Zulu (13 page)

 

 

 

H
e felt uneasy as soon as he woke up. There was a weight on his heart, as if he had run in the rain for hours with his head thrown back. As if he had died for lack of breath. Brian Epkeen sat on the edge of the bed, searching in the chaos of his memories, and found only the tail end of a dream. A sense that he had an unpleasant chore to attend to hung in the air of the room. The morning would have done better to shut its big mouth. The fucking alarm clock hadn't gone off. Or he'd forgotten to set it. His head felt itchy. He'd slept badly. Standing up didn't help.

Brian was supposed to be meeting the others, the way things were going he wouldn't have time for breakfast, it was already hot, and this trip to the beach, with or without his friend “Jim,” meant nothing to him.

“Hmm.” Tracy whimpered, buried beneath the sheets. “Are you going?”

“Yes. I'm late.”

Brian lifted the red hair from her cheek. Awkward in her love for him, Tracy caught his hand and pulled him toward her.

“Come here,” she said, without opening her eyes. “Stay with me.”

It was stupid, he'd just told her he was late.

“Please!” Tracy insisted.

“Let go of me, darling.”

He wasn't in the mood for games. Her persistence got on his nerves. He wasn't in love—he should have told her last night that there was no point, their affair was hopeless, he was only the salt in an ocean of tears, but Tracy had rolled her big love-filled breasts over him, his heart had cracked like a log at the first skirmish, and he had admitted defeat. One more defeat.

“What's the matter?” Tracy asked, one eye venturing out from beneath the sheets.

Brian was coming out of the shower. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

He dressed with whatever he could find.

“The keys are on the kitchen table,” he said. “Just throw them in the flower pot.”

Tracy watching him, uncomprehendingly. He took his gun and left.

 

 *

 

A strong wind was blowing over Muizenberg beach. Neuman buttoned his jacket over his Colt .45. Brian Epkeen and Dan Fletcher followed on, protecting their faces from the clouds of sand raised by the gusts of wind. Once past the picturesque old-fashioned beach huts, the beach stretched for miles, as far as the township.

They had questioned the parking attendants with their brightly numbered shirts, who also dealt a little
dagga
. One of them had recognized Stan Ramphele from his photo (he had a pickup) and the girl (a pretty young blonde). No other info, from either the local cops or the informers, who'd been grilled for days.

They left the wooden jetty that ran over the first dunes and started walking on the soft sand. On the weekends, people flocked here from the city, but now Muizenberg beach was almost empty. The few bathers were concentrated on the promenade, near the lifeguards' hut, where two blond guys with African necklaces were keeping a close watch on their muscles. Neuman had shown them the photo of Ramphele, but they saw dozens of young blacks wearing Gap and plastic Ray-Bans every day. Same with the young blonde who was supposed to have been with him.

The waves were breaking loudly, swallowing up a few surfers as they came in. The long-haired guys who got out alive, when questioned, gave them nothing but dirty looks. They walked. And walked. There were fewer and fewer houses. Soon there was only one windsurfer in the distance, and big waves crashing on the shore. Brian was sweating under his cotton blouson, he was starting to get sick of this walk, they had been plowing on for twenty minutes now. Beside him, Dan was saying nothing, an indolent figure in the sun and the wind lashing their faces. Neuman was walking upright, oblivious of the elements. Half a mile, a mile. Then they saw a group of men in the shelter of a dune. Blacks, half a dozen of them, drinking
tshwala
18
beneath a tattered straw canopy. A girl was dancing in the shadows. It was only after a moment that the wind let them hear the music—a kind of reggae, being spat out by a ghetto blaster.

Neuman signaled to Brian to go take a look. They would carry on to the dunes—a little farther on, a thin gray wisp of smoke rose, borne on the wind. Brian walked straight toward the improvised bar, drawn by the girl's golden thighs.

The gusts of wind were raising clouds of sand. Dan kept grimly on behind Neuman and followed him to the white dunes.

