Blood Safari

by Deon Meyer

  ‘But I began to see things. I had a new perspective, because for the first time in over thirteen years I was a civilian again. The Man on the Street.

  ‘I saw the new wealth. I saw the new consumerism, the frenzied buying of brands and status and just-because-I-want-it. I saw it in everyone. White, black and brown. Did they want to hide the past behind a wall of possessions? Or was it the present they wanted to hide?

  ‘The biggest surprise was the new urban aggression, an attitude of “I’ll take what I want”, of “don’t stand in my way”. I noticed it on the roads first, the lack of consideration. The absence of the chivalrous, the charitable, the community spirit. Lawlessness too, as though there were no rules any more. Or rather as if the rules were not for everyone. Driving through red lights. Driving slowly in the right lane – or fast in the left. Cell phones to ears on the freeway, and the glare they gave you of “just try and say something”. As though this country had become a place where you did as you pleased, took what you could before it all went to hell. Or before someone else took it.

  ‘And the moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth. Everyone was unhappy, irrespective of race, colour or creed. Unhappy with the government, with each other, with themselves. Everyone pointing fingers, blaming, complaining.

  ‘I couldn’t understand it. The Russians and the Romanians and the Bosnians would collect their children after the evening karate class and they would say, “This is a wonderful country. This is the land of milk and honey.” But the South Africans complained. They drove smart cars, lived in big houses and seafront flats, they ate in restaurants and bought big flat-screen TVs and designer clothes, yet no one was happy and it was always someone else’s fault.

  ‘The whites complained about affirmative action and corruption, but they forget that they had benefited from the same for fifty or sixty years. The blacks blamed apartheid for everything. But it was already six years since it had been abolished.

  ‘The loneliness. In the evening I would walk down the passage in my block of flats to my door, following the pizza man, who was delivering boxes to lonely fat women who opened their doors with frightened eyes and who ate alone while looking for friends on TV. Or the Internet. In the morning a woman would occasionally invite me for coffee and then would sit and tell me how lonely her marriage was. Sometimes I was lonely enough to relieve their need. But then they would stop coming. That’s when I formulated Lemmer’s Law of Lonely Moms.

  ‘I knew something was going to happen. Not a conscious knowing, just a vague premonition. A city sucks you in systematically, changes you, squeezes and polishes you, so you become like the rest. Lonely, aggressive and selfish. Also, you are aware of who you are on a certain level, of the things that lie dormant inside. The things you are capable of, the things that being a state bodyguard had channelled and suppressed. But you don’t think about them or talk about them, you are just aware of the tension, a growing unease.

  ‘You must think I’m rationalising, Emma. You must think I’m making excuses. I did what I did; I can’t get away from that. I sat in front of my lawyer, a big man by the name of Gustav Kemp, and I tried to explain to him why it wasn’t my fault. He said, “Kak, man. You play the hand life deals you and you take your punishment like a man.” He gave me a day to think it over, and if I still thought I was innocent he would organise another lawyer to represent me.

  ‘He remained my lawyer.

  ‘So what happened had to happen. Sooner or later. In prison I thought about that day a lot, how I should have seen it coming, all the signs were there. In me. In other people’s eyes when they bump into you on the pavement or give you the finger in traffic.

  ‘But hindsight is always perfect vision. We are like the proverbial frog in water that keeps heating up.

  ‘That evening …

  ‘I had to go to Bellville for a JKA grading meeting. I was in a hurry after the karate class. I showered and changed and ran down the Virgin Active steps to my car. There were four of them busy with Demetru Niculescu, one of my students. He was a Romanian, fifteen years old with bad acne and a floppy fringe. The men were between twenty-two and twenty-five, that smartass age when you are nobody, but know everything. Four whites with gym-built muscles and a gang mentality who were taunting Demetru.

  ‘“Show us some moves, karate kid.”

  ‘“Hey, nice pimples, dude. Grow them in the dark like mushrooms?”

  ‘When Demetru opened his mouth they homed in on his accent.

  ‘“Where the fuck are you from?”’

  ‘“Seapoint.”

