by Roger Smith
She opened the door and saw the man standing pissing, steam rising from where the jet of urine hit the sand. He made no move to cover himself and shook his thing before he folded it back into his pants and zipped the flies.
He waved his hand again. "Go."
She walked back up the hill. A girl of about ten, in a dress so torn it left more of her skinny body naked than covered, stoked a wood fire beside the fat woman's hut. A neighbor's child, Sunday guessed. Used as a slave by Auntie Mavis, who stood in the doorway of the hut, dressed in a fluffy nightgown. The fat woman walked toward the fire carrying the shopping bag that held Sunday's things. Auntie Mavis threw Sunday's jeans and underwear onto the fire.
Sunday broke into a sprint, the big man lumbering after her. As she reached the fire she saw the woman dip a fat hand into the bag and lift out the remains of the photo album.
"No!" Sunday shouted. Her cry scaring a bush shrike from the roof of the hut.
Sunday lunged at Auntie Mavis but the big man grabbed her from behind and enfolded her in a bear hug, holding her kicking feet off the ground. She watched as the flames ate the book, finishing the job of the fire ten years before, reducing the photograph of her mother to curling ashes.
The fat woman stepped up to Sunday, lifted a heavy arm and slapped her across the face. Tears sprang from her eyes. She blinked them away. Determined not to let this rhinoceros see her cry.
"You are a little slut. Just like your mother. Now go into the hut and take off those clothes so I can burn them also. Then wash yourself of your filth."
The big man set Sunday down in the hut and Auntie Mavis closed the door from outside. A bucket of water stood on the floor. A dress like a sack, in some coarse rural fabric, was draped over the back of the sofa, flanked by a pair of outsize brown panties and a white bra. Sunday had never worn a bra and knew her small breasts would be lost in that contraption.
She stripped off her jeans, panties and T-shirt and kneeled down and washed her face in the bucket. The door opened and the fat woman took her clothes and slammed out again. While her face was wet, Sunday allowed the tears to come and she felt as if they would never stop, would flow down the hill and flood the parched and ugly town that festered in the valley below.
When Zondi awoke sunlight poked through holes in the drapes and he could hear the taxis honking for business in the main road. His body itched, his head ached and he was powerfully thirsty but he felt stronger than he had the day before. Less dislocated. He reached down for the plastic bottle of water beside the bed and emptied it. Checked his phone. No signal.
He took his toiletry bag across to the sink and lifted out a fresh bar of Roger and Gallet soap. Stripped naked and ran the single faucet. Cold water. The basin was stained and stank from being used as a urinal. An eroded chunk of green Sunlight soap lay beside the faucet, a stylized rising sun molded into the surface. Zondi had no intention of letting the soap anywhere near his skin, but he lifted it to his nose and smelled his childhood.
For generations this soap had been used to wash bodies and clothing and linen in rural South Africa. His earliest memories were of his mother carrying him on her back, held close to her flesh by a blanket. She would sing to him as she went about her chores. Her voice, the warmth of her body and the scent of the soap sending him to a place more peaceful than he had known since.
Unable to resist the temptation he scrubbed the bar of Sunlight under the water, forced away images of the countless assholes and groins the soap had visited, and lathered his body, feeling the bedbug bites like Braille beneath his fingers. Rinsed and toweled himself. He ignored the bottle of Hugo Boss cologne lying in his bag, not wanting to mask this smell that made him feel almost happy.
Zondi flossed, brushed his teeth and dressed in a fresh pair of Diesels and a linen shirt. Shook his Reeboks to dislodge any scorpion that had nested in them overnight and slipped them on. Zipped his duffel bag and left the room.
He locked the bag in the trunk of his car and crossed to the phone container. Vusi kept vigil over the telephones. He smiled and stood when Zondi entered, keen to sniff another banknote.
"These phones," Zondi said, pointing to the instruments. "Do they display their number if I call a cell phone?"
"No, sir. Nothing shows up."
Zondi nodded and took the phone farthest from the door, dialed M.K. Moloi's number. It was answered after two rings. "Moloi."
"You know who this is?" Speaking English.
"Uh-huh. Are you still in Bhambatha's Rock?"
