City of Blood

by Martie de Villiers

  ‘The shelter is your home, Msizi,’ I said. ‘Grace will never make you leave.’

  He remained silent. The little boy stared at me with fearful eyes. Inside my chest my heart thumped like it did that day I had helped Hope; that day, with all those people looking on, my heart was beating loud enough for me to hear it. Today there was nobody watching. The people who lived in this skeleton-building had no eyes.

  ‘This is not a good place for you to live,’ I told the two children.

  They remained silent. I crouched in front of the little girl. Her eyes grew large. I knew then they couldn’t stay here. They would soon be dead. I lifted the little girl up in my arms. She weighed no more than the box of mangoes did that day Hope was stabbed. She didn’t speak or struggle, but her body was rigid.

  ‘Come,’ I said to her brother. ‘Come with me.’

  Walking back to the shelter, Msizi did not speak at all. How did he know about that place? I couldn’t bring myself to ask. Every fifteen minutes we had to rest because the little boy got tired quickly and I could not carry both.

  Grace opened the kitchen door, took one look at the children and, without a word, took the little girl from my arms and kissed her on the cheek. She took them in and fed them. She buttered bread and gave it to them and the boy didn’t chew, he just swallowed as fast as he could, but the girl struggled and then Grace took some leftover pumpkin and mashed it and fed the girl with a spoon and gave them both a glass of milk.

  ‘What is wrong with Msizi?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s afraid that you will take these children in and let him go.’

  ‘He told you that?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I will speak to him,’ she said. ‘He must not think that.’ She placed the girl on my lap and gave me the spoon. Every time the spoon came near, the girl opened her mouth wide. She reminded me of a little bird.

  After they had eaten, Grace put them both in the bath and washed them. She took clean clothes from the cupboard in the laundry room and helped them to get dressed. The clothes were far too large for them. She threw their old clothes out with the garbage. Later she started making phone calls. There were several shelters for homeless children in the city, but they were always full. She found room for the children at the church shelter. One of their children had been taken to hospital. He had been ill for a long time and he would not be coming back. It was only one bed, but these were small children, they would easily fit into one bed.

  That night after dinner, when Grace washed the dishes, I noticed that she was wiping tears away with the back of her hand.

  ‘I’m sorry, Grace,’ I said. I knew she was crying because of the twins.

  ‘Do not be sorry, Siphiwe,’ she said. ‘You did the right thing.’

  I went to bed that night, thinking that I would never find Lucky Mosweu. I also thought about the little girl who was safe, with her brother, sleeping in a bed. Grace, as usual, had spoken the truth. I had done the right thing. One good deed can make up for many bad things done. Grace’s words. I hoped this counted as a good deed. I closed my eyes and prayed that I’d sleep and not think about my brother and not dream about trains.

  12

  EVERY FRIDAY I worked at the charity and today they asked if I could work all day. They were given paint for the walls and they wanted everything to look nice and tidy, because people from England were to visit. They said they would pay me extra. I’d spoken to the woman about the garden and today she had brought eight small black bags with plants in. Arum lilies, she called them. Each plant had a single white flower. I decided to make a flower bed in front of the house for the visitors to see. She had also brought parsley and rosemary plants – she said she liked herbs. I planted these near the kitchen and afterwards I could smell the rosemary on my hands.

  I was lucky to have this job. The man and woman who ran the charity were good people, like Grace had said. The woman liked to wear colourful dresses. Today she wore a green-and-purple headscarf. She talked enough for two people, which was a good thing because her husband never said a word. I didn’t finish painting until late and then I had dinner with the woman – who said I must call her Stacey – and the man, whose name was Bryan. Stacey had cooked meat stew with carrots and potatoes, and rice.

  While we ate, Stacey told me that she had added some of the rosemary to the stew. I said that I could taste it. It was very good stew. We talked about other things, family – hers lived all over the world: a son in Australia, a daughter in Canada.

  ‘My uncle lives near Lesotho,’ I said.

  She started talking about the Drakensberg Mountains and the Golden Gate near Lesotho.

