by Roger Smith
“And I adore you, Michael.” She takes his hand and brushes his knuckles with her lips. “Thank you for being in my life.”
8
The stalled taxi rocks, dark faces pressed up against the windows, shouting, the sodium light towers raining hard light down on the mob. Louise sees a man, close enough to touch, hurl a brick. She ducks and the glass beside her shatters, shards like diamonds landing in her lap.
A woman screams and there are a series of flat slaps as cops fire tear gas into the crowd of striking transport workers. A gap opens up and the taxi jolts forward.
As the minibus passes a furniture store a skinny man wearing only a pair of shorts emerges though the smashed glass doors, struggling with a TV set the size of a pool table.
Young guys sitting behind Louise cheer the man on as two hefty women, one of them with her hair in rollers, chase him down and fight the TV from his grip, pummeling him to the ground, leaving him cursing as they hurry the big screen into a nearby shanty.
The taxi, free of the mob, picks up speed, the Flats rising in broken flashes from the darkness.
Louise’s day has been fragmented, chaotic, her mood the worst it has been since she tried to kill herself.
After fleeing Michael Lane’s bookstore she returned home to find Harpo had pissed all over the kitchen. Not his fault, the poor old guy, confused and neglected. She clipped on his leash and took him for a walk on the Sea Point promenade, the ocean and the sunblasted apartment buildings a blur to her, Harpo dragging at the leash until she released him and let him find clumps of grass to sniff at and piss on.
Standing staring out over the ocean, her mind wheeling like the seagulls that screamed overhead, she felt an anxiety that left her starved for breath.
Somehow she clipped Harpo back on his leash and hurried him home, pacing the apartment, her mind full of Michael Lane and his pregnant bitch. Louise crossed to the window, stared down at a newspaper seller standing on the corner waving a paper, wailing, “Aaaaaaar-gus.”
She found herself tracing a scribble in the dust on the window. Drawing the noose tattooed on Achmat Bruinders’s forehead, and she was back in that grim little Paradise Park playground months ago, her father looking at her with those pale eyes, saying, “But the law is the law, girlie. And the law is all we have.”
Louise wiped the pane clean with her sleeve and crossed to her phone and scrolled for Fazila Bruinders’s number and pressed dial.
“Ja?”
“Fazila?”
“Yes?”
“This is Louise Solomons.”
“Yes, Louise?” Hurried, unfriendly.
“I want to reach Achmat.”
“I’m not in touch with him no more.”
“Then give me his number, please.”
A long hesitation. “I don’t want no more of this, hear?”
“Yes, I hear.”
There was a rustle and a grunt and the woman read out a cell phone number that Louise scrawled on the cover of a magazine. Before Louise could thank Fazila she was gone.
Louise sat staring at the number as if it would tell her something. Then she punched it into her cell phone. An electronic voice told her the subscriber was not available.
She prowled the apartment, spoke gibberish to Harpo and when he closed his sad eyes and fell asleep she spoke to herself, saying she was crazy to be reaching out to Achmat. What did she want with him, anyway?
Even though she couldn’t answer the question, she hit redial on her phone, listened to it buzz, and heard that rough, unfinished voice say, “Ja?”
She hesitated, almost lost her nerve, then said, “This is Louise.”
“Ja.”
“I want to talk to you.”
“About what?”
Good question. “Can I see you?”
“Going to cost you.”
“Five hundred?”
“Seven. For inflation.” Did she hear him laugh?
“Okay. But can we meet in town?”
“I don’t go to town. Phone me when you by the graveyard.”
Hours later the taxi finally reaches Paradise Park and she knows the cemetery is near when the stench of garbage, far more intense on this warm night then when she was last here in winter, fills the minibus.
Louise thumbs Achmat’s number, as she has done every few minutes since the taxi was swallowed by the stalled traffic. And she gets the same electronic message.
