The Monster's Daughter

by Michelle Pretorius

  Alet smiled. “I was looking for Tilly.”

  Wexler’s initial surprise morphed into practiced charm. “She’s just finishing up, Constable.” He looked back into the office.

  Tilly’s head appeared in the door behind him. She looked tired, her mascara lightly smeared, forming asymmetrical black lines in the corners of her eyes.

  “Hey, Till. You up for a drink?”

  “I’ll be there now-now,” Tilly said. “Give me a minute.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve kept you from your plans, Mathilda.”

  “No, I didn’t—”

  Wexler turned to Alet. “Why don’t I pour you a nightcap, Constable?”

  “Ja … Thanks.” Alet followed Wexler to the bar, wondering what exactly she had overheard.

  “Can you appreciate a good scotch, Constable Berg?” Wexler reached under the bar and produced a bottle. “I hide this from the plebeians.”

  “I drink whiskey.”

  “Prepare to be delighted, then.” Wexler set out two short glasses and poured a healthy measure into each. It was smoother than anything Unie had to offer, subtle layers of flavor dancing on Alet’s tongue.

  “You might be spoiling me for rotgut, Mr. Wexler.”

  Wexler laughed. “Life’s too short to drink bad liquor, my dear.” He took another sip. “Were you waiting long? Outside the office, I mean.”

  “No.” Alet buried her nose in the glass. There was a tenseness in Wexler’s charm, a wariness that made him seem all the more suspicious.

  Tilly appeared in the doorway. “I’m sorry, Alet. Would you mind if we do this some other time? It’s late and I have to make a supply run to Oudtshoorn in the morning.”

  “Ja. No worries.” Alet pushed her chair away from the bar. “Hey, maybe I’ll come with you? I have to go to Oudtshoorn anyway. We can catch up on the way.” A brief look passed between Tilly and Wexler.

  “I suppose that’s okay,” Tilly said.

  Alet drained her glass. “Thanks for the drink, Mr. Wexler.”

  Wexler’s fixed smile listed to the right. “Pleasure, Constable.”

  Alet felt strangely alert as she descended Zebra House’s steps. Something was off and Wexler was involved, that much she was sure of. The fact that he had suddenly appeared in Unie the day of the murder was suspicious. And he had looked positively spooked when he thought that she had overheard his conversation with Tilly.

  Without knowing the identity of the victim, there was no way to tie Wexler or anyone else to the murder. Alet desperately needed to put a name and a face to the charred remains. To do that, she had to find out what was in Koch’s report before Mathebe got her kicked off the case.

  1955

  Flippie

  The tension in Sophiatown’s narrow streets was palpable as Flippie stepped off the bus. He walked over to a group of people gathered in front of an eviction notice, which had come three days earlier than the government had initially scheduled it. Flippie read over the converging heads, the words banal, the message clear. Vacate your homes and leave for Meadowlands by six a.m. Or else. Policemen armed with Sten guns and knobkerries drove by and the crowd dispersed, skulking back to their shacks.

  The Odin Theater’s lights were out as Flippie walked past, as if it too had given up. He had been a mere child, scared and troubled, when he first sat in its seats, wondering if he had made a mistake in coming to Johannesburg. He had followed an ANC man there from Bloemfontein. There was the promise of meaningful work, of getting an education, of the party looking after its own. But few were truly trusted. His fortune had changed when, on a lark, he submitted a satire about life in the township to African Drum magazine. He was offered a regular gig. The moment he had walked into the Drum offices, he forgot that he was a second-class citizen.

  The sound of jazz ghosted in Flippie’s mind, memories of the greats that had performed on the Odin’s stage, Hugh Masekela blasting his trumpet, Miriam Makeba, her voice like a mournful call from God, he saw them all. And the parties, the rallies, black and white and coloured and Indian mixed in those seats, defiant of laws and regulations, bringing to life a world that could have been, everybody blissfully ignoring the precipice they were on. But the government was not blind to the dangers it posed. The government had introduced the Native Resettlement Bill, and Sophiatown was next.

  The Odin’s stage became host to political meetings, everyone eager to resist the Western Areas removal scheme. Through all the chanting, fists in the air, spirits high on skokiaan, they adhered to the policy of passive resistance. Some, like Mandela, brought up the possibility of violence, but the leaders put an end to such talk. They had resisted, and they had lost. That was all there was to it.

