The Top Prisoner of C-Max (2 page)

Yudel followed his directions to the floor below, crossed the covered bridge where the linoleum flooring was worn and cracking, and took the lift to the top floor. Seven years before, he had been retrenched in the interest of what the department had called ‘greater representivity’. In order to circumvent government policy while retaining Yudel’s services, the director of C-Max had entered into a contract with him a day after his retrenchment became effective. The contracted rate of pay was better than he had been earning as a regular employee, but now it had come to an end.

This time he really did believe that his career in the department was finally over. He had approached the end of his contract with some dread. Over the last year, he had been trying to build a private practice, but had found that it was easier to find needy clients than paying ones. And he was aware that his investments, such as they were, would not be able to support himself and Rosa.

The summons from the minister had come as a surprise. He was past the age at which professional consultants were normally considered by the department and, despite more than one departmental query, he still did not have a black partner. Yudel hated the idea of any sort of partner.

Self-interest was unlikely to be served today, but he was glad of the opportunity to meet the minister. She had been in the job a few years and had built a reputation for being more enthusiastic about rehabilitating prisoners than simply punishing them. Occasionally correspondence that originated on her desk had reached Yudel, but he had never met her.

The minister’s front-desk person, a plump girl, reminded Yudel that he was late. ‘I’ll apologise to the minister,’ he said.

‘You’re lucky,’ she said. ‘The minister’s also late.’

‘Good, then she can apologise to me.’

‘The minister doesn’t apologise …’ She thought about that statement for a moment. ‘… unless it’s to the president.’

‘Quite right,’ Yudel said, ‘but I forgive her anyway.’

To the girl’s relief, Yudel sat down. He had to wait only five minutes for the minister and she did apologise. She was in her mid-sixties, hardworking and expected the same of her staff. She had been an active part of the liberation struggle, at great personal risk, for many years. On the other hand, he had been part of the apartheid prison system. She would know at least as much about him as he knew about her. He shook her hand and sat down opposite her in an office that was of modest size by the standards of cabinet ministers and furnished with practical Department of Public Works furniture. ‘I’m glad to meet you at last,’ she said.

Now that I no longer work for you, he thought. ‘Delighted, Madam Minister,’ he said. And Yudel really was glad to meet her. He hoped to discuss parole policy with her.

‘You’re probably wondering why I invited you here.’ She was smiling broadly.

‘The thought did cross my mind.’

‘The reason is that I want you here with me.’

‘With you, ma’am?’

‘Just down the passage. We’ve prepared an office for you.’

‘But my contract—’

‘Of course, your contract.’ She picked up the handset of her phone. ‘Patricia, bring Mr Gordon’s new contract here.’ A few seconds later, Yudel was glancing at the front page of his new contract. ‘It’s exactly the same as the previous one,’ the minister said. ‘Of course, we adjusted the remuneration to compensate for inflation. I hope you find it satisfactory.’

Satisfactory? Yudel thought. A moment ago I was without a job. Yes, the remuneration was satisfactory, very satisfactory indeed, altogether satisfactory in fact. Thank God for it, or perhaps thank the minister. He would have accepted a contract that was a lot less satisfactory. ‘Yes, thank you, Madam Minister. It is entirely satisfactory.’

‘Good.’ She beamed. He smiled back at her. They were friends now. ‘I understand that you’re a close friend of someone I knew when she was still a child.’

‘You mean Abigail, I suppose.’

‘Yes, Abigail Bukula. Her parents were involved in the struggle.’ When Yudel said nothing, she pressed the matter a little further. ‘You do know her, Mr Gordon?’

‘Yes, but we haven’t seen each other for a few years now.’

‘Oh? Any reason?’

‘We just haven’t had any reason to work together in that time.’

‘I see.’ She looked surprised and it was possible she did not see at all. ‘Anyway, I want you close to me because I’ve been aware of your work and I need the best help I can get for some of the difficult decisions I will have to make in the years ahead.’

‘Decisions, ma’am?’

