Homing

by Henrietta Rose-Innes

  She wrenched the dog away from the man’s face. “Sies, Luki!”

  The foreigner pushed himself upright, putting his back against the wall, and said something softly in a language she didn’t understand. Mrs Engelbrecht thought it might be French, but somehow thick and chewed-sounding.

  Night was falling. She should not be here alone, talking to a strange, if glossy, black Frenchman. If that was what he was. It was one of those times when she wished for an additional sense, for dog-nose, bat-ears, for more clues to the situation. But she was just an old lady.

  Just then, she heard the distant wail of a vuvuzela: one of the soccer fans starting up. It roused her to action.

  “Are you all right?” she asked the man. “Are you hurt?”

  He put a hand to the left side of his head and held it out in front of him. His long fingers shone wet in the streetlights. He asked her a question, and his voice, like his motions, was rapid and attractive.

  She clicked her tongue. “Just a little blood,” she said, in the sternly jovial tone of the nurse she’d once been. “Don’t jiggle around, you’ll make it worse.”

  Luki lifted her front paws and tried to lick the man’s hand, but he pulled away with a murmur of alarm.

  What to do? If she had a cellphone, she could phone an ambulance. But she didn’t, and anyway she didn’t know the number. They’d changed it years ago.

  “You’ve hit your head,” she said, recalling her training. “Let me see – let me see your eyes.” Without thinking, she reached out and took his face between her hands.

  If she’d been younger, and more in the world, perhaps she would not have done so. She might have seen the blood and recoiled. But she was from another time, when blood was just blood, was something to be staunched and sponged away, with bare hands if necessary. She searched his eyes, but they were so black in the shadows that she could not make out the size of his pupils. He let her hold him in position, docile. She should ask him questions. What year is it. Who is the president.

  “What’s your name?” she tried. But he just stared up at her, unblinking. Trusting.

  A bead of fresh blood leaked from his hairline, tracking crookedly down into his right eyebrow. He winced and touched his head.

  A vuvuzela blared again, closer this time; his shoulders jumped in fright, and then he laughed and exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “Football,” he said, smiling. He pressed one long-fingered hand to his chest. “Me. Football.”

  Mrs Engelbrecht sat the young man down on the edge of her bed. When she switched on the overhead light, he flared, vividly coloured. His shirt was not green at all but a fierce buttercup yellow; his skin was deep, deep black, his running shoes snowy. And his blood was extremely red. It was caked in his eyebrows and smeared on his shirt, across the number 7 on the front. Red fingerprints where he’d wiped his hands. He focused on her finger when she moved it left to right in front of his nose, although his gaze remained dreamy.

  In her tiny bathroom, she filled a plastic ice-cream tub with warm water, clouding it with a dose of Dettol.

  The Frenchman was up again by the time she got back to the bedroom, swaying on his feet. Luki was positioned in front of him. Mrs Engelbrecht, carrying the water, nearly tripped over the lowslung dog.

  “Sit,” she said to the man. “Show me.” She put the basin down on the bedside table. Then she gently reached up – he was tall – and pressed her soft old hands to his shoulders, manoeuvring him down again onto the bed. He sat with his hands flat on his thighs.

  “Let me see.” Again she put her hands to his head, rolling his close-cropped skull forward. His hair was coarse against her fingertips. The wound sliced along the side of his skull and went behind his ear. It was quite deep at the back, bleeding down into his collar. Gently, with the damp corner of a face towel, she dabbed at the tender groove, cleaning it out. It looked like a knife cut, narrow and sharp-edged; but perhaps he had fallen against something. She squeezed a little Betadine ointment out onto her fingertip, and he bent his head to her touch like an obedient child.

  Luki had fetched her ball. It was a yellow plastic one from the supermarket, too big for her small jaws; she liked to nose it around the flat, bouncing it off walls and furniture. Now she rolled it forward, up against the man’s feet, and stood waiting. He did not react. Mrs Engelbrecht saw that his eyes were closed.

  “It’s quite a deep cut,” she said, “but you won’t need stitches, I don’t think.”

