Bernadina watched her uncle’s face closely. The conversation she’d recorded on her phone a few hours earlier continued to play in the quiet kitchen as dusk swiftly settled outside the house. Her older sister, mother and father were also crowded in silence around the phone on the wobbling table, but it was her mother’s older brother, Oom Willie, who was likely to have the final word about what happened next.
Ten days ago, and carefully avoiding giving any clues that might reveal the identity of her wretched friend, Bernadina had described a shocking situation to her family over supper. A Home Affairs employee had pressured a schoolgirl she knew into sending him some photographs of her in her underwear. Otherwise, he’d implied, it would take a very long time before her ID might be ready—if, indeed, it didn’t somehow get lost at their very busy, very disorganised central office. Things there were deurmekaar, because so many staff members were off with Covid, he’d explained.
The threat was clear enough and the girl had reluctantly agreed; she needed the ID urgently. Now the man—Salmon—was asking for more explicit pictures and insisting that he hand over the ID to her in person, at his home, once he informed her that it was ready.
Since Ndeshi had described her ordeal a fortnight ago—confessing her predicament to her closest friends on the walk back home from school—Bernadina had been unable to sleep. Once her mother had been granted time off work to accompany her, Bernadina would have to go to the same place and try to apply for her own ID. If she didn’t, she would not be able to register for school next year.
Ndeshi’s shocked friends had been united in agreement—she needed to unburden herself to her guardian before things escalated. But she’d reminded them that she needed her ID now now; the only concession she was prepared to consider was trying to find a way to deflect all this unwanted attention a little while longer until she had the priceless piece of plastic in her hand. She had been skipping school regularly ever since.
The Boois family listened to the sorry tale with sighs of resignation. Bernadina was aghast at how desensitised they all were to Ndeshi’s plight, until she angrily reminded them that an identical ordeal might await her once she presented herself at the same office soon. This was when Oom Willie announced that this creep, this skelm, this Salmon, needed to be taught a lesson so that his unsavoury activities were brought to an end.
Which was why Bernadina was now scrutinising his reaction to the two voices coming from her phone, looking for signs of approval or dissatisfaction. The pair of them had experimented with the device—seeing how well it picked up sounds from within the pocket of her shortest denim skirt. Then they had role-played how the situation at Home Affairs might unfold. They’d decided there were very specific words she would need to say to set their little trap successfully.
Each time her responses on the recording deviated too much from the script they’d prepared, an anxious frown would cross Oom Willie’s face before he’d nod at how Bernadina had improvised and to get the sordid conversation back on track.
Once the ten-minute recording ended, he looked around the assembled family members and gave his verdict:
“She did well, hey? Your girl. That was not so easy for her. She’s brave, that one.”
The others murmured their agreement, even though Bernadina’s father had been vehemently opposed to the plan Oom Willie had proposed for trapping this Salmon when he’d first sketched it out to the family in the taxi back from church last Sunday. Nevertheless, the predicament Ndeshi found herself in had evidently been playing on her uncle’s mind and the thought of his favourite niece going through the same torment had made him decisive and impossible to sway.
***
Bernadina’s older sister had coursework to do, her father was already late for work and her mother was washing up, so she was alone with her uncle as they discussed playing the voice recording back again. Willie went off to find a pen and paper so that he could take notes. That left Bernadina alone on the sofa, remembering the events of this longest of days—ones that culminated in her encounter with a predator hiding in plain sight.
Last week, she and her mother had arrived outside the locked gate of the Home Affairs premises at six in the morning, only to find that an amiable, orderly queue had already formed. More than a year into Covid-19 restrictions, the antipathy among the gathered throng was clear enough; masks—if they were worn at all—were pulled down under chins and once everyone was finally allowed into the covered courtyard a few hours later, groups sat thigh to thigh on the long rows of seats, chatting and sharing snacks they had brought to see them through the long wait.
She’d handed her brown envelope of documents to the patient, kindly man standing in front of the office. He seemed to be in charge of wrangling the jostling people, with all their various requests and questions. Her heart sank when he’d informed her that she would be called in to have her photo and fingerprints taken only toward the end of the day.
