RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

Radical Middle | 43
The tenth floor was Special Branch territory, from where
ahmed Timol had allegedly leaped to his death. Getting there
was an education in itself. for one thing, you had to know
how to get there. The lifts don’t go to the tenth floor. When I
figured to get out at the eighth and walk up, there were fort
Knox doors on the landing, solidly closed. The fire Department
should prosecute.
To find out that the tenth floor had its own separate express
lift was a mission. People looked the other way, until I thought
I was in theatre of the absurd. The tenth floor foyer fortified
the impression – iron doors with cameras staring at you and
loudspeakers wanting to know your case. Once inside it was
plain old civil service norm: gigantic offices with tiny carpets
in the middle; wooden desks with layers of pigeon-holes so you
and the officer can only see each other’s heads.
My permit-granter was a colonel Oelofse, whose hobby was
political philosophy. It took half an hour to get each permit –
five seconds for the stamping and the rest talking politics. He
told me that the Irish broke the rules. They were all white and all
christian, but still they fought like cat and dog. He had a habit
of closing his eyes and tilting his head back while he took phone
calls. I’d use the time to read the telexes on the top layer of his
pigeon-holes – served him right, on the phone while a guest
waited. One was a list of Soweto kids getting asylum in Botswana;
names, parents’ names, addresses, school background. One
started: “agent JG3 (Soweto predikant) rapporteer die volgende
versette wat beplan word …” Something like that; it was upside
down and I wasn’t taking notes – agent JG3 (Soweto preacher)
reports the following plots being hatched …
One was a biography of a student leader, Trofomo Sono,
covering everything down to how long he grew his fingernails.
I’d met Trofomo not long before, with Duma. His arm was
in plaster, broken by a drive-by gunshot. I mildly mentioned
hardships endured by workpeople catching pre-dawn buses
with smashed windows, never knowing when a brick would
smash another one and maybe a head. Trofomo’s reply was