by Damon Galgut
I shook my head to rid it of the memory. But though the room came back to me, with all its new chatter and activity, something was different now. Something in me, perhaps, but it found its way into the silence at our table.
Eventually I put my fork down. I said, ‘That man in there, by the bar. He was someone I worked under in the army.’
But she didn’t even look into the bar. She stared at me and said, ‘You were in the army?’
And I could see what this meant to her. The army, the bad old days: she was having dinner with an enemy.
I said defensively, ‘Laurence told me he was sorry he’d missed the army. He said he thought it was a formative experience.’
‘Laurence says silly things sometimes. He doesn’t know how the world works.’
‘But he’s got a point. A year of community service up here isn’t going to teach him much. He might’ve been better off in a shit-hole in the bush. Let him kill people, let people try to kill him. Then we’d see. He wouldn’t talk about country clinics and helping the human race any more.’
I was surprised at my own anger, the coldness and clearness of it – though I wasn’t sure who it was directed at. We were in a world without nuances now, in which all the subtle gradations of colour had turned into black and white.
She pushed her chair back from the table. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t talk like that.’
But I was unstoppable by now. ‘Why? Is that too real for you? Ideas are always better than reality, of course. But sooner or later the real world always wins. Laurence will find that out. So will you, when you go back to America and lose your African outfits and your fake name.’
‘Fuck you, mister.’
‘The feeling is mutual,’ I said, as she stood up and stalked out. I sat crunching an ice-cube, reflecting on how quickly it had all gone off the rails. My cold anger went on burning for a while. But it wasn’t her I was thinking about; it was Laurence. And I remember that his name, Laurence Waters, seemed suddenly like a combination of blandness and intrigue, banality and piety, that offended me.
It didn’t take long for me to calm down. And then I wasn’t so proud of myself any more. I got a tray from Mama, set our plates and glasses on it and climbed the stairs. But she wouldn’t answer when I knocked, though the silence behind the door was charged.
‘Please,’ I said. ‘I was totally out of line. I’m really sorry. I’m drunk. I had no right.’
‘Fuck off,’ she eventually told me.
‘I can’t. I can’t go back and tell Laurence I insulted you.’
‘I don’t care. I don’t care about you or Laurence. The two of you are obviously in love with each other, so why don’t both of you just fuck off.’
It was maybe the first time in years that I was speechless. Something of my amazement must have carried through the door, because in the ensuing silence I heard the bolt slide back.
It took me a moment to get myself together. I picked up the tray from the floor where I’d put it and went in. The room was in darkness, the only light from the courtyard outside. I remembered at a glance, from when I’d stayed here, the frugal furnishings: the narrow single bed, the table with two chairs, the sink in the corner. She was sitting at the table, by the window, looking curiously set and formal. I went over and put the tray down.
‘Well,’ I said at last.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Aren’t we two having a fine time.’
‘I’m very mixed up,’ she said. ‘Confused and angry. It’s all over, isn’t it – me and Laurence. If it ever really happened.’
I sat down opposite her. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. The whole evening was just a jumbled mess of emotions with no clear focus in the middle. The sound of voices and laughter carried up from outside. On the table was the photograph of her and Laurence in the desert, both smiling into the camera. I picked it up and tilted it towards the dim light coming in through the window.
‘You guys look happy here,’ I said.
‘That’s because we were working. He’s happy when he’s working. But I don’t make him happy.’
‘Does he make you happy?’
‘I don’t know. I guess not. I can’t remember.’
‘Why don’t you eat your food,’ I said, like a mother.
‘I’m not hungry. I’m fucked-up. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right. I’m sorry too. We’re all sorry.’
She was bitter, but all the fight had gone out of her. She was slumped and sad in the chair, like a windless sail. In the silence I could hear her breathing. Suddenly, on a fresh impulse, she said, ‘Let’s get out of here. It’s so... stuffy.’
‘But where will we go?’
‘I don’t know. There must be somewhere.’
‘Not really. We could take a drive.’
‘It seems kind of desperate.’
‘But we are.’
She gave a small, unhappy laugh. ‘What’s that place there,’ she said, ‘that big place on the hill?’
I’d been looking at it too, like a gothic galleon stranded by a flood.
‘That’s the Brigadier’s house.’
‘Who’s the Brigadier?’
‘The Brigadier is the ex-tinpot dictator of the ex-homeland. The capital of which is where we are.’
‘And where is he now, this Brigadier?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘that is the question. It depends who you listen to. Some people think he’s dead and gone. Other people say he’s around, running refugees and stolen goods and arms and stuff back and forth over the border. His retirement job, you could call it. These guys, the soldiers, are here to plug up the holes. Supposedly. But all of it’s just talk talk talk. Who knows what’s real?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Well, you can see what I’m like. Always ready to believe the worst. Keeps me prepared for all eventualities.’
‘Have you ever seen him?’
‘Oh, ja. In the old days he was always around. I saw him here once, as a matter of fact.’
