Strong Medicine (4 page)
Authors: Angela Meadon
Inmate Number: 7865649
Bongani Zulu
16 September 2005
CMAX Prison, Pretoria
Detective Tshabalala (DT): We know you were involved in the Kei Ripper killings, Mr. Zulu. Why don’t you start there?
Bongani Zulu (BZ): That all came out in court.
DT: Yes, but we’d like to hear it from you, directly.
BZ: I’m already serving time for that. You can’t make me say anything to incriminate myself.
DT: Think of it more like an exercise in opening up. You tell us what you know, and then we’ll tell you what we know.
BZ: Why don’t you read the papers from court? They have everything there. Or the newspapers?
DT: I need to ask you some of my own questions. We’re trying to protect children. Your experience can make a big difference to us.
BZ: Okay, I will tell you. I was looking for work. It’s hard in the Transkei. Lots of people, no jobs. A man came to me and said he was looking for someone who could do this thing. That it had to be someone strong.
DT: Who was the man who came to you?
BZ: I don’t know. He told me his name was Stompie, because one of his arms was missing at the elbow. He said I must go with him. That we would go to the
sangoma
and he would give me something to make me strong.
DT:
Muti
?
BZ: Ja.
DT: Did you go?
BZ: I went. He took me to the
sangoma’s
house. We smoked
dagga
together and then the
sangoma
told me what he wanted me to do.
DT: Which was?
BZ: He said he needed to make
muti
, and he needed me to get the parts. He offered me a lot of money. Three thousand rand. I could feed my family for a long time with that much money. He said he would give me something to smoke, and rub something on my skin that would make me invincible so that nothing could hurt me.
DT: Why did Stompie come to you with this? He could have the money for himself.
BZ: He only had one hand. You can’t use a knife with one hand. Not the way you need to.
DT: Did you agree to get the parts?
BZ: Ja, I said I would do it.
DT: What happened then?
BZ: We ate some food while the
sangoma
prepared the
muti
. Stompie left after we ate. The
sangoma
gave me two cigarettes to smoke, one for before I took the parts, and one for after. He told me to take off all my clothes and he rubbed something into my skin. It was thick, like fat, and red.
DT: Do you think the
sangoma
made it with blood?
BZ: I don’t know. But it was dark red. He rubbed it all over me and told me not to wash until I had brought him the things he wanted.
DT: Did you leave then?
BZ: No, I told him I was not ready. That this thing was wrong and my ancestors would punish me and my family. It was wrong to do it. He told me he would speak to my ancestors and they would understand. I told him to do it before I left. We smoked
dagga
again and he threw the bones for me. He said my ancestors were at peace, that they told him it was okay because I was looking after my family. He gave me a knife and said I must use it to take the parts.
DT: What did you do then?
BZ: I knew a place in the forest where the children like to play. I walked there. I saw four boys in front of me as I walked. They were going to the forest. I smoked one of the cigarettes the
sangoma
had given me and followed them.
Twenty-four hours had passed since I’d pressed my lips to Lindsey’s cheek. Now her side of the bed was cold and empty. The birds started
chirping
outside the window like they did every morning, filling the cold, grey air with noise. I pulled the blanket over my head and buried my face in Lindsey’s pillow.
It smelled of her hair. She’d been born with a shock of dark hair, just like her father’s. It had fallen out before she was six months old, and her characteristic white-blond hair had grown in. I’d spent hours brushing and plaiting it into braids that hung down her back. I could almost feel the soft strands between my fingers now.
Tears stung the insides of my eyelids and I sobbed. My whole body shook with the force of my grief. My ears rang with her cheeky giggle and I threw the blanket back, expecting to see her standing in the doorway. The room was dark and empty. I dived beneath the covers again.
My little girl was gone. How had this happened? She’d only had to walk a few kilometers home from school. I’d told her all the things my mother had told me when I’d had to walk. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t walk through the
veld.
Come straight home.
It hadn’t made any difference.
For all the lecturing I’d done, my beautiful baby girl had still disappeared and I was left in our bed, alone and empty.
I heard the bathroom door open and shut, the squeal of the hot tap as someone turned on the shower. Petey crying, a plaintive howl that echoed through the house like a siren.
The day was starting again and I was not a part of the family. Lindsey’s disappearance had somehow cast me from the world through which I had been trudging. I was in some other place now, where parents went when their children were taken from them. A place of torment with no light, no warmth, no promise of release.
If there truly had been a great flood, it would have been caused by the grief of mothers who found themselves waking without their children by their sides.
A gentle touch pulled me from my dark thoughts. A soft hand rested on my shoulder. My heart leaped in my chest. It was Lindsey! Home from wherever she’d been, unharmed, with her cocky grin and dead-rabbit nails.
I rolled over, a smile forming on my lips where it wilted like a lily in a drought.
My mom stood next to my bed, one hand extended, the other holding out a chipped mug with tea dripping from it. “Good morning,
liefie
. I brought you some tea
.”
“Thanks,
Ma
, but I can’t drink now.”
“You need to drink something, it’s hot and sweet. You’ll feel better after.”
I pushed myself up onto one elbow and took the mug. Arguing with my mom was not on my to-do list right now. The sweet floral scent of rooibos drifted through the air, taking some of the edge off my nerves.
“No word from the police?” my mother asked.
“Nothing yet.” My cell phone lay on the glass top of my bedside table, plugged into the charger so that it wouldn’t die overnight. I’d turned the volume all the way up so that I wouldn’t miss any possible calls. It hadn’t rung.