Yet every so often a white person would park outside the gate, walk in and hand in their own envelope to an unseen person waiting behind the security bars at an open window, then drive away. And two or three well-dressed people who were clearly not yet elders also walked right past the great many people waiting their turn and were ushered inside by the woman guarding the one open door, only to emerge, smiling, a few minutes later.
Her mother had muttered something in Afrikaans to the Herero man sitting next to her. Bernadina couldn’t hear what she’d said but the man had grimly nodded his assent.
Around two in the afternoon, Bernadina’s name was finally called. She approached the woman standing guard at the door who had yelled out the list of people to come forward, only to be turned away with an impatient, imperious flap of the hand. An hour later, her name was called again, this time by a visibly irritated young man. By then, the gathered crowd had dwindled to just 40 or so people, mostly teenagers like her and adults keeping them company. Slightly surer of herself now, Bernadina joined the queue waiting to be granted access to the processing room, and when she reached the front and stated her name, this new officer accosted her:
“Why are you not coming the first time you are called? We are calling you and you should have come then. Idiot girl. Where is your head?”
He waved her inside and she slumped onto a sticky plastic seat—the heat of the day and the half-hour in the queue by the unshaded door had left her feeling lightheaded and sick. There appeared to be no logic to who was summoned to go through to the room where photographs were captured so she simply waited, heart beating a wild rhythm, until a bored-looking man appeared at the doorway and called out an approximation of her name. After he’d disappeared inside, she’d surreptitiously activated the control on the phone in her skirt pocket to begin the voice recording.
***
Now Oom Willie returned, and together they listened to the exchange that had taken place once the official had closed the door behind Bernadina.
He’d been looking at the form she’d carefully completed and the smirk on his face made her wish, once again, that her mother had been permitted to accompany her inside. Ndeshi hadn’t furnished much of a description of the man who had compromised her and there had always been a risk that more than one technician worked in this section of the office. Although the man now seated across the desk from Bernadina was less old and repugnant than she’d expected, his smug disdain made her certain that she was being interrogated by the same character.
“So, this is you. Bernadina, hmm? And here you are writing your phone number so we can let you know once your ID is ready.”
“Yes, but only by SMS. I don’t have a smartphone.”
“Sixteen and no proper phone? Tsk. So, if I am wanting to WhatsApp you, how must I do this? How are your boyfriends contacting you?”
So far, the conversation—rapidly descending into crude insinuation with no preliminaries—was quite similar to the one that had initiated Ndeshi’s contact with her persecutor. Bernadina thus had some idea of how things were going to progress.
“I’m not allowed boyfriends. Or such a phone. My dad is super strict. When my ID is ready you just send me an SMS, don’t you? I heard it on the radio.”
“No. Check. I am going to contact you in person then. But you are not understanding me, are you? Say I want to get a different kind of picture of you. One you are taking in private for me. How must we do this?”
Oom Willie had coached her to appear appropriately scandalised at this point, so Bernadina paused as if the full implications of the man’s words were taking time to sink in. The photographer had shaken his head in exasperation, taking her silence as a sign that she had stupidly failed to understand him, so he tried again. Bernadina had to stifle a smile as he incriminated himself a little more:
“You have seen how many people I am trying to assist today, neh? Too, too many. It can be that your ID will be processed far more quickly if you find a way to be nice to me. Doing each other a favour. I am taking your face photo now, yes? But I want you to send me different pictures, nice pictures of you alone in your room. Using a better phone. Klaar?”
Bernadina nodded. Now came the part of the proceedings that she’d been dreading, but it had to be done:
“You want me to send you selfies. When I am not wearing any clothes. Then I will get my ID more quickly, you say?”
Now it was the official’s turn to look sceptical and Bernadina wondered if she had been too direct, raising his suspicions. He looked at his watch and beckoned her over to the machine that would capture the image for her ID. Closer to her now, he’d murmured his reply in a way she assumed he believed was seductive—words that her phone had only just picked up:
“Presies. I shall give you my private number. Then you borrow a phone from someone and send me the pictures I am asking for. Then you delete everything. Klaar? You seem to already know what I’m talking about so it’ll be easy, no?”
