Talion

by Beyers de Vos

  ‘Why do you look like that?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like that.’ Bra Joe points to him, a gesture seemingly encompassing his whole body.

  ‘This is what I look like,’ Slick says.

  ‘No,’ Bra Joe grunts, ‘no, you don’t usually look this nice.’ The tip of his joint glows brightly as he puffs. His skin is pockmarked, oily. He forages in his bag and finds a bundle. He hands it over. Slick pockets the money and nods at Bra Joe. Slick turns to leave, then: ‘The police were here,’ Bra Joe says, ‘watching me.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I told you, the police will leave you alone.’

  ‘Okay,’ says Bra Joe, ‘but send the other guy back next time. I like him. He brings me a Coke.’ Bra Joe flings his joint aside and flops down, wrapping himself in his sleeping bag, wrapping himself against the night. His snores begin almost immediately.

  ‘Goodnight, then,’ Slick says, walking away. Down the dark street, back into the shadows.

  6

  Freya Rust, twenty-one, art student.

  Freya can hear herself talking too fast. She isn’t sure what exactly she is saying; the words tumble out of her mouth, clambering over each other, getting caught in a verbal stampede.

  Because if she carries on talking, then she doesn’t have to feel or think. If she tells them the story over and over again, they can’t send her home. She won’t have to walk through the front door where Ben’s jacket will be hung on the hook it took him all day to put up; walk into the kitchen where his dried-out herbal teabags will be stacked on the counter because he could never throw the damn things away.

  Keep talking.

  Ben had dropped her off outside the bar while he went looking for parking. That’s what always happened. Every Friday night she and Ben and Alex and Adam would go to Oxford’s – do you know Oxford’s? It’s right around the corner from the police station? – to have a drink. Ben always drove, always volunteered to be designated driver. He would drop them off and find parking. Always such a mission, parking.

  She would buy the first round. Alex and Adam wouldn’t do much of anything except make jokes.

  But Alex and Adam hadn’t been there this time, this night. They had gone home for the mid-term break. She and Ben had decided to go to Oxford’s alone. They had almost decided not to bother. She can remember that thought starting: Maybe we should just stay at home . . . And she remembers dismissing it: No, going out will be fun. Ben had said there was something he wanted to tell her. Good news, he’d said. They hadn’t seen each other much lately – there were semester tests, assignments, irregular hours. And Ben had been spending more time away from home, with the stranger in the Atos who drops – used to drop – him off early in the mornings, when he thinks – thought – she is still asleep. But she had kept quiet about it; she had wanted him to tell her whatever it was when the time was right.

  Campus has been quieter than usual, with all the students gone home for the holidays. But she and Ben were Pretoria born and bred. They had nowhere else to go, no one but each other. Their parents are dead. Funny, she’s never thought of herself as an orphan. Not really. Not until now.

  He was her younger brother?

  No. No, he is her twin. Was her twin. Her fucking twin.

  How old?

  Twenty-one. They live together, in the flat their parents left them.

  Where?

  Not far from campus. Duncan Street. No, wait. The name of the street has changed. She can’t remember to what. It’s just around the corner. She walks past the police station every day (now that she’s actually inside it, it’s not what she pictured at all). They could have walked to Oxford’s, but it’s too dangerous to walk back late at night. They’ve been mugged before, so they’re careful. Is that some kind of irony?

  Did they report the mugging?

  Yes. Yes, of course.

  When did it happen?

  A few months ago. May. Sometime in May. Ben was the one who came down to the station to make a statement. Freya didn’t come with him.

  Noted. Carry on, please.

  Anyway, he dropped her off. But she got a phone call just as she got out the car, so she didn’t go inside right away. It was too noisy. She watched as Ben drove down the street. As he found a parking space almost right next to the bar.

  Was that unusual?

  Yes, very. But like she said, it wasn’t a very busy night.

  Who was she on the phone with?

  Her boyfriend. Eric. His name is Eric. Eric Evans.

