Dead at Daybreak

by Deon Meyer

  “Sixteen, sir.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Stilfontein, sir.”

  “Eleventh grade?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Stilfontein High School?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You stole books.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Louis L’Amours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How often have you stolen books?”

  “This was the first time, sir.”

  “What have you stolen before?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “Nothing?”

  “I… once I stole Gunther Krause’s ruler in class, sir, but it was more of a joke, sir. I’ll give it back to him, sir.”

  “Why did you steal the books?”

  “It was wrong, sir.”

  “I know it was wrong. I want to know why.”

  “I… I wanted them so badly, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like them so much, sir.”

  “Have you read Flint?”

  “Yes, sir.” Somewhat surprised.

  “Kilkenny?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Lando?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Catlow?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “Cherokee Trail?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The Empty Land?”

  “No, sir.”

  He sighed and got up, walked round, and sat down at his big desk.

  “Did any of the good guys in any L’Amour steal, Zatopek?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What will your father do—how will he feel if I phone him now to tell him his son’s a thief?”

  Hope, a faint spark. If I… not when I phone him. “My father’s dead, sir.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She’ll be very unhappy, sir.”

  “I have a suspicion you have a gift for euphemism, Zatopek. Your mother will be heartbroken. Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You’re the only one she’s got?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you’re stealing.”

  “It was wrong, sir.”

  “Says he now. Now that it’s too late. Where’s your mother?”

  I told him about the movie plans and that my mother would fetch us at five o’clock, after the movie.

  He looked at me. For a long time and in silence. Then he got up. “Wait here, Zatopek. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He walked out and closed the door. I was alone with my fear and my humiliation and my sprig of hope.

  He came back after a lifetime and sat on the edge of the desk again.

  “There’s an empty cell down here, Zatopek. I’m going to lock you into it. It’s a dirty place. It stinks. People have vomited and shat and pissed and bled and sweated in it. But it’s paradise in comparison with what happens to thieves if they go to jail… I’m going to put you in the cell, Zatopek. So that you can think about all these things. I want you to try and picture, while you’re sitting there, what it would be like to spend the rest of your life like that. Only much worse. Among other thieves and murderers and confidence men and rapists and all the other scum of the earth. Men who’ll cut your throat for fifty cents. Guys who’ll think a young man like you is just the thing to… to… kiss, if you get my drift.”

  I didn’t really but I nodded enthusiastically.

  “I’ve just spoken to the CNA on the phone. They say they have a great deal of theft taking place there. They want me to make an example of you. They want you to be in court, in front of the magistrate, with your poor mother weeping, so that everyone can see there’s no point in stealing from the CNA. They want the people of the Klerksdorp Record to write about you so that the nonthieving youth of South Africa will be deterred. Do you understand?”

  I couldn’t speak, merely allowed my head to indicate agreement.

  “I argued with them, Zatopek. I told them I was sure it was the first time, because I’m stupid enough to believe you. I begged them because someone who likes Louis L’Amour can’t be all bad. They told me I was wasting my time because someone who steals once will steal again. But I talked them round, Zatopek.”

  “Sir?”

  “We reached an agreement. I’ll lock you up until half past four because you’re a guilty little bugger. And then I’ll take you to the cinema and you’ll tell your mother it was a nice movie because breaking her heart isn’t a good idea. She didn’t steal.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And if you ever steal again, Zatopek, I’ll fetch you and give you such a hell of a hiding, all use you’ll ever have for your backside is to hang a pair of pants on, and I’ll lock you up with guys who’ll suck out your eyeballs before cutting off your other balls with a blunt knife simply because they’re bored. Have you got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Everyone has the right to one chance in life, Zatopek. We don’t all get it, but we deserve it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Use yours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He got up. “Come along.”

  “Sir…”

  “What?”

  “Thank you, sir.” And then I cried until my entire body shook and the big man tucked his arm around me and pulled me close to him and held me until I had stopped.

  Then he went and locked me up.

  15.

  He shaved at five in the morning, rain in the dark cold outside, and saw himself. It caused a sudden shudder, the unexpectedness of it. He saw his whole body in the mirror: he saw his face, not the yellowing blue of the swollen eye, but himself, the heavy eyebrows, the nose with its slight arch, not quite straight; he saw the gray at his temples, saw that his shoulders weren’t as broad as they had been; saw the slight roundness of his belly and hips, a softness; saw his legs, the long muscles less defined, saw the toll of the years, saw himself.

  He focused on the shaving cream, dipped the razor in water, allowed the rhythm, the ritual, to divert him, let the body disappear in the steam of the earlier shower, rinsed the washbasin, dried his face carefully with the towel, put on the tracksuit. He didn’t want to listen to music—Hope Beneke, who had listened to his music and said, “You’re an odd man, Van Heerden.” There was a time when the contradiction of a cop who listened to Mozart had defined him, but no longer. He switched off the living room’s light and opened the curtain, looked through the rain at the big house, felt the cold. There would be snow on the mountains. His mother’s veranda light was burning. For him. As usual.

