by Mark Winkler
“What was it like to work with Sonia?” she asks.
I shrug. This time it means I’m thinking. “Fine,” I say. I sound like a teenager so I say some more. “Generally good. I think we were friends. Mostly.”
Doctor Petrakis writes the word under Sonia’s picture. Friends. Then she looks at me over her glasses.
“Until the end, I suppose,” I add.
“Why ‘until the end’?” she asks.
I shrug again. “Because she basically fired me, I suppose.”
“So, before that you were friends?”
I stare at the carpet for a while. I scratch my face. It goes scritch scritch because I haven’t been shaved for a day or two. “We’d get together after work at Eric’s. Chat. We’d have a few beers. Sometimes lots.”
Doctor Petrakis frowns. Smiles a tight little smile.
“Her boyfriend is an arsehole” I say. “He didn’t like Eric’s very much. He didn’t like me very much either. In fact he liked me so little that I don’t think he ever considered me a person. Let alone competition. I suppose that’s why he tolerated Sonia and me going to Eric’s together. Like a guy would tolerate his girlfriend socialising with a gay guy. We’d talk about work. About the people there. Have a laugh. Get really pissed sometimes too.”
“Eric’s?”
“A bar near the paper. Our local.”
“And Sonia would also drink?”
“Usually. Mostly, I suppose. I don’t know. I only saw her drink when I was there. So I don’t know if she sat there drinking alone or with other people when I wasn’t there.”
Doctor Petrakis goes to her desk and scribbles a note on her pad.
“Did you have any other friends?”
“There was Madge. And Mrs. du Toit.”
“Yes, there was. Were. We’ll talk about them another time, shall we?”
“There was Eric. He was sort of a friend.”
Doctor Petrakis sits down at her desk and looks at me.
“What do you remember about the day you were—about your last day at the paper?”
“Not much. I left.”
“Did Sonia invite you to Eric’s for a drink after work?”
I shrug. I shake my head. Together they mean I don’t know.
“Did you go to Eric’s for a drink?”
Shrug. Shake my head.
“Nathan, I really need you to tell me what you remember. About the evening after your last day at work.”
I breathe in, breathe out. “I left the office. I didn’t have a box of stuff like people in the movies who get fired. I had nothing at the office that was mine. I left. That’s all I remember.”
“So your last memory was leaving the office?”
“Yes.”
“And what do you remember next?”
“Being here. Here in your office. You talking and me not.”
This time Doctor Petrakis is the one to take a deep breath. She makes a duck face and sighs. I think she’s going to call the end of the session. She doesn’t. She speaks slowly. “How much time was there, do you think, between your last day at work and your coming here?”
I shrug. “A night,” I say.
She writes long enough to write, “a night.” Her eyebrows are up. “How did you get here?” she asks.
I’d never thought about that. I was there. Then I was here. How the fuck did I know how I got here? I forget things. I like to forget things. I stare at the carpet. It’s looking a little like a jungle again. Doctor Petrakis picks up the phone, dials. “I need another half-hour,” I hear her say. She puts down the phone. “Nathan, please try to think about the time between your last evening at the paper and the time you arrived here.” She takes her glasses off and puts them on her desk. Sits back. Watches me.
I walked home. Up the hill. Past the laundry. Past Salie’s café. Past the invisible buildings and cars and people on the way. Took the lift. Mrs. du Toit had gone away. No chance of meeting her on the way up. I looked for some of her wine in my flat. I knew there wouldn’t be any. I sat on the couch. Sonia had gone away. Or maybe she hadn’t. She’d invited me to Eric’s. No hard feelings. A last friendly drink. After this she would go away. Definitely. I turned on the TV. I was hoping for rubbish alien documentaries. I watched some stuff about people buying other people’s junk. And then I watched another programme about people trying to sell other people’s junk. Someone paid a lot of money for a signed picture of Fatty Arbuckle. The old movie star was smiling. It must have been taken before his trouble with the dead actress. I could stick it on my wall and make Fatty Arbuckle my great-grandfather. I couldn’t believe the next programme. It was about a whole different bunch of people buying junk from a completely different bunch. This time they rooted around in old sheds and trash. Like bergies on garbage day. Then they sold it to people who tried to sell it to other people. There was something strangely apocalyptic about it all.