A smell of grilled chicken floated in the air, and something else that was hard to define. They saw a worm-eaten beach hut, a
braai
19
sheltered from the wind, and two men in canvas caps busy grilling meat. Neuman assessed the terrain, saw only the ridge of the dunes, and the two guys turning toward them. Snatches of reggae from the straw canopy reached them, carried on the wind. Neuman approached. The half-open door of the hut was barely upright, holding on only by a whim. The two blacks, on the other hand, were stiff as ramrods.

“We're looking for this man,” Neuman said. “Stan Ramphele.”

The two men, both red-eyed, attempted smiles. One of them was a nervy-looking black of about thirty, teeth partly rotted by malnutrition and dope. The other one was younger, knocking back a beer and looking at the bottle as if the taste had changed with each swig.

“We don't know the guy,” he said. His breath smelled.

“You look like one of his customers,” Neuman replied. “Stan,” he insisted. “He used to deal
dagga
, then he graduated to harder stuff.”

“I don't know, man. We're just enjoying the beach, that's all!”

The ashes on the barbecue flew up in the wind. The two men had scars on their arms and necks.

“Where are you from?” Neuman asked.

“The township. Why, man?”

Dan was standing a few feet back, his hand on the grip of his gun.

“We found Stan in his mobile home with enough powder in him to burst his veins,” Neuman said. “A
tik
-based mixture. What do you think of that, fellows?”

“We don't think anything,” the nervy guy replied.

Neuman pushed open the door of the hut, saw a pair of binoculars on the dirty floor. A top-of-the-range model, which didn't seem like the kind of thing these losers would have. They had seen them coming. They had been waiting.

The nervy guy's smile froze, as if he had guessed what Neuman was thinking. His partner took a step toward the other side of the barbecue.

“Don't move,” Dan said, taking his gun from his holster.

At the same moment, he felt a presence behind him. “No, don't
you
move!”

A revolver was jammed into his spinal cord. A third man had just emerged from behind the hut. Neuman had taken out his gun, but did not fire. The Beretta was trained on Dan's neck and the guy holding it had empty, lackluster eyes. A
tsotsi
, barely twenty years old—he'd seen him before, the other day, on the waste ground, the young guys who were kicking Simon. Dan scanned the surroundings out of the corner of his eye, but it was too late. The others had pulled revolvers from the sack of charcoal under the barbecue.

“Get your hands up, pig!” the nervy guy hissed, the barrel of his revolver pointed at Neuman. “Gatsha, take his gun—slowly!”

“One move, and your friend gets a bullet in the head!” the youngest of the three yelled.

Gatsha advanced toward Neuman as if he might bite, and tore the Colt out of his hands.

“Take it easy.”

“Shut up, nigger!”

The nervy guy, holding his gun to the back of Dan's neck, had forced him to kneel with his hands on his head. The others, grinning triumphantly, hissed insults in Dashiki. Neuman did not move. Dan was sweating profusely beside the barbecue. He was white-faced, and his legs were shaking. Neuman swore through his teeth. Dan was losing his nerve. You could feel it by the way his pores were dilating, the aura of fear gripping him, his hands placed uselessly on his head.

“Over there, you!” the nervy guy shouted at Neuman. “Keep your hands still! You hear, asshole?”

Neuman moved back until his back and hands were against the cracked wood of the hut. Gatsha had followed him. He held his breath when the
tsotsi
pressed his revolver into his testicles.

“You move an inch, and I'll blow off your balls and all the shit that comes with them.”

Joey, the young black he had seen on the construction site, took a knife from his belt, and waved it in front of his eyes. “We've met before, haven't we, cop?”

He laughed, and with one blow planted the knife in the worm-eaten wood. Neuman started—the
tsotsi
had just nailed his ear to the door.

“I said, don't move!” the boy cried, the veins in his eyes bursting.

The barrel of the gun was still tight against his testicles. His ear was burning, warm blood was running down his neck, his lobe and cartilage had been pierced by the blade that kept him fixed to the door. A few feet away, on his knees, the gun pressed to the back of his neck, Dan was shivering in the gusts of wind.

“So, cop, scared now?” The nervy guy pushed Dan down on the ground. “You know something? You look like a little fag. Has anyone ever told you that? A dirty little police fag.”

