by Sue Rabie
Her phone was still in her hands, but there would have been no signal out here.
‘Watch out!’ he shouted at her. ‘I’m going to break the glass!’
Of course she didn’t object, but neither would she cover her face against the breaking glass, so he hurried round to the passenger side of the car, slipping as he did so. He rubbed at the snow coating the passenger window and looked through at her one more time before slamming his elbow against the glass.
It didn’t break.
He swore, dug out the two-way radio Du Plessis had given him and tried to break the window with it.
The glass crazed this time, but still didn’t break.
He tried a third time.
The window shattered.
He shoved the radio back in his pocket then slipped his arm through the crumbled pane to unlock the door. The glass caught him on the wrist, but he ignored the pain as he wrestled the door open.
‘Ma’am?’ he grunted as he scrambled inside. The air inside the car was thick. ‘Lady?’
She didn’t move.
‘Wake up!’
She wouldn’t. He brushed aside the handbag and an assortment of items she had left on the passenger seat: a pack of cigarettes, a pair of dark glasses. He got her by the wrist and tugged her sideways, dragging her inelegantly by the armpits out from the car and into the cold snow. The white almost enveloped her as she slumped into it, the snow closing over her shoulders as he worked. He noted her lips were blue as he knelt over her and tugged at her jacket and jersey and blouse. He noticed her nails had also turned blue. He placed an ear to her chest.
A faint beat.
The snowflakes were startlingly white against her skin, her eyelashes unmoving as the crystals settled on her eyelids. He put an ear to her nose, close so that the icy wind wouldn’t interfere.
Nothing.
He dragged off his gloves, tilted her head back and closed his mouth over hers. Don’t think about it, he told himself, don’t think of before, just do it. He cupped her neck, pinched her nose shut with his left hand and breathed three shallow breaths into her lungs.
He kept his ear to her mouth to feel for the exhalation, then tried again.
Nothing.
Once more. He breathed deeper, the method coming naturally, the actions automatic. He felt a trickle of warm air against his ear as he felt again for her breath. ‘That’s it,’ he said as he took her hands and rubbed her wrists together, ‘breathe.’
Her fingers were icy to the touch, but the girl groaned as he worked her arms. ‘Good,’ he said as her eyelids fluttered.
It would take a little time for her to come round, the carbon monoxide was still in her system, but at least she was breathing fresh air now, at least she wasn’t going to die of asphyxiation.
Hypothermia?
He snatched for his gloves and worked them over her hands, then bent down and got her under the shoulders and knees. She was breathing properly now, was starting to cough as he picked her up. He battled towards the grader, struggling with the deep snow and her limp body.
The cab was not big enough for both of them and he ended up with her in his lap, her face in the crook of his neck and her legs dangling between his as he squeezed into the seat.
It was awkward to drive. She hampered his movements – her snow-tousled hair getting in his face and her feet obstructing his as he worked the grader’s clutch. Soon she started shuddering. She had started shake a little to begin with, but by the time they got halfway to the Werner’s farm the shakes were developing into fits. He hoped it wasn’t carbon monoxide poisoning, hoped it was just the cold that was causing the spasms, because if it was carbon monoxide poisoning then there was a chance of brain damage. He could do very little about that or the cold. He held onto the girl tightly as she shook in his arms, trying to keep her out of the wind.
The farmhouse was two hundred metres down the track, at the end of a long avenue of jacaranda trees that had lost some of their weaker branches to the weight of the snow. Luckily they had heard him coming, and by the time he turned the grader into the jacaranda avenue Mark and Anri were already on the front stoep. It was a wide, generous stoep, the kind that wrapped itself around the square farmhouse and lent an old-fashioned dignity to the otherwise plain home. Mark had built the house himself, with a row of stables behind for their daughters’ horses. But now Louise and Margaret were at university the horses had been put out to pasture, and Mark and Anri were left alone in the sprawling farmhouse.
They stood there for a moment – Mark Werner thickset, Anri petite and economical beside him – watching the grader barrel its way closer, then David saw them glance at each other and Mark step back inside for his coat. They must have known something was wrong.
Mark was quick to move. The farmer ran down the steps and climbed onto the high chassis. David was grateful for his fast response. He doubted he could have made it himself, doubted his stiff hands and legs would have managed the climb down from the cab. He hadn’t realised his body was so cold. He was hardly able to move as Mark slid the girl off his lap.
‘What the hell happened!’ Mark yelled over the still idling grader. He didn’t wait for an answer from David as he half turned and shouted down to his wife. ‘Get the bath running!’
Anri disappeared inside immediately as Mark backed out of the grader’s cab with the girl in his arms. He glanced over his shoulder at David as he started towards the house. ‘Can you make it on your own?’ he asked.
David waved him on. He was struggling to turn off the engine with his numb fingers, and when he finally managed it he found his legs wouldn’t work. He nearly fell off the plough as he tried to climb down, half falling in a flurry of snow.
‘David?’ Mark called.
He was at the front door, the girl limp in his arms. One of her hands dangled lifelessly as he turned.
