The Top Prisoner of C-Max (3 page)

‘There aren’t plates.’

‘We’ll serve them in the shells,’ Rosa said.

‘Is that the thing to do?’

‘Of course it’s the thing to do.’

Yudel took the tray from Rosa and set off for the living room. Robert’s new wife was close to the door so she was first to be served. She made a little movement that was almost a curtsy as she took the oyster from him. She had hesitated a moment, probably also uncertain about the absence of plates. Rosa’s sister followed, then Dad, and after him, Mabel, who was seated next to him.

Yudel was turning to refill the tray when Dad screamed, the sound immediately followed by the crash of one hard surface against another. Yudel found him clutching his throat, his oyster shell spinning across the tiled floor.

In a moment, Yudel was at his side, holding one of his arms, as if at a time like this support must be essential. ‘Yudel,’ Dad gasped, ‘the bastard thing’s alive, I swear to God. It’s wriggling around inside me.’

Hymie had been raising his whiskey glass to his lips when Dad’s scream interrupted the movement. Yudel snatched the glass from him. ‘Swallow this down,’ he told Dad.

‘Maybe the Heimlich manoeuvre will get it out,’ the chief of staff suggested.

‘It’s the wrong channel for that,’ Yudel said.

The chief looked affronted. ‘You won’t know for certain until you try.’

Dad had followed Yudel’s instructions, emptying the glass of whiskey and ice in a single swallow. ‘Thanks, Yudel. Will that kill it?’

‘No,’ Yudel said. ‘But after that it’ll be so smashed it’ll curl up and give you no further trouble.’

Mabel took one of Dad’s hands in hers. ‘It’s all right, Morrie,’ she said. ‘It’s fine now.’

‘Christ,’ Hymie murmured to Yudel. ‘Is it always like this around the old guy now?’

‘Not always,’ Yudel said. ‘Quite often though. Can I get you a new drink?’

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Hymie said. ‘I can really use it now.’

Entertaining had never been a human activity in which Yudel had revealed much skill or showed much enthusiasm. Small talk, the chattering about trivia that passed for conversation in most such dinner gatherings, was not something he understood. Where do you find the subject matter, he often wondered, when there is no subject matter?

On this occasion, Yudel did not need to be concerned though. Dad’s surprising intervention had lifted the spirits of everyone, including the minister’s chief of staff.

While Robert amused himself by engaging Dad on the preparation of seafood, his new wife was looking uncertainly between the two of them, not convinced that Robert’s merriment was entirely seemly. She was a pretty young woman by the name of Thandi, who smiled when she found anyone looking at her. Yudel judged her to be in her mid-twenties. He had been placed next to her and was aware that she had hardly spoken since they arrived. ‘So where did you meet Robert?’ he asked.

‘I was one of his reporters,’ she whispered.

‘Oh.’ Yudel accompanied the word with a series of nods. He had seen television interviewers do that to encourage the one they were interviewing. ‘What was your turf?’

‘My turf?’

‘Your speciality? Politics, entertainment, sports, labour?’

She looked down at her plate. ‘Oh no, Doctor Gordon. I was just a general reporter.’

‘I’m just Mr Gordon,’ Yudel said. ‘But please call me Yudel.’

‘Yes.’ She seemed almost ashamed of her awkwardness.

‘Were you going out long before you got married?’

‘Not very.’ She glanced shyly at Yudel. ‘I never dreamed I’d marry someone like Robert.’

Further down the table, Rosa was talking to her father. ‘Dad, please put your shoe back on.’

‘I’m showing Robert,’ Dad said.

‘What are you showing Robert?’

‘It’s all right, Rosa,’ Robert said. ‘We’re just enjoying ourselves.’ Judging by the breadth of his grin, that was true.

‘I’m showing him that my shoes are made by Armani,’ Dad said.

Rosa snorted audibly. ‘Original Armani imitations from Vietnam.’

From the other side of the table, Hymie was trying to attract Yudel’s attention. ‘Rosa tells me that she’s got you onto a homeopathic remedy for your diabetes.’

‘That’s right,’ Yudel said, trying to keep his voice neutral. To show Rosa that he thought the treatment was not working might encourage her to search for other remedies, a course that he wanted to avoid.