  His mother. Who had never once said, “Get your act together.”

  She should have said it, a thousand times by now, each day she should’ve told him but all he got was her love, her eyes that told him she understood, even if she didn’t know, even if she knew fuck-all, only two people who knew, only two.

  He and…

  He looked across. His mother’s big house over there, his little cottage here, his refuge, his jail.

  He jerked the curtain to, switched on the light, sat in the chair, rain against the window, leaned back, and closed his eyes. He had been awake since two, that feverish, insubstantial, artificial euphoria of insomnia had come visiting again because he had gone to bed sober, and today he had to…

  His heart beat faster.

  Lord, not that as well.

  He slowly blew out his breath, relaxed his shoulders, released the tension.

  Slowly in. Slowly out. His heartbeat steadily decreased.

  The first time had been sudden, five years ago now, it was winter, the clouds low, and he was in his car driving somewhere when his heart began beating at a furious rate, terrifyingly out of control, jerking and beating and galloping in his chest, and the clouds pressed down on him, faster and faster and faster, and he knew he was going to kick the bucket, heart attack, no heart could beat that fast. It was just after Nagel, just a month or so after
Nagel, and he had driven on the N7 and he knew he was dying and he was scared and surprised because he wanted to die but not now, and his hands trembled and his whole body shook and he spoke out loud, babbled no, no, no, slowly, slowly, no, no, and forced his breath through his lips, noises, strange noises to slow everything down, and then slowly, systematically, it went away.

  It happened again, on other days, every time with rain and low clouds, until fear drove him to a consulting room. “Panic attack. Is there anything in your life you want to discuss?”

  “No.”

  “I would like to refer you to a psychologist.” Pushing the white paper with the black ink across the table, caringly, that smooth, simulated, practiced caring that they could dish up for every patient when the occasion demanded. He had folded the white paper and put it in his pocket, and when he was outside he took it out, crumpled it, and threw it into the northwester, didn’t even see what happened to it, and the panic attacks came and went, and the knowledge, naming it, made it more controllable. Is there anything in your life you want to discuss?

  And then it became less with the months that slipped by like embarrassed shadows, less and less until it no longer came, until now, and he knew why.

  Theal.

  It was going to bring it all back.

  How many policemen had Colonel Willie Theal comforted with his endless supply of tact? Fuck, how had he, between his mother and Theal and all the other sympathetic eyes, managed to bottle it up? With difficulty, that was how, with difficulty, with so much effort and difficulty, but you got used to it, eventually you got used to it. He got up, made coffee. What was the matter with him this morning? It was almost six o’clock, a safe time, it was always such a safe time, it was being awake between two and three that was the dangerous time, the fighting time. It was because he had gone to bed sober the past two nights. Water in the kettle, coffee in the mug, strong, strong coffee, he could taste the full flavor already. Perhaps he should put on Don Giovanni—there was a fuck-you-all man, even in the descent into hell. He went looking for the CD, put it on, pressed the button, skipped the overture, Don Giovanni filled with bravado, on the way to his first murder, the smell of semen still clinging to him on his way to his first murder, his only murder, Mozart’s testosterone notes, his fuck-you-all notes. The water boiled, he poured it into the mug, stood in his kitchen and took tiny sips of the black, flavorful liquid, and saw the spaghetti—he needn’t cook tonight, he could eat leftovers.

  He had seen his body this morning.

  Kara-An Rousseau had invited him to dinner. This evening.

  He had to see Willie Theal today and all the memories would be unlocked in his head.

  Why did she want to invite him to dinner?

  “I’m having a few people over.”

  “No, thank you,” he had said.

  “I knew it was short notice,” she had said in her creamy voice, disappointed. “But if you have something else on, come a bit later.” And gave an address, somewhere near the mountain.

  What for?

  He sat down in the chair again, put his bare feet on the coffee table, the mug against his chest, closed his eyes, the cold creeping in.

  What for?

  He listened to the music.

  Perhaps he should phone the number.

  No.

  Hope Beneke woke up and thought about Van Heerden—her very first thought was about Van Heerden.

  It surprised her.

  She swung her feet off the bed. The nightdress was warm and soft against her skin, against her body. She walked purposefully to the bathroom. She had a great deal to do. Saturdays… they had to be used.

  He phoned the number.

  “The Voice of Love. Good morning.”

  “Hallo,” he said.

  “Hi, sweetie. What can Monique do for you? What is your pleasure? You want to talk dirty to me?”

  “No.”

  “You want me to talk dirty to you?”

  “No.”

  “Can I ask you to do things to me?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what do you want, sweetie?”

  Silence.

  “Come on, sweetie, the meter is running.”

  “I want you to say something nice.”

  “Oh, God, it’s you again.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s been a while.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t do ‘nice,’ honey. I’ve told you before.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you very lonely?”

  “Yes.”

  “Poor baby.”

  “I have to go.”

  “You always do, sweetie.”

  He put down the telephone.

  Poor baby.

  16.

  I eventually lost my virginity in the early summer of my senior year.

