Blessed Are the Dead

by Malla Nunn

  “Not for a second.” Emmanuel looked at the houses on the left-hand side. “Weighed up against a break-in at the general store, a missing black girl was easy to ignore. I’m not saying it’s right, but you know how it works.”

  “I understand well the way of things.” Shabalala pointed to a yellow fence fronting a huge block of land that dipped away from the road. “This is the place, Sergeant.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about Bagley besides that vein on his forehead?” Emmanuel pulled into the driveway and parked.

  “Yes. His eyes went to the station house, to the cigarette, to the yard, but never to us.”

  “He was either ashamed of doing nothing or he was lying about something. Talk to the native constables tomorrow and find out what you can about Bagley. Behind-the-scenes stuff.”

  “Yebo,” Shabalala said as they got out of the car.

  The scent of roses hung in the air and sunlight shone on the whitewashed walls of the doctor’s cottage. The garden was in bloom and alive with bees. A stream meandered along the far edge of the property, and on the other side a green valley stretched to distant mountains wreathed in clouds.

  “Second round of introductions,” Emmanuel said as they took a narrow stone path to the front door. He rang a gold bell mounted on the front wall and waited. No answer.

  “It’s Sunday. The doctor might still be at church,” he said, and rang again.

  Floorboards creaked inside and Emmanuel automatically reached for his ID. He checked that he had the right one. For reasons that he could not explain himself, he still carried the now-redundant small green race identification card stamped with the words “mixed race.” To protect his sister’s white identity and under pressure from the Security Branch, Emmanuel had opted to secretly accept racial reclassification to “mixed race” and expulsion from the Jo’burg CID. After his reclassification he moved to Durban and got a job at the dockyards and avoided the attention of the police. He might have spent the rest of his life wielding a hammer and hauling freight if not for Colonel van Niekerk, who reinstated him into the Detective Branch as a reward for solving a brutal triple murder. With two new pieces of paper, he became white again and a detective.

  Common sense said he should burn the old papers and forget the eight months he’d spent on the wrong side of the color line. But he could not. Maybe the contradictory “European” and “mixed race” papers reflected the tangled path his life had taken so far. He grew up a white kaffir child in Sophiatown, a slum on the outskirts of Jo’burg, became a teenage outcast stranded among the “chosen” Afrikaner people on the veldt, then went to war in Europe and returned with medals for killing people. Now he held a South African police detective’s ID card and lived in a schizophrenic society that he felt he’d never fit into.

  The door handle turned. Emmanuel held up his ID and smiled. It was the least he could do. He was about to ruin the doctor’s perfect Sunday afternoon.

  “The police.” A tall woman with hazy blue eyes and dark hair cut in a bob held the door ajar with her elbow. She was good-looking in the horse-faced way of English ladies who wore floral print dresses, wide-brimmed hats and cotton gloves. “Has Jim crashed the car again?”

  “This isn’t about a crash,” Emmanuel said, not happy about the possibility that the local doctor was an inveterate speeder with a history of abrupt endings. “We’d like a word with Dr. Daglish, if he’s in.”

  “I’m Dr. Daglish, Detective. Margaret Daglish.” She appeared to take no offense at Emmanuel’s assumption that the town doctor must be a man. “What can I do for you?”

  Emmanuel introduced himself and Shabalala, using the time to recover from his embarrassment. It was provincial and chauvinist to think the words female and doctor didn’t go together. “We have the body of a teenage girl that requires a medical examination to determine time and cause of death. It’s urgent.”

  “Who is it?” Her dark eyebrows lifted.

  “A Zulu girl. Amahle Matebula,” Emmanuel said, and a flash of some emotion crossed the doctor’s face. Anxiety? Fear? And a softer feeling that he couldn’t read as well. Regret? “Did you know her?”

  “No.” Margaret Daglish raised her left hand to show a bandaged wrist. “I’m afraid I can’t help you, Detective Cooper. I fell over about a week ago. Manipulating instruments is out of the question. I don’t have the strength to carry out a proper examination. Not one that I’d be happy with.”

