Blessed Are the Dead

by Malla Nunn

  “We need to get closer,” Emmanuel said to Shabalala, and the Zulu detective relayed the request in a low voice. The women broke the circle but gathered again under the branches of a paperbark thorn tree nearby. Their wails subsided and were replaced by the muted sound of swallowed tears.

  “Hibo . . .” Shabalala whispered when they were crouched on either side of the girl. This was not the messy knifing or domestic argument gone too far they’d been expecting when Colonel van Niekerk tapped them on the shoulder for this case.

  “Yeah, I know.” Emmanuel examined the victim. She was young, maybe seventeen years old, and beautiful. High cheekbones, gracefully arched brows and full lips were features that would have kept into old age. No more. All that was left was a glimpse of what might have been.

  “No signs of a struggle,” he said. The girl’s fingernails were neatly shaped and unbroken. The skin on her wrists, neck and upper arms was unmarked. “If her eyes were closed I’d say she was sleeping.”

  “Yes,” Shabalala agreed. “But she did not walk here. Someone brought her to this place. Look at her feet, Sergeant.”

  Emmanuel bent lower to get a better view. Dirt and broken grass stalks were stuck to the rough-skinned heels and slim ankles. “She was dragged here and then laid down.”

  “I think so,” Shabalala said.

  Under normal circumstances, with a wooden barricade in place and a few uniformed police on guard, Emmanuel would have pushed aside the neckline of the girl’s dress and checked for bruising on the shoulders and under the armpits. Modesty was never a concern of the dead. The presence of the gathered Zulu women stayed his hand and he pulled a notebook and pen from his jacket pocket.

  To Shabalala he said, “She wasn’t dumped or hidden under branches.”

  He wrote the letters R.I.P. on the first page. Rest in peace. Whoever had dragged the victim to this spot had wanted her to rest in a peaceful place with a rock fig above and a wide valley below.

  “And the flowers.” Shabalala stood up and surveyed the hillside. Clumps of bright red and yellow broke the stretch of green. “They are growing all around but I do not think the wind blew them to this place.”

  “It looks like they were deliberately scattered over her,” Emmanuel said, picking up a tiny red bloom from the crook of the girl’s elbow. He understood this need to mark the fallen. Small gestures made the difference even in the white heat of war: a helmet placed on the chest or a poncho thrown over the face of a dead soldier, the closest thing available to a eulogy or a farewell.

  Emmanuel scribbled loved on the next clean page. First time that word had come up at a crime scene. There was no doubt the girl had been loved and was loved still. Even now, in death, a circle of grieving women and a group of armed men guarded her.

  “How long do you think she’s been here?” he asked Shabalala. It couldn’t have been more than twelve hours, he imagined. The vultures and wildcats hadn’t begun to disassemble her body.

  “One day and a half.” Shabalala walked the perimeter of the crime scene, examining snapped twigs and flattened grass. “The women’s tracks are from this morning but the deep lines from the girl’s heels are from before.”

  Emmanuel stood up and moved to where Shabalala was bent over a crushed leaf. “You sure she’s been out in the open all that time?”

  “Yes, Sergeant. It is so.”

  “But she’s nearly perfect.” He glanced at the girl. Her slender legs were a shoulder width apart, the left knee slightly crooked as if she might sit up at any moment and wave hello. The hem of her white calico dress fluttered against her upper thighs—whether blown by the wind or hitched up by a human hand, it was impossible to tell. A pea-sized mark marred the smooth surface of her left inner thigh. “No animals have disturbed the body. And there are no signs of injury besides that bruise.”

  “I see this also,” Shabalala said, and paused, reluctant to continue. Other detectives burned oxygen throwing out half-formed theories and detailed explanations of the how and the why of a murder, but not Shabalala. He did not speak unless he was sure of the facts. It was a learned caution. Black detectives rarely added spontaneous comments or joined in the competitive banter that buzzed around a dead body. They were junior partners, brought onto a case only if special knowledge of “native situations” was needed.

