A Murder of Crows (8 page)

* * *

The room was frigid. This April was unseasonably cold. Northwesterlies whipped through the city—and there was no central heating.

Decker pulled his sweater more tightly around him and cupped his hands over the earphones and leaned closer to the one-way mirror. He wished he could see the entire room but the far corner was obscured.

On the other side of the glass it seemed that a team of middle-aged ANC interrogators were questioning a young Zulu who sat very still in his chair, his hands in his lap. Decker knew from the questions that he was some sort of ANC youth leader who the interrogators believed had overstepped his authority.

“Why were no minutes taken at the Pretoria meeting?”

“There were minutes taken.”

“Where are they?”

“I don't know.”

“What exactly did you say about South Africa's white population at the meeting in Pretoria last Wednesday?” the lead interrogator asked.

The younger man answered in a language that Decker didn't know. He lifted one earpiece and looked to the translator at his side.

“He wants the questions asked in Xhosa, not English.” Then she added, “The language of the oppressor.”

Decker nodded, pointed to the computer screen in front of him and returned the earpiece to his ear.

He heard the interrogator snap a question in what he assumed was Xhosa and looked to the computer screen in front of him, where his translator typed the questions and responses in English: “
Did you lead the meeting in Pretoria last Wednesday?”

“Yes.”

“And was the position of the ANC vis-à-vis the rights of whites discussed?”

“No.”

Decker closed his eyes and sensed the presence of the cold above him. He moved his head up into the clear air and felt something metal in his hand and the slime of blood between his fingers. From either side of his retinal screen squiggling lines entered the field—not a truth.

Decker noted it on the pad in front of him.

“No?”
the interrogator demanded.
“Then what was discussed?”

“The future of our movement. The future of our country.”

Decker closed his eyes again—two perfect squares slowly moved across his retinal screen. A truth—or at least a truth as far as this man was concerned.

Decker shifted in his chair. He wasn't comfortable working for a government—any government.

If it hadn't been for Tinnery he would have told them to fuck themselves, packed his bags and left. But there was Tinnery, so he'd agreed and here he was in this cold room with the female interpreter at his side and a clearly angry young ANC political activist being interrogated on the other side of a one-way mirror.

Older ANC interrogators—younger ANC party leader. Was there a civil war brewing in Nelson Mandela's party? The great leader was weak, dying—this might be part of the inevitable power struggle to follow his death,
he thought.

The interrogation circled back to some basics about the young man's activities—all of which Decker knew the young man answered honestly.

“Was that the truth?” the interpreter demanded.

Decker nodded. His talent was very narrow. He knew when someone was telling the truth—period.

Then a man, clearly the leader of the interrogators, stepped forward. From Decker's vantage point he couldn't see into the corner of the room—where the older man had evidently been standing.

“So you don't like white people,”
the old man said.

“I like white people,”
the young man answered.

The interpreter looked at Decker. Decker saw two parallel lines on his retinal screen and nodded. It was a truth. Of course it was a truth—he likes white people who stay in England or Holland or America. Stupid question.

“But not all white people?”

“Do you like all white people?”
the young man demanded.

“No,”
the old man said.

“Neither do I,”
the young man said.

Decker watched the old man consider his next question, and when he finally spoke, Decker realised that the old man had sympathy for the younger man's position. It was then that Decker noticed for the first time that the young man's legs were shackled to the chair upon which he sat, and there was a small puddle at his feet—urine.

“Did you say at the meeting that any real South African would rise up and drive the whites from this country?”

“Xhosa, please.”

“Did you say at the meeting that any real South African would rise up and drive the whites from our country?”

“No.”

Cold, metal, slime—a single corkscrew line crossed his retinal screen. The interpreter looked at him, and it finally occurred to Decker that this woman was not just an interpreter, she was also an interrogator—perhaps the head interrogator.

“So, Mr. Roberts?”

Decker took a deep breath then said, “It's not a truth.”

“So a lie?”

“I can tell when someone is telling the truth. His last answer was not a truth.”

“Fine,” she said and rose. She touched a button on the console, and a drapery silently slid across the one-way mirror. The last Decker saw of the young man was a look of terror on his face as a large man who had also been kept from Decker's view moved toward him. “Thank you, Mr. Roberts. You've been very helpful.”

Decker rose and found his legs wobbly. She was holding the door
open for him and as he passed her she said, “I look forward to seeing your play.”

* * *

He fought the desire to just pick up and leave. But then he saw Tinnery watching him rehearse, and all thoughts of leaving—left.

Every afternoon she watched him rehearse.

Every evening she outdid her acting partner in his class.

Every night she guided him to a place without a name.

But he already knew that they were good lovers—fuck that, great lovers—but not very good mates.

They both lived in shells, in a profound isolation that they were willing to leave to physically find each other but were unwilling to leave to entwine their thoughts or beings.

She had been the first to acknowledge their divide. “Tell me about your wife.”

“She died a long time back.”

“Did you love her?”

“Not enough,” he said, thinking that Crazy Eddie had loved her more than he had—and she had loved Eddie much more than she had ever loved him.

“Not enough? Evasive, Decker, evasive.”

“So?”

“So don't be.”

He said nothing in response to that.

“Did she love you?”

“In the beginning.”

“And at the end?”

“No.”

“No. As simple as that—just no.”

“No. Not simple. She loved my friend.”

“And that hurt?”

“No.”

That surprised her. She looked closely at him. “When you make love to me are you thinking of me?”

Decker looked away.

“Don't do that,” she snapped.

Decker looked back at her.

