101 Detectives

by Ivan Vladislavic

  It was our turn to feast. Portions were scooped and carved for us by the stewards and laid in platters on our knees. It was indeed a meal fit for a King and we set upon it like famished beggars, tearing off chunks with our fingers and stuffing our mouths until the juices ran down our chins. A tastier food never crossed my lips. We chewed and snuffled and swooned.

  When we had eaten our fill, the servitors mopped our faces with hot scented towels. The familiar digestif was served. Then music and magic tricks – I cannot remember clearly. Then the first of my companions was wheeled away for his audience with the King. Five or six others followed at intervals. The shrinking band left in the hall dozed in the heat from the pit and sipped the liquor. From time to time, a servitor would take a goblet gently from a sleeping hand.

  At last, only I remained. Was it an omen? I reminded myself that I had been the last to arrive. Presumably protocols were being observed and I was the least important guest. Or the most? Surely not.

  I’m going on, I know. Forgive me. This is the last part.

  My turn came. I was wheeled from the banqueting hall. I expected to be brought before the King in an adjoining room, but found myself instead beneath the stars. Yes, my servitor said in a kindly voice, the sparkles I saw above were actual stars. It was refreshingly cool outdoors and the air seemed perfectly breathable. We set off down a path.

  The Royal Palace is a vast complex of circular buildings, large and small, linked by catwalks and cowpaths, and serving as bedrooms, nurseries, larders, armouries and refrigeration rooms (my servitor said). It does not have the grandeur of the Palace of the People – how could it! – but it is impressive in its own way. The thatched roofs seem crude to my eye, but are much admired by the locals. As we passed among them in the starlight, I had to admit that they lent a rustic charm to the scene.

  We entered one of the smaller huts, my servitor stooping so deeply through the doorway that his chin pressed on my shoulder.

  Who should be waiting there under a knuckle-bone chandelier but Bhuti Khuzwayo.

  Let’s get straight down to business, he said, hooking a stool closer with his toe and laying his feverish hands on mine. At our first meeting his manner had been jovial, but now he was solemn.

  He began by acknowledging our long, loyal business association. He thanked me for our ongoing efforts to preserve Papa’s legacy, extending his gratitude explicitly to you, Fei, and to all our comrades in the factory, managers and workers alike. Your likenesses, and I quote, are unsurpassed. Instantly recognisable but never literal, always capturing the essence of the man.

  We are committed to keeping Papa’s memory alive, Bhuti Khuzwayo said (and by ‘we’ I understood him to mean the government). Every standing order will be filled, no lines will be discontinued without proper consultation. But new values demand new symbols. We have therefore decided to launch a new range of official merchandise in the image of the King.

  This was the moment to ask about the monarchy, but Bhuti Khuzwayo’s earnestness defied interruption. The fresh air had cleared the fog from my brain and the last few wisps of it now melted away.

  When the time is right, we will talk numbers, he said. We have the usual lines in mind – plastic figurines, bronze sentinels, at least one stone colossus. For now, we are simply concerned to establish a likeness. Our experts tell us – and by ‘us’ I understood him again to mean the government – that there is no substitute for empirical observation, for the eye, Bhuti Wu. Your eye.

  Bhuti Khuzwayo raised a finger and the servitor, who had been waiting unremarked, bent over me. I expected him to untie my ankles, but with a few quick movements he strapped my wrists to the arms of the chair. The next moment he was hovering with a bridle. I cried out in panic, but Bhuti Khuzwayo smoothed my hands with his hot palms and brought his lips close to my ear. A small precaution, he said. It won’t hurt.

  The bridle fitted snugly over my skull. It was not especially uncomfortable, as Bhuti Khuzwayo had promised. I gagged when the bit pressed down my tongue, but the mouthparts were finely wrought and the straps as supple as kid. The earplugs dangling from the headpiece were pushed into my ears. The blinkers lay as soft as petals against my temples.

