Zoo City

'So cute.' I hand the phone back.

'What about you, dear?'

'I will try to make a new life as best I can. It is better here in this country.'

'And the orphanage?'

'Oh yes, the orphanage. Um. We have been looking at buildings. There is an old retirement home that we could convert. It's lovely. Big garden with a mulberry tree, swimming pool. Near the botanical gardens. It will be lovely.' I am thinking of a version of the house I grew up in.

'It's nice to feel like suddenly you have possibilities, isn't it?'

'Yes.'

We lapse into silence.

'Did you have much trouble getting out of the camp?'

'Please, Cheryl, it is too painful to talk about.' I bury my face in my hands for emphasis. Through the gaps between my fingers, I can see my bag start to squirm again. I prod Sloth with my shoe to make him cut it out.

'Oh. Of course.' She puts her arm around my shoulders and pulls me into an awkward embrace, stroking my back. 'There, there,' she says, 'There, there.'

'All taken care of.' Jerry is grinning broadly, like a man who has had an incredible burden lifted from his back. Doubt weighs a lot. 'Can I give you a hand with this, Frances?' He hefts the rattan bag before I can stop him. 'Whoof, what do you got in here, all your earthly goods?'

'Jerry!' Cheryl says, scandalised.

'Oh, sorry, I didn't mean …' and then Sloth pokes his head out and bleats grumpily.

Jerry drops the bag. Luckily, it's only five inches to the floor, but Sloth yelps like he's gone over the Victoria Falls.

'Mary, Mother of God! What is that thing?'

'Jerry Barber! You know perfectly well what that is! Oh Frances, honey, you should have told us.' Over her shoulder, Vuyo is giving me a stare that says 'you better fix this'.

'I was – ashamed,' I mutter.

'Now, baby, there's nothing to be ashamed of. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. It just means you've done bad things once upon a time.' She shoots Jerry a fierce look. 'You're a good girl, honey, a good girl.' Her eyes brim with tears all over again.

We watch Cheryl and Jerry pull out of the parking lot packed with X5s and A4s in their white VW Polo rental, and wave cheerily until they pull around the corner.

'You are a good girl,' Vuyo says, imitating Cheryl.

'Shut up, Vuyo.'

'We should do this again.'

'I want twenty per cent.'

'Next time, maybe.'

'This was a one-time-only event. I'm not doing a re

peat performance.'

'I have R94,235.82 that says different.'

'I'll write more formats.'

'I'll double your interest rate.'

'I don't care.'

'What was your brother's name again?' he says slyly. 'The dead one?'

'Fuck you.'

'And your lover? That handsome mkwerekwere? Benoit, is it? Be careful, Zinzi. You know what happened last time you fucked with gangsters.'

Vuyo gets into one of the X5s. I memorise the licence plate. It's undoubtedly fake, but I'm a packrat for information. I rap on the window. He slides it down. 'What is it?'

'Give me a ride.'

'Get a car,' he says and pulls away, wheels spinning.

6.

Makhaza's Place is already vibey at three in the afternoon. This is a reflection of the lack of recreational facilities in the area. Although Mak's popularity in a neighbourhood packed with bars and churches can be ascribed to two things: the Lagos-style chicken, and the view. The bar is situated on the second floor of what used to be a shopping arcade back when this part of town was cosmopolitan central, with its glitzy hotels and restaurants and outdoor cafes and malls packed to the skylights with premium luxury goods. Even Zoo City had a Former Life.

There was big talk about comebacks and gentrification a few years ago, which led to months of eviction raids by the Red Ants, with their red helmets and sledgehammers and bullhorns, and bright-eyed landlords buoyed up on the property boom bricking up the lower storeys of buildings. But the squatters always found a way back in. We're an enterprising bunch. And it helps to have a certain reputation.

Mak's is situated in what used to be an oversized display window looking out over the street. It was modelled on Macy's, rotating exhibits of aspirational fashion and lifestyle products, roomy enough that they once put a convertible Chevrolet in here as part of their Christmas display, Santa in shades and a Hawaiian shirt at the wheel.

Mak kept some of the mannequins for the ambience; a double-amputee guy in sharp-pressed corduroy pants, a lime sweater vest and a fedora, and a woman with a pockmarked melamine face to match her moth- eaten white mini-dress and go-go boots, both arrested in some forlorn pose of retro cool. The patrons don't dress half as nice.

I shrug Sloth off at the holding pen by the door. He sways himself onto the branch of a dead tree hung with fairylights and already well populated. A doughy Squirrel quickly stuffs the remains of a chocolate bar into her mouth and chitters reproachfully at Sloth, then bounds higher, past a preening Indian Mynah and a Boomslang looped casually from a fork in the branch, as motionless as the mannequins.

'Don't get too close, buddy,' I warn Sloth. Unofficially, there's a code of conduct, but animals are still animals. And animals can be assholes, too. The Mongoose is curled up in the corner in the sawdust. He slits his eyes open, then pretends to go back to sleep.

Benoit and two of his boys, his roommate Emmanuel and that sgebenga D'Nice, are in the usual spot by the foosball table. I pick up a tonic water at the bar (the closest I get these days to the full equation of gin amp;), and drop down next to them in the corner booth. The aircon is on the fritz as per usual and their beers are sweating. D'Nice's Vervet Monkey is sitting on the table surrounded by at least two rounds of 750 ml empties, toying with a coaster nicked from the Carlton Hotel circa 1987.

The TV is blasting some godawful crunk rap thing, jiggling sweaty bodies intercut with gritty images of a city burning. Giant fireballs light up the Las Vegas skyline. The singer, wearing a leopard-print vest and chains, skulks between the girls with a Hyena padding beside him. The animal snarls in close-up, baring yellowed teeth. It's an act so dramatic, it causes the girls to burst into flames too. Luckily, it doesn't seem to bother them too much. Flames lick over their taut gyrating bellies, fiery arcs tracing the curve of buttocks peeking out from sprayed-on hot pants.

'That for real?' I say, indicating the TV by way of greeting.

'You're kidding.' Emmanuel is deeply shocked. He's a sweet Rwandan kid, only twenty, working piecemeal jobs. Doesn't have an animal, but there's no rule saying it's obligatory. We're all about tolerance in Zoo City. Or mutually assured desperation.

'Give me a break, Emmanuel. I'm thirty-two. I don't know this shit anymore.'

'Cha! Zinzi! How do you not know Slinger?'

'What kind of a name is Slinger? That's so metal.'

'You hurt me. Your words. They physically hurt me.'