  Where was he that night?

  He was with friends. The relationship is new, a few weeks old.

  So she was on the phone and watched as her brother – her twin brother – found parking?

  Yes. Yes. But then another car, a red Mercedes, one of those old ones, you know, those 1980s ones, tried to park in the same bay. And Ben cut him off.

  It was a him? The driver?

  Yes, a man. Older. Maybe fifty? She couldn’t tell. She isn’t good with ages. Balding, grey hair. She remembers he had the lights on, inside the car. That’s strange, isn’t it? But she could only see his head; only his head was in the light. He is coloured. He wears glasses.

  Distinctive marks?

  What kind of distinctive marks?

  Tattoos, scars, anything like that.

  No, she doesn’t think so. But she saw his gun.

  Is she sure she saw the gun?

  Yes, she saw the gun. She’s sure.

  So this man in his red Mercedes tried to park, but Ben cut him off?

  Yes.

  Was there anyone else nearby?

  There were people standing outside Oxford’s, smoking. A girl getting out of her car. A car guard, she thinks, on the other end of the street.

  It’s a cliché, isn’t it, that things slow down? Like in films. The camera hovers above the scene of the street. In slow motion it watches as the red Mercedes drives carefully forward, the man inside it saying something (indistinct, unknown). It sees Freya lower her phone and look up, dark curls swinging back gently, softly. The gunshot isn’t seen, but heard in slow motion: a deep, rough, plosive roar that overpowers all other sounds, overpowers thought.

  A pause. Sound will stop.

  Reality needs to reassert itself.

  Now, the camera might move in. Might collide with – zoom in to – the thick of the action, might become frenzied; the world will speed up.

  Everything happens in flashes. A flash of the street, the Mercedes a red streak in the twilight as it flees; Freya running so fast she will look like a blur to all those who remember it later. She does not know how she got to Ben; she is there suddenly, holding him. The screech of the tyres left behind by the fleeing car only reaches her then; she hears it over the sound of her brother’s laboured breathing: the sound catching up to the action, the world returning to a regular rhythm.

  The trauma – so easy to describe here for you now, to relive from the outside, from above, as if it were a story – will rush back inside her, attach itself to her heart and pump itself into her blood. It will become hers. It will claim the centre of her, expanding and retracting, exploding and exploding and exploding.

  And everything becomes purple.

  She cannot talk about that, about how she watched his eyes turn silver, felt his pulse stop. She cannot talk about what will happen now. She cannot think about going home.

  But she can tell you what happened just before Ben was shot again and again and again. Maybe she’s forgotten something, some detail?

  Can she remember the Mercedes’ number plate?

  Maybe. Yes, maybe she can.

  Then by all means, keep talking.

  Saturday

  7

  After talking, there is silence.

  Silence, dirty dishes, and dust.

  Coming home doesn’t feel different than it does on any other day. The flat isn’t emptier, or quieter; it is still filled with the overwhelming presence of Ben. His scent, his
things, the expectation of noise from his room; the expectation that he is going to come around the corner to greet her or walk in behind her. The potential of Ben fills the flat, almost making a sound, almost calling her name. It’s as if the house anticipates him, as if it’s only inside Freya’s head that he is dead; as if reality hasn’t solidified yet, hasn’t taken hold of the world.

  The shift is yet to come.

  And Freya – who is walking through the world without noticing it; who is retreating into her innermost self with every step, unconsciously building a wall of suspicion and anger that is sliding into place like a cell door – is waiting for it to hit her, to make contact.

  Like waiting for a slow knife.

  The force of violence is swifter and more brutal than memory, than the human mind.

  But there is the silence, and through the silence, there comes an emptiness, cutting, raging. And then it’s pulling her, dragging her down. And she falls. She doesn’t resist, and she drops to the floor like a plate from a shocked hand, and is broken.

  8

  What is left after the crowds have gone is not silence; it is the ghost of noise.