  He kept his head bowed, his hands wound together between his knees.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Was it the skollies?” It was Elizabeth’s word, not one that felt easy in her own mouth – not one that he would understand either, being French.

  Disarmingly, he laughed, and then spoke a long, rapid sentence, opening his eyes wide.

  “Take, take off,” she interrupted him. She mimed with exaggerated gestures for him to remove his shirt – then dropped her hands, embarrassed. She must look like a pale, ageing monkey, scratching in her armpits. But the man seemed to understand. He pulled at the back of his shirt, getting tangled up so she had to help it over his head. A waft of warm scent and sweat enveloped her face. He was lean, with a hard stomach and clearly defined arms. An athlete’s body. There were no other wounds or scrapes on him. He gave her a smile, scratched an itch on his bare shoulder. Yes, she thought, he is European, you can tell. Something about the gestures. Quite elegant, really.

  She pictured Elizabeth’s face then. How angry she would be! How she would scold. This was the riskiest thing Mrs Engelbrecht had done for years.

  “I’ll make us a cup of tea,” she said.

  She bundled the shirt up and took it through to the bathroom to soak. Seeing a red smear on her own hand, she thought then, distantly, of the risk: strange blood, infection. But what did that matter now, to an old woman?

  When she brought the tea tray to the door, the man was sitting with his head down, slumped forward and sideways, as if he were slowly toppling over. She wondered how to approach, where to put the tray: the room was too small for all of them, Luki too. She felt suddenly exhausted.

  “Luki,” she said. “Shoo.”

  The dog ignored her. Nudged the ball forward with her muzzle. It rolled, touched the tip of the man’s white shoe. And this time, he lifted his head and observed the toy in front of him. It was a little larger than a tennis ball, a little smaller than a bowling ball. He moved his foot, tapped it back to the dog. Luki gave an excited yap and pounced, and the ball skidded to the side. The foot came out, fetched it back into position.

  And, suddenly, the ball looked different. It looked alive – but tamed, brought to heel. In one motion the young man stood and pulled back his foot. The ball followed. He inserted his toe under the curve of yellow plastic, and with a flick brought it up into the air, where it seemed to hang at chest level, awaiting instruction. He kept it suspended with a few playful taps off his knees. Tip, tap; he leant back and the ball ran across his chest, nagging at his shoulders; he ducked, and the ball came across his back, popped out behind his head and sat for a moment on his shoulder; then chased down his front onto the tip of his boot again. His mouth was slightly open, his eyes on the ball.

  As she watched, Mrs Engelbrecht felt a rush of simple pleasure: such a show! In her house! And again and again, the ball looping, spinning, up and down, off the side of his foot, the toe, off his knee, off his …

  “Your head!” she cried as the ball smacked into the broken skin. He moaned, staggered back against the bed and sat down hard. The ball shot off at an angle, straight at the loaded tea tray.

  For a frozen moment, Mrs Engelbrecht performed her own gravity-taunting dance of balance and skill, the tea cups riding the listing deck, tinkling madly; she rocked back, then forward, and then at last, astonishingly, managed to land the tray safely on the foot of the bed. Losing control, as she did so, of the laughter that burst out of her like a girl’s, spilling out over the trembling cr
ockery. She laughed and laughed and could not stop, as the young man watched her with a dazed smile.

  She persuaded him to lie down and covered him with a light blanket. He fell asleep almost immediately, sprawling diagonally on the old double bed with unselfconscious ease. She switched off the light and quietly closed the door.

  Outside, on the balcony, she sat in her old wicker chair. Luki curled up in the chair opposite, which used to be Mr Engelbrecht’s. Both of them were panting a little from the excitements of the evening. She calmed, and looked out into the night, over the crowds on the street, the rising laughter and revelry. Her gaze touched the top of that brand-new football stadium, settling into the dip of its roof. The joy she’d felt, watching the young athlete waltzing with the ball, had not left her. The feeling was the colour of the yellow shirt now hanging up to dry above the bath – throbbing and unreal, persisting at the back of the eye. And now it was combined with a sense of power. Ownership, spiced with a secret. That big new stadium was a nest, and she the child who’d climbed the tree and stolen the egg. The prize is here, in my house, sleeping in my bed, she thought. The star. And nobody knows.

