today.’
‘Oh, yes. That’s right. Four hundred.’
I fetched my wallet from the Nissan. I went around to the passenger side so they wouldn’t see me push the Glock and the hunting knife into the back of my belt under my shirt.
Before handing over the notes, I questioned them. Where were the footpaths that led down the mountain? The paths that the maPulana had followed in 1864, when they attacked King Mswati’s impis.
‘Impi is a Zulu word,’ said one with disapproval.
‘Sorry.’
‘I’ll remember.’
Then, friendlier: ‘You know the story of Motlasedi?’
‘A little.’
‘Not many whites know it. Come. I’ll show you the paths.’
‘Can I leave the car here when I walk down the paths?’
‘We’ll look after your car nicely.’
‘I might only fetch it tomorrow.’
He went ahead, around the building, past an open fire where a large pot simmered, through a garden that was neatly maintained, to the edge of the indigenous forest. He pointed a finger. ‘Go in here and keep on straight. You will reach the other path that comes down the mountain. Turn right and follow the path down to the bottom of the mountain.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Lookout for the
‘I will.’
‘Stay well.’
At a clear stream running over a rock I sat and drank deeply and let the ice-cold water trickle over my head and neck and run down my back until it made me gasp for breath.
I was going down this mountain alone.
I needed to define myself. For ten years I had called myself a bodyguard. It was the government’s name for my job, an empty, meaningless shell. Was Koos Taljaard a doctor before he healed someone? Was Jack Phatudi a policeman before he made his first arrest?
Ten years and never once was there any real danger to the person I had to protect. Political meetings, public appearances, social events, car trips and openings of buildings and schools. I had nothing to do. Nothing but keep myself ready, keep my body honed, skills polished, sharp as a knife that would never be used to cut anything. I had watched, oh, I had watched and observed tens, hundreds, even thousands of people with an eagle eye.
Nothing had ever happened.
The concept of being a bodyguard saved me, because after school there weren’t many forks in my road – and all the others led to a bad end. I was young, violent and looking for trouble. I bore a hatred for my parents and my world and was saved only by the discipline of training and the fatherly calm and true wisdom of the Minister of Transport. The man who had once made us stop in the Eastern Transvaal so we could help a minibus-taxi change a flat tyre. He chatted with the driver and the black passengers about their lives, their hardships and troubles. As we drove off he shook his head and said the country couldn’t go on like this.
But despite the fact that I had direction in those years, it was ten years of being a spectator. Ten years on the periphery, a decade of being on the edge of nothing.
An unimpressive bystander, despite my genes. My English rose of a mother was a colourless bloom, as I am. My father was dark, virile and strong, but I inherited her pale skin and red-blonde hair and skinny body. Her breasts made her body look sensational. She could colour in her face, and she did, with lipstick, mascara, powder and rouge, she could metamorphose every morning. With skill she had turned her delicate features into a sensual siren, a honeypot that the men of Seapoint swarmed around.
I once nurtured a beard for four months without Mona noticing. I had to ask her whether she saw something new. It took her five minutes to say, oh, you’ve a beard.
Invisible.
Defined by one incident in my life. The road-rage murder. That’s what the media called it. In the single photo that appeared in the papers I was between my legal representatives, and Gus Kemp mercifully hid my face with his file. Invisible.
Forty-two years old and what am I?
My head complained: you’re tired. It was the lack of sleep talking.
It wasn’t important.
Today I was going down there alone because I wanted to be something.
Like what?
Something. Anything. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to stop the injustice. For once I wanted to gallop on the white horse of righteousness.
I stood up, not wanting to argue with myself any more. I took out the Glock and checked it. Then I went carefully down the mountain in the deep afternoon shadows.
On Sunday, 5 October 1986, Jacobus le Roux’s commanding officer called the teams together and told them they must all be out of the bush and back at base on Monday, 13 October. They were due a week of R…R, no passes would be issued, but they could relax at base.
That was all. No explanation. As though it was something to look forward to.
They suspected a snake in the grass, because all around them the recces of Five Reconnaissance Battalion were abuzz over a possible operation. Rumours were rife. Renamo, the pro-Western faction in the civil war, was apparently advancing on Frelimo in two northern provinces of Mozambique. The recces might be sent to assist them. There was also something going on with the 7 SAI, judging by the traffic of Bedford trucks in and out of base.
The Environmental Services Unit didn’t really care about whatever was going on. It didn’t affect them, and in the army if something doesn’t affect you, you ignore it.
But on Monday, 13 October, he and Pego were not back at base. To tell the truth, they never saw the inside of the base again.
The trouble began on the twelfth, a Sunday. They planned to be back in time. They had completed the last leg of their patrol, beside the two-wheel track that ran parallel to the Mozambique border in the south-eastern corner of the reserve. At one in the afternoon they were trying to sleep deep in the reeds of the Kangadjane stream, four kilometres from the border between the Lindanda-Wolhuter Memorial and the Shishengedzim guard post. They woke at the sound of a small aeroplane. They crawled out of the reeds and looked up. The plane circled west of them around the hill called Ka-Nwamuri. Very odd, because civilian planes hadn’t been allowed here for over a year. They weren’t even allowed to fly over it at altitude. This one was low, scarcely five hundred metres, and only a hundred metres above the koppie, a hill towards the west.
It made a wide turn and came their way and they crept back into the reeds. Jacobus took out his binoculars to have a look. There were no identifying letters or marks on the wings. Just a plain white aeroplane. It descended as it approached and then suddenly swung north. Jacobus saw two or three faces looking down and one of them seemed familiar, but he thought he must be mistaken.
It looked like one of the government ministers. A well-known one. But the plane turned again and he couldn’t see the people any more as it droned away to the north-west, dwindling in the distance until they could no longer see it.
He and Pego looked at each other and shook their heads. What was it doing here? Why had it flown over
