?What do you mean??
?The question that you and the spooks must ask is why Tho-bela left Orlando. What changed? What happened??
?And the answer is??
?That is his Achilles? heel. You see, his loyalty was always complete. First, it was the Business. The ANC. The Fight. And when it was all over and they left him high and dry, he took his talents and found someone who could use them. He served Orlando with an irreproachable work ethic. And then something happened, something inside him. I don'?t know what it was? I have my suspicions, but I don'?t know precisely. We were in the hospital, he and I, beaten and shot up, and one day just before six he came to my bed and said he?s finished with violence and fighting. I still wanted to chat, to pull his leg, the way we did, but he was serious, emotional, I could see it was something to him. Something big.?
And that is his Achilles? heel??
Van Heerden leaned forward and she wanted to retreat from him.
?He thinks he can change. He thinks he has changed.?
She heard the words, registered the meaning, overwhelmingly aware, too, of the subtext between them, and in that moment she understood the attraction, the invisible bond: he was like her, somewhere inside there was something missing, something out of place, not quite at home in this world, just like her, as if they didn?'t belong here.
And then the door opened and the bald man appeared, eyes blinking in the bright light of the street outside, and Thobela?s finger caressed the trigger and the long black weapon jerked in his hands and coughed in his ears, and a heartbeat later the blood made a pretty pattern on the wood. In the forty-seven seconds it took to dismantle the weapon and pack it away in the bag, he knew he could not wage war like this. There was no honor in it.
The enemy must see him. The enemy must be able to fight back.
Miriam Nzululwazi knew there was only one way out. She had to climb, she had to get over the railing and hang from the lowest bar and then let herself drop the extra meter to the lower-story fire escape and then repeat the process till she was there where the sawed-off stairs resumed and zigzagged down to the ground.
She pulled herself up over the rail. She did not look down but swung her leg over, then her body, seven floors above the dirty, smelly alley.
?Ma, you?re never home anymore,? said Lien, outside by the car.
?Ai, my child, it?s not because I
to be at work. You know I sometimes have to work extra hours.?
?Is it the motorbike man, Mamma?? asked Lizette.
?You watch too much television.? Stern.
?But is it, Mamma??
She started the car and said softly: ?You know I can?t talk about it.?
?Some people say he?s a hero, Mamma.?
?Suthu says she battles to get you to go to bed. You must listen to her. You hear??
?When will we see you again, Ma??
?Tomorrow, I promise.? She put the car in reverse and released the clutch. ?Sleep tight.?
?Is he, Mamma? Is he a hero?? But she backed out, in a hurry and did not answer.
Quinn and Radebe ran, the black man ahead up the stairs, their footfalls loud in the quiet passage. How was it possible, how could she have escaped? It could not be her. They ran past the door of the interview room; he saw it was shut, which gave him courage. She must be there, but his priority was the fire-escape door. He bumped it open and at first saw nothing, and relief flooded over him. Quinn?s breath was at his neck, and they both stepped out onto the small steel platform.
?Thank God,? he heard Quinn say behind him.
?As long as he believes it,? said Zatopek van Heerden, ?things shouldn'?t get out of hand. They even have a chance to persuade him to turn back. If they approach him correctly.?
?You sound skeptical,? said Allison.
?Have you heard of chaos theory??
She shook her head. The moon lay in the east, a big round light shining down on them. She saw his hand lift from the table and hang in the air; for a moment she thought he was going to touch her and she wanted it, but the hand hung there, an aid in the search for an explanation. ?Basically, it says that a minute change in a small local system can expand to upset the balance in another larger system, far removed from it. It is a mathematical model; they replicate it with computers.?
?you?'ve lost me.?
His hand dropped back and supported his position on the table. ?It?s difficult. First, you have to understand who he is. What his nature is. Some people, most people, are passive bending reeds in the winds of life. Resignedly accepting changes in their environment. Oh, yes, they will moan and complain and threaten, but eventually they will adjust and be sucked along by the stream. Thobela belongs to the other group, the minority, the doers, the activators and the catalysts. When apartheid threatened his genetic fitness index, he resolved to change that environment. The apparent impossibility of the challenge was irrelevant. You follow??
?I think so.?
?Now, at this moment he is suppressing that natural behavior. He thinks he can be a bending reed. And as long as the equilibrium of his own system is undisturbed, he can do it. So far it has been easy. Just his job and Miriam and Pakamile. A safe, closed system. He wants to keep it like that. The problem is life is never like that. The
