[Garrett Storm 01.0] Choice of Weapon

by C Marten-Zerf

  For the next couple of weeks it became life-threateningly unfashionable to be of Chinese extraction as the master cleaned up. Another seven people were put to the gun. And now everyone was under no illusion when it came to what they were paying their monthly ten percent of turnover for. And, as such, Dubula was treated by all as an honored guest. Tea was supped. Biscuits eaten and business talked in hushed and respectable tones. The big man even carried a briefcase. He was a businessman. A far cry from the boy on the streets.

  Despite what the people thought of Dubula he was not a violent man. Instead he was simply a man capable of great violence. He had killed his first man when he was very young and he had gone on to kill many more. But he had only done so when necessary and he had never enjoyed it. Bar the first one.

  His mother had been unemployed for over four years. His father was merely a giver of seed. He had left before Dubula had been born. In an effort to keep her three children, Dubula and his two older sisters, from starving, his mother was forced to become an injakazi, a street whore. And in Africa there is no more dangerous profession. By the end of the first year she was HIV positive and after another three was in the first stages of AIDS. But still she plied her trade at any opportunity. Servicing up to ten men a day with unprotected sex. By now both of Dubula’s sisters had succumbed. Malnutrition combined with filthy water and constant diarrhea had killed both of them. They had literally wasted to death. Most people in the western world are unaware of the fact that diarrhea is one of the leading causes of child deaths in Africa. Far higher than AIDS. But we see no brown ribbons at award ceremonies. Diarrhea is not trendy. We remain ignorant. So, one might say that Dubula’s sisters died of western ignorance.

  Be that as it may, by this stage Dubula’s mother was so weak that she could only tout for business that came very close to her hut. And she would take on anyone. Men diseased with syphilis, the infection so far advanced that the palms of their hands and the soles of their feet were covered with the dark brown syphilis rash and their genitals were a crop of seeping wounds. And Dubula would lie quietly in the corner of the hut, under a blanket, while these rotting men would pound on his mother as she earned enough coin to keep them alive for one more day.

  Until one evening, a man had finished, stood up, pulled his trousers up and made to leave. His mother had called out, asking for her money. But he had reacted violently. Backhanding her with a full-blooded sweep of his hand. He struck her flush on the side of her face catapulting her wasted body into the wall with such force that Dubula actually heard her rib bones crack. He reacted instantly, running out from underneath the blanket, a slim-bladed paring knife in his hand as he did so. The blade was small, perhaps three inches long, but it had been honed to a scalpel like degree. It slid into the man’s torso, somewhere between the fourth and fifth ribs. The man picked up the boy by the throat and started to squeeze the life out of him. But it was no easy task as Dubula wriggled and thrashed about, kicking and punching.

  Eventually one of his kicks struck the handle of the knife hammering it even further in. Far enough to skewer the heart. Blood bubbled out of the man’s mouth and he sank to the floor. Dead. Dubula carried on kicking him for a while until he was utterly exhausted. And then he lay down on the floor next to his mothers body, pulled the blanket up to cover the both of them and slept until the morning. He was seven years old.

  Many more men had died since.

  And now Dubula carried a briefcase.

  The owner of the beer hall bustled up, bowing in respect as he walked. Dubula could smell the tea brewing. Yes, he liked Fridays.

  ***

  Garrett had filled the Jeep’s tank again and was heading to a house in the suburb of Sandhurst, the wealthiest area in South Africa. He was happy with the jeep, it was comfortable and had all of the mod cons but it drank fuel like an Irishman downs Guinness on St. Patrick’s Day. Not that it mattered with the petrol prices being so cheap. He had spent the morning on the phone tracking down the head of the Catholic Church in South Africa, a Cardinal Voysie. That had been the easy part. Getting an appointment to actually see him was a little more difficult. Eventually Garrett had resorted to an out and out lie, claiming that he was an English lawyer representing a large charity based in London and was looking at donating a vast sum of money to the South African Church to support its various outreach programs. The Cardinal’s personal assistant, Bishop Mandoluto managed to squeeze Garrett in, mid afternoon at the Cardinal’s house for a quick informal meeting.

