelmed by the response to this attack. The mood is that the whites have at last been subjected to an atrocity similar to Sharpeville. Yet, for them to say that with God’s love we can turn the other cheek has huge implications for peace in this country.’

‘
Look, Renata, that’s all very well, but there’s something much greater happening here that threatens our very own lifestyle. Everyone is concentrating on the black-and-white issue and has apparently forgotten that South Africa features as a strategic point on the African continent and has resources valued by both the Chinese and Russians.’

‘
Jannie, please, I don’t want to argue with you, not now, I know your deepest feelings about the blacks. I’ve heard your discourse on that many times. I know your background and I know the argument that the communists want our country. Let’s not argue. I’m just so relieved that you’re alive.’

‘
How’s Christian?’ he asked, changing tack, a subconscious talent he had developed in response to overtly emotional situations.

‘
He’s with Ouma. He doesn’t really understand. He thinks you’ve just hurt your arm. I’ll bring him to see you tomorrow. He says he loves you… Jannie…’

‘
Leave it, Renata,’ he interrupted. ‘I’ve heard the plea from the three of you now. I’ll think about it, all right?’

She looked at him as the tears welled up in her eyes. She hugged him, wetting his cheek again and feeling the prickles of his beard.

‘You’ll need to shave if you’re going to be on television,’ she said, her mood now more up-beat.

‘
Renata, just leave me alone for a while. I need to think about what I’m going to say, and to compose a press release!’

As she stood up, she wondered whether this trauma had caused him to revert to his Afrikaner upbringing. There had been some positive signs in the last few years that he was overcoming his prejudices. She remembered that the night his father had died she found Jannie sitting in the study, sobbing uncontrollably. She had never seen him cry before, let alone with so much feeling and never had since. He had confessed to her that part of him had hated his father. She remembered sitting that night for over an hour, speaking to him occasionally, almost getting through the emotional barrier that he had created. As the tears flooded on
to his dressing gown, she imagined them as rivers of emotion, dammed up through years of suppression. Up to his death, Jannie’s father had been a very dispassionate man who had never thanked anyone or told them that he loved them. There was no real reason for Jannie to care about him passing on. Yet here he was, grief stricken, not knowing how to deal with the death of someone who had never fully embraced him and in the end rejected him. She knew that he had never really dealt with the anger of the forced indoctrination, the beatings, humiliation and ultimately his father’s rejection of him. If he thought now that his father had been partly right about the blacks, the guilt at never having tried to reconcile with him might channel into an exaggerated response to the press.

Renata remembered when he had taken up the position at Groote Schuur Hospital how she had hoped that being in such a liberal institution might have affected his conservative, prejudiced values. Initially, his new friends seemed to have brought out a new side. She often overheard a debate that he and Mike McMahon had about apartheid and how it could be replaced with a democracy. However, it seemed that in the last few years, there had been some overriding influence, something beyond his upbringing, and he had regressed to a point where neither she nor his friends could help. Something or someone had taken hold of, and was controlling, his spirit. Now it seemed too much for him to overcome.

After Renata had gone, Jannie reflected on the events of the last twenty-four hours. The thoughts pressed in on how he had become immersed and embedded with the security services with a mind to preventing events like this. This is what they had promised him would never happen and why he had agreed to help BOSS by joining the scientific committee and answering only to the prime minister. When they had sought his cooperation, they had appealed to his Afrikaner background and upbringing as well as promising extra funding for his liver transplant programme.

As he thought about what to say to the press, he wondered whether his father had been right after all. Clearly, if blacks were capable of such an atrocity, they were incapable of rising above the tribal. He knew what his father would have said at a press conference like this; it would have been similar to what his handlers at BOSS had been saying to him since he joined. He had ignored them, too, despite the obvious attempt to appeal to his Afrikaner roots. Perhaps they were right as well.

The
Cape Times
ran the headline ‘TRANSPLANT SURGEON QUERIES THE NEED FOR FORGIVENESS’ with the rest of Jannie’s press conference underneath. As Jannie picked up the paper that had been left on his bed, the door opened and Renata entered, closely followed by Digby and Chris. No one spoke; they all just looked at Jannie.

