Deon Meyer (28 page)

 

 

The material in his memory bank made him laugh. “You should have seen their faces, those tourists nearly hugged him, they chattered like starlings. And when we walked away I asked him, ‘What was that?’ And he said, ‘My previous life’— that’s all, ‘My previous life’— but he said it with longing that I can still feel today, and that is when I realized I didn’t know him. I would never know him. Some more tea?”

 

 

“Thank you,” she said, and he did the honors. “And then he left your service?”

 

 

Orlando Arendse drank the last of his coffee. “Tiny and I … There was respect. We looked each other in the eye, and let me tell you it doesn’t happen often in my business. Part of that respect was that we both knew the day would come.”

 

 

“Why did he leave?”

 

 

“Why? Because the time had come, that is probably the simplest answer, but not the whole truth. The thing is: I loaned him out, just before he resigned. Long story. Just call it business, a transaction. There was a shooting and a fight. Tiny landed in the hospital. When he came out, he said he was finished.”

 

 

“Loaned out?”

 

 

“I’m honor-bound, my dear. You will have to ask Van Heerden.”

 

 

“Van Heerden?”

 

 

“Zatopek van Heerden. Former policeman, former private eye, now he’s like a professor of psychology at the university.”

 

 

“The University of Cape Town?”

 

 

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,
verstaa’ djy,”
said Orlando Arendse with a twinkle in his eye, and beckoned the waiter to bring the check.

 

 

* * *

Vincent Radebe closed the door of the interview room behind him. Miriam Nzululwazi stood by the one-way window, a deep frown on her face.

 

 

“When can I go home?” she asked in Xhosa.

 

 

“Won’t you sit down, sister.” Soft, sympathetic, serious.

 

 

“Don’t ‘sister’ me.”

 

 

“I understand.”

 

 

“You understand nothing. What have I done? Why are you keeping me here?”

 

 

“To protect you and Thobela.”

 

 

“You lie. You are a black man and you lie to your own people.”

 

 

Radebe sat down. “Please, ma’am, let us talk. Please.”

 

 

She turned her back on him.

 

 

“Ma’am, of all the people here, I am about the only one who thinks that Thobela is a good man. I think I understand what happened. I am on your side. There must be some way I can make you believe that.”

 

 

“There is. Let me go. I am going to lose my job. I have to look after my child. I am not a criminal. I never did anything to anyone. Let me go.”

 

 

“You won’t lose your job. I promise you.”

 

 

“How will you manage that?”

 

 

“I will talk to the bank. Explain to them.”

 

 

She turned around. “How can I believe you?”

 

 

“I am telling you. I am on your side.”

 

 

“That is exactly what the white woman said.”

 

 

Mentz is right,
he thought. It was not easy. He had offered to come talk to her. He was uneasy that she was there, that she was being detained. His thoughts were with her, his empathy, but the damage had already been done. He let the silence grow.

 

 

She gave him an opening: “What can I say to you? What can I do so you will let me go?”

 

 

“There are two things. This morning you spoke to the newspapers. …”

 

 

“What did you expect me to do? They come to my work. They also say they are on my side.”

 

 

“It was not wrong. Just dangerous. They write crazy things. We—”

 

 

“You are afraid they will write the truth.”

 

 

He suppressed his frustration, kept his head cool. “Ma’am, Thobela Mpayipheli is out there somewhere with a lot of information that a few people want very badly. Some of them will do anything to stop him. The more the papers write, the more dangerous the things that they will do. Is that what you want?”

 

 

“I won’t talk to them again. Is that what you want?”

 

 

“Yes, that is what I want.”

 

 

“What else?”

 

 

“We need to know why he has not given himself up yet.”

 

 

“That you must ask him yourself.” Because if everything was as they said, then she did not understand, either.

 

 

“We would dearly love to. We hoped you would help us to get him to understand.”

 

 

“How can I? I don’t know what he thinks. I don’t know what happened.”

 

 

“But you know him.”

 

 

“He went to help a friend, that is all I know.”

 

 

“What did he say before he left?”

 

 

“I have already told the colored man who came to my house. Why must I say it again? There is nothing more. Nothing. I will keep quiet, I will talk to nobody, I swear it to you, but you must let me go now.”

 

 

He saw she was close to breaking, he knew she was telling the truth. He wanted to reach out and comfort her. He also knew she would not tolerate it. Radebe stood. “You are right, ma’am,” he said. “I will see to it.”

 

 

 

24.

H
e had to stretch his legs, the cramps were creeping up on him, and his shoulder throbbed. The nest under the tarpaulin was too small now, too hot, too dusty. The shuddering over the dirt roads— how far still to go?— he needed air, to get out, it was going too slowly, the hours disappearing in the monotonous drone of the Chevy. Every time Koos Kok reduced speed he thought they had arrived, but it was just another turn, another connection. His impatience and discomfort were nearly irrepressible, and then the Griqua stopped and lifted the sail with a theatrical gesture and said, “The road is clear, Xhosa,
laat jou voete raas.”

 

 

He was blinded by the sudden midday sun. He straightened stiffly, allowing his eyes to adjust. The landscape was different, less Karoo. He saw grass veld, hills, a town in the distance.

 

 

“That’s Philipstown.” Koos Kok followed his gaze.

 

 

The road stretched out before them, directly north.

 

 

They wrestled the GS off the El Camino, using two planks as a ramp that bent deeply under the weight, but it was easier than the loading. They worked hurriedly, worried about the possibility of passing traffic.

 

 

“You must wait until sunset,” said Koos Kok.

 

 

“There’s no time.”

 

 

The GS stood ready on its stand; Thobela pulled on the rider’s suit, opened the sports bag, and counted out some notes, offering them to Koos Kok.

