When Morning Comes

by Arushi Raina

  “It’s just the beginning,” she said. “It’s not enough. It was never just about Afrikaans.”

  “Of course not.”

  “The thing about the policeman,” she said after a while. “It’s true. I pulled him out of his car with my own hands. I killed him.”

  “You killed him?”

  “I pulled him out of the car and then he was burned alive.”

  “So the mob got him. Your bunch of students.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you didn’t kill him yourself.”

  “Does it make a difference?”

  “It’s strange that you want to take credit for killing him.”

  “If you think I’m sorry he died, I’m not.”

  “Of course not. You couldn’t care less. He is mlungu.”

  “So are you.”

  I didn’t say anything. I leaned back in the chair and waited for her to fall asleep. But she didn’t. She took my collar and pulled me toward her. And I let her.

  Twenty

  Zanele

  It was almost morning now. Light fell on the cream sheets, the thick mattress. Jack was still asleep. I picked up his shirt and put it on. I thought about my mother standing against the light, making her braids.

  “That shirt looks good on you,” Jack said, his voice sleepy, unworried. He reached out, pulled me down onto the bed, kissing me, and it was like all the times before, but different too.

  “Come with me to England,” he said. “I’ll find a way to get you there.”

  “You know I won’t—”

  “—too far.”

  “Yes.”

  “I know you care I’m leaving,” he said. “I know you do.”

  “Yes,” I said, my eyes resting on his.

  “So?”

  “It can’t be helped.”

  “Can’t be helped?” He put his arms around me, rested his face against my shoulder.

  We had a few hours, at most.

  When I woke up, a mlungu was sitting on the chair staring at Jack’s hand, which was resting on the sheet that covered me. Jack’s friend. He was broad and had light reddish hair.

  On the night table, the gun, but Jack’s friend wasn’t looking at that.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said. “Ricky.”

  “We have,” I said.

  “You have a name?”

  “You must have had a long drive.”

  “Not too bad. You liking the house?”

  “It’s yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks for lending it.”

  “Pleasure. I didn’t see this coming. Jack’s a sly one.”

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  “Get out, Ricky,” Jack said, in a low angry voice.

  “You can’t trust him,” Ricky continued. “Jack always keeps a couple of girls on the line. We don’t know how he does it.”

  “Get the hell out, Ricky.”

  Ricky shrugged, stumbled out of the room.

  “Will he tell anyone we’re here?” I said.

  But Jack put his trousers on and left the room, after Ricky, after things that didn’t matter. I heard his raised voice through the next room.

  A few hours till I met Thabo. And the police between me and the Swaziland border.

  But I didn’t have to wait that long for them to find me.

  Meena

  The phone rang and I picked up.

  “The Special Branch. Coetzee. He’s come for me.”

  “Zanele? Where are you?”

  But she was gone. I put the phone down slowly.

  Jonas walked into the shop. His body was stooped over, like he was collapsing onto himself. He picked Zanele’s jacket off the stool and sat down.

  He turned the jacket over in his hands. “I like this jacket,” he said. “I had one like this.” He stared at the logo on the back.

  “Maybe it’s yours,” I said impatiently, my nails tapping at the till, waiting for him to leave.

  “No,” he said slowly. “I left mine with my wife and I never went back for it.”

  I looked behind Jonas for any sign of Thabo. He was meant to come and confirm everything with me. He was supposed to come.

  “She told me never to come back,” he said.

  One of Thabo’s boys walked by the shop window and I gestured to him—my hand, slicing across my neck. The boy nodded, ran off.

  “She took my children, she got everything. Anyway, they were girls. They would end up like her. So I left them with her. Ha. Some women are like stones—even in the storm, the cold, the fire, they survive. Yes I had two girls. Mankwe was the pretty one. We named the younger one Zanele. In Zulu, we call the last daughter Zanele. The name gives us luck so we get a son the next time. But we got no son.”

