by Malla Nunn
Emmanuel shifted down a gear and drew parallel with the first white-owned house, a cottage with the windows shut and the curtains drawn.
“Mrs. Violet Stewart,” Gabriel said. “Frightened Mole.”
Each consecutive dwelling prompted the same response: the proper names of the inhabitants and then a special nickname assigned by Gabriel. A sprawling residence encircled by box hedges and two topiary elephants standing guard in the front garden belonged to “Mrs. Samantha Eggers. Always Screaming.” A buttoned-down Indian man in baggy blue trousers, white shirt and thin bow tie: “Mr. Bijay Gowda. Bus Ticket.”
The shops appeared along the dirt road. A white cat jumped a fence and settled into a patch of sun just short of the turnoff to the police station.
“Felis catus.” Gabriel rested his chin on the top of the leather seat to get a prolonged look at the pet. “Snowflake.”
Naming and cataloging the world seemed to be a way to make sense of it, although Emmanuel had noticed a particular enthusiasm for animals over plants and people. Snowflake held Gabriel’s attention for a whole minute. The police station, Dawson’s General Store and the café rolled past. Emmanuel turned into Daglish’s driveway.
A bronze convertible, low to the ground, with flashing chrome teeth, was parked by the front door. The cream hood and freshly waxed paintwork gleamed in the sunlight. This automobile was a well-loved toy; Jim, Daglish’s husband, the most likely owner.
“Nineteen forty-nine Mercury convertible. Mint condition.” Gabriel reached for the passenger door handle, ready to leap out and put his filthy handprints across the hood.
“Wait a moment,” Emmanuel said, looking for a delaying tactic. “If I can tell you your secret name, will you stay in the car for five minutes?”
“Both names?” the boy asked.
“Yes.”
“If you’re wrong, can I play in the Mercury?”
“Yes, you may.” He hoped to Christ that Daglish’s memory wasn’t faulty or her Zulu completely mangled.
Gabriel’s fingers curled on the door handle, intrigued by the proposition. “Okay,” he said. “Guess.”
“Gabriel Reed. Nyonyane. Little Bird.”
The boy was awed, his blue and brown eyes wide with surprise. “How did you know? It was a secret.”
“Luck.” Emmanuel pulled the car keys from the ignition. “Don’t move. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
“Grown-ups always say that.” The boy sank back against the leather, already bored.
Emmanuel went to the front door and knocked. Swing music blared from inside, a trombone and trumpet fighting for supremacy. The convertible in the driveway and the music spinning on the gramophone made Daglish’s house look like a party venue.
The music brought back memories of Paris in the grip of postwar hedonism: the bright white neon signs that shone a false daylight onto the streets and the dim hole-in-the-wall clubs filled with music and girls. He knocked louder to compensate for the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
“Yes?” Daglish’s voice was sharp. If there was a party hopping out back, she’d yet to have a drink and loosen up.
“It’s Detective Sergeant Cooper. I need your help.”
The lock turned and the door opened a crack. Daglish’s face appeared in the narrow space. The kick and jive of the music contrasted with the tight set of her jaw and the narrow cast of her eyes. She’d shed the nightdress and dressing gown of this morning for a plain brown dress with three-quarter-length sleeves and a high neckline.
“This isn’t a good time.” Daglish kept the door closed as much as possible to stop the sound of their conversation from drifting down the hallway. “You’ll have to come back later, Detective Cooper.”
When Jim had finished throwing his own homecoming party and the gramophone records were back in their paper sleeves—or else the broken pieces swept up from the floor and dumped in the garbage.
“Dr. Zweigman is injured. He needs medical attention urgently.” Emmanuel decided to focus on Zweigman, the man in need, and kept Daglish’s duty and responsibility for later, if he needed them. “I came straight to you. No one else in Roselet can help.”
Daglish slipped out of the house and closed the door with a quiet click. She leaned back and pressed her palms against the wood like Pandora trying to keep a lid on her box of evil. “Where is Dr. Zweigman?” she whispered, even though the heady blast of trumpets was loud enough to drown a baby’s wail.
