thought about it over the years. I studied myself and other people, remembered, questioned. I developed the talent to watch their appearance and actions for threatening behaviour, but also to guess their life stories and ask myself: ‘How am I human through them?’ I wondered about my inability to be part of a whole. The community is a primitive organism with a selectively permeable membrane and I could not be selected, my shape didn’t fit.
Later, when I had more perspective, I wished I could talk to the minister on the koppie again. Tell him Africa was the source of
But the continent had another side, yang to the yin of
And nowhere did I see it more frequently than in Africa. In my travels with the National Party and ANC ministers I saw the world – Europe, the Middle and Far East, and my home continent. And here in the cradle of mankind, in the eyes of politicians and dictators, policemen, soldiers and bodyguards and eventually fellow jailbirds, I recognised the majority of my blood brothers. In the Congo and Nigeria, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, Angola and Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania and Brandvlei Prison. People forged by violence who spread it around like a gospel.
Sometimes I felt a deep desire to be different. To belong to the brotherhood of respect, compassion and sympathy, the astonishing support and selflessness. It was the genetic echo of my forebears who left Africa too many aeons ago, the signal was too faint, the distance too great.
I didn’t fret about it. That’s the way it is: a white man on the continent of
In the VIP suite B. J. Fikter told me his night had passed without incident. He was getting ready to go to bed and I took Emma’s cell phone and charger and went to look for Dr Eleanor Taljaard.
She said the fact that Emma was still comatose was bad news. ‘There has been no change in the last seventy-two hours, Lemmer. That’s the problem. The longer the coma continues the worse the prognosis.’
I wanted to ask her whether there was anything they could do, but I knew what the answer would be.
‘Eleanor, I need a place to rent for a few days, a week maybe, in the Klaserie district. Not a tourist place. Something remote. A farm or a smallholding.’
‘At Klaserie?’
I nodded.
‘Why there?’
‘Don’t ask.’
She shook her head. ‘The police are guarding her. Your people are guarding her. What’s going on? Is she in danger?’
‘She’s safe here. I just want to make sure she’s safe when she gets out.’
The doctor’s expression was unreadable, then she shrugged her questions off and said, ‘Let me ask Koos.’
She phoned her husband and passed on my request.
‘Koos said it’s New Year. Only doctors and people in love are working.’
‘Tell him it’s urgent, please.’
She passed on my words, making notes on a writing pad with a drug logo at the top. She asked for my cell phone number and repeated it to him. When she put the phone down, she tore off the sheet of paper and said, ‘Koos says he will get Nadine Bekker to call you. She’s an estate agent. Just give him some time. He wants to exert a bit of pressure. He’s good at that.’
‘Thank you very much.’ I stood up.
‘Lemmer,’ she said. ‘I assume you know what you’re doing.’
‘That remains to be seen,’ I said.
The only place open for breakfast was the Wimpy. I ordered a Double-Up Breakfast and had drunk the first of two large coffees when Nadine Bekker phoned. Her voice was shrill and she spoke rapidly, like someone who was out of breath and late. ‘Dr Koos Taljaard said you have an emergency, but I must say that it will be a challenge to get what you’re looking for. People don’t want to rent in the short term.’
‘I’ll pay for a month.’
‘That would help. Give me a little time, it’s New Year, I don’t know if I can contact the people. I’ll call you back.’
A waiter with bloodshot eyes brought my breakfast. The cook must have been at the same party, because the eggs were rubbery and the pork sausages dry. I had to eat. I ordered more coffee to wash it down. I looked around at the handful of other people in the restaurant. They sat singly, or two to a table, conversing quietly with heads and shoulders bowed. Did I look like them? Somewhat lost, vaguely lonely, a little self-conscious that a Wimpy breakfast was the best thing we could do on this festive morning.
I had a pointless feeling of guilt that I couldn’t shake off. It had to do with Emma, owing partly to her condition and my work ethic. How could I, who was supposed to be working, pursue carnal pleasure while she lay in a coma? That was the easier part to ponder and shrug off. The other part was more difficult because at the heart of it was the way I felt about her. How much had she manipulated me to like her, to sympathise with her, to give my support to her cause? How much was deliberate? How much of my discomfort had to do with the fact that I couldn’t protect her and that she was the first one I had failed professionally? There was an entire minefield for my conscience.
Besides, I hadn’t gone looking for anything. It just happened. It was ten months since I had been with a woman. That was why last night was so intense. It will happen; sometimes you meet a woman with the same hunger, the same anger, the same need.
My cell phone rang. It was Nadine Bekker. ‘I have two possibilities for you. There are some others, but the owners are not answering their phones. When I have more time I’ll be able to manage something. Do you want to have a look?’
* * *
She was a small woman in her fifties, a busy little bee with short bottle-blonde hair and an extravagant wedding ring on her pudgy finger. She was dressed as though she were off to church, her high heels click-clacking hurriedly across the tar road as she approached my car.
‘Wait, don’t get out, hi, I’m Nadine, pleased to meet you, just follow me, I’ll show you the first place, it’s not far.’
Business couldn’t be too bad in the Lowveld property market; she drove a white Toyota Prado, but not as fast as she could speak.
The first house was near Dingleydale, east of the R40, about ten kilometres from Edwin Dibakwane’s house with the pink concrete. It was right on the gravel road and a huddle of the locals’ houses was in view.
I stopped behind her and got out. ‘Unfortunately, this won’t do.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t really know what you want, usually we go through all the requirements first. Koos just said a house on a farm or a smallholding.’
‘I want something more remote.’
‘The other place is more remote, but it is a bit run down, if you don’t mind neglected, and there is no electricity, just gas. It belongs to an advocate in Pretoria. He has a few places, but no one lives on that one, he bought it as an investment. It has a beautiful view of the mountain and there’s a river.’
‘I don’t mind neglected.’
‘Let’s take a look, then. Maybe it’s just what you want and the rent is less too. You will have to take it for the whole month, but you said you’re OK with that.’
‘I am.’
We drove on, north on the R40 and then left on a gravel road at Green Valley. Mariepskop loomed directly ahead, the slopes densely forested.
After fifteen kilometres of dusty bends she stopped at a farm gate and jumped out, indicating that I should
