by Deon Meyer
“They know I am here and they know it’s my work.”
“Perhaps I should come back tomorrow.”
“Tell your story, Christine,” he said softly. “Get it off your chest.”
“Sure?”
“Absolutely.”
She looked down at her cup. It was half full. She lifted it, swallowed the lot in one go, replaced it on the saucer and put it down on the tray on the desk. She drew her leg under her again and folded her arms. “I don’t know where it went wrong,” she said. “We were like everyone else. Maybe not quite, because my father was a soldier, and at school we were always the army kids. When the Flossies flew out, those airplanes to the border, the whole town knew about it — our fathers were going to fight the Communists. Then we were special. I liked that. But most of the time we were like all the others. Gerhard and I went to school and in the afternoon our mother was there and we did homework and played. Weekends we went shopping and barbecued and visited and went to church and every December we went down to Hartenbos and there was nothing odd about us. Nothing that I was aware of when I was six or eight or ten. My father was my hero. I remember his smell when he came home in the afternoon and hugged me. He called me his big girl. He had a uniform with shiny stars on the shoulders. And my mother . . .”
“Are they still living?” the minister asked suddenly.
“My father died,” she said. With finality, as if she would not elaborate further.
“And your mother?”
“It’s a long time since I have seen her.”
“Oh?”
“She lives in Mossel Bay.”
He said nothing.
“She knows now. What kind of work I was doing.”
“But she didn’t always know?”
“No.”
“How did she find out?”
She sighed. “That is part of the story.”
“And you think she will reject you? Because now she knows?”
“Yes. No . . . I think she is on a guilt trip.”
“Because you became a prostitute?”
“Yes.”
“And is she to blame?”
She couldn’t sit still anymore. She stood up in a hurry, and walked over to the wall behind her to get more distance between them. Then she approached the back of the chair and gripped it.
“Maybe.”
“Oh?”
She dropped her head, letting her long hair cover her face. She stood like that, very still.
“She was beautiful,” she said at last, looking up and taking her hands off the chair-back. She moved to the right, towards the bookshelf, her eyes on the books, but she was not seeing them.
“They were in Durban on their honeymoon. And the photos . . . She could have had any man. She had a figure. Her face . . . she was so lovely, so delicate. And she was laughing, in all the photos. Sometimes I believe that was the last time she laughed.”
She turned to the minister, leaning her shoulder against the bookshelf, one hand brushing the books, caressingly. “It must have been hard for my mother when my father was away. She never complained. When she knew he was coming home, she would get the house in order, from one end to the other. Spring-cleaning, she called it. But never herself. Tidy, yes. Clean, but she used less and less make-up. Her clothes became looser, and more dull. She cut her hair short. You know how it is when you live with someone every day — you don’t notice the gradual changes.”
She folded her arms again, embracing herself.
“The thing with the church . . . that must be where it started. He came back from the Border and said we were going to another church. Not the Dutch Reformed Church on the base anymore; we would be going to a church in town, one that met in the primary school hall on Sundays. Clapping hands and falling down and conversions . . . Gerhard and I would have enjoyed it if our father hadn’t been so serious about it. Suddenly we had family devotions at home every day and he prayed long prayers about the demons that were in us. He began to talk of leaving the army, so that he could go and do missionary work, and he walked around with the Bible all day, not the little soldier’s Bible, a big one. It was a vicious circle, because the army was probably understanding at first, but later he began praying for God to drive the demons out of the colonel and the brigadier and said that God would open doors for him.”
She shook her head. “It must have been hard for my mother, but she did nothing.”
She walked back to her chair. “Not even when he started with me.”
7.
He drove the pickup to Cape Town, because the motorbike would be too conspicuous. His suitcase was beside him on the passenger seat. From Port Elizabeth to Knysna. He saw the mountains and the forests and wondered, as always, how it had looked a thousand years ago, when there were only Khoi and San and the elephants trumpeted in the dense bush. Beyond George the houses of the wealthy sat like fat ticks against the dunes, silently competing for a better sea view. Big houses, empty all year, to be filled perhaps for a month in December. He thought of Mrs. Ramphele’s corrugated iron shack on the sunburnt flats outside Umtata, five people in two rooms, and he knew the contrasts in this country were too great.
