Sacrifices

by Roger Smith

  When Lane was shown his dead wife and son he shut his eyes and turned away and walked out into the garden.

  The detective asked him a few questions and then he was free to drive off into the sun-bleached morning. He’d called Louise, allowing her to take over, to guide him through the next few days.

  The media seized the story: HERO AMPUTEE SON KILLED WHILE TRYING TO SAVE MOM. The media machine ran even hotter when the dead intruder was identified as a convicted murderer who had been paroled only a few months before.

  Embarrassing questions were asked about the criminal justice system. The police, just as they had a year ago, closed the case with almost unseemly haste, a spokesperson appearing on TV talking—in an alphabet soup of non-sequiturs—about the random nature of premeditated crime, where a family could suffer as much as the Lanes had.

  No connection was made between Achmat Bruinders and his daughter, and his body lies unclaimed in the police morgue in Salt River, destined for a pauper’s grave.

  Lane, driving past the ivy-covered walls of the University of Cape Town, turns to Louise and says, “I’m going to sell the house.”

  “Of course. But you know that you’re going to take a beating, selling now? Because of what happened?”

  “I know and I don’t care. I just want to be rid of it.”

  Money, after all, is no problem. Lane has already visited Beverley’s lawyers in hushed offices in the city, where leather-bound journals thick with printouts were opened with sepulchral ceremony, and he was confronted with the staggering scale of his wealth.

  He knew that Beverley had made money, but had been unaware of the sheer vastness of their—his—fortune.

  The bookstore is closed and he’ll never open it again. What he’ll do next he doesn’t know.

  The city comes into view, the little thicket of skyscrapers bound by cords of freeway, the ocean lying flat and blue, Robben Island a clot on the horizon. As the BMW swoops around Hospital Bend, Lane is blinded by the sun.

  18

  When Michael stops the car outside her apartment building and says, “I can’t thank you enough, Lou, for everything you’ve done,” Louise knows she can’t let him go, can’t let him slip away from her now that her usefulness is nearing its end.

  “Don’t you want to come up, Michael? For something to drink?”

  He stares at her and she’s certain he’s going to refuse, then he smiles and says, “Sure, that’ll be nice.”

  She leads him though the lobby and into the elevator. As they are drawn upward to the fifth floor, the cabin creaking and swaying, she feels a moment’s apprehension: Harpo has been locked in for hours, what if the apartment stinks of his old bowels and leaky bladder?

  The elevator doors judder open and Michael follows her along the corridor, standing with his hands in his suit pockets as she unlocks the door. She went with him the day before to the Waterfront and helped him choose the suit, a more contemporary cut than his previous one, but still conservative enough for a man like him.

  Beverley would have hated it.

  And Tracy?

  She wouldn’t have had a clue where to find a suit like that.

  When Louise opens the door Harpo fires himself at her, tail wagging, nails ticking on the wooden floor. Then he sees Michael and retreats, growling softly.

  “Oh, relax, Harpo. This is Mike.”

  Michael crouches, sticking out a hand, and Harpo sidles up and sniffs and licks his fingers and by the time Louise has closed the door he and the old dog are buddies.

  Michael stands and looks around and says, “Nice.”

  “Come on Mike, you don’t have to be polite.”

  “No, it is. Reminds me of a place I had when I was a student.” He shrugs. “Happy days.”

  “Sit,” she says, pointing toward the kitchen counter.

  Michael shifts a couple of magazines and takes a stool. The afternoon sun beats into the apartment and it’s airless and close, but at least Harpo hasn’t messed. Louise opens the windows and the clatter of traffic rises up to them.

  “I know it’s crazy on a day like this, but I feel like hot chocolate. Would you like some?”

  “Why not?” He grins. “Hell, I can’t remember when last I had a cup, Lou. Must’ve been when you were a kid and I used to read to you. Remember that?”

  Louise, her back to him, spooning chocolate powder into mugs, allows herself a flicker of a smile at how well her little manipulation has succeeded.

  She feigns nonchalance. “Oh shit, that was ages ago.”

  The kettle whistles and she fills the mugs, stirring them, the little flakes of chocolate circling like they always did.

  She places one of the mugs on the counter in front of Michael and he lifts it, blows on the steaming liquid and takes a sip.

  “I’ve still got the book, you know?” she says.

  “Through the Looking-Glass?”

  “Yes.”

  She crosses the living room to the bookcase she has improvised out of planks and bricks, finds the Lewis Carroll and places it on the counter in front of him. Michael opens the book at his dedication, written all those years ago.

  Before she can stop herself, Louise says, “Read to me, Michael, please.”

  He laughs, embarrassed. “God, no.”

  “Just a little. Please.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” Nodding, she sits and kicks off her shoes, curling her feet under her.

  Michael shrugs and turns a page and clears his throat and starts to read: “ ‘One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it—it was the black kitten's fault entirely.’ ”

  Louise smiles and, as she sips her hot chocolate, she hears a circle closing with a quietly satisfying little click.

  After a few paragraphs Michael shuts the book and lays it down on the counter.

  “Well, I suppose I should be going.” He stands, reaching for his jacket.

  “When will I see you again, Mike?”

  “I don’t know. I’m thinking of getting out of Cape Town for a while, just to clear my head.”

  “Where are you going to go?”

  “I honestly don’t know. Maybe a place where it’s snowing. You know me, Lou, I’m a cold-blooded creature.”

  Yes, you are, Michael, she thinks and as she watches him shrug on his jacket she knows she may never see him again.

  “I’ll go down with you,” she says. “Harpo needs a walk.”

  She puts on the old dog’s leash and he does his party trick of picking the loop up in his mouth and walking to the door, tail wagging.

  Louise feels a sudden chill and realizes a front has blown in off the ocean. It’ll be cold down at the beach.

  She crosses to her closet to grab a jersey, but her hand moves past the sweater and hovers over her hoodie, unused since that night a month ago.

  Louise looks at Michael, sees the complacent smile on his face as he rubs a polished shoe against Harpo’s back, whistling softly through his teeth.

  He’s done it again: closed the door on her, just like he did when she was a kid.

  Louise unhooks the hoodie from its hanger and shrugs it on, walking toward Michael.

  “Okay, Mike, let’s go,” she says, and as he looks across at her, smiling his distant smile, she very slowly and very deliberately lifts the cowl of the hoodie.

  Louise watches Michael Lane’s eyes as the fragile version of reality he’s painstakingly assembled these past weeks is blown into an infinity of dark, empty space.

  At last she has his attention.

  THE END

 

 

 
filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share