  ‘What a beautiful country we have,’ she said.

  It was half past nine when I said goodbye to them. As usual, after dark, there was a wariness hanging over the city and the people going about their business were all looking out for danger. I kept to the main streets, going down Breë Street, not risking any dark alleys, and even here, under the street lights, I constantly glanced over my shoulder. There were so many bad people in this city and there were places I didn’t like to go to even in daytime, and most of those places – Hillbrow, Berea, Doornfontein – were just round the corner. I was relieved to head down Rissik Street away from the worst of the bad neighbourhoods.

  By the time I reached the old Post Office with its red bricks and boarded-up windows, I felt better. There was enough light and plenty of people around, there were bars and restaurants not far from here. Grace had told me that there used to be a clock and bell in the old Post Office Tower, but someone had stolen them. How they had made off with a huge clock and a bell without being seen, I did not know.

  Sirens sounded in the direction of Jeppe. I walked faster. All that talk over dinner about family had given me a lot to think about. I could not remember meeting my uncle or his family, but my mother had always spoken well of him. His surname was Lekota – my mother’s maiden name – and his name was Bartholomew. I remembered his name because I’d thought it an unusual one. That was why Grace believed she would be able to find out about my family.

  ‘I have a friend who is a matron at a hospital in Ladysmith,’ she’d told me. ‘Her family lives in Phuthaditjhaba. In the countryside people still know each other. My friend will know how to find your uncle. Not many people are called Bartholomew Lekota.’

  Perhaps, if Grace could find my uncle, I could save my money and go to visit him and his family. I’d like to see the mountains.

  As I approached Gandhi Square, I noticed a police van parked down the street. Its flashing light turned the shadows blue. I slowed down, keeping an eye out for trouble. There were four policemen, three with their guns out, the other one searching two men who stood with their legs and arms spread, hands flat against the wall. In the street another man was lying on his back, swearing and crying and slamming the palms of his hands down on the asphalt surface of the road. One of the cops shouted at him to shut up.

  A small group of people had gathered on the pavement, watching from a safe distance. Some were commenting on the police’s efforts to get the drunks in the van, others were laughing at the drunks. One of them, a woman with a loud voice and bright green shoes, shouted that the police were useless.

  ‘O botswa,’ she yelled again, waving her hands as if to chase off flies. ‘You are all useless. You do nothing. You stand around and do nothing.’ She stumbled over a piece of cardboard lying on the pavement, removed one of her green shoes and flung it at the police, but her aim was bad and the shoe landed only a few metres further down the street. She too was drunk. It was always like this on a Friday night.

  The woman staggered off, shoes in hand, still shouting. A Tswana man standing near me said, ‘She is right, that woman, they are useless. You phone them and say, there is a robbery, they say, phone back later, we are busy.’ He spat on the pavement. ‘You phone them and say, there is a shooting in Brixton, they say, that is not our area, we only work Yeovil. But when you phone them an
d say, I just shot a burglar in my house, they come chop-chop and take you off to prison.’

  The police had finished searching the two men. They cuffed them and marched them to the van. Each one was held up by a policeman because they were too drunk to walk straight. When the cop let go of one of them, he walked straight into the van. The people watching laughed. The cops laughed too. Behind them in the street the third drunk struggled to his feet, stumbled and fell down again. Back on his hands and knees, he cursed the police in Xhosa.

  The police surrounded this man. He tried to come to his feet, but struggled to keep his balance. Three cops were laughing, another one stood at the door of the police van, shouting at the others to hurry up, then shouting at the two drunks inside the van to shut the fuck up. No one wanted to touch the drunk crawling on the ground. I could understand why. He stank of vomit and cheap beer. I could smell it where I was standing, away from them, slightly ahead of the onlookers, under the street light.

  Just as I considered leaving, another police car arrived and parked on the other side of the street. Adrian got out of the driver’s side and slammed the door behind him. The small Zulu policeman waited for Adrian to join him before they crossed the road. I watched them, but mostly I watched the Zulu. There was such alertness about him. When he walked he took care with every step. Perhaps he was like that with everything in his life, calculating the risks, weighing his options. His gaze shot from the drunk to the three cops – who had stopped laughing. He held Adrian back and looked up and down the street, as if expecting an ambush.

