w: And you trusted him with a key?
B: Not the first day, I?m not a moron.
w: But later on.
B: Hell, he was here on the doorstep every morning when I arrived. Every bloody morning, never sick, never late, never cheeky. He worked? hell, that man can work. Last winter I told him he must open up, he can?t stand in the rain like that, he could sweep out and put the kettle on. By the time we arrive, the coffee is made? every fucking morning, the place shines like a new penny. You think you can trust someone. You think you know people?.
Twice he was gofer at Killarney when the BMW Rider Academy was coaching well-off, middle-aged white men in the art of motorcycle riding, and now he regretted that he hadn'?t paid attention, that he hadn'?t absorbed all that knowledge.
He was riding through Du Toits Kloof Pass in the dark and he was aware that he was a caricature of how it should not be done. Riding jerkily, brakes and throttle and brakes and throttle and switching the light between bright and dim in a battle between good vision and the oncoming traffic, massive, snorting trucks avoiding the toll by using the long route and taking the sharp turns wide or chugging along at a snail?s pace ahead of him. He sweated inside the expensive, efficient biker suit, his body heat steaming up the shield with water vapor so that time and again he had to clip it open, always aware of the drop on the left side, the lights very far down below.
Brake, turn, brake, turn, ride, struggling and swearing to the highest point, and then the road swung abruptly east and the lights were gone. For the first time the darkness was complete and the road suddenly quiet, and he became aware of the tremendous tension in his torso, muscles like strung wires, and he pulled over to the side, stopped, yanked the helmet from his head, put the clutch in neutral, took his hands from the handlebars, and stretched, taking in a deep breath.
He must relax, he had to, he was tired already and there were hundreds of kilometers ahead. He had made progress. He had come this far, navigated half the pass in the dark. Despite his ham-fistedness, the monster bike was not impossible. It was being patient with him as though it were waiting for him to try a lighter touch.
Deep breaths, in and out, a certain satisfaction, he had reached this milestone, he was at the top. He had a story to tell Pakamile and Miriam. He wondered if she was asleep. The digital clock on the instrument panel said Miriam had laid out the boy?s school things, clothes, and lunch box. If he had been home, his lunch tin would have been packed, the house tidy, the sheets of their bed folded back, and she would have come and lay down with the wonderful smells of the oils and soaps of the bathroom, the alarm set for five o?clock, the light off and her breathing immediately deep and peaceful, the sleep of the innocent, the sleep of the worker.
Behind him he heard a lorry approaching the turn, and he stretched one last time, savoring the night air, clipped the shield down, and pulled away with the knowledge that he had at least mastered the throttle. He deliberately turned it open, felt the power beneath him, and then he was in the next turn and he concentrated on keeping his body relaxed, leaning into the turn as he did with the Benly carefully, unskilled, but a lot better, more comfortable, more natural, and he accelerated slowly out of the turn, aimed for the next, through the old tunnel, another curve and another, down, down to the valley of the Meulenaars river, down, fighting the urge to stiffen up, keeping himself loose and light, feeling the personality of the bike through his limbs, turn and straighten, over and over, joining up with the toll road, suddenly impossibly luxurious and three lanes wide, the curves wide? the relief was tremendous.
As he looked down at the speedo, it read 130. He smiled inside his helmet at the sensation and the amazing thing that he had accomplished.
9.
This is not what we were trained to do,? said Tiger Mazibuko over the cell phone. He was standing outside next to the runway. He could see his men through the window, they were still pumped after the action they had seen, they talked of nothing else, living it over in the finest detail on the way to the air force base, teasing one another, even him, begging their commander to let them all have a chance to shoot? why only Da Costa? Zwelitini said he was going to send a strongly worded letter to the Zulu king to complain that even in the country?s most elite unit there was racial discrimination? only the colonials were allowed to fire, the poor ol? blacks could only watch? and the twelve roared with mirth, but Tiger Mazibuko did not.
?I know, Tiger, but it was very valuable.?
?We are not the SAPS. give us something proper to do. give us a challenge.?
?Does a man that can pick off beer bottles with an AK at two hundred meters sound like a challenge??
?Only one man??
?Unfortunately, just one, Tiger.?
?No, that doesn'?t sound like a challenge.?
?Well, that?s the best I can do. Stand by for an Oryx from Twenty-third Squadron. We are going to pursue the fugitive; you will go on ahead and wait for him.?
His quietness displayed his disgruntlement.
When she realized what he was up to, her voice was angry. ?If the challenge is not big enough for you, you can always go back to Tempe. I am sure I can find another alternative.?
?What do we know about this great shooter of beer bottles??
?Too little. He might or might not have been MK, he was a sort of bodyguard for organized crime, and nowadays he is a gofer at a motorbike dealer.?
?Was he MK, or wasn'?t he??
?We are working on it, Tiger. We are working on it.?
Transcript of interview by A. J. M. Williams with Mrs. Miriam Nzululwazi, 23 October, 22:51,21 Govan Mbeki Avenue, Guguletu
w: I represent the state, Mrs. Nzululwazi. I have a few questions about Mr. Thobela Mpayipheli and a Miss Monica Kleintjes.
