four or five days later, she would remember who he was. She would accept the invitation to the top-ten restaurant. Or the art exhibition, or the symphony concert. She would know from the start that he was not really her type, but she would give it a chance. By her mid-thirties she would have learned enough about people in general and men in particular to know that her type had complications. A woman like Emma would be attracted to the
Her sort was a metrosexual with a dark fringe, pale eyes and the perfect smile. The sporty, fit, outdoor kind that went jogging on the beach with his Staffordshire terrier, and parked his old, secondhand Land Rover Defender in front of Camps Bay’s hot spots, the spade prominent on the rack along with the jerrycans. After four or five relationships with clones of Mr Men’s Health she would know that the soulful silences and the laconic devil-may- care chats were mostly camouflage for self-absorption and average intellect. So she would allow the Stoffels of the world a chance, and after a month or so of entertaining, albeit unexciting dates she would gently tell him it would be better if they were only friends (‘you’re a good guy’) while secretly she wondered why this sort of man could not set her heart alight.
We took off into the south-easter. Emma put the magazine away and stared out of the window at False Bay, where the white horse breakers galloped into the shore. She turned to me.
‘Where are you from, Lemmer?’ With apparent interest.
A bodyguard does not sit with his client on planes. The bodyguard, even on a solo mission, forms part of the greater entourage. Usually he travels in a separate vehicle, always in a seat, to perform his duties anonymously and impersonally. No intimate contact and conversation, no questions about the past. It is a necessary distance, a professional buffer, so ordained by Lemmer’s First Law.
‘The Cape.’
It was not enough to satisfy her. ‘Which part?’
‘I grew up in Seapoint.’
‘It must have been wonderful.’ What an interesting assumption. ‘You’ve lost the accent.’
‘That’s what twenty years in the public service does for you.’
‘Brothers and sisters?’
‘No.’
Some part of me enjoyed this, the attention, the interest. I felt like her equal.
‘And your parents?’
I merely shook my head, hoping it would be enough. It was time to shift the focus. ‘What about you? Where did you grow up?’
‘Johannesburg. Linden, in fact. Then I went to Stellenbosch University. It was such a romantic idea, compared to Pretoria and Johannesburg.’ She stopped for a second, thoughts drifting off. ‘Afterwards, I stayed in the Cape. It’s so different from the Highveld. So much … nicer. I don’t know, I just felt at home. As if I belonged. My dad used to tease me. He said I lived in Canaan while they were in exile in Egypt.’
I couldn’t think what next to ask. She got in first. ‘I understand from Jeanette Louw that you live in the country?’
My employer would have had to explain why it would take six hours for me to report. I nodded. ‘Loxton.’
She reacted predictably, ‘Loxton …’, as if she ought to know where it was.
‘In the Northern Cape. Upper Karoo, between Beaufort West and Carnarvon.’
She had a way of looking at you, a genuine, open curiosity. I knew what the question on her tongue would be. ‘Why would you want to live there?’ But she didn’t ask it. She was too politically correct, too aware of convention.
‘I wouldn’t mind having a place in the country one day,’ she said, as though she envied me. She waited for my reaction, for me to tell her the reasons, the pros and cons. It was a subtle way of asking the ‘Why would you live there?’ question.
I was rescued by the steward, who passed out blue cartons of food – a sandwich, a packet of savoury snacks, a fruit juice. I avoided the bread. Emma only drank the juice. While she forced the straw through the tiny foil-sealed hole with her delicate fingers she said: ‘You have a very interesting job.’
‘Only when I can squeeze the Stoffels of the world against a pillar.’
She laughed. There was also a touch of something else, faint surprise, as if seeing something contradictory to the image she had built up of me. This average man who had been a disappointment in the conversation department had a sense of humour.
‘Have you guarded any famous people?’
That’s what everyone wants to know. For some of my colleagues, interaction with celebrities gives them valuable attention currency. They would answer ‘yes’ – and deal a few names of film stars and musicians like cards on the table. The questioner would pounce on one name and ask, ‘Is he/she nice?’ Not, ‘Is she a good person?’ or, ‘Is he a man of integrity?’ But nice – that all-inclusive, meaningless, lazy word South Africans just love to use. What they really want to know is whether fame and fortune have turned the subject of the discussion into a self-centred monster, news that they can pass on as part of the eternal market forces of information that determine social status.
Or something like that. The standard answer of B. J. Fikter, the only other Body Armour employee that I can work with tolerably, is, ‘I can tell you, but then I’d have to shoot you.’ It was an affirmation that still afforded status, but the worn-out joke avoided revealing any details.
‘We sign a confidentiality clause,’ I told Emma.
‘Oh’
It took a while for her to come to the realisation that she had tried all the possible subjects without success. A merciful quiet descended. After a while she took out the magazine again.
6
Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport was a surprise, despite the pretentious name. The airport building, set between green hills and chunky rock formations, was modern and new. And attractive. It had an African theme of giant thatched roof and ochre walls, yet was not kitsch. The heat out on the runway was oppressive, the humidity high. I switched on my cell phone as we walked to the arrivals hall. There was an SMS from Jeanette, FILE EXISTS.
Inside the terminal it was cooler, quite bearable. We waited for our luggage. I stood half behind Emma. There was a sensual curve to her jeans and the slope of her lovely neck and shoulders which set off the powder- blue camisole to best advantage. But shifting my focus away, to compare her to the larger, coarser people surrounding her, I noticed that she seemed vulnerable. She had a tender fragility that cried out for protection, or at least compassion, despite the subtle self-assurance of the beautiful and wealthy career woman.
On the plane she had been charming, correct, humble, an altruist. I am interested in you as a person, Lemmer, even though you are a hired hand.
So many facets.
Lemmer’s Law of Small Women: Never trust them. Not professionally, nor personally. From an early age they learn two Pavlovian tricks. The first is a product of people’s reactions: ‘Ah, aren’t you a cute little thing,’ especially if the little face is round and the eyes large. People treat them like precious little pets, so they learn to exploit that with mannerisms and gestures that emphasise their cuteness, and allow them to sharpen their manipulative skills into a social blade. The second is the feeling of physical helplessness. The world is big and powerful; they are delicate and relatively weak. The bigger, fuller woman’s curves of breast and thigh are beacons for male interest; the silhouettes of small women attract less attention. For survival, self-defence and to stand their ground, they are forced to resort to other means. They learn to use the power of their intellect; they learn to manipulate, to play a continuous mental game with the world around them.
Jeanette had confirmed the existence of the case file. There was truth in Emma’s story. But how much truth? Did it answer enough of the questions? If her life truly was in danger, why had she opted for Body Armour’s cheapest option, when, according to Carel, she had inherited grandly?
Should I give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that Carel had been exaggerating? Or didn’t Emma
