Here there was nowhere to go to.
?I had no more money. If you don?t have money, you must have time, to stand in long queues with your child on your hip for vaccinations or cough medicine or something to stop diarrhea. If you have a child and you have to work, then you have to pay for daycare. If you are waitressing then you have to pay extra for someone to look after it at night. Then you have to walk back to your flat with your baby at one in the morning in winter, or you have to pay for a taxi. If you won?t work at night, you miss the best shifts with the biggest tips. So you buy nothing for yourself, and this week you try this and next week you try that until you know you just can?t win.?
?I couldn?t cope anymore?there were just too many things. Every Monday I read the
and handed in my CV for every possible job: secretarial, medical rep, clerk. Then, if you were lucky they would invite you for an interview. But it is always the same. No experience? Oh, you have a child. Are you divorced? Oh. Sorry, we want experience. We want someone with a car. We need someone with book-keeping.
?Sorry, it?s an affirmative action position. I left the coffee shop because the tips were too small and it was still winter too and that?s off-season. I worked at Trawlers, a seafood place that opened up on Kloof Street, and one night a guy said, ?Do you want to make real money?? So I said, ?Yes.? Then he asked me ?How much?? and I didn?t click and I said, ?As much as I can.? Then he said, ?Three hundred rand,? and I asked, ?Three hundred rand what?per day?? Then he got this smile on his face and said, ?Per night, actually.? He was just an average guy, about forty, with spectacles and a little paunch and I said, ?What must I do?? and he said, ?You know,? and I still didn?t click. Then he said, ?Bring me a pen and I will write down my hotel room for you,? and at last I clicked and I just stood staring at him. I wanted to scream at him, what did he think I was, and I stood there so angry, but what could I do, he was a customer. So I went to fetch his bill, and when I looked again he was gone. He had left a hundred-rand tip and a note with his hotel number and he had written ?Five hundred? For an hour.? And I put it in my pocket, because I was afraid someone might see it.
?Five hundred rand. When your rent is six hundred and eighty, then five hundred is a lot of money. If you have to pay four-fifty for daycare and extra on weekends, because that?s where the tips are, five hundred fills a big gap. If you need three thousand to get through the month and you never know if you will make it and you have to save for a car, because when you have to pick up your child and it?s raining . . . then you take that bit of paper out of your pocket and you look at it again. But who understands that? What white person understands that?
?Then you think, what difference does it make? You see it every day. A couple come in and he wines and dines her and for what? To get her into bed. What is the difference? Three hundred rand for dinner or five hundred for sex.
?They hit on me in any case, the men. Even when I was pregnant, in the coffee shop, and afterwards, at Trawlers, even worse. The whole time. Some just give you these looks, some say things like ?nice rack? or ?cute butt, sweetie?; some ask you straight out what you are doing on Friday night, or ?are you attached, sweetness?? The vain ones leave their cell phone numbers on the bill, as if they are God?s gift. Some chat you up with pretty little questions. ?Where are you from?? ?How long have you been in Cape Town?? ?What are you studying?? But you know what they really want, because soon they ask you, ?Do you have your own place?? or, ?Jissie, we are chatting so
when do you finish work, so we can chat some more?? At first you think you are very special, because some of them are cute and witty, but you hear them doing it with everyone, even the ugly waitresses. All the time, all of them, like those rabbits with the long-life batteries, never stopping; never mind if they are sixteen or sixty, married or single, they are on the lookout and it never stops.
?Then you get back to your room and think about everything and you think of what you don?t have and you think there really is no difference, you think five hundred rand and you lie and wonder what it would be like, how bad could it be to be with the guy for an hour??
17.
All day Griessel had been looking for a decoy, a middle-aged policewoman to push a trolley up and down Woolworths at the Waterfront on Friday night. Hopefully the bastard would choose her. Someone eventually suggested a Sergeant Marais at Claremont, late thirties, who might fit the bill. He phoned her and made an appointment to talk to her.
He took the M5, because it was faster, and turned off at Lansdowne in order to drive up to Main Road. At the off ramp, just left of the road, was an advertising board, very wide and high. Castle Lager. Beer. Fuck it, he hadn?t drunk beer in years, but the advert depicted a glass with drops of moisture running down the sides, a head of white foam and contents the color of piss. He had to stop at the traffic lights and stare at that damn glass of beer. He could taste it. That dry, bitter taste. He could feel it sliding down his throat, but above all he could feel the warmth spreading through his body from the medicine in his belly.
When he came to his senses, someone was hooting behind him, a single, impatient toot. He jumped and drove away, realizing only then what had happened and scared by the intensity of the enchantment.
He thought: what the fuck am I going to do? How do you fight something like this, pills or no pills? Jissis, he hadn?t drunk beer in years.
He realized he was squeezing the steering wheel and he tried to breathe, tried to get his breath back as he drove.
Before she even stood up from behind the desk, he knew the sergeant was perfect. She had that washed-out look, more lean miles on the clock than her year model indicated; her hair was dyed blonde. She said her name was Andre. Her smile showed a slightly skew front tooth. She looked as if she expected him to comment on her name.
He sat down opposite her and told her about the case and his suspicions. He said she would be ideal, but he could not force her to be part of the operation.
?I?m in,? she said.
?It could be dangerous. We would have to wait until he tried something.?
?I?m in.?
?Talk to your husband tonight. Sleep on it. You can phone me tomorrow.?
?That won?t be necessary. I?ll do it.?
He spoke to the station commander, to ask permission, although he did not have to. The big colored captain complained he didn?t have people to spare, they were undermanned as it was and Marais was a key person: who would do her work when she wasn?t there? Griessel said it was just Friday nights from five o?clock and her overtime would not appear on the station?s budget. The captain nodded. ?Okay, then.?