It was dark out. The glow from the streetlights rose up to light my ceiling. The next programme was about people trying to replicate antique guns by using modern materials. No aliens. It was boring. I left the flat and walked down the hill to Eric’s. I stopped at the window. Saw that there were only about four people inside. Eric was polishing glasses. Every now and then he yawned. If you knew Eric like I know Eric you’d know it was time to leave. He was big enough to swallow you whole. Probably would, just so he could close up. Two journos sat at the counter. Not Dino. And there sat Sarel and Sonia. The journos were a guy and a girl. The guy had his arm around the girl. Sarel had his wallet and keys in his hand. They were taking Eric’s hint. They were about to leave. Then I saw Sarel say something. Sonia threw back her wild hair and laughed. I could hear her laugh through the glass. Sarel waved at Eric. He shambled over. He didn’t look too happy. He shambled away again. The girl journo put her bag back on the counter. She scampered off. To the loo, I supposed. The boy journo followed her. Sarel watched them go. I could see him looking over Sonia’s shoulder. He leant forward and whispered something. She whipped her head around to look where the journos had gone. Then she laughed again. Sarel was still in her face. She took his ears in her hands. She pulled him close. Kissed him. Backed off and shook her head. Sarel looked at her and took her face in his hands and kissed her. There was no more tossing. They kissed and kissed. For a second I felt for Dino. The second passed. Eric put two shooters on the counter. I wondered if he ever thought about me. Sonia and Sarel looked at Eric. Put their fingers to their lips. As if they were in a pantomime and Eric was the audience. Eric poked a fat finger at the bill on the table. Sarel paid. Said something to Sonia. They both looked towards the loos and laughed. Sonia shook her head. Then they downed their shooters and stood up. Sonia didn’t look too sober. I needed to pee. I should have peed against a plane tree fifteen minutes earlier. Now it was too late. Sonia and Sarel were coming out. I stepped back, hid behind a skinny tree trunk. It was a ridiculous hiding place. They stopped and kissed again.
“Dino’s going to kill you,” Sonia said.
“Only if you let him.”
“Your place, then?”
“Absolutely,” said Sarel. “See you there.”
They kissed again. I could hear the sucking of it from where I stood. Sarel put his hand on Sonia’s crotch and squeezed. She moaned and almost doubled over and pushed him away. Then she laughed and said, “Wait!” and kissed him on the cheek and went left up St. George’s Mall. Sarel went off to the right. I went after Sonia. She wasn’t walking that straight.
I came up behind her. “Psst!” I hissed.
She squealed and jumped. For a moment I could see the whites of her eyes as well as the blue. “Jesus wept, Nathan,” she said. “Fuck me if I didn’t almost piss myself.”
“Thought I’d walk you to your car,” I said. “It’s not that safe out here.”
“Where the hell have you bee
n, anyway?” she said as we walked.
“Here and there,” I said. “I got to Eric’s too late to join you. Sorry.”
“No problem. Are you okay, Nate? After today and all, I mean?”
“I’m perfectly fine. I’m not so sure about you, though. Were you planning to drive?”
We’re walking up Keerom Street. It’s darker there. Deserted. Especially on a week day. I could feel Madge’s scarf in my pocket. The silkiness turned greasy with all my fiddling. Sonia’s arm was hooked into mine. She might have fallen over otherwise. She squinted up at me. She always squinted. She laughed.
“Of course I’m going to drive,” she said.
“No you’re not,” I said.
Doctor Petrakis is still waiting. I don’t think she’s moved. Her glasses are still on the desk. Maybe she’s scared of breaking my train of thought. Derailing the story. Shutting me up again. Negating the extra half-hour she’s requested. She sees me looking at her. The eyebrows go up. “And?” she says.
I’m not going to answer. I don’t care how I got here. Or how long it took. It’s not important.
“I might have killed Sonia,” I say.
