Those Who Love Night (11 page)

“Petra's your friend?”

“Petra's my partner.”

Oh, you brave people, Abigail thought, following
CIO
and prison vehicles, watching the prison gate, holding clandestine meetings in this ruin that was once a scout hall. You're so brave and your opponents are so ruthless and your chances of victory are so slim. Unbidden, a different thought entered her mind. And you, Abigail Bukula, what are you doing here?

“Tomorrow,” she said aloud. “Tomorrow Krisj and I will prepare our papers and the day after we'll serve them on the government. The fact that we are acting openly, in front of many witnesses and that I am a South African, may help to protect us. I think the rest of you are in greater danger than we are. Please be extra careful.”

“There's one other thing,” Helena said. “They seemed to be trying to pick us all up that day. They just missed me. I should have been with Petra when they came. They went to the homes of all the others.”

It was a possibility that had never occurred to Abigail. “They came to the homes of everyone?”

“Everyone,” Helena said.

“But they haven't tried since?”

“No.”

“Is there anything else I should know?”

“There've been assassination attempts,” Helena said.

“On your members?”

“Yes. We've been fired on.”

“How many times?”

“A number of times.”

“Which of you?”

“I'm not sure how many…” Helena began.

“Just Tony,” Prince said. “They shot at him twice.”

*   *   *

The last thing Patel said to Abigail when he dropped her off at the hotel was to ask if she was afraid. She seemed to act without even a trace of fear, he said.

“There's no fear while I'm active,” she said. “Tonight when I'm alone and I start thinking, then the fear will come.”

“Ms. Abigail…”

“Krisj…” She paused to make sure that she had his attention. “… can't we make it just Abigail?”

“Yes, I'm sure we can. I believe we can.”

“Good.”

“Abigail, it was wonderful of you to come. Now that I know you feel fear too, it is so much more wonderful. After all, doing something that does not scare you is not very heroic.”

“You're a sweet man, Krisj. Thank you.”

14

Inside, the hotel was comfortable and clean, but with the cleanliness of desperation. Carpets worn down to the webbing had been carefully vacuumed. Cracks in tiles had not been allowed to gather dirt. The pictures on the walls had probably been produced by local craftsmen and bought along the roadside, making up in brightness for what they lacked in originality. In the foyer and the dining hall, photographs of the stern-faced president looked down watchfully on the hotel guests.

The dinner the hotel served was passable. For a country in which most were underfed, it was outstanding. The proprietor, a white woman who introduced herself as Marjorie Swan, made a point of coming to talk to Abigail. “It's a real honor having you here,” she said. Her smile deepened the lines on a face that showed the signs of being much exposed to the African sun.

What the hell have Krisj and the others been telling people? Abigail wondered. “Thanks for having me,” she said.

“We would always find room for someone like you.”

With only three other people in the hotel restaurant, making room did not seem to be much of a problem. “Nice of you to say that.”

After the proprietor had gone, she ate only a little of the dinner. The thought of so much hunger being so close had spoiled her appetite. One look at the roast pork and potatoes on her plate was enough to bring the meal to an end. She asked for coffee to be served in her room and went upstairs.

The room was one floor above the street, and large by the standard of most hotel rooms. Like the rest of the hotel, its furnishings looked as if they were being cared for to make them last. Anything that broke was repaired, not replaced. In a corner near the window a vividly painted plaster moulding of a snarling tiger doing battle with an equally angry elephant added color to the room.

Abigail switched off the light and went to the window. The day's heat had been replaced by the enfolding warmth of the African evening. She swept the curtain aside. For perhaps half an hour she stood still, looking down into the street, trusting her skin color and black suit to make her, if not invisible, at least not readily noticeable.

Abigail's eyes stopped at every shadow, studied every walking figure and every window on the far side of the street. The few cars that she saw came slowly past, perhaps in fuel-saving mode.

Could they be watching? Everything she had learned about this country had told her that the
CIO
had informants everywhere and knew all there was to know about anyone who was in the country. She had no way of knowing just how accurate the stories of killings and torture might be.

She considered that she could be spending the night in her ten-million-rand house, as comfortable and well-served as any human being on the planet. So she was on a forced sabbatical, so what? Gert Pienaar had been arrested on spurious grounds, but released pretty quickly. None of it looked that serious now. What the hell am I doing in this place with its worn carpets and old cars and hungry people, just down the road, on every road? she asked herself.

The street remained empty, and eventually there was no reason to remain at the window. She closed the curtains and sat down in the room's one easy chair. Before she had left home, she had her cell phone enabled for international roaming. Now she dialed her home number. It rang for too long before she heard her own voice encouraging her to leave a message. “Robert, please call me before you go to bed,” she told the recorder. Then she tried Robert's cell phone, but received no response.

Abigail's thoughts tumbled toward an internal tirade that had to do with Robert's current whereabouts and who he was with. But an effort of will drove them back to the task that lay ahead of her. She realized that she could win her court order and that the government could pretend to comply, but simply claim not to know anything about the seven. We'd release them if we had them, they might say.

I'll have to find a way around that, she thought. I'll have to find a way to close off that escape route.

She tried to call home again, and again reached the answering device. She ended the call and, looking among the items in her briefcase, took out the photograph of Tony. The extreme leanness and the unnaturally large eyes bothered her, but she found the little smile around the mouth reassuring. It seemed to be saying that there really were no grounds for worry. Everything would yet be fine.

But damn you, Tony—where are you? What are they doing to you? And is it in any way possible that my efforts will make a difference to you?

