‘This is a great country, but fools will ruin it.’
‘It’s possible.’
‘Angry, directionless losers, pissed off with everything. This obsession with hurting others …’ he says.
‘It’s just a few lost souls.’
A nurse replaces my drip, now drooping like an ageing breast. A veil of silence descends on the ward. Dr Moodley returns, consults the medical file, assures me of a few things: my pulse is good, heart rate steady, blood pressure normal. Anything but normal; I have a pint of a stranger’s blood pumped into my veins (blood of a noble soul, I pray … or of a madman I will never meet). My protestations were dismissed, for ‘no one survives with that amount of blood loss’.
I am again visited by the tolerably dimpled one, accompanied by Detective Govender. They ask after my recovery, show me more photographs of suspected thugs. I repeat myself: I am not interested in anything more to do with the Dark Figure, and would rather leave his arrest to diligent police work. It is not obstruction of justice, I tell them, it is how I feel. The law works differently, they warn me.
‘He has shot and killed a tourist. Same description, same modus operandi.’
‘Regrettable. But what does that have to do with me?’
Inspector Matros stifles a yawn, scratches the back of her neck: ‘What did he say was the reason for shooting you?’
I feel drained: ‘How should I know? A cigarette, some money.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want to add anything?’
‘No.’
I think: maybe they will catch him, maybe they won’t. Either way, I don’t see why I am suddenly expected to be a criminal psychologist.
How do I tell the investigating officers to leave me alone? That I have no interest in chasing ghosts? To my mind, no man should hold the power of life and death over others. But to his mind, there are perhaps compelling reasons to murder strangers in cold blood. How can I be expected to know what those reasons are? The Dark Figure had cigarettes. It is possible that he had money, too – the supposed motive for my near-fatal wounds. A chilling hint stands out: he asked me why I should continue living. What answer is expected from souls that face random executioners? I spend days debating with myself: why does the Dark Figure think strangers owe him explanations, obedience? Extreme narcissism, perhaps? Or something more sinister? Murder is supposed to be a conscience-wrecking deed; how was it then that the Dark Figure seemed so composed, without a shred of remorse?
4
I respond to a newspaper advertisement for a temporary job for an Information Officer knowledgeable about ‘struggle history’ at the Tourism Information Centre in Newtown. I am advanced in age, I am told during the interview. Yet not, it seems, completely useless. My boss is a nosy little irritant with bad breath and nasal speech: Bernadette or Ordette or some such. The job requires little thinking. I simply dish out information brochures and maps to an assortment of tourists. Germans. Japanese. Africans. Canadians. I offer advice on tourism sites, on memorable experiences; how to get to war memorials, to the Apartheid Museum, theme parks, places for period architecture, whorehouses. I speak to bankers, Vietnamese nuns, filmmakers, hungover writers, groupies, necrophiliacs, academics and sweaty backpackers. ‘Vilakazi Street, Soweto, is your kind of place. Magalies Meander for walking trails. Nelson Mandela Square for intercontinental cuisine,’ I tell them. I think: how does a person endure a fourteen-hour flight, come all the way to South Africa and request to view corpses? Are there no corpses in Yemen, or are foreign ones more appealing? Where does one draw the line between tourism and perversion?
Months pass, with no incident worth noting. What hope lies in directing perverts where to find illicit pleasures on Jan Smuts Avenue, forbidden fruits loitering around Sandton hotel lobbies (classy hookers clutching counterfeit Gucci handbags, their eyes, their trade, their souls, hidden behind dark Dolce and Gabbana shades bought on street corners)? I, on my free days, to earn extra money, work for a laundry service company: hospital bed linen, full of all manner of stains. I save enough to rent a furnished townhouse at 144 Verona Estates (high-security townhouses of Tuscan design) in Rosebank. The townhouse, the letting agent says, belongs to a Gideon Bemba, a Congolese astronomy professor with ambitions to work for NASA. Gideon is now officially a South African citizen; humble to a fault, with a laser beam for a mind, auctioned to the highest bidders in foreign universities. I miss the city park benches, the nightmares, the occasional erotic dream blended with police sirens and meows from stray cats.
