The Song Dog

by James McClure

  “Cook boy jump in the bush, my boss!” said Mabeni, with a happy laugh. “You give him big-big fright! But must not worry, my boss, soon he come out again.”

  “But who was that with him, hey?”

  “Elifasi Ndhlovu, my boss, he come to give money from cook boy’s uncle over by Jafini. I think the boss give him such a big fright he run away for good!”

  “Oh, ja? What money was this that he brought?”

  “Cook boy money he forget last night by big beer drink, my boss. Forty-two cents, my boss, and the uncle is asking Ndhlovu to return it to cook boy.”

  “This messenger bugger, he’s known to you personally?”

  “Yebo, I have seen him many times in Jafini, my boss. A good man, no trouble.”

  “Okay, fine, er—what did you say you were called?”

  “Cassius—”

  “What sort of bloody name is that, hey?”

  “A new name, my boss!” Mabeni said proudly, puffing out his chest. “Boss Terblanche give it to Mabeni when he is reading newspaper about big-big boxing ndoda Cassius Clay Tops Hivvyweight Emerican, my boss!”

  “That’s a hell of a lot of names for one kaffir,” observed Kramer, starting toward the kitchen boy’s hut. “Where does this Cassius do his boxing—up in Johannesburg?”

  “Ngasi, my boss, I do not know,” admitted Mabeni, as he took up a respectful position, marching one pace to the rear.

  The kitchen boy turned out to have fled no farther than the farthest corner of his hut. He emerged again on all fours, peering first around the doorjamb, and gave a nervous laugh.

  “Tell the stupid bastard to tuck his tail in and stand up like a man,” Kramer ordered Mabeni.

  The translation was swift; so swift, Kramer had a shrewd idea not everything he’d just said had been repeated.

  “Now, just so he knows that this is official, ask him for his full name, age, address, pass book, the usual …”

  Mabeni made a start on this, and reported back: “The true-true first name of this man has many tongue-clicks, my boss, but his mission name is Moses, Moses Khumalo.”

  Kramer nodded. “Moses, hey? Then tell Moses I want to know where his friend is.”

  “Elifasi has run far away,” Mabeni translated. “He run so fast, he will soon-soon be back in Jafini by now, my boss, this man say.”

  “Oh, ja? So Moses thinks he’s truly a prophet, does he?”

  The cook listened to the translation and then gave a tipsy guffaw, slapping his thigh, before letting fly a string of long, happy sentences, his bright eyes on Kramer.

  “He is full of joy,” Mabeni told Kramer, “because he did not know there was such a truly honest man as his uncle, who returned to him money he was so very drunk he had no knowledge he had dropped by the ground, my boss. Do I tell him to ‘Shut up, kaffir’?”

  “No, I want to hear from him what went on here at this house yesterday.”

  Mabeni nodded and began a tedious interrogation, not helped by the subject’s lack of sobriety, and passed on to Kramer the main elements of the verbal statement as they slowly emerged. At least, thought Kramer, he had the consolation of that old saying “In vino veritas,” or whatever the proper bloody French for it was.

  Then, when the great, long outpouring finally came to an end, Kramer rearranged it in chronological order, threw out the total irrelevancies, and decided he had more than justified his intuitive urge to visit Fynn’s Creek by moonlight.

  “You’ve done well,” he told Mabeni. “Maybe tomorrow I will find another job for you to do—okay?”

  “Yebo, nkosi!” said Mabeni, beaming, his chest puffed right out. Then he added, sounding disappointed, “The boss is going now, boss?”

  “Too bloody right, this boss is going! Hell, I’m totally shagged out—in all but the nicest sense.”

  How very true, Kramer thought, as he headed for Terblanche’s Land Rover, Mabeni following at his heels. Dear God, he could really do with a woman now, to wipe all these conundrums from his mind, and fill him with peace and a sense of well-being—just as that silent young nurse in the linen room had once done.

  Then it happened a second time. Up rose a huge crocodile, a few feet in front of Kramer, and off it went with a great lashing of its tail toward the estuary, followed by several others.

  “They’re back already?” he said.