‘So, is it working?’

Yudel became aware that this was one of the moments when the company had fallen silent to hear his response. He glanced at Rosa and met her eyes. What the hell, he thought. ‘It seems to be doing very well,’ he said.

Rosa smiled.

‘Your readings come down since then?’ Hymie persisted.

Rosa was still watching Yudel. ‘Tending downwards,’ Yudel said.

‘Tending?’ Hymie smirked.

‘Of course it’s working,’ Rosa told her brother-in-law. ‘I have complete faith in homeopathy.’

‘Of course.’ Hymie grinned. ‘What about Yudel? Has he got complete faith in homeopathy?’

Yudel pretended not to hear the question. ‘Where did you grow up?’ he asked Thandi.

Rosa too changed the subject. ‘I’ve been going to wonderful lectures on Buddhism,’ she told her brother-in-law. ‘I’m becoming a Buddhist. It doesn’t conflict with our religion.’

‘God help us,’ Hymie said.

Later that evening, Robert manoeuvred Yudel out to the narrow terrace that overlooked Rosa’s garden. He was a tall, loose-limbed man who looked as if he could have been a sports star rather than a newspaper editor. He had been relaxed and jovial all evening. Now his face was serious. ‘Do you know how she is? Have you heard anything from her?’

Yudel did not need to ask who he was talking about. ‘No, I’ve had no contact with Abigail.’

‘I need to make contact with her.’

Yudel shrugged. The matter had nothing to do with him.

‘You know about the political killings in Mpumalanga?’

‘I’ve read about them in your paper.’ He thought about Oliver Hall, his impending release and the prison rumour that he had been responsible for one of the early Mpumalanga killings.

‘One of my people has come upon something that implicates senior politicians. I want to hand it to someone who will not allow it to be filed away and forgotten.’

‘That sounds like Abigail.’

‘But you haven’t seen her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes, you have, or yes, you haven’t?’

‘Yes, I haven’t.’

‘Not since our divorce?’

‘Yes.’

‘You haven’t even spoken to her since then?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t understand you, Yudel.’

And I don’t understand you, Yudel thought. You were married to the most brilliant and stimulating woman, possibly the most attractive you were ever going to meet all your life, and you exchanged her for that sweet little nonentity, and you say that you cannot understand me. And now you’re eaten up by the need to know how she is. ‘Why?’ Yudel asked.

Robert knew what he was asking. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s because she’s so damned independent. She insisted on keeping her own surname and, at heart, I’m quite a traditional Zulu. She was following her career and I was following mine. We didn’t see each other that often and I wanted a wife. Thandi is always there when I need her. She has no career ambitions and no emergencies that take her away from me. She doesn’t want to change the world. She only wants to look after me. I know it sounds selfish, but that’s what I want in a woman.’

‘I see.’

‘Don’t do that.’

‘Do what?’

‘Don’t use that superior psychologist tone on me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t understand me, do you?’

‘Yes.’ Yudel saw that Robert was looking seriously at him. ‘Yes, I don’t,’ he expanded his answer.

Robert’s expression had changed. ‘It may also have been that I never had the link with her that you had.’

‘I was never—’ Yudel started.

But Robert interrupted him. ‘I know you were never lovers. But there were times when you would start a thought and she would complete it, and vice versa. And not simple thoughts either. You have something with Abigail that I’ve never experienced with any woman, or any other human being for that matter. What does Rosa say about it?’

‘We’ve never discussed it.’

‘And yet, despite this thing, you weren’t lovers. It drove me crazy.’

‘Jesus, Robert.’

‘That’s what she would say if I told her this.’

After the guests had left, Yudel went to his study. He had assured Rosa he would not be more than an hour. Just a few small matters needed his attention.

Seated at his desk, amidst the barely organised chaos of his study, he switched on the computer. It would be best to make a pretence of dealing with the fictitious matters that he had told Rosa needed his attention.

The real matters that were pursuing themselves through his mind seemed impervious to any action he could take. Robert’s need to contact Abigail about the killings in Mpumalanga had surprised him. In the last twelve years, many fairly prominent members of the ruling party had been murdered in the province. According to rumour, another faction of the same party was responsible. He wondered how Oliver Hall’s release might affect the longevity of Mpumalanga politicians.

