The Monster's Daughter (21 page)

“Okay, okay.” Massyn studied Benjamin for a moment. “Hey look, I need a favor,
bra
.” He rolled onto his back. “My old lady's
pa
is driving her in this afternoon for visitation. Could you show him the grounds or something?”

“Why?”

“Don't get me wrong, but you're his type. Me and Essie get no alone time. A man just sometimes wants to feel up his wife, hey.”

Benjamin shrugged, hoping that would be enough of a response.

“Look, I need to stay in his good books. When he keels over, Essie gets it all. The old boy is high up in the government, has big bucks. So I make nice.” Massyn sat up. “Help a bloke out?”

“Tessa might come.” Benjamin tried to convince himself more than Massyn of the possibility. On her last visit, over a month ago, tension had distorted her lips as she told him about Andrew's cancer spreading, the pain he was in. It was a matter of weeks, the doctors had said. Tessa had stopped going to class, her days devoted to taking care of Andrew.

Massyn gave an awkward smile. “
Ja
, well, if she doesn't show up, hey?”

By three o'clock there was still nobody for Benjamin in the visitor's room. At the call box he waited in the queue for almost an hour to get
a turn. Tessa answered the phone, her voice tired, irritable. Andrew had relapsed. She couldn't leave him now. Benjamin wanted to comfort her, but there were men behind him and he spoke self-consciously in staccato monosyllables. He felt a physical disconnection from Tessa when he put the receiver down, as if he had failed her.

Massyn stopped him in the corridor, a petite woman with round cheeks and a matronly air next to him. “Jam-man!” Massyn waved him over. “This is my wife, Essie.” He turned to a big man of around seventy with brutish features. “And this is her father, Mr. Jooste.”

“Private De Beer.” Jooste gripped Benjamin's hand firmly, a harshness about him that was absent in Essie's doe-eyed puffiness.

“Ben said he'd show you around the base,
Pa
. Like you asked.” Massyn sounded like he was offering his father-in-law the fatted calf. Essie looked expectantly at her father, her body as tense as Massyn's.

Mr. Jooste eyed Massyn with contempt, then spoke to his daughter over Massyn's head. “Be ready to go at five, Estelle.”

“
Ja, Pa
.”

It was one of the last glorious days of a lingering summer that would soon be conquered by the dreary Free State winter. On the parade ground, new recruits were being put through drills, their feet moving in unison. Even the sweat stains on their shirts spread in the same places. Jooste followed Benjamin around, mumbling a disinterested,
“Ja
,
”
or, “Is that so?” whenever Benjamin mentioned facts about the base. Benjamin caught the man's gaze a few times, unable to shake the feeling that Jooste was studying him. Part of the army base's property included the site of the Boer concentration camps. Benjamin walked to where the Dam of Tears rose during the rainy months. He stopped at the site of the graveyard where the women and children were buried.

Jooste lit a cigarette. “I've seen it.” He narrowed his sunken, calculating eyes as he exhaled. “Where can we get a drink?”

“Sir, I'm not—”

“We'll go to the officers' rec room,
ja
. I have friends on base I'd like to see.” Jooste held his hand up when Benjamin tried to protest. “Take me there.” A plume of smoke escaped Jooste's lips as he talked.

The rec room was at the back of the single-officer quarters, packed with off-duty sergeants and captains getting drunk while listening to a rugby match over a radio perched on the bar.

Benjamin stopped short of the door. “It's officers only.”

“Suit yourself.”

Indignant eyes followed Jooste as he walked into the room. One of the drill sergeants opened his mouth to say something, but he immediately shut up when Major Daniels walked over to Jooste and shook his hand.

“Mr. Jooste.” The major lowered his voice as they did a strange handshake. “
Broeder
. What can I do for you, sir?”

“A couple of Klipdrifts for me and the private,
ja
?”

Daniels looked over at Benjamin. Benjamin felt a sense of trepidation under his scrutiny, sure that he would be sent away, punished later for having the audacity to cross the threshold.

“I'm sure you can accommodate us.” Jooste smiled, his gaze fixed meaningfully on Major Daniels.