  After all that energy – all those people with their cheers and war cries, hopes and expectations – has left, what rushes in to replace it is the haunting absence of what has just been. A phantom echo. It’s like the whole world has deflated; as if the school does not know what to do with itself without any people in it. It is uncanny – and wonderful.

  Mr October walks along the edge of the field, carefully keeping to the shadows. He likes the silence; he likes the loneliness.

  ‘What were you doing with him?’

  ‘Nothing, leave it alone.’

  ‘You need to stay away from him.’

  ‘Leave me alone, Pa. Fuck off.’

  The words are still settling on him, even though they were said last night. Most of what happened last night is still settling on him. Like a hammer on a skull, it pounded through him. His daughter. The Boy. His whole wounded life, flung into chaos again. Uncontrollable, desperate, leaking.

  He picks up a chocolate wrapper, folds it, and throws it into the nearest bin. Crowds are so messy, so uncontrolled, so distracting. If he could have his way, they would play inside somewhere, behind soundproof glass. Just the players and the referee. And the coaches, of course. Just the sounds of the match being played. The whir-thump of the ball, the grunts and groans of the players: the sounds of speed and strength. The sound of teamwork and harmony. He cannot concentrate when the pavilion is packed with spectators – noisy, restless spectators, screaming, yelling, knowing better. Like a dozen mosquitos trying to wake you from the dream in which you finally, finally manage to win.

  He always loses, in his dreams.

  But they won today, so that is something. That feels right. He has a good team. Powerful, smart. You have to be smart to play rugby. Have to understand strategy. The stupid ones, the brute-strength ones, they frustrate him: useful, but uninspiring – unmalleable.

  He reaches the far corner of the field, the boundary of the school. He checks behind him, where the fence that runs the length of the school meets the wall of the building next door, creating a small space where students love to tuck their rubbish. But everything is clean. Satisfied, he heads along the field towards the pavilion, an ugly brick monster. There are gaps in the tiers of blue plastic where the seats have been damaged or stolen: pockmarks across the monster’s face. Behind that a parking lot and more sports fields, and behind that a forest of pine trees which hides the rest of the school, in all its sandstone grandeur, from view.

  It is a hot day, strangely humid, and Mr October loosens his tie slightly. After all, everyone is gone. A loosened tie is permissible.

  The last thing he checks before heading home is the changing room. A rectangular space, filled with lockers. Showers and toilet stalls line the back wall. It’s yellow, unremarkable. But someone always forgets something. He uses the boot of his car as the lost and found, charges ten rand to return an item: there has to be some responsibility; nothing is free.

  He hears a small, sharp noise as he checks the lockers. A human noise.

  ‘Hello?’

  A small gasp of air.

  Mr October notices the closed bathroom stall, the bag left on the benches. ‘Hello? Is there someone still in here?’

  A young man unlocks the door and steps out. He is shirtless, and he has bandages all over his torso. His shirt hangs in his hand.

  ‘Mr Tshabalala? What are you still doing here?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. Nothing. I’m on my way.’

  ‘What are those bandages for, Tshabalala?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. Nothing. I fell.’

  ‘You fell?’

  ‘Sir.’ He pulls his shirt on and swings his bag over his shoulders. Tshabalala does not make eye contact as he speaks; he looks at his shoes. And he is moving towards the door before Mr October can say anything else. ‘Afternoon, sir,’ he says.

  ‘Tshabalala!’

  The boy turns to look over his shoulder, his face creasing, as if expecting a blow. ‘Sir?’

  ‘How is my daughter?’

  ‘Your daughter, sir?’

  ‘Yes. My daughter.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ A cautious pause, before he continues: ‘She’s fine, sir.’

  ‘Good. And, Tshabalala?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You played well today.’

  The face opens wide, and the boy almost-smiles. ‘Thank you, sir.’ He looks back towards the school gates, says, ‘I better go.’ And is gone.