  As he passed through Bertha Street, Flippie let his eyes rest on an enormous oak tree. Two souls had hanged themselves from its branches in protest some weeks before. Flippie had known one of the men from the 39 Steps, his favorite shebeen. Drunk on his own importance, Flippie had once accused him of being a police informant simply because the man didn’t agree with Dr. Xuma’s leadership. He now envied the man his conviction. But then again, what did the death of a black man prove to white men who wouldn’t even share a bus seat for fear that they would catch the disease of colour?

  Flippie needed a drink, to hear mbaqanga one last time, before it was silenced forever in Sophiatown. He drifted through the familiar streets, past the neat brick houses and the one-room shacks, walls with WE WONT MOVE painted on them in crude letters. He walked by the Jewish and Chinese shops on Good Street, gang members still hiding in dark corners, as if the notices were a bluff meant to deprive them of their fiefdoms. At the top of the rickety staircase he was greeted by silence. The shebeen door would not give, locked and bolted, as if Fatty had cared that someone might loot her establishment before it got bulldozed.

  “Hey, you! Sy’s weg. Gone yesterday al. You missed a lekker party.” In the street below, a young boy waved at Flippie. He was a baby, no more than eight or nine, with scared eyes too big for his face. “You looking for dop?” The boy looked around for a moment as if asking permission from the shadows before answering. “Gestapo.” He pointed at himself. “I fix you good.”

  Flippie laughed. “You’re in a gang, hey? So where’s this place?” He leaned on the railing. “This place I can get a dop.”

  “Last shebeen standing in Sophiatown, Baba.” The boy looked around nervously. “Sell you by the bottle. You like you some whiskey? Gin? How ’bout some Barberton, hey? You give me two bob, I go get it for you. Cheap-cheap.”

  “Two bob? Sheesh!” Flippie sauntered down the stairs. Close up, he noticed the old flat cap on the boy’s head, probably scavenged off the streets where people’s unwanted things piled up as the time of leaving approached. “You think I’m stupid, hey? I give you my money, I never see your face again. You bring that dop here, then we talk.”

  The boy looked like he might cry, his scheme unraveling with the slightest resistance. Flippie reached out to touch his shoulder, meant as an apology for not being gullible. He was rewarded with a swift kick to the shin.

  “Hey, you little kak!”

  The boy took off, suddenly accompanied, out of nowhere, by a dog with a ratty coat. The pair disappeared down the street, into the confusion of people milling around in a resigned stupor.

  Toby Street was lined with furniture and boxes. Children chased each other between the piles and made forts under chair legs. At number fifteen, Mamma Day backed out of her front door, clinging to a plank-backed wardrobe. She stood on her tiptoes, her hefty curves squished against the side as she tried to lift it.

  “Haai nee, Philemon. Watch what you do. You going to drop it! Stupid man.”

  “Sorry, sorry, Mamma.” Only Philemon’s fingertips and the top of his fedora were visible behind the wardrobe. The two did a comical two-step, grunting and shuffling, negotiating their way down the front steps and into the street, Mamma Day cursing and Philemon apologizing.

  “You need help, Mamm
a?” Flippie folded his jacket on top of the Sunlight Soap boxes that were tied with twine and piled high next to the couch. The whole scene was surreal, the cozy living room transported into the open air, as if somebody had erased the walls of Mamma Day’s boardinghouse.

  “Now you ask, you good-for-nothing.” Mamma Day fell onto the sofa, its seams exploding with a poof. She used the tip of her head scarf to tap at sweat running down her face. “Where you been all day, hê?”

  “Man’s gotta earn a living, Mamma.”

  “You call that work? All you do is write stories and party. Not a scratch on your Florsheims.”

  “Is good work, Mamma. You then also read Drum.”

  “To make sure you can pay rent!”

  Flippie laughed, but Mamma Day’s eyes welled up. Tomorrow there would be no more boardinghouse, no more rent to collect. He sat down next to her, wrapping his arms around her soft shoulders.

  “Hey now, Mamma. Hey. It’s going to be all right.”

