by Malla Nunn
“We went to the church and said the words.” Mapela teased the marijuana into a line and rolled a fat joint, which he sealed closed with a lick. “I am too old to jump from one bed to the other. You too, my brother.”
“And your men? Are they just for decoration?” Changing the subject delayed the inevitable; Zweigman and Shabalala would hear, very soon, about the three wild months that he’d spent in Sophiatown after leaving his stepfather’s farm.
“When Fatty runs the whole business I will let these men go and then I will live a peaceful life.” Mapela placed a box of matches next to the joint. “For now I must protect myself from my enemies.”
Mama Sylvia re-entered the lounge with a bottle of Johnnie Walker and four cut-glass tumblers on a tray. “Top quality from the house of a judge in Sandton,” she said.
“Very good.” Mapela signalled the bar owner to pour. Then he flicked a finger to the dirty plates and cutlery on the next table. “Clear the mess and bring more food, mama. My friends and I are hungry.”
“Of course. Of course.” She stacked the plates and balanced them against her hip. The old ways were dying out in the city, but with certain men it was best to remain humble. She dipped her head and left the lounge with downcast eyes.
Mapela handed out whisky shots certain that what he had commanded would be done. They drank. Fix poured a second and third round, each glass more generous than the last. Shabalala and Zweigman drained their glasses in one mouthful and then pushed the empties across the table for more. They understood the rules of the game. Keep up with Mapela or retire to the corner with the other failures. Their innate understanding impressed Emmanuel who watched the dropping liquor levels with a mixture of relief and trepidation.
“So you’re half-retired but you haven’t told your wife yet.” He picked up the thread of an earlier conversation hoping to wind back to the red car before more alcohol arrived. Fix was a committed drinker.
“The truth would not suit my wife. Just like you and Ah Ling’s daughter by that Sotho woman. You remember? Church one night. Grabbing cigarettes off the trucks and back to church the next night. You were tired out, man. What was her name again?”
“Pearl. And that was a long time ago.”
“You can forget a backside like that? I don’t think so. That was a dream.” He moved his hands to recreate the swish and jig of a female rump in motion. “Such a thing it was. It must have felt good, hey? Like cupping the world in your hands.”
“A near perfect world,” Emmanuel said. “Too good to last.”
“That is so.” Mapela sighed and lit up the joint. He drew deep and held the smoke in his lungs a long while. Fix was also a committed smoker. “If you had stayed here and worked with me like we planned, who knows? Maybe a nice house and children and that fine backside to curl around. Instead you are a policeman.”
“There are worse things.”
“Ja, like jail.”
“And you’d know,” Emmanuel said. “Speaking of jail. How is Fatty?”
A veteran of the South African prison system, Fix’s sister had started out with short stretches in various reform schools before graduating to longer stays in facilities with better security and guards with guns.
“Fatty is fatter than you remember, but using her brains instead of her fists now that she got rid of that husband with the big nose. No problems with the police for a long time.”
“Is that so …” Emmanuel remained sceptical. Fatty Mapela was quick to anger, slow to forgive and, in keeping with her elephantine size, she never forgot a slight. “What happened?”
“One of her new husbands is a policeman from here in Sophiatown. He keeps a look out for trouble. That is why I can leave this life …” Fix paused and took a second hit of the joint. He offered it to Emmanuel, who hesitated. Detective Sergeant Cooper ceased to exist in Fix’s presence. That was the reason he rarely came to the township.
“Perhaps you are ashamed of me now that you have new friends,” Mapela said. “Perhaps you are all police and this is a trap.”
Emmanuel took the joint. He smoked. Fix relaxed and shared the remaining whisky between Shabalala and Zweigman, inviting them back into the inner circle. A scratchy recording of Cab Calloway’s Blues in the Night hit the player in the front room and the bar patrons sang along in drunken harmony.
“Ahh … Fatty, she loves this song. You must hear the records she keeps in her special house. Too good.” Mapela placed a hand to Emmanuel’s arm, the whisky and the marijuana kicking in. “Anytime. Say the word and I will make a place for you here.”