  The servitor squeezed my shoulder and left. Bhuti Khuzwayo pushed me down a cowpath into the audience chamber.

  I felt rather than saw the space, since most of it was in shadow and I could scarcely move my head. A round, thatched room even larger than the banqueting hall, unfurnished, with grass mats underfoot.

  The King was in the middle on his divan, propped up on brightly coloured cushions, with an amber light sifting down from above. I thought he was wearing a nightcap, but as I rolled closer I saw that it was a golden beret, many sizes too big for him, drooping over his ears like a failed soufflé. Bhuti Khuzwayo parked me beside the divan. Had I been able to move a limb, I might have reached out and poked the King’s belly. I gazed at his face, at the bulbous nose, the lemon-peel folds of his cheeks, the melted crescent of his chin, and tried to etch every lump and fissure on my memory. I noted the sleep in the corners of his eyes and the impress of a buckle in the flesh of his jowls. After a while, Bhuti Khuzwayo moved the chair to change my perspective, and by slow degrees, shifting from one vantage point to another, I saw every aspect of the King’s head, front, back and sides, and found myself staring once again at his face. My gaze had the weight of a fingertip: three times he opened his heavy-lidded eyes and blinked as if I had prodded him, but gave no sign that he saw me sitting before him.

  There is not much more to tell. When Bhuti Khuzwayo judged that I had seen enough, he wheeled me to the reception area and unbound me, and the limousine brought me back to my hotel. Here I am now, wide awake in the small hours. An hour ago, when I sat down to make this report, I was dead on my feet. Now it feels as if I will never shut my eyes again.

  DAY 4

  06:10

  I say I learn my lessons, Fei, but I never do. I have done a foolish thing.

  After my report last night, I couldn’t sleep. My poor head was swimming with everything that had happened. I decided to go out. Remember the square I saw on my first night here, the tavern with the lanterns and the orchestra? You know me: I wanted to hear the music. I summoned the taximan from the airport, the one who said he knew the destination like the back of his hand, and he agreed to take me there.

  We drove through one catchment area after another, avoiding the developments. The streets were even quieter at that late hour, empty but for shadows around a brazier or a man walking quickly with his head down. The colour had drained from everything. I asked the driver to open the window for me, and had to pay him to do it. The smell of cinnamon and standing water came into the cab. A bird call. Or an alarm? I leant my head out in the musty air and watched the dull faces of the houses slip by. Here and there a light burned dimly behind an iron grille. I could not smell the sea.

  My taximan was hopeless. All his glowing maps and locators served only to disorientate him. He took me to squares where there were no taverns and taverns that were not on squares. He found three taverns that were on squares but had no orchestras. He kept pausing to consult his devices and speak to the control room.

  At last, I began to feel drowsy. When we stopped at yet another crossroads, I decided it was time to go back. But before I could say so, a man stepped from the shadow of a wall and came up to my window. Papa? No. He was wearing a homburg and doublet, but the likeness ended there. Smiling broadly, without warmth. Perhaps it’s someone I met at the Fair, I thought, one of the countless pseudo-Papas, the advertising lookalikes and porn stars, the dregs of the Convention. But what is he doing here? And so shabbily dressed, with his overalls worn through at the knee.

  Despite myself, I smiled back. And as I did so, he reached in through the window and took hold of my face. He had big, rough hands, and the broad fingers of a labourer, but his touch was gentle. He cupped my face in his palms, as if I were a child, and tilted my head as though he might kiss my brow. T
hen his grip tightened. His thumbs pressed into my eye sockets, his forefingers burrowed into my ears, the other fingers sank into my cheeks and probed the flesh below my jaw. He bore back as if he wanted to tear my face from my head.

  He would have hauled me out of the cab had the taximan not pressed a button to close the window and lurched forward across the intersection. He clung to me through the gap, and was dragged along beside the vehicle, until his fingers tore loose and he fell away behind us.

