Now I See You

by Holmes, Priscilla; Holmes, Priscilla;

  It was hard for me to even look at Ngosi, Chief Tswane’s oldest wife and the ringleader in my ritual punishment so many years ago. She was an old woman now, small and frail with grey hair and narrow eyes. Yet I still felt a nervous knife-stab in my chest when I looked at her. I stood impassive while she inspected my face and clothes in an insulting way. ‘Eh-eh, and now you are getting older, you still don’t look anything like your father,’ she said, sucking her teeth and curling her lip defiantly.

  What the hell was that supposed to mean?

  Ngosi stared at me disapprovingly. There was a message here. I remembered her face during the punishment; I had never liked her, but she had turned into a monster that night. I would never trust her again.

  Zak was enjoying himself. He slipped into the family scene, almost like a son. Never mind that he was Zulu and not even pure Zulu, at that. This super-smug highly irritating police colleague of mine fitted in perfectly, posturing, hand-slapping, hip-swaying. Bursts of male laughter, loud men’s talk. My grandfather and Zak were unbearable.

  Before the meal, an elder slit a chicken’s neck open and, mumbling a brief prayer, allowed its blood to seep into the soil. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to watch. Zak led the loud noises of approval at this barbaric behaviour. The men laughed, slapped each other on the back and pretended to kick one another.

  I was the only woman seated on the woven grass mat near my grandfather – an unheard-of concession, one ordered by my grandfather, to the obvious irritation of the wives, especially Ngosi. Reluctantly, the wives served me. They didn’t sit with the men and kept their eyes downcast most of the time, except when they shot inquisitive glances at me. My braids seemed to intrigue them and they gazed at my hairstyle in ill-concealed envy. If only they knew how long I’d had to sit at ‘Black Like Me’, the salon I went to in Sandton. It took a lot of hard work to create the hundreds of thin braids adorning my head. I wanted to tell them how painful it was, that I gritted my teeth and held my breath at every pull. It was worth it at the end, when I swung the braids around my head and over my shoulders, but sometimes I wondered why I put myself through the agony.

  The women were wearing traditional dress: a leather skirt, beaded top, and a head turban twisted into complicated patterns covering their hair. The standard dress for married woman. I saw them looking at my jeans, giggling, whispering to one another.

  Zak completely ignored me. I might as well have been any of the other women in the room – invisible. Certainly not his police partner.

  It was like a Soweto shebeen, all beer, brandy and men showing off. A far cry from eating out in Melrose Arch, with tablecloths and wine glasses, where men and women actually talked to one another.

  When I couldn’t bear the atmosphere any longer, I got up from the table. There was a sudden silence. Conversation died and all eyes followed me as I left the hut.

  I walked down to the river. Johannesburg was so far away. I closed my eyes and tried to remember city sounds. The constant background noise of traffic, industry, police sirens. I missed it. Especially the smell. There’s something about the smell of a city; the smartly dressed people, the brightly lit stores, the perfumed air of the shopping malls. But then, as I remembered breathing in the teeming air of Johannesburg, I remembered another scent. The smell of my attacker came back to haunt me. It was a perfume I knew from my school days in Grahamstown. The headmistress wore it. Sweet, almost cloying, I could conjure up the memory of that smell as she walked past at assembly.

  Dammit. Chanel No. 5. The name clicked into place in my mind. That was what my attacker smelled of. How weird was that? French perfume at the scene of a heist? Add that to the red nail varnish and it looked like my grandfather might be right. A woman was involved. And a white one at that if his description was anything to go by. I needed to think about this.

  ***

  When I walked back and joined the others, I announced: ‘I’m going to bed. Good night.’

  The wives gasped again. No valley woman would ever dare behave like this.

  To my surprise, my grandfather put down his pipe and stood.

  ‘I wish to speak to you,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’

  Immediately Ngosi stood, glaring at me. She turned to my grandfather, shaking her head, whispering to him angrily, her eyes on me. He drew back, frowning.

