“I’d like to go home,” she said in a low voice. “I’d like to see my husband. I’d like to know why you are keeping me here.”
“In good time,” the colonel said. “You must understand that whatever you decide, we have to send in the prison rations. That’s the rule.”
She nodded, head bowing painfully on the stem of her neck. He seemed to have made up his mind that she was on a hunger strike, even though she had denied it. Well, let him think so. Let it be so. The black woman who scrubbed the corridor, who would supplement her diet? She imagined her own body: saw herself fading, growing meeker, thinner, thinner … For the first time fear touched her. I am not made for this, she thought. Emma, now … Emma could bear it. Bear it? It would be an ornament to Emma. And yet, the fear was almost a relief to her. So I am human, she thought. If I had been in prison, and not afraid, how would I have lived the rest of my life? How could I be allowed the luxury of everyday, ordinary fears, if I were not afraid now? She said, “Colonel, for pity’s sake, tell me what you have done with my husband. All I want is to know that he is safe.”
“We should be able to arrange for you to see him.”
“When? Today?”
The colonel exhaled gustily. “Have patience, Mrs. Eldred.” She saw him struggle to quell his exasperation with her. “Look, Mrs. Eldred, I’m sorry if you think you’ve been treated badly, but the fact is that we are not used to prisoners like you. This situation is unprecedented for me. And for the staff, it is unprecedented for them. That is why we had the mistake about the buckets, and maybe—maybe we have committed other mistakes. No one wants to keep you here for any longer than necessary.”
“But why are you keeping me at all? You’ve hardly asked me any questions.”
“No one wants to harass you, Mrs. Eldred. What you’ve done, you’ve done.”
“Are you asking my husband questions?”
The colonel shook his head. “Not in the way you mean, Mrs. Eldred. Why should you think such things? No one has hurt you, have they?”
“No.”
“Just so—no one has hurt your husband either.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What can I do then? Except to assure you that you are here as much for your own protection as anything else?”
“Protection from whom?”
The colonel looked weary. “From yourself.”
“You haven’t brought any charge. I don’t think there’s any charge you can bring. Why don’t you let me go?”
“That is not possible, I’m afraid.”
“Why isn’t it?”
Keep asking questions, questions: just once you might get an answer.
“I am waiting on a higher authority, Mrs. Eldred.”
“Are you, Colonel? Waiting for your God to speak?”
“No.” He half smiled. “A telephone call from Pretoria will do for me.”
“And when do you expect that?”
He shifted in his chair, ground out his cigarette in the ashtray. “I no longer
She looked up into his face. “We might grow old together, Colonel, you and I.”
That evening, unprecedentedly, they brought her a bowl of hot water and a clean dry towel. Until now she had been allowed to wash only once a day. They brought some fruit and a bar of chocolate. “Not all at once or you’ll be ill,” the wardress said. Her face showed her disapproval of this special treatment.
Anna unwrapped the chocolate and inhaled its fragrance, its deep cheap sweetness: sugar and oil. She despised herself. The colonel saw through me, she thought, he knew I was weak. The emulsion slid over her tongue, into her bloodstream. Her heart raced. She sat back on her bed, drawing up her feet. I shall always hate myself, she thought, I shall never forgive myself for this, I shall suffer for it hereafter. She flicked her tongue around her teeth, like a cat cleaning its whiskers: collecting the last taste. Took her pulse, one thumb fitted into the fine skin of her wrist. Its speed alarmed her. But I am alive, she thought.
Then she thought, but perhaps this is only a trick. Perhaps tomorrow they will bring back the porridge and the encrusted spoon, and the native bucket. And I shall not be able to bear it.
Next day they told her that she had a visitor. “A kaffir,” the wardress said, turning down the corners of her mouth. “The colonel has given permission.”
Lucy Moyo was seated in the room where the fingerprints were taken. Her handbag rested on her vast knees. She wore one of her ensembles: a plum-colored dress, a pink petal hat to tone with it. Her handkerchief was folded and secured under the band of her wristwatch. She smelled of lily of the valley.
Anna flew toward her, her arms outstretched. But Lucy Moyo took her by the shoulders and held her off, in a brutal grip. “Brace up, brace up now, Mrs. Eldred.” Her voice was fierce. “Do not let these people see you cry.”
Tears flooded Anna’s face. Letting go of her for a moment, Lucy twitched her handkerchief from under her watch strap. She took Anna by one shoulder and began to dab and scrub at her face, just as if she were one of the nursery children who had taken a tumble into the dust. Anna’s tears continued to flow, and Lucy to wipe them away, all the time talking to her in the same tone, brisk and firm and no-nonsense, as if she knew that sympathy and tenderness would break her spirit.
