by Deon Meyer
The audience murmured their displeasure, but Donnie Branca was far from finished. He began to quote statistics of losses, every species a learned chorus in English, Afrikaans and Latin. The magnificent bearded vulture/lammergeier/Gypaetus barbatus, which historically nested in the mountains of Lesotho, was entirely extinct in that country. ‘Completely annihilated. Nothing left, not one, not a single bird.’ On the South African side of the border only nine breeding pairs remained. ‘Nine, ladies and gentlemen. Nine.’
I realised of whom the man reminded me. There had been a lay preacher in jail, a born-again armed robber from the Cape Flats by the name of Job Tieties. Bible in hand, he would preach at night, to himself and a handful of approving brothers. His voice carried through the cells with that same urgent, evangelistic fervour.
The Cape vulture/Kransaasvoel/Cryps coprotheres, once so numerous in Africa, was totally wiped out in Swaziland, on the critically endangered list in Namibia, and there remained only two thousand breeding pairs worldwide. ‘Two thousand. Imagine just two thousand people left in the whole world. Just try and imagine that. A century ago, there were one hundred thousand Cape vultures in South Africa. This incredible bird with a wingspan of two and a half metres that can spend the whole day gliding on the thermals over the African veld, covering seven hundred and fifty kilometres effortlessly – that’s the direct distance between Bloemfontein and Cape Town. Just two thousand breeding pairs left. A travesty, a tragedy, a disaster. Why? Why should we worry that they are disappearing, these disgusting, ugly, dirty birds?’
Because nature was a delicate piece of engineering, he said. It was God’s timepiece, where every little gear, every tiny spring, was of vital importance to keep perfect ecological time. ‘Allow me to explain: every vulture had its place, its function, its role to play. Different vultures consumed different parts of the carcass – the body and beak of each was adapted for a specific task. The hooded vulture/Monnikaasvoël/Necrosyrtes monachus would be the first to feed. Its sharper, smaller beak could rip open the hide of the dead animal. It would be a hurried affair in order to snatch a few strips of meat before the larger, dominant scavengers arrived. But it was indispensable; without it the others could not get at the innards.’
The Cape vultures were the riff-raff of carrion. Eternally soaring high above the African veld, they would look for the lions and hyenas, crows, ravens and jackals that would indicate a carcass was ready. Then, they would swoop down in huge flocks, spiralling towards the earth in wide circles and gathering in rowdy bunches close to the feeding ground to be sure it was safe. And so the maul would begin, the great scrum to get at the carcass. Its bald neck marked it as an internal feeder. The giant beak and strong tongue shaped like a trowel would tear out great chunks of meat – it could swallow a kilogram of carrion in three minutes.
‘But the king of the carcass is the lappet-faced vulture/Swar-taasvoël/Aegypius tracheliotos. It stands a metre high.’ He indicated with his hand above the ground. ‘It has a wingspan of almost three incredible metres, just about twice the size of any other vulture, and it does not take shinola from any of them. Lappets can travel up to one thousand, one hundred kilometres through the sky, arrive late at the carcass, and then dominate. But here’s the interesting thing: despite their size and their attitude, they don’t compete for food with other species, because they are specifically adapted to eat the skin and ligaments – and they are the only ones to do so. Isn’t that something?’
Heads nodded in wonder around us. I had to concede; he was good.
Nature wastes nothing, Donnie Branca said. There was even a vulture to clean up the bones: the lammergeier. Frequently, it would be first at a kill, but would wait nervously at the side until there were bones available. Small bits of bone would be swallowed whole: ‘it’s sometimes comical to see the bone go down sideways in the throat’. The lammergeier would take larger bones up into the air and drop them from a great height to shatter on the rocks, so that it could pick them up and swallow them.
