Last Train to Retreat (22 page)

He unzipped his jacket – soft like lamb’s skin, and black – put it over the only chair and sat down. The rest of him was also in black – T-shirt, trousers, shoes. ‘I’ve heard of you,’ he said. Her heart raced – it was like her glory days when men queued for her. She sat down on the bed. That was how it always started – the man on the chair, the girl on the bed.

The stranger didn’t give his name. He looked around the room, then at her again. ‘You live here?’

She nodded.

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Abou’ five months … you want massage, or anything else?’ She didn’t want to talk about the past.

‘Sarai, you want to go home, don’t you, back to your family?’

Her eyes moistened, no one had asked that, not even Lena. He could see she was from far away but had no idea how difficult it would be. ‘You are kind to ask.’ She lowered her eyes to hide her tears.

‘Don’t cry. Here, take this.’ Instead of a handkerchief he took out from his jacket the neck of a bottle that had been neatly severed. She knew what it was, the yellow-brown stains on her palm attested to it – rolled-up paper inside the bottle neck acting as a filter, and on top of it a mixture of crushed dagga and Mandrax. She stared at it – the white pipe. The stranger’s question had created a hunger in her that was almost unbearable. It was a choice she faced every day – between a dream that was slipping away, and the pipe. She reached out for it and her green eyes lit up as he struck a match. She looked at the pipe – was there heroin in it too? She hoped so. They called them mind benders and she’d been taking them lately. They just blew her away.

•

She felt it working within minutes. He sat patiently, with a kind look on his face. It reached its peak twenty minutes later. After a while he refilled the bottle neck from a pouch and struck another match. She lay on her back on the bed and smoked. Her mouth was going dry, he fetched her some water. She craved something sweet and he produced a chocolate bar from his jacket. She giggled. ‘Oh, it feels so good! You want to do it now?’ He came and sat next to her stroking her hair. ‘Who are you?’ she asked, ‘you kind to me, like the
farangs
back home, but you more good-looking, and younger.’

‘Let’s talk about you. I want to know about you.’

‘You don’t want me?’

‘Later. Where were you before you came here?’

‘It was in the suburbs.’

He lay down next to her and took her hand. ‘Was it a private place, or some government agency?’

‘A house, it was nice, and she was nice, the best.’ She was floating. He could do and ask what he liked. She didn’t care.

He kissed her for a long time. She sighed as she felt him hard against her. ‘Where was that, Sarai,’ he whispered, his fingers running feather-light over her sarong. She stretched out with pleasure like a cat on its back.

‘Near the station, Retreat, you walk for abou’ twenty minutes, but we ran,’ she giggled again. ‘Her name was Lena, she look after me. I think I love her. An’ I love you also – like same same but different, you understan’?’

He smiled. ‘Not really, I only do women. What did she look like?’

Sarai described Lena, her looks, how she walked. But she couldn’t breach the barrier in her brain that stopped her from saying Cupido’s name. It was as though she’d been programmed to retch at the very mention of Cupido.

•

The stranger didn’t fuck her. They didn’t even take off their clothes. She talked about her home on Koh Samui, her family, the mountains and the waterfalls, the full moon parties and magic mushrooms, her job and the
farangs.
Only her sobs stopped her from carrying on. It was just past midnight when he suddenly said, ‘I’m taking you home, to your island.’

She looked at him through bloodshot eyes, ‘
Now?
’

‘Yes, come with me.’ He got up and reached for her.

‘Evil Boy stop us, he kill us.’ Tears mixed with make-up had drawn thick, circus-clown lines down her face.

‘I said come. I’m taking you home, Sarai.’

She took his hand and stepped from the room gingerly like a life prisoner just released. They walked into the lounge where two girls sat watching
Grey’s Anatomy
, with Evil Boy at his desk putting away papers for the night. He stared at them suspiciously. Men usually left on their own while the girls cleaned up behind them. The stranger walked up to Evil Boy looking chilled as if he’d had a great time, took out a gun and placed it against Evil Boy’s temple. Smiling lazily he said, ‘Hands on your head, slide off the chair, slowly, that’s it, now on the floor, face down, arms in front.
Stay.
Now you too,’ he said to the girls without turning his head. Something about him made everyone do as he said. ‘I’m walking out with Sarai. If you get up before twenty minutes and I hear sirens or see flashing lights, I will come back for you.’

