Dead Before Dying

“Ollie.” An order from MacDonald. Nienaber grinned, shook his head.

“Drew. Where’s Drew?”

Wilson was outside, vomiting against the wall, on the lawn.

“What are you doing?” Wallace and Carina Oberholzer came stumbling up.

“You’ve had your fuck. We saw you having your fuck. It’s Drew’s turn,” said MacDonald, his big hand on Wilson’s neck. He pulled, dragged him inside.

Wilson’s throat wanted to rid itself of more fluid. The words were stuttered between retching noises: “I can’t, I can’t.” MacDonald pushed him into the room, toward the bed.

The red of the fire was deep, all round her, she floated through the flames, light as a feather, without gravity, the pain an armor.

“You’re a queer, Drew.” MacDonald hit him against the back of his head. Wilson staggered. “Fuck her.” MacDonald grabbed Wilson’s shirt.

“Mac, no,” said Wallace. Carina Oberholzer stood in the door, staring.

“Fuck off, Wallace. We saw you screwing like fucking dogs.”

He jerked Wilson upright. “Fuck her, queer.” Wilson tried to defend himself with his hands but the knuckles were in his neck. She was lying there. Her eyes were open, wide open— she stared at the ceiling. He couldn't, he couldn't. He had trouble with his trousers, managed to undo the belt. He was soft, small, hid it from MacDonald, pressed it unwillingly against her.

“Put it in, you fucking queer.” MacDonald was at the bed, an eagle eye. Red face under the red hair. Red nose.

Wilson made the movements, felt his penis slipping in the blood.

“I want to see you come.”

He pretended, wanted to survive. MacDonald pushed him from behind. MacDonald’s hands pushed him in and out, up and down. Wilson threw up, couldn't help it. He vomited again, over her.

* * *

Joubert got up off his knees.

She spoke mechanically, her voice dead, her body perfectly quiet in the chair, her gaze nowhere. He wanted her to stop.

“I was woken by the birds the next morning and the sun shining. Just another day. I just lay there. At first I could only hear. The birds. I couldn't smell. I couldn't feel. I lay there for a long time. When I moved it hurt. Then I looked. It wasn'’t my body any longer. I no longer knew it. They weren’t my breasts, and my stomach and my legs. I didn't want to wash it because it wasn'’t mine. My body is clean.”

He went to sit in the chair opposite her. He was very tired.

“They had all gone. It was so beautiful and so quiet, in the morning. Only the birds.”

Then she was quiet and he was grateful.

He sat looking at her for a long time. It was as though she wasn'’t really there, he thought.

Why did he no longer want to touch her?

She hadn't finished. “They wanted a blood test, last year. Everyone who was appointed had one. The doctor found it so difficult to tell me, to soften it.”

He didn't want to hear it. He knew, he understood immediately, but it was too much.

“He wanted to draw more blood. He thought it had to be a mistake.” She smiled. Sitting opposite him. He could barely see it but he could hear it in her last words— not a rueful smile but a genuine one.

“It’s such a funny name. HIV-positive. Positive.” Still the smile, the last word almost a laugh.

“It was then that I bought the Smith & Wesson.”

He felt so heavy. He felt the weight pressing him down in the chair. His whole body felt the weight pressing down on him.

Her smile took a long time to disappear, bit by bit.

He had to take the pistol from her.

He remained seated.

He heard a car stopping outside. He knew. But the expected sounds of doors slamming didn't come.

“Your name,” he said and it sounded too loud in the silence.

He didn't know whether she had heard him.

Her fingers clenched the barrel of the Mauser more tightly.

“They killed Hester Clarke.”

He didn't want them, in the car out there, to come inside.

He didn't want to ask the questions that now wanted to tumble over his lips. He wanted to leave her here and go away. He also wanted Hester Clarke to be dead.

But he had to know.

“When you received my file . . .”

Now she looked at him. For a long time, a journey to the present. “I didn't know that it was your investigation.”

He hadn't wanted to ask it.

“I didn't invite anyone else to the music. I knew by then.”

He wanted to get away.

She was still looking at him. The left hand came away from the pistol, the right hand stiffened, a finger through the trigger guard.

“Will you go outside?”

He wanted to look at her for the last time. Alone. For a brief moment disappear into a future that might have been different. Then he got up, moved.

“No,” he said, because she had helped to heal him. He took the Mauser from her hand.

44.

He used one of the side doors of the Supreme Court building to evade the press. After the crescendo of the arrest, the case had moved to the center pages and then disappeared. But dates of the court’s sitting had been noted and now the media were back in full cry.

He heard the voice behind him. “Captain.”

He waited on the stairs for her to catch up with him.

“How are you?” he asked.

“It’s a long process. And you?”

“I’m all right.”

He saw that she was looking pretty, the mismatched eyes clear. He didn't want to go back to the office.

“Would you like to have some coffee somewhere?”

“That would be nice.”

They walked next to each other on the pavement in the gray August light. Neither wanted to talk about the wordless, quiet figure in the dock, each for a different reason.

On Greenmarket Square there was a small coffeeshop, where he held the door for her. They sat down, ordered coffee.

“I didn't want to come. But I wanted to see her. Once. I wanted to tell her, somehow, that it was all right.”

He wanted to tell her that it would make no difference. He had heard the rumors of the psychiatrist’s report. It would be laid before the bench that afternoon.

“But she looks so remote.”

“Yes,” he said.

“You’ve lost weight.”

He was pleased that she had noticed it. “You think so?”

“Yes.”