Last Train to Retreat

by Gustav Preller

  ‘Like you don’t know it, of course it’s you … it’s us,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘It’s also other stuff from the past involving my sister. We’re close and I worry about her.’ He re-appeared, changing the subject, ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘I’m looking for Sarai.’

  ‘Christ, still! Does it really matter now, Lena? You took her away from the streets the night of the World Cup. You gave her a chance and she messed up, didn’t she? You couldn’t have done more.’

  ‘She might be in trouble, in fact, I’m sure she is.’

  He came back into the lounge and looked at her quizzically.

  She blurted out, ‘Six of the places I went to in the last two months said that others had been looking for her too … six, Zane, imagine how many I don’t know about?’ She bit nervously on her lower lip. She wished she could tell him about Cupido.

  ‘Another reason why you think there’s a gang trading in girls?’ He walked to the kitchen. ‘I need food. Did you know if you don’t eat protein within an hour of training, your body starts eating in on itself?’

  ‘Nice,’ she said, ‘it can’t taste too good.’

  ‘Ah, so you do see the lighter side of things!’

  ‘I’m also hungry.’ She opened a cupboard and the fridge to see what there was.

  ‘I never guessed you had an appetite,’ he grinned.

  At the small round table in the lounge covered with a black-and-white cloth they devoured what they had gathered – sardines from two tins spread on thick slices of seed bread, peanut butter and syrup on more bread, nearly a litre of milk, and grapes. ‘I had to stock up after you left,’ he said, wiping his mouth with a piece of paper towel. ‘Lena, what is it you want from me? Can’t we just get on with our lives and hope what happened on the train goes away? The Thai girl is your business.’

  ‘It should be the world’s business, Zane. Men drove the slave trade long ago, they’re doing it again, and the money this time is big, so big they can’t stop. And the reason it’s big is because there’re so many people in the world trapped in poverty, all of them potential victims …’

  ‘I feel for them, I really do, Lena, but governments, NGOs and the police are the ones that should fight this battle, they have the resources. You can’t take on the world and its suffering. I mean, what can we do? We’re muggies on an elephant’s back.’

  She gave him a desperate look. ‘Have you thought about it, Zane – when you use a bullet, or tik, cocaine or heroin, it’s used up straightaway, then you have to get more, right?’ He nodded. ‘Well,’ Lena said, ‘traffickers use the same girls over and over again because they’re flesh and blood, they’re living things. Jesus, how fucking crazy is it that what makes a woman a woman should also make her a slave to men. And more are born each minute, each second! I mean, it makes women more valuable than all the stuff we dig up from the earth that’ll run out at some point – minerals and oil and gold!’ The hostility in her dark chocolaty eyes had come back. That he had been caught in it by chance was of no consequence to her.

  ‘Minute, Lena! I say again, what can I do?’

  ‘You can go to that massage parlour where she worked and pretend you’re a customer and ask for her.’

  He stared at her. ‘You’re crazy.’ But as he said it he thought of the plaque in Spin Street that marked the site of the tree where slaves used to be auctioned, of their pitiful earnings called ‘coolie money’ – Zane had visited the Slave Lodge museum across the road from where he worked – and he realised that what Lena had told him was no different from the old slave trade, there were just more of them today. Zane’s office was metres away from where slaves used to be sold like cattle. Today he was free – from slavery and apartheid – he could move around without a pass book, he voted, earned a good wage yet he did nothing to help modern-day slaves. Like Sarai.

  ‘Why? You’re a man, I’m a woman. When I went to the parlour they must’ve thought I was a dyke or a gatta, bad news for them either way.’ She wasn’t a cop. Maybe she was a dyke without realising it, Lena thought? She remembered how Sarai’s touch had excited her – an unexpected sensation flooding her body. Or had she simply responded to a show of affection that she knew posed no physical threat?

  ‘And if Sarai’s there and they take me to her?’

  She looked him squarely in the eyes. ‘Then don’t make love to her, just talk to her. Pretend you’re the kind type who’s interested in people’s souls, not their bodies. Ask how she is, see if she looks well.’

  Zane got up and paced the lounge, his hands in his jeans pockets.

