by Caryl Ferey
A door led to the cellar. Brian peered down the steps, and immediately lifted his hand to his face. This was where the smell came from. A smell of shit. A deadly smell of human shit. He switched on the light and held his breath. The cellar was alive with flies, thousands of flies. He walked down the steps, finger tensed on the trigger. The cellar stretched the whole length of the building, a room with every opening blocked, the scene of an apocalypse. Shuddering, he made out three corpses beneath the swarm of flies: two males, one female. Their state recalled that of Tembo’s rats. Scalped, limbs torn off, they lay in a lake of congealed blood, lost beneath a sea of flies. The bodies were shapeless, eviscerated, the faces lacerated, toothless, unrecognizable. A battlefield in an enclosed space. A cage. He looked up, and saw that the walls were covered in excrement. Shit had been smeared all over the room, at the height of a man.
Brian breathed through his mouth, but it didn’t help. He walked through the cloud of insects, protecting himself with his hands. There was a wash basin at the far end of the room, and a tiled work surface onto which guts had been emptied. Two knives lay on the ground, the handles still sticky. The strident buzzing and the smell of shit and blood made him nauseous. He bent over the corpses, and with the flat of his hand brushed away the flies swarming over their faces. One of the blacks had a big cut on his left cheek, and tattoos on his arms. Even disfigured, he recognized the guy from the straw hut, the one who had followed him behind the dunes, the one he had whipped with his knout. The maimed girl beside him must be Pam. Half her scalp was missing. Unable to breathe, Brian went back upstairs, slammed the cellar door behind him, and stood there for a moment with his back to the wall.
He had dug up the bodies of militants killed by the special services, zombies rotting in dungeons, bodies burned by Inkatha vigilantes or ANC comrades,27 people without skin, their faces grinning as if in gratitude, and he had never felt pity—that wasn’t his job. Today, all he felt was disgust. He ran to the door and threw up everything he had inside him.
*
The Harare police station was a red brick building surrounded by barbed wire, with a view of the new law courts. A constable stood at the gate, sweating under his cap. Neuman left him to the flies, avoided the drunks being shoved into cells, and announced his name to the girl at the desk.
Walter Sanogo was waiting for him in his office, mopping himself beneath the sluggish fan. He was drowning under the number of cases in progress, and Neuman’s request had led nowhere. The three blacks killed on Muizenberg beach didn’t have records. The photographs had done the rounds of Khayelitsha, without success. They hadn’t established any links to a gang, old or new. Most of the homicides he dealt with were due to rivalries between gangs, many people had no papers, there were thousands of illegals. For his own sake and that of his men, Sanogo was quite happy to let them kill each other, to keep it in the family, so to speak.
“I met one of these guys ten days ago, near the gymnasium site,” Neuman said, pointing to the photograph of the youngest man. “He called himself Joey.”
Sanogo made a face like an iguana. “These guys usually invent stupid nicknames for themselves: Machine Gun, Devil Man.”
“There was another young guy with him, who limped.”
“What makes you think he’s still in the area?”
Neuman changed tack. “These tattoos,” he said, indicating the photographs he himself had taken. “Mean anything to you?”
Scorpions about to attack, and the two letters TB, with faded ink. Sanogo shook his head.
“Thunderbird,” Neuman said. “A militia that used to operate in Chad, but had its origins in Nigeria. They killed one of my men, and they’re dealing drugs on the peninsula. Something new, like tik but worse.”
“Listen,” Sanogo said, in a fatherly tone. “I’m sorry about your officer, but I have only two hundred men here, for tens of thousands of people. I rarely have enough men to deal with clashes between the taxi collectives, and sometimes they turn on us. I also lost an officer last month—shot down like a rabbit, on the street, for his service pistol.”
“Keep the gangs under control, and your men will be safer.”
“We’re not in the city,” Sanogo replied. “It’s a jungle out here.”
“Then let’s try to do something about it.”
“Oh, yes? And what are you planning to do—find every gang leader and ask him if he can tell you who killed your man?”
“Oh, I’m not going alone,” Neuman said, icily. “You’re coming with me.”
Sanogo shifted on his plastic chair. “Don’t count on it,” he said, as if there was no room for discussion. “I have more than enough work with the current cases.” His eyes wandered over the heaps of files.
“Joey had an almost new Beretta M92,” Neuman said. “The serial numbers had been scratched out, but it was definitely police issue. Would you prefer us to take a close look at your stocks?”
The number of weapons declared lost went beyond acceptable limits, as Neuman had already ascertained. Weapons here had a tendency to get up and walk.
Sanogo was silent for a moment—he knew which of his constables was involved in the traffic, and he himself regularly got his “Christmas box.”
Neuman looked him up and down, contemptuously. “Call your men together.”
