Alet took a deep breath. “Johannes, I want you to know that I will honor my promise. I asked Theo to hand over everything we found on my dad. He will be prosecuted if he pulls through.”
Mathebe closed his eyes. “You have fought to give Mrs. Pienaar justice, Constable Berg. For that, you will always have my respect.”
Alet tried to hold on to that moment in the months that followed, stuck on desk duty, mandatory psychiatric counseling, and physical therapy twice a week. She only saw Adriaan again at his trial, his testimony stoic, detached, denying horrors that had had her sobbing into the late hours. He never made eye contact as she took the stand to testify against him, his gaze focused in the distance, a self-righteous set to his jaw.
Alet saw her face plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country, her life dissected by a media frenzy fiercer than a shark attack. She’d become known as the monster’s daughter. Some postulated that she betrayed her own blood to get ahead. A publisher approached her with a book deal if she would “tell all,” calling her a hero. Alet stopped answering her phone after that.
Booking on her shift one afternoon, Alet noticed that the door to the evidence room had been left open. As she reached for the handle to lock it, she saw April among the shelves, his back to her. She was about to crack a joke, tell him to go home to his new wife, when she realized that he was putting drug evidence into his backpack. Alet walked away without a word, tired of kicking against the stream, so tired, willing to give over, to maybe just once not be at the center of the storm but instead to strive for harmony, even though it meant that she would be betraying everything she had fought for. There was a moment of decision, when anger fell away and no good reason to stay on the force remained, and Alet hesitated too long.
Alet quit the police and moved to Cape Town, where she took a position at a private security firm, doing shifts as a first responder to emergency calls from those who could pay for their safety. The industry was booming, the pay good enough. Once in a while, when the fog lay like a blanket over Table Mountain, she would call in sick and take the cable car to the top, despite the ticket-seller’s warnings of poor visibility. She’d wander around in the dense whiteness, the world simply disappearing in a soft haze as the ghosts of the past walked with her. Tessa. Benjamin. Jakob. It was hard to imagine that death could have brought them peace. In time, she knew, people would forget who they were, and who she was. They would even forget about her father and the things done by men like him, as they had forgotten the struggle for their freedom. But Alet knew she would never have that luxury.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my agent, Markus Hoffmann, and the staff at Regal Literary for your support and hard work in getting this manuscript into the right hands. Thanks to my editor, Mark Krotov, and everyone at Melville House. I owe a great deal to Audrey Niffenegger for her help and guidance, and for telling me to stick to my vision for the book. To my first readers, Mike Bogart, Gary Stephens, Rob Shouse, Jordan Bray, Kevin Kane, Melissa Spor, Nic Bernstein, Lena Kondo, and especially Chris Marnach, who indulged me in many hours of conversation about Alet and Mathebe. Thanks to my husband, Steve, for his unwavering encouragement and support. A big thank-you to Anel and Jan Burger for their hospitality, and for sharing their world with me. And to Dr. Andrew Faull, for generously sharing his work and steering me toward helpful resources. I’m sure I’ve missed names, and for that my sincerest apologies.
About the Author
MICHELLE PRETORIUS was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. She has written for Bookslut, Word Riot, and The Copperfield Review, among other publications. She received an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago and is currently a PhD student at Ohio University.
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