Black Heart

by Mike Nicol

  Now he was alone. Christa with her friend Pumla. Rather there than at home. Yesterday’s music playing. A Rolling Stones number about a line of cars painted black.

  Mace hurled the mug against the house wall. One of Oumou’s mugs. The mug exploded, shards ricocheting at him.

  He’d have cried if he could.

  The thing with grief, Mace thought, was the pain. You couldn’t get rid of the ache. It lodged in your chest heavy and throbbing. Every waking moment. One kind of relief was to sleep. A double whisky. One, two, three Ambiens. Go blank on the blood that had pumped out of her.

  Or keep on the move. Work. Swim. Those long distances, length on length through the pool down the white lane without a thought, without the hurt. Just the mechanics of it, arm after arm coming up and out and down, bubbles streaming away. Until his arms couldn’t take any more. His lungs were good, but his arms slowed first. Got so he could hardly pull himself out of the pool at the rungs. No strength to hold on.

  Then the trembling. The muscle spasms. More like shaking than trembling. Only a hot shower could stop it. Afterwards he’d dress slowly. Distracted, remembering the blood. With no reason to go home.

  Except there was Christa. When Christa was home. Mostly she seemed to be at school, with Pumla, anywhere but home. And when she was, she was locked behind her bedroom door into her iPod and her novels. She and Mace moving around one another like ghosts. Oumou’s murder pushing them apart.

  Earlier, in the morning, he’d swum for hours until his arms gave in. Come back, mooned about the house. Christa on a sleepover. He’d watched movies. Sat in Oumou’s studio with the big clean patch on the floor, staring at the items she’d made arranged along the shelves. The plates, bowls, vases that would never be fired.

  Most days he sat there. Sat staring, hurting for her.

  Remembered coming down the stairs, seeing the blood first. The smear of it across the floor. Then Oumou’s feet. Then her body, the barber’s razor in her back, her dress soaked red, the blade slashes across her hands, arms, throat. Her face turned to him. Her eyes losing their light.

  He had watched more movies. Eventually taken a mug of coffee on to the deck. The mountain behind, grey cliffs rising into mist. Cape Town below wet and glistening, a hard light on the sea.

  He thought of Christa. Of being father to a daughter without a mother. Could it be more difficult? Her hurt that she kept silent. Except her nagging insistence: teach me to shoot.

  ‘I do that,’ Mace’d said, ‘you have to be okay about killing someone.’

  ‘I’m just learning to aim straight.’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  ‘I’m not going to shoot anyone.’ She’d turned her back on him, stood staring out the window at the city. Mace’d put his hands on her shoulders but she’d shrugged away. ‘I have to protect myself.’

  The unspoken criticism: because you can’t. Or my mother wouldn’t be dead.

  Mace’d said, ‘You’re prepared to shoot a human being?’

  She’d snapped back. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even if they don’t have a gun?’

  ‘A man threatens me, yes.’

  ‘The law doesn’t allow it.’

  ‘Papa,’ Christa’d said, ‘my Maman was killed.’

  More unspoken criticism: what’s the use of the law?

  Good question, Mace figured. Obvious answer. He’d agreed, yes, alright, he’d teach her to shoot.

  Not a thank you. Not a hug. Not a kiss of reconciliation. Just: ‘When?’

  ‘Can’t be this weekend,’ he’d said.

  ‘You see. That’s what you always say.’

  ‘I’ve got a business to run, C. Clients. I can’t go dashing out whenever I want to. I can’t leave Pylon to manage everything.’

  ‘I’m your daughter,’ she’d said. Plugged in her iPod, picked up her book, refused to look at him, to answer him, turned away when he’d sat down opposite her to beg, yes, beg for her not to be like that.

  That’d been Friday night.

  What Mace didn’t know was that she’d cut herself later. Taken one of his three-bladed razor heads, held it between her thumb and index finger, ran the blades gently along her inner thigh for a couple of centimetres, high up just below her panty line. Pain that burnt. Made her suck in her breath, bite on her teeth, ball her free hand into a fist. But for the long moment the blades sliced in, the cut was all she felt.

