Those Who Love Night (24 page)

And the other drivers had accepted him readily. They all spoke Portuguese, his home language, which from the beginning had made contact with them easier. There were also the women—African women. They were less complicated than their European sisters and more eager to please, both in bed and in the kitchen. He had told a Portuguese friend that the people back home would never understand about his having black women. The friend had said that he should not worry. In Mozambique, mulatto was the national color.

He loved his job and was determined to do it well. This cargo especially. It was a World Food Program shipment, intended for Chikurubi prison. It did not take much intelligence to realize that things could not be too good for the guys in prison. But that was all right. He was coming with their food. He was glad to be doing something good for people, even a bunch of convicts.

I'll get it to them, he told himself. It may not be fast enough for the head office, but I'll get it there.

He was out of the hills and rolling easily over a good road surface toward Rusape. He saw the roadblock from a long way off, but he knew there was no practical way around it. This time paying them would probably be unavoidable. He hoped twenty dollars would do it. He knew not to offer it too soon. The thing to do was to feign reluctance. That usually kept the payment within sensible limits.

The only police vehicle was parked across the road. There seemed to be five or six officers. They never worked alone at the roadblocks. The driver they were stopping always had to feel outnumbered. That was how they worked. He also knew enough to know that the
UN
markings on the load were not going to be of much help.

Two officers had moved into the road. One had raised both hands, his palms facing Bino. That was no surprise. Only some of the locals would be allowed through without stopping. “Good morning,” one of them said, approaching the driver's window. “Where are you going, my friend?”

“Harare.”

“Where in Harare are you going?”

“Chikurubi prison.”

“Chikurubi? What's the load?”

“Officer, I don't know about the load. I just drive the truck.”

“Well, Mr. Truck Driver, do you know how to switch off the engine?”

Bino switched off the engine.

“The keys.” The officer held out a hand to take them. “Get out. We'll see what's in this load you know nothing about. Maybe it's arms or drugs.”

Bino followed the police officer to the back of the truck. The second policeman had fallen in behind him. The others, who had been standing together at the side of the road, were also moving closer. The one who had done all the talking so far plucked at the tarpaulin covering the load. “Open,” he said.

Bino held up both hands in a gesture of helplessness. “If I open it, the food falls out,” he said.

“Food? What food? Now you know what's in the load.”

“The boss never told me. I think it's food.”

“Open. I want to see this food.”

The policemen had all gathered around by now. “Don't worry, Mr. Portuguese,” a new voice said. “All we want is to look at your food.”

Bino climbed the two steel steps at the back of the trailer. It took him ten minutes to loosen the binding enough to free one of the ten-kilogram bags and pass it down. Then he climbed down.

One of the policemen cut open the top of the bag. He allowed a handful to spill into his cupped hands and tasted it with the tip of his tongue. “What's this shit? It tastes like sawdust.”

Bino shrugged.

“How do you eat this shit?”

Bino shrugged again. “You make porridge, I think.”

One of the other officers, an older man, had come forward. “Chikurubi, amigo?” he asked.

“Yes, Chikurubi.”

“So why do those prisoners get the food? Nobody here has food. Why do you take food to criminals and dissidents?”

Once more Bino shrugged. “I just drive the truck. What do I know?”

“What do you know? First you didn't know what was in the load. Then you knew it was food. And you did know to make porridge from it. Tell me what else do you not know.”

“I know nothing about the load, sir. I know nothing.” He could see that this time twenty dollars would not do it. Perhaps a few bags would be enough. Perhaps a few bags and twenty dollars.

“You think it's right for prisoners to eat while good people starve? You think that's right?”

“I don't think. I drive the truck.”

The older officer had approached to within an outstretched arm of Bino. “That's the problem, amigo. You don't think. Mr. Portuguese, this is the time to think. You go sit in your truck and think about what is right and what is wrong. I'll keep the keys.”

“Please, sir, officer. I have to deliver this load. I'll lose my job.”

“You sit there and think. You think about what is more important, your job and food for criminals, or the starving people of Zimbabwe. You think about that.”

“Please, Colonel.”

“Not yet. I'm not a colonel yet. And I'm finished talking. You go back to the truck and think.”

Bino went back to the cab and slowly climbed the three steps of the ladder that led into it. He knew that sometimes they let you wait, just to show who was in charge. When enough time had passed, they let you go. That's what they did sometimes. At other times, things did not go that well. In any event, there was no other way. He would have to wait and think.

32

Chikurubi was gray. Many people who had seen it, or even been inside it, having been asked what it was like, had described it as big and without color. Abigail saw it as a forbidding, lifeless presence.

Tucked away behind a low ridge and a dense fringe of blue gums, and set well back from the fence of the outer perimeter, it was invisible from the road. A sign proclaiming its presence was so badly rusted and weathered that it now served little purpose.

Helena and Prince had traveled in the backseat of Yudel's hired car, with Abigail next to him in front. They arrived twenty-five minutes before the scheduled start of the hearing. At the outer gate, a guard in prisons department uniform met them and asked them to wait while they were identified.

Entering Chikurubi was not easy for Abigail. She had been telling Yudel about the form she expected the hearing to take, but had stopped talking as the building appeared through the trees. Even Yudel, who had spent much of his life inside the walls of prisons, felt the wave of oppressive energy that swept toward them from beyond its walls. For Abigail, it was much worse. She stopped in the pedestrian doorway as if repelled by everything that resided within. There was never any possibility that she may take a step back, but she had to gather strength before continuing.