  Mamma shook her head, her voice a high-pitched wail struggling between sobs. “When I was a girl we lived in a shack by the mines. Police kicked us out. We moved, all the time. One squatter camp to the next. So I said to myself, save your money, Doris. No movies, no parties. I bought this house, here, with everything I had. When I moved that big coffin in, I thought, I’ll never have to move it out again. This place is mine and nobody can make me go again.”

  Flippie took the handkerchief from his breast pocket and gave it to Mamma Day. She melted into him, blowing her nose without modesty, white cloth disappearing up her nostrils.

  “You know what they are going to call it? The new name when the whites move in?”

  Flippie nodded. Triomf. The whites’ triumph over the likes of them.

  “They won,” Mamma Day said. She turned to look Flippie in the eye, her hand on his. “You promise me.”

  “What, Mamma?”

  “Finish those classes at the university. So you become a big man. Help your people.”

  “I don’t know, Mamma.” Flippie looked away. He had finished his second year of law school, correspondence classes, but it was a futile dream. Black lawyers couldn’t even defend their own people in court, and working for Drum offered easy money and good times.

  “You’re a smart boy, Phillip. Don’t be a nothing. You promise!” She clutched him tighter.

  “Okay, Mamma, okay. Don’t cry.”

  Mamma Day pulled away. “This house isn’t going to pack itself.” She was her down-to-business self again, refusing to look at him. “I still have to clean everything.”

  “Mamma, don’t do that.”

  “Nobody is going to look in these rooms and say I was a dirty meit, hear? You go now. Go pack. The lorries won’t wait.”

  Flippie walked through the eerily empty rooms of number fifteen. Mamma Day’s bright batiks were gone, only their outlines visible on discolored walls. He pulled a battered suitcase out from under his bed and piled everything he owned into it. Travel light. Never put down roots, never be more than a suitcase away from leaving. Rules his father had lived by, drilled into him and Tessa. It had prepared him well for this day. He allowed himself only a moment to linger on the memories of his childhood.

  Flippie helped Philemon carry his bed and the small dresser outside with the other things that were bound for a shack rented from the government. The water taps and outhouses would be communal because the government had decided that indoor plumbing was a luxury they didn’t need. When he went back in to get his bag, Mamma Day was already going through his room with a broom.

  “I’m going now, Mamma.”

  She paused, eying the suitcase in his hand.

  Flippie suddenly felt guilty. “You know I can’t come with you.”

  His skin was dark, his mother a black, so he was officially classified black, even though his father was white. Mamma Day was a coloured, descended from a long line of mixed blood, from the original Dutch colonists to the Malay and Chinese indentured laborers. For this distinction, a shade of brown, he had to go to Meadowlands and she to Eldorado Park. The government did tests when they weren’t sure which category you fell into. The color of your eyes and the flatness of your nose were all measured. If a comb went smoothly through your hair, you were classified a coloured; if not, you were black.

  “You take care of yourself,” Mamma Day said without stopping her labor.

  Flippie put his fedora on his head. “I will, Mamma.”

  Fear distorted the faces of the people he passed outside. Flippie pulled out the Mycro camera he had borrowed from one of his Drum colleagues. The picture quality wasn’t great, but the camera was small and could be hidden easily. Small children sat on piles of debris, forlorn women in their Sunday best huddled near their possessions while men stood helplessly beside them. They all tried to smile when the flash went off, but mustered only looks of dazed bewilderment. The world had to see, this day had to be remembered, Flippie thought as he walked through the chaos.

  The rumble of lorries rolled along the edge of day as two thousand policemen descended on the township. Resistance was met with practiced violence, a blow with a sjambok, the barrel of a gun pointed at the transgressor’s head. Women clutched blankets around their shoulders, a last barrier between them and the invaders, as they waited their turn to be herded onto the backs of the trucks. Bulldozers flattened shacks minutes after their occupants walked out.

  A commotion of angry male voices and a woman’s screams drew Flippie’s attention to the end of the block. Two white policemen raised their guns at the crowd of people that surrounded them. A third one held a small boy by the neck. Flippie recognized the little swindler from the night before. His dog lay at his feet, blood running from its mouth. The animal wasn’t dead yet. It whimpered pitifully, its sides heaving. The boy struggled against the policeman, his arms flailing, tears running down his cheeks.

