Shooting Butterflies (31 page)

This was something that wasn't well documented at all. The traditions of ritual human sacrifice were kept silent in Africa. The black people would never dare write down such a thing, in fear of their lives from the retribution of a
sangoma
, and the white people were so repulsed by the facts that they wouldn't record them without a judgemental slant.

The writer of this article had gone into no detail about the ancient traditional ritual, and had focused instead on the missionary family who had reported the find.

He looked at the picture again and thought once more about how differently the lives of the black people and those of the white people were treated by the police. Second-class citizens back in 1948 and they still were treated as such in 1992.

In his eyes, the
sangoma
involved in this ritual should have been charged with murder. It was the brutality of the murders, and the traditions behind them that kept his attention. He laid the last file on his desk.

There was nothing in common between the newer murders and the older reports.

‘Hey, Gabe, nice piece on the aid money for the Cairo earthquake not flowing through to those who needed it,' Andrew said as he flung himself into the visitor's chair, then wheeled it closer to Gabe's desk like a schoolboy would. ‘You know that you're becoming the go-to journalist if you need anything in African affairs reported.'

‘I know,' Gabe said. ‘
Mushi
hey!'

‘
Mushi
? After all these years here, you need to get it right, say
baie lekker.
Get with the times, your Zimbo terms are outdated, you live in South Africa now.' Andrew laughed. ‘I'm heading to Durban
this weekend to cover the cricket. India vs South Africa, the joys of being a sports reporter.' He grinned.

‘Enjoy,' Gabe said.

‘You got plans?'

‘Tara's already working on her master's thesis so I'll be at home. Taking turns with Lucretia to keep Josha entertained and out of her hair while I try to work on Monday's column.'

‘Your cousin's so lucky to have you. When are you going to invite me around again so I can drool over her? She's one hot babe!'

Gabe laughed. ‘Never. Last time you were there you proposed to her and then to my mother.'

‘I was drunk. Surely she's forgiven me?'

‘No, she hasn't. Besides, you know she won't date anyone. Her focus is on Josha and on her studies. Having her help on some of the profiles is a godsend, not long now and she will be a fully fledged clinical psychologist.'

‘Best-looking widow I ever met, and brainy too. I'm begging you to take me home to spend some time with her,' Andrew said.

‘Not going to happen any time soon,' Gabe said, but he softened the blow to Andrew's overinflated male ego a little by adding, ‘It's not you, it's everyone. She just doesn't date.'

Andrew pushed up from the chair. ‘Seriously, if you weren't such a
moffie
, I'd have to beat you up for living with her.'

‘Hey, it's my house, she lives with me. Keep your mind out the gutter about my cousin! Or at least around me anyway,' Gabe said, and then he frowned. ‘And who are you calling a
moffie
?' He reached across his desk to grab at fresh air as Andrew jumped out the way of his muscular arm.

‘Yeah, you,' he said. ‘See you on Monday.'

Gabe saluted his friend, and sat back down.

He tried to concentrate on the file on his desk. When he'd started at the Cape Town paper, he'd just been an intern, and it had taken two years to get his first real story, an exposé on the corruption of the supposed cleaning up of District 6. That first article had secured him a desk and a permanent telephone number on it. Luxuries any
journo wanted. The assignments had continued to cross his desk and he wrote constantly. He had soon moved to a cubicle, then an office. Not that he needed an office much these days, it seemed that he was more often out on assignment than he was in it.

He'd just delivered his latest foreign report, having arrived home that week from a whirlwind two weeks in Cairo investigating how much of the foreign aid raised by the world for relief from the devastating earthquake was actually getting through to the 500,000 homeless there. Although he had seen a lot of the aid was getting to the people who needed it, he had heard rumours that a large portion was being diverted by corrupt officials, and that some of the aid was being intentionally delayed. People were sitting outside the rubble of their homes, waiting for the government to accept that they were destroyed before they got help. He had hated seeing those big brown eyes of the children, begging in the streets amongst the rubble that had once been their homes. He'd thought of Josha in Cape Town and been so thankful that he had been able to provide Tara and Josha a home to live in.

He smiled.

Well perhaps not him, but thanks to his mother's support he'd been able to. She had gifted him a house when he went to university in Stellenbosch, which he'd sold in 1984 to buy a place in Camps Bay, the year he and Tara had moved to Cape Town together so that he was closer to the city and the paper's offices, and Tara had a new start, for her and Josha.

He loved that kid, make no mistake about it.

He wasn't Josha's dad, but he knew that this was as close to his own child as he'd ever get. He carried his picture with him in his wallet, and had a picture of Tara and Josha on the corner of his desk. Those who knew him, knew who she was. His young widowed cousin, Tara Simon, who had married her childhood sweetheart who had then been killed in the SADF. So many men had died that their story had never been questioned. No one knew that she had taken Wayne's middle name, and used that instead of her own.

But he knew the truth, and he still protected Tara's secret for her, despite being unhappy with her for keeping Josha from his biological father.

He loved Tara as his own sister.

He could not remember a holiday that they hadn't spent time together. He was the older cousin pandering to her every wish, but still ensuring that she didn't get into trouble along the way. Until that fateful day when her father was murdered.

He should have been there. He should have been riding that day, not driving with Maggie in the
bakkie.

That day had changed both their lives.