  ‘“Bullshit, dude. What’s your nationality?”

  ‘“South African.”

  ‘“Your daddy in the Russian mafia?”

  ‘That was all I heard. I said, “Leave the kid alone.”

  ‘“Whoo, it’s the karate master. Now I’m scared.”

  ‘“Go home, Demetru.”

  ‘He left, relieved.

  ‘The biggest one heard my accent. “Hey, Dutchman, are you going to show us some moves?”

  ‘I walked away. He followed me. “I’m talking to you, Dutchman.” The others shouted, “Chickening out? We won’t hurt you, Chop Suey.”

  ‘I heard the big one’s footsteps behind me. I knew if he touched me there would be trouble. He followed me right into the car park. I felt his hand on my shoulder and I turned and there he was up close, taller and bigger, and I was ready, really ready.

  ‘I said to him, “I will kill you,” and I knew and he knew it was the truth.

  ‘Something shifted in his eyes, I saw the flicker of fear. That’s what stopped me at that moment. I hadn’t expected that. But I suppose it was also what made him drive after me, that moment when he lost face.

  ‘So I turned away, got into my car and drove off. Never even looked back.

  ‘I wanted to go through the Waterfront to save time. There was traffic at the circle near the BMW Pavilion, a long queue. I felt another car bump me from behind. Not hard. A nudge. Then I saw them in the mirror, in a Volkswagen Golf GTi. They shouted and gestured. So I got out.

  ‘I should never have got out, Emma. I should have kept on driving.

  ‘They got out too.

  ‘“We’re talking to you, arsehole.”

  ‘“Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  ‘“Fucking hairy back cunt.”

  ‘The big guy was the driver of the Golf. Vincent Michael Kelly. Vince. Twenty-four years old, an articled clerk at KPMG. One point nine metres tall, ninety-five kilograms. I would learn all that in court.

  ‘I inspected the rear end of my car. There was no damage.

  ‘“Hey, he’s talking to you.”

  ‘All four approached. Vince came up to me. “Got a hearing problem, rock spider?” He shoved me in the chest. There was only bravado showing in his eyes now.

  ‘Steroids were mentioned during the court case, but we couldn’t prove anything. I think they did it because there were four of them, because they were young and strong. I was shorter and smaller than them. It creates a visual illusion. But I think it was because at the gym Vince was momentarily not the man he thought he was. He had come so that he wouldn’t have to live with that moment.

  ‘He pushed me and I hit him. Not hard. Just enough to bring him to his senses. But it didn’t. Then the others pitched in. I tried, Emma. Part of me knew what would happen if I let go. I tried. But we are what we are. That’s what I learnt, that night. It doesn’t matter what they say, it doesn’t matter how hard the prison psychologists try, we are what we are.

  ‘That’s why I moved to Loxton, Emma. That’s why I went looking for a tribe of my own. I had to avoid these situations. Try and avoid the possibility of trouble. If I had to stand in that street at the circle, if they came at me again, I would do exactly the same, go to that place, that other world.

  ‘If it had been just one guy, I wouldn’t have lost myself. Not even then. But there’s something about two or three or four that gives you new rights, at
least in your own mind. Switches off the warning lights. And there was this frustration too, about who I am and where I came from and thirteen years of repression.

  ‘I let it all loose.

  ‘The big one, Vincent, he …’

  Even though she could not hear, would not remember, I chose my words carefully. ‘He died,’ I said. ‘They charged me with manslaughter. With extenuating circumstances. A six-year sentence. I did four.’

  For a long time I sat beside the bed without speaking. Ten, maybe twenty minutes.

  Aware of what went unsaid.

  Vince falling and hitting his head against the Golf. I had hit him, in rage and hate, with everything I had. Three, four, five times. He whiplashed backwards and the back of his head had connected with the right front corner of the car. I can still hear the sound, that hollow, hard, clear sound.

  He was in a coma for four days. Brain damage. Kemp used words like parietal and epidural haematoma with great disapproval. And then Vince died.

  And the other thing. The thing I had not told Kemp, the lawyer, or the judge, not anyone.

