by Nick Wood
Mamma turns to me: “Eat, my boy.”
I shake my head.
She gets up, moves in front of me and then kneels down to bring her face below mine. She balances easily on the balls of her feet, despite her bulk. She smells of sweet milk. Sweet milk – and the bitter curry in a bunny chow.
“Death awaits us all. You must learn the name of the one within you,” she says, “The sooner you know who, the easier it will be for you.”
I look at her blankly and she sighs. She gets up and pats my head: “Please eat, my boy, you need to sleep before you start another journey in the morning.”
“What?” I look up, “Where? What do you mean?”
I cannot go back to hospital; the doctor will know it’s me who has taken his Box. Where can I go?
“Zambia,” she says, “with the white doctor’s Box.”
I look at her as if she is mad, but she does not smile, nor does she look like anyone I’ve seen in the madhouse.
Zambia!
This is a long and hard journey and I need to know why. I hold my stomach to calm the biting Beast within and ask why. Then I ask again.
“Someone there will make copies of the doctor’s machine,” says Mamma.
I insist on seeing Nombuso.
She is wan and sleeping, her black shirt raised and stretched at the edges around the thick white bandage wrapped around her midriff. I cannot ask her anything, nor wake her. But I can see she is not fit to travel anyway.
I must go alone.
They smile when I tell them and Numbers says he will come with me. Mamma it seems has a back-up bodyguard as well – and another woman who can do her books in the meantime.
“But I have no one who can do everything like you, big man!” Mamma says.
Numbers smiles at Mamma, pleased. As for me, I am very relieved. Numbers looks like a useful man to have on such a dangerous journey, even though he may not talk much.
There will no doubt be time for me to find out the name of the animal – or person – within me.
‘Mandla?’ I guess, but there is no answer.
Instead, inside me, I sense a deep and perfect silence.
Chapter 10
Martin Moves
Marlene has gone.
I feel angry, furious, at Marlene, at Brand, but mostly at myself. It was so fucking obvious – how could I not have seen her for what she was from the outset? Because I didn’t want to.
I just didn’t want to.
It is hard to get up when the alarm radio kicks in, with news of holiday road deaths and an ANC terrorist cell being destroyed in a farmhouse called ‘Hope’s Folly’ on the outskirts of the city. Two reportedly shot dead in a late night fire-fight... I switch the radio off and cover my head with a pillow.
I’d had my own version of a fire-fight – which had been a batch of self-pitying tears, met only by a brutal put down and more questions from Marlene about the EE Box. At which point I’d lost it and tried to physically throw her out. Small though she was, she’d done some jiu-jitsu thing and left under her own steam, stepping dismissively over my dazed body lying near the front door.
Before crawling back into bed, I’d relocked and gone over the alarms twice and finally put away that picture of Suzette at the Umgeni River Bridge, in an old black photo album in the bedroom cupboard. I’d toyed for a while with the notion of burning the photo, but decided that as it was actually Suzette and not Marlene, I needed to treat my memories with discriminatory respect.
File them away; move on.
I’d much rather just lie in bed. I still have a dull headache and am afraid my house is being watched.
But I have that ward round after tea in the Neuro-Clinic, where I have to present the Indian young man with OCD and a fear of cats. He won’t get any starting meds or plans for CBT, unless I turn up.
Shit, I wish I could forget about work demands for just one fucking day.
But, whatever happens, I try never to let people down. Not since I left home, anyway.
I dress as casually as I dare, in semi-formal attire, trousers and collared shirt without a tie, draping my hospital ID around my neck. I glance out the window, standing still for moments behind the nudged curtain – but all looks dull and normal, a few sweaty joggers, next-door neighbours on the right heading out on the school run and then on to work. No one I don’t recognize – and no lurking Brand or Marlene.
At least, as far as I can see.
My heart pumps at a roadblock into work, but I don’t have the energy to avoid it. I pass over my ID book, which a sergeant with a black snorretjie grimaces over for a moment before passing it back to me and waving me on.
I drive on, my shirt sticking to my back even though the day’s heat has yet to show itself, suddenly aware these things are starting to terrify me – seemingly gone are the days when I would just cluck in annoyance at being stopped.
I arrive at the hospital, swinging my car past the medical superintendent’s bay and into the unmarked staff parking section. Mofakane’s car is there – a discreetly small BMW, but still a black Be-Em, parked with intent as near to the superintendent’s bay as possible. (The hospital is indeed pleased to flaunt one of the first black psychiatrists in South Africa to the outside world.)
Dr. James is already here too, his old Jag a less subtle statement, rusting over the wheels.
Ja, the money’s running out, guys – the world is starting to isolate and strangle us. And if not the world, then it’s a small bitchy brunette, with a bewildering throw.
Jabu from Jabula Ward is waiting for me at the top of the steps in the Main Building. As always, I smile slightly at the resonance of their names.
But he doesn’t look happy in the slightest.
“We’ve had a runaway, Doctor,” he greets me, “But I don’t think it’s a suicide break.”
“Who is it, Jabu?” I ask, still feeling fragile from the night.
“Sibusiso.”
“Mchunu?” I stop at the top of the stairs, hesitating.