  He was tough; I’d known that after I’d first seen him that day at the shelter. I had studied him while he was talking to Grace and I could see that he was a hard man. Not big and strong like Adrian, but sharp as a knife and as dangerous. Not a man to mess with and tonight he seemed to be in a bad mood.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked the cops.

  ‘We can’t get him in the van,’ one said.

  ‘He stinks, sarge,’ another one said. ‘They are complaining as well.’ He pointed at the drunks in the back of the van.

  ‘Adrian,’ the Zulu said, ‘throw him in the van.’

  In the yellow light spilling from the street lights, I saw Adrian’s smile. He walked up to the drunken man and grabbed him by the back of his trousers and the back of his shirt, lifted him off the ground and tossed him into the open van. The cops on the pavement were laughing again. Adrian wiped his hands on his trousers, turned his back on the van and grinned. That was when he saw me standing under the light. He looked as if he was about to call out to me, but behind him the drunk who’d been thrown into the van appeared, on his feet, staggering, a gun in his hand.

  The cops yelled at him to drop it and at Adrian to get down, but the drunk was ready to shoot. I heard two shots. I didn’t know who fired first, but that Zulu sergeant was fast. He was very fast. The drunk toppled forward and fell face first in the street.

  Adrian stood with his mouth open, not moving, until slowly he reached for his left arm and when he removed his hand again it was red with blood. I heard the sound of my feet hitting the street as I ran towards him.

  ‘Adrian.’ I called his name as if he were my friend.

  The Zulu, still with his gun out, glanced at me, then his gaze returned to the scene in front of him.

  ‘Get him away from here,’ he said. ‘Before he kills someone.’

  He had spoken Zulu, and it took me a few seconds to realise he was speaking to me.

  ‘You speak Zulu?’

  ‘Ngiyakuzua,’ I said. I took Adrian by the arm – his right arm, because of the blood on his left sleeve.

  ‘Come, Adrian. Let’s go.’ I walked him down the street. Behind us I heard the Zulu shouting and swearing at the other cops. Why didn’t they search the man?

  We turned the corner before Adrian said, ‘Did you see what happened there, Siphiwe?’ He sounded as if he had woken up from a dream.

  ‘I saw it.’

  ‘He almost killed me and those idiots just stood there laughing. They didn’t even search him. Can you believe it? I’m going to beat the shit out of them.’ He looked ready to carry out his threat and I thought of the Zulu’s words, that Adrian would kill someone. I recalled how strong he was, how he’d lifted that man off the ground and tossed him like a stick, and I reminded myself that the Zulu cop had trusted me to take care of this big white man, who was now shaking all over.

  ‘No,’ I said to him. ‘You are coming with me, Adrian.’ It surprised me to hear my voice sounding so confident. This was me, Siphiwe, talking to a policeman, telling him what to do. ‘Come with me,’ I repeated. ‘I want to tell you something.’

  Perhaps he thought I would tell him who had stabbed Hope, but I couldn’t do that.

  ‘I had a brother,’ I said. The air was cold against my skin. Where was summer? I briefly wondered. ‘He was the best brother a boy could ask for, strong like you and brave and clever. Everybody liked him.’ I took a deep breath. ‘And then he died.’

  Strange, how the city could be absolutely silent at times. Just that second between noise, where everything and everyone took a breath, and then a car alarm howled to the east of us, traffic roared and through the narrow, rubbish-strewn alley on my left, I heard a woman singing.

  ‘How did he die, Siphiwe?’

  Adrian smelled of curry. His voice sounded different – soft – as if all the anger had left him. I told him how we were young and stupid, fooling about, and how one mistake could destroy a man’s life. Something bubbled up inside me, like the sour maize beer I’d once tasted as a boy. As I spoke, the years fell away until I was back on that piece of land where my brother had died.