  “Always come straight-straight back, my boss!” responded Mabeni, with an oddly indulgent chuckle. “You give them big-big fright, they all run quick-quick, they forget quick-quick!—they come back. When you are piccanin, your baba teaches you such things—it is very dangerous for small piccanin to play by river, my boss. My baba he tells me this many, many times.”

  “Hmmmm …” said Kramer, staring at Mabeni. “You know, there’s something about this case that doesn’t exactly make sense any more …”

  “My boss?”

  “Ach, it’s bound to hit me sooner or later, hey?” said Kramer, shrugging.

  The rough track back through the sugarcane to the Nkosala road seemed to go on and on forever, and it all looked the same—even the bit where those crazy workers of Grantham’s had stood so still, razor-sharp cane knives raised in their hands.

  So, to divert himself, Kramer went over in his mind the statement made by the Gilletses’ kitchen boy, savoring its undoubted significance.

  According to Moses, the previous, fateful day had begun with his white master working on his Parks Board Land Rover, which was to be seen still standing where he’d left it, near the two petrol drums and well clear of the blast area. Then, at roughly ten thirty, one of the Parks Board’s Piper Cub spotter planes had landed on the beach, and the pilot had told Gillets that he was wanted to help with a rhino capture—and to bring an overnight bag, as a second rhino was possibly scheduled for the next day. Moses had packed this bag for him and carried it for him out to the small plane, while the master took leave of the young madam. Like all Zulus of his generation, Moses believed that kissing was something people should do unobserved, it being an act no less intimate than intercourse.

  Half an hour or so later, while Moses was serving the young madam her morning tea, a car had appeared, coming slowly down the track; at the wheel was a white detective known to Moses as Isipikili, the Nail. The detective had climbed from his car to stand looking around, until he had been called over by the madam, who ordered that a second cup be brought for him.

  On the kitchen boy’s own admission, his knowledge of Afrikaans was very slight, but Moses claimed he’d understood enough of the subsequent conversation to know that the detective had begun by explaining he had driven down to Fynn’s Creek simply to have a look at the new game reserve. For her part, the young madam had asked after this name and that, as though catching up on news of different people she knew. There had been laughter at first between the two whites, then his madam had said something very softly that made the detective look most surprised. It was at this point that the kitchen boy had been instructed to leave the verandah, where he had been putting the jam on their scones for them, and to go and collect driftwood for a barbecue planned for the weekend. Nevertheless, he had kept an eye on the two whites, in case they wanted something brought to them, by peering at them over the sand dunes. They had continued a serious conversation for some time—or at least, this was how it had looked from a distance. All the way through, his madam and the detective had remained facing one another, the way people do when intent on what is passing between them. Finally, the detective had glanced at his watch, nodded, and left.

  When next the kitchen boy encountered his madam, her whole demeanor had seemed different, as though some great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. At lunch, she had not picked at her food, wasting most of it as usual, but had eaten well, greatly pleasing him. She had also complimented him on his cooking, and told him that, as a reward, she was giving him the night off to get drunk with his uncle at Jafini. When the kitchen boy hesitated, unsure what the master would think of his leavin
g the property and her alone, the young madam had said he was being “a fool of a kaffir,” pointing out that the master need never know, and had later insisted that Moses go off duty at five, reassured by her that she would make herself a light snack for her supper—some cheese on toast, maybe, or she could warm up something.

  “Oh, ja, Maaties,” murmured Kramer, reaching the Nkosala road. “So far, so good, but what was the great weight that you lifted from ‘little Annika’s’ shoulders, making her seem a changed woman? It sounds to me very like she let you share in some dark secret and you promised to do something about it! Furthermore, what made you return to Fynn’s Creek at midnight? Did someone else, over a curry supper at which you discussed this conversation, suddenly give you a fresh insight into what Annika had told you, sending you hurtling out there? Uh-huh, it certainly sounds that way …”

  Kramer was perfectly aware that talking to himself could be construed as the slippery slope to raving insanity, but what else was a man to do in bloody Natal, for Christ’s sake, if he felt the need of intelligent conversation?