  I took the jacket from Jonas and stared at it. I looked up at him, at the reddened, unhealthy whites of his eyes. “You left them. Your girls,” my voice shook. “Now, today. Today your baas is going to kill Zanele. And Mankwe is in jail.”

  Jonas coughed. “Two Lucky Strikes, from the shelf, asseblief.”

  “The name of your wife is Lillian, isn’t it?” I said, not moving from the counter. “Coetzee has Mankwe. And he’s got Zanele too. That is what he has been doing while you’ve been thanking him for buying you cigarettes.”

  Jonas gripped my wrists—his hands surprisingly strong. For a moment, I thought he was going to hurt me. Then his mouth fell open, he dropped his hands, and his cap fell to the floor. “No,” he said slowly. “No.”

  “Get out,” I said. “Go back to your baas. Go help him kill your daughters.”

  Jonas picked up his cap from the floor. He steadied himself against the shop counter. And then he left. I was shaking.

  By the time I got onto a Putco bus, it was already afternoon. And a big Coca-Cola truck was in the road, blocking our way to the shebeen. The truck looked new, and had a large close-up of a white girl’s freckled face, with the lettering, Coke adds life, but I couldn’t see what it added life to.

  Zanele

  I put the phone in its cradle just as a black Mercedes stopped in front of the house.

  Jack ran in from the next room with the fat boy. And they stood there, waiting for me to do something.

  I stood up, walked over to the line of closets, and got inside one of them, behind coats. The coats smelled of a faraway place.

  Jack came to the closet door and stared down at me. His face was tight. In the dim light, I saw the glint of his eyes, the outline of the bones on his face. Was it possible to love something so imperfect as this? He gave me a tense smile before he closed the closet door.

  Then, rapping at the front door. Slow footsteps as Jack went to answer it.

  Jack

  I picked up the gun from the bedside table where I’d left it next to the bowl of pasta. I put it in my waistband. The knocking continued. I took Ricky’s dad’s dressing gown and put it on. “Make yourself useful and answer the door.”

  Ricky just stood there.

  I walked down the stairs. And Ricky followed.

  I opened the door. A man dressed in an old blue suit. He had a burn on one cheek, light, almost papery textured hair.

  He smiled. “Hello. Jack Craven, yes?” His eyes went behind me. “And Richard Kretsky, yes.”

  I stood there, waiting, with the door open.

  “May I come in?” His eyebrows rose with the question, but his eyes remained lazy, expressionless. I thought about taking the gun out and shooting him. Maybe I should have.

  I stepped back from the door. “Of course.”

  He stepped in and the wood creaked. Ricky backed away as the man entered. Ricky must have told him we were here.

  “It wasn’t Richard, Jack,” the man said in his pleasant, measured voice. “Don�
��t worry. Richard just left in such a hurry, and his parents, lovely, really lovely people, told me he’d rushed here. Richard tells his parents the truth. He didn’t know I was coming. You can’t blame him.”

  We were standing under an old-fashioned chandelier. The man walked to the living room. He seemed to know his way around the house. I didn’t see a gun on him, but then what did I know. “And you are?”

  He turned. “How rude of me. Sorry. Coetzee. Michael Coetzee.” And he held out his hand, and looked unsurprised when neither of us took it. Then he started walking up the stairs. I followed him. Ricky followed me.

  “What do you want?” I said.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to have this conversation when all of us are together?” Coetzee said. “I think Zanele would like to be part of it too.” He entered the second bedroom and his hand ran over the undisturbed bed. “Where is she?”

  The door to the master bedroom was ajar. He knocked on the door and entered. Sunlight through the curtain fell on the bed and picked out the red tint of the wooden floor.

  “What a lovely room,” he said. He walked around the bed.