The man he kept on a pedestal as his mentor, who he most wanted to be like, had been murdered, and a cataclysmic ripple of effects had occurred because of it. He'd had his best friend ripped from his life, taken away to another country, and he had been powerless to do anything about it as Tara's place was with her mother and sister, and he had university to finish.

Soon after that day, his drunken father had raised his hand to his mother, and she hit back. His parents had at last divorced after all their years of bickering, and his mother had moved to Cape Town to be near him.

That day had also put Tara on a path so different to what she'd have been on if she had remained in Zimbabwe. Gabe knew she was studying clinical psychology so that she could understand her father's killer, and what had motivated him to kill the brothers. Her focus was on what made a killer tick. She was still wanting to go back to Zimbabwe one day, and find the murderer of her family, but she was going to do it with a full clip of ammunition, not rush in there half prepared.

Gabe knew that when she was younger, she had wanted to be a veterinarian, and help horses and other animals. She had such a soft heart, wanting to heal everything.

So much had changed that day for both of them.

December 10, 1993, and Gabe had never been more proud as he watched Tara graduate from Cape Town University. Standing in her black gown and cap with her sash telling the world that she now had an MA in Psychology. She glowed more than he had ever seen her before.

She was such a focused person.

She'd earned some income by tutoring other students at varsity who needed help in their social science classes. She always said that one day she'd pay Gabe back for all his help and for believing in her, and not letting her down. He always said that there was no need. She believed differently. It was a stand off. So Tara had started helping him research his articles. What had started as a way of paying him back with free labour had become a route to a profession.

Soon she had become an intern at the paper, and that had changed to employee status when they recognised that with Tara as a full-time clinical psychologist on their personal staff, they could ensure that their staff were looked after, evaluated and got the help needed to not burn out from some of the horrors they witnessed in their violent country on a daily basis.

The fact that she was good at research and could help on many of the stories was a big advantage too. If someone needed to talk to her about the angle they were targeting, she had an open-door policy.

She'd been the best intern he'd ever had, and it wasn't because they lived in the same house, it was more. They worked well together, she seemed to understand the angle he was looking at for his stories, and the human connection he needed. She still focused mainly on Gabe's stories, but she had also begun consulting more and more for the other reporters.

Yet she managed to always put Josha first, before her work.

Josha was a great kid. He had started school, and was doing well. He had got into his first fist fight with another boy about equality and treating people decently, so at seven years old, Josha was already a hero in training. Just like Tara described his dad.

Only last night Gabe had decided it was time to tackle her on the issue, after she had told Josha a story about how she met Wayne.

‘Josha asleep?' he had asked.

‘Yes, it's almost as if he's so busy during the day that at night he's exhausted and falls into a dead sleep.'

‘I remember you doing that. I used to watch you sleep and wonder how it was that when you woke up you would have just as much energy as always, and yet when you slept you were a dead weight.'

Tara smiled.

‘You talk to him of Wayne all the time. When are you going to contact him? Give Josha a chance at having a real father in his life, not a dead hero.'

‘You know that's not going to happen.'

‘You're being stubborn, like a donkey.
Ee-oor
.' He watched as she smiled, and nodded.

‘I used to dream that one day he'd drive up to our home in his
bakkie
and declare his love for me. Tell me how wrong he was, that he should have chosen me. That he was ready to marry me—but now I dream that he'll never find me. That Josha and I are safe from the barbed claws of his demented mother and his father who only wanted to pay me off to get rid of me from his life.'

‘Are you sure that's all he did? Don't you remember telling me you thought you saw an old man in the park and he looked familiar? You thought it was Wayne's dad.'

‘If it was him, surely he'd have come and introduced himself again, made contact, not sat there like a paedophile watching us from the bench. Perhaps I was mistaken. I so wanted it to be him, checking on his grandchild, wanted to think that Josha was more in his life than just a trust fund and a lump-sum payment to me to keep out of Hluhluwe, and away from Wayne. He can justify it by saying it was all to keep me away from his wife's influence, who by the way was trying to have me kill my son. But we all know it was a payment to get out of Wayne's life.'

‘For five years. He stipulated five years, that doesn't say don't come back, it says, come back when Josha is older and Wayne is over twenty-one.'

‘Whatever. I did what had to be done. I have Josha, and I have you, I don't need Wayne.'

‘Wayne'll be almost twenty-five years old now. He should have a relationship with his son,' Gabe said. ‘At least give him the chance. The choice he didn't have when you were younger.'

‘Why is this so important to you? Wayne is nothing in your life, just the sperm donor for Josha. He threw us away years ago. He has no rights. Josha is my son. He never wanted us, he chose his mother and father over me. He didn't stand up to his mother, he didn't tell her to back off, or that she was demented for wanting me to have an abortion, he never chose me and Josha. Remember, he asked me to leave, to go away. He never even gave us a chance.'

‘I guess it's important because I see so much in Josha. You are doing a fantastic job, but he has a father. A real father. And I remember you with your dad. He was a good man, not a son-of-a-bitch like mine. I remember that special relationship you had with him, and I know that Josha would benefit from having that with his own dad.'

‘But you are basically like his dad, Gabe. You are the special male in his life.'

‘No, that is his dead dad. The man he hero-worships. The man who is still alive, but you are keeping him from knowing. Tara, Josha is going to hate you when he finds out you kept this from him. Think on that.'