Zondi had to hide his surprise. "Yes."
"At a pay phone?"
"Yes."
"Give me the number there and I'll call you."
Zondi read out the digits printed on the wall above the instrument. The line went dead and he replaced the receiver. Within seconds the phone was purring.
Zondi lifted it. "How did you know where I was?"
Heard a chuckle. "You're in Zululand, my friend. And you know how it is with you Zulus: you're either born an assassin or a spy." Moloi was a Tswana. Another breed entirely.
"What do you want?" Zondi asked.
"Your trip down there, it have anything to do with our canine friend?" Moloi had spent a few years at Harvard and there were traces of Boston in his accent. An affectation that had always irritated Zondi.
"No," Zondi said. His cards tucked close to his chest.
"Be advised that we have our eye on him."
"Who's we?"
"A faction that respects the rule of law." Another chuckle. "He was down in Cape Town for a few days. Taking care of business. Or rather a businessman. You getting me here?"
Zondi was. Ben Baker. A chink in Inja's master's armor that had needed to be secured. "Loudly."
"All I'm saying, good buddy, is that if you stumble over anything interesting you loop me in. It could be to your advantage."
"Sorry. I'm out of here today."
"Pity. Anyway, let's have a drink when you're home. Matters of mutual interest and all of that good stuff." Zondi was left with the dial tone in his ear.
He walked out and stood on the sidewalk, not seeing the dust and the filth and the goats and the taxis. Seeing lines that were being drawn up in Jo'burg and Pretoria. A battle was looming. No blood would be shed but it would be ruthless all the same.
Waking up was the worst. Dell hadn't realized how dependent he'd become on the warmth of his wife's body and the wriggling aliveness of the twins as they snuck in early and burrowed beneath the blankets to join their parents. He shut down the memory.
He sat on the tailgate of the truck, eyes still gummed with sleep, scratching at his stubble, staring out over hundreds of roofless little cinderblock boxes that spread across the dry veld. Empty doorways and windows without glass. Anything of value looted and hauled away. A stalled housing development for the rural poor. Invisible when he'd driven the truck off the road the night before, so exhausted he was almost comatose.
He looked for Goodbread and saw the old man over in the scrub, crouching. Probably taking a shit. Used to bushwhacking. Dell reached back into the truck and found water. Had a drink. Rinsed his mouth and spat onto the sand. He hadn't brushed his teeth in a couple of days and his tongue felt like it was growing a carpet of fur.
He heard the chime of glass and saw his father walking toward him, carrying three dusty beer bottles in each hand. Watched as he set the empty bottles on a mound a few paces from the truck. Goodbread reached beneath his shirt, produced a handgun and cocked it.
All Dell knew about guns was that he wanted nothing to do with them. He'd never so much as touched one in his enforced stint in the military. Or since. Yes, he'd used his fists over the years. Not very well. And he once threw a half-brick at a cop during an anti-apartheid march. Missed. So, a pacifist. Kind of. Definitely no guns. Ever.
When his friends, aging liberals pissed off after endless burglaries and carjackings went and bought guns, he'd shaken his head. Flat out refused. Just like he refused to change his sta
nce on the reintroduction of the death penalty. Murder by the state was still murder.
He heard the weapon firing twice in quick succession and two bottles exploded. Then the old man waved him over. Dell hesitated. "Come on, boy. I reckon it's time."
Maybe it was.
He walked across to his father. Goodbread held the gun out to Dell and he took it, feeling the surprising heft of the weapon.
"Shoot one of the bottles." The old man pointed a trembling finger at the empties on the mound.
Dell lifted the gun and aimed. Tense as he squeezed the trigger. Felt the compressed power of the thing bucking in his hands. Missed.
Goodbread said, "Use both hands and just imagine you're pointing a finger at the bottle. Squeeze the trigger. You're not jerking yourself off, boy."
Breathed. Relaxed. Lifted the gun and pointed it. Squeezed. Glass exploded. Arced the barrel to the next bottle and the next. Hit all four targets.
"Jesus," Goodbread said. "Either that's one hell of a piece of dumb luck or you're a natural, son." Smiling his death's-head smile. "'Least you got something from me."
