Pale Horses

by Jassy Mackenzie

  It was then that she saw a lame man hauling himself along with the help of an old-fashioned wooden crutch. When he saw Jade indicating right, the grey-haired man leaned on his crutch and stuck out his thumb to ask for a lift.

  Jade didn’t have time to stop to help him. She knew that it was already going to be well after dark when she got home and, before it got too late, she wanted to try to locate Sonet’s sister, Zelda, if she could find an address for her in Randburg.

  Then, at the last minute, she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t drive past, staring straight ahead, leaving him to make his slow and painful way to the hospital, his damaged leg twisting awkwardly with every step he took and the crutch chafing the worn armpit of his shabby woollen jumper.

  She pulled over, having to brake so hard the Fiat almost skidded. The man limped over and climbed inside, manoeuvring his crutch into the cramped space with some difficulty.

  ‘Dankie,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ He stared at her for a moment and she saw that while one eye was bright and sharp, the pupil of the other was milky and unseeing. Then he looked down at his gnarled and work-worn hands. As she indicated to pull back onto the road, checking her wing mirror, Jade was alerted by a sudden movement. She looked round hurriedly and tensed as she saw that another man, in ragged jeans and a dark puffer jacket, had appeared out of nowhere and was running in the direction of her car. To her surprise and relief, he ran right past the vehicle without a second glance, and veered left off the road and down a stony path that was obviously a short cut to somewhere.

  Get a grip, Jade told herself. Stop being so damn jumpy. You’re giving an old man with a limp a lift. This is not a potential ambush situation.

  A few minutes later, Jade and her passenger were heading along a narrow road that crisscrossed its way over bridges spanning a deep, rocky gorge. Despite the badly potholed tarmac and the fact that the crash barriers, where they existed at all, were buckled and flimsy, the few other vehicles on the road – including a white Isuzu truck that had been tailgating her ever since she’d turned off the main road and which was followed by an ancient red minibus taxi – were all driving at high speed. With nowhere for her to pull over and a solid white line in the middle of the road, she had to keep her foot flat on the accelerator in order to prevent them from attempting seemingly suicidal overtaking manoeuvres.

  Her overriding impression was that the hospital was in an odd location. Although she could make out a small informal settlement nestled in the hills to the left, there was no other development nearby. No town, no industrial centre, no hub of agricultural activity. Just endless miles of land subjected to the constant punishment of the westerly wind.

  Who had built it here, she wondered. And why? Perhaps a lack of planning had played a part in its isolated location. Or maybe the hospital had been originally intended to form part of a node of development which, due to apathy on the part of the local authorities and/or the mysterious disappearance of the necessary funding, had never been completed.

  Slowing down where the road petered out, she saw a group of patients clustered in the shelter of two shrunken-looking thorn trees close to the entrance of the modest, low-roofed building that was the hospital.

  Two cars were parked in the lightly patterned shade of a third, bigger tree. Jade parked close by and waited for the old man to extract himself from the Fiat before locking it and making her way over to the entrance. Behind her, she heard the distinctive sound of a diesel engine as the Isuzu that had been behind her on the road pulled in and parked a few metres away. The driver, a white man, had his safari-suited elbow on the window frame and was talking into his cellphone, while his black passenger busied himself with watching the two women who had just got out of the taxi.

  Jade walked towards the hospital entrance. She could tell that talking to a doctor today was going to be difficult. It was mid-afternoon and there were still about thirty people waiting to be seen. Some were coughing, gaunt, listless. A few of the women had brought their children along. One wide-hipped lady had four children in tow, the oldest of whom couldn’t have been more than six years old. Presumably only one needed to see the doctor, but Jade supposed that all the others had had to come along simply because the woman had no people at home to look after them in her absence.

  The older two were playing a noisy game, jumping and shouting, tugging at the trailing tree branches and kicking up dust. The youngest one was wrapped tightly against his mother’s back in the woollen embrace of a large colourful shawl. He was fast asleep, while the other was dozing in her arms.