  The satnav beeped and a Joanne Lumley sound-a-like informed him that he had reached his destination. The gates to the house were nothing short of stupendous. Dark hardwood slabs fully twenty feet high. Running along the top, two foot of electric fencing that joined the wall surrounding the property. Garrett buzzed his window down in order to push the intercom button next to the gate. He could hear the fence as it hummed and clicked. A full ten thousand volts of high-tech deterrent. Before he even touched the intercom it crackled into life. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Yes,’ affirmed Garrett. ‘Two thirty appointment with His Most Reverend Eminence. I’m from London.’

  The gate rolled to the side, whispering on greased ball bearings. A modern portcullis. The marble chip driveway curved out in front of him, a bow of glittering white, cutting through six acres of landscaped magnificence. Proteas, strelitzias and hydrangeas teemed in the flowerbeds, above them dense purple bougainvilleas and bright red bottlebrush trees added another layer of color. And high above them stately, lilac blossomed Jacaranda trees swept the skies and filled the air with the scent of honey and musk.

  Garrett brought the Jeep to a crunching halt in front at the house, the four wheel Bridgestones making a sound like a rainstorm on fabric. He left the keys in the ignition and strode up to the front door that was a mini replica of the gate. Perhaps ten feet of teak with an off-center swivel hinge. It swung open as he approached. A young man in a well fitting gray suit greeted him. Holding out his hand and walking forward. ‘Good afternoon, sir. I am Bishop Mandoluto, we spoke on the phone.

  Garrett shook his hand in the western way and found his grip to be firm and dry. Confident. ‘Your Excellency.’

  ‘Please follow me. His Most Reverend Eminence is busy training at the moment.’

  ‘Training?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Garrett could see that no further information would be forthcoming so he simply followed the Bishop. The opulence of the house was staggering. Original oils of the type normally only seen in museums. Statues of bronze and marble. Furniture that would grace the rooms of any royal dwelling and carpets from every part of the Ottoman Empire.

  They walked down a long corridor, through double doors and finally reached their destination. Huge windows ran down the length of the room, looking out over the garden. On the opposite side mirrors reflected back the sunlight. He could tell as he walked that the wooden floor was sprung. But there was no barre so it was no ballet studio.

  Running down the center of the room was a marked area measuring approximately fourteen by two meters, the last two meters on each end marked with white hashes. Garrett recognized it immediately as a piste or fencing strip. However, even if he had not, it would have been apparent by looking at the two men in full fencing kit, engaging in a bout.

  Bishop Mandoluto leaned towards Garrett and pointed. ‘Closest to us is His Eminence,’ he whispered. His voice low but precise. A man used to conversing quietly.

  The two men were using Sabers and, although they were not wired up, they were keeping score, relying on each other’s sportsmanship to declare touché or pas de touché. The Cardinal was good. Very good. Better than the other man whom Garrett took to be the coach as he was dressed in black. The Cardinal had the reach on him, by a good yard. The holy man was probably six foot seven in the shade and the instructor perhaps a foot shorter. Combined with perspective it made the coach look about two foot high. Or the Cardinal eight feet. Or perhaps like they were standing twent
y meters apart.

  Saber bouts are notoriously quick to finish and this one was no exception. It lasted perhaps eighty seconds and the Cardinal won five points to nil. They both saluted and stepped apart, the Cardinal stripping his mask and gloves off as they did so. He approached Garrett, his hand held out in front of him. Garrett knelt down on his left knee and kissed the ring. ‘Your Grace.’

  ‘My son.’

