Absolution
PAUL E. HARDISTY
For Heidi
‘And God has created you, and in time will cause you to die’
Holy Qu’ran, Surah 16:70
‘It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free’
Oscar Wilde
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Glossary
Part I
1 Guns and Money
2 The Only Constant in Life
3 What It Meant To Be Alive
4 All It Took
5 If You Could Live
6 Thunder in the Distance
7 Courses of Action, Various and Consequential
8 The High-Blown White and Blue Aftermath
Part II
9 This True and Constant Force
10 Diverse and Cruel Motivations
11 Incentive
12 All the Rest of His Life
13 Eons in Minutes
14 The One Who’d Taught Him
And upon You, Peace
The First and Only Certainty
A Distant and Erratic Echo
Part III
The Means to Absolution
The Debased and the Faithful
Everything That Had Defined His Life
Always So Much To Lose
Symbiosis
The Impermanence of Life
City of the Dead
All That Remained
Part IV
Defy Gravity, Deny Time
Better Than You Can Ever Know
Keeps You Alive
They Can’t Own You
It Could Never Be Any Other Way
The Greatest and Truest Means of Your Salvation
Strength
Echo and Die
F = M(dv/dt)
Part V
Panamax
It Was Something
Soliloquy for the Fallen
Absolution for the Living
Historical Note
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
ABSOLUTION
Glossary
ANC – African National Congress; formed first legitimately elected democratic government of South Africa
Bakkie – Afrikaans slang: pick-up truck
Bokkie – Afrikaans slang: beautiful woman
Bossies – Afrikaans slang: bush dementia
Bliksem – Afrikaans slang: bastard
China – Rhodesian slang: friend
DGSE – Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure: French intelligence agency
Doffs – Afrikaans slang: idiots.
Glide – Rhodesian slang: trip
Lekker – Afrikaans slang: nice, sweet
Okes – Afrikaans slang: guy
Oom – Afrikaans slang: uncle (word of respect)
Ooma – Afrikaans slang: aunty, old woman, grandmother (word of respect)
Parabat – Army slang: South African paratrooper; also vliesbom (meat bomb)
Operation COAST – Apartheid South Africa’s super-secret chemical and biological weapons programme
Poppie – Afrikaans slang: doll
R4 – standard issue 5.56 mm calibre assault rifle of South African Army, the South African-made version of the Israeli Galil rifle, semi-automatic
Rofie – Afrikaans slang: new recruit
Rondfok – Afrikaans slang: literally ‘circle fuck’
RV – rendezvous point
SADF – South African Defence Forces
Seun – Afrikaans: son
Sitrep – situation report
SWAPO – South West Africa People’s Organisation; rebel group fighting for Namibian independence
Torch Commando – banned underground organisation of mostly white South Africans dedicated to overthrowing apartheid
TRC – South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Desmond Tutu, started in 1996 to help heal the wounds after apartheid
Valk – Afrikaans for hawk, the designation for a platoon of South African Army paratroopers, approximately thirty men
Volkstaat – Afrikaans for the dreamed-of independent Afrikaner homeland
Vrot – Afrikaans slang: wasted, intoxicated
Zut – Rhodesian slang: nothing
Part I
25th October 1997. Paris, France. 02:50 hrs
Chéri, mon amour:
My husband has disappeared. And so has my son.
As I write this, my tears stain the page. How many have I wept onto these pages in the three and half years since you and I first met? Has it really been that long? It is as if I have known you forever, and not at all.
I am frantic. I can feel the panic churning in my breast. It has been two days since I discovered that they were gone. God, help me, please.
I wish you were here.
It was a Tuesday. A normal day. We got up, had breakfast at the usual time. I got Eugène ready for the day. Hamid left for the office as he always does, taking Eugène with him to drop him at the crèche.
I replay that morning in my mind, trying to identify something – anything – that might have been different, out of the ordinary. Something that may give me some clue. The coffee and bread on the table; Eugène in his high chair attempting to spoon puréed vegetables into his beautiful little mouth; the radio playing in the background – Radio Nationale, something about the international chemical weapons treaty coming into force. Hamid is dressed in his favourite suit with the silk tie I gave him for his birthday last year – the grey one that sets off the silver that has begun to fleck his temples. I wanted to make love with him that morning, but he was in a hurry – a big case he is working on – so he kissed me, rolled out of bed and got into the shower.
As usual on Tuesdays, I went to the bureau. I worked on my latest piece – child slavery in the Philippines. I was a little late coming home. I usually return by two o’clock so that I have plenty of time to start dinner and welcome my husband and son when they get home, which is normally at about three o’clock. That day I didn’t arrive until just before three. Hamid and Eugène weren’t home yet, so I started preparing the vegetables, marinating the filet. By half past three, they still had not arrived. Hamid is fastidiously punctual – always calls if he is going to be late. I waited another quarter of an hour and then tried his mobile. He did not answer. I left a voice message. At a quarter past four I tried again. Still no answer. I called his office. His executive assistant told me that he hadn’t been in the office all day. I sat, stunned.