“Tommy is getting ready to go out looking again.” My mom sat on the edge of the bed and ran her fingers over my back and shoulder. I’d always loved back scratches and Lindsey had inherited my craving for the loving touch. “Sue is going to the Postnet to print flyers. We’ll put them up and hand them out at stop streets. If anyone has seen her, they’ll phone.”
I held the mug to my lips, and breathed in the sweet, milky aroma.
“You must stay here and rest,” she said. “You need to try and get some sleep.”
“Huh!” I’d spent the entire night in my bed, but hadn’t slept for one moment. “I can’t sleep now,
Ma
.”
“I know,
liefie
, but you must try.”
“What do you think has happened to her,
Ma
?” I asked. I sipped some of the tea, relishing the warmth that spread down my throat, into my chest, and through my whole body. My stomach twisted with the unwelcome fluid. I fought the urge to gag.
“Ai,
liefie
.” My mom’s shoulders collapsed as she let out a huge sigh. “I don’t know. I can’t think about it. I just pray that God is watching over her and keeping her safe.”
I’d never had much time for God. My mother had raised me in the church and I went every Sunday until I was fifteen. I haven’t been since then. Maybe it was time for me to get back in touch.
“I hope so,
Ma
. I really do.”
“You finish your tea and get some rest,” my mom said. “I’m going down to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.”
The bed creaked and shifted as she stood up. The cheap foam mattress held the shape of her body long after she’d left the room.
#
My mom looked up as I walked into the room and smiled at me. I had to give her credit for the effort, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes and I could feel the hollow ache in my chest turn into a fire pit.
“I’ll make you some breakfast.” My mom stood and heaved herself over to the fridge. The door opened with a clinking of bottles, and she dug around among the leftovers and ancient bottles of mustard and jam nobody would ever eat. The smell of garlic pervaded the room.
“I’m not hungry,
Ma
.” Perhaps if I repeated it often enough she’d hear me. “I’ll have a beer, though.”
Johan smiled a humorless grimace that folded his dry skin like old leather. He held his can up in half-hearted salute. The colonel who had chased him through the army would have skinned him alive for a salute like that.
“Here you go.” My mom deposited another cup of sweet tea in front of me.
“Beer,
Ma
, I asked for beer, not tea.” I dropped my head into my hands and tried not to lose what little control I had managed to muster. I could feel the dam wall that held back my feelings starting to creak and crumble.
“Just don’t drink too many,
liefie
. You need to stay focused on finding Lindsey.”
She was right, but I desperately wanted to disconnect from my pain and the sickening fear that held me in its grasp. Or at least calm the jangling of my nerves.
“What did the cops say they’d do today?” Johan asked.
“What they could.” I took a sip of the tea and grimaced as it burned my tongue. “Detective Nyala said they’d do everything in their power to get Lindsey back, but that I must understand how ‘limited’ their resources are.”
“Ja.” My mom slid a plate of toast onto the table in front of me. “You know how lazy these blacks are, they’ll do as little work as possible even when someone’s life is in danger.”
“It’s true,” Johan said. “They will sleep under a tree all day and collect their wages like they did a good day’s work.”
I took another swallow of my tea to keep me from opening my mouth. These two would never change. They were still living in the past, in a world of servants and separate bank tellers. No matter how much the world changed around them.
“You just see how hard that detective works on this case.” Johan tipped his beer can up and swallowed the last sips; then he crumpled it and threw it toward the dustbin. It bounced off the wall above the open bin and clattered in among the garbage. He cracked open another one with a wet hiss.
Besta sighed and lowered herself into a chair next to me.
I took a bite of the toast Besta had made; it was covered in a thick, salty layer of Marmite. My stomach turned and my mouth watered at the same time. I couldn’t decide whether to eat more or push the plate away.
“The other detective seemed nice,” Besta said. “Detective Brits.”
“Ja, you like him ‘cos he’s an Afrikaner,” I said.
“He looked like he was a hard worker.”
“He looked like a semi-functioning drunk who hadn’t bought a new suit in twenty years.” I took another bite of the toast. I didn’t want to eat it, but my nerves started to calm and my hands shook less with each bite.
“Okay,” Besta said. “Let’s stop arguing about it and think about what we’re going to do today to find Lindsey.”
It was the first thing my mother had said all day that I agreed with.
“Koos used to be a policeman,” Johan said. “He still has connections in the dog unit. Maybe he can get someone to come sniff for her.”
“Dis ‘n goeie idea,
” Besta said. “Can you phone him?”
“Ja, I’ll call now.” Johan unfolded his lanky frame from the table and dropped his beer can into the dustbin on his way out of the kitchen. It clanked loudly against the other empty cans in the bin.
I took another bite of my toast and chewed it, my body working almost on auto-pilot.
“I phoned your boss this morning,” Besta said as she lowered herself into Johan’s chair. “Told him you wouldn’t be in for a few days. He seemed disappointed.”
“He’ll get over it. I’m not going to work with my daughter…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. My throat clamped shut and tears built up behind my eyelids.
“It’s okay,
liefie.”
Besta put her left hand on my own. “We’ll get her back.”
“We can’t know that.” It was a truth I’d been too terrified to admit to myself, but we simply couldn’t be sure that we’d ever get Lindsey back. Like Detective Nyala had said, hundreds of children went missing in Johannesburg each year and most of them were never found.
I wiped tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. I couldn’t face the rest of my life without Lindsey, without her impish smile, her sarcastic wit, the warmth of her body when I held her close.
Tears dripped from my chin and splashed into the bread crumbs on my plate. I couldn’t live without her. And I wouldn’t stop until I’d found her, regardless of what boundaries I had to cross to get her back.