But they could never be great enough to justify the death of a child. He wondered if Khoza or Ramphele had passed this way; if they had driven this road.
Mossel Bay, past Swellendam and over the Breede river, then Caledon and eventually late in the afternoon he came over Sir Lowry’s Pass. The Cape lay spread out far below and the sun shone in his eyes as it hung low over Table Mountain. He felt no joy of homecoming, because the memories this place brought lay heavy on him.
He drove as far as Parow. There was a little hotel on Voortrekker Road that he remembered, the New President, where people stayed who wanted to remain anonymous, regardless of color or creed.
That is where he would begin.
Griessel stood in front of the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit building in Bishop Lavis and considered his options.
He could take the suitcase out of the boot and drag it past Mavis in Reception, around the corner and down the passage to one of the big bathrooms that remained after the old Police College became the new SVC offices. Then he could shower and brush his teeth and scrape off his stubble in the bleached mirror and put on clean clothes. But every fucking policeman in the Peninsula would know within half an hour that Benny Griessel had been turfed out of the house by his wife. That is the way it worked on the Force.
Or he could walk to his office just as he was, smelly and crumpled, and say he had worked through the night, but that story would only maintain the façade temporarily.
There was a bottle of Jack in his desk drawer and three packets of Clorets — two slugs for the nerves, two Clorets for the breath and he was as good as new. Jissis, to feel the thick brown liquid sliding down his throat, all the way to heaven. He slammed the boot shut. Fuck the shower; he knew what he needed.
He walked fast, suddenly light-hearted. Fuck you, Anna. She couldn’t do this; he would see a fucking lawyer, one like Kemp who didn’t take shit from man or beast. He was the fucking breadwinner, drunkard and all; how could she throw him out? He’d paid for that house, every table and chair. He greeted Mavis, turned the corner, up the stairs, feeling in his pocket for the key. His hand was shaking. He got the door open, closed it behind him, walked around the desk, opened the bottom drawer, lifted the criminal procedure handbook and felt the cold glass of the bottle underneath. He took it out and unscrewed the cap. Time for a lubrication, his oil light was burning red. He grinned at his own wit as the door opened and Matt Joubert stood there with an expression of disgust on his face.
“Benny.”
He stood transfixed, with the neck of the bottle fifteen centimeters away from relief.
“Fuck it, Matt.”
Matt closed the door behind him. “Put that shit down, Benny.”
He did not move, could not believe his bad luck. So fucking close.
“Benny!”
The bottl
e shook, like his whole body. “I can’t help it,” he said quietly. He could not look Joubert in the eyes. The senior superintendent came and stood next to him, took the bottle out of his hand. He let it go reluctantly.
“Give me the cap.”
Solemnly he handed it over.
“Sit, Benny.”
He sat down and Joubert banged the bottle down. He leaned his large body against the desk, legs straight and arms folded.
“What is going on with you?”
What was the use of answering?
“Now you are an abuser of women and a breakfast drinker?”
She had phoned Joubert. To kick him out was not enough — Anna had to humiliate him professionally too.
“Jissis,” he said with feeling.
“Jissis what, Benny?”
“Ah fuck, Matt, what is the use of talking? How does that help? I am a fuck-up. You know it and Anna knows it and I know it. What is there left to say? I’m sorry I’m alive?” He waited for some reaction, but none came. The silence hung in the room, until he had to know whether he would find some sympathy. He looked up carefully to see his commander’s expressionless face. Slowly Joubert narrowed his eyes and a red glow suffused his face. Griessel knew his boss was the hell-in and he retreated. Joubert grabbed him without speaking, jerked him out of the chair by his neck and arm and shoved him towards the door.
“Matt,” he said, “jissis, what now?” He felt the considerable power of the grip.
