The Soldier who Said No (22 page)

Henderson turned to address De Villiers. It was a formal communication. ‘You know the drill,’ he said. ‘You’re not to leave this house without my permission.’

‘But what about medical treatment?’ Emma demanded. ‘You know he has to go for treatment.’

Henderson thought about it. ‘Alright then,’ he relented, ‘except for the purpose of medical treatment.’

As De Villiers watched them driving off and saw the Armed Offenders Squad following them, he regretted his decision to cooperate. He had been showing off a bit, and Henderson had been subtle, not showing his hand until the very end.

He looked down at his feet. Henderson had walked off with his shoelaces.

I feel like a prisoner, De Villiers thought. They’ve even taken my shoelaces.

This time round Dr Annette de Bruyn wore her professional face.

A second blood test had been positive for
PSA
. The count had doubled in less than three months. ‘Pierre, the tests have come back. I think you had better come in so that we can decide on a way forward.’

De Villiers had been sitting around at home since mid-December, for three months now, the longest he had been inactive since he had been a baby in nappies. He wasn’t sure whether it was his imagination or whether it was real, but he felt as if an evil force was keeping a grip on him, a cold hand holding his insides behind the operation scar. He had not obeyed Henderson’s injunction not to leave his house. He had made inquiries on the North Shore, speaking to the South African immigrants there, asking questions about who lived where and what organisations had sprung up amongst them.

There were no surprises. A Dutch Reformed Church with its own dominee from Verwoerdburg.
The South African Shop
in a small shopping centre near the church was run by an Indian family from Durban and sold South African wines, biltong and Mrs Ball’s chutney. The owner of the store had arranged for the South African electronic newsletter to be sent to De Villiers each month, but he had found no clues there.

De Villiers watched as the doctor fussed with the file. She wasn’t her usual gregarious self.

‘There’s something wrong here,’ she said at last. She looked at De Villiers over her glasses, making eye contact, but the focal point was somewhere behind him.

De Villiers had expected something out of the ordinary. He waited for the doctor to explain.

She swallowed before she spoke. ‘The
PSA
has doubled in the last two months when there should be no
PSA
at all. I’ve explained that to you previously. There can only be
PSA
in two circumstances. One is if there’s still some prostate tissue. The other is if the cancer has spread.’

The words had come out in a rush.

‘How can that be?’ De Villiers asked, eliminating the obvious circumstance in his mind. ‘Shouldn’t the surgeon have removed all of it?’

‘Yes,’ she said. She watched De Villiers more closely.

‘Where could the cancer have spread to?’ De Villiers asked. A slow acceptance grew in him, confirmation that the evil presence he had felt inside him was real, not imaginary.

‘Prostate cancer usually spreads to the lymphatic system in the lower abdomen and then to the bones of the pelvis and upper legs,’ she said. ‘Have you felt anything in your bones, anything unusual in that area?

‘All I’ve felt is some pain … no, it’s not really pain, below the operation scar,’ De Villiers said. He moved his weight on the examination gurney and felt exactly what he had tried to explain to the doctor, a slight twitch inside him.

‘No,’ she said, ‘that’s quite normal and would probably be with you always. It’s just the scar tissue below the cut.’

‘Does that mean then that the cancer has spread somewhere else?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry, but I just don’t know. There’s something here that I don’t understand and I’d like to have a biopsy done.’

De Villiers was getting impatient. He’d always preferred to have bad news delivered fast, without delay or obfuscation. ‘Annette, please tell me what’s going on. Be straight with me.’

‘I
am
being straight with you. I’ve told you exactly what I see.’

‘That can’t be all,’ De Villiers insisted. ‘Exactly what is it that you don’t understand?’

She turned the file around so that De Villiers could read. ‘Read this,’ she said. ‘It’s the path lab report on the tissue that was removed.’

De Villiers studied the report. It didn’t make any sense to him. There were crude drawings with some areas shaded and numbered. He shook his head and looked up.

Seeing the question in his eyes, she fixed her pen on one of the shaded areas. ‘See this area here?’

He nodded.

‘This is the edge of the gland as examined by the path lab.’ She looked up to see if De Villiers was following.

