Hear Me

by Julia North

  ‘I’m sorry. He bumped into me in town and then, I don’t know, it just all came out when we were having coffee. I know I shouldn’t have told him anything.’ Nat’s eyes are wide and filled with confusion.

  ‘It’s okay. Maybe we’re over-reacting. We’ve got some psychotic addict on our list who may well be responsible. We don’t have definitive proof of anything right now. Don’t beat yourself up.’

  ‘There’ve been too many weird things, Elsa. Please at least agree with me about that.’

  Elsa stares pensively ahead before giving a sardonic laugh. ‘Okay, have to admit things have been strange. Even my rational mind is beginning to have some doubts.’

  Nat looks up at Elsa in surprise. ‘Really?’

  Elsa pulls a face. ‘Not enough to make me believe in an afterlife.’

  Nat’s body jerks as someone raps loudly on the door. She exchanges a look with Elsa and gets up to peek through the peep hole. She turns open-mouthed to Elsa. ‘It’s Karlos,’ she whispers, pointing at the closed door. She lifts her hands in a gesture of despair.

  Elsa frowns and stares at the closed door. She motions Nat out of the way and opens it. Karlos draws back slightly at the sight of her, but is quick to remove the surprise from his face.

  ‘Agh, I didn’t expect you to also be here. It’s good to see you, Elsa.’

  ‘You too.’ Elsa’s tone is her clipped court-room one. She stands ramrod straight, looking directly at Karlos.

  He shuffles his feet and clears his throat. ‘Can I come in?’

  Elsa stands silently, staring at Karlos for another second before clicking open the security gate. She pushes back the iron trellis to let him in.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you two. I was just shocked at what Nat told me and I had to see her again. Have the police found anything more?’

  Nat reddens slightly and gives her head a shake. ‘Not yet.’

  Karlos looks from one to the other and then clears his throat. ‘Ja, well if you could please let me know how it goes. I want to do what I can do to help.’ He puts his hand to his forehead and gives his head a shake. ‘I still can’t believe this,’ he says before turning to Nat. ‘Did you tell Elsa about Nic?’

  Elsa frowns at Nat who gives a small shake of her head.

  ‘What about Nic?’

  ‘Agh, I told Nat that Lissa said he was stalking her after we came out. She saw him three times. I think you must tell the police to also look at him.’

  Elsa raises her eyebrows at Nat. ‘Did Liss say anything about that to you?’

  Nat shakes her head. ‘No, she said he fancied her and she didn’t return the favour, but that’s all.’

  Elsa looks back at Karlos, her eyes flicking back and forth over his face.

  Karlos holds her gaze before rubbing his hand across his cheek. ‘Ja, I just think we must also look at him. Okay, well I must go. Please let me know what they say and how I can help. Stay well you two.’

  Nat gives a small wave while Elsa nods curtly before clanging the gate closed behind him and clicking the lock.

  They wait in silence for a few seconds until they hear the start of my Golf. Then Elsa says, ‘Perhaps we should look into this Nic character as well?’

  Nat nods. ‘Maybe, but I still think I shouldn’t have said anything to Karlos.’ She twists her hands together. ‘He scares me, Els. He really does.’

  Elsa says nothing but a flicker of fear passes through her eyes. ‘We’ll need to watch him. Don’t ever be alone with him. Promise me that.’

  Chapter 42

  My Golf waits, throbbing, on the side of Umgeni Road. The night is blacker than normal with the yellow half-moon hidden behind drifting cloud. It’s three in the morning and the wide, dark road is almost deserted except for the occasional taxi filled with drunken passengers. Karlos’ hands are clenched around the steering wheel and his eyes are glued to the rear-view mirror. A white Datsun pick-up pulls up alongside him. Loud rap music pulses out into the dark night as the passenger winds down the window. Despite the blackness of the night, he’s wearing dark glasses and a blue cap.

  Karlos hands him a brown envelope. ‘She drives a red BMW. The registration and address is in here and so’s your money.’

  The passenger rifles through the envelope before giving the driver a nod. The pick-up squeals off into the night, and Karlos swings the Golf into a squealing U-turn and speeds back towards the north side of the city.