  ‘That is enough, wife,’ he said. ‘Know your place. You dare to question me?’ Ngosi stood aside, casting angry looks at me. She had always been a meddler, her nose in everyone’s business. Now she was twitching to get into mine. What the hell was all this about anyway?

  Moving quickly for an old man, he led me past the huts reserved for his wives. As his great wife, Ngosi occupied the largest of these and hers was situated to the right of my grandfather’s hut. To the left was his second wife’s hut, flanked by the three smaller huts kept for the others. Behind these was a larger hut in an area of the homestead I had never ventured into. This hut didn’t have an open entrance. A sheet of corrugated iron filled the doorway, secured by a heavy padlock. A young man stood guard at the entrance and my grandfather rapped out a command that sent him scurrying off. He took a long leather thong from around his neck and inserted a key into the lock. The young man returned, carrying a paraffin lamp.

  ‘Give it to her,’ my grandfather said, then waited until he was out of earshot. He put his shoulder to the door and it scraped open. I followed him inside, and we faced one another in the flickering light of the paraffin lamp.

  The hut was empty, apart from four large rush screens which hid the circular walls from view.

  ‘I wish to show you something,’ he said. ‘This is why you are here, Thabisa. You think it was because of the murder that I witnessed. That murder was predicted by the ancestors so that the police would send you back here to me.’

  I shook my head and turned away. This was ridiculous. My grandfather seized my arm and shook it. He pulled me towards him;, his narrow brown eyes scanned my face. His strength was amazing considering his age. His grip was like an iron band.

  ‘Look at me!’ he commanded. ‘I am your blood. You are mine. I wanted you to come home to me. I have something important to show you. I need to know if you can understand. If the spirit is in your eyes to see this thing I will show you.

  He stepped away from me and rolled back the first of the rush covers. He took the lamp from me and held it high.

  I gasped. It takes a lot to amaze me. But this did.

  10

  One month earlier

  25 May 2006

  They never took more than they could carry in four plastic shopping bags. They dressed in black from top to toe, voices charged with helium and armed with Glocks. They always fired into the ceiling when they surged into the banks, stores or filling stations. Nothing big, just small country places to start with. It distracted attention, terrifying people. Then they locked up their victims, in cupboards, back-rooms, or safes, before they made their getaway. As they left, they ripped off their masks and unzipped their hoodies to expose colourful T-shirts. Then they walked away slowly from the scene. It amazed Julia to see what happened after that. People only saw what they expected to see. And nobody expected two white women, strolling calmly along, carrying shopping bags, to be armed robbers.

  Their first heist as a couple was a small service station, just north of East London. They arrived as it was growing dark. The owners, a middle-aged Indian couple, ran the shop, serviced the forecourt and filled the petrol tanks of the heavy lorries that motored down the coastal road towards Port Elizabeth. They fell back, terrified, as Sue and Julia confronted them.

  ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot. We’re only a small business... we don’t have much money. Don’t shoot! We've got four children,’ they wailed.

  If she hadn’t been so high on adrenaline, Julia might have felt sorry for them.

  Sue spoke in her cartoon voice: ‘Good evening. This is a robbery. Put the cash into these shopping bags. Don’t try to stop us. This is a
good story to tell your kids tonight. Don’t try to be clever, or we’ll shoot.’

  The Indian man led them down a dark passage and opened the door to his office. The entire floor was covered in banknotes. Sue and Julia stood knee-deep in money.

  ‘What the... What’s this?’ squeaked Sue in her Donald Duck voice.

  ‘Our life savings,’ the service station owner said softly. ‘We don’t trust the banks. Please. Please, I beg you. Don’t take it all.’

  ‘Only as much as we can carry,’ Sue said.

  They piled notes into the shopping bags until they were full. Then, keeping their guns trained on the cowering couple, they backed out of the service station, moving towards their stolen car with its false number plates.

  ‘Thanks for your cooperation. Better trust the banks from now on, yes?’ Sue shouted in her tinny voice.

