Four days had dragged by since the meeting in Kismet. It consumed Pete’s thoughts, at school, at home, and especially alone at night, lying in his bed. What was so urgent? Why did that guy want to talk to him? He played out scenario after scenario; perhaps to pressure Pete into going to the police, or maybe he was after money for his silence. Perhaps he had told someone, like Uncle Gerrit, and Uncle Gerrit ... Pete forced himself to think of Renate in her short skirt, the wind playing with it teasingly ... what if Uncle Gerrit told the police, what if the police confronted the black guy and this was a trap, what if Rudie found out?
“I’m going for a run, Mom.” He couldn’t decipher her response, and by the time he reached the primary school’s athletics track, he was already out of breath. He stopped and looked back at his house; all seemed quiet. The houses behind the single row of pine trees watching over the track had a serenity about them, just like this perfect little town where they lived. Everyone knew one another, everyone grew up together, and everyone knew everything. There were no secrets here. None. Behind this serene façade, what did they know? Did everyone know the truth and were they pretending that nothing had happened? It was only an Indian girl after all, not one of their own.
The horizon was locked away behind a thick grey cloud, the mountains completely hidden by a shroud of rainless vapour. Pete pictured Uncle Gerrit as the black guy kneeled before him and told him every nauseating detail. He imagined him telling the other men in town, perhaps at one of those strange Freemason meetings where they slaughtered goats and other things – if one was to believe Barend’s stories. They would huddle in a dark room illuminated by black candles and take some blood oath to keep it quiet, for the good of the town. Even Captain Burger would nod in agreement. And the dominee.
Pete started running, past the pavilion where he couldn’t tell Barend the truth, the tennis court with the hole in the gate where kids slipped in to play without Mrs Muller’s permission, and the creaking old corrugated-iron shack with its two personas: tuck shop for sporting events, and, more regularly, smoke den for teenage boys.
He didn’t run the bend of the track, he ran straight on, across the netball court, to the edge of a steep grassy embankment. At the bottom of the embankment was a rusty razor-wire fence. Pete surveyed the fields beyond the fence for a moment. A few cows grazed to his left, and to his right, in the distance, he could see the row of poplar trees he had in mind. Behind those trees lay the fishing dam with the good clay. And not far from there was ...
He had to lean back on his heels to avoid toppling over as he went down the embankment. It was steeper than he recalled from his days as an eight-year-old when they used to close their eyes and slide down it on a piece of cardboard. The damned fence caught his thumb, but with a little hopeful jump, he was over. His mom’s words continued to haunt him, “Remember what happened to Bennie’s dog.” Bennie’s dog was shot more or less where he was standing. Uncle Gerrit and his beloved rifles; everyone had a story about them. Barend claimed he had a collection of over 200 guns, ready for the terrorists. You would still need 200 people to shoot them, though, but that said, it wasn’t the 200 guns that bothered him, only the one aimed at him.
Running across the uneven fields was slow and uncomfortable, but it was the shortest route and he had to get there before his mind exploded. His eyes were on the mounds and holes in the ground, like dark snares under the cloudy sky, but every couple of breaths he would raise his head to scan his surrounds for a gun-wielding farmer.
The fishing dam came and went, as did the ruins of the old farmhouse, the “Keep out” sign, the cattle grid and everything else that made him feel sick. When he reached the place where Rudie had stood with his hand shoved down into his underpants, his legs felt dead, lame. Pete shut his eyes. He desperately wanted all memory of that night to be erased; buried somewhere so deep that he would never find it again.
Their hideaway rock was in front of him, and he considered whether it would have been better never to have confronted Rudie. To have just closed his eyes and covered his ears and acted as if nothing had happened.
Had he not gone for a run that day he wouldn’t feel like he was ageing a hundred times faster than he should. But then that yellow-moustached rubbish would have raped the Indian girl – or worse. Would the black guy have stood up then, on his own? Rudie would surely have killed him there and then, just like that, for fun. Because Rudie followed his own laws.
Footsteps. He swung around. It was the black guy. The original aura of mighty King Shaka gone, he jogged up the hill like a small kid who knew he was guilty and was running towards his punishment. He stopped near Pete. Neither of them braved eye contact. Their voices muted by this place that had so cruelly introduced them to each other. The easterly breeze blew a waft of yellow dust up between them.