David steadied himself against the grader, his legs refusing to support him as he tried to stand. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, gritting his teeth. ‘Get her inside.’
❄
The bathroom was already crowded by the time David forced himself up the porch steps and into the house. They had the girl in the old iron tub, her clothes billowing around her as the slowly rising water lapped over her chest. She moaned and tried to get out.
‘Not too hot,’ David managed to rasp through clenched teeth.
Hot water would scald her skin. Lukewarm water was better.
Mark nodded and held the girl’s chin so that she wouldn’t get water in her mouth. ‘What happened?’ he asked again as Anri began to work the girl out of her clothes. The girl’s eyelids began to flutter open. ‘Who is she?’
David shook his head. ‘Don’t know,’ he replied, his teeth chattering. ‘I found her on the side of the road in her car.’
It was difficult to talk, the cold clenching his jaw and his hands like dead lumps of meat under his arms.
Anri looked up at him. ‘For heaven’s sake, Mark, get him a blanket,’ she said.
Mark left the room hurriedly.
‘David, put your hands in here,’ Anri ordered him.
Anri Werner had a fiery disposition that belied her slight stature, so when David shook his head at her, her response was almost angry. ‘Just do as you’re told David Roth,’ she said with meaning.
He obeyed, wincing as the tepid water stung his skin and his hands began to burn unmercifully.
‘Help me take these clothes off,’ Anri instructed.
His fingers felt like sausages, but he helped her extract the girl from her jersey, supporting her as Anri tugged the silk shirt from her shoulders and tossed the expensive garment into the corner of the room.
The girl protested feebly, her skin turning a blushing pink.
David and Anri ignored her as they worked at the rest of her clothes.
The water reddened in a clouding swirl.
‘Is she’s hurt?’ Anri asked worriedly.
David withdrew his hand and looked at the cut
on his wrist.
‘Are you all right?’ Anri asked when she realised it was him.
‘It’s nothing,’ he said, and almost managed a grin as Anri rolled her eyes at him.
‘Get back … the bus …’
David glanced at the girl as she spoke again. This time the words were more recognisable.
‘Did she say ‘bus’?’ Anri asked. ‘I thought she said something about a bus.’
‘The bus …’ the girl moaned again. ‘Still in the bus …’
The words were slurred, but they definitely heard her this time. She had said ‘bus’. That she had to get back to the bus. David he felt a tightening in his stomach.
There was a bus out there? In this weather?
A bus full of people?
‘Oh no …’ Anri whispered.
Three
❄
Miriam Sikuza pulled the shawl closer around her shoulders.
The snow had found its way into the bus again. No matter what the bus driver and the other men on board did, they could not barricade the flow of freezing air coming through the broken door.
The trouble had started when the driver had stopped the bus at Mpophomeni to allow someone off. The passenger had taken his luggage and walked off to one of the hundreds of box-like houses spread across the hill. The driver had climbed back into the bus, sat down and flipped the switch to shut the automatic door. But it would not close. They had tried to force it shut, one of the passengers lending a hand, but in the end the driver was forced to continue with the door partly open and the snow billowing in.
They had stopped a little later and tried again.
‘The petrol fumes are also coming in now,’ one of the passengers closer to the door had complained in Zulu. ‘I shouldn’t have to pay for a smelly, freezing seat.’
The driver had moved the plaintiff to a seat further back and politely asked one of the other passengers to help him try to lever the door shut once more.
No luck.
It was decided then that they should stop at the nearest garage.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the driver said, speaking in English for the benefit of the two white men at the back of the bus. ‘We apologise for the poor conditions and the delay and suggest you pull on a jersey or two until we find a workshop to help us.’ There were mutters and groans from the passengers, but the driver ignored them. ‘There’s a garage just a few kilometres further up the road where I’m sure they will help.’
This proposal was rewarded with a few enthusiastic murmurs.
The mood didn’t last for long.
The garage came up soon enough, but it was in darkness, a power shortage having affected Mafakethni and the surrounding area.
The longer they drove the worse the conditions became. The snow billowing through the faulty front door grew progressively thicker. Petrol fumes began building in the vehicle.
Miriam Sikuza looked out of her window as a low red-and-white car passed them on the snow-obscured road. They must be going very slowly for a car to have passed them in these conditions. She began to doubt the bus driver’s earlier reassurances. She looked around at the other passengers, some burrowing down into coats, others staring angrily at the driver as he continued to push forward in the hope of reaching the next village.
But Maswazini was also in darkness.
And on they drove.
‘Boston is just up ahead,’ the driver called over his shoulder.
The passengers muttered angrily.
Most of them.
Three people caught Miriam’s eye. The first two were out of place amongst the students and workers and old people travelling home from Merrivale. They were quiet in each others company. She wondered who they were. They were both white. The blond one casually dressed in a blue blanket jacket with flat, bright blue eyes that seemed never to stay still. The other, the taller one in black, was different. He had very dark eyes, and when she turned to look at him they latched onto her immediately and didn’t move until she looked away.