The basic distinction
“The basic distinction between sanity and insanity,” Doctor Petrakis says, “is whether the accused knows right from wrong.”
It’s our last session before my trial. It’s going to be a biggie, Ricky kept saying. Until his comes up of course. His will be much bigger. Of course. Bigger headlines too, he said. Flaying open the underbelly of violence that forms the pillars of South African society. And Mr. Naicker was worried about mixing metaphors. “We all want to kill every each one of us.” That’s a quote. From Ricky. I didn’t know what he meant at the time. It was barely grammatical, even. So I leant over the entropy of the chess table and said, very quietly, “Why don’t you shut the fuck up before I strangle you.” Ricky looked like he’d seen a ghost. He pushed his chair back. It stuck on the linoleum again. He went over backwards. Again. The screaming and the nurses. They expected blood. There wasn’t any.
They take me to court in an ambulance. I’m in a wheelchair. Probably so that I can’t run away. I have cuffs on my wrists. The cuffs are chained to the wheelchair. The wheelchair is chained to the floor of the ambulance. It reminds me of a Negro spiritual. I’m not sure if you can still say “Negro.” I can’t remember all the words. Something about head-bones connecting to neck-bones. I remember the tune. It’s not a tune that’s easy to forget. Even for me. It sticks in my head the whole way. The neck-bone’s connected to the—head-bone. Over and over. I try to forget it. I can’t. There are people outside the court. They’re shouting and waving placards. The placards say things about the death penalty. About bringing it back. There must be another big trial on today.
“Don’t stress, my guy,” Johnson says. I’m not, though. Even if this might be my first day on the journey to prison. I don’t know why I’m not stressing.
He wheels me down the corridors. The paint is peeling. There are potholes in the linoleum. There’s a smell of feet and stale cigarette smoke. There are no-smoking signs everywhere. I’m being looked at. Stared at. Whispered about behind cupped hands. I put on my retard face to give them more to talk about. My jaw hangs open and my head tilts to one side and my eyes go all squiffy.
Doctor Petrakis is standing outside Court Six. When she sees me her eyebrows fly up and her eyes widen. “Nathan!” she hisses. I feel as if I’m one of her children. There are two men with her. The younger one has a long thin face. An undershot jaw. A cape over his shoulders that reaches almost to the floor. The older man also wears a cape. He leans on a stick. His back is bowed. He has an amazing amount of hair in his ears. They are big and meaty and lie flat against his head. His eyebrows haven’t been trimmed since about 1979. Doctor Petrakis continues to scowl at my retard face.
“Enough of that, Nathan,” she says. “This is Advocate McEwan and counsel Mr. Carver.” Both men nod. I don’t know which is which. The old man puts out a hand. Withdraws it when he sees my cuffs. And my face, too, probably.
“Nathan,” he says. He grunts as if he’s tired, or sore somewhere. “Here we are, son.”
I don’t know what he wants with me. I put on my nothing face. I look at Doctor Petrakis. “Are you my friend, Aphrodite?” I ask. I’ve never called her Aphrodite before. I’m sure she asked me to call her that a long time ago.
“What do you think?” she says. Therapists. They can never answer a question without turning it back on you. Always penetrating your most private bits. The rapists. I pity her husband. What would you like to do this weekend, Aphrodite dear? What would you like to do, darling husband? Just imagine.
“Do you really want to know what I think?” I say to Doctor Petrakis.
“Nathan, I’ve been trying for months to know what you think.” She puts a hand on my shoulder. Smiles. I could eat that smile. Chew those lips off her. I am handcuffed to the chair. I wonder if she’s even close to knowing what I think. Such a closed and secret place, the brain. Impenetrable. Even for a dedicated rapist.
“What I think is that we’re all insane,” I say. Her eyebrows go up. The men in their Batman capes look at each other. I carry on before she can ask why I think that. “In varying degrees. We’re all a little madder than the one sitting next to us. All of us somewhere on the spectrum of bonkers.” Birds on a wire, sitting wing to wing. The increments of madness so small, from one to the other.
