Gerald Seymour - A song in the morning

A Black, a dozen yards from Jack, roared out loud the one word.

"Amandla."

Jack thought he heard an answer shout from the speeding van. The convoy turned along the front of the court, down the far side of the building. A policeman, Black, truncheon drawn, stalked the man who had shouted.

He walked away. He had said that maximum security was the breeding place for complacency, but there was no complacency at the Rand Supreme Court. Strong enough for a target, but not Jack's because he would fail.

He looked at his map. He cut across Pritchard and President and Market. He had gone from the sunlight. He had returned to the gaudy world of fashion clothes and patent shoes. A Black man at a bus stop eyed him, head to toe, then turned his head and spat into the rubbish filled gutter.

He walked onto Commissioner.

He stopped to stare into a gun shop window. In the window were targets. Not rabbits, nor squirrels, nor pheasants, nor duck. The silhouettes were of men. The size of men. Black men. White background. Jack could buy himself a life-size target of a Black man to pump away at, and it would cost him 50 cents. There was a poster on the outside of the shop door. Omar or Yousuf or Moosa Latib offered the Dunduff Shooting Range along with the slogan

"Defence with an unknown Firearm is Meaningless".

Nothing about game. Learn how to shoot a Black man. He went inside. He had no reason to explore this shop, but it fascinated him. He had never used a firearm, not even an air pistol on an empty tin. He went down into the basement.

The customers were two deep and stretched the length of a long counter. Men and women, all Whites, were handling pistols and revolvers in the front rank, while those behind waited for them to make their choice, pay their money, get the hell out of the way. There, were two young men behind the counter. No big deal for them that men and women, all Whites, were crowded in their shop to buy pistols and revolvers for personal protection, to blow away Blacks. Such difficult choices to make, between Smith amp; Wesson and Browning and Beretta and Colt and Heckler amp; Koch and Steyr and Walther. The men wanted to know about range, and the women wanted to see whether it would slip in their handbag. The men argued about cost, because up to 1,000 rand was a hell of a sum to pay for stopping a Black man.

The women wanted to be shown mother of pearl in the weapon's handle. The counter men said the supplies were short, that they didn't know when they'd be topping up on stock, that was what they had. Jack saw they wore waist holsters, filled, strapped in their trousers belts. He saw that no customer wanted more time to think about a purchase.

Everyone ended up producing a firearms licence and writing a cheque.

Jack spoke to the man standing in front of him, queuing.

"Is it easy to get a licence?"

"Not the year before last. Pretty simple last year. Dead easy this year." He was a soft spoken man, could have been a schoolmaster. "Just a formality now. You a visitor here?

If you've got a good property, if you're a city centre trader, if you're living on your own, if you have to put your takings in a bank night safe, if you have to go home regularly after dark – that's just about everyone. You're English?"

"Yes."

"I came out eleven years ago, from Weston-super-Mare.

You know that place? I'm getting a gun for my wife, she's nervous on her own. We've a Doberman, but my wife says it's too easy on Blacks

… "

"Perhaps you should have stayed in Weston-super-Mare,"

Jack said mildly.

"I pay my taxes, every last rand of them, I pay for the police, but the police are all out in the townships… "

He was still talking as Jack turned away.

He went out of the shop. He pocketed his map. He went west down Commissioner.

He saw the building ahead of him. It seemed to block his path, far ahead. He was going towards John Vorster Square.

He had read in the first clipping in the newspaper office library that his father had been taken to John Vorster Square.

Thiroko had told him about John Vorster Square.

Not really a square, a wedge of ground between Commissioner and Main, curtailed at the far end by the raised De Villiers Graaf motor link.

John Vorster Square was nothing more than a police station. Jack grinned to himself. The toughest, most feared police station in the country named after a Prime Minister and State President.

John Vorster Square was their power. Where the guns were, where the uniforms were, where the interrogation rooms were, where the cells were, where Jeez had been held.

He couldn't know what had been done to his father in John Vorster Square. He could remember what Thiroko had told him. Rivers of pain. The helicopter. The screams. If his father had been there why should it have been different for him?

John Vorster Square was the place for the proving target.

It was out of sight of the offices of the multinational corporations. It was far from the tourist routes. He thought it was where the real business of the State was done.

There was a central block of brilliant sky blue panels topped by layers of plate-glass windows. There were three wings. He walked past the door that led into the charge office, and then past the security check and the heavy metal turnstile. He saw the armed police guard, languid, bored.

He walked round the back of the buildings where there were tended gardens and the wide sweep of a driveway for staff cars. He saw the ten foot high railing fence, and at the Commissioner Street end a long brick wall set with small barred windows. He retraced his steps, went around the building again, seeming to have lost his way. He would come back in the afternoon. When he came back in the afternoon he would wear different clothes.

• • •

Jan van Niekerk carried out his instructions to the letter.

It was his way. It was why he was useful to the Umkonto we Sizwe. He had been given those instructions the previous evening.

He disliked being given jobs for the daytime. Daytime jobs broke the routine of his studies and he believed that his routine at Wits was his best defence against suspicion. In common with most White comrades he found it hard to consider the possibility of arrest. Arrest was what happened to Black comrades. The Whites, graduates, were too bright to be caught out by the Boer security police.

He rode his Suzuki towards the Alexandra township, but before reaching it he turned north into the industrial estates of Wynberg. He found the rubbish heap where he had been told it would be, close to the corner of 6th Street and 2nd Avenue. There was a dirty plastic bag on the edge of the rubbish heap. No-one was in sight. He picked it up, twenty pounds, more. It was an effort for Jan van Niekerk. He carried it to his moped. He put his face close to look into the bag and sneezed. The irritation welled in his nostrils, the sneezing convulsed him. He knew then that he carried explosives. Pepper was always strewn over explosives and between the wrappings of foil and plastic to throw the police dogs. He put the package into two new shopping bags from the Checkers store group, first one, tied it with string, and then into the second. He strapped it to the back seat of his moped.

He rode carefully, avoiding the pot holes. He knew nothing of the volatility of explosives, and he presumed that if there were explosives then there would also be detonators.

He came back into Johannesburg, making for the Landdrost Hotel.

Jack lay on his bed.

It was the smartest hotel he'd ever booked into. Overnighting for D amp; C would never be the same.

A soft knock at his door. He sat up.

"Come in." He thought it might be the maid to turn down his bed.

There was a second knock. He padded across the room in his socks. He recognised the bellboy.