“When I touch you are you feeling my fingers, hearing me in your ear, sensing my tongue—are you even there, Decker?”

Decker didn't answer.

“And what about your son?”

He wanted to say “He hates me” but didn't say anything.

She nodded slowly. “Not going down that path—not going to open that door?”

Before he could stop himself he said, “Not to you.”

She straightened as if he'd hit her, then said, “It's not men or women you're looking for, are you Decker? It's something outside of humanity that you want. But that's all there is—men and women. Those are the choices, Decker—there's nothing else.”

For the briefest moment he thought of the young Cuban pianist searching for the secret outside of the eighty-eight keys of the piano.

“You're wrong,” he managed, but he wasn't sure.

“No. I'm not wrong, Decker. I'm not. It's you who's wrong, who's full of shit.” And then she was there, ripping his clothes and snarling in his ear, “Fuck me, Decker—come on, find me and fuck me, Decker.”

And for a brief moment he tried—to find her. To find this extraordinarily alive woman—full woman—reaching across space and time and culture and language and the cosmos to him to bring him out of himself to get him all the way to her. To leave his search for a path and land—land here with her.

But as she arched her back in what should have been pleasure, a fury crossed her face and she cursed his name then leapt from him naked and spat on the ground and stomped on the spittle with her heel, rubbing it deep into the clay floor—an ancient curse that even modern men felt in their hearts.

* * *

A week later his shows opened to middling response. He hopped a twenty-hour bus ride to Windhoek, Namibia, rented a car there and drove to a desert resort called Mowani—God's breath in Swahili.
There amongst the desert mountains he found a moment of respite. As he stood on the rocks of Mowani and watched the sun go down, the quiet of the high desert—and the elongating shadows on the remarkable rock formations—called him to peace, to lay down his burden. The desert night was coming on quickly, and the high temperatures of the day were already a thing of the past.

Then he saw her approach—Inshakha. He had no idea how she knew he was there. He had not seen her since his first visit to Mowani four years earlier.

“Do you know your stars yet, Decker Roberts?” Inshakha asked.

“You were a good teacher but I—”

“Am a bad student,” she said. She pointed to the east horizon. “Venus,” she said, “the first heavenly object to appear in the southern sky. And you can always tell the day of the month by its distance to the moon. As the moon is new Venus is above it; as it ages, Venus is beneath it.”

“And you can see the hidden part of the moon all day long.”

“Can you not see it in Canada?”

“Not usually during the day.”

“Here in Namibia, if the moon can be seen at night it can always be seen in the day. It must be frightening for you to lose the moon.”

Decker looked at her incredibly refined features.

“More stars—those two.” She pointed in the opposite direction from Venus to two bright stars that had appeared shortly after Venus rose.

“I see them. What are they?”

“You mean their names?”

“Yes.”

“I have no idea. Names are not important. They point to the important thing.”

“And what is that?”

“The Southern Cross is what your missionaries taught us to call it.” She pointed to a pattern of four stars. Decker thought they looked more like a kite than a cross, but then again . . .

“What do your people call that pattern of four stars?”

She smiled but hid her eyes from him. He did not press the issue.

“And that?” she said, pointing to the low horizon opposite the moon.

Suddenly as if from nowhere a distinct pattern of stars appeared.

“What does it look like, Decker? What animal?”

Decker looked again and it was clear. “A scorpion.”

“Yes. With its tail raised. See its tail? Now follow it to its body and then its head. It is one of the most perfect of the constellations. And one of the few that we and the Europeans called by the same name.”

“Scorpio.”

“Yes. Do you see its body?”

“Yes.”

“Count three stars from the end of the tail. See the red star—the one that pulses?”

“Yes.”

“It is exactly where the heart is on a scorpion. A red heart that pulses.”

Decker looked and felt his own heart beat in rhythm to the pulse of the red star of Scorpio's heart.

Then he looked at her and she was smiling. Nodding. Finally she said, “Yes, Decker, you are like the scorpion—crafty and potentially dangerous. And like the scorpion you have a strong heart, a heart that beats heavy in your chest.”

Decker looked away from her as if she had suddenly seen into him.

“Why did you come back to Namibia, Decker? Try not to lie—you're a very bad liar.”

“To allow my friend to get back his daughter.”

She nodded her beautiful head slowly and said, “That is what you made yourself believe. But you came here to hide.”

“No.”

“Yes. But they have found you.” She indicated two men across the way. “I have a cabin for us in Etosha—you'll like it there. It's by the watering hole, and every day the animals from miles around come to drink. Your scorpion's heart is beating, but it needs time in Namibia to strengthen.”

SETH WAITED HIS TURN IN LINE FOR U.S. IMMIGRATION. HE DID HIS
best not to turn on his heel and flee. He knew why he was heading to the United States, but he couldn't completely get over his antipathy to America.

The immigration officer signalled him to come forward. He stepped onto the electronic pad and offered his palm for the hand scan.

“Passport,” the man said.

Seth gave him his passport.

“Put your hand down. You're a Canadian, no need for a scan.” Then under his breath, clearly for the benefit of the immigration officer in the next booth, he said, “Don't ask me why.”

The guy in the next booth chortled.

The immigration officer opened Seth's passport and slid it through the digital reader. As he did, a ding sounded in the Junction, and Eddie turned in his swivel chair and reached for his computer.

“What's the reason for your visit, son?” the immigration officer asked—no, demanded.

Seth took out the treatment regime that had been sent to him by the San Francisco Wellness Dream Clinic. The immigration officer read the document quickly and then asked, “You have an address for this . . . clinic?”