Her face finally captured, he pointed at the door and Bernadina left and resumed her seat in the processing room outside. As time went on and the space emptied, she wondered if he’d forgotten that he’d wanted to give her his personal phone number, or perhaps had simply changed his mind. Just as she was reconciling herself to this disappointing conclusion to the tedious day, he came out of his room and made his way to where another man was standing at the fingerprinting station. He whispered in this older man’s ear and then replaced him at the high desk so that when Bernadina was finally called forward, it was the photographer who’d held her hand several seconds too long as her digits were pressed onto the 10-print card.
He shot her a meaningful look as he asked her to wait while he got the receipt for her application. When she unfolded the slip of paper outside to show it to her mother, it contained a second, smaller sheet, on which was written out a cellphone number and a name: Salmon.
***
Oom Willie and his niece were looking at this scrap of paper when Bernadina’s mother came in from the kitchen and sat down. She voiced what they were all thinking:
“Whatever you decide to do, you can’t go making trouble until her ID arrives. You don’t know how connected this man is, do you? Maybe he can go do this stuff and get away with it because no one has reported him but maybe also he’s one of those untouchables.”
Bernadina remembered how her mother had muttered something to the man in the queue. She knew that Adina had a lifelong contempt for authority, believing she saw evidence of corruption everywhere, interwoven into the very fabric of their lives. Yet at the same time, she was so inured to shady dealings that she rarely bothered to offer any comments, except to nod knowingly each time a new revelation linked to the Fishrot scandal arose in conversation.
Consulting his notes, Oom Willie began setting out their options, each one of which seemed to Bernadina more outlandish and unfeasible than the last.
“Well, if you’re correct, that would rule out my first idea, which is just to find a way to report him to his bosses. They probably have a tip-off hotline for such things. But we have his personal number and we know the way he operates so maybe we can get the newspaper to expose him somehow instead. Set him up. But look, I’d need to give that a bit more thought.”
He’d then gone into the kitchen and returned with a beer. His next suggestions obviously required him to be better fortified before he outlined them:
“We could try to blackmail him, of course. Only once Bernie has her ID though, because he would know who we are when we sent him the tape. I wonder how much he would pay for his little scheme to stay a secret.”
The idea of extracting money from Salmon—who probably received a spectacular salary compared to the members of her family—appealed greatly to Bernadina but she quickly dismissed it:
“We can, I ’spose. But that won’t stop him doing it again, with some other girl, will it?”
“It’s true. It’s true… Hence my last and I think, best solution. Which is that we get him to some place out there in the veld—telling him you want to get to know him better in private, for example – and then I organise for him to take such a beating that he promises never to try his tricks on anyone else again.”
Adina took a sip from her brother’s drink and hummed her approval.
Bernadina’s father had nixed Willie’s preferred plan the moment he’d heard it the following day and, in fact, her mother seemed to be having second thoughts as well. The topic wasn’t raised again but Bernadina bided her time, knowing that her uncle hadn’t forgotten the damning conversation stored on her phone.
The voice recording was soon supplemented by increasingly salacious SMSs from Salmon, which she’d had to parry with careful lies: her father would mos kill her if he found out what she was up to; she would need to borrow a friend’s smartphone to take the photos Salmon wanted and this was proving tricky.
But keeping Salmon interested while Willie developed a new plan meant Bernadina had to drop hints about all the things she would do for this pest once they were finally alone together. And had to read his pornographic replies too, which made her nauseous with disgust. Some of his responses contained phrases that she’d never encountered before, even when chatting to her more worldly friends. When she’d looked these foul words up online, she could barely believe her eyes.
Bernadina wondered at Salmon’s perseverance, even as he met her excuses with increasingly outrageous demands. He’d eventually texted that if she wanted her application processed anytime soon, she’d have to become his girlfriend. This simply strengthened her resolve and she discovered she took some pleasure in finding new ways to lead him on.
He only contacted her every ten days or so—in the meantime he was doubtless harassing other victims—but it became obvious that he was quite content to play the waiting game until he could force her into meeting him in person.
Then a month later, Salmon’s messages abruptly stopped. Bernadina asked her uncle to try calling him and he did so with a mysterious wink. The number was unreachable he reported, appearing not in the least surprised.
No SMS arrived from the ministry after several more weeks. Although she didn’t need her ID urgently, Bernadina began to think that Salmon, growing weary of her delaying tactics, had sabotaged her application—as he’d often hinted he’d do—and then cut all communication with her. She retrieved her receipt from the shoe box where she kept important documents and tried the landline number stamped on it. It rang and rang throughout the day. Then she found a different number for the local office in the phone book and called.