  “You’re incapable of performing an examination?” Emmanuel said, and held the doctor’s gaze. Something more than a sprained wrist was behind this refusal.

  “Not a full and proper examination. That would be impossible.” Dr. Daglish leaned closer and added in an anxious voice, “You should get another doctor. One from out of this area.”

  “I see. Where do you suggest we look?”

  “Pietermaritzburg or Durban,” came the swift reply. “A qualified physician who can stay in Roselet for a few days and then leave after the work is done.”

  Emmanuel reflected on what Daglish was really saying: Amahle had to be examined by an objective stranger with no local ties who’d sign off on the medical findings and clear town before the shit hit the fan.

  “An outside doctor can be arranged,” Emmanuel said.

  “That’s for the best,” Daglish said with a strained smile. “I’m happy to assist the visiting doctor with medical supplies.”

  Dodging the examination was one thing, but Emmanuel wasn’t going to let the town doctor walk away from the case altogether. “It will take time for the relief doctor to get here and we need somewhere to keep the body until then. Can you help?”

  Margaret Daglish looked at the hearselike Chevrolet surrounded by garden flowers. The color drained from her cheeks and remorse registered in her eyes: a response prompted by the death of a young girl or by her own cowardice in refusing to perform the examination, it was impossible to say.

  “There’s a basement at the back of the house,” she said. “It’s dark and cool inside. She will be safe there.”

  “May we move her in right away?”

  “Of course.” The doctor blinked hard and pointed to the side of the house. “Follow that path to the rear. The land slopes down to a door that opens directly into the basement. I’ll have the room open and ready.”

  Emmanuel and Shabalala headed for the Chevrolet. Safe. Loved. Beautiful. Protected. The words from his notebook played on his mind. Amahle had been blessed, but with every blessing came a shadow. Envied. Hated. Feared. Harmed. Those words might also apply to the dead girl.

  “The constable did not look for her and now the doctor will not examine her.” Shabalala seemed to read Emmanuel’s mind. “What is there to fear from a Zulu girl?”

  “You think Dr. Daglish is lying about her wrist,” Emmanuel said. Outside of the traditional kraals and the native locations, black women had no power and influence. Amahle’s name, her existence, should have been of no consequence to a white medical doctor.

  “She is hurt. But not so badly.”

  “I got the same impression.” Emmanuel opened the passenger door. “The doctor doesn’t want her name on the examination report or the death certificate. Maybe she’s afraid of what she’ll find.”

  “There is only one wound on the girl.”

  “I’m talking about wounds that can’t be seen.” A dirt-flecked foot fell out from under the tartan blanket and Emmanuel covered it up again. “An old broken bone, long healed. Internal bruising. Rape. Pregnancy. The examination might uncover something no one wants to know.”

  “The doctor is not responsible for Amahle’s bad fortune,” Shabalala said. “She has nothing to fear.”

  “Well, she’s scared of something. Or someone.” And that someone was most likely a European. Black-on-black violence was expected, accepted. A white killer would bring something new and dangerous into Dr. Daglish’s world.

  Emmanuel moved aside and Shabalala lifted the girl into his arms with the strength of a
river carrying a leaf.

  “Let’s give her to the doctor and get back to the station. Van Niekerk will be wanting an update.” Emmanuel followed the sloping path to the rear of the cottage. “Then we’ll find a place to throw our bags down for a couple of days.”

  The sound of Shabalala’s voice behind him whispering to the dead girl slowed Emmanuel’s steps. He was not superstitious or religious but an old feeling resurfaced, one born in combat and shared with all front-line soldiers. Time was finite. It was fickle. It ran out. Fate or the God that you didn’t believe in could pull the plug and walk away.

  During the war, he’d fought for a world where girls grew into women and then to old women surrounded by their grandchildren. That Amahle’s life should be so easily wasted in peacetime, Emmanuel took as a personal insult.

  On the third try the telephone operator found a clear line between the Roselet police station and Colonel van Niekerk’s study in Durban.

  “What did you find, Cooper?” The Afrikaner colonel skipped the usual formalities. They knew each other too well for small talk.