He sat forward and nodded again.

‘See this shaded area here, on the side?’ She didn’t wait for an acknowledgement. ‘This is the specimen as examined by the pathologist, but see here, the shaded area? See how that extends to the edge.’

De Villiers looked more closely. He saw the outline of what he assumed to be the prostate gland. There were several shaded areas marked within the outline. ‘Are those the cancers?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Then what’s the problem? I don’t get it.’

The doctor rested the point of her pen on one of the shaded areas. ‘It looks as if they have cut
through
one of the cancers, leaving part of it behind, right here, at the top.’

De Villiers tried to assess the import of the information he’d been given. When he could see no clear way forward, he asked, ‘Where do we go from here?’

‘We need to do another biopsy,’ the doctor said.

‘I’m not going back to that surgeon,’ De Villiers said.

There was a wry smile on Annette de Bruyn’s lips when she spoke. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll send you to a specialist radiologist first to confirm the diagnosis and he’ll report to me alone.’

At the door she said, ‘I’ll hold thumbs for you.’

When he didn’t answer, she added, ‘It’ll be good news if they find prostate tissue there.’

It was only in his car on the way home that De Villiers caught her meaning.

If they find more cancer cells there, at least we’ll know where they are.

The second biopsy was as painful as the first had been, but De Villiers submitted stoically. Each of the six clicks of the probe stung like a dart and retracted in a millisecond.

He bled for several days.

Annette de Bruyn made the suggestion and then made the final arrangements.

‘Look, Pierre,’ she started when she had shown him the path report. ‘I won’t joke about good news and bad news, not about cancer anyway, but there’s some good news in this report. It means that there is prostate tissue there and that explains why there is still a positive
PSA
reading. But it’s bad news because they should have removed all the prostate tissue at Brightside.’

‘So what do I do now?’ De Villiers asked.

They discussed the options in detail.

‘Why would I want to go back there?’ De Villiers asked. ‘I haven’t been back there in fifteen years.’

The doctor pushed the hair from her forehead. ‘Pierre, whatever the reasons for our leaving, we must accept that the medical facilities there are far better than here, in the private sector anyway. There are long delays here, as you know, and you have to go onto the waiting list.’

When De Villiers hesitated, she added, ‘And your file shows that you’re still on the
SANDF
medical aid. You can have the best treatment money can buy, and you can have it quickly, and you can have it for free.’

There was a long pause as De Villiers considered the options.

The thought of returning brought !Xau and the arrow back into focus. He would have the opportunity to get behind that arrow, to find proof of its origins.

‘I’ll have to think about it,’ he said.

‘I understand,’ she said, ‘but don’t take too long.’

De Villiers made a quick decision. ‘I’ll phone you later today or early tomorrow.’ He stood up.

Dr de Bruyn must have anticipated his decision. ‘I’ll write a full report so that we can send it ahead of your arrival. And I’ll give you a set of path reports, operation notes and blood counts to take with you.’

De Villiers thought of the logistics of treatment in South Africa. ‘Where would you suggest I go, if I decide to go back?’ he asked at the door.

‘I think any of the major centres, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban. Or Bloemfontein or Cape Town. It really depends on where you are able to stay for a while.

‘Do you have relatives or friends where you can stay?’ she asked.

‘In Pretoria and in Durban,’ he said. There would be too many complications in Pretoria, he thought. After a pause he added, ‘But I don’t want to stay in Pretoria.’

Early the next morning he telephoned his brother-in-law. It was late evening in Durban, but Johann Weber was still working.

Weber’s response was immediate. ‘Of course you’re welcome.’

‘It’s only for a few days,’ De Villiers said.

‘Stay as long as you like,’ Weber insisted.

‘I don’t want them to know in Pretoria,’ De Villiers said, alluding to his mother. ‘It will only worry her for no good reason.’

He was about to put the phone down when Weber cleared his throat. ‘Pierre, there’s something you should know before you come out.’

De Villiers waited for the explanation.

‘I have some bad news. They’ve applied for a presidential pardon and will be freed this week.’