‘Here?’
‘Well, down there. In the courtyard. I came here for a drink and there were all these security goons standing around. They only let me as far as the bar. The rest of it was closed off. I could see him through the door, eating with his wife. Little man. But I had a closer encounter than that.’
‘When was that?’
‘When he came to the hospital while I was on duty. He had chest pains, he said. The security guys were all over the place. I called Dr Ngema and she came to look after him. But in the meanwhile I listened to his heart through my stethoscope, so I can confirm that it does actually beat.’
She was fascinated. ‘How did he treat you?’
‘Polite but distant. I don’t think he noticed me much. He was worried about his chest pains.’
‘And what were they?’
‘Bad conscience? Gas? I don’t know. Dr Ngema took care of it and he went away.’
The memory of this event was suddenly strong again: the tiny shirtless man on the edge of the bed, holding his military cap in his hands. He was very stiff and upright, very neat.
‘Were you afraid?’
I had to think for a moment. ‘Yes, I suppose I was. I tend to be afraid of what can kill me, even if it’s not likely to happen.’
‘Incredible.’ She turned her serious, excited face to me, and I knew it before she spoke. It was as if all the turmoil of the evening had led to this single, clarifying idea. ‘Let’s go there.’
‘Where?’
‘To his house.’
‘He doesn’t live there any more. It’s empty.’
‘It doesn’t matter, I want to see. Let’s just take a look.’
‘All right,’ I said. I was glad to have found something to distract her. I wanted to make her happy.
So we drove towards the bright mansion on the hill. It was lit up every night, even though it was empty; some lackey or watchman throwing a switch. Keeping the old symbols shining.<
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There was only one road to the top. I imagine it had been made at the same time as the house was built; nobody else lived up here. The view was impressive. I’d been there only once or twice before, and that was soon after I’d arrived in the town. On the last occasion there’d been a very unpleasant incident. I’d parked and was sitting, looking out, when a policeman came and knocked on the window. I was forced to get out of the car. I had to lean on the bonnet while he searched me. Then another policeman arrived and they started to push me around. Not badly, but enough to get me scared. They were both young and full of impassive enmity. I remember that an image came to me of my wife reading an article on the third page of a city newspaper: Doctor vanishes in bantustan. And that would be that.
But then an officer appeared and everything cooled down. He was polite and professional with me. I shouldn’t come up the hill, he said; the Brigadier had many enemies and the police and army had been told to take no chances. There were other hills, he said, pointing out into the distance, from which to admire the view.
This would have been an innocuous ending to a potentially nasty story, except that there’d been a subsequent instalment. The first policeman, who’d shown such exemplary qualities of brutishness, was someone I’d never seen before and hoped never to see again; but six months later he was personally appointed by the Brigadier as chief of police in the town. It was indicative of something that he’d been promoted over the head of the kindly officer who’d saved me, and who turned out to be the man I would never see again.
I hadn’t been back, even though these days the hilltop wasn’t out of bounds any more. There were two other cars parked up here, discreet and dark – lovers, I supposed, come from who knows where for a bit of late-night fumbling – and I stopped a little way from them. The valley was a mesh of lights below us. From this height the town seemed ordinary; the same as any other country town at night. It would take a close scrutiny and a sharp brain to see that there were no moving headlamps and that most of the windows were dark.
‘Could we take a walk around it?’ The view didn’t interest her; she only had eyes for the house. But all you could see were high walls topped with barbed wire and a roof on the other side.
‘We can’t go in.’
‘I know, but let’s take a look from outside.’
The main entrance in front had a pair of steel doors on rollers. We pressed our eyes to the join, but there was only the thinnest slice of a view: grass and a pillar and steps. I thought I could see a sentry-box. We walked around the corner and down the side. And came to a stop.
‘Frank,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe it.’
I couldn’t believe it either. A small side gate, set into the wall. Ajar and open. Inside, barely visible, the gloomy spaces of a garden.
‘It doesn’t mean we have to go through,’ I said.
‘Who left it open?’
‘I don’t know. A worker, maybe. Or a security guard. With a gun.’
‘Oh, come on. We’re not going to steal anything.’
‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ I said.
But she went in and after a minute I followed her. I found myself in a quiet cul-de-sac off the main route of the garden. There was no light here, but as I moved further in the dark screens of leaves composed themselves into hedges. There was a loose crunching of gravel and twigs under my feet, which sounded terrifyingly loud to me. I tried to tread carefully, holding my breath, but let out a little cry of alarm as I lurched against her in the blackness. She giggled and clutched at me, a warm embrace that slid immediately away.
‘What’re you so afraid of?’ she whispered.
‘We’re not supposed to be here.’
‘We’re just taking a look.’
I followed as she moved away towards the wash of light higher up. The house came into view, big and gleaming and solid. We had entered into what must have been the bottom of the garden, and were moving towards a central avenue. A slate path led to a lawn with a sundial. Beyond it there was a gravel road, with flowerbeds and separate grottoes off on the other side, and I glimpsed what looked like a putting green.
