The Monster's Daughter (38 page)

“Captain De Beer?”

Benjamin recognized the voice. He tried to understand why Adriaan Berg was at the door. The softness of his youth was gone, his face hardened. His nasolabial folds had become harsh, exaggerated, his skin leathery, his dark hair finely specked with silver. Benjamin noticed a wedding band. How quickly life marched on for them.

Berg stepped into the room, staring past Benjamin at the body, his dark eyes betraying shock. “What's her name?” He hovered at the door, as if coming closer would make him part of the deed.

“Does it matter?”

“You called us for help. I can't fix this if—”

“She was an ANC activist.” Benjamin recited the standard excuse. “Tried to pass as white, see? Spread propaganda on campus. She had to be taken care of.” He was supposed to act like it mattered, he was supposed to know her name. Grethel … Something. Hansel and … No. Gretha. Gretha … Le Grange.
Ja
. “Gretha Le Grange.”

“Anyone see you?”

“Nobody here on Sundays.”

“Security logs?”

Benjamin snorted. “Dump her down a mine shaft and get it over with. Do your job.”

A muscle jumped on Berg's jaw. “You have to come in with me.”

Benjamin locked eyes with Berg. “Why?”

“This isn't your first
fokop
 … Captain.” Berg spat the word out as
if it was poison. He didn't need to say more, it was written on his face. They were going to make him leave, disappear. Benjamin thought about calling in a favor, but the Bond was in a mess, everybody scrambling to cover their own asses. The book had been published earlier that year, and though it had been banned, the list of Broederbond members had become the most photocopied document in the country as people searched for the names of neighbors and friends to see who had been part of the secret organization that ruled the land.

The TV was still on. Berg reached to turn it off.

“Leave it,” Benjamin said, a warning in his voice.

Berg folded his arms. “General's orders, you have to come with me.”

Benjamin turned his attention to the box. Gray flecks on the screen. The
shhhh
of static. A face surfaced from a faded memory.

“Captain De Beer!”

Benjamin copied the sound, his front teeth grinding together, his lips an exaggerated trumpet. “
Shhhhhhh
.” He saw Tessa's face. Tessa who became Lilly Maartens, Lilly Kritzinger. As if a new name would have made her something other than what she was. At Security Branch they had different names too—Goose, Shortie, Doppies. The fools believed that a different name would keep the things they did at work separate from the Bibles they carried to church and the wives and children they kissed. They called Benjamin “Angel” because of his complexion. If only they knew how close they were. Benjamin De Beer had been a vulnerable little boy, human. But he was something different now: the angel of war, the angel of death, the angel of God's vengeance. Not human at all. He looked back at the static and jerked at what he saw.
Matrone
Jansen, in the storeroom, the strap in her outstretched hand.

“Did you hear me?” Berg touched his shoulder. “The unit is waiting outside to take you to the station.”

“
Shhhhhh
.” Benjamin closed his eyes, trying to block Berg out.

“What the hell's wrong with you?” Berg went to the door, signaling two uniformed men to come in. “I think he's gone apeshit.”

The first policeman grabbed Benjamin's arm. “Time to go,
bra
.”

Benjamin looked up at him, his hand buried beneath his shirt. There was a moment of clarity where he tried to reason with himself, but it receded. He slid the Tokarev from his waistband and shot the
policeman in the throat. He hit the second man in the shoulder, then knocked him unconscious with the butt of his gun before pointing it at Berg. “Too slow, Berg. Shoot first, ask questions later. Have you learned nothing?”

“There's no walking away from this, De Beer.” Behind Berg's bravado, Benjamin saw the fear of death in his eyes, the fear of him.

“You can stand there talking, Berg, or you can save your friends. Number two should be fine, but number one is having a little trouble breathing.” He grabbed the chair next to him with his free hand, holding it in front of him.

Berg looked at the men on the ground and back at Benjamin, his face set in a grimace of frustration. Benjamin backed out of the room and closed the door behind him, setting the chair under the door handle.

“I'll find you,” Berg yelled as he slammed his body against the door. “I'll destroy you.”

The chair wobbled but held. Benjamin took the stairs to the ground floor, walked out of the building, past his car, and into the street. He slowly lifted his left thumb above his head.

“Where you headed?” The driver who pulled to the side of the road wore a dirty blue work shirt. The inside of his pickup reeked of sweat and grease.

“South.”

“I can get you as far as Colesberg, okay?”

Benjamin opened the door. “That works.”

“It's just a nightmare,
Ngwana
. It's all right.” Tessa sat on the edge of the narrow bed holding Jacob in her arms, his skin clammy against her, his pajamas soaked with sweat. He was too thin, she thought, as she pressed him to her, feeling his ribs. It had been almost a month since he had come to live with her in Kimberley, and still he screamed in his sleep. It broke her heart to see him cry. She rocked him, stroking his head. On the cusp of manhood, he was reduced to a child again, wetting his bed some nights, mostly staring into the flat landscape.

“I want my
ma
back,
Rakgadi
.”

Tessa tried to comfort him in Sotho. “Try to go back to sleep?”

Jacob pulled away. “I can't.” He looked up at her, pleading.

“Then let's get a head start on the day, huh?” Tessa smiled. “I baked bread last night and we have fresh eggs.”

Jacob nodded, a smile trickling through his anguish. Tessa took his hand and they made breakfast in the little kitchen. In an hour the room would be bathed in yellow-curtained sunlight. It always brightened her mood. Tessa fried up baked beans and eggs on the gas stove, putting Jacob in charge of coffee. She had tried her best to establish a normal routine. In the mornings Jacob helped her with chores before he went to the
location
school and she to the private Catholic school where she taught history. After school they sat at the table together, he with homework, she with exam papers. It reminded her of her childhood, sitting at the kitchen table helping a very young Flippie with his assignments. It was a quiet life, not very exciting, but Tessa had had enough of the kind of excitement that usually sprung up around her. All she wanted now was to blend in, stay hidden, the kind of life Andrew had always insisted on.

