Snake (12 page)

“What is it, Chris?” she finally asked, rousing herself to lie propped on one elbow.

“I don’t know.”

“You haven’t had a dream, hey? You never have dreams— since when did you have a dream? I’ve never known you to have dreams. Never.”

“Hmmm?”

“I mean, with your work you can’t afford to—at least, that’s what you’ve always said. Remember? That time on our honeymoon when I thought you were dreaming? Only it was me dreaming that you were dreaming and all the time you—”

“It was terrible!”

“Hey?”

“No, I meant … it must have been a dream. So lifelike and real, though. Right in front of me. With smells, too.”

“You get smells in dreams sometimes,” she replied reassuringly, taking his clenched hand and patting it. “And colors? Did you see colors as well?”

“Ja, I did. Isn’t it supposed to be black and white, like the newsreels?”

“Not always. Although last time mine was black and white and I was trying on new dresses and it nearly drove me mad. Maybe it was that book you were reading.”

“No.”

“
Ach
, tell your little Anneline all about it, and then it’ll go away. Come on, Chrissy, lie down again beside me.”

He lay back, hearing the mattress sigh with him, and moved his head over until he could feel her white curls against his cheek.

“Man, it was terrible,” he said in a low whisper. “I was back in Pretoria Central on a morning of some hangings. Father William was there, and Koos and the commandant—all the usual crowd.”

“Go on, my pet.”

“Things were going just as normal, and I had this feeling I had been away but was pleased to see everyone again. Only I couldn’t see the hangman and I wanted to ask him how his racing pigeons were coming on. I kept looking for him although work had already piled up for me downstairs—”

“They’d started with the Bantu?”

“Ja, although that didn’t seem funny at the time. Six Bantu and a colored, two rapes and the rest murder—no, one house-breaking with aggravated circumstances. Anyway, I knew there were all those certificates to sign. So I thought maybe he is in the condemned cell in B2, the small one for Europeans. I went there and I could tell which one from the aromas of the steak and eggs the bloke had ordered. You remember? Nearly always steak and eggs and peaches for pudding—hell, I was the one who actually saw all that food go to waste. But here am I outside the cell, and I push the thing back and look in. You know what I see there? A big mirror on the wall and my eye looking back at me. That’s the first thing I see.”

“And that’s what gave you such a big fright?”

“
Ach
, no—wait. When I take my head away, I’m not by the cell anymore, I’m back in the shed. Of course, I think, this is where he’ll be. But I’m just there by myself. Then they bring in the white prisoner and I see that it’s Tromp!”

“Who?”

“Tromp Kramer—and I know this even though he’s already got the black hood on. Everything’s quick so I can’t ask about the pigeons and they put him on the trap and Father William says the Amen and he’s hanging—hell, but the bugger kicked hard! And I see … you know how the chain comes over the beam to make different lengths for the rope? You know that chart I showed you, heights and weights and the slack in between? I look up to see if it’s holding because I don’t want him to suffer—that’s rubbish for you, the chain coming loose.”

“Ja—”

“And all of a sudden I see it’s a mamba, not a rope, and that it’s—”

Anneline Strydom laughed fondly, replacing her arm and hugging her husband to her.

“You’re so silly,” she said. “Anyone can see where this dream came from. You don’t need Joseph to tell you it would just break, do you? Trompie jumped, he was all right—and you know how that boy likes his big plates of steak and eggs. Remember that time? I’d made for four?”

He laughed and snuggled up.

Gardiner was doodling. Drawing cartoon faces on thumb-prints he had himself made on the back of an old calendar, and giving them legs. Then he gave them arms and different things to hold, and wrote funny captions beneath each one, like “I never laid a finger on her” and “My alibi is I was out hitchhiking.” He had always liked art, even the watercolors at junior school, which always ran into each other, and his considerable graphic skill had made his specialized branch of police work a wise and rewarding choice.

Gardiner was also waiting. Marais had rung him in high excitement to ask if anything dramatic had been found in the dressing room, and when told it hadn’t, the clown promised to be over in a tick. He apparently had something momentous to impart, once he’d finished writing it out neatly for the lieutenant.