‘We don’t have the money to run our correctional facilities the way I would like to see them run.’ Her face had become serious and she was leaning forward, her elbows on the desk. ‘As you know, on any day our prisons are overpopulated by some thirty per cent. We need jails for another thirty thousand people, but we don’t have the money. For good reason, government sees education, health, social welfare and housing as greater priorities. I want you to help me implement an early-release programme.’ She stopped speaking suddenly to study his face. ‘Mr Gordon, you don’t approve.’

‘It’s not that I don’t approve …’ Yudel was looking for the words to explain his position. ‘Too often we have released the wrong people.’

‘That’s why I want you with me. I’ve been told by people I trust that no one has more knowledge and better insights into inmates and correctional facilities than you have.’ The minister was looking directly into Yudel’s eyes. What he saw was an honest person who was trying to do what she thought was best in what he knew to be an almost impossible situation.

‘Madam Minister, the one hundred and forty-seven being paroled this week—’

‘Political people that committed their crimes since apartheid ended, they fall into a special category.’

‘Some of them should not be paroled, ma’am.’

‘I also heard that you have very fixed views and are not easily dissuaded.’

Yudel looked into the minister’s serious eyes and sighed. What she was saying was probably true. ‘I was thinking particularly of a convict called Oliver Hall.’

‘Inmate,’ the minister chided. ‘Didn’t you see the memo instructing all staff to refer to them as inmates, not convicts?’

‘Yes, I saw it. I should have said “an inmate called Oliver Hall”.’

The minister’s jaw seemed to tighten. ‘I know of the case.’

‘He killed both during and after the end of apartheid, but confessed at the Truth and Reconciliation hearings and was cleared. And he may have killed again since then.’

‘There’s nothing in his file to that effect.’

‘I know.’

‘Mr Gordon, you and I may not like this man, but he has been sentenced and has served a fair part of his sentence. You have to understand that influential people feel that, given his history, he should be granted amnesty. The matter is out of my hands. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, I do. But there is another side to this.’

‘And that is?’ The minister’s way of enunciating her words was becoming more clipped.

Yudel knew that he was trying her patience, but he was not finished yet. ‘He’s going to kill again – probably often, until we get him back inside. In my view, there is a certain class of prisoner – I mean inmate – who should never be released. Not because of what he did, but because of what he is and will do again. I’m concerned that we may have to explain the reason for his release to the families of his future victims.’

In a quick movement, she turned her head away. An abrupt wave of her left hand indicated that this was not something she wanted to hear. ‘I have seen no evidence that we will have to explain anything. What hard evidence is there?’

Yudel knew that this was a battle he could not win, but he was unable to stop. ‘None. But I have dealt with many such cases.’

‘I know that he has gone seriously astray, that he started mixing with criminals, but he has been punished for it. Since the Truth and Reconciliation hearings, he has only been guilty of armed robbery.’ The minister’s indignation was growing by the moment.

Yudel knew that the minister had her orders and it was impossible for her to agree. ‘I believe that he’s a violent psychopath. I believe that there are killings we don’t even know about. Such people don’t change, not ever. He’s been waiting for the opportunity to kill again. Placing him on parole is giving him that opportunity.’

Again the wave of a hand jettisoned what Yudel was telling her to the realm of unwanted information. ‘Mr Gordon, as far as Hall is concerned, this is just your opinion and you don’t seem to have any basis for it.’

A moment ago, you were asking for my opinion, Yudel thought.

‘In any event, I understand you put him through our psychopath programme and he passed with flying colours.’

‘Madam Minister, the truth is that no such programme, being applied anywhere on earth, can be relied on. They just don’t always work. One might say that they don’t usually work. I believe Hall used the political struggle to kill without personal responsibility.’

‘Nothing can be done about Hall and, as far as I’m concerned, nothing needs to be done. He has to be released in two days.’

Yudel looked at the minister and wondered how well their new relationship was going to function. Suddenly she smiled. ‘Your first name is Yudel. What does it mean?’

‘As I understand it, it means my little man, more specifically, my little Jew.’

‘My little Jew,’ she repeated. ‘Well, you’re not very big.’

‘That’s true.’

Her face again became serious. ‘You were in the Department of Prisons, as it was called in those days, throughout the struggle years?’