He nods.
“A pity,” I say, “I thought we were making progress. But he’s not certifiable – nor did he seem suicidal, as you say.” Inwardly, I’m starting to shake, though.
Jabu nods and follows me as I enter the building and turn down the corridor past reception, to my office.
“I just wondered whether you think there may have been a trigger to his suddenly leaving late last night, Doctor?”
I shake my head, keying my door – it takes me several attempts, my hands are trembling hard now: “Sorry, no, he seemed happy we were considering a family meeting.”
The key fails to turn, it is already unlocked, and I hope it’s just the cleaners again.
“Okay, see you later then, Doctor.” He strides off. Despite his bulk, he moves gracefully, silently. (My shoes in contrast, never fail to squeak almost every step of this corridor.)
I push the door open and step inside, sensing wrongness.
I make my way round to the front of the desk. The top-drawer lies open, splintered chips from a broken lock scattered on the floor and inside the drawer. I throw the papers and splinters out, but there is no key.
I turn to look at the test cupboard behind me. It is closed, but the key is in the lock.
For fuck’s sake! I jerk the door open and scrabble on the bottom shelf, but know already what I won’t find. How can I have been such an idiot? How the fuck could I have been so stupid?
The Box – our EE Box, gone.
Dan will kill me.
Who was it? Not Brand, he’d have picked me up too. It has to have been… Sibusiso?
I look under the desk again. Apart from the chisel there are a few sharp, flattish wooden splinters, one marked with a reddish-brown crusty substance that looks like blood. I pick the splinter up gingerly and place it in a small plastic bag that I usually use for bank change.
We’ve taken blood from Sibusiso – it should be easy to ask the lab to check if this is a match.
; I’ve got an hour or so before the Neuro-Clinic tea and ward-round. I make my way to Jabula Ward.
I have never been here this early. There is no one in the reception area, but I hear singing coming from the room next door.
Singing that raises goose-bumps on my arms, pulling me through, leaving me no choice but to follow the rising and falling of intermingled voices, male and female, staff and patient, in a melodic mix and chant in a language I fail to understand. I cock my head as I push open the door, with a strange feeling that if I just listened hard enough, the meanings would fall into place, the words would etch themselves into my body.
All are in a circle and are dancing too, mixed together, with no sense of division; the words and music bounce and flow between them, like a beautiful but hidden beach ball. There is no instrument but their voices, floating free, spinning around the room and bouncing off me too, wringing tears from my eyes.
The words have fallen now, dropped to the ground with an earthy finality, leaving me hanging and longing for more. The circle breaks, no one has noticed me as yet and I see two staff start plaiting the hair of two women, an older and a younger patient, both in institutional yellow dress and seated now, but looking happy, looking normal.
Jabu spots me at last and peels away from the group.
“You’re here early, Doctor – what’s up?”
“Where has Sibusiso been going for weekend VL, Jabu?”
“He’s using a residential college address based where he is studying – why, Doctor?”
I ignore the question. “Who’s been signing him out?”
“Last weekend it was a young woman.” He raises an eyebrow, no doubt in response to me ignoring his question.
“Can you please find me the address, Jabu? We may need to visit him to make sure he is indeed better and coping with things.” (And to find out whether he has stolen my EE Box, the bastard!)
“Sure, Doctor.” He turns as a man tugs at his arm, wanting something. Jabu smiles and walks away with him, beefy arm draped over his shoulder. I notice the beaded colours of the ANC on his wrist bracelet – black for the people, green for the land, gold in the Earth – or so I’ve been told. A risky statement to wear though, they’re banned. Or is this a sign the shit is about to really hit the fan?
The patients seem relaxed and happy. I wonder whether this early communal hour and more drives the real therapeutic change we see eventually, rather than all our pills and formal therapies. I remember Sibusiso did not give credit to our time together either.
I drop the blood sample off at the hospital lab and head back to my office to read up on Patient Reddy, although I shiver as I step into my room. It feels as if nothing is safe from being invaded or violated in my life. My space has been breached both at home and work – and, painfully, inside me as well.
For once I am personally grateful for the box of tissues on my desk.
“Why are you so keen to see this runaway patient, Doctor?” Jabu asks as he waves me left down a road from the passenger seat of my car.
I consider my reply. The lab report was clear – and the laboratory seldom lies. But I can’t tell him anything about that. The less people know anything about the theft – and especially what’s been stolen – the better.
“I’ve reviewed his notes and think he’s a significant suicide risk.” Although my eyes are focused on the narrower, unfamiliar road, I can sense the disbelief in the large man next to me.
He says nothing, though I catch a veiled glance out of the corner of my eye.
I relax a bit after skirting the police barrier ahead by taking an even smaller pot-holed road, relatively empty of people – and empty of barricades of burning tyres too. The road swings past box-houses, which billow out of the soil – state housing designed to appease the people – but few people are out walking those straight, sterile pavements, which are marked in neatly controllable squares.
Under Jabu’s instruction and chewing on a chocolate bar, I drive on and deeper into the heart of the black township place, where the road runs out and the car bucks across potholes in a sandy track. Tilted corrugated iron shacks sprout alongside the track, winding along a ditch where people are scooping buckets of water with old petrol cans.
