She thought that if she cried she would weaken him. She thought that to weaken him was to further endanger him.
And that was absurd because there could not be more danger than where he was going. She choked on the tears, she squeezed the wetness from her eyes.
'Trying.'
'Great girl.'
'How long?'
'Less than a few minutes.'
'Will I ever see you again… ' She faltered.
'Remember the brilliance, Ros, of being loved, and remember the brilliance that you gave me with your love.'
He looked again at his watch. She felt him start to move.
And, God, she didn't want him to go. And, God, she was without the power to stop his going. She rolled away from him. She lay on her back and the bed sheet hid her knees. She laid her arm over her eyes, so that she would not see the moment of his going from her bed, from her side.
'It was only for you, Jack.'
'I know that.'
'Because I love my country.'
'That's my guilt, that I've made you fight what you love.'
'My country, Jack, that's more than a rabble of politicians.'
'Ros, my country's politicians, and the bastard desk men, they ditched my father and left him to hang. But I, too, can still love my country.'
'And I love my brother. And I hate his cause, because his cause is bombs and guns. His way is killing and loathing and fear. His way takes us to ruin, destroys the country that I love, and will destroy the brother that I love… How long?'
He kissed her. As if they both knew it would be for the last time. He snapped off the bed. He went to his clothes, he started to dress. She lay in the darkness, her eyes under her arm. She heard the movement of his body. She could not let her eyes see him. She felt his hands on her head, lifting her head. She felt the cold of the chain on her neck, on the skin above her breasts. She opened her eyes. She saw the gold chain, she lifted the crucifix of gold to see it better.
'Wear it and remember.'
'I won't forget you, Jack, not ever.'
She watched him go out through the door.
She heard his desultory conversation with Jan in the living room. She heard him speak aloud as he went through his check list of the items he would carry up Magazine Hill, and down Magazine Hill, to the gaol.
She was numbed. Too unhappy, now, for tears. She swung her legs off the bed.
As she dressed she heard Jack talking to Jan. They had moved on to the list of street places at which the grenades would be thrown, where the pistol shots were to be fired.
Her fingers played with the crucifix. She thought she would wear it for the rest of her life, for the ever of her life. She had promised that in the morning she would be at her office desk, and Jan had promised that he would be in the lecture theatre at Wits. At home, in the top drawer of her wardrobe, there was a yellow silk scarf. She thought that when she was again in her room, that night, when she was back with her parents and everything familiar, she would leave her curtains open and she would tie the yellow scarf to the handle of the window, and she would allow the light from beside her bed to be thrown against the yellow scarf and to be seen outside her window. It was important to her that the yellow scarf should be seen, should be her beacon to save him. Her fingers were tight on the edges of the crucifix.
When she was dressed she went into the living room.
Sitting on the floor with the street map of Pretoria spread out in front of him, Jan looked up at her. He was grinning, amused. She blushed.
'Bit bourgeois, Ros, handing out home comforts to the troops before the battle.'
She ignored her brother. 'Can I do anything, Jack?'
'Have you a nail file, metal?'
'Yes.'
'Please, would you take the serial number off the shotgun.'
'Aren't you going to take it with you, to the border?'
'Just in case I get separated from it,' Jack said easily.
'You'll need it all the way to the border.'
'Wouldn't want it to fall into the wrong hands, come back to you.'
It was insane to be thinking about the border. Jack passed her up the shotgun, and he pointed to the serial number.
She took it into the bedroom where she had left her handbag.
She would remember him for ever, as she had seen him in her bed, because she would never see him again.
* * *
The assistant dropped Frikkie de Kok off home.
Pretty damned stupid when he thought about it, that he should have an armed escort every time he went to Pretoria Central and an armed escort back from Pretoria Central, but nothing when he took Hermione shopping nor when he took his boys to the Loftus Versfeld for rugby.
It had gone pretty well, a pretty damned good day's work.
The assistant had done him proud. Right from the start in the morning, right from the time his assistant had picked him up, he had told him to take his time, not to get himself rushed, just to go through the procedure the way he had seen Frikkie do it. It had been fine because it was only one man. The assistant had executed his first man. Not that he had officially executed the man, not that it went into the paperwork that he had done it, but the arrangement had been made with the governor. The governor could not really have put the spoke in, because the governor had to accept that if a man was booked for hanging on a Tuesday or a Thursday and Frikkie de Kok happened to have the influenza or he had ricked his back in the garden, then the man still had to go. Frikkie de Kok with influenza or a bad back shouldn't be a reason for a stay of execution. And the time came when an assistant had to prove himself, show that he could manage the work himself, and pretty damn well he'd done for a first time. Frikkie had been behind him, ready to lend a hand if he was needed, and he hadn't been.
All right, his assistant had been a little clumsy when they brought the fellow into preparation, but who wouldn't have been, on his first time with the responsibility. A little aggressive with the pinions, a little rough moving the fellow onto the centre of the trap, a little hard when he had hooded him, a very little bit fierce when he had ringed the fellow's neck with the noose. Little things, not grounds for complaint. Little things to be pointed out over a beer. No trouble with the drop. The assistant had made his calculations to the inch and to the pound, just right the drop had been.
Frikkie de Kok had shaken his assistant's hand while the rope still shivered, while a young creep on compulsory attendance was in the corner throwing up over his uniform
… Just Frikkie de Kok's view, and privately held, but it wasn't right to have youngsters in the hanging gaol, not the youngsters who had joined the prison service as an alternative to conscription into the army and service in the 'operational area'. The hanging gaol should be for professionals, not for shirkers. Just his opinion.
Afterwards he and his assistant had stayed all day in Maximum Security, because Thursday was a multiple, five on the trap. Thursday took preparation. Six was the most he could do, but that was a hell of a business even with a good assistant. Two and three and four at a time were pretty much all right, but fives and sixes were hard on everyone present. When he was busy round the trap he never looked at the spectators. Too much on his mind with the pinions and the hoods and the feet being right and the noose, but he could hear them. He could hear his