  Wondering if perhaps one of these people had any knowledge about the disappearing community, Jade quietly asked each one if they had heard of a man called Khumalo or of the Siyabonga community. Due to the language barrier in this rural area, the exercise was not as easy as she had hoped, because many of the patients waiting understood only rudimentary English, and to her shame, Jade’s knowledge of the local language was nonexistent. She ended up speaking the relevant words ‘Khumalo’ and ‘Siyabonga’ and watching for a reaction, but as she passed down the line, looking with some concern into face after tired face, there was none. No sign of recognition at the names nor, almost as importantly, any sign of fear. She was convinced that none of them were withholding information, and equally certain that nobody knew the Khumalo she was asking about.

  Finally, she walked into the hospital itself.

  In sharp contrast to the outside chill, inside the hospital it was warm. Noisy, too. Trolleys clattered across the uneven linoleum; the wind rattled a loose section of asbestos sheeting; and a chaos of voices emanated from behind flimsy partitions.

  There was no sign of a receptionist, only a harassed-looking nursing sister hefting a laundry basket crammed with stained sheets. She directed Jade to a small office containing an old wooden desk and three plastic chairs. Rather than sit on one of the decidedly grubby-looking chairs, Jade chose to stand. She waited, patiently at first and then less so. After a while she was ready to leave the room and go on a hunt for someone who could help her. All that stopped her from doing this was the thought of the patients outside, all of whom had been waiting far longer than her and for far more pressing reasons.

  David, of course, would have passed the time by pacing back and forth relentlessly, a habit that she considered a complete waste of energy. Instead, she reviewed the case information she’d jotted down in her notebook, rewrote everything more neatly on a new page, and added a summary of the conversation she’d had with the rider earlier in the afternoon.

  Jade de Jong – role model for time-efficient behaviour.

  She had just started going through her voicemail and text messages when a white-coated young woman passed by. She glanced into the room and, seeing Jade, she stopped and stuck her head through the doorway.

  ‘Can I help?’ she asked.

  She wore a stethoscope round her neck and had blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. Jade guessed she was in her mid-twenties, although the dark circles under her eyes and the gauntness of her face made her look older. The badge above her breast pocket read ‘Dr Harper’.

  ‘I came to find out about a patient who was treated here. A man called Khumalo.’

  A frown creased the doctor’s brow. ‘Khumalo? Do you have any other details? We see so many people every day …’

  ‘Not many, but I do know he was from the Siyabonga community in Doringplaas.’

  Was it Jade’s imagination, or did her words elicit a flicker of a reaction from the doctor?

  ‘Siyabonga? Yes, I think I remember that name. Do you know when he was treated?’

  ‘It would have been around a couple of months ago.’

  ‘So, fairly recently, then.’ The doctor looked down at her watch, which hung bangle-like from her sinewy wrist. She seemed harassed, as if she wished she hadn’t stopped to ask Jade what she needed.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  Thinking fast, Jade offered: ‘I’m trying to contact his wife. I
understand Khumalo was terminally ill. He did piece work for me every so often and I have some money for her for some late sales. I’d like to get it to her, if I can.’

  The doctor’s expression softened slightly. ‘I understand. The problem is our patient information is confidential. I can’t pass it on to you.’

  ‘But his records are here?’

  As she spoke, Jade watched the doctor carefully. Sure enough, the mention of records made the doctor’s eyes flick to the right.

  ‘They should be, yes. Sister Baloyi deals with patient records but unfortunately she’s off sick.’

  ‘Would you be able to pass on my details to Mrs Khumalo if you do find her husband’s records?’

  The doctor sighed. ‘I could do that, assuming there is a contact number for her. Leave your number on the desk. I’m really not sure when I’ll be able to get around to it though, because we’re snowed under right now, and as I said, Sister Baloyi is ill. If you could leave your details, please, and write down what information you need,’ she repeated, indicating the barren surface of the desk.

