by JT Lawrence
‘It’s like pass-the-parcel,’ whispers Keke.
‘Pass the what?’
‘Oh,’ says Keke, ‘Never mind.’ They both peer into the box, wary, as if something could jump out and bite their fingers.
‘It’s empty,’ says Kirsten.
As an act of desperation, she puts her whole hand into the box and rummages around, just so that she would have no doubt in her mind that the box is definitely, absolutely, 100% empty. But it isn’t.
‘Hey,’ she says. The far side feels different. Not textured metal, but plastic. She gets her fingernails underneath the corner and rips it off, bringing it out of the box and into view. It’s a small plastic bag, like a sandwich bag, but four-ply and heat-sealed.
On the way home, a white minivan comes into view, then disappears, then appears again. It looks like another communal taxi, but without the trappings: no dents or scratches, no eccentric bumper stickers, furry steering wheel or hula-girl hanging from the rear-view mirror. Instead: clean paintwork, tinted windows. Something about it bothers Kirsten.
‘I know I sound crackers but... is that van... following us?’ Kirsten frowns.
‘Please don’t start,’ says Keke.
‘Seriously,’ says Kirsten. ‘They’ve been behind us for the last ten minutes.’
Keke looks over at the vehicle, then turns back around and plays on her phone. The white minibus weaves aggressively and gets too close to the taxi. Kirsten starts to panic.
‘They know we have it. They’re trying to stop us.’
‘Stop it,’ growls Keke, but as her eyes go back to her screen their taxi is knocked sideways. The minivan swerves away then back to hit them again, causing the passengers to scream and the driver to grab his hat, fling it down, concentrate on keeping the vehicle on the road.
Metal screeches as the van pushes hard against the taxi, trying to force it into the guardrails. The taxi driver keeps his head, accelerates, takes back the road. Keke pushes Kirsten down and covers her. They are smashed again, harder, and they veer off the road, onto the shoulder. Their driver steers hard to not go over the rails, then overcorrects and crashes into a bakkie, almost rolls the vehicle.
They sway on two wheels, then land safely back on the tarmac. The white minivan speeds off. Cars all around swerve and hoot, people shout. Inside the taxi: silence, the caustic smell of burning brakes. Broken glass glitters.
Journal Entry
15 April 1988, Westville
In the news: A bomb explodes prematurely outside Pretoria’s Sterland cinema killing the carrier and injuring a bystander. The passengers of plane-jacked Kuwait Airways Flight 422 are still being held as hostages – it’s been 11 days – the Lebanese guerrillas are demanding the release of 17 Shi’ite Muslim bombers being held by Kuwait.
What I’m listening to: Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm – Joni Mitchell
What I’m reading: Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ – I feel like this book is speaking directly to me, making me question my life.
What I’m watching: Beetlejuice
My shrink says that it’s good to write my feelings down so here I go: the ugly truth. I don’t think the pills are helping. I love the babies more than life itself. I do, honestly, it’s like they are physically connected to my heart. I can’t imagine life without them.
But I also feel trapped. Isolated. I’m so young and here I am washing and cleaning and changing nappies while I should be out in the world, making friends and money and just LIVING. I feel like I am stuck in a life – that sometimes feels like a living hell of pee and poo and vomit – that I didn’t choose.
I miss home and my family, even though we don’t get on that well. I’m sad that they haven’t come to visit the babies. I love P. Sometimes I think that he must regret marrying me; I can’t imagine how he finds me attractive when I am such a stretch-marked baggy-eyed zombie. Other times I think, I am so pretty and young (on the inside!), I should be out there dating a whole lot of different men, be taken to new restaurants and getting flowers and goodnight kisses.
I don’t want to eat because eating binds you to this earth in some way and I want to be free. I can see my clothes hanging off my body and it feels good to have an outward expression of the way I’m feeling inside.
I feel like I have wasted my life, that there is nothing to live for. Even though I know it’s not true, that is how I feel, and that’s why it’s so difficult to get up in the mornings. And then when I do get up the babies cry and cry and I just feel like jumping out of a window.