The youngest of the three laughed. Gatsha was looking at his finger on the trigger.

“What would you say to a little grilled cop, boys?” their leader said. “This one looks good enough to eat!”

“Hey, man! Grilled cop! Better than grilled chicken! Yeah!”

“We could give him a try, couldn't we?”

“Yeah!”

“No!”

The two
tsotsis
were arguing for the fun of it, but Gatsha did not release the pressure on Neuman's testicles. There was a knot in his throat.

“Come on, Joey! Bring something to cut up the cop!”

Dan, now lying on the sand, could not stop shaking. Joey handed the older guy a
panga
.
20

“Leave him alone,” Neuman said.

“Go fuck yourself, nigger.”

Neuman threw a furtive glance at the straw hut—as if Brian could see him from there.

“No point counting on your little white friend. We're taking care of him.”

He thought he could make out the figure of Brian through the heat haze, bouncing up and down on the improvised dance floor beneath the straw canopy. What the fuck was he up to?

The nervy guy bent over the young cop on the ground and passed the machete over his back as if cleaning the blade.

“Now you're going to be a chicken. Do you hear?” He was whispering in his ear. “You're going to be a chicken or I'll kill you, you little fag. Do you hear? BE A CHICKEN!”

Fletcher looked at Neuman in panic.

“Leave him alone.”

The gun barrel bored into his groin. Time stood still. There was only the wind scalping the dunes and the cruel eyes of the
tsotsi
oozing contempt all over Dan. He couldn't even hear the music anymore. The man was going to strike. Dan could feel it in his bones, it was only a matter of seconds. He looked around for Neuman, couldn't see him.

He let out a feeble splutter that did not cover the sound of his sobs.

“The slightest move and you're dead,” Gatsha whispered in Neuman's bloody ear.

“You can do better than that!” the nervous guy bellowed, still holding the
panga
. “Come on!”

Dan emitted a feeble
cluck-cluck
, which was drowned by the noise of the rollers.

The man laughed, madness in his eyes. “Ha, ha! Look at this chicken! Oh, the pretty little chicken!”

Dan was trembling, his face buried in the sand next to the barbecue.

The
tsotsi
rose to his full height. “Look what I do to fags like you!”

With one stroke of the machete, he cut off Dan's right hand.

 

 *

 

Brian looked at the small crowd gathered near the icebox. There were half a dozen people dancing under the straw canopy, including a colored girl in an impressively low-cut dress. She was strutting as she drank her beer, looking at him with an insistent air, lips playing with the neck of the bottle. The ghetto blaster was spluttering out reggae, Bob Marley and the Wailers. The girl wiggled her hips, the guys swarmed around her like bees—young guys, only the big black serving the
tshwala
was more than twenty. Tattoos on his arms, poor quality ones—probably done in prison.

“Hi!” the girl said, approaching Brian.

“Hi.”

“Want to dance?”

Without waiting for a reply, she took his hand, wrapped her arms around him, and drew him onto the improvised dance floor. She smelled of licorice, with the unfortunate addition of hops. In spite of a missing tooth, she had a nice mouth.

“My name's Pamela!” she cried above the music. “But you can call me Pam!”

He bent over her cleavage and said in her ear, “Not so much a pompom girl, more a pampam girl!”

She smiled greedily. The others, bobbing up and down to the music of the Wailers, waved to them in a friendly manner. Caught up in the girl's movements, Brian wiggled around a little. Pamela snuggled up against him, playfully, provocatively.

He took out the picture of Ramphele. “Know this man?”

She twisted around to look at the photograph, shook her head, and pressed herself against his back with a prolonged quiver—her peppery skin was on fire.

“Buy me a beer?”

She was looking at him with an expression of childlike supplication, as if the world was waiting for his answer. The others were watching them. Brian signaled to the tattooed man in charge of the beer. They grabbed their drinks with an acrobatic sensuousness and, still dancing, raised their bottles in the air in a toast. As the music was too loud to let them have a conversation, he pulled her toward the grass on the edge of the dunes.

Pam was smiling at him as if she found him very handsome.