Sunil didn’t — Sheila began.
Fuck you, Asia said softly. I thought you said you knew him.
Right, Sheila said, I’m sorry.
So do you have a message for Sunil, Asia asked.
What?
A message you’d like to leave for Sunil?
I’m sorry, but I’ve known Sunil for six years, Sheila siad, and I’ve never heard about you, Sheila said.
Asia smiled, but her eyes were cold. I’ve known Sunil for six years too and he’s never mentioned you, either.
They stood there, side by side, in the room Eskia had trashed, not looking at each other.
Have you called the police, Sheila asked.
If you have no message for Sunil, I’ll just tell him you came around then, Asia said.
Yes, thank you, Sheila said, I should go.
Asia nodded and pushed the door closed firmly, ending the conversation. She walked back into the living room and sat on the floor. For a long time she just sat there, and then she gave in to the release of tears.
Forty-six
It was a full moon. Heavy in the frame of the car window.
Sunil was lost in the memory of Jan, of the last time he saw her alive at Vlakplaas.
There was Eugene, Sunil, Constable Mashile, and Jan. Jan in the light-blue skirt, white blouse with lacy detail, long tanned legs, and her long lean toned arms unadorned except for the ring that sat on her thumb, too big for any other finger. The one Sunil had given her so long ago. He wondered why she’d taken it off the chain.
She seemed out of place here, like a woman on her way to a picnic who had taken a wrong turn, casual in her smile as though the most dangerous thing she faced were whether ants would get into the jam or not. Incongruous in this place, this stark white room with bare cement floors. The paint here always smelled new, because fresh coats were applied frequently.
Eugene loved the pristine whiteness, the way it would show up blood from the more intense interrogations, the patterns on the wall forming a red puzzle. How much pain before that one capitulated. How much before this one informed on everyone — even the innocent. What was most effective on whom — teeth extracted with pliers; good old-fashioned fist work; the cut inner tube of a car tire pulled down over the face to suffocate in controlled measure. But of course, this was an imprecise science, lungs often filled with liquid and sometimes blood, and so on. The point no longer the information, no longer saving the state, but for nothing more than the hunger, the desire to know the body in all its savage beauty.
All of it happened in this room, Eugene’s favorite.
The windows opened onto a vista of hills and scrub and low scudding clouds that drew shadows across the stubby rise. Sometimes there were zebus lowing in the heat, driven by a boy trying to find pasture for them to graze before being driven off by gun-toting policemen for trespassing.
Not the usual view from an interrogation room.
Jan sat facing Eugene, a table between them, a slow-moving ceiling fan above them turning the heat over like a blanket drying on a stove, not cooling anyone, just moving the humidity around evenly.
Sunil sat on a stool between the windows trying not to look at Jan or Eugene. Instead he focused on the bowl of fruit that sat between them on the table, noticing the details: three pears, a knife, and an oddly shaped and heavily ornamented silver object, which could have been anything but looked decidedly Victorian.
Constable Mashile was staring intently at Eugene, trying to keep the look of discomfort from his face.
Would you care for a pear, Eugene asked Jan. No? Well then, I’m sure you won’t mind if I have one. He reached over and tested each one, finally selecting the one that met his standards. Pears are most delicious at the midpoint of ripeness, between too firm and too soft, he continued.
No one else spoke.
You know, before they get really ripe? The flesh has some bite to it and yet the juices are sweet, Eugene said to no one in particular. He rubbed the pear against his khaki bush shirt and picked up the knife, cutting slowly, deliberately, into the fruit. Everyone watched him pare it into quarters. He let them fall apart and lie there on the table like flower petals. He picked one up, held it to his nose, inhaled, and then with a smile, he placed it in his mouth and bit down on the grainy flesh, his smile widening. He chewed slowly, quietly, and then spoke: Perfect, just perfect. This should really have been the fruit to tempt Adam, don’t you think? The apple shows a singular lack of imagination on the part of that particular Bible author, whoever he was. I wonder if Moses was a composite, you know, like Shakespeare? He poked at the three quarters that were left with the tip of the knife, as though testing for the optimal one. He speared one on the tip of the knife and ate it with delight, smacking his lips and looking so lost in his pleasure that everyone else looked away in embarrassment from that particular intimacy. Eugene put the knife down and rubbed his hands together and said: That was good, reminds me of my childhood. My moeder would cut up pears for me, a rare pleasure on that farm so far inland where fruit rarely did well. Memories, eh?
Turning to Sunil, he said: Any luck with your psycho mumbo-jumbo on this suspect? Did the Lady Jan here speak to you?
Sunil glanced at Jan, caught her eye, and, looking away quickly, shook his head. No, he said.
Jan, Jan, Jan, Eugene said. You really should open up to Dr. Singh here. His methods have proven quite effective in turning people such as you. I hate to use violence, particularly on someone who can be reasoned with. It’s much better to become an askari without the violence.
Jan stared at him intently, with an almost forensic intensity, but she said nothing.
Are you familiar with the Swahili word askari? Like Lindiwe over there, these are members of a conquered indigenous people helping their conquerors maintain the status quo. That’s not a literal meaning of course, but it’s true to the spirit of things. Do you know who came up with it? The British, those fokkers who tried to turn the Boer into teefs. Now you conspire with that scum over your people, and to help whom? Kaffirs? You can ask Sunil here, I’m not racist, but there is an order to things, a way the universe runs, and men like me, we are the ones who keep things in place, keep things running the way they should. I take no pleasure in the decisions I have to make, but I make them, I must make them. That is my role. Just as this is the role you’ve chosen. Mine is destiny, yours is weak-willed. I am here to offer you the chance to be strong.
Why all this performance, Jan asked. Her voice startled Sunil, the venom of it, the hard edge of strength, like a finely tuned wire holding everything in place. This was not the shy Jan he’d known.
Performance, Eugene asked, eyebrows raised, reaching for another lobe of pear.
Why don’t you just get on with the torture, with the extermination of the resistance to your white power, she spat.
Eugene chewed thoughtfully, and then with an expression of regret on his face said: I abhor torture. I abhor brutality. These methods, exterminating the native, to borrow your words, are not only barbaric, they are not effective in the long term. The real power lies in securing the cooperation, even the alliance, of the native if we are to hold up this system, and it is not, as you put it, about white power. At least, not for me. I feel more Zulu than white, myself. No, no, it’s about law and order. We represent civilization, law, order, and the march of progress, and for better or worse, this must be defended and moved forward at all costs. I more than any am sorry about the cost. And torture makes me sad, it is regrettable when I have to use it.
Jan spat at him, the gob of spittle landing on the last piece of pear.