The Sister from the Hellenic Society – 1990
On sunny days, they let us sit in the garden. We sun ourselves like lizards, drunk on the warmth and the fresh air. It’s nice to be outside, but mostly we’re happy not to dodge the puddles of piss on the floor inside or listen to the lunatics shouting at each other or their imaginary friends about God knows what. But never you mind, the orderlies are always around – hiding behind a tree, or fiddling with the garden tools, pretending to trim the grass or prune the shrubs. They’ve got one eye on the rose bushes and the other eye out for trouble, like a fight starting over a favorite chair, or someone making a break for it. I must say, I haven’t seen anyone run for the fences. I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about it now and again, but I’m not a young pup anymore. I’m what – seventy one or seventy two now? They’d catch my fat arse before I was halfway down the road. Anyway, the guards fucked me up good in the tjoekie and even if I could run without limping, I don’t know what I would do if I made it past the gate. Where would I go? Who would want to see me? My own family never even visited me, the bastards.
Well, there I was in my cheap plastic chair, eyes closed with my face turned to the sun, when this woman comes walking down the path.
“Hello, are you Dimitrios Tsafendas?” she says, not quite sure of herself, or me.
She’s neither young nor old. She looks like a nun, maybe a novice, cause I’ve been around enough monasteries and nunneries to know, and she’s wearing a blue and white head covering. Her eyes are soft and brown behind the plain black glasses.
“Call me Dimitri” I say, “And who might you be?”
“My name is Magdalena.”
“Sister Magdalena?”
“Not yet, just Magdalena for now. I’ll be taking my vows soon, I hope. The Hellenic society asked the church to look in on you. So, they sent me.”
“The Hellenic society? I thought the Greeks washed their hands of me.”
“Oh, no, Dimitrios, I mean Dimitri. The heavenly father tells us to love all of his creations.”
“Even after what they think I’ve done? Ha! Love the sinner but hate the sin, eh?”
“Well, um, something like that.”
She looks down at the grass and clears her throat. Then she opens a shopping bag and hands me a box. “They told me you like sweets.”
“Nobby Toffees! My favorite.” I tear the red and gold wrapper off one and put it in my mouth. “Oh, sorry, would you like one?” The toffee makes my teeth stick together, so the words come out funny. She smiles and shakes her head, then watches as I finish it and open another. She sits quietly as I eat three more, my mouth going this way and that as I try to move my jaw. She brings a chair so that she can sit near me.
Finally, I stop and wipe a dribble of spit from the corner of my mouth. “Thank you, sister.”
“Just Magdalena is fine. Or even Magda. Can I get you anything else next time?”
“Oh, you’re coming back? That’s very nice of you. What should we do next?”
“Why don’t we chat a while, Dimitri? How are things here?”
“Oh, you know…full of crazy people,” I say making circles near my head with my finger. I’d rather not talk about this place. It’s boring. Nothing happens here anyway.”
She looks disappointed. I don’t want her to go away just yet.
“Maybe, you’d like to know how I ended up here,” I say. “Would you like to hear? It’s not how they said things happened in the papers.”
She looks at me kindly. “Only if you want to, Dimitri.”
“Oh, alright. Where should I start? How about the day that it happened?”
“Go on, she says, nodding. I’m listening.”
I can tell she’s a little scared to hear it but wants to encourage me to talk.
“Alright, then. Do you know what a sjambok is, Magda?
Caledon Police Station – 1966
I could hear it whistle before I felt it, but by then it was too late to flinch.
Swish. Wha-taa! Aaieee!
Swish. Wha-taa! Aaieee!
Such a clever, cruel instrument, the sjambok – just a tapered rod of hard, bendy plastic, with the handle at the thick end and pain at the other. They used to make it out of rhino skin, but plastic is cheaper these days. Native herders use it on cattle. And policemen use it on the natives. When bantu rioters see a line of advancing policemen with sjamboks, they scatter like they’re being chased by snarling dogs (oh, they have those too).
Now the average sadist will hit you all over with it—back, legs, neck—whatever they can reach. But an expert will pick one spot and aim for the same place every time. First it stings, and then it bruises, and then it cuts you to pieces.
But here in the basement cell, there were no rioting crowds—only me with 5 or 10 policemen. That sjambok was just for me. It sliced through the air, then it bit into my back. I screamed after each stroke. It did no good to be a hero and take it without a sound – it just made them want to hit harder. Two of them held my arms so that I was stretched around a concrete pillar in the middle of the room. The other one took a few steps back between each stroke, so that he could wind up properly. When they stopped holding my wrists, I fell to the floor.
“Jou fokken bastard,” the guard panted in my ear. He grabbed me by the hair and turned my head, to spit in my face. “Fokken bastard.”
Someone threw a bucket of seawater over me. It was lovely and cool until the salt hit the raw flesh. Then it turned to acid. I screamed until I was hoarse. They switched places so that everyone could take a turn. When I was nothing but a puddle of blood and piss on the floor, they picked me up and sat me down to take my statement. My ears were ringing, and my back was peeling off me in strips. I couldn’t think straight. Did I really do what they said? Maybe it was a dream.
I did remember a few things. I remembered how sunny it was that day, a perfect Spring morning. I remembered the feel of the Spanish steel in my hand. I remembered the look on his face when he saw me for the first time. Not just looked at me. Saw me. Not a nobody in a blue uniform. Not a nameless pest he could swat like a fly. I’m not your messenger boy. I’m not here to bring you your tea or your papers. No, I’m the angel of death and today is Judgment Day. Well, I didn’t actually say that—but I should have. I’m always thinking of something clever to say when it’s too late.
And I remembered the to-do afterwards. Christos! After they caught on what was happening, everyone was flapping their arms and running around like the pigeons in the park when a dog runs by. What to do? What to do? Some of the MP’s got to me first. There were so many, they dragged me to the ground and stomped on my hand so that I would drop the knife. All the while the honorable members were shouting and cursing and piling on top of me, swearing like sailors. Then red-faced policemen pulled them aside, swinging truncheons and kicking me with their steel-toed boots wherever there was an open spot. First in the head, and then my back when I curled into a ball. I held my hands over my face, and they were sticky with blood that dripped into my eyes. Was it mine or his?
Then they threw me in a paddy wagon and brought me to the tjoekie here at the Caledon Police station. You would have thought I killed their own grandfather, the way they howled and ground their teeth at me. And then they brought out the sjambok.
“Who are you working for? Who? ANC? PAC? Who gave you orders?”
“It’s just me,” I said, “just me.” But they didn’t want to hear that and beat me some more. They made me scream so hard that afterwards, I tore my throat to shreds. My Grandma Katerina (may she rest in peace) used to love my singing. “Such a sweet voice,” she said, “Like a bird. No, an angel!” But after that, to this very day it sounds like I gargled with broken glass.
Let me tell you, when someone is beating the shit out of you, you’ll say anything to make them stop. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I said “Alright it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me. It was the worm. The worm told me to do it.”
Well, that stopped them. For a little while, anyway.
Notes
- In 1966, Dimitri Tsafendas assassinated South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd on the floor of parliament in full view of a packed joint session. This is his story.
- This novel was selected to be featured in Embark Literary’s 17th issue of their Unpublished Novel contest.
- Leave your contact details in the comments, or in the Get Updates section to be informed when this is available in print.