As for Abigail, he had made no attempt to contact her, not even to ask Rosa to invite her to dinner. He had worked with her twice in seven years, each time for little more than a week and they had neither spoken to nor seen each other in the intervals. Rosa too professed a special fondness for Abigail, but never suggested contact of any kind. Was it true, he asked himself, that they completed each other’s thoughts?

Yudel had no answers to any of these questions. Nor did he have an answer to the minister’s questions. He would rather have been allowed to forget the Thandi Kunene matter. It haunted him still. He had hoped that telling the story during his testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings would exorcise the memory. His confession, if it could be called that, had the effect of making it possible for him to continue working in the department. But it had no effect on his state of mind, none whatsoever.

The questioning at the hearing had been something he hoped never to have to relive. The questions had been gentle, but searching. Why were they torturing her? he had been asked. I didn’t know at first, he had told the hearing, but then I realised that they were looking for the white man who had visited her on the Sunday night. And who was this white man? I was the man. I told them so and that they could release the pressure they were applying to her body. And did they? No. What did you do then? I told them again that they could release the pressure, that I was the man. Did they this time? No. And what happened then? She died. Were you present when she died? No. But you knew she did? Yes. What did you do about it? I put in an official report about the matter. And what was the result of that? Nothing. I heard nothing. And then, what did you do? I asked for an interview with the national commissioner. Was it granted? No. Did you do anything else – approach the press, for instance? No. You only approached the apartheid authorities? You could put it that way, yes. Thank you, Mr Gordon. But I would like to explain. He was given the opportunity to explain, but was only able to repeat that he had tried to intervene. But no, he had not taken it further. Was there a reason? Were you afraid of losing your job? Your pension? I don’t know. Perhaps.

The hearing had been terrible, but nothing like the incident itself. Even after all the years since then, he remembered every detail of it. He closed his eyes to shut out the memory, but it had the opposite effect. Behind his closed eyelids he saw her again, as he had so long ago. He remembered her nakedness and what they were doing to her, the force of the rubber tube as they tightened it and the look in her eyes when she knew she was going to die. He remembered also his own attempt at intercession, how weak it had been and how ineffective. Perhaps if he had spoken earlier, she may have been saved. Perhaps he could have been more forceful, dealt more decisively with his own fears.

Yudel opened his eyes and they were drawn by activity on the screen of his computer. An email had just come in. He opened it and saw that it had been sent at three thirty that afternoon. No doubt it had lain captive in some digital prison since then. The message said:

Dear Mr Gordon, please note that an American lady will be in contact with you tomorrow. She is a postgraduate student and published author who is interested in our prison system. Her book on prisoner revolts in the USA has sold over a million copies. The minister asks that you extend her every courtesy while she is with us.

M. Moseki

Assistant to the Minister of Correctional Services

PS
She asked to be put in contact with you personally. She has studied your rehabilitation programme and would like to discuss it with you. The minister also asked if you are happy with your new office. MM

Yudel read the message twice before answering. His response was brief. It read:

The office is fine. Does the lady have a name?

Yudel Gordon

C-Max

THE FIRST LIGHT
of dawn crept slowly over C-Max, as the city of Pretoria’s maximum-security prison was now called. Shafts of sunlight from the east spilled into courtyards and barred windows, creeping down high walls and across rooftops.

Yudel passed the narrow buffer strip between the inner and outer walls where the rabbits and guineafowl that lived on perfectly trimmed strips of lawn had woken and begun their endless and, in this case, unnecessary foraging. Like the men inside the walls, they too were prisoners. The wings of the guineafowl had been clipped to ensure that flight was out of the question. The walls were anchored far too deeply into the earth for the rabbits to burrow under them.

Yudel paused at the gate in the inner wall. ‘Hek,’ he called, to signal his need to pass through. Eighteen years after the end of the apartheid regime, all official terminology had been anglicised in the cause of greater clarity for a staff drawn from more than ten language groups. But basic commands were still issued in terms that many staff members considered the language of the oppressor. When a warder asked if there were complaints or requests, ‘Klagtes en versoeke?’ was still the question put to them.