The Last Train to Zona Verde by Paul Theroux Read Free Book Online

roadside in front of it, on the fatal spot.
    AMY BIEHL
    26 APRIL 1967 – 25 AUGUST 1993
    KILLED IN AN ACT OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE .
    AMY WAS A FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR
    AND TIRELESS HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST .
    “They killed her right there,” I said. Phaks grunted, and we drove away. The wording bothered me. “What is ‘an act of political violence’?”
    “Those boys, they had a philosophy.”
    “What was it?”
    “Africa for Africans — it was their thinking.”
    “That’s not a philosophy. It’s racism.”
    “But they were political.”
    “No. They killed her because she was white.”
    “They thought she was a settler.”
    He had told me that one of the chants at the time had been “One settler, one bullet.”
    “But South Africa was full of white people who were part of the struggle. They supported Mandela, they went to jail. Whites!”
    “But those boys said they were sorry,” Phaks said. “They apologizedto the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And her parents, they agreed.”
    “But what do you think her parents really felt?”
    “I don’t know. But you can see, they got their name there.”
    “And getting their name there makes up for the murder of their child?”
    “It was political. The parents, they hired the boys to work for them,” Phaks said, and now I could see he was rattled, because he was driving badly along the busy broken township roads, muttering at the traffic, the oncoming cars cutting him off.
    “Phaks, do you have children?”
    “Four.”
    “A daughter?”
    He nodded — he knew what I was going to say.
    “What would you do if someone beat your daughter to the ground and took a brick and smashed it against her head? Then stabbed her in the heart and left her to die?” He winced but remained silent. “Would you say, ‘That’s their philosophy. It’s a political act’?”
    “No.”
    “What would you think?”
    “Myself, I wouldn’t accept.”
    “What if they said sorry?”
    Phaks was very upset now, so I shut up and let him drive, but he was still fretful from my badgering him and kept murmuring, “No, no. I can’t. Never, never.”
Nayvah, nayvah
.
    The Amy Biehl Foundation had been founded to promote peace and mutual understanding. It had also been instrumental in improving the infrastructure of Guguletu — upgrading huts and bringing in utilities. Doing that was easier than peacemaking. According to data collected by the South African Institute of Race Relations, more than seven hundred people were murdered in Guguletu between 2005 and 2010. This amounted to one murder every two and a half days over those five years.
    My challenging Phaks had had the effect of winding him up. Now he was contrary, as I had been, and he was batting the steering wheel with his palm, pointing out the graffiti, the litter, the men and boys idling at shop fronts and street corners, and perhaps with the memory of the boys who’d been released after murdering Amy Biehl he began to see insolence and misbehavior all over Guguletu.
    “These kids don’t behave,” he said. “They are out of control. They show no respect — and you know why? Because they have too many rights. Everyone protects them! Even the government, even the barristers!”
    “You mean they’re not punished?”
    “Not at all. When I was at school, if I did something wrong, I got a hiding. Then I came home, and when I told my father what had happened, he gave me a hiding!”
    “Was that a good thing?”
    “A very good thing. It has an impact, I tell you. It taught me a lesson. But this” — he gestured out the window; idle boys were everywhere, standing, sitting, eternally waiting — “this is really killing us.”
    “Not enough hidings,” I said, to encourage him.
    “Listen to me,” Phaks said. “Here there is a constitution for children. Can you believe such a thing? If you take your belt and thrash the child, he can go to the police and lay a charge against you.”
    “So what’s the answer?”
    “A