‘
Look, I don’t expect you to understand. Just believe that this is not an aberration of a traumatically stressed mind. There is more involved than I care to tell any of you about at the moment. I know you wanted me to adopt the air of forgiveness, to heal the wounds, but I can’t. I’m the product of my upbringing and that all seems to conflict with what you’re telling me, so don’t look at me with that disapproving look.’

Renata noticed the set jaw, indicating that he was ready to verbally repulse alternative suggestions. She decided he was too in control to be in shock. Digby and Chris looked at each other.

‘Well, I suppose it was better than suggesting the blacks are intellectually bereft and incapable of running the country,’ said Digby, unable to control himself.

Jannie fixed Digby with a stare that Digby knew drew on the passions of previous generations of Afrikaners. It was his punctuation stare, a full stop, where his temper fired and no humour entered. It was a stare Digby felt that Jannie had learned from his father’s farm. Digby hated it, as he knew the blacks must have. It was contumely arrogance encompassed. Such a stare generated the
‘I’m in charge and challenge me further at your peril’ feeling.

Chris sensed the developing tension between his friends and interjected
. ‘Digby, Renata and Jannie must have things to discuss…’ but before he could finish, Digby had turned and headed towards the door.

‘
We’ll check on you later, Jannie,’ said Digby as he left without a backward glance.

Renata sat opposite and then took the
Cape Times
, folding it, before placing it neatly on the foot of the bed.

‘
The transplant has been a success,’ she said. ‘Sibokwe is still in intensive care, but Susannah is pleased with his progress and said to tell you the cholangiogram is fine.’

Jannie looked at Renata, slowly comprehending the full message. Susannah was in charge; perhaps she had done the transplant. The thought shocked him. He had assumed Mike would have flown Professor O’Brien down from Johannesburg.

‘Did Susannah do the transplant?’ he asked, interrupting his own thoughts.

‘
Yes, she had to. Professor O’Brien wasn’t available. It seems to have gone very well, Jannie. Susannah’s been on the news, although coverage of the transplant has been buried by news of the terrorist attack!’

Renata deliberately varied her structure in mid sentence. She noticed the look on Jannie’s face but also felt the welling emotion. Part of him was delighted that his transplant programme had survived, but he was also aggrieved that a woman was successfully performing it.

‘Susannah said she would be in to see you later today to give you an update.’

Renata knew she had submitted to Jannie’s thought control, and somewhere inside of her, something winced. It was a feeling she had never liked.

Jannie did not reply. He was thinking that if the cholangiogram was normal, Susannah had at least done the anastomosis well. The first hurdle of the liver transplant was successful. The next would be a biopsy to test for rejection of the liver. He hoped by that time he would be at least able to exert more control than he could now.

‘
Jannie.’

Renata’s voice refocused his thoughts. He looked at her.

‘Jannie,’ she repeated as she often did when she was unsure that her question would provoke a verbal rapier thrust from him. ‘I know it was incredibly difficult for you after all you have been through with your family and the terrorist attack not to be more condemnatory. I understand that you couldn’t offer them forgiveness the way others have, but I’m so glad you didn’t condemn those who did.’

Jannie considered whether she would have the same feeling about what he said if she knew the whole truth.

‘I know it’s going to be difficult getting over this and adjusting to it, but I believe with a little help we can,’ said Renata.

‘
It may not be that simple.’

‘
What do you mean?’

‘
I’m not sure you’d understand even if I explained,’ said Jannie, wondering if he could ever tell her or anyone about his involvement with BOSS.

‘
Perhaps if you take the time to explain it to me I might surprise you.’ She looked at Jannie and, encouraged by no condemnatory comment from him, continued. ‘Why would there be more to an event like this that we don’t know and that you can’t tell me about?’

‘
Renata, I have information that I can’t share with you. I’m sorry I spoke.’

The combination of the diminutive and condescending repulsed her, but she was fascinated that he indicated that he was privy to information that the rest of them were not. Tempted to walk out and say nothing further, she instead gathered herself and leant over and kissed him gently on the cheek, her sadness hard to hide.

‘I’ll see you later,’ she said.

Jannie watched as Renata walked out through the door, wiping tears from her eyes. He was watching her for a few seconds, wondering whether he could confide in her, and, if so, how much he should tell her, when Andre van der Walt, his handler from BOSS, walked into the room and stood menacingly at the foot of his bed.