But the wait was getting beyond a joke. Both Gardiner’s dinner and his pretty wife would be stone cold by the time he got home, and he’d been hoping to broach the matter of a fishing trip up the North Coast instead of the visit to the game reserve.

So he finally just locked up and went over to the CID building, noticing the time on the city hall clock and discovering that his watch had lost an hour. This very nearly made him pick up the car and go, but his curiosity, as always, got the better of him. His rank had been well earned.

Marais was asleep, his head resting on folded arms on top of his typewriter. The snoring would have done justice to a bullfrog.

Gardiner saw the sheet of paper in the machine had just been begun, so he picked up what looked like a first draft and found it was, in fact, a formal statement written in an almost illegible hand by one Benjamin “Bix” Harold Johnson. Marais would never learn.

Yet once it was understood that the r’s were really m’s and that a dot served for a
the,
the thing flowed quite reasonably. Skipping the address, race, and age bit, Gardiner hooked a leg over the desk corner to read the rest.

The gig ended at 12
A.M.
sharp and the Club Manager,
MONTY STEVENSON
, was there to see the Customers didn’t dilly-dally. I observed Stevenson at a table with a person known to me as
GILBERT
, a Car Salesman. Us boys in the band had been bought drinks by one of the grateful, and so we were entitled to drink them as we had not had time before
THEO HILL
, who plays the tenor saxophone, and
MAC TAYLOR,
drums, share a pad and a Volksy.

These two colleagues said good night to me at 12:10 or thereabouts, and went straight out through the front because of some nurses on nights having supper at one. I had promised some of the Staff a lift to the bottom end of town and was waiting for them to finish in the Kitchen. One of them approached me and asked if he could see the cassette Player he heard I had for sale. This Person was an Indian Male by the name of
RAMCHUNDER
who I call
RAM
because his first name is too hard to pronounce. The Boss was busy so he did not notice Ramchunder and me sneak into the passage to the dressing rooms. As a nonwhite, Ramchunder was out of bounds in this area, but I wanted to save myself the bother of going back and forward and the others thinking I had gone.

We therefore proceeded quietly to the Second Dressing Room where the Trio keeps its gear like scores and novelty instruments. I observed the Door to the First Dressing Room, in use at the time by the Deceased,
SONJA BERGSTROOM,
was closed and bolted. It had to be, because it was our old dressing room and if it wasn’t bolted the Door hung open slightly even after you had pushed it hard. This did not strike me in any way as strange as I knew the Deceased must be changing and packing. She was not a friendly type so I didn’t greet her as we passed. In fact, because
RAMCHUNDER
was with me, we went by almost on tiptoe so there would be no fuss.

There was no light in the Second Dressing Room as the switch had been broken for weeks, so Ramchunder inspected the Player by the light from the Passage. As it still had its “silica gel” packet, he said he would take it straight away if he could have it on installments. At this stage we heard Raised Voices in the Dressing Room next door, one of which I recognized as being that of the Deceased. The other was a Male Voice I did not recognize although I was interested and tried to.
RAMCHUNDER
then pointed out it would be best if we struck a bargain in the Car because there was a danger of him being seen Out of Bounds by whoever this was.

We then left, taking the Player with us, and as we passed the Door to the First Dressing Room we heard a Laugh that seemed too Hoarse to have been made by the Deceased and she always pretended what a lady she was and prim. Upon reentering the dance and cabaret area, I observed that
STEVENSON
had still not got rid of
GILBERT
. The Others were waiting by this time and we all went out the Front Way. The back way is never used because it is blocked by a Freezer in Contravention of Fire Regulations as I have Informed the Manager. As we got to the street, I again heard a Laugh. I turned to see who was laughing and saw
STEVENSON
in the distance at the entrance to the Club with a Male Figure I did not recognize in a Coat. I cannot be certain the laugh was the same one as had been made in the Dressing Room (First) but I thought the Male Figure could be the same one. I think it was 12:20 or thereabouts because the persons with me wanted to reach their Destination at 12:30 and we made it easily on time. It does usually take Ten Minutes to get the car and go there. That is all I can think of.