It takes months of reflection, many considered choices, until the study at 144 Verona Estates is adorned with all sorts of time pieces: wall clocks, an array of wrist watches, pendulums. The bookshelves house poets, arranged by country and reputation, according to whether living or dead, in strict alphabetical, colour-coded order. I am not reading for pleasure or to gather knowledge, but simply because I don’t know what else to do with myself these days. Philosophy books, African mythology, Greek and Eastern contemplations, flood my bedside – some of which I have spent weeks rummaging through dingy bookstores to find; out-of-print gems. The shelves are also home to an assortment of sea shells for decorative effect. The walls are adorned with pictorial depictions of galaxies, of astronomical puzzles and latest discoveries, arranged by date and significance. Framed, tastefully. Cosmic secrets as wall art, beautiful beyond measure.
I walk to the Nelson Mandela Bridge, to eavesdrop on animated conversations from students and aggrieved workers en route to bus and taxi stations. Except for the occasional loner, the students commute in groups, debating anything from Robert Mugabe to birth control pills. Their talk is laced with sneers against privileged white students whose great grandparents plundered Africa, and Nigerians who are turning Johannesburg into a drug den. From the sound of things, judging by the conversations in motion, the lanky boy in military slacks speaks less, thinks more. The students pause mid bridge, share a cigarette. ‘Not all Nigerians are drug lords,’ says the lanky one to his overweight companion.
‘No flipping Nigerians in South Africa, period. That goes for all the Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Somalis and Chinese – everyone,’ says the fat one.
‘Hold it, Thebe,’ says the lanky one. ‘This is the African Century …’
‘African Century my foot. Aren’t there universities in Zimbabwe?’
‘Other Africans are people too. Why is it so unthinkable that Nigerians, Mozambicans, Zimbabweans and others should feel our freedom also belongs to them? That it is only fair to demand a little courtesy? What African Century is possible when freedom becomes a brick to crack the skulls of others?’
Thebe laughs mockingly at that. The lanky one dismisses him with an irritable wave of the hand, kills his cigarette under his boot. The conversation subsides into hushed tones, in response to an approaching group of girls – well-sculptured creatures with intricate hairdos, performing their every step as if expecting wolf whistles, savouring the bliss of being watched. They speak not of drug dens, but of the delights of malva pudding. Then suddenly he appears! Unmistakable. Those lovely teeth. He wears the red tracksuit with the Jimi Hendrix hat on his head, strides across the bridge with careless abandon. I am amazed how ordinary he looks in daylight; how he, without his gun, blends into African-Century and malva-pudding conversations. I follow him down the bridge in the direction of the city, absorbing every detail: the bouncy walk, the fruity perfume, the cowboy boots. A silver chain hangs from his baggy jeans, dangling in slow motion, as in American music videos. I stalk him downtown with relish and pangs of fear, along busy city streets. As if in Technicolor he glides, he alone the only human, commanding a vast victim’s empire that stretches beyond the imagination; occasionally adjusting the tracksuit under which is concealed a weapon, awaiting nightfall. I am nervous yet thrilled. I quicken my pace, walk past him, and turn a corner to retrace my steps towards him for a face-to-face encounter. Sweat pours from my armpits. My steps are brisk but unsteady. Time fre
ezes amid hooting motorists and city sounds. I wave at him the way one acknowledges a nervous child. He smiles, nods in what appears to be profound humility. My gamble pays off; he does not recognise me – or so I assume. Overwhelmingly strange, this feeling of being party to fate.
I turn around and follow the Dark Figure. I walk along renamed streets, a Newtown bearing famous names of the Sophiatown Renaissance. Jazz artists. Painters. Journalists. At Henry Nxumalo Street he takes a left, past Miriam Makeba, and right towards Gwigwi Mgwebi. It seems odd that he takes such a long-winded route home, to the apartments nestled below the Nelson Mandela Bridge. I follow him up a flight of stairs; pause as he enters Apartment 307. I go up an extra flight, take cover under evening shadows for God’s view of the apartment below.
A dreary five minutes crawl past, the pulse in my temples throbbing with anticipation. The door of Apartment 307 opens and he (on the cellphone) pulls the door shut, walks away briskly. My eyes follow him down a flight of stairs, to the parking area and out the main gate, until he disappears in the direction of the bridge. I waste no time; in the door, the key is sitting. The simplicity of the apartment’s interior is disarming: a defeated mattress on the floor, a few clothes stuffed into a cardboard box, a kettle with newly boiled water. Red underwear hangs on the shower knobs. The bathroom mirror is adorned with spots from minor toothpaste accidents. The wardrobes are bare, except for a broken umbrella, a humble blanket. Such emptiness, such a barren existence. What does he eat?