The sticky love for the twins is push-pull: sometimes I’ll be holding one of them and swaying and they’ll melt into me and I think that the moment couldn’t be more perfect. In the next minute something will happen: I’ll slip on spilled milk, the washing machine will pack up, Kate will vomit on my clean top, Sam will start screaming, then they’ll both be screaming and the kitchen will flood and I’ll realise we’re out of breakfast cereal and I can’t stand it so my mind just floats away.
On these days I have the urge to just run away. To leave P and the twins. Not to be a coward, but to be brave, to save my life. I get anxious in the car on these days because my body and mind want to push that accelerator as far as it will go and just go anywhere that isn’t here. Another province. Another country. Or even into the side of a bridge. But then I pull over and breathe and try to listen to my heart, which is connected to the babies, the sweet babies, my beautiful Sam and Kate, and it tells me to stay.
Chapter 18
Borrowed Scrubs
Johannesburg, 2021
The man dressed as a nurse puts his latex-covered fingers on William Soraya’s wrist, feels his pulse. It is slow and steady. There is no need to do it: the athlete is hooked up to all kinds of monitoring equipment. He fusses about the room, rearranging giant bouquets of flowers and baskets of fruit and candy. He admires the medal—Soraya’s first Olympic gold—on the bedside table. Its placement seems a desperate plea: You were once the fastest man in the world, you can beat this. Please wake up.
The nurse takes what looks like a pen out of his pocket, clicks it as if he is about to write on Soraya’s chart, and spikes the tube of the IV with it. It is slow-acting enough to give him the ninety seconds he will need to leave the hospital. No alarms will go off while he is still here. He takes the medal and slips it into his trouser pocket as he moves. It is cold against his thigh.
It’s a bitterbright feeling for him, leaving while his mark is still breathing. Doesn’t feel right, especially after the accident he engineered hasn’t proved to be fatal. Still, there will be others. He walks down the passage as quickly as he can without alerting anyone. He breathes hot air into his medimask, requisite for any doctor, nurse, patient or visitor in the hospital. It’s large and covers most of his face, which is most fortunate. Hospitals are one of the easiest places to kill people. His borrowed scrubs cover his other distinguishing characteristics, apart from his generous build, and height. But no one will say: there was a nurse in there with a burnt arm.
Chapter 19
Piranhas
Johannesburg, 2021
Seth gets home at midnight. He’d been drinking at TommyKnockers and is a bit unsteady on his feet. A cab dropped him off, courtesy of Rolo. Upstairs on the 17th floor, he punches in the code—52Hz—and his retina unlocks his front door. It clicks open, and Sandy greets him. He shows the speaker his middle finger. He checks all the security screens, sees the place is empty.
Knowing he’s had too much to drink, he shrugs, pours a few fingers of vodka into a tumbler with ice. Takes it to his Tile to check for messages. He’s been checking throughout the day to see if Fiona tried to get hold of him, but nada.
All he sees is update after update about William Soraya’s death in hospital. He tries to block the story in his feed but it keeps on coming up on his screen, as if to haunt him, as if to say: this could have been you. You think you’re indestructible; so did Soraya. Now he’s lying on a slab with multiple organ
failure, because that’s what happens to people like you.
Not being able to get hold of Fiona adds to his anxiety. He doesn’t know where she lives, doesn’t know who her friends and family are, which makes it impossible to get hold of her if she doesn’t come to work, and doesn’t answer her phone. It nags at him: Fiona isn’t the kind of girl to screen calls or not come to the grind for two days in row. He takes her Fontus access card out of his hoodie pocket, looks at it. His guilt accentuates her clear blue eyes, the salmon of her cheeks. No one has mentioned her absence at work. Piranhas.
He turns on the Tile, takes a slug of vodka. The green rabbit flashes; FlowerGrrl bumped him earlier in the evening.
FlowerGrrl>Hey SD, what’s/hold-up? Thought u’d hve Fontus in bag by now.
