Does it Hurt to Die (13 page)

‘
No, Mike, there’s something else more urgent,’ he said, taking two envelopes from his jacket. Jannie could see that Mike was only half listening, fascinated by the intense struggle that was going on with Christian as he wriggled and tried to escape.

‘
Mike,’ Jannie repeated, a little louder to ensure he had his attention. ‘I want you to take these two envelopes and store them in a safe place.’

Mike glanced at the envelopes Jannie handed him. One was addressed to Christian and marked
, ‘To be opened only if requested.’ The second was to Renata and marked ‘To be opened on my death.’

‘
Jannie, what’s going on?’

Christian at that moment saw the envelopes and made a grab for them, which Mike just avoided by holding them up out of reach. Thinking that it was a new game, Christian laughed and pulled at Mike’s arm to try to reach them. Jannie picked up Christian and settled him back on his lap before he continued talking to Mike, looking directly at him so that he understood the seriousness of what he was trying to convey.

‘Before I tell you any more, please just assure me that you will put these in a special place, but not in your home. If anything happens to me, I want you to look after Renata and Christian, no matter what I tell you next. Promise me that, Mike?’

‘
You know you don’t even have to ask; Renata and Christian are like family.’

‘
Well, there is something more difficult that I also need your help with. If I die suddenly, you need to persuade Renata and Christian to leave South Africa.’

Mike looked at him
. ‘For Renata, that would be almost impossible. I couldn’t sincerely give you that undertaking, Jannie.’

Jannie stared at his friend allowing him to taste his fear
. ‘If she stays, Mike, both she and Christian may be killed.’

‘
What’s this all about?’ he said as his pager went off.

‘
Is that Sibokwe?’ said Jannie. ‘Is he OK or do we both need to go and see him? ’

Mike glanced down at his pager and pushed the
‘message transmits’ button: ‘Sibokwe’s blood pressure dropped, temperature up—? Delayed rejection,’ it read.

‘
What does it say, Mike? A possible rejection of the donor liver?’

‘
I’m afraid so. That was Tollie Oosthuizen, the immunologist, querying a delayed rejection.’

‘
He needs another liver biopsy, Mike, and we need to increase his steroids if there’s no indication of infection. Has that immunoglobulin arrived from Switzerland yet?’

‘
Not yet.’

‘
You go on to intensive care and get things started. I’ll wait until Lucy comes back to look after Christian and then join you.’

‘
You don’t need to come up. You’re still meant to be resting.’

‘
Look, Mike, I need to be part of things again.’

‘
All right, I’ll see you in intensive care,’ said Mike, folding the envelopes in his hand. ‘And I’ll look after these as you wanted. I still need to think about the Renata/Christian aspect, but I will respect your wishes.’

‘
It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes before Lucy gets back—just leave the front door unlatched,’ Jannie called as Mike disappeared through the kitchen door.

The spaniels, who had escorted Mike to the front door, sauntered back. They flopped down a safe distance from Christian, their heads between their paws, keeping a wary eye upon his approach.

‘Christian, Daddy’s going to the hospital when Lucy comes back.’

‘
Yes, I heard that Daddy Waddy.’

It was a term that Jannie had come to recognise Christian used when he was really happy. It was an endearment he used to endorse their time together, and it also served to prick Jannie’s conscience that he did not hear it often enough. He quietly resolved to do better while he was recovering.

‘When I come back from the hospital, what say we go and photograph the penguins around the boulders at Cape Point?’

‘
OK, Daddy.’

Jannie looked at the tree his son was colouring and saw that he had not yet learnt to control the colour to the lines
. ‘That looks really good, Christian; the trees are a beautiful green.’

Then he did something that he had always yearned to do but that had previously been somewhat beyond him. He walked to where Christian was drawing and put his arms around him and said
, ‘Do you want to know a secret?’

‘
What’s that, Daddy?’

‘
I love you.’

‘
Want to know a secret, Daddy Waddy?—I love you too.’