Like all prisons, Yudel knew the outstanding characteristic of this one would be the gates—heavily guarded access points that barred the way to every part of the building. They passed through three gates, each of which had to be opened by a guard on the inside, before they reached a large hall with unpainted concrete walls and floor. It may at one time have been a gymnasium. The court had been set up in a corner of the hall. The rest stood empty. Yudel had the impression of crossing a plain to reach a distant oasis. The sound of their footsteps, especially Abigail's leather heels, echoed off hard surfaces as they approached the corner in which the hearing would take place. Two rows of plastic seats at the back of the makeshift court had been provided for a small group of observers. So far the only people occupying them were three officers in the uniform of the prisons department. A pile of backless wooden benches stacked in a corner revealed the nature of the room's usual seating. The only windows were shallow and set close to a high ceiling. Most of the light came from overhead fluorescent lights.

The prison officer who accompanied them showed Abigail and Yudel to their seats at a wooden table. The two government lawyers were already seated at a table to the right of them. The judge's table stood in front and in the center on a slightly raised platform. Just in front of the judge, the court registrar had his own table. He was cleaning his fingernails with the sharpened end of a match. The room's two doors were guarded by uniformed policemen. Because they could be called as witnesses, Helena and Prince had been left in a corridor just outside the hall.

As Abigail and Yudel arrived at their table, the two government men came to meet them. They introduced themselves as Barrister Gorowa and Solicitor Moyo, and said that it was a pleasure to meet Advocate Bukula and Mr. Gordon. Abigail returned the compliment and Yudel said, “Hello.”

Gorowa was very young. Too young for this, Abigail thought. Moyo was trying to look bored. A glance at the two of them gave Abigail the impression of insecure, lower-level civil servants. It was a reflection of her view of herself that, although she was a civil servant, she never saw herself as that. Among her colleagues, she thought of the outstanding ones simply as good lawyers. The ineffective ones she saw as civil servants.

He's not here, Abigail was thinking. He made this morning's hearing possible, but he's not here. Surely he'll come? Not that it'll be easier with him here.

Thinking about Chunga and whether he was going to attend turned her thoughts toward Robert. Abigail had a way of never looking back once she had said goodbye to someone. At an airport or on a train station, she said her goodbyes and then walked away. This morning she had not once thought of Robert. Until this moment, only the hearing had occupied her thoughts. He had promised a journalist, an idea that had pleased her. With wider publicity she would have felt safer. She asked herself why she had not contacted the
Independent
about the hearing. Having a newspaper present that really did live up to its name would have been comforting, but it seemed that even
The Herald
was not present. To help her, Chunga had seen to it that the hearing was arranged quickly. But perhaps other reasons existed. Perhaps the suddenness of it all had also made it possible to keep it out of the press.

It was still five to nine and Judge Tendai Mujuru had not yet appeared, when the door by which Abigail and Yudel had come in opened and Jonas Chunga stepped into the hall. Abigail saw him stop in the open door and look for her. She made no greeting and did not smile, but as long as he held her eyes she could look nowhere else.

Sitting next to her, Yudel looked first at Chunga, then at Abigail. What he saw in her face looked like an anxiety that came close to panic. Chunga's face wore no clear expression. It was just a look between a man and a woman, and Yudel would rather he had not seen it.

As suddenly as the moment had arrived, so abruptly did Chunga break it, walking quickly across the hall, followed closely by Agent Mpofu. They joined the prison officials on the plastic chairs behind the two legal teams.

The registrar disappeared through a second door. When he came back it was to step aside to allow Judge Mujuru, tall, heavily built, shortsighted and balding, to enter. His eyes were red and his nose carried the glow of the heavy drinker. Abigail could not know that he had already consumed two warm double whiskies that morning, and that they had probably not improved his powers of concentration. Everyone rose as he entered, and all sat down when he did.

Just as she did whenever she said goodbye to anyone, so Abigail's awareness of Chunga's presence disappeared in a moment. She looked at the judge and saw what she believed was a weak and dissolute man. She could not believe that having this man presiding would be good for her or her case, but she remembered something her father had told her when she was in her early teens. She had been complaining about some aspect of her life that was important only to herself. He had waved her away with the words, “In life, you have to play the cards you are dealt. You have no other choice.” Since that day, she had lived accordingly. Regardless of what she saw in the judge, she was going to play her cards as well as she knew how.

“We have only one matter before the court today,” the registrar was telling his small audience, all of whom already knew that. “This is the matter of Ndoro and others against the state.”

He sat down. Mujuru nodded to him, then spoke for the first time. “Who appears for Ndoro and the others?”

Abigail rose. The judge was looking down at the notepad in front of him. She waited until he looked at her before speaking. “I do, your Lordship. My name is Abigail Bukula.”

After Barrister Gorowa admitted to his part in the proceedings, the judge continued. “This is a matter of great importance,” he began. “There are matters of principle here and precedents that may be established and may affect Zimbabwean and even international law for generations to come.” He had spoken slowly, every word carrying a heavy emphasis, as if each were equally important. It seemed that to Judge Mujuru, this was the way a judge should dispense legal wisdom. Now he looked directly at Abigail. “It's very stuffy in here. Isn't it very stuffy in here, Miss Bukula?”

Abigail was surprised by the question, but if his Lordship wanted to socialize with her in court, she had no objection. “I must say I also find it so, your Lordship,” she said.

“I agree,” Mujuru said, using the same heavy emphasis that he would have given to a legal pronouncement. “Officers, open some of those windows,” he told the two policemen.

To reach the windows one of the policemen had to climb onto a plastic chair, while the other held it. Even then, the task was not easily accomplished. The latch on the window resisted the officer's first few efforts. At the fourth attempt, he put enough energy into the action to overcome the resistance of the latch. The window flew open and he fell backward onto his colleague, the two landing in a tangle of arms, legs and uniforms on the concrete floor.

For Judge Mujuru, this was the best possible result. He laughed heartily, slapping his hand on the surface of the table. Everyone in the court dutifully joined in the merriment, while the policemen scrambled to their feet.