The minibus stops, the door rattles open and Louise steps out, the stench so thick that she covers her nose with her hand. Smoke reaches her nostrils and the smell of fat blends with the garbage and she sees a woman cooking sausages on the sidewalk, loading them into buns and selling them to commuters.
Louise disappears into the shadow of the graveyard wall and thumbs her father’s number again. Nothing.
“You stupid in your head or what?” Achmat’s face swims out of the shadows. “That phone, it’s like a light to call the animals to come and get you.”
He grabs the phone from her hand, the face a glowing rectangle, and shoves it into the pocket of her hoodie.
“There was some trouble. That’s why I’m late.”
“I know. I hear. You got the money?”
“Yes.”
“Gimme it.”
He takes the money and she follows him into the maze of shacks. Out of the range of the sodium towers the darkness is complete and she stumbles into holes, scrapes herself against tin and wire, following Achmat’s footsteps, his hacking cough a beacon.
He grabs her arm and yanks her into a narrow passage and her feet find something wet and stinking but she follows on, her hand held in front of her, the darkness broken momentarily as chains clank and a door opens and closes, an emaciated man leaning against a shack, vomiting, the sourness of his stomach thick in her nose.
Louise gasps as something brushes against her legs. She lashes out with her foot, and an animal—a cat?—yelps and hisses and flies up onto a tin roof, rushing away with a ticking of claws.
Then they’re in Achmat’s shack, the stench of the landfill a living presence in the room, and he’s setting fire to the wick of a paraffin lamp. Nothing has changed in the last few months. He takes the mattress and points to the broken chair. She sits and this time there is no mud for the legs to sink into.
He speaks as he prepares a meth pipe. “So, what you wanna know?”
She stares at him. “What’s it like to kill somebody?”
He looks up for moment, then carries on chopping crystals with a knife. “For me it’s nothing.”
“And the first time?”
“Don’t remember. I was drunk and we smoked drugs.”
“Then the first time you can remember?”
He shrugs. “Just something I done.”
He ignites the globe and sucks and he’s no longer there with her. In silent communion with something deep in himself he releases smoke from nose and mouth. A smile touches his face and he sinks back against the iron wall like he’s been deboned.
Achmat holds out the globe to her. She shakes her head. He lifts the pipe again, clicks the lighter and inhales.
When he’s done he lays the globe down and looks at Louise through the eyes of a mystic.
“Why you ask me this?”
“Lyndall didn’t kill that girl. He shouldn’t have been arrested.”
He stares at her and she starts to tell him the story about the Lanes and what she knows they did but can’t prove, about Christopher Lane losing his leg, about Michael Lane moving on, untouched by grief or guilt. It’s an expiation, a confession to some dark priest.
As she speaks Achmat’s eyes close and she thinks he’s asleep and that she’s talking to herself, but when she’s done his eyes open and he says, “So, you come to ask me to kill this white man?”
Louise looks at him and wonders if that’s why she’s here. Then she shakes her head.
“No.”
“You gonna do it yourself?”
She shrugs. S
he doesn’t know. Not yet.
He coughs, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. “You talk like a whitey but you still brown like me. Remember, there’s one law for them, the whites, and another law for us. You come on here telling me you wanna kill some brown man I say fine, do it. But a white man?” He stares at her. “You ready to go to prison? For what these people done to your brother?”
She shrugs again. “I have to do something.”
“I don’t know if you can do it, the killing. You got my blood in your veins, so maybe you can. But you got to understand what can happen to you.”
“Yes,” she says.
“The killing, the thing itself, that’s nothing. That’s easy. But what can come afterward, now that’s something else. Something you gotta be ready for, in here.” Tapping his head. “You get me?”
“Yes.”
He looks away from her, already at work on another pipe. She stands.
“Where you going?” he asks.
“Home.”
“Now? With them out there running around like animals?”
“I have to.”
He shakes his head. “Go if you want to. Or you can stay here.”