  I watched him walk past the closet to Ricky’s mother’s dressing room. His eyes scanned the clothes on the shelves, the perfume in pink bottles. He walked to the door. A turn, and then he was back at the closets. He flung open the first and then the second one, the doors swinging back and hitting the wall with hollow slaps. Ricky jumped at the sound. I took the gun out. Coetzee looked at it and smiled.

  “Step away,” I said.

  Coetzee didn’t move.

  I undid the safety catch. “That’s the catch. It’s loaded.”

  “I believe you,” Coetzee said.

  Then Ricky slapped the gun out of my hand. It clattered to the floor between Coetzee and me.

  “You crazy, Jack?” His voice was shrill. The real Ricky, under all the other Rickys.

  I reached for the gun. But Coetzee was there first. He knocked me backward, his knuckles viciously swiping my face. Ricky picked up the gun.

  “Ricky,” Coetzee said. “Give me the gun.”

  Ricky was holding it, trembling.

  “Give it to me, Ricky,” Coetzee repeated.

  And Ricky did.

  “Sit on the bed. Both of you,” Coetzee said, directing us with the barrel of the gun. “That means you, Jack.”

  The door of the cupboard opened. Zanele put one bare foot on the floor and then the other. My shirt was loose on her. Its tails reached her knees.

  Zanele

  I pushed open the closet door. When he saw me, Coetzee’s face did not change expression—the gun was pointed at the fat boy and Jack. They were sitting on the bed. I stepped out.

  His eyes went back to the boys. And I jumped at him, reaching for the gun. Jack sprang from the bed. A shot went off. Jack fell back. The dressing gown bloomed a darker red over his arm.

  Coetzee gripped my neck and pushed me onto a kneeling position. Jack’s shirt slid down over my legs like a dress.

  “I didn’t want to do this,” Coetzee said, putting the barrel of the gun against the side of my head. “You didn’t give me a choice.” He pulled me up, the gun digging into my temple, and forced me onto the bed.

  “Everyone sit down,” he said.

  So we did. The fat boy, Jack, and then me, my arm touching his bleeding one.

  “I know there’s going to be a special delivery to Swaziland tonight,” Coetzee said. “Where is the pickup?” He pushed the gun deeper into my head.

  I moved my eyes away from the neat black surface of the gun to Coetzee’s face.

  “You are not being clever,” Coetzee said. “Shame, your father must have the brains in the family. Not many. But some.”

  “He’s dead,” Jack said.

  “Not yet,” Coetzee said. “But soon. I always knew something wasn’t right about him. Something passed on to this girl.” He moved the barrel of the gun toward Jack. “To the children you might have had, yes?”

  He shifted the gun under Jack’s chin, sliding it over his throat. “Yes?”

  “Yes,” Jack answered. His voice was flat. Like he didn’t care anymore.

  “Jack, let me explain to you. It will be very easy for me to kill her. You understand?”

  “I understand,” Jack said.

  “Good. I will ask again. Where is the pickup?”

  My eyes found Jack’s.

  He cleared his throat. “You see, Mr Coetzee, it’s not a case of where.”

  “I’m running out of patience, my friend,” Coetzee said.

  “They’ll only meet if Zanele sings. You kill her, they won’t meet. She’s the signal.” Jack’s voice had gone softer.

  My voice rose like I was about to cry. “How could you tell him, Jack?”

  “Had to. He was about to blow your head off,” Jack said, not looking at me.

  Coetzee put the gun against my forehead. “What is this place?”

  “Don’t you know?” I said. “I’m the best singer in Soweto.”

  Twenty-One

  Thabo

  Meena came to the shebeen around five to tell me. The two boys were there, and Sunny was smoking a cigarette outside.

  “Special Branch,” she said.

  “Special Branch what?”

  “They have Zanele.”

  This girl had stitched me up many times—but this time she didn’t know what to do.

  I almost told her that I had told Sam Shenge, who must have told the abo gata. Wasn’t I allowed to be angry for a minute, a second? How could I know that news travelled so fast to the other side of Joburg?