Jannie released Christian from his arms and sat back in his chair feeling the warmth of the sun, stunned by the openness of his little boy’s confession and his ability to touch his heart. The tears welled up and, as they fell down his cheek, he grabbed his son, held him tight and told him he was his most favourite little boy in the whole wide world.

‘Why are you crying, Daddy?’

‘
Those are tears of joy, Christian; sometimes you suddenly appreciate the important things in life!’

As Jannie released him on
to the ground beside the chair, the spaniels jumped up and started barking before bounding in through the back door and hurling down the long hallway. Lucy must be back, Jannie thought. He got up and moved over to tighten the safety net at the edge of the pool. The zigzag of tensioned nylon had saved Christian from drowning once when he was eighteen months old, but it did have another function, it was good for keeping the spaniels out of the pool. As he stood up from tightening the net, he listened; he could hear the spaniels barking loudly. That in itself was unusual; they would normally follow Lucy all the way down the hallway quietly pretending to be well behaved, as they knew that Lucy insisted upon that before she would give them a bone.

Jannie then heard a sound that made the hair on his neck stand up. A soft whimper and the noise like a cork popping. He quickly turned and grabbed Christian, bringing him face to face.

‘Christian, this is very important; I want you to do something special for Daddy, OK?’ Christian nodded his agreement.

‘
I’m going to put you over that fence and I want you to stay there and not come out, no matter what you hear, until I call for you, or Mummy does—even if it’s a long time—promise?’

Christian nodded again.

Jannie quickly scooped him up and put him over the neighbouring six-foot high concrete fence, lowering him on to a tree stump.

‘
Stay there, quiet as a mouse!’

Jannie, having turned towards the pool, wondered whether he had over-reacted. He glanced towards the kitchen and the sickening fear returned. The first bullet ripped through his abdomen, silently delivered, except for the soft popping sound. He felt it leave his back, and felt the searing pain as it tore out part of his erector spinae. He heard the noise as it hit the back fence, and prayed that Christian would be safe. He prayed to God, too, for forgiveness as the next bullets smashed his leg and chest. He watched in slow motion as the two gunmen approached—one black, the other white.

‘Hy is nie dood nie?’ said the black one as he limped towards him.

‘
He’ll be dead shortly,’ said the white gunman, with the thickest Afrikaans accent, as he raised his gun to Jannie’s head.

‘
Daddy Waddy, can I come out yet? I don’t want to stay here any longer.’ Christian’s voice drifted over the fence.

Jannie saw the black gunmen look at the white, trying to work out where the voice had come from, and then he heard their neighbour Mrs Wattchow call out
, ‘Christian, what are you doing down there in the garden?’

He prayed that they would leave both of them alone as he saw the white man raise the gun again and point it at his temple.

Having left Jannie in the front room, Renata drove back to the hospital. She sat at her desk thinking about the changes that she had seen in Jannie in the last few days. He was somehow different since she had visited him in the hospital. After the drama of the media interviews, he had become a little bit more talkative than he normally was. She was initially hopeful that this would help him get over any post-traumatic stress syndrome that she was certain that he was going to have. Then when she picked him up from the hospital that morning, they hardly spoke on the way home. Normally he would be talking about what he needed to do at work, and especially, she thought, about Sibokwe and the liver transplant. There seemed to be something that was deeply troubling him, but then she rationalised that perhaps it was just the impact of the trauma. At the best of times, he was an emotional economist. She resolved that, irrespective of him not wanting to talk about things, she would go home earlier than she normally would just to keep an eye on him. She was sure that as soon as he got home, he would be working and not taking it easy as Chris and Digby had recommended. At least, if nothing else, she could try to get him to relax a little more.

She took the short route home from hospital and was halfway down Coghill Street when she saw
Lucy in the distance and tooted and waved. As she drew level with her, she wound down the car window.

‘
Good afternoon, Madam,’ Lucy called as she spotted Renata.

‘
Good afternoon, Lucy. Would you like a ride?’

‘
Thank you, Madam.’