He knows she’s kidding, but feels the pressure nonetheless. He’s been there for weeks without much progress. He’d figured Fiona would be his ticket, but she’s gone MIA. His drinking tonight has had a purpose: to wipe out any inclination that he is worried about her. It hasn’t worked. The more he drinks, the more it becomes clear that, for the first time in his life, he cares about someone else.
He replies to FlowerGrrl:
SD>> Making headway, shld hve s/thing soon.
Without washing his face or brushing his teeth, and still in his jacket, he gets into bed with his slippery glass of vodka. Takes a bottle of pills from the pocket, pops two, washes them down with the spirit. Spreads a throw untidily over his body, and falls asleep with the lights on.
Outside the building, a large man is walking his dog. The dog pauses to sniff the innards of a pothole. The man uses the time to look at the entrance of the building, get an idea of the security system. Backs up, looks up to the corner apartment of the 17th floor where a light is still on. Having seen enough, he makes a kissing noise: pulls the protesting beagle along, firmly, but not unkindly.
Kirsten’s watch rings; it’s Marmalade. Oh shit, she thinks, looking at the time, then at the two empty bottles of wine on Keke’s desk. The clockologram clicks in disapproval. She touches her earbutton to answer the call.
‘Hi, sorry I’m late,’ she says, her voice gruff. Gives Keke the grimace of a schoolgirl in trouble.
‘And you haven’t called,’ he says.
‘And I haven’t called. Sorry.’
‘I was worried about you.’
‘Sorry.’
‘When are you coming home? I made dinner. Four hours ago.’
‘Ah, sorry! I didn’t know. You should have told me.’ She stands up, throws two empty sauce-stained Styrofoam shamburger clamshells in the bin.
‘I wanted to surprise you. Do something nice for you.’
‘I’m really sorry. I’m with Kex.’
Keke gives her a soft kick in the shins.
She winces and hops up and down. ‘At The Office. We’re working on a... story.’
‘Well, wake me when you get home.’
‘It’ll be late.’
‘Wake me, Kitty. I miss you.’
He ends the call. They never say ‘I Love You.’ They agreed long ago that that the phrase is overused and trite. They won’t reduce their relationship to a cliché. What they have is deeper.
‘How much trouble are in you in?’ asks Keke.
‘He cooked dinner for me: a surprise.’
Keke looks at the time on her phone. ‘Ouch.’
‘He wanted to do something nice for me.’
‘Double-ouch.’
‘So where were we?’ Kirsten asks, but Keke is looking at her strangely.
‘What?’
‘Since when do you lie to James?’
‘What? I didn’t. I don’t.’
‘We’re working on a “story”?’
‘Well,’ says Kirsten, ‘we are, kind of. Aren’t we?’
Keke pouts, not convinced.
‘You’re the one that says everyone has a story. Maybe this is mine. And, believe me, the less James knows, the better.’
They go back to solving the puzzle they have been working on all night: trying to make sense of the code that is in the plastic envelope they found in the seed bank. It is a list of barcodes that, when scanned, are numbers, 18 digits to a line.
100380199121808891
104140199171209891
20290199142117891
20201199161408891
101250199160217891
201250199160217891
1010199112016891
They all start with either 10 or 20, all contain the numbers 1991 in the same position near the middle, and end in 891. The more wine Kirsten drinks, the more the numbers glow with their colours. It is distracting. For this reason, she has never been good at maths.
‘I don’t know how much longer I can look at this,’ she says, rubbing her neck, which is tender from the car accident. ‘Are you sure you don’t know any maths-geniuses-code-crackers?’
Keke shakes her head. ‘Nope.’
They have tried everything they can think of, from simple alphabet a=1 algorithms to squares and prime numbers, and all the search engines they can think of. Kirsten is playing with Keke’s Beckoning Cat. If you push its belly-button its USB port comes out the other side, like a stunted tail. A secret porthole of information.