“
Ja
.” Major Daniels looked flustered. “Of course.”

A table was cleared and two brandies appeared. Benjamin sat down next to Jooste, self-conscious about the eyes on them.

“Rules are arbitrary, see?” Jooste lifted his glass, his brandy diminishing by half after the first sip. “There's always a way around them if you know the right people, if you have power.” He turned his attention to Benjamin. “You get out with Frank, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then what?”

“Get married.” Benjamin uttered the secret wish as if doing so too forcefully might shatter hope. Tessa was something fragile and dear in his mind, something that wasn't for sharing.

“That's incidental. What do you want to do with your life?”

Benjamin's discomfort grew. “Find work, sir, I suppose. I thought I'd ask in town.”

Jooste tossed his brandy back and held his glass in the air, signaling the bartender for another. “Many men would kill to have your gift, do something extraordinary, but you want to waste it with mundane things like a woman and a job.”

“I'm sorry, sir?”

“Let's do away with pretense,
ja
? I know who you are.” A sardonic smile settled on Jooste's lips. “Kept an eye on both you and Tessa Morgan. From the beginning, you might say.”

Alarm hollowed Benjamin's stomach at the mention of Tessa. “I don't know—”

“How old are you now? Fifty, must be.”

Words stuck in Benjamin's throat. He wasn't prepared for this, certainly not from this stranger. “H-how?”

“Still got that speech impediment,
ja
?” Jooste's condescending tone had a familiar sting. “I know all about you, son. Like how the police gave you a good hiding when you tried to run away from that old nurse. And then how you collected her pension long after she kicked the bucket.”

Benjamin looked away from Jooste's stare, his heart racing. He had tried to be invisible all his life. The fact that this man was aware of so much scared him. Benjamin knew what happened when people noticed him, noticed that he wasn't like them. They could sense it, the way a buck senses a lion in the dark. And when people got scared that way, they tried to destroy him. He remembered too well what people like Pieter had done to him behind closed doors. He didn't have the luxury of forgetting any of it. Only with Tessa did he feel like he could breathe normally, that he dared think of more than survival.

Jooste lit another cigarette. “I have something that might interest you, boy.” The sport commentator's voice rose, a distant crowd's cheers fortified by those of the officers crowding around the radio on the bar. The Orange Free State was winning. Jooste raised his voice to be heard above the din. “The story of how you came to be what you are.” He smiled.

Under the table, Benjamin's fingertips dug into his clammy palms. His instincts told him to get away from Jooste. An even stronger need to find out what the old man knew made him hesitate.

“I'll need something in return, of course.” Jooste looked around the room at the drunk men, the right corner of his mouth raised in a sneer. “There's a doctor that works for me. He's doing important work, proving the superiority of our
volk
. He'd like to take a look at you.”

Benjamin crossed his arms. “Why are you involved, sir?”

“Call it a mandate.”

“Is that all?”

Jooste sighed. “A man has to have a legacy, see? I never thought that
would worry me.” He flicked his ash onto the floor, staring past Benjamin at the drunk young officers. “Estelle has been a disappointment, stupid, like her mother. I have no hopes for the snot-noses she and Frank Massyn will produce. So that leaves Tessa Morgan.” He leaned in, his elbows on the table. “She's mine, you know? I'm her father.” He reached into his jacket pocket, producing an old leather-bound journal. He slid the volume across the table. “It's all in here. Proof.”

Benjamin's fingertips ran over the journal's cracked surface. The answers of where he came from, what he was, questions that had haunted him since he could remember, might lie between its covers.

“You do this and I will open doors for you, boy. Whatever you want. You'll have power over your very long future. You and the girl. And my bloodline will be part of the new super
volk
.”

Benjamin let go of the journal. Jooste wasn't interested in Tessa because she was his daughter. They were both just
things
to him, laboratory rats. He wouldn't allow Jooste to hurt her. “I'm sorry,” he said. He got up to go.

“I'm disappointed, boy.” Jooste's nostrils flared, his irritation clear. “Wait,” he said when Benjamin started to walk away. He held the journal out to Benjamin. “Take it. There's more if you decide to change your mind.”

The rec room burst out in an earsplitting cacophony. The final touchdown. More beers were opened. The barman delivered Jooste's brandy.

“Well?”

Benjamin snatched the journal.

“My number is inside the cover,” Jooste called after him. “Don't make me wait too long.”

Benjamin had hoped that Tessa would be the first thing he saw as he exited the Tempe gates the following Friday. He waited around for an hour, hoping that she might still show up, though he knew she probably wouldn't. Andrew was dying and Benjamin felt relieved at the thought. Andrew had tolerated him for Tessa's sake, but from the moment they'd first met, Benjamin had felt a quiet animosity from the man. Tessa said it was nothing, but Benjamin knew better. His
suspicions were confirmed when he went looking for Tessa one day. She was out, had gone to the shops.

Andrew had stood inside the
plot
door without inviting Benjamin in. He looked haggard, a grayish hue dusting his hollow cheeks. “What do you want with Tessa?”

The question had taken Benjamin by surprise. “We're … friends.”

“I'm going to be honest with you, Benjamin. I'd appreciate it if you kept this conversation to yourself.”

Benjamin nodded, afraid to speak.

“I have looked after Tessa, protected her as much as I could. So know that I only have her interests at heart.” Andrew dropped his head for a moment before looking Benjamin in the eyes. “You have to stay away from her.”

The words sent a shock through Benjamin, empty stabbing fear suddenly forming in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't be without Tessa. He had only just found her. His mouth was dry, the feeling rejection overwhelming. “W-why?” was all he could manage.

“I know you care for her.”

Benjamin tried to stifle his anger. “You t-think I'm n-not g-good enough for her?”

Andrew shook his head. “I've known men like you.”

“I d-don't understand.”

“I think you do. You hide it well, but there is something broken in you. I beg you, walk away from my girl.”

Benjamin could feel his pulse rise, his ears getting warm. “I would n-never hurt her.”

Defeat deepened Andrew's scored features. “Please?”

Benjamin shook his head, biting back his hurt, a deep-seated fear taking root. He would never give Tessa up, not for anything. From then on, he avoided being alone with Andrew, working almost ten years for approval that never came. Once he was gone, Benjamin would have Tessa to himself.

Benjamin waited a bit longer, but no luck. He was the only soldier remaining, his legs stiff, a simmering panic rising. He tried to remember when this distance between them started. When had he stopped being everything to her, like she was to him? He should never have left her side, but he'd had no choice. Conscription could not be
avoided unless you went to university, and for that you needed good grades and money.

Benjamin hoisted his army duffel bag over his shoulder, the edges of the journal that Jooste had given him digging into his back. He had spent every waking moment he had going over the pages, committing them to memory. There were names, first names only, and descriptions, as if Leath had been describing livestock. The notations and symbols mocked him, a language he did not understand. Knowledge of the past, of himself, intertwined with the faded loops and twirls of the claustrophobic scrawl on the brittle pages. Benjamin had liked science in school, loved to tussle with math problems and chemical equations, but after
Matrone
died, his priorities changed. School seemed unimportant when all he could think about was how to survive another day. Tessa was the only reason he managed to pass his exams. She coached him through long nights and made excuses for classes he missed as he stood in line at the pension office, praying that they would accept his forged letter one more time. But the journal had woken a dormant need to know what he was. What he and Tessa were.

Benjamin stuck his thumb into the air. Most people had sons or grandsons in the army, so hitching a ride was easy. The car that stopped already had a soldier in the back. Benjamin crammed in, his duffel bag stuck halfway out the car window to fit. The other soldier answered the inane questions of the elderly couple in the front, while Benjamin pretended to fall asleep.
Matrone
's words echoed in his mind. “You're special, Benjamin. Chosen.” She had repeated it till her last breath. And then there was Hester, the name tied to the only live male birth in the journal. He felt anger knot his insides. He was the product of suffering, of depravity. God's work distorted by the hand of man. If the woman who was his mother had lived, would she have even wanted to look at him? A need running deeper than his shame drove him back to the journal night after night, turning the pages even as the ground gave way beneath him. He had to find out why God had allowed him to be.