Читать книгу The ANC Spy Bible - Moe Shaik - Страница 9

I was held at CR Swart Square, the police’s provincial headquarters, in cell number 26 at the end of a long corridor of detention cells. My cell consisted of two parts: a gloomy four-by-four square metres lit by a ceiling light that was dim and never switched off. In one corner was a toilet and alongside the toilet a single mattress. About a metre and a half above the floor on the side of the bed and reaching to the ceiling were windows enclosed by steel mesh. They could be opened slightly to allow air into the cell. On the side adjacent to the bed was a concrete block that served as a bench. About three metres from the windows was a brick wall. From my cell I would have access (when allowed) to an enclosed rectangular courtyard about nine metres long, ten metres high and four metres wide with concrete slats as a roof that let in the rays of the sun, the rain and the cold.

They came for me in the early hours of the morning, not long after I’d been locked up. The key grated in the lock and an officer jerked his index finger at me. ‘Come.’ I was handcuffed and taken to the lifts. The officer pressed the top button: the fifteenth floor.

The fifteenth floor was a dreaded place. It haunted all the stories of torture and interrogation. As the lift rose, I ran a mantra through my mind: hold on for three days. Three days is all you must survive.

On the fifteenth floor I was taken down a long corridor of closed doors, the officer’s footsteps harsh on the lino flooring. The place reeked of officialdom, secrecy, power.

Abruptly I was shoved into an interrogation room crowded with Security Branch officers and ordered to stand against the wall. The officers rushed at me from all directions, yelling questions. I wanted to establish the rules of engagement, but there was no telling who oversaw this mob. There was no single person I could focus on. This was the ‘softening up’ part of the game.

Soon enough I was given the ‘water cure’ treatment. There was a pause in the raucous behaviour. The men stood there staring at me. Blue eyes staring at me. The blue eyes of white men that held power over me. Big muscular men who dwarfed me. I had never been in the company of so many white men. Then an officer laughed. ‘You must be thirsty,’ he said. ‘Here, have some water.’

I drank slowly to gain time, grateful for the water, but also wary of what was to come. When I’d finished I handed him the glass.

‘Have another,’ he said, filling it.

‘It’s okay, I’ve had enough, thank you.’ Be polite, stay focused, I kept telling myself.

Around me the men started shouting: ‘Drink up. Drink up. Drink up.’

And now the glasses of water kept coming. When I could drink no more, the water was forced down my throat. I spluttered, coughed, wanted to retch until an eerie silence filled the room. These huge men stood staring at me.

I had a desperate need to pee. My stomach was heavy, swollen, my bladder aching at bursting point. A bag was forced over my head and hands gripped my torso from behind. Darkness and fear.

The first blow slammed into my stomach. I doubled over with pain, unable to breathe, water gushing out of my mouth and burning through my nostrils, wetting the bag. I thought I would drown. The incongruity of drowning on the fifteenth floor with a canvas bag over my head did not escape me. The humiliation welled up with the force of a wave, a wave that came roaring out of my mouth.

The blows continued. I staggered, jerked, thrashed in a crazed rage to free my arms and pull the bag from my head. I needed air. I needed the punches to stop. I was suffocating, choking. Each time I collapsed, I was hauled to my feet and struck again. Each strike harder than the last.

Then my bladder released, I pissed down my pants. I was gasping. Screaming. My head exploding with lights. I was going to die of suffocation in that canvas bag.

Which suddenly was snatched from my head. I gulped down air, my vision gradually clearing, my heart rate slowing.

They let me recover. Arms folded, surrounding me, a solid wall of flesh. Blue eyes unblinking. In a way I was relieved that the torture had begun. It was the expectancy of it that had frightened me while I’d waited in my cell. The fear of an event is often more debilitating than the event itself. I could now turn my mind to what they knew.

But the torture wasn’t over. An officer grabbed my neck from behind in an armlock with such force that I heard a crack in my head. A sharp pain shot along my right arm. (Years later I would suffer partial paralysis of that arm and require corrective spinal surgery.) Now there were only three of them in the room.

What struck fear in me was not so much the intensity or the duration of the assault, it was the anger I sensed in their voices. It was hatred, pure hatred that came from a dark and irrational place.

After that initial bout of torture, I sat alone in the interrogation room for what seemed hours. Through the window I saw the dawn, the sun forcing its visibility through the darkness. This was my favourite time of day. During my student years I’d spent many hours studying through the break of dawn. I loved the sight of the sun rising, the freshness of the morning air. My thoughts were always clearer in this quiet time, the stillness broken intermittently by birdsong. But now I was tired and drained of energy. I slipped in and out of sleep. This is when Lieutenant HJ ‘Hentie’ Botha made his appearance.