  “A Zulu girl. The daughter of a local chief.” Emmanuel sat behind Bagley’s neat desk, which faced green fields and distant mountains.

  “Fuck!” van Niekerk said. “I was hoping to break you and Shabalala in on a bigger case.”

  Van Niekerk’s disappointment at Amahle’s skin color reflected the hard truth: reputations were not built on solving black homicides.

  “It’s enough that we’re out of the city and working a murder case,” Emmanuel said.

  “Picking up the garbage” was the phrase used by the other white detectives at the West Street CID to describe the jobs Emmanuel was assigned. Four suicides, two drowning victims, three pickpockets, a putrefied old lady dead for four weeks and a serial pantie thief with a penchant for lace . . . that was the grim tally of his cases for the last three months. Shabalala’s case list was equally depressing. It was payback for reentering the Detective Branch under the protection of an ambitious Afrikaner colonel who refused to play the role of dumb Boer for the predominantly English police force.

  “It’s a start,” van Niekerk conceded. “Need anything?”

  “The local doctor has backed away from the case at a hundred miles an hour. We have to get someone from outside of the area to perform the examination.”

  “Get the old Jew.” Van Niekerk could have been ordering a drink from a bar or demanding a meal be reheated. “He’s qualified and he’s only a few hours away.”

  “No,” Emmanuel said automatically, and then rephrased the objection. “I’d rather not get Dr. Zweigman involved in police business, Colonel. He has family obligations and a clinic to run.”

  The Dutch colonel was not used to hearing the word “no” except, perhaps, from his virginal English fiancée. There was a brittle silence before he said, “Finding another doctor won’t be a problem, Cooper. I’ll make a few calls.”

  “Much appreciated.” Emmanuel’s fingers flexed around the telephone cord. A suggestion from van Niekerk was really a de facto order. Giving up without a fight on having “the old Jew” conduct Amahle’s medical examination was out of character. Or perhaps the colonel felt the examination of a black girl’s corpse was not worth fighting over.

  “Who called the case in, Colonel?” Emmanuel asked, curious.

  “It was an anonymous tip-off from a local woman. A European. The constable on duty figured the victim was white as well.”

  “I understand.” Emmanuel saw the bigger picture. The out-of-town murder of a European, as van Niekerk had assumed, provided the perfect opportunity to get the names Cooper and Shabalala back on the board at the European and Native Detective Branch. Van Niekerk had, with characteristic patience, waited for the right moment to move them up the ladder to a more powerful position.

  And Emmanuel had repaid that loyalty by sleeping with Lana Rose. An excusable error for a hormonal teenage boy but not for a grown man able to weigh up the risks and consequences. Running, still running toward trouble. Nonetheless, he wasn’t sure he’d take back the night with Lana, even if he could.

  “Everything okay, Cooper?” Van Niekerk spoke over the soft whirr of a ceiling fan. Durban was humid this time of year, the air thick enough to carve into ribbons.

  “All fine at this end, sir,” Emmanuel said. “We’ll interview the girl’s family and friends and report any news tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Make it late. I have a tailor’s fitting in the morning, a final meeting with the minister and a wedding rehearsal dinner to get through.” No joy there, just lists of duties to be endured till the wedding night reward.

  “No problem, Colonel.” Emmanuel dropped the heavy Bakelite handle onto the cradle and pushed the phone back onto the grooves marked on the table surface. He noticed that Bagley had a specific place for each pen and notepad.

  White clouds bloomed on the horizon, backlit by shafts of early afternoon sunlight. A white woman had reported the murder. One of the European-owned farms in the Kamberg was the most likely source of the call. Why the tip-off was directed to the Durban Detective Branch when Constable Desmond Bagley of the Roselet police lived less than fifty miles from the crime scene was a mystery.

  4

  FORTY OR SO members of the local Zion Christian Church, known as Zionis, gathered by a wide river. They clapped and swayed in rhythm on the sandy bank as they sang “Come, Holy Spirit, Dove Divine.” In the middle of the river, a girl in a white robe with green trim rose up from the water, newly baptized, to shouts of “Amen” and “Hallelujah.” A second group of Zionis clustered around a wood fire with their hands held out to the flames while water dripped from their gowns and pooled at their feet.

