?Just Carla and you??
?Mom?s out.?
?I usually just buy instant,? said Andre Marais clearly and distinctly.
?She?s talking to someone,? said Cliffy.
Then they heard a man?s voice over the ether, faintly: ?I can?t do without a good cup of filter in the morning.?
?Dad? Are you there??
?I?ll have to call later, Fritz, I?m at work.?
?Okay.? Like he expected it.
?What . . . name??
?. . . dre.?
?Fuck,? said Cupido, ?her fucking mike.?
?Bye, Fritz.?
?Bye, Dad.?
?We might be too far away,? said Jamie Keyter.
?Stay where you are,? said Griessel.
?Pleased to meet you,? said the policewoman below in Woolworths food hall.
?A fish on the hook,? said Cupido.
Cliffy nodded.
?Just keep calm,? said Griessel, but he meant it for himself.
Thobela made a noise of frustration in his deep voice as he rose from the hotel bed in one sudden movement. He had lain down at about three o?clock with the curtains drawn to shut out the sun, closed his eyes and lay listening to the beat of his heart. His head buzzed from too little sleep and his limbs felt like lead. Weary. With deliberate breathing he tried to drain the tension from his body. He sent his thoughts away from the present, sent them to the peaceful waters of the Cata River, to the mist that rolled like wraiths over the round hills of the farm . . . to realize only moments later that his thoughts had jumped away and were pumping other information through his consciousness to the rhythm of the pulse in his temples.
Pretorius reaching for the weapon in his wardrobe.
Eternity in the moments before he reached the man, and the alarm wailing, wailing, to the rhythm of his heartbeat.
A heavy woman towering above a little girl and the billiard cue rising and falling, rising and falling with demonic purpose and the blood spattering from the child?s head and he knew that was his problem?the woman, the woman. He had never executed a woman. His war was against men, always had been. In the name of the Struggle, seventeen times. Sixteen in the cities of Europe, one in Chicago: men, traitors, assassins, enemies, condemned to death in the committee rooms of the Cold War, and he was the one sent to carry out the sentence. Now two in the name of the New War. Animals. But male.
Was there honor in the execution of a woman?
The more he forced his thoughts elsewhere, the more they scurried back, until he rose up with that deep sound and plucked aside the curtains. There was movement outside, bright sunlight and color. He looked over the canal and the entrance to the Waterfront. Laborers streamed on foot towards the city center, to the taxi ranks in Adderley Street. Black and colored, in the brightly colored overalls of manual laborers. They moved with purpose, hasty to start the weekend, somewhere at a home or a shebeen. With family. Or friends.
His family was dead. He wanted to jerk open the window and scream: Fuck you all, my family is dead!
He drew a deep breath, placed his palms on the cool windowsill and let his head hang. He must get some sleep; he could not go on like this.
He turned back to the room. The bedspread was rumpled. He pulled it straight, smoothing it with his big hands, pulling and stretching it till it was level. He puffed up the pillows and laid them tidily down, one beside the other. Then he sat on the bed and picked up the telephone directory from the bedside drawer, found the number and rang Boss Man Madikiza at the Yellow Rose.
?This is Tiny. The one who was looking for John Khoza, you remember??
?I remember, my brother.? The uproar of the nightclub was already audible in the background this late afternoon.
?Heard anything??
?Haiziko. Nothing.?
?Keep your ear to the ground.?
?It is there all the time.?
He got up and opened the wardrobe. The stack of clean clothes on the top shelf was very low, the piles of folded dirty laundry were high?socks, underwear, trousers and shirts, each in their own separate pile.
He took the two small plastic holders of detergent and softener from his case, and sorted the washing into small bundles. The ritual was twenty years old, from the time in Europe when he had learned to live out of a suitcase. To be in control, orderly and organized. Because the call could come at any time. In those days he had
