Dead Before Dying

Griessel’s face disappeared. Joubert lit another cigarette. He forced himself to concentrate on the work in front of him. Dossiers about death. An elderly couple in Durbanville. An unknown black body next to the train tracks in Kuilsriver. A woman in Belhar murdered with a screwdriver by her drunken husband.

Then he heard someone clearing his throat. Bart de Wit stood in front of his desk. Joubert wondered how he managed to move like a cat over the tiled floor. He saw that de Wit wasn'’t smiling. His face was serious.

“I'’ve got news, Captain. Good news.”

* * *

Joubert ground the gears of the Sierra and drove jerkily through the afternoon traffic. He wished he could express the astonishment and indignation that clung to him like a too tight piece of clothing.

De Wit had told him he had to see the psychologist.

“Your file has been referred.”

The passive form. Too scared to say: I referred your file, Captain, because you are a loser. And I, Bart de Wit, don’t need losers. I want to get rid of you. And if I can’t do it with the medical report, I’ll do it in this way. Let’s dig around in your head, Captain. Let’s thrust a spoon into the stew of your head and stir it a little. Stand back, folks, because it might be dangerous. This man in front of you is slightly . . . off. Not all there. Mentally unbalanced. On the surface he looks normal. Somewhat overweight, somewhat untidy, but normal. But inside his head it’s something else, ladies and gentlemen. Inside that skull a few circuits have shorted.

“Your file has been referred. There are appointments available”— he’d checked the green file—“this afternoon at sixteen-thirty, tomorrow at oh nine hundred, fourteen hundred—”

“This afternoon,” Mat Joubert had said hurriedly.

De Wit had looked up from the file, somewhat surprised, appraisingly. “We’ll arrange it.”

And now he was on his way. Because somewhere in a gray office with a couch for his patients, a bespectacled psychologist had had insight into his file. Had begun setting up the scorecard of Freud or Jung or whomsoever. What have we here? The death of his wife? Minus twenty. Disciplinary hearing? Minus twenty. And the slump in his work. Minus forty. He could have done something about that. Grand total minus eighty. Bring him in.

“We’ll keep an eye on the situation, Captain. See whether the therapy helps.” A covert threat, concealed. But obviously de Wit’s trump card.

Perhaps it was a good thing. God knows, his head had been muddled. Had been? Could one really judge the state of one’s own mind? How normal was he at Macassar when he’d looked at the burnt remains of the three, could hear their voices in his ears? The high, shrill, primal scream that the spirit utters when it reluctantly has to leave the body, the volume intensified by the screaming of flesh in the agony of death by fire, every pain receptor swamped by the intense heat.

Was that normal?

Was it normal to wonder then, for the umpteenth time, whether you shouldn't take the trouble to join the dead? wasn'’t it better to have control over the when and the how? Was it wrong to be afraid of that unexpected moment when the mind realized it had a nanosecond left in the world? Afraid. Terrified.

And now de Wit was holding a sword above his muddled head. Let the psychologist fix the circuitry or . . .

He stopped in front of a tower block on the Foreshore. Sixteenth floor. Dr. H. Nortier. That was all he knew. He took the elevator.

Joubert was pleased that there was no one else in the waiting room.

It was different from what he’d expected. There was a couch and two chairs, comfortable and attractive, covered in a pink-and- blue floral. In the center a coffee table held six magazines, the latest editions of

De Kat, Time, Car, Cosmopolitan, Sarie,

and

ADA

magazine. Against a white-painted door, which presumably led to the consulting room, there was a neat sign that read DR. NORTIER WILL WELCOME YOU SOON. PLEASE MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME AND ENJOY THE COFFEE. THANK YOU. The same sign was repeated in Afrikaans. There were watercolors on the other walls— one of cosmos, another of the fishermen’s cottages at Paternoster. In one corner there was a table with a coffee machine. Next to it stood porcelain coffee cups and saucers, teaspoons, a jar of powdered milk, and a bowl of sugar.

He poured himself a cup and the filter coffee smelled good. Was the man a psychiatrist? Psychologists were “mister,” not “doctor.” Was he so batty that he needed a psychiatrist?

He sat down on the couch, put the cup on the coffee table, and took out his Winstons. He looked for an ashtray. There were none in the room. Irritation overcame him. How was it possible for a psychologist not to have an ashtray in his waiting room? He returned the pack to his pocket.

He looked at

De Kat

’s cover. A man wearing makeup adorned it. The front page teaser read NATANIEL— THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK.

He wanted to smoke. He paged through the magazine. Nothing in it interested him. The woman on the cover of

Cosmopolitan

had big boobs and a big mouth. He picked up the magazine and flipped through it. He saw a headline. WHAT HE THINKS ABOUT AT WORK. He flattened the pages there but realized the doctor could open the door at any moment. He closed the magazine.

He was dying for a smoke. After all, cigarettes couldn't harm the mind.

He took out the packet and put a cigarette between his lips. He took out the lighter and stood up. There must be a can somewhere he could use.

The white door opened. Joubert looked up. A woman came in. She was small. She smiled and put out her hand.

“Captain Joubert?”

He put out his hand. The lighter was still in it. He drew back his hand and shifted the lighter to his left hand. “That’s right,” he wanted to say but the cigarette was still in his mouth. He blushed, pulled his hand back, and removed the cigarette from his mouth, putting it into his left hand. He put out his hand again and shook hers.

“There’s no ashtray here,” he mumbled, blushing, and felt her hand, small and warm and dry.

She was still smiling. “It must be the cleaning service. Come in and smoke here,” she said and dropped his hand. She held the white door for him.

“No, please,” he said, indicating that she had to walk in first, self-conscious and uncomfortable after his meaningless remark about the ashtray.

“Thank you.” She went in and he closed the door behind them, aware of her long brown skirt, her white blouse buttoned up to the throat, her brown brooch, a wooden elephant pinned above one of the small breasts. He caught a hint of feminine odor, perfume or her own, noticed her grace, her fragility, and an odd beauty that he couldn't identify as yet.

“Do sit down,” she said and walked around the white desk. A tall, slender vase with three pink carnations stood on it. And a white telephone, an A-4 notebook, a small penholder containing a few red and black pencils, a large glass ashtray, and a green file. He wondered whether it was his file. Behind her there was a white bookcase that almost filled the wall. It was full of books— paperbacks and hardcovers, a neat, colorful, cheerful panel of knowledge and enjoyment.

There was another door in the corner, next to the bookcase. Did the previous patient leave through it?