  Still turning over the events of the day, and kicking himself for ridiculous oversights—he should, for example, have remembered to ask Moses if he knew how the young madam had got those bruises on her upper arm—Kramer continued his musings. Not simply all the way back to Jafini, but right to the address where, if memory served him correctly, Terblanche had rented him a room for his stay in Jafini.

  Still preoccupied, he was barely aware of taking his suitcase from the Land Rover, and quite without thinking, thumped loudly on the freshly painted front door of 23 Jacaranda Avenue as though leading a police raid.

  A fragrant, dressing-gowned silhouette opened up and scolded: “Shhhhhhh, you’ll wake the whole neighborhood!”

  “Sorry, lady,” muttered Kramer, belatedly checking the address on the scrap of paper Terblanche had given him. “But you are the Widow Fourie, hey?”

  “For your sake, I certainly hope so,” she said.

  10

  KRAMER SLEPT BADLY that first night in Jafini.

  He had several dreams that woke him with a start, and then, once awake, he was unable to go straight back to sleep again, having so much pressing on his mind. None of the dreams had dogs in them, which was something. The most disturbing dream of all, however, kept repeating itself: in it, a slight, shadowy figure walked jauntily down a twisting road, and then turned to shout something he couldn’t quite catch.

  After waking, and between attempts to get his plans for the day ahead in order, Kramer kept going over again and again his first hour in his new lodgings, during which the Widow Fourie had made him a light supper of scrambled eggs. She had said hardly a word as she moved about that small kitchen, but had appeared content with his silence as he’d sat at the table, drinking her in; she was a heady peach brandy, matured to bloody perfection.

  Bullshit, Kramer had admonished himself, she’s simply a big blonde with a good figure—just as Terblanche had described her. Moreover, Kramer had added, just remember, Tromp, that the only other female you’ve been near in a whole month was lying around in the nude but in about four hundred pieces, old son.

  All of which went by the board when, by accident, the Widow Fourie brushed the back of his hand as she set his plate down, making her drop it with a thud in front of him, and sending a shock through Kramer as decided as any cranked in an interview room. Immediately, she had turned, listened with her head tipped, and then disappeared down the corridor.

  Left alone in the kitchen, he tried to review the events of his day, but couldn’t, not for the life of him.

  “I heard a noise and thought one of my kids had fallen out of bed,” said the Widow Fourie, on her return. “But it wasn’t that. It was your colleague, going through to gargle in the bathroom. He says he’s developed a really bad sore throat.”

  “If it shuts the stupid bastard up for a change, who are we to complain?”

  “That’s not very nice!”

  Kramer shrugged. “Hans Terblanche tells me that you’ve got kids—how many?”

  “Three boys and a girl.”

  “Really? Exactly the same number as—” And there he bit his tongue, dismayed by his oversight.

  But the Widow Fourie simply nodded. “Ja, the same as Maaties’ widow,” she said. “Hettie’s been a lot in my thoughts today, poor woman, because losing your man suddenly can be such a terrible shock you don’t think you’ll ever survive it.”

  “You obviously knew Maaties, then?”

  “Hard not to, in a place this size, and besides, he was nearly as kind as Hans after Pik had his accident. I’ve always been meaning to thank him properly some day, but now it’s too late. Isn’t that ever the way?”

  “I suppose so,” said Kramer, having rarely had occasion to feel grateful to anyone. “You know something? Everyone keeps telling me Maaties was ‘one of the best’—maybe he was, but when people say things like that it always worries me.”

  “I have the same problem,” admitted the Widow Fourie, taking his dirty plate over to the sink. “I need to see some sin in a person before I can relax!”

  Kramer smiled. “What sins could you see in Maaties?”

  The Widow Fourie began washing up. “Practically all of them, I suppose!” she said. “He was very human.”

  “What else?”

  She shrugged. “A loner, strong, a man who went his own way in this world. But there was also a little kid inside there who couldn’t stand seeing tears, you know, and would do almost anything to help stop them—making him quite a mix-up!”

  “Could that have led to his death, do you think?” asked Kramer.

  “In what way?” asked the Widow Fourie, looking round.