She already knew the answer and, whatever use he would be to her in future, this would always be the barrier between them. ‘Yes.’

‘Were you ever present when someone was tortured?’

‘Once, but not in a prison. It took place in an office of the security police. The victim died.’

The look on the minister’s face hardened. ‘Who was the victim?’

‘An activist by the name of Thandi Kunene.’ Yudel knew that he had tried to save her, but he had always felt that perhaps he had not tried hard enough, and certainly not soon enough. To try to explain his role to the minister now was beyond him.

‘Oh my God, I met her once. You were there?’

‘Yes. I also appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I told the story then.’

‘I’ll read it,’ the minister said.

‘I hope you get the chance, ma’am.’

‘Because you’re on my staff, I’ll make the chance.’

On his way out, Yudel paused in the passage outside the minister’s office.

He ran a hand across his forehead and found he had been sweating. Damn, he thought, that could have gone better. He wondered if she already regretted his new contract.

ROSA GORDON
’
S
dinner parties were modest attempts to fulfil what she thought of as the duty of the wife of a prominent man. She liked to think of Yudel as a prominent man. ‘But I’m not,’ he had told her on a number of occasions.

‘You’re more prominent than you realise,’ she always replied.

On this occasion, she had invited the minister’s chief of staff and his girlfriend (‘It’ll do no harm to be friendly with him,’ she said), the editor-in-chief of a chain of newspapers, Robert Mokoapi, and his new wife (he had been married to Abigail Bukula, with whom Yudel had worked closely in the past, so Rosa felt that no matter how much they liked Abigail, they should show that the divorce made no difference to them), her sister and the sister’s husband (‘A business couple always provides a nice balance’) and Rosa’s father and his girlfriend (‘I wish they’d get married,’ she told Yudel).

‘Do you think it’s a good idea to invite Dad and Mabel?’ Yudel asked when Rosa shared her plans with him.

‘Why not?’

‘Well, Dad’s behaviour can be a little eccentric.’

Rosa looked hurt. ‘Shame on you, Yudel. Your behaviour is also sometimes a little eccentric, more than a little, I should say, and I never complain.’

‘As far as I’m concerned, he’s always welcome.’ Yudel was back-pedalling vigorously. ‘I just thought with the visitors …’ He left it there. It seemed better not to finish the sentence.

Yudel had spent the day moving into his new office. He had brought a car load of reports, files, books, CDs and departmental manuals from his old office inside C-Max. By the end of the day, he felt almost at home, despite being on the same floor as the minister and her core team. He told the chief of staff that, and the other man had laughed. ‘You’re now part of that core team too, you know.’

By the time Yudel got home, all the guests were already present. Rosa met him in the hallway. ‘How could you be late tonight, Yudel? Everyone’s here. Really, I can’t believe the things you do.’

‘They’re early, aren’t they?’

‘No. You’re late. Don’t you know what the time is?’

‘No.’

‘It’s nearly half past seven.’

Yudel went straight into the living room to make a round of apologies, but he need not have bothered. The guests were scattered around the room, some seated and others standing. Rosa’s dad, ninety years old and full of the confidence that had returned to him with winning the affection of Mabel and three tots of ten-year-old whiskey, had control of the situation. ‘Never touch the stuff,’ he was saying. His voice had dropped an octave below its normal pitch. ‘I never touch the stuff.’ Each declaration was accompanied by the bold sweep of an arm. The faces around the room, especially Robert’s, all looked amused. Yudel considered that they may have looked even more amused if they had known about the bell Rosa had to attach to the key of the liquor cabinet to keep Dad out.

Robert waved at Yudel in greeting, but he addressed Dad. ‘I wish I could say the same, Morrie, but I need my sundowner to keep me going.’

‘Me too,’ said Hymie, Yudel’s brother-in-law.

‘I’ll tell you another thing,’ Dad started. He was getting into his stride. ‘Let me tell you this …’ Robert’s grin was broadening to the extent that his perfect set of even white teeth was on display.

Yudel seized the opportunity to slip into the kitchen. This time Rosa looked glad to see him. ‘Here, Yudel. Help to take in the oysters. We’ll have them before we sit down to dine. Start taking them through.’