‘If we poison them, if Escom’s power cables kill them when they dive into them, if the farmers shoot them or take away their breeding grounds, the ticking of God’s clock will stop. Not only for them, ladies and gentlemen, but also for all of nature. Rotting carcasses breed blowflies and disease, which spreads to mammals, reptiles and other birds. Often to human beings as well. Food chains get broken, the delicate balance is disturbed, and the whole system comes crashing down. That’s why we care for vultures at Mogale, that’s why we love them. That’s why we sit with poisoned birds through many nights to nurse them back to health, that’s why we detoxify them, mend their wings, feed them with great patience and release them back into the wild. You can’t breed them in captivity, but you can heal them, save the injured and the sick. You can go out and educate farmers and sangomas, talk to them, plead with them, explain to them that nature is a finite resource, a delicate, fragile instrument. But it takes facilities and manpower, training, food, dedication and focus. And all of these things cost money. We get no financial aid from the government. Mogale is a private initiative, kept alive by volunteers working long hours, seven days a week – and contributions from people like you. People who care, people who would like their children to see a Cape vulture spread its awesome wings and ride the African thermals ten, twenty, fifty years from now.’
Donnie Branca stopped for a short, meaningful moment. I was ready to give him money. ‘We also have breeding programmes for servals, wild dogs, leopards and cheetahs,’ said Branca. Beside me, Emma shook her head and said softly, ‘No.’
I looked at her in surprise. ‘Poor branding,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll explain later.’
Then Donnie Branca invited us to view the animals with him.
11
Emma stood in the big cage with a huge glove on her right hand, holding a strip of meat. The Cape vulture flew up from the ground with the noise of a spinning windmill and landed on the glove with extended talons. Its giant wings, spread wide for balance, dwarfed her, and it was so heavy that she had to support her outstretched arm with the other.
‘Hold that meat as tightly as you can,’ Donnie Branca said, but to no avail. The beak took hold of the strip and pulled it effortlessly from her grasp.
I stood behind the other visitors at the door to the cage, watching the childlike wonder on Emma’s face.
‘Jislaaik,’ she said, and the vulture flew off her hand, stroking her short hair with its long wing feathers. The crowd applauded.
Donnie Branca stood at the gate, just beyond the collection box, to thank the visitors and wish them goodbye. Emma made sure we were at the back. Branca smiled at her and put out a hand. ‘You were a real trooper with the feeding,’ he said.
‘Mr Branca.’ She shook his hand.
‘Call me Donnie.’ He liked her.
‘My name is Emma le Roux. I would like to talk to someone about Jacobus de Villiers.’
It took him a second to change gear. The perfect white teeth disappeared. ‘Cobie?’
‘Yes,’ said Emma.
Branca looked at her as if seeing her for the first time, with much-diminished interest. ‘Are you from the papers?’
‘I’m a consultant from Cape Town. Jacobus is my brother.’ She zipped open her handbag.
‘Your brother?’
Emma took out her photo. She handed it to Branca. He took it and studied it intently.
‘But Cobie … I thought…’ He passed the picture back to her. ‘I think you should talk to Frank.’
‘Frank?’
‘Frank Wolhuter. The manager.’
Frank Wolhuter’s office did not have air conditioning. It smelt strongly of animals, sweat and pipe tobacco. He got up and offered Emma his hand, blue eyes scanning her up and down. He was as sinewy as biltong, with ajan Smuts goatee and thick grey hair long in need of a trim. He introduced himself with the happy smile of a man expecting good news.
‘Emma le Roux, and this is Mr Lemmer.’
‘
Please, sit down. What can I do for you good people?’ He must have been well into his fifties, his face deeply lined with character built by a life in the sun and wind.
We sat.
‘I suspect Cobie de Villiers is my brother,’ Emma said.
The smile froze and then systematically crumbled. He stared at Emma and eventually said, ‘You suspect?’
‘I last saw him twenty years ago. I believed he was dead.’
‘Miss de Villiers …’
‘Le Roux.’
‘Of course. Mrs Le Roux …’
‘Miss.’
‘Le Roux is your maiden name?’
‘Le Roux was Jacobus’s surname too, Mr Wolhuter. It’s a long story …’
Frank Wolhuter slowly sank back into the worn brown leather chair. ‘Jacobus le Roux.’ He seemed to taste the name. ‘You must excuse me, but under the circumstances you may find me somewhat sceptical.’
Emma nodded and opened her handbag. There was no need to wonder why. The photograph appeared. She put it on the desk and pushed it towards Wolhuter. He put a hand in his shirt pocket and drew out a pair of reading glasses which he placed on the bridge of his nose. He took the photo and studied it at length. Outside, a rehabilitating lion roared in its pen. Birds screeched. It wasn’t unbearably hot inside, perhaps because the curtains were half closed. Emma watched Wolhuter patiently.