  A longer score than the first one. The old scabs crusted, brushed off, leaving pale stripes. Three parallel lines. The new blood below, beading, rivering down her thigh. She dabbed at the flow with toilet paper, let the cuts bleed until the blood coagulated.

  Saturday morning Treasure had called round to pick up Christa. Pregnant Treasure and her daughter, Pumla. Pylon driving his wife and step-daughter. He’d stayed out of it. Treasure hadn’t. When Christa wouldn’t kiss her father goodbye, Treasure’d got out of the car, waddled over to Mace, took him aside.

  ‘Get your act together, okay. She’s hurting, Mace. Let Pylon run the business. Be with her. Go away with her like you’ve been threatening. She needs closure. Go to Malitia. Let her see where her mother grew up. Scatter Oumou’s ashes, give the girl something. Some emotion. Some memories. You close up. You think it’s macho holding it all together. It’s not. It’s not doing her any good. She thinks you’re cold. That you don’t care. She wants to see you cry, Mace. Be like her, so heartsore her chest wants to burst.’

  ‘I am,’ said Mace..

  ‘You could fool me.’

  She got into the car. Mace, his hands in his pockets, stood looking at them: the happy family and his daughter. Pylon shrugged in sympathy, fired the car, reversed into the street. Only Treasure waved as they drove off.

  Mace gazed up at the mountain’s heights: above the ridge patches of blue opening in the clouds. He needed to do something: swim or climb the mountain. Maybe up there a thug bastard would be kind enough to mug him. He could vent a little. Like bash the dipshit’s brains out with a rock.

  The emptiness of the house when he went back in was chilling. A physical cold. And silence. Silence like being in a glass cube: you could see the outside, you just couldn’t hear it.

  Cat2 rubbed against his legs, made her strangled cry. As a kitten she’d been hung on the wall of a rave club. Mace stroked her, could feel the lump of scar tissue at the back of her neck where the nail had gone through. Lifted her up, said, ‘This is crappy, Cat2. Crappy as hell.’ Cat2 opened her mouth, gave a soundless pink yowl.

  He fed her smoked pilchards, grabbed his kitbag, headed for the Alfa Spider. A swim, long and hard, was the best option. Only thing, the Spider wouldn’t start. Great idea as a car, only it was acting up. Had become unreliable. Temperamental. Then again it was old. Thirty-five, thirty-six years. Except back in the day it hadn’t been as bad.

  He had no choice but to take Oumou’s station wagon. He’d driven it a couple of times since. Meant to sell it but couldn’t place the advert. If it wasn’t there, the car in the garage, her absence would be worse. Yet another gap, yet another reminder of the hole in his life.

  The car still smelt of her. Of clay and perfume. Even these weeks later. Still had memories of her everywhere. Dry knobs of clay in the boot. In the cubby hole hairclips and sunglasses. Under the front seat a pair of canvas shoes he’d found while trying to stow his gun. Oumou. Put a hand into a seat pocket and there’d be a strand of hair, long, black. Her long black silky hair that she’d waft across his chest. Sitting on him, her breasts pushed through the cloud of hair, stroking it across him until he had to pull her down, close on her lips. Kiss her, get lost in her.

  He snapped away from the memory. Fumbled the key into the ignition, started the engine. Revved the motor harder than he had to.

  For the rest of the weekend Mace watched movies, slept, again went swimming to keep the blood from seeping into his mind. Thing was he could’ve taken Christa to the range in the quarry. Done something for her.

  Instead sat flopp
ed before the flat screen: Once Upon a Time in the West, episodes of Deadwood, The Outlaw Josey Wales.

  Slept. Swam. Ended up on Sunday afternoon, Cat2 in his lap, watching the beginning of Once Upon a Time over and over again. The first six minutes with the three shooters at the station. The rhythmic screech of the windmill, the buzz of a fly. The guy on the bench trapping the fly in the barrel of his gun. Holding the gun against his cheek, smiling at the angry buzz. Until the train’s whistle cut the quiet. The piston thunder of the train coming across the flats. And the gunmen checking their hardware, walking out onto the platform as the train pulled in. A man got off. Not their man. The men relaxing, moving away while the train draws out. Then the harp, the loud strong call of the harp and the men turning to face the Bronson character – Harmonica.

