Two Tupperwares (each holding four mince vetkoek) and Jessie and I all travelled in my sky-blue bakkie to the scene of the crime – Dirk’s farm. We were going to visit Grace. We parked in the shade of some rhus trees, and took one of the vetkoek Tupperwares with us. We walked past the empty farmhouse and the big gum tree, which were all wrapped up with crime-scene tape. I was wearing my khaki veldskoene. I looked at the place at the back door where I had last seen my brown veldskoene. I worried about those old, faithful shoes of mine. I hoped they were okay. We headed down towards the cottage at the bottom of the farm. Lawrence’s cottage.
‘Look,’ said Jessie, as we passed the little pond. ‘There are still duck feathers.’
They were stuck in the reeds all around the water. A frog looked up at me with golden eyes.
‘Looks like a kraal over there by the apple trees,’ said Jessie, as we walked on. ‘But I don’t see any animals.’
‘There are some other fruit trees too,’ I said. ‘There, behind those thorn bushes. Let’s go have a look.’
The shadows were long, but the day was still hot, so I wasn’t moving as fast as Jessie.
‘Tannie M,’ she said, arriving first. ‘It’s a pomegranate tree!’
‘I thought so.’
‘The fruit is still totally green.’
She touched one – it was tiny and hard.
‘Even the baboons wouldn’t eat this,’ I said, catching up with her.
‘Ja, they’re not in season yet, like you said. I wonder where that juice came from. Maybe Liqui-Fruit or something.’
‘Maybe, but I’ve never seen Liqui-Fruit pomegranate. And it tasted really fresh. Not like box-juice.’
We walked down to the cottage, on a little stony path, and knocked on the wooden door. We could hear movement inside, but no one opened up. The steps were clean and polished and there were small flower beds on either side of the door, with red roses, pink geraniums and orange botterblomme. The roses were in good shape. I’ve never grown roses myself – they are too much work for something you can’t eat. It takes years of pruning to get them flowering so nicely.
We were just thinking about knocking again, when the door opened. The woman wore a blue African-print dress and was drying her hands on a dishcloth. She was just as beautiful in the late afternoon light as she had been in the moonlight. Her cheekbones were high, her skin was glowing and she smelled of cocoa butter.
‘Hello, Sisi,’ said Jessie. ‘This is Tannie Maria, and I’m Jessie.’
I smiled at her.
‘Nice roses,’ I said. ‘Have you got the green fingers?’
She shook her head.
‘Lawrence,’ she said.
‘Grace, we work at the Karoo Gazette,’ said Jessie, stepping forward and handing the woman a card. ‘May we come in?’
The woman took the card but did not look at it. Her gaze darted behind her and then back at us.
‘We were here last night,’ said Jessie, ‘when Lawrence was shot. We are so sorry.’
The woman looked down at her feet and a lump moved up and down in her throat, as if she was swallowing her sadness.
‘We’ve brought some vetkoek,’ I said. ‘With mince.’
She looked up.
‘Curry mince?’
‘Let’s have a bite to eat,’ I said, showing her the four plump vetkoek, wrapped in wax paper.
‘It’s messy in here,’ she said, but she stepped back to let us in. ‘I’m sorting his things.’
In a tiny kitchen were open boxes packed with all sorts of stuff. I could see plates and enamel cups and a ceramic dog. We followed her into a small lounge. She went to close the bedroom door, and I saw a battered suitcase on the double bed before she closed it.
‘You’re packing up?’ said Jessie, as she sat in an armchair.
The woman sat down on a wooden chair with her back straight and her legs together, her knees slightly to one side.
‘Shame,’ I said. ‘This must be very hard for you, Mrs . . . ?’
I sat on the couch next to a neat pile of clothes and a box with tools sticking out of it – a small garden fork and a sheep-shearing knife.
‘Zihlangu,’ she said. ‘My name is Grace Zihlangu. I am not married.’
‘Lawrence was your boyfriend?’ asked Jessie.
Grace nodded. She looked around the room at the piles of Lawrence’s things. Then she sighed, and her body seemed to fold in on itself. It was time for the vetkoek. I opened the Tupperware and gave one to her, Jessie and myself, each with our own napkin.
‘Thank you, Mama,’ Grace said. Xhosa people are like Afrikaners. Everyone is family: Auntie, Mother, Sister . . .
‘Are you leaving, Sisi?’ asked Jessie.
Grace didn’t answer. Instead she took a bite of her vetkoek. After a few bites, she was sitting up straight again. We didn’t talk while we ate, but Grace was studying us as she chewed. The afternoon light streamed in through a sash window. I could see tiny dust particles in the air, but the glass on the window was sparkling clean. There were cracks in the walls of the cottage that had been repaired and whitewashed. The coffee table in front of me and the other surfaces I could see were all very clean. Nothing half-wiped.
‘That’s the best vetkoek and mince ever,’ said Jessie. ‘Awesome.’
When Grace had finished eating her vetkoek, she wiped her mouth and fingers with the napkin, then she took ours and threw them all in the kitchen bin.
‘I want to leave here,’ she said, as she sat down again. Ready to talk. ‘Go to Cape Town.’