  They drove off, with a screeching of tyres.

  ‘What about that?’ Sue said, ‘Imagine all that money floating around on your floor, I mean, it’s crazy. What happens when you want to vacuum?’

  Julia glanced at her, feeling laughter welling up in her chest. ‘Can you believe it?’ she said.

  Sue suddenly exploded with laughter. Julia joined in. They drove along, howling with hysterical mirth, fuelled by the adrenaline rush of the heist.

  Getaways were easy. They were just two white women out shopping. They pinpointed vehicles before they executed a job, in quiet streets or parking lots. Julia learned how to change number plates. She was amazed that so many people in the Eastern Cape left their keys in the ignition.

  Julia learned quickly. Something in her had crossed over and she didn’t want to stop.

  The phone calls came twice daily. Sue shut herself into her room to take them. Julia felt sure she was talking to a man. Once she heard her cry: ‘No, I can’t do that! I won’t do that!’

  Although Sue ended these calls looking calm, her fingers gripped the cell phone so hard her knuckles were white. Sometimes she went out afterwards and didn’t return for hours. These were the only times that she locked Julia in her room. Apart from that her freedom was increasing daily. She walked alone along the lonely beaches and Sue never questioned where she had been. She seemed quite sure that Julia would always return to the cottage.

  They spent the money they took on food, drink and not much else. Sue stashed the rest away somewhere in the cottage. When Julia asked why they were doing these heists, Sue said: ‘Practising. Savouring the thrill. Learning to survive.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘The big one.’

  ‘What big one?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  Julia would have to chip away at Sue’s armour plating for years if she wanted to reach the person underneath. Sue was damaged. No amount of friendly glue would ever mend her. She talked in bald, clipped sentences. Her tough, uncompromising attitude was more than skin deep. Her eyes were often unnerving, curiously flat and expressionless, almost inhumanly blue. Julia often saw a tiger crouched behind those eyes, eager to bite.

  There were times when Julia genuinely admired her. She was chillingly competent in dangerous situations. Never nervous. She went about her business with the cool efficiency of an expert. Julia wanted to be exactly like her. She wanted to be brave and fearless too.

  And then – Sue shot the old man at Kenton-on-Sea.

  Julia tried not to vomit in the car when she saw the globules of brain and blood on her tracksuit. She saw the man’s body sliding down, flopping about on the floor of the bank. The image played in her mind, over and over.

  Julia expected a flicker of... something from Sue. But all she said was, ‘He had it coming.’

  Julia dropped her guard. ‘Couldn’t you have just shot his kneecaps or something?’ she screamed. ‘Did you have to kill him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sue said it calmly. ‘Shoot when you have to, remember? He had a gun. He was going to use it. It was self-defence.’

  Hot tears ran down Julia’s face. ‘Then it was an accident. We can tell them. We can turn around and tell them. It was just an accident.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘This makes us murderers.’

  ‘Stop being a bloody idiot!’

  They were on the highway. Sue slowed a little, her eyes darting between the road ahead and the rear-view mirror. There were sirens, flashing lights ahead; two police cars approached them, fast. They whipped past without slowing. ‘For fuck’s sake, stop snivelling!’ Sue said.

  But Julia couldn’t. She was gasping for breath, bile rising in her throat. ‘Please stop the car; I’m going to throw up.’ She fell out of the car and vomited at the side of the road.

  ‘Toughen up Julia, you stupid bitch!’ Sue shouted. ‘You might have to do that yourself one day. Kill someone, so you don’t get killed. Just remember that.’

  Never, Julia thought. I could never kill anyone.

  But she was wrong. Everything changed after that. Shortly after the bank there was the jewellery shop heist and Julia saw the full extent of the change in Sue’s attitude. She seemed filled with a reckless desire to take more chances, increase the risks. She abandoned the tried and true; now she wanted to go further, the more dangerous and difficult the better. Julia went along with it, infected by this new spirit of recklessness. She loved the adrenaline surges, the spirit of adventure, being so good at something so dangerous. Being part of a team, a team that could do anything – risk anything.