  The taximan stopped under a lamp and helped me staunch the bleeding. You can imagine how shocked I was. I shouted at the fellow for his stupidity and irresponsibility. But of course the fault is mine. I am the bungler. I would not let him take me to the hospital.

  You should see what I look like! One of my eyes is swollen shut. My jaw is so sore I can hardly speak. I shan’t be able to eat for a week. Good thing too. I’ve had a bellyful of their protein and everything else.

  This sleepless night gave me time to think. I wonder if all the travellers’ tales about this destination might be true. You know the ones I mean – I must not say too much – that they lie on principle, and eat their young, and fry strangers like us in the streets. I can well imagine it. They keep insisting that they are warm people, but their hearts are cold.

  18:30

  My dear, what would I do without you? I scalded myself in the shower and used all the staples and patches, as you suggested, and swallowed all the pills and smeared on all the creams, and got through the day’s business. No one was any the wiser. Are they used to seeing a face like mine in ruins? Or are they too polite – or dishonest – to say anything? This much our trade has taught me: appearances are everything. I cannot wait to get home. Please make sure Dr Shen can see me first thing on Friday. I need to be scoured, outside and in.

  ‌Dead Letter Gallery

  Five of Neville Lister’s Dead Letters were shown on Alias at the Galeria Pauza in Kraków in May 2011. This exhibition was curated by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin under the banner of Photomonth in Kraków.

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  Advertising poster, Kraków, May 2011

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  Dead Letters exhibition, Kraków, May 2011 (Photograph by Marek Gardulski)

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  Neville Lister, Paris, 2011

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  L. Sylvain to Maryvonne Jourdan, Paris, 1978

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  Neville Lister, Laingsburg, 2011

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  M. Benadie to Basil Liebenberg, Laingsburg, 1979

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  Neville Lister, Göttingen, 2011

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  Karl-Heinz to Norman Ortlepp, Göttingen, 1977

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  Neville Lister, Amherst, 2011

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  D. Skinner to A. Gomes, Amherst, c.1981

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  Prison release form, Johannesburg, 1980

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  Neville Lister, Queens, 2011

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  Jimmy (James P.) to José Carvalho, Queens, 1980

  ‌Deleted Scenes

  best kept alone

  Sixteen hundred hours, Klopper thought, and wiggled his toes.

  ‘Tell me something, Bate: if these fugu fishes are so poisonous, how come they don’t poison themselves? Hey?’

  Bate looked at the street. It seemed cold and grey, but that was because the glass was tinted. After a while he said, ‘So what’s going to happen to this guy?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The guy we’re waiting for, who the hell else.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We’re going to give him a medal.’

  ‘Very funny, Klopper.’

  ‘That’s me. Humour in Uniform.’

  Bate turned his head slowly until he could see Klopper on the bed from the corner of his eye.

  Fugu fish are best kept alone. They are more aggressive to their own species than to other fish. That’s what the magazine said. In Japan, Fugu rubripes is farmed for eating. The flesh is best eaten raw but it can also be fried or boiled with vegetables. Fugu fins or testes are good in hot sake.

  on the way home (route 66)

  On the way home we stayed in a motel off the interstate, another ten-dollar dive with red wall-to-wall and woodgrain wallpaper, and the room was so small you could lie on the bed and change the TV channel with your toe. Johnny Carson interviewed a man with a parrot that sang ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ and it made us laugh until we cried.

  We had breakfast in some Denny’s or Roxy’s the next morning. I remember how noisy it was, how loudly everyone spoke. It used to bother me when I first came to America, but I’d gotten used to it over the years. The waitress brought bacon and biscuits, and eggs over easy with Cheez Whizz sauce on the side, and coffee and cream, and kept up a barrage of questions and comments over the clash of knives and forks. ‘I’m sorry!’ ‘Coming right up.’ ‘Is that right?’ ‘Gotcha!’ She said, ‘You’re welcome,’ before I could finish saying, ‘Thank you.’ A reflex, exclamatory patter of pacification.

  While the busboy was stacking the plates, he asked: ‘Y’all on your way to the Allergy Conference?’