Gardiner dropped the statement and picked up another signed by Gilbert Edward Littlemore. One by one the pennies began to drop, making an interesting sound.

The silence was almost more stifling than the foul air he breathed.

Chainpuller Mabatso had listened to it for more than half the night, by his reckoning. Once or twice he had thought he heard a baby bawling, and there had been strange sounds like a club hitting a metal pipe. That he could not understand.

Nor could he understand the flatness of the surface upon which he was lying. He had not been on anything so hard and smooth since the concrete bunk he had slept in at the penal colony. It was this sensation, above all, that had kept him motionless so long. Ever since he had awakened from a sleep with a headache and a pain in his stomach. He felt as though he had kneed himself because his knee hurt also.

He thought back. He had been in his hut with the new woman. The one who wanted to put her mouth on his mouth like a European. Then, while he was telling her of his disgust, there had been the clunk of one of his tins arriving. He had gone out and bent down and.…

Surely he was not dead.

Mabatso tried to move and found the cord that bound him had been loosely tied. He worked his hands free and tried to get them to his mouth to take out a piece of rag he had first imagined the laying-out woman had put there. But the shroudlike wrapping was on too tight. He tried rolling on his side, and then the other way, and this worked. He sat up and looked around him.

The hut had flat, flat walls, narrow planks of wood nailed along near the top where the roof was even flat, and a window made of one big piece of glass. And a door.

He had never seen anything like it.

Yes, he had: the police station where he had been taken as a youth. Only that had been full of tables and chairs and other things that showed its purpose. This place had none.

A giddiness made him rock for a moment, then it passed.

Mabatso undid the bow tied in the cord around his ankles and then, stiffly and cautiously, moved onto his feet. He wobbled, holding his arms out at his sides, and then shuffled forward in a crouch.

He heard a car in the distance. And saw moonlight.

Moving like a river crab, he made his way toward the window, careful not to make a sound, and slid his fingertips up the wall to the window ledge. He had to know what kind of place lay outside.

Very, very warily, he moved his whole body up from the floor until his eyes cleared the sill tiles.

Then Chainpuller Mabatso sobbed and drew himself into a tight ball, rolling over and hiding his face in his hands, keeping his sobs silent.

There was nothing outside. The hut hung in the sky.

Kramer would not have continued up the drive if a light hadn’t come on in the living room. The curtains were wrong, so he saw quite clearly that the Widow Fourie had gone to read a book in the corner. He deliberately made a slightly noisy arrival, and waved to her when she hurried to the window.

“Oh, Trompie, Trompie,” she said, embracing him as he stepped onto the veranda—which was not like her.

“What’s the matter, hey? Is it Piet?”

“Man, I’ve been so worried. He was so happy today, you should have seen him, exploring and making the others play his games, and then just now he starts.…”

Kramer led her back into the living room and made her settle back in her chair. Then he poured two brandies from the bottle she had waiting for him and clinked his glass against hers.

“Blue Haze,” he said.

“Trompie.…”

“Piet’s not good tonight?”

“I thought at first it was having a room all to himself. And the move—that always upsets some kids, doesn’t it? Of course, the others settled down like lambs, except I had to go in and kiss them about four hundred times. And oh, the two smallest have stayed together. But Piet! He suddenly woke up and started screaming and he won’t tell me why. I’ve been trying to look it up.”

Kramer took the book from her and saw it was
The Rib Cage: A Study in Child Development and Certain Problems.
It was the same one he had quoted from most extensively, and yet she had been foolish enough to go out and buy her own copy.

“
Ach
, but this is bullsugar!” he said, hoping for an easy laugh.

“What’s so wrong with it?”

“I can’t even understand the bloody title for a bloody start, so what chances do I stand with the rest of it?”

“You know—Adam’s rib, women, the cages that mothers make for their children, imprisoning them in their own whatsits.”

“Ja, exactly!” Kramer retorted. “Whatsits. Thingummies. All these big new words. And how’s old He’s-a-poof?”