He put the photo down, took off the glasses, placed them on the table, pulled open a drawer and took out a pipe with a long straight stem. Next a box of matches. He bit the pipe stem between his teeth, struck a match and held it to the tobacco. He sucked the pipe alight with practised ease and blew smoke at the ceiling.
‘Ag, no,’ he said, and looked at Emma. ‘That’s not Cobie.’
‘Mr Wolhuter…’
‘Call me Frank.’
‘Did you know Jacobus when he was twenty?’ I was amazed at the tone of her voice, so reasonable and pleasant.
‘No.’ Sucking his pipe.
‘Can you say with absolute certainty that that is not his photograph?’
Wolhuter merely looked over his pipe at her.
‘That is all I’m after. Absolute certainty.’ She smiled at him. It was a pretty smile. I was sure he would not be able to resist it.
Frank Wolhuter worked on a big ball of smoke and then said, ‘Tell me your long story, Miss le Roux,’ but his eyes were narrowed, an unbeliever.
She said nothing about the attack. A smart move, since I hadn’t found it all that convincing. But this time she told her story in chronological order. Maybe she was learning. She began in 1986, the year her brother disappeared. And how, twenty years later, she saw a face on television and received a mysterious phone call. It was in the same hesitant style of incomplete sentences, as if even she didn’t totally believe in what she was saying. Maybe she wa too afraid to believe. When she had finished, Wolhuter passed the photo to Branca.
‘I’ve seen it,’ the younger man said.
‘And what do you think?’
‘There is a similarity.’
Wolhuter took the photo back. He looked at it again. Gave it back to Emma. He put the pipe back in the still-open drawer.
‘Miss le Roux …’
‘Emma.’
‘Emma, do you have an identity document with you?
A little frown. ‘Yes.’
‘May I see it?’
She glanced at me and then put her hand in her bag. She took out an ID book and gave it to Wolhuter. He opened it at the photo.
‘Do you have a business card?’
She hesitated again, but dug out her purse, snapped it open and brought out a visiting card. Wolhuter took it between his lean fingers and studied it. He looked at me. ‘You are Lemmer?’
‘Yes.’ I didn’t like his tone.
‘What is your interest in the matter?’
Emma drew in a breath to answer, but I was quicker. ‘Moral support.’
‘What is your profession?’
It was his manner which led me to make a mistake. I tried to be clever. ‘I am a builder.’
‘A builder, you say?’
‘I do up houses, mostly.’
‘Do you have a business card?’
‘No.’
‘And what do you intend to build here?’
‘Friendships.’
‘Are you a developer, Lemmer?’
‘A what?’
‘Frank …’ said Emma.
Wolhuter tried to silence her with a good-natured ‘Just a sec, Emmatjie…’, using the Afrikaans diminutive. Bad choice of words.
‘I am not Emmatjie.’ For the first time since I had met her, there was ice in her tone. I looked at her. Wolhuter and Branca looked at her. She sat up straight, cheeks lightly flushed. ‘My name is Emma. If you don’t like that, try Miss le Roux. Those are the only two acceptable options. Are we all clear?’
I wondered fleetingly why she needed a bodyguard.
Nobody said a word. Emma filled in the vacuum. ‘Lemmer is here because I asked him to be. I am here to find out whether Cobie de Villiers is my brother. That is all. And we shall do that with or without your help.’
12
Wolhuter raised a bony hand and slowly rubbed his goatee. Then his face eroded into a wary smile. ‘Emma,’ he said, with respect.
‘That’s right.’
‘You’re going to need that attitude. You have no idea what a wasp’s nest you’re sticking your head into.’
‘That’s what Inspector Jack Phatudi said too.’
Wolhuter gave Branca a meaningful look. Then he asked Emma, ‘When did you speak to him?’
‘This morning.’
‘What do you know about him?’
‘Nothing.’
Frank Wolhuter shifted his body forward and leaned his forearms on the desk. ‘Emma, I like you. But I see from your card that you are from Cape Town. This is another world from Cape Town. You won’t like me saying it, but let me tell you that Capetonians do not live in Africa. I know. Every year I go to Cape Town and it’s like visiting Europe.’