  They were in Port Elizabeth at the Walmer Park shopping mall in the early hours of the morning. The security guards weren’t around. She and Julia smashed through the glass doors and helped themselves, stuffing Kruger Rands and jewellery into their bags.

  Julia saw him first – a heavily built guard, brandishing a truncheon. He aimed at Sue, lining up a straight drive at her head. He would have smashed her whole face in. Before he swung, Julia was behind him. She dropped low and fired the Z88 into his left kneecap. He screamed, writhed in agony as his patella shattered. Julia imagined broken bone, ripped ligaments and torn cartilage exploding around his leg.

  Sue and Julia ran through the sound of sirens, threw themselves into the pick-up truck they’d stolen earlier and drove quietly away. Nobody followed.

  Neither of them spoke.

  Once they hit the main road, Sue pulled into a rest area. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You saved my life. I misjudged you, I apologise.’

  Julia didn’t answer. She was shaking so much she couldn’t speak, but Sue’s praise made the heat rise in her face. The pleasure was a rush, better than anything she’d experienced.

  ‘I can’t believe I did that,’ she said.

  ‘You were brilliant. You kept your cool and did it.’

  Sue’s face was more relaxed, not so tight and angry. Her voice was softer too, not hectoring and threatening.

  Julia shook her head. ‘It was reflex. Pure luck. I didn’t like it.’

  ‘You don’t have to like it,’ Sue said, ‘as long as you can do it. Now let’s go home and make breakfast.’

  As they drank coffee and ate croissants, Sue started talking. She told Julia about a man. He was manipulating her. He thought Sue was alone at the beach shack and she, Julia, was dead. There was also a job. She had promised him she’d do it. If she didn’t, he would expose her to the police, or he would kill her.

  As Sue spoke Julia’s eyes didn’t leave her face. She stared at her with fierce concentration. ‘Who is he?’ she asked.

  ‘I can’t tell you, but I can tell you how it all started.’

  11

  21 June 2006

  The room shifted and swam in front of my eyes. It was hung with bead-work, every wall covered in intricate hieroglyphics. The work of hundreds of years displayed in front of me. The history of the valley.

  The past came rushing back. I was a little girl again. I smelled the dark brown smell of wood-smoke, heard the river rushing by, and felt the clay floor of our homestead under my bare feet.

  My mother explaining to
me in her gentle voice, teaching me the way of the beads. I felt the hard glass slipping through my baby fingers, as she taught me the meanings.

  Then she was gone. Ngosi was there pushing at me, pulling at me, demanding that I listen and understand. I didn’t want to have Ngosi telling me about the beads. Where was my mother?

  I heard Ngosi’s voice saying, ‘I must teach her, she has the gift, and she has the eye to see. The beads speak to her.’

  I was running away, going to the river, crying. Blocking out the meaning of the beads, comparing my mother’s gentle hands with the leathery hands of Ngosi.

  Now, as I looked, the symbols swam and shifted in front of me, it was like a song that had always lived in my mind but now all the meanings came flooding back. I understood everything.

  Although the women of the valley made the beadwork, they worked in fragments. Not one of them ever saw the assembled pieces. In elaborate rituals, only the paramount chief, sangomas and diviners of the valley constructed the records.

  The only people who saw the completed work were the senior wife of the chief and his own daughter. Ngosi and my mother. And now me. One of the only women to see this room.

  I stepped forward, gazing at the glistening walls, my eyes flying across the history of the valley. The secret language returned as I concentrated on the dots, zigzags and stripes. The meaning of the beads slipped into my mind. I could read everything.

  And, as I read, part of me wished I could go back to the room where the women sat, eyes averted, heads bowed. It would be safer sitting there with them, ignorant of the history unfolding in front of my eyes.

  My grandfather held the lamp higher, and in the flickering light, I read of bloody executions. My father, my two uncles, murdered during the struggle. They had been betrayed by an inyoka – a snake, the beads told me.