I waited, told myself that it would all be fine, that the rising panic I was feeling was ridiculous, that there was some logical explanation, and that very soon the door would open and my husband and son would be there, smiling at me.
Yesterday, I went to the crèche first thing in the morning, as soon as it opened. The manageress confirmed that Hamid had dropped Eugène off on Tuesday morning, as usual. She showed me the registration records. Hamid’s signature was there, very clearly. The time was 08:25. This is part of our arrangement, how we have decided to run our life together. Three days a week, Hamid takes Eugène to the crèche on his way to work in the morning, and then collects him again at half past two and brings him home. We eat an early supper together as a family, and then Hamid goes back to the office, or works in his study at hom
e. This allows me to go directly to the bureau three mornings a week. I catch the bus and the metro. It means we only need one car. On Thursdays and Fridays, I work from home, and we both try to spend the weekends together, and avoid work for a time. We are a very modern Muslim family, and for that I am grateful. It means I have been able continue my career.
Our life, I thought, all considered, was good. Happy. I still cannot believe they are gone. I look around the room, smelling them both, feeling their presence in every object, expecting at any moment to hear the echo of their footsteps on the parquet floor, see their smiling faces peering around the doorframe.
I met Hamid not long after I returned from Cyprus after losing the baby. Our baby, chéri. I was still damaged and withdrawn after everything that had happened – the time in Istanbul with you, then Cyprus and the minefield, the explosion … the miscarriage. Hamid was thoughtful and patient, sending me flowers and listening to my stories, and when he asked me to marry him we still had not slept with each other. In fact, during our three-month courtship, all he ever tried to do was kiss me. He was very respectful, a perfect gentleman. We were married in spring, in the countryside in Normandie, and Eugène was born a year later, healthy and strong and holding his head up in the first month. Every time I look at him I wonder what might have been.
I have never told you any of this, I know. Those two letters you sent me from prison in Cyprus still lie in my bureau, read and reread … but unanswered. Only here, in these pages, have I shared my life with you. Any other way would have been too hurtful – for us both.
It has been just over two years now since Hamid and I married, and Claymore, I want you to know that he has been a good husband. He treats me well and is never disrespectful. He works long hours, and over the past year he has had to travel quite frequently for work, mostly to meet with clients he is defending. I miss him when he goes, but I have not had any reason to worry, to think he might be unfaithful. Not until recently. He is a gentle man, quietly talkative yet considered. Delicate, in a way. Everything that you are not.
Hamid is a good Muslim – better in many ways than I am. But his faith is not overt. As with everything he does, his piety is quiet and understated and thoroughly planned. He goes to the mosque on Fridays, occasionally, if he can get away from work, but otherwise I have never seen him praying at home or anywhere else. He does not smoke or drink, and I have not seen him lose his temper or raise his voice since we have been together. Above all, he is open and communicative in a way you never were, and probably never can be, wherever you are, Allah protect you.
Perhaps Hamid has taken Eugène to the country. Maybe he just needed a break, some time to himself. I know he has been under a lot of stress recently. This latest case in Egypt has been very difficult for him. He has not told me much about it – he never does, but a wife knows these things. This is what I tell myself. That I know. That everything will be alright. That, despite two days of silence, he will pick up the phone and call me. Now. Now.
Now.
He must know that I am worried beyond sickness. Yes, he would know. The only reason he hasn’t called is that he cannot. Something must have happened to them on the way home. Mon Dieu, I cannot bear to think of it.
And yet, I have telephoned every hospital in Paris. No one bearing the name Hamid or Eugène Al Farouk has been registered anywhere. I called the police, of course, and completed a missing person’s report, but have heard nothing back yet. It is as if they have vanished. As if they have been erased from the surface of the Earth.
I need to sleep now. I can barely see the page. I have cried myself out. And I realise that without them – without you – I have no one.
I am completely alone.
* 1 *
Guns and Money
26th October 1997
Latitude 6° 21' S; Longitude 39° 13' E,
Off the Coast of Zanzibar, East Africa
Claymore Straker drifted on the surface, stared down into the living architecture of the reef and tried not to think of her. Prisms of light crazed the many-branched and plated corals, winked rainbows from the scales of fish. Edged shadows twitched across the shoals, and for a moment dusk came, muting the colours of the sea. Floating in this new darkness, a distant echo came, hard and metallic, like the first syllables of a warning. Clay shivered, felt the cold do a random walk up his spine, seep into the big muscles across his back. He listened awhile, but as quickly as it had come, the sound was gone.