  “Tell me,” Emmanuel said. “It doesn’t have to make sense.”

  Bullshit theories spun out of thin air had their uses.

  “What I see is strange,” Shabalala said.

  “Tell me anyway.”

  The Zulu policeman pointed to scuff marks in the dirt and to a heavy stick lying on the grass. “I think that the animals did not come near because the one who brought the girl to this place kept them away.”

  “You have to explain,” Emmanuel said. The indentations in the dirt meant nothing to him and the stick was clean of blood or other signs of use.

  “A man . . .” The Zulu detective hesitated and moved to the right to examine another patch of disturbed earth. “A small man was here. He ran from where the girl is lying to here with the stick. See this, Sergeant?”

  The spoor of a wildcat was identifiable even to Emmanuel’s untrained eye. “He moved out to defend the body from predators. That means he must have stayed with her.”

  “Yebo. I believe this.”

  Emmanuel underlined the word loved and then added protected.

  “Was he a human predator and the girl his prey?” he wondered aloud. People often killed the one they loved the most.

  Shabalala shook his head, frustrated at not having the full picture. “I cannot say if this man was the one to harm her. People have come to this place and walked all around. Some of the women scooped the earth with their hands and threw their bodies in the dirt. Many tracks have been lost. A man brought her here and kept the animals away. That is all I see.”

  “We know a lot more than when we got here,” Emmanuel said. “Let’s take another look at the body and then we’ll talk to the women, see what they can tell us about the victim.”

  “Yebo,” Shabalala agreed, and they walked back to where the girl lay. A yellow grasshopper had landed on the curve of her neck and was busy cleaning its wings and long antennae.

  “No visible injuries,” Emmanuel said, and waved the grasshopper away. Natural causes couldn’t be ruled out yet. “We’ll have to turn her over, find what’s hidden.”

  They rolled the body onto its side so the back was visible. A soft gasp came from the women under the paperbark thorn. The girl was theirs and still alive in their minds. To see how easily she slipped from their embrace and into the hands of strangers shocked them.

  “There,” Emmanuel said. A small hole, the size of a thumbtack head, punctured the white calico dress just above the waist. Spots of blood speckled the fabric. “Could be a bullet entry wound.”

  “Maybe a knife also.” Shabalala pressed his fingertips into the ground where the girl had been lying and checked them. “The soil and grass are damp with blood but not soaked.”

  “She didn’t bleed to death. But this isn’t a good time to look at the entry wound.” The mourners had edged closer to the crime scene and their anxiety was palpable. “The district surgeon will have answers for us in a few days. Till then we can only guess at what made the wound. Lay her on her back and let’s find out who she is.”

  They rolled the girl’s body into its original position and Shabalala pushed the tartan blanket under her head again, as if she might be uncomfortable without the support.

  “Do you want to take the questioning?” Emmanuel asked. He spoke Zulu himself, had mixed in with Zulu boys and girls and even been in and out of their homes till the violent events of his adolescence had seen him and his sister banished to a remote cattle farm and then to a whites-only boarding school. This situation was different.

  “You must start,” Shabalala said. “They will know that the police are serious if a white policeman is in charge.”

  That made se
nse. Native policemen and detectives were armed with sticks and given bicycles to ride. They were not allowed to drive police vehicles. The power of the gun and the car and the law itself was in the hands of Europeans. Shabalala knew that. The rural women waiting under the tree knew it also.

  “Speak in Zulu,” Shabalala suggested in a quiet voice. “And thank them for looking after the girl until we came.”

  “Will do,” Emmanuel said. “If my Zulu isn’t up to scratch you’ll have to take over.”

  He approached the mourners. There were six of them, barefoot and dressed in heavy black skirts that fell below the knee. Supple cowhide aprons covered their breasts and each wore a fine black head covering decorated with porcupine quills to signify they were married women; mothers of the clan.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Emmanuel said in Zulu, addressing a woman at the front of the group who was being held up by her elbows to stop her from collapsing onto the ground. She possessed the same beauty as the girl lying on the grass. Surely the victim’s mother or aunt. “Thank you for keeping her safe until we came. We are grateful.”

