Dust Devils

by Roger Smith

  Sunday prayed that it would happen to her when her turn came. But she knew it wouldn't. Knew that the skin was still inside her, stretched tight as a little drum. Alone in the hut the night before, she had squatted over a piece of broken mirror, holding one of Ma Beauty's knitting needles, ready to shove it into herself and pierce that precious skin. Ready to make herself worthless. So the ugly old man would take his cattle back and go and find another victim.

  But as the point of the needle brushed her thighs she'd heard her mother's voice: no, my child. No. Sunday had dropped the needle and sobbed herself to sleep on the dung floor of the hut.

  Sunday was called forward. Ma Beauty and Auntie Mavis joined the group of watchers. Sunday approached the mat, set her bag down. Stayed standing. The inspector looked up at her and flapped her hand. "Come, girl, lie down. I don't have all day."

  Sunday kneeled and slipped her panties down her legs, tears welling in her eyes.

  Ma Beauty shouted, "What is wrong with you girl? Lie down!"

  Auntie Mavis hissed like a puff adder, "You see, I'm telling you, this girl is a rubbish. She has been laying with men!"

  Sunday rolled her panties off, sitting her backside down on the mat. She lifted her skirt and spread her thighs. The inspector opened her up and peered inside her, like she was checking bread in an oven.

  "Nice. Perfect," the inspector said.

  Sunday pulled on her panties and stood, staring at Auntie Mavis who half-heartedly joined in the cheering. Ma Beauty, as shrill as a shrike, screamed out, "Imomozi!" Sunday felt one of the women dab the white paste on her forehead. Another gave her the rubberstamped certificate that was like a death sentence.

  Auntie Mavis snatched the paper from her hand and examined it. Then she folded it and hid it in the hills of her cleavage. "I will give this to my brother."

  Auntie Mavis and Ma Beauty walked back toward the road, her scrawny aunt flapping alongside the fat woman like a tickbird after a cow. Sunday lagged behind. Heard Ma Beauty's wheedling voice, "So, Sis Mavis, when can I expect the rest of the lobola?" The dowry. The cattle and the money.

  "So much money for such a skinny girl." Auntie Mavis shook her head at Sunday who had joined them. "He has spent too much money already, my brother. Look at this."

  She pulled a stack of printed pages from her purse and flapped the Western-style wedding invites in their faces. A photograph of Sunday in the traditional outfit she wore to work, standing miserably next to the ugly old dog, dressed in a suit that was too big for him.

  "Now that she has been pronounced worthy of my brother, I must post them out." She separated two invitations from the stack and handed them to Ma Beauty. "You better have these."

  The skinny woman grabbed the pages, clutching them to her body. Auntie Mavis shoved the rest of the invites back in her purse and walked off toward the post office, her buttocks rolling like a cement mixer beneath her skirt.

  Sunday followed her aunt to the taxi stand. She wished her mother would speak to her now, explain why the man who had killed her family was going to be allowed to kill her too.

  The Toyota was a black shadow against the white sand. Inja stepped down from the cab and walked to the rear of the truck. A railroad track lay between him and a cluster of shacks, silver roofs liquid in the afternoon heat. Beyond the squatter settlement sand and scrub sprawled flat and empty to the distant dunes and the Atlantic.

  He heard the scream of jet engines and looked up as a plane lifted off from nearby Cape Town airport, low enough to see the bright colors of one of South Africa's low-cost airlines, gaudy as a township taxi. The earth vibrated beneath his loafers as the aircraft banked and headed north. Inja thought of his own delayed departure. Stuck here until he had cleaned up this new mess.

  As the rumble of the engines faded, Inja heard two sharp bleats from the phone in his back pocket. He thumbed the Motorola to retrieve a text message from his sister. Four words that lifted his mood: the girl is intact.

  Inja felt a surge of optimism. The coming union between him and his new bride would placate the ancestors, restore the natural order of things. End this run of poor fortune and purge the demon from his blood.

  Inja breathed. Exhaled. Rolled his shoulders beneath his jacket. Tried to relax. Focused his mind. Then he came back to the present, opened the flap of the truck's gas tank, unscrewed the cap and threw it to the sand. He inserted a length of white mutton cloth into the dark mouth. Shook the Toyota, hearing the gasoline washing the sides of the full tank. The sharp smell of fuel reached his nostrils.