They were misplaced on the bus, as well as mismatched – the one too well dressed and too quiet, the other too jumpy.
The child was also misplaced.
He was travelling alone, a seven- or eight-year-old boy, sitting hunched up across the aisle from her. He was in a school uniform – a grey pair of trousers with a white shirt and tie, and only a blue blazer over that. The blazer boasted an elaborate golden crest over the pocket, but the gold braiding was old and slightly frayed at the top where the clasp of many pens had rubbed over the thread.
Wanting to reassure him Miriam smiled at the boy as he sat with his hands between his thin legs. ‘Are you cold?’ she asked him in Zulu as they swayed along the barely visible road. ‘Do you want to come and sit next to me?’
There was a tremble to his lips as he looked at her.
‘Come along,’ she said, lifting the travelling rug she had brought. ‘It’s much warmer on this side of the bus.’
The boy came over. He had one of those tags around his neck that people put on children travelling alone. His tag read: Siyabonga Africa, St Margaret of the Cross Orphanage, Harrismith.
They sat together for the next half an hour, taking comfort from each other as the bus lurched through the thickening snow.
Eventually they stopped.
Miriam was not sure if the bus stopped of its own accord or if the driver had stopped because he could no longer see where he was going. Nor did she ask. There was enough shouting and protesting from the other passengers as the driver stood up, raised his arm and tried to placate his customers.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, please …’ he said, raising his voice over theirs. ‘It’s no good arguing, the conditions are too bad for us to go on. We might find ourselves driving into a ditch and crashing.’
‘We might find ourselves freezing from the cold and dying …’ came a voice from behind her.
It was the blue-eyed one in the blanket jacket, but he hadn’t said it loud enough for everyone to hear.
‘I’m going for help,’ the driver said, after more shouting and waving of tickets had pushed him almost to the broken door. ‘I suggest you stay here and wait for me to return.’
‘Wait here?’ a man objected. He looked like a salesman, his creased suit contrasting oddly with the crocodile-skin briefcase he kept faithfully at his side. ‘I’m not going to wait here without food and water in this freezing cold! I’m coming with you.’
There were a number of other men who thought the same. Wondering about the wisdom of their decision, Miriam sighed as they disembarked.
‘Don’t you worry about them,’ Miriam whispered to the boy as they watched the small group prepare for their mission. ‘They’ll bring someone back to help the rest of us.’
❄
‘It’s been four hours,’ a woman in front of Miriam whispered.
There were about twenty of them still on the bus – Miriam and the boy, three older men and nine women. There were also three teenage girls who were travelling home from school together and the two white men at the back.
The boy coughed.
‘They should never have gone,’ the woman told Miriam. ‘They’ve become lost in the snow.’
Miriam looked out at the murky snowfall and began to fear the woman was right.
‘We should build a fire,’ one of the girls said from further up. ‘We should try and barricade the door closed.’
‘Stupid bitch,’ the blanket jacket man snarled. ‘If you barricade the door and build a fire at the same time you’ll suffocate the lot of us.’
The rest of them frowned at his language and the young girl began to cry.
‘Shut her up!’ the blanket jacket man spat.
‘Hey!’ the oldest of the girls objected. ‘Watch your mouth!’
‘Watch your own mouth!’ blanket jacket yelled back.
Miriam looked away.
The shouting was only the start of it, for she knew that when darkness fell, as the cold g
rew worse, so too would the panic and fear.
Miriam was right. It was not only the darkness and cold that brought out the worst in her fellow passengers, it was also thirst and hunger, combined with the limited toilet facilities aboard the bus. There was no cabin toilet and soon the women were asking each other for tissues as they braved the cold outside. But at each exit and re-entry, the door to the bus wedged wider open.
Then the lights began to flicker.
It was in the early afternoon that Miriam noted the first dimming, but by six o’clock the overhead aisle lights were flickering constantly.
‘What are we going to do now?’ one of the girls sobbed.
‘Why don’t we gather round and sing campfire songs,’ blanket jacket jeered scornfully.
It was meant to hurt, but Miriam thought it was a good idea.
She began to sing.
The others fell silent as she sang, her smooth, deep voice drifting through the bus and out into the thickening snow as it came down against the windows. The girl stopped sobbing, the boy at Miriam’s side started to doze fitfully and even blanket jacket eased back into his seat. She wondered why the two of them hadn’t gone with the other men, wondered why they stayed on the bus with the madalas, the old men and the women.
She stopped her singing and with the question still in her mind turned to the man sitting behind her and spoke to him softly: ‘We must turn the lights off now,’ she said. ‘When someone comes we will hear them, then we can turn the lights back on.’
The man looked at her strangely for a moment, but in the end he nodded and walked casually to the driver’s seat and switched off the lights.
No one argued.
The darkness around them was intense, and it was only Miriam’s soft singing that connected them, that kept them together until salvation came.
❄
They heard it two hours later.
The cold was bad by then and the remaining female passengers had moved closer to each other for warmth. Miriam hushed them as she tried to listen for the faint noise she thought she had heard.