The grounds were big, an acre or two, and elaborate. But as we moved closer to the light I could see that the gardens, although they were ragged and turning brown in places, were not completely neglected. The shapes in the topiary were blurred but still visible and the lawn wasn’t overly long. Somebody was keeping an eye. And maybe this wasn’t so absurd: some new politician with a new function would be posted here some time. I remembered the abandoned house near the river. This wasn’t the same. This was a different kind of desertion. People hadn’t left here completely; it was only history that had temporarily vacated its shell, until it could take up office once more in a different shape.
She’d stopped walking again. I caught up with her and started to speak, but she held up a hand to quieten me. And when I stopped I could hear it too.
It seemed incredible: voices in the garden. Two of them, speaking back and forth, in a murmur too low for individual words to be distinct. I strained my ears to hear what was being said. But instead two different sounds started up, which I recognized, but couldn’t believe. Not here, so late at night. But the sounds went on, and there was no doubt about them.
It was absurd. We were listening to a lawnmower – one of those outmoded manual mowers – and a pair of shears. The soft noise of this bizarre industry in the dark was like another language, as clear and incomprehensible as the two voices. It was hard to tell where exactly the activity was happening, but it seemed to be behind the wall of foliage next to us. The clack-clack of the shears was steady, but the mower was going up and down, up and down, and when it reached the end of its circuit we could hear the voice of the man pushing it, fixed perpetually on a note of complaint.
I touched Zanele’s arm and gestured. Although I wasn’t afraid any more and the situation was almost ridiculous, I wouldn’t want to show myself to the gardeners. To go any closer to the house would be to step into full view in the light, so we retreated down the alley on the other side. As we moved away, the urge grew in me to laugh. Our transgression was a childish one, not dangerous after all, but when I turned to her to speak I saw one of the statues in the garden, of which there were many, randomly arranged, break into calm motion and step sedately towards us. And in an instant all the danger in the world was alive and possible again.
We had both frozen, waiting. The statue came ambling into our path, until a strip of light from the house revealed the peaked cap and uniform of the security guard I’d imagined.
‘We didn’t mean to trespass,’ I said.
‘The gate was open,’ she said, ‘so we came to take a look.’
‘We came to look,’ I repeated. We were talking fast, overlapping each other, but our nervousness didn’t touch him. He was standing quite still, considering us. Then he rocked on his feet, out of shadow into the light and out again, but in that brief second I knew who he was.
The Brigadier wasn’t a brigadier. Until he staged his coup he was just an ordinary captain in the homeland defence force. Nobody had heard of him before. And it could only have been with the help of bigger, unseen friends that he had emerged from the shadows with such sudden support and power. After he had appointed himself chief minister he heaped numerous honours on his own shoulders, including his rank and a handful of medals.
He was wearing the rank and the medals now, although officially both the uniform and the army it belonged to didn’t exist any more. He made a soft clinking noise when he moved.
He said, ‘I opened the gate.’
I remembered the voice. Cool, flat, soft. It was far more distinctive than his face, which was small and ordinary. His voice was memorable. I had heard it coming out of the radio and television, always level and void of feeling, no matter what it was saying. You remembered the even, dead tone, though you might not hear the words.
What did he say, in those few brief years when he was playing god
over his little artificial world? I couldn’t tell you one quote or original line. No, it was the usual rhetoric about self-determination and a bright future, scripted for him no doubt by his white masters elsewhere. Pretoria had put him in power when his predecessor started to get troublesome, even though he was far more venal and corrupt. And he knew what he had to do to stay in place.
But the timing was bad. If the political scene had stayed on track he might’ve been able to proclaim himself life-president and people’s hero for the next forty years. But not too long after he took over, the white government down in the real capital gave in and power started to change hands. And two or three years later he was out of a job. And a few years on from that, here he was, dressed up for his role in the middle of the night, preening around the empty set with two bit players in the background.
I said to Zanele, ‘Do you know who this is?’
She shook her head.
‘This is the Brigadier.’
‘This?’
‘Yes.’
We both stared at him. The conversation we’d just had wouldn’t have been conceivable a few years ago. We’d spoken contemptuously about him, as if he wasn’t there. And now we were looking at him in the interested way you might look at an object. But he was unperturbed. He stood, rocking on his heels, no expression on that tiny, stolid face. His eyes glinted whitely in the gloom.
But now she changed. Since I’d started describing him to her, much earlier in the evening, I’d been aware that her fascination contained an element that was disturbingly close to arousal. Now you could see it happen. It was as if she’d been introduced to a celebrity. Something in her warmed and opened to him; she looked at him differently; she actually moved closer.
‘We wanted to see your house,’ she said.
‘You want to see my house?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come.’
He started walking back the way we’d come, giving off that clink of metal. She looked quickly at me, almost guiltily, then followed. I hung back for a moment, and only caught up where they’d stopped next to the two men working in the garden.