  Feet. Scuffling and stamping and stirring the dust until it was in my mouth and nose and eyes. The smell of winter on the Highveld, of scorched grass and dry land, of yards swept by women with home-made brooms. A train rattled along the rail on the other side of a rusty fence. Between me and the railway line was a black-burned veld where a single peach tree stood waiting for spring.

  Hands, cold and dry against my skin. Angry hands. Stamping feet. Hands cracked with cold and hard with work. Voices in the languages of this land. Sotho, Zulu, Venda, Tswana, all together, here on this piece of dry earth for one reason. My brother and I, lying face down, wrists tied together, heads covered with our arms. The stones beneath us more merciful than the constantly growing crowd. I opened my eyes.

  Feet. Some bare, with deep black cracks in the heels, some with shoes, brown shoes, old running shoes, sandals, all well worn, but for a pair of polished lace-up black shoes right in front of me. My gaze followed thin legs in brown socks up to a blue dress, an old face, wrinkled. Red hat on a grey head. She spat at me. I closed my eyes again.

  I tried to pray. God, it was only a game. A toy gun. God, it was only two bags of corn. They wouldn’t kill us over two bags of corn. Surely not. My brother’s face was bleeding, his left eye swollen shut. I felt the pain their kicks had left on my body. I tasted the blood from the cut in my lip.

  The crowd parted and through the gap I saw a man approach. I saw, behind him, a whirlwind swirling across the veld, sucking black ash into the sky, then racing towards us. The crowd turned their backs and covered their eyes, waiting for it to pass.

  The man came over to look at us. A brief silence fell. Even the dogs had stopped their howling. I recognised the man – the shopkeeper. Please, God, we meant no harm.

  ‘Yebo.’ He pointed at my brother. ‘He’s the one.’ Looking at me now, his eyes slits. Doubt? Hope stirred inside me. Had he seen my face? I’d worn a cap low over my eyes. The cap was lost; someone in the crowd must have it.

  Once more their voices rose into the cloudless sky. A car backfired in the distance. A dog barked. A child screamed. Nobody paid attention. Nobody cared, because they had caught us. Thieves. They had caught us, and the police would not come, and if they did, they would hesitate when they saw the size of the crowd, when they sensed their rage. They would call for re
inforcements, but that would not change anything, because even now, years after apartheid was gone, a police car in Soweto was still a thing to distrust and the police would be too scared to help us.

  ‘What will they do to us?’ My brother did not answer.

  Hands grabbed me again and pulled at my clothes.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ I screamed. I knew they didn’t believe me. My brother too started screaming and there was so much fear in his voice that I looked at him, then followed his gaze. They dragged us towards the veld, towards the fence.

  ‘I’ll give it back,’ my brother shouted. ‘I’ll pay for it. I’m sorry.’

  The piss ran down my legs. I felt ashamed, but no one noticed.

  ‘It was me,’ my brother cried. ‘I stole the corn. I robbed the old man.’

  There was a fence between the township and the railway line, but it served no purpose. In places it hung slack, or had been cut to provide a short cut. We had been crossing that railway line since we were old enough to walk. It was safe. As long as you watched for trains.

  They dragged us over the scorched grass towards the gap in the fence. Ash mixed with the dust to clog my throat and burn my eyes. The voices of those circling us grew loud and triumphant. Unafraid. The tip of the spear. They tied us to the railway line, their hands strengthened by a rage that had nothing to do with two bags of corn.

  ‘It wasn’t him,’ my brother screamed. ‘It was me.’

  The old woman with the black shoes had a shrill voice. She was Sesotho, like us.

  She hushed the crowd by raising her hands.

  ‘Listen,’ she shouted. ‘Listen to this one.’

  ‘It was me. I did it. He did nothing. Nothing.’ My brother too was crying.

  The woman with the black shoes knelt beside me and flicked a knife open. I had no more fear left. Her fingers were dry and cold. No more tears left. Around her wrist, a watch with a pink strap hung loose. It was ten to three. It was Monday. She cut the ropes that bound my arms.