by Deon Meyer
“Jissis, Anna.” He reached a hand out to her, saw how it shook, the drunkenness still not expelled from his body. When he tried to put his hand on her shoulder, she moved away from his touch, and that’s when he noticed the small swelling on her lip, already beginning to turn the color of wine.
“It’s over. Seventeen years. That’s enough. It’s more than anyone could ask.”
“Anna, I . . . it was the drink, you know I didn’t mean it. Please, Anna, you know that’s not me.”
“Your son helped you off that chair last night, Benny. Do you remember? Do you know what you said to him? Do you remember how you cursed and swore, until your eyes rolled back in your head? No, Benny, you can’t — you can never remember. Do you know what he said to you, your son? When you were lying there with your mouth open and your stinking breath? Do you know?” Tears were close, but she suppressed them.
“What did he say?”
“He said he hates you.”
He absorbed that. “And Carla?”
“Carla locked herself in her room.”
“I’ll talk to them, Anna, I’ll make it right. They know it’s the work. They know I am not like that . . .”
“No, Benny.”
He heard the finality in her voice and his heart contracted. “Anna, no.”
She would not look at him. Her finger traced the swelling on her lip and she walked away from him. “That is what I tell them every time: it’s the work. He’s a good father, it’s just his work, you must understand. But I don’t believe it anymore. They don’t believe it anymore . . . Because it is you, Benny. It is you. There are other policemen who go through the same things every day, but they don’t get drunk. They don’t curse and shout and break their stuff and hit their wives. It’s finished now. Completely finished.”
“Anna, I will stop, you know I have before. I can. You know I can.”
“For six weeks? That is your record. Six weeks. My children need more than that. They deserve more than that. I deserve better than that.”
“Our children . . .”
“A drunk can’t be a father.”
Self-pity washed over him. The fear. “I can’t help it, Anna. I can’t help it, I am weak, I need you. Please, I need you all — I can’t go on without you.”
“We don’t need you anymore, Benny.” She stood up and he saw the two suitcases on the floor behind her.
“You can’t do that. This is my house.” Begging.
“Do you want us on the street? Because it is either you or us. You can choose, because we will no longer live under the same roof. You have six months, Benny — that is what we are giving you. Six months to choose between us and the booze. If you can stay dry you can come back, but this is your last chance. You can see the children on Sundays, if you want. You can knock on the door and if you smell of drink I will slam it in your face. If you are drunk you needn’t bother to come back.”
“Anna . . .” He felt the tears welling up in him. She could not do this to him; she did not know how dreadfully hard it was.
“Spare me, Benny, I know all of your tricks. Shall I carry your suitcases outside, or will you take them yourself?”
“I need to shower, I must wash, I can’t go out like this.”
“Then I will carry them myself,” she said, and took a suitcase in each hand.
There was an atmosphere of faint despair in the detective’s office. Files lay about in untidy heaps, the meager furniture was worn out and the outdated posters on the walls made hollow claims about crime prevention. A portrait of Mbeki in a narrow, cheap frame hung askew. The floor tiles were a colorless gray. A dysfunctional fan stood in one corner, dust accumulated on the metal grille in front of the blades.
The air was thick with the oppressive scent of failure.
Thobela sat on a steel chair with gray-blue upholstery and the foam protruding from one corner. The detective stood with his back to the wall. He was looking sideways out of the grimy window at the parking area. He had narrow, stooped shoulders and gray patches in his goatee.
“I pass it on to Criminal Intelligence at Provincial Headquarters. They put it on the national database. That’s how it works.”
“A database for escapees?”
“You could say so.”
“How big would this database be?”
“Big.”
“And their names just sit there on a computer?”
The detective sighed. “No, Mr. Mpayipheli — the photos, criminal records, the names and addresses of families and contacts are part of the file. It is all sent along and distributed. We follow up what we can. Khoza has family in the Cape. Ramphele’s mother lives here in Umtata. Someone will call on them . . .”
“Are you going to Cape Town?”
“No. The police in the Cape will make inquiries.”
“What does that mean, ‘make inquiries’?”
“Someone will go and ask, Mr. Mpayipheli, if Khoza’s family has heard anything from him.”
“And they say ‘no’ and then nothing happens?”
Another sigh, deeper this time. “There are realities you and I cannot change.”
“That is what black people used to say about apartheid.”
“I think there is a difference here.”
“Just tell me, what are the chances? That you will catch them?”
The detective pushed away from the wall, slowly. He dragged out a chair in front of him and sat with his hands clasped. He talked slowly, like someone with a great weariness. “I could tell you the chances are good, but you must understand me correctly. Khoza has a previous conviction — he has done time: eighteen months for burglary. Then the armed robbery at the garage, the shooting . . . and now the escape. There is a pattern. A spiral. People like him don’t stop; their crimes just become more serious. And that’s why chances are good. I can’t tell you we will catch them now. I can’t tell you when we will catch them. But we will, because they won’t stay out of trouble.”
“How long, do you think?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Guess.”
