Dead Before Dying

Ask her whether she is part of this “social group.” And a part of his head was amazed at his interest. For more than two years sexual urges had only come to him in vaguely remembered dreams in which he had uncomfortable intercourse with faceless women. And the real, living women who came his way were no more than sources of information that allowed him to do his work and go home to shelter between the pages of a book.

And now he had . . . an interest in Doctor Hanna. Well, well, well, Mat Joubert. The small, frail woman with the elusive beauty woke the man in you, the protective urge, the urge to possess.

“I’ll think about it.”

9.

On his way home he drove past the municipal swimming pool. The supervisor was a black man. “You can come and swim in the morning, sir. With the business club. In summer I’m here by half past five.”

“The business club?”

“Businessmen. Last year they asked the council whether they could swim early in the morning, before work. Work too hard the rest of the day. Then the council says okay and gives the early birds a name. Business club. From five-thirty on weekdays, from six-thirty on Saturdays, and the seventh is a day of rest. Ninety rand a season, September to May. You can pay at the cashier, sir. The lockers are twenty rand extra.”

He fetched his checkbook from the car and paid. Then he walked to the swimming pool. He stared at the blue water, unaware of the shouting, splashing mass of kids. He smelled the smells and remembered. Then he turned away. At the door he threw the red pack of Winstons into a trash can.

He stopped at the café. The owner knew him and took Winstons off the shelf.

“No,” Joubert said. “Benson & Hedges. Special Mild.”

At home no envelope had been pushed under the door. He fried himself three eggs. The yolks broke and ran. He ate them on toast. Then he sat down in the living room with the William Gibson and finished the book.

Before going to bed he dug his swimming trunks out of a cupboard. He rolled them up in a towel and put it on the chair at the door.

* * *

In the past few years he had come to hate weekends.

Saturdays weren’t so bad because then Mrs. Emily Nofomela, his Xhosa cleaning lady, came in and the sounds of the washing machine, clattering dishes, and vacuum cleaner replaced the deathly silence of the house.

To be on duty also helped because it kept the boredom and the aimlessness of the weekend at bay.

When the alarm went off at a quarter past six, he got up purposefully, without realizing that it was a milestone.

He was the only member of the business club who was utilizing the Saturday morning. The changing rooms were quiet and empty and he could hear the big pump of the swimming pool outside. He pulled on his Speedo and realized it had become too small. He would have to buy a new one that morning. He walked out to the pool through the footbath and the smells and sounds released memories, fragments from his youth, and it felt good to be back again.

The water stretched smoothly ahead of him. He dived in and started swimming, freestyle. It took exactly thirty meters to exhaust him.

* * *

An older, more experienced policeman would have bundled Hercules Jantjies out the front door of the station, more like than not assisted by a hefty kick in the backside.

The problem was that vagrants often came in on a Saturday morning to complain about the joys and sorrows of their co-oppressed after the drunken bouts of the Friday evening. And if you had worked at the Newlands charge office for long enough, you eventually came to the conclusion that the best solution was to get rid of the appalling smell and the verbal assault on your ears, which generally made no sense.

But the white constable’s uniform was crisp and new, his enthusiasm still fueled by the college lecturer who had said that the police served everyone in South Africa.

He forced himself not to move away instinctively from the odor of an unwashed body and recycled methylated spirits and looked straight at Hercules Jantjies— at the small, brown eyes that skittered all over the place, the bluish red of the skin, which showed millions of tiny cracks inflicted by life, the toothless mouth, the stubble of beard.

“Can I help you?”

Hercules Jantjies stuck out his hand from under the worn, faded jacket. It held a piece of newspaper. He put it down on the table and smoothed it with a dirty hand. The constable saw that it was a front page of the

Cape Times,

a few days old. The headline read MAFIA KILLING? in large letters. Hercules Jantjies pressed a forefinger on the letters.

“Your Honor, I came about this thing.”

The constable didn't grasp the import. “Yes?”

“I want to give evidence, Your Honor.”

“Yes?”

“’Cause why, I was there.”

“When it happened?”

“Just so, Your Honor, just so. An eyewitness report. But I want police protection.”

* * *

He hung on to the side of the swimming pool. He was breathing heavily and his lungs were burning. A deep fatigue invaded his limbs and his heart was a rapidly pulsing worry in his chest. He had completed two lengths. He heard a voice and lifted his head, his mouth still open to gulp in air more quickly.

“Sir, inside there’s a beeper which is beeping terribly.” It was the supervisor. He looked worried.

“I’m coming,” said Joubert and pressed his hands down on the edge to haul himself out of the water. He came halfway and then lay there, half in and half out of the water, too tired to make another effort.

“Are you awright, sir?”

“I don’t know,” said Joubert, surprised at the deterioration of his body. “I honestly don’t know.”

* * *

Hercules Jantjies had the total attention of the three senior policemen in the office of the Newlands commanding officer, Adjutant Radie Donaldson. Joubert and Donaldson sat against the one wall on old brown wooden chairs, Benny Griessel leaned against the wall. Jantjies was a reeking island against the other wall.

Donaldson still belonged to the old school of crime fighters who tackled all potential breakers of the law without kid gloves, irrespective of race, color, or political persuasion. That’s why he directed a warning finger at Hercules Jantjies and said: “If you’re talking shit, you’re dead.” Then, more suspiciously: “Are you drunk?”

“Your Honor, Your Honor,” Jantjies said nervously, as though the moment had become greater than he’d anticipated.

“These men are from Murder and Robbery. They’ll cut your balls off if you talk shit. Understand me?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

His brown eyes glanced at the three policemen, his head slightly bowed. “I saw the whole thing, Your Honor. But I want police protection.”

“If you’re not careful you’ll get police brutality,” Donaldson said.

“I was lying in the bushes, Your Honor, between the parking and Main Road.”

“Were you pissed?”

“No, just tired, Your Honor.”

“And then?”

“Then I saw her appear, Your Honor.”