  Garrett stayed on his knee until the Cardinal gestured for him to rise. With the mask no longer covering his face the Cardinal was revealed to be a man of surprising countenance. His large beaked nose flanked by small stone black and eyes topped by bushy charcoal eyebrows. A small moustache and a goatee surrounded a pair of very red lips, full, wet and sensual. He radiated a force of will. Power. The unshakable strength of belief.

  ‘You do not dress like a lawyer.’

  ‘No, Your Grace.’

  The Cardinal smiled. His eyes bored into Garrett. All knowing. Garrett started to speak. He could not lie to this man. Every second that he stood in front of him without telling the truth he demeaned himself. But the Cardinal held up a finger to his lips. ‘Do you fence?’

  Garrett nodded. ‘A long time ago, Your Grace.’

  ‘Suit up. Plastron and mask should suffice.’

  The instructor came forward with a mask and a plastron, an underarm protector that provides protection on the sword arm side and upper arm. Garrett strapped it on and then, holding the mask under his arm, selected a saber from the pair offered by the instructor. He donned the mask, squatted a few times and swung the saber left and right. Took a few breaths and approached the piste.

  The instructor stepped up and raised his hand.

  ‘This will be a five point bout. First to five wins. Standard saber rules apply.’ He dropped his hand.

  Garrett and the Cardinal saluted the instructor and then each other before assuming their positions. The Cardinal advanced, forcing Garrett back. The soldier felt clumsy, untutored next to the Cardinal’s fluid movements. But Garrett had fought before, both on the piste and for real, with two-foot lengths of razor sharp high carbon steel as opposed to the lightweight, plastic pointed toys that they now wielded.

  And when you have fought for real you enter a room that normal people never go. It is a room full of terror and panic and dread. Full of darkness and blood. The reek of offal and the stink of the beast. It is a room that gives a man the ability to conjure up reserves of speed and endurance that no normal man can. And once you have visited there you can always bring it back.

  The Cardinal scored first. A classic Moulinet off Garrett’s extension. A flashy, impressive cut, but slow. Slow enough to show that the Cardinal had no respect for Garrett’s capabilities.

  Garrett took a deep breath and opened the door to the room. Sound faded, focus sharpened, heartbeat sped up. Massive quantities of adrenaline stretched the microseconds out into seconds. He started with an appel, stamping his foot hard on the ground to distract followed immediately by a flunge, jumping high into the air and striking with the edge of the blade to the Cardinal’s mask. The next three points went the way of the soldier in embarrassingly quick time using a combination of compound attacks and in fighting.

  They saluted once again and removed their masks. The Cardinal approached Garrett with his hand out, held ready to shake and not to kiss. Garrett hesitated momentarily before grasping the holy man’s hand.

  ‘It is customary for people to shake hands after a bout,’ said the Cardinal. ‘So be not nervous about protocol, I am a person before I am a Cardinal.’

  ‘Your Grace.’

  ‘Come. We shall drink some tea and you can tell me why you are here. Truthfully.’

  ***

  Vusi was pleased. It had been a good day. Mister Dubula had given him twenty Rands for guarding his car and then the man who owned the beer hall had called him over and given him a plastic bag full of buttered bread slices and some small packets of sugar. To make sugar sandwiches, he had told Vusi. He couldn’t wait to get back to Thandi to show her how well he had done.

  He started running as soon as he saw that his new door had been pulled off at the hinges. Thandi would never have done that. Something was wrong. He burst into the lean-to. His little sister wasn’t there. The water bucket was still there so she hadn’t gone for water. He ran out and went left to the area by the trees where she always went to squat. There were others there, relieving themselves, but no Thandi. His heart hammering in his chest he started asking around. Whoever he saw. Where is she? Where is my sister? Finally he came across someone that had seen her being taken away. An old toothless woman who stitched clothes for the locals.

  ‘They took her this afternoon,’ she said. ‘The church people. They took her and put her in a white lady’s car. She was sick. They had to carry her.’

  ‘Where did they go, umame?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, my child. Maybe to the hospital, maybe to the church, maybe to the orphan house.’

