She set the table. She couldn?t find candles or candlesticks so she just put the place mats and cutlery on the table. She called Carlos to come to the table and then she brought out the food: fillet of beef stuffed with smoked oysters, baked potatoes and
Carlos couldn?t compliment her enough, although she knew the food wasn?t that special. He was still buttering her up. ?You see, conchita, no crew. Just me and you. No problem.?
She said he must save room for dessert, pears in wine and cinnamon. And she was going to make him real Irish coffee and it was very important to her that he drink it because she had made it the way she had been taught, long ago when she worked for a caterer in Bloemfontein.
He said he would drink every drop and then they were going to make love, right here on the table.
Somewhere on the N2, fifty kilometers before Port Elizabeth, Griessel made him stop.
?Do you need a piss??
?Yes.?
?Now?s the time.?
When they had finished, standing four meters apart, the white man holding his organ in one hand and the pistol in the other, they went on their way.
At the outskirts of the city they stopped for petrol without getting out of the car.
When they passed the turnoff to Hankey and the road began to descend down to the Gamtoos Valley, Griessel spoke again: ?When I was young I played bass guitar. In a band.?
Thobela didn?t know if he should respond.
?I thought that was what I wanted to do.
?Yesterday night I listened to music my son gave me. When it was finished I lay in the dark and I remembered something. I remembered the day I realized I would never be more than an average bass guitarist.
?I had finished school, it was December holidays and there was a battle of the bands at Green Point. We went to listen, the guys from my band and me. There was this bassist, short with snow-white hair in one or other of the rock bands that played other people?s songs. Jissis, he was a magician. Standing stock-still, not moving his body in the slightest. He didn?t even look at the neck, just stood there with closed eyes and his fingers flew and the sounds came out like a river. Then I realized where my place was. I saw someone who had been born for bass guitar. Fuck, I could tell we felt the same. The music did the same inside; it opened you up. But feeling and doing are not the same thing. That is the tragedy. You want to be like
so fucking casually brilliant, but you don?t have it in you.
?So I knew I would never be a real bass guitarist, but I wanted to be like that in something. That good. So . . . skillful. In something. I began to wonder how you found it. How did you start to search for the thing you were made for? What if there wasn?t one? What if you were just an average fucker in everything? Born average and living your average life and then you fucking die and no one knows the difference.
?While I was searching I joined the police, because what I didn?t know is that you know without knowing. Something deep in your head directs you to what you
do. But it took me a while. Because I didn?t think being a policeman was something you could feel, like music.
?Also, it doesn?t happen just like that. You have to pay your dues, you have to learn, make your own mistakes. But one day you sit with a case file that makes no sense to any other fucker, and you read the statements and the notes and the reports and it all comes together. And you feel this thing inside. You hear the music of it, you pick up its rhythm deep inside you and you know this is what you were made for.?
Thobela heard the white man sigh. He wanted to tell him he understood.
?And then nothing can stop you,? said Griessel. ?Nobody. Except yourself.
?Everyone thinks you?re good. They tell you. ?Fuck it, Benny, you?re the best. Jissis, pal, you?re red hot.? And you want to believe it, because you can see they are right, but there is this little voice inside you that says you are just a Parow Arrow who was never really good at anything. An average little guy. And sooner or later they will catch you out. One day they will expose you and the world will laugh because you thought you were something.
?So, before it happens, you have to expose yourself. Destroy yourself. Because if you do it yourself, then you at least have a sort of control over it.?
There was a noise behind, almost a laugh. ?Fucking tragic.?
44.
He fell asleep at the table. She saw it coming. Carlos?s tongue began to drag more and more. He switched over to Spanish, as if she understood every word.
He leaned heavily on his place mat, eyes struggling to focus on her.
The scene played out as if she had no part in it, as if it were happening in another space and time. He had a stupid smile on his face. He mumbled.
He lowered his head interminably slowly to the tabletop. He put his palms flat on the surface. He said one last, incomprehensible word and then his breath came deep and easy. She knew she couldn?t leave him like that. If his body relaxed he would fall.
She rose and came around behind him. She put her hands under his arms, entwining the fingers of her hands with his. Lifted him. He was as heavy as lead, dead weight. He made a sound and gave her a fright, not knowing if he was deeply enough asleep. She stood like that, feeling she couldn?t hold him. Then she dragged him, step by step, over to the big couch. She fell back into a sitting position with Carlos on top of her.
He spoke, clear as crystal. Her body jerked. She sat still a moment, realizing he was not conscious. She rolled him over her with great effort, so that he lay askew on the couch. She squirmed out from under him and stood beside the couch, breath racing, perspiration sprung out on her skin, needing badly to sit to give her legs time to