  How sweet it was.

  Those moments, those minutes when I released myself, when I could kick and hit, could inflict hurt, could break and bliksem, that was where I belonged. When I killed Vince and hammered the other three until they begged for mercy, the tumblers of the universe were lining up perfectly. I felt at one with the world, whole and complete, good and right. It’s a terrible thing. It intoxicates. It’s addictive.

  And so terribly sweet.

  26

  Dr Eleanor Taljaard came and chased me out just after twelve. She looked rested and professional. ‘I have work to do here and it’s lunchtime. Koos is waiting for you in the restaurant. Maggie left a message. It’s in your room. You can come back at two.’

  ‘OK, Eleanor.’

  ‘You did well.’

  Had I?

  The restaurant was full. ‘Sunday,’ said Dr Koos Taljaard. ‘Conscience day. They visit the sick.’

  Over a meal of tasteless chicken schnitzel with cheese sauce he told me they had been in Nelspruit for sixteen years – at the Provincial Hospital first, then the SouthMed Clinic.

  ‘In all those years we never had a patient falling off a train because of a bullet wound.’

  I just looked at him and carried on chewing.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘Someone was angry with us.’

  ‘But why? What could make someone so angry?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He looked at me in disbelief. ‘It’s true,’ I said.

  ‘People don’t usually react like that,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’ The question was: who did? And why?

  In my room there was another typed letter from Maggie T. Padayachee. And a car key.

  Dear Mr Lemmer

  Budget Car Rental has delivered a silver Audi A4 for you. It is parked near the gate.

  Also, a Ms Jeanette Louw called and requested that you kindly return her call at your convenience – on her cellular phone.

  Very best wishes

  Maggie T. Padayachee

  Client Services Manager

  I phoned Jeanette. ‘Thanks for the car.’

  ‘A pleasure. They tell me her condition has improved.’

  ‘That’s what they say.’

  ‘And you? How do you feel today?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’

  ‘The flights are full, Lemmer. The entire country is flying off somewhere for New Year. We can only come tomorrow.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘I’m bringing Fikter and Minnaar.’

  ‘Oh.’ Not usual for her to come. She heard my surprise.

  ‘You know what the Cape is like in the holidays. Full of Gautengers and foreigners. I haven’t been to the Lowveld for a long time.’

  ‘What time are you coming?’

  ‘We’ll be there by lunchtime. I’m bringing your Christmas present. I hope it’s what you wanted.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s the least I can do.’

  Strange thing to say, I thought.

  ‘She’s stable enough to do the scans this afternoon,’ Eleanor Taljaard said when I was back at the intensive care unit by two o’clock. ‘You’re on duty until four.’

  I sat down. Emma was still pale and wan under the sheets.

  ‘Hello, Emma.’

  They had replaced the bag of fluid dripping into her vein. It hung fat and transparent above her bed.

  ‘I went for lunch. Chicken schnitzel. It wasn’t Mohlolobe’s standard. Then I phoned Jeanette Louw. They’ll be here tomorrow, she and two bodyguards. They will look after you here, Emma. Until I’ve finished.’

  Finished. Finished what? I hadn’t the faintest idea where to begin. Sitting here beside a woman I barely knew, with the urge to smash someone’s head in, and I had no idea how I was going to do it.

  I wanted to go and lie on my bed, shut my eyes and think about where Emma and I had been, about every little thing that had happened. I hadn’t believed her when I should have. Not listened, not looked, nor paid attention. Now there were things in my head, things that didn’t quite make sense, but I couldn’t get a grip on them. Like soap in the bath, they slipped out of my grasp when I closed my hand on them. I must think. The whole thing just didn’t make sense. Not enough to kill Emma le Roux. What had she done to cause that? What evil had she interfered in?

  Gloves? In summer? In the Lowveld? Gloves and balaclavas, but the sniper had not worn them.

  In Cape Town there had been three, but all three were covered then. Had they also worn gloves? Understandable, since they didn’t want to leave fingerprints. But in the veld?

  Why only yesterday? Why had they waited? Did they have to come up from the Cape first?