  Jade opened her notebook and made a show of rummaging in her pockets for a pen. By the time she looked up again, the doctor had gone.

  The woman was clearly overworked and if the relevant staff member was away, Jade didn’t hold out very much hope of her getting back with any information; at least, not within a time period that would be useful to Jade.

  She wrote out her name, cellphone number and the reason for her visit on the back of one of the sheets of paper on which she’d scribbled her original notes the first day she’d met Victor Theron. Then, after tearing it out and leaving it on the desk, she walked to the door and looked left and right, as if preparing to cross a busy road. In reality she was waiting for a moment when the corridor was empty.

  She was wondering whether she could use the hospital’s chaotic and understaffed situation to her advantage. It would be worth a try, she thought. And she knew the general location of the record office, because the doctor’s gaze had moved in that direction when it was mentioned.

  Jade tore another sheet from the notebook, this one blank. She folded it in half and left the room. Instead of heading for the exit, she turned right, holding the fake note between her thumb and forefinger as she made her way deeper into the clinic’s warm and stuffy interior.

  The clinic had a simple T-shaped layout. When Jade reached the junction, she paused to wait for a staff member approaching from the left. She didn’t have to wait long. Within seconds a nurse appeared, carrying one wailing toddler on her hip and tugging a slightly older but equally noisy one along by the hand.

  Jade took a step in her direction. ‘Doctor Harper asked me to leave this in the records office for Sister Baloyi,’ she said, holding the note up with an air of entitlement. ‘Could you tell me where it is?’

  ‘Down there at the end of the passage,’ the nurse said. She looked as if she wanted to ask why Jade wanted to know, but the toddler she was leading made a bid for freedom, tugging her hand out of the nurse’s grasp, and by the time she’d got hold of the child again, Jade had already walked down the passage and out of the nurse’s sight.

  The door that the sister had indicated was at the very end of the long corridor, and to Jade’s surprise it led outside. A path tracked to a steel Zozo hut a few metres away. At some past stage it must have been paved, but it was now a medley of cracked tiles and sprouting grass. The door was open just a crack. And if Jade had had any doubts that she was at the right place, the word ‘RECORDS’ painted on the door in bold white letters would have put them to rest.

  Jade gently tapped the door twice. There was no response.

  She glanced over her shoulder before she pushed the door open. Behind her, some distance away, she could see the now thankfully smaller group of patients clustered under the trees. Not one them was looking in her direction. She noticed, though, that her unexpected passenger was not among them, and found herself hoping that some form of triage system was in place and that he’d been seen early and not made to wait in line, leaning on his crutch, with his lame leg propped in front of him.

  Jade slipped inside and pushed the door closed behind her. She gripped the note tightly as if the piece of blank paper could somehow justify her presence in a room she had no right to be in, should she be discovered.

  The hut smelled of musty paper and old cardboard. A large pile of folders – some new, most dog-eared, all with loose pages jutting out from them – sat next to an ancient computer atop an enormous desk. The computer was turned off; its screen blank and grey.

  On the far wall was a bank of steel filing cabinets. Several of the drawers were partly open, allowing her to see rows and rows of yet more folders that had been crammed inside.

  The records office was not in chaos, but it was in disorder. It spoke of too many patients and too little time, of filing hurriedly done by exhausted interns at the end of an arduous working day. None of the drawers were labelled, although the files did have labels glued to their top right-hand corners. She opened one of the top drawers at random and found surnames starting with B. How much further along would K be? Guessing three cabinets’ worth, she headed for the fourth but stopped in her tracks when she heard a loud banging at the door.

  Two thoughts collided in her mind. First, why would any of the doctors knock before entering? Second, the noise she heard was too loud to have been made by a human hand. But it could well have been made by a long wooden crutch.

  The feeling of unease she’d had since turning down the road to the hospital grew suddenly bigger and darker.