  The long wail gave Mace chills down his spine. Thrilling. The sort of signature tune you needed.

  Harmonica drawing it out, unhurried. Eventually letting the mouth organ dangle on the lanyard round his neck.

  ‘Where’s Frank?’

  ‘Frank sent us.’

  Harmonica’s stare, eyes shifting to the three horses roped to a railing. ‘Didn’t bring a horse for me?’

  ‘Looks like we’re shy one horse,’ says fly catcher, the men laughing.

  Harmonica slowly, barely shaking his head. ‘You brought two too many.’ The flat no-nonsense: ‘You brought two too many.’

  Mace loved it. Legendary. The tight moment before the gunfight, and after the bullets only the creak of the windmill turning. Then Harmonica slowly sitting up.

  Five times he watched those six minutes. Afterwards he’d sat in Oumou’s studio, then gone upstairs, switched on Solid Gold Sunday, made coffee, taken it outside. Sat there in dark self-pity while the Stones sang Paint it Black. Hurled the mug against the wall. An overwhelming sadness filled his chest.

  He phoned Christa.

  Her reluctant, ‘Papa.’

  ‘What’ja doing?’

  ‘Nothing. Watching movies.’

  ‘Yeah, what?’

  ‘Scream 3.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘It’s cool.’

  He could hear how cool the screams were in the background. What was it with teens and slasher films?

  ‘You haven’t been out anywhere?’

  ‘It’s been raining.’

  ‘Not all the time.’

  ‘Most of the time.’

  A pause. Mace gripping the cellphone tighter.

  ‘You’ve done your homework?’

  She sighed.

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Friday night, Papa. You saw me.’

  ‘Just checking.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘I know, C.’ He wanted to say, ‘I miss you not being here’ but didn’t.

  If he’d said that, she’d have said, ‘Why? We don’t do anything together.’

  And there was no answer to that.

  Instead he said, ‘Has Pylon left yet?’

  Christa said, ‘I think so. Hang on.’ Then: ‘Not long ago.’

  ‘We’re picking up clients from the airport,’ said Mace. ‘Should be finished by eight, then I’ll fetch you.’

  ‘Can’t I stay here?’

  ‘It’s school tomorrow.’

  ‘I can go through with Pumla.’

  ‘I don’t think so, C.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t want it that way. We’ve got to be together on this.’

  A silence. Long enough to make Mace edgy but he held off breaking it.

  Then: ‘Pylon’s got hair clippers. Electric ones. Pumla can shave my head.’ Mace frowned. ‘What for?’

  ‘For Maman. It’s like tradition for people in mourning.’

  ‘Whose tradition?’

  ‘Pumla says people do it.’

  Mace thought, Jesus Christ! Said, ‘No, C. It’s not something we do.’

  Silence again. He could imagine the sulkiness in her mouth.

  Then: ‘Take me shooting.’

  This was something he could relate to. ‘Next Saturday.’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Promise, C.’

  ‘I’m going now,’ she said.

  Mace nodded. Couldn’t get any words out to say goodbye before she disconnected.

  He put down his cellphone, let the wallow engulf him. In the midst of it thought of Sheemina February. Like she was standing nearby in her long black coat, black gloves, holding out to him a red rosebud. A smile on her lips showing the tips of perfect teeth. Her eyes ice blue. He got out the photograph the German woman had taken: he and Christa on the mountain at the cable station, not long after Oumou’s killing. Despite the grief, a good picture of them. Except there in the background, the figure of Sheemina February, watching them.

  5

  The first morning Max Roland thought God was calling. He woke to a voice. Loud. Insistent. Booming out from speakers. Filling his hotel room. An amplified God. A voice joined by other voices.

  Max Roland lay on a single bed covered by a sheet. His arms hurt. The weals around his wrists were livid. Otherwise he was okay. Over the ordeal.

  Except now there was God.

  He propped himself up, groaned at the ache in his arm muscles, collapsed back on the bed.

  There was light at the open windows. Dawn with the heat pressing down.

  Not God but the mullahs calling the faithful to prayer. He listened. Wondered why they needed loudspeakers? Why their voices were no longer enough?

