Indecent Exposure (14 page)

“Now then, there’s no need to be frightened,” he told them. “Which one of you girls would like to come upstairs and see some pictures? They are pretty pictures.” There was no great rush of volunteers. Verkramp tried again.

“No one is going to hurt you. You needn’t be afraid.”

There was still no response apart from a moan from the girl on the floor. Verkramp’s sickly smile faded.

“Grab the bitch,” he yelled at the konstabels and the next moment a thin black girl was being hustled upstairs.

“You see what I mean about psychology,” Luitenant Verkramp said to the Sergeant as they followed her up. Sergeant Breitenbach still had his doubts.

“I notice you didn’t pick a big one,” he said.

On the top floor the girl had her clothes stripped off her by several willing konstabels whom Verkramp put down on his list for treatment and was then paraded before the volunteers in the nude. Luitenant Verkramp was delighted by their lack of positive reaction.

“Not an erection from one of them,” he said. “That’s scientific proof that the treatment works.”

Sergeant Breitenbach was, as usual, more sceptical.

“They haven’t had any sleep for two days,” he said. “If you brought Marilyn Monroe in here in the raw, I don’t suppose you’d get much response.”

Verkramp looked at him disapprovingly. “Peeping Thomas,” he said.

“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” said the Sergeant. “All I’m saying is that if you want to be really scientific you should bring a white girl up and try her on them.” Luitenant Verkramp was furious.

“What a disgusting suggestion,” he said. “I wouldn’t dream of subjecting a white girl to such a revolting ordeal.”

He gave orders for the treatment to be continued for at least another two days.

“Two more days of this and I’ll be dead,” moaned one of the volunteers.

“Better dead than a black in your bed,” said Verkramp and went back to his office to draw up the plans for the mass treatment of the other five hundred and ninety men under his temporary command.

At Florian’s café Verkramp’s secret agents were making remarkable headway in their search for members of the sabotage movement. After years of frustration in which they had mingled in liberal circles but had been unable to find anyone remotely connected with the Communist party or prepared to admit that they approved of violence, they had suddenly met quite a number. 745396 had discovered 628461 who seemed to know something about the explosion at the telephone exchange and 628461 had gained the very definite impression that 745396 wasn’t unconnected with the destruction of the transformer on the Durban Road. Likewise 885974 had bumped into 378550 at the University Canteen and was sounding him out about his part in the disappearance of the radio mast, while hinting that he could tell 378550 something about the bomb that had destroyed the railway bridge. All over Piemburg Verkramp’s agents had something to report in the way of progress and busied themselves encoding messages and moving digs as instructed. By the following day the conviction that each agent held that he was onto something big grew when 745396 and 628461, who had arranged to meet at the University Canteen, found a sympathetic audience in 885974 and 378550, who had been so successful there the previous day they had decided to return. As the coalescence of conspirators continued Verkramp was kept busy trying to decode the messages. This complex process was made even more difficult because he had no idea on which day the message had been sent. 378550’s message had been deposited at the foot of a tree in the park which was the correct drop for Sunday but after working at it for two hours using the code for that day Verkramp had managed to turn “hdfpkymwrqazx-tivbnkon” which was designed to be difficult to understand into “car dog wormsel sag infrequent banal out plunge crate”, which wasn’t. He tried Saturday’s code and got “dahlia chrysanthemum fertilizer decorative foxglove dwarf autumn bloom shady”. Cursing himself for the limited vocabulary provided by page 33 of the Piemburg Bulb Catalogue which he had chosen as the codebook for Saturday on account of its easy availability, Verkramp turned wearily to Friday’s codebook and finally came up with the deciphered message that Agent 378550 had carried out instructions and was proceeding to new lodgings. After six hours hard labour Verkramp felt his efforts merited something more interesting than that. He tried 885974’s message and was glad to find it came out correctly first time and contained the reassuring information that the agent had made contact with several suspected saboteurs but was having difficulty in reaching the drop as he was being followed.