He entered the room and sat down behind the desk. He stared at me, smiled. A relaxed, amusing smile. ‘My name is Lieutenant Botha,’ he said. ‘I am your interrogating officer. We are going to get to know each other very well.’

He was a slim man with a compact, athletic body. A good-looking man, his youthful baby-face topped with well-groomed short hair. He bore a striking resemblance to Richard Dean Anderson, the main character in the American MacGyver television series popular at the time.

‘Are you in charge?’ I asked, the words hardly audible.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Why am I here?’

‘You know why.’ Again, that lazy smile.

I observed him closely. Despite my fear, I still had the presence of mind to watch him. To note the way he held his cigarette, the way he spoke, his body language, the neat clothes he wore, the deference others showed him. He was a man of purpose, deliberateness, importance. Despite myself I was impressed. This was a man who wanted to take himself seriously and wanted to be taken seriously by others. He would be a formidable foe. Yet his ready smile and his relaxed posture beguiled me.

‘You look like MacGyver from the television show,’ I said, not sure why I made the remark. ‘Has anyone ever told you that?’

Botha chuckled. He oozed charm. ‘Women always tell me that.’ He leant forward on the desk. ‘Listen, I don’t believe you are a terrorist, but my colleagues believe that you are. They want to punish you. I want to help you; I want you to go home as soon as possible. I want you to go back to your family, your work, your life, to go back to your girlfriend Soraya, that is her name, yes?’ He extended his pack of cigarettes across the table. ‘Please, have one.’

I took a cigarette, alert to his every move and gesture. He spoke calmly, as if he really cared for me. ‘Please, let me help you, all I want is to know where Ebrahim is. He is a terrorist who wants to plant bombs inside the country. If you tell me where Ebrahim is, I will ask my colleagues to let you go. They will listen to me, but you must help me to help you.’ He held up a photograph of Ebrahim. ‘Do you know this person?’

He had my full attention, but it was too early to admit anything, so I kept quiet.

Through the smoke that swirled between us we observed each other. The game had begun. We both knew the routine, the good cop, bad cop one. In truth, I knew it only in theory. It was often spoken about among comrades and was passed down as knowledge. Yet, despite all the cautionary tales, I searched for the good in the eyes of my ‘good’ cop. There seemed to be a kindness in him. Maybe he was a good guy.

Later, I learnt how wrong I was. Lieutenant Botha had long since lost his humanity. But now he said, ‘Look at these photographs. Look at all these weapons – bombs, hand grenades. So many people might die from them. You can save those people. Just tell me where Ebrahim is!’

I studied the photographs, relieved that I was not in any of them. In a few Ebrahim was with a woman. Lieutenant Botha never took his eyes off me as I concentrated on the photographs.

‘Do you know her?’ he asked.

Before I could answer he slid another photograph of a bearded, bespectacled white man in front of me. ‘Do you know him?’

I shook my head. ‘No, I don’t. Neither of them.’

‘So you know Ebrahim then!’

‘No, I don’t. Who is Ebrahim?’

‘Yes! You do know Ebrahim!’ Lieutenant Botha snapped. ‘If you didn’t, you would have said so when you were asked earlier but you just kept quiet. Now you are quick to say that you don’t know the woman or the man.’

I had fallen into a trap. Lieutenant Botha was a skilled interrogator. He beamed at me.

‘By the way, I believe you. The woman’s name is Hélène and the guy is named Klaas, damn fucking foreign terrorists. But we have them locked up.’ His contempt for them was palpable and undisguised.

For a few moments we looked at one another in recognition of the game that was unfolding. Lieutenant Botha smiled his MacGyver smile again.

‘I really need to use the toilet,’ I said.

‘Sure. We’ve got all the time in the world. Let me get someone to take you.’

He picked up the telephone and called for assistance. An officer soon entered the room. I was pleased to be released from the handcuffs. On the way to the toilets I passed the open door of another interrogation room. There was Shirish hunched over a table.

I took my time in the toilets. Relieved myself, then washed my hands and face with hot water seeking energy from the warmth. My body hurt. My pulse was too high. I studied my reflection in the mirror to see if the fear that consumed me was visible. I couldn’t tell.

All the time, the officer stood beside the door watching me.

Then a remarkable thing happened. He said softly, ‘Take more time, there is no need to rush back. Gather your thoughts. They are going to keep you here for a long time, be strong.’

I was taken aback. His voice and tone were empathetic. I hadn’t expected this. Hesitantly, unsure how to interpret this concern, I thanked him for his kindness.

The officer glanced into the corridor to see if anyone was within earshot. Then he turned to me, ‘We are not all monsters like the ones who are dealing with you.’

Not knowing how to respond I nodded.

Back in the interrogation room I was made to stand. There was no sign of Lieutenant Botha. One of the officers switched on a tape recorder. This was to be the pattern of the game. I readied myself for another bout of torture, but none came.

