by Malla Nunn
A thought hit Emmanuel. ‘She didn’t know Amahle was planning to ditch the marriage and run.’
‘Yebo.’ Shabalala let out a deep breath. ‘If only she had waited one more week . . .’
One more week and Amahle, the beautiful one, would have flown away. Seven bright spring days made the difference between a disgraced grave and a dream made real.
If only.
Don’t start down that road, Cooper. Those two little words will fuck with you every time, the sergeant major said. If only your father was slower with the knife and your mother quicker to run, if only Hitler had become a painter instead of a politician, if only your marriage had worked out and you weren’t a single man, all alone, sorting through the murders of strangers. That shit will drive you mad, soldier. All you have is now.
Again Emmanuel listened to the sergeant major. The present moment possessed enough challenges to stave off melancholy. For knowing the identity of the murderer and proving it in court were two separate tasks. He worked over what they knew so far.
‘Karin won’t admit to seeing Philani and a woman in the rock shelter on Sunday night. She’s not going to destroy her life just to bring a Zulu woman to court,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Her testimony is out.’
Shabalala cast a quick look at Gabriel, who was still rummaging in the dirt for silver beads.
‘Same deal,’ Emmanuel said. ‘He’s white but that won’t help our case. He’s too odd. Besides, his brother will never let him testify and I can’t blame him.’
A boy with a fragile grasp on how to behave and no clue whatsoever about physical appearance could not be put on the stand in a criminal court.
‘That leaves us no witnesses.’ Shabalala looked into his hat. ‘The fifth wife will go free.’
‘Unless she confesses to the murder, that’s probably what will happen,’ Emmanuel said. This was the third and most difficult initiation rite into the brotherhood of detectives: watching an investigation shrivel up and die for lack of evidence.
Gabriel pocketed his haul of silver beads and returned to the burned carcass. He squatted in the sand to inspect the charred skeleton and the brittle tendons holding the mass together. ‘What is it, Shabalala?’ he asked. ‘Emmanuel says it’s not a baby.’
It was full daylight now, the sun well above the tip of the hills and shining bright. The Zulu detective rested on his haunches next to Gabriel and examined the remains, happy for the distraction from the unravelling murder case. ‘It is a baby,’ he said. ‘But a baby bushbuck.’
‘Oh.’ Gabriel found the long stick used for removing the body from the fire and pushed the end into an eye socket. ‘Why did the witch kill it and burn it in a fire? It was still so small.’
‘Huh . . .’ Shabalala contemplated the scene, the red coals and the bittersweet funk rising with the smoke. ‘You have asked a very good question. Let me see if the answer is in the fire.’
He used the second long stick to lift and sift through the ashes and dying flames. The deeper the branch pushed, the more intense the smell. Emmanuel craned over Shabalala’s shoulder and cupped a palm over his mouth to block the odour.
‘What is it?’
‘Herbs, I think, but more than one kind. There is a mix of sweet, bitter and sour that I cannot remember smelling together.’ He sat back, bemused. ‘It is confusing.’
‘A muti ritual,’ Emmanuel said. The secluded spot and the burned carcass disturbed him. The smoke and image of the phantom woman and child in the fire seemed taken from his own recurring dream.
‘It is muti,’ Shabalala confirmed. ‘For what purpose, I do not know.’
‘Could be for good luck.’ Emmanuel moved back to breathe fresh air. ‘To make sure the sangoma throws Nomusa and her daughter out of the kraal tonight.’
Shabalala stood up and turned to Emmanuel. His face wore the cunning expression of a hunter who’d just figured out how to trap an elusive prey. ‘I know how to get her, Sergeant,’ he said.
TWENTY-TWO
The loose branch in the perimeter fence gave way and Emmanuel, Shabalala and Gabriel slipped into the Matebula kraal. All attempts to shake the boy had failed and the detectives now accepted that he was stuck to them for the duration of the operation. They inched along the grass wall of a hut lit by late-afternoon sun and made their way to the rear of the compound and the great chief’s hut. The common areas of the kraal were deserted and shadows lengthened across the cattle byre.
‘They are gathered behind the chief’s hut, in the meeting area,’ Shabalala said. ‘That is where the sangoma will throw the bones to find the witches who brought bad luck to the family.’