Dell handed the gun to Goodbread, butt first. "So, you reckon you still a pacifist?" the old man asked, feeding rounds into the magazine.
Dell, back in the mortuary for a moment, said, "No."
"Bottles are one thing. You going to be able to pull that trigger when flesh and blood is in front of you?"
"Yes."
"You sure now? You not gonna get yourself all dizzied-up from turning the other cheek?"
"No."
His father held the loaded weapon out to him. "Then I believe this is yours."
Dell took the gun.
Zondi sat in an eating house on the main road of Bhambatha's Rock. His BMW was parked outside, gassed up and ready to take him home, starbursts of hard light kicking off the windshield, patterning the grimy ceiling of the diner. He was going to eat breakfast and then he was going back to Jo'burg. He owed a debt to nobody. Least of all a peasant girl he didn't even know.
The place was already doing good business, plastic tables full of noisy men busy with plates of food. Zondi ate maize porridge, spinach, potato and beans. The food was good, bringing back more memories of his childhood, and he found himself setting aside his plastic fork and eating with his hands, forming little balls with the maize and the gravy.
The room went quiet as if somebody had hit a mute button and Zondi looked up to see a group of men block the light as they stepped into the doorway. Recognized the skinny man surrounded by five of his crew, automatic weapons dangling from their hands. Vusi from the phone kiosk was prodded into the eating house by one of the gun barrels. His face slack with fear.
Inja swept the room with his arm. "Everybody out. Move! Move!" That big voice, coming from the runt of a man.
People were already standing up from tables, hurrying toward the door, toppling plastic chairs in their haste.
Inja's finger skewered Zondi. "Not you, my friend. You sit."
Zondi stayed where he was, hands on the tabletop, swallowing a mouthful of food. The staff left their stations, none of them daring to look Inja in the eye, and followed the last of the patrons out. One of Inja's men closed the door and in the silence Zondi could hear fat bubbling in a pan back in the kitchen.
Inja sat down opposite Zondi, shot the cuffs of his check sport jacket, put his elbows on the table. "Zondi."
"Inja."
Zondi hadn't seen Inja Mazibuko in the flesh in more than twenty years. Not that there was much flesh to see. The man was older, but if anything he seemed even more spare than he had as a teenager. His face gray. His eyes yellow and bloodshot. A white residue caked his cracked lips like scum on a pond.
"What are you doing back here?" Inja asked.
"Just visiting."
Inja sucked his teeth, nodding. Jerked his head toward Vusi. "He says you were in the phone shop with a fax of my wedding invite. Asking questions."
Zondi looked up at Vusi, who couldn't meet his eye. Saw the sweat rolling down the man's face. Listened to the fat spitting in the kitchen. Heard a meat fly circling somewhere behind him.
Inja reached up and grabbed Vusi by his shirtfront, pulled him down toward the table, his chin banging on the plastic surface, squashed face turned to Zondi. Eyes glazed with fear. Inja ducked his right hand beneath his jacket and came out with a .44. Jammed the barrel into Vusi's ear. "Is he lying?"
Zondi could hear the rush of Vusi's breath and saw his eyes widen, staring at him. Pleading. Zondi shook his head. "No. He's not lying. Let him go."
Inja nodded. Lifted the gun away from Vusi's head. "Okay. Fuck off, you."
Vusi pushed himself to standing and took off toward the door, leaving a trail of drops behind him. Zondi saw a puddle of piss beneath the table, rivulets reaching out toward his Reeboks. Moved his feet under his chair.
Inja put the gun down on the table. He snapped his fingers, speaking to one of his men but never taking his eyes from Zondi's. "Get me a Coke. Cold." The man hurried toward the fridge. "My betrothed. You know who her mother was?"
"It's difficult to miss."
"Yes." The man was back with the Coke and Inja cracked the tab and took a long draft. Burped. Wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "So what is your interest in this girl?"
"I have no interest."
Inja stared at Zondi, then he smiled like a feral dog. "You're a liar, Zondi. You're a liar."
"Why would I lie?"
Inja tapped his index finger against his skull. "Because I've just now worked you out, my friend."