My heart is pounding. Under the mattress is a mountain-climbing rope, a page from a magazine, on which an elderly woman depicts solitary lust. Cockroach spray is on the stove, next to which are headache tablets. The kitchen cabinets are bare, not even a teaspoon in sight. I stand in the bathroom, considering options to let my presence here be known: the kettle water will wet the mattress just fine. I could put the underwear in the kettle, rub toothpaste on the bathroom mirror. The prospects are exhilarating, the combinations abundant. I do what comes naturally: leave everything as I have found it. Then board a bus back to Verona Estates.
Someone telephones from the Tourism Office to say there are policemen looking for me. I give the address, and half an hour later there is a polite knock on the door. The modestly sensual one is not alone, but not with Detective Govender either; this time it is an Inspector Slabbert with her – a blue-eyed brunette, too cute to be carrying guns and handcuffs. They decline my coffee offer and, once seated, waste no time: ‘Three varsity students were gunned down yesterday evening at the bottom end of the bridge. There must be something more that you remember about your tragedy?’ Tragedy. It might as well be comedy – being shot for choosing not to smoke. There is so much I could tell them today; yet not much at all. He masturbates to wrinkled porn models; keeps broken umbrellas; suffers from headaches. On condition that I be left alone, I tell them of my visit to Apartment 307, a description so detailed that even I wonder where such painstaking observation came from.
It is true – I had eighteen years to learn the depths, the limits of my own mind. That is what prison does to you: slows down your existence, allows you to hold onto contradictory ideals without one dominating the other. I don’t expect the investigating officers to understand the power of rising above one’s temperament, of learning not to (without proper reflection) reject brutal infringements, because their interpretation is so slippery. Even now, I sometimes forget I can go wherever I please, for in my mind the world has shrunk, stripped of all sights and sounds, save for a concrete bed and a steel lavatory. Opposed though I am to murder, I also acknowledge I have no divine powers to interpret random acts of violence. What, for instance, draws such a hunk as he to ageing, drooping breasts, to the stained teeth of a wretched life displayed on pornographic magazine pages? The outcome of my disclosure is predictable: the police will make an arrest, lock him up, throw away the key. But that answers nothing.
Inspector Matros looks at me curiously, gathers courage to say: ‘I am not trying to be insensitive. But it seems to me that you are not affected by your misfortune.’ Tragedy. Misfortune. One and the same thing but not necessarily of equal weight. Misfortune is when you get shot for choosing not to smoke. Tragedy is when you get asked why you should continue living. I look from her to the not-too-bad-to-walk-down-the-aisle Inspector Slabbert, and deflect her question.
‘Where is Detective Govender?’
‘Shot and killed.’
‘I see.’
‘Why do you brush all questions about your incident aside?’ she presses on.
I am holding the door open for them and don’t answer.
‘Do you mind if I ask you one last question?’ she persists.
‘Go ahead.’
‘Why did you go to Apartment 307?’
‘I wanted to see what death looks like.’
‘And?’
‘I haven’t seen it.’
5
I trace Desiree through Mabel, her distant cousin in Alexandra Township. Mabel confesses she has heard ‘many things’ about me – tells me not a single day passes without Desiree reminiscing, consumed by what might have been. Thrilled at being the bearer of miraculous news, Mabel arranges a surprise dinner at the Park Hyatt Hotel, where she is Guest Relations Manager. Desiree turns out to be far from what I had expected, married to an overweight mathematician with a missing thumb. I, in the most subtle yet ardent manner, protest that her backtracking on such an old commitment – to grant me her heart – is tantamount to treason. She accuses me of melodrama; states firmly that she owes no one any explanation for what she decides to do with her life. She is a prized asset at Nathan Wallace & Associates, a reputable criminal law firm. In her aloof kind of way, she says simply: ‘I met someone. I am married. Amazu is a Nigerian academic, a lamb of a man, sweet to a fault.’