“Your sister might not like it.”
“Ah, she is plenty busy with the three husbands. And there is the cathouse and the dance hall there by Kumalo’s garage.”
Emmanuel handed back the joint while Zweigman and Shabalala wisely sipped on their drinks. When the time came to stumble out of the bar they’d remember things he might have forgotten.
“Things are no more what they used to be.” Fix spoke through the haze of dagga smoke. “There are too many gangs in Sophiatown: the Russians, the Gestapo, the Vultures. Each day, another boy gets off the bus with a knife in his pocket and plans to be chief of the township. That is why I am getting out. These new men do not think of the future. They just grab.”
“They missed that Mercedes parked under their noses.”
“Ja, that is strange. Taking such a car from a white man’s house is a heavy matter. And this Shabalala boy is not involved in such heavy things. If he had come to me I would have paid a fair price. But to park and run, that is foolishness.”
“Remember the first car we lifted? It ran out of petrol and we took off.” Emmanuel smiled. “We left the doors open and the lights on.”
“Man, we flew.” Mapela laughed at the memory. “World record time across the field and then to your house. My leg hurt bad for a week afterwards.”
Emmanuel pulled the snippet of branch that he’d pocketed at the mouth of the dead end lane where he found the car. He placed it on the table. “The Shabalala boy parked, then covered the car with branches like this one and ran.”
Shabalala senior leaned across the table, examined the branch and then crushed the leaves between thumb and forefinger. He inhaled the odour. “UmPhanda, the raintree. It likes the open bushlands and rivers but grows here in the city also. I did not see this tree in the backyard of the principal’s house, Sergeant.”
“There weren’t any raintrees near the lane where the car got ditched either. The crack of the boot door was thick with dust and the tyre treads filled with dirt.”
Zweigman frowned, picking apart the elements. “If the branches were not local then Aaron must have brought them in, knowing in advance that he was going to hide the car.”
“More foolishness. To cut and stack branches when I could have found a clean space for just such a car.” Mapela drank the last drops of whisky from the bottle. “What is this business to you, brother?”
“I found the car. Then I got booted off the police case quick smart. I’d like to know why.”
“Of course,” Mapela said. “If a man hits you, you must hit back. That is the proper way. I can help you with this.”
“In order to hit back,” Emmanuel said, “I need information. Not muscle.”
Mama Leslie and the fat-armed woman who’d delivered the first round of food brought dishes of roast corn, beef curry and rice to the table. Mama dished out the food and murmured “Right away” when Fix tapped a fingernail on the empty scotch bottle. Emmanuel, Shabalala and Zweigman ate more, not from hunger but out of apparent necessity.
“Go and see Fatty.” Mapela scooped food up with his right hand, Muslim style, and licked curry from his fingers. “Once in a month she holds a dance out by the rail yards in Newtown. She will make a special place for you at her table.”
That’s what he was afraid of. Two Mapelas on two nights in a row made for a severe hangover and short-term memory loss.
“A dance in a railway yard,
” Emmanuel said. He pictured the scene; an old train shed with men milling around, waiting their turn with prostitutes in a warren of rooms out the back. “Sounds nice.”
“No, no. I know what you’re thinking. Fatty has fixed the place up proper with music and tables.” Mapela shovelled in more curry. “Her policeman husband will be there. He has eyes and ears all over Sophiatown. He is the one you must ask about the red car.”
“He’ll talk to me?”
“Of course. Dress nice. Fatty’s dance is for white men so the Zulu will have to stay behind. Take the little Jew if you wish. I can pair you up with two beauties to go with. Sisters from the Transkei.”
“Thanks but no.” Mapela’s idea of beauty focused exclusively of the size and shape of a woman’s behind: the bigger and wider, the better. “I’ll find my own dance partner.”
“As you wish.”
Mama Sylvia brought over another bottle of Johnnie Walker, this time with the top already removed. Emmanuel felt certain that it was the first bottle refilled with cheaper booze. Mama leaned into Mapela with a lascivious smile to cover the switch. She poured a fresh round while Mapela stroked her leg.
