by Deon Meyer
Colin Pretorius, the owner and head of a crèche in Parow, is being charged on the grounds that he sexually assaulted eleven boys between the ages of six and nine years over a period of four years. He was released on bail of R10,000.
At last he stood and walked unsteadily to the desk to pay for his use of the Internet.
Viljoen and she had three months together before he blew his brains out.
“At first I was just angry with him. Not heartbroken — that came later, because I truly loved him. And I was scared. He left me with the pregnancy and I didn’t know what to do or where to go. But I was dreadfully angry because he was such a coward. It happened a week after I told him I was pregnant, on a Monday night. I took him to the Spur and told him there was something I had to tell him and then I told him and he just sat there and said nothing. So then I said to him he didn’t have to marry me, just help me, because I didn’t know what to do.
“Then he said: ‘Jissis, Christine, I’m no good as a father — I am a fuck-up, a drunken golfer with the yips.’
“I said he didn’t have to be a father, I didn’t want to be a mother yet, I just didn’t know what to do. I was a student. I had a crazy father. If he had to find out about the baby, he would go off the deep end. He would lock me up or something.
“Then he said let him think about it, make a plan, and the whole week he didn’t phone, and Friday night, just before I had to go to work, I decided I would phone him one last time and if he still tried to avoid me, well, then, fuck him, excuse me, but it was a very difficult time. And then they said there had been an accident, he was dead, but it wasn’t an accident. He had locked the pro shop and sat down at a little table and put a revolver against his head.
“It took me two years to stop being angry and remember that those three months with Viljoen were good. It was when I began to wonder what I would tell my child about her father. Sometime she would want to know and —”
“You have a child?” asked the minister; for the first time he was taken aback.
“. . . and I would have to decide what to tell her. He didn’t even leave a note. Didn’t even write anything for her. He didn’t even say he was sorry, it was depression, or he didn’t have the guts or anything. So I decided I would tell her about those three months, because they were the best of my life.”
She was quiet then and sighed deeply. After a pause the minister asked, “What is her name?”
“Sonia.”
“Where is she?
“That is what my story is about,” she said.
15.
Griessel almost missed it. Two nurses came around early in the morning with the meal trolley, when he was already dressed and packed and ready to be discharged. His mind was elsewhere and he was not listening to their chatter as they approached his hospital room.
“. . . so then when she found out it was an old trick of his, he confessed. She says he had worked out that all the middle-aged girls go and buy comfort food at the Pick and Pay on Friday nights because they will be sitting in front of the TV all evening and that’s when he pushes his trolley down the aisles and picks the prettiest one to chat up. That’s how he got Emmarentia. Oh, hallo, Sarge, up already? Cheese omelet this morning, everyone’s favorite.”
“No thank you,” he said, taking his suitcase and heading for the door. But he stopped and asked, “Friday nights?”
“Sarge?”
“Say that again about Emmarentia and Pick and Pay?”
“Hey, Sarge, you don’t have to be so desperate, you’re not bad looking,” said one.
“There’s something of the Russian noble in you,” said the other. “Such sexy Slavic features.”
“No, that’s not —”
“Maybe sometimes a bad hair day, but that can be fixed.”
“Anyway, that’s a wedding band I see, isn’t it?”
“Wait, wait, wait.” He held up his hands. “I’m not interested in women . . .”
“Sarge! We could have sworn you were hetero.”
He was starting to get cross, but he looked hard at their faces and saw their deliberate mischief. He laughed helplessly with them, from his belly. The door opened and his daughter Carla stood there in her school uniform. She was momentarily confused by the scene — then relieved. She embraced her father.
“I hope that’s his child,” one nurse said.
“Can’t be, he’s queer as a three-rand note.”
“Or his boyfriend in drag?”
They had Carla laughing with her head on his chest and eventually she said, “Hallo, Pa.”
“You will be late for school.”
“I wanted to know if you were alright.”
“I’m alright, my child.”
The nurses were leaving and he asked them to explain again about Emmarentia.
“Why do you want to know, Sarge?”
“I’m working on this case. We can’t work out how the victims are selected.”
“So the sarge wants to consult us?”
“I do.”
They sketched a verbal picture as an alternating duet. Jimmy Fortuin picked up an occasional score at the Pick and Pay on a Friday afternoon, because by then it was crawling with single women.
“But middle-aged. The young ones still have the guts to fly solo in the clubs, or they gang up, strength in numbers.”
“They buy food for Friday night and the weekend: treats, you know, to spoil themselves a bit. Comfort food.”
“Between five and seven, that’s hunting season for Jimmy, ’cause they’re all on the way home from work. Easy pickings, because Jimmy is a motor mouth, a charmer.”
“Just at Pick and Pay?”
“That’s just his convenience store, but Checkers would also work.”
“There’s something about a supermarket . . .”
“Kind of hopeless . . .”
“Desperation . . .”
“The Lonely Hearts Shopping Club.”
“Last stand at the OK Bazaars.”
“Sleepless in the Seven-Eleven.”
“You know?”
Laughing, he said he understood, thanked them and left.