885974’s experience was not confined to him alone. In their attempts to find where the other saboteurs lived Verkramp’s secret agents were trailing one another all over Piemburg or being tailed. As a result they were covering an enormous mileage every day and were too tired when they finally got home to sit down and encode the messages he expected. Then again they had to move lodgings every day on his orders and this required finding new ones so that all in all the sense of disorientation already induced by the multiple identities their work demanded became more pronounced as the days went by. By Monday 628461 wasn’t sure who he was or where he lived or even what day of the week it was. He was even more uncertain where 745396 lived. Having tailed him successfully for fifteen miles up and down the sidestreets of Piemburg he wasn’t altogether surprised when 745396 gave up the attempt to shake him off and returned to a lodging house on Bishoff Avenue only to find that he had left there two days before. In the end he slept on a bench in the park and 628461, who had several large blisters from all this walking, turned to go back to his digs when he became aware that someone was following him. He stepped up his limp and the footsteps behind him did the same. 628461 gave up the struggle. He no longer cared if he was followed home. “I’ll move in the morning anyway,” he decided and climbed the stairs to his room in the Lansdowne Boarding House. Behind him 378550 went back to his digs and spent the night encoding a message for Luitenant Verkramp giving the address of a suspected saboteur. Since he started it at ten-thirty on Monday and finished it at two a.m. on Tuesday Verkramp had even more difficulty than usual making out what it meant. According to Monday’s codebook it read “Suggest raid on infestation wood but pollute in the”, while Tuesday’s ran “Chariot Pharoah withal Lansdowne Boarding House for Frederick Smith.” By the time Luitenant Verkramp had decided that there was no sense in “Chariot Pharoah withal infestation wood but pollute in the” there was no point in raiding the Lansdowne Boarding House, Frederick Smith had registered at the
YMCA
as Piet Retief.

If Luitenant Verkramp was having difficulties in the communications field much the same could be said of both Mrs Heathcoat-Kilkoon and Kommandant van Heerden.

“Are you sure he’s not there?” Mrs Heathcoat-Kilkoon asked the Major, whom she had sent on his daily outing into Weezen to tell the Kommandant that they were expecting him to lunch.

“Absolutely certain,” said Major Bloxham. “I sat in the bar for nearly an hour and there was no sign of the fellow. Asked the barman if he’d seen him. Hadn’t.”

“I think it’s most peculiar,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon. “His card definitely said he would stay at the hotel.”

“Damned peculiar card, if you ask me,” said the Colonel. “Dearest Daphne, Kommandant van Heerden has pleasure-”

“I thought it was a very amusing card,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon interrupted him. “It shows what a sense of humour the Kommandant has.”

“Didn’t strike me as having a sense of humour,” said the Major who had not got over his encounter with the Kommandant.

“Personally I think we should be thankful for small mercies,” said the Colonel. “It doesn’t look as if the swine is coming after all.” He went out to the yard at the back of the house where Harbinger was grooming a large black horse. “Everything ready for tomorrow, Harbinger? Fox fit?”

“Took him for a run this morning,” said Harbinger, a thin man with eyes close together and short hair. “He went quite quick.”

“Fine, fine,” said the Colonel. “Well we’ll get off early.” In the house Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon was still puzzled.

“Are you sure you went to the right hotel?” she asked the Major.

“I went to the store and asked for the hotel,” the Major insisted. “The fellow tried to sell me a bed. Seemed to think that’s what I wanted.”

“It sounds most peculiar,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon.

“I said I didn’t want a bed,” said the Major. “He sent me across the road to the hotel in the end.”

“And they hadn’t heard of him?”

“Didn’t know anything about any Kommandant van Heerden.”

“Perhaps he’ll turn up tomorrow,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon wistfully.

Unaware of the portentous events that were taking place in Piemburg, Kommandant van Heerden nevertheless spent a restless first night in his room at Weezen Spa. For one thing the strong smell of sulphur irritated his olfactory nerve and for another one of the many taps in his room insisted on dripping irregularly. The Kommandant tried to get rid of the sulphurous smell by spraying the room with the deodorant he’d bought to avoid giving bodily offence to Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon. The resulting pot-pourri was rather nastier than the sulphur alone and in any case it made his eyes water. He got up and opened the window to let the smell out only to find that he had let a mosquito in. He shut the window again and switching on the light killed the mosquito with a slipper. He got back into bed and the tap dripped. He got out again and tightened all six taps and got back into bed. This time he was about to get to sleep when a dull rumble in the pipes suggested an air lock. There wasn’t anything he could do in the way of major plumbing so he lay and listened to it while watching the moon rise mistily through the frosted glass window. In the early hours he finally slept to be awakened by a coloured maid at half past seven bringing him a cup of tea. The Kommandant sat up and drank some tea. He had already swallowed some before he realized how horrible it tasted. For a moment the thought that he had been the victim of a poison attempt crossed his mind before he realized that the taste was due to the ubiquitous sulphur. He got out of bed and began brushing his teeth with water that tasted vile. Thoroughly fed up, he washed and dressed and went to the pump room for breakfast.

“Fruit juice,” he ordered when the waitress asked him what he wanted. He ordered a second glass when she brought the first and swilling the grapefruit juice round his mouth managed to eradicate some of the taste of sulphur.

“Boiled eggs or fried,” the waitress asked. The Kommandant said fried on the ground that they were less likely to be tainted. When the old man came in and asked if everything was all right, the Kommandant took the opportunity of asking him if it was possible to have some fresh water.

“Fresh?” said the old man. “The water here is as fresh as mother nature can make it. Hot springs under here. Comes straight from the bowels of the earth.”

“I can well believe it,” said the Kommandant.

Presently he was joined by Mr Mulpurgo who sat at his usual table by the fountain.

“Good morning,” said the Kommandant cheerily and was a little hurt by the rather chilly “Morning” he got back. The Kommandant tried again.

“How’s the flatulence this morning?” he asked sympathetically.

Mr Mulpurgo ordered corn flakes, bacon and eggs, toast and marmalade before replying.

“Flatulence?”

“You said yesterday you came here for flatulence,” said the Kommandant.

“Oh,” said Mr Mulpurgo in the tone of one who didn’t want to be reminded what he had said yesterday. “Much better, thank you.”

The Kommandant refused the waitress’ offer of coffee and ordered a third fruit juice.

“I’ve been thinking about that worm you spoke of yesterday, the one that never dies,” he said as Mr Mulpurgo attempted to get the rind off a soggy piece of bacon. “Is it true that worms don’t die?”

Mr Mulpurgo looked at him distrustfully. “My own impression is that worms are not immune from the consequences of mortality,” he said finally, “and that they shuffle off this mortal coil at their own equivalent of three-score years and ten.” He concentrated on his bacon and eggs and left the Kommandant to consider whether worms could shuffle off anything. He wondered what a mortal coil was. It sounded like a piece of radio equipment.

“But you mentioned one that didn’t,” he said after giving the matter some thought.

“Didn’t what?”

“Die.”

“I was speaking metaphorically,” Mr Mulpurgo said. “I was talking about rebirth.” Like a reluctant Ancient Mariner prodded into action by the Kommandant’s insistent curiosity Mr Mulpurgo found himself embarking on a lengthy disquisition that had been no part of his plans for the morning. He had intended working quietly in his room on his thesis. Instead an hour later he found himself strolling beside the river expounding his belief that the study of literature added a new dimension to the life of the reader. Beside him Kommandant van Heerden lumbered along occasionally recognizing a phrase which was not wholly unfamiliar but for the most part merely lost in admiration for the intellectual excellence of his companion. He had no idea what “aesthetic awareness” or “extended sensibilities” were though “emotional anaemia” did suggest a lack of iron, but these were all minor problems beside the major one which was that Mr Mulpurgo for all his divagations seemed to be saying that a man could be born again through the study of literature. That at least the Kommandant discerned and the message coming from such an obviously well-informed source brought him fresh hope that he would one day achieve the transformation he so desired.

“You don’t think heart transplants are any good then?” he asked when Mr Mulpurgo paused for breath. The devotee of Rupert Brooke looked at him suspiciously. Not for the first time Mr Mulpurgo had the feeling that he was having his leg pulled, but Kommandant van Heerden’s face was alight with a grotesque innocence which was quite disarming.

Mr Mulpurgo chose to assume that in his own quaint way the Kommandant was reviving the arguments in favour of science put forward by C. P. Snow in his famous debate with F. R. Leavis. If he wasn’t, Mr Mulpurgo couldn’t imagine what he was talking about.