  ‘No, we’re just going home,’ Mel said with a startled laugh.

  ‘Well, good luck with that!’

  wayfarer (hobbema)

  My favourite museum is the one in the Hague. I was very taken with the Hobbemas, until I found a sheet of paper in a plastic box on the wall that said all the figures were put in afterwards. Apparently Hobbema painted his scenes without any people and the Hollanders were quite happy with them like that. But then the paintings were bought and taken away to America, where the new owners had to look at the empty landscapes every day, and it bothered them that everything was so desolate. So they employed other painters to add little figures on the canvases and they thought that ‘populating the landscape’ and ‘humanising the world’ made it look kinder and safer. Some of the added-in figures were quite clear, but most of them were so small and hidden I hadn’t even noticed them before, to tell the truth. And the painters must have been amateurs because the figures weren’t very well done, which is one of the reasons why I didn’t realise they were there.

  I was happy to get this information, because I am still building up my knowledge of the History of Art, but I must say it spoilt my appreciation of Art for a while. After that, whenever I saw a landscape I had to look under the trees and behind the boulders for someone lurking. I couldn’t get lost in the paintings any more. It was like that book Where’s Wally? (If you’ve got children – or grandchildren – you’ll know what I mean.) Luckily I’m past that phase now. But I can’t help thinking that those Americans of yesteryear were wrong. When I find a human being in these pictures, some little wayfarer going along a path through the woods, it’s no comfort at all. A terror comes over me that I haven’t felt since I was a boy and my heart aches for him, for us.

  locked-room mystery

  The square outside the window was empty. Along the avenue, the snow lay crisp and even. Scanning that blank sheet for signs of life, Hans Günther Basch remembered the dog-eared Ellery Queen on his bedside table, and thought about the enduring appeal of the locked-room mystery. How often the riddle turned on a footprint or its absence. There were no footprints beneath the window, a single set of footprints led away from the ledge, only two sets of footprints were visible in the snow. A locked-room murder did not always happen behind closed doors, of course. More often than not, it was out in the open and in full sight of the world.

  striptease

  The flight attendant brought me a packet of Supersnacks, which were tiny salted crackers in the shape of stars, boats and clouds, and also miniature pretzels, and mixed in with them a few sweet biscuits decorated with the face of a boy who may have been Tintin, and these childlike bar snacks made me think of the woman and her boots.

  What a strange striptease we have to perform in airports these days, taking off our jackets and belts, emptying
out our pockets, allowing strangers to frisk and fondle us. At the security check in Mauritius they made a woman put her boots through the X-ray machine. A women’s-magazine type, I thought, precise and pointed, in a short black skirt and black stockings, a belt with silver studs low on her hips, a modernist haircut, angular and sculptural. Her stiletto heels gave her that pony-and-trap gait of the fashion models. She unzipped the boots and stepped out of them, and was suddenly small. The stockings turned out to be leggings that ended in mid-calf just below the top of the boots. On her feet she had a pair of low-cut gym socks covered with pink motifs, smiley faces or Pac-Men. Between the leggings and the socks, her pale and naked calves. She padded through the metal detector in the silly socks, while the boots, the leather jacket and everything else went along the conveyor, and of course she looked like a girl who’d been dressing up in her mother’s clothes.

  stuck in the lift

  Her application for a higher office had got no response. A week passed without so much as an acknowledgement of receipt. She was on the point of writing again when she got stuck in the lift with four of her colleagues. The compartment had no sooner risen from the 11th floor than it shuddered to a halt and went dark.

  Irritated groans and nervous giggles. Then a booming voice asked if everyone was all right.

  In those first uneasy moments, she thought about the uses of stories in emergency situations and the storyteller’s role as first responder and counsellor. She was familiar with the procedures for securing the area and stabilising the listener, and applying stories in the aftermath of car crashes, suicide bombings and tsunamis, but she had never been on the front line herself and had no ready-made material in her notebook.