  So much for Fletcher following him. Karlos is so many steps ahead.

  ***

  I watch Elsa alone in her kitchen. Those men could try and get her now, or it could be this evening, or tomorrow. I need to make her aware of the danger and I need to do it now. I move in beside her. Her eyes glaze over as I take us back in time, pleading silently that she’ll be open to my counsel and not let her cynicism cloud her judgement.

  I’m sitting in Mom’s lounge with the Daily News spread out in front of me and a glass of Chardonnay in my hand, pointing indignantly at the front-page article.

  ‘They just drove alongside, pulled them out of the car and shot them, right in front of their kids, and then left the kids alone and screaming on the N2 with the bodies of their dead parents,’ I slap my hand down on the page. ‘It’s beyond belief. The kids are only two and six. It’s enough to make me want to emigrate.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Liss. What we need to do is stamp out the criminal element and sort out the poverty, not run away.’

  Mom is sitting in her usual armchair, her legs tucked to the side and a large glass of wine in her hand. She takes a slurp before turning to Elsa. ‘Ja, Elsa, but how will we do that? Things have got out of control far too quickly. Yvonne says the farmers are being murdered in their hundreds. It’s like a bloody genocide. This is not what your Dad died for.’ Mom’s fingers tighten around the stem of her glass.

  ‘Joburg’s rife with it and just now it’ll come to us.’ I put my head in my hands and give a small sob. ‘I just don’t want any of us to be shot in our own cars like Dad, Elsa … Please.’

  I feel her hand on my back. She gives me a squeeze. ‘I know, Liss. It brings back horrible memories, I know.’

  ‘Oh God, I can still smell the blood, Elsa, still see it pouring out of him. It was so awful, so awful.’ I hiccup from crying and take a big glug of wine.

  ‘Shh,’ Elsa puts her finger to her lips and looks at Mom.

  I try and swallow down my tears to stifle the sobs.

  ‘Lissa’s right,’ slurs Mom. ‘I want you girls to get out. Go and look into Australia or New Zealand, even England, anywhere but here. I can’t have them shoot you too.’ Her voice rises to a crescendo.

  ‘Stop it,’ says Elsa with a set face. ‘Dad fought for justice and we need to see that justice is maintained. We don’t need to flee at the first sign of trouble; what we need to do is tackle it. It’ll get better once Mandela’s in power.’

  ‘Just be careful, Elsa. Please be careful. I don’t want them to hijack you.’

  Elsa jerks out of the shared memory. Her eyes flit around the kitchen and she snatches at a flyaway strand of blonde hair. She glances at the clock and then at her car keys which lie on the counter. She pushes back her stool and goes into the bedroom. I hear the click of a key in the bedroom safe. I watch as she takes out Greg’s gun. She checks the gun for bullets and clicks down the safety catch. Back in the kitchen, she puts the gun in her bag and picks up the keys. Once in the car she takes out the gun and leaves it resting between her thighs with the barrel facing towards the floor. She locks the car door and checks all her mirrors before pushing the remote for the gates to open. She screeches out of the drive.

  Elsa steers the BMW to the end of her road and out into wide expanse of Northway Road. Her eyes flit regularly to her rear-view and side mirrors. My tension eases. She’s completely alert. All she needs to do now is stay that way.

  A white Datsun pick-up squeals out from a side road just behind Elsa. Her eyes flick to the rear-view mirror. It
’s the same two men. They haven’t wasted any time. The pick-up veers to the right and accelerates to overtake her, but Elsa pre-empts their move and puts her foot flat, lurching the BMW in one powerful, purring spurt away from them. She hurtles on towards a Ford Focus driving at the speed limit and hesitates for a second before taking a gap in the oncoming traffic and squealing out to pass it. The pick-up blasts its horn at the Ford which pulls to the side to allow it past. Drivers in the oncoming traffic widen their eyes in fear, aware that something is going down between the two cars which continue screaming down the wide, tarred road like two out-of-control scale electrics.