  ‘If it’s the money, I’ll pay for it, okay?’ she said. She watched him. When they first met she thought he was from her world. After her second visit she realised he did not belong to it entirely, that a part of him had already moved on. Not for him some dead-end job in a factory in Epping or Atlantis. ‘What do you do, anyway?’

  ‘I’m in advertising. I’m the guy who has to keep the clients happy. For that the agency’s given me a fancy title. And you?’

  ‘I work for a government agency. I’m the girl who keeps the community happy with grants – women with children, disabled people, old people, all kinds of people who need financial assistance, millions of them. Where are you from?’

  ‘Lavender Hill, my parents and sister are still there.’

  ‘I’m also from there. I’m still there. My mother died, and my father … well, he left us years ago.’

  They looked at each other. They were like two stick insects, long feelers aquiver with the realisation that they were on the same little branch holding on for dear life.

  Twenty-two

  It was the following week that Hannibal saw Zane Hendricks emerging from the Wynberg station building. The evenings were tricky for Hannibal because vendors in Station Street packed up at five and only a few minibus taxis hung around, giving him little place to hide. But it was Zane – dormant in Hannibal’s brain for years, occasionally rising up to rile him, lately very much on his mind – suddenly emerging as flesh and blood. From where he stood at the entrance to a fast food joint, Hannibal studied him: same easy stride but with more muscle propelling him, brown hair compact with no parting, angular face full of purpose, clothes that spoke of an office job – long-sleeved blue shirt, black chinos, black leather shoes, and a briefcase – but to Hannibal still Zane, the insider who had taken Chantal away from him.

  Hannibal turned his bitter face away, waited for Zane’s figure to recede down the road and followed him. Up Church Street all the way to the law courts, right into Court and almost to the end before disappearing into a block of flats. Just as he thought – Zane didn’t have a car. Hannibal had been spending hours at the station every morning and afternoon, his conviction and resentment growing that Zane’s was not an hourly wage job; he seemed to have no fixed starting and finishing time. Sasman’s deadline had become secondary to Hannibal. Having his hopes destroyed in minutes in a dusty street by Chantal had shocked him more than any knockout could have done. The threat posed by the killers of Cupido and Gatiep and the sudden involvement of Philander had been overtaken by the old triangle of Hannibal, Zane, and Chantal.

  Hannibal stood in the quiet twilight of the street, his mind in turmoil. He should have shot Zane before he disappeared. Now he had to wait again at the station. The cool snout of his gun’s silencer pressed against him. Just a plop and Zane would be history. No deafening roar, more like the thudding of a club on a young seal – the image recurred in Hannibal. But what satisfaction would it bring? The day of judgement surely was not about a single merciful shot out of the blue with no thunder? There had to be knowledge, realisation, awareness first of the sins of the past and the coming retribution for it to have any meaning.

  •

  Cage fighting to Hannibal was the next best thing to actually killing someone. The anticipation of it made him restless days before a bout. He’d repl
ay bad moves that cost him in the past – he remembered them because his defeats had been so few. In his mind and in his yard he’d practise knock-out moves conjuring up the faces of his opponents from memory or, if they were new, from billboards. Like gunslingers of the American West they would all come to challenge Hannibal.

  Now, standing in the cage and listening with half an ear to the ring announcer, Hannibal stared at his opponent – a man with black hair matting his white chest, dark eyes looking at him from under wild eyebrows, pointy ears like Sasman’s Dobermans – a new challenger from Gauteng, Peter Holt, aka Pete the Bolt. The announcer’s voice boomed to the far reaches of the Velodrome: ‘Introducing first, fighting out of the red corner, this man is a freestyle fighter. He stands 1.8 metres tall, weighing in at 86 kilos. He holds a professional mixed martial arts record of thirty-nine wins and four losses, with twenty-eight wins by knockout. He is the current, reigning, and defending light heavyweight national champion … ladies and gentlemen, I give you … Hannibal “The General” Fortuin!’

  The capacity crowd cheered. The announcer proceeded to introduce Peter Holt then he stated the basic rules, and that five rounds of five minutes each had been scheduled because it was a title fight. The referee said to Hannibal and Holt, ‘Touch gloves and come out fighting!’ The murmur of the crowd rose. Hannibal disliked touching gloves. To him it was false etiquette, like bowing to an opponent in karate, insincere and wasteful, when all he wanted to do was tear into the face and body of the man in front of him. And there was always the risk of an opponent faking the glove touch and executing a sudden punch or takedown. One of Hannibal’s losses early in his career had been through a sucker punch.