‘Tell us your life story,’ said an officer. ‘Start from the beginning, where you were born.’

This was easy. I could draw this out. I went through the broad strokes of my life. I wanted them to ask for the details, in this way I could stretch time. They complied and I responded vaguely. They would ask for more specific detail, and I would release a little more. Eventually they wanted to know about my brothers. Carefully I minimised the roles of Yunis and Shamim, lest I gave away something.

I had settled on a strategy. I would not deny being a political activist. On the contrary I would embrace this role making it bigger than it was. I would take refuge in the legal struggle against apartheid, concealing my illegal activity. I felt I could drag this out over three days.

The interrogation was interrupted frequently by other officers coming into the room to ask questions about Ebrahim, Hélène and Klaas. I stuck to my denials. In response they either stared at me or slapped my face or yelled that I was lying before storming out. At times, the officers interrogating me would be called out of the room. I would be left with a minder, wondering what was going on. They would give no explanation when they returned, simply take up where they had left off.

The hours crept by, my weight beginning to bear heavily on my legs. To get some relief I shifted from one leg to the other.

My mind was on Shirish. I was confident that he would stick to the legend. After all we had rehearsed it a few times.

He was to say that we were friends. That I wanted to make an investment into his business, but before I did so I needed first-hand experience of his operations and clients. This explained why we were in Ermelo and the surrounding areas. Regarding Ebrahim, we agreed to say that he was my friend Ahmed from Cape Town. I’d brought Ahmed along for the ride. Shirish would confirm that this was the only time that he had met Ahmed. We had also agreed that Shirish would stress Ahmed’s quiet, reserved character. A man who didn’t say much. We were confident that the legend would hold.

By the middle of the second day I was mentally drained and tired. All I could think of was sleep and I started to daydream. My muscles ached everywhere, I struggled to stand upright. Every now and then I would let my body sag onto my heavy legs only to be brought back to consciousness by screams of ‘Stand Up!’

Then Lieutenant Botha walked into the interrogation room. He looked agitated and tired. His eyes hostile.

‘Do you know Ebrahim?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Are you a member of the ANC?’ He shouted this.

‘No, I am not.’

‘You are lying to me! You are fucking lying to me!’ By now he was screaming.

‘No, I am not,’ I pleaded.

‘Then explain to me why you hired an apartment for him?’

My heart sank. They knew about Ebrahim’s apartment. They must have spoken to the landlord from whom I’d rented the flat. I’d dealt with the same man when hiring my own apartment and other places. I suspected that he did not want trouble with the police. He would have told them about the other apartment as well, the one where I kept a printing press.

I was confident that the place had been cleaned of our activities, but I was worried about my cousin who lived there. My arrangement with her was that I paid the rent and had exclusive use of one of the rooms. We only used this room when she was not there and kept the door locked. She knew nothing of our activities. I prayed that she had not been arrested as well.

‘You are in more trouble than you can imagine,’ said Lieutenant Botha, slowly and deliberately. ‘Your fingerprints were found in the apartment that you hired for Ebrahim, a known terrorist. You were seen in the Amsterdam area. You were seen at the Ermelo Holiday Inn. In both these places you were with Ebrahim. Please don’t tell me that you are not involved with him. You are. You are an accomplice to anything that he has done or is going to do. I think it is time you tell us about your involvement with Ebrahim and the ANC. This game is over. You have two choices. You either tell us your involvement and we get this over as quickly as possible. Or you stay here and rot under Section 29. I can detain you for six months and after that I can apply to keep you further detained. Section 29 will break you. I will break you. You will not come out of here the same. The choice is yours.’

My exhausted mind heard every word. For a while I stared beyond Lieutenant Botha into the fading light of the second day. I gathered my thoughts and said in a quiet monotone, ‘Lieutenant, you look like a reasonable man. I need a bath and a change of clothes.’ I paused. ‘After that we can talk.’

This was the bait I offered. I was bargaining my cooperation for a bath and a little more time. Lieutenant Botha kept silent. I could see that he was processing my request, evaluating whether he should take the risk of letting me refresh or not. I bowed my head and lowered my gaze deliberately giving the impression that I was at the end of my resistance. My heart was pumping with anxiety. I feared that I was at risk of not being able to hold on any longer.

‘Okay,’ said Botha. ‘I will arrange for you to have a shower. Your mother sent some clothes for you. We will talk later. I want to know everything!’

I thanked him.

‘Why are you thanking me?’ he asked.

‘For not assaulting me.’

‘There is no need to,’ he replied, ‘you Indians are easy to handle.’

I smiled at him. It was time to re-enter the game.

Lieutenant Botha called for someone to take me back to my cell.