  I watch Elsa approach the traffic lights by Lagoon Service Station. The light has turned red and a snake of cars crosses in front of her; there’s no way she can jump the lights without hitting one of them. I see the two men look at each other and laugh. The driver puts his foot down as the pick-up roars forward. My spirit turns numb as I watch the passenger push back his baseball cap and lean out of the window, hands cupped around the firearm and the barrel pointed directly towards Elsa’s car.

  ‘No …’ I scream, ‘no …’ as Dad’s bloodied body rises back into my mind, forcing the iron smell of blood into my nose and throat and making me retch. I shake my head violently to chase away the memory and surge towards the side of the pick-up where the hijacker leans out, his elbows pulled back in a triangle and his hands still cupped around the 9mm in an iron clasp. The driver slows down to let him steady his aim.

  My breath freezes in my throat as I see the barrel inch down until it’s vertical with the back of Elsa’s rear window and directly in line with the back of her blonde head. I lurch forward and spin to face the pointed barrel with its vibrating molecules of steel. ‘Please God … no …!’

  The firearm explodes in a flash of light and noise. A resounding crack thunders through the still morning air. The bullet has whooshed through me so fast I didn’t even see it. Cars on the opposite side of the road swerve madly before accelerating away from the violence. Time stands still in the petrol station, the attendants and customers frozen in a tableau of expectant fear.

  I turn my head towards Elsa, but she’s no longer in front of me. She’s already squealed sideways into the service station and is careering down the road in the direction of the vast Indian Ocean in a red blur.

  ‘Ukudubula wena. Ukudubula, you fucking stupid …,’ shouts the driver, punching the passenger on his shoulder. ‘How can you miss?’ He veers sharply to the side, almost colliding with a Fiat and jolting its young woman driver into white hot shock, before screeching away in the same direction as Elsa.

  The hi-jacker removes his sunglasses with a shaking hand. His eyes are wide with terror. He brings the arm holding the dangling firearm back in and sits, shivering, his body a jellied mess. He shakes his head and moves his hand across the barrel of the gun, ‘‘Haibo, that one is no good, no good. There is muti there … bad muti,’ he croaks, while the driver glares sideways at him.

  The wail of a siren shrieks through the air. The driver eyes the rear-view mirror. Two police cars, blue lights flashing, are racing towards them. ‘Fucking police now,’ he shouts. He squeals the pick-up into a sharp U-turn and races back along the road, forcing his way into the snake of traffic which has suddenly baulked and pulled to the side. The bumper of the pick-up smashes into the front fender of a Mercedes and continues on in the middle of the road while cars on both sides swerve out of his way. The police cars follow fast behind with their sirens screeching. I close my eyes and offer up silent thanks.

  When I look back at Elsa she’s pulled over to the side of the road and is sitting with her head collapsed forward onto the steering wheel. Her right hand rests trembling on the gun still lodged between her thighs while her chest heaves. ‘Fuck,’ she whispers to herself, ‘fuck, that was close. Too close.’

  Someone knocks on her window and she fliches, her hand flying automatically to the gun. A middle-aged, suited man motions for her to wind down the window. She opens it a fraction and looks up at him with wide eyes.

  ‘Are you okay?’ His eyes show concern and his voice is kind. ‘I saw what happened. Don’t worry, the police are on their tail. I just wanted to check if you’re okay.’

  Elsa swallows and gives a small nod. ‘I’ll be fine, thank you. I just need to sit for a bit and breathe.’

  The man looks at her a while longer and then gives a half-smile. ‘As long as you’re sure you’ll be alright?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’ She winds up her window and lets out a long, shuddering sigh before leaning her head back against the leather headrest and closing her eyes. I move in next to her. Her nose twitches and she opens her eyes to stare at the empty passenger seat. Her chest is still moving rapidly. My poor sister, she doesn’t deserve this. I shake my head to push away the memory of the gun aimed at Elsa’s head. I don’t know what that killer saw or felt, but thank God something put him off his aim.

  Chapter 43

  Karlos sits in an armchair near the window. We’re in a plush hotel room. The septic sister is perched on one of the twin beds, her lank black hair just as greasy as when I saw it last. My eyes rest on a welcome book lying on the counter top, the name Maharani Hotel in gold lettering. How ironic. The last time I was at the Maharani was with disgusting Chino-man and my turning point for agreeing to go to Shaloma. What a joke, a ridiculous farce.