It was more than a threat – it was said as if they were already dead. ‘Oh, and when you make your statement to the police,’ he said to Evil Boy, ‘don’t forget to say that you’ve been harbouring an illegal alien, making money off her, and not declaring a cent for taxes.’

•

She sat in the passenger seat with her head on his shoulder as he drove along the Sea Point ocean front. It was almost deserted on this weekday night. The night felt deep even with the bright lights along the promenade, as deep as her gratitude to this stranger who had made Evil Boy look like a frightened kid before calmly walking out with her. If he could do what she thought was impossible, he could get her home. Koh Samui. She was going home!

‘I can see music,’ she said drowsily, ‘and it is dancing. And I can hear colours … around me like a rainbow, big and high and beautiful. You hear them also?’

‘Yes, I can. And there are the northern lights, you see them?’ He pointed to lights across the water to their right.

‘Where they grow dagga?’ Northern lights were what they called dagga.

‘No, the lights of Koh Samui, Sarai, see, it’s an island.’

She stared at the lights, how close they looked. How good could anyone be? His karma was as boundless as the night sky with all its stars. She kissed him on the cheek then looked behind her. ‘Evil Boy … please don’ let him find me!’ She started crying.

He stopped the car. ‘He’ll never find you. Come with me. But take this, you might need it.’ He gave her the bottle neck.

From the promenade they went down stone steps with Sarai holding onto the railing. She shouted with joy when she felt the sand, and threw off her shoes. Behind them blocks of flats were shuttered down for the night. Boulders lay strewn like beached whales around them. She walked unsteadily over the sharp mussel shells to the lapping water. She lifted her sarong, holding the bottle neck, and went in up to her calves. ‘It’s beautiful!’ she laughed.

‘And there’s Koh Samui,’ he said, pointing to the lights again. ‘You can walk there, Sarai, it’s not far. You’ll be home soon, with your loved ones. Go now, no one will stop you,
no one.
’

She turned around and looked at him for a long time. Then she waded in. The cold water soothed her heated body. White water from a broken wave hit her knees. She cried out and looked back. ‘Go!’ he said. ‘They’re waiting for you, Sarai.’ She gazed at the lights of her island beyond the dark expanse, feeling the pull of the ocean but also its rhythm. It was like being taken into the arms of a kind stranger and rocked gently.

She felt her long hair going heavy behind her. The water was nearly up to her neck when he shouted, ‘Who killed Cupido, Sarai?’

Her slurring words came back at him, ‘It was her … she killed him!’ She laughed and let go of the bottle neck she’d been clutching. It was all behind her now. She had made her choice – she was following her dream, she was going home.

‘D
on’t look so happy to see me!’ Lena called out to Zane when he was still a good fifteen metres away. She was standing at the top of Court Road, her favourite spot, as he was coming home.

‘When you wait for me like that it usually means bad news,’ he said. He couldn’t imagine her married, greeting her husband with sweet talk, soothing away his troubles and hiding her own.
Ja-nee,
Lena would be a handful.

She suddenly lost her composure and started to cry. It stopped Zane in his stride. He had got the impression she was incapable of tears, that if she were ever to cry she’d let it drip, drip, drip, inside her over a long time. Because it was so unexpected he didn’t know what to do, not like when Chantal cried, or Bernadette. Not that he’d seen much of either of them – Bernadette seemed to have withdrawn in a prolonged sulk.

‘Then it
is
bad news,’ he said.

‘She’s dead,’ she sobbed, putting her arms around herself.

‘For God’s sake, who is?’ It couldn’t be her mother.

‘It’s Sarai. I just knew it, those people who were looking for her, whoever they are, it’s them!’

Zane had been to the parlour in Long Street posing as a customer, for Lena’s sake. When they lined up the girls and there was no one with Sarai’s description, he was quietly relieved. He hastily said that none of them caught his fancy and walked out. The experience had been worse than any karate grading.

‘How sure are you, Lena, and what happened?’

‘It’s in the afternoon paper … a young woman with Asian features was found amongst the rocks at Three Anchor Bay – no ID, no witnesses as to what happened. So far no one has reported a missing person of that description.’

‘She can’t be the only Thai girl in Cape Town, and if it was her, she may have escaped and drowned herself.’

‘The report said she had long hair to her waist and green eyes. Zane, trust me, I have a feeling …’

He wasn’t going to argue; she was right with Curly too. ‘Lena, come here.’ Zane could no longer bear seeing her with her arms around herself. He loosened them gently and tried to put his own around her.

She pushed him away. ‘Are you coming onto me? It’s a cheap shot if you are!’

