Devil's Peak (11 page)

Thobela found a public phone in the Church Street Mall that worked with coins and thumbed through the tattered phone book for the number of the University of Cape Town Psychology Department. He called and asked for Professor David Ackerman.
“He is on ward rounds. In what connection is this?”
“I am researching an article on crimes against children. I have just a few questions.”
“With which publication are you?”
“I am freelance.”
“Professor Ackerman is very busy . . .”
“I only need a few minutes.”
“I will have to phone you back, sir.”
“I’m going to be in and out—can I call tomorrow?”
“To whom am I speaking?”
“Pakamile,” he said. “Pakamile Nzuluwazi.”

16.

A
t first the Cape was not good to her.
For one, the wind blew for days on end, a storm-strength southeaster. Then they stole her only suitcase at Backpackers in Kloof Nek, where for a hundred rand a night she was sharing a room with five grumbling, superior young German tourists. Flats were scarce and expensive, public transport complicated and unreliable. Once she walked all the way to Sea Point to check out a possible place, but it was a disappointing dump with a broken windowpane and graffiti on the walls.
She stayed in Backpackers for two weeks before she found the attic room in an old block of flats in Belle Ombre Street in Tamboers Kloof. What had once been a boxroom had been converted into a small, livable space—the bath and toilet were against one wall, the sink and kitchen cupboard against the other; there was a bed and table and an old rickety wardrobe. Another door opened onto the roof, from where she could see the city crescent, the mountain and the sea. At least neat and clean for R680 per month.
Her biggest problem was inside her because she was afraid. Afraid of the birth that drew nearer every day, the care of the baby afterwards, the responsibility; afraid of the anger of her father when she made the call or wrote the letter—which, she had not yet decided. Above all, afraid of the money running out. Every day she checked her balance at the autobank and compared the balance against the list of the most essential items she would need: cot, baby clothes, nappies, bottles, milk formula, blankets, pan, pot, two-plate stove, mug, plate, knife, fork and spoon, kettle, portable FM-radio. The list continued to grow and her bank balance continued to shrink until she found work as a waitress at a large coffee shop in Long Street. She worked every possible shift that she could, while she could still hide the bump under her breasts.
The numbers on the statements ruled her life. They became an obsession. Six eight zero was the first target of every month, the non-negotiable amount of her rent. It was the low-water mark of her book-keeping and the source of unrest in her dreams at night. She discovered the flea market at Green Point Stadium and haggled over the price of every item. At the second-hand shops in Gardens and in Kloof Street she bought a cot, a bicycle and a red and blue carpet. She painted the cot on the roof with white, lead-free enamel paint, and when she found there was paint left over she gave the old yellowish-green racing bike with narrow tires and dropped handlebars a couple of coats as well.
In a
Cape Ads
that someone left in the coffee shop she found an advertisement for a backpack baby carrier. And she phoned, argued the price down, and had it delivered. It would allow her to ride the bicycle with the baby on her back along the mountain and next to the sea at Mouille Point, where there were swings and climbing frames and a kiddies’ train.
Every Saturday she took twenty rand to play the Lotto and she would sit by the radio and wait for the winning numbers that she had marked on the card with a ballpoint pen. She fantasized about what she would do with the jackpot money. A house was top of the list—one of those modern rebuilt castles on the slopes of the mountain, with automatic garage doors, Persian carpets on the floor and kelims and art on the walls. A huge baby room with seabirds and clouds painted on the ceiling and a heap of bright, multicolored toys on the floor. A Land Rover Discovery with a baby seat. A walk-in wardrobe filled with designer labels and shoes in tidy rows on the floor. An Espresso machine. A double-door fridge in stainless steel.
One afternoon, about three o’clock, she was sitting on the roof with a cup of instant coffee when she heard the sounds of sex drifting up from the block of flats below. A woman’s voice, uh-uh-uh-uh, gradually climbing the scales of ecstasy, every one a little higher, a little louder. In the first minutes the sound was meaningless, just another noise of the city, but she recognized it and was amused at the odd hour. She wondered if she were the only listener, or whether the sound reached other ears. She felt a small sexual stimulus ripple through her body. Followed by envy as the sounds accelerated, faster, louder, higher. The envy grew along with it for all that she did not have, until the shrill orgasm made her get up and bend her arm with the nearly-empty mug back in order to throw it at everything that conspired against her. She didn’t aim at any specific target, her rage was too general. Rage against the loneliness, the circumstances, the wasted opportunities.
She did not throw it. She lowered her arm slowly, unwilling to pay for a new mug.
Early in March she could postpone the call no longer. She rode all the way to the Waterfront for a public phone, in case they traced the call. She phoned her mother at the attorneys’ office where she worked. It was a short conversation.
“My God, Christine, where are you?”
“I dropped out, Mom. I’m okay. I’ve got a job. I just want to—”
“Where are you?” Her voice was tinged with hysteria. “The police are looking for you too now. Your father will have a stroke, he phones them in Bloemfontein every day.”
“Mom, tell him to drop it. Tell him I am sick and tired of his preaching and his religion. I am not in Bloemfontein and he won’t find me. I am fine. I am happy. Just leave me alone. I am not a child anymore.” She couldn’t tell where the anger came from. Had fear unleashed it?
“Christine, you can’t do this. You know your father. He is furious. We are terribly worried about you. You are our child. Where are you?”
“Mom, I’m going to put the phone down now. Don’t worry about me, Mom, I am fine. I will phone you to let you know I am okay.” Afterwards she thought she should have said something like, “I love you, Mom.” But she had just slammed the phone down, got on her bike and ridden away.
She only phoned again when Sonia was a week old, early in June, because then she had a great need to hear her mother’s voice.

* * *

Thobela was drinking a Coke at the Wimpy outside tables in St. Georges. He read the front-page article of the
Argus
that speculated about the death of Enver Davids. Sensationalized by an anonymous woman’s phone call.
Someone had seen him with the assegai. But had not reported him.
He had been too focused. No, he hadn’t been thorough enough, not entirely calculated. There had been a witness. He should have known there would be publicity. Media interest. Screaming headlines and speculation and accusations.
Could the killing of child rapist Enver Davids be the work of a female vigilante—and not the South African Police Services, as was previously suspected?
Strange consequences.
Would the police be able to trace the female caller? Would she be able to give them a description of him?
It didn’t really matter.
He turned the page. On page three there was an article on a radio station’s phone-in opinion poll. Should the death penalty be reinstated? Eighty-seven per cent of listeners had voted “yes’.
On page two were short reports of the day’s criminal activity. Three murders in Khayelitsha. A gang-related shooting took a woman’s life in Blue Downs. A man was wounded in Constantia during a car hijacking. A cash in-transit robbery in Montague Gardens: two security guards in intensive care. A seventy-two-year-old woman raped, assaulted and robbed in her home in Rosebank. A farmer in Limpopo Province gunned down in his shed.
No children today.
A waitress brought his bill. He folded the paper and leaned back in his chair. He watched the people walking down the mall, some purposefully, some strolling. There were stalls, clothes and artworks. The sky was blue above, a dove came down to land on the pavement with its tail and wings spread wide.
It was déjŕ vu, all this, this existence. A hotel room somewhere with his suitcase half unpacked, long days to struggle through, time to wait out before the next assignment. Paris was his place of waiting, another city, another architecture, other languages; but the feeling was the same. The only difference was that in those days his targets had been picked for him in a somber office in East Berlin, and the little stack of documents with photographs and pages of single-spaced typing was delivered to him by courier. His war. His Struggle.
A lifetime ago. The world was a different place, but how easy it was to slip into the old routines again—the state of alertness, the patience, the preparation, planning, the anticipation of the next intense burst of adrenaline.
Here he was again. Back in harness. The circle was complete. It felt as if the intervening period had never existed, as if Miriam and Pakamile were a fantasy, like an advertisement in the middle of a television drama, a disturbing view of aspirations of domestic bliss.
He paid for his cold drink and walked south to the pay phones and called the number again. “Is Professor Ackerman available now?”
“Just a moment.”
She put him through. He used the other name again and the cover of freelance journalism. He said he had read an article in the archives of
Die Burger
where the professor stated that a fixated pedophile always reoffended. He wanted to understand what that meant.
The professor sighed and paused a while before he answered. “Well, it sort of means what it says, Mr. Nulwazi.”
“Nzuluwazi.”
“I’m sorry, I’m terrible with names. It means the official line is that, statistically, rehabilitation fails to a substantial degree. In other words, even after an extended prison sentence, there is no guarantee that they won’t commit the same crime again.” There was weariness of life in the man’s voice.
“The official line.”
“Yes.”
“Does that differ from reality?”
“No.”
“I get the idea you don’t support the official line.”
“It is not a matter of support. It is a matter of semantics.”
“Oh?”
“Can we go off the record here, Mr. Nulwazi?”
This time he ignored the pronunciation. “Of course.”
“And you won’t quote me?”
“You have my word.”
The professor paused again before he answered, as if weighing the worth of it. “The fact of the matter is that I don’t believe they
can
be rehabilitated.”
“Not at all?”
“It’s a terrible disease. And we have yet to find the cure. The problem is that, no matter how much we would like to believe we are getting closer to a solution, there doesn’t seem to be one.” Still the desperate, despairing weariness. “They come out of prison and sooner or later they relapse, and we have more damaged children. And the damage is huge. It is immeasurable. It destroys lives, utterly and completely. It causes trauma you wouldn’t believe. And there seem to be more of them every year. God knows, it is either a matter of our society creating more, or that the lawlessness in this country is encouraging them to come out of the woodwork. I don’t know . . .”
“So what you are saying is that they shouldn’t be released?”
“Look, I know it is inhuman to keep them in prison forever. Pedophiles have a tough time in penitentiaries. They are considered the scum of the earth in that world. They are raped and beaten and humiliated. But they serve their sentences and go through the programs and then they come out and they relapse. Some right away, others a year or two or three down the line. I don’t know what the answer is, but we will have to find one.”
“Yes,” said Thobela, “we will have to find one.”