  He found the yellow box of Lion matches in his coat pocket and lit one, shielding the flame from the hot wind that blew sand over his shoes. He set fire to the soaked cloth, heard a suck as the gasoline ignited, purple flame chewing its way toward the tank.

  Inja turned and walked to the Mercedes Benz idling beside the road, the A/C ticking over the low murmur of the engine. The white cop was at the wheel, leaning forward as if he was searching for something on the dashboard. He looked up at Inja and the chrome frame of his dark glasses flared in the sun. As Inja opened the car door the truck blew and he felt a draft of heat on his back.

  He slid in beside Theron, closing the door. The Boer had spread a narrow trail of white powder, like a silkworm, on the black dash and he inhaled it though a rolled banknote, snorting like a pig. Theron sniffed a couple of times, ran a tongue over his gums. "Want some?"

  "No."

  "Pure as a nun's pussy, my friend."

  Inja shook head, watched the Boer stow a twist of paper in his coat pocket. He felt a moment of rage so intense that he had to will his hand away from his pistol, so ready was he to send this white shit to hell. This weak fool who had no self-control.

  Theron clicked the automatic into drive and made a U-turn, heading back toward the freeway, driving too fast. Inja shivered. The Benz was as frigid as the Boer's office had been. They were cold-blooded creatures, these whites. "Can you turn off this ice?"

  Theron flicked a switch on the dash console. "Whatever you say, Shaka." Laughing.

  Shaka, the Zulu king of legend. The Boer's idea of a joke. Inja bottled his rage. Soon white man, soon. Soon I'll have no more use for you.

  Inja looked back over his shoulder, watching the Toyota blaze until the flames were lost behind a dune. It had been a day of burning cars.

  Dell felt that the brown cop was starting to believe him. Starting to allow that he might not have been driving when the Volvo went off the cliff. That a black truck had pushed them over. A black truck that was still out there somewhere.

  They were in an interrogation room at Franschhoek police station. The A/C rattled and coughed but did little to disturb the air in the windowless room. He could smell wood smoke and cooked meat on Lieutenant Palm, as if the man had been called away from his Sunday barbecue. The smell took Dell back to the morgue. He gripped the edge of the table to keep himself inside his skull.

  Palm was speaking, accent as thick as a barrel of tar. "So you say your wife took the wheel of the car, when exactly?"

  Dell told Palm what he'd told the skinny constable at the hospital. When they'd left the restaurant after lunch he'd walked out with Mary and Tommy, while Rosie went to the bathroom. He held the twins' hands as they strolled around the Cape Dutch house to where the Volvo was parked under a chestnut tree in full pink bloom.

  When Dell released their hands to unlock the car, the twins ran onto the lawn that sloped down to a vineyard, chasing after an Egyptian goose that blared out a complaint. Mary yelped and sprinted back to where Dell stood, hiding behind her father's legs as the heavy bird heaved itself into the air, barely scraping over a fence, flying off toward the Drakenstein mountains. Tommy laughed, imitating the bird's honk as he ran back.

  Dell saw their waitress from lunch standing by the cars, sneaking a cigarette. A middle-aged colored woman in a gingham pinafore, with coarse hair pulled back into a bun. She caught Dell's eye, smiled shyly as she cupped the cigarette in her hand, like she
was in a prison yard.

  Dell strapped the kids into their car seats and started the Volvo, drove round the side of the restaurant in time to catch Rosie as she emerged. They had swapped seats and driven away into the nightmare that waited to ambush them in the bright sunshine.

  "And nobody saw you, when you changed seats?" Palm asked.

  Dell shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't notice anyone."

  "So the last person was the waitress, who saw you driving?'

  "Yes."

  "You know you were well over the legal limit, when they tested your blood at the clinic?"

  "I know I was. I drank nearly a bottle of wine. That's why my wife was driving. She'd only had one glass."

  "And this truck . . . Black you say?"

  "Yes. Black. Could have been a Toyota, but I'm not positive."

  "Didn't see a license plate?"

  "No. It happened too fast. It just came from nowhere and then it was ramming us." Dell stopped. Reliving the moment of impact.

  The cop looked at Dell, something softer, more sympathetic creeping into his features. "I'll go back to the restaurant. Go talk to the people. Must be somebody saw your wife take the wheel."