The detective shook his head. “I don’t know. Nine months? A year?”
“I can’t wait that long.”
“I am sorry for your loss, Mr. Mpayipheli. I understand how you feel. But you must remember, you are only one victim of many. Look at all these files here. There is a victim in every one. And even if you go and talk to the PC, it will make no difference.”
“The PC?”
“Provincial commissioner.”
“I don’t want to talk to the provincial commissioner. I am talking to you.”
“I have told you how it is.”
He gestured towards the document on the table and said softly: “I want a copy of the file.”
The detective did not react immediately. A frown began to crease his forehead, possibilities considered.
“It’s not allowed.”
Thobela nodded his head in comprehension. “How much?”
The eyes measured him, estimating an amount. The detective straightened his shoulders. “Five thousand.”
“That is too much,” he said, and he stood up and started for the door.
“Three.”
“Five hundred.”
“It’s my job on the line. Not for five hundred.”
“No one will ever know. Your job is safe. Seven-fifty.”
“A thousand,” he said hopefully.
Thobela turned around. “A thousand. How long will it take to copy?”
“I will have to do it tonight. Come tomorrow.”
“No. Tonight.”
The detective looked at him, his eyes not quite so weary now. “Why such a hurry?”
“Where can I meet you?”
The poverty here was dreadful. Shacks of planks and corrugated iron, a pervasive stink of decay and uncollected rubbish. Paralyzing heat beat upwards from the dust.
Mrs. Ramphele chased four children — two teenagers, two toddlers — out of th
e shack and invited him to sit down. It was tidy inside, clean but hot, so that the sweat stained his shirt in great circles. There were schoolbooks on a table and photos of children on the rickety cupboard.
She thought he was from the police and he did not disillusion her as she apologized for her son, saying he wasn’t always like that; he was a good boy, misled by Khoza and how easily that could happen here, where no one had anything and there was no hope. Andrew had looked for work, had gone down to the Cape, he had finished standard eight and then he said he couldn’t let his mother struggle like this, he would finish school later. There was no work. Nothing: East London, Uitenhage, Port Elizabeth, Jeffreys Bay, Knysna, George, Mossel Bay, Cape Town . . . Too many people, too little work. Occasionally he sent a little money; she didn’t know where it came from, but she hoped it wasn’t stolen.
Did she know where Andrew would go now? Did he know people in the Cape?
Not that she knew.
Had he been here?
She looked him in the eye and said no, and he wondered how much of what she had said was the truth.
They had erected the gravestone. Pakamile Nzululwazi. Son of Miriam Nzululwazi. Son of Thobela Mpayipheli. 1996–2004. Rest in Peace.
A simple stone of granite and marble set in the green grass by the river. He leaned against the pepper tree and reflected that this was the child’s favorite place. He used to watch him through the kitchen window and see the small body etched here, on his haunches, sometimes just staring at the brown water flowing slowly past. Sometimes he had a stick in his hand, scratching patterns and letters in the sand — and he would wonder what Pakamile was thinking about. The possibility that he was thinking of his mother gave him great pain, because it was not something he could fix, not a pain he could heal.
Occasionally he would try to talk about it, but carefully, because he did not want to open the old wound. So he would ask: “How are things with you, Pakamile?” “Is something worrying you?” or “Are you happy?” And the boy would answer with his natural cheerfulness that things were good, he was so very happy, because he had him, Thobela, and the farm and the cattle and everything. But there was always the suspicion that that was not the whole truth, that the child kept a secret place in his head where he would visit his loss alone.
Eight years, during which a father had abandoned him, and he had lost a caring mother.
Surely that could not be the sum total of a person’s life? Surely that could not be right? There must be a heaven, somewhere . . . He looked up at the blue sky and wondered. Was Miriam there among green rolling hills to welcome Pakamile? Would there be a place for Pakamile to play and friends and love? All races together, a great multitude, all with the same sense of justice? Waters beside which to rest. And God, a mighty black figure, kingly, with a full gray beard and wise eyes, who welcomed everyone to the Great Kraal with an embrace and gentle words, but who looked with great pain over the undulating landscape of green sweet veld at the broken Earth. Who shook his head, because no one did anything about it because they were all blind to His Purpose. He had not made them like that.
Slowly he walked up the slope to the homestead and stood again to look.
His land, as far as he could see.
He realized that he no longer wanted it. The farm had become useless to him. He had bought it for Miriam and Pakamile. It had been a symbol then, a dream and a new life — and now it was nothing but a millstone, a reminder of all the potential that no longer existed. What use was it to own ground, but have nothing?
6.
From the second-story flat in Mouille Point you could see the sea if you got the angle from the window right. The woman lay in the bedroom and Detective Inspector Benny Griessel stood in the living room looking at the photos on the piano when the man from Forensics and the scene photographer came in.
Forensics said: “Jesus, Benny, you look like shit,” and he answered: “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“What have we got?”
“Woman in her forties. Strangled with the kettle cord. No forced entry.”