  Karlos bangs the side of the chair with his fist. ‘Bloody blacks and their stupid superstition. Fool says muti must be protecting her and refuses to try again.’

  ‘So, find some others.’

  Karlos throws her an irritated look. ‘I paid them a thousand fucking rand. Now I must find some more and if they miss, then they also tell me there’s some black magic. Fuck them. Maybe I must just find a way to do it myself.’

  ‘Number one killer hey, boetie,’ says this sister, giving him a sideways smile.

  Karlos ignores her. He gets up and switches on the kettle and deftly tears open a sachet of Nescafé. Every movement is confident and sure. Now that I think back on it, there was never anything nervous or neurotic about him – that should’ve been a warning sign. What alcoholic is as cool and collected as Karlos? Nic wasn’t, nor was Wolf. There was an air about Karlos that unsettled them, but I was too blind to notice. He had the stories of course and put on the act, but now when I think back on it, everything was carefully controlled; his mask fixed firmly in place and never sliding. I wonder if he lay on my bed gloating with his rand-sign eyes at the thought of getting his hands on my money and having my body thrown in as a freebie. The self-satisfaction must have almost smothered him.

  I shiver at the memory of his hands on my body; I should’ve scratched my nails so deep into his flesh that he screamed. Karlos flinches as though he’s sensed my anger, but continues making the coffee.

  He plonks himself back in the armchair and takes a loud slurp of coffee. He stares with eyes almost dead. For the first time his expression is probably genuine and I wonder again how he got to be like this. Surely people like him can’t be born with that level of evil, unless it really does operate as a generational curse, an inherent evil passed down through their genes from a damaged ancestral past?

  ‘Hey, where’s my coffee?’ Karlos’ sister leans back against the padded headboard and puts on a fake little girl face.

  Karlos pulls up his top lip. ‘Ja, ok, Tania, just relax. I’ll make you one.’ He gets up and snatches up another sachet.

  ‘Put three of those sugars in. They’re too small.’ She watches with piggy eyes as he stirs the mug and then plonks it down on the bedside table. She picks up the complementary writing pad and pen and begins to draw a picture of two stick figures outside a large house. As I watch her finger move across the pad, an old physics lesson on two- and three-dimensional objects rises up in my memory. We mocked Mr Sinclair for being a mad scientist when he told us that if a three-dimensional being like us went into a two-dimensional world then all that those people would see w
ould be cross-sections of us as we intersected their universe. He said we’d be able to move things, to take things back into our dimension and make them instantly disappear from their dimension. We were so certain there was no such thing as another dimension, but I guess, like many super-intelligent people, he just saw things that those of us with narrow minds couldn’t. Now, the joke is I’m actually living that reality, no longer a three-dimensional being but a spiritual one who can move with ease through walls and doors. But how do I make things disappear to show my presence or scare someone shitless? I think back to the failed hi-jacking. Perhaps the hi-jacker saw some of my hand in front of the barrel and it wasn’t just my magnetic field he felt, but if so, what made him see a fraction of me when neither Elsa nor Nat have been able to? What did I do that was different?

  Tania sits on the bed staring at Karlos with narrow eyes. ‘So?’ she says.

  ‘I’ll stage a burglary and shoot them both, but I need to have them on their own.’

  Tania frowns. ‘Agh, that’s too hard. Aren’t they married? And anyway, if they both get hit the police will suspect something.’

  ‘Ja, I know that. I need to think. Stop fucking asking me things.’

  Tania clucks her tongue and clicks on the television. She stares sullenly at the screen before turning to Karlos again. ‘I thought you set it up so that this George and Nic would go to the hospital when she died?’

  ‘Ja, I did. I told them to go visit after the meeting.’

  ‘So, why don’t you make sure the police find that out? That will make him look more guilty.’

  ‘Don’t you think I’ve tried that,’ spat Karlos, ‘These fucking sisters don’t believe me. They probably haven’t even told the fucking police, and the fucking nurses are so stupid they said they never saw them.’