Last Train to Retreat

by Gustav Preller

  Twenty-nine

  Hannibal read the report in the afternoon newspaper with great satisfaction. He was still in Atlantis, forty kilometres from Cape Town on the west coast, having spent the night with a cousin. ‘Detective dies in hijack’ the headline screamed. It went on to describe how Detective Warrant Officer Quentin Philander, in civilian clothes and on his way home after a night shift at the Lavender Hill police station, was shot three times through the window of his unmarked car, dragged out and left on the pavement to die. Two men drove off in the car. A motorist going the other way witnessed the incident at about 6.20 am. The report added that at a thousand per month, South Africa had the most hijackings in the world having held this dubious distinction for twenty years. Police were investigating.

  What Hannibal didn’t like was the phone call from Sasman at 6.30 am, ten minutes after the hijacking, demanding a meeting the following night. ‘To tie things up before I go,’ he had said. Sasman had also made sure he was out of Cape Town, in Ceres where he had friends. When he asked if Lena and Bruce Lee man had been taken care of Hannibal replied that alibis came first. The Gnome had insisted that they be eliminated before the meeting.

  Hannibal had a day and a half to get them. But the thought came to him that maybe, just maybe, they were worth more alive than dead until after the meeting.

  •

  Hannibal sat rigidly in the Benz. He had checked out Terrance before getting into the car – for a telltale bulge, a facial flicker, eyes that were all over the place. Now he was watching for glances in the mirror or a change in the route. But Terrance seemed too uptight about his spoilt night to pose a danger.

  From the M5 Hannibal watched the world flash by just as his own life had been doing with increased frequency, his memories of himself filled with stress created by authority at every step – his parents, teachers, preachers, karate senseis, the local community forum, the police, government (first the Whites and now the Blacks), God, the Gnome – the whole world run on rules. The rules of nature he understood and accepted – the tides, moon, and sun, the birds, the need to eat, sleep, the urge to fuck, and to kill. But rules made by people sucked, what right did they have to make them? Rules were there to suit those who made them. The Flats, Atlantis where he had stayed the night, were they not the result of rules so terrible they could have come from Satan himself? Atlantis – what a fucking name for a place that had been dead for twenty years with 200,000 people still trapped in it. The world was full of places like these, all created by politicians. And God had created these men and had done nothing to stop them. Hannibal could find no reason whatsoever not to loathe human beings.

  He walked across the courtyard in his bomber jacket, his pace measured, his gaze fixed on Sasman standing in the doorway with his Dobermans by his side. Hairy spider, blood sucker, mother-fucker – a thing so grotesque it caused Hannibal’s eyes to water.

  ‘Come right in,’ it said, ‘Danny’s waiting. I hope you brought his money?’

  Hannibal brushed past the Gnome with a taste of bile in his mouth then waited for him to go up the stairs first – stumpy legs, bloated torso, dressed in black as if for a funeral.

  ‘Aah, Hannibal!’ Danny said exuberantly. Was the thrill of the kill still with him or was it the bounty he expected to be paid?

  Hannibal nodded and sat down unasked making sure he could see the staircase. The Dobermans had led the way and were now next to the Gnome, on their haunches, not at ease even though they’d seen Danny and Hannibal many times. The dogs were like their master.

  ‘So, Hannibal, it worked, thanks to Danny here. But now what about Lena and Bruce Lee man?’

  ‘Jerome, I say again, alibis come first. I don’t have to look for them. It’s just a matter of waiting. In fact, Delron’s been watching the house all day.’ Hannibal realised his mistake as he said it – he’d just made himself dispensable. He tried to divert Sasman’s attention. ‘Is Lettie here, I’d love some gingers.’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ Danny said, ‘he is hungry, Jelome, the boy is still growing!’

  The Gnome said, ‘Biscuits? What Danny wants is money, Hannibal, your half. I’ve paid mine.’ But he weakened at the thought of gingers. ‘Lettie,’ he shouted, ‘more please, and some sodas for the whisky, and a Coke for the kid.’