‘What has all this to do with Jacobus?’
‘I’ll get to that. First, let me paint you a picture of Limpopo, of the Lowveld, so you can understand the whole thing. This is still the old South Africa. No, that’s not entirely true. The mindset of everyone, black and white, is in the old regime, but all the problems are New South Africa. And that makes for an ugly combination. Racism and progress, hate and cooperation, suspicion and reconciliation … those things do not lie well together. And then there’s the money and the poverty, the greed.’
He picked up his pipe again, but did nothing with it.
‘You have no idea what’s going on here. Let me tell you about Inspector Jack Phatudi. He is from the Sibashwa tribe, important man, nephew to the chief. And by a mere coincidence the Sibashwa are in the middle of a big land claim. The acreage they want is part of the Kruger Park. And the Sibashwa are no great fans of Cobie de Villiers. Because Cobie is what some would call an activist. Not your usual greeny, your typical bunny-hugger. No. He doesn’t do protest marches or shout from a podium. He’s undercover, he’s quiet, he’s here and he’s there and you never see him. But he’s relentless, never gives up, never stops. He’ll listen, and he’ll eavesdrop, and he’ll take his pictures and make notes – and before you know it he knows everything. He’s the one with the evidence that the Sibashwa have already signed an agreement with a property developer. We’re talking hundreds of millions. So Cobie went and gave this information to the National Parks people and their lawyers, because he believed that if the Sibashwa’s land claim succeeded it would be the beginning of the end for Kruger. You can’t build a bunch of houses and think it’ll have no impact. You can’t …’
He cut himself short. ‘Don’t let me preach to you. The fact of the matter is, the Sibashwa don’t like Cobie. Even before this vulture affair he’s had trouble with them. Gin traps for leopards and wire snares for buck and their dogs forever runn
ing around and causing havoc. They know that it’s Cobie that reports them to the authorities, Cobie that shoots their dogs. They know him. They know what he’s like. That’s why they poisoned those vultures, because they knew someone would phone Cobie. It was an ambush. They wanted Cobie there so it would look as though he had shot those people, the sangoma and the poisoners. But it wasn’t Cobie. He couldn’t. He can’t kill anything.’
‘I know,’ said Emma, with feeling. ‘Then why is he hiding?’ The right question to ask.
‘The sangoma who was shot is Sibashwa. But they wanted him out of the way, because he was just as opposed to the development. He wasn’t stupid. He knew everything would change the minute the big money began to flow. It would be the end of their way of life, their culture and traditions. So how do you solve the problem? You get rid of Cobie and the sangoma, two birds with one stone. Why do you think all the witnesses to the shooting are Sibashwa?’
‘It’s all too convenient,’ said Branca.
‘Exactly,’ said Wolhuter. ‘How objective will Inspector Jack Phatudi be in his investigation? Assuming he’s not part of the whole thing in the first place. And why did they break into Cobie’s room the night before last? Why didn’t Jack Phatudi run up here with a search warrant? Because they’re looking for the copy of the developer’s contract. They want Cobie’s photographs and diaries, all his evidence. Not for the courts. They want it to disappear. Just like they want Cobie to disappear. They want to take Cobie out with a ridiculous accusation, and if they get that right, Donnie and I are next in line; because we oppose the claim and we know about the development. This land claims mess …’
He angrily picked up his matches as his voice rose.
‘Frank …’ said Branca soothingly as though he knew what to expect.
‘No, Donnie, I won’t keep quiet.’ He struck a match, sucked angrily on the pipe and looked at Emma through the smoke.
‘Do you know how many there are that want a piece of Kruger? Nearly forty. Forty bloody land claims against the game reserve. What for? So they can destroy that, too? Just go and see what the blacks have done with the farms they got here in the Lowveld. With their land claims. I’m not a racist, I’m talking facts. Go and have a look at what it looks like. It was prime land; successful, productive white farmers had to get off, and now it’s a wasteland, the people are dying of hunger. Everything is broken – the borehole pumps, the irrigation pipes, the tractors, the pick-ups, and all that money the government put in, gone. Wasted. And what do they do? They say “give us more” and they do nothing and half of them have moved back to where they lived before the whole thing started.’