I had the unerring sense the discussion was at an end. I rose to go.
‘One moment.’ He fetched something from the cupboard behind his desk. I saw it was my typewriter. He said, ‘Unauthorised use of university property. It may seem unimportant to you, but then you do not have my job. Once you let something slide, it is just the beginning.’ He handed it to me. ‘In this case, though, I am willing to accept it was an honest mistake.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
Just as I reached the door, he said my name. ‘Cole.’
My hand was on the doorknob. I turned.
He was standing reading a document. He looked up fleetingly. ‘Be careful of the company you keep, Cole.’
Kekura, as it turned out, had escaped arrest. He had spent the night with a woman friend and, stopping by Yansaneh’s house early in the day, had got wind of the arrests. He’d decided to visit some friends who happened to live over the border until he deemed it safe to return. Saffia told me this on Wednesday when we met over coffee at the Red Rooster. She’d been busy pursuing her own lines of enquiry. Her face was serious, resolved. Delicate lines on the sides of her eyes I had never noticed before. Other lines — of determination — either side of her mouth. They did nothing to diminish her beauty. She seemed to have regained her poise: the news of Kekura delivered by a friend, the dancer apparently. For some reason it grated upon me that he should have played a part in the restoration of her confidence. I wondered about him. I wondered about Kekura, too.
A waitress brought Nescafé in stainless-steel pots, a small jug of evaporated milk, a bowl of sugar cubes and set them down without ceremony upon the chequered plastic cloth.
‘So what’s next?’ I said.
She had been back to see Johnson each day. While he refused to officially verify Julius was in his custody, everything in his manner confirmed it to her. He had told her to go home and wait.
‘Perhaps you should. You look exhausted.’
She looked up at me, her eyes flashed. ‘What are you saying, Elias?’
‘Only that some things are best left. If you rile them, you might end up making things worse for Julius.’
She looked at me steadily. ‘I know you’re just trying to help.’ She drew a deep breath: ‘I’ve been to see a lawyer,’ she announced. ‘The lawyer says to give Johnson two more days and then to issue a writ of habeas corpus. One for Julius. One for Ade.’
I listened, I said, ‘I want Julius out of there as much as you do, believe me. Only if you do as you suggest you risk bringing the whole thing out into the open.’
‘That’s the point.’
‘The trouble is,’ I said gently, ‘you’d end up putting Johnson on the defensive. He might have to justify himself by charging Julius. And that would be a worse outcome.’
‘What would you suggest?’ she asked.
‘That we continue as we are. Do as Johnson says and wait. He can’t keep Julius in there for ever, he just wants to show he’s a big man. Perhaps I can speak to my pastor, see if he can bring any pressure to bear.’
She sipped her coffee. Thoughts shadowed her face. Finally, she said, ‘It’s not just that I can’t sit and do nothing, it’s that I won’t. This isn’t just about Julius, don’t you see, Elias? This is about all of us. To tolerate this kind of thing, well, it would be just the beginning.’
Just the beginning. The second time inside the day somebody had said those words. Ten minutes later I watched her wind her orange scarf around her head and walk away from me. She declined my offer to accompany her home. She wasn’t sure yet where she was going, whether back to Johnson or to the lawyer’s office. She had a few errands to run in the meantime.
‘Call me if you hear anything.’
‘Of course, Elias.’
As it turned out events outpaced the lawyer’s intervention. The writ of habeas corpus was drawn up on Thursday. Before it could be delivered, Yansaneh was released. In the light of this new development the lawyer suggested they hold off to see what happened next. Julius’s release might be imminent. Later in the same day Saffia and I went to Yansaneh’s place. He seemed, how can I describe it to you? Somehow slowed, even more so than before. His short brow furrowed beneath the straight hairline. There was an air of bewilderment about him. I held back and watched Saffia embrace him, couldn’t help but measure the embrace for warmth and tenderness. But Yansaneh just stood, his arms by his sides. Afterwards he turned and walked to the settee, where he sat down heavily and shook his head. For some minutes the three of us remained bound together in silence. Yansaneh asked if there was news of Julius. No, Saffia replied. Shoulders bowed, eyes cast downwards, he seemed smaller. Somehow I expected Yansaneh, the good-natured pedant, to be more stoical.
You will imagine we questioned him about his experiences, that we dug around for facts to piece together, that we examined the thing this way and that to find answers. It wasn’t like that. We listened as he recounted in a low voice those relevant parts of his ordeal. He spoke at his own pace, the sentences punctuated by long silences. He had been questioned, as I had been. The questions pursued more or less the same line. They seemed to be looking for agitators on the campus. Julius. His views, his movements, the company he kept. Yansaneh mentioned meetings in my room, though in the flow of his account they did not emerge as especially significant. None of what he said added much to what we already knew.
We left Yansaneh’s place and drove back through the town. It was early evening. Saffia’s fingers played upon the steering wheel. She said, ‘One never expects to find oneself in this kind of situation. It’s the sort of thing you read about, that happens to other people in other countries.’
I made no reply. A few years ago we’d had a coup, our first, followed by two years of military rule. Not what you hope for, but still. It had all seemed to take place at a different level, well above the lives of ordinary people. We’d woken up one morning to a new government. And in many ways the military were not the worst you could imagine. Though few people publicly supported them, quite a few did so privately. Now we had a civilian government again.
‘In a building in this city, in a room or a cell, is my husband. I can’t see him. I can’t find my way to him. Yet I know he is there. And so do the people who put him there. Whatever the outcome, even if Julius is released tomorrow, things will never be the same again. This is something more. Don’t you see?’
I shook my head. ‘Let’s not blow things out of proportion. You don’t know Johnson like I do. I was with the man for the best part of two days. He’s the one who’s behind this. There’s no great conspiracy. Johnson’s got ahead of himself, that’s all. Nothing more to it than that. But he’s not all powerful. To take things further he’ll have to consult someone higher up and they’ll put a stop to it.’
She looked at me. I could see the hope in her eyes.
‘Do you think so, Elias?’ She wanted to believe.
‘Yes,’ I said firmly. ‘I do.’
CHAPTER 27
Early morning, a month after his illness. Adrian is driving himself for once. He sees the young woman standing at the roadside, a pair of plastic containers at her feet. It is her, he is certain, the woman he saw talking to Babagaleh and whose face he saw again on the poster at the Ocean Club. He is peering through the windscreen, wanting to assure himself of the fact, when she steps out in front of the vehicle and waves. Adrian’s first response is to wave back, until he realises she is flagging him down. He stops and she hoists the two containers into the back, opens the door and climbs up into the front seat.