  They all suspected it, of course. That Tshabalala’s father beats him. It’s a constant source of gossip – gossip, how he hates that word – in the teacher’s lounge. But they have never been sure. Never been sure enough to do anything about it. But now? Tshabalala is a quiet boy, a good player. Friendless, focused. Mr October admires him.

  He should report the abuse.

  Mr October stands there for a while, not wanting to go home; not wanting to return to his dank, unliveable house.

  He walks slowly towards his car. From under the passenger seat, he takes out his gun. Then he goes home.

  Sunday

  9

  ‘I brought breakfast,’ Ash says as she appears at the door, waving a McDonald’s bag.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  Ash puts the food on the kitchen counter. ‘You really shouldn’t be smoking,’ she says. Her flat red face, the tear marks running down her cheeks, her chipped teeth, all of these seem to be pulled up in disapproval. ‘Maybe we should clean a little before we go? Get your mind off every­thing for a while. Routine, everyday tasks. Might help.’

  Freya ignores her, and inhales deeply.

  Ash. Stooped and old and broad. Cousin Ash is what they used to call her when they were children, although Freya can never remember exactly how she fits into the family tree. Family branch, now – just Freya and Ash blowing in the black wind. Ash owns a plot of land outside the city where she tends chickens, indulges in some landscape painting and, as she puts it, listens to the trees. After their parents died, it was Ash who came to look after them, who fetched them from the house and handed them a packet of store-bought cookies and muttered ‘terrible’ under her breath too many times.

  ‘Come and live with me,’ Ash says now, in a voice like a big bell. Freya pulls her hoody tighter, watching Ash as she begins clearing dishes.

  ‘Don’t ask me that again,’ Freya says.

  ‘Is that Rusty’s hoody?’

  ‘Ben. His name is Ben.’

  Ash looks out beyond Freya. She says, ‘There’s a storm coming,’ and then, in the face of Freya’s silence, tries again: ‘Must be nice to have that jacaranda right outside your window.’

  Freya looks behind her, out the large light-blasted window, at the sprawling jacaranda tree, now in full bloom; a purple explosion. She says, her voice bleeding lead: ‘Jacarandas come from South America originally. Not Australia. Everyone
always says they come from Australia. Did you know that?’

  ‘I didn’t know that, no,’ Ash says, taking a seat opposite Freya, encouraging her to proceed.

  ‘The word “jakara’nda” was taken from an indigenous South American language by the Portuguese. It means “to have a hard core”.’ Behind Ash, an oily corner of the McDonald’s bag is visible. Ash has her phone in her hand. It buzzes. ‘Who are you talking to? Is it about me?’

  ‘It’s not about you.’

  ‘I don’t want you talking about me. Or him.’

  ‘Rusty was my family too.’

  ‘Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Was my brother. Is my brother.’ Freya’s mind begins to expand, filling with a buzzing, an unstoppable noise. She wants to lash out, to be violent. She says, the words shooting from her lips quickly, as if being chased by something inside her, ‘Jacarandas used to stand in the centre of Amazonian villages, and in the afternoons the tree would be a place of shade where the villagers could congregate, where the wise women of the village would gather and dispense justice and retribution.’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘I read it. On Google.’

  ‘Do you think that’s true?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Have you heard the legend of the White Jacaranda?’

  Freya shakes her head.

  ‘Hidden somewhere in Pretoria is a street full of white jacaranda trees,’ Ash says, ‘not purple, white. Only those who have found it know where it is, but if you can find it for yourself, you’ll have good luck for a year. You’ll pass all your exams.’

  ‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,’ Freya says, and she takes pleasure in the silence that follows these words; she enjoys the dumbstruck look on Ash’s face.

  Ash visibly pulls herself together and says, ‘It’s almost time to go; you should eat something.’ But Freya’s brief spitefulness hasn’t achieved much; she’s already fallen back into darkness. ‘Freya?’

  ‘I wish I hadn’t seen it happen,’ Freya says.

  ‘You think that would have made a difference?’