  Sasman put ice in a glass, poured the Coke and held it out to Hannibal, staring at him. I can read him but not Danny with his slanted eyes like permanent shutters, Danny the triad, the danger man, Hannibal thought. He got up. Like a camera ready and focused the Gnome, Danny, and the Dobermans were now all inside Hannibal’s frame of vision. Should he take the drink? Sasman was pulling at a hair in the hollow of his throat, his eyes flitting to Danny. Hannibal’s life started flashing through him again like a defective bulb. He took the drink, dropped it and slid a hand into his bomber jacket at the same time. His gun came out as the glass hit the floor. For a second everyone except Hannibal looked down. Then Danny’s own gun was out but a bullet in the face followed by one in the chest sent him crashing against the wall. The silencer’s dull plopping sounds and what looked like a matter strictly between visitors confused the Dobermans. Hannibal didn’t wait. He shot the one Doberman behind the ear as it rose and the other in the chest as it leapt at him. It knocked him to the floor its meaty breath in his face as he thrust the barrel into the dog’s mouth and pulled the trigger. The Gnome was screaming now, ‘Lettie, Lettie!’ She rushed from the kitchen. Hannibal’s bullet stopped her like an invisible wall but she had eyes for the Gnome only. It was as if the man who had shot her and the bodies around her did not exist. ‘Jerome, my boy …’ she struggled to speak. It was the first time Hannibal had heard her say anything. She sank to her knees. The Gnome took her in his arms and looked up at Hannibal, tears running down his black stubble like rain. ‘What have you done, Hannibal? The only good person in my life … and you had to kill her! You’re from the Devil, Hannibal, no, you are Satan himself …’

  ‘You thought you’d get in first, didn’t you, Jerome?’ Hannibal said. The Gnome was still rambling when Hannibal shot him between the eyes, the hollow-point exiting the back of his head in a mass of bloody matter. Hannibal ran down the stairs as Terrance was coming up. Plop, plop, two bullets sent Terrance tumbling down screaming, ‘You, you, I always knew it!’ It was the most emotion Terrance had ever shown. Hannibal jumped over his body, out the front door and across the yard, gravel shooting up from under his feet. The keys were in the Benz. Hannibal put on the safety belt, fired up the engine, turned the car around so that it faced the house. He smelled its leather and felt its luxury one more time. Then he flattened the accelerator. This time gravel shot metres into the air as the wheels gouged deep tracks. The large car smashed through the double doors coming to rest with its entire bonnet inside the house. Dazed, Hannibal stumbled out. He went to where Terrance lay at the bottom of the stairs, dragged him back to the car and put him in the driver’s seat. Then he struck a match and threw it onto the dented, smoking bonnet. He struck a second match, and a third. Nothing happened. He fetched a large pot plant from the garden and smashed it down on the bonnet creating a gash. He struck a match and pushed it inside. Still nothing happened. He walked behind the car, peered underneath and put a bullet through what looked like the tank. Petrol poured out. There was one match left and he started running as he struck it. The blast ripped through the ground floor lifting him up and depositing him face-down on the gravel metres away. He dusted down his bomber jacket, walked calmly to the gate and shot open the lock enabling him to squeeze through. He took a last look at the fiercely burning house. Terrance had probably filled up the car. In the flickering light of the flames his face was a grinning caramel mask.

  As he strode south towards Parow and the brothels of Voortrekker Road he looked up at the sky and laughed. He was Braveheart and Maximus, Taxi Driver and the Godfather, and El Más Loco all rolled in one. He was crazier than even the Craziest One. If he’d had the time he would have cut their heads off and stuck the
m on the spikes at the gate for the world to see that the Gnome wasn’t untouchable after all.

  Thirty

  Lena kept worrying about Zane. He had phoned to say he was okay but still she worried. After everything they’d been through it seemed unbelievable that someone from his past would suddenly want to kill him. She told herself that it was long ago and had nothing to do with her but still she felt edgy. Cupido, Gatiep, Curly, and Sarai – she seemed to attract death wherever she went. Perhaps it was a blessing not to know where Zane was.

