Chapter 5

I drove around along those nameless, featureless desert roads looking for the tunnel exit. The stand of shrubs and the vague sense of direction based on hazy, purple mountains were all I had to go on. And while I drove, I kept wondering whether the heat of the day would’ve killed the man by now. Turning his brain from a network of secrets into useless fatty carrion. But I underestimated his resilience. He was shot and burnt and dehydrated – an extra hour or two on hot sand he could do with his eyes closed.

I took a few wrong turns – the car couldn’t manage in the desert sand so I had to stick to the compacted network of gravel roads that had no rational design in their layout. They were roads laid over the organic tracks that army bakkies had made years ago, going from the hangars to the dam to the canteen in no particular order. Sometimes I had to drive away from where I figured I was headed in order to connect with a road that would take me closer. I ran the aircon at full power, and it sapped power from the wheels. Sandy patches in the roadway stole the car’s momentum, and it felt as though I was continually sliding and slowing. An hour and fifty minutes passed before I came upon the stand of shrubs.

I parked the car on the gravel road and walked across to the bushes. The man was conscious now. He’d moved with the sun to keep in the shade of the leaves.

“Where’ve you been?” he scolded as I approached. He seemed significantly weaker now, and his words, though intended to be intimidating, came out sounding desperate.

The way a mother in a gown on a porch might ask her teenage son the same question.

“Have you been worried sick?” I joked as I lifted him to his feet.

He tried to reply, but his mouth was dry. He coughed and made a click with his tongue and closed his eyes. It was the closest to “Fuck you” that he could manage.

I laid him out on the backseat and covered him with the boot mat. Not for warmth but to cover the sight of his bloody, fleshy chest in case someone stopped the car.

At the junction with the tar road that runs to Upington, a police car was parked alongside the gravel and the accompanying policeman was standing in the road, signaling for me to stop. I slowed the car and looked over to the backseat – my passenger was well covered and motionless. I searched the cubbyhole for my government form, the pass I’d been given in Pretoria. It had been signed and stamped by the president. I wound down the window.

“Afternoon,” said the officer. “I need to just do a check of your boot before you leave the airbase.”

“Before you do that ...” I said and handed him the paper. I don’t think he’d ever seen one of those before. He held it as though it were sacred, he turned it over, then he held it up to the sun. I got the impression that he was soaking in the aura of prestige that accompanied the paper, rather than checking for watermarks. He handed the page back to me, and then took a long look at my face.

“Jis,” was all he said.

He didn’t look into the backseat. It was none of his business.

I took the man to the bed and breakfast that my government connection had booked me into in Upington. It was a garden cottage with a separate entrance from the main house in a posh suburb. I left him in the car and went to get the door key from the owners. They were friendly and offered to show me around the cottage. I declined, saying that I had a blinding headache (which I did) and that I was quite keen for bed (which I was) and that I was sure I’d find everything okay – unless they’d hidden the shower away somehow. The wife laughed, the husband smiled and they both wished me a pleasant stay – and that if I needed anything I shouldn’t hesitate to come knocking. I wondered briefly whether that applied to tourniquets and stain remover to clean litres of syrupy blood from their soon-to-be ruined linen.

I returned to the car with the key and waited for the pedestrians in the street to amble past while I pretended to search for a radio station. When the street was clear, I opened the back door and uncovered the man. No one saw me helping this dusty red zombie out of my car, through the front entrance and along the cobbled, tree-lined path to the cottage. I put towels on the bed and helped him onto them. Surrounded by sudden comfort, what little consciousness he’d mustered to get out of the car vaporised and his eyes rolled back. I wasn’t sure I should let him sleep. Was he too close to death? Would sleep tip him over the edge? And what would I do if he died now? I’d have to rely on my newly formed government connection to save me from jail – if indeed he wasn’t headed there himself. In the end I decided to let him sleep. Short of stuffing his toes into a plug socket, I didn’t have another option. It gave me time to hunt around Upington for medicine.

The pharmacy sold me painkillers (codeine) and antiseptic ointment. But I knew better than to ask for antibiotics without a prescription. That’s the kind of attention I didn’t want. Thankfully I knew a trick that I’d learnt from watching too much late-night TV. Vets sell antibiotics, and they’re usually stronger than the human version. All you need is a decent story about hitting a stranger’s dog with your car. I said I’d hit the dog of an old Xhosa man with a deep mistrust of white people. I just wanted to get medication for the dog to the man. I told her I felt terrible. Just terrible. And it wasn’t a lie. There was a sick ball of spent adrenaline and fear clotting in my stomach, not to mention the headache. She sold me the tablets – chewable chicken-flavoured – but I was in no position to argue.

I returned to the bed and breakfast, and managed, with the help of iced water, to wake my house guest. I forced him to take three painkillers and two antibiotics. He swallowed them all along with two glasses of water plus the rest of the water in the glass I’d used to sprinkle on his face. And then he lay back down on the red-stained towels and, before he closed his eyes, he looked at me with confusion on his face. Though, once again, he didn’t speak, I could see what he was thinking.

What the fok tastes of chicken?