Clay blew clear his snorkel, pulled up his mask, and looked out across the rising afternoon chop, searching the horizon. Other than the weekly supply run from Stone Town, boats here were few. It was off-season and the hotel – the only establishment on the island – was closed. He could see the long arc of the island’s southern point, the terrace of the little hotel where Grace worked as caretaker, the small dock where guests were welcomed from the main island, and away on the horizon, a dark wall of rain-heavy cloud, moving fast in a freshening easterly. He treaded water, scanned the distance back toward the mainland. But all he could see were the great banks of cloud racing slantwise across the channel and the sunlight strobing over the world in thick stochastic beams, everything transient and without reference.
He’d lost track of how long he’d been here now. Long enough to fashion a sturdy mooring for Flame from a concrete block that he’d anchored carefully on the seabed. Long enough to have snorkelled every part of the island’s coastline, to know the stark difference between the life on the protected park side, and the grey sterility of the unprotected, fished-out eastern side. Sufficient time to hope that, perhaps, finally, he had disappeared.
The sun came, fell warm on the wet skin of his face and shoulders and the crown of his head. He pulled on his mask, jawed the snorkel’s mouthpiece and started towards the isthmus with big overhand strokes. Months at sea had left him lean, on the edge of hunger, darkened and bleached both so that the hair on his chest and arms and shorn across the bonework of his skull stood pale against his skin. For the first time in a long time, he was without pain. He felt strong. It was as if the trade winds had somehow cleansed him, helped to heal the scars.
As he rounded the isthmus, Flame came into view. She lay bow to the island’s western shore, straining on her mooring. He could just see the little house where Grace lived, notched into the rock on the lee side of the point, shaded by wind-bent palms and scrub acacia.
And then he heard it again.
It wasn’t the storm. Nor was it the sound of the waves pounding the windward shore. Its rhythm was far too contained, focused in a way nature could never be. And it was getting louder.
A small boat had just rounded the island’s southern point and was heading towards the isthmus. The craft was sleek, sat low in the water. Spray flew from its bow, shot high from its stern. It was some kind of jet boat – unusual in these waters, and moving fast. The boat made a wide arc, steering clear of the unmarked shoals that dangered the south end of the island, and then abruptly changed course. It was heading straight for Flame. Whoever was piloting the thing knew these waters, and was in a hell of hurry.
Clay floated low and still in the water, and watched the boat approach. It was close enough now that he could make out the craft’s line, the black stripe along the yellow hull, the long, narrow bow, the raked V of the low-swept windscreen. It was closing on Flame, coming at speed. Two black men were aboard, one standing at the controls, the other sitting further back near the engines. The man who was piloting wore sunglasses and a red shirt with sleeves cut off at heavily muscled shoulders. The other had long dreadlocks that flew in the wind.
Twenty metres short of Flame, Red Shirt cut power. The boat slowed, rose up on its own wake and settled into the water. Dreadlock jumped up onto the bow with a line, grabbed Flame’s portside mainstay and stepped aboard.
Clay’s heart rate skyed. He floated quiet in the water, his heart hammering inside his ribs and echoing back against the water. Dreadlock tied the boat alongside and steppe
d into Flame’s cockpit. He leaned forwards at the waist and put his ear to the hatch a moment, then he straightened and knocked as one would on the door of an apartment or an office. He waited a while, then looked back at the man in the jet boat and hunched his shoulders.
‘Take a look,’ came Red Shirt’s voice, skipping along the water, the local accent clear and unmistakable.
Dreadlock pushed back the hatch – Clay never kept it locked – and disappeared below deck. Perhaps they were looking for someone else. They could be just common brigands, out for whatever they could find. All of Clay’s valuables – his cash and passports – were in the priest hole. His weapons, too. It was very unlikely that the man would find it, so beautifully concealed and constructed was it. There was nothing else on board that could identify Clay in any way. Maybe they would just sniff around and leave.
Nine months ago, he’d left Mozambique and made his way north along the African coast. Well provisioned, he’d stayed well offshore and lived off the ocean for weeks at a time – venturing into harbour towns or quiet fishing villages for water and supplies only when absolutely necessary, keeping clear of the main centres, paying cash, keeping a low profile, never staying anywhere long. He had no phone, no credit cards, and hadn’t been asked to produce identification of any sort since he’d left Maputo. Then he’d come here. An isolated island off the coast of Zanzibar. He’d anchored in the little protected bay. A couple of days later Grace had rowed out in a dinghy to greet him, her eight-year-old son Joseph at the oars, her adolescent daughter in the stern, holding a basket of freshly baked bread. He decided to stay a few days. Grace offered him work doing odd jobs at the hotel – fixing a leaking pipe, repairing the planking on the dock, replacing the fuel pump on the generator. In return, she brought him meals from her kitchen, the occasional beer, cold from the fridge. He stayed a week, and then another. They became friends, and then, unintentionally, lovers. Nights he would sit in Flame’s darkened cockpit and look out across the water at the lamplight glowing in Grace’s windows, watch her shadow moving inside the house as she put her children to bed. One by one the lights would go out, and then he’d lie under the turning stars hoping sleep would come.