Maneki Neko, she thinks: Japanese Lucky Cat. Brings good fortune to owners. She gives the hard plastic a squeeze, puts it back on Keke’s desk.
‘Look, we’ve had a hectic day and we’re not getting anywhere tonight.’ Keke sighs, standing up. ‘Why don’t you go home to Marmalade and make up?’
Kirsten starts to protest but Keke is right.
‘Besides,’ says Keke, putting on her leather jacket. ‘I need to get laid.’
As soon as Kirsten opens the front door she smells roast chicken, her favourite. James had left a plate for her on the kitchen counter: a succulent thigh, butter-roast potatoes, candied golden beetroot. She peels the cling wrap away and starts to eat the chicken with her fingers. It is exactly right, the taste: an undulating curve with a few small points bouncing off it, finishing in a wavering line. She’s exhausted; it feels like more than just tiredness. Deathargy.
Her body is cold when she climbs in next to James, and she’s unsure of whether to wake him. She moves closer to him, barely spoons him, trying to gauge how lightly he is sleeping.
‘Thank you,’ she whispers, ‘the potatoes were perfect.’
He grunts, turns around, pulls her towards him in a full-body hug. A warm, sleepy hand slides under her pyjama top, rubbing her back, then settles under her panties, on the arch of her hip. She moves against his hand, slowly, rhythmically, but stops when she realises he is asleep.
A few hours later Kirsten wakes with a start. Colours swirl in her head: green, grey, brown, yellow. 7891. She knows the colour combination so well, but where from? Pine Tree, Ash, Polished Meranti, English Mustard. Somehow she knows it’s part of her. Then she gets it. She bumps Keke, even though it’s past 2am:
KD> The colours are backwards!
Surprisingly, or not, Keke responds.
KK>> Wot R U doing? LSD?
KD> It should be yellow/brown/grey/green.
KK>> U need to be institutionalised. Good night & good luck.
KD> Not 7891, but 1987, the year I was born. Think the whole sequence is backwards. It says 60217891, that’s my birthdate, backwards. 6 December 1987. It features twice in the list, 5th and 6th lines. It must mean something. I knew the colours but it was hard to see when they were backwards.
KK>> What about the other numbers?
KD> No idea.
KD> Yet.
Chapter 20
Toy Chase
Johannesburg, 2021
Despite a late night, Seth is in the office early. In theory he is trying to tweak his 3D mathematical model animation of the CinnaCola taste experience, but his head is pounding and Fiona’s pass is burning a hole in his pocket. He gulps down his anxiety with a few pills and leaves his office, heads towards the Waters wing of the building.
He walks past Fiona’s office and does a double take as he sees her sitting at her desk. Relief like a splash of water on his face.
‘Fiona!’ he says.
The brunette at the desk looks up at him, puzzled. ‘Hello?’
It’s not Fiona. Similar looking, thinner, more attractive.
‘Oh,’ says Seth, taking a step back and looking at the new name on the door. ‘Do you know where Fiona is?’
‘I don’t know a Fiona,’ the usurper says, mechanical smile, cherry red lipstick, and a whiff of Stepford. ‘Can I help you with something?’ She is being super polite: she wants him to leave.
‘This is her office,’ Seth says, incredulous.
She blinks at him, stops smiling. ‘Not anymore.’
Despite Seth’s better judgment he strides up to the main reception. The receptionist looks alarmed.
‘Fiona Botes,’ he says, ‘she’s been away from the grind, and I was wondering if you knew where she was.’
The man fingers his hair, taps on his tablet, looks cheerfully confused.
‘No record of a Fiona working here,’ he says.
Seth wants to pull him by his effeminate tie, punch him in the face. He does everything in his power to keep calm. He shouldn’t be here asking questions, calling attention to himself.
‘Check again,’ he says.
The man taps a bit more then patches the HR infobot on his earbutton. ‘Botes,’ he says, ‘Fiona.’ After a moment he ends the call. ‘It appears that Ms Botes is on a business trip. Asia. She’s not expected back any time soon.’