Chris Abani - The Secret History of Las Vegas

There was a moment of silence.

That’s why the dead girl haunts you, she reminds you of Ana, Sunil said.

The worst part of being a cop, Salazar said, is that everyone hates you, and yet as soon as some shit goes down, they call 911 and want you to risk your life to protect them.

Sunil laughed. You should have been a fireman, he said. Much less complicated.

Damned right. And what about you? Why did you become a shrink and not a surgeon?

Sunil took a deep breath. Fair is fair, he thought. My mother was mentally ill, he said. But she died before I could help her, and that, Detective, is why I became, as you like to say, a shrink.

Salazar was silent for a moment. He took a silver flask from his jacket pocket and, without speaking, passed it to Sunil.

Been holding out on me, I see, Sunil said. He drank deeply, the alcohol burning through him, then passed the flask back to Salazar, who took a swig and returned it to his jacket pocket.

Isn’t drinking while driving illegal, Sunil asked.

I’m the fucking police.

Sunil laughed.

Do you think anything ever changes, Salazar asked. That we can make a difference? That we will become a better species?

I don’t know, I’m not sure if it even matters. I think all that matters is that we don’t shrink away from the truth and that we keep trying, Sunil said.

I like that. Push the stone up the fucking hill because we should.

Yes, Sunil said. There is merit in that, grace even. Maybe that’s what makes us deeply human. Pushing ever against the inevitable. I think the world might just be saved that way.

Fuck, this is some heavy shit. Makes me want to tell a dirty joke as a palate cleanser.

I love dirty jokes, Sunil said.

Okay, here’s one. A man wakes up in the emergency room and the doctor says, You’ve been in an accident. Do you remember anything? The man shakes his head. So the doctor says, Well, we’ve got good news and bad news for you. All right, says the man, tell me the bad news. The bad news is that your penis was severed in the accident, the doctor said, and it arrived too late to reattach it. So what’s the good news, the man asked. The good news is that we can rebuild it, but it will cost a thousand dollars an inch. We found a savings book in your briefcase with nine thousand dollars in it, so you should talk to your wife about this. If you spend three thousand but she’s used to six, then it will be dissappointing, but if you spend all nine thousand and she’s used to three, well then, that won’t be good. So talk to her and I’ll check in with you in the morning. The next day the doctor calls the man and asks what he and his wife have decided to get. Well, the man said, she decided we should get the expensive granite countertop for the kitchen that she’s always wanted.

The two men drove through the night, their laughter trailing behind them, lighting the way for Eskia’s car.

Midway through his life, Dante realized that he had strayed into the dark wood of error. From the look on your face I would say that you have just made the same realization.

Sunil turned to the person who had just spoken. He saw a middle-aged man with a bit of a paunch and large square glasses in thick plastic frames that he kept pushing up his sweaty and blotched nose.

Eugene, the man said, extending his hand.

Sunil.

They shook hands, Sunil trying not to pull away from Eugene’s strong but damp clutch.

I know, welcome to Vlakplaas. I am sorry that this was your welcome, Eugene said, waving at the group of men huddled around a barbecue pit on the hillside, drinking beer from bottles, smoking and razzing one another.

Sunil said nothing. He was struggling not to look at the dead man on the ground by the fire pit. The policemen he had ridden up with dragged him from the jeep and took his hood off, throwing it into the fire. Now he stared at Sunil with fish eyes.

Do you read much Dante, Eugene asked.

Sunil shook his head, taking in for the first time the well-read paperback copy of Inferno that Eugene clutched in one hand, a beer in the other.

You should, you know. Smart man, Dante; between him and the Bhagavad Gita, I have pretty much found the answers to most of my questions. But Dante holds a special place for me. That tortured descent, all that Catholic imagery of misery and suffering that passes for religiosity. It braces the spirit, enlivens one to the possibilities of life. Are you a philosophical man, Sunil?

Not particularly, Sunil said, taking a swig from the beer he’d been given. He couldn’t wrap his head around this bizarre conversation. An hour before he’d arrived at the dusty farm entrance, which was down an unpaved road that led to a dirty, mottled, once-white circular guard hut. Sunil had at first taken the big stain on the side to be a mud splatter, but it soon became evident that it was blood — a big spray of dry and now faded blood. Where had it come from?

The Land Rover he was traveling in also held two white plainclothes officers of C10, and a handcuffed, hooded black prisoner. He had sat next to the hooded figure for the one-hour drive from the police station in Pretoria, where he had been told to wait for pickup. All through the drive, the hooded man sniffled and moaned and cried out: jammer baas, jammer. The two officers in the front drank their beer and turned up the radio, as if no one was in the backseat. Occasionally one would yell over his shoulder, Agh, man, shut up! I don’t want any kak from you.

Now, through the gate, the Land Rover rolled into a compound with a paved road lined by trees and well-kept lawns. Several brick buildings with army regulation green doors and trimming sat behind hedgerows and flowerbeds. It was hard to imagine this place was a death camp so famous its name could make a full-grown man piss himself.

The Land Rover pulled up in front of what looked like the main building.

Listen, boy, go get set up there, one of the officers said to Sunil.

Sunil stepped out and shouldered his army regulation duffel bag. As he did a three-sixty and took the place in, flagpole and flag fluttering in the breeze, he wished that White Alice had never come into his life. Because of her he’d met Bleeker, who gave him the army scholarship to college. This he guessed was what they meant by serving the army in return for five years in an area they felt would benefit from his skills. Fuck this, his father had died fighting these people and now here he was working for them. Not for the first time, he was glad his mother was dead. Sunil had been requested especially by the commanding officer of Vlakplaas, a man whose nickname was Optimum Evil, to help reform the death camp. He couldn’t see the cells or torture rooms from where he was, but he knew they were there.

Vlakplaas in Afrikaans meant “the flat place”; a farm twenty kilometers from Pretoria, the capital, it served as the headquarters for the South African Police Counterinsurgency Unit, C10—a paramilitary hit squad that killed enemies of the state in neat, efficient operations, as far afield as Angola. Suspected terrorists were captured and brought to Vlakplaas to be tortured for information, and even turned. Those who couldn’t be turned were executed, their bodies disposed of somewhere on the beautiful grounds of this farm.

As Sunil came in the door, a pretty blond woman in khaki fatigues rose from behind a desk and approached him.

Dr. Singh, I presume, she said.

Yes, I am.

Come in, come in, we’ve been expecting you. Did you have a nice ride over? It is a beautiful drive, even though I don’t get to do it enough. I just don’t like the city, you know, all that violence. She waved him to a chair by her desk. Please sit, sit. Drink?