  ‘I must find her. I must find her and bring her home so that I can take care of her.’

  Vusi tied the plastic bag to the loop on his tattered jeans and started jogging. He would go to a church. There were lots of churches. He would find one and ask the holy man where Thandi was. And he would tell him and then he could bring her home. And she could have sugar sandwiches. As many as she wanted.

  ***

  It was a short drive back to Brian’s house and Garrett was hungry so he stopped at a likely looking burger place to load up on sustenance. There was a sign outside what looked to be a standard, plastic tables, paper tablecloth establishment boasting, ‘the biggest burgers in town.’ Under that a smaller sign told everyone to, ‘ask about our live oysters.’ Garrett did so and was served up a bizarre combination of half a dozen live oysters accompanied by a beef burger the size of a baby’s head. It was one of the best meals that he’d had in a long time. The oysters a fresh taste of the sea, lifted with a little lemon juice. The burger, rare, the bun homemade, crispy on the outside, soft in the middle. Pickle, tomato, onion. Seasoned with salt and pepper. The flavors honest and unadorned. For some reason the chef had stuck a small flag on a toothpick into the top of the burger. It said, ‘burger.’ There were no flags in the oysters.

  Garrett sat outside at a pavement table where he could smoke. Took time over his meal, enjoying it, mulling over his meeting with the Cardinal. The man of the church had given him a full twenty minutes and had listened intently, asking questions at the right time, compassionate, concerned. At the end Garrett realized that he had told him far more about himself than he had meant to. Far more than he was comfortable with. The Cardinal had assured Garrett that he would have someone look into the matter of the missing orphans even though he was sure that it was of no real import. The general consensus amongst everyone involved seemed to be that, from time to time, orphans go missing. Like cats. Or odd socks. The lack of empathy left Garrett with a vague feeling of unease. Disquiet. It was as if society had drawn a line in the sand and the orphans had fallen on the wrong side. Unessential. The ones that they took care of, there merely as a sop to conscience rather than through concern and kindness.

  He paid for his meal and left a good tip. He also pocketed the little ‘burger’ flag. As he climbed into the Jeep he considered going to see Manon but rejected the idea. There was nothing to tell her of any import, and being close to her made his soul ache. Their knees touching. Breathing the same air. The heat off her body. The smell of her hair. And the ever-present silver crucifix between them. Looming as high as a wall. Higher than understanding. Higher than human love.

  ***

  ‘I couldn’t find him.’ Said Petrus. ‘Kids like that, living in Alex. It’s like they’re invisible.’ The guard lit a cigarette. ‘I found where they lived. Not much more than a cardboard box. I will go back tomorrow. Try again.’

  ‘Thank you, Petrus.’ Manon touched his shoulder. She could see that the normally taciturn Zulu was upset.
The usual look of casual arrogance was gone from his face. Replaced with reticence. Melancholy.

  ‘You know, sister, that place should not exist. What happened? What happened to our dream of a new South Africa? Sometimes I wonder what we fought for.’

  Smoke trickled from his nose. His mouth. As if he were simply too exhausted to expel it.

  ‘There are more shacks now than there were under the Apartheid regime. An abandoned factory burnt down last week. There were forty families squatting there. Over two hundred people. Almost all died. It’s not right.’

  Manon said nothing. There was nothing to say. In the melting pot of South Africa one did what one could and that had to be enough. She left Petrus to his musings and went to tell Thandi the bad news.

  The little girl sat on the end of her newly allocated bed in animated conversation with two of the other girls. Her recovery had been almost miraculous. Within hours the drip had replenished her vital fluids and by that late evening she ate a full meal of maize porridge and gravy. This morning she had eaten a large bowl of maltabella malt porridge with butter and sugar. The doctor had checked her out after breakfast and recommended that she go to school with the other children the next day. Keep her occupied. Youth was a cure for most ailments.