  Dell nodded. There was a knock at the door and the young constable stuck her head in. Ignored Dell, gestured toward the corridor and Palm stood up, pushed his chair back and followed her out. Closed the door after him.

  Dell sat and stared at the scarred wood of the table. The numbers 26 and 28 had been carved into the wood. Rival Cape Flats gangs. Rosie's cousin had belonged to one of them. Dell couldn't remember which. The cousin had died last year, gunned down outside his house. They hadn't gone to the funeral. Dell saw coffins. One large. Two tiny. Saw red earth waiting to swallow his family. Felt his throat squeeze closed. Tried to breathe through it.

  The door opened and two men he'd never seen before stepped in. The black man was scrawny and looked like a pimp, in a loud check jacket, blue shirt, beige slacks and gray loafers with gold chains. At first Dell assumed the white man was a lawyer or a prosecutor. He was around fifty but in good shape, tanned, wearing an expensive suit, his thick hair carefully styled. Then Dell saw something crude beneath the suntan and knew he was looking at a cop.

  "Mr. Dell, I'm Captain Theron." The cop hooked the plastic chair with his shoe, dragged it back to the table and sat down. "Like to have a chat with you."

  He didn't introduce the black man, who leaned against the wall and fixed Dell with a stare as blank as a lizard on a rock.

  "Where's Lieutenant Palm?" Dell asked.

  "Gone back to Mrs. Palm and her five daughters." Theron cupped his right hand and moved it up and down in a jerking-off gesture, laughing. Nothing but coldness in his blue eyes. "I'm heading up the Ben Baker investigation, so this is my case now."

  "Why? What's this got to do with Baker?"

  "Maybe nothing directly. But your wife was a person of interest, shall we say."

  "What do you mean?"

  Instead of answering Theron turned to the pimp leaning against the wall. "Hey chief, do me a favor. Go check if those printouts are done."

  The black man looked as if he was going to protest, then he shrugged and left the room. Theron put a pack of Camels to his mouth and drew a cigarette out with his lips. Held the pack out to Dell. "Smoke?" Dell shook his head. Theron fired up, watching Dell through the fumes. "I knew your father, you know?"

  Dell said nothing. Things coming at him from too many angles.

  "You're Bobby Goodbread's son, right?"

  Dell nodded. No point in denying it.

  Theron laughed as he puffed. "Crazy bloody Yank. Ja, knew him thirty years back. I was just a kid, hardly any hair on my balls. Straight out of school into the army, ready to go kill fucken commies in Angola. Ended up in some volunteer unit didn't even have a name. Me and one or two other whities and a bunch of crazy fucken bushmen and local tribesmen. Your old man was our commanding officer. First time I heard him speak I thought he was taking the piss out of us. Dallas was on TV then. Remember Dallas? Jesus, I had the hots for Victoria Principal." Theron's hands described a pair of heavy breasts in the air in front of his chest. He tried out a bad Texan accent. "Who shot J.R?" Laughing. Then he switched off the laugh. "But he was for real, your dad. Cowboy accent and all. Was just after the bloody Yanks pulled out of Angola, just like they done in Vietnam. He came and fought for us. I've never met a tougher motherfucker, I got to tell you."

  Dell had heard it all before. The legend of Big Bobby Goodbread. Had heard the other side too. The rapes. The body parts trophies. The dead babies.

  Theron shook his head. "Fucken unfair what happened to him. All because he wouldn't name names. Finger his buddies, like so many of those other useless bastards did. There's people running around done far worse things than him. Never sat a day in jail. Ask me, I should know." Running a hand through his layered hair. "He was a man, your dad. He had honor. Glad to hear he's out."

  The door opened and the pimp returned carrying a sheaf of papers. Theron took them from him and the black man went back to propping up the wall.

  "You lost your job recently, didn't you?" Theron asked, camaraderie gone.

  "Yes. The newspaper I wrote for folded."

  "So what you do now?"

  "Freelance."

  Theron snorted. "Means you're out of work, right?" Dell didn't reply. "So there were financial tensions, maybe?"

  "What are you getting at?"

  "What I'm fucken getting at, is you got drunk on wine then drove that car through the barrier. Wanted to take your family out and you with them. Family murder-suicide. All too common, you and a whole lot of other losers. Pity it all went fucked up and you're sitting here and your wife and kids are . . ." He drew a finger across his throat.