  “Ach, let’s say somebody told Maaties a sob story. That she alleged, for instance, her man was beating her.”

  “Ja, that would probably make him want to rush to the rescue. You must mean Annika Gillets, I take it?”

  “Why say that?”

  “Ach, rumors,” said the Widow Fourie, “about Lance and what he’s prepared to do to people. He has a terrible temper, you know, and really runs amuck when he’s upset. Even my maid knows that the worst kaffirs won’t go anywhere near where he lives, he’s given it too much of a reputation. Just after they first moved in, he caught a burglar on his front steps, tied him with rope to the back of his Land Rover, and towed him all the way to Moon Acre, where he came from. My maid says that kaffir’s never been seen since.”

  “Hmmm,” said Kramer. “Then perhaps it’s no surprise Annika didn’t seem afraid to stay out there overnight on her own, especially as his Land Rover was still parked there, making it look like he was at home.”

  “She’d have felt safe as houses! But where was he, hey?”

  “He’d been picked up by plane earlier in the day to go catching rhino. What else did these rumors say? That he was knocking Annika about?”

  The Widow Fourie nodded. “Before they were moved to Fynn’s Creek, they were up at the main rest camp. We had one of the other rangers’ wives in with amebic dysentery—I work at the hospital—and she let slip there’d been trouble based on Lance suspecting Annika of flirting with guests. She often wore long sleeves on boiling hot days, as though she was hiding marks or something. In fact, the real rumor is that they got moved to Fynn’s Creek to keep her out of trouble, and if this didn’t work. Lance was facing the sack from the Parks Board.”

  “Had she kept out of trouble, do you know?” asked Kramer.

  “I don’t see what option she had,” said the Widow Fourie. “There haven’t been any guests yet at Fynn’s—”

  “Ja, but blokes must come fishing along the beach—and what if I told you her body had bruises on the left shoulder?”

  “Interesting,” said the Widow Fourie, sitting down on a stool. “Although, personally, I’m still not a hundred percent convinced she was as bad as some make out. It could all have been just in Lance’s mind, couldn’t it?”

  “Th
at we’ll have to try and find out,” said Kramer. “Okay if I ask a few more questions? This is the first time today I’ve started to get somewhere, hey?”

  The Widow Fourie glanced up at the kitchen clock. “Just five minutes more,” she said, “or I’ll feel a total wreck at work in the morning!”

  “Any idea how the two of them got together in the first place?”

  “Oh, that,” she said, getting up and going back to the sink. “The story is, Lance met Annika when she was hitchhiking to Eshowe—she was always doing mad things like that!—and the pair of them finished up instead two hundred miles away in Durban that night, going to a show and getting drunk on the beachfront. Her father nearly went berserk when she got back next day—he thought kaffirs must’ve raped her on the road and thrown her in the sugarcane—and went straight to Lance’s boss, wanting him sacked. But Lance turns up at the camp in the game reserve, tells his boss it’s okay, it was just a little engagement party, and in no time at all they’re married! The whole district was amazed because of her reputation and the fact this Lance bloke comes from a good Durban family—his pa’s a posh lawyer and his ma was an Oppenberg. I know Hans tried to stop the marriage. He said he’d only met Lance the once, but he wasn’t good enough for Annika; that he was a spoiled, private-school kid with a mean streak in him.”

  “Terblanche always seems very quick to rise to Annika’s defense,” said Kramer, lighting a Lucky. “Think there could have been something on the go between those two?”

  The Widow Fourie gave a surprised laugh. “That’s like asking if I think Santa does rude things to little kids!” she said.

  Kramer smiled. “What’s got me puzzled,” he said, “is why Annika didn’t take the advice of an old family friend—why she allowed herself to become entangled with such a well-established little bastard.”

  “You get people like that,” said the Widow Fourie, with a shrug. “I don’t know whether it’s the excitement, the risk, or what, but it could also be they want someone else to take charge of them, someone who will not put up with promiscuity, say. She was wild, of that there is no doubt, and maybe it scared her, this wildness, because she knew she couldn’t properly control it.”