“Shut up, Benny,” hissed Joubert, and steered him down the stairs, the footfalls loud on the bare surface. Past Mavis and through the entrance hall, Joubert’s hand hard between his shoulders. Then they were outside in the bright sunlight. Never had Joubert been rough with him before. Their shoes crunched over the parking area gravel to the senior superintendent’s car. He said “Matt” again because he could feel pressure in his guts. This mood had never been directed at him before. Joubert did not respond. He jerked open the car door, his big hand pressing the back of Griessel’s neck, shoved him in and slammed the door.
Joubert climbed in at the driver’s side and turned the key. They shot off with screeching tires and this noise seemed to release a flood of anger inside Joubert. “A martyr,” he spat out with total disgust. “I catch you with a fucking bottle in your hand and that is the best you can do? Act the martyr? You drink and hit women and all I see is self-pity. Benny, Jesus Christ, that’s not good enough. In fourteen years, the fourteen fucking years I have worked with you, I have never seen a person so completely fuck-up his life without any help from outside. You should have been a bloody director, but where are you now, Benny? Forty-three and you’re an inspector — with a thirst as big as the Sahara. And you hit your wife and shrug your shoulders and say, ‘I can’t help it, Matt.’ You fucking hit your wife? Where does that come from? Since when?” Joubert’s hands were communicating too and spit sprayed against the windscreen while the engine screamed at high revolutions. “You’re sorry you’re alive?”
They drove towards Voortrekker Road. Griessel stared ahead. He felt the Jack in his hand again, the desire inside.
When it was quiet he said: “It was the first time, last night.”
“The first time? What kind of a fucking excuse is that? Does that make it all right? You are a policeman, Benny. You know that’s no fucking argument. And you’re lying. She says it has been threatening for months. Three weeks ago you shoved her around, but you were too drunk to do it properly. And the children, Benny? What are you doing to them? Your two children who have to see their drunkard of a father come home pissed out of his skull and assault their mother? I should lock you up with the scum, she should lay a fucking charge against you, but all that will achieve is more damage to your children. And what do you do? She throws you out and you run to a bottle. Just booze, Benny, that’s all you think about. And yourself. What the fuck is going on inside your head? What has happened to your brains?”
For an instant he wanted to respond, to scream: “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t want to be like this, I don’t know how I got here, leave me alone!” Because he was familiar with these questions, and he knew the answers — it was all pointless, it made no difference. He said nothing.
In Voortrekker Road the traffic was heavy, the traffic lights red. Joubert gave the steering wheel a slap of frustration. Griessel wondered where they were going. To the Sanitarium? It wouldn’t be the first time Joubert had dropped him off there.
The senior superintendent blew out a long breath. “Do you know what I think about, Benny? The whole time.” His voice had mellowed now. “Of the man who was my friend. The little sergeant who came here from Parow, green and full of go. The one who showed the whole bunch of arrogant detectives at Murder and Robbery how to do police work. The little guy from Parow — where is he, where did he go? The one who laughed and had a clever answer for everything. Who was a legend. Fuck, Benny, you were good; you had everything. You had instinct and respect. You had a future. But you killed it. Drank it up and pissed it away.”
Silence.
“Forty-three,” said Joubert, and he seemed to grow angry all over again. He wove through the cars ahead. Another red light. “And still you are a bloody child.”
Then only silence reigned in the car. Griessel no longer looked where they were going; he was thinking of the bottle that had been so close to his mouth. Nobody would understand; you had to have been there where he was. You had to know the need. In the old days Joubert had also been a drinker, partied hard, but he had never been to this place. He didn’t know and that’s why he didn’t understand. When he looked up again they were in Bellville, Carl Cronjé Street.
Joubert turned off. He was driving more calmly now. There was a park, trees and grass and a few benches. He pulled up. “Come, Benny,” he said and got out.
What were they doing here? Slowly he opened the door.
Joubert was striding ahead. Where were they going — was he going to beat him up behind the trees? How would that help? The traffic on the N1 above droned and hissed, but no one would see a thing. Reluctantly he followed.