They crept past the row of wives’ huts and Emmanuel paused and turned to Gabriel. ‘Stay quiet and stay with us. Don’t call out to the Red Queen or try to hurt her. Understand?’
‘Ja. Okay.’ The boy was sullen but compliant. Running the hills and staying up through the previous night to stalk the witch had drained his energy. When Gabriel eventually crashed, he’d crash hard.
A rumble came from up ahead and Emmanuel moved more quickly. The ceremony was starting. They followed the path to the back of the great hut and hid at the end of the fence, finding gaps through which to view the ceremony. The inhabitants of the kraal, twenty or so men, women and children, kneeled in a semicircle at the foot of the umdoni tree planted in the middle of the dirt area.
The great chief, draped in animal skins, bright printed cloth and beads, sat on a carved stool. His wives kneeled to his right with their heads bowed. Mandla stood in the back of the men’s section with a member of his impi on either side of him.
‘Great chief.’ A gaunt man crouched on a dried impala skin, his shoulder-length hair smeared with red ochre and grease and fashioned into long tendrils. A cluster of bead containers and goat horns hung from strips of hide around his neck and shoulders. ‘What ails you?’
‘There are evil spirits in this kraal,’ Matebula said and the crowd hushed. ‘My daughter Amahle is dead and her bride price will never be paid. My limbs are heavy and there is a weight on my chest. I cannot sleep at night. A witch and her accomplice have cast a spell over this family and they must be removed.’
‘I will call on the ancestors for guidance,’ the sangoma said and a drumbeat sounded across the yard.
Emmanuel moved sideways to get a better look. A sturdy female sangoma with ochre-died hair adorned with white beads beat a rhythm from a large cowhide drum.
‘Begin . . .’ Matebula said. ‘Find these witches.’
The male sangoma stood up and stamped his feet to the pounding of the drum. Dried seedpods attached to his ankles rattled and he sucked noisy breath in and out of his mouth. The drumbeat increased and the sangoma danced till sweat drenched his skin and dust rose from his bare feet. He jerked and swayed as if possessed.
‘The ancestral spirits are entering his body,’ Shabalala whispered an explanation. ‘Soon they will speak through him.’
Emmanuel rejected the notion of the living dead but could not forget Baba Kaleni’s charged hands resurrecting the memory of his mother and the promise he’d made her. And what were the ghosts of the soldiers and civilians who inhabited his dreams but the dead come back to life as well?
The sangoma slowed and a glazed expression entered his eyes.
‘The ancestors are here,’ Shabalala said.
The fifth wife peeked up, anticipating the identification of the evil witches. The rest of the Matebula family held their breath and waited for the spirits to speak.
‘The Red Queen,’ Gabriel whispered, glimpsing the fifth wife. ‘That’s her, Emmanuel. Get her.’
‘We will get her, but not now,’ Emmanuel said. ‘We have to wait for the right moment. Be patient.’
The answer did not please Gabriel but he stopped whispering and put his eye back to the break in the fence. The sangoma kneeled on the impala skin and shook a small medicine bag back and forth before spilling its contents. Bones, stones, coins and shells spilled across the hide.
He examined them, reading the signs. Minutes passed without a word from the ancestors. He stood up and circled the bones, frowning.
‘Speak,’ the great chief demanded, impatient even in the face of a holy ceremony.
The sangoma said, ‘There is only one evil spirit in this kraal, great chief. She alone brought calamity to your door.’
The fifth wife’s head jerked up but she remained kneeling in the shade of the umdoni tree with stiff shoulders.
‘You are sure?’ Chief Matebula pursed his lips, dissatisfied with the information.
‘The ancestors have said it is so, great one. And the ancestors do not lie.’
‘Then show me,’ Matebula said. ‘Sniff out this witch.’
The sangoma picked up a cow-tail whisk and walked to the female section of the crowd. An unmarried girl in the front row cowered in his shadow and began to cry. Amahle’s little sister sat with her back straight and her eyes focused on the beams of light hitting the perimeter fence. The sangoma’s whisk trailed across the crown of her head and brushed against her cheeks. The other females shifted away, afraid of being singled out for blame.