“In the valley, close to Covenant Farm. We’ll have to drive to the turnoff and then walk the rest of the way.”
“That’s miles away. It will take hours to get there and back.”
“It will be an overnight trip,” Emmanuel said.
“That’s impossible.” The blood drained out of Daglish’s face. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
The drawn expression, her simmering panic and the nervous flick of her gaze to the ground: Emmanuel recognized the signs of distress, knew every twitch from long years of reading his own mother’s face. While the music played, the world was safe. The moment the horns ended, a grim domestic war would begin.
“Jim is home,” Daglish said. “I can’t walk out the moment he walks in.”
“Because it’s your job to be here, waiting for him, whether he’s on the road for days at a time or at home for one night,” Emmanuel interpreted.
She scraped a fingernail against the door, chipping away at the surface. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me, Detective Cooper.”
“Believe me,” he said. “I do.” The emotional cycle of the heavy drinker was a lesson Emmanuel’s father had taught him by personal example. Two lagers and the world became grand and every joke funny. Four drinks and the tide turned. Six empties and every wrong, every hurt, was unearthed.
“I can get you supplies from the surgery, anything you need, but I can’t help beyond that. I’m sorry.”
“I need you, Dr. Daglish. Not a roll of bandages and a bottle of iodine.”
The music stopped abruptly, replaced by the faint clink of ice rattling against glass. Footsteps creaked on the wooden floor.
“Go back to your car and wait there.” Daglish spoke quickly. “I’ll bring my medical bag as soon as I can.”
“Dr. Zweigman won’t pull through without your help,” Emmanuel said. “And I promise to get you there and back safely.”
The footsteps reached the door. Daglish sucked in a breath and held it.
“What are you doing out there, Margaret?” The accent was public school mixed with officers’ club.
“Talking to a patient,” Daglish said. “Won’t be long.”
“We’ve just run out of ice and the bloody maid has disappeared.”
“I’ll get a bag from Dawson’s.” She pressed a finger to her mouth to signal for quiet. “Five minutes.”
“What you should do is sack the maid. Hauling ice is a kaffir’s job, for Christ’s sake, and you made a big enough fool of yourself in town this morning.”
“Yes, of course. Won’t happen again.”
A grunt and a rattle of ice cubes in glass preceded Jim’s retreat to the lounge room. Emmanuel waited for Daglish to relax her shoulders and breathe normally. He understood the situation. Jim needed ice. If it was supplied in enough quantity to drown a few bottles, then a messy sleep on the couch instead of a fight was a possibility.
“What’s he doing here?” Daglish looked over Emmanuel’s shoulder and frowned. “Did you bring him to my house, Detective?”
Gabriel was out of the Chevrolet and tracing his dirty fingers across the Mercury convertible’s wheel arch. Sliding into the pristine leather seats and honking the horn was the next step.
Exasperated, Emmanuel said to the boy, “We had a deal.”
“I waited five minutes.” The teenager leaned over the hood and admired the mellow light bouncing off the waxed surface. He looked as though he could stay there till nightfall, nose to the paint.
“Leave, please,” Daglish s
aid. “I’ll get my medical bag and bring it to you at Dawson’s. Then you can help Dr. Zweigman. Cross my heart.”
Freedom of choice was fine in theory but a bitch in practice. The spirit of the old soldier who’d hauled him through ghost towns reappeared in Emmanuel.
“That’s the way, soldier. Take the offensive.” The sergeant major assumed control. “Zweigman is down, bleeding out on a hillside. The choice here is life or death. The rules of war apply. You will do whatever is necessary to get Daglish into the car.”
Emmanuel walked to the back of the car and unlocked the boot.
“Is it time to go already?” Gabriel asked. He looked up from the ground, where he’d crouched down to count the spokes on the wheel.
“Yeah,” Emmanuel said.
“The boot’s big enough for the job,” the sergeant major confirmed. “Make sure the radio is turned up loud on the drive out of town in case she tries to kick her way out. Tying her up will help.”
