The October Killings by Wessel Ebersohn

averted them as he spoke.
    â€œAlone?”
    â€œYes. There aren’t enough of us.”
    They had started toward the inner wall, Abigail walking next to Lesela with Yudel a few steps behind. There was a passivity about Lesela’s manner that Yudel found disturbing. “Are you running any sort of rehabilitation program?” Yudel asked, wondering if Lesela knew what the commissioner was planning.
    â€œNo. I’ve been dealing with prisoner complaints.” His head was tilted forward so that he seemed to be looking at a patch on the concrete path a pace or two in front of his feet. He had made no attempt to look back at Yudel as he answered.
    â€œComplaints?”
    â€œConditions and so on.”
    They had practically no psychologists and one of the few spends his days listening to complaints? Yudel wondered about it. “Are you happy with that?” he asked.
    Abigail glanced back at Yudel. There was a pleading in her eyes that seemed to ask, Did we come here for this?
    â€œI understand we will soon be implementing the rehabilitation methods of an outside consultant. If I’m not mistaken, you are the consultant. I’m waiting for that.”
    So the commissioner had been talking about his new program before even getting Yudel’s agreement. I suppose he knew his man, Yudel thought. “My methods are partly based on Zimbardo’s prison studies. You’re familiar with them, of course?”
    Lesela answered in the same flat monotone in which enthusiasm would have been an alien intrusion. “I also agree with that study.”
    â€œWhich study?”
    â€œThat Zimbalist study.”
    Zimbalist? Yudel thought. An academic? Which academy? And they retrenched me for you. And now you are going to be my trusty right hand. This time he was silent though. Abigail had again turned to look briefly at him. The reproach in her eyes was unavoidable.
    Before they reached the inner wall they were joined by two armed warders. The group followed the same route Yudel had taken earlier in the day, gate after gate being opened to let them pass, then locked behind them. When they reached the section that had once been death row, Yudel led the way to the catwalk that ran over the top of the cells, with Abigail close behind and Lesela and the warders following. Below them the prisoners, one to a cell, sat on their bunks, paced, read or stood at the cell doors, talking to the man opposite. The walls between them were solid concrete and the ceilings open, but barred.
    The man they had come to see was standing in the center of his cell, his feet spread wide and looking up as if expecting them. The light from the fluorescent fittings reflected off the white walls so that the thickset man below in his green prison uniform seemed to be standing in a sea of brightness. He looked older than his sixty-five years. “Marinus van Jaarsveld?” Yudel asked.
    â€œJa,” he said and then softly, more to himself than to them, “fokken Jood.” But he was not looking at Yudel. His eyes were fixed somewhere further back.
    Yudel turned to find that he was almost alone. Considering how well insulated he was from the man in the cell, he felt surprisingly vulnerable. Abigail had stopped as soon as van Jaarsveld had come into view, but she was the focus of his attention. The warders were behind her with Lesela still farther back and barely looking up, as if all of this had nothing to do with him.
    â€œIf you’ve no objection, we’ll be coming down,” Yudel told the prisoner.
    â€œCome, then,” he said, his eyes still fixed on Abigail. To Yudel it was the look of a predator studying its prey.
    Van Jaarsveld was facing the door when one of the warders opened it. He was above medium height and had once been powerfully built, sloping shoulders ending at long arms with surprisingly delicate hands. A warder entered first, followed by Yudel and Abigail. Lesela and the second warder