*
The establishment of whites-only areas had caused massive population shifts, scattered communities, and destroyed the social fabric. Cape Flats, where the blacks and coloreds had been herded, was divided into territories, each controlled by a different gang with its own activities. It was an old tradition, and had even been unionized—using the argument that gangsterism was a product of apartheid, one thousand five hundred tsotsis had demonstrated outside Parliament, demanding the same amnesty as the police. Some gangs were employed by the owners of shebeens—illegal drinking joints—or by the drug barons, to protect their territory. Others formed pirate groups, stealing from other gangs to keep themselves supplied with drugs, alcohol, and money. There were gangs of pickpockets who operated on the buses, collective taxis, and trains, the Mafias who specialized in protection, and last but not least the prison gangs, who ran life inside (smuggling, rapes, executions, escapes), and to which every prisoner belonged, voluntarily or involuntarily.
Khayelitsha had been controlled for years by the gang known as the Americans. Their leader, Mzala, was feared and respected. Mzala had been a thief as a child, a killer as a teenager, and had spent three years in prison before carving out a place for himself among the township tsotsis. They were his only family, as they were for so many others—a family which, at the first sign of weakness, wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. The Americans ran drugs, prostitution, and gambling. They also owned the Marabi,28 the most lucrative shebeen in the township, where Mzala and his personal bodyguards had established their HQ.
As three-quarters of the population was excluded from the labor market, this was where the parallel economy was concentrated. An essential part of popular culture, the shebeens had been created by women from the countryside, making use of their traditional brewing skills. The shebeens were tolerated in spite of the dubious characters who hung out in them and the armed gangs who used them to sell drugs and alcohol.
The Marabi was a dirty, crowded place where poor blacks got drunk, applying themselves to this activity with the zeal of people who had no other way out: brandy, gin, beer, skokiaan, hops, hoenene, Barberton, and even more powerful concoctions—the place sold everything, without authorization and without qualms. The shebeen queen who ran the establishment was named Dina, a massive, witch-like woman who kept order with her equally massive voice. Neuman found her behind the bar, with her huge cleavage in a pink dress, pestering an old drunk to drink up more quickly.
“Where’s Mzala?” he asked.
Dina looked at his badge, and then at his not very friendly face. The half-stupefied drinkers on the straw mattresses fell silent. The township police had overpowered the two heavie
s who were meant to be guarding the entrance. Sanogo was following in the shadow of the big cop.
“Who’s this?” she asked Sanogo. “We haven’t—”
Neuman grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward across the bar counter. “Shut up.”
“Let go of me!”
“Listen to me or I’ll break your arm.”
Unable to escape his grip, the shebeen queen was forced to lie flat on the wet counter.
“I want to talk to Mzala,” Neuman said in a toneless voice. “Just a friendly chat for the moment.”
“He isn’t here!” she whined.
He put his mouth close to her ear with its big earrings. “Don’t take me for any old nigger. Come on, hurry up.”
The pain was spreading into her shoulder. Dina nodded so much it made her body shake. Neuman let go of her, and she sprang back. She cursed as she massaged her wrist—the animal had almost dislocated her arm—smoothed her dress with which she had just mopped the counter, and kicked one of the guys slumped on the floor. Neuman was still looking at her, threateningly. She ran behind the metal partition.
The customers began whispering among themselves. Sanogo signaled to his men to keep them at bay.
Mzala was sleeping it off in one of the back rooms, in the company of a girl, high on dagga, who had just given him a passionless blow job and was now snoring on her bed. Dina’s sudden entrance drew him out of his torpor. He threw out the leech who had sucked him off, and put on the clothes that were lying on the floor. The two tsotsis guarding the entrance to the private room escorted him beyond the partition that marked off their territory.
Sanogo was there, with his army. There was a guy with him, a big, muscular black standing at the beer pumps, watching Mzala as he came in. He had a shaved head and eyes like paving stones. His suit must have cost him about five thousand rand. No comparison with the other cops.
“What are you doing here, Sanogo?” Mzala said.
“This gentleman is the head of the Cape Town Crime Unit,” he replied, indicating Neuman. “He’d like to ask you a few questions.”
It was the first time Neuman had seen Mzala—an angular black with faded eyes, a T-shirt with the logo of a cheap brand of whisky, and long nails tapered to a point and as thick as horn.
“Oh, yes?”
Two blacks flanked Mzala. Neuman kicked the first one between the legs. He was stunned for a second, then a grimace of pain spread across his face. His associate made the mistake of moving—Neuman aimed at his supporting leg with his heel, and dislocated his knee. The man let out a cry of pain and fell back against the metal partition.
“I’m not in a very peaceable mood,” Neuman said, walking up to Mzala. “From now on I ask the questions, and you answer without making a fuss, O.K.?”
Mzala’s sweat smelled rancid. He looked like the kind of man who’d happily stab you in the back. Dina kept by his side, like a pilot fish staying with a shark.
“You won’t find anything here,” he replied, without a glance at his wounded men. “You’d do better to go back where you came from.”
“And you’d do better to change your tone. Today I’m only here to ask a few questions, tomorrow I may come back with the Casspirs.”
“What’s the problem?” Mzala asked, in a softer voice.
“A new gang selling drugs on the coast,” Neuman said. “They killed one of my men.”
“I don’t have any reason to take on the police. We have our little arrangements, like everywhere else. Ask the chief here,” he said, indicating Sanogo. “The Americans are perfectly happy dealing dagga. Everything above board. Shit, I even pay my license for this place!”