  In the morning though – when she awoke on the couch, having slept very uncomfortably under a crocheted throw – she felt a niggling unease. All she could think of was that she had to return him somehow, like a lost dog or an overdue library book. And how would she go about it? She had no idea who to call. The police? The idea filled her immediately with guilt and fear. Perhaps she could just take him back to the new stadium, drop him off there at the tradesman’s entrance? A riddle for someone to solve. Because of course – she saw now, in the daylight – she couldn’t keep him.

  First, though, she would make them some tea. They could sit outside on the balcony, watch the people pass below. She hesitated only briefly outside the door to the bedroom, then pushed it open.

  The bed was empty, perfectly made up. Luki’s ball positioned at its foot.

  She hurried to the front door, saw that the bolts and chain had been loosened.

  The doorknob turned in her hand and the door pushed open, nearly tumbling her backwards in fright. Elizabeth stood in the doorway, staring back at Mrs Engelbrecht in almost equal surprise.

  “What’s wrong, what’s happened?” cried Elizabeth.

  “What do you mean?”

  “No, it’s just, you look … your hair is all …” Elizabeth ran her hand over her own doek-covered head. She leant past Mrs Engelbrecht to peer inside the flat, frowning at the rumpled couch. “Has someone been here?”

  “No! No.” Mrs Engelbrecht steadied her voice. “I’m feeling unwell. I didn’t sleep. In fact I have a shocking headache.”

  Elizabeth turned her severe gaze back to the old lady’s face. “Do you need the doctor?”

  “Oh, good heavens, no. I just need a lie-down.” She applied suggestive pressure to the door. “Perhaps I could ask you to come back tomorrow?”

  Elizabeth resisted, pushing back and tapping a fingernail against the doorjamb.

  “You sure.”

  “Yes, positive.”

  “Ja, okay. But I’m worried about you now.”

  Elizabeth turned to leave, suspicious.

  Just as Mrs Engelbrecht was about to close the door, she noticed the morning paper tucked under Elizabeth’s arm. “Wait!” She reached out and plucked at it. “Can I see that?”

  “Do you want me to come in and read?”

  “No, just … I wondered what happened. About the football player? That Frenchman.”

  “Oh, that.” Elizabeth snorted in amusement. “No, they found him. He’d passed out at some shebeen.” She made a tippling gesture with her cupped hand at her mouth. “French!”

  Mrs Engelbrecht went still, her fingers clamped to the page.

  “They found him?”

  “Ja – see for yourself. Yesterday afternoon already. Can you believe it.” Elizabeth lifted her arm, releasing the paper to Mrs Engelbrecht’s fingers. The loose inside sections unfurled, the pages separating out and subsiding to the floor.

  The panes of glass in the balcony doors shook lightly in their frames. Both women turned to look. An electronic whine lanced the air, and a voice addressed them. The voice of a hidden giant, it seemed: muted but huge, garbled, vaguely haranguing. Vibrating through walls and floor. Then came rising strains of music: the anthem, they recognised. The roar of a multitude.

  “World Cup,” said Elizabeth. “Now it starts.”

  It was two weeks later, when Mrs Engelbrecht was on the way to the shops with Elizabeth – battling against the flood of tourists – that she saw him again. He was in the parking lot outside the bottle store, chatting with some of the other young men who hung out there, trying to make a few coins off the crowds. He wore a car guard’s luminous-orange bib, which jarred with the familiar yellow shirt beneath it.

  “These Congolese,” said Elizabeth, clicking her tongue. Luki gave a couple of yaps and tugged at the lead. Eager to play.

  He looked up and saw her then. Mrs Engelbrecht recognised his long face, even saw the pink of a healing scar curling around behind his ear.

  Holding her eyes, he put out a toe and hooked an empty bottle up from the ground. He flicked it into the air – light touches, using his knees, his shoulder, his chest. And dropped the old lady a slow wink as he punted it away, a flash of silver spinning across the tar.

  Bad Places

  Waking, she was for a moment surprised by the bright-blue hand that lay before her face. The fingers flexed, then made a fist.

  That’s my hand, then, thought Elly. Christ.