She’s staring into those eyes, hearing Fazila Bruinders warning her, months ago.
He reads her mind and laughs. “You heard what they say about me? How I rape any girl, any time? Boys too?”
She nods. “Is it true?”
“Of course, yes. I done it and I liked it.” He laughs again. “And you think I’m gonna do it to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can’t. I can’t do it no more.”
“Why?”
“Few years back they get me, the 26s. Get me in a cell, the guards helping them, and they cut me here like I’m a pig.” He gestures at his groin, his hand a scything blade. “So now I can’t do nothing. You safe, girly.”
Still standing, she stares at him.
“You don’t believe me?”
She shrugs.
He takes hold of the tag of his zipper. “Wanna see?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
He laughs a wet laugh that becomes a cough as he finishes packing the pipe.
She sinks down to the floor, drawing up her knees and all at once she is exhausted, energy drained from her body and by the time he’s sucking and spluttering and coughing on his pipe she’s asleep, her head on her arms.
Louise wakes to a thin gray light showing through holes in the roof and under the door, and she hears the distant rumble of traffic and faraway shouts. Her bladder is painfully full and when she gets to her feet her limbs are stiff.
She draws back the bolt on the door and opens it, staring at the cliff of garbage, the stink thick enough to cut.
Tepid light dribbles into the room and she sees Achmat curled up on the mattress, fully clothed, the meth paraphernalia littered around him. He snores.
Louise steps out and closes the door, ducks around the side of the shack, loosens her jeans and squats and pisses onto the sand, trying not to splash her shoes.
When she’s done she stands and pulls up her pants and sets off into the gloom, trying to find her way out. A woman and a small child in a school uniform emerge from one of the shacks and she follows them to the main road.
As she walks across to the taxis, already aswarm with commuters even though the sun is not yet up, she sees a man sitting on a bench in the forlorn playground. A lone child plays, listlessly dragging the broken seat of the swing.
She recognizes the boy and sees that the man is Cakes, one of Lyndall’s killers, guarding his child, his eyes darting at any sign of movement. His gaze flicks across her and then back onto his son.
“Dexter,” she hears him call and the child stops plaiting the chains of the swing, releasing them, letting the broken seat spin and clatter against the concrete as the chains unwind.
Cakes stands and holds out his hand and the boy takes it and they walk across to their small house, door locked and windows bolted. As Louise watches, the man unlocks the front door, lets the child in, checks the street, then steps in and shuts the door after him, the house a blank face.
9
Lane tapes a poster advertising a forthcoming literary festival to the inside of the bookstore door. Tracy, a bag of take-out lunch in her hand, appears on the sidewalk and wags a finger, indicating that he should raise one side of the poster. He does so, looking at her enquiringly and she nods and blows him a kiss as he fixes the Scotch tape to the glass.
Lane opens the door for her, allowing in the smell of samoosas, roti and vegetable curry from the Halal eatery down the block.
Tracy squints at the poster—Rothko-like geometric shapes in burned oranges, ochres and blacks, festooned with feathers and vaguely ethnic-looking beads.
“God,” she says, “that’s ugly.”
“Let’s just say they’re long on enthusiasm but short on taste.”
“Well, they have invited you to speak.”
“I rest my case.”
She laughs and walks through to the kitchen, finding plates and cutlery. He follows her.
“There’s a dead guy on the sidewalk, near Mumeenah’s,” she says, unwrapping the food.
“What happened?”
“They’re saying he was mugged. Stabbed. White guy in a suit, just lying there.”
“The cops show up?”
“Ja, scratching their backsides and flirting with the girls,” she says, sucking curry off a finger.
She takes the food through to Lane’s office, where they can watch the store through the hatch.
“Come with me,” he says, sitting opposite her at the desk.
“To that festival?”
“Uh huh, one night in the glamorous Little Karoo, all expenses paid.”
