Those Who Love Night (32 page)

“I thought he survived that night.”

“No, my child. He died. I saw his body the next day. He was still in his van. The soldiers of Five Brigade killed him there.”

“So who sent the money?”

“At first, I thought the government, but other people never got it. I don't know who sent it. But whoever sent it didn't want to have the children, just wanted me to look after them. I asked the social services lady once, but she said she didn't know. But I was getting money, so I should be happy, she said. And I was. I only ate because I had the children.”

Despite the distraction caused by the fried chicken, the young woman had been listening to the conversation with growing interest. “They bring no money now,” she said. “We are struggling.”

Abigail glanced at the children's faces. The area around the mouths of both were gleaming with the fat of the fried chicken. How many other hungry children are there in this damned place? she wondered. She lay a hand on the old woman's shoulder nearest to her. “Where is Katy, Tony's sister?”

The old woman turned toward Abigail, reaching out with chicken-oily fingers to touch her face. Abigail made no attempt to avoid her. “My child, where have you been? You know nothing about your family.”

“I was overseas, and I was in South Africa, mother.”

“You have been away too long. The girl is dead. She killed herself, in my house. We had a visitor who had a gun and she shot herself in the kitchen of my house.”

Abigail took the old woman's hands in hers. “When did this happen?”

“Long ago, my child. Katy was still a young girl, maybe seventeen, maybe eighteen, when she killed herself.”

“Do you know why?”

“No, I never knew. She was not a happy child.”

Yudel raised a hand as a signal to Abigail. “Did anything happen just before that, a visit perhaps?”

“No, my quiet friend. I remember nothing.”

“A visit perhaps from social services?” Yudel was surprised by the question. He had not intended asking it. It seemed to have come from some place outside of himself.

“Social services?” Loise's thoughts seemed to go back to those days. “Yes, I think so. They took the children away once and brought them back a day later. It may have been then.”

“And what effect did her death have on Tony?”

“Oh, Tony.” She seized upon his name, as if relieved not to be talking about Katy. “He was always a beautiful boy. His face was beautiful and his soul too, but other spirits, sad spirits, lived inside him, like his sister—from the beginning, when he was small.”

“And that got worse when Katy killed herself?”

But she was shaking her head, as if to brush away the collected dust of so many years. The memories were old, and no longer in sharp relief. “Perhaps, sir, perhaps … I don't remember.”

Yudel knew that they had drawn close to something, but not what it was or how close they were. “You don't know what made Tony the way he is?”

Something close to anger flickered across the old woman's face. “I don't think it's wrong to be like that. I know many men do not like it. They see shame in it, but I don't think it's wrong. I don't think he could help it.”

Yudel was trying to grasp this new idea; that there was something deeply wrong with schizophrenia, something men hated. He looked at Abigail, but she looked equally puzzled. “Do you think he was happy at home, before his parents were killed?”

“Oh yes, he was happy. Wally was a very good man. Tony loved him.”

“Didn't he love Janice, his mother?”

“Yes, I think he did.”

Loise had gone back to eating the chicken and potato chips, finishing her portion with a smacking of lips. She leaned toward Abigail. “I am tired, my child. It's very late. Perhaps you and your friend can come to see me some other day.”

Abigail had seen Yudel's interest in Janice. “Why didn't he love his mother as much?” she asked.

“Boys have special love for their fathers, my child.”

“Is that the only reason?”

Again a brief moment of anger appeared in the old face. “Janice was a good woman, and very beautiful. I have a picture. I'll show it to you.” She opened a small cardboard box, the top one in a pile next to the bed. She scratched inside it, but closed it almost immediately. “It's too dark and my eyes are not good. But don't think your aunt was not a good woman. She died trying to protect her children. They found the children with her body the next morning. And it's not true that she was a bad woman.”

“We never thought she was a bad woman,” Abigail said.

She continued as if she had not heard. “You have to know that Wally was not a strong man. He didn't have much manly strength. And in some women the flame of being a woman burns too fiercely. But now I am tired. I can't talk any more. Come back another time, my child, and we will talk again.”

Abigail again laid a hand on Loise's. “Mama Loise, when did you leave Matabeleland to come here?”

“Long ago. I wanted to get away from the Gukurahundi. Janice and Wally were killed. My husband was killed, my only child, my sister. I thought they wanted to kill us all. I could speak Shona well, so I left. I went first to Madikwe Falls, then I came…”

“Madikwe Falls?” Yudel echoed her.

“I lived there for a few years before…”

“Mama Loise…” Yudel used the form of address he had just learned from Abigail. “Mama Loise, were the children with you in Madikwe Falls?”

“Yes, yes. But I am Ndebele and I grew up in Matabeleland. My husband was a Shona. That's how I came to have the name, Moyo. That is, of course, not my childhood name.”

Yudel felt a tingling that filled every part of him. He knew there was no rational reason for his excitement, but containing it was not easy.

“Now you must please go.” The old woman slid into a horizontal position on her back and closed her eyes.

“Will you bring more food?” The young woman and her children were all looking inquiringly at Abigail.

*   *   *

On the stairs, Abigail stopped Yudel. “Jesus Christ, Yudel. What the hell is going on here? What does it all mean?”

She could see the intensity of concentration in his face. But she saw confusion too. “I don't know,” Yudel said. “But it's not far away. I can feel it. It's only just out of reach.”

“Jonas Chunga knows everything. He holds the key.”

“He's not going to tell us.”

“Perhaps he will tell me.”

“No. Stay away from him, at least for now. Please stay away from him.”

41

It was comforting for Abigail to have Yudel in the room next to hers. She was still afraid, but she was no longer alone in her fear.

Too much had happened in just one evening. In her mind, her meeting with Chunga at the country club, her confession to Yudel, the deal with Mpofu and the revelations, whatever they meant, of Mama Loise, had become a churning maelstrom of unstructured information.

Yudel had told her what Mpofu had said. He had also said that they should be prepared that the
CIO
man might try to take the money and not fulfill his end of the bargain. That had also been her thought. She had nevertheless told Yudel that she would try to get the money from Robert's paper in exchange for an exclusive. It was not a lot of money if the paper wanted it. She corrected herself—if Robert wanted it.

Abigail switched on her cell phone. Except for the brief periods in which she had been making calls, the phone had been switched off since she had last spoken to Robert. Now it showed that he had tried to reach her three times during the evening. She keyed in his number. The answer was immediate.

“Abigail.”

“How are you, Robert?”

“I've been trying to get hold of you for days. Your phone has been switched off.” She knew Robert better than anyone else she had ever known and the anxiety she heard in his voice was real.

“Robert, I need money.”

“Money? Of course. How much?”

“One thousand U.S. dollars. And I need it not later than mid-morning tomorrow.”

“I'll get it to a bank there by not later than ten-thirty. Leave your phone on. I'll call you to tell you where.”

Hearing his immediate agreement, she recognized for the first time the sound of relief in his voice. “Aren't you going to ask what I need it for?”

“I wasn't going to, no. I'm just happy to be talking to you.”

“I'm glad to be talking to you too. I'm going to use it to pay a bribe.”

“A big one. I should think a thousand U.S. dollars will go far in that country.”

“Pretty far.”

“But please keep your phone switched on. Will you do that now?”

“Yes.”

“How are you? Tell me how you are?”

“I'm fine, Robert.”

“And Yudel. I know he's there. Is it helping that he's there?”

“Very much. Rosa's here too.”

“Rosa too?”

“She came with Yudel.”

“Abigail.” He waited while he searched for a way to continue. “The things I said at the Sheraton … at the launch of the exhibition. I don't know…”

It was wonderful to hear his voice. It was even more wonderful to hear him talking to her in words that had real meaning. “It's all right, Robert.”

“It was my relationship with that girl. That's what was talking.”

“I know.”

The relief she heard in his voice was no stronger than her own, but it was difficult to find words to convey feelings too complex for either of them to express so soon. “I'm glad,” she heard him say. “I'm glad to be talking to you.”

“Me too, Robert. I'm also glad.”

Later, after she had hung up, she thought about what Yudel had said. That Robert was a good man and that she should forgive him, and that Jonas Chunga was not a good man and that she should be rid of him. Perhaps Yudel was right. She knew he was right about Robert. But Jonas, it was impossible to be sure about Jonas. Perhaps it was not as simple as Yudel made it seem. After all, men fighting in wars killed others. The world did not see them as criminals.

Oh God, she thought, where is my mind going? This is not a war. According to the information that came from Freek, Jonas had killed because his victims had chosen not to obey him.

Robert was again in her thoughts; a good man, endlessly reliable, an unbelievably good provider, her rescuer from a brand of fear that struck whenever she was alone with any man except him and, in recent years, Yudel. He was the only lover she had ever known. He was everything she knew she should desire. And yet, he had not come. Under these circumstances, he had stayed in the relative safety on the other side of the border.

Shouldn't he have come? she asked herself. She did not even expect it of him, but if he had come, it would have been wonderful. Had it been unreasonable to hope for that?

And there was Jonas Chunga, a man of power who had released an unexpected torrent—no, a cataract of passion in her. People around him, from waiters to women, rushed to meet his every desire and to do it immediately. He was also the man who had the restraint not to take her when he so easily could have.

And I still have unfinished business in his territory, she reminded herself, in the heart of the country he thinks of as his own, this place where nothing is refused him.

Sleep did not come easily to Abigail that night. While on other nights in this place her thoughts had been filled only by Chunga, now Robert's presence was the source of still greater confusion. She believed him that the affair was over and that the girl had gone back to the agency. But did it have to be that kid's decision? They were friends again. But it was still too early to know whether they would ever be lovers again.

But most confusing of all was the matter of Mama Loise Moyo. She had become tired too suddenly. Had her weariness been brought on by the thought that perhaps she had already told them things she should not have? Perhaps she thought there may be things they should not know. And had she told them the truth all the time, in every detail? That was unlikely.

And Yudel? On the way back from Mama Loise, he had fallen silent. Barely responding to anything she said. She knew this meant that his facile mind was hard at work, but he had shared nothing with her. “Tomorrow we meet Mpofu,” he had mumbled as he left her at the door of her room. Working with him was not always easy.

A visit to the window on the landing between floors revealed a police guard inside the fence at the back of the hotel. Was he something new, or had she just not noticed him before? From the window of her room she saw the guard on the pavement in front. Within the limited range of vision the window provided, she could see no sign of a
CIO
double-cab or of Agent Mpofu, who had arranged that tomorrow he would sell them the whereabouts of Tony and the others.

Turning to go back to bed, she stubbed the toes of one foot against something hard. She had to open the curtain wider to see the battling tiger and elephant. From that angle, the tiger was certainly the aggressor, a thought that seemed reasonable given their respective public-relations images and appetites.

42

He thought he had dismissed the memory of that morning in the village permanently. Perhaps he would have, if it had not been for Abigail. If he had been able to bury the incident, out of reach of his conscious memory, the way he had always tried to, perhaps then he would have been free of it. He knew this was not true, though. It was not just Abigail who had brought the memory to life again. Since that day it had never been far from him. The grave in which that one morning in his life had been buried had been a shallow one.

A whiskey bottle was open on the kiaat tray, an empty glass next to it. The morning in Matabeleland, twenty-seven years before, was everywhere. For the moment, nothing else existed. Not even the whiskey helped.