  I don’t know how important these pieces are, should you want to piece together the jigsaw of my life. I didn’t develop an unquenchable passion for older women. But at least it was the beginning of Mozart and food and poetry and perhaps a general departure from the Louis L’Amour stage of my life. It was a start.

  All I knew about poetry in those years was what they taught us in school. And as you can imagine, Betta Wandrag’s poetry wasn’t prescribed reading by the Education Department. Because so many of my mother’s friends were well known, I had no concrete awareness of her fame. In any case, it was only when she published her third volume of verse, Body Language, that the Sunday papers created such a furor. But by then I had finished my training at the Police College.

  She was, at the time of the Great Event, somewhere in her late thirties, tall, her body no longer young, her hips broad, legs strong, her breasts ample, her hair long and thick and black and her eyes almost eastern, the corners downturned, her skin a dark, immaculate, faultless firmament. But it was only later that I stored these details in my memory bank, because for years she was just another weekend visitor from Johannesburg, another member of the adult circle of friends.

  A Friday evening. In Stilfontein. When something was released. The collective sigh of relief of ten thousand miners was almost tangible, giving a certain atmosphere to the town, a sense of expectation, a total discharge of tension, an energy focused, deliberately, on the hard work of enjoying oneself.

  My mother was in Cape Town and I was on the dark back veranda considering my dateless Friday evening. I just sat there, the way teenagers sometimes do, sat in a deck chair and stared at the dark, vaguely and uninterestedly aware of noises in the kitchen because Betta Wandrag, the visitor, was one of the people who, over weekends, balanced the scales of my mother’s lack of interest in the culinary arts. I can’t remember what the time was. It was dark, however. Somewhere, the deep bass boom of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” sounded on a radiogram, competing with Radio South Africa’s Concertina Club from another decibel-loaded direction. Most certainly there were the sounds of cars and insects, the exuberant appeal of young children playing cricket under the streetlights further down the road, a rubbish bin their wicket.

  I just sat.

  Until a new sound, furtive and almost inaudible, reached me, startlingly soft, and slow at first.

  “Aaa… aaa… aaa… aaa… aaa.”

  The first awareness of it was unidentifiable, a sound I deliberately had to separate from all the other instruments of the early-evening symphony, a musical question mark, a sonic puzzle that teased my ears and stimulated a primitive brain cell somewhere.

  It grew gradually louder.

  “Aaa… aaa… aaa… aaa… aaa.”

  Short, fitful cries, no, exclamations, rhythmic and carnal and deeply pleasurable. Until I caught it, until the sounds became a mental image, until a wonderful insight swept over me. Baby Marnewick. In her backyard. Fucking. Alfresco.

  Understanding came slowly and dramatically. With a complexity of perspectives. Someone was doing to the object of my many fantasies what I had yearned to do for so long. There was jealousy, e
nvy, hate. She was cheating on me. But there was also the magical, bewitching rapture of her total bliss and the complete abandonment to what she was doing. The tempo and the pitch of each “aaa” rose slightly, a bolero of love, a dance of pure, silver lust, on and on in flawless rhythm, a woman totally lost in the intensity of her body.

  I don’t know for how long Betta Wandrag stood in the kitchen doorway. I was completely unaware of her. My hand was in my shorts, mindlessly, instinctively massaging my body’s urgent reaction to the sexual symphony, my ears wide open to the sounds repeated over and over again beyond the wooden fence, “Aaa… aaa… aaa… ,” and then, rhythmically, a new sound crept into the cries, in the beginning contrapuntal to the end of an “aaa” stanza, later an integral part of Baby Marnewick’s love lyric. “Aaa… aaa… uh… aaa… aaa… aaa… uh,” now loudly and unabashed.

  Something happened in my head, a new peak of randiness, an unknown summit of desire, so that I, with closed eyes, masturbated quite openly on the back veranda, carried away, lost, and focused.

  Later Betta Wandrag told me that it was one of the most erotic scenes she had ever experienced. She added that she should beg my forgiveness, she hadn’t had the right to invade my privacy, but that she was incapable of stopping herself, the sounds and scene in front of her on the veranda—with a wooden spoon in one hand and wearing an apron, she knelt next to my chair, moved my hand gently away, and took me into her mouth.

  It would be arrogant to think that mere words can describe the surprise, the shock, and the pleasure. It is unnecessary to relive, in detail, what followed. Let me keep to the salient features of this watershed in my life.

  That night (and the whole of Saturday and most of the Sunday) Betta Wandrag initiated me with patience and compassion into the world of hedonism.

  First there was sex. Slowly she transformed my youthful urgency and unquenchable lust to patience and control. She revealed the secrets of a woman’s body to me like a gospel, educated me in the minor and major pleasures of women, gently corrected my mistakes, richly rewarded my successes. Somewhere in the middle of the Saturday night, after a long lesson in oral satisfaction, she got up and fetched writing materials, shamelessly sat cross-legged on the bed while I looked at her, and wrote the poem “For Z,” which would later form part of that notorious volume: