Trackers (4 page)

'That's a priority, Tau. Track them down. I want Ismail
replaced.'

'That will take time.'

'You have less than a month.'

He shook his head. 'Ma'am, they weren't a priority for three
or four years. It's a closed circle, Ismail was inside already.'

'There must be someone inside that we can ... reach.'

'I'll prepare a list.'

'Raj, why can't you read their email?'

'They're using an encryption we've never seen before. It
might be a variant of 128 bit, but the bottom line is, we can't crack it. We will
continue to sniff every package. Sooner or later, they will make a mistake and
forget to encrypt. It happens. Eventually.'

She thought for a while before she spoke: 'There is something
brewing here, gentlemen. All the signs are there. The email traffic, the sudden
action against Ismail, the rumours, the so-called shipment, after two years of
quiet. I want to know what it is. If you need more people or resources, talk to
me. Tau, double our surveillance. I want someone in Ismail's place, I want
weekly progress reports, I want focus and commitment. Thank you for coming in
early.'
i.

She went to fetch two more suitcases, then the sleeping bag
and the air mattress out of the white Renault Clio she had parked in the
street. Outside she felt self-conscious. What did the people here think? A
forty-year-old woman moving in alone. That vague anxiety in her, undefined,
lurking there like a slumbering reptile just below the surface of the water.

She unpacked her clothes into the built-in cupboards of cheap
white melamine. In the bathroom the little white cabinet above the basin was
too small for all her things. When she pushed the door closed, it caught her in
the mirror - almost a stranger. Black hair, between long and short, not well
styled. Not dyed, the grey hairs visible. The sallow Mediterranean skin,
wrinkles at the corners of the eyes, two creases at the corners of the mouth.
No make-up, lifeless, tired. An awakening, God, Milla, no wonder - you let
yourself go, what man would stay with you?

She turned around swiftly, went to inflate the mattress.

In the bedroom she sat on the floor and unrolled it, putting
the valve between her lips. Words ran through her, as always, too many.

Some of those words she would write in her diary:
I am here because the woman in the
mirror failed in a small way, day after day. Like holding a rope in my hands,
the invisible weight on the other side of the cliff just heavy enough to slide
down little by little, until the end slipped through my fingers. The cause, I
know now, lay just here under my skin. In the texture of my tissue, in the
twisting of my DNA. Simply made this way. Unfit. Unfit despite my best efforts
and all my good intentions. Unfit
because
of my attempts and intentions. An
inherent, inescapable, deep-rooted, total, frustrating, miserable
unsuitability: I cannot be a wife to that man. I cannot be a mother to that
child. And the strong possibility that I can't be a wife to anyone, that I am
generally, simply unsuited to be a wife and a mother.

From her handbag, her cellphone began to ring. She closed the
mattress valve carefully, deliberately. She guessed it was Christo. Her
ex-husband. For all practical purposes.

The envelope had reached him.

She took the cellphone out of her handbag and checked the
screen. It was Christo's number at work.

He would be sitting in his office with her letter in front of
him. And the documents from the attorney, drawn up in a hurry on Saturday
afternoon. Christo would have the door closed, that angry expression on his
face, that you-fucking-miserable-stupid-woman version. The swearwords would be
damming up. If she answered his call he would open the sluice gates with: '
Jissis
, Milla.'

She stared at the screen, her heart thumping, hands
trembling. She lowered the phone back into her bag. The screen glowed inside
with an unholy light.

Eventually the ring went over to voicemail, the light dimmed.
She knew he would leave a message. Cursing.

She
turned away from the handbag and made a decision: she would change her number.
Before she sat down beside the mattress again, the phone beeped to say she had
a message.

5
August 2009. Wednesday.

They came to deliver the Ardo fridge late that afternoon.
When they had left, Milla stood listening to its reassuring hum. She inspected
its chunky shape and thought, here is something to hold on to. The first, solid
shield against going back, against being swallowed up, against the fear of a
formless future. This was a new unease she felt, the anxiety over money. A
bed, a couch, table, chairs, desk, curtains, everything was ordered, a small
fortune.

Her nest egg, her modest inheritance, had shrunk quite
considerably.

She would have to find work. Urgently. For the money. But
also for the liberation of it.

6 August 2009. Thursday.

She drove back to Durbanville at ten in the morning, when
there would be no one home. She wanted to put the sleeping bag and inflatable
mattress back in the garage; they belonged to Christo, and she would leave her
keys there for the last time.

Herta Erna Street.

Christo had laughed at her when she said she refused to live
in a street with that name.

He worked with figures, he never understood her relationship
with words. Never understood that words were dynamic, they had rhythm and
feeling. That the way her mouth and tongue shaped them was not separate from
meaning, emotion and sound.

The Lombaards of Herta Erna Street. She had shuddered when
they moved in.

She waited impatiently for the gate, as it slowly rolled
aside. Behind it lay the big double storey. 'Developer's Delight', was how an
architect had described this building style in some magazine. Or 'Transvaal
Tuscan'. At best, 'Modern Suburban'.

They had come to look at it together back then. Two months of
searching in this area, because Christo was determined to live here. His only
reason: 'We can afford it'. Which really meant 'We are too rich for Stellenberg
now.'

One Durbanville house after the next. She weighed them and
found them wanting. Luxurious, cold houses without character. Not one of them
had bookshelves. That was what struck her most, all these rich white people,
but not a book in the house. But every single one had a bar. Elaborate,
expensive wooden monstrosities, anything from converted railway sleepers to
light polished Swedish wood, the hidden lighting often done with great care,
skill and expense. Flick the switch and it would come to life, expand, reveal
itself to you: a holy place, a cathedral to St Booze.

Until they had seen this house and Christo said: 'This is the
one I want'. Because it looked expensive. She had objected, to everything, even
the name of the street. He laughed it off and signed the offer to purchase.

Milla drove in, up to the triple garage doors. One for
Christo's Audi Q7. One had been for her Renault. One for Christo's toys.

She pressed the remote for the garage door. It opened. She
took the neatly rolled mattress and sleeping bag, climbed out of the car and
walked in.

The Q7's spot was empty.

Relief.

She hurried to the back where Christo's stuff was stored so
neatly. She put the bedding away in its place. Stood still, aware of the door on
the left, the one that led into the house. She knew she must not go through it.
She would smell Barend. She would see how they were living now. Here she would
feel the gravity of her life pulling at her.

The sound of barking dogs down the street.

Depression laid a hand on her shoulder.

The dogs barked incessantly during the day in this
neighbourhood. 'Dogville'. It was her name for Durbanville when she dared once
more to complain about her lot to Christo.

'Jissis
, Milla, does nothing satisfy you?'

She left the garage and hurried to her car.

At the Palm Grove Mall in Durbanville town centre she slipped
into the first available car park, meaning to buy something for lunch at
Woolworths. When she got out, she saw the sign for the Arthur Murray dance
studio. She glanced at it for a moment, she had forgotten it was here, more
evidence of the daze that she had been living in.

At the entrance to the supermarket she smelled the flowers
and looked at them, their colours so bright. It was like seeing them for the first
time. She thought about the words in her diary last night.
How can I regain who I was, BC? Before Christo.

Back at the Renault she looked at the signboard again.

Dance. Christo wouldn't dance. Not even at university. Why
had she so meekly accepted his choices, his preferences? She had got so much
pleasure from dancing in those days, before it all changed.

She unlocked her car, got in, put the flowers and the plastic
shopping bag with her lunch ingredients on the passenger seat.

She was free of Christo.

She got out again, locked the door and went in search of the
studio.

On the dance floor in the bright light streaming through the
windows were a man and a woman. Young. He was wearing black trousers, white shirt,
black waistcoat. She had on a short wine-red dress, her legs long and lovely. A
tango played through the speakers, they glided over the wooden floor, with
effortless skill.

Milla stared, enchanted by the beauty, the flow, the perfect
timing, their visible pleasure, and was filled with a sudden longing - to be
able to do something like that, so well. One beautiful thing you could lose
yourself in, where you could feel, and give and live.

If only she could dance like that. So free.

Finally she approached the desk in front. A woman looked up
and smiled.

'I want
to learn,' said Milla.

7
August 2009. Friday.

Her hair was cut and dyed. She had chosen her outfit with
care. Her goal was informal professionalism, casual elegance with boots,
slacks, black sweater and red scarf. Now, as she waited for The Friend in the
Media 24 coffee shop she was uncertain - was her make-up too light, the scarf
overdone, did she look too formal, like someone trying too hard?

But when The Friend appeared she said 'Milla! You look
wonderful!'

'Do you think so?'

'You
know
you're
beautiful.'

But she didn't know.

The Friend had studied with her, seventeen years ago, and
made her career in journalism. The Friend, finely featured, was currently
deputy editor of a well known women's magazine, and frequently spoke in accents
and exclamation marks.

'How are things
going
with
you?'

'Fine.' And then with some trepidation, 'I want to work.'

'Write your book? At last!'

'I'm thinking of a job in journalism ...'

'No! Milla! What for? Trouble?'

She knew she couldn't talk about everything yet. So she just
shrugged and said, 'Barend doesn't need me at home any more.'

'Milla!
Not a good idea. You are the wrong colour. You have no experience, no CV, your
honours degree won't help, not at our age. You will be competing with hordes of
ambitious, highly qualified young people who are prepared to work for nothing.
They know Digital Media, Milla, they live in it. And the economy! The media is
fighting to survive! Have you any idea how many magazines they are shutting
down? Jobs frozen, cuts. You couldn't have picked a worse time. Tell Christo
you want to open a boutique. A coffee shop. Journalism? Forget it!'

9
August 2009. Sunday.

She sat in the sitting room on her new sofa. The Careers
section of the
Sunday Times
was on the coffee
table in front of her. Her eyes anxiously scanned the media adverts, companies
searching for an eCommerce Operations Manager, a WordPress/PHP Developer, Web
Developer and a Web Editor (
Internet/Mobile
experience ess).

The anxiety was growing, the doubt, she wasn't going to make
it, wasn't going to survive. The Friend was right. On Friday afternoon an
employment agency consultant had told Milla the same, hidden behind political
correctness and corporate euphemism. She had no chance.

She couldn't accept it. At first she had called the
magazines, directly, one after the other. She worked down her list of
preferences to the dailies, Afrikaans and English. After that, reluctantly, the
local, weekly tabloids, and finally, in desperation, tried to track down the
publishers of company magazines.

Without success. The same message: No vacancies. But send
your CV.

Right at the bottom of one of the inside pages she spotted a
small block advert: