The Colour of Gold (5 page)

Tiaan turned
and walked to the door to the white section of the bus. He scarcely
glanced at the tall, white couple waiting to board. He was already
thinking of which of his Johannesburg informants to contact
first.

CHAPTER 3

At five minutes
to nine the white bus driver, wearing a thin khaki coat over his
light blue safari suit, walked briskly out of the station building
and hauled himself up through the driver’s doorway and into his
worn, leather seat. After making an adjustment to the rear-view
mirror he turned on the ignition. The powerful diesel engine roared
into life and thick, black smoke belched from the exhaust. The
passenger’s windows rattled noisily as the driver revved the motor.
With a sudden hiss the two passenger doors swung open and the
passengers began embarking, each showing the man who had been
supervising the stowing of the luggage their tickets which he
perforated with a small silver punch.

Bala Desai
struggled up the three steps carrying his heavy suitcase, closely
followed by Fatima carrying Salona at her hip. They chose one of
the steel bench seats halfway towards the back of the bus. Isaiah
Zuma headed straight to the back seat and settled in the one
corner, his blanket still over his shoulders. Shadow limped to the
front seat and silently settled next to the window, knowing that
few people liked to sit there right up against the steel and glass
partition that separated the white and non-white sections of the
bus. The other passengers found seats to suit themselves, mainly
towards the back of the “non European” compartment.

Bogdan and
Julia Vodnik were at first unsure of where to sit but then decided
to sit directly behind the driver. Tiaan Botha went directly to the
back of the compartment and took the seat next to the window and
directly in front of the small black man with the deeply furrowed
forehead sitting on the other side of the partitioning. The only
other passengers in the “white” section of the bus were a young
couple who huddled together three rows behind Bogdan and Julia.

The bus driver
finished filling in the form on his clipboard, turned to see that
all the passengers were seated, and then pulled the lever that
closed the doors of the vehicle. He revved the motor again and,
with a loud hiss of pneumatic brakes being released, the huge,
brown vehicle roared out into the morning traffic.

The bus powered
away from the coast, climbing steadily through the foothills that
fronted the mountains that separated the low-lying land from the
high-lying part of the country known as the “Highveld”. The scenery
changed from the lush, untidy tropical vegetation of the coast to
the bright green of the sub-tropical lower mountain region. Patches
of mist blurred the distant mountain peaks and gradually the air
became dryer.

The big vehicle
moved into the flatter, dry farmlands of maize and grazing cattle,
stopping every now and then to pick up or disgorge passengers in
the towns and villages that it passed through. Just after midday
the bus entered a larger town and pulled off the main road and
stopped next to a well-known fast food outlet. Most of the
passengers disembarked, stretched luxuriously in the thin, dry air
and went in search of food and drink.

While Bala and
Salona went to find a “non-European” toilet, Fatima remained in the
bus, opened the big suitcase and took out a plastic container
filled with the spicy chicken and rice meal that she had prepared
the previous evening. There was also a large bottle of water. When
they returned, the little family ate the warm meal with their
fingers, as was their custom.

Bogdan and
Julia went to the restaurant and ordered hamburgers and coffee
which they ate sitting at a small table in the sun in front of the
building. Isaiah went to a small café nearby and bought a small
plastic container of porridge and meat stew as well as a bottle of
Coke. He sat on the curb of the pavement and ate hungrily. Shadow
stayed in the bus, his mouth watering as the smell of the chicken
meal that the Indian family sat eating behind him, wafted over him.
Tiaan Botha bought a slab of chocolate at the fast food counter and
then took a brisk walk around the business area of the town. Half
and hour later the bus roared back onto the main road.

As the day wore
on the surrounding countryside grew dryer and the flat grasslands
more tinged with yellows, reds and browns. The sun dipped towards
the horizon, forcing the driver to pull down the large sun-visor
above his head and squint into the harsh glare in front of him. The
scenery changed more dramatically and the first gigantic mounds of
white sand signifying the presence of the notorious but fabulously
wealthy gold mines of the Witwatersrand became visible to the
southwest.