  She sat up, squinting against the odd, prismatic light. Beside her, Mac lay on his back, Nadia with her head on his belly, hand resting on the cobalt skin. The pigment on their bodies had bled a little into the sand, creating a delicate corona around all three.

  This long, empty beach was not one she recognised. They had arrived in darkness, and she remembered only a deserted parking lot, stumbling, a roaring tunnel. The tide was far out now across a stretch of sand that shone like wet cement. Behind them, an unbroken line of dune. By the height of the sun, she guessed it must be early morning; but already so hot. Putting a hand to her face, Elly was surprised by an insect flutter – the silver eyelashes. She’d forgotten. It had been a costume party: they’d gone as mermaids, all body paint and spangles. She tugged off the lashes and dropped them on the sand, and the sparkly light switched to a more terrestrial glare.

  The surf receded before her as she stood and went to wash her arms and face; the paint was itching. Her skin goosebumped in the icy water, but remained stubbornly blue, dusted with points of glitter.

  Elly was a small woman, spare and freckled; when she looked down over her flat chest, she could count the ribs. The skin was tight across her concave stomach, empty since yesterday lunchtime. Blue skin, silver bikini top, sequinned mini, and a silver pouch strapped where another girl’s belly would be. Her head ached a little, and the muscles in her jaw, from working it back and forth. It was the drugs: they always affected her that way.

  I’m twenty-eight, she thought. Getting too old for this shit.

  Their footprints wavered down the beach from the parking lot, erased where they dipped below the tideline, reappearing, three sets. Elly’s prints were tiny next to Mac’s. Nadia’s were also long, but slender. Elly placed her feet over her friend’s tracks, feeling in her knees the exact differences between their strides. Nadia, her oldest friend: they’d been playing together since they were seven, when they met in their leafy suburban junior school. Elly scuffed at the sand. She could only have slept for a couple of hours. It was too hot to stay lying here, though.

  “Nadia. Mac. Time to go.”

  They slept on, deep in their coupled slumber. Or maybe they were awake, just waiting for her to go away.

  “Guys, I’m going to the car.”

  They did not stir.

  Elly trod in her own footprints up the beach – toes in heel, heel on toe
s. The milled trail skewed to and fro, up towards the tar, where she could see the mica glint of her car windscreen.

  Automatically she touched the pouch around her hips. It felt flat and, she realised now, suspiciously light. She zipped it open. Bugger: the car keys. Had she dropped them? No – Mac was driving last night, wasn’t he? She looked back at her friends. They’d rolled towards each other, were lying embraced.

  She turned away from them and glared at the wet sand.

  Ahead, a fourth line of footprints cut across, straight up from the water: something that had beached during the night and struck out for the dunes. Elly went closer.

  Large feet, larger than Mac’s, heavy and purposeful. She put her right foot into the stranger’s print. It was smooth-soled and deep, a sandy slipper. The soles were crisply defined, the big toes crooked a little inwards. She stood awkwardly for a moment, twisted at the hips. The left foot seemed impossibly far away: a huge stride, for Elly almost a leap. Her hips cracked when she tried it. Tiring, to inhabit this body. It required a strong, long-legged man. He grew before her, standing up suddenly and emphatically in his footprints: tall, broad-shouldered, handsome perhaps, walking away. She followed, concentrating on this tricky, loping stride.

  The heat felt like dense liquid sinking into her scalp, and the sand underfoot was growing hotter too. She walked without thought – five minutes, ten, until colour and detail bleached from her vision. The prints became less distinct, finally lost in the looser sand. When she raised her eyes she found herself brought far up and away from the beach, right on the dune crest.

  Below, she could see the clear insect-tracks of their night journey – intersecting with the stranger’s trail, which led straight as a ruled line to where she stood. The distant bodies of her friends were slight and motionless.

  From here she looked down onto the other, secret side of the dune. Beyond was the steep wall of a higher dune, the dip between narrow and intimate, like the cleft between a sleeper’s arm and body. At the bottom, an irregular collection of boulders, some low grey-green shrubs. It looked quiet down there in the shade. She took two steps down, her feet pushing crescent sand-slides down the slope.