“Sergeant,” Zweigman whispered. “I cannot drink more. I am already drunk.”
“Sit on this glass. You’ll have to drive us home.”
“Yes. Very slowly.”
An hour later with the second bottle drained and the food gone, Mapela called for Mama Sylvia who appeared in the doorway wearing the smile that women in her position wore when they knew what was expected of them and could see no way out of the situation other than acceptance. She slid onto Mapela’s lap and he kissed her full on the mouth. Or rather she let him kiss her.
“We’ll leave you.” Emmanuel staggered to his feet. “I’m for bed and a good night’s sleep.”
“Stay. Mama will find you a girl.” Mapela plunged a hand between hard thighs and massaged flesh. “We’ll make a party, just like old times.”
“I’m too old to relive old times.” He swayed against the table. The room tilted. Shabalala grabbed a handful of jacket and held him upright. “I’ll drop in on Fatty tomorrow. Give my regards to your wife when you get home.”
“Not so long next time.” Mapela’s right hand was busy so they nodded their goodbyes. Shabalala guided Emmanuel out of the lounge room and through the smoke haze and noise of the front bar. The rickety stairs were perilous in the dark. Zweigman went first, clinging to the rail like a sailor walking the deck in a gale.
“Were you like that man, Sergeant Cooper? A gangster?” the German asked when they reached the bottom and staggered in the direction of the street with Indian- and Jewish-owned shops.
“Yes, absolutely.” After escaping the physical labour and the earnest prayers on his stepfather’s farm, Sophiatown was a salvation. Three months into the dissolute life, he’d woken up on a bright Saturday morning, sated but not satisfied. “The life didn’t suit me, though, so I got out.”
“You returned to the township?” Shabalala retraced the path to the car. He was built to absorb greater quantities of alcohol than the average South African male.
“I came back straight after high school. Seventeen years old. I had no idea where I was going. I figured I’d be like the guys I saw when I was young. You know, big cars, flash suits and girls.” Emmanuel crossed the black top, careful to keep balance. “The price of those things was too high. I didn’t realise till I was in it. Stealing I could understand. Threatening shopkeepers for protection money and collecting outstanding debts with an iron bar, that was harder. I got out, like I said.”
Shabalala navigated them through the alleys and back to the Ford. Garbage blew in the wind. Rats scuttled. They emerged a few doors from Fix Mapela’s house. The guard, now familiar with their presence, stayed on the stairs, too lazy to move. Emmanuel fumbled the keys from his jacket and gave them to Zweigman.
“You will go to the dance and talk to the policeman?” the Zulu detective asked. Distant music floated across the rooftops, a woman’s voice backed by the blast of a trumpet and closer still, the mewling of an alley cat.
“Of course I’ll go. No question. But if Aaron talks, tells you where he was, there will be no need.” Thus dodging an evening with Fatty Mapela and her select clientele of white men on the prowl. “Tomorrow. Noon. We’ll head out to the prison.”
“I will be waiting.” The Zulu detective opened the passenger door and pressed Emmanuel into the seat like a suspect under arrest. Zweigman slid behind the wheel of the Ford and started the engine. Emmanuel directed him through the grid of Sophiatown. They passed gospel halls, empty shoeshine stands and Indian stores still open late at night. Prosperous houses and businesses thinned, replaced by corrugated iron and plywood shacks. The smell of wood smoke, dry earth and sewage drifted into the car. Emmanuel remembered his earlier self; the young man who lurked on vacant street corners hungry for trouble, for food, for an escape from the relentless press of humanity. If his mother had survived and his links with the township had remained unbroken, he might be on those street corners still: older, leaner, infinitely more dangerous, and still unable to satisfy his hunger.
14.
Four Aspirin and two cups of sweet black coffee helped soften the pound of war hammers behind his eyeballs. Slowly, the garden came into focus; bright pinks and yellows against the walls of green foliage. Bees worked the summer flowers. He breathed in the Sunday morning stillness and tried to will the hangover away.