  The policeman raised the kierie and brought it down on the boy’s back, his face reddening from the strain. “That’ll teach you, boytjie!” As he lifted his arm again, the boy looked over at Flippie, cowering in anticipation. A young woman stifled a scream as the blow fell, her hands cupped over her mouth.

  “Officer!” Flippie ran toward them, not sure what he was going to do.

  A sneer of contempt crossed the policeman’s face. “Stay back, or you’re next, kaffir.”

  Flippie smiled, his shaking body belying his bravado. “I’m a reporter for Drum, sir. Could we have a picture?” He revealed the Mycro under his coat.

  The policeman looked at this colleagues in a moment of indecision. It was enough to distract them. The boy broke loose and ran. The policeman pulled out a gun.

  “Nee, Willem!” one of the other policemen shouted. He inclined his head toward Flippie.

  The policeman trained his gun on the dog in frustration and fired. The animal’s body jerked, the head wound ending its suffering. The panicked crowd scattered. He trained his gun on Flippie. “Give me that!” He stormed over to Flippie and knocked the camera out of his hands. The Mycro landed in the dirt and the policeman kicked it, stomping on what remained.

  “You’re done, okay?” The barrel of the gun remained trained on Flippie.

  “Ja, Baas.” Flippie kept his eyes on the ground, aware of the animal fear clawing at his insides, commanding him to run. A sudden blow stung his cheek and he fell back. The policeman called Willem stared him down, daring him to retaliate. Flippie stayed down. He stared at the policeman’s polished boots, wondering if this was how it all ended. His eyes stayed trained on those boots as they backed away, going back to loading the lorries. Flippie heard them shouting at people above the din.

  “Are you all right, sir?” The young woman who had been so distressed stood before him. She was tall and slender, carrying herself with a grace that belied her worn dress.

  Flippie nodded. He quickly looked away from her big eyes, knowing he’d break down if he stayed there one more moment.

  “You’re hurt.”
She touched her cheek.

  Flippie became aware of a searing pain in the mirroring spot on his own cheek.

  “Don’t,” she said as he lifted his hand.

  “Eina!” His touch sparked a raw explosion, his fingers red with blood.

  “It looks bad.” She glanced around helplessly. “The clinic’s been bulldozed. I can see to that once we get to Meadowlands.”

  “I’m all right,” Flippie said. He struggled to get up, ignoring her outstretched hand. “Don’t worry yourself, Ousie.”

  “Prudence.”

  Flippie nodded. “Prudence.”

  “You were brave. My brother, Zweli, he …” Prudence put her hand to her mouth again. It took her a moment to speak. “I will help you.” There was a quiet dignity about her, her words a statement of purpose. It was a faint flash, a vision of a future Flippie had never thought about, her life alongside his. He had accepted being alone as his fate, but he suddenly saw this woman, the possibility of more than himself, more than loneliness in a country that had pushed him to the margins. Flippie watched as Prudence walked toward the lorries, then he picked up his suitcase and followed her to Meadowlands.

  Tessa

  “I would like to bring a final motion to the floor, ladies.”

  Tessa sighed as the Free State Women’s Agricultural Union’s representative from Verkeerdevlei stood up. She was a hawkish woman, her lips permanently pursed, her hips too narrow to bear normal-size children. Tessa glanced at the enormous clock on the wall. It was three already. She’d never have enough time to run her errands.

  Being in Bloemfontein brought back too many memories. As Tessa drove into town early that morning, she wondered what had happened to the plot, resisting the temptation to drive by it. She had left, what was it, seven years ago now? The realization shocked her. The passage of time seemed so irrelevant while you were living it. Only in hindsight did it become monstrous. She had had to steal away from her home like a thief, waiting on the platform all night, taking the first train out, getting off in Bethlehem. Two days later, she was employed as a housekeeper by a farmer named Booysen, a cantankerous widower. It was Booysen who had asked her to attend the annual meeting. “Women interfering with men’s business,” he had said. “Go listen what they are yammering about.” As far as Tessa could tell, he was right about the yammering. Every motion was a charade of self-delusion and frivolous absurdity.