He ignored her, and almost roughly took her in his arms. She gasped and squirmed uttering little cries, ‘Oh, oh, no, Zane, you can’t …’

He said nothing, wouldn’t let her go, his shirt now wet from her tears. Like a coiled spring suddenly released, her resistance went. But still her arms hung by her side, as if putting them around any man would be taking it much too far.

•

Over a cup of Horlicks in his flat, she said, still sniffing, ‘God, how I hate them! People who say they love people suck, Zane.’ The old fire was back in her eyes. She had an intensity that was unsettling.

‘No more bodies, please, Lena. I’m losing count. I feel like I’m in a Quentin Tarantino movie.’

‘The Flats as pulp fiction, I love it,’ she grinned. ‘All he has to do is set up cameras, let them roll for a month, edit them and he’d have a
kwaai
movie.’

‘What’s next, Lena? Gatiep, Curly, and Sarai all dead – one point to you, two to the unknowns … ‘

‘That’s the part I hate. Four dead … sorry, I mean three, and connected as if a clothesline is running through them. We’ve found the people we were looking for, Zane, now I’ve got the feeling we’re being hunted. I’m scared, really scared.’ She clutched her cup with both hands as if its heat would stop the shiver running through her.

‘You and my sister,’ he said thoughtfully.

•

‘If you’re going to wear Boss jeans, old man, then at least put your belt
over
the logo on the back, not
under
it.’

‘But Appleby, no one will
see
the Boss name, I mean, I bought it because it’s Boss.’

They were having a quick lunch in BAT’s recreational area with Appleby watching Sky News out of the corner of his eye. ‘Now there’s a brand,’ he said, ‘Man U, the greatest in the world, and then there’s Old Trafford – what a combo.’

‘Ah, yes, I forgot you’re from there,’ Zane said. ‘But you were saying about my Boss and my belt …’

‘You don’t want to be a brand wanker, remember? You want to be cool, right, Zane?’ He aimed his Coke can at the waste bin. It went in neatly like a basket ball through a hoop.

Zane nodded. Appleby had a way of making a point. ‘Appleby, where did you grow up?’

‘In a tiny village called Alderley Edge, near Manchester.’ His voice and eyes went soft, ‘It has only one street of shops and guess what it’s called – London Road. The baker, the butcher, post office, bank, greengrocer, fish and chips shop, it doesn’t matter – they all greet you by name and ask how your family is. That’s the real England. It’s in Cheshire, one of England’s best kept secrets – a big-hearted green belt.’

‘What do you think about me working in England some time, Appleby?’ Zane added hastily, ‘I don’t mean now …’ He wanted to get as far away from Cape Town as possible and quickly
.
Life was like riding a big wave that was about to close out with him in the middle of it.

‘Why not, you’re young. But I’d get more experience first if I were you, better for the CV.’ Appleby looked at him. ‘Are you all right, Zane? You’re doing just fine, you know.’

‘I’m okay, just asking, for the future …’ Zane knew he had no choice – he owed his parents and Chantal a better life, he couldn’t leave them behind. He owed nothing to Lena but could he really walk away from her with so many things hanging in the air? She had shown she could cry after all, shown vulnerability for the first time, and was drawing on him like a torch on a battery. And how could he tell her he needed her too, that he was drawing on her courage that was greater than his own?

•

Zane was facing his first opponent in the final section of his black belt grading –
jiy
u kumite,
or free-fighting, against three black belts one after the other. Hundreds of
karateka
were gathered in a hall in Belville for the all-Saturday event.
Kiai
punctured the sweaty air – the shout generated by exhaling sharply and tensing the stomach, giving extra power to the muscles. Zane had completed his
kihon
earlier – combination techniques moving forwards and backwards involving blocking, striking, and kicking in various stances, an exacting series of movements that tolerated no disconnect between mind and body. With
Kankudai,
his
kata
of choice, he executed all sixty-five movements at the correct pace and finished where he had started – on the
embusen
. But his breathing, rhythm and timing felt ragged as if he had been running up a mountain, the serene state of mind that was required eluding him, the ‘empty mind’ in modern karate that had evolved from the Okinawan idea of ‘empty hand’. It was as if his past had come back on this big day to crowd him, a time when his mind had belonged to others not himself – driftwood that had neither the weight nor the will to navigate its own way. ‘Looking at the sky’ –
Kanku’s
first two movements that gave the
kata
its name – had turned to looking at the past through the circle created by Zane’s arms.