Daglish would have to be rendered innocuous and contained, military language for captured and imprisoned. Emmanuel knew he’d do it easily and without conscience. The sergeant major was right, the rules of war applied.
“Dr. Daglish will pack a special bag and deliver it to us at Dawson’s General Store.” He walked around to the front of the car, leaving the boot cracked open an inch.
“Mr. David Dawson,” Gabriel said. “Cash Only.”
“That’s him.” The one time Emmanuel had been into the store with Shabalala, the surly shopkeeper had shadowed their steps, calculating every purchase on scrap paper and mumbling, “Cash only. No credit. Store policy.” Emmanuel had wondered at the time if local whites received similar treatment or if the peculiar behavior was reserved for European visitors and black detectives. Dawson distributed his paranoia fairly across all the race groups.
Emmanuel glanced at Daglish now, calculating her height and weight. She was taller than the average woman and reasonably strong. He’d have to surprise her in order to disable her and load her into the car. “I’ll take those supplies now, Doctor. Jim’s ice has to wait.”
“Of course.” She forced a smile. “The supplies are in the cellar.”
“Follow close but not too close, Cooper. Give her an item to carry to the boot. That will get her in place.”
Gabriel finished counting the silver spokes and stood up, satisfied with his inspection of the car. Daglish stepped back, wary of him. Gabriel smiled and said, “Dr. Margaret Daglish, Play Happy, and Mr. Jim Daglish, Empty Bottles.”
“What did you say?” The doctor flinched as if she’d been slapped.
“Dr. Margaret Daglish.” He pointed directly at Daglish’s solar plexus. “Play Happy.”
“Where did you get that name from?” she asked. The dry sound of her swallowing could be heard in the still garden.
Gabriel shrugged and traced the sleek outline of the Mercury convertible from bonnet to boot, unaffected by the doctor’s stunned expression.
“Play Happy and Empty Bottles.” Daglish repeated the nicknames with a bleak smile. “Clever Gabriel.”
“Every tree and rock has a special name.” Emmanuel felt like Shabalala defending Baba Kaleni’s ability to rip the bandages off the hidden wounds of his own past.
“Not a special name—the right name,” Daglish said. “All the time I’ve spent smiling and pretending to be happy while the maid hides the empty bottles in the back shed. It’s pitiful. Even the boy can see that.”
Gabriel’s unintentional cruelty exposed the rot at the center of Daglish’s life. She stood amid the spring green, looking lost. A moment before, the garden was a welcoming place. Now, with her sadness out in the open, it seemed old and artificial—a stage set for an imaginary life. Her eyes welled with tears.
“Patience,” the sergeant major said. “Don’t rush things, Cooper. Let her have a wee weep if she needs to. She’ll be easier to handle afterwards.”
“We were fabulous ten years ago,” Daglish said. “I was the smartest woman in the room and Jim was the best-looking South African Air Force pilot on the base. It was a match made in heaven. That’s what it felt like at the time. Then the war ended. Jim found work managing a garage, then supervising a construction site and then running a café: then a dozen more things, none of them lasting more than six months. I kept practicing medicine, earning most of the money. No children. Now look at us. Play Happy and Empty Bottles.”
“Going from saving the world to pouring coffee is a hard transition to make,” Emmanuel said. Every ex-soldier suffered the stress of returning to civilian life and some never quite got there.
“You feel sorry for him.” Daglish wiped away tears.
“I feel sorry for you both,” Emmanuel said. Christ, he’d switched soldiering for policing because he needed to create order out of chaos and to uphold some notion of good regardless of the consequences. He’d kept fighting the war long after the war was over. His marriage disintegrated while he chased an ideal.
Vera Lynn’s “When the Lights Go On Again” hit the turntable in the cottage.
“This used to be my favorite song,” Daglish said. “I couldn’t wait for the war to be over. Oh, the life I was going to have!”
“One more minute, laddie. Get yourself together. Saving Zweigman is more important than this lass’s domestic drama.” The sergeant major liked to remind Emmanuel of mission objectives.
“Well, the war is over, the lights are back on and the boys are back home, but I’m living in the dark.” Daglish turned to Emmanuel, her mind set on a new course of action.