"Ja?"
"Ja." Sitting forward. "You think she's your child, don't you?"
"I'm not sure," Zondi said.
"And what if she is? Are you here to collect the dowry?" Laughing. But no humor in his dead eyes. Drinking. Closing his eyes. Opening them, smeared and unfocused for a moment. Then finding Zondi, who said nothing. "You are not going to get in my way are you, Zondi?"
"No. I'm leaving, heading back to Jo'burg."
"Good idea. This is no place for you. You're city now. Soft." Slumping in his chair, rubbing his temples. "I'll look after her, Zondi. She'll want for nothing. She is a lucky girl."
"I'm sure she is."
Inja stood. Zondi could smell him, something sharp and sour and almost metallic. The smell of disease. Inja lifted the gun from the table, reached forward and put the front sight under Zondi's chin, forcing his head upward.
"Because we were once friends, Zondi – comrades – I'm letting you get into your car," jerking a thumb at Zondi's BMW parked out in the sun, "and drive your ass back to Jo'burg. I see you again, I'm not so kind. Understand?"
"Yes," Zondi said, his voice coming out muffled and strained.
Inja released Zondi's head and holstered the pistol. Nodded. Hitched up his crème pants and walked to the door, his men falling in behind him, ordnance clanking. Zondi watched them get into their vehicles and leave in display of red dust.
You win, he heard himself say. Not sure who he was talking to. Not Inja. That much he knew. Then Zondi realized that he was talking to himself. Not the man of nearly forty, but the boy he had once been. And if it was a debt he was here to repay, it wasn't to the woman long dead. Or to a girl who was a stranger to him. It was to that boy. To atone, maybe, for the things that he had done to turn him into the man he had become.
Driving through a different landscape. Rolling sugarcane fields like a thick green carpet spread across the rolling hills. A different heat, too. Moist. Humid.
"How far away are we?" Dell asked.
"Reckon we'll be there early afternoon."
"Want to tell me your plan?"
The old man said nothing, stared out over the landscape. Then he sighed, sat up a little straighter. "The girl Inja Mazibuko has chosen as his bride, she's young, barely sixteen . . ." Words dying in a coughing spasm that rattled to a wheezing end. Goodbread wiped his mouth. Gasped. "Heard it told she works at some tourist attraction up in Zulu
land."
"So?"
"We're going to take her. Catch Inja wrong-footed. Draw him out."
"Take her?" Dell stared across at him. "You're saying we're going to kidnap this girl and use her as bait?"
"Yes."
"No fucking way."
"You getting all squeamish on me, boy?"
"I'm not going to let you put another innocent person in the firing line. You said we're going after Inja. I'm up for that. But not some girl. Forget it."
"I have no great desire to risk anybody's life, son. But do you think we can just ride on up to Inja's homestead and get him to come along with us, meek as you please? He's a goddam warlord. Sitting up there with a mess of weapons and an army of crazy dopehead Zulu warriors. This is the way it's going down."
"Fuck that."
The roofs of a town broke the cane fields. Dell nudged the turn signal and took the truck off the highway onto a narrow road scarred by potholes.
"What you doing, boy?"
"I'm going to find a phone. Call my lawyer. Then I'm going to the police station and I'm handing myself over."
"Reckon that's a good idea?"
"Yes."
"'Cause I surely don't."
Dell said nothing as they headed into the town on a road flanked by pine trees, slowing when speed bumps drummed under their tires. They passed a faded pink billboard saying STOP AIDS, LOVE LIFE. It had been used for target practice.
Dell drove toward a church steeple that threw its shadow across low cinderblock buildings. Saw a Coke sign painted on the window of a store, eased the truck to a halt. Double-parked next to a truck, two Indian men unloading bundles of newspapers from the rear.
Goodbread fixed Dell with his torn eyes. "You're going to get yourself dead, son. And the law will never trouble Inja Mazibuko."
Dell slid the pistol from the waist of his khakis and threw it into Goodbread's lap. Cracked the door. "Take the truck and go." He slammed the door and walked. Heard the scrape of gears as the truck drove away. Didn't look back.