“They’re your friends, aren’t they, the organizers?”
“Yes, a very sweet gay couple who have dreams of transforming their town into a cultural oasis.”
“Friends of yours and your wife’s?”
“Hell, Tracy, they’re not going to take sides.”
She shakes her head. “I’d feel exposed. On show.”
“Well, then let me show you off,” Lane says and kisses her cheek, feeling her mandible at work as she takes a bite of curry wrapped in a roti.
“No,” she says, chewing, “maybe next year, when things are settled.”
“It would be much more fun if you came,” he says. “I don’t feel like being away from you.”
“It’s for one night, Mike,” she says. “You’ll enjoy it. Go and play with some people your own age.”
“Piss off,” he says, dribbling curry onto his shirt.
She reaches over with a napkin and dabs away the mess.
“Next year, I promise, okay? The three of us will go.”
He nods and they eat in silence, Tracy staring through the hatch at the traffic and the pedestrians.
“Mike,” she says, “can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why don’t you ever visit your son? Or talk about him even?” She sees his discomfort. “Is it because of me?”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
“Don’t you miss him?”
“I’ve missed him for years.”
“Meaning?”
“He changed, Trace, when he got to eight or nine. His sweetness and innocence just seemed to disappear and he and Bev became a little gang of two. I haven’t been close to him for a very long time.”
“But now, with the amputation, doesn’t he need you?” He shrugs. “I mean, it seems a little, I dunno . . .”
“Unnatural?”
“Ja, it does.”
Lane stares at her across the chasm of lies and half-truths. “It happens, Tracy.”
“You wouldn’t hide something from me would you? Not now?” she asks, her hand drawn to the bulge at her belly.
“No,” he says. “Never.”
Tracy stands and takes the plates through
to the kitchen and Lane hears the sound of running water as he sits and thinks about what he has wrought and wonders how long a man can hold his life together with lies and empty prayers.
10
Afternoon sun hot as melted butter falls across the bed when Louise wakes, sweating. Harpo stands with his paws on the comforter, squashed little face close to hers, grunting and whimpering, his dog food breath making her queasy.
She sits, still wearing the clothes from yesterday, full of grime from the sleepover in Paradise Park.
“I know, Harpo, I know, I’ve been an inconsiderate bitch,” she says as she goes through to the bathroom, the dog hugging her heels. “Relax, Harps, I’ll take you down now, okay?”
She pees, the old pug staring at her accusingly from the doorway and she throws a toilet roll at him, gets his little butt sliding back out the door, nails clacking.
When she crosses to the sink to rinse her hands she sees a mess staring back at her from the mirror: greasy hair standing out in spikes, dark rings under her eyes. She’s lost weight, skin stretched vellum-tight across her cheekbones. Achmat Bruinders’s daughter, okay.
Louise goes back out into the hall and Harpo stands by the front door, his leash in his mouth. She has to laugh as she searches for her shoes. Remembers they were caked with shit—suspiciously human—and she left them outside in the corridor when she got home this morning.
She opens the door, using her bare feet to keep Harpo from bolting, and looks outside. Her favorite Chuck Taylor’s are gone.
“Bastards,” she says and closes the door, deaf now to Harpo’s protests, as she digs another pair of sneakers out of the closet and laces them.
Louise kneels and attaches the dog’s leash and leads him out into the corridor. As she locks up he tugs loose and runs across to Mrs. Rosen’s door, whining and scratching at the wood.
She has to lift him and carry him to the elevator, whispering into his ear, “Hey, Harpo, I know, man. I know how it feels.”
The world Louise steps out into is the stuff of picture postcards, a universe away from the squalor of The Cape Flats. There is no wind and a rose-colored light washes the ocean and the apartment buildings, Signal Hill looming over Sea Point like a gingerbread cake. She crosses Beach Road and sets Harpo down on the grass, the Atlantic a flat blue expanse, no waves breaking the surface.