  Hannibal’s fingers, sticking out from his cowhide leather grappling gloves, opened and closed. He drew in air behind his gum guard where his teeth used to be. It made a hissing sound as he waved off Holt’s offer to touch gloves. Holt had made his name in Gauteng as a grapple artist who excelled at the takedown. Once he had an opponent on his back, Holt always went on to win through his knowledge of jiu-jitsu – his chokes and joint locks would deplete lungs of air and tie bodies up in ways nature never intended. Submission on the canvas was his game. Hannibal, with his knowledge of karate and Thai kick-boxing, preferred to fight standing, picking his opponents apart with strikes and going for the knockout – a style known as sprawling and brawling. Not for him the sweaty, smelly close-up groundwork of MMA. Hannibal reserved the missionary and 69 positions for bodies smelling of perfume and shampoo, like Chantal’s.

  It wasn’t a question of one style being better than the other – it was how good the fighters were at using them, and tonight Hannibal was being put to the test once more. As Hannibal focused on his opponent, he heard as if from afar voices rising above the murmur of the crowd, ‘Show the oke, Hannibal!’, ‘Down with the Hottie, Pete!’, ‘Moer hom, Holt!’, ‘Slaat die laaitie, General!’ The mere thought of blood being spilt was making them restive, especially with big names like these.

  ‘Let’s get it on!’ the ref shouted, a start command made famous by ‘Big’ John McCarthy who put MMA on the map. It was the ref’s favourite because he’d been an MMA fighter himself and couldn’t bear life out of the cage. His flab contrasted sharply with the honed bodies of Holt and Hannibal but his whistle held the power to stop a fight.

  As Holt closed the gap Hannibal knew what was coming – Holt would try to stick a shoulder in his gut, grab a leg or two, keep his feet pumping and drive through Hannibal until he toppled. It would be the beginning of the end. Holt would land on him and ground and pound him into submission. Hannibal kept his distance, moving deftly like a dancer doing the quick-step. Distance was the key and footwork controlled distance, flat feet meant disaster. Holt followed him around the ring. The crowd knew Hannibal’s style but had no patience for repeated evasive action and were now jeering him. Tonight is mine not theirs, Hannibal thought. He wanted to prolong the contest, like cats did with prey, leave unsatisfied a little longer the need for violence that had been building up in him. He feared no man, only the comedown after the violence, the feeling that when the rush was over there seemed to be little meaning to life. There had been times when it was different – when he had God, and Chantal.

  From four paces away Hannibal suddenly stepped-ran towards Holt and front-kicked him on the chest, lifting him off his feet. It was classic Andrei Arlovski and it deposited Holt on his back. Hannibal coolly held back knowing that what awaited him on the canvas was an embrace like an Anaconda’s and probable defeat. But the crowd wanted fighting, even on the ground, they wanted blood, and their booing became louder. Hannibal shut them out.

  The bell went. Holt returned to his stool, the black pelt on his chest looking as if it had been rained on. Only Hannibal’s red kick-boxing shorts shone in the light, his body was dry. He drank nothing from the plastic bottle offered him by his second. The minute’s rest was too long for him. At the start of the second round Holt came for Hannibal again with murder in his eyes, Doberman ears pointy like the Devil’s, neck so thick it made his head appear squat on his torso. Hannibal danced away on the balls of his feet, around the ring, then to the centre, and back to the perimeter again, keeping Holt at bay with well-timed punches and thrust kicks. The crowd was going berserk heckling Hannibal and the cage seemed his only protection from a different kind of assault. The ref was sweating as much as Holt was. Holt almost ran at Hannibal in an effort to close the gap and take him down. Hannibal dipped low and leant forward to counter the charge, splaying his legs out behind him and turning his body into a rigid rod. Holt tried to grab Hannibal’s legs but couldn’t reach that far. With a snarl he aborted his attempt. It was a moment when most fighters would attack but Hannibal danced back. The crowd was now baying for Hannibal’s blood. The bell sounded. With two rounds gone Hannibal was the clear loser on points.