To the north of
these huge monuments miles and miles of small houses, office
buildings, shopping centres and apartment blocks spread out across
the flat land while to the south of the dumps, the drab
smoke-covered black townships spread out as far as the eye could
see. The white suburbs were filled with trees, green lawns and
neat, clean, tarred roads while the black townships were bare with
dusty stretches of sun-baked bare land between the suburbs and dirt
roads that were deeply rutted and littered with discarded papers
and plastic shopping bags.

Finally, the
city of Johannesburg slid into view, the tall, gleaming spires of
its commercial and business district silhouetted against the orange
and yellow sunset. Heavy traffic filled the neat, tarred roads as
the population headed home after the day’s work. The bus pulled
into the parking lot of the South African Transport Services at
Park Station, the powerful motor that had roared and growled all
day came to a shuddering stop, the passenger doors hissed open and
the weary, stiff travellers stepped down onto the concrete
pavement. The luggage hold was emptied and the passengers left for
their individual destinations.

Once Tiaan
Botha had retrieved his suitcase he walked away in a south-westerly
direction towards the South African Police headquarters, John
Vorster Square. The traffic was thinning and the streetlights were
brightening from a dull grey to a bright white. The surrounding
buildings became more dingy with brown cheap brick replacing the
shiny glass facades. The majority of people walking along the
pavements were blacks, either walking home or to their nightshift
jobs.

When Tiaan
reached the entrance to the blue and white police headquarters, he
showed his identification card to the guard at the steel, revolving
gate and, after waiting for the card to be verified, headed for the
Security Police section on the 10th floor. After again showing his
I.D. Tiaan went to the office of Brigadier van Tonder, head of the
counter-insurgency unit in the South African Police Force.

“Welcome back.”
the Brigadier said, shaking Tiaan’s hand. “Sit down. We’ve got a
lot of work to do.”

Tiaan sat down
in one of the visitor’s chairs in front of the brigadier’s
desk.

“There are a
lot of rumours doing the rounds,” the Brigadier said as he
scratched his bald pate, “and we’ve pieced them together as best we
can. The evidence, at this point in time, points to an immanent
attacks on some major targets that will not only attract the
attention of the outside world but also create uncertainty amongst
the population. Hopefully, with your contacts, you can find out
what’s going to happen. We have to work fast, though. I’ve already
had a call from the Minister’s office.”

“I’ll get onto
it straight away, sir.” Tiaan said.

The two
policemen spent the next hour discussing and formulating a plan of
action that would hopefully lead to the uncovering of the plot that
was threatening the stability of the country. Tiaan then went to
the temporary sleeping quarters and, after being allocated a room,
unpacked his suitcase. A uniformed policeman brought him a meal of
two cheeseburgers, chips and coffee. After the meal Tiaan took a
long, warm shower and climbed into the small, steel-framed bed. He
was still staring at the ceiling when he fell asleep.

***

Shadow hobbled
down the steps of the bus and onto the pavement, his dark blue
knapsack slung over his left shoulder. He watched curiously as the
white man in the grey safari suit walked briskly away. Something
about the man made Shadow feel uncomfortable. He man hadn’t spoken
to a single person during the entire trip but had constantly
monitored the passengers on the bus in a very surreptitious way. He
had also shifted constantly in his seat as if there was something
uncomfortable that he was leaning against. Then it struck Shadow
that the man was very possibly a plainclothes policeman with a gun
in the small of his back that would make sitting for a long period
of time very uncomfortable. Also, the way he had kept watching the
other passengers, indicated someone who had been trained to do so.
Shadow regretted that he hadn’t got a good look at the man’s face
but he knew that he would recognize the man by his physique and
mannerisms if he ever saw him again.