 

 

“I don’t want your money. You paid for the petrol already.”

 

 

“I owe you.”

 

 

“You owe me nothing. You gave me the music.”

 

 

“What music?”

 

 

“I am going to write a song about you.”

 

 

“Is that why you helped me?”

 

 

“Sort of.”

 

 

“Sort of?”

 

 

“You have two choices in life, Xhosa. You can be a victim. Or not.” His smile was barely discernible.

 

 

“Oh.”

 

 

“You will understand one day.”

 

 

He hesitated a moment and then pushed the cash into Kok’s top pocket. “Take this for wear and tear,” he said, handing over a couple of hundred rand.

 

 

“Ride like the wind, Xhosa.”

 

 

“Go well, Griqua.”

 

 

They stood facing each other uncomfortably. Then he put out his hand to Koos Kok. “Thank you.”

 

 

The Griqua shook his hand, smiled with a big gap-toothed smile.

 

 

He put the bag in the side case, pushed his hands into the gloves, and mounted. Pushed the starter. The GS hesitated a second before it caught and then he raised his hand and rode, accelerating gradually through the gears, giving the engine time to warm up. It felt good, it felt right, because he was in control again; on the road, fourth, fifth, sixth, 140 kilometers per hour, he shifted into position, found the right angle with most of his torso behind the windshield, bent slightly forward, and then let the needle creep up and looked in the rearview mirror to see that Koos Kok and the El Camino had become very small behind him in the road.

 

 

The digital clock read 15:06 and he made some calculations, visualizing the road map in his mind, two hundred kilometers of blacktop to Petrusburg— that was the dangerous part, in daylight on the R48— but it was a quiet road. Petrusburg by half past four, five o’clock. Refuel and if he was reported, then there was the network of dirt roads to the north, too many for them to patrol, and he would have choices, to go through Dealesville or Boshof, and his choices would multiply and by then it would be dark and if all went well, he could cross the border at Mafikeng before midnight. Then he would be away, safe, and he would phone Miriam from Lobatse, tell her he was safe, regardless of what they said over the radio.

 

 

But first he had to pass Petrusville and cross the Orange River.

 

 

If he were setting up a roadblock, it would be at the Big River, as Koos Kok called it. Close the bridge. There were no other options according to the map, unless you were willing to chance your luck in Orania.

 

 

The thought made him smile.

 

 

Odd country, this.

 

 

What would the Boers of Orania think if he pulled up in a cloud of dust and said, “I am Thobela Mpayipheli, chaps, and the ANC government would love to get their hands on me”? Would it be a case of “if you are against the government, you are with us”? Probably not.

 

 

He had to pass a sheep lorry, slowing down and using his blinkers like a law-abiding citizen, sped up again, leaning the bike into the turns where the road twisted between the hills, aware of the landscape. Beautiful country, this. Colorful. That is the difference, the major difference between this landscape and the Karoo. More color, as if God’s palette was increasingly used up on the way south. Here the green was greener, the ridges browner, the grass more yellow, the sky more blue.

 

 

Color had messed up this land. The difference in color.

 

 

The road grew straight again, a black ribbon stretching out ahead, grass veld and thorn bush. Cumulus clouds in line, a war host marching across the heavens. This was the face of Africa. Unmistakable.

 

 

Zatopek van Heerden said it was not color, it was genes. Van Heerden was big on genes. Genes that caused the Boers of Orania to pull into the defensive
laager.
Van Heerden said racism is inherent, the human urge to protect his genes, to seek out his own so the genes could propagate.

 

 

Thobela had argued because Van Heerden’s philosophy was too empty. Too damning. Too easy.

 

 

“So, I can do as I please and shrug my shoulders and say, ‘It’s genes’?”

 

 

“You must differentiate between genetic programming and morality, Thobela.”

 

 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

 

 

Van Heerden had bowed his shoulders as if the weight of knowledge were too heavy to bear.

 

 

“There is no easy way to explain it.”

 

 

“That is usually the case with absolute drivel.”

 

 

Laughing: “That’s fucking true. But not in this case. The problem is that most people won’t accept the big truths. You should see them fighting in the letters page of the
Burger
over evolution. And not just here. In America they don’t want to allow evolution into the classroom even. In the twenty-first century. The evidence is overwhelming, but they fight to the bitter end.”

 

 

Van Heerden said accepting evolution was the first step. People are formed through natural selection, their bodies and thoughts and behavior. Programmed. For one thing alone: the survival of the species. The preservation of the gene pool. The white man had laid down evidence before him in one motivated layer after another, but eventually, though Thobela had conceded that there was some truth in what Van Heerden said, it could not be the whole truth. He knew that, he felt it in his bones. What of God, what of love, what of all the strange, wonderful things that people were capable of, things we do and experience and think?

 

 

Van Heerden waved his hand and said, “Let’s forget about it.”

 

 

And he had said: “You know, whitey it sounds like the new excuse to me. All the great troubles of the world have been done in the name of one or other excuse. Christianization, colonialism, herrenvolk, communism, apartheid, democracy, and now evolution. Or is it genetics? Excuses, just another reason to do as we wish. I am tired of it all. Finished with that. I am tired of my own excuses and the excuses of other people. I am taking responsibility for what I do now. Without excuse. I have choices; you have choices. About how we will live. That’s all. That’s all we can choose. Fuck excuses. Live right, or get lost.”

 

 

He spoke with fervor and conviction. He had been loud, and heads turned in the coffee shop where they sat, but he didn’t care. And now, in this desolate piece of Africa at 160 kilometers per hour, he knew he was right and it filled him with elation for what he must do. Not just the thing in the bag, but afterward. To live a life of responsibility, a life that said if you want change, start here, inside yourself.