An Ordinary Day

by Trevor Corbett

  ‘Chief. Mojo’s been shot. Yes, dead. Evading arrest, fired a few shots and the police fired back. But we found Mike’s key ring on him. He killed Mike.’ Yes, it’s better this way, he thought as he took time to process the facts. Mike had been killed. After all those months of wondering. Mojo had killed Mike and taken a trophy. It’s better that Mojo’s dead. Thandi wouldn’t have been up to a trial, not with a small baby. It would have just reopened the wounds.

  ***

  ‘Be careful!’ Amina shook her head as the boy hung upside down by his legs from the jungle gym. ‘Don’t fall!’

  She smiled and looked at the children playing in the garden, the boys in the sandpit, the girls colouring in at the small tables. The crèche, as demanding as it was, was still relaxing to her. The most dramatic event of the day had been washing sand out of a three-year-old’s eye. She felt a little sad sometimes, thinking back. Intelligence was still in her blood. Whenever parents brought a child to her crèche, she always questioned them further than necessary. She caught herself being suspicious of the smallest, most insignificant thing. To her shame, she inevitably scrutinised the parents’ occupations, asked the children about where they’d travelled to, and interacted with the mothers to glean information about the fathers. No useful piece of information escaped her attention. Perhaps that paranoia, that inquisitiveness, would go away eventually. Perhaps it wouldn’t.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, it’s Kevin. How’s life in the slow lane?’

  ‘Jealousy makes you nasty.’

  ‘You’re starting to sound like your kids!’

  ‘No, I haven’t changed my mind. I’m not coming back.’

  ‘What a pity; I really miss you.’

  ‘I miss you too. Hey, I had a guy this week who says he goes to South America every month on business. Isn’t that odd? Don’t you think it’s odd?’

  ‘Amina, stop thinking like an intelligence officer; start thinking like a nursery-school teacher. Here is the news …’

  ‘You got Mojo?’

  ‘Well, sort of. We almost had him. The idiot started shooting at the police, so they shot back. Killed him.’

  ‘Killed him?’

  ‘Yip. He had Mike’s green Africa key ring on him.’

  ‘Mike’s key ring. Really?’

  ‘So the investigating officer’s closing the case.’

  ‘Amazing. So that whole thing’s over?’

  ‘It’s over. I’m taking some leave, spending some time with the family.’

  ‘You deserve it, Kevin, go on, enjoy yourself.’

  ‘Thanks for your contribution to the case. It was long and tough, but we did it.’

  Amina smiled into the phone. For her, the toughest part had always been going home in the evenings.

  20 OCTOBER 2003

  Stephanie leaned over and kissed Durant.

  ‘Bye.’ She was dressed in a smart black business suit, and perfectly made up.

  ‘Have a nice day,’ Durant said, hitching Alexis onto his lap.

  Her phone rang as she ran out the door, clutching a briefcase and a folder. She put the phone to her ear. ‘Yes? Impossible. I want those goods delivered by tomorrow. You can’t create a demand and then not supply. If you delay, I lose business. No, that’s unacceptable. Put me through to dispatch.’

  Durant smiled. Stephanie was back.

  21 OCTOBER 2003

  Emile Dahdi looked across at the worshippers at Jerusalem’s Western Wall and his eyes fell on a lone figure. He walked up to Salem and touched him on the shoulder.

  ‘Shalom Aleichem.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Salem asked.

  ‘You think I betrayed you. I saved you.’

  ‘And how is that?’

  ‘You would have been a fugitive for the rest of your life. They might have even killed you. You would not have served the memory of your daughter well.’

  Salem’s eyes narrowed. ‘How did you find me here?’

  ‘It’s the anniversary of your daughter’s murder,’ Dahdi said quietly. ‘I knew you would be in no other place.’

  ‘I have much to give thanks for.’

  ‘Indeed, you were never charged with murder. A R10000 fine for possession of false identity documents. It’s almost a travesty of justice.’

  Salem nodded. ‘An anonymous benefactor paid it.’

  ‘I paid it, Salem.’

  ‘You paid it?’

  Dahdi nodded.

  ‘All the negotiations, the bargaining, the back-channel work – that was you?’

  Dahdi shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. I don’t believe you deserved to be punished.’

  ‘I have been punished. From the day that bomb took my daughter from me. My punishment will never end.’

  ‘Well, Salem, perhaps we have a lot in common after all.’

  ‘The money? The million dollars I transferred to your account?’

  ‘It wasn’t my account. It went to an organisation which looks after victims of terrorism in Jerusalem. It was bad money. It had to be used for good. I think God will forgive me. He’s forgiven worse sins.’

  Salem smiled and sighed. ‘When you lose a child, or anyone you love, it changes you. It turns you into someone else. Your whole existence is dependent on finding the person responsible and making him pay. It’s the only way to redemption. It would normally be wrong, but it feels right to me. I had to do something.’

  ‘When the Libyans took my wife it also turned me into somebody else. I like to think it turned me into a better person. The terrorists’ aim is to make us hate and seek revenge. I won’t grant them that courtesy.’

  ‘I’ve learnt that lesson, Mr Dahdi.’

  ‘I saved you for your daughter’s sake. For her memory.’

  Salem cast his eyes downwards.

  Dahdi went on. ‘So that every year you can come here and pray at the Wall for forgiveness and absolution, rather than rot away in a South African prison.’

  ‘An intangible reward.’

  ‘Something like that. Shalom, Benjamin Salem. I hope you find redemption some day.’

  Dahdi walked away briskly and didn’t look back.