  At her desk in the Centre, Lena’s mind roamed while she processed her applications. Not only did she worry about Zane, she was missing him. It frustrated her that there was no obvious reason for it. The only thing she could think of – and it wasn’t really positive – was that they didn’t like themselves and found solace in each other. After her father, there’d been little for Lena to like about herself, and after years of silent accusation from her mother there was only self-hatred, and a reluctance to grow up and become a woman because men would then want her. Lena ended up in denial of herself, fearing the stranger in her as much as she feared the outside world, not knowing what she was capable of doing. What if her father came back? Would she want to do him harm? She suspected Zane had his own inner conflicts – his behaviour on the train had told her as much, and information he let slip.

  Lena smiled as she ticked another grant application. Two people who liked each other more than they liked themselves. It was hardly the basis for an enduring relationship, hardly what love was about. Or, at least, what love should be about – she had no experience of it. She had only the memory of Zane putting his arms around her that day in the street.

  •

  Lena still tried to analyse her emotions in bed that night. What a silly woman she was, behaving as though she was fifteen and not twenty-five. The trouble was she’d never experienced any of the feelings her friends had experienced as adolescents. It was as if a third of her life – her teens – had been lost. One minute she was excited about the physical changes taking place in her, the next she was twenty and her mother had died, and she was this awkward young woman trying to hide her breasts by hunching her shoulders. Yet Sarai told her she was beautiful, the only person who had ever said so, and now she was dead.

  Through the busy stream of her consciousness Lena heard it – a door handle stiffly and reluctantly turning as if it needed oil. Had she been asleep she would not have heard it. She breathed shallowly and closed her eyes so that she could pick up the slightest sound – memories of footsteps advancing in the dark, of Sarai sliding into bed, her voluptuous body against Lena’s, more memories of another room, another door handle turning in the night, her father creeping into her bed his hand over her mouth, whispering with jagged breath about his desires and the wrath of God if she ever said a word. Door handles – gateways to the fruits of Eden, and everlasting sin. And now she carried also the mark of one who had killed – the mark of Cain. Could she ever feel clean, and good?

  She heard the noise again. It was the handle to the front door. Lena slipped out of bed, grabbed her sneakers, and her shirt and jeans draped over the chair and tiptoed to the kitchen sure-footedly like a night animal. She went out the back door, put her shoes on and sprinted across the narrow yard to the fence, vaulting over it using one of the poles as support. As she did so she heard a crashing sound – had they broken into the house? In seconds she reached a side street via her neighbour’s gate. Instinctively she headed for the only place of refuge she could think of: The Centre. The police station was not an option. Her pyjamas fluttered as she ran through the dimly-lit, deserted streets praying that her knife and access card wouldn’t fall from the pocket of the jeans she was clutching.

  •

  A few hundred metres from The Centre Lena stopped and changed into her day clothes. The knife was still there, snug and comforting. At The Centre she tried to explain to the guard that she couldn’t sleep because of the pile of work on her desk and that if she didn’t process it before today’s queues Adi Appollis would fire her. He gave her a toothless grin and let her in.

  She sat in the big hall in the dark wondering what was happening to her and Zane. As far as she could make out the attack on him and the event at her house were unrelated. Yet she and Zane had both been tracked down. It seemed too much of a coincidence. But who had killed Sarai, a different group as punishment for her running away? It was all very confusing.

  At 3 am she tried Zane’s mobile. His voice asking for a message to be left made her cry out. She wished to have his arms around her again. The huge hall seemed to be filled with the collective despair of the thousands who had queued in it. As the night wore on it drew in the whole world until she felt it closing in on her, and on Zane. She could no longer think of herself without thinking of him – it had become Lena and Zane, for better or for worse.

  •

  At 7 am she tried to contact Zane again. This time he answered. Haltingly she told him what had happened, and where she was.

  ‘I can’t go home,’ she said, ‘I’m too afraid … you can’t either. Do you get bad feelings sometimes, Zane? I feel it now, it’s terrible.’

  He didn’t answer and said, ‘There’s only one thing to do – ask for leave like I did then get in a taxi and come here, today still. Don’t go home at all.’

  ‘Oh, oh, I have only what I’m wearing … and my pyjamas.’

