What could I say? What did we have in common to make intercourse possible, except that he was here to defend me, to defend my interests, in the wider sense?
'Ek staan nie aan jou kant nie,' I said. 'Ek staan aan die temkant.' I stand on the other side. But on the other bank too, the other bank of the river. On the far bank, looking back.
He turned, inspecting the stove, the sink, the racks, occupying die ou dame while his friends did their business outside. All in a day's work.
'That's all,' I said. 'I'm finished. I wasn't talking to you anyway.'
To whom then? To you: always to you. How I live, how I lived: my story.
The doorbell rang. More men, men in boots and caps and camouflage uniforms, tramping through the house. They clustered at the kitchen window. 'Hy sit daar in die buitekamer,' explained the policeman, pointing to Florence 's room, 'Daar's net die een deur en die een venster.'
'Nee, dan het ons horn,' said one of the newcomers.
'I warn you, I'm watching everything you do,' I said.
He turned to me. 'Do you know this boy?' he said.
'Yes, I know him.'
'Did you know he had arms?'
I shrugged. 'God save the unarmed in these days.'
Someone else came in, a young woman in uniform with a crisp, clean air about her. 'Is dit die dame die?' she said; and then, to me: 'We are going to clear the house for a little while, till this business is over. Is there anywhere you, would like to go, friends or relatives?'
'I am not leaving. This is my house.'
Her friendliness, her concern did not waver. 'I know,' she said, 'but it's too dangerous to stay, For just a little while we must ask you to leave.'
The men at the window had stopped talking now: they were impatient for me to be gone. 'Bel die ambulans,' said one of them. 'Ag, sy kan sommer by die stasie wag,' said the woman. She turned to me. 'Come now, Mrs… ' She waited for me to supply the name. I did not. 'A nice warm cup of tea,' she offered.
'I am not going.'
They paid my words no more attention than they would a child's. 'Gaan had 'n kombers,' said the man – 'sy's amper biou pan die koue.'
The woman went upstairs and came back with the quilt from my bed. She wrapped it around me, gave me a hug, then helped me into my slippers, No sign of disgust at my legs, my feet. A good girl, reared to make someone a good wife.
'Are there are any pills or medicines or anything else you want to take along?' she asked.
'I'm not leaving,' I repeated, gripping my chair.
Murmured words passed between her and the men. Without warning I was lifted, from behind, under the arms. The woman took my legs. Like a carpet they carried me to the front door; Pain racked my back. 'Put me down!' I cried,
'In a minute,' said the woman, soothingly,
'Ihave cancer!' I screamed – 'Put me down!'
Cancer! What a pleasure to fling the word at them! It stopped them in their tracks like a knife. 'Sit haar neer, dalk kom haar iets oor,' said the man holding me – 'Ek het mos gese jy moet die ambulans bel.' Gingerly they laid me down on the sofa.
'Where is the pain?' asked the woman, frowning,
'In my heart,' I said, She looked puzzled. 'I have cancer of the heart.' Then she understood; she shook her head as if shaking off flies.
'Does it pain you to be carried?'
'It pains me all the time,' I said.
She caught the eye of the man behind me; something passed between them so amusing that she could not keep back a smile.
'I caught it by drinking from the cup of bitterness,' I plunged on. What did it matter if they thought me dotty? 'You will probably catch it too one day. It is hard to escape.'
There was a crash of breaking glass. Both of them rushed from the room; I got up and limped behind.
Nothing had changed except that a second windowpane was gone, The courtyard itself was empty; the policemen, half a dozen of them now, were crouching on the veranda, guns at the ready.
'Weg!' shouted one of them furiously, 'Kry haar weg!'
The woman bundled me indoors. As she closed the door there was a curt explosion, a fusillade of shots, then a long stunned silence, then, low talk and, from somewhere, the sound of Vercueil's dog yapping.
I tried to pull open the door, but the woman, held me tight,
'If you have hurt him. I will never forgive you,'1 said.
'It's all right, we'll phone again for the ambulance,' she said, trying to soothe me.
But the ambulance was already there, drawn up on the sidewalk. Scores of people were gathering excitedly from all directions, neighbours, passers-by, young and old, black and white; from the balconies of the flats people stared down. By the tame the policewoman and I emerged from the front door they were wheeling the body, covered in a blanket, down the driveway, and loading it aboard.
I made to climb into the ambulance after it; one of the attendants even took my arm to help me in; but a policeman intervened. 'Wait, we'll send another ambulance for her,' he said,
'I don't want another ambulance,' I said. He put on a kindly, nonplussed look. 'I want to go with him,' I said, and made another attempt to climb in. The quilt fell to my feet.
He shook his head, 'No,' he said. He gestured and the attendant closed the doors.
'God forgive us!' I breathed. With the quilt clasped, around me I began to walk down Schoonder Street, away from the crowd. I had almost reached the corner when the policewoman came trotting after me. 'You must come home now!' she ordered. 'It's not my home any more,' I replied in a, fury, and kept walking. She took my arm; I shook myself free. 'Sy's van haar kop af,' she remarked to no one in particular, and gave up.
In Buitenkant Street, under the flyover, I sat down to rest. A steady stream of cars flowed past heading for the city. No one spared me a glance. With my wild hair and pink quilt I might be a spectacle on Schoonder Street; here, amid the rubble and filth, I was just part of the urban shadowland.
A man and woman passed on foot on the other side of the street. Did I recognise the woman? Was it the one Vercueil had brought to the house, or did all the women who hung around the Avalon Hotel and Solly Kramer's Liquor Store have those wasted, spidery legs? The man, carrying a knotted plastic bag over his shoulder, was not Vercueil.
I wrapped myself tighter in the quilt and lay down. Through my bones I could feel the rumble of traffic on the flyover. The pills were in the house, the house in other hands. Could I survive without the pills? No. But did I want: to survive? I was beginning to feel the indifferent peace of an old animal that, sensing its time is near, creeps, cold and sluggish, into the hole in the ground where everything will contract to the slow thudding of a heart. Behind a concrete pillar, in a place where the sun had not shone for thirty years, I curled up on my good side, listening to the beat of the pain that might as well have been the beat of my pulse.
I must have slept. Time must have passed. When I opened my eyes there was a child kneeling beside me, feeling inside the folds of the quilt. His hand crept over my body. 'There is nothing for you,' I tried to say, but my teeth were loose. Ten years old at most, with a shaven skull and bare feet and a hard look. Behind him two companions, even younger. I slipped out the teeth. 'Leave me alone,' I said: 'I am sick, you will get sick from me.'