With a small
shrug of his shoulders Shadow walked into the station building
through the “non white” entrance and bought a ticket to Phefeni
station in Soweto. He struggled down the stairway to the station
platform. The majority of the black workers who lived in Soweto but
worked in Johannesburg had already been moved out of the city
centre by a constant stream of dirty brown trains so that the
platform was almost deserted. An ugly brown train, its huge
spotlight above the driver’s cabin sending out a shaft of dusty
light, hissed into the station and screeched to a stop, filling the
air with the smell of hot steel. People climbed off while others
boarded. Shadow struggled into a compartment and took a seat at a
window. Doors slammed, a whistle shrieked and the long, brown
monster slid into the darkness.

The train
rushed through the shadowy industrial areas of the city and then
through the dark, tree-filled buffer zone that separated it from
its black neighbour. The dreary, smoke-filled township of Soweto
rolled into view. Shadow stared at the endless rows of tiny houses
lit from above by towering yellow floodlights, the only gadgets,
apart from the government installations and offices that were
powered by electricity in the entire area.

At Phefeni
station Shadow limped along the platform and out through the wire
gateway manned by a black South African Railway’s policeman. He
limped along the rutted dirt road, stumbling in the darkness until
he reached a small, dirty house with a faint light illuminating the
small, curtained windows. He edged up to the unpainted, wooden door
and knocked softly on the rough surface three times. He waited for
five seconds and knocked again, twice this time. Again he waited
five seconds and then knocked four times. Slowly the door creaked
open and a black face peered through the gap. Then the door opened
wide and Shadow entered the dimly lit house.

“Greetings,
comrade.” a dark shape said from one of the chairs in the room.
“We’re so glad that you have arrived. There is much important work
to be done!”

Several shadowy
figures appeared and Shadow shook hands with them.

“Come into the
kitchen.” one man said. “We have some food and drink for you. Then
you must rest. You’ve had a long day, no doubt. Tomorrow we will
begin to plan the strike that will bring us closer to our
freedom!"

Shadow's
discussion with his fellow Umkhonto comrades lasted for several
hours and it was close to midnight by the time he left. Fully aware
of the danger from the gangs of child psychopaths who roamed the
streets of Soweto at night, killing or maiming anything that moved,
he slipped carefully through the darkness until he reached number
132 Malewa Street, Orlando East, the tiny brick shack that the
A.N.C. had had arranged for him to stay in while he was in Soweto.
Carefully he opened the door and entered the tiny dark structure.
He closed and locked the door, took out his cheap plastic cigarette
lighter and flicked it.

The shack was
about the size of a single garage with a wooden front and back
doors sided by two small barred windows and a rusty corrugated iron
roof without a ceiling. Two larger windows had been built into the
side walls. A kitchen table and four chairs stood at the back of
the room next to an enamel basin fastened to the wall. A plastic
bucket that Shadow could use to fetch water from the communal tap
at the end of the street stood below the basin. A brass primus
stove stood on top of a small wooden cupboard next to the basin and
a wooden bed with two blankets folded on top stood in the one
corner. A white steel kitchen cupboard that served as a wardrobe
stood next to the bed. A packet of candles and several boxes of
matches lay on the kitchen table.

Shadow lit one
of the candles and placed it on the table top securing it with some
melted wax. He removed his clothes, snuffed out the candle and
crept onto the bed, pulling one of the blankets over him. Within
minutes he was asleep.

***

Bogdan and
Julia collected their suitcases from the hold of the bus and placed
them on the pavement.

"Can you
recommend a good hotel that’s not too expensive?” Bogdan asked the
black luggage supervisor.

“The Polana
Hotel in Hillbrow.” the man replied. “Do you want me to get you a
taxi?”

“Please.”
Bogdan said.

The black man
gave out a piercing whistle at the same time raising his right arm
above his head. Nearby the motor of a small car roared into life
and drove to where the two white people were standing.

“Where you want
to go, boss?” a short, fat Indian asked as he climbed out of the
taxi.

“The Polana
Hotel in Hillbrow.” Bogdan replied.