The World Beneath (10 page)

I
n the morning, the sky was clean and the clouds were high and bright. Puddles stood on the driveway, torn fig branches lay on the paving, and the pool was full of leaves.

Joshua stood, surveying the damage. Normally the pool was drained and covered in the winter; somehow, things had slipped this year. There were shutters that needed repairing; the upstairs veranda was leaking. The leaves should have been cleared away by now. The lawn, he saw, was long, and its edges weren’t as neat as usual. Goodman had had trouble getting in to work. There were bad days and good days in the townships; when there were riots, the buses didn’t run. And in any case, when the police were in Guguletu, Goodman didn’t like to leave his wife and children on their own. When he did come, he was preoccupied. He stood talking with Beauty, drinking his tea at the kitchen door, the rake propped carelessly against the back steps just where Mrs. Malherbe might fall over it.

Joshua looked up at Table Mountain. Scraps of mist hung over its flat edge in wisps: the tablecloth of cloud it was named for. The north wind must be blowing hard up there; its raw edges were rattling the hedges and whipping the curtains at Mrs. Malherbe’s window.

He should get back inside. He would leave the pool for later. There were fewer frogs now that the weather was colder. He had released his little frog on the common one evening by the pond, hoping it wouldn’t try to come back across the road and get squashed.

Then there was a sound in the road that he knew. The horn sounded loud in the morning air as Mr. Malherbe’s car pulled up at the iron gates. He ran to open them.

He looked up and saw Mrs. Malherbe’s face at the window, a white flash; then she was gone.

Joshua ran for cover.

The trouble didn’t start straightaway. Mr. Malherbe was tired. He dumped his suitcase in the hall, took a shower, and went to bed. He had had difficulty getting home from the airport. There were armored personnel carriers on the road (“tanks,” said Tsumalo), and a stone had clipped the Mercedes’s silver wing.

No, it started later, when Mr. Malherbe woke for supper. Only it was eight o’clock already, and supper had been ready since seven.

Mrs. Malherbe and Robert had eaten; Robert had gone out.

Mr. Malherbe started by dumping his supper in the trash. Then he went rummaging in the fridge for bacon and eggs. Beauty was still washing up. She kept her head down and her hands in the sink.

“Why is there no beer?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Master,” she said, looking down and away. She knew the best thing was never to look at whites if you could help it. She had told Joshua this. Don’t meet their eyes, she had said. They don’t like it.

“I said, why is there no beer?” He stepped closer.

Beauty wasn’t in charge of buying the beer or storing the beer, and she certainly never drank any of it. She didn’t know what to do, so she kept washing up. She knew the beer had been drunk by Robert, and that he had given one or two to Tsumalo, but she had no intention of saying so.

The next thing she knew, Mr. Malherbe had ripped the washcloth out of her hand, spun her around, and was holding her chin up so she had to look at him.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, damn you!” he shouted. “WHY — IS — THERE — NO — BEER?”

Beauty continued to avoid looking at him, afraid of what he might see in her eyes. And that might make him even angrier.

“The beers are finished, Master,” she said finally. After all, no one had known he was coming home. He wasn’t due back till Friday. Mrs. Malherbe would have gone shopping before then. In any case, they had all had their minds on other things. That was another thing she couldn’t tell him.

“WHO — HAS — DRUNK — THEM, THEN?”

Beauty stood by the sink, her chin held in his firm grip. She looked relieved to see Mrs. Malherbe come in.

But this was a mistake too. Mr. Malherbe was not normally mollified by Mrs. Malherbe. If anything, she seemed to aggravate him.

“Gordon!” said Mrs. Malherbe. “What are you doing!” Uncharacteristically, she said, “Leave the washing up, Beauty, I’ll do it later. You go to your room.”

Mr. Malherbe let Beauty go. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Malherbe knew that Joshua was in his hidey-hole, arms around Betsy’s ample neck, face hidden in her fur. He had heard everything; he heard what followed.

It seemed that Mrs. Malherbe was in a difficult mood herself. This too was unusual. She was normally careful around her husband.

He could hear her frying bacon, and then breaking eggs into the pan. As they hissed in the fat, she raised her voice to be heard above the noise.

“So, was it a good trip?” She didn’t sound very friendly.

Mr. Malherbe grunted. Silence.

“How’s Charlene?”

A longer silence, then, “What on earth do you mean?”

“I just mean, how’s Charlene?”

“What the
hell
do you mean?”

“I mean, is she well? Did you have a good trip? I mean, how’s Charlene since you saw her last? I mean, did you enjoy staying with her — again — instead of at the hotel, where they have
never heard of you
?”

Somebody — Mrs. Malherbe? — put the pan down with a bang.

There was an odd silence, as if something was happening; what, Joshua couldn’t say. It was a kind of stifled silence, as if there was a struggle going on. Should he come out? But what could he do?

He stayed where he was. He held Betsy so hard that she squeaked, and then, horrified, let her go. He felt his nose prickle and the tears start. He was tingling all over. He could not bear it; to stay in here while the Master did whatever he was doing to her. To do nothing.

He remembered what Tsumalo had said to him: “You want me to fix him?” And then: “That’s what they like to think. That we can’t. Do. Anything.”

He opened the door a crack. Still, he could see nothing. What if he crept out, edged around the dog’s basket, and through the door into the dining room? From there he could — and the box room was just up the stairs —

The blood-thump of his heart banged in his ears. He could hear nothing else.

Then he was out, and the dining-room door opened smoothly, and as he squeezed into the hallway, he saw through the crack of the kitchen door that Mrs. Malherbe was bent back over the table. Mr. Malherbe had both hands around her throat. He was leaning his full weight upon her, and one of her hands hung limply over the table’s edge.

