Absolution Read Online Free PDF Page A

one was supposed to file at the time – a statement, a ‘Victim’s Statement’, ‘Human Rights Violations Statement’, whatever the Truth and Reconciliation Commission requested – but I could not come to think of myself as a ‘Victim’ in the way that others were victims. You were a victim, but I knew you were not a ‘Victim’. Anyway, I do not like this word, victim , with all of its Latinate baggage. We were not sacrificial, and there was nothing about what happened to us that had anything to do with the supernatural. What would I have achieved by making my statement, apart from hoping that some shady and predictable character from the old government might admit what hadhappened to you? I did not, I still do not, need the meagre money the government would have settled on me in an official capacity. Let them spend it on those who have genuine need, and so much more besides. I did not need to see my or your name on that list of Official Victims. Your brother did not push for it – neither did your father – so what good would it have done? What is good for us anyway? I need to find something good. I need at least to imagine what might have happened, to begin to chart a way through the little I know.
    So I bring you back to the crossroads, where the journey must have begun, more than a dozen other people standing in hazy sanctuaries of flickering orange light around you, shifting at your arrival. Perhaps you nodded to the woman nearest you, and the woman smiled once but then turned away in embarrassment or fear for what you might represent – the threat you might pose simply by being there among them, standing alone in the dark. A white woman like you would not be waiting at the crossroads on the old forest road, not in the middle of the night, at the height of summer, on foot, rubber-soled shoes on the sweating asphalt, two sticky chemical substances that merge into each other if you stand still long enough. Even the children knew instinctively to beware. Women like you did not go on foot after dark, not in those days, not even today – especially not today. How mad you must have appeared, come rolling down the mountain in your backpacker’s disguise. (Should I have tried to stop you? If you had said, Mother, I won’t do it for your sake , would I have said Don’t do it, my darling or would I have said, No, you must do it, for the sake of us all ? Can I speak of the greater good in the same breath as I summon the nature of your act?)
    You would have had supplies because you were always so well prepared: water in a thermos, and Safari Dates, your favourite snack as a child. I can see you sip and chew, alternate between water and fruit, pausing to take steady breaths, to calm yourself as I calm myself, counting heartbeats and willing them to strike aless persistent time. These were old movements, ones you learned from me, which I learned from my mother and she learned from hers. And if there had been only men about at the crossroads, you would not have stopped. You would have kept yourself going for safety, not out of panic but out of caution, always seeing what might come next.
    It would have been deepest night, past two, but your plan would have been clear, the car would be coming, you would recognize it, knowing by the dip and rise of its lights that it was meant for you. The plan would have been to spirit you back, somewhere you could not be found, hiding until they stopped looking so intently and then over the border to Botswana or Lesotho, and then more remote exile. But perhaps the traffic was too sparse, or something happened and your associate, the driver, was apprehended – one of the ones rounded up and detained until they ceased to exist.
    The time appointed for the rendezvous passed. You checked your watch, knew enough not to wait until dawn would expose you, and began looking for the right kind of alternative. Drivers knew stories of hijackings and ambushes. Only the impecunious travelled