  “How do we find him?” Emmanuel asked.

  “The mothers sitting with Amahle said that Baba Kaleni is the head of the True Israelites congregation,” Shabalala said. “I do not recognize any of the markings on the robes, so we will have to ask.”

  Looking around as they walked along the compact dirt path, Emmanuel noticed half a dozen different robes, some trimmed in black, others in moss-green. A group of women in pale blue robes with navy blue collars sat on rocks by the river, sharing an orange. Two men with leopard-skin trim stacked Bibles into a wheelbarrow to be transported back to church.

  “Different congregations wear different robes,” Emmanuel said, and wondered why that distinction had never been clear to him before. Perhaps he’d never looked closely enough.

  “Yebo, Sergeant. My church wears green robes with a white cross.”

  Shabalala was full of surprises. The Zion Church mixed Christian and traditional African beliefs. Men like Shabalala, who operated in the white world, generally did not admit to an association with a church that allowed polygamy and practiced animal sacrifice.

  “I thought you were Anglican,” Emmanuel said. He remembered the Zulu detective standing outside a red-roofed church in the town of Jacob’s Rest.

  Shabalala closed in on the group huddled around the fire. “I belong also to the Anglican Church,” he said.

  “Laying a bet both ways.” Emmanuel couldn’t resist the chance to get under the Zulu detective’s skin. “That’s cheating, my man.”

  “God in His infinite wisdom understands all and forgives all, Sergeant,” Shabalala answered with a smile. “That is what makes Him great.”

  “And here I took you for an Old Testament guy.” Since returning from the war, Emmanuel had kept almost completely to himself except for his odd three-way friendship with Shabalala and Zweigman, the Jewish doctor. He’d met them both a year ago during an investigation into the murder of a corrupt Afrikaner police captain. Together they’d faced violence and almost certain death and remained close after the case was shelved and forgotten.

  Just for a moment, while they walked and worked by the river, Emmanuel allowed himself the illusion that he and Shabalala were two ordinary cops with no barriers of place or race between them.

  “Now I see that yo
u’re strictly New Testament,” he continued. “With a God that lets you slip out the back door of the church and run barefoot across the veldt like a heathen. I’m not sure I trust you anymore, Constable.”

  “Two churches are better than none,” Shabalala said.

  Emmanuel laughed at the deadpan comment, and the sound disturbed the sudden quiet. The recently baptized Zionis huddled silently around the fire like a flock of white-feathered birds banding together before a storm. One day, Emmanuel supposed, he’d get used to the hunched shoulders and the averted gaze of nonwhites about to be questioned by the police, but today it still made him uncomfortable.

  He caught the attention of a man who looked up from the flames.

  “Baba Kaleni,” Emmanuel said. “Where is he?”

  “Ah . . .” The man squeezed water from the sleeve of his damp gown, playing for time. “Ah . . .”

  “I am Kaleni.” The words came from the far right of the fire. A Zulu man shrugged on a dry robe with the help of a young girl. His beard was dazzling white but his age was impossible to tell. His sagging right shoulder and arthritic fingers indicated long years lived under harsh conditions but his clear brown eyes and smooth round face gave the impression of a child.

  “You are the police,” Baba Kaleni said, and smiled a greeting.

  “That’s right.” Emmanuel introduced them both and puzzled over Kaleni’s beaming expression. Back in the city, only gangsters, prostitutes and simpletons smiled at the police.

  Kaleni pointed to a rock protruding from the veldt over a hundred yards away. “That is a quiet place to sit and to talk.”

  They turned from the riverbank and the shivering band of True Israelites bunched around the flames. The men and women drying their robes had all perfected the subtle African art of looking away while listening in.

  “After you,” Emmanuel said.

  “Yebo, inkosi.” Baba Kaleni started out across the grasslands with slow deliberation, the muscles of his right shoulder slumped. The young girl who’d helped him into his robe ran up and held out a tattered Bible, as if it were a shield and the old man poised to enter a mighty conflict.