  “Amahle Matebula,” the woman said. “That is my daughter’s name.”

  Amahle meant “the beautiful one.” Emmanuel had run the streets of Sophiatown with a fat Zulu girl of the same name. She was meaner and tougher than most of the street boys and proud of it. Shoplifting was her speciality; she sold the goods for a small profit and a kiss from the boys she favored. He’d used her services sparingly, buying last-minute Christmas gifts from her stolen haul.

  “You named your daughter well.” Emmanuel introduced himself and Shabalala before retrieving his notebook and pen. “What may I call you?”

  “Nomusa.”

  Mother of grace. Another perfect name. Emmanuel meant “God is with us.” He was certain his birth mother had named him in one of those bright, dazzling moods that overtook her every few months, when she shone like a fire.

  “Tell me about Amahle,” Emmanuel said. “When did you last see her?”

  “Friday morning. It was still dark outside. She went to work but did not come home.” Nomusa’s weight sagged and the women holding her upright couldn’t take the strain. They eased her to the ground and propped her up with their hands and shoulders. Emmanuel and Shabalala crouched and waited for the women to settle.

  “Where did she work?” Emmanuel asked when Nomusa lifted her head off her chest. Five more minutes and she would not even be able to do that.

  “At the farmhouse of Inkosi Reed.” A gray-haired woman to Nomusa’s right whispered in her ear and she added, “Little Flint Farm. It is close to here. In the valley.”

  “What time did Amahle normally leave work?” Other girls, more fortunate ones, would be home from school in the early afternoon, filling exercise books with the vocabulary words of the day.

  “Sundown. Amahle knew the paths over the mountains and she never tarried.” Nomusa lifted her head high now, spurred on by a sudden flash of anger. “This was told to the white policeman on Saturday morning but he did not come! He did not look for her!”

  “You reported her missing to the commander at the Roselet Police Station?” Emmanuel asked.

  “Yebo. Constable Bagley. That very man,” Nomusa said. “He did not care to find my daughter and now the ancestors have taken her.”

  “Easy, my sister.” One of the women placed a hand on Nomusa’s shoulder. No good came from criticizing the police.

  “What I say is true.” Nomusa shrugged off the hand and leaned in closer to Emmanuel. Rage lit her dark eyes. “The white policeman is a liar. He promised to help but sat on his hands. He cares for no one else’s daughters but his own.”

  “Please, sister,” another woman said. “What’s done is done.”

  The finality of the woman’s words seemed to drain the anger from Nomusa. Her expression softened and she said to Emmanuel, “From the day my daughter was born her eyes were on the horizon and what was beyond it. I should have kept her by my side but she did not like to be watched over. Now she is gone . . .”

  Nomusa covered her face with her hands and began to cry. A woman held her and rocked her like a child as she sobbed. Emmanuel put the notebook away and stood up. Pressing for more information would gain him nothing. Nomusa had become unreachable in her grief.

  “Find out who discovered the body and see if the women can help us with a list of people to talk to,” Emmanuel said to Shabalala. “I’ll search the area for a possible murder weapon.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.” Shabalala shuffled closer to the women and waited patiently for the right moment to speak.

  Emmanuel walked away. Grief and despair were part of the job. He was used to it. But there were times, like this one, when the ghosts of the dead from his past tried to break through into daylight instead of waiting for night to fall.

  He combed the grass, searching for a knife, a spent bullet casing or a sharpened stick—anything that might have caused the injury to Amahle’s back. He could do nothing for the war dead. This death on a Natal hillside, however, he could do something about.

  2

  NOTHING,” EMMANUEL SAID to Shabalala when the Zulu detective joined the hunt for a murder weapon ten minutes later. “This area is clean. The only place left to check is that ledge up there.”

  They climbed a steep grade to a gnarled fig tree with thick white roots that pushed into the face of the basalt. From the ledge, they had a clear view of the majestic spine of the Drakensberg Mountain Range. The air seemed brighter and crisper than in the valley below.