‘That’s not the witch.’ Gabriel was distressed by the girl’s fear and the sound of crying.
The sangoma turned from Amahle’s sister and approached the chief’s wives. He flicked the black whisk above the head of wife number one. Mandla leaned forward, ready to act if the whisk stopped above his mother. The sangoma moved on to wife number two and then to Nomusa, who hunched her shoulders and shut her eyes. The whisk brushed her face, trailed across the next wife and came to rest on the head of wife number five.
‘Here is the witch who has brought evil to this kraal, great chief. This is she.’
‘He’s good.’ Gabriel was impressed. ‘He found the Red Queen.’
The fifth wife hit the sangoma’s hand away and spun to face Matebula. ‘It is not true, my husband. The ancestors are mistaken.’
The comment brought cries of disbelief from the crowd and appeared to shock even the great chief. He stood up, flustered. ‘Tell me how she did these things right under my nose.’
‘With black magic spells and a poisoned quill which she stabbed into your daughter’s spine,’ said the sangoma. ‘Philani Dlamini was also killed this way. It is in the bones.’
‘The bones lie.’ The fifth wife rose from her knees and pushed the sangoma in the chest. He staggered back but she kept advancing. ‘You lie. We will call another diviner to tell the truth. My hands are clean.’
Emmanuel exchanged a glance with Shabalala. Now was the time for the sangoma to apply extra pressure.
‘Your hands are soiled,’ the sangoma said, but his voice lacked the conviction needed to push the fifth wife into retreat.
‘I did not put one finger on Amahle or Philani, my husband.’ This was said direct to the great chief. ‘The true witch has cast a spell over the sangoma. She has that power.’
Emmanuel felt the foundations of their plan erode. Neither he nor Shabalala had given the youngest wife enough credit for her sheer determination in executing her strategy.
‘I am clean,’ she announced to the gathered clan. ‘I have done no harm.’
‘She’s a liar . . . a liar . . . a liar . . .’ Gabriel muttered the chant under his breath and sprinted from behind the cover of the fence. He flew across the meeting area, his dirty jacket flapping open like a torn parachute.
‘Don’t, Sergeant.’ Shabalala grabbed Emmanuel’s arm before he could sprint after Gabriel. ‘Let the ancestors complete their work.’
‘And what connection do they have to the boy?’ Emmanuel said. The situation was out of control and it looked like they’d limp back to Durban with nothing.
‘Look.’ Shabalala pointed to the meeting area.
Gabriel ran through the crowd, women and children scattering in his path. He stopped inches from the fifth wife and pinned her with a glare from his different-coloured eyes. ‘You are the Red Queen.’ Gabriel leaned closer. ‘You put Amahle to sleep. You burned a baby in the fire. I saw you with my eyes.’
The fifth wife flinched and stepped back. The rest of the family leaned forward, mesmerised by the white boy. He was already known among the Zulus in the valley to be touched by the ancestors. They watched him roam the hills by day and night, talking to the trees and the animals.
‘Husband . . . I beg you not to listen to this child.’ The youngest wife’s tone was pleading. She kept her face turned from Gabriel.
‘Great chief.’ The sangoma rallied. ‘The ancestors brought their message through the bones and now through this white boy who is suffering from ukuthwasa.’
Emmanuel looked to Shabalala for help.
‘When a sangoma is called by the ancestors to become a healer he or she suffers from an illness. Back pain, headaches and sometimes . . .’ Shabalala tapped a finger to the centre of his forehead, ‘a disturbance of the mind. This is ukuthwasa.’
‘That’s what Gabriel has?’
‘Yebo.’
Chief Matebula leapt over the impala skin and marched past his kneeling wives. The black mark of his shadow crossed over each woman in turn before hitting the empty spot where the fifth wife had been.
‘You took my daughter from me,’ he said. ‘You robbed me of her bride price and Chief Mashanini of a bride. How do you answer to this?’
‘I did none of these things, my husband.’
Gabriel circled around and stopped in her line of sight. He looked her in the eye. ‘Tell the truth and shame the devil. You are the witch who took Amahle away.’
The fifth wife looked away from Gabriel’s intense stare and said to the chief, ‘Amahle was going away from here . . . from all of us. The marriage was never to be. She hated this kraal and this family.’