I am accused
I am accused of the attempted murder of Sonia McFarlane. Who, the prosecutor points out, was saved by the timely arrival of one Sarel Theron. Who had placed his car keys in the victim’s handbag for safekeeping, and had forgotten to retrieve them on leaving the bar. Ms McFarlane, the prosecution would show, was in the process of being strangulated with the aid of a scarf, pink or thereabouts in colour, by the accused. Had Mr. Theron not arrived, Ms McFarlane would not have survived.
I wonder whether “strangulated” is a real word. And whether the correct “process” was being followed by the accused at the time.
I am accused of the murder of Madge Cartwright. The cause of death strangulation, the instrument a silk garment or piece of fabric, pink or thereabouts in colour.
I am accused of the murder of one Constable Annette de Villiers, whose body was found in the Company’s Gardens, her biker boots protruding from a bush. On her person was found a black-and-white Edwardian-era photograph of a woman with features not unlike her own. The postmortem revealed that Constable de Villiers had also been strangulated. Though more effectively, it was clear, than Ms McFarlane.
I am accused of the murder of one Adele du Toit, whose car was discovered in Woodstock, and whose body was found in a ravine off Tafelberg Road.
Beneath Mrs. du Toit’s body was found a photograph, dating to the early 1970s, of a woman wearing a red dress, standing at what appeared to be an airfield, who bore a notable resemblance to the deceased. The post mortem found that Mrs. du Toit had also been strangulated. My fingerprints were all over the car, inside and out.
My place is supposed to be in the dock. I don’t know if it’s called a dock here. I’m going by Hollywood. The dock is raised. It’s narrow. Along the side facing the judge there are microphones. I’m not in the dock because my wheelchair won’t fit. Johnson has wheeled me up next to it. I’m blocking the little flappy door that leads to the pit where the lawyers and officials sit. From where I am, I look over a sunken area full of people. I show a man in police uniform my retard face. He looks away. On the other side is the judge. Old Mr. Carver sits with his back to me. The younger man is standing at a microphone. His hair has begun to thin at his crown. I wonder if he’s noticed this. Whether anyone has pointed it out to him. He is listening to a woman who stands to the left of the judge. The woman is making the accusations. She also has a microphone. It isn’t working. She looks about twelve. She is Indian. She
has a dot on her forehead between her eyes. There’s a mystique in it that makes her more beautiful. She’s been talking all the while. I struggle to make out what she’s saying.
All the women, the Indian woman at the microphone says—Madge Cartwright, Annette de Villiers and Adele du Toit—had been strangulated with the same pink (or cerise or crimson or rose, depending upon interpretation) silk scarf. She produces a plastic bag stuffed with Madge’s scarf. She calls it Exhibit One. Said scarf, the state would show, was found on my person after the McFarlane incident. Even from here I can see how filthy Exhibit One is. Madge would be horrified.
The Indian woman sits down. She flicks a look at me. I can see she doesn’t like me very much. I suppose I can understand why. I don’t care. The judge writes something down and turns a page. Then she says something to Mr. McEwan. The judge is so far away that I can’t hear her. Her microphone isn’t working either. Mr. McEwan replies. He has his back to me. I can’t hear him. Mumble mumble mumble, he goes. He leans into a microphone. It seems his is also out of order. I’m not expected to say anything. Just to sit there. An exhibit. Evidence that I exist. Everyone stands when the judge stands. I can’t stand, of course. I’m chained to the wheelchair. The judge leaves the courtroom. Some people sit down again. Others turn to look at me. Some begin talking to each other. Everyone begins to file out slowly. The room smells of dust and armpit and faraway cigarettes.
“Did I really kill those women?” I ask Doctor Petrakis. The sky is a thick dark blue. It presses on her window. I wonder if the glass will withstand the pressure of all that blueness. If not the window will burst inwards. We’ll both be drowned by sky if it does.
“You tell me, Nathan,” she says. Her cold has gone. There’s coffee in her mug. Not some or other citrus tea. I wonder if she’ll ever call me Nate. Like Madge used to. And Sonia.