“That sounds familiar.”
Griessel nodded. “Same MO.”
“The third one.”
“The third one,” Griessel confirmed.
“Fuck.” Because that meant there would be no fingerprints. The place would be wiped clean.
“But this one is not ripe yet,” said the photographer.
“That’s because her char comes in on Saturdays. We only found the others on Monday.”
“So he’s a Friday-night boy.”
“Looks like it.”
As they squeezed past him to the bedroom, Forensics sniffed theatrically and said, “But something smells bad.” Then he said in a lower voice, familiarly, “You ought to take a shower, Benny.”
“Do your fucking job.”
“I’m just saying,” he said, and went into the bedroom. Griessel heard the clips of their cases open and Forensics say to the photographer: “These are the only girls I see naked nowadays. Corpses.”
“At least they don’t talk back,” came the response.
A shower was not what Griessel needed. He needed a drink. Where could he go? Where would he sleep tonight? Where could he stash his bottle? When would he see his children again? How could he concentrate on this thing? There was a bottle store in Sea Point that opened in an hour.
Six months to choose between us and the booze.
How did she think he would manage it? By throwing him out? By putting yet more pressure on him? By rejecting him?
If you can stay dry you can come back, but this is your last chance.
He couldn’t lose them, but he couldn’t stay dry. He was fucked, totally fucked. Because if he didn’t have them, he wouldn’t be able to stop drinking — couldn’t she understand that?
His cell phone rang.
“Griessel.”
“Another one, Benny?” Senior Superintendent Matt Joubert. His boss.
“It’s the same MO,” he said.
“Any good news?”
“Not so far. He’s clever, the fucker.”
“Keep me informed.”
“I will.”
“Benny?”
“Yes, Matt?”
“Are you okay?”
Silence. He could not lie to Joubert — they had too much history.
“Come and talk to me, Benny.”
“Later. Let me finish up here first.”
It dawned on him that Joubert knew something. Had Anna . . .
She was serious. This time she had even phoned Matt Joubert.
He rode the motorbike to Alice, to see the man who made weapons by hand. Like their ancestors used to.
The interior of the little building was gloomy; when his eyes had adjusted to the poor light, he looked through the assegais that were bundled in tins, shafts down, shiny blades pointing up.
“What do you do with all of these?”
“They are for the people with tradition,” said the graybeard, his hands busy shaping a shaft from a long sapling. The sandpaper rasped rhythmically up and down, up and down.
“Tradition,” he echoed.
“They are not many now. Not many.”
“Why do you make the long spears too?”
“They are also part of our history.”
He turned to the bundle with shorter shafts. His finger stroked the blades — he was looking for a certain form, a specific balance. He drew one out, tested it, replaced it and took another.
“What do you want to do with an assegai?” asked the old man.
He did not immediately reply, because his fingers had found the right one. It lay comfortable in his palm.
“I am going hunting,” he said. When he looked up there was great satisfaction in the eyes of the graybeard.
“When I was nine, my mother gave me a set of records for my birthday. A box of ten seven-inch singles and a book with pictures of princesses and good fairies. There were stories on them and every st
ory had more than one ending — three or four each. I don’t know exactly how it worked, but every time you listened to them, the needle would jump to one of the endings. A woman told the stories. In English. If the ending was unhappy I would play it again until it ended right.”
She wasn’t sure why she had brought this up and the minister said: “But life doesn’t work that way?”
“No,” she said, “life doesn’t.”
He stirred his tea. She sat with her cup on her lap, both feet on the floor now, and the scene was like a play she was watching: the woman and the clergyman in his study, drinking tea out of fine white porcelain. So normal. She could have been one of his congregation: innocent, seeking guidance for her life. About a relationship perhaps? With some young farmer? He looked at her in a paternal way and she knew: he likes me, he thinks I’m okay.
“My father was in the army,” she said.
He sipped his tea to gauge the temperature.
“He was an officer. I was born in Upington; he was a captain then. My mother was a housewife at first. Later on she worked at the attorneys’ office. Sometimes he was away on the Border for long stretches, but I only remember that vaguely, because I was still small. I am the oldest; my brother was born two years after me. Gerhard. Christine and Gerhard van Rooyen, the children of Captain Rooies and Mrs. Martie van Rooyen of Upington. The Rooies was just because of his surname. It’s an army thing; every other guy had a nickname. My father was good looking, with black hair and green eyes — I got my eyes from him. And my hair from my mother, so I expect to go gray early — blonde hair does that. There are photos from when they were married, when she also wore her hair long. But later she cut it in a bob. She said it was because of the heat, but I think it was because of my father.”
His eyes were on her face, her mouth. Was he listening, really hearing her? Did he see her as she was? Would he remember later, when she revealed her great fraud? She was quiet for a moment, lifting the cup to her lips, sipping, saying self-consciously: “It will take a long time to tell you everything.”
“That is one thing we have lots of here,” he said calmly. “There is lots of time.”
She gestured at the door. “You have a family and I —”