“What kind of wound?” she asked with sudden resolve.
“A stab wound to the right shoulder. Deep. Bleeding through the dressing.”
“It’ll need cleaning and stitching and re-dressing.” Daglish interrupted Gabriel’s detailed examination of the Mercury’s antenna by opening the driver’s-side door and motioning to the sleek leather seats. “You can play inside till Detective Cooper and I come back. Promise not to move?”
“Promise.” Gabriel slid onto the two-tone leather seat and smoothed his fingers across the steering wheel, delighted.
“That will hold his attention for a while,” Daglish said, and took the side path to the basement, her journey accompanied by Vera Lynn’s yearning ode to the joys of peacetime. “Tell me what we need, Detective Sergeant.”
“Do what the lady says, Cooper,” the sergeant major said. “She’s a volunteer, not a conscript, now.”
Emmanuel accepted the unfolding miracle without examining it. The universe, and Vera Lynn, had spoken.
It wasn’t Zweigman’s time to go.
Not today.
The temptation to speed down the main road and clear town quickly was great but Emmanuel controlled the impulse. He carried irreplaceable cargo. A boot crammed with medical supplies for Zweigman’s treatment, food and blankets, Gabriel’s encyclopedic mind and Daglish’s rediscovered courage.
“Look.” Gabriel pointed to the general store. “Cash Only.”
A thin white man in a blue-and-white-striped grocer’s apron stalked a fat white tourist with a Brownie reflex camera slung around his neck.
“Who’s that?” Daglish joined in the game and pointed out a sallow woman wrestling a tiny boy onto the back of a Ford pickup truck packed end to end with ragged children.
“Mrs. Beatrice Carson,” Gabriel said. “Baby-a-Year.”
Daglish laughed and wound the window down to get air. She was riding high on the crest of freedom, but five hours from now, with nothing but starlight to illuminate her own dark corners, Emmanuel suspected the wave would crash and Daglish would find herself stranded on a hillside with four strangers, wondering how her life had drained away.
Emmanuel slowed at the entrance to the police station and checked the parking lot. Constable Bagley and two white men in baggy blue suits and crunched fedoras stood near a black police Chevrolet: Detective Sergeant Benjamin Ellicott and Detective Constable John Hargrave of the West Street Br
anch in Durban had arrived.
Gabriel shuffled across the seat to the window to get a better look at the three men in the police station yard. He pushed a fingertip to the glass.
“Constable Desmond Bagley,” he said. “Mr. Insurance Policy.”
17
TEN MILES OUT of town, with blood still roaring in his ears, Emmanuel loosened his death grip on the steering wheel. He had driven ten miles trying to calm down and suppress the urge to slam on the brakes and shake answers about Mr. Insurance Policy out of Gabriel Reed. But getting to Zweigman was the first priority.
He kept the speedometer at sixty and ignored Daglish’s muffled gasps when stones pinged against the undercarriage and red dust coated the windscreen. He checked the rearview mirror and tried to figure out the best way to unlock the knowledge trapped in Gabriel’s brain while driving fast down a corrugated road.
“The names you give the trees and animals come from science books. How do people get their names?” he asked.
Gabriel lolled against the warm leather seat, watching light patterns flicker across the interior walls of the car. “The people tell me who they are.”
“I see.” Emmanuel didn’t see at all but saying otherwise might throw the boy out of the conversation. He tried another tack. “Mr. Bijay Gowda is Bus Ticket because he sells bus tickets?”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Beatrice Carson is Baby-a-Year because she gives birth every year?”
“Of course.”
“And Constable Desmond Bagley is Mr. Insurance Policy because he sells insurance to the Zulus in the valley?”
“Not all of them,” Gabriel said. “Just Amahle.”
Daglish caught the drift of the conversation and laced her fingers tightly together. She glanced out the window. Late afternoon sun hit the tops of the marula trees and long shadows fell across the road. It was too late to turn back now.
“Insurance is expensive,” Emmanuel said. “I’m sure Constable Bagley was a nice insurance agent who gave Amahle a policy for free.”