“No, wait,” she said as Jacob sat down. She went out into the garden, her little yard blooming in full color. She had started a vegetable garden, a tribute to Dean. She picked a bunch of white daisies from one of the flower beds and arranged them in a small porcelain vase.

“There, much better.” Tessa pushed the vase to the center of the table.

Jacob pushed food around on his plate, his head resting in his other hand. “I don't think I'm hungry.” He dropped his fork and pushed his chair out.

“Please eat, Jacob. I promised your
pa
I'd look after you.”

“So I can die later?” Jacob stood up. “I shouldn't be here.”

“Your death in the streets of Soweto won't do any good.”

“You're white, Auntie. You don't know what it's like.”

Looking at the determination on his face, Tessa was suddenly afraid. “Stay here with me,” she begged. “You can finish school. Make something good of your life, find peace.
Kgotso
.”

“Peace doesn't work! Look where it got us.” He looked away, his shoulders shaking.

Tessa got up and held Jacob close to her. He endured her embrace rigidly. After breakfast, he helped her clean up. She packed his sandwich for lunch and walked to the garden gate with him.
“Ke an o rata.”
Tessa touched his shoulder.

“I love you too, Auntie.”

Tessa watched him get on the bus. Every cell in her body wanted to help him, make life better for him, try to heal the damage life had wreaked. She wondered if Flippie had told Jacob the truth about her.

Tessa gathered her things in a square basket—the student notebooks she had brought home to grade, the whistle she used when she coached the girls' netball team. She heard the front gate open, and she parted the curtains to see Markus Wexler, a middle-aged local farmer, coming down the garden path, wearing his Sunday suit, his short sandy hair neatly combed, his beard trimmed. Ever since Tessa had started teaching at the school, several of the female teaching staff had tried to set her up with young men in the district. The idea that a young widow was sitting alone at home obviously didn't sit well with them. Tessa had found all the men from the area myopic and boring, until she met Markus. They had a standing dinner appointment every Friday night, and their get-togethers had the district's ladies speculating on a wedding date. Markus was divorced, and he, like Tessa, had no real interest in romantic love, but they enjoyed each other's company and had quite a bit of fun feeding the rumor mill.

Tessa surprised Markus at the door, a wicked smile on her lips. “My, you got dressed up just to see me, Markus? Could it be that today is the day you ask for my hand?”

Markus looked taken aback for a moment. “Oh, no. I mean, I would, but I …” He smiled when he caught on. Tessa laughed, charmed by how easily he got flustered. “I wanted to come by and let you know that I can't make dinner.”

“Oh?” Tessa was surprised at her disappointment.

“I have to pick my son up from the airport. He is coming to stay with me for a while.”

“Jeffrey, right?” Tessa smiled reassuringly. “I can't wait to meet him.”

Markus, for his part, looked nervous at the prospect. After their divorce, his ex-wife had moved back to Britain with her family and taken their son with her. Markus hadn't had much contact with Jeffrey after that.

“He …” Markus searched for the words. “He got into a bit of trouble over there. His mother thought it might help if he was away from his friends for a while.”

“You'll get to spend some time with him.”

Markus smiled back at her. “
Ja
. It will be good.” He dug his hands into his pockets. “In any case, could you ask Jacob to come to the farm this weekend? I could use a hand. Unless you need him here?”

“I'll drop him off tomorrow morning,” Tessa said quickly. Jacob had shown little interest in anything except when Markus sometimes asked him to help out on the farm. Tessa had seen something come alive in his eyes when he tended to the animals. It's what he needs right now, she thought, excited to tell him about it later.

“I'll be off, then,” Markus said, and he pecked her on the cheek. Tessa felt grateful once again to have met him. Markus had become like family to her and Jacob. He'd never asked her why there was a black boy living with her, and he'd done his best to help smooth things out whenever questions were raised in town.

Tessa drove to school in her white Anglia. Flippie had laughed when she'd told him she was a teacher now, the thing that she once kicked against becoming. But she found it satisfying, especially when she could sneak in history lessons that weren't in the syllabus, something other than the victor's revisionist myths.

It was almost five o'clock by the time Tessa finished coaching the netball team and returned home. She pulled up to the house, surprised to see that there were no lights on.

“Jacob!” Tessa called when she opened the front door. She was met with silence. She walked through the house, finding it empty. Jacob's room in the servant quarters out back was clean and neat. He usually slept in the house, but they had to keep up appearances for the townspeople, just in case there were whispers. A single sheet of notebook paper lay on his bed. Tessa reached for it. His uneven script seemed to move in front of her eyes. She had to read over it several
times, the ground suddenly malleable under her, as if she might sink into it.

“Unie Police.” Alet answered the phone, unable to keep the boredom out of her voice. Mathebe had retracted his complaint and Mynhardt, desperate for an extra man, had reinstated her that same morning. She was stuck on desk duty for the time being, but at least she was back in uniform.

“
Ja
, hallo?”

“Unie Police. Can I help, sir?”

“
Ja
. Right. Those
fokken
kids from the
location
is hanging around outside again. You better come do something, 'cause today is the day that I
bliksem
them all.”

“Calm down, Mr. Brink.”

“Oh, Alet, I …”

Captain Mynhardt and April walked past the service desk. April waved at Alet, a smile on his face. Mynhardt motioned to him to go ahead.

“Can I place you on hold?” Alet pushed the mute button before Petrus could answer. “Captain?”

“We got called out to the squatter camp. Trouble with one of the farmers because of missing cattle. Can you hold the fort by yourself?”

“Of course.”