Joubert stopped between the trees and pointed a finger. When Griessel reached him he saw the figure on the ground.
“Do you know who that is, Benny?”
Under a heap of newspapers and cartons and an unbelievably grimy blanket a figure moved when it heard the voice. The dirty face turned upward, a lot of beard and hair and two little blue eyes, sunken in their sockets.
“Do you know him?”
“It’s Swart Piet,” said Griessel.
“Hey,” said Swart Piet.
“No,” said Joubert. “Meet Benny Griessel.”
“You gonna hit me?” the man asked. A Shoprite supermarket trolley stood parked behind his nest. There was a broken vacuum cleaner in it.
“No,” said Joubert.
Swart Piet looked askance at the big man in front of him. “Do I know you?”
“This is you, Benny. In six months. In a year.”
The man extended a cupped hand to them. “Have you got ten rand?”
“For what?”
“Bread.”
“The liquid version,” said Joubert.
“You must be psychic,” said the man, and laughed with a toothless cackle.
“Where are your wife and children, Swart Piet?”
“Long time ago. Just a rand? Or five?”
“Tell him, Piet. Tell him what work you used to do.”
“Brain surgeon. What does it matter?”
“Is this what you want?” Joubert looked at Griessel. “Is this what you want to be?”
Griessel had nothing to say. He only saw Swart Piet’s hand, a dirty claw.
Joubert turned around and headed for the car.
“Hey,” said the man. “What’s his case?”
Griessel looked at Joubert’s back as he walked away. He wasn’t going to hit him. All the way out here for a childish lesson in morality. For a moment he loved the big man.
Then he grasped something else, turned back and asked: “Were you a policeman?”
“Do I look like a fool to you?”
“What were you?”
“A health inspector in Milnerton.”
“A health inspector?”
“Help a hungry man, pal. Two rand.”
“A health inspector,” said Griessel. He felt anger ignite inside him.
“Oh hell,” said Swart Piet. “Are you the guy from Saddles steakhouse?”
Griessel spun around and set off after Joubert. “He was a health inspector,” he shouted.
“Okay, one rand, my friend. A rand between friends?”
The senior superintendent was already behind the steering wheel.
Griessel was running now. “You can’t do that,” he shouted. Right up to the window. “You want to compare me with a fucking health inspector?”
“No. I’m comparing you with a fuck-up who can’t stop drinking.”
“Did you ask him why he drinks, Matt? Did you ask him?”
“It makes no difference to him anymore.”
“Fuck you,” said Griessel, the weariness and the thirst and the humiliation working together. “I won’t be compared with the cockroach patrol. How many bodies has he had to turn over? How many? Tell me. How many child victims? How many women and old ladies beaten to death for a cell phone or a twenty-rand ring? You want the old Benny? Are you looking for the fucker from Parow who was scared of nothing? I’m looking for him too. Every day, every morning when I get up, I look for him. Because at least he knew he was on the right side. He thought he could make a difference. He believed that if he worked long enough and hard enough, we would win, some time or other, to hell with rank and to hell with promotion; justice would triumph and that is all that mattered because we are the white hats. The guy from Parow is dead, Matt. Dead as a doornail. And why? What happened? What’s happening now? We are outnumbered. We aren’t winning; we are losing. There are more and more of them and there are less of us. What’s the use? What help is all the overtime and the hardship? Are we rewarded? Are we thanked? The harder we work, the more we get shat upon. Look here. This is a white skin. What does it mean? Twenty-six years in the Force and it means fuck-all. It’s not the booze — I’m not stuck in the rank of inspector because of the booze. You know that. It’s affirmative action. Gave my whole fucking life, took all that shit and along came affirmative action. Ten years now. Did I quit, like De Kok and Rens and Jan Broekman? Look at them now, security companies and making money hand over fist and driving BMWs and going home every day at five o’clock. And where am I? A hundred open cases and my wife kicks me out and I am an alcoholic . . . But I am still fucking here, Matt. I didn’t fucking quit.”