  Dell battled to find words. "You're crazy. Why in God's name would I want to do something like that?"

  Theron fixed him with his blue eyes. "Did you know Ben Baker was screwing your wife?"

  "What?"

  "Ja, had been for some time, apparently."

  Dell shook his head. "This is obscene. My wife and children are lying dead and you come at me with this . . ."

  Theron slung the printouts onto the table. "Here. Have a read. From Baker's BlackBerry."

  Dell lifted one of the pages. Recognized Rosie's e-mail address. Saw the mail was from Ben Baker. Read the words: I want to fuck your brown ass blue. Read Rosie's reply: Don't promise things you can't deliver. Flicked through the pages. Words jumping out at him. Rosie: Told R I'm going to gym, I can meet you at five. Baker: I'm going to be in Jo'burg for a conference on the weekend, can you come?

  Dell pushed the pages away as if they were hot as the flame that consumed the Volvo. "I want my lawyer."

  Theron nodded. "Ja, reckon you gonna need one."

  The cop stood, shoved the printouts back toward Dell. "You hang onto those. Show them to your lawyer." Opened the door. "Come, Shaka. Let's go get us a drink."

  Sunday and her aunt sat on the sand beside the main road, waiting for a taxi. A few people waited with them. A young mother whose baby chewed at her breast, as if he wanted meat, not milk. A drunk old man in a threadbare suit, feet bare and calloused. Two girls in jeans, giggling as they shared a soda. A stout woman with a chicken in a wire basket. The chicken sent its red beak through the wire, scratching in the dirt for feed.

  Every few minutes Ma Beauty would grunt and shift her withered leg, muttering under her breath, using the wedding invites to wave away the droning flies that circled her head. Sunday watched the shadow of the AIDS billboard inch across the sidewalk and up the wall of the undertakers.

  She heard the bleat of a horn and a dented minibus rattled over the bridge and came to sliding stop, sending up a cloud of dust. The driver stayed at the wheel, smoking a cigarette as the co-driver jumped down and ushered passengers into the rear, collecting fares.

  The mother shrugged the baby onto her back, tying it in place with a tartan blanket, clucking as it let ou
t a thin cry. Sunday stood and Ma Beauty levered herself to her feet, gripping Sunday's arm for support. Then she hobbled off toward the taxi. Sunday lifted her bag, about to follow. She stopped. Heard a low growl.

  Ma Beauty scowled over her shoulder, lips moving, but Sunday heard only that deep rumble. Getting louder now. She turned to look up the road. A car was coming. A blue car, sun kicking off the chrome wheel rims, the windshield ablaze with glare. When the car slid into the shadow of the undertaker's building, Sunday saw the pink dice swinging from the rearview mirror, as slowly as if they were under water. Saw the blurred shapes of the driver and his passenger. Saw the open side window, the sun flaring on metal as the passenger sent out a sinewy arm, something dark growing from his hand. Heard hard, flat slaps. Like doors banging in the wind.

  The mother with the baby opened her mouth and a speech bubble of blood floated out. As she sagged, the blanket on her back loosened and the baby took forever to fall to the dirt, where it lay face down like a red doll.

  The woman carrying the chicken stopped, one foot on the running board of the taxi, the other on the sand. Put a hand to where her jaw had been. The wire basket hit the ground and fell open and the chicken fled, leaving a single white feather floating in dust. Sunday heard screaming and the roar of the blue car as it sped to the bridge, its tires drumming over the metal joins. Then it was gone.

  She found herself on her knees, lifting the dead baby. Fingers gripped her arm and she looked up at her aunt. "Put that down, girl." Sunday obeyed, laid the baby next to its mother's body. Her aunt was tugging at her. "Come, you. Let somebody else clean up this mess."

  As she stood, Sunday felt something stuck to her shoe. One of the wedding invites. She pulled it free and put it in her bag. Saw there was blood on her hand. Wiped it on her skirt.

  Ma Beauty grabbed Sunday's wrist and walked her away. They passed the taxi, the dead driver slumped over the steering wheel, arm dangling through the open window, cigarette still smoking between his fingers. The drunk man and the girls in jeans sat in the sand, bleeding, faces blank with shock.