Renata pulled the catch for the boot and waited as Lucy loaded four large shopping bags into the back of the car. It was a short distance to their driveway, about eight hundred metres, but Renata knew that Lucy would appreciate the ride. Renata pulled into the driveway and got out of the car to help Lucy unload the food on
to the front steps. As she put the bags down she noticed that Lucy had bought rye bread, Jannie’s favourite, and ice blocks for Christian. She was delighted, despite all the recent drama, that there were some things in life that fortunately remained constant. She was closing the boot of the car when she heard Lucy call out to her.

‘
Madam, the front door is open.’

Renata looked up and thought that would explain why she had not heard the spaniels barking.

Probably Mike,’ Renata called back. ‘He was coming around and must have left it open.’

Renata picked up two of the shopping bags, thinking that she would have to go and look for the spaniels once she put the food inside. Nevertheless, at the same time, she felt a strange disquiet deep inside.

‘All right, Lucy; let’s put all this shopping inside.’

As Renata opened the doors, she recoiled in shock; just behind the door their two beloved spaniels lay covered in blood, their faces no longer recognisable, like two lifeless stuffed toys, one on top of the other. Their eyes were still open, their tongues hanging out of the side of their mouths but without the slightest sign of life. From beneath them, a pool of blood trickled down the hallway. Renata felt nauseated and light-headed, and as she turned towards Lucy, vomited uncontrollably on
to the path.

‘
Madam, what’s the matter?’

Renata did not reply but dropped the two packages that she was carrying and pushed the door back against the dead spaniels, running down the hallway, calling out frantically to Jannie and Christian. As she reached the back door, she willed herself to see Jannie and Christian sitting around the pool playing, hoping that there would be an explanation for the dead spaniels, hoping that the sick feeling in her stomach would not worsen.

She looked through the back door and could see Jannie lying face down across the pool netting. Blood was dripping into the pool, seeping out towards the centre, creating swirling crimson patches.

‘
NO!’ she screamed and raced over to where he lay. ‘Jannie, Jannie, talk to me!’

She felt immediately for his carotid pulse, willing it to be there, wanting him to respond to her
. ‘Jannie,’ she screamed at him, recognising all the signs of death she had witnessed so regularly as an intern.

‘
Jannie,’ she whispered, ‘please don’t be dead,’ as she felt the nausea return. She looked at him searching to see where the blood was coming from, instinctively applying pressure to his neck wound and then vomiting uncontrollably again.

‘
Madam.’

Renata felt Lucy touching her shoulder, and she turned to see Lucy standing behind her, tears streaming down her cheeks.

‘Madam, shall I call the police?’

‘
No, Lucy. Call the hospital and tell them there is an emergency and we need the ambulance, and then get me the first aid kit from under the kitchen sink.’

Lucy turned to hurry back inside and then stopped
. ‘Madam, where is Christian?’

The question suddenly tore at Renata. In her revulsion at finding Jannie, Christian’s absence had been momentarily forgotten. A feeling of fear and uncertainty gripped her, a feeling so alien she initially did not know how to respond to it. Was Christian lying dead in some part of the garden? Did she need to find Christian and save him? If she left Jannie, would he die? Her brain would not process and prioritise the situation
. ‘Take a deep breath,’ she told herself. ‘Apply pressure, and remember your training from the trauma unit. Treat those you have in front of you first, and use others to triage.’             

‘
Lucy, see whether Christian is hiding somewhere.’

‘
Lucy.’ Renata spoke more forcefully.

‘
Yes, Madam.’

‘
Look in Christian’s bedroom, in his cupboard, under the bed.’

‘
Mamma!’ Christian’s voice silenced both women. It was shortly followed by Mrs Wattchow’s face as she peered over the back fence clutching on to Christian.

‘
Is he all right?’ she directed at Mrs Wattchow, who was now as transfixed as Lucy by the sight of Jannie.

‘
Can you please look after him while we deal with Jannie?’

Renata saw the colour draining from Mrs Wattchow’s face. She turned back to Jannie. The blood continued to run across the tiles and slowly dripped into the pool. She could not find a pulse and there was no movement from his eyes. He needed intravenous fluids to compensate for his blood loss. If an ambulance did not arrive immediately, he was going to die.