‘You mean they’re letting the killers go?’ De Villiers asked.

‘Yes.’

There was a long silence.

‘We can talk about that when I get there,’ De Villiers said.

De Villiers was again forced to think of the men who had murdered his wife and children. On several occasions he picked up the phone but put it down without dialling. An hour after receiving the news from Weber, De Villiers phoned his sister in Pretoria.

‘Heloïse?’

There was a pause, much longer than the delay on an international line warranted. ‘Pierre, is that you?’

‘Yes, it’s me.’

‘Goodness, when last did we hear from you?’

Twenty minutes later De Villiers got around to the reason for his call. ‘I have a criminal investigation and will be coming to Pretoria soon.’ The half-truth had rolled easily from his lips.

True to character, Heloïse immediately took over the arrangements. ‘You’ll stay with us. And I’ll bring Mom to visit, and André would love to see you too, I know that.’

‘Jesus, you smell bad!’ the driver exclaimed as the petrol tanker gathered speed.

De Villiers and !Xau were crammed into the single passenger seat in the cab of the Shell tanker. They had been lucky to be given a lift on the Katima Mulilo–Rundu road. It was used almost exclusively by military vehicles and their drivers were forbidden to pick up hitchhikers. But the driver admitted to having been swayed by the unusual sight of a Bushman in traditional loincloth in the company of a soldier in bush uniform. The Bushman carried a bow and a quiver made of bone slung across his shoulders, but the soldier had no weapons.

‘I’m sorry,’ Pierre de Villiers apologised. ‘We’ve been in the bush for a long time.’

‘Don’t worry, man. I’ll drop you at Rundu in about two hours and I’m sure they’ll give you a hot bath. But what about the Bushman? Don’t they ever wash?’ the driver had asked.

De Villiers shook his head. He couldn’t recall ever seeing !Xau make an effort to clean himself when they had access to water, but he remembered all too well how !Xau regularly rubbed fat into his skin when they had meat. Beside him, half in his lap, !Xau laughed. He understood Afrikaans very well and provided an answer of sorts. ‘Water is for drinking.’

‘How far are you going?’ De Villiers asked.

‘I reload at Grootfontein, then it’s all the way back to Katima Mulilo.’

‘I need to ask for a favour,’ De Villiers said. ‘I need to get a letter to my wife.’

‘No problem, buddy, just give it to me,’ the driver said, keeping his eyes on the road as a military convoy thundered past in the opposite direction.

‘I don’t have paper or an envelope or a stamp,’ De Villiers admitted.

‘No problem, buddy. There’s paper in the cubby hole and maybe even a Shell envelope or two. And I’m sure they won’t even notice at the depot at Grootfontein if a couple of stamps go missing.’

De Villiers’s fingers struggled with the now unfamiliar act of writing. While maintaining the confidentiality of his mission, he explained to his wife that he was well and that he was on his way to the army base at Rundu. He asked her to get in touch with his commanding officer at 4 Recce if she should by any chance not have heard from him directly by the time she received his letter.

Expect some trouble.

Don’t give up.

If they won’t tell you where I am, go to your brother.

It had taken De Villiers and !Xau sixty-six days from the day of the events on the banks of the Cuito River after Verster’s death to get through the two game parks, the Coutada Pública do Luengué and the Coutada Pública do Mucusso. There had been many a day when they were forced to hide and made no progress at all. Now, on the way to the military base at Rundu, De Villiers was apprehensive of the reception they would receive. They had been hunted by their own, and it was thanks only to !Xau’s bush craft that they had been able to survive and to evade their pursuers at the same time.

When the petrol tanker stopped outside the main entrance to the base at Rundu, De Villiers was immediately surrounded by
R
4 toting soldiers who demanded that he identify himself. A soldier without a rifle is always cause for suspicion. De Villiers spoke Afrikaans to them and they backed off a little when he reminded them that he was a captain in the Special Forces and demanded to see the base commander. There things got worse.

‘Who the fuck do you think you are, waltzing in here like this?’ the commanding officer shouted. ‘And you’re wearing
UNITA
rags. You’ve been
AWOL
and now you pretend to have been lost.’