  Near the end of the third round it was as if Hannibal had grown tired of his own game. Resolutely Holt stepped forward once again, fully expecting Hannibal to sidestep or retreat. But Hannibal was waiting for him. His body became a blur as it spun around with one leg out like a scythe rising unstoppably until the heel thudded into the side of Holt’s head dropping him like an ox in an abattoir.

  It was all over. There was no ten second rule in MMA, not that it would have helped Holt. On Hannibal’s caramel body there was just a gleam of perspiration.

  •

  Another Sunday, another ride in the back of the Benz, another meeting with the Gnome except this one was starting badly, Hannibal thought, sitting rigidly in his chair.

  ‘Tuesday’s the deadline, you haven’t got them yet and you’re not gonna get them. Is that right, Hannibal?’ Sasman said coldly.

  It was the kind of question-statement Sasman loved posing. It put people in a spot with little room to move, forcing them to accede. Over time it led to submission, to everyone agreeing to everything he said. It was the way of the Gnome.

  ‘I didn’t say I would,’ Hannibal said, ‘I said I was working on it’. He held the Gnome’s stare. He imagined Sasman on a stool opposite him in the cage and the ref’s words ringing, ‘Let’s get it on!’

  ‘When Sasman gives a deadline he means it,’ Sasman said, pursing his lips and expanding his chest.

  ‘I said I’m working on it.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to Hong Kong for Christmas and New Year …’

  ‘Yeah, going on business,’ Danny said to Hannibal, ‘to see syndicate in Mong Kok, I arrange everyt’ing …’

  ‘And the fireworks, Danny, the fireworks, they say Hong Kong’s the best,’ Sasman said.

  ‘They take Jelome to Macau too, not on ferry but helicopter,’ Danny added proudly, ‘Ah, only the best … women on menus jus’ like food. You order Russian, Thai, or Chinese, whatever you want …’

  Sasman cut in, ‘Point is, Hannibal, it’s already December. I need this kak like a hole in the head, I don’t wanna think about it when I’m there, sudden fucking calls about Philander, about
anything!’

  ‘Yeah, Jelome’s right. And what abou’ the girl, Hannibal, my Thai girl, where is she?’ Danny was like a bulldog with slanted eyes. ‘How you know it’s her when you never seen her?’

  ‘Photos, Danny, photos,’ Hannibal formed a picture with his hands, ‘and we’re still looking, okay? We’re in Sea Point now … it’s big, then Bantry Bay. If she’s not there then maybe she’s run away … for a while. She’ll end up back in a brothel, that’s the way it is with them all.’ Hannibal got up suddenly, put on his bomber jacket.

  ‘What you wear that hot thing for, anyway, hey?’ Danny wanted to know.

  ‘It’s a long ride and it gets cool in the Benz, Danny, but most of all I wear it because I like it.’

  As Hannibal’s shoes crunched on the courtyard gravel on the way to the car and Terrance, he felt their eyes like hot spots on his back – the Gnome in the doorway with his Dobermans beside him. Hannibal didn’t know the names of the dogs. He couldn’t remember them ever being summoned – Sasman didn’t have to, they were always around him. And maybe Sasman didn’t want anyone to get too friendly with his dogs.

  •

  Much later at home Hannibal wondered why he hadn’t thought of it sooner – why wait for Zane at the station, why not wait for him in Court Road? Of course he’d have to wear a cap, glasses and a moustache, and look the other way as Zane walked up the road. Where Zane lived it was quiet, and if he came home late it would be quieter still. Hannibal wished it was winter, when darkness came early. Zane would be on the lookout now that he knew Chantal had seen Hannibal.

  There was a far greater problem, Hannibal knew: he had Chantal and Zane on his mind when all the Gnome and Danny wanted was for him to kill the Thai girl, and the man and the woman who’d been on the train.

  Twenty-three

  Three hours into their night shift with the light only just fading Philander bounced into the OC office where Bella was sitting. It was one of the things Bella loved about Philander – his vitality in a job and in a world intent on sapping it. He was like an exuberant youngster selling morning newspapers on a street corner, seemingly unaware of his greying hair and furrowed face.