Devil's Peak (3 page)

* * *

There was doubt in the minister’s face. He had shifted his large body back and cocked his head sideways, as if waiting for her to qualify her statement, to complete the sentence with a punch line.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I find it . . . unlikely.”
Somewhere she felt emotion. Gratitude? Relief? She did not mean to show it but her voice betrayed her. “My professional name was Bibi.”
His voice was patient as he responded. “I believe you. But I look at you and I listen to you and I can’t help wondering why. Why was that necessary for you?”
This was the second time she had been asked that. Usually they asked “How?” For them she had a story to fit expectations. She wanted to use it now—it lay on her tongue, rehearsed, ready.
She drew a breath to steady herself. “I could tell you I was always a sex addict, a nymphomaniac,” she said with deliberation.
“But that is not the truth,” he said.
“No, Reverend, it is not.”
He nodded as if he approved of her answer. “It’s getting dark,” he said, standing up and switching on the standard lamp in the corner. “Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”
“Tea would be lovely, thank you.” Did he need time to recover, she wondered?
“Excuse me a moment,” he said, and opened the door diagonally behind her.
She remained behind, alone, wondering what was the worst thing he had heard in this study. What small-town scandals? Teenage pregnancies? Affairs? Friday night domestics?
What made someone like him stay here? Perhaps he liked the status, because doctors and ministers were important people in the rural areas, she knew. Or was he running away like she was? As he had run off just now; as if there was a certain level of reality that became too much for him.
He came back, shutting the door behind him. “My wife will bring the tea soon,” he said and sat down.
She did not know how to begin. “Did I upset you?”
He pondered a while before he answered, as if he had to gather the words together. “What upsets me is a world—a society—that allows someone like you to lose the way.”
“We all lose our way sometimes.”
“We don’t all become sex workers.” He motioned towards her in a broad gesture, to include everything. “Why was that necessary?”
“You are the second person to ask that in the past month or so.”
“Oh?”
“The other one was a detective in Cape Town.” She smiled as she recalled. “Griessel. He had tousled hair. And soft eyes, but they looked right through you.”
“Did you tell him the truth?”
“I almost did.”
“Was he a . . . what do you call it?”
“A client?” She smiled.
“Yes.”
“No. He was . . . just . . . I don’t know . . . lost?”
“I see,” said the minister.
There was a soft tap on the door and he had to get up to take the tea tray.

5.

D
etective Inspector Benny Griessel opened his eyes to his wife standing before him, shaking his shoulder with one hand and urgently whispering, “Benny,” she said. “Benny, please.”
He was lying on the sitting-room couch, that much he knew. He must have fallen asleep here. He smelt coffee; his head was thick and throbbing. One arm squashed under him was numb, circulation cut off by the weight of his body.
“Benny, we have to talk.”
He groaned and struggled to sit up.
“I brought you some coffee.”
He looked at her, at the deep lines on her face. She was still stooped over him.
“What time is it?” His words battled to connect with his vocal chords.
“It’s five o’clock, Benny.” She sat next to him on the couch. “Drink the coffee.”
He had to take it with his left hand. The mug was hot against his palm.
“It’s early,” he said.
“I need to talk to you before the children wake up.”
The message borne on her tone penetrated his consciousness. He sat up straight and spilled the coffee on his clothes—he was still wearing yesterday’s. “What have I done?”
She pointed an index finger across the open-plan room. The bottle of Jack Daniel’s stood on the dining-room table beside his plate of untouched dinner. The ashtray was overflowing and a smashed glass lay in shards beside the overturned bar stools at the breakfast counter.
He took a gulp of coffee. It burned his mouth, but could not take the sick taste of the night away. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry isn’t good enough anymore,” she said.
“Anna . . .”
“No, Benny, no more. I can’t do this anymore.” Her voice was without inflection.
“Jissis, Anna.” He reached a hand out to her, saw how it shook, the drunkenness still not expelled from his body. When he tried to put his hand on her shoulder, she moved away from his touch, and that’s when he noticed the small swelling on her lip, already beginning to turn the color of wine.
“It’s over. Seventeen years. That’s enough. It’s more than anyone could ask.”
“Anna, I . . . it was the drink, you know I didn’t mean it. Please, Anna, you know that’s not
me.
”
“Your son helped you off that chair last night, Benny. Do you remember? Do you know what you said to him? Do you remember how you cursed and swore, until your eyes rolled back in your head? No, Benny, you can’t—you can never remember. Do you know what he said to you, your son? When you were lying there with your mouth open and your stinking breath? Do you know?” Tears were close, but she suppressed them.
“What did he say?”
“He said he hates you.”
He absorbed that. “And Carla?”
“Carla locked herself in her room.”
“I’ll talk to them, Anna, I’ll make it right. They know it’s the work. They know I am not like that . . .”
“No, Benny.”
He heard the finality in her voice and his heart contracted. “Anna, no.”
She would not look at him. Her finger traced the swelling on her lip and she walked away from him. “That is what I tell them every time: it’s the work. He’s a good father, it’s just his work, you must understand. But I don’t believe it anymore.
They
don’t believe it anymore . . . Because it
is
you, Benny. It is you. There are other policemen who go through the same things every day, but they don’t get drunk. They don’t curse and shout and break their stuff and hit their wives. It’s finished now. Completely finished.”
“Anna, I will stop, you know I have before. I can. You know I can.”
“For six weeks? That is your record. Six weeks. My children need more than that. They deserve more than that.
I
deserve better than that.”
“
Our
children . . .”
“A drunk can’t be a father.”
Self-pity washed over him. The fear. “I can’t help it, Anna. I can’t help it, I am weak, I need you. Please, I need you all—I can’t go on without you.”
“We don’t need you anymore, Benny.” She stood up and he saw the two suitcases on the floor behind her.
“You can’t do that. This is my house.” Begging.
“Do you want us on the street? Because it is either you or us. You can choose, because we will no longer live under the same roof. You have six months, Benny—that is what we are giving you. Six months to choose between us and the booze. If you can stay dry you can come back, but this is your last chance. You can see the children on Sundays, if you want. You can knock on the door and if you smell of drink I will slam it in your face. If you are drunk you needn’t bother to come back.”
“Anna . . .” He felt the tears welling up in him. She could not do this to him; she did not know how dreadfully hard it was.
“Spare me, Benny, I know all of your tricks. Shall I carry your suitcases outside, or will you take them yourself?”
“I need to shower, I must wash, I can’t go out like this.”
“Then I will carry them myself,” she said, and took a suitcase in each hand.

* * *

There was an atmosphere of faint despair in the detective’s office. Files lay about in untidy heaps, the meager furniture was worn out and the outdated posters on the walls made hollow claims about crime prevention. A portrait of Mbeki in a narrow, cheap frame hung askew. The floor tiles were a colorless gray. A dysfunctional fan stood in one corner, dust accumulated on the metal grille in front of the blades.
The air was thick with the oppressive scent of failure.
Thobela sat on a steel chair with gray-blue upholstery and the foam protruding from one corner. The detective stood with his back to the wall. He was looking sideways out of the grimy window at the parking area. He had narrow, stooped shoulders and gray patches in his goatee.
“I pass it on to Criminal Intelligence at Provincial Headquarters. They put it on the national database. That’s how it works.”
“A database for escapees?”
“You could say so.”
“How big would this database be?”
“Big.”
“And their names just sit there on a computer?”
The detective sighed. “No, Mr. Mpayipheli—the photos, criminal records, the names and addresses of families and contacts are part of the file. It is all sent along and distributed. We follow up what we can. Khoza has family in the Cape. Ramphele’s mother lives here in Umtata. Someone will call on them . . .”
“Are you going to Cape Town?”
“No. The police in the Cape will make inquiries.”
“What does that mean, ‘make inquiries’?”
“Someone will go and ask, Mr. Mpayipheli, if Khoza’s family has heard anything from him.”
“And they say ‘no’ and then nothing happens?”
Another sigh, deeper this time. “There are realities you and I cannot change.”
“That is what black people used to say about apartheid.”
“I think there is a difference here.”
“Just tell me, what are the chances? That you will catch them?”
The detective pushed away from the wall, slowly. He dragged out a chair in front of him and sat with his hands clasped. He talked slowly, like someone with a great weariness. “I could tell you the chances are good, but you must understand me correctly. Khoza has a previous conviction—he has done time: eighteen months for burglary. Then the armed robbery at the garage, the shooting . . . and now the escape. There is a pattern. A spiral. People like him don’t stop; their crimes just become more serious. And that’s why chances are good. I can’t tell you we will catch them
now.
I can’t tell you
when
we will catch them. But we
will,
because they won’t stay out of trouble.”
“How long, do you think?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Guess.”
The detective shook his head. “I don’t know. Nine months? A year?”
“I can’t wait that long.”
“I am sorry for your loss, Mr. Mpayipheli. I understand how you feel. But you must remember, you are only one victim of many. Look at all these files here. There is a victim in every one. And even if you go and talk to the PC, it will make no difference.”
“The PC?”
“Provincial commissioner.”
“I don’t want to talk to the provincial commissioner. I am talking to
you.
”
“I have told you how it is.”
He gestured towards the document on the table and said softly: “I want a copy of the file.”
The detective did not react immediately. A frown began to crease his forehead, possibilities considered.
“It’s not allowed.”
Thobela nodded his head in comprehension. “How much?”
The eyes measured him, estimating an amount. The detective straightened his shoulders. “Five thousand.”
“That is too much,” he said, and he stood up and started for the door.
“Three.”
“Five hundred.”
“It’s my job on the line. Not for five hundred.”
“No one will ever know. Your job is safe. Seven-fifty.”
“A thousand,” he said hopefully.
Thobela turned around. “A thousand. How long will it take to copy?”
“I will have to do it tonight. Come tomorrow.”
“No. Tonight.”
The detective looked at him, his eyes not quite so weary now. “Why such a hurry?”
“Where can I meet you?”