He ran up the stairs two at a time. He hammered with his fists on Tsumalo’s door. “It’s me!” he shouted. “Open the door! It’s Mrs. Malherbe!” One moment too many, and . . .

The door opened. “Kitchen!” he shouted, and pointed with a trembling hand.

Without a word, Tsumalo took the stairs, holding the banisters and swinging his good leg down, with Joshua following.

In the kitchen, Tsumalo pulled Mr. Malherbe off his wife. Holding him by the neck of his shirt with one hand, he punched him hard, once, on the jaw. It was neatly done; Mr. Malherbe, who had not said a word, crumpled to the floor.

Mrs. Malherbe lay motionless on the table. Tsumalo felt the pulse beneath her jawbone and lowered her carefully to the floor. He put a folded apron under her head. “Get your mother to ring for an ambulance!” he shouted at Joshua.

Tsumalo was bent over Mrs. Malherbe. He had pulled her up into a kitchen chair. He was trying to wake her. Joshua stood helplessly by the door.

Beauty was kneeling by the unconscious Mr. Malherbe with a damp cloth in her hand. But she didn’t seem to know what to do with it; or perhaps she was just nervous to touch him.

“Madam. Wake up, Madam!” Tsumalo felt for her pulse again. “Wake up!” Joshua watched anxiously.

No one had heard the front door open, but into this melee ran Robert. The call of a siren followed him in. He looked terrified. “Ma!” he shouted.
“What are you doing!”
he screamed at Tsumalo, who glanced at him briefly, then ignored him. Then Robert saw Mr. Malherbe on the floor and understood.

Tsumalo slapped Mrs. Malherbe’s face lightly. He shook her, and just as he slapped her face again, two policemen arrived.

Things began to happen, slowly, as if they were all under water. Tsumalo looked up, frozen. Joshua shouted: “No! It was the Master!”

Robert turned to the constable, as if in slow motion, his hands out in a placatory gesture. His mouth was open; he was trying to speak.

The constable drew his revolver from its holster; Tsumalo dropped Mrs. Malherbe’s hand and sprang to the countertop. He smashed the window; the policeman fired. Tsumalo fell into the yard through the shattered window.

Beauty screamed; Joshua whimpered. Mrs. Malherbe began to stir in her chair.

Joshua ran out onto the veranda and into the yard. The lights were on. Tsumalo was curled like a fetus around the giant red fist of the wound in his stomach. He was choking; blood streamed from his mouth and arms.

Beauty ran to Tsumalo; she knelt and cradled his head. Joshua stood with his fists clenched. Beauty wept softly; the shattered glass glittered around them like a fall of frost. Tsumalo, unable ever to say another word, shuddered once — a great, breathy shudder — and was still, while the black constable watched from the back door, and Robert hovered beyond like a ghost.

Far off, Joshua heard a siren. Then Mr. Malherbe’s voice inside the kitchen: “Thank you, officer. No, she’s just badly shaken up. I think she should be checked over, though. You men arrived just in time.”

J
oshua couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t really breathe. The blanket smelled of Betsy and it was covering him and he was in the footwell of a car. The rest of the car didn’t smell good, either. Someone had left a banana skin under the seat; its floury odor filled his nostrils. He was hungry. The suspension was shot. Every time the car hit a bump, it hurt. “Ow!” he yelled once.

The murmur of voices from the front of the car became a long
“Sssssst!”
and a hand came down onto his shoulder and pressed firmly. A familiar voice said, “You must not say a word. They will find you.”

“I need to wee.”

“Wait until it is dark. Then we will stop.”

Joshua lay in a miserable ball and tried to distract himself. He thought of the events of the previous evening. He squeezed his eyes shut, but tears leaked out anyway. Tsumalo was dead. And where was his mother?

Sobs began to shake his body. He was quaking. He rose up out of the back of the car and clutched at the men in the front. “I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” They glanced at each other.

“We had better stop,” said a voice.

“Aaai,”
said the driver disapprovingly, but he swung the car down a side road without another word, and then it got bumpy and they stopped.

“Here.”

The man in the front passenger seat pulled him out of the car, stood him up, and said, not unkindly, “Look — it’s not far now. Be quick and we’ll go on.”

“Where’s my mother?” he called. “Where is she?”

The driver leaned across to him. Joshua saw that he was one of the men from the swimming pool, the one with a face like a fox’s. His name was Sindiso, Tsumalo had told him.

“You are with us to keep you away from the police,” he said gently. In the half-dark he could see that Sindiso was smiling. “You attacked one of them. Robert had to pull you off.”

Then there were a few mouthfuls of water from a can, and he was back under the hairy blanket. He tried to make himself small, holding his knees, closing his eyes, and fashioning a little loop in its edge for his nose so he could breathe. He had almost stopped shivering.

Where were they?

Then suddenly it was morning. He must have slept. He pulled the corner of the blanket back. Sunlight.

The men in front sounded cheerful. They heard him stirring, and one of them said, “We are safe now.”

The blanket was flung back, and Sindiso smiled at him. “Joshua, you can get up now. You can get up on the backseat. Look where we are!”

Joshua saw mountains above him and drew in his breath. He saw grass, cows, huts. Quickly, he wound down the window, kneeled up on the seat, leaned out, and drank in big gulps of air as if it were water.

Sindiso turned around to him and laughed. “Yes,” he said. “This is the air of freedom. Breathe deep!” And he threw back his head and laughed again.

There was so much Joshua wanted to ask. He opened his mouth to speak.

But he wouldn’t find out everything he wanted to know for a long, long time.