The woman who answered asked her to read back her printed reference number and then told her to wait. Two minutes later, she came back on the line, jolly and apologetic.
“My dear, your ID has been waiting here for such a long time. We’ve been sending SMSs to the number on the form. Are you not receiving them?”
Bernadina remembered that she’d printed her phone number with deliberate care; Salmon must have altered it so that no automated message would ever arrive informing her that her ID was ready. So this was why he’d kept on impressing on her that he would be the one to arrange delivery to her, making her beholden to him over months.
The lady was perplexed, even if Bernadina wasn’t.
“Sorry, I don’t know what happened there then. So much illness, too much, and we have been short staffed. Then the man who takes our photographs resigned, not giving his notice. A big mess. But you can come by now.”
***
Oom Willie was home when Bernadina returned from Home Affairs, greatly relieved to be clutching her precious laminated card at last. They’d snuggled down on the sofa and chuckled together as she’d related the happy resolution to the tawdry saga. He’d advised her to keep the voice message and the SMSs though, just in case, but went on to explain why Salmon wouldn’t be bothering her again.
He shared how the photographer would have been lying in agony in the ICU as people puzzled over his terrible sickness. The doctors had probably concluded that the coronavirus still had a way of presenting them with surprising new symptoms, like Salmon’s sores and hair loss, violent cramps and ceaseless vomiting. At least until his PCR tests continued to come back negative and they were forced to start looking for more sinister reasons behind his illness.
Willie took his phone from his work overalls and showed her the message he’d carefully composed for maximum effect and minimal ambiguity, then sent to Salmon a while back, using a SIM card he’d bought for the purpose:
Dear monster. We trust you are feeling VERY SICK right now. When you are better it would be wise to leave girls alone. There are lots of different ways to hurt evil people like you. Watch out. Wherever you go I will find you! Visgif.
Bernadina gripped her uncle’s hand in panic and he read the unspoken question in her terrified eyes.
“He won’t know who sent it. So no, he can’t connect it up with you. I’m guessing that pretty much every day he found some unfortunate girl to intimidate, like he did with you and your friend. Maybe more than one, even. Most likely there are many, many people that message could have come from.”
Hoping it wasn’t too late, Bernadina texted Ndeshi. Salmon would menace her no more. She couldn’t explain how she knew, but it was definite.
Then she and Willie walked to Hungry Lion to celebrate and as she bit into the first spicy winglet, she made a joke about hoping that Willie hadn’t poisoned her food as well, or had a spell cast over her.
They fell into companionable silence, munching contentedly as they made their way home past her school. She looked up at the windows, unlit and blank in the evening’s gathering darkness. She wondered how many of her fellow pupils Salmon had targeted over the years. Did he bother with the girls at the private schools too, or did he only focus on the poor and desperate? How many women—like her mother, like her sister—in the town’s offices and shops and markets had been forced to go along with his ugly schemes?
And where had he disappeared to? Before she’d relinquished the receipt at the ministry’s office, she and her family had struggled to decipher the signature he’d scribbled on it. Inevitably, the first name was not “Salmon” but after considerable debate, they’d figured it all out.
Wherever he turned up, Oom Willie would indeed find him.
M. A. Kelly is a British author and activist living outside Windhoek, Namibia. An English-language editor of technical and scientific materials focusing on conservation, natural-resources management, and health, from 2017 to 2020 she also contributed a bi-monthly column to The Namibian. Her fiction appeared regularly in The Kalahari Review from 2017 to 2019 and more recently in the online journals African Writer, Ibua Publishing, and Writers Space Africa. Her short-story collection A Bed On Bricks was published by Modjaji Books in 2022. She has won the Phoenix Short Fiction for Children Competition and the Goethe-Institut Namibia Short Story Prize. In 2023, she won the joint second prize in the National Arts Council of Namibia’s Creative Writing Competition for short stories. She is the founder of Sew Good Namibia, a community project assisting impoverished craftswomen to derive an income from upcycling donated furnishing fabric. She also initiated a ‘little library’ pilot project in Windhoek to give members of the public access to books they can borrow for free in their communities.