Konovalenko put his pistol back in his pocket.
“You still don’t understand,” he said. “We don’t exist. We’ll be disappearing from here in a few days, and everything must be as if we had never been here.”
“She was just asking directions,” said Victor Mabasha again, and he could feel he was starting to sweat with excitement. “There has to be a reason for killing a human being.”
“Get back in the house,” said Konovalenko. “I’ll take care of it.”
He watched from the window as Konovalenko backed the woman’s car up to the body and put it in the trunk before driving off.
He was back again in barely an hour. He came walking along the cart track, and there was no sign of her car.
“Where is she?” asked Victor Mabasha.
“Buried,” said Konovalenko.
“And the car?”
“Also buried.”
“That didn’t take long.”
Konovalenko put the coffeepot on the stove. He turned to Victor Mabasha with a smile.
“Something else for you to learn,” he said. “No matter how well organized you are, the unexpected is always liable to happen. But that’s precisely why such detailed planning is necessary. If you are well organized, you can improvise. If not, the unexpected merely causes chaos and confusion.”
Konovalenko turned back to the coffeepot.
I’ll kill him, thought Victor Mabasha. When all this is over, when we’re ready to go our separate ways, I’ll kill him. There’s no going back now.
That night he could not sleep. He could hear Konovalenko snoring through the wall. Jan Kleyn will understand, he thought.
He is like me. He likes everything to be clean-cut and well planned. He hates brutality, hates senseless violence.
By my killing President de Klerk he wants to put an end to all the pointless killing in South Africa today.
A monster like Konovalenko must never be granted asylum in our country. A monster must never be given permission to enter paradise on earth.
Three days later Konovalenko announced they were ready to move on.
“I’ve taught you all I can,” he said. “And you’ve mastered the rifle. You know how to think once you’re told who will soon be featuring in your sights. You know how to think when you’re planning the final details of the assassination. It’s time for you to go back home.”
“There’s one thing I’ve been wondering,” said Victor Mabasha. “How am I going to get the rifle to South Africa with me?”
“You won’t be traveling together, of course,” said Konovalenko, not bothering to disguise his contempt for what seemed to him such an idiotic question. “We’ll use another method of transport. You don’t need to know what.”
“I have another question,” Victor Mabasha went on. “The pistol. I haven’t even had a test shot, not a single one.”
“You don’t need one,” said Konovalenko. “That’s for you. If you fail. It’s a gun that can never be traced.”
Wrong, thought Victor Mabasha. I’m never going to point that gun at my own head.
I’m going to use it on you.
That same evening Konovalenko got drunker than Victor Mabasha had ever seen him. He sat opposite him at the table, staring at him with bloodshot eyes.
What is he thinking about, Victor Mabasha asked himself. Has that man ever experienced love? If I were a woman, what would it be like to share a bed with him?
The thought made him uneasy. He pictured the dead woman in the yard in front of him.
“You have many faults,” said Konovalenko, interrupting his train of thought, “but the biggest is that you are sentimental.”
“Sentimental?”
He knew what it meant. But he was not sure just what significance Konovalenko was attaching to the word.
“You didn’t like me shooting that woman,” said Konovalenko. “These last few days you’ve been absentminded and you’ve been shooting very badly. I’ll point out this weakness in my final report to Jan Kleyn. It worries me.”
“It worries me even more to think that a man can be as brutal as you are,” said Victor Mabasha.
Suddenly there was no turning back. He knew he was going to have to tell Konovalenko what he was thinking.
“You’re dumber than I thought,” said Konovalenko. “I guess that’s the way black men are.”
Victor Mabasha let the words sink into his consciousness. Then he rose slowly to his feet.
“I’m going to kill you,” he said.
Konovalenko shook his head with a smile.
“No you’re not,” he said.
Victor Mabasha drew the pistol and aimed at Konovalenko.
“You shouldn’t have killed her,” he said. “You degraded both me and yourself.”
He saw that Konovalenko was scared.
“You’re crazy,” he said. “You can’t kill me.”
“There’s nothing I’m better at than doing what needs to be done,” said Victor Mabasha. “Get up. Slowly. Hands up. Turn around.”
Konovalenko did as he was told.
Victor Mabasha had just enough time to register that something was wrong before Konovalenko flung himself to one side with enormous speed. Victor Mabasha pulled the trigger, but the bullet hit a bookcase.
Where the knife came from he had no idea. But Konovalenko had it in his hand when he hurled himself at him. Their combined weight crushed a table beneath them. Victor Mabasha was strong, but so was Konovalenko. Victor Mabasha could see the knife being forced closer and closer to his face. Only when he managed to kick Konovalenko in the back did he loosen his grip. He had dropped the pistol. He thumped Konovalenko with his fist, but there was no reaction. Before he broke loose he suddenly felt a stinging sensation in his left hand. His whole arm went numb. But he managed to grab Konovalenko’s half-empty bottle of vodka, turn around and smash it over his head. Konovalenko collapsed and stayed down.
At the same moment Victor Mabasha realized the index finger of his left hand had been sliced off and was hanging on to his hand by a thin piece of skin.
He staggered out of the house. He had no doubt he had smashed Konovalenko’s skull. He looked at the blood pouring out of his hand. Then he gritted his teeth and tore off the scrap of skin. The finger dropped onto the gravel. He went back into the house, wrapped a dishcloth round his bleeding hand, flung some clothes into his suitcase and then looked around for the pistol. He shut the door behind him, started the Mercedes, and hurtled off after a racing start. He was driving far too fast for the narrow dirt road. At one point he narrowly avoided a collision with an oncoming car. Then he found his way out onto a bigger road and forced himself to slow down.
My finger, he thought. It’s for you, songoma. Guide me home now. Jan Kleyn will understand. He is a clever nkosi. He knows he can trust me. I shall do what he wants me to do. Even if I don’t use a rifle that can shoot over eight hundred meters. I shall do what he wants me to do and he’ll give me a million rand. But I need your help now, songoma. That’s why I have sacrificed my finger.
Konovalenko sat motionless in one of the leather chairs. His head was throbbing. If the vodka bottle had hit his head in front rather than from the side, he would have been dead. But he was still alive. Now and then he pressed a handkerchief filled with ice cubes against one temple. He forced himself to think clearly despite the pain. This was not the first time Konovalenko had found himself in a crisis.
After about an hour he had considered all the alternatives and knew what he was going to do. He looked at his watch. He could call South Africa twice a day and get in direct touch with Jan Kleyn. There were twenty minutes to go before the next transmission. He went into the kitchen and refilled his handkerchief with ice cubes.
