No thank you, Doctor.
Why not?
It could hardly be difficult to get a doctorate in psychology. All you had to know was how to turn all remarks into questions. Especially questions that started with
why.
I see enough crazy policemen at work.
Theyre not . . . Then she smiled, slowly. Theyre not crazy and not all of them are men and not all of them are in the service.
He didnt react. Because hed seen her face before she smiled. You, Doctor, are human like the rest of us.
Ill let you know about our activities. Then you can decide. But only come along if you want to.
Ask her whether she is part of this social group. And a part of his head was amazed at his interest. For more than two years sexual urges had only come to him in vaguely remembered dreams in which he had uncomfortable intercourse with faceless women. And the real, living women who came his way were no more than sources of information that allowed him to do his work and go home to shelter between the pages of a book.
And now he had . . . an interest in Doctor Hanna. Well, well, well, Mat Joubert. The small, frail woman with the elusive beauty woke the man in you, the protective urge, the urge to possess.
Ill think about it.
9.
O
n his way home he drove past the municipal swimming pool. The supervisor was a black man. You can come and swim in the morning, sir. With the business club. In summer Im here by half past five.
The business club?
Businessmen. Last year they asked the council whether they could swim early in the morning, before work. Work too hard the rest of the day. Then the council says okay and gives the early birds a name. Business club. From five-thirty on weekdays, from six-thirty on Saturdays, and the seventh is a day of rest. Ninety rand a season, September to May. You can pay at the cashier, sir. The lockers are twenty rand extra.
He fetched his checkbook from the car and paid. Then he walked to the swimming pool. He stared at the blue water, unaware of the shouting, splashing mass of kids. He smelled the smells and remembered. Then he turned away. At the door he threw the red pack of Winstons into a trash can.
He stopped at the café. The owner knew him and took Winstons off the shelf.
No, Joubert said. Benson & Hedges. Special Mild.
At home no envelope had been pushed under the door. He fried himself three eggs. The yolks broke and ran. He ate them on toast. Then he sat down in the living room with the William Gibson and finished the book.
Before going to bed he dug his swimming trunks out of a cupboard. He rolled them up in a towel and put it on the chair at the door.
* * *
In the past few years he had come to hate weekends.
Saturdays werent so bad because then Mrs. Emily Nofomela, his Xhosa cleaning lady, came in and the sounds of the washing machine, clattering dishes, and vacuum cleaner replaced the deathly silence of the house.
To be on duty also helped because it kept the boredom and the aimlessness of the weekend at bay.
When the alarm went off at a quarter past six, he got up purposefully, without realizing that it was a milestone.
He was the only member of the business club who was utilizing the Saturday morning. The changing rooms were quiet and empty and he could hear the big pump of the swimming pool outside. He pulled on his Speedo and realized it had become too small. He would have to buy a new one that morning. He walked out to the pool through the footbath and the smells and sounds released memories, fragments from his youth, and it felt good to be back again.
The water stretched smoothly ahead of him. He dived in and started swimming, freestyle. It took exactly thirty meters to exhaust him.
* * *
An older, more experienced policeman would have bundled Hercules Jantjies out the front door of the station, more like than not assisted by a hefty kick in the backside.
The problem was that vagrants often came in on a Saturday morning to complain about the joys and sorrows of their co-oppressed after the drunken bouts of the Friday evening. And if you had worked at the Newlands charge office for long enough, you eventually came to the conclusion that the best solution was to get rid of the appalling smell and the verbal assault on your ears, which generally made no sense.
But the white constables uniform was crisp and new, his enthusiasm still fueled by the college lecturer who had said that the police served everyone in South Africa.
He forced himself not to move away instinctively from the odor of an unwashed body and recycled methylated spirits and looked straight at Hercules Jantjies at the small, brown eyes that skittered all over the place, the bluish red of the skin, which showed millions of tiny cracks inflicted by life, the toothless mouth, the stubble of beard.
Can I help you?
Hercules Jantjies stuck out his hand from under the worn, faded jacket. It held a piece of newspaper. He put it down on the table and smoothed it with a dirty hand. The constable saw that it was a front page of the
Cape Times,
a few days old. The headline read MAFIA KILLING? in large letters. Hercules Jantjies pressed a forefinger on the letters.
Your Honor, I came about this thing.
The constable didnt grasp the import. Yes?
I want to give evidence, Your Honor.
Yes?
Cause why, I was there.
When it happened?
Just so, Your Honor, just so. An eyewitness report. But I want police protection.
* * *
He hung on to the side of the swimming pool. He was breathing heavily and his lungs were burning. A deep fatigue invaded his limbs and his heart was a rapidly pulsing worry in his chest. He had completed two lengths. He heard a voice and lifted his head, his mouth still open to gulp in air more quickly.
Sir, inside theres a beeper which is beeping terribly. It was the supervisor. He looked worried.
Im coming, said Joubert and pressed his hands down on the edge to haul himself out of the water. He came halfway and then lay there, half in and half out of the water, too tired to make another effort.
Are you awright, sir?
I dont know, said Joubert, surprised at the deterioration of his body. I honestly dont know.
* * *
Hercules Jantjies had the total attention of the three senior policemen in the office of the Newlands commanding officer, Adjutant Radie Donaldson. Joubert and Donaldson sat against the one wall on old brown wooden chairs, Benny Griessel leaned against the wall. Jantjies was a reeking island against the other wall.
Donaldson still belonged to the old school of crime fighters who tackled all potential breakers of the law without kid gloves, irrespective of race, color, or political persuasion. Thats why he directed a warning finger at Hercules Jantjies and said: If youre talking shit, youre dead. Then, more suspiciously: Are you drunk?
Your Honor, Your Honor, Jantjies said nervously, as though the moment had become greater than hed anticipated.
These men are from Murder and Robbery. Theyll cut your balls off if you talk shit. Understand me?
Yes, Your Honor.
His brown eyes glanced at the three policemen, his head slightly bowed. I saw the whole thing, Your Honor. But I want police protection.
If youre not careful youll get police brutality, Donaldson said.
I was lying in the bushes, Your Honor, between the parking and Main Road.
Were you pissed?
No, just tired, Your Honor.
And then?
Then I saw her appear, Your Honor.
Her?
The one with the gun, Your Honor.
And then?
And she waited in the shadow and then the deceased came, God rest his soul, and he saw her and he got a fright and he put up his hand, Your Honor. But she shot him and he dropped like a stone.
And then?
Then it was all over, Your Honor.
Where did the murderer go then?
No, then she jus disappeared.
A woman? Do you mean to tell me it was a woman?
Not jus an ordinary woman, Your Honor.
What do you mean?
It was the angel of death, Your Honor.
Silence reigned in the office.
Cause why Im looking for police protection, Your Honor. Because now shes coming to fetch me.
What did she look like? Joubert asked but his voice betrayed his disappointment.
This long, black cloak, like Batman. And black boots and black hair. The angel of death. She came to me last night and she called me, like this, with her finger. Your Honor, I know my rights in the new South Africa. I want police protection.
Each and every cop knew the visions induced by Blue Train, not from firsthand experience but from countless previous witnesses and accused. Despite the signs, they had remained hopeful up to now.
Bastard! said Donaldson and went straight for Hercules Jantjies. Joubert stopped the station commander in the nick of time.
* * *
Early on Sunday morning Lieutenant Leon Petersen phoned. I think I have the fuckers who raped the girl, Captain. In Mitchells Plain. But its a gang thing. Fourteen of them. And theyre not talking.
Joubert drove there to help with the interrogation, compare alibis. Hours of listening to lies, sparring with teenage bravado and blatant provocation. But at 17:22 Lieutenant Petersens patience eventually ran out. In interrogation room number two of the Mitchells Plain station he lost his temper and hit the youngest gang member on the nose and eye with his clenched fist. Blood spurted onto the table.
The brown child started sobbing. My mas going to kill me, my mas going to kill me, he wept and began an admission that slowly bubbled up like a pot boiling over. In the corner Constable Gerrit Snyman sat with his notebook, scribbling as fast as he could.
10.
T
wenty-three fucking kilograms, Mat. Hes got rocks in his head. Do you know what he said to me? Ive got six months for every five kilos. Hes fucking crazy. Captain Gerbrand Voss red cheeks were scarlet with indignation. Joubert merely shook his head sympathetically. He was still waiting for his physical health session with de Wit.
Jesus, Mat, Ive always been heavy. Its part of me. How can a skeleton be a cop? Can you imagine it? In any case, fuck de Wit. He cant enforce it.
Joubert smiled. He can, Gerry.
No way.
Police regulations. OC must see to it that all his people are fit and well at all times, and ready for action. Black on white. You can check it.
Vos was quiet for a moment. Were Murder and Robbery, Mat, not a bunch of constables in a show-off unit. How fit must one be? I wont be able to run the Comrades Ultramarathon, but hell . . .
Joubert remembered his swimming session of a few hours ago. It was no better than Saturdays: the stitch in his side after fifty meters of slow freestyle, the cigarette tar in his lungs which seemed to catch fire. After a hundred meters hed clung to the side again, gasping for breath. He said nothing.
Twenty-three fucking kilograms. Ill have to have my lips sewn together.
* * *
He shuffled through the door of Premier Banks branch in the Heerengracht. Slow, deliberate steps, the walking stick tightly grasped in the left hand, the eyes fixed in deep concentration a meter beyond his feet. The wrinkles around his eyes and mouth were multiple, the contours of age.
He moved to the counter where the forms were kept, put his hand into an inner pocket, and slowly and patiently took out a spectacle case. His hands trembled slightly when he opened the flap and unfolded a pair of black-framed reading glasses. He perched them on his nose. The hand went slowly back to the pocket and extracted a fountain pen.
He unscrewed the top, reached out a careful hand and picked up a withdrawal slip. With an uncertain hand he wrote letters and figures in the columns on the white paper with its mauve strip at the top.
When hed finished, the fountain pens top was replaced and carefully returned to the inner pocket. The glasses were folded, put into the case, the trembling hand returning it to the pocket. The right hand took the slip, the left hand the walking stick. He began the weary walk to the cashier.
The Heerengracht branch of Premier Bank was not its largest. But to compete with all the other banks in the immediate vicinity, this branch was a flawless example of Premiers corporate identity: mauve carpets, wooden furniture painted pale gray, white walls decorated with advertising posters.