That was rare indeed.
“Who’s your competition?”
“The Nigerian Mafia,” he said. “Sons of bitches, brother, real sons of bitches.” He grinned scornfully in the direction of Dina’s cleavage.
“Where can we find these sons of bitches?”
“Two in a common grave,” Mzala replied, “another under lime. The others must have taken off. Anyway, we haven’t seen them around here for a while. And I’d be surprised if those cocksuckers ever came back!”
The people around them chuckled. Neuman turned to Sanogo, who nodded—he didn’t interfere too much when there was a showdown between gangs, just let them get on with it. Neuman showed Mzala the digital photographs of the killers on the beach. “Have you ever seen these men?”
Mzala’s already inexpressive face became even more of a mask. “No. Just as well, they’re not very pretty to look at.”
His sarcasm fell flat.
“Curious,” Neuman said ironically. “Because I saw one of these guys near the gym site about ten days ago. That’s bang in the middle of your territory.”
Mzala shrugged. “We can’t be everywhere.”
“They’re dealing a new tik-based drug.”
“I don’t know anything about that. But if it’s true, I’ll find out soon enough.”
“The Nigerian Mafia controls tik,” Neuman went on.
“Maybe, but not here. I told you we haven’t seen them for months, those sons of—”
“Bitches, yes, I know. What about the tattoos?”
“A scorpion, right?”
“You know your animals.”
“All those TV shows, they stick in the mind.”
“Like a bullet in the head. Well?”
Mzala’s teeth were partly rotted, a tribute to youthful malnutrition, his arms covered in scars.
“I can’t tell you anything,” he grunted. “Never seen these guys. But if I see them around, you can be sure I’ll kick their asses.”
“They were beating up this boy,” Neuman insisted, showing him the school photograph of Simon Mceli.
Mzala gave a twisted smile. “He doesn’t look too bad.”
“You know him?”
“No. I’m not interested in kids.”
Mzala had had a younger brother, even more of a thief than him, who’d died stupidly, messing around with his gun.
“Stan Ramphele. Name mean anything to you? Or his brother Sonny, who was a dealer on Muizenberg beach?”
Mzala shook his head, as if Neuman was on the wrong track. “We deal dagga, and we defend our territory. These brothers and what they get up to on the coast has nothing to do with us.”
Neuman was a whole head taller than Mzala. “That’s strange,” he breathed. “The guys I’m looking for are just the kind of ugly guys you go for.”
A slight wind of panic blew through the shebeen. Sanogo shifted uneasily next to the pillar, the other officers tightened their hold on the grips of their guns, on the alert. They weren’t at home here.
“We don’t know anything about it,” Mzala assured him. “Here we take things easy. No powder. Our customers can’t afford it, and it brings nothing but trouble.” He spat on the floor. “That’s the truth, brother—easy.”
But his yellow eyes were saying the opposite. Neuman hesitated. Either this guy was telling the truth, or they would have to haul him in to the police station for further interrogation, knowing that the rest of the gang had probably already surrounded the shebeen and were waiting, guns at the ready, to see how things developed. The ranks seemed to have closed around them. There were only nine of them, poorly armed—there was no way they were going to get out of here without a ruckus.
“We should go,” Sanogo breathed behind him.
There was a growing murmur from the customers packed into the shebeen. Some were starting to eye the open windows. A scramble, and the whole thing would turn into a riot.
“I hope for your sake that you’ve told me the truth,” Neuman said by way of farewell.
“So do I,” Mzala replied.
But his words didn’t mean anything.
*
Dust whirled across the construction site. Neuman walked amid the rubble. The workers had gone home, there were only the kids attracted by the police cars and the noise of the wind in the skeleton of the gymnasium.
A few empty cans lay here and there on the ground, some litter, pieces of scrap iron. Neuman recognized the concrete pipe down which Simon had escaped a few days earlier. A water pipe, according to the plans he had managed to get hold of.
Sanogo and his men stood in the shade, watching. Neuman crouched and put his head into the opening of the pipe. It was barely wide enough to get his shoulders in. The beam of his torch danced for a moment over the walls of concrete, before vanishing into the darkness. Contorting himself a good deal, Neuman squeezed inside the pipe.
There was a strong smell of piss. He could barely move his elbows, but after a while he managed to start crawling forward, with the torch between his teeth. The pipe seemed to run on into darkness. Whenever he raised his head, it would scrape the concrete. The farther he went along the pipe, the cooler it got. Neuman crawled for another ten yards or so, then stopped. The smell of urine had gone, but there was another smell now, strong and unpleasant—the smell of decomposition.
Simon was there, in the beam of his torch, rolled up in a dirty blanket that was falling to pieces. It took Neuman a while to recognize him. His face was livid, necrotized. Beneath the blanket, his stomach was partly eaten away by animals. Neuman directed the beam at the objects beside him. One of them was Josephina’s handbag. There was also a bottle of water, some burned-out candles, an empty cookie packet, and a photograph, spared by the rats and the damp, which the child was clutching in his hand. A photograph of his mother.