“You didn’t come to the hut last night.” Davida placed Rebekah onto his knee and sat down at the small table set up on the porch of the big house. She wore a sundress that hugged the curves of her body. A tortoiseshell clip held her dark hair in a ponytail and a simple gold bracelet encircled her right wrist. In the small, dusty town of Jacob’s Rest, she’d worn baggy trousers and loose shirts and cropped her hair short to escape unwanted attention. Now, her beauty was no longer a secret.
“I wanted to sleep with you, but I was unfit for company.”
“How come?”
“Police business.” The words kept Davida from getting too close to the messy details of his life. Angela, his ex-wife, had stood outside the locked gate to his secrets too long and eventually walked away.
“I see.” Davida glanced at the sun-flecked lawns, pecked over by an ibis hunting insects. “You come and go as you please while I sit and wait like the maid. Should I start calling you ma baas or detective sir, so things between us are clear?”
“It’s not like that,” he said quickly. “I don’t think of you, of us, like that.”
“Thinking is nice but it doesn’t change the weather, Emmanuel. You come to my bed when it suits you, but now, in the daylight, you shut me out.” She made deliberate eye contact. “I’ve been kept in a corner before and I’m not interested.”
“Tell the woman where you were for Christ’s sake,” the Sergeant Major said. “Or you’ll have to fight to get into her bed again. I’m not going to spend the rest of my days sleeping with you and the mess inside your head by myself. Cough it up, boyo.”
“I was in Sophiatown last night, drinking with Zweigman, Shabalala and an old friend named Fix Mapela.” Rebekah closed a fist around his finger and squeezed tight. “We drank a lot. Me, especially. Zweigman drove me home. I couldn’t have found my way through the garden to the hut even if I’d tried.”
“Sophiatown. That’s mainly for them.”
“Mainly for blacks, yes,” he said. “But not completely.”
“You drank with Dr Zweigman and Shabalala at the same table?”
“Yes.”
“So there are places in the township where people mix together …” Despite being the secret daughter of a white man and a mixed-race woman, Davida’s upbringing closely approximated that of a privileged European. Sent to a good boarding school where the Queen’s English was taught and the racial divisions reinforced, her world remained sheltered. The thought of races mixing publicly thrilled her.
“W
hen I was growing up, there was a lot more crossover in Sophiatown,” he said. “Now, it’s unusual.”
“Lucky Emmanuel. You ignore all the signs and go wherever you like.” The anger surged back, this time cloaked by a smile. “It must be nice, being a white policeman.”
“We still have to obey the law,” Emmanuel said. “Just not so strictly.”
The child that snuggled on his lap proved Davida was right. Last night’s drunken debauch in the shebeen confirmed it, too. He slipped between worlds, helped by a police ID and a willingness to lie. Davida’s dark skin and mixed-race beauty were extraordinary. Yet the same physical attributes also shrank her possibilities to a list of occupations the government deemed worthy of a non-white woman: maid, teacher, nurse, nanny and factory worker. If there was enough money for university, she could study to become a doctor or lawyer, but that outcome was rare, and she could never work in those capacities in the white world.
“What she said earlier was dead right, soldier,” the Sergeant Major said. “You’ll cross over the lines tonight and come home with the smell of cigarettes on your clothes and alcohol buzzing in your head. Meanwhile she’ll be in that little hut with a baby and no place to go. What has a whites only area got to offer her, besides other white men like you? That’s why she’s furious. If you want to keep this girl, even for a little while, you’ll have to give her more than promises.”
“You want to come dancing with me?” he asked, the filter between thought and speech nudged aside by a reckless desire to please.
“What?”
“Dancing. With me, tonight. Do you want to come?”
“Where’s this?” Excitement mixed with apprehension replaced the earlier flare-up of anger.
“A friend’s place,” Emmanuel said. Rebekah chewed a finger with rubbery gums, a prelude to cutting teeth. “A makeshift club, not a house.”
“You sure?” Single, pregnant women kept their lost virginity and their swollen bellies secret. They disappeared from church picnics, socials and youth clubs. Davida was a mother, but still young and full of life and hadn’t danced in over a year.