  ‘He’s not who I thought he was …’

  At that moment the door was shoved open roughly.

  17

  Brandishing the crutch like a weapon, the lame man blocked the doorway. For a moment there was silence filled only by the drumming of Jade’s heart. To her immense relief, he lowered the crutch and nodded at her.

  ‘You come,’ he said. ‘Come this way and see.’

  ‘See what?’ Her voice sounded shaky. This could so easily have been a setup. Perhaps it still was.

  ‘Outside,’ he insisted. ‘You come now.’

  ‘Where?’

  The crippled man turned away without responding. He didn’t head back into the hospital as she had expected. Instead, leaning heavily on his crutch, he made his slow way back across the uneven ground towards the group of patients that was now reduced to a small knot of people.

  She noticed he had a small brown paper bag in his other hand. He’d obviously been to the dispensary.

  Jade left the Zozo hut and closed the door behind her. Stuffing the blank note into her jeans pocket, she took a couple of brisk steps to catch up with the stranger.

  ‘I look everywhere,’ he said. ‘Try to see you in there.’ Clamping his crutch impatiently under his shoulder, he jerked his thumb towards the hospital.

  ‘Why did you want to find me?’

  ‘I must show you this.’

  As they passed the group of waiting patients, Jade saw the woman with four children walking into the hospital, her noisy toddlers tagging behind her and the expression on her face one of unutterable relief that her turn had come.

  To Jade’s surprise, the man made his way over to her car. The shade had moved since she’d gone inside the hospital and her car was now bathed in the glow of the setting sun.

  Beyond it she saw an ancient-looking bakkie waiting to leave. The back was jam-packed with passengers, their combined weight so heavy that the exhaust pipe was almost trailing on the ground. When the driver saw the lame man, he hooted; the noise a tiny ‘parp’, as small as the car itself.

  Leaning on the bonnet of Jade’s car he held up his crutch, telling the driver to wait. He shuffled around the passenger side and for one perplexed moment she thought he expected her to drive him somewhere; that whatever he wanted to show her was not on the hospital’s premises.

  Instead, he banged his crutch on the ground and aimed the en
d at something she couldn’t see.

  Her confusion deepening, Jade walked reluctantly round the car.

  ‘Down there.’

  She followed his gaze; temporarily transfixed by the worn rubber tip of the crutch half buried in the sandy soil. Refocusing, when she saw where he was pointing, she stared at the wheel of the car in consternation.

  There was a two-inch gash in the tyre wall, a darkly gaping slit, just above ground level.

  The rubber hadn’t split all the way through. The canvas innards still held … for now. But without a doubt, the tyre would have burst once she was heading back along the narrow, potholed road that had brought her here.

  She thought of the buckled crash barriers that were all that separated the worn strip of tarmac from the rocky gorges below and shuddered.

  Her unexpected protector moved his crutch aside as she knelt down to examine the gash more closely.

  It was definitely a cut, not a split. The edges were too exact, she could see the ridge marks where a serrated knife had sawed its way through.

  With the sun nearly gone, the wind was stronger now, and colder. It scudded over the bare ground, lifting swirls of dust.

  The driver of the tiny bakkie hooted again. The noise wasn’t any louder but it was definitely more prolonged. The old man turned away from Jade’s car, his crutch scraping over the sandy soil.

  ‘Wait!’ Jade scrambled to her feet. Questions raced through her mind. Which one to ask first?

  But he could not wait. As yet another hoot sounded, he shuffled over to the back of the bakkie where the hands of the other passengers reached out to help him on board. The truck sagged even lower once he was in. Then, with a belch of grey exhaust smoke, it pulled away, juddering over the hard ground.

  ‘Thank you!’ Jade called after him, hoping he could hear her. ‘Thank you for showing me!’

  With the bakkie gone, she let out a deep breath.

  And at some stage during this cloudless, chilly afternoon, somebody had cut into her tyre and somebody else – a child at play, perhaps – had seen them do it.