?But you gave them the information,? said Joubert.
?For money, you piece of shit,? said Griessel.
Joubert put his big hand soothingly on the inspector?s arm.
Bezuidenhout wiped the perspiration from his forehead and shook his head. ?I?m not going down alone for this.?
?Give us the others, Bushy. You know, if you cooperate . . .?
?Jissis, Sup.?
?Give me five minutes alone with this cunt,? said Griessel.
?Jissis, Benny, I didn?t know what they were going to do. I didn?t know. Do you think I would???
Griessel shouted him down. ?Who, Bushy? Tell me who!?
?Beukes, fuck it. Beukes with his bloody cap brought me this shitload of money in a fucking brown envelope . . .?
Matt Joubert?s voice was sharp in the room. ?Benny, no. Sit. I will not let you go.?
Fourteen kilometers beyond Keimoes he saw the sign and turned right to Kanoneiland. They crossed the river that flowed peaceful and brown under the bridge, and between green vineyards heavy with giant bunches of grapes.
?Amazing,? said Carla, and he knew what she meant. This fertility here, the surprise of it. But he was also aware that she was observing, that she was less turned in on herself, and it gave him hope again.
They drove up the long avenue of pines to the guesthouse and Carla said, ?Look,? and pointed a finger at his side of the road. Between the trees he could see the horses: big Arabians, three bays and a magnificent gray.
When Christine van Rooyen walked down the street in Reddersburg, the sun came up over the Free State horizon, a giant balloon breaking loose from the hills and sweeping over the grassland.
She turned off the main street, down an unpaved street, past houses that were still dark and silent.
She looked intently at one of them. The babysitter said a writer lived here, a man hiding away from the world.
It was a good place for it.
The secretary at the high school shook her head and said she had only worked here for three years. But he could ask Mr. Losper. Mr. Losper had been at the school for years. He taught Biology. But it was holidays now; Mr. Losper would be at home. She gave him precise directions and he drove there and knocked on the door.
Losper was somewhere in his fifties, a man with smoker?s wrinkles and rough voice who invited him in, since it was cooler in the dining room. Would he like a beer? He said no thanks, he was fine.
When they were seated at the dining-room table and he asked his question, the man shut his eyes for a moment, as if sending up a quick prayer to heaven, and then he said, ?Christine van Rooyen.? Solemnly, he put his arms on the table and folded his hands together.
?Christine van Rooyen,? he repeated, as if the repetition of the name would open up his memory.
Then he told Griessel the story, regularly inserting admissions of guilt and rationalization. Of Martie van Rooyen who lost her soldier husband in Angola. Martie van Rooyen, the blonde woman with the big bosom and the small blonde daughter. A woman the community gossiped about even when her husband was still alive. Rumors of visits when Rooies was away on training courses, or on the Border.
And after Rooies?s death there was very soon a replacement. And another. And another. She lured them home from the ladies? bar at the River Hotel with red lipstick and a low neckline. While the child wandered around the yard with a stuffed dog in her arms, an object that later became so filthy it was scandalous.
The gossipmongers said the substitute for Rooies used to hit Martie. And sometimes played around with more than just the mother. But in Upington, many watch but few act. Social Welfare tried to step in, but the mother sent them packing and Christine van Rooyen grew up like that. Sad and wild. Earned a reputation of her own. Loose. Easy. There was talk when the girl was a teenager. About an old friend of her father?s who . . . you know. And an Afrikaans teacher. There were goings-on at the school. The child was difficult. Smoking and drinking with the rough crowd, the school had always had one, it was a funny town, this, with the Army and all.
Losper had heard the story that when Christine had finished school she walked out of the house with a suitcase while her mother was in bed with a substitute. Went to Bloemfontein, apparently, but he didn?t know what became of her.
?And the mother??
She had also left, he had heard. With a man in a pickup. Cape Town. Or the West Coast: there were so many stories.
She walked past. Three houses down she turned in at a garden gate that creaked on opening. It needed oiling.
The garden was overgrown with weeds. She took the box and put it down on the verandah. It was light now.
In the minister?s study she had pulled it towards her one last time and taken out the cash. Four hundred thousand rand in one-hundred-rand notes.
?This is a tenth,? she said.
?You can?t buy the Lord?s forgiveness,? he had answered wearily, but couldn?t keep his eyes off the money.
?I don?t want to buy anything. I just want to give. It?s for the Church.?
She had waited for his response and then he walked her to the door and she could smell the odor of his body behind her, the smell of a man after a long day.