Sleep came slowly to Abigail that night. She usually had a few sleeping pills in her bag for such occasions, but this time she had forgotten to pack them. When she did sleep, dreams that she thought had been left behind years before returned to disturb her night. It was years since they had last plagued her. Now menacing figures again peopled the gloom in the corridors of her mind. She tried to shake them off, even to bring herself back to consciousness, but found herself locked in passages that offered no chance of escape.

It was only when a hand closed around her throat, almost closing off her breathing, that she rushed upward through the darkness to full consciousness. With her eyes open she could still feel the place where the fingers of the hand had dug into her throat. She fumbled for the switch of the bedside light. It came on in a blinding flash, but she was alone in the room.

I shouldn't have said that to Krisj, she told herself. I should never have admitted that fear comes when everything is quiet and I'm alone and thinking. I should have told him that I have no fear and never have had. That's what I should have done.

According to what she had heard that evening, the
CIO
had come in the daytime to make their arrests. But more often they came at night. She remembered that in her own country in the apartheid days, the security police had usually come in the night. So did the army when conducting the cross-border raid in which her father had died. These were the purveyors of violence who loved the night. They loved it because of the cloak it drew over their activities.

At night, the sleeping victim was disoriented, unable to counterattack or even to flee. The only other time when a human being was as vulnerable was during love-making. That thought brought Robert to her mind, so she tried to dismiss it.

Surely the
CIO
would already know about her presence in the country? If they were detaining members of this organization, they would be watching them closely. Such organizations often had informants in their ranks. Telephones could be tapped, and other listening devices used. She was certain that they would know that she had arrived and where she was staying, right down to the room number. Whatever Marjorie Swan said about it being an honor to have her stay, would she really be able to refuse the
CIO
access to her register? Would she even try?

And Krisj Patel, why had he put her up in this damned hotel? Did they not have a safe house somewhere, a place where the nights would not be haunted?

Abigail's watch told her that the time was just past two. She had slept for a little more than four hours. She reached for her phone to try to raise Robert again and had started keying in the number before she canceled the call and laid the phone down.

She got out of bed to go again to the window, but stopped herself before she was halfway there. A memory returned to her of Douglas Bader, a Battle of Britain hero who claimed that, as a child, he would walk slowly through woods at night, his only purpose being to overcome his fears, forcing himself never to look back no matter what he heard behind him.

Abigail returned to the bed, switched off the light and again tried to sleep. Just closing her eyes brought back the images from her dream. It's this room, she told herself. If they come looking for me, the register will tell them where I am.

Staying in bed, unable to sleep, unable even to close her eyes for more than a few seconds, was impossible. Without switching on the light this time, she made her way to the door, unlocked it and opened it, trying to make no sound. Except for a dim light on the landing three or four doors away, the passage was in darkness. She moved quietly into the passage.

Abigail carefully turned the door handle of each room in turn. The first three were locked. The idea that some man, also an insomniac, might see the door handle move and open it to find her there, was disturbing. It would be entirely reasonable for him to assume a special interest on her part. The fourth door was not locked. Abigail eased it open. The bed was empty and the curtains drawn.

She locked the door behind her. If they came during the night, they would not look for her here. And yet there was always a chance. Opening the closet, she saw that the floor space inside was wide enough for her. She removed the bedcover and spread it across the closet floor. Its extra width could be wrapped around her. Once inside, she pulled the doors closed. Lying down was not possible, but she could stretch out her legs and rest her body against the wall.

I'm being a fool, she thought. I'm allowing myself to be stampeded for no reason. I'm behaving like a child.

But, despite admonishing herself, that was how she spent the rest of the night. This time the dreams stayed away. By the time she woke, the room was already full of light and getting back to her own room was something of a challenge.

15

At breakfast, Abigail discovered that
The Herald
was already carrying the news that she had arrived to challenge the government over the so-called Harare Seven. A photograph of herself, taken all those years before when she was practicing in the country, smiled at the readers from page five. The article described her as an ambitious young lawyer, trying to establish a reputation. It ended by quoting a senior member of the ruling party as saying, “All indications are that the seven have left the country.”

She was reading the article when Krisj Patel arrived. He was still wearing his ill-fitting clothes of the day before. “Would you like to join me?” she asked.

He glanced at the food on her plate, then back at her. She read the gesture to mean, yes, please, but I didn't dare ask.

“Come along, Krisj, we can talk while you eat your bacon and eggs.”

“Do you think they'll have bacon?” he wondered.

They did have bacon and eggs, and sausages too. Patel consumed a fair portion of all three, while Abigail had scrambled eggs on toast. Then he wrapped a slice of toast, one of the sausages and a piece of bacon in a paper napkin and slipped the parcel into his pocket. He saw the curiosity in her face and explained, “I'd like to take it to Suneesha. We don't often have bacon or sausages.”

“Your wife?”

“Yes.”

Abigail hated other people showing excessive interest in her affairs. For this reason she automatically turned away from unnecessary interest in theirs. “Are we going to work in your office this morning?” she asked.

“I think so.”

“Then why did we have to meet in that scout hall yesterday?”

“Not everyone agrees that it's safe at my office. My own feeling is that, when they really want to find us, the authorities will be able to.”

*   *   *

The office building where Patel worked, like so much of Harare, was teetering on the brink of a desperate respectability. Spotless cleanliness was offset by cracked and even missing windowpanes on the staircase.

Prince, whose wife had been taken, Helena, and one of her neighbors were waiting outside the door of the offices of Smythe, Patel and Associates when they arrived. Not only is there no Smythe and no Associates, Abigail thought, but there's no receptionist either. Only one of the suite of offices rented by Patel's firm was in use. Another three awaited the return of Smythe and the associates.