  I tried to arrange the events in sequence. Emma said the news report about Cobie de Villiers had been two days before they attacked her in the Cape. Three days before Christmas. The twenty-second. Saturday, 22 December.

  Two days. Why the delay between the call to Phatudi and the attack in the Cape? What did it mean?

  We had arrived here on 26 December. One, two, three, four days before the ambush.

  Did it mean anything?

  I must talk to Emma. I couldn’t just sit here and think. She must hear my voice.

  Where was I last? Jeanette. On her way.

  ‘Jeanette …’ I said.

  ‘I had been in Loxton for two months when the phone rang. It was Jeanette Louw asking if I was looking for work.

  ‘I hadn’t much in the bank. I had sold the flat in Seapoint for a big profit, but my legal fees and buying the AI Qaeda house ate up most of it. So I asked, “What kind of work?” and she explained.

  ‘I asked her how she knew about me and she said, “There are one or two of your old colleagues who speak well of you.”

  ‘“I’ve just come out of jail.”

  ‘“I don’t want to marry you, I want to offer you a job.” Then she explained how it worked, how much she paid and, “You should know, I’m a lesbian and I don’t take shit from anyone. When I call, you come. Immediately. If you get up to shit, I’ll fire your butt. Immediately. But I never drop my people. Are you interested?”

  ‘So I accepted, because I looked around my house and I knew how much needed to be done. I hadn’t even begun to break down and rebuild. The place was empty. I had a bed and a table in the kitchen with two chairs. I bought the table in Victoria West at an auction and I got the two chairs from Antjie Barnard as a present.

  ‘Antjie. Now there’s a character. I called her “Tannie”, “Aunt”, showing respect for one’s elders, and she threatened to hit me with her walking stick.

  ‘That’s another story. Antjie Barnard came knocking on my door in Loxton, four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. She was wearing big walking boots and a wide-brimmed hat. She said, “I’m Antjie Barnard and I want to know who you are.” She was sixty-seven then and yo
u could see she was a lovely woman, beautiful perhaps when she was young, green eyes of an unusual shade, like the sea at the South Pole. She put out her hand and I shook it and said, “Lemmer. Pleased to meet you, Tannie.”

  ‘“Tannie? Tannie? Am I married to your uncle?” The walking stick lifted ready to beat me. “My name is Antjie.”

  ‘“Antjie.”

  ‘“That’s right. What do I call you?”’

  “Lemmer.”

  ‘“Right then, Lemmer, stand aside so I can come in. You have coffee, I expect.”

  ‘I told her, “I don’t have chairs.”

  ‘“Then we will sit on the floor.”

  ‘And we did, coffee mugs in hand. She pulled out a packet of long cigarettes, offered one to me and asked, “What is a man like you doing in Loxton?”

  ‘“Not for me, I don’t smoke.”

  ‘“I hope to God you drink,” she said, and lit one for herself with a slender electronic lighter.’

  ‘“Not really.”

  “Not really?”

  ‘“Actually, I don’t drink at all.”

  ‘“Sex?”

  ‘“I like sex.”

  ‘“Thank God. A person must have a sin. Not bad sins, Lemmer. Good sins. Otherwise you don’t live. Life is too short.”’

  “What are the good sins?”

  ‘“Gossip. Eating. Smoking. Drinking. Sex. What do I do with this ash?”

  ‘I fetched her a saucer. When I came back she asked, “Was it a good sin that brought you to Loxton?”’

  “No.”

  ‘“Was there a woman involved? Children?”’

  “No.”

  ‘“Then it doesn’t matter. We all have our secrets and that’s fine.”

  ‘I wondered what her secret was.

  ‘Two weeks later she came knocking again, this time late on a Tuesday. “Bring your pick-up, I’ve got some chairs for your table.” We drove to her house, a perfectly restored Victorian Karoo house with white walls and a green roof. The furniture inside was tastefully antique. Down the passage was a row of black-and-white photographs of Antjie Barnard and her life. I looked at them and she said, “I was a cellist.” An understatement, because the images in frames told a story of an international career.