He dropped Carla off at school with the car that Joubert had left for him.
“We miss you, Daddy,” she said as they stopped at the school gates.
“Not as much as I miss all of you.”
“Mommy told us about the flat.”
“It’s just temporary, my child.” He took her hand and pressed it. “This is my third sober day today,” he said.
“You know I love you, Daddy.”
“And I love you.”
“Fritz too.”
“Did he say that?”
“He didn’t have to say it.” She hurriedly opened her case. “I brought you this, Daddy.”
She took out an envelope and gave it to him. “You could pick us up at school sometimes. We won’t tell Mommy.” She grabbed him around the neck and hugged him. Then she opened her door.
“ ’Bye, Daddy,” she said with a serious face.
“ ’Bye, my child.”
He watched her hurry up the steps. His daughter with the dark hair and strange eyes that she had inherited from him.
He opened the envelope. There were photographs in it, the family picture they had taken two years ago at the school bazaar. Anna’s smile was forced. His was lopsided — not quite sober that night. But there were all four of them, together.
He turned the picture over. I love you, Daddy. In Carla’s pretty, curving handwriting, followed by a tiny heart.
“That December I worked, pregnant or not. I phoned home and said I would be staying. I wasn’t going home to Upington, or with them to Hartenbos. My father was not happy. He drove through to Bloemfontein to come and pray for me. I was petrified he would see that I was pregnant, but he didn’t; he was too busy with other things in his head. I told him I would stay in an outside room at Kallie and Colin’s place, as I was helping them with all the year-end functions, weddin
gs and company do’s for employees and there weren’t so many students to help. I wanted to make good money, so that I would be more financially independent.
“That was the last time I saw him. He kissed me on the cheek before he left and that was the closest he ever came to his granddaughter.
“Kallie caught me throwing up one morning in January. He had brought my breakfast to the outside room and he stood and watched me vomiting in the toilet. Then he said: ‘You’re preggies, sweetheart,’ and when I didn’t reply he said, ‘What are you going to do?’
“I told him I was going to have the baby. It was the first time that I really knew it myself. I know it’s weird, but with Viljoen and my father and everything . . . Until that moment only I knew. It was kind of unreal. Like a dream, and maybe I thought I would wake up, or the baby would just go away on its own or something. I didn’t want to think about it, I just wanted to go on.
“Then he asked if I would put the baby up for adoption, and I said I don’t know but I said I was going to Cape Town at the end of the month, so would they please give me all the shifts they could? So he asked me if I knew what I was doing and I said no, I didn’t know what I was doing, because it was all rather new to me.
“They saw me off at Hoffman Square, with a present for the baby, a little blue babygro and booties and little shoes and bibs and an envelope for me — a Christmas bonus, they said. And they gave me a few names of gay friends they had in Cape Town in case I needed help.
“I cried that day, all the way to Colesberg. That was when I felt Sonia kick for the first time, as if to say, that’s enough, we must pull ourselves together, we would be okay. Then I knew that I would not give her up.”
Griessel found what he was searching for in the three lab reports. He walked over to Matt Joubert’s office and waited for the senior superintendent to finish on the telephone.
“The forensic report does not exclude an assegai,” Joubert was saying into the instrument, “but they are doing more tests, and it will take time. You will have to call back in a day or two. Right. You’re welcome. Thanks. ’Bye.”
He looked up at Griessel. “It’s good to have you back, Benny. How are you feeling?”
“Frighteningly sober. What was that about an assegai?”
“That Enver Davids thing. Suddenly the Argus has all these questions. I can see trouble coming.”
Griessel put the lab reports down in front of Joubert and said, “The bastard is picking them up at Woolworths. Friday afternoons. Look here, I missed it because I didn’t know what I was looking for, but Forensics analyzed the trash cans of all three victims and in two of them there are Woolies bags and till slips and in the third one just a till slip, but all three were there, at the one on the Waterfront on the Friday of the murders between . . . er . . . half-past four and seven o’clock.”
Joubert examined the reports. “It’s thin, Benny.”
“I know, but this morning I heard expert witnesses, Matt. Seems to me only old married people like us think a supermarket is a place to buy groceries.”
“Explain,” said Joubert, wondering how long this light would keep burning in Griessel’s eyes.
Thobela found a public phone in the Church Street Mall that worked with coins and thumbed through the tattered phone book for the number of the University of Cape Town Psychology Department. He called and asked for Professor David Ackerman.
“He is on ward rounds. In what connection is this?”
“I am researching an article on crimes against children. I have just a few questions.”
“With which publication are you?”
“I am freelance.”
“Professor Ackerman is very busy . . .”
“I only need a few minutes.”
“I will have to phone you back, sir.”
“I’m going to be in and out — can I call tomorrow?”
“To whom am I speaking?”
“Pakamile,” he said. “Pakamile Nzuluwazi.”
16.
At first the Cape was not good to her.