  ‘More than I’ve got,’ he said, ‘and I miss mine.’ His attempt at light-heartedness failed. ‘I’ll pay the taxi. Tell him to drop you off at Strandfontein beach in the parking lot by the tree – there is only one.’

  At 8.15, after washing her face and using her fingers as a comb, she went to Adi’s office. Lines around Adi’s eyes and mouth had filled up with kindness over the years. It was as though she’d carried too much of it inside her and it had to come out somewhere. Adi and Mavis were two of a kind, even looked alike with their wide bodies, wrinkled skins, and wise, watery eyes – like old tortoises at The Centre.

  ‘You don’t look good, Lena! What’s the matter, my liefie?’

  ‘Adi, I’m sorry to ask but can I take leave until the New Year?’

  ‘Of course, my dear, you’ve already lost days by not going away when you should, and it is nearly Christmas. Is everything alright?’

  Lena couldn’t look at Adi. ‘I’m okay, Adi, I just need time on my own.’

  ‘A girl like you on her own, ag shame, that doesn’t sound right? Life is about sharing, Lena, that’s what brings happiness – sharing life with loved ones. I know you don’t have parents anymore but I trust you have friends, maybe a man you care for?’

  Lena looked at Adi in astonishment. All she said was, ‘Well, I’m not sure what he is, Adi, it’s all very confusing.’

  •

  She felt even more confused when she stepped from the taxi and Zane put his arms around her as if it was the most natural thing to do. He smelled of the ocean and his skin was warm. She leaned against him tears running down her face. ‘It’s alright, Lena,’ he said. But still she couldn’t return his embrace; all she could do was not resist him.

  He paid the taxi and they walked to Malaki’s hideout. ‘I had no idea,’ she said, surveying the neat bush camp with surprise.

  ‘Malaki’s fixing dings at the club – boards and skis, you know. And he teaches surfing … makes enough to survive. And he’s happy, Lena, he’s happy. Not like us.’ He laughed stiffly.

  She understood and put her arms around herself again. ‘God, what are we going to do? We have to go back sooner or later, we’ve got jobs!’

  He’d been with Malaki only three days. They could hide for only so long. They were living on borrowed time and he had no idea what to do because what was threatening them had no face and no name. There was only Hannibal. Hannibal he understood up to a point and everything else he didn’t, the seemingly unrelated deaths, the attempts to kill both of them – all of it was beyond him, the stuff of nightmares. What ma
de it worse was that they dared not go to the police.

  •

  They had a restless night with Lena crying out in her sleep. He had to wake her and zip open the sleeping bag to ease her claustrophobia. She clung to his arm, the steel she had shown on the train and in his flat suspended or gone. Zane found himself preferring her in her vulnerability. Thinking about death brought sadness but it had made Lena more human and likeable, more so now with the realisation that there was little time. With dismay Zane realised that thoughts of his own death had made him more, not less accepting of his fate. It had pushed him back into his old mode of not standing up for himself. How strange – he was successful in his job, he had made it to black belt yet he felt as paralysed as a buck caught in a spotlight.

  Zane stared into the bush as he lay on the ground next to Lena. If the past few days were about more than Hannibal and Chantal, which he was beginning to suspect, then even Strandfontein was too close. If they’d been watching her house they would know where she worked and they could as easily have followed her to where they were now.

  Thirty-one

  They said goodbye to Malaki the next day.

  ‘Look after my bike, bra – don’t forget to chain it, and here’s my karate stuff, I don’t have the space. I don’t know how to thank you,’ Zane said.

  Malaki gathered them both into his big arms as if he wanted to give them some of his strength. ‘Cool runnings, my friends, may Jah be with you.’

  When Zane looked back at the camp from the top of a verdant dune Malaki hadn’t moved. They waved at each other. As Zane led Lena to the car park he wondered if he would see the chiselled brown-black face with its mane of locks again.

  •

  Zane and Lena caught the 4.30 pm bus from Cape Town, a double-decker with huge windows and seagulls painted on the sides. The soaring wings excited Zane – it was as if he and Lena had climbed on them and were flying away.