  All I said was, “Okay.”

  “Do something,” she said.

  “What’s there to do?”

  “You just keep rubbing that glass. It’s polished already.”

  I put the glass down on the counter. With me sitting on a stool, we were eye to eye.

  “It’s all over, isn’t it?” she said.

  My head went down. Down until it came onto her bony shoulder. Then she patted my back. Me, I didn’t even deserve this. I should have been left out there when Lerato stabbed me.

  Meena

  Thabo didn’t know what to do after I told him about Zanele.

  He sat out at the back of the shebeen and said nothing. He leaned onto my shoulder for maybe half a minute, but then straightened himself.

  “Leave me,” he said to me, to his sidekicks, to the large man with the scar who said nothing but smoked just outside the door. Stacks of beer were piled high at the back. Trident—the beer from Jack’s warehouse. I didn’t say anything, not now.

  There were more glasses to polish, things to be put back in place, so I went back and did that. Thabo’s sidekicks didn’t scare me, even the tall scarred one. Thabo hugging me in front of them seemed enough for them to leave me alone.

  Papa would probably send people to look for me. It was past five, but I didn’t care now.

  Mankwe came in around eight, wearing a wig and a red dress that flared at the bottom. She looked past me at the counter.

  “Where’s Thabo?” she said.

  “Out.”

  “What do you mean, out? We have a big day today. Happy hour.”

  I smiled but said nothing. She probably thought there was something wrong with me. She walked past the counter. “It was me,” I said. She turned. “I was the one who saved you from jail.”

  She went out the back door. I thought telling her that I had saved her would make me feel better but it didn’t. The Special Branch had Zanele, and I couldn’t tell her sister. Not now. I cleaned the glasses and passed them over to the bartender, who stacked them on the shelf. Then I wiped the counter. I was still wiping the counter when three men came in.

  I had seen one of them before, the first time the black car had come
for cigarettes. He was police. Then came the blond man in a dark blue suit. Coetzee.

  And then Jack, with a bandaged arm, stained with blood. Behind him, Zanele. Behind her, more policemen. The barman put all the glasses down and put his hands up. Zanele’s lips were pressed into a thin, unmoving line. Jack’s were too.

  I wanted to shout something, to warn Thabo and Mankwe at the back. My mouth opened and closed. I said nothing. Jack, his eyes wandering around the room, finally saw me. Mankwe and Thabo came through the back door, the police holding them. Thabo was swearing, trying to fight them. His red shirt was all crumpled and his bow tie was loose. Then he saw Zanele and he shouted like he’d seen a ghost.

  “Zee?”

  “Yebo, bhuti,” she said, but she was looking at Mankwe—a smile spread over her face.

  “Be quiet.” The policeman behind her hit her with the side of his gun.

  Jack flinched.

  “Take your stations,” Coetzee said. A red flush had spread up his neck. He looked excited in a terrible way. His eyes scanned the place, every corner, every door, every person.

  The policemen fanned around the shebeen. There were at least fifteen of them. Some went outside.

  Thabo was still smiling at Zanele like she was Father Christmas. I felt invisible.

  “If anyone in this room gives warning to the people coming that the police are here, we will shoot her. No questions, no trial. Klaar?” the blond man said, looking at Thabo. And then turning to Zanele, “And I will break your pretty boy’s face.”

  No one said anything.

  I got up from the stool.

  The blond man pointed at me. “You,” he said. “Get her dressed.” Then he pointed at Zanele.

  “Me?” I said. My voice sounded squeaky, scared.

  “You.”

  Zanele

  “Not in that box, that box,” I said to Meena, jerking my head to the left. She opened the other dress box and rifled through the old clothing. Her fingers fumbled as she picked up an old black dress with sequins.

  “Not that one, the red one,” I said.

  Behind us, a large policeman stood with his gun on us. His eyes, behind the gun, between pouches of skin, were grey.