‘Lies.’ Matebula dismissed the words with a flick of his hand. ‘The marriage was agreed on and Amahle was happy to do her duty to me, her father.’
‘Look.’ The fifth wife pulled a piece of paper from the waistband of her black skirt and held it up. She was flustered by Gabriel’s unsettling presence and the chief’s growing anger. ‘A bus ticket. Amahle lied to you, husband. She had no plans to stay and marry. Her eyes were on Durban. She was a bad daughter.’
Nomusa rose from the line of kneeling wives. ‘If this bus ticket belonged to Amahle, how does it come to be in your hands?’
‘I found it on the veldt.’
‘My daughter was careful. She did not drop a stitch when sewing or lose a grain of millet from a calabash.’ Nomusa focused on the fifth wife. ‘That is not Amahle’s ticket. It is yours. You are the one planning to run from this kraal and from your husband, the great chief.’
‘Is this so?’ That one of his wives would contemplate leaving offended Matebula.
‘No.’ The fifth wife’s voice was strident. ‘The ticket was in Amahle’s pocket. She was the one to buy it.’
Nomusa fixed the younger woman with a withering stare. ‘My daughter would not let you look through her pockets unless she was dead.’
Angry shouts went up from the inhabitants of the kraal and the fifth wife ran for the exit. Mandla and his impi broke from the men’s section and moved to stop her retreat, and Emmanuel and Shabalala moved out to block her escape path.
Gabriel was fast and got to the fleeing woman first. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to the ground. Black and white limbs flailed in the dirt and a cloud of dust rose into the air. The Matebula family jumped to their feet, shouting and pushing to get a look at the witch and the white boy.
‘I have her,’ Gabriel shouted. ‘I have her.’
Emmanuel moved closer and saw the quick dart of a porcupine quill being aimed at Gabriel’s arm. He grabbed the fifth wife’s wrist and pulled it away from the boy. Shabalala held her down. She kicked and punched the air, screaming.
‘Watch out for more quills,’ Emmanuel warned the Zulu detective and kneeled to examine Gabriel’s sleeve. A small barb was stuck in the fabric of the Kings Row Colleg
e uniform. The tip of the quill was stained red.
‘Are you hurt?’ Emmanuel asked. ‘Did you feel a prick on your arm?’
‘No.’ Gabriel reached for the quill and Emmanuel grasped his hand. The red on the tip was not blood.
‘Don’t touch,’ Emmanuel said. ‘It’s poison.’
The quill was a perfect piece of evidence. It matched the two found stabbed into Amahle and Philani. He pulled it free, wrapped it in his handkerchief and placed it in his jacket pocket.
‘Here.’ Mandla held the bus ticket out between thumb and forefinger. ‘For your white man’s courts.’
‘Thanks.’
‘We will escort you from the kraal to the main road. The fifth wife must be taken to the police station in town. She is not safe in the valley.’
‘If you gave the word she would be,’ Emmanuel said.
Mandla grinned and walked off to collect his impi. He was in the ascendancy, the position of great chief not far away.
‘Sergeant,’ Shabalala called. ‘We must race to beat the sunset.’
Emmanuel pulled Gabriel to his feet. The Matebula family was now divided into four smaller groups with each of the remaining wives clutching their daughters and sons. Nomusa held the little sister close in her arms and whispered into her ear. Amahle’s killer was found but the wounds in the hearts of those who loved her would never heal.
Gabriel looked at Emmanuel. He was bedraggled and vulnerable. ‘I know I wasn’t supposed to run, but I couldn’t stop,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You did well,’ Emmanuel said. ‘You did very well. I’m proud of you for being so brave.’
‘Now will you kill her, Emmanuel? She must die.’
‘That’s not my job or yours. She’ll go to prison for a very long time. That might be enough.’
‘Good.’ Gabriel was satisfied. He watched a dragonfly hover in the air, waiting for it to land. Emmanuel thought that perhaps the Zulus were right and that Gabriel was tuned in to the voices from another world.
Emmanuel crossed to Shabalala, who held the fifth wife by the arm. Her red crown had been crushed in the dirt and the decorative porcupine quills removed and heaped on the ground. None of them had the telltale reddish tint.