Words spun around in Pete’s mind like a lost sock in a washing machine; just as he thought he had one in his grasp, it would dive back into the frothy water. The silence was intolerable, almost painful, but eventually a single word wriggled free.
“Talk.” Really? Of all the words he had been forced to learn, the hours of reading, studying, listening to television, out of all of those, that was the one to surface?
The black guy seemed surprised and somewhat hurt. The single, poorly chosen word might as well have been a slap across his face. Pete cast out his net for more words, desperate.
“You wanted to talk to me?” To Pete’s great relief, more actual words made their way through his lips, and they looked like colourful cressets in the grey afternoon.
The tension in the boy’s curved jaw eased, and his eyes opened wider.
“I, I just wanted to know if you’ve seen that girl, maybe—” His voice became mute as if he too was fighting for words.
“No,” was Pete’s blunt response, and he realised immediately how cold his answer sounded, like his dad when Pete asked him a big favour. Come on, words.
“I don’t know where she lives ... I don’t even know what her name is.” Pete exhaled; the words appeared to be tamer now, easier to catch.
“But that night ... I thought you took her home?” the other guy said. “Was she okay? Did something happen?” Sweat appeared on his brow, murky beads against his dark skin.
“Nothing happened. She just said her dad would ... you know, she said, I mean, asked, that I shouldn’t take her to her front door. She was fine. Really. Fine.”
“I saw her,” the black guy said.
“Where?” Pete was surprised by his response, especially at how the thought of seeing her again made him feel.
“There in town. I helped my father deliver eggs to the butchery and I saw her. She walked across the street, but she didn’t see me. She went into Naidoo and Sons, but I didn’t see her come out again.”
“Do you think she works there?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe.”
Pete saw the boy look over his shoulder as if expecting imminent peril. His face started to look strained again, jaw clenched and eyes small.
“Please, you have to go see her, please, baas?” The words were like a punch in Pete’s gut. Of course, he wanted to see her, but fear was a dark shadow. And why did the word “baas” suddenly sound so wrong?
“I can’t, you know I can’t. You heard that man. You’ll have to go.” Pete gave a snorting laugh. “Besides, imagine the uproar if a white boy spoke to an Indian girl, in this town?”
“Believe me, it will be easier for a black boy to kiss a farmer on the lips than to speak to an Indian girl in public.” Pete believed the angst he saw in the other boy’s eyes.
“Have you told anyone?” Pete couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Told anyone? Are you crazy!” Petrus said hastily, adding, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, baas.” Pete stood, unmoved, wondering whether he was indeed crazy.
“No one will listen to a black boy from the farm. If it was a black man who attacked a pretty white girl, then he would be in prison by now, maybe even executed.”
Pete knew it was true. It would have made national news; the man would have been sent away for life, if he was lucky. Did people really care less if it was not one of their own, someone who didn’t look like them when they looked in the mirror, someone who didn’t sound like them, walk like them, someone with a different ...
“That man ...” the boy interrupted Pete’s thoughts. “He said your name is Petrus. Is that true?”
“What’s it to you?”
“It’s just funny.”
“Funny?” Pete felt that original anger well up in him again, like on the day when he first met this boy. Was he making fun of his name? Who the hell did he think he was?
The boy must have seen the flash of anger on Pete’s face because his smile disappeared instantly, and he looked at Pete with apologetic eyes.
“I didn’t mean ... all I meant was ... my name is also Petrus.”
Great, now this boy thinks we’re buddies, thought Pete. If Rudie found out ...
“I’m Pete, no one calls me Petrus.” Except his mom when he upset her. “It’s just some old family name. No one uses it.”
“It’s a good name, my father is also Petrus.” The pride was obvious in the boy’s eyes.
“Well, okay then, Petrus, I have to go.” The sun was setting, but that was not why Pete wanted to escape.
“Will you try to find her?” Petrus asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll see. I don’t know.” Pete turned. “I have to go now,” he mumbled, and started running.
“I come out here every day, just not every Friday and Saturday!” Petrus called out. Pete didn’t respond, he just flinched, but he was pretty sure Petrus didn’t see that.
The road home took an eternity. Seeing Petrus and being back there made him feel like he was walking home with that girl in the pouring rain all over again. She was suddenly before him: her perfect dimples etched on her beautiful face and her long black hair sticking to her cheeks. He turned into Caister Street, ran hard up the hill, stamping his feet deep into the loose gravel of the dirt road, hoping with each stride that her face would be trampled from his memory.