Amazu came to South Africa as a professor of mathematics: numbers and decimal points, things without soul. I met him once or twice, a toad with a head full of numbers, grinning at everyone, drenched in his own sweat. A likeable fellow, if one tries hard enough; bland, though, deaf in one ear, always craning his neck to hear what is being said.
I hate his ‘what was that?’ mantra, so avoid conversing with him, except for the occasional nod in response to his grinning at me; mistaking me for his friend. But Desiree loves him, has given her heart to him. I think it a cruel game when Desiree, a few months later, declares she is now ready to leave Amazu and move in with me. As long as I promise not to leave plates, crawling with ants, festering in our bed. As long as I flush the toilet after use, understand that snoring is detrimental to romance. That there is much more to the world than trigonometry. And, most important of all, that she is entitled to her temper. God made her so, included a temper of volcanic proportions, and God does not make mistakes. I am delighted. Dumbstruck. Confused. Desiree understands the depth of my emotion, bends and shapes it to suit her whims.
I think: there are many kinds of love. Desiree’s is an eloping kind, a love that constructs and abandons nests, much like a fugitive dodging police hounds. How else do I explain such lukewarm, inconsistent sentiments as hers? I receive Desiree’s love, rationed, measured, placed on a scale, the excess fat and bones trimmed off, correct reading confirmed. The same way prisoners live on rationed meals, are counted and recounted to detect escapes. Desiree is expert at placing things in boxes, with the right measurements. Her thoughts do not mix with her yearnings; yearnings are separated from obsessions; disappointments removed from ambitions; and secrets boxed away from petty observations and selected erotic lapses. Her mind toils with estimations, discoveries and protests known only to herself. Her lone meditations are marked by profound, often scary, announcements, expressed as statements of fact not open for discussion: ‘I don’t believe in love.’ Objections from me are met with frowns, suspended rage.
Desiree and I spend a lot of time at 144 Verona Estates, which is to say I watch her sleeping, drained from the unpredictable life of a defence attorney. I adore my Desiree: her s
oaring voice as she sets old jazz standards ablaze; her uplifting voice, accompanied by whispers of steamy shower water. My love for her is still as distinct, detailed and colourful as coral reeds in sea beds. It cannot be said to be ordinary – the way my heart glows and burns with each of her brutal remarks, the way my disappointments leave me frosty yet thawing from the core. Mine is not the kind of love to inspire shallow romantic dramas, for it has, at its heart, a flame that refuses to die.
When she’s in a bad mood, Desiree’s voice rises and falls with beautiful symphonies in multiple vocal ranges, an assortment of popular rhythm and blues standards, heart-wrenching funeral songs. I know she is begging for forgiveness when her voice begins to quiver, when there are lapses between otherwise straightforward choruses. When she showers for what seems like eternity, followed by many hours of feigned sleep. My own gestures, the granting of that forgiveness, are equally calculated. I offer her tea in bed; volunteer that it will be the television news soon; note down and remind her of personal calls she’s missed.
I suffer little irritations, sulking sessions, followed by wounded withdrawals, sealed by bleeding silences and a bellyful of wine and tears. My Desiree, with beautiful armpits and perfect shoulder blades, born without a shred of compassion. I love her and that leaves me drained and mildly suicidal. I read up extensively on various painless methods to get rid of myself: carbon monoxide, or morphine overdose maybe. To die seeing pictures, the sights of a brain under siege – how charming, how beautifully sad.
To some exact degree, I am defenceless against her callous abuse, but to certain approximate degrees, I find that I am trapped in hope that Desiree’s temper will one day fade away. There is a kind of radiance lurking deep within her. I can feel the subtle hints, the whispers, implying that, in a way, she does not mean the harm she causes, that she herself is often amazed by her own fury. But how was it that Amazu remained so seemingly unperturbed by her treatment, concerned only with his algebra classes, taught to ‘born frees’ – Tupac Shakur and Rihanna clones – at the University of the Witwatersrand? What does he know that I don’t (all that grinning of his)? Or is it just his mathematical mind, finding logic in infinite possibilities? By the look of things, Amazu is used to disappointments. Embarrassments. Judgements. He volunteered a hint of this once: ‘Desiree is a classic case. Bipolar disorder.’ Maybe. But then, mathematicians are not physicians. He is not a poet, either. What does he know about love?
Small Things Page 3