  “Wait, Sergeant.” Shabalala picked up a half-eaten fig and examined the stalk. He moved to the far side of the rock face and bent low over sprouting tufts of grass.

  “The small man was here,” he said. “He ate the fruit from the tree and then made a toilet in the sand.”

  The toilet was a neatly dug hole, filled with dirt and then heaped with a mound of dried fig leaves.

  “An African man or a European with bush skills,” Emmanuel said, and eyed the wide swath of land running to the feet of the mountains. “Plenty of both kinds of men in a place like the Kamberg Valley.”

  “A white man without shoes who fights off the wild animals with a stick and also eats fruit from the fig tree?” Shabalala was skeptical. “A man who also makes a toilet like that of a Zulu?”

  “You’re right. Our most likely suspect is a native man who knew Amahle.” Emmanuel peered over the rock ledge to the grassy slope. “If all that’s true, the tartan blanket is wrong.”

  Zulus used carved wooden headrests as pillows.

  “The blanket is a mystery. None of the mothers has seen it before. It does not belong to the girl or to anyone at her kraal.”

  “The person who found the body could have left it.” Emmanuel knew that possibility was a long shot. Why leave something expensive under the head of a dead girl? Who would take the time and effort to make a dead girl more comfortable unless there was a deep personal connection to her?

  “Who did find her?” he asked.

  “A man going down to the river for a baptism service found Amahle this morning.” Shabalala joined Emmanuel at the rock ledge. “The mothers think this man is still at the river but I do not believe this blanket belongs to him.”

  “And what about the flowers?” Emmanuel asked.

  “Zulus do not bring flowers to the dead. I cannot explain them.”

  They stood on the lip of the rock and looked down at the crime scene. Spring was all around. It was in the smell of damp earth heated by the late morning sun and in the hum of the bees. It was a perfect day for a beautiful Zulu girl in a calico dress to stretch out in the sun and listen to the rustle of leaves and the sound of birds. Instead, a group of women sat under the branches of a thornbush tree, now mute with sorrow, afraid to let her corpse out of their sight. Nearby, men armed with spears and clubs guarded the crime scene.

  “We’ll check the blanket for a name or a label once we’re clear of the family. We don’
t want the impi jumping to conclusions and going after the owner,” Emmanuel said.

  A young man with a dented bicycle wheel tucked into his armpit spilled over the crest of the hill, running fast enough to escape his own shadow. A cloud of brown and orange grasshoppers jumped off the path and a wood dove flew up from the grass. The impi closed ranks but the young man peeled away to the left and dodged past them.

  He shouted, “Take up your shields. He is coming.”

  The impi overlapped the edges of their cowhide shields to form a barrier and looked toward the steep ridge. Emmanuel and Shabalala did the same, impelled by a growing sense of danger.

  A lean Zulu man appeared at the apex armed with a short stabbing spear. He surveyed the land and took in the impi defending the pathway. He raised his spear and thumped the wooden handle against his shield to make a bass note like a beating heart. Four more Zulu men appeared on the ridge, each pounding their spears against their shields, until the noise reverberated across the hillside.

  “There will be a fight. We must move. Now. Before the two groups clash.” Shabalala hit the steep decline at a run, feet sliding on the grade, his arms held out for balance. The drumming grew louder and faster; that human heart now pumped with adrenaline.

  Emmanuel matched Shabalala’s pace. Zulu military tactics were not his area of expertise, but he figured that the men on the hill would spill down the path with their spears drawn the moment the drumming stopped. He tracked right, aiming for a space between the two groups of Zulu men.

  Four harder beats of the spears against rawhide, and then silence. A shout went up and the men on the hill ran fast toward the impi guarding the path. The gap between the two factions closed.

  “Sergeant,” Shabalala gasped. “The sage bush.”

  Emmanuel saw it, a clump of scraggly green vegetation that grew on the path a few feet in front of the impi. That was their target, the last point at which he and Shabalala could access the path to form a human buffer between the opposing Zulus.