  Max Roland could see a blood-red dawn behind the far hills. At any moment expected the sky to crack, God’s mouth to appear. This was how the world would end. Fire in the morning, a voice across the sky. Angry. Demanding obedience. Obeisance.

  He’d quickly got used to the dawn chorus. There was no sleeping through it, but afterwards the city rested. Stasis in the moments between the prayers and the traffic.

  He would read. A thriller he’d bought at the airport. He would soon finish the book. He would have to start it again.

  Before breakfast each morning, Max Roland jogged into the souk, quiet and shut, jogged up to the Great Mosque. At first the alleys had been confusing but he soon figured them out. Enjoyed this time in the praying city before the sun set fire to the heat. With every morning his mind running away from the room of white tiles, the patient, insistent men.

  Now, on the fifth night, he phoned Magnus Oosthuizen from the hotel phone in reception. What passed as a reception. A counter with a registration book on it. A languid young man in attendance. Men chewing qat lay about the room on cushions. Sometimes they talked. Mostly they chewed with a slow concentration. Watched scenes from a war on television, the sound turned down. Listened to a pop singer wailing the anguish of love on a portable radio.

  ‘Max,’ said Magnus Oosthuizen, ‘for God’s sake.’

  ‘I thought so,’ said Max Roland. ‘On the first morning definitely that is what I thought.’

  ‘What?’ said Oosthuizen. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Max Roland told him about the voices of God.

  Oosthuizen said, ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Sana’a,’ said Max Roland. ‘Yemen.’

  ‘Yemen. How the hell did you get there?’

  ‘By plane, of course.’

  ‘I thought … I thought you’d been caught.’

  ‘Yes, that is true. But then I got away. They were careless. These Albanians think they are too clever but they make mistakes. So I walked out.’

  ‘With money to buy an air ticket?’

  ‘With my suitcase, yes.’

  Max Roland heard long distance telephone crackle, one of Oosthuizen’s silences. He waited.

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘I told you. They are stupid.’

  ‘Maybe they let you go,’ said Oosthuizen. ‘Maybe they followed you.’

  ‘Bah!’ Max Roland pinched some fresh leaves off the qat twi
gs, stuffed them in his mouth. Chewed.. ‘That is why I am in Yemen. To make sure they did not. It is the last place on the earth they would think of.’

  ‘I’ll send someone,’ said Oosthuizen, Max Roland smiling to himself at how Oosthuizen had lowered his tone, calmed his voice. ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘Oh ja,’ said Max Roland. ‘I like it very much here.’

  ‘And you haven’t been followed.’

  ‘No, no. But now it is time to move again.’

  ‘Give me a day,’ said Oosthuizen. ‘I’ll get back to you. On this phone.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Max Roland, tasted the bitter qat in his mouth. Five days is too long in one place.’

  ‘I’ll get you home,’ said Oosthuizen. ‘Believe me, we have to move quickly.’

  ‘You can call me in the afternoons. I am in the garden then. Reading. In the afternoons.’

  Magnus Oosthuizen didn’t respond. Max Roland said, ‘I am getting anxious.’

  ‘Are you eating?’ Oosthuizen asked. ‘What time is it there?’

  Max Roland looked at his wrist watch. Frowned. Said, ‘Eleven twenty.’

  ‘You’re eating supper?’

  ‘Leaves. Qat,’ said Max Roland. ‘Everyone does from lunch time into the night to slow down the city. A most wonderful habit. We all have green teeth.’ He laughed.

  ‘Stay there, in the hotel,’ said Magnus Oosthuizen. ‘I will phone you tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Please,’ said Max Roland. He smiled at the languid young man. Replaced the phone in its docking station, took his branch of qat into the garden.

  A small garden lit by candles. A garden lush with trees and shrubs, protected by high walls from the street. An oasis in a desert city. Yet as hot here, even at this time of night, as anywhere in the crumbling hotel. He sat on a bench. Wondered why the Albanians had been so careless. Wondered how close they were to tracking him down. By now they would have made the links. Definitely it was time to be on the move again. He tore off more qat leaves, stuffed them into his mouth. Chewed. Sometimes in transit was the safest place to be. Sometimes in transit felt like prison.