I feel frightened, unsure of myself, having crossed a line I have never crossed before.
I am in a real black township.
We stop at a point where other cars and minivan taxis are scrambled on a small field, its grass flattened by traffic and people. I step self-consciously out of the car, very aware of my pale skin here.
“Stay close,” says Jabu, “We’re taking the back way in; people have been jumpy here since a protest march was crushed recently.”
We thread our way past people and taxis, hearing only one muttered ‘umlungu’ as we reach the chaotic spread of shacks. Some, I note with admiration, are painted carefully in blue or pink, a few are fronted with boxed earth spaces with scraggly plants inside.
“Flowers never last long here – they are a sign of newcomers,” says Jabu, “They indicate people who have recently moved from areas where public display is not an invitation to steal.”
“Oh,” I say.
Once through the scattered cluster of shacks we meet a road that arches into a more built-up residential area. Jabu points at a small tower block: “Student flats for Fundimiso College, where Sibusiso was picked up by the mental health outreach team.”
“Ah,” I say.
Jabu leads the way into the block and checks at the reception desk. Sibusiso is indeed registered at Room number 134.
The clerk rattles something in Zulu at Jabu, who turns to me: “He’s not been seen here for a while. We may not be in luck.”
I scowl, “Let’s check it out anyway.”
Jabu shrugs and leads the way down the corridor. Several students drift past with books, some turn to gape at me. Jabu stops outside Room 134 and knocks with loud and beefy knuckles, his wrist now bare.
The door opens. A young man stares at us, dressed in T-shirt and Bafana branded slacks; he looks tired and somewhat miserable. There is a further brief but rapid exchange of Zulu before Jabu turns to me. The young man closes the door abruptly.
Jabu shrugs again: “According to Bongani, his roommate Sibusiso has hardly been home since he was hospitalized – he’s been spending time with a young woman in his history class called Nombuso…”
“Can we find out where this Nombuso is, then?”
“Probably.” He gives me yet another curious look, as if uncertain why I am so intent on tracking a runaway who – to him at least – did not appear to be a serious mental health risk. “Let’s ask the clerk at reception. He may have centralized access to student addresses.”
We head back down the corridor again. The way is blocked by a gathering group of six or seven black male students, looking sullen and hostile. I drop anxiously behind Jabu’s broad back.
This time the exchange of isiZulu is especially rapid, almost hot, although I can only dimly guess at what they might be saying. The group remains knitted together, threatening, a belligerent looking youth at the front taking a lead in the phalanx of students as they step forward slowly, the hint of a toyi-toyi dance in their movements.
Jabu turns to me and mutters. “They call me an Uncle Tom for working with a white man, but I’m happy with name calling, as long as it stays at that.”
He does not move, but I can’t rely on him to be a human barricade for me, so I take a deep breath and step around him. The group halts, almost as surprised as Jabu.
But then they step forward again, aggression leaking from their angry faces and clenched fists, halting abruptly as a sharp female voice snaps from behind them; “Keep still, touch no one.”
They break open their ranks in the narrow corridor to allow a cropped, striking young woman through – she’s short, but muscled, with a bulky midriff that is partly bandaged, I can see a bandage strip at the bottom of her black blouse. She walks with stiff dignity, as if in
pain. “What business do you have here?” she asks.
“You know Sibusiso Mchunu?” I ask.
She starts and looks at Jabu, anywhere but at me. She holds her right hand up and splays her fingers. The other students drift away.
Finally, she looks at me, but it’s a brief and fleeting glance: “No, I don’t know anyone by that name.”
Jabu barks a short laugh: “You signed him out of Fort Napier this last weekend.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name,” she repeats stubbornly, glancing behind to the group with an implicit challenge: “Now go.”
What can we do? Jabu shrugs his huge shoulders and we start our long slow walk back to my car, before the sun drops too low in the sky.
There are many ways to skin a cat, they say. I think of how else to track Sibusiso and my Box. I also wonder if and when to let Dan know. Jesus, he’ll go absolutely bedonderd when I tell him, so I won’t say anything, not for a while anyhow. Not until I really have to. I run through conversations in my head, but none end happily.
Jabu bumps me with his large hip and I stagger away from him. A man walks between us with a glower, eyes sweeping my face with disdain, before flicking his remote lock to open his taxi minibus door with his left hand.
My stomach tightens when I notice he has a gun in his right hand.
I’m relieved to see my car is still where I left it, all four of its tyres intact.
“Martin,” Jabu calls me across the roof of my car, standing by the open passenger door.
“Yes, Jabu?” I say, startled at his use of my first name. It strikes me that he’d done this to get my attention.
“Daydream anymore in a place like this and you are dead meat – capiche?” (I wonder if he’s watched old gangster or cowboy movies in his youth.)
I swing into the driver’s seat, also wondering if Jabu is a Christian or whether he’s a follower of a traditional African religion – and whether he’s actually shot or killed anyone himself.
I wonder, but I don’t ask. The silence feels heavy on our slow, circuitous drive back to the hospital.