?Only sixty kilometers,? he said consolingly. ?Do you want a cold drink??
?No thanks,? said the boy and lifted up the 500-ml Coca Cola bottle that had been lying at his feet. It was not yet empty.
Thobela stopped at the pumps and climbed out of the pickup. There was no attendant in sight. He stretched his limbs, a big black man in jeans, red shirt and running shoes. He walked around his vehicle, checked that the motorbikes on the load bed were still firmly strapped down?Pakamile?s little KX 65 and his big BMW. They had been learning to ride off-road that weekend, an official course through sand and gravel, water, hills, humps, gullies and valleys. He had seen the boy?s self-confidence grow with every hour, the enthusiasm that glowed within him like an ember with every ?Look, Thobela, watch me!?
His son . . .
Where were the petrol attendants?
There was another car at the pumps, a white Polo?the engine idled, but there was no one in the car. Strange. He called out, ?Hello!? and saw movement in the building. They must be coming now.
He turned around to unlatch the pickup bonnet, glancing at the western horizon where the sun was going down . . . soon it would be dark. Then he heard the first shot. It reverberated through the quiet of the early evening and he jumped in fright and dropped instinctively to his haunches. ?Pakamile!? he screamed. ?Get down!? But his last words were deafened by another shot, and another, and he saw them coming out of the door?two of them, pistols in hand, one carrying a white plastic bag, eyes wild. They spotted him, shot. Bullets slammed against the pump, against the pickup.
He shouted, a guttural roar, leapt up, jerked open the pickup door and dived in, trying to shield the boy from the bullets. He felt the little body shiver. ?Okay,? he said, and heard the shots and the lead whining over them. He heard one car door slam, then another and screeching tires. He looked up?the Polo was moving towards the road. Another shot. The glass of an advertising display above him shattered and rained down on the pickup. Then they were in the road, the Volkswagen?s engine revving too high and he said, ?It?s okay, okay,? and felt the wet on his hand and Pakamile had stopped shivering and he saw the blood on the child?s body and he said: ?No, God, no.?
That is where it began for Thobela Mpayipheli.
He sat in the boy?s room, on his bed. The document in his hand was his last remaining proof.
The house was as quiet as the grave, for the first time since he could remember. Two years ago Pakamile and he had pushed open the door and looked at the dusty interior, the empty rooms. Some of the light fittings were hanging askew from the ceiling, kitchen cupboard doors were broken or just ajar, but all they saw was potential, the possibilities of their new house overlooking the Cata River and the green fields of the farm in high summer. The boy had run through the house leaving footprints in the dust. ?This is my room, Thobela,? he had called down the passage. When he reached the master bedroom he had expressed his awe at the vast space in a long whistle. Because all he knew was a cramped four-room house in the Cape Flats.
That first night they slept on the big verandah. First they had watched the sun disappear behind the storm clouds and the twilight deepen over the yard, watched the shadows of the big trees near the gate blend with the darkness, and the stars magically open their silver eyes in the firmament. He and the boy, squeezed up against each other with their backs against the wall.
?This is a wonderful place, Thobela.?
There was a deep sense of comfort in Pakamile?s sigh and Thobela was eternally relieved, because it was only a month since the boy?s mother had died and he had not known how they would adjust to the change of environment and circumstance.
They spoke of the cattle they would buy, a milk cow or two, a few fowls (?. . . and a dog, Thobela, please, a big old dog?). A vegetable garden at the back door. A patch of lucerne down by the riverbank. They had dreamed their dreams that night until Pakamile?s head had dropped against his shoulder and he had laid the boy down softly on the bedding on the floor. He had kissed him on the forehead and said, ?Good night, my son.?
Pakamile was not of his own blood. The son of the woman he had loved, the boy had become his own. Very quickly he had come to love the boy like his own flesh and blood, and in the months since they had moved here he had begun the long process of making it official?writing letters, filling in forms and being interviewed. Slow bureaucrats with strange agendas had to decide whether he was suitable to be a parent, when the whole world could see that the bond between them had become unbreakable. But, at last, after fourteen months, the registered documents had arrived; in the long-winded, clumsy language of state officialdom, these put the seal on his adoption.
And now these pages of yellow-white paper were all he had. These, and a heap of new ground under the pepper trees by the river. And the minister?s words, meant to comfort: ?God has a purpose with everything.?
Lord, he missed the boy.
He could not accept that he would never hear that chuckling laugh again. Or the footsteps down the passage. Never slow, always in a rush, as if life were too short for walking. Or the boy calling his name from the front door, voice loaded with excitement over some new discovery. Impossible to accept that he would never feel Pakamile?s arms around him again. That, more than anything?the contact, the absolute acceptance, the unconditional love.
It was his fault.
There was never an hour of the day or night that he did not relive the events at the garage with the fine- tooth comb of self-reproach. He should have realized, when he saw the empty Polo idling at the pumps. He should have reacted more swiftly when he heard the first shot, he should have thrown himself over the child then, he should have been a shield, he should have taken the bullet. He should. It was his fault.
The loss was like a heavy stone in him, an unbearable burden. What would he do now? How would he live? He could not even see tomorrow, neither the sense nor the possibility. The phone rang in the sitting room, but he did not want to get up?he wanted to stay here with Pakamile?s things.
He moved sluggishly, feeling the emotion pressing against him. Why could he not weep? The telephone rang. Why would the grief not break out?
Inexplicably, he was standing with the instrument in his hand and the voice said: ?Mr. Mpayipheli?? and he said: ?Yes.?
?We?ve got them, Mr. Mpayipheli. We?ve caught them. We want you to come and identify them.?