For one, the wind blew for days on end, a storm-strength southeaster. Then they stole her only suitcase at Backpackers in Kloof Nek, where for a hundred rand a night she was sharing a room with five grumbling, superior young German tourists. Flats were scarce and expensive, public transport complicated and unreliable. Once she walked all the way to Sea Point to check out a possible place, but it was a disappointing dump with a broken windowpane and graffiti on the walls.
She stayed in Backpackers for two weeks before she found the attic room in an old block of flats in Belle Ombre Street in Tamboers Kloof. What had once been a boxroom had been converted into a small, livable space — the bath and toilet were against one wall, the sink and kitchen cupboard against the other; there was a bed and table and an old rickety wardrobe. Another door opened onto the roof, from where she could see the city crescent, the mountain and the sea. At least neat and clean for R680 per month.
Her biggest problem was inside her because she was afraid. Afraid of the birth that drew nearer every day, the care of the baby afterwards, the responsibility; afraid of the anger of her father when she made the call or wrote the letter — which, she had not yet decided. Above all, afraid of the money running out. Every day she checked her balance at the autobank and compared the balance against the list of the most essential items she would need: cot, baby clothes, nappies, bottles, milk formula, blankets, pan, pot, two-plate stove, mug, plate, knife, fork and spoon, kettle, portable FM-radio. The list continued to grow and her bank balance continued to shrink until she found work as a waitress at a large coffee shop in Long Street. She worked every possible shift that she could, while she could still hide the bump under her breasts.
The numbers on the statements ruled her life. They became an obsession. Six eight zero was the first target of every month, the non-negotiable amount of her rent. It was the low-water mark of her book-keeping and the source of unrest in her dreams at night. She discovered the flea market at Green Point Stadium and haggled over the price of every item. At the second-hand shops in Gardens and in Kloof Street she bought a cot, a bicycle and a red and blue carpet. She painted the cot on the roof with white, lead-free enamel paint, and when she found there was paint left over she gave the old yellowish-green racing bike with narrow tires and dropped handlebars a couple of coats as well.
In a Cape Ads that someone left in the coffee shop she found an advertisement for a backpack baby carrier. And she phoned, argued the price down, and had it delivered. It would allow her to ride the bicycle with the baby on her back along the mountain and next to the sea at Mouille Point, where there were swings and climbing frames and a kiddies’ train.
Every Saturday she took twenty rand to play the Lotto and she would sit by the radio and wait for the winning numbers that she had marked on the card with a ballpoint pen. She fantasized about what she would do with the jackpot money. A house was top of the list — one of those modern rebuilt castles on the slopes of the mountain, with automatic garage doors, Persian carpets on the floor and kelims and art on the walls. A huge baby room with seabirds and clouds painted on the ceiling and a heap of bright, multicolored toys on the floor. A Land Rover Discovery with a baby seat. A walk-in wardrobe filled with designer labels and shoes in tidy rows on the floor. An Espresso machine. A double-door fridge in stainless steel.
One afternoon, about three o’clock, she was sitting on the roof with a cup of instant coffee when she heard the sounds of sex drifting up from the block of flats below. A woman’s voice, uh-uh-uh-uh, gradually climbing the scales of ecstasy, every one a little higher, a little louder. In the first minutes the sound was meaningless, just another noise of the city, but she recognized it and was amused at the odd hour. She wondered if she were the only listener, or whether the sound reached other ears. She felt a small sexual stimulus ripple through her body. Followed by envy as the sounds accelerated, faster, louder, higher. The envy grew along with it for all that she did not have, u
ntil the shrill orgasm made her get up and bend her arm with the nearly-empty mug back in order to throw it at everything that conspired against her. She didn’t aim at any specific target, her rage was too general. Rage against the loneliness, the circumstances, the wasted opportunities.
She did not throw it. She lowered her arm slowly, unwilling to pay for a new mug.
Early in March she could postpone the call no longer. She rode all the way to the Waterfront for a public phone, in case they traced the call. She phoned her mother at the attorneys’ office where she worked. It was a short conversation.
“My God, Christine, where are you?”
“I dropped out, Mom. I’m okay. I’ve got a job. I just want to —”
“Where are you?” Her voice was tinged with hysteria. “The police are looking for you too now. Your father will have a stroke, he phones them in Bloemfontein every day.”
“Mom, tell him to drop it. Tell him I am sick and tired of his preaching and his religion. I am not in Bloemfontein and he won’t find me. I am fine. I am happy. Just leave me alone. I am not a child anymore.” She couldn’t tell where the anger came from. Had fear unleashed it?
“Christine, you can’t do this. You know your father. He is furious. We are terribly worried about you. You are our child. Where are you?”
“Mom, I’m going to put the phone down now. Don’t worry about me, Mom, I am fine. I will phone you to let you know I am okay.” Afterwards she thought she should have said something like, “I love you, Mom.” But she had just slammed the phone down, got on her bike and ridden away.
She only phoned again when Sonia was a week old, early in June, because then she had a great need to hear her mother’s voice.
Thobela was drinking a Coke at the Wimpy outside tables in St. Georges. He read the front-page article of the Argus that speculated about the death of Enver Davids. Sensationalized by an anonymous woman’s phone call.