* * *

The poverty here was dreadful. Shacks of planks and corrugated iron, a pervasive stink of decay and uncollected rubbish. Paralyzing heat beat upwards from the dust.
Mrs. Ramphele chased four children—two teenagers, two toddlers—out of the shack and invited him to sit down. It was tidy inside, clean but hot, so that the sweat stained his shirt in great circles. There were schoolbooks on a table and photos of children on the rickety cupboard.
She thought he was from the police and he did not disillusion her as she apologized for her son, saying he wasn’t always like that; he was a good boy, misled by Khoza and how easily that could happen here, where no one had anything and there was no hope. Andrew had looked for work, had gone down to the Cape, he had finished standard eight and then he said he couldn’t let his mother struggle like this, he would finish school later. There was no work. Nothing: East London, Uitenhage, Port Elizabeth, Jeffreys Bay, Knysna, George, Mossel Bay, Cape Town . . . Too many people, too little work. Occasionally he sent a little money; she didn’t know where it came from, but she hoped it wasn’t stolen.
Did she know where Andrew would go now? Did he know people in the Cape?
Not that she knew.
Had he been here?
She looked him in the eye and said no, and he wondered how much of what she had said was the truth.

* * *

They had erected the gravestone.
Pakamile Nzululwazi. Son of Miriam Nzululwazi. Son of Thobela Mpayipheli. 1996–2004. Rest in Peace.
A simple stone of granite and marble set in the green grass by the river. He leaned against the pepper tree and reflected that this was the child’s favorite place. He used to watch him through the kitchen window and see the small body etched here, on his haunches, sometimes just staring at the brown water flowing slowly past. Sometimes he had a stick in his hand, scratching patterns and letters in the sand—and he would wonder what Pakamile was thinking about. The possibility that he was thinking of his mother gave him great pain, because it was not something he could fix, not a pain he could heal.
Occasionally he would try to talk about it, but carefully, because he did not want to open the old wound. So he would ask: “How are things with you, Pakamile?” “Is something worrying you?” or “Are you happy?” And the boy would answer with his natural cheerfulness that things were good, he was so very happy, because he had him, Thobela, and the farm and the cattle and everything. But there was always the suspicion that that was not the whole truth, that the child kept a secret place in his head where he would visit his loss alone.
Eight years, during which a father had abandoned him, and he had lost a caring mother.
Surely that could not be the sum total of a person’s life? Surely that could not be right? There must be a heaven, somewhere . . . He looked up at the blue sky and wondered. Was Miriam there among green rolling hills to welcome Pakamile? Would there be a place for Pakamile to play and friends and love? All races together, a great multitude, all with the same sense of justice? Waters beside which to rest. And God, a mighty black figure, kingly, with a full gray beard and wise eyes, who welcomed everyone to the Great Kraal with an embrace and gentle words, but who looked with great pain over the undulating landscape of green sweet veld at the broken Earth. Who shook his head, because no one did anything about it because they were all blind to His Purpose. He had not made them like
that.
Slowly he walked up the slope to the homestead and stood again to look.
His land, as far as he could see.
He realized that he no longer wanted it. The farm had become useless to him. He had bought it for Miriam and Pakamile. It had been a symbol then, a dream and a new life—and now it was nothing but a millstone, a reminder of all the potential that no longer existed. What use was it to own ground, but have nothing?