He would have liked to say, ?Then speak Xhosa to me,? but he refrained, because he needed information.
?Lager, please.?
The beer and a glass appeared before him. ?Eleven rand eighty.?
Eleven rand eighty? Alchemists Inc. He gave him fifteen. ?Keep the change.?
He raised the glass and drank.
?I hope you will still feel like applauding when I have finished,? said Griessel when the ovation died down. ?Because tonight I will say what I should have said in nineteen ninety-six. And you won?t necessarily like what you hear.? He glanced at Vera, the colored woman with the sympathetic smile who was chairing the meeting. A sea of heads was turned towards him, every face an echo of Vera?s unconditional support. He felt extremely uncomfortable.
?I have two problems with the AA.? His voice filled the hall as if he were there alone. ?One is that I don?t feel I fit in here. I am a policeman. Murder is my specialty. Every day.? He gripped the back of the blue plastic chair in front of him. He saw his knuckles were white with tension and he looked up at Vera, not knowing where else to look. ?And I drink to make the voices stop.?
Vera nodded as if she understood. He looked for another focal point. There were posters on the wall.
?We scream when we die,? he said, soft and slow, because he had to express it right. ?We all cling onto life. We hang on very tight, and when someone pries our fingers loose, we fall.? He saw his hands were demonstrating this in front of him; two fierce claws opening up. ?That is when we scream. When we realize it won?t help to grab anymore because we are falling too fast.?
The foghorn at Mouille Point mourned far and deep. It was deathly quiet in the church hall. He took a deep breath and looked at them. There was discomfort; the cheerfulness had frozen.
?I hear it. I can?t help it. I hear it when I walk in on a scene while they are lying there. The scream hangs there?waiting for someone to hear it. And when you hear it, it gets in your head and it stays there.?
Someone coughed nervously to his left.
?It is the most dreadful sound,? he said, and looked at them, because now he did want their support. They avoided his eyes.
?I never talked about it,? he said. Vera shifted as if she wanted to say something. But she mustn?t speak now. ?People will think I?m not right in the head. That?s what
think. Right now. But I?m not crazy. If I were, alcohol would not help. It would make it worse. Alcohol helps. It helps when I walk in on a murder scene. It helps me get through the day. It helps when I go home and see my wife and children and I hear them laughing, but I know that scream lies waiting inside them as well. I know it is waiting there and one day it will come out and I am scared that I am the one who will hear it.?
He shook his head. ?That would be too much to bear.?
He looked down at the floor and whispered: ?And the thing that frightens me most is that I know that scream is inside
?
He looked up into Vera?s eyes. ?I drink because it takes away that fear too.?
?When last was John Khoza here?? Thobela asked the barman.
?Who??
?John Khoza.?
?Yo, man, there are so many dawgs coming in here.?
He sighed and took out a fifty-rand note, pushing it with his palm over the bar counter.
?Try to remember.?
The note disappeared. ?Sort of a thin dude with bad skin??
?That?s him.?
?He mostly talks to the Boss Man?you?ll have to ask him.?
?When last did he come to talk to the Boss Man??
?I work shifts, man, I?m not here all the time. Haven?t seen John-dawg for ages.? He moved off to serve someone else.
Thobela swallowed more beer. The bitter taste was familiar, the music was too loud and the bass notes vibrated in his chest. Across the room near the window was a table of seven. Raucous laughter. A muscular colored man with complex tattoos on his arms balanced on a stool. He downed a big jug of beer, shouted something, although the words were lost, and held the empty jug aloft.
It was all too hollow, too contrived for Thobela, this joviality. It always had been, since Kazakhstan, although that was a long time ago. A hundred and twenty black brothers in a Soviet training camp who drank and sang and laughed at night. And longed for home, bone-tired. Comrades and warriors.
The barman came past again.
?Where can I find the Boss Man??
?It can be arranged.? He